While reading the newspapers today I saw something which is really amusing.

DOOR IS ZIDANE SOUVENIR

Leipzig: The stadium door at Leipzig which French star Zinedine Zidane kicked in anger after being substituted during the 1-1 group draw with South Korea is to be kept in its damaged state as a souvenir.

"I initially was goin to ask Fifa to reimburse us," said stadium director Winfried Lonzen. "But now, we are going to preserve this door deformed by a kick from one of the greatest footballers."
-From AFP

And people are rating the chances that David Beckham will vomit again after World Cup matches. Odds are being offered by bookmakers.

How interesting the World Cup is. Haha.

I received an sms while i was studying my organic chem.

+659xxxxxxx
24/06/06 12:23
Come back to ahs and buy lots of 50th anniversary dinner and concert tickets, leh!

Because I lost all the contacts the other time I went to repair my phone, so i replied [below is my "sent messages" folder. The words behind were meant to make it less impolite.]:
+659xxxxxxx
24/06/06 12:32
Sorry u are? Stil got sell ah? Both concert n dinner tickets?

The reply I got:
+659xxxxxxx
24/06/06 12:34
I'm ms chan! Pls get comp club members to support.

!!!! [I swear that was the first time I received an sms from her with a word "leh!" inside. I was expecting a friend or junior!]

So my reply[I haven't store her contact yet, below is "sent messages" folder]:
+659xxxxxxx
24/06/06 12:44
Oh. Haha tt sounds abit unlike u. R tickets sales poor?

Her reply:
+659xxxxxxx
24/06/06 12:51
U alumni's response is quite disappointing, leh.

And so, I took the initiative to encourage people to go, by taking out some time to type this. Haha.

"I didn't want to blog until the common test, .." (I realised I didn't type the word "after" haha) but I seem to be contradicting myself.

I read a forum letter recently, and subsequently listened to mrbrown's podcast, on this very suay guy who received a summons letter from the Media Development Authority (read: government), apparently for not paying broadcasting licensing fees.

The only problem is that he does not even have a television set at home.

Sounds like the matter is solved? No! He still had to pay the fine! Because he did not tell the authority that he does not have a television set!

I marvel at the intelligence of the government. =x

Recently there has been alot of discussions on the issue of English standards in Singapore.

http://blog.vjc.sg/2006/06/19/because-our-native-tongue-is-singaporean/

This is lengthy, but a good read. Let me grab a couple of quotes from it which i liked.

"Every couple of years or so, the education ministry comes up with a press release highlighting yet another problem with our education system. My question is this: If you have so many problems, maybe the problem lies with you?"

"Everytime there’s an issue with education, I barely see a student write anything in the Forum. It’s always people who have kids (parents know close to nothing about the system, by the way), or educators (who are often the problem anyway), or just someone with an opinion (oh please, who doesn’t)."

I have read countless forum letters in the newspapers, on educators and the general public who came up with all kinds of suggestions that they think can increase the standards of English.

I remembered one letter was about introducing English and Higher English, similar to our Mother Tongue and Higher Mother Tongue, where more capable students can study literature. Well I wonder if that was a good way, because it is, then we didn't had to reform our Mother Tongue syllabus.

Back to my friend's article, I agree that our education is too tied up with our economy. Since young we have been brainwashed to memorise those F! formulas and theories, so that we can do well for examinations, get into top schools, get a good degree, so that we can get a good job that earn us good money.

That made sense, because all this money has translated into the comfortable homes, stable supplies of food, and fine security we have today. But if education is seen as preparing ourselves for a "prosperous future", all the passion to gain knowledge, is any in the first place, will be killed.

The main point of the article is that passion is the way to solve the countless problems that keep popping up. I myself put that into action by substituting Biology for Computing haha. Passion often can be a huge driving force in getting things done. I think one will not anything difficult if he has the passion to learn.

Unfortunately, now that our education is so tied up with economy, even passion cannot let one go far. Everything appears easier said than done.

I don't study economics, so I don't know anything about money. But still, I dislike the way money is controlling people.

Someone wrote into today's newspapers about not having enough local content in our electronic media, which contributes to the drop in English standards and also the lack of national identity (an issue brought up recently). I'm not going much into this today, but I thought, no one is supporting these local content, what's the use of putting so much of that into our media?

