Back from New York/Washington finally!
Photos are not yet uploaded, and I'm still getting used to typing - I've not typed in a week. Anyway I also need to practise my piano, because if I don't, I will get very very screwed. The last thing on my mind is surprisingly homework, but I seriously can't be bothered. I've done my Mathematic TA, but not my Chinese homework. I can't stand to do it. Ok technically I didn't DO the Math TA, because Andrew mostly did the work. Sorry Andrew -.- Punishment: No more grouping with him anymore...
I brought back with me presents, experiences, and memories. Wonderful memories.
We actually had a standing ovation at the Carnagie Hall!!! When Mr Sze got to the stage with the other conductors, he looked a little vertically-challenged. Definitely not that much but it got some of the Secondary 2s laughing. Lol.
Day 0
The aeroplane flight took like a few days. Crap. Almost one week later I still don't know how I survived the plane flight. It was like, how long, reaching New York. The only thing I enjoyed, was most definitely the food. :) SIA food rocks my world. You get what, in the morning wonderful hashbrown, huge eggs coated with cheese and egg yolk, heavenly bacon, a bun, honeydew, rock melon, yoghurt, YUM YUM YUM.
Day 1
Upon reaching New York via Frankfurt, we started walking around after checking in into our hotel. We went to the Museum of Modern Art.
After a voting session, we had a undisputed decision - get out of MoMA. I mean, Modern music - intolerable.
Modern Art? - Forget it.
We went to Rockefeller Centre and viewed New York from the 50th storey. Very nice. :)
Times Square was like the same as in the movies, the huge billboard with MnM's world behind it, and lots and lots of shops and people.
Basically New York was as it was on TV, those sewage holes with smoke coming out of them, quite some rubbish around the dustbins, lots and lots of black marks on the floor of chewing gum, and yep, basically New York. If given a chance, I would actually live in New York. Just love it's busy attitude. :)
The main part at Carnagie Hall was a complete success. One of the best concerts in my life, and probably RISE's. A brilliant standing ovation, lots of cheers, and good audience. Just what Singapore lacks. Haiz.
AUdiences from overseas are much more open. Or rather people. Look at the girls in disco night. We had a disco in the cruise, and the American girls were all dancing like mad, with us Singaporeans basically being the shy people we always were and standing at one side. There was once where we actually joined in, almost a takeover, it was quite a couple of cool damn songs.
Just goes to show for me why listening to too much Beatles or Beegees is bad. I couldn't even stand or recognise ANY music, except for those classic ones. And one Beegees song actually played when I was leaving the boat with everyone - More than a Woman
But yep, after Carnagie the next day we went straight to Washington, visited Lincoln Memorial, the place where Martin Luther King made his famous speech. Very solemn place, although Haotian entirely made a fool of himself by laughing and falling onto the floor.
Please reflect, Haotian.
Moving on, I learnt many things in this trip. Adriel commented something which I agree, "The best way to know somebody is to travel with the person."
Quite true. No wonder there is a need for a honeymoon...
So, yep, we kicked ass for Singapore, and we did Singapore proud.
Of course, that's one for Singapore, one for RISE, and of course, one for Mr Sze.
Cheers!
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
First Day of Camp
After 3 days and 2 nights of RISE annual camp, I'm back, and I'm tired but in a fantastic mood.
RISE camp always gives me the same feeling, the way one whole bunch of us walk to j8 to eat, how we play soccer in the morning (8am-9am) and also sometimes in the evening (5-7pm). And how we would stay up so late in the night (1am-4am) to talk, chit-chat, play cards, play soccer in the classrooms and of course a night of wonderful softball in class at 1am :)
Day 1
I slept at about 1am the day before, considering how long I stayed in my Secondary 1 ACS cousin, JC 2 RJC girl cousin, and Maris Stella cousin's house. I went there at about 2pm and stayed till about 10.30pm. Crap man. I rushed home and started putting together the scoreboard that would stay in use throughout the entire camp, and my mum was busy packing for me. So that's one thank you.
Then a few hours after that I was in RI, and we were assigned our rooms at the S. Rajaratnam block. The feeling was still the same, AND the people were still the same, just that there were the extra Sec 1s. Because almost ALL of the Sec 4 2006 (currently JC 1 now) were in this camp. Shows how united we are. Seriously.
And so we cleaned up how rooms, because we would be staying there for the rest of camp.
Mr Sze started the room checks, to find bags which were unlocked and bags without locks. The EXCO swept through the rooms in S.R block while the rest and me were in the LT1, our rehearsal room for the rest of the camp.
Indeed they brought almost half a dozen bags, unlocked, no locks. So luggages were emptied, and the owners were humiliated -.-
John Lee actually opened up one of the suitcases and throwing out the underwears. Haiz, Sec 1 nowadays.
Rehearsal the rest of the time, soccer, more soccer, mcdonalds, and finally Night Games.
Day 1 Night Game was created by our conductor, Mr. Trevor Sze. And thinking about it like 5 days later, it's still really cool. It's called:
AROUND THE WORLD IN THREE HOURS
And aronud the whole RI campus in 3 hours, it was. Now there are seven continents in all, and the entire RI campus was divided into seven. He gave us this travel flight plan, this sheet of paper which has seven continents on the left, and seven continents on the top. So what is this for? It states the cost of going from one continent to the next.
For example:
Antartica Oceania Asia Europe North America South America Africa
Antartica X 10 20 40 55 10 15
Oceania X
Asia X
Europe X
North America X
South America X
Africa X
Heck you get the drift. Which means Antartica to Antartica zero cost. DUH.
Antartica to Asia, 20 bucks.
Yep, I forgot the entire travel plan and I can't place all the figures, so here goes. But anyway, our tribe, Green Team 2 got second in this Night Game. We started at the LT1 at exactly 8.00 and ended at 11pm.
Mr Sze gave us the clues as to where each continent where.
Antartica - Down South
North America - Up North
Asia - Residential
Africa - Savannah
Oceania - As the name suggests
South America - Learning
Europe - Inventions
The 'Ups' and the 'Downs' actually were for real. Down-South referred to the Lower Level of Dining Hall and Up-North referred to the Second level of Admin Block, all the way at the very top of RI. Which means the backgate there, with the busstop.
But anyway since the first continent we went to was for free, we immediately rushed to Oceania - the Swimming Pool, where the gamemasters Mr. Sze and Jonathan Liang from VJC were there. We were in fact third team, but our entire team was there, second team was sad-case.
First Challenge was to see who swim one lap of the Swimming Pool, 50m. Adriel (Sec 4) clocked faster than ShangXuan (Sec 3).
Second Challenge was to see which team dries the person up the fastest without using any clothings. So we used our hands and squeezed the water out of ShangXuan's clothes. We won on the second challenge thanks to our team spirit.
Third Challenge of Oceania was to do the Easter Island challenge. We divided ourselves into Male and Female crabs, and we had to climb down the stands of the Swimming Pool SIDE-WAYS, wet our heads in the water for the male, wet the butts for the female. I was one of the female crabs and I tell you, squatting down on the swimming pool is damn difficult.
Fourth Challenge was to tick the correct islands that can be found in Oceania. Mr Sze gave us a card with all the islands on it, and Jonathan Liang was kind enough to let us skirt through. :) There was one - Rovert Islands. Then we were like, possible, so we named it, but we screwed up. It's Trevor spelled upside-down.
The last Challenge was to finish up three cans of tuna, which we did delightfully. Yum yum. :) Fish.
We rushed next to Antartica, where Shawn Chang was the game master.
First Challenge was to eat ice-cubes - one whole carton of them. He poured the ice-cubes into one plastic box, where we stuffed our mouths with it. Ice-cubes to me tasted horrible. I mean, yuck, ice-cubes. Who wants to eat ice-cubes. We finished it.
Second Challenge was a total game of luck, we played for 15 minutes, before finally getting the correct card we wanted.
But alas, 15 minutes was too much. At 8.50, Shawn Chang received an SMS from Mr. Sze to say all those at Antartica will face bad weather because of the unforeseen circumstances. So anyone who is there 9.50 also gets it.
We waited for 10 minutes, 10 antagonizing minutes, before we headed for our next destination - South America.
Lizheng was Game Master there.
So we lost all first Challenge immediately - he asked all of us to take out our wallets and see how much money there was - we had a grand total of $180 in our pocket. Points deducted from that.
"Mr Sze told you'll not to bring so much money, now you're robbed because you're in South America."
And robbed we were. Our points were deducted by three I think.
The next challenge we had was the cheering one. We were supposed to form a cheer - we saw the other group do it - Hongrui's group, and they were like deciding for a while.
We already had a group cheer early in the morning - we formed on while we had a meeting with Yi Yang, our tribe leader.
We cheered the Greendian Cheer, and we got the full 10 points plus 2 for bonus, because it sounded good. :) And racist.
Our next destination was North America, where we had Remus and Samuel Lim as our Gamemasters.
First Challenge of North America was to drink Coke - The Land of Coke. I sipped a little, and suddenly it kind of like, tasted quite nice. Yunfei gulped the whole thing down, with Shangxuan and John Yu having similiar portions. Being a health freak I am, I didn't drink much.
Next was the Chicago Dog Dragging thing, where the two dogs were supposed to sit on newspapers while the humans dragged them. I volunteered to sit on the newspapers because I felt I wasn't really doing much, so I did, and Zhiyuan and Zhiyi were dragging me. Zhiyuan did a great job, but Zhiyi was rather lacklustre in performance thanks to the fats hanging down on his belly. My entire back was totally black thanks to the construction dust and more dust on the floor. I was dragged like about around the entire second level surrounding the LT1, which is probably about a 100 metres.
The third Challenge was to eat apples - the Big Apple. So Remus and Samuel took out one carton of apples, in which Zhiyuan readily bit one whole apple, and ShangXuan was basically OWNING, like literally owning the apples. He was like...don't know some pro apple eater, just basically finished two in less than a minute. I couldn't eat the apples thanks to my front tooth, and just a few weeks ago the dentist told me to almost totally avoid eating apples or rather use my side teeth (between the canines and the molars) to eat.
We got 6 points for that, while most teams only got 2 or 3.
THe last Challenge was to name and match the initials of the state to the state name itself - LA - Los Angeles, and much harder ones. Can't remember.
We went to Europe after that, and the GameMasters were JC2 JIngXun and JC1 Sam Tho.
Being EUrope - Science Block, we had to listen and identify music at the Austria section, smell and identify Perfumes in the French section, and match silhouettes of bats and bats in the Romanian section, and lastly identify capitals in the Misc section.
We rushed on to Africa - School Field - where we had to take off our T-shirts, and mummify ourselves. We got a terrible 2 for that. We then had to line up, 4 of us, and sing note-by-note the Queen of Sheba, one note for each of us. We got a 3 for that I think. Horrible.
THe third Challenge was for the flip-the-cards-n-match one, that one we scored 6.
And lastly, we had the Battle of the Colours, we had to produce a certain colour on our body when stated. So it was like, "yellow" - then everyone finds a certain colour on their body.
The very last continent was Asia, where I had to do a Geisha Face Painting, my whole face was covered with white, and then followed by Vietnam Tunnel Crawl, where we had a row of chairs and all of us had to crawl under the chairs. Damn tough. Like seriously. Then the final challenge was the Dart Blowing one, where we had to blow bean seeds and try to reach a distant target.
Then the entire team had to rush back to the first continent that we went to, and that was Oceania at the swimming pool. Once approved by Mr. Sze, we rushed back to the LT1 where we had a bonus 4 minutes to spare. That's four bonus points.
But at the end of the day, they calculated the points the next day, and we got second. Good job, Greendia 2!
