brief summary, will flesh out when i hv time
thursday
where the heck did thursday go?
juz remembered...took my car 2 workshop for engine tune-up...n did a bunch of other stuff (change petrol filter, carbon flush, n installed sumthing called Air Power....)...COST ME 400 BUCKS! (or rather, cost my mom...)....at LEAST my car's not dragging along like an underpowered toy train now...still...i wonder if the marginal performance increase is worth the money...
friday
bbq!!! at sze ming's hse, then went to onestop for pool n dota
ej n cw who were in charge of buying the supplies got too few sausages n too much sauce *wrinkles nose* n sum horrible lamb steaks which were 'berbau hanyir' n tough as cardboard...but on the whole the 'self-cooked food' was enjoyable lah :P there was a total of 8 ppl: tst, kst, ej, rentai, ghee, sm, lydia n latecomer sue lyn... after bbq we went to onestop where i played my 1st ever game of pool (well, i did try shooting wif the cue once or twice b4 but never relly played a game...) forgot who won d but i din manage 2 shoot in a single ball :( then it was dota time! n in the end we went back at 12.30, way past mine n lydia's curfews....
sat
come to think of it, where did sat go??
sun
went to penang swimming club wif ej in the evening, played 9 games of ping pong (10 points each)..won 6 to 3 :P
personal record for shortest blog time: 3 mins
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Holiday Journal, Part 1
20/8 (Sat)
left for kl wif my family, ej tagging along. he has an mp3 player wif more functions but less memory n costs a bundle more..hehe. reached kl around noon, picked up my bro from his hostel n went to hv lunch at a coffee shop where i found dat penang hawker food beats kl by miles...the 猪肉丸米粉 was like tasteless! after dat, went to shah alam to pick up my sis, spent the afternoon at megamall. the place was huge....we spent 2 hrs walking round the place wif hardly any stops n only covered bout half of it...n got lost trying to locate the place to meet up....haih dat place is kinda depressing too (for the same reason as gurney).
after dat, had dinner at a restaurant...now the food THERE was excellent n i stuffed myself to overflow :S following dat we went to parkson to 'walk off the extra fuel' but ej n i headed straight for the cybercafe...which was 2 streets away. u wudnt believe it...kl cybercafes majorly suck! for one thing, locating them in a city supposed to be the nation's capital, was harder than u think....most ppl we asked din even noe wat 'cybercafe' means! alahh...then when we finally got to the 'cafes, there were 2 side by side n we picked the 'cleaner, brighter' one...bad mistake. turns out apart from 3 stupid shareware games, the comps only offered online games like RO or ROSE. jesus, it was like a kiddies' room. anyway the comps were so sucky we left after half n hr. after going back to the apartment, ej filmed me 'showing off' some kicks 1st wif my dad's hp, then his own digicam. lights out. then talked wif ej until 2 or 3 when we both dozed off...
21/8 (Sun)
went to parkson for breakfast at a dimsun restaurant. made an interesting observation about kl ppl, which i shared wif ej ;) then dropped my bro off at his hostel n embarked on the home journey....mostly passed uneventfully tho i had a sore neck from sitting in the middle back seat.
22/8 (Mon)
morning, went to sch to get my spm results translation signed for the jap scholarship. (they sent a letter a few weeks ago n i tot 'sei liao' but it turns out it was only the blank jap language test paper which we din do during the written test months ago...but now for the final selection we hv 2 pass up all the papers including the blank ones...hopefully the written test results wun count for too much lah cuz i noe i sucked in it) the afternoon-session 'principal' senget REFUSED to sign my translation juz becuz of a small correction even tho i told him it wud b sent by fax n thus unnoticeable...so i had to get a letterhead, go home n type the whole thing out, then go back to sch again...this time, senget was absent...so i had to visit sch a 3rd time in the afternoon. jesus.
later dat day went out wif ej, kst, yst, rentai n ghee for bowling at midlands...most of us (apart from ej) being novices, many hillarious happenings occurred. ej won both games we played, me bagging runner-up in the 1st game n ghee taking dat place in the 2nd. rentai scored near the bottom in both games tho he 'drew first blood' by scoring 1st...most of us went gutter in the 1st round. kst n ghee gained the nicks 'ultra-casual' n 'superslow' respectively, which corresponds to their bowls...kst walks up to the lane like nobody's business n casually CHUCKS the ball 5 or 6 feet into the lane where it typically slides another 5 or so feet b4 rollin towards the pins...as for ghee, he sumhow made his balls (bowling balls, not HIS balls) roll super-slowly n still managed to keep a reasonable amount of accuracy. however, the highlight of the day was yst's triple strikes...in the final round of the 2nd game, yst suddenly got a 'limit break' n did 3 strikes consecutively..overtaking most of us in score in juz one round!
after dinner at mcd, we went to evo for a bit of cc action...decided to try out DotA (Defense of the Ancients) n got hooked for 2 1/2 hrs...all of us teamed up against comp in d 1st game, me n yst teamed against kst, ghee n rentai in 2 other games...we won the 2nd game n lost the 3rd. so instead of leaving at 10 as planned, we went back around 11.30....
23/8 (Tue)
afternoon, went to psc for a bit of punch-bag action. b4 starting on the bag tho, went beach-running...5 rounds down the stretch of beach next to psc...2 rounds in the ankle deep water n 3 rounds in soft sand. pretty darn good exercise - lower back, abs n calves all hurting like hell now (thurs morning). after hitting the bag, went for chin-ups at the monkey bar..did a total of 20 times in 5-rep sets...man i'm getting weak. at least i can actually do them now...still remember bout 2 years back i cant even lift myself up once.
later at nite, met sum of d guys on9 n decided to cancel the bbq thing we've been planning for thurs. wun go into details now but the whole business relly got me fed up...
24/8 (Wed)
got a cold, n subsequently was in a bad mood the whole day. big hub-bub about the bbq business...sum ppl still wanted it while sum din...in the end we decided to hv it after all, at sze ming's hse on friday. spent the day studying arenes n haloalkanes at home....organic chem is shit. found dat my comp has a overheating problem n crashes after playing any cpu-intensive game for a few mins...shita....
left for kl wif my family, ej tagging along. he has an mp3 player wif more functions but less memory n costs a bundle more..hehe. reached kl around noon, picked up my bro from his hostel n went to hv lunch at a coffee shop where i found dat penang hawker food beats kl by miles...the 猪肉丸米粉 was like tasteless! after dat, went to shah alam to pick up my sis, spent the afternoon at megamall. the place was huge....we spent 2 hrs walking round the place wif hardly any stops n only covered bout half of it...n got lost trying to locate the place to meet up....haih dat place is kinda depressing too (for the same reason as gurney).
after dat, had dinner at a restaurant...now the food THERE was excellent n i stuffed myself to overflow :S following dat we went to parkson to 'walk off the extra fuel' but ej n i headed straight for the cybercafe...which was 2 streets away. u wudnt believe it...kl cybercafes majorly suck! for one thing, locating them in a city supposed to be the nation's capital, was harder than u think....most ppl we asked din even noe wat 'cybercafe' means! alahh...then when we finally got to the 'cafes, there were 2 side by side n we picked the 'cleaner, brighter' one...bad mistake. turns out apart from 3 stupid shareware games, the comps only offered online games like RO or ROSE. jesus, it was like a kiddies' room. anyway the comps were so sucky we left after half n hr. after going back to the apartment, ej filmed me 'showing off' some kicks 1st wif my dad's hp, then his own digicam. lights out. then talked wif ej until 2 or 3 when we both dozed off...
21/8 (Sun)
went to parkson for breakfast at a dimsun restaurant. made an interesting observation about kl ppl, which i shared wif ej ;) then dropped my bro off at his hostel n embarked on the home journey....mostly passed uneventfully tho i had a sore neck from sitting in the middle back seat.
22/8 (Mon)
morning, went to sch to get my spm results translation signed for the jap scholarship. (they sent a letter a few weeks ago n i tot 'sei liao' but it turns out it was only the blank jap language test paper which we din do during the written test months ago...but now for the final selection we hv 2 pass up all the papers including the blank ones...hopefully the written test results wun count for too much lah cuz i noe i sucked in it) the afternoon-session 'principal' senget REFUSED to sign my translation juz becuz of a small correction even tho i told him it wud b sent by fax n thus unnoticeable...so i had to get a letterhead, go home n type the whole thing out, then go back to sch again...this time, senget was absent...so i had to visit sch a 3rd time in the afternoon. jesus.
later dat day went out wif ej, kst, yst, rentai n ghee for bowling at midlands...most of us (apart from ej) being novices, many hillarious happenings occurred. ej won both games we played, me bagging runner-up in the 1st game n ghee taking dat place in the 2nd. rentai scored near the bottom in both games tho he 'drew first blood' by scoring 1st...most of us went gutter in the 1st round. kst n ghee gained the nicks 'ultra-casual' n 'superslow' respectively, which corresponds to their bowls...kst walks up to the lane like nobody's business n casually CHUCKS the ball 5 or 6 feet into the lane where it typically slides another 5 or so feet b4 rollin towards the pins...as for ghee, he sumhow made his balls (bowling balls, not HIS balls) roll super-slowly n still managed to keep a reasonable amount of accuracy. however, the highlight of the day was yst's triple strikes...in the final round of the 2nd game, yst suddenly got a 'limit break' n did 3 strikes consecutively..overtaking most of us in score in juz one round!
after dinner at mcd, we went to evo for a bit of cc action...decided to try out DotA (Defense of the Ancients) n got hooked for 2 1/2 hrs...all of us teamed up against comp in d 1st game, me n yst teamed against kst, ghee n rentai in 2 other games...we won the 2nd game n lost the 3rd. so instead of leaving at 10 as planned, we went back around 11.30....
23/8 (Tue)
afternoon, went to psc for a bit of punch-bag action. b4 starting on the bag tho, went beach-running...5 rounds down the stretch of beach next to psc...2 rounds in the ankle deep water n 3 rounds in soft sand. pretty darn good exercise - lower back, abs n calves all hurting like hell now (thurs morning). after hitting the bag, went for chin-ups at the monkey bar..did a total of 20 times in 5-rep sets...man i'm getting weak. at least i can actually do them now...still remember bout 2 years back i cant even lift myself up once.
later at nite, met sum of d guys on9 n decided to cancel the bbq thing we've been planning for thurs. wun go into details now but the whole business relly got me fed up...
24/8 (Wed)
got a cold, n subsequently was in a bad mood the whole day. big hub-bub about the bbq business...sum ppl still wanted it while sum din...in the end we decided to hv it after all, at sze ming's hse on friday. spent the day studying arenes n haloalkanes at home....organic chem is shit. found dat my comp has a overheating problem n crashes after playing any cpu-intensive game for a few mins...shita....
