Backtracking to Sunday I was drinking my milo in the late morning when I received a phone call from my mother. She fell down, and because she tried to use her hands to break the fall, she broke her wrist. When I reached my mother I saw a very obvious hump on her wrist.

At the hospital it was waiting, waiting, and more waiting. The first was waiting for the nurse in the consultation room to decide that my mother needs an X ray before she could see the doctor. The second was waiting for the X-ray. The third was waiting for our turn to see the doctor.

Apparently I had to pass the X-rays over to the doctor first before seeing her, but I didn't know that until my brother came from home and told me that I should not be holding the X-rays. So we waited for half-an-hour for nothing.

My mother was shivering very seriously, so we decided to cut the queue abit. The doctor decided that she needed an operation and a stay at the hospital. So after more waiting at the Nurses' Station and subsequently the Admissions counter, she was admitted into a B2 bed.

The most intolerable thing throughout the entire wait, was actually the painful look on her face, coupled with the sense of helplessness I had.

By the time she got to the bed her shivering was gone, and she looked better than the battered body earlier on. I think the shivering was more of a psychological thingy than a physical one. I vaguely remembered myself shivering similarly when I went to the hospital in the wee hours of the morning due to very serious gastric pains.

The following day in school, I was surprised to receive a call from my brother that my mother has been discharged and was at home already. So fast? I thought.
It turned out that the doctor somehow fixed her broken bone back into the original position, and put her arm into a cast, asking her to go back again another day. Resting at home is more cost-saving than staying in the ward.

Help came mainly from my aunt's family. A fully automated washing machine was in my house on Tuesday, courtesy of my cousin. (Huh? Isn't it a standard feature in everyone's homes? Nah..the one is my house was the 1990-era National semi-automated type. I don't think anyone of you have seen a washing machine that's green in colour before have you?)

Then my aunt cooked dinner for us in the past few days, because none of us could squeeze out the time to.

My mother looked the same in the past few days. She doesn't show signs of improving actually. Hopefully she will be alright soon.

Not that I am bad-mouthing her or something, but at her age, I have a feeling that this will not be the last time. Haix.

This aside, I finally found a torrent client that can work fine with my computer! There are loads of Linux-based torrent clients around, but because I have screwed up Python and Java, Bittorrent and Azureus are out. Today I found a C++ based torrent client called rTorrent, which is a text-based one. Downloads, however, are slow, just like the others.

A new error message has just appeared in my hp. Pressing the menu button will throw up a message which says:

DynamicMenuError
Errors occur in the menu.ml file. This may render the menu unusable.

After pressing OK it still brings me to the menu. But the shortcut buttons and links can no longer work anymore.

And so, next week is National Day week. Besides Monday which is lessons as usual, the rest are without lessons. Friday is a holiday because its our Polling Day holiday. Then the teachers are capitalising on this by giving out tons of homework. Argh.

Prelims is coming.

Tomorrow will be a busy day.

And so today was the VJC Careers, Higher Education and Scholarship Fair 2006.

They gathered the three local universities, numerous government and government-linked agencies, and education centres which handle overseas education, to set up booths in college, and promote their scholarships to us. Lessons ended at 1.20pm for all, and included a lucky draw with a top prize of an Ipod Nano to attract crowds. Within the first hour my hands were full of bags and brochures belonging to the different agencies.

I don't have many choices; 'S' Papers and myopias less than 500 degrees in either eye are minimum requirements for most scholarships. I just went round with my friends grabbing their brochures and free gifts. My haul at the end of the day included 1 handphone pouch, 1 notebook, 2 posters, 3 paper bags, 5 pens, and many, many brochures screaming why I should pick them.

Also listened to 3 talks, one by the British Council, one by IDA (which turned out to be the same presentations as the previous two times I went), and one by MINDEF (which was rather slipshod =x).