And that's only the first day -.-
RISE camp always gives me the same feeling, the way one whole bunch of us walk to j8 to eat, how we play soccer in the morning (8am-9am) and also sometimes in the evening (5-7pm). And how we would stay up so late in the night (1am-4am) to talk, chit-chat, play cards, play soccer in the classrooms and of course a night of wonderful softball in class at 1am :)
Day 1
I slept at about 1am the day before, considering how long I stayed in my Secondary 1 ACS cousin, JC 2 RJC girl cousin, and Maris Stella cousin's house. I went there at about 2pm and stayed till about 10.30pm. Crap man. I rushed home and started putting together the scoreboard that would stay in use throughout the entire camp, and my mum was busy packing for me. So that's one thank you.
Then a few hours after that I was in RI, and we were assigned our rooms at the S. Rajaratnam block. The feeling was still the same, AND the people were still the same, just that there were the extra Sec 1s. Because almost ALL of the Sec 4 2006 (currently JC 1 now) were in this camp. Shows how united we are. Seriously.
And so we cleaned up how rooms, because we would be staying there for the rest of camp.
Mr Sze started the room checks, to find bags which were unlocked and bags without locks. The EXCO swept through the rooms in S.R block while the rest and me were in the LT1, our rehearsal room for the rest of the camp.
Indeed they brought almost half a dozen bags, unlocked, no locks. So luggages were emptied, and the owners were humiliated -.-
John Lee actually opened up one of the suitcases and throwing out the underwears. Haiz, Sec 1 nowadays.
Rehearsal the rest of the time, soccer, more soccer, mcdonalds, and finally Night Games.
Day 1 Night Game was created by our conductor, Mr. Trevor Sze. And thinking about it like 5 days later, it's still really cool. It's called:
AROUND THE WORLD IN THREE HOURS
And aronud the whole RI campus in 3 hours, it was. Now there are seven continents in all, and the entire RI campus was divided into seven. He gave us this travel flight plan, this sheet of paper which has seven continents on the left, and seven continents on the top. So what is this for? It states the cost of going from one continent to the next.
For example:
Antartica Oceania Asia Europe North America South America Africa
Antartica X 10 20 40 55 10 15
Oceania X
Asia X
Europe X
North America X
South America X
Africa X
Heck you get the drift. Which means Antartica to Antartica zero cost. DUH.
Antartica to Asia, 20 bucks.
Yep, I forgot the entire travel plan and I can't place all the figures, so here goes. But anyway, our tribe, Green Team 2 got second in this Night Game. We started at the LT1 at exactly 8.00 and ended at 11pm.
Mr Sze gave us the clues as to where each continent where.
Antartica - Down South
North America - Up North
Asia - Residential
Africa - Savannah
Oceania - As the name suggests
South America - Learning
Europe - Inventions
The 'Ups' and the 'Downs' actually were for real. Down-South referred to the Lower Level of Dining Hall and Up-North referred to the Second level of Admin Block, all the way at the very top of RI. Which means the backgate there, with the busstop.
But anyway since the first continent we went to was for free, we immediately rushed to Oceania - the Swimming Pool, where the gamemasters Mr. Sze and Jonathan Liang from VJC were there. We were in fact third team, but our entire team was there, second team was sad-case.
First Challenge was to see who swim one lap of the Swimming Pool, 50m. Adriel (Sec 4) clocked faster than ShangXuan (Sec 3).
Second Challenge was to see which team dries the person up the fastest without using any clothings. So we used our hands and squeezed the water out of ShangXuan's clothes. We won on the second challenge thanks to our team spirit.
Third Challenge of Oceania was to do the Easter Island challenge. We divided ourselves into Male and Female crabs, and we had to climb down the stands of the Swimming Pool SIDE-WAYS, wet our heads in the water for the male, wet the butts for the female. I was one of the female crabs and I tell you, squatting down on the swimming pool is damn difficult.
Fourth Challenge was to tick the correct islands that can be found in Oceania. Mr Sze gave us a card with all the islands on it, and Jonathan Liang was kind enough to let us skirt through. :) There was one - Rovert Islands. Then we were like, possible, so we named it, but we screwed up. It's Trevor spelled upside-down.
The last Challenge was to finish up three cans of tuna, which we did delightfully. Yum yum. :) Fish.
We rushed next to Antartica, where Shawn Chang was the game master.
First Challenge was to eat ice-cubes - one whole carton of them. He poured the ice-cubes into one plastic box, where we stuffed our mouths with it. Ice-cubes to me tasted horrible. I mean, yuck, ice-cubes. Who wants to eat ice-cubes. We finished it.
Second Challenge was a total game of luck, we played for 15 minutes, before finally getting the correct card we wanted.
But alas, 15 minutes was too much. At 8.50, Shawn Chang received an SMS from Mr. Sze to say all those at Antartica will face bad weather because of the unforeseen circumstances. So anyone who is there 9.50 also gets it.
We waited for 10 minutes, 10 antagonizing minutes, before we headed for our next destination - South America.
Lizheng was Game Master there.
So we lost all first Challenge immediately - he asked all of us to take out our wallets and see how much money there was - we had a grand total of $180 in our pocket. Points deducted from that.
"Mr Sze told you'll not to bring so much money, now you're robbed because you're in South America."
And robbed we were. Our points were deducted by three I think.
The next challenge we had was the cheering one. We were supposed to form a cheer - we saw the other group do it - Hongrui's group, and they were like deciding for a while.
We already had a group cheer early in the morning - we formed on while we had a meeting with Yi Yang, our tribe leader.
We cheered the Greendian Cheer, and we got the full 10 points plus 2 for bonus, because it sounded good. :) And racist.
Our next destination was North America, where we had Remus and Samuel Lim as our Gamemasters.
First Challenge of North America was to drink Coke - The Land of Coke. I sipped a little, and suddenly it kind of like, tasted quite nice. Yunfei gulped the whole thing down, with Shangxuan and John Yu having similiar portions. Being a health freak I am, I didn't drink much.
Next was the Chicago Dog Dragging thing, where the two dogs were supposed to sit on newspapers while the humans dragged them. I volunteered to sit on the newspapers because I felt I wasn't really doing much, so I did, and Zhiyuan and Zhiyi were dragging me. Zhiyuan did a great job, but Zhiyi was rather lacklustre in performance thanks to the fats hanging down on his belly. My entire back was totally black thanks to the construction dust and more dust on the floor. I was dragged like about around the entire second level surrounding the LT1, which is probably about a 100 metres.
The third Challenge was to eat apples - the Big Apple. So Remus and Samuel took out one carton of apples, in which Zhiyuan readily bit one whole apple, and ShangXuan was basically OWNING, like literally owning the apples. He was like...don't know some pro apple eater, just basically finished two in less than a minute. I couldn't eat the apples thanks to my front tooth, and just a few weeks ago the dentist told me to almost totally avoid eating apples or rather use my side teeth (between the canines and the molars) to eat.
We got 6 points for that, while most teams only got 2 or 3.
THe last Challenge was to name and match the initials of the state to the state name itself - LA - Los Angeles, and much harder ones. Can't remember.
We went to Europe after that, and the GameMasters were JC2 JIngXun and JC1 Sam Tho.
Being EUrope - Science Block, we had to listen and identify music at the Austria section, smell and identify Perfumes in the French section, and match silhouettes of bats and bats in the Romanian section, and lastly identify capitals in the Misc section.
We rushed on to Africa - School Field - where we had to take off our T-shirts, and mummify ourselves. We got a terrible 2 for that. We then had to line up, 4 of us, and sing note-by-note the Queen of Sheba, one note for each of us. We got a 3 for that I think. Horrible.
THe third Challenge was for the flip-the-cards-n-match one, that one we scored 6.
And lastly, we had the Battle of the Colours, we had to produce a certain colour on our body when stated. So it was like, "yellow" - then everyone finds a certain colour on their body.
The very last continent was Asia, where I had to do a Geisha Face Painting, my whole face was covered with white, and then followed by Vietnam Tunnel Crawl, where we had a row of chairs and all of us had to crawl under the chairs. Damn tough. Like seriously. Then the final challenge was the Dart Blowing one, where we had to blow bean seeds and try to reach a distant target.
Then the entire team had to rush back to the first continent that we went to, and that was Oceania at the swimming pool. Once approved by Mr. Sze, we rushed back to the LT1 where we had a bonus 4 minutes to spare. That's four bonus points.
But at the end of the day, they calculated the points the next day, and we got second. Good job, Greendia 2!
And that's only the first day -.-
Friday, June 1, 2007
Dental, Kindness, and Team Spirit
And yes how I seriously wish MEP Camp could go on...and on without the workshops.
Special thanks to these people:
From the MGS camp - Marisa, Hilary, Cheryl
From the ACS camp - Timothy, Chuanxi, Kapilan, and Jackson
From the RI camp - Zhiyi, Zhiyi, Zhiyi
Probably among the best days I had!
Today I went for a dental check-up. My gag reflex kicked in during the 3 X-rays I had. The male nurse placed this blue plastic spiky straw in my mouth to keep it open, then asked me to bite very hard, and "don't open! Close your eyes!" He ran behind this shield wall and the machine went "BEEP!"
So the whole process repeated three times, and by the third time my eyes were filled with tears from the gagging. But I knew how to control the reflex already though.
After the whole talk with my doctor Dr. Andrew and the nurse I went outside for the confirmation of my next appointment. Then I had a long debate with my mother in full view of the receptionist and the other patients.
"Can't have it on Wednesday! I have my rehearsals!"
"Where got rehearsal on Wednesday one huh? I need proof of your rehearsal!"
"But no, not Monday Wednesday Friday. Nurse, can you give me on 2 and 4s only"
"No Nurse, anytime also can"
"No Nurse, 2s and 4s. Yes, Tuesdays and Thursday. No Mondays Wednesdays Fridays"
"..."
"No Mondays Wednesdays Fridays"
Meanwhile the Nurse turns head to and fro from me to my mum.
We finally settled on September the 6, which was quite amusing for the Nurse because it's so far away.
Happens to be my mom and dad's wedding anniversary!
Then we proceeded to OG, when upon noticing the guy's badge at the entrance upside-down, I felt disturbed.
We continued walking around People's Park for satin, but it was SOOooo boring, and almost everyone I saw were old people. Excluding my mum.
I went back to the entrance guy and I told him that his badge was not correctly placed. He had this to say.
"I know, I just don't want people to see my name or else they will complain about me."
"Huh?" (Music of Beegees's Nights on Broadway plays)
"Later people see my name then complain about me."
...SO this guy has complaints against him? Weird.
He continued in a not-so-jokingly tone. "No lah, just kidding. Thanks anyway"
"Hey ok no problem."
FOllowing that I got a scolding from my mum about being so kay-poh. What? Was I doing any wrong? Besides right beneath his name tag was a "Be Kind Singapore" orange circular badge. Around those lines lah. But anyway, how ironic.
Now I know why ACS(I) beat RI in rugby, or in any other sports. That's because in ACS(I), they're camaradarie is very strong. In case people don't know what camaradarie means, it means team spirit. Probably like espirit' de corp.
To all Rafflesians: We're too focused on acheiving our own goals till we do not bother about the feelings of others anymore. We must strengthen our friendships, our team spirit, our school spirit. There is no more Rafflesian Spirit, only the Thinker, Leader, and the Pioneer.
This is the only thing we must improve before we can go on to triumph over other schools. The technique is there, the spirit is not!
Rafflesians, let's rise to the call!
Special thanks to these people:
From the MGS camp - Marisa, Hilary, Cheryl
From the ACS camp - Timothy, Chuanxi, Kapilan, and Jackson
From the RI camp - Zhiyi, Zhiyi, Zhiyi
Probably among the best days I had!
Today I went for a dental check-up. My gag reflex kicked in during the 3 X-rays I had. The male nurse placed this blue plastic spiky straw in my mouth to keep it open, then asked me to bite very hard, and "don't open! Close your eyes!" He ran behind this shield wall and the machine went "BEEP!"
So the whole process repeated three times, and by the third time my eyes were filled with tears from the gagging. But I knew how to control the reflex already though.