Singaporeans are full of praises for Korean and Japanese dramas [soccer], and Taiwanese variety shows [European soccer leagues], but there is no lack of criticism when it comes to local content [soccer], no matter how much hard work the producers [players] put in.

I didn't want to blog until the common test, but I decided to after reading a very interesting article.

Flipping through the Chinese newspapers Lian He Zao Bao today I saw this huge page on AHS's 50th anniversary, which is coming up next month.

The article said that the school is going to pay a special tribute to our long-time school servant, Mr Hassan, and the entire article was about him. True to what the article said, everyone in AHS knows Hassan. But, at least for me, my knowledge about him is limited to just the facts that he is our long-time school servant, and that he lived in our school. This article truly enlightened me and made me understand more about him.

He has worked in AHS for a grand total of 48 years (that's almost half a century!), from a young man of 20 years old to an elderly of 68 years today, having served six principals. He is so loyal to AHS, he named his three sons such that their names take on the three alphabets A, H, and S! OMFG! In fact I didn't know he was married with children. =x

And so, while I know that he lived in AHS, I didn't know his entire family lived in AHS too, until 8 years ago when they moved out. Also, I didn't know that he was in charge of printing the examination papers!

Spending almost his entire life working for AHS, I respect Mr Hassan. Deep from my heart.

The article also gave some information on AHS's past, like that fact that Lee Kong Chian's grandchildren studied at AHS. I had expected them to study at schools like HCI.

AHS is organising a whole lot of activities for this anniversary, and I think I shall be going, although it will cost $50. That's ok I guess, given that its a twice in a lifetime (I have to wait another 50 years for another event similar like this!) chance. Anyway, I've saved some money from not going to Prom Night!

While AHS is not as established as VS, or as famous and popular as DHS, AHS is unique in itself, with its own characteristics and features that cannot be found in other schools. This article brought out that little bit of sense of loyalty that still remained in me.

The AHS Alumni Website

Its 6.20am in the morning and I'm here blogging. Haha. I couldn't get back to sleep after waking up so I decided to come up here to check the World Cup scores.

So yesterday was my turn to go to CMPB for my NS medical checkup. Everything was fine, surprisingly, all the way until Station 6. Apparently my heart rate is too high, and so I have to go back in one month's time to have my ECG retaken again. Wtf.
I guess I was too nervous or something, being in a new place with strangers everyone, so my heart beat abit faster. Haix.

Sian.

The checkup process was very neat despite the large numbers of people there. Go to one station, done the stuff there, and go to the next one, check, and next one. Perhaps that's the characteristic of the military; everything follows a procedure.

Anyway, the doctor's attempt to distract me from the blood drawing was not helpful. At. All. He was asking me whethe I had a girlfriend or not, and talked about giving excuses about not finding a gf etc. I couldn't understand what he was saying, so I gave him crap answers, making me look like a fool. He returned me crap replies and continued talking crap, making him look like a fool, because no one in the room understood what he was talking about. =x

So far the World Cup hasn't brought me much surprise except for the Australia-Japan match. But lately i realise that there is alot of thrill in supporting the 'minority' teams, especially if they managed to score one against the better teams and put a face of horror on their faces and slience in the crowd. Haha. I first realised this when I decided to support Togo when Korea played a disappointing first half. Even in the second half, I don't find Korea's goals as exciting as Togo's. Lol.

So now, adding to my list of supported teams, namely Singapore, Brazil, Netherlands and Argentina, I shall add Togo too! I don't think I get to watch any more group stage matches, but next time if I see the 'minority' teams performing better than the 'better' teams, I won't hestitate to support them. Lol.

The excitement of group matches, in my opinion, is when the final matches are being played. There we can see all the 'Country X must beat Country Y and hope Country Z loses. Country Z just needs a draw with Country W and they have not lost in the past 38 years' conditions. This is also the time where we can see countries cheating to get through to the next round. Example? Denmark vs Sweden during Euro 2004.

I find it weird as to why the news does not have extensive reporting on the World Cup 2006. I still remembered Euro 2004 coverage was very extensive, with both stations having dedicated sports reporters and an entire section of news on the competition alone. Now? News merely showed match replays of the goals and near-miss.

The start of common test is coming closer and closer and I'm still having difficulty settling down to work. Argh.