After attending the fair today, I am once again wondering if I should study at an overseas university or if I should just study at a local university. No doubt an overseas education sounds attractive, but I can only go for one if and only if I am able to get a scholarship. Without 'S' Papers (and even 4 As to start with) or "outstanding CCA records" to shout about, scholarship probability is nearly zero. Then US and UK universities require reports from my teachers, and I don't have anything good for them to write about. Just the thought of my teachers spending hours with images of me in their heads while they try to cook up something to deceive those admissions officers is enough to make me feel....weird. Its like, wasting their time.

Then there are essays to write and interviews to attend. My GP is rubbish, and I really can't talk to strangers. Group discussions where examiners try to weed out quiet ones and take in vocal ones are the worst. I will be the first to be shown the door.

So when I receive the letter to thank me for applying and wish me all the best in my future endeavours, I will then start crying my heart and soul out in my bed, regretting why I had not studied harder in my JC days and tried harder to win at competitions. After that, I will just spend the next three/four years quieting studying some computer science course, graduating without anyone noticing, then join some small company located at a corner of some office building as a boring programmer, and worked till the day I die.

Haha. Sorry you have just wasted some time reading some crap.

I'm not looking down on local universities by saying that the above would not happen if I study overseas. My point is that it is quite likely my life will end up as boring as above (please la, all that talk about me becoming some godlike boss is shit.), so I might as well not trouble the army of teachers. I can die more quietly without anyone knowing. Also I hate the sight of some invisible guardian popping out to ask me why I had not strived to get better results when I had the chance.

I'm not sure myself what I am trying to say. I'm just pouring out everything that's running across my mind now. I'm very confused.

Maybe I am typing all these because I am upset by my disappointing performace in my past 18 years of life (that can stretch into one essay) and I really hope that my future will not be as dull anymore. Maybe. Hope.

I have not taken SAT. And I will definitely fail if I should take one, and waste that 100 bucks away.

I have always ignored those announcements and reminders and deadlines about filling up online forms or attending scholarship talks or whatever. Now that it caught my attention, I don't have much time. Should I start doing them now, it will only bring the tutors shock waves that I am thinking of university now when the rest of the population have done that half a year ago, and me, an array of scoldings and sarcastic remarks for not doing it earlier.

While many people have more or less decided their future academic path, and now concentrating hard working towards that goal, I am still a wondering soul in the thick fog.

Special task force = Professional seat fillers

I wonder if its a good thing. I won't mind sitting in the PT watching, but I don't want to sit beside strangers. Ha.

My flat's Lift Upgrading Programme has started. At the other side of my flat they have digged up one big hole and laid cables.

So once they are done with that new lift they will come over to my side and tear down one lift, then make the other one stop at every floor. That will mean digging one big hole in the wall just nearby my unit. I hope I do not have to endure all the construction.

Tomorrow's a half day, apparently to celebrate our achievements, for performers to rehearse and teachers to make final arrangements. The rest of the population has a rehearsal too, to walk from the LTs and line up along the walkway, to clap and cheer (-.-') when the guest of honour comes in in a car, just like what we did last year.

It makes no difference to the five computing students, as coursework is on as usual. After hearing what our computing teacher said today, it turns out the difficult part is not difficult after all.

VJC is going up on The New Paper soon! I think.

The 7th month is here. Be careful not to stay out too late.

Prelims are coming..30+ days to GP and 40+ days to the rest of the subjects. I'm still not studying.

As Prelims draw near teachers are rushing to finish the syllabus and squeeze every possible piece of knowledge into our feeble stretched brain. Revision problems, practice problems, make up lectures, revision lectures, remedials, tutorials etc.

Computing Coursework 3B has started and I am supposed to do something that I have never ever learnt before in my life.

Amidst all these workload I have to settle my top 3 achievements, my CIP hours, and think about which university and course to go.

AMD just bought over ATI.

College Day is this Saturday, and our class is being volunteered to be a special task force to help a teacher, who is apparently the overall in charge for seating arrangement.

Around the world everyone is fighting and arguing again.

Around the world news are reporting earthquakes and floods and typhoons and heatwaves again.