After the whole talk with my doctor Dr. Andrew and the nurse I went outside for the confirmation of my next appointment. Then I had a long debate with my mother in full view of the receptionist and the other patients.
"Can't have it on Wednesday! I have my rehearsals!"
"Where got rehearsal on Wednesday one huh? I need proof of your rehearsal!"
"But no, not Monday Wednesday Friday. Nurse, can you give me on 2 and 4s only"
"No Nurse, anytime also can"
"No Nurse, 2s and 4s. Yes, Tuesdays and Thursday. No Mondays Wednesdays Fridays"
"..."
"No Mondays Wednesdays Fridays"
Meanwhile the Nurse turns head to and fro from me to my mum.
We finally settled on September the 6, which was quite amusing for the Nurse because it's so far away.
Happens to be my mom and dad's wedding anniversary!
Then we proceeded to OG, when upon noticing the guy's badge at the entrance upside-down, I felt disturbed.
We continued walking around People's Park for satin, but it was SOOooo boring, and almost everyone I saw were old people. Excluding my mum.
I went back to the entrance guy and I told him that his badge was not correctly placed. He had this to say.
"I know, I just don't want people to see my name or else they will complain about me."
"Huh?" (Music of Beegees's Nights on Broadway plays)
"Later people see my name then complain about me."
...SO this guy has complaints against him? Weird.
He continued in a not-so-jokingly tone. "No lah, just kidding. Thanks anyway"
"Hey ok no problem."
FOllowing that I got a scolding from my mum about being so kay-poh. What? Was I doing any wrong? Besides right beneath his name tag was a "Be Kind Singapore" orange circular badge. Around those lines lah. But anyway, how ironic.
Now I know why ACS(I) beat RI in rugby, or in any other sports. That's because in ACS(I), they're camaradarie is very strong. In case people don't know what camaradarie means, it means team spirit. Probably like espirit' de corp.
To all Rafflesians: We're too focused on acheiving our own goals till we do not bother about the feelings of others anymore. We must strengthen our friendships, our team spirit, our school spirit. There is no more Rafflesian Spirit, only the Thinker, Leader, and the Pioneer.
This is the only thing we must improve before we can go on to triumph over other schools. The technique is there, the spirit is not!
Rafflesians, let's rise to the call!
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
MEP camp
Just came back from MEP Camp! The MGS girls and ACS(I) guys rocked!
The lessons were boring - I only attended 3: Dance, IT, Music Therapy.I thought Dance was the most intersting one, followed by Music Therapy. Talked to lots of ACS(I) guys, they are in fact just like RI guys, just that there are I think, more gays.
Then MGS there was Hilary and Marisa and Cheryl, damn fun lot. Cheryl and ChuanXi are both some jokers lah but the whole thing was quite fun especially when the whole group tell very lame jokes. :)
Zhiyi was quite a laughing point in my group throughout the 2 days - the Laughing Machine as named by the ACS guys. I didn't really bother to defend Zhiyi, considering during group meeting he was eating chocolates and reading newspaper and sucking lolippops, and he got Ben Low pissed for the first time :)
Then ya, we did a lot of fun stuff, gotta change my view of ACS students.
I'll give the camp part a 7/10, the meeting friends definitely earn a 9/10.
Unfortunately I didn't talk much to the other TKGS people, they were basically like...bo chap I think, and I didn't even see a single st. nicks girl in our group.
Passed Tiffany the Czerny book that carved me into a technique person, asked her to practise Hanon, I'm teaching her FOC, but we're still finding a place for lesson.
Going to practise piano, be back at 10 to watch Planet Earth, 12 to watch Inuyasha.
The lessons were boring - I only attended 3: Dance, IT, Music Therapy.I thought Dance was the most intersting one, followed by Music Therapy. Talked to lots of ACS(I) guys, they are in fact just like RI guys, just that there are I think, more gays.
Then MGS there was Hilary and Marisa and Cheryl, damn fun lot. Cheryl and ChuanXi are both some jokers lah but the whole thing was quite fun especially when the whole group tell very lame jokes. :)
Zhiyi was quite a laughing point in my group throughout the 2 days - the Laughing Machine as named by the ACS guys. I didn't really bother to defend Zhiyi, considering during group meeting he was eating chocolates and reading newspaper and sucking lolippops, and he got Ben Low pissed for the first time :)
Then ya, we did a lot of fun stuff, gotta change my view of ACS students.
I'll give the camp part a 7/10, the meeting friends definitely earn a 9/10.
Unfortunately I didn't talk much to the other TKGS people, they were basically like...bo chap I think, and I didn't even see a single st. nicks girl in our group.
Passed Tiffany the Czerny book that carved me into a technique person, asked her to practise Hanon, I'm teaching her FOC, but we're still finding a place for lesson.
Going to practise piano, be back at 10 to watch Planet Earth, 12 to watch Inuyasha.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Raffles the Desolate world
This is my schedule for weeks, in case anyone doesn't know:
Monday - CCA till 6.30pm, 8-10pm practise piano, often going to 11 plus
Tuesday - Tuition till 5.30pm, 8-10pm practise piano
Wednesday - CCA till 6.30pm, 8-10pm practise piano, Planet Earth at 10
Thursday - MEP till 5.30pm, practise piano (optional)
Friday - CCA till the cows go home (6.30pm around there?)Sleep, thanks to the loss, practise cello till 12am
Saturday - Cello lesson at 1, Viva Voce Lesson at 4.30
Sunday - Piano (literally whole day because I start practising at 10am all the way to 2pm my piano lesson, which goes till 5.30pm thanks to Yellow River Piano Concerto.
Jonathanday - Some day which I need for the rest of the stuff I have to do - HOMEWORK, ASSIGNMENTS, MUGGING
So if that day does not exist, then too bad.
But anyway I've just done my Mathematics Topical Assessment, and I just lost 1/2 a mark thanks to me not putting a statement. So my dreams of a full mark paper being returned to my hands wouldn't exist anymore. Just like Jonathanday! 11.5/12. Haiz.
I'm surprised that people do use some of my favourite lines:
lagi best (again best) - bryan
(insert name) is hebrew for (insert expletive, noun) - everyone
for eg. Mrs Tan is hebrew for nice and too kind! But sometimes it gets more vulgar than that.
I'm probably having an average sleeping time of 5 hours, like all Rafflesians do. Looking at Jun Sean sleeping beside me on the table today, I suddenly realised how tough the environment we are in.
From the outside, it is very...just very nice-looking, an ideal school any Primary 6 would want to go into. But honestly behind the scenes, Raffles Institution is a desolate, sarcastic hinterland, where the strongest survive and the weak wither. After 3 years some of them have indeed turned actual gays, which goes to show how much we are exposed to the outside world.
Then some of us lose our emotions, and from a nice kid have turned into a gangster-looking person, vulgarities scattering everywhere. Raffles? You're kidding me man. Of course I'm not. We look for ANYTHING to play with, those who are still sensible enough for play. We try to twist and turn with the rules, when soccer balls aren't allowed in class, and basketballs simply damage more projectors, we resort to the balloon.
So there would be the volleyball(oon). Crap lah. Now you know what is being the walls in Raffles.
I've been transformed. Nooo!!!
Currently I'm feeling very lethargic. Like after taking a hot bath and sitting under a fan, that, nothing-to-do feeling.
I feel like I'm going crazy!!!
I've adopted a new motto: Always be happy! :)
Monday - CCA till 6.30pm, 8-10pm practise piano, often going to 11 plus
Tuesday - Tuition till 5.30pm, 8-10pm practise piano
Wednesday - CCA till 6.30pm, 8-10pm practise piano, Planet Earth at 10
Thursday - MEP till 5.30pm, practise piano (optional)
Friday - CCA till the cows go home (6.30pm around there?)Sleep, thanks to the loss, practise cello till 12am
Saturday - Cello lesson at 1, Viva Voce Lesson at 4.30
Sunday - Piano (literally whole day because I start practising at 10am all the way to 2pm my piano lesson, which goes till 5.30pm thanks to Yellow River Piano Concerto.
Jonathanday - Some day which I need for the rest of the stuff I have to do - HOMEWORK, ASSIGNMENTS, MUGGING
So if that day does not exist, then too bad.
But anyway I've just done my Mathematics Topical Assessment, and I just lost 1/2 a mark thanks to me not putting a statement. So my dreams of a full mark paper being returned to my hands wouldn't exist anymore. Just like Jonathanday! 11.5/12. Haiz.
I'm surprised that people do use some of my favourite lines:
lagi best (again best) - bryan
(insert name) is hebrew for (insert expletive, noun) - everyone
for eg. Mrs Tan is hebrew for nice and too kind! But sometimes it gets more vulgar than that.
I'm probably having an average sleeping time of 5 hours, like all Rafflesians do. Looking at Jun Sean sleeping beside me on the table today, I suddenly realised how tough the environment we are in.
From the outside, it is very...just very nice-looking, an ideal school any Primary 6 would want to go into. But honestly behind the scenes, Raffles Institution is a desolate, sarcastic hinterland, where the strongest survive and the weak wither. After 3 years some of them have indeed turned actual gays, which goes to show how much we are exposed to the outside world.
Then some of us lose our emotions, and from a nice kid have turned into a gangster-looking person, vulgarities scattering everywhere. Raffles? You're kidding me man. Of course I'm not. We look for ANYTHING to play with, those who are still sensible enough for play. We try to twist and turn with the rules, when soccer balls aren't allowed in class, and basketballs simply damage more projectors, we resort to the balloon.
So there would be the volleyball(oon). Crap lah. Now you know what is being the walls in Raffles.
I've been transformed. Nooo!!!
Currently I'm feeling very lethargic. Like after taking a hot bath and sitting under a fan, that, nothing-to-do feeling.
I feel like I'm going crazy!!!
I've adopted a new motto: Always be happy! :)
Sunday, May 20, 2007
English Blog Portfolio: Stop Flaming!
It's everywhere, like a virus people are happy to be infected with.
It's inside, something people are not conscious about.
It's wrong, and it will always be.
It's called flaming.
(Don't start word count yet.)
I've seen lots and lots of flaming, but surprisingly none of been directed to me after 4 years of blogging. Ok maybe some, thanks to my tactless speech.
But in any case I've never flamed anyone before except for my mum, which I've have stopped after reading this newspaper report.
It's everywhere, like a virus people are happy to be infected with.
It's inside, something people are not conscious about.
It's wrong, and it will always be.
It's called flaming.
I've seen lots and lots of flaming, but surprisingly none of been directed to me after 4 years of blogging. Ok maybe some, thanks to my tactless speech.
Many of the flamers I see are female. No, I'm not a chauvinistic pig or anything, it's probably something to do with the female traits. Often, at the age of fifteen, girls' emotions are very unstable. They climb to a hyperactive state, and in minutes, even seconds, their world can be turned upside down - they turn depressed, they turn confused, and worst of all, they turn tactless. When I say tactless, I mean the extreme in this case.
Thanks to the hormones, they often turn depress. Some of them no longer care for their surroundings; their parents, their relatives, their friends. And as this newspaper reports states, "Teachers, classmates, parents - anyone that upsets them - they are all fair targets."
But this does not only apply for girls. I'm just saying that while all of us are growing, the female gender sometimes are more harsher.
This newspaper report has come at a very good time, considering these days chatrooms, tagboards, and MSN have been so accessible - especially to adolescents, people like me. Emotions run high, and often people are not conscious of what they are doing.
They do not know the consequences, the hurt, the wounds they are making.
They deserve it? Well you can talk to the person face to face - is there a need to publicise it and embarrass him?
He embarrassed you? Well you can always tell him that you don't like what he said, and ask him to apologise, simple as that. Vice Versa. What is so hard? Is pride a matter here? Someone has to give way, and why not you?