Sunday, August 14, 2005
shit..blog's dead, n so am i...
muthaf*cking haze....made me miss the summer 8 concert at esplanade yesterday....n man i so damn regret not going cuz tot the haze wud affect the concert n it turned out dat d haze cleared b4 d concert started..!! fucka fucka fucka....
anyway for all of u out there still tuning in to my blog....sorry for lack of updates. guess i cud make a lot of excuses for my absence from the blogging world...but the fact remains dat i was too lazy to post. hmm..i suppose i can blame literati for taking up my night on9 time (which is usually the time i blog)....n in turn i can blame samuel for getting me hooked to scrabble by bringing his scrabble set to sch....haha
well anyway juz to note a few things dat hv happened in the past..2? 3? weeks since my last post...in no particular order:
hot weather
the weather's been unbelievably hot lately. as in shittingly boilingly burning hot. so hot dat for the last week i din manage to get anything substantial done (in the way of studies)....prior to this i had decided to stay back in sch on weekdays so dat i wudnt waste my afternoons in front of d comp...but thanx 2 d heat, i had no luck concentrating, whether at sch or at home...damnit, one week gone....btw, if anyone's affected by the hot weather too, my advice is to get some exercise n 'sweat it all out' then take a shower...else u'll b sweating a little bit throughout the day n feel hot n sticky n (in my case) seriously UNmotivated to study...
phantom of the opera
last sat, watched phantom of the opera (movie) wif my mom...mainly for the music, since the acting kinda sucked (except for the phantom). there were some humourous moments thrown in, esp at the start tho. needless to say my fave character was the phantom. there were some parallels between him n i...i'll leave it to u guys 2 figure dat out :P worst point of the movie: the song-speech dat the characters adopted halfway through the movie as their main method of dialogue...the words werent really suited to the rhythm so it sounded rather unnatural.
literati
as mentioned above, lately i (n most of the 'fluggen gang'...) had been hooked on literati...every nite at 11 (give or take an hour :P) we'll converge in a yahoo!literati room n play...at the beginning i had the upper hand in most games but lately it seems everyone's getting better while i'm getting worse...last nite actually lost both games dat we played, one of them to rentai! currently rentai holds the record for making the longest word (n scoring the most points in one turn....126 points...) tho he did kinda reinvent the dictionary in doing so :P anyway, hv 2 stop playing literati too..its making me stay up later than i shud n staring at the screen in the dark isnt doing my eyes any good either...
pc fair
went to pc fair last sat. the place was packed tighter than a can of sardines n all of us (me, ej, tansri, caryn n rentai) ended up buying nothing...so all in all, a waste of time (n car petrol). i was looking for earphones for my mp3 player but the ones sold there were all 'bad labels' according to ej...n oso it was a pain navigating the area looking for the best offers...so in the end i left empty handed. sigh. this is starting to sound repetitive isnt it?
other stuff
1. the past few weekends had been a total waste...i seriously hv 2 break this vicious cycle or i'm done for in the upcoming trial exams...
2. lately i'm kinda into karate....chia ling's been teaching me some karate stuff (including the 'coveted' kata Bassai Dai...haha) n i've oso been sparring wif him karate-style....it sure was an eye opener for sum1 like me who had been bound to the rules of taekwondo sparring
anyway for all of u out there still tuning in to my blog....sorry for lack of updates. guess i cud make a lot of excuses for my absence from the blogging world...but the fact remains dat i was too lazy to post. hmm..i suppose i can blame literati for taking up my night on9 time (which is usually the time i blog)....n in turn i can blame samuel for getting me hooked to scrabble by bringing his scrabble set to sch....haha
well anyway juz to note a few things dat hv happened in the past..2? 3? weeks since my last post...in no particular order:
hot weather
the weather's been unbelievably hot lately. as in shittingly boilingly burning hot. so hot dat for the last week i din manage to get anything substantial done (in the way of studies)....prior to this i had decided to stay back in sch on weekdays so dat i wudnt waste my afternoons in front of d comp...but thanx 2 d heat, i had no luck concentrating, whether at sch or at home...damnit, one week gone....btw, if anyone's affected by the hot weather too, my advice is to get some exercise n 'sweat it all out' then take a shower...else u'll b sweating a little bit throughout the day n feel hot n sticky n (in my case) seriously UNmotivated to study...
phantom of the opera
last sat, watched phantom of the opera (movie) wif my mom...mainly for the music, since the acting kinda sucked (except for the phantom). there were some humourous moments thrown in, esp at the start tho. needless to say my fave character was the phantom. there were some parallels between him n i...i'll leave it to u guys 2 figure dat out :P worst point of the movie: the song-speech dat the characters adopted halfway through the movie as their main method of dialogue...the words werent really suited to the rhythm so it sounded rather unnatural.
literati
as mentioned above, lately i (n most of the 'fluggen gang'...) had been hooked on literati...every nite at 11 (give or take an hour :P) we'll converge in a yahoo!literati room n play...at the beginning i had the upper hand in most games but lately it seems everyone's getting better while i'm getting worse...last nite actually lost both games dat we played, one of them to rentai! currently rentai holds the record for making the longest word (n scoring the most points in one turn....126 points...) tho he did kinda reinvent the dictionary in doing so :P anyway, hv 2 stop playing literati too..its making me stay up later than i shud n staring at the screen in the dark isnt doing my eyes any good either...
pc fair
went to pc fair last sat. the place was packed tighter than a can of sardines n all of us (me, ej, tansri, caryn n rentai) ended up buying nothing...so all in all, a waste of time (n car petrol). i was looking for earphones for my mp3 player but the ones sold there were all 'bad labels' according to ej...n oso it was a pain navigating the area looking for the best offers...so in the end i left empty handed. sigh. this is starting to sound repetitive isnt it?
other stuff
1. the past few weekends had been a total waste...i seriously hv 2 break this vicious cycle or i'm done for in the upcoming trial exams...
2. lately i'm kinda into karate....chia ling's been teaching me some karate stuff (including the 'coveted' kata Bassai Dai...haha) n i've oso been sparring wif him karate-style....it sure was an eye opener for sum1 like me who had been bound to the rules of taekwondo sparring
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
bad weekend: physics comp + team A gathering + tennis + FUCKING CAR ACCIDENT
terrible weekend, it was.
1stly, we'll start off wif friday. well actually, i cant remember much of friday. i think i spent the afternoon reading harry potter which my neighbour jing yin so kindly lent me, then napped, then went off to tuition n slept summore, then after tuition went out for dinner wif parents, then at nite i prepared for the sat physics competition by chatting on9 n reading harry potter...
saturday:
picked up shin jeh the LongMan n went to usm for the physics competition. as usual...u guessed it. messed up. the hall was damn cold, every1 complained bout it. for a cold-phobic person like me, it was hell in antartica. towards the end of d 2 1/2-hr competition my fingers were so numb i crossed out one line at least 3 times b4 managing 2 write it properly. the questions themselves were a lot easier than i had anticipated, which is not to say i managed 2 do them all cuz i din study...din wan 2 waste time on a 'lost cause', u see.....tho i suppose if i studied n refreshed my memory on the formulae things wud hv been much easier lah. as things were, i langsung din touch one of the four questions cuz i had to derive almost every equation from scratch, having forgotten all the formulae. felt relly shitty after the test cuz almost every1 finished all 4 questions except for me n i prob cud hv if i had only tried harder.
neway, after the test i spent the rest of d morning driving aimlessly around wif shin jeh n ariel (who had unexpectedly turned up for the competition) looking for a place 2 hv breakfast, then went 2 buy bus tickets for my sis...by the time i got home it was past lunchtime n after the meal i proceeded to waste the afternoon spending an inordinate amount of time typing a few questions for my mom n napping the rest of the time away.
around 6.30 wei liang arrived at my hse n we left for choh khai's where we met up wif d rest of 'team A' - fatty, ck n rentai. went for western food at pulau tikus, then headed for gurney....walked round d place a bit, visited xinch at tower records, n had a field time pestering william (the current head prefect) wif misscalls while eating cake at secret recipe. felt kinda guilty bout it later tho....anyway, after dat we went 2 take a few pics at gurney drive, i got up on the ledge n held a side kick but fatty goay messed up d pic (glares). after dat everyone went home n i once again turned 2 harry potter b4 sleep....
(btw, gurney is such a depressing place. u see all the happy couples walking around together n u'r alone. ok, not u, ME. )
sunday:
morning passed uneventfully...went out wif family for dim sum breakfast then read harry potter again - i was trying 2 finish it within the weekend - then after lunch went to hv a haircut. well, all i can say is dat it was a haircut of haircuts....i'm now known by such names as 'monk', 'heng ee boy', 'commando', etc....plus the idiot barber made me wait for almost (or more than) an hr! @#&$^%&@#$
later when i went home, it was harry potter again (thankfully, the end wasnt too far off d), then nap, then ej came 2 pick me up for tennis. spent bout 45 minutes trying 2 locate caryn's hse, then picked HER up n went straight 2 psc. xinch was late. xinch missed a lot of balls. i hit out a lot of balls. ej killed a lot of balls. (in case anyone's wondering, those were tennis balls. dun think too much.) at 7 we stopped n went 2 d pool for a swim then showered then all went out in ej's car for dinner....
then it happened when we were parking outside subaidah's. ej was reversing into the parking space n he inched out again to adjust...then suddenly a fucker on steroids drove by at mebbe 60 kph. IN A CARPARK. his side n ej's front connected n he dragged ej's front bumper clean off (almost) b4 he stopped. d fucker got out n started blabbering n at 1st we were all too shocked n tot it was our fault. later we worked out the details n discovered dat HE shudnt hv been driving dat fast in d 1st place. plus it was likely dat his car's side swerved into us as we were inching forwards, so it was HIS fault.
but anyway, we juz stood our ground n waited for ej's parents 2 arrive. THEY started calling in 'reinforcements'....u noe..those thuglike biker-types who claim to be foremen but were probably their relatives or sumting. same bad seed, i say. so i called ghee. if it came 2 a brawl at least we got 2 fighting men. meanwhile the OTHER fuckers who had their car parked next to ej's, started ranting about their car being scratched. for gods sake d scratch was so small it was almost invisible! n they were talking bout wanting the whole fucking car resprayed cuz it cudnt b polished. bullshit, may they die early. trying to profit from other ppl's troubles....in particular i remember this crossed-eyed bitch (ok, not relly crossed eyed, i juz needed something 2 describe her) who alternated between 'its your fault, YOUR FAULT, N I DUN CARE N U MUST PAY ME' n 'hey i'm talking nicely to u, dun shout at me pls'....man, if i had a stick, i wud ram it up her (.....)
anyway when ej's parents arrived they settled the bitch quickly (tho she profitted by 50 bucks, which imho she shudnt hv deserved. she cant even get dat amount if she sold herself) then concerning the 'main' accident, they decided to let d police settle, which was a wise choice cuz the fucker prob wud go ahead n report to police behind our backs even if we agreed 2 settle it in private. the cheek, claiming we were at fault. hope next time he speeds n hits a parking car, it wud b a 20-ton lorry. (humourless laugh)
anyway after ej's parents went off to the police station, the wind startd acting up...sand flying everywhere n we startd worrying bout dat holy man or watever's vision. so ghee dropped me n caryn back home. end of story. one wasted weekend n one busted car.
1stly, we'll start off wif friday. well actually, i cant remember much of friday. i think i spent the afternoon reading harry potter which my neighbour jing yin so kindly lent me, then napped, then went off to tuition n slept summore, then after tuition went out for dinner wif parents, then at nite i prepared for the sat physics competition by chatting on9 n reading harry potter...
saturday:
picked up shin jeh the LongMan n went to usm for the physics competition. as usual...u guessed it. messed up. the hall was damn cold, every1 complained bout it. for a cold-phobic person like me, it was hell in antartica. towards the end of d 2 1/2-hr competition my fingers were so numb i crossed out one line at least 3 times b4 managing 2 write it properly. the questions themselves were a lot easier than i had anticipated, which is not to say i managed 2 do them all cuz i din study...din wan 2 waste time on a 'lost cause', u see.....tho i suppose if i studied n refreshed my memory on the formulae things wud hv been much easier lah. as things were, i langsung din touch one of the four questions cuz i had to derive almost every equation from scratch, having forgotten all the formulae. felt relly shitty after the test cuz almost every1 finished all 4 questions except for me n i prob cud hv if i had only tried harder.
neway, after the test i spent the rest of d morning driving aimlessly around wif shin jeh n ariel (who had unexpectedly turned up for the competition) looking for a place 2 hv breakfast, then went 2 buy bus tickets for my sis...by the time i got home it was past lunchtime n after the meal i proceeded to waste the afternoon spending an inordinate amount of time typing a few questions for my mom n napping the rest of the time away.
around 6.30 wei liang arrived at my hse n we left for choh khai's where we met up wif d rest of 'team A' - fatty, ck n rentai. went for western food at pulau tikus, then headed for gurney....walked round d place a bit, visited xinch at tower records, n had a field time pestering william (the current head prefect) wif misscalls while eating cake at secret recipe. felt kinda guilty bout it later tho....anyway, after dat we went 2 take a few pics at gurney drive, i got up on the ledge n held a side kick but fatty goay messed up d pic (glares). after dat everyone went home n i once again turned 2 harry potter b4 sleep....