The only bad thing about blogging so early is that I have to type softer on the keyboard. Otherwise in the dead silence of the morning I can easily wake the whole family up.

After spending a farking bloody long time on the computer, I finally got my Brother MFC-210C to work with Fedora Core! It can now print and scan on the Linux! =D

Looking at the new iCOMP website that the juniors have created, I will say no doubt its one of the best ones I see these days.

If only iCOMP remains as the Internet and Computing Club and not what Infocomm Club that the IDA wants us to call ourselves.

If only AHS's Computer Club was half as good as iCOMP.

If only I was half as good as the iCOMP president.

Finally after three weeks of stay at the repair shop, my Z520i is back in my hands, half recovered.

Apparently they only repaired my screen, which took up the three weeks because they didnt have stock for the cable inside the phone, and had to wait for the cable to come. I had expected them to rewrite the phone software, but no they kept it intact. So only half of the problems were solved.

Handphone numbers in my phone appeared as numbers and not as the corresponding names, even when the contacts existed. I solve the problem by re-saving all the contacts. Then I cannot run any of my Java applications, slapping an "Application error" alert in my face when I accessed them. The default theme is "corrupted", so I have to settle for a "Mistic" theme that sets an almost white-coloured background. Nothing special, except that the font colour is white too. And more and more images are beginning to disappear, in their places either a cartoon of a picture broken into two, or simply just black and nothing else.

I'm not complaining or something; I still like Sony Ericsson and the Z520i alot, but I just felt that quality control should have been better than expected. Of couuse it may not be their fault, perhaps it was me who didn't take good care of it. Then again, shouldn't it be able to withstand mild shock or mishandle?

I spent a little time last night trying to find out if there is any way possible I can replace the phone software myself, but my efforts were in vain. I either write my own O.O ,which is physically(referring to me and the phone's 16mb of memory) and mentally impossible, or stick with it until the end of the year. The latter seems easier, but my hands are itchy. Haha.

And so, the World Cup is here. The tournament for the world's most popular sport has attracted billions of people around the world, fans and non-fans, to catch "22 men chasing a ball" and watch them kiss their rings or take off their shirts (and robot dance haha) when they manage to score.

I still remember the World Cup four years ago threw up plenty of surprises. I myself watched France fall to Senegal, which threw my predictions totally off, and Ronaldino's shocking but cunning free kick against England. Four years on, its now almost at the other side of the globe, and thanks to my Internet Service Provider I can only watch four matches. Perhaps a little consolation is that the important matches only come after common test.

I did not waste my time watching the opening match though, seeing the ball hitting the nets six times. Costa Rica's both goals looked suspiciously off-side, but never mind haha.

My take? I support Brazil, Argentina and the Netherlands, for no particular reason at all. Any of them win will make me happy, but I pick Singapore Brazil.

Yesterday I went on a little "military" journey.

Morning was spent at a DSTA building at the Science Park. The DSTA people gave us a talk on the DSTA scholarship, which was exactly the same as the one I heard when they came to VJC for scholarship talk. There were also talks by two men, one navy guy who briefly told us some of the technologies in the new shealth frigates Singapore recently got. The other was a middle-aged guy who deals with electromagnetics at DSO.

After lunch buses took us to the SAF Centre of Military Experimentation, and that's where the excitement began. Located inside a camp, its a small building which consists of three labs which they supposedly try out new technologies to help them fight better battles.

There is this lab up on the 2nd storey which looks like some LAN game centre/underground hacking centre. There are computers all over the place running powerful workstations, some complete with joysticks that simulate fighter jets and choppers and tanks, all fighting out in one same battlefield that can be seen and tracked on other computers. Located in a corner is a cluster of computers where commercial off-the-shelf software like Black Hawk Down and Counterstrike and Generals and Battlefield, among others, were installed for play.

Besides gaming there are also terminals where people develop these simulators. When I was there I saw at least two female programmers who were, I think, doing some debugging work on Visual Studio. Female hard-core programmers. Haha.

Down at the first level there was this mock command post where there are huge touchscreens with numerous other lcd screens which supposedly allows commanders to transmit information to foot soldiers in the field. The hosts explained some of their technologies to us, like tablet PCs and PDAs running 3D maps of Singapore on Google Earth-like software, and also their private search engine which they use to hunt out terrorists. Maybe they will use that to hunt this blog down huh? Haha.