This sudden issue about flaming was raised after a classmate of the girl Debra who drowned in a canel (bless her soul) said that she deserved to die, because she was a bully.
Yes, we can understand the part about you hating your bully, but isn't branding him with horrible words behind his back too dishonourable? Much less a person who can no longer talk, who can no longer plead for innocence, who can no longer argue his case?
Last year I had Shawn bullying me for almost the entire year, but I did talk to him, and with the power of words alone, he stopped bullying me. Just words. Face-to-face. And no hard feelings at the end; we understood each other and we were no longer enemies. It always pays to be everyone's friend, to smile everyday and greet everyone without the fear of being ignored and threatened.
Being already fifteen years old, we are all starting to mature and grow up. Very soon, we are all going to be working adults, proud adults, and maybe even parents. Are we all still going to be childish, posting anonymous insults and blackmailing others? Are we still going to be flaming?
And are we going to transform this technology under our fingertips and the power of words as tools of destruction, destroying others' future and reputation.
Stop flaming today. Use the power of honesty and words to rebuild friendship.
Stop hurting people now.
The inevitable statement comes next: But he did it to me first!
I shall then end of with this famous statement: Do not unto others what you want others not to do unto you.
(604 words)
Come on everybody! Your blog is used to share your troubles with everyone, not for spreading trouble to everyone!
Stay happy always, my readers!
It's inside, something people are not conscious about.
It's wrong, and it will always be.
It's called flaming.
(Don't start word count yet.)
I've seen lots and lots of flaming, but surprisingly none of been directed to me after 4 years of blogging. Ok maybe some, thanks to my tactless speech.
But in any case I've never flamed anyone before except for my mum, which I've have stopped after reading this newspaper report.
It's everywhere, like a virus people are happy to be infected with.
It's inside, something people are not conscious about.
It's wrong, and it will always be.
It's called flaming.
I've seen lots and lots of flaming, but surprisingly none of been directed to me after 4 years of blogging. Ok maybe some, thanks to my tactless speech.
Many of the flamers I see are female. No, I'm not a chauvinistic pig or anything, it's probably something to do with the female traits. Often, at the age of fifteen, girls' emotions are very unstable. They climb to a hyperactive state, and in minutes, even seconds, their world can be turned upside down - they turn depressed, they turn confused, and worst of all, they turn tactless. When I say tactless, I mean the extreme in this case.
Thanks to the hormones, they often turn depress. Some of them no longer care for their surroundings; their parents, their relatives, their friends. And as this newspaper reports states, "Teachers, classmates, parents - anyone that upsets them - they are all fair targets."
But this does not only apply for girls. I'm just saying that while all of us are growing, the female gender sometimes are more harsher.
This newspaper report has come at a very good time, considering these days chatrooms, tagboards, and MSN have been so accessible - especially to adolescents, people like me. Emotions run high, and often people are not conscious of what they are doing.
They do not know the consequences, the hurt, the wounds they are making.
They deserve it? Well you can talk to the person face to face - is there a need to publicise it and embarrass him?
He embarrassed you? Well you can always tell him that you don't like what he said, and ask him to apologise, simple as that. Vice Versa. What is so hard? Is pride a matter here? Someone has to give way, and why not you?
This sudden issue about flaming was raised after a classmate of the girl Debra who drowned in a canel (bless her soul) said that she deserved to die, because she was a bully.
Yes, we can understand the part about you hating your bully, but isn't branding him with horrible words behind his back too dishonourable? Much less a person who can no longer talk, who can no longer plead for innocence, who can no longer argue his case?
Last year I had Shawn bullying me for almost the entire year, but I did talk to him, and with the power of words alone, he stopped bullying me. Just words. Face-to-face. And no hard feelings at the end; we understood each other and we were no longer enemies. It always pays to be everyone's friend, to smile everyday and greet everyone without the fear of being ignored and threatened.
Being already fifteen years old, we are all starting to mature and grow up. Very soon, we are all going to be working adults, proud adults, and maybe even parents. Are we all still going to be childish, posting anonymous insults and blackmailing others? Are we still going to be flaming?
And are we going to transform this technology under our fingertips and the power of words as tools of destruction, destroying others' future and reputation.
Stop flaming today. Use the power of honesty and words to rebuild friendship.
Stop hurting people now.
The inevitable statement comes next: But he did it to me first!
I shall then end of with this famous statement: Do not unto others what you want others not to do unto you.
(604 words)
Come on everybody! Your blog is used to share your troubles with everyone, not for spreading trouble to everyone!
Stay happy always, my readers!
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Women
My mum just bought a new phone. Panasonic, I see.
A wireless cordless phone that costs $300. I wonder what technology will bring next! Hmmm...Wireless Computer? We already have that. It's called the laptop.
So my mum is now busy calling EVERYONE to tell them about the new phone. My aunts in fact.
Talking about my aunts. :) They're a nice lot. Let's picture this. Imagine 5 women standing together. We call them 2nd aunt, 3rd aunt, 5th aunt and blah.
So five women. Ji-yi, Sa-yi, Xi-yi (That's my mum), Gor-yi, Beh-yi (youngest aunt?)
All the prefixes are actually numbers in Hokkien, I left out the first (Dua-yi, meaning big aunt) because she doesn't frequent with the other aunts.
And the 3rd aunt usually stays with my grandmother, and both of them have super strong personalities. They always say not to have two tigers in one house. Which is very true, after a kitchen fight during the Chinese New Year in vacation this year.
:)
So anyway recently I went shopping with four of them, the four being my mum, third aunt, fifth aunt and sixth aunt. And gosh, you would have loved it.
Let me help you picture this, as I always do best.
I shall translate all into English for the benefit of my readers, although its a huge mixture of CHinese, Hokkien, and very little English.
(And so I arrive with my mum at Parco Bugis outside the foodcourt. I never talked throughout, just followed. Regretted it though ;) )
"Eh? We wait for so long now then you come."
"Ya loh. WHere do we go now?"
"I haven't eat yet, let's go eat lah!"
"DOn't want lah, we are going to look at Chinese teacups right?" (the aunty kind)
"Aiyah, might as well go eat. Let's go."
(After 10 minutes, and walking three rounds around those small shops, never once entering food court.)
"Let's go in now."
(wth? So we stepped in, and another problem ensued. We took about 5 minutes to look for a seat, a couple of raised arms to show the spot, and a couple of head shaking, and pointing to another spot. Finally we settled on one spot.)
"WHat do you want to eat?"
"Fried rice lorh."
"Don't want lah! So oily. U want to die ah?"
(I said I never talked once throughout, just followed)
"ok then the chicken rice leh?"
Blahblah.
(After sitting on the same spot for 15 minutes. THe aunties break groups and start finding for food. I sit at the table and help them jaga.)
But anyway what I'm trying to show here is how indecisive women can get. For one moment, they really wanna do it. Then in the next moment, poof, they take a large U-turn and make those around them suffer. I'm saying this only from looking at the behavior of my mum and my aunts.
After all, they are a nice bunch of people. And I still have my blog article to do. Crap. Wait. Isn't the flaming one considered as one? I shall remodel it later. :)
A wireless cordless phone that costs $300. I wonder what technology will bring next! Hmmm...Wireless Computer? We already have that. It's called the laptop.
So my mum is now busy calling EVERYONE to tell them about the new phone. My aunts in fact.
Talking about my aunts. :) They're a nice lot. Let's picture this. Imagine 5 women standing together. We call them 2nd aunt, 3rd aunt, 5th aunt and blah.
So five women. Ji-yi, Sa-yi, Xi-yi (That's my mum), Gor-yi, Beh-yi (youngest aunt?)
All the prefixes are actually numbers in Hokkien, I left out the first (Dua-yi, meaning big aunt) because she doesn't frequent with the other aunts.
And the 3rd aunt usually stays with my grandmother, and both of them have super strong personalities. They always say not to have two tigers in one house. Which is very true, after a kitchen fight during the Chinese New Year in vacation this year.
:)
So anyway recently I went shopping with four of them, the four being my mum, third aunt, fifth aunt and sixth aunt. And gosh, you would have loved it.
Let me help you picture this, as I always do best.
I shall translate all into English for the benefit of my readers, although its a huge mixture of CHinese, Hokkien, and very little English.
(And so I arrive with my mum at Parco Bugis outside the foodcourt. I never talked throughout, just followed. Regretted it though ;) )
"Eh? We wait for so long now then you come."
"Ya loh. WHere do we go now?"
"I haven't eat yet, let's go eat lah!"
"DOn't want lah, we are going to look at Chinese teacups right?" (the aunty kind)
"Aiyah, might as well go eat. Let's go."
(After 10 minutes, and walking three rounds around those small shops, never once entering food court.)
"Let's go in now."
(wth? So we stepped in, and another problem ensued. We took about 5 minutes to look for a seat, a couple of raised arms to show the spot, and a couple of head shaking, and pointing to another spot. Finally we settled on one spot.)
"WHat do you want to eat?"
"Fried rice lorh."
"Don't want lah! So oily. U want to die ah?"
(I said I never talked once throughout, just followed)
"ok then the chicken rice leh?"
Blahblah.
(After sitting on the same spot for 15 minutes. THe aunties break groups and start finding for food. I sit at the table and help them jaga.)
But anyway what I'm trying to show here is how indecisive women can get. For one moment, they really wanna do it. Then in the next moment, poof, they take a large U-turn and make those around them suffer. I'm saying this only from looking at the behavior of my mum and my aunts.
After all, they are a nice bunch of people. And I still have my blog article to do. Crap. Wait. Isn't the flaming one considered as one? I shall remodel it later. :)
Thursday, May 17, 2007
War and Peace
The day starts as usual. Nothing special, nothing different, nothing out of the ordinary. That is what it always had been - yesterday, today, tomorrow, and the days that will almost soon lead to the end of our lives. Or at least, my life. We go through the pace of life together, walk through the never-ending hills and slopes of life together, and even see paths which stop - some abruptly, some gradually.
Everyone has their own journey to walk through, but all of our journeys are different. Different in terms of length, in terms of smoothness. Not one is the same.
I picked up a cup of the usual morning Milo and read the daily news.
"GDP expected to climb 2% by 1st quarter"
"Murderer found stucked in a toilet bowl"
The news soon gets more gloomy - deaths are inevitable after all.
"Man found dead in park"
"Boy beheads mum after argument"
Indeed, some journeys are tougher and more rockier, while some are quick and shorter. I'd prefer mine to be peaceful and long - who wouldn't want to live just a little longer?
I remembered a piece of news that shocked the world and produced a world shocker - the September 11 attacks. The impact was great and terrible; the stocks were falling, and the economy could hardly coped. I was in my own world at that time, in my hometown of Singapore where our security was tight and our government was efficient. It soon turned out to be both an advantage and disadvantage. I wouldn't really want to see the Esplanade being reduced to a pile of durian/metal spikes and burning remains. But it will soon lead to the ignorance of the outside world, the inability to feel the pain and loss felt by so many thousands and millions outside.
No, I'm not contemplating to reduce our durian into burnt-out shells and seeds while sipping my Milo - I'm thinking of how aware we are; not just us Singaporeans, but in fact the entire global population, about who is suffereing out there, beyond our cosy 5-room flats.
I remember another news - the death of Princess Diana. That was in 1997, where I was just a mere Primary 2 boy who has no ambition except for the usual "doctor" or "lawyer". I remembered the big hooha over it, and I learnt the word that could set any parents grinning - "paparazzi". Quite a long word for a small kid like me. But my grasp of English was not as good as my grasp of the world around me. I would later learn a famous and wonderful quote -
"One death is a tragedy. Many deaths are just numbers."
Winston Churchill said this during the Second World War, and indeed, it was very true.