I overheard my mother telling my father that my brother's spine problem has worsened and an operation seems unavoidable. It sounds serious.

Life.

Yesterday morning I went back to AHS to attend the 50th Founder's Day's celebrations.

It was quite a buzz in school when I reached as the uniformed groups positioned themselves all over the place ushering vehicles to the carparks and greeting the guests that arrived. Student councillors were in their ties and blazers accompanying the guests. The rest of the student population were sitted in the hall, dressed in special anniversary t-shirts, with each level donning a different colour.

The hall has been made air-conditioned since last year, but I did not see it myself until I stepped in yesterday. Huge industrial-sized air-conditioners on the second storey was enough for me to feel that bit of cool air.

The celebrations in the main school hall started off with the school song and a prayer. Before the usual speeches from the principal and the guest of honour, some bishop, a video titled "The Soaring Eagle" was played, highlighting the 50 years of AHS, along with interviews of some prominent alumni.

After a prize presentation to those students with 6/7 A1s, the concert finally started. The concert itself was quite alright, the most interesting performances being the teachers coming together to sing two songs, and the uniformed and sports groups attempting a Storm-like percussion play.

The concert ended with the uniformed groups releasing party poppers shooting those little colourful strips of papers that made the entire hall looked like a World Cup stadium celebrating the win of a country.

Made my way down to the heritage centre, the first time I stepped in since its launch last year, to have a look at the exhibits, afterwhich I went to the tower hall beside it to indulge myself in a hearty meal of rice and curry.

Various changes were made to the school. Besides the air conditioners in the hall, all the classrooms now have dark tinted glass windows and curtains, for reasons I do not know. Graffiti and art have appeared on some walls, the fitness corner has been totally revamped, and three different models of security cameras have been spotted. A wushu cca has also appeared.

At night I went to Expo for the anniversary dinner. There were already many people when I reached there. I spotted people (before and during the dinner itself) like my batch's NCC, Girl Guides and Chinese Drama people, a couple of my juniors including at least one from my S44 junior class, along with several teachers and ex-principals. Amongst the crowd I also spotted one of my VJC Maths lecturers.

I also spotted several ex-teachers, like my Social Studies teacher, who remembered me and a third of my name ("wei something?") although I was relatively quiet in class. Then there was also my Sec1 Maths teacher, who I remembered was a jovial old man who could write very well with both hands and played the saxophone to the whole school when he retired. There was also my Sec1 Science teacher, who
went on to the Sports School when it opened. Lastly there was my Sec2 Chinese teacher, who back then was in charge of badminton. He recognised me, but forgot my name.

When a friend asked him how was AHS's badminton now, he said it was bad, couldn't even get Zone titles. When I asked is it because of the Sports School, he gave an excellent reply: If its the Sports School, then they get 1st, we can get 2nd right?

My friends and I, totalling four, sat at table 437, together with 6 others who graduated from 2001, and coincidentally all went to VJC. There was an occassional exchange of words, otherwise we didn't talk much. The NCC gang sat next to us to a table themselves. Most other tables were occupied by adults and the elderly. The emcees looked for the oldest graduate in the hall, and it went to some guy who graduated in 1963.

The programme for that night was almost a repeat of the morning's activities. It was the same video, the same principal speech, and the same GOH speech, which no one listened to =x

There was lucky draw, which was, I can swear, is a total conspiracy. For the 30 table prizes, tables 340, 343. 344. 345 all won. For the 30 individual prizes, 5 of them, including the top prize of the Ipod Nano, went to the table of NCC guys, which, if the probabilities were worked out, were not random at all!

The dinner itself was typical of a normal wedding dinner, a nine course meal with endless refilling of orange juice. I think having the dinner at Expo wasn't bad. Although less exquisite, the atmosphere was more relaxed.

I received a "24K gold-plated commemorative coin" together with a CD containing that soaring eagle video as a gift. The front of the coin was the school crest, and the face of the school's metal button formed the back of the coin. Nice.

My friend pointed out that all the popular artistes did not turn up. Hmm..