Overall I find this trip very informative and fun, especially the SCME tour. This lab, having just set up not too long ago, is not something I see in news often, so through this tour I learnt more about real cool place. Although a little part of me prefers to be carrying a gun and running out in the field, I don't mind working in this lab too, if I get a chance to go in the first place.

I have just heard the most exciting news that can happen to me.

"From 1 July, MaxOnline 2000 and MaxOnline FlexiSurf 2000 will be MaxOnline 4000 and MaxOnline FlexiSurf 4000. With higher combined download speeds of up to 4,000Kbps, you can surf, play and shop at double the bandwidth at no additional cost!

What's more, existing customers will enjoy an automatic upgrade. There's no change in hardware nor subscription rate. Simply power off and on your existing cable modem from 1 July to enjoy faster access speed right away!"

From here

YYYAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have experienced download speeds of 300++KB/s, which translated to 2400++kbps, during some of my downloads recently, which I thought was impossible for my 2000 plan. But I never thought they were going to increase the download speeds!

Actually the increase does not really affect me much; a price cut would have been better, but I'm easily contented =D

TALKING TO MYSELF...... II

My mum is at home today; her day off from work, although the house doesn't make too much of a difference with or without her around.

The PC Show is back again this year, showing just about the same stuff these IT exhibitions show every year. But wth PC Show is shifted to Suntec this year from Expo, meaning its a longer trip down, should I decide to go.

Anyway, these IT exhibitions doesn't exhibit things that I want to see, and going to these shows just make me more desperate in wanting to get a new computer. Argh.

Do I sound weird in my entries? I wonder, because these days my entries sound (or rather, read) differently from my usual self. Either I have been stressed out by school too much before the holidays, or I have been "bored" out by the holidays. Someone drag me out of my house!!!

Alternatively, I can bury myself in more books as a countermeasure, but this computer is stopping me to do so. So perhaps someone can do me the favour by destroying this computer so that I can get a new computer I can get my ass down to work.

TALKING TO MYSELF......

After feeding myself with two of the four dumplings on the table, and drinking a cup of coffee, I'm here, again.

Am I contradicting myself? Never mind.

Lately I have been eating quite a bit of durian, and now that Dragonboat Festival is coming, soon I will be stuffing myself with more dumplings. Coupled with my procrastination to run three times a weeks at the stadium, very quickly I will be down with all kinds of highbloodpressurediabetesfatscholesterolheroinandwhatnot and I may die by the end of the holidays!

I just realised Fedora Core 5 came with a "Gnomad 2", which is an application that allows me to read and write to my Zen's MP3 compartment. (I kind of knew it exists, but I didnt know it was inside the CDs.) This means I don't have to switch to Windows to transfer my songs anymore!

Actually I seldom use Windows now, because for some weird reason the virtual memory is disabled and I can't enable it, and it crashes applications one by one.

I spent half a day yesterday fiddling around with the computer, installing Java plugin and Realplayer 10, and connecting the hi-fi to the sound card. Muahaha.

FC5 actually came with Bluetooth capability, but I don't know how to activate it and I don't have a device to try on now. I'm quite reluctant to read the lengthy documentation.

Argh. Seriously, I should be mugging instead. But I hope by the end of the holidays I can fully understand the Linux filesystem.

FORMULA ONE

For now I shall just treat this blog as a partition out from my mind which I dump some of my thoughts so that my mind can be freed up for other stuff.

Like, studies.

I was following the live timing for today's Formula One's race, Monte Carlo in Monaco. This race is especially exciting because its a very tight road being converted to a race circuit, making overtaking extremely difficult.

Michael Schumacher initially qualified for the pole position, but was kicked to the back of the grid, because of a cheat he committed.
I was happy to see him start last, because it meant that Kimi Raikkonen would move forward to third.

As I watched the numbers jumped on my screen, I was so delighted when I saw Kimi overtook second position Webber, then threatened Alonso in the lead with an average 0.5 seconds behind, with several best lap timings and sector timings. I was so confident he could overtake Alonso and be champion today.

Until Kimi's car caught fire at lap 51.

ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Watching him did an fantastic race before retiring when there's only a third to the end is really very disppointing, not just to him, but also to me.