From then on, I started thinking about war; not the weapons and machineries, but the meaning of war. It didn't really meant much to me, like how Princess Diana crashed on the 14th pillar of a expressway in Paris (I saw the pillar during a package tour of Europe when I was 10) meant anything to me. It didn't. All I had to do was to work hard for my studies - could Diana improve my Mathematics? No she couldn't. So she wasn't really a big deal for me at that time.
But there will come an age where knowledge of the world would help me in my Mathematics - or Geography and History, for that matter. I had arrived at that age, and I had started thinking. I thought of many different things. Who started the war? Why was this war neccesary? Why must they fight the war?
And then came the ultimate question - Why is there war?
As a citizen of well-protected Singapore, I don't understand the meaning of war, I've never been in a war, and I shall never hope to. War is bad, they always say. I often go on my "shameless" rounds, asking strangers the same question - "Why is there war?"
Often I get the same conversation:
"To end conflicts."
"But why can't they do it peacefully?"
"Because the other party refuses to comply?"
"Why must the other party comply? Why can't everyone sort out their differences, and live in peace and harmony?"
"Look I have no time, maybe you should get the Power Rangers to answer your question."
I know it's very cliched - having everyone to live in peace and harmony. I learnt from Social Studies that everyone is different, just like how everyone's lives are different, with the ups and the common downs. Some religions allow their people to eat pork, while some religions do not. Some people share their things while others don't.
I learnt from 3 years of philosophy that there's only one way to solve the problem of the existence of war and to bring peace - universal concensus. I have used the term many times in my essays, and it is always the most important factor. But impossible. Important by impossible.
Let's look at it this way, my young apprentice. If we were all to think the same, morally correct, that is, which means that we would both share our items, that would be no more conflicts. There would be no more school arguments about how selfish he is and how stingy he is. All of us would leave in peace.
But it's impossible. That's why we still have wars today. So how do we solve the problem? There is no direct way to solve the problem, honestly. The best we could do is to move as closely as possible to world peace and harmony, and being able to help each other to sustain life.
Wait. If school children are able to solve the problem of arguments, why not the United States and Iran, to give one example? That's easy. School children solve it through fights, the United States and Iran will solve it with war. We're back in Square One.
So why can't school children settle it through peaceful means? Well, some do, definitely. We sign childish treaties and shake hands like how the adults do it.
But only some, not all.
Not all of us can solve conflicts just by words and a shaking of the hands. At some point of time one of the parties would act, which would thus appear in tomorrow's paper - "America declares war on Iraq"
So, is there really no other way to stop the fighting and conflicts? If they were children, it's ok. The child stage is a stage for the child to grow up, obviously, into any adult. We don't see headlines like - "6 year old child kills friend after friend refuses to lend a pencilbox" So I guess that isn't really counted as a war. But adults? Shouldn't adults be able to think more carefully, more logically?
As I mentioned in one of the paragraphs just now, I believe we should all help each other as friends, as survivors of the Earth, and that all of us should only die of one cause - disease or old age.
Let's look to the past; Hitler killing Jews because they were "inferior"? Who says they were inferior? They were just like any humans - and as I said, all humans are different. You certainly don't kill your mum just because she's a woman. In fact, you should try to spend your life with her properly. And when the old move on, one should be both happy and sad - happy because you have spent your life with her with no regrets, and you've did whatever you can for her, and she moved on happily! And you're sad for only one reason - that you no longer have the company of her.
Unfortunately human relations aren't that simple. I have been told by my dad to be more realistic, which I agree. So which part of what I said wasn't real? Is not co-existing happily with my parents not possible? The Shi'ites and Sunnis - why are you killing people? Why are you asking the question, "Why should we live with them?" Because we are human!
There shouldn't be any war or conflicts at all. By now at this time and century, we must already be able to sort out our differences! Look at our hometown. Any Christians reading this - a Christian and a Muslim buried on the same ground on the same green plains, our first few presidents - Mr. Benjamin Shears and Mr. Yusof bin Ishak.
Is death the only way two parties can exist together? Why not in the living as well? I thoroughly belive that Mr. Benjamin Shears and Mr. Yusof bin Ishak have no problems living together when they were alive. So why all these fighting?
Almost everyday I see bloodshed - not real life, but on newspapers.
"Suicide bomber kills 32 in Iraq"
"Suicide bomber kills 12 in Baghdad marketpace"
This is no fault of anyone's, no fault of any race or religion, except for the terrorists. I have this burning question I wanted to ask since I first read about you.
Why are you killing? Not just people, animals, plants, anything. Why are you in the first place, klling? Why can't you go back home to your families, talk to them, smile and laugh with them, enjoy yourselves with them, be with your families? Why do you want to live with this false sense of pride that you're going to heaven after killing people?
And what blood are you shedding? You're shedding the blood of your own, my dear terrorists. You're shedding the blood of Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists. And whose "dirty" blood are you shedding anyway? If anyone of you are even reading this, any of your "holy warriors" are reading this, whose blood are you calling "dirty"?
Who in the first place said it was "dirty"? Was it Allah? Was it God? Was it Buddha? Or was it your leader, who brainwashed you into thinking as such? Think, my radicals. Why are you doing this? Why can't you live your life in peace? You can't rest when there are Christian enemies alive? Oh come on, this was already so long ago. We're already in the 21st century, and we should be doing more important things - try to survive in this world, and trying to save our environments.
Let me give you this analogy. If tomorrow, like another usual day, a huge alien army invades Earth, are you going to fight alongside Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists and people from all over the world; Freemasons, Jehovah's Withnesses against the aliens? Or will you attempt to destroy the entire Earth by still trying to instill internal strife?
We, as humans, must live in peace and harmony. There is no other way to survive. Out there, hundreds of people are dying, starvation, illness, diseases. Why are you trying to fight your war instead of helping these people? These people are the ones who need help, not your country. These are the people who need to be heard, not your army. And these are the people who do not deserve to die, for they never did any wrong.
All soldiers from all races, religions and languages, put down your guns and trust each other, for there is nothing to fear. All of us are indeed brothers, and there is no need for jealousy. We must all work towards peace, which many countries already have. But not all.
Forget about previous greviances. We are already in a new millenium, is there still a need for these childish and thoughless bloodshed?
Let's stop all wars now, and continue the peace.
Hey, I still need mine and a cup of Milo, don't you?
Everyone has their own journey to walk through, but all of our journeys are different. Different in terms of length, in terms of smoothness. Not one is the same.
I picked up a cup of the usual morning Milo and read the daily news.
"GDP expected to climb 2% by 1st quarter"
"Murderer found stucked in a toilet bowl"
The news soon gets more gloomy - deaths are inevitable after all.
"Man found dead in park"
"Boy beheads mum after argument"
Indeed, some journeys are tougher and more rockier, while some are quick and shorter. I'd prefer mine to be peaceful and long - who wouldn't want to live just a little longer?
I remembered a piece of news that shocked the world and produced a world shocker - the September 11 attacks. The impact was great and terrible; the stocks were falling, and the economy could hardly coped. I was in my own world at that time, in my hometown of Singapore where our security was tight and our government was efficient. It soon turned out to be both an advantage and disadvantage. I wouldn't really want to see the Esplanade being reduced to a pile of durian/metal spikes and burning remains. But it will soon lead to the ignorance of the outside world, the inability to feel the pain and loss felt by so many thousands and millions outside.
No, I'm not contemplating to reduce our durian into burnt-out shells and seeds while sipping my Milo - I'm thinking of how aware we are; not just us Singaporeans, but in fact the entire global population, about who is suffereing out there, beyond our cosy 5-room flats.
I remember another news - the death of Princess Diana. That was in 1997, where I was just a mere Primary 2 boy who has no ambition except for the usual "doctor" or "lawyer". I remembered the big hooha over it, and I learnt the word that could set any parents grinning - "paparazzi". Quite a long word for a small kid like me. But my grasp of English was not as good as my grasp of the world around me. I would later learn a famous and wonderful quote -
"One death is a tragedy. Many deaths are just numbers."
Winston Churchill said this during the Second World War, and indeed, it was very true.
From then on, I started thinking about war; not the weapons and machineries, but the meaning of war. It didn't really meant much to me, like how Princess Diana crashed on the 14th pillar of a expressway in Paris (I saw the pillar during a package tour of Europe when I was 10) meant anything to me. It didn't. All I had to do was to work hard for my studies - could Diana improve my Mathematics? No she couldn't. So she wasn't really a big deal for me at that time.
But there will come an age where knowledge of the world would help me in my Mathematics - or Geography and History, for that matter. I had arrived at that age, and I had started thinking. I thought of many different things. Who started the war? Why was this war neccesary? Why must they fight the war?
And then came the ultimate question - Why is there war?
As a citizen of well-protected Singapore, I don't understand the meaning of war, I've never been in a war, and I shall never hope to. War is bad, they always say. I often go on my "shameless" rounds, asking strangers the same question - "Why is there war?"
Often I get the same conversation:
"To end conflicts."
"But why can't they do it peacefully?"
"Because the other party refuses to comply?"
"Why must the other party comply? Why can't everyone sort out their differences, and live in peace and harmony?"
"Look I have no time, maybe you should get the Power Rangers to answer your question."
I know it's very cliched - having everyone to live in peace and harmony. I learnt from Social Studies that everyone is different, just like how everyone's lives are different, with the ups and the common downs. Some religions allow their people to eat pork, while some religions do not. Some people share their things while others don't.
I learnt from 3 years of philosophy that there's only one way to solve the problem of the existence of war and to bring peace - universal concensus. I have used the term many times in my essays, and it is always the most important factor. But impossible. Important by impossible.
Let's look at it this way, my young apprentice. If we were all to think the same, morally correct, that is, which means that we would both share our items, that would be no more conflicts. There would be no more school arguments about how selfish he is and how stingy he is. All of us would leave in peace.
But it's impossible. That's why we still have wars today. So how do we solve the problem? There is no direct way to solve the problem, honestly. The best we could do is to move as closely as possible to world peace and harmony, and being able to help each other to sustain life.
Wait. If school children are able to solve the problem of arguments, why not the United States and Iran, to give one example? That's easy. School children solve it through fights, the United States and Iran will solve it with war. We're back in Square One.
So why can't school children settle it through peaceful means? Well, some do, definitely. We sign childish treaties and shake hands like how the adults do it.
But only some, not all.
Not all of us can solve conflicts just by words and a shaking of the hands. At some point of time one of the parties would act, which would thus appear in tomorrow's paper - "America declares war on Iraq"
So, is there really no other way to stop the fighting and conflicts? If they were children, it's ok. The child stage is a stage for the child to grow up, obviously, into any adult. We don't see headlines like - "6 year old child kills friend after friend refuses to lend a pencilbox" So I guess that isn't really counted as a war. But adults? Shouldn't adults be able to think more carefully, more logically?
As I mentioned in one of the paragraphs just now, I believe we should all help each other as friends, as survivors of the Earth, and that all of us should only die of one cause - disease or old age.
Let's look to the past; Hitler killing Jews because they were "inferior"? Who says they were inferior? They were just like any humans - and as I said, all humans are different. You certainly don't kill your mum just because she's a woman. In fact, you should try to spend your life with her properly. And when the old move on, one should be both happy and sad - happy because you have spent your life with her with no regrets, and you've did whatever you can for her, and she moved on happily! And you're sad for only one reason - that you no longer have the company of her.
Unfortunately human relations aren't that simple. I have been told by my dad to be more realistic, which I agree. So which part of what I said wasn't real? Is not co-existing happily with my parents not possible? The Shi'ites and Sunnis - why are you killing people? Why are you asking the question, "Why should we live with them?" Because we are human!
There shouldn't be any war or conflicts at all. By now at this time and century, we must already be able to sort out our differences! Look at our hometown. Any Christians reading this - a Christian and a Muslim buried on the same ground on the same green plains, our first few presidents - Mr. Benjamin Shears and Mr. Yusof bin Ishak.