Overall the dinner was fun, although I wonder if I should had went to find more teachers. Then again, I regret not having any tools to capture the events of yesterday, for perhaps the next time I return, everything may have changed again.

After missing out two days of school, I went back to school today to encounter a very "interesting" assembly.

Some guy had nothing better to do, so free that he decided to go out onto the streets, Orchard Road to be precise, with a camera in hand, catch VJC girls in very short skirts, take photographs, pen a really fantastic letter about VJC girls being sex symbols, and send it in to the Ministry. The Ministry kindly forwarded it to the very hands of our principal, which resulted in a check by the teachers on the students today and noting down those who need to buy new skirts, not before a little lecture on "following rules".

I am trying my best not to hurl vulgarities and fingers at him. However, I wish to question, what's the difference between his actions and those done by a real perverted man?

Well, I really appreciate his concern for VJC girls, and perhaps the general jc female population. I appreciate his efforts in spending time flipping through the dictionary finding strong words to put into the letter, ensuring that his message gets across (who else would have thought of describing jc girls as sex symbols?). I appreciate the need for him to snap photographs of what he saw so that we can better understand how important moral values are.

I have noted that he thinks we, at 17/18 years old, are not old enough to know what is right and what is wrong.
I have noted that he thinks he is not being perverted taking photographs of girls in short skirts.
I have noted that he thinks short skirts = porn.

So I guess from now on, girls must take note the lengths of the skirts they wear. So that they will not become targets of perverted men. So that others will think they uphold moral values. So that they will not be photographed by members of the public.

I think the best skirts will be those that clean the floor girls walk on.

Guys, on the other hand, should start ensuring that their flesh are also well covered. Guys caught flashing 1cm cube of their chest or 5 strands of their leg hair may be photographed and complained to the Ministry for being sex symbols too!

Amusement.
Self-amusement.

4, 3, 2, 1, A!

4 trips to CMPB
3 ECG tests
2 PES Ds
1 ABP

A!

While everyone is "happily" studying in school, I'm stuck at home having a one-day affair with this machine.

The cuff is tightly wrapped around my left arm, with two cables, one a data cable and the other an air tube, running to a machine slightly bigger and much thicker than my Zen, resting in a pouch specially built for it.

At first it was still alright, but now the cuff around my arm and its every-half-an-hour squeeze is beginning to make me very uncomfortable. I can't bend my left arm well because of the cuff, and I have to carry this thing with me everywhere I went. As if its not enough, I have to record down what I'm doing every half an hour, on a piece of paper provided.

Actually this whole monitoring thingy looks like some stalker to find out what I exactly do in my life everyday. The recording diary is one thing, but that machine measures my blood pressure so frequently, they will know if I surf porn ogle at girls think of sex get excited. Luckily the World Cup and common test and returning of papers are all over.

Then I realise that actually I can bathe, stripping the thing off and putting it back during the half-an-hour interval. But the cuff doesn't look easy to put on, so I shall decide later.

The machine just took one reading. I don't understand what the rest of the values meant, but the "pulse" reads "65 bpm". Yay.

P C M C GP
E O B B C5

Haix.

[EDIT]

Tachycardia is what they wrote in my medical status report. It sounds dangerous. Haha.

Surfing through Wikipedia I read that caffeine indirectly causes an increase in heart rate, blood pressure, and blood flow to muscles. Then I remembered that on both occassions I had downed one cup (the first time) and one can (today) of coffee before making my way there. Could it be the cause?

[END OF EDIT]

My heart rate is still high.

My appointment was 8.30am, but I only went there after school at about 1pm so that I can do my napfa re-test(silver!) and computing coursework(I am stuck =( ).

During the test they asked me to try and take a nap, even switching off half the lights and playing music (I heard My Heart Will Go On, among others) for me. But people who have been there will know that its impossible to do so. At least for me.

Apparently it was abit of a mistake to do my 2.4k run before the ECG according to the MOs there, but I don't think it affected me because I didn't do any exercise the first time I went there. Besides this time round I had a five-hour rest.