(btw, gurney is such a depressing place. u see all the happy couples walking around together n u'r alone. ok, not u, ME. )
sunday:
morning passed uneventfully...went out wif family for dim sum breakfast then read harry potter again - i was trying 2 finish it within the weekend - then after lunch went to hv a haircut. well, all i can say is dat it was a haircut of haircuts....i'm now known by such names as 'monk', 'heng ee boy', 'commando', etc....plus the idiot barber made me wait for almost (or more than) an hr! @#&$^%&@#$
later when i went home, it was harry potter again (thankfully, the end wasnt too far off d), then nap, then ej came 2 pick me up for tennis. spent bout 45 minutes trying 2 locate caryn's hse, then picked HER up n went straight 2 psc. xinch was late. xinch missed a lot of balls. i hit out a lot of balls. ej killed a lot of balls. (in case anyone's wondering, those were tennis balls. dun think too much.) at 7 we stopped n went 2 d pool for a swim then showered then all went out in ej's car for dinner....
then it happened when we were parking outside subaidah's. ej was reversing into the parking space n he inched out again to adjust...then suddenly a fucker on steroids drove by at mebbe 60 kph. IN A CARPARK. his side n ej's front connected n he dragged ej's front bumper clean off (almost) b4 he stopped. d fucker got out n started blabbering n at 1st we were all too shocked n tot it was our fault. later we worked out the details n discovered dat HE shudnt hv been driving dat fast in d 1st place. plus it was likely dat his car's side swerved into us as we were inching forwards, so it was HIS fault.
but anyway, we juz stood our ground n waited for ej's parents 2 arrive. THEY started calling in 'reinforcements'....u noe..those thuglike biker-types who claim to be foremen but were probably their relatives or sumting. same bad seed, i say. so i called ghee. if it came 2 a brawl at least we got 2 fighting men. meanwhile the OTHER fuckers who had their car parked next to ej's, started ranting about their car being scratched. for gods sake d scratch was so small it was almost invisible! n they were talking bout wanting the whole fucking car resprayed cuz it cudnt b polished. bullshit, may they die early. trying to profit from other ppl's troubles....in particular i remember this crossed-eyed bitch (ok, not relly crossed eyed, i juz needed something 2 describe her) who alternated between 'its your fault, YOUR FAULT, N I DUN CARE N U MUST PAY ME' n 'hey i'm talking nicely to u, dun shout at me pls'....man, if i had a stick, i wud ram it up her (.....)
anyway when ej's parents arrived they settled the bitch quickly (tho she profitted by 50 bucks, which imho she shudnt hv deserved. she cant even get dat amount if she sold herself) then concerning the 'main' accident, they decided to let d police settle, which was a wise choice cuz the fucker prob wud go ahead n report to police behind our backs even if we agreed 2 settle it in private. the cheek, claiming we were at fault. hope next time he speeds n hits a parking car, it wud b a 20-ton lorry. (humourless laugh)
anyway after ej's parents went off to the police station, the wind startd acting up...sand flying everywhere n we startd worrying bout dat holy man or watever's vision. so ghee dropped me n caryn back home. end of story. one wasted weekend n one busted car.
Monday, July 25, 2005
DOUBLE OR NOTHING
I GOT A DOUBLE!! last week's grading's results came out yesterday n boy was i surprised. teacher gave me a scare by announcing my name last n i seriously tot dat i failed the grading cuz she finished giving out the blue belts, red tips, then red belts n still din call me. then mira was called out n (this is hillarious) ms looi tore off a bit of mira's red 'tip' (which is actually juz red tape wound around the tip of the belt) n put it on a blue belt. guess she ran out of red tips, haha. then FINALLY i was called out to receive my new belt.
i hv this feeling dat i dun relly deserve the belt lah. mebbe ms looi knew i was gonna take study leave liao so she 'helped' me along by giving me a double? cuz i din win a gold in the state tourney (almost everyone who got a double were gold winners. sob..) n i kinda sucked during the grading (refer prev post). but still, its nice to see some new colours on my belt :D
anyway, for those of u interested in wat i had been up to, i recently watched 2 movies (on my comp, that is)....starship troopers 2 n chronicles of riddick. starship troopers 2 sucked, majorly. the story plot was horrible, there were completely no references to the original movie (which stands among my top 5 movies of all time) n there was none of the elements dat made the 1st movie so great in my opinion.
chronicles of riddick was good tho. despite the bad reviews of it floating around the net, i found the story quite interesting n the action was definitely great. its not everyday u see a movie hero killing a bad guy with a teacup. the story may be quite confusing at first tho....there were stuff dat i only understood after reading bout the movie (n related pc game) at wikipedia. still, its not bad at all.
ok, back to the drawing board for me....
i hv this feeling dat i dun relly deserve the belt lah. mebbe ms looi knew i was gonna take study leave liao so she 'helped' me along by giving me a double? cuz i din win a gold in the state tourney (almost everyone who got a double were gold winners. sob..) n i kinda sucked during the grading (refer prev post). but still, its nice to see some new colours on my belt :D
anyway, for those of u interested in wat i had been up to, i recently watched 2 movies (on my comp, that is)....starship troopers 2 n chronicles of riddick. starship troopers 2 sucked, majorly. the story plot was horrible, there were completely no references to the original movie (which stands among my top 5 movies of all time) n there was none of the elements dat made the 1st movie so great in my opinion.
chronicles of riddick was good tho. despite the bad reviews of it floating around the net, i found the story quite interesting n the action was definitely great. its not everyday u see a movie hero killing a bad guy with a teacup. the story may be quite confusing at first tho....there were stuff dat i only understood after reading bout the movie (n related pc game) at wikipedia. still, its not bad at all.
ok, back to the drawing board for me....
Friday, July 22, 2005
may this serve as a warning to the inexperienced....
thats wat u get when u engage in certain activities without consulting an expert like me
Sunday, July 17, 2005
bon odori & grading
saturday: bon odori
not relly interesting, n blew 20 bucks there
picked up caryn n june at around 7, then drove over to the esplanade...it wasnt so jammed but the parking spaces nearby were all full (except for one in a secluded alley which a stupid indian fella was trying to con us to going in to, n i had better sense than dat...poor safety + having to pay for his 'service'? no way!) so in the end we parked somewhere near the bank street...10 minutes' walk away from the festival venue...
after reaching there we met up wif ej n went to look at the japanese dance which was going on. it wasnt relly dat good...the dancers dun seem very familiar wif their moves n werent synchronised. hehe u wud think dat they wud hv worked harder to put up a good show for their last year. but anyway there was a lot of ppl gathered around the circular stage where the dancing was taking place.
following that, we went looking around the stalls for some chow. the stalls were organised into rows like chinese, malay n japanese food. everything was paid for by coupons, n one set of coupons is 20 bucks! but the jap food was so expensive we finished our coupons without relly filling up oso.
there was this one jap bbq something stall that ej queued up for while i went to get the noodles. 5 mins later, i went back to find ej n he hasnt moved an inch in the queue. i went to look for my prefect juniors (got motive lah ;P) n when i came back 15 mins later, ej has made 2 steps' progress. then the fireworks started n went on for about 5 or 10 minutes. after which, we still had to wait another 10 minutes b4 ej finally emerged truimphantly from the queue. then i asked him: "where's mine?" n he sed "i tot u sed u dun wan!" -_-'
anyway, we originally wanted 2 eat at the seaside, but it turned out the whole stretch of the curb there was fully seated. so we scouted around n finally came upon an unoccupied table n settled our food, which did not come close to filling us up. (well, us 2 guys anyway) then we walked around a bit more n it was time to go home.
sunday: grading
man was it a disaster!
as was the norm for tkd events, we waited for a long long time there. i managed to learn all 7 one-step sparring sequences n 10 self defense sequences in that time (having been absent for class last sunday n yesterday morning) so it was lucky we had so much free time after all. but it din help me much, cuz i relly messed up the basics. i already knew it was bad news when i 1st saw the grading syllabus. we had to do the blasted jumping kicks (front, side, turning) AGAIN...i mean, we did that for the green belt grading last year! apparently they shifted it up to blue tip so rugilah kita who already did it last year (dats me, justin n samantha).
in case dan's wondering y i'm making such a fuss about jumping kicks, its becuz in tkd 'jumping kick' means u hv 2 jump n HOLD the kick when u land. holding normal kicks is hard enuf for me n jumping is all but impossible. n it kinda makes no sense to put ur leg out like that but lets not go into that for now.
anyway, when our turn came along i messed nearly everything up. 1stly was patterns, i 'gave it 101%' n messed up my side kicks which i was never good at (the tkd side kick still feels a bit weird after all this time). then when it came to basics, my jumping kicks were like waist high, which defeats the purpose of jumping in the first place. then came one step n self defence which wasnt so bad, then sparring. man, justin's an absolute horror as a sparring partner. he kept kicking below the belt! so i din dare to kick to high cuz we werent wearing groin guards n i dun wan 2 resort to cloning to reproduce in the future. the only thing i cud do was get in close n jam his kicks then try to do a chopping kick. but when dat happens he turns his back to me n squats down n covers his head! so i din get a clear hit on him at all. ok, enuf of technical stuff :P
so in short i can kiss that double promotion bye bye d. i think i'll skip next week's class cuz it'll b real siahsui when samantha n mira get their double n i dun.
not relly interesting, n blew 20 bucks there
picked up caryn n june at around 7, then drove over to the esplanade...it wasnt so jammed but the parking spaces nearby were all full (except for one in a secluded alley which a stupid indian fella was trying to con us to going in to, n i had better sense than dat...poor safety + having to pay for his 'service'? no way!) so in the end we parked somewhere near the bank street...10 minutes' walk away from the festival venue...
after reaching there we met up wif ej n went to look at the japanese dance which was going on. it wasnt relly dat good...the dancers dun seem very familiar wif their moves n werent synchronised. hehe u wud think dat they wud hv worked harder to put up a good show for their last year. but anyway there was a lot of ppl gathered around the circular stage where the dancing was taking place.
following that, we went looking around the stalls for some chow. the stalls were organised into rows like chinese, malay n japanese food. everything was paid for by coupons, n one set of coupons is 20 bucks! but the jap food was so expensive we finished our coupons without relly filling up oso.
there was this one jap bbq something stall that ej queued up for while i went to get the noodles. 5 mins later, i went back to find ej n he hasnt moved an inch in the queue. i went to look for my prefect juniors (got motive lah ;P) n when i came back 15 mins later, ej has made 2 steps' progress. then the fireworks started n went on for about 5 or 10 minutes. after which, we still had to wait another 10 minutes b4 ej finally emerged truimphantly from the queue. then i asked him: "where's mine?" n he sed "i tot u sed u dun wan!" -_-'
anyway, we originally wanted 2 eat at the seaside, but it turned out the whole stretch of the curb there was fully seated. so we scouted around n finally came upon an unoccupied table n settled our food, which did not come close to filling us up. (well, us 2 guys anyway) then we walked around a bit more n it was time to go home.
sunday: grading
man was it a disaster!
as was the norm for tkd events, we waited for a long long time there. i managed to learn all 7 one-step sparring sequences n 10 self defense sequences in that time (having been absent for class last sunday n yesterday morning) so it was lucky we had so much free time after all. but it din help me much, cuz i relly messed up the basics. i already knew it was bad news when i 1st saw the grading syllabus. we had to do the blasted jumping kicks (front, side, turning) AGAIN...i mean, we did that for the green belt grading last year! apparently they shifted it up to blue tip so rugilah kita who already did it last year (dats me, justin n samantha).
in case dan's wondering y i'm making such a fuss about jumping kicks, its becuz in tkd 'jumping kick' means u hv 2 jump n HOLD the kick when u land. holding normal kicks is hard enuf for me n jumping is all but impossible. n it kinda makes no sense to put ur leg out like that but lets not go into that for now.
anyway, when our turn came along i messed nearly everything up. 1stly was patterns, i 'gave it 101%' n messed up my side kicks which i was never good at (the tkd side kick still feels a bit weird after all this time). then when it came to basics, my jumping kicks were like waist high, which defeats the purpose of jumping in the first place. then came one step n self defence which wasnt so bad, then sparring. man, justin's an absolute horror as a sparring partner. he kept kicking below the belt! so i din dare to kick to high cuz we werent wearing groin guards n i dun wan 2 resort to cloning to reproduce in the future. the only thing i cud do was get in close n jam his kicks then try to do a chopping kick. but when dat happens he turns his back to me n squats down n covers his head! so i din get a clear hit on him at all. ok, enuf of technical stuff :P
so in short i can kiss that double promotion bye bye d. i think i'll skip next week's class cuz it'll b real siahsui when samantha n mira get their double n i dun.