Is death the only way two parties can exist together? Why not in the living as well? I thoroughly belive that Mr. Benjamin Shears and Mr. Yusof bin Ishak have no problems living together when they were alive. So why all these fighting?
Almost everyday I see bloodshed - not real life, but on newspapers.
"Suicide bomber kills 32 in Iraq"
"Suicide bomber kills 12 in Baghdad marketpace"
This is no fault of anyone's, no fault of any race or religion, except for the terrorists. I have this burning question I wanted to ask since I first read about you.
Why are you killing? Not just people, animals, plants, anything. Why are you in the first place, klling? Why can't you go back home to your families, talk to them, smile and laugh with them, enjoy yourselves with them, be with your families? Why do you want to live with this false sense of pride that you're going to heaven after killing people?
And what blood are you shedding? You're shedding the blood of your own, my dear terrorists. You're shedding the blood of Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists. And whose "dirty" blood are you shedding anyway? If anyone of you are even reading this, any of your "holy warriors" are reading this, whose blood are you calling "dirty"?
Who in the first place said it was "dirty"? Was it Allah? Was it God? Was it Buddha? Or was it your leader, who brainwashed you into thinking as such? Think, my radicals. Why are you doing this? Why can't you live your life in peace? You can't rest when there are Christian enemies alive? Oh come on, this was already so long ago. We're already in the 21st century, and we should be doing more important things - try to survive in this world, and trying to save our environments.
Let me give you this analogy. If tomorrow, like another usual day, a huge alien army invades Earth, are you going to fight alongside Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists and people from all over the world; Freemasons, Jehovah's Withnesses against the aliens? Or will you attempt to destroy the entire Earth by still trying to instill internal strife?
We, as humans, must live in peace and harmony. There is no other way to survive. Out there, hundreds of people are dying, starvation, illness, diseases. Why are you trying to fight your war instead of helping these people? These people are the ones who need help, not your country. These are the people who need to be heard, not your army. And these are the people who do not deserve to die, for they never did any wrong.
All soldiers from all races, religions and languages, put down your guns and trust each other, for there is nothing to fear. All of us are indeed brothers, and there is no need for jealousy. We must all work towards peace, which many countries already have. But not all.
Forget about previous greviances. We are already in a new millenium, is there still a need for these childish and thoughless bloodshed?
Let's stop all wars now, and continue the peace.
Hey, I still need mine and a cup of Milo, don't you?
Sunday, May 6, 2007
An Essay on Flaming
TUESDAY 15/05/2007
sorry guys im using this post as an "edit" because I can't post any new posts. Thanks to Blogger. These few days within a week me and my team have been busy creating a parody of ROmeo and Juliet. Andrew's brother Matthew gave 8/10 or more while LitRA says plot is a little thin. I'm looking forward to being given the thumbs-up by Miss Chew before I add additional things such as plot thickening and more careful studying of the play and reviewing it over again.
My next step would be adding music to it, and I've already thought of a melody for the front, but before that we must clear up the scripts for any theatrical errors.
Hello everyone I'm back for a post again.
This time its on...
ONLINE FLAMING!
I've seriously never been flamed before although I kind of have this inclination that girls usually are the ones who are flaming. Ok guys do flame too. Let me give you an example. (finding)
Ok I attempted to search ShiDe's post for any flaming. Unfortunately I didn't. AH! I know a good blog. Like I just thought of it. Here it is.
A brilliant example of a flaming poem:
Some people just need to learn how to shut up and stay still.
Some people need to stop acting gay for a thrill.
Some people shouldn't act gangster for attention.
Some people shouldn't scold people with good intentions.
Some people should stop using the f words as full stops, and learn punctuation.
Some people just have some stupid delinquent fixation.
Some people are just too overdependent.
Some people think they're so bloody independent.
Some people are way too manipulative.
Some people are extraordinarily hyperactive.
Some people come to school to copy homework (and wheres the "home" in that?)
Some people think they're hot, but are actually damn fat.
Some people want to be rock stars, but are failing at everything else.
Some people love digging their graves by themself.
Some people walk around with their shirts tucked out to look cool.
Some people like that should just drop out of school.
And go and sit in a puddle, Or curl up and die.
I'm not gonna to miss you, I'm not gonna cry.
Btw the bit where I said I have never been flamed is true, though its hard to believe, because I'm in good terms with everyone, but of course you can't flame your mum. (can you?) So she's not counted. :)
And I'm not targeting anyone (no sarcasm, seriously.) In RI I would most likely go, "Oh oh, I'm targeting ALOT OF PEOPLE!!! BE scared..!" But here I wouldn't because my audience are genera! Thank you thank you.
I'm trying to keep this post as upbeat as possible, but I hope that you readers would really understand how it's like to be flamed. I mean firstly you don't feel good, really. There's this feeling that someone hates you, and you can't live comfortably with your life. You just got to apologise or flame that person back. No one likes such a feeling. Even a crazy person like me doesn't, although I do the weirdest things such as feeling a sense of triumph after loosening the shoelaces of the man (not telling who) who sits behind me, seeing his face of shock, defeat, amusement, crap all in one. :) I mean I don't mean to do that, Shide, but...oops!
I'm talking from a point of view of the person getting flamed, but for me I've never experienced flaming before, and that doesn't mean I just gave you the green light to burn my tagboard.
Here's are some major excerpts from the news article:
"Fifteen years ago, things were straightforward.
Angry? Write in your diary.
Wronged? Make copies of a poison-pen letter for your classmates.
Horny? Try for a dodgy tryst in Geylang."
"Teachers, classmates, parents - anyone that upsets them - they are all fair targets.
Angry? Name, shame, and "flame" your enemies on your blog.
Wronged? Take revenge by circulating incrimnatiing pictures of your nemesis.
Horny? Show off your naked body to anyone who will watch - get it voted on, even."
Oh shit. So, parents are counted too? (turns head to stare at mum watching intently at show)Should stop online flaming my mum. Should go literal flaming now. Ok but from today onwards I will stop flaming the dictator. No I'll stop flaming my mum.
But in any case, I shall continue to post some excerpts:
"Their tactics are worthy of tuerilla warfare. THey use fake identites; they strike anytime, anywhere; they also execute "instant and limitless dissemination of words and images", their digital tools and cyberplayform an easy means of exacting revenge. That kind of access spells power - an absolute kind. And we all know what they say about absolute power. Teens in the Canadian study said that after bullying someone, they experienced regret or ambivalence. But quite eerily, they also said it made them feel 'positive and powerful'
Perhaps popular too. "
Ok these short excerpts were taken from an article in the Straits Times on 06/05 Sunday.
If you have any queries you can seriously email the writer on sereneg@sph.com.sg
So, after all the talking, I've decided that everyone should eat apples for lunch at 2?
No. I'm just saying let's all stop flaming each other. Decided through the course of writing this essay that not only girls flame, but guys too. But seems to me that girls' flaming seem more horrible. I'm a chauvinistic pig.
But I hope there are replies from both genders about this post of flaming, and for girls can anyone of you comment on why I think you'll flame more horribly? Guys are more vulgar though. I've seen a girl flamed till I needed to repair my computer, no thanks to the heat generated. (prolonged usage or burns?)
There were the words, "bitches" "hag" "shit" "lard" blah anything you can find in the world.
Let's sidetrack. Imagine my grandma flaming. Impossible. Seems to me that the youths in the world have used the Internet as their battleground.
But in any case please do comment.
sorry guys im using this post as an "edit" because I can't post any new posts. Thanks to Blogger. These few days within a week me and my team have been busy creating a parody of ROmeo and Juliet. Andrew's brother Matthew gave 8/10 or more while LitRA says plot is a little thin. I'm looking forward to being given the thumbs-up by Miss Chew before I add additional things such as plot thickening and more careful studying of the play and reviewing it over again.
My next step would be adding music to it, and I've already thought of a melody for the front, but before that we must clear up the scripts for any theatrical errors.
Hello everyone I'm back for a post again.
This time its on...
ONLINE FLAMING!
I've seriously never been flamed before although I kind of have this inclination that girls usually are the ones who are flaming. Ok guys do flame too. Let me give you an example. (finding)
Ok I attempted to search ShiDe's post for any flaming. Unfortunately I didn't. AH! I know a good blog. Like I just thought of it. Here it is.
A brilliant example of a flaming poem:
Some people just need to learn how to shut up and stay still.
Some people need to stop acting gay for a thrill.
Some people shouldn't act gangster for attention.
Some people shouldn't scold people with good intentions.
Some people should stop using the f words as full stops, and learn punctuation.
Some people just have some stupid delinquent fixation.
Some people are just too overdependent.
Some people think they're so bloody independent.
Some people are way too manipulative.
Some people are extraordinarily hyperactive.
Some people come to school to copy homework (and wheres the "home" in that?)
Some people think they're hot, but are actually damn fat.
Some people want to be rock stars, but are failing at everything else.
Some people love digging their graves by themself.
Some people walk around with their shirts tucked out to look cool.
Some people like that should just drop out of school.
And go and sit in a puddle, Or curl up and die.
I'm not gonna to miss you, I'm not gonna cry.
Btw the bit where I said I have never been flamed is true, though its hard to believe, because I'm in good terms with everyone, but of course you can't flame your mum. (can you?) So she's not counted. :)
And I'm not targeting anyone (no sarcasm, seriously.) In RI I would most likely go, "Oh oh, I'm targeting ALOT OF PEOPLE!!! BE scared..!" But here I wouldn't because my audience are genera! Thank you thank you.
I'm trying to keep this post as upbeat as possible, but I hope that you readers would really understand how it's like to be flamed. I mean firstly you don't feel good, really. There's this feeling that someone hates you, and you can't live comfortably with your life. You just got to apologise or flame that person back. No one likes such a feeling. Even a crazy person like me doesn't, although I do the weirdest things such as feeling a sense of triumph after loosening the shoelaces of the man (not telling who) who sits behind me, seeing his face of shock, defeat, amusement, crap all in one. :) I mean I don't mean to do that, Shide, but...oops!
I'm talking from a point of view of the person getting flamed, but for me I've never experienced flaming before, and that doesn't mean I just gave you the green light to burn my tagboard.
Here's are some major excerpts from the news article:
"Fifteen years ago, things were straightforward.
Angry? Write in your diary.
Wronged? Make copies of a poison-pen letter for your classmates.
Horny? Try for a dodgy tryst in Geylang."
"Teachers, classmates, parents - anyone that upsets them - they are all fair targets.
Angry? Name, shame, and "flame" your enemies on your blog.
Wronged? Take revenge by circulating incrimnatiing pictures of your nemesis.
Horny? Show off your naked body to anyone who will watch - get it voted on, even."
Oh shit. So, parents are counted too? (turns head to stare at mum watching intently at show)Should stop online flaming my mum. Should go literal flaming now. Ok but from today onwards I will stop flaming the dictator. No I'll stop flaming my mum.
But in any case, I shall continue to post some excerpts:
"Their tactics are worthy of tuerilla warfare. THey use fake identites; they strike anytime, anywhere; they also execute "instant and limitless dissemination of words and images", their digital tools and cyberplayform an easy means of exacting revenge. That kind of access spells power - an absolute kind. And we all know what they say about absolute power. Teens in the Canadian study said that after bullying someone, they experienced regret or ambivalence. But quite eerily, they also said it made them feel 'positive and powerful'
Perhaps popular too. "
Ok these short excerpts were taken from an article in the Straits Times on 06/05 Sunday.
If you have any queries you can seriously email the writer on sereneg@sph.com.sg
So, after all the talking, I've decided that everyone should eat apples for lunch at 2?
No. I'm just saying let's all stop flaming each other. Decided through the course of writing this essay that not only girls flame, but guys too. But seems to me that girls' flaming seem more horrible. I'm a chauvinistic pig.
But I hope there are replies from both genders about this post of flaming, and for girls can anyone of you comment on why I think you'll flame more horribly? Guys are more vulgar though. I've seen a girl flamed till I needed to repair my computer, no thanks to the heat generated. (prolonged usage or burns?)