They think that a one-min ECG test is not enough, and a half-an-hour test is not enough, so they decided to make it a twenty-four hour one.

In comes a 24-hour Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitoring, or ABP, for short.

Some small machine will be attached to my body, along with some cuff and rubber tubing (the machine got pouch somemore), and I go home, returning it the following day. (I read interpreted it wrongly at first; I thought I have to sleep there. Haha.)

The brochure they gave me went to the extent of comparing it to a pen in a picture, just to show how small it is. But I guess it should be really small. Because my mother just told me my brother had one recently too, and I didn't even know that!

The only bad thing is I have to skip school for two days, and I can't bathe.

Next Tuesday will be the day I have a machine and its wires molesting my body.

Not too long ago my mother's boss treated her to durians, and i ate almost half the durians.

Today the boss of the coffee shop my mother is working in struck lottery, so treated everyone to durians.
And I finished half of it again. Haha.

With the distribution of the prelims timetable and the reminders that prelims are a mere 48 days away, slowing ticking down, the stress and pressure are beginning to build up, slowly but surely.

And when I see the paper 0s for the various subjects scheduled on the last few days of the exam weeks, I can only sigh and regret for not working hard enough. 68 for maths now? For what?

At a Business forum I attended today:
SMU: We conduct interviews to students who are coming in...blah blah..and we have rejected students who have 4As before because they do not speak up during interviews etc etc blah.

NUS: My nephew never spoke a word during the interview and he got in.

Haha. "Interesting" talk.

So while other schools start lessons late, we end ours early instead.

I failed chem. Again.

Boycott Today!

For democracy!

For freedom of speech!

I GOT 67 for MATHS!!!!!!!!!

This is one of the greatest shocks (or rather, surprises) I got in recent days. I was expecting a just-pass for it when the teacher gave back the papers this morning. This is the best maths results I had since year1 mid years (I got 41/50 in a common test in the first 3 months) ! Haha.

After flipping through the results I realise that I could have gotten 73 (an A!), if I had replaced 2 minus signs with 2 plus signs (2marks!), finished up the working for one question (2marks!), and realise that my answers for a part 2 of a question could be taken from part 1 (2 marks! I didn't realise the 2 parts were linked =( ). It could have even went up to 75 if I had not rounded off my answers for one question and used exact fractions instead of decimals for another question.

It could even have gone up to 78 if I had not read "occur more than 4 times" wrongly and written P(x>=4). That would have made me one of the highest in class!!!! I think.

Then again, I shouldn't harp too much on all the "could have", because if I really "could have" then I would already have gotten better marks. I can't turn back time, so I shall accept it.

Currently this B grade is the highest grade I got since the Year1 mid year (my A for computing..... =( ), beating my previous highest of the two C grades during the March common tests. Not to say I'm satisfied with my marks, but I'm happy. Haha.

While I'm quite sure I won't be doing well for physics and chemistry, I'm still staying optimistic, Even if the average chem mcq mark was 14/30. Hoping at least a pass in both. Heh. I do hope those chunks of stuff I wrote for computing will get me a good score. I want an A! At least a B!

Besides surprising myself the 67 was also high enough to surprise some of my friends, who went "Even QW can score so well, why can't you?!?". Hahahahahahahaha.

This 67 was powerful enough to keep me awake throughout the day, despite having only 3-4 hours of sleep because of last night's World Cup match. I collapsed only at the end of the day, during computing lecture. Ha.

I wonder if people will think I'm crazy, getting all hyped up over a 67, when others are worrying over not getting A or 90/100 or something.

I need to mug!

Speaking of World Cup, last night's Portugal vs France wasn't exactly exciting. In fact I fell asleep and missed the penalty kick, waking up in time to watch the replay only. The only exciting moments were only in the last minutes of the match where Portugal were desperate for a goal. Otherwise the match was no kick (pun!)