Friday, July 15, 2005
last 2 weeks
man, last 2 weeks had been absolutely hectic. sorry, i mean, boring.
i suppose i owe everyone an apology for not updating. but then, it'll b as arrogant as an eldar if i were to assume dat everyone checks my blog for daily updates of my oh-so-uninteresting life :P n since everyone else had been on hiatus lately i think i can be excused for following (or setting?) the trend :D
anyway, in brief, the last 2 weeks saw me completing warhammer 40k: dawn of war (see last post) n LEGO star wars (more on this later), going out a few times (a few times more than i shud :S) cuz someone unexpectedly came back 2 penang to 'haunt my days' hehe...n oh, there was this 'training camp' held by my tkd centre last sat, which i found to be utterly pointless. sorry ms looi, its d truth...
more on LEGO star wars: contrary to my initial opinion, its actually quite an addictive game. i mean, how many games lets u use the force on objects such as cups and tables to make 'coins' pop out of thin air *rolls eyes* but for some reason the ridiculousness of the game fades after swinging the cartoon (LEGO) lightsaber a few times. getting to play almost every character (well, their LEGO versions anyway) in the star wars movies oso helped keep me stuck there. n for concerned parents out there, not one bit of blood is spilled in the game cuz ur enemies r made of LEGO blocks dat juz split apart when u defeat them :P
anyway, dan came back 2 penang for a 2-week (less, actually) stay...ej n rentai 'pulled' me out for a movie despite my adamant (?) objections...then while we were having dinner at nando's b4 the movie, ej accidentally spilled the beans b4 the big guy himself showed up :D but it was a nice surprise all the same. dat was last wed. then we went hiking on sunday (n i skipped tkd :P) n played tennis, the last time we (ej, dan n me) wud b playing together for a long time i think, n got to spar a few rounds wif dan at psc later that day....then on monday we went to rock the world at redbox followed by a few rounds at the cybercafe :P (won 1 round of homeworld 2 n 1 round of starcraft, then ghee got nasty n got everyone to ally against me in sc but i got the highest score anyway even when i lost)
tomolo's bon odori, the last time it'll b held in penang..or so i've heard. want 2 go, but dun hv a date :P ah well, life's like that....
i suppose i owe everyone an apology for not updating. but then, it'll b as arrogant as an eldar if i were to assume dat everyone checks my blog for daily updates of my oh-so-uninteresting life :P n since everyone else had been on hiatus lately i think i can be excused for following (or setting?) the trend :D
anyway, in brief, the last 2 weeks saw me completing warhammer 40k: dawn of war (see last post) n LEGO star wars (more on this later), going out a few times (a few times more than i shud :S) cuz someone unexpectedly came back 2 penang to 'haunt my days' hehe...n oh, there was this 'training camp' held by my tkd centre last sat, which i found to be utterly pointless. sorry ms looi, its d truth...
more on LEGO star wars: contrary to my initial opinion, its actually quite an addictive game. i mean, how many games lets u use the force on objects such as cups and tables to make 'coins' pop out of thin air *rolls eyes* but for some reason the ridiculousness of the game fades after swinging the cartoon (LEGO) lightsaber a few times. getting to play almost every character (well, their LEGO versions anyway) in the star wars movies oso helped keep me stuck there. n for concerned parents out there, not one bit of blood is spilled in the game cuz ur enemies r made of LEGO blocks dat juz split apart when u defeat them :P
anyway, dan came back 2 penang for a 2-week (less, actually) stay...ej n rentai 'pulled' me out for a movie despite my adamant (?) objections...then while we were having dinner at nando's b4 the movie, ej accidentally spilled the beans b4 the big guy himself showed up :D but it was a nice surprise all the same. dat was last wed. then we went hiking on sunday (n i skipped tkd :P) n played tennis, the last time we (ej, dan n me) wud b playing together for a long time i think, n got to spar a few rounds wif dan at psc later that day....then on monday we went to rock the world at redbox followed by a few rounds at the cybercafe :P (won 1 round of homeworld 2 n 1 round of starcraft, then ghee got nasty n got everyone to ally against me in sc but i got the highest score anyway even when i lost)
tomolo's bon odori, the last time it'll b held in penang..or so i've heard. want 2 go, but dun hv a date :P ah well, life's like that....
Saturday, July 09, 2005
For the Imperium!
juz finished playing warhammer 40000: dawn of war last nite. d single-player campaign was rather short, consisting of only 10 (or was it 11?) missions...but i spent bout 1 day on each mission....haih need to polish up my strategy gaming skills...
for those who dunno, dawn of war is a strategy game set in the warhammer 40000 universe created by Games Workshop. originally a boardgame, d warhammer franchise grew n while it never reached d same level of fame or popularity as star wars, star trek etc, it built up its own fan base over d years. i 1st knew bout warhammer 40k back in...primary sch when i got a game called Space Hulk. basically warhammer 40k is about a universe torn by war between various factions, the most notable being the Imperium of Mankind, the 'savage' (in d game they were portrayed as being rather comical) Orks, the enigmatic n 'arrogant' Eldars (imho d true 'good guys' of the game), the bio-terror Tyranid Swarm, n the forces of Chaos aka the Great Enemy. there r numerous other races n factions too but to avoid boring everyone to death i'll leave those interested to find out for themselves :P
the background story's pretty interesting too. in brief, mankind spread to the stars after the invention of the 'warp drive' which allows spaceships to travel in an alternate dimension n traverse great distances (think millions of light years) within a relatively short time. so they colonised d galaxy, met various alien species, n engaged in all out war. at about d same time latent psychic traits began to appear among some of the human population. those ppl, psykers, came to wield great power but since their abilities were drawn from the warp itself, they became gateways for 'fell creatures of the warp', known as daemons, to enter the world. so humanity was almost destroyed as they were fighting wars on two fronts...among the stars wif the aliens, n among themselves as daemons possessed whole populations n waged war on man. to cut a long story short, one guy, a 'psyker of remarkable power', emerged n united humanity as well as banishing the daemons back to the warp. this guy? the Emperor, unsurprisingly. so he established an Imperium stretching across a million worlds n put himself at the top. heheh.
still with me? ok, back to the game itself. as u can find out from any decent game review site, dawn of war lets u play 4 factions in multiplayer: Space Marines (humans), Eldar, Orks n Chaos. however the single-player campaign is only for the Space Marines, which imho left me feeling vaguely unsatisfied cuz we dun get to see the other factions' side of the story. the story starts as Captain Gabriel Angelo, a Space Marine Captain (those guys r rather high-ranking...since space marines were supposedly the elite 'superhuman' troops of the imperium) landed on the planet Tartarus to help the inhabitants fend off a massive Ork invasion. eventually they meet (n fight) the Eldar, n finally the forces of Chaos who turned out to be the real baddies.
ok enuf of this, i'm not being paid to review the game. all i hv to say is, the game rox! d graphics were awesome...everything - units, terrain, vehicles etc, r in full 3D, n u can zoom in to watch the fighting up close, which is paling impressive when vehicles or 'super-units' r killing infantry cuz they hv a bunch of special animations reserved for this purpose. for example when the Eldars' Avatar of Khaine, a 30-foot tall incarnation of their war-god, kills an infantry unit, he impales the unlucky fellow on his huge sword n lets him slide down its length, then flings d corpse away. cool eh?
d game also pays a lot of attention to balance. each weapon is only effective against certain unit types, for example machinegun-type guns against light infantry, plasma weaponry against heavy infantry, n rockets/missiles against vehicles. there's also a unique strategic element: morale. when units r outnumbered in melee (yup, u can let ur infantry engage in melee instead of shooting) or attacked by certain weapons, their morale will drop n the squad will become 'broken', at which point they take more damage while doing very little in return. interesting, relly.
ok, i'm sure by now i hv some of u guys out there salivating d. so if u wan d game, ask from me n i'll burn it for u :P no i'm not a good guy, i juz wan ppl to play multiplayer wif...
finally...got that off my back. now for 2 months of study until d next holidays....
notes:
1. This was actually posted since 5/7 (Tue) but for some reason it showed up on the Pirate's Coven instead of here...
2. We can now add images directly to Blogger instead of having to host it somewhere else? Good riddance to Flickr!
for those who dunno, dawn of war is a strategy game set in the warhammer 40000 universe created by Games Workshop. originally a boardgame, d warhammer franchise grew n while it never reached d same level of fame or popularity as star wars, star trek etc, it built up its own fan base over d years. i 1st knew bout warhammer 40k back in...primary sch when i got a game called Space Hulk. basically warhammer 40k is about a universe torn by war between various factions, the most notable being the Imperium of Mankind, the 'savage' (in d game they were portrayed as being rather comical) Orks, the enigmatic n 'arrogant' Eldars (imho d true 'good guys' of the game), the bio-terror Tyranid Swarm, n the forces of Chaos aka the Great Enemy. there r numerous other races n factions too but to avoid boring everyone to death i'll leave those interested to find out for themselves :P
the background story's pretty interesting too. in brief, mankind spread to the stars after the invention of the 'warp drive' which allows spaceships to travel in an alternate dimension n traverse great distances (think millions of light years) within a relatively short time. so they colonised d galaxy, met various alien species, n engaged in all out war. at about d same time latent psychic traits began to appear among some of the human population. those ppl, psykers, came to wield great power but since their abilities were drawn from the warp itself, they became gateways for 'fell creatures of the warp', known as daemons, to enter the world. so humanity was almost destroyed as they were fighting wars on two fronts...among the stars wif the aliens, n among themselves as daemons possessed whole populations n waged war on man. to cut a long story short, one guy, a 'psyker of remarkable power', emerged n united humanity as well as banishing the daemons back to the warp. this guy? the Emperor, unsurprisingly. so he established an Imperium stretching across a million worlds n put himself at the top. heheh.
still with me? ok, back to the game itself. as u can find out from any decent game review site, dawn of war lets u play 4 factions in multiplayer: Space Marines (humans), Eldar, Orks n Chaos. however the single-player campaign is only for the Space Marines, which imho left me feeling vaguely unsatisfied cuz we dun get to see the other factions' side of the story. the story starts as Captain Gabriel Angelo, a Space Marine Captain (those guys r rather high-ranking...since space marines were supposedly the elite 'superhuman' troops of the imperium) landed on the planet Tartarus to help the inhabitants fend off a massive Ork invasion. eventually they meet (n fight) the Eldar, n finally the forces of Chaos who turned out to be the real baddies.
ok enuf of this, i'm not being paid to review the game. all i hv to say is, the game rox! d graphics were awesome...everything - units, terrain, vehicles etc, r in full 3D, n u can zoom in to watch the fighting up close, which is paling impressive when vehicles or 'super-units' r killing infantry cuz they hv a bunch of special animations reserved for this purpose. for example when the Eldars' Avatar of Khaine, a 30-foot tall incarnation of their war-god, kills an infantry unit, he impales the unlucky fellow on his huge sword n lets him slide down its length, then flings d corpse away. cool eh?
d game also pays a lot of attention to balance. each weapon is only effective against certain unit types, for example machinegun-type guns against light infantry, plasma weaponry against heavy infantry, n rockets/missiles against vehicles. there's also a unique strategic element: morale. when units r outnumbered in melee (yup, u can let ur infantry engage in melee instead of shooting) or attacked by certain weapons, their morale will drop n the squad will become 'broken', at which point they take more damage while doing very little in return. interesting, relly.
ok, i'm sure by now i hv some of u guys out there salivating d. so if u wan d game, ask from me n i'll burn it for u :P no i'm not a good guy, i juz wan ppl to play multiplayer wif...
finally...got that off my back. now for 2 months of study until d next holidays....
notes:
1. This was actually posted since 5/7 (Tue) but for some reason it showed up on the Pirate's Coven instead of here...
2. We can now add images directly to Blogger instead of having to host it somewhere else? Good riddance to Flickr!
Monday, July 04, 2005
heheh...check it out!
btw, 2 things of interest:
1. today i experienced, for the first time, the pleasure of wearing my mp3 player to the toilet :P makes the boredom more....bearable :P:P
2. according to a medical lab test i did recently, my blood is type O, Rhesus positive. so dat means i'm a universal donor. geez, must i be so good?