The fact that the guy at the last ended the race in sixth position does not help matters.

Perhaps a little consolation is that Montoya came in second, which helps McLaren Mercedes get some much-needed points. Still, I'm a little worried for Kimi because he has not been performing well this season, while his competitors are doing very well.

Well, the only reason why I support Kimi is because he is the number one driver in McLaren Mercedes, which is just about the only Mercedes car I like in the entire fleet. And the only reason why I support McLaren Mercedes is because its black-and-grey paint looks cool to me. Haha. Somehow I just don't feel comfortable with red-coloured cars dominating almost every race.

Then there is the shocking news that Kimi may be moving over to Ferrari next season. If he really moves over, should I still support him? Never will I support that red coloured company!

Singapore should have an F1 circuit. A tight street circuit will be best man!

Strange the World Cup is coming and I'm yakking about Formula One instead.

WHY DIDNT I BLOG AS OFTEN AS BEFORE II

Because I don't know why I am blogging in the first place.

It started off as an interest, but now I wonder why I should have this blog. Blogs fall broadly into two categories, either write for others to see, or for oneself to see. I thank the little group of my friends who visit my blog every now and then, but seriously, I got nothing for anyone to see. I read other blogs and they can give their opinions on everything under the sun in fantastic English, either in essay or in poem form, then I look at my own blog and see that I write nothing but rubbish, and can write nothing but rubbish, using horrible English with primary-school-level vocabulary. I deeply regret that I'm not well-versed in languages, and I sat on the fence too much that I am now deprived of my own opinions, but then, there's nothing much I can do.

I can easily dismiss this by convincing myself that this blog is to store all my memories so I can refer to it when i'm "old". However, I *think* I am not one who clings onto the past, or at least for most of the things. Anyway, I can't imagine my memories being stored on some servers which can be read by anyone on Earth. A written diary sounds much better than that.

Furthurmore, my blog is being read by too many people that I cannot really say what I want to say, or store any memories which I think should be kept intact with the passing of time.

So what exactly why am I keeping this blog? So that my friends have something to read whenever they come? So that I can rightfully declare that I have a blog?

Should people care anyway if VJC has a good soccer team or they can't even score a goal in ten matches? Should people care anyway if I'm using Linux or Windows? Should people care anyway if I am the top student in the world or I am kicked out of school? Should people care anyway if I'm alive or dead?

I'm not saying that I don't want to blog anymore; its just that I find it hard to blog properly when I don't know why I am doing it.

So, I need to know the purpose of doing something before I can do that something properly. Is it a good thing or a bad thing?

Look, its yet another piece of rubbish. And when I say its rubbish, its really rubbish. Don't read too much into it.

WHY DIDNT I BLOG AS OFTEN AS BEFORE I

My life in the past few weeks had been very monotonous, thus I find it unnecessary to blog about how I rush my tutorials in the wee hours of the morning to catch up with the pace.

Until recently.

The past two weeks were jam packed with sports finals, and the college had called for students to go down and support. I went for basketball finals, badminton finals, soccer girls finals and of course the soccer boys finals.

Watching the basketball finals and badminton finals made me felt like a jinx. Up till that point of time I had watched a total of 5 finals, since last year, and VJC lost all. For a moment I thought maybe my absence would help the soccer guys win this year's title.

In the end, I believed that those losses had nothing to do with me, so on Wednesday I went for soccer girls finals (skipped hockey finals as a precaution haha). Watching girls play soccer was, well, kinda entertaining. I shall not go into the details, but VJC played well. And for once, I managed to see my own college winning -.-''

Thursday was the big day. Instead of a half day the principal declared we use Friday's timetable as most of us end early on Fridays, then ordered buses to transport the entire school down to Jalan Besar Stadium. The match was an exciitng one, watching VJ coming back first from 0-1 down then later 1-2 down, then scoring 3 goals in 4 minutes to take back the title we lost last year.

Frankly speaking, MJ played a better match with their excellent skills and accurate passing. VJ won because they had better stamina and fitness, as all can see from the last goal where the VJ guy ran down the length of the field to score after intercepting a corner kick.

Interested parties can catch the last 4 minutes of the match here. Its at the last couple of minutes of the video.