There were the words, "bitches" "hag" "shit" "lard" blah anything you can find in the world.
Let's sidetrack. Imagine my grandma flaming. Impossible. Seems to me that the youths in the world have used the Internet as their battleground.
But in any case please do comment.
Saturday, May 5, 2007
Goodnight
Two activities today: Mr Song's cello lesson and Miss Hoe's Viva Voce lesson.
I reserve my weekends for only music and perhaps some recreational stuff such as homework. But there isn't any piano lesson tomorrow. Crap.
My concert is on June during the Singapore Arts Festival, which means you would be able to see me in the booklet for SAF!
I reserve my weekends for only music and perhaps some recreational stuff such as homework. But there isn't any piano lesson tomorrow. Crap.
My concert is on June during the Singapore Arts Festival, which means you would be able to see me in the booklet for SAF!
Friday, May 4, 2007
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Caning a Composition
My mum has become more irritating then before! And I have set a ultimatum for myself: The cane must die.
Meanwhile yesterday I visited Shawn's house for a practise on his Kabalevsky's piano concerto, and for the first time I came into contact with a dog. Name's Yuki, she's a very happy dog, and of course she brought happiness to me. She pass motioned in Shawn's brother's bedroom, and knowing she was wrong, hid somewhere in the house. Shawn and I found her in the corner of two sofas placed in an L shape. She was hiding under the small table!
Shawn said even dogs knew when they did something wrong, and he told Yuki that "Mummy will be back very soon to scold you!"
Such a cute dog. It gave me a shock once though, when we were practising Yuki licked my right calf, and I jerked suddenly, bringing my knee hammering straight into under the keyboard. Embarassing but well, we'll human anyway.
I played my composition for Shawn, with only the right hand completed only for the second half, and he said there wasn't any harmony mistakes he could find.
Yesterday night at about 11pm I quickly touch up on some parts of my compositions, by playing the entire thing and trying to find something that sounded wrong, which I did. Then of course I corrected them. I had about 6 hours to aad the left hand, which I did from 4 to about 10pm.
Recorded it with extremely sweaty and nervous hands on my mp3, and as technology allows it, in a few minutes time I was sending it to my first receiver, Jinghui from my MEP class and my RE group. Sent it to some other people very soon, Tianyi, Ben Low this morning, and some other guys. John Lee too. Tianyi thought it was by Bach and she wanted to comment on my playing I supposed, which I think she could have given me 5/10 (I was playing my composition and it wasn't really the manner which I was worried about, it was the composition itself) but I told her it was my composition. And we talked a little about how starters started composing; by copying styles. Of course I did that. Couldn't have possibly started on a entire new style, although I do have one. It's basically placing the melody on octaves, and left hand full of broken chords, appegios, scales and guess what. My style is a mix of Chopinistic melodies (although not as good) and Lizst-styled technique (obviously not as good).
The reviews were rather good, although Ben Low said the finale sounded screwed with a bashful smile (or was it?) If it wasn't I shall make it a point to strangle him tomorrow.
Bye!
Meanwhile yesterday I visited Shawn's house for a practise on his Kabalevsky's piano concerto, and for the first time I came into contact with a dog. Name's Yuki, she's a very happy dog, and of course she brought happiness to me. She pass motioned in Shawn's brother's bedroom, and knowing she was wrong, hid somewhere in the house. Shawn and I found her in the corner of two sofas placed in an L shape. She was hiding under the small table!
Shawn said even dogs knew when they did something wrong, and he told Yuki that "Mummy will be back very soon to scold you!"
Such a cute dog. It gave me a shock once though, when we were practising Yuki licked my right calf, and I jerked suddenly, bringing my knee hammering straight into under the keyboard. Embarassing but well, we'll human anyway.
I played my composition for Shawn, with only the right hand completed only for the second half, and he said there wasn't any harmony mistakes he could find.
Yesterday night at about 11pm I quickly touch up on some parts of my compositions, by playing the entire thing and trying to find something that sounded wrong, which I did. Then of course I corrected them. I had about 6 hours to aad the left hand, which I did from 4 to about 10pm.
Recorded it with extremely sweaty and nervous hands on my mp3, and as technology allows it, in a few minutes time I was sending it to my first receiver, Jinghui from my MEP class and my RE group. Sent it to some other people very soon, Tianyi, Ben Low this morning, and some other guys. John Lee too. Tianyi thought it was by Bach and she wanted to comment on my playing I supposed, which I think she could have given me 5/10 (I was playing my composition and it wasn't really the manner which I was worried about, it was the composition itself) but I told her it was my composition. And we talked a little about how starters started composing; by copying styles. Of course I did that. Couldn't have possibly started on a entire new style, although I do have one. It's basically placing the melody on octaves, and left hand full of broken chords, appegios, scales and guess what. My style is a mix of Chopinistic melodies (although not as good) and Lizst-styled technique (obviously not as good).
The reviews were rather good, although Ben Low said the finale sounded screwed with a bashful smile (or was it?) If it wasn't I shall make it a point to strangle him tomorrow.
Bye!
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Everyday has a shouting match!
Scenario 1:
Me: "Eh park here!" (points to a parking lot on the 2nd level)
Mum: "Eh ni3 gen1 wo3 jing4 jing4 hor...don't tell me what to do, later I slap you!"
Me: ... "Omg someone left his lights on in the car!"
Mum: "Where?"
Me: "Eh ni3 gen1 wo3 jing4 jing4...just drive the car its none of your business!"
Mum: ...
JonShin 1 Mum 0
Most of the time she wins because she has the cane, and the cane MUST die. If it doesn't I will have totally nothing to say at all, and she will be the one deciding everything, from what sweet I eat to what lotion I'm using. She's taken the small ball I had to play soccer with, and she dumped in the dustbin. Damn it.
SO TOTALLY NO GAMES now.
I only play the piano...And when I'm playing I need my mum to be sleeping also because if she isn't then she will start adding lots of extra comments which are irritating and time-wasting. Which was good because she was sleeping for 2 hours yesterday while I was playing the piano for 2. And she says as long as she lives she will have a say in the house.
And she's some slavedriver, sit on the sofa holding a cane, while my dad and me are doing all the work. Shall planned a revolution with my dad. We shall take over control of the Senja House!
Meanwhile me and my mum argue so much and so loudly man I think I'm deaf already. THis morning was quite fun too. It was about 1.30am, and I didn't realy want to sleep because I had an afternoon nap, and my mum was like, "KUAI DIAN GUAN!" (the computer) which I refused because I was MSNing with Audrey and SungMing, and I was like, "No no no!" But all the same she was screaming like in the dark and I didn't really want to sleep.
So I switched off the computer and got to bed, but no, I wasn't going to sleep.
I was planning to read a storybook! So I switched on all the lights which had her exploding and once again, Mum wins.
__________________
Jon Shin 1 Mum 2
But HEY I'm not going to surrender man, so I said ok fine you don't want me to read storybook I'll go play the piano!
"Ok go play I'll see!"
She thought I was being sarcastic, but sad case, I wasn't.
So off I stomped to the grand piano, opened the lid, and started thumping out pieces.
___________________
Jon Shin 2 Mum 2
"Ni3!!!!" (you!)
So I played for about 15 minutes with her trying to tahan but failing to. Heck about her. What's wrong? I'm just trying to practise the piano...I always do at about 12am plus...
I'll be back man.
Me: "Eh park here!" (points to a parking lot on the 2nd level)
Mum: "Eh ni3 gen1 wo3 jing4 jing4 hor...don't tell me what to do, later I slap you!"
Me: ... "Omg someone left his lights on in the car!"
Mum: "Where?"
Me: "Eh ni3 gen1 wo3 jing4 jing4...just drive the car its none of your business!"
Mum: ...
JonShin 1 Mum 0
Most of the time she wins because she has the cane, and the cane MUST die. If it doesn't I will have totally nothing to say at all, and she will be the one deciding everything, from what sweet I eat to what lotion I'm using. She's taken the small ball I had to play soccer with, and she dumped in the dustbin. Damn it.
SO TOTALLY NO GAMES now.
I only play the piano...And when I'm playing I need my mum to be sleeping also because if she isn't then she will start adding lots of extra comments which are irritating and time-wasting. Which was good because she was sleeping for 2 hours yesterday while I was playing the piano for 2. And she says as long as she lives she will have a say in the house.
And she's some slavedriver, sit on the sofa holding a cane, while my dad and me are doing all the work. Shall planned a revolution with my dad. We shall take over control of the Senja House!
Meanwhile me and my mum argue so much and so loudly man I think I'm deaf already. THis morning was quite fun too. It was about 1.30am, and I didn't realy want to sleep because I had an afternoon nap, and my mum was like, "KUAI DIAN GUAN!" (the computer) which I refused because I was MSNing with Audrey and SungMing, and I was like, "No no no!" But all the same she was screaming like in the dark and I didn't really want to sleep.
So I switched off the computer and got to bed, but no, I wasn't going to sleep.
I was planning to read a storybook! So I switched on all the lights which had her exploding and once again, Mum wins.
__________________
Jon Shin 1 Mum 2
But HEY I'm not going to surrender man, so I said ok fine you don't want me to read storybook I'll go play the piano!
"Ok go play I'll see!"
She thought I was being sarcastic, but sad case, I wasn't.
So off I stomped to the grand piano, opened the lid, and started thumping out pieces.
___________________
Jon Shin 2 Mum 2
"Ni3!!!!" (you!)
So I played for about 15 minutes with her trying to tahan but failing to. Heck about her. What's wrong? I'm just trying to practise the piano...I always do at about 12am plus...
I'll be back man.
Saturday, April 28, 2007
If...
Some interesting things to think of:
1) If Matthew Chua (brother of Andrew Chua) had a blog...
2) If my mum was at market for 6 hours...
3) If one day someone really stood up and scream vulgarities in Mrs Tan's class...
4) If you talked to someone on MSN for 6 hours+...
5) If Mr Sze had wife and kids...
6) If RISE had RISC (Raffles Institution Soccer Club)...
1) If Matthew had a blog, I guess it would be full of flaming and more flaming and spam, and the rest would be one liners of "Today sucked." or "Today rocked." In any case it probably would be quite fun to think about. Maybe he wouldn't even update it at all!
2) If my mum was at market for 6 hours, the house would be at peace for 6 too. Just this morning I could practise my cello with no complaining whatsoever, no screaming, no cane waving around, and I could decide when I finished practising my piano having done it for 2 hours plus. But at some point of time the screaming would have to come back, and seriously, the mood is kinda like..."I feel like ripping my hair out.
3)If one day someone shouted vulgarities in class, I heard that she would just reply, "I don't want to send you out from class." (From Hongrui's tagboard). And yep, that doesn't even sound threatening. And sleeping in class just get you some stroking from a freaking cold hand, as I had experienced. I wasn't even sleeping at all, just trying to do a test. Seriously. And she stroked my arm for a while, which I didn't respond to, and then she just walked away. -.- Nice teachers.
4)If you talked to someone on MSN for 6+ hours, you're crazy man. Like the most I could manage was 4? or 5. That's it. Too many hours and my computer could just burn out.
5)If Mr Sze had wife and kids I don't think we would have our Gold with Honours. Musicians with families are generally very patient and also quite caring, not saying Mr Sze doesn't care for us but if he were patient we wouldn't get ANYWHERE.
6)That isn't really nice to think of, considering we already almost have a good soccer team in our CCA - with the likes of Adriel, Daniel and Jinghui and Benjamin Lee...
And btw my mum deleted ALL the games in my computer, so the only games I have left are StickSoldiers II which is hardly playable. Just opened it this morning to play a single match and I had someone screaming down the hallway already. So no Warcraft Counterstrike Diablo or anything.
But life is still good. :)
1) If Matthew Chua (brother of Andrew Chua) had a blog...