Thursday, June 30, 2005
Blood...Blood...Rayne-ing Down....
juz finished bloodrayne. damn, who'd hv thought i wud hv played thru a mindless hack-n-slash game like that...but i think the thrill of dodging bullets n hacking off limbs kept me hooked (there's also the factor of playing a super-sexy female character wif 2-feet-long forearm-mounted silver blades). tho it did take me quite a while (1+ week) to finish compared 2 other games....neway, this is gonna b d last (or at least 2nd last :P) game i'm gonna play b4 starting serious study....had been relly slacking the past 2 weeks n i SWORE to myself to 'finish it off for good so i can concentrate on studies'
hmm...wat else interesting lately....i got 4th in form for midyear exams, which is way beyond my expectations since i was quite sure i messed up several papers.....but anyhow muet pulled me up a lot...its not gonna b in trial exam tho, which means my average will prob go down quite a bit :(
n besides dat, my bio is WAAAAAY behind cuz i din hv 2 take it for d midyears...so i practically din touch it till d midyear holidays...n even then i only covered bout 25% of wat is required cuz i only read thru d a-level books my mom borrowed...n those were quite basic-level too...(example: production of urea - "The ammonia is converted to urea in a process known as the ornithine cycle, the details of which you do not need to know about at this stage.")
so man, i'm relly fearing for my stpm now. esp since i keep making excuses not to study. hope i get the jap scholarship. local Us suck, even if i dun mess up stpm.
hmm...wat else interesting lately....i got 4th in form for midyear exams, which is way beyond my expectations since i was quite sure i messed up several papers.....but anyhow muet pulled me up a lot...its not gonna b in trial exam tho, which means my average will prob go down quite a bit :(
n besides dat, my bio is WAAAAAY behind cuz i din hv 2 take it for d midyears...so i practically din touch it till d midyear holidays...n even then i only covered bout 25% of wat is required cuz i only read thru d a-level books my mom borrowed...n those were quite basic-level too...(example: production of urea - "The ammonia is converted to urea in a process known as the ornithine cycle, the details of which you do not need to know about at this stage.")
so man, i'm relly fearing for my stpm now. esp since i keep making excuses not to study. hope i get the jap scholarship. local Us suck, even if i dun mess up stpm.
Sunday, June 26, 2005
"Mixed" feelings
well...the much-afeared district tourney is finally over. normally i wudnt feel so pressured becuz of a district-level tourney cuz most of d participants were from my center anyway....but this time, i participated in 2 'special' events....mixed pattern n creative pattern. both events r for pairs of one girl one boy, n require at least one black belt, so i teamed up wif joyce. n for the last 2 weeks we've been working on the pattern, the music (the creative pattern is performed to music), n training....lucky its rite after sch hols so sch lessons havent picked up pace yet...
anyway, for those interested in knowing the results (n i noe a lot of u do ;p) we got gold for the creative pattern, n a big fat nothing for mixed pattern. i guess i messed up a lot this tourney, prob due to a lethal combination of lack of sleep n nervousness. the 1st event up was mixed pattern n we were happily doing Gae Baek when i suddenly made a horrendous mistake n threw our rhythm into disorder...then it was all downhill from there...dominoes, holding kicks, everything juz flew out the window. n to think dat gae baek is d pattern dat i've been doing the most since god knows when....
luckily, we sorta 'redeemed' ourselves wif d creative pattern. anxiety kicked in again n i messed up the opening move of all things, but due to a stroke of luck joyce made the same mistake (we were doing a sequence based on gae baek n we both bypassed the 'modification') so i guess d judges din notice the blunder. then fortunately, the rest of d pattern fell into place n we sailed thru d 'danger areas' without much trouble. so we got..lets see...7, 7, 7, 7, 8 or something liddat...it was the 1st 8 i've seen in a tournament btw :P :P
after dat, it was team pattern, where teacher somehow got me placed into a girls' team in the girls' category. now dun laugh, i'll knock ur heads off if u do. anyway prior to dat, i was told dat i had to be in dat team so dat we can join the GUYS' category....but somehow SOMEBODY MESSED UP N I BECAME A GIRL >( anyway, we hardly practiced for that, so we got...3rd place out of 3 teams....
following dat, the individual pattern event came n i got a gold, which is nothing remarkable since i was in the open category n there were only 3 participants including me, 2 of which were yellow belt adults....
the final event of the day (for us color belts) was free sparring, but i tarik diri at the last minute. i din wan 2 sia sui by getting kicked out in d 1st round after getting 2 golds for patterns. makes me wonder, wats the point of doing patterns well if ur (my) sparring is so teruk? haih....guess i started tkd too late n cant develop the 'sparring reflexes' anymore....
ah, 4got 2 mention dat ej n xinch stopped by 2 watch n 'cheer' (in xinch's case, it was a smirk, but i'll overlook it for ej's sake) ej FAILED TO TAKE A VIDEO OF THE CREATIVE PATTERN! (shoots daggers at ej) wats a digicam for if not to take videos of the most important events in a guy's life?
in a nutshell, i'm having "mixed" feelings about this tourney cuz:
positive:-
1. we got gold for creative pattern!
2. a reporter came n took our pic n names after the creative event
3. (minor) got another gold for individual pattern
negative:-
1. i messed up the mixed pattern
2. i had to join a GIRLS' TEAM for team pattern *grumbles*
3. i din join sparring. in a way, i 'ran from a problem instead of confronting it', which always makes me feel bad
4. tired. very. tired.
5. din do any hw or study the whole day
p.s. a letter came from the jap embassy a few days ago, informing me dat i've been shortlisted for the final selection for the monbukagakusho scholarship. the ppl making the final decisions r jap government officials so the results will take a while to come out. as in, next year. so guys, pray for me! :P
p.s.s. (added on 27/6)
1. 4got to add dat for the opening ceremony, joyce n i performed our rma competition mixed pattern as a 'demo'....also we were the MCs but i kinda messed up on that one too....din noe wat i was supposed 2 say until the last minute n i had 2 speak in malay which i'm terrible at (spoken, at least) so my 'spontaneous' announcements were awkward at best....ugh..
2. setting up the stage backdrop was a horror! we spent over an hr on it the day b4, then on the tournament day itself, the whole thing juz fell apart...as in the letters which we hv 2 put on the stage wall to say 'kejohanan taekwondo blablabla'....n we spent the whole morning trying to put it back n keep it up there...in the end had to use thumb-tacks to pin the whole setup on the wall. n doing stuff like this when u'r wearing a long sleeved shirt with tie, 2 or 3 sizes too small, is not a pleasant experience. as annas commented: "u mandi atau peluh?". my reply:"mandi peluh"
anyway, for those interested in knowing the results (n i noe a lot of u do ;p) we got gold for the creative pattern, n a big fat nothing for mixed pattern. i guess i messed up a lot this tourney, prob due to a lethal combination of lack of sleep n nervousness. the 1st event up was mixed pattern n we were happily doing Gae Baek when i suddenly made a horrendous mistake n threw our rhythm into disorder...then it was all downhill from there...dominoes, holding kicks, everything juz flew out the window. n to think dat gae baek is d pattern dat i've been doing the most since god knows when....
luckily, we sorta 'redeemed' ourselves wif d creative pattern. anxiety kicked in again n i messed up the opening move of all things, but due to a stroke of luck joyce made the same mistake (we were doing a sequence based on gae baek n we both bypassed the 'modification') so i guess d judges din notice the blunder. then fortunately, the rest of d pattern fell into place n we sailed thru d 'danger areas' without much trouble. so we got..lets see...7, 7, 7, 7, 8 or something liddat...it was the 1st 8 i've seen in a tournament btw :P :P
after dat, it was team pattern, where teacher somehow got me placed into a girls' team in the girls' category. now dun laugh, i'll knock ur heads off if u do. anyway prior to dat, i was told dat i had to be in dat team so dat we can join the GUYS' category....but somehow SOMEBODY MESSED UP N I BECAME A GIRL >( anyway, we hardly practiced for that, so we got...3rd place out of 3 teams....
following dat, the individual pattern event came n i got a gold, which is nothing remarkable since i was in the open category n there were only 3 participants including me, 2 of which were yellow belt adults....
the final event of the day (for us color belts) was free sparring, but i tarik diri at the last minute. i din wan 2 sia sui by getting kicked out in d 1st round after getting 2 golds for patterns. makes me wonder, wats the point of doing patterns well if ur (my) sparring is so teruk? haih....guess i started tkd too late n cant develop the 'sparring reflexes' anymore....
ah, 4got 2 mention dat ej n xinch stopped by 2 watch n 'cheer' (in xinch's case, it was a smirk, but i'll overlook it for ej's sake) ej FAILED TO TAKE A VIDEO OF THE CREATIVE PATTERN! (shoots daggers at ej) wats a digicam for if not to take videos of the most important events in a guy's life?
in a nutshell, i'm having "mixed" feelings about this tourney cuz:
positive:-
1. we got gold for creative pattern!
2. a reporter came n took our pic n names after the creative event
3. (minor) got another gold for individual pattern
negative:-
1. i messed up the mixed pattern
2. i had to join a GIRLS' TEAM for team pattern *grumbles*
3. i din join sparring. in a way, i 'ran from a problem instead of confronting it', which always makes me feel bad
4. tired. very. tired.
5. din do any hw or study the whole day
p.s. a letter came from the jap embassy a few days ago, informing me dat i've been shortlisted for the final selection for the monbukagakusho scholarship. the ppl making the final decisions r jap government officials so the results will take a while to come out. as in, next year. so guys, pray for me! :P
p.s.s. (added on 27/6)
1. 4got to add dat for the opening ceremony, joyce n i performed our rma competition mixed pattern as a 'demo'....also we were the MCs but i kinda messed up on that one too....din noe wat i was supposed 2 say until the last minute n i had 2 speak in malay which i'm terrible at (spoken, at least) so my 'spontaneous' announcements were awkward at best....ugh..