Friday was spent going to school only to hear them announce that it was a full day off, then while the rest of the school can go off to have fun, my class had to walk the stone path three times and climb up a 25-storey HDB flat for "healthy lifestyle".

Ended yesterday by watching the Da Vinci Code.

I have lots more to talk about, but I guess that's all for now. Maybe I will blog more next time. Maybe.

Am I too late to say that the ruling party won again?

I don't know whether to believe them that we should not compare this elections results with the one in 1997, because the 2001 elections was an exceptional case. Personally I think, 9/11 and SARS does not have any effect on elections results.

Maybe they are coming up with some excuse to explain the drop in their results when compared to the 2001 elections.

Anyway, congratulations to the opposition for retaining the 2 seats they already had, and almost winning one GRC. Let's hope that they will do better.

For the past week a flu virus has been spreading around the class, and a conservative estimate of 5 pple, including me, had since fell victim to it.

I attended a business symposium organised by our Firefly Club and EDB today, held at the PT. The theme was on the transport industry, and different jcs sent in teams earlier to give presentations on one of six topics. Today was the finals for three jcs, and they all chose the same topic on whether the Airbus A380 was a worthy investment.

Luckily, the symposium was very general for non-econs students like me, perhaps except someone can explain the term "supernormal profits" to me. Haha. The symposium was very enlightening, as the teams presented views and opinions on the A380 which I have never thought of in the past. But I thought the keynote speech by the guest-of-hounour was abit too long.

Attending lectures in Lecture Theatre 5 is a test of one's tolerence and patience towards noise pollution. I'm usually quite tolerant with the amplified murmurs, and lately I find myself increasingly difficult trying to keep my cool with all the noise behind. I have not exploded because I have high tolerance. Just today in the PT, a bunch of students seated at the last row were talking loudly among themselves while the guest was making his speech, and they seem rather comfortable with all the racket they were creating.

Of couse, I'm not trying to say I don't make noise. But I guess I know when to stop ba.

It feels weird when the entire PE department knows that my class has a civics tutor who is the cross country teacher-in-charge and himself a champion runner for the past 9-10 years, and then all the teachers expect us to run as fast as him.

Pressuried? Stressed? Special? I dunno.

My class's PE is on the first two periods on Friday, and we happen to be the only Year2 class among the bunch of kids.

The rule:
Year1 guys: five items today, 2.4km run next week,
Year1 girls: 2.4km run today, five items next week,
Year2 girls: 2.4km run today, five items next week,
Year2 guys: all six items today.

So only 12 males ran six rounds on the track today, under a light drizzle and the eyes of the legendary civics tutor.

This. Is. The. Toughest. Run. I. Ever. Had. To. Endure.

My lungs were tearing apart by the fourth round, and I seriously wanted to walk. But I couldn't, and didn't want to, because I know I would get into trouble if I did. Yet I can't slow down, because more trouble will come if my timing is bad.

I was moltivated enough to run as fast as my lungs could take it, but the timing is nothing to shout about.

The highlight of the run was the horizontally-challenged guy in my class, who had the "honour" to train under, who else, but our CT, in college and at Turf City. He did a very impressive run today, improving by one minute and for the first time, not occupying the last position.

And I realised I got E for sit-and-reach. Which means I have to retake everything again. Congrats to me.

Argh. I need to exercise more.

Went to Nanyang Polytechnic today for a talk on the development of games.

The speaker was Mr Yuji Yasuhara, a programmer who single-handedly programmed a game for PS, and now part of a team that created Gran Turismo 3 and 4 for PS2.

Listen to him talked, was haha, abit uncomfortable, because he's a Japanese and his English isn't good. He spent all the time talking about how he designed and created his game for PS, everything from scope of vision to Assembly code that accesses the register. He even went into the ever-so-familiar C, talking about floating point operations (or rather, the fact that PS lacked floating operation and everything have to be done using integers).

Later he showed us the game, using a PS2 plugged in there, then pressing cheat codes that unlocks all the levels (he told us only he knows the cheat code), and explaining to us the game.

Running out of time, he gave a quick description on the production of GT4, like about him going home only 3 to 4 days in a month, taking only 3-4 days leave in 6 months, 60 people spending 3 years on the game etc etc.

A Q&A session followed after that, with a panel consisting of him, and people from local game companies.