2) If my mum was at market for 6 hours...
3) If one day someone really stood up and scream vulgarities in Mrs Tan's class...
4) If you talked to someone on MSN for 6 hours+...
5) If Mr Sze had wife and kids...
6) If RISE had RISC (Raffles Institution Soccer Club)...
1) If Matthew had a blog, I guess it would be full of flaming and more flaming and spam, and the rest would be one liners of "Today sucked." or "Today rocked." In any case it probably would be quite fun to think about. Maybe he wouldn't even update it at all!
2) If my mum was at market for 6 hours, the house would be at peace for 6 too. Just this morning I could practise my cello with no complaining whatsoever, no screaming, no cane waving around, and I could decide when I finished practising my piano having done it for 2 hours plus. But at some point of time the screaming would have to come back, and seriously, the mood is kinda like..."I feel like ripping my hair out.
3)If one day someone shouted vulgarities in class, I heard that she would just reply, "I don't want to send you out from class." (From Hongrui's tagboard). And yep, that doesn't even sound threatening. And sleeping in class just get you some stroking from a freaking cold hand, as I had experienced. I wasn't even sleeping at all, just trying to do a test. Seriously. And she stroked my arm for a while, which I didn't respond to, and then she just walked away. -.- Nice teachers.
4)If you talked to someone on MSN for 6+ hours, you're crazy man. Like the most I could manage was 4? or 5. That's it. Too many hours and my computer could just burn out.
5)If Mr Sze had wife and kids I don't think we would have our Gold with Honours. Musicians with families are generally very patient and also quite caring, not saying Mr Sze doesn't care for us but if he were patient we wouldn't get ANYWHERE.
6)That isn't really nice to think of, considering we already almost have a good soccer team in our CCA - with the likes of Adriel, Daniel and Jinghui and Benjamin Lee...
And btw my mum deleted ALL the games in my computer, so the only games I have left are StickSoldiers II which is hardly playable. Just opened it this morning to play a single match and I had someone screaming down the hallway already. So no Warcraft Counterstrike Diablo or anything.
But life is still good. :)
Friday, April 27, 2007
of Chicken
Here's me, Andrew and Bryan - thanks to Geoffrey for the picture. We were at Mcdonalds in Harbourfront of Lunch during the Learning Journey, and it was pretty organised, with the quick arrival of the respectives McChickens and Filet O' Fish and the Ice Milos and Cokes plus wonderful barbecue sauce.
And then I was taught a lesson on foods from Mcdonalds. About how McNuggets are made:
They take the meat out of the chicken and use to make McChicken blah, and the rest: brains, skin, feet, all those not used in the McChicken are mashed up into one big pulp - most likely in one big machine where they dump the remains inside and then twist, smash, and squash into one big pulp before they colour it and yep.
No fibre, thats why. Chicken fibre.
Yuck though.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
LOST - MIss Peh
Ah! An extract from Hong Rui that totally shows what our Math teacher is like.
"However, most of all, I must THANK Ms Peh (or Mrs Tan) our maths teacher. She's the BEST maths teacher in the world, and will certainly help you to understand all the concepts so effortlessly, SO effortlessly that I had to go to my fellow more trustworthy friends for help. I think Ms Peh's method of teaching is to encourge self learning, something that everyone does for maths in 3D, thats why half the class sleeps during maths. Let me give you an example seen in every single lesson.
Ok class, do question no. N, I give you 5 minutes.
20 seconds later, she shows us the answer.
What the hell, perhaps only 1 or 2 people have finished the question, and since I'm someone who is very slow at grasping concepts (but will pwn the moment I get enlightened) I will need the 5 minutes to do that question. Anyway, half the times her answer are wrong, and we'll have to correct it for her."
What do you think is wrong with Miss Peh? EYA.
L3 for saying everything. But she's damn kind, which is like wrong. I mean I've got about the half the class longing to bring pillows, but they can sleep on their pencilboxes. Some sleep in front of her so obviously, and she attempts to wake people up by STROKING them.
WTH, like how is this totally possible. It's crazy lah, and honestly I think she has OCD. She has to get everything perpendicular to the table front
Latest News: JONATHAN SHIN LOSES HIS PENCILBOX.
Crap. Just took out stuff to write - but my pencilbox wasn't in my bag. First, my foolscalp pad. Now my pencil box. Will my life get any tougher?
___________________________________________________________________________
"However, most of all, I must THANK Ms Peh (or Mrs Tan) our maths teacher. She's the BEST maths teacher in the world, and will certainly help you to understand all the concepts so effortlessly, SO effortlessly that I had to go to my fellow more trustworthy friends for help. I think Ms Peh's method of teaching is to encourge self learning, something that everyone does for maths in 3D, thats why half the class sleeps during maths. Let me give you an example seen in every single lesson.
Ok class, do question no. N, I give you 5 minutes.
20 seconds later, she shows us the answer.
What the hell, perhaps only 1 or 2 people have finished the question, and since I'm someone who is very slow at grasping concepts (but will pwn the moment I get enlightened) I will need the 5 minutes to do that question. Anyway, half the times her answer are wrong, and we'll have to correct it for her."
What do you think is wrong with Miss Peh? EYA.
L3 for saying everything. But she's damn kind, which is like wrong. I mean I've got about the half the class longing to bring pillows, but they can sleep on their pencilboxes. Some sleep in front of her so obviously, and she attempts to wake people up by STROKING them.
WTH, like how is this totally possible. It's crazy lah, and honestly I think she has OCD. She has to get everything perpendicular to the table front
Latest News: JONATHAN SHIN LOSES HIS PENCILBOX.
Crap. Just took out stuff to write - but my pencilbox wasn't in my bag. First, my foolscalp pad. Now my pencil box. Will my life get any tougher?
___________________________________________________________________________
Class Rap
Charging mp3.
Life has been more interesting in the classroom with the new 3L rap being sung by me. Poetry just rocks. And with the class rhythm so strong, and the new melody, gosh. Just rocks ass man. Otherwise life has been pretty normal, and we also celebrate with bittersweetness of the passing of the Math Test, whom like all other Testes, are mulled over before their impending deaths, and when they die, we do prepare for them as well.
Nevermind. Such cryptic words.
Go youtube and type 'Fight Science'. Rocks totally.
Just like our class rap.
Life has been more interesting in the classroom with the new 3L rap being sung by me. Poetry just rocks. And with the class rhythm so strong, and the new melody, gosh. Just rocks ass man. Otherwise life has been pretty normal, and we also celebrate with bittersweetness of the passing of the Math Test, whom like all other Testes, are mulled over before their impending deaths, and when they die, we do prepare for them as well.
Nevermind. Such cryptic words.
Go youtube and type 'Fight Science'. Rocks totally.
Just like our class rap.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Two days pass very fast!
Ok tomorrow is Learning Journey Day, and I shall take it as a day of learning, albeit fun. Told some nonsensical stories in the library, and the library was some marketplace with ChuYong holding some glove made of rubber, and he expanded it up like some...probably gotten from the dentist (stolen) I suddenly realised.
But it's ok. We had fun. Yan yan was like laughing about my 99 bottles of beer on the wall, I drink one...zzz...In-thing - Some game from Zhiyi and Benwee.
But anyway.
Ok tomorrow is Learning Journey Day, and I shall take it as a day of learning, albeit fun. Told some nonsensical stories in the library, and the library was some marketplace with ChuYong holding some glove made of rubber, and he expanded it up like some...probably gotten from the dentist (stolen) I suddenly realised.
But it's ok. We had fun. Yan yan was like laughing about my 99 bottles of beer on the wall, I drink one...zzz...In-thing - Some game from Zhiyi and Benwee.
But anyway.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Romeo and Juliet
Going to Mdm Fang's lesson in a while, although I don't understand why pace in the house seems to be moving VERY slowly. Ok my break after SYF is over, and now I just can't wait for Carnagie.
THe entire experience is going to be very exciting, and seriously I wish I could start packiong now and go like tomorrow. But that's of course unrealistic. Porridge is for lunch as usual, some chicken added into it, and nothing else. Occasionally it's just gruel, like seriously water and some dissolved rice. Sounds wrong.
My results look good to me, but look crap to my mum. My weaknesses are Chemistry and Math, and the other subjects are unusually comparable to my classmates. Some are better. :)
THere's Literature test tomorrow, and I'm reading SparkNotes - Romeo and Juliet, for the proper translation to modern text, and finally realising how mushy both Romeo and Juliet are - lot's of talk on sex, and like...here's an example
SAMPSON
You're right. That's why girls get pushed up against walls—they're weak. So what I'll do is push the Montague men into the street and the Montague women up against the wall.
GREGORY
The fight is between our masters, and we men who work for them.
SAMPSON
It's all the same. I'll be a harsh master to them. After I fight the men, I'll be nice to the women—I'll cut off their heads.
GREGORY
Cut off their heads? You mean their maidenheads ?
SAMPSON
Cut off their heads, take their maidenheads—whatever. Take my remark in whichever sense you like.
GREGORY
The women you rape are the ones who'll have to “sense” it.
SAMPSON
They'll feel me as long as I can keep an erection. Everybody knows I'm a nice piece of flesh.
GREGORY
It's a good thing you're not a piece of fish. You're dried and shriveled like salted fish.
Maiden heads actually mean virginity! Right...hope you get the entire meaning - this entire passage appears like right in front, and many other hardcore sexual references from the Nurse..Queen Mab - Queen actually means whore in that time, and Mab is a sterotypical name for prostitute - this name appears in Mercutio's famous speech of her.
2.30 now and my lesson's 3.00, and my mum has not yet moved. Wait, is there lesson today?
Just asked my mum. My lesson is at 6.30!!! Yes! I'm accompanying Aidi at 4.30pm then my lesson is afterwards. Haiz...
But nvm, shall go do other stuff now, and I don't spend my time reasonably. :)
THe entire experience is going to be very exciting, and seriously I wish I could start packiong now and go like tomorrow. But that's of course unrealistic. Porridge is for lunch as usual, some chicken added into it, and nothing else. Occasionally it's just gruel, like seriously water and some dissolved rice. Sounds wrong.
My results look good to me, but look crap to my mum. My weaknesses are Chemistry and Math, and the other subjects are unusually comparable to my classmates. Some are better. :)
THere's Literature test tomorrow, and I'm reading SparkNotes - Romeo and Juliet, for the proper translation to modern text, and finally realising how mushy both Romeo and Juliet are - lot's of talk on sex, and like...here's an example
SAMPSON
You're right. That's why girls get pushed up against walls—they're weak. So what I'll do is push the Montague men into the street and the Montague women up against the wall.
GREGORY
The fight is between our masters, and we men who work for them.
SAMPSON
It's all the same. I'll be a harsh master to them. After I fight the men, I'll be nice to the women—I'll cut off their heads.
GREGORY
Cut off their heads? You mean their maidenheads ?
SAMPSON
Cut off their heads, take their maidenheads—whatever. Take my remark in whichever sense you like.
GREGORY
The women you rape are the ones who'll have to “sense” it.
SAMPSON
They'll feel me as long as I can keep an erection. Everybody knows I'm a nice piece of flesh.
GREGORY
It's a good thing you're not a piece of fish. You're dried and shriveled like salted fish.
Maiden heads actually mean virginity! Right...hope you get the entire meaning - this entire passage appears like right in front, and many other hardcore sexual references from the Nurse..Queen Mab - Queen actually means whore in that time, and Mab is a sterotypical name for prostitute - this name appears in Mercutio's famous speech of her.
2.30 now and my lesson's 3.00, and my mum has not yet moved. Wait, is there lesson today?
Just asked my mum. My lesson is at 6.30!!! Yes! I'm accompanying Aidi at 4.30pm then my lesson is afterwards. Haiz...
But nvm, shall go do other stuff now, and I don't spend my time reasonably. :)
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