2. setting up the stage backdrop was a horror! we spent over an hr on it the day b4, then on the tournament day itself, the whole thing juz fell apart...as in the letters which we hv 2 put on the stage wall to say 'kejohanan taekwondo blablabla'....n we spent the whole morning trying to put it back n keep it up there...in the end had to use thumb-tacks to pin the whole setup on the wall. n doing stuff like this when u'r wearing a long sleeved shirt with tie, 2 or 3 sizes too small, is not a pleasant experience. as annas commented: "u mandi atau peluh?". my reply:"mandi peluh"
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Home Alone 5 - Vigil In Penang
Day 1: Sunday (19/6)
Around 11am, my family left for KL to 'install' my sis at her new sch at INTEC in UTM....she got the jpa scholarship n will b leaving for US after doing a year's foundation. My bro went wif them, which meant dat i was left alone to defend the house from robbers, zombies n alien invaders for 1 nite....
shortly after they left, i gave up trying 2 read the newspapers n installed star wars: battlefront. bout 2 hrs of rolling around various star wars locales as a droideka ("destroyer droid"), i got bored n deleted d game, then decided to take a nap b4 going for tkd class. then it started drizzling outside n i tot, wat the heck, time to skip tkd again :P so i went back on9, chatted abit wif tansri, then had my lunch (sausage bun + maggi mee...not an ideal combo)
3pm found me in front of d comp again, trying to edit the music for the creative pattern event in the upcoming district tourney, n chatting wif tansri (again), who seems perpetually rooted in front of HIS pc....
around 5pm i took a brief 2.5-hr nap (anyone notice the irony?), then plonked down in front of the comp, noticing to my dismay that the dvd burning i started b4 going to sleep had failed - RM2 worth of dvd+r down the drain....tried again, wif similiar (lack of) results...i wonder if d problem was my burner or software or discs? either way my chainsaw's ready....
around 8.30 i popped out to the hawker centre near my hse 2 buy dinner. inspired by the words of a certain self-proclaimed teenage moron (who warned me against it), i brought home a package of 'chicken cordon bleu', chicken fillet stuff wif cheese n ham. yummy, no? no. it was so greasy the cardboard box was soaked thru when i got home. still my stomach's rumbling n i wasnt complaining. dunnit 2 menjaga my berat badan like certain gals i noe :P so i ate it all up.
9-10pm: backing up files in preparation for a full system format, only to discover dat my only remaining winxp cd is corrupted (note to self: do NOT use a G1 pen to write on cdrs in the future)
10pm: i installed warhammer 40k: dawn of war, n played it till 1am, imperium rox, yeah. space marines rox, yeah.
after dat, i spent the next 2 or so hrs editing the creative pattern music again....its basically a rearranged version of the main theme from the game deus ex, wif some trimmings, croppings n an aircraft take-off sound spliced in at d end (taken from jay chou's kai bu liao kou :P). finally managed to put together something dat satisfied joyce (my partner for creative pattern, poor ol' me...) n at 3am i took a bath n masuk tidur.
Day 2: Monday (20/6)
woke at 6.45am, 'decided' i felt sick, n went back to bed. i'm a baaaad boy, oh yes i am ;)
woke again at 10.30am, went out to buy hokkien mee for my aunt who came over for the morning (n for myself lah..i'm not THAT nice) then spent the morning playing planescape: torment which juz finished downloading. pretty cool rpg too, considering its age. hehe.
around 1m finally managed to pull myself together for a bit of studying, then went out to buy ducky rice for lunch, studied a BIT more - finally covered that damned photosynthesis chapter - wif the help of wiki (incidentally reading up more than a few articles on various eldar gods of warhammer 40k in the process) then pigged out at 4pm - 6.30pm. after revitalising myself wif IPOH WHITE COFFEE MUAHAHAHAHA..uh, sorry got a little carried away - simultaneously played the piano, read wiki n studied. my piano's downstairs while my comp's upstairs, so dun ask me how i did it.
around 8pm my family got back n there endeth my Vigil In Penang, Home Alone 5. n the aliens were so scared, they din even send a scout fighter to recon the area.
Around 11am, my family left for KL to 'install' my sis at her new sch at INTEC in UTM....she got the jpa scholarship n will b leaving for US after doing a year's foundation. My bro went wif them, which meant dat i was left alone to defend the house from robbers, zombies n alien invaders for 1 nite....
shortly after they left, i gave up trying 2 read the newspapers n installed star wars: battlefront. bout 2 hrs of rolling around various star wars locales as a droideka ("destroyer droid"), i got bored n deleted d game, then decided to take a nap b4 going for tkd class. then it started drizzling outside n i tot, wat the heck, time to skip tkd again :P so i went back on9, chatted abit wif tansri, then had my lunch (sausage bun + maggi mee...not an ideal combo)
3pm found me in front of d comp again, trying to edit the music for the creative pattern event in the upcoming district tourney, n chatting wif tansri (again), who seems perpetually rooted in front of HIS pc....
around 5pm i took a brief 2.5-hr nap (anyone notice the irony?), then plonked down in front of the comp, noticing to my dismay that the dvd burning i started b4 going to sleep had failed - RM2 worth of dvd+r down the drain....tried again, wif similiar (lack of) results...i wonder if d problem was my burner or software or discs? either way my chainsaw's ready....
around 8.30 i popped out to the hawker centre near my hse 2 buy dinner. inspired by the words of a certain self-proclaimed teenage moron (who warned me against it), i brought home a package of 'chicken cordon bleu', chicken fillet stuff wif cheese n ham. yummy, no? no. it was so greasy the cardboard box was soaked thru when i got home. still my stomach's rumbling n i wasnt complaining. dunnit 2 menjaga my berat badan like certain gals i noe :P so i ate it all up.
9-10pm: backing up files in preparation for a full system format, only to discover dat my only remaining winxp cd is corrupted (note to self: do NOT use a G1 pen to write on cdrs in the future)
10pm: i installed warhammer 40k: dawn of war, n played it till 1am, imperium rox, yeah. space marines rox, yeah.
after dat, i spent the next 2 or so hrs editing the creative pattern music again....its basically a rearranged version of the main theme from the game deus ex, wif some trimmings, croppings n an aircraft take-off sound spliced in at d end (taken from jay chou's kai bu liao kou :P). finally managed to put together something dat satisfied joyce (my partner for creative pattern, poor ol' me...) n at 3am i took a bath n masuk tidur.
Day 2: Monday (20/6)
woke at 6.45am, 'decided' i felt sick, n went back to bed. i'm a baaaad boy, oh yes i am ;)
woke again at 10.30am, went out to buy hokkien mee for my aunt who came over for the morning (n for myself lah..i'm not THAT nice) then spent the morning playing planescape: torment which juz finished downloading. pretty cool rpg too, considering its age. hehe.
around 1m finally managed to pull myself together for a bit of studying, then went out to buy ducky rice for lunch, studied a BIT more - finally covered that damned photosynthesis chapter - wif the help of wiki (incidentally reading up more than a few articles on various eldar gods of warhammer 40k in the process) then pigged out at 4pm - 6.30pm. after revitalising myself wif IPOH WHITE COFFEE MUAHAHAHAHA..uh, sorry got a little carried away - simultaneously played the piano, read wiki n studied. my piano's downstairs while my comp's upstairs, so dun ask me how i did it.
around 8pm my family got back n there endeth my Vigil In Penang, Home Alone 5. n the aliens were so scared, they din even send a scout fighter to recon the area.
Sunday, June 19, 2005
back by popular demand
due to the overwhelming demand for good online literature, i'm back, complete wif witty sarcasm n flamboyant humour! ;)
anyway....i noe its been a long time since i updated....but wat to do...sch's reopened n its back to d old boring routine....
to go a bit further back, here's a heavily slashed version of my holiday journal:
week 1:
wed - went hiking with wei liang
sat - went pc fair where i bought my mp3 player
week 2:
tue - went hiking wif wei liang again, n no i'm not gay
thu - went redbox wif.... a buncha ppl
fri - (skipped bio tuition)
sat - went to my dad's office n wasted d whole morning, then went out for episode 3 at nite
sounds boring rite? well, it isnt that boring relly...its juz about 3 times worse....
for those interested in an account of my recent kl trip (n if u dun, i'm not ur fren):
arrived at the bus station at 3.15pm sharp...yst HAD to call to hurry me even tho i wasnt late by half a minute, a feat unsurpassed in all my outings n appointments so far....we boarded d bus n 15 mins later we were off!
d bus stopped at another station prior to leaving penang, where a few more passengers were picked up...a crazy malay guy wearing a super sexy skin-tight t-shirt (u noe those made of stocking material where u can see rite thru?)...sat next to poor han yee *snickers* prompting a quick change of seat.....
anyway...d journey passed uneventfully, tho i had to comment it was unusually cold in d bus for a day trip..cuz it was raining outside n d air cond was going on full blast inside...none of us tot of turning off d air cond until we were shivering in our jackets...
once in kl, we made a beeline for the nearest KFC. after doctoring our poor rumbling stomachs, we wandered around for a while, debating how best 2 get 2 our hotel (crown princess, whoohoo), finally deciding on taking the LRT there since its way cheaper than taxi...so after some further deliberation on the route (aided by directions from a guard at d LRT station since han yee's map was printed like 10 years ago n thus hopelessly obselete) we took the LRT to masjid jamek, then switched trains n got off at ampang park...asked for directions from a girl flirting wif a bunch of bellhops outside a hotel (yst's idea hehe)...then after bout 15 mins of lugging our half-ton baggage, arrived at crown princess. it was quite a relief to sink into the sofa in d lobby while yst n han yee went to check in....my legs were still aching from tkd on sun....then we went up to the room separately as not to arouse any suspicions (the room was booked for 2 only, so there mite b some objection to us cramming 5 ppl in...)
anyway....after dumping our stuff in d room, yst, yong shen n me decided to embark on a recon trip (mission: locate the japanese embassy). so we headed out again. reached d embassy after a 20-minute walk, then retraced our steps, stopping by a petrol station minimart to load up on cup noodles n a bottle of 100 plus (which the 3 of us managed to finish during the remainder of the walk back), n pepsi twist for the sissies back at the base. later, we showered (me wif great reluctance since i was having a taste of power at being able to repel yst at will wif my unholy fragrance) then sat down to fill in our interview forms....took the better part of 2 hrs to finish dat, n then it was lights out at 2.30am
day two began wif some idiot's alarm clock ringing at 6.30, but we got up at 7.15. han yee and i left for buffet breakfast *muahaha* while d other 3 (yst, yong shen n chee siang) had cup noodles....there was quite a good spread (for a breakfast) at the hotel restaurant but i darent eat too much....*reminds self to go for a buffet meal next holidays* then went back, we all cleaned up n got ready for action
the 20 minutes walk to the embassy turned out to be an absolute horror for 5 idiots clad in long sleeved shirts n slacks thanx to the sun which left us drenched wif sweat by the time we arrived at our destination...han yee in particular had sweat stains on his back cuz of d particular fabric of his shirt...not good since he was d 1st on d interview list. fortunately after going in (we had to give up our ICs n hps to get entrace passes..!!) the air conditioned interior quickly cooled us while we were given a brief briefing n told to fill in the annex forms which we left blank. at this point i almost literally kicked myself. we had to paste in our photos n i left my extras back at the hotel room! so in d end me n chee siang handed up the forms without photos. d secretary told us dat IF we were selected for the scholarship we wud b given a chance to paste in the photos at a later time but still...cant help feeling some slight apprehension bout it. n another thing was dat we all went into the trouble of photocopying our various cocurriculum activities certs etc n getting them certified, only to be told in d end dat we dun hv 2 hand them in....
after dat...we got intro'd to d other interviewees....imho they were much more...how do u say it...extroverted than we penangites were....prob oso becuz they were english educated...they were the get-up-to-shake-your-hands-as-soon-as-u-entered-the-room type...
all too soon, it was my turn for the interview. d interviewers consisted of 2 japs n 2 malays. n i did horribly! my voice was too low, one of the symptoms of not enuf sleep. oso i messed up a few of d questions n overall did not project the image of confidence i had hoped to display. but haih, wats done is done. but i AM going into the jap embassy wif a chainsaw if i dun get the scholarhip! haha kiddin...
anyway...later we met up back at d hotel, checked out, then lugged our stuff around ampang plaza for a while b4 lunching at mcd...here i hv 2 comment on the french-fry-eating habits of kl ppl...almost everyone in d mcd outlet dumped their fries onto the tray instead of eating it out of d cardboard box....rather weird since it wud get cold so much faster AND it leaves d fries vulnerable to incidents such as yong shen spilling his soft drink over d pile dat he, chee siang n han yee created.....
later, we yakked away one whole hr in mcd, wif topics ranging from comp games to sch teachers, then we took the LRT back to pudu. did i mention yst n i were singing old disney song throughout d day? presumably an unconscious attempt to let out some stress.....anyway we reached pudu about half n hr b4 d bus arrived, so we headed for a nearby hotel n uh...made use of its foc facilities, namely the aircond n d lobby couches :P
at 3.15pm we boarded the bus n 5 hrs later pulled into penang bus station. end of journey.
final thoughts: where HAVE all d kl chicks gone....
addendum at 2.46AM:
1. ever experienced sleeping for hours on a bus ride then reaching ur destination worn out n exhausted? i wonder y izit dat i get so tired after supposedly resting for the whole trip everytime i hv 2 take d bus to kl n back
2. 'interview syndrome' - after an interview (or similiarly stressful encounter) i end up with little or no memory of the questions asked etc.....its like my mind temporarily suspends storage to increase 'real-time processing power' to handle the situation...n i only start recalling bits n pieces of the interview days after it happened....