Well, I have learnt abit from this talk, and I guess its not easy to whether set up my own game company, or joining a game company and working under the noses of others. Still, a career in this field is not bad, and I shall seriously consider that.

He revealed something interesting. Although CPU and memory speeds are getting faster and faster, acessing registers is getting slower and slower, because of the fact that CPU speeds are increasing much faster than memory speeds (err something along this line la).

Time taken:
PS1: 16 cycles
PS2: 50 cycles
PS3: x000 cycles (he declined to reveal the actual figure haha)

NAPFA's tomorrow! AH!

As the incident is being continously blown up, with words of "Liar!" and "Cheat!" and "making a molehill out of a mountain" flying between the parties, elections are getting more and more exciting!

Well, its not everyday that we can see wayang shows in the Singapore politics scene, which are just short of exchanging blows (aka Taiwan Parliamant), where politicians criticise contesting parties like they are murderers. Haha.

When a particular politician went to a certain place to meet residents to try to win votes, the news reported that no resident asked him about the incident which happened recently. So the claim was that the people of Singapore have already understood what had happened.

I wonder has it occurred to him that the reason why no one asked anything is because we (hmm..maybe only me) do not find it as important and as serious as what they made it out to be? Has it occurred to them that perhaps they are about the only people in Singapore who are creating this mountain out of that molehill?

On the other hand, I wonder why the national newspapers have to specially put up one BIG page on the ruling party talking about the incident and how he should be sued and sacked and whatever.

Also, the news kept saying that whether the citizens of Singapore support him or condemn him, we shall wait for results on Polling Day. Given their reputation, I wonder why they can't do a survey on it or grab some people on the streets to ask them instead of waiting for Polling Day results?

(Perhaps they are afraid that everyone they asked did not think of that mistake as something major, thereby after that they have nothing else to report on?)

Perhaps I'm thinking too much, but the posters put up by the ruling party looks weird, especially the one with The One smiling happily and sticking his palm out in the "air". Weird as in...hypnosis effect or something......

Election activity started long before I woke up this morning. Lorries carrying party flags and posters and loud speakers were making its way round the neighbourhood, trying to attract people's attention. Those lorries remind me of the propaganda truck that I have to destroy in Red Alert 2. Except the one in the game used loudspeakers, while the real-life ones used loud hailers.

Late morning a bunch of people were seen gathering at a particular shop opposite my house, and I thought they were from the opposition because all of them were dressed in white tops and black bottoms, until I finally saw the main character, dressed in white from top to bottom, shaking people's hands as they walked by. The propaganda lorry slowed down and waved at each other when i drove past.

Finally in late afternoon I saw (and heard) the lorry from the opposition. Surprisingly the opposition had better loud hailers and I could hear their voice messages better. The one from the ruling party was very muffled.

Elections aside, yesterday I stayed back after school to watch the Drama Nite. The show wasn't too bad, the quality was still there, but the second play was rather profound and I could figure what the story was about. The actors, I guess being young and relatively inexperienced, were rather soft in their voices. The first play was splendid.

Backtracking to Wednesday it ws Feeling Fab where we could sign up for a variety of activities. I signed up for yoga the first time round, so this time I signed up for muay thai lol.

Actually it wasn't too bad; learnt some basic punches and kicks. But the session was too short to be deemed useful.

Next week will be an exciting week. Monday is a public holiday, Tuesday will be the Students' Council Investiture which will result in my chem test being postponed to the following week, and NAFPA test on friday. My class will be especially stressful thanks to our especially sporty civics tutor.

Or should I call him my discipline tutor instead?

From him:
To improve performance, you have to start by fortifying the mind:

1. Start each day with a declaration of intent: "I am going to enjoy this day".

2. You can run; many cannot and will not run. Some have never known what it is like to run. Make the most of it while you can.

3. You can train every day for at least one hour. There is no excuse not to.

4. Train with a goal in mind.

5. The method of achieving this goal must involve rehearsing the activity and aids to that activity.

6. Competition must not only include the specific event but other events which will test endurance and speed.

7. Exercise your will specifically by devoting time daily to the task you dislike most in training - or to a known weakness. Start small and progress.

A competition is a competition; if you have trained diligently and intelligently and done your best, you have succeeded. You are only a failure if you have not done these things.

- Frank Horwill