3. yst and i were singing old disney songs at the top of our voices (well, not relly) on the way back to pudu from the hotel....including on the LRT....
4. y m i typing meaningless stuff here when i shud b asleep.....
anyway....i noe its been a long time since i updated....but wat to do...sch's reopened n its back to d old boring routine....
to go a bit further back, here's a heavily slashed version of my holiday journal:
week 1:
wed - went hiking with wei liang
sat - went pc fair where i bought my mp3 player
week 2:
tue - went hiking wif wei liang again, n no i'm not gay
thu - went redbox wif.... a buncha ppl
fri - (skipped bio tuition)
sat - went to my dad's office n wasted d whole morning, then went out for episode 3 at nite
sounds boring rite? well, it isnt that boring relly...its juz about 3 times worse....
for those interested in an account of my recent kl trip (n if u dun, i'm not ur fren):
arrived at the bus station at 3.15pm sharp...yst HAD to call to hurry me even tho i wasnt late by half a minute, a feat unsurpassed in all my outings n appointments so far....we boarded d bus n 15 mins later we were off!
d bus stopped at another station prior to leaving penang, where a few more passengers were picked up...a crazy malay guy wearing a super sexy skin-tight t-shirt (u noe those made of stocking material where u can see rite thru?)...sat next to poor han yee *snickers* prompting a quick change of seat.....
anyway...d journey passed uneventfully, tho i had to comment it was unusually cold in d bus for a day trip..cuz it was raining outside n d air cond was going on full blast inside...none of us tot of turning off d air cond until we were shivering in our jackets...
once in kl, we made a beeline for the nearest KFC. after doctoring our poor rumbling stomachs, we wandered around for a while, debating how best 2 get 2 our hotel (crown princess, whoohoo), finally deciding on taking the LRT there since its way cheaper than taxi...so after some further deliberation on the route (aided by directions from a guard at d LRT station since han yee's map was printed like 10 years ago n thus hopelessly obselete) we took the LRT to masjid jamek, then switched trains n got off at ampang park...asked for directions from a girl flirting wif a bunch of bellhops outside a hotel (yst's idea hehe)...then after bout 15 mins of lugging our half-ton baggage, arrived at crown princess. it was quite a relief to sink into the sofa in d lobby while yst n han yee went to check in....my legs were still aching from tkd on sun....then we went up to the room separately as not to arouse any suspicions (the room was booked for 2 only, so there mite b some objection to us cramming 5 ppl in...)
anyway....after dumping our stuff in d room, yst, yong shen n me decided to embark on a recon trip (mission: locate the japanese embassy). so we headed out again. reached d embassy after a 20-minute walk, then retraced our steps, stopping by a petrol station minimart to load up on cup noodles n a bottle of 100 plus (which the 3 of us managed to finish during the remainder of the walk back), n pepsi twist for the sissies back at the base. later, we showered (me wif great reluctance since i was having a taste of power at being able to repel yst at will wif my unholy fragrance) then sat down to fill in our interview forms....took the better part of 2 hrs to finish dat, n then it was lights out at 2.30am
day two began wif some idiot's alarm clock ringing at 6.30, but we got up at 7.15. han yee and i left for buffet breakfast *muahaha* while d other 3 (yst, yong shen n chee siang) had cup noodles....there was quite a good spread (for a breakfast) at the hotel restaurant but i darent eat too much....*reminds self to go for a buffet meal next holidays* then went back, we all cleaned up n got ready for action
the 20 minutes walk to the embassy turned out to be an absolute horror for 5 idiots clad in long sleeved shirts n slacks thanx to the sun which left us drenched wif sweat by the time we arrived at our destination...han yee in particular had sweat stains on his back cuz of d particular fabric of his shirt...not good since he was d 1st on d interview list. fortunately after going in (we had to give up our ICs n hps to get entrace passes..!!) the air conditioned interior quickly cooled us while we were given a brief briefing n told to fill in the annex forms which we left blank. at this point i almost literally kicked myself. we had to paste in our photos n i left my extras back at the hotel room! so in d end me n chee siang handed up the forms without photos. d secretary told us dat IF we were selected for the scholarship we wud b given a chance to paste in the photos at a later time but still...cant help feeling some slight apprehension bout it. n another thing was dat we all went into the trouble of photocopying our various cocurriculum activities certs etc n getting them certified, only to be told in d end dat we dun hv 2 hand them in....
after dat...we got intro'd to d other interviewees....imho they were much more...how do u say it...extroverted than we penangites were....prob oso becuz they were english educated...they were the get-up-to-shake-your-hands-as-soon-as-u-entered-the-room type...
all too soon, it was my turn for the interview. d interviewers consisted of 2 japs n 2 malays. n i did horribly! my voice was too low, one of the symptoms of not enuf sleep. oso i messed up a few of d questions n overall did not project the image of confidence i had hoped to display. but haih, wats done is done. but i AM going into the jap embassy wif a chainsaw if i dun get the scholarhip! haha kiddin...
anyway...later we met up back at d hotel, checked out, then lugged our stuff around ampang plaza for a while b4 lunching at mcd...here i hv 2 comment on the french-fry-eating habits of kl ppl...almost everyone in d mcd outlet dumped their fries onto the tray instead of eating it out of d cardboard box....rather weird since it wud get cold so much faster AND it leaves d fries vulnerable to incidents such as yong shen spilling his soft drink over d pile dat he, chee siang n han yee created.....
later, we yakked away one whole hr in mcd, wif topics ranging from comp games to sch teachers, then we took the LRT back to pudu. did i mention yst n i were singing old disney song throughout d day? presumably an unconscious attempt to let out some stress.....anyway we reached pudu about half n hr b4 d bus arrived, so we headed for a nearby hotel n uh...made use of its foc facilities, namely the aircond n d lobby couches :P
at 3.15pm we boarded the bus n 5 hrs later pulled into penang bus station. end of journey.
final thoughts: where HAVE all d kl chicks gone....
addendum at 2.46AM:
1. ever experienced sleeping for hours on a bus ride then reaching ur destination worn out n exhausted? i wonder y izit dat i get so tired after supposedly resting for the whole trip everytime i hv 2 take d bus to kl n back
2. 'interview syndrome' - after an interview (or similiarly stressful encounter) i end up with little or no memory of the questions asked etc.....its like my mind temporarily suspends storage to increase 'real-time processing power' to handle the situation...n i only start recalling bits n pieces of the interview days after it happened....
3. yst and i were singing old disney songs at the top of our voices (well, not relly) on the way back to pudu from the hotel....including on the LRT....
4. y m i typing meaningless stuff here when i shud b asleep.....
Sunday, June 12, 2005
To answer the Call of Duty, or to turn to the Dark Side?
finished playing Call of Duty yesterday (Fri)....n watched Episode 3 today (Sat).....
Call of Duty
well wat can i say...this has to be one of the best WWII games ever. u play as 3 separate ppl, an american paratrooper, a british soldier n a russian conscript...n u get to man gun turrets, ride vehicles (n shoot from them of cuz...shooting from a moving vehicle takes a fair amount of skill...n luck...if i may say so myself...), n even command a tank! the american n british campaigns r both great, but pales in comparison to the russian campaign....ppl who watched enemy at the gates b4....remember the opening scene in which the russian army sailed across the god-knows-wat channel n landed n rushed en masse up a hill to their deaths at the hands of german machinegunners? the 1st russian mission recreated it in all its gory glory....boats blasted out of the water all around u by dive bombers, soldiers gunned down by german fighters, bombs exploding all around u...n comrades falling by the dozen as bullets whiz past u (complete wif ricochet sounds n smoke trails)......i was more than a little stunned to learn that during WWII the russians actually supplied their soldiers wif 1 rifle per 2 persons n expected them to pick up their guns on the battlefield from dead comrades.....it was a bit weird crawling about that mission holding on to a useless clip of rifle rounds...but it all added to the realistic, historic 'feel' of the game....
n the russian tank missions....superb! mowing down trees in ur path, feeling the recoil of the big gun as u fire at enemy tanks....n blasting holes in buildings (the building models were all destructible n u can blow their walls apart to show the storeys inside)......the most memorable however (besides the 1st mission) was the retaking of uh...some very important building....u hv 2 fight till the top n plant the flag there....n it aint easy wif german machineguns blasting all around u i can assure u.....
one little point about the game dat i found both amusing n impressive was the detail on the models...u can see the expressions on the faces of the soldiers quite clearly n it was rather funny to see how the game developers made the british look like a bunch of retards, wif sloppy, lop-sided faces n uh 'spastic' movements while the russian conscripts shown in the boat during the 1st russian mission were accurately depicted as being scared to death....u noe...'fingers to the mouth full of chattery teeth' dat sort of thing.....
ok...so thats it for call of duty.....better stio b4 i get hired as a game reviewer. heh.
Episode 3
i'm quite sure i dunnit 2 write out the full name of this movie...anyone who doesnt noe wat i'm talking about has been living in the swamps of dagobah for the last 3 months or longer....
anyway....the movie was quite impressive, both visually n in terms of plot (tho most of the story we already knew ages b4 the movie was released, rite)...the audio part i dunno tho, cuz gsc as usual had a messed-up sound system n we kept hearing sound cuts n sudden changes in volume
throughout d movie....
the action sequences were damn cool to watch, esp the final battles (i.e. yoda/sidious n obiwan/vader).....the romantic scenes were as soppy n corny as ever, making me cringe n shudder, which is a great feat by any standards......the scenes dat relly evoked emotion was the jedi purge tho....cant help feeling great pity for anakin who turned to the dark side for the wrong reasons....n for the jedi who were slaughterd by their own soldiers.....*pinches self* hey, its juz a movie!
one part i did NOT like tho. mace windu's death. i agree wif jackle, it totally sucked....i mean, at least give him the credit of being slain in battle lah! shot down by lighting liddat....oso, i found it weird that 3 jedi masters were killed almost without resistance....how the heck do they select their council anyway
anyway dats it for today. juz felt i had to blog bout SOMETHING....but apart from these nothing interesting's happened in my life lately...hehe
Call of Duty
well wat can i say...this has to be one of the best WWII games ever. u play as 3 separate ppl, an american paratrooper, a british soldier n a russian conscript...n u get to man gun turrets, ride vehicles (n shoot from them of cuz...shooting from a moving vehicle takes a fair amount of skill...n luck...if i may say so myself...), n even command a tank! the american n british campaigns r both great, but pales in comparison to the russian campaign....ppl who watched enemy at the gates b4....remember the opening scene in which the russian army sailed across the god-knows-wat channel n landed n rushed en masse up a hill to their deaths at the hands of german machinegunners? the 1st russian mission recreated it in all its gory glory....boats blasted out of the water all around u by dive bombers, soldiers gunned down by german fighters, bombs exploding all around u...n comrades falling by the dozen as bullets whiz past u (complete wif ricochet sounds n smoke trails)......i was more than a little stunned to learn that during WWII the russians actually supplied their soldiers wif 1 rifle per 2 persons n expected them to pick up their guns on the battlefield from dead comrades.....it was a bit weird crawling about that mission holding on to a useless clip of rifle rounds...but it all added to the realistic, historic 'feel' of the game....
n the russian tank missions....superb! mowing down trees in ur path, feeling the recoil of the big gun as u fire at enemy tanks....n blasting holes in buildings (the building models were all destructible n u can blow their walls apart to show the storeys inside)......the most memorable however (besides the 1st mission) was the retaking of uh...some very important building....u hv 2 fight till the top n plant the flag there....n it aint easy wif german machineguns blasting all around u i can assure u.....
one little point about the game dat i found both amusing n impressive was the detail on the models...u can see the expressions on the faces of the soldiers quite clearly n it was rather funny to see how the game developers made the british look like a bunch of retards, wif sloppy, lop-sided faces n uh 'spastic' movements while the russian conscripts shown in the boat during the 1st russian mission were accurately depicted as being scared to death....u noe...'fingers to the mouth full of chattery teeth' dat sort of thing.....
ok...so thats it for call of duty.....better stio b4 i get hired as a game reviewer. heh.
Episode 3
i'm quite sure i dunnit 2 write out the full name of this movie...anyone who doesnt noe wat i'm talking about has been living in the swamps of dagobah for the last 3 months or longer....
anyway....the movie was quite impressive, both visually n in terms of plot (tho most of the story we already knew ages b4 the movie was released, rite)...the audio part i dunno tho, cuz gsc as usual had a messed-up sound system n we kept hearing sound cuts n sudden changes in volume
throughout d movie....
the action sequences were damn cool to watch, esp the final battles (i.e. yoda/sidious n obiwan/vader).....the romantic scenes were as soppy n corny as ever, making me cringe n shudder, which is a great feat by any standards......the scenes dat relly evoked emotion was the jedi purge tho....cant help feeling great pity for anakin who turned to the dark side for the wrong reasons....n for the jedi who were slaughterd by their own soldiers.....*pinches self* hey, its juz a movie!
one part i did NOT like tho. mace windu's death. i agree wif jackle, it totally sucked....i mean, at least give him the credit of being slain in battle lah! shot down by lighting liddat....oso, i found it weird that 3 jedi masters were killed almost without resistance....how the heck do they select their council anyway
anyway dats it for today. juz felt i had to blog bout SOMETHING....but apart from these nothing interesting's happened in my life lately...hehe
Friday, June 10, 2005
Need Help Guys!
ok...according to the monbuka-letter i need to produce a 'letter of recommendation from the principal' for the interview.....so this morning we went to sch 2 find mr cheah (cuz penguin sim wud not be in sch for the whole holidays) n asked him 2 write for us....n mr cheah told us to get our form teachers to write then baru he'll sign it cuz he sez he doesnt noe us personally *rolls eyes* so we asked hong sian ean to write for us (cuz coincidentally we r all taught by her) n she told us to write ourselves n then hv her look thru n sign
so in conclusion, i need to write a 'letter of recommendation' - which is something like the graduation testimonial - for myself. so uh..since i'm not particularly given to self-praise *blushes from false modesty* i'd greatly appreciate it if u guys can each uh...draft out a testi for me (but from a teacher's perspective lah)...can either post it here (!) or send to me thru msn or smth :P or if u'r too bz can juz give some tips n advice on how to write oso can :D
thanx guys!...in advance - dun make me delete this later >:(
so in conclusion, i need to write a 'letter of recommendation' - which is something like the graduation testimonial - for myself. so uh..since i'm not particularly given to self-praise *blushes from false modesty* i'd greatly appreciate it if u guys can each uh...draft out a testi for me (but from a teacher's perspective lah)...can either post it here (!) or send to me thru msn or smth :P or if u'r too bz can juz give some tips n advice on how to write oso can :D
thanx guys!...in advance - dun make me delete this later >:(
Redbox
my voice sux!!
2day went 2 redbox wif...lets see...there was me, ghee, tansri, xinch, ariel n her 2 frens hannee (pronounced 'honey' :P), siow yng (hope i got the spelling right this time)
due to lack of sleep (no really! my voice goes all wavery when i dun sleep enuf...one of the many side effects) i 'performed' quite badly today...aih....
i did however manage to sing 'i want a fat babe' to the accompaniment of the original backstreet boys song 'i want it that way' :P n it turned out quite well, if i may say so myself
halfway thru the session (around 1.30) lydia, n ariel's heartthrob bear bear aka tcy (he's oso lydia n siow yng's godbro, wow) dropped by...they stupidly came after lunch so they wasted 8 bux each for a glass of lemon tea cuz they refused to eat
y m i typing in such short paragraphs...damnit..havent been blogging enuf lately...writing skills all gone d...
anyway...notable performances included 5 consecutive singings of 爱屏才会赢 (hokkien song) by tansri, 水查卜 (oso hokkien song) by ghee, a relly cool rendition of fish leong's 勇气 by ariel n her frens (they did this choir-style multiple-voices thingy) n er...hmm...i want a fat babe by me. hehe
after redbox, ariel went 2 'pat-toh' wif her two 'lovers', while the rest of us (minus tcy n lydia who left early cuz lydia had college) visited the arcade...played 3 rounds of racing, all of which i took 1st place...hehe...then we went down to cold storage where poor ol' xinch was led thru aisle after aisle while she cud only drool n moan n gaze longingly at the rows of mouth-watering snacks on display - cuz she's on a diet...hehe too much blubber...to quote someone: "oh my god, wat flabby thighs" - then me n ghee got wat we wanted....potato snacks.....after which we went home d
phew
2day went 2 redbox wif...lets see...there was me, ghee, tansri, xinch, ariel n her 2 frens hannee (pronounced 'honey' :P), siow yng (hope i got the spelling right this time)
due to lack of sleep (no really! my voice goes all wavery when i dun sleep enuf...one of the many side effects) i 'performed' quite badly today...aih....
i did however manage to sing 'i want a fat babe' to the accompaniment of the original backstreet boys song 'i want it that way' :P n it turned out quite well, if i may say so myself
halfway thru the session (around 1.30) lydia, n ariel's heartthrob bear bear aka tcy (he's oso lydia n siow yng's godbro, wow) dropped by...they stupidly came after lunch so they wasted 8 bux each for a glass of lemon tea cuz they refused to eat
y m i typing in such short paragraphs...damnit..havent been blogging enuf lately...writing skills all gone d...
anyway...notable performances included 5 consecutive singings of 爱屏才会赢 (hokkien song) by tansri, 水查卜 (oso hokkien song) by ghee, a relly cool rendition of fish leong's 勇气 by ariel n her frens (they did this choir-style multiple-voices thingy) n er...hmm...i want a fat babe by me. hehe
after redbox, ariel went 2 'pat-toh' wif her two 'lovers', while the rest of us (minus tcy n lydia who left early cuz lydia had college) visited the arcade...played 3 rounds of racing, all of which i took 1st place...hehe...then we went down to cold storage where poor ol' xinch was led thru aisle after aisle while she cud only drool n moan n gaze longingly at the rows of mouth-watering snacks on display - cuz she's on a diet...hehe too much blubber...to quote someone: "oh my god, wat flabby thighs" - then me n ghee got wat we wanted....potato snacks.....after which we went home d
phew
Thursday, June 09, 2005
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
Monbuka Interview
well....i got it..the interview, that is, not the actual scholarship...but still it exceeds my expectations as i relly felt i did poorly on dat written test dat day. anyway i started getting my hopes up last wed when i got a foncall from the japanese embassy asking to confirm my address...i mean, surely they wudnt go confirming the addresses of every person who attended the test rite...so i thought shud be good news...n wat d'ya noe...today the letter came!
so now i hv 2 brush up on my interview skills, dig up some basic info on japanese culture etc n basically prepare for the interview..which is...NEXT TUESDAY...!! aggghh.....
"wats there to prepare anyway? its juz an interview!" one mite ask....well...i daresay i'm making a big fuss over it lah...but when ur 'future is on the line' u dun go 'play-play' wif it....
checklist of things to do:
- read up on japanese culture, mannerisms, social customs, history, n general affairs etc
(side-note: better start learning bout jap anime :P)
- read up on basic biotech-related topics..juz in case they ask
- assuming the interview is in eng, better grab hold of xinch n start doing wat SHE does best....crapping :P
- arrange transport, accomodation etc since d interview is in kl
- FIND OUT WHERE THE JAPANESE EMBASSY IS
- practice taekwondo in case i'm required to pit it against their karate or jiujutsu...
oh...n i better make sure i memorise the term 'Monbukagakusho'...it'll b a catastrophe of cosmic proportions if i go 'monbuka..monbuka...uh...' during the interview....
P.S. for fans eagerly awaiting the 1st instalment of my holiday journal, i can only offer my profuse apologies for being too engaged wif crimsonland and call of duty to er...do my duty to u all (no pun intended)
so now i hv 2 brush up on my interview skills, dig up some basic info on japanese culture etc n basically prepare for the interview..which is...NEXT TUESDAY...!! aggghh.....
"wats there to prepare anyway? its juz an interview!" one mite ask....well...i daresay i'm making a big fuss over it lah...but when ur 'future is on the line' u dun go 'play-play' wif it....
checklist of things to do:
- read up on japanese culture, mannerisms, social customs, history, n general affairs etc
(side-note: better start learning bout jap anime :P)
- read up on basic biotech-related topics..juz in case they ask
- assuming the interview is in eng, better grab hold of xinch n start doing wat SHE does best....crapping :P
- arrange transport, accomodation etc since d interview is in kl
- FIND OUT WHERE THE JAPANESE EMBASSY IS
- practice taekwondo in case i'm required to pit it against their karate or jiujutsu...
oh...n i better make sure i memorise the term 'Monbukagakusho'...it'll b a catastrophe of cosmic proportions if i go 'monbuka..monbuka...uh...' during the interview....
P.S. for fans eagerly awaiting the 1st instalment of my holiday journal, i can only offer my profuse apologies for being too engaged wif crimsonland and call of duty to er...do my duty to u all (no pun intended)
Sunday, June 05, 2005
mp3 player at last! :P
well...yesterday (sat) i went 2 the pc fair at komtar...the Canon IT Fair actually, cuz it was so small it cud hardly be called a pc fair...it was in the dome n there were extremely few ppl when i got there...prob due to bad publicity lah - they din even give out flyers or anything so i wudnt hv known bout it if i din notice one of my msn contacts 'advertising' it....
anyway...bought an mp3 player there for RM350....kinda hefty price but its 512MB n has built in voice recorder n FM radio so i guess its ok lah....plus a few other little features such as equalizer presets n 7 backlight colors :P
thinking back, i juz realised i spent a lot of money on computer n electronic stuff this year...1stly there was the dvd writer, RM400 n an optical mouse, RM50...then at the previous pc fair i bought a 200GB hdd for RM385....then yesterday bought this mp3 player...RM350...AND a stack of DVD+Rs, 20 for RM40.....aiks..i think i better start scrimping on other expenses liao
anyway...dats it lah...tonite gonna write d 1st half of my holiday journal...for my devoted readers, here's a draft of wat it will contain:
- games i played
- places i went (none!)
- ppl i met (none!)
- other stuff i did
- my study progress so far
- my plans for next week
anyway...bought an mp3 player there for RM350....kinda hefty price but its 512MB n has built in voice recorder n FM radio so i guess its ok lah....plus a few other little features such as equalizer presets n 7 backlight colors :P
thinking back, i juz realised i spent a lot of money on computer n electronic stuff this year...1stly there was the dvd writer, RM400 n an optical mouse, RM50...then at the previous pc fair i bought a 200GB hdd for RM385....then yesterday bought this mp3 player...RM350...AND a stack of DVD+Rs, 20 for RM40.....aiks..i think i better start scrimping on other expenses liao
anyway...dats it lah...tonite gonna write d 1st half of my holiday journal...for my devoted readers, here's a draft of wat it will contain:
- games i played
- places i went (none!)
- ppl i met (none!)
- other stuff i did
- my study progress so far
- my plans for next week
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