Today the house comm people went up on stage to announce that the final match next Monday will be screened in college live. I have not decided if I want to go to school and watch. I prefer the college letting us to go sch later that day. =(

After this I shall take a nap, before preparing for tomorrow's coursework.

Last but not least, godly download speeds!

Today was iCOMP farewell!

Actually I missed out much of it, because I was attending a engineering talk, so I was only in time for a cup of coke, a CD the juniors made for all the seniors, and a photo with the lab technicians.

iCOMP has been a very enjoyable time for me, definitely one of the greatest highlights during my two years in VJC. iCOMP was the place I relaxed after a hard day of work (even better than the student lounge!), the place that brought me laughter in the midst of the stress, the place where I made whacky friends. iCOMP indirectly allowed me to hang out in the lab technician room with the lab technicians, something which not many in school can do. How many people have heard the usually reserved lab techs sing with a guitar?

On the other hand, I regret that I did not contribute much to iCOMP. People think I am a dedicated member, turning up for every meeting every Wednesday. However, turning up for every meeting and not doing anything is the same as not turning up at all. In the past year and a half, the only major project I did was the Director package I created for the current affairs quiz. Otherwise, all I have done were just helping out with some simple filming of some concerts, and capturing them onto CDs.

I didn't do much.

As the seniors step down from iCOMP, the unique name that everyone know will be going down with us too, as the CCA changes its name to Infocomm Club. After my sec1/sec2 time in AHS Computer Club, this past year of iCOMP will be my next best memories of CCA.

"the 50th anniversary how"

"so who going esplanade"

I was bugged by my friends (ok la, only 2 actually) on the above issue. So I might as well ask everyone. Then err...I see if I can do something about it. Haha.

There are at least 3 events according to the AHS website and the alumni website.

1) Founders' Day celebrations
Date: 22th July Saturday
Time: 10am
Venue: Main school hall
Cost: Free

I should be going back on that day. To see how much the school has, err, changed.

2) 50th Anniversary Dinner
Date: 22th July Saturday
Time: 7pm
Venue: Singapore Expo Hall 1A
Cost: $50 for us.

I went to the ticket ordering thingy and they said: Consolidate your seats and order by the table to avoid being separated from your friends!
The thing they never say how many heads to one table. I think I shall email them later and ask ba.
Another thing is the payment. Apparently they only accept cheque through mail. $(50x10) in one cheque?

3) Concert
Date: 30th July Saturday (This is interesting, because 30th July is a Sunday. So I don't know if they are referring to Sat or Sun)
Time: 7.30pm
Venue: Esplanade Concert Hall
Tickets: $20, $40, $60, $100

Have to call some number to get the tickets. Sistic?

Tag on the board if anyone is interested in any of those. Then I shall see how I can settle it ba.

I don't know what to do now.

I still remembered I said I wanted to blog on "achievements", but I'm not in the mood to blog about something so heavy now. Perhaps I may end up not talking about that at all.

All pentium3s and no pentium4 (or athlon) makes Qing Wei a dull boy. Heh.

I'm not exactly very free actually; I haven't revise my OOP (object-oriented programming, in case anyone wants to know), my school bag is empty, and empty tutorials and lecture notes are all over my files and the floor. Then again, in this relatively quiet and peaceful afternoon, I don't feel like doing anything. At least for now.

After today, it will be another term of mindless rush, in preparation for the final examinations in a not-too-distant time. I wonder if I can survive till the end of this year.

Yesterday was the class chalet. Turnout was a little disappointing, numbering just about half the class. But activities weren't too bad; I myself had fun cycling, playing soccer and frisbee.
Going home wasn't pleasant though. After missing out of the last train, my friend and I had settled for bus21, only for it to break down halfway, so swtiched to bus3. Plus another bus291, it took me 4 bus trips to reach my house. and two of them weren't necessary.

I should get my own bike next time.

Its so sad to see Brazil out of the World Cup. I stayed up to watch Brazil win, but in the end watched them lose instead. Apparently France exposed Brazil's weakness in defence and used it to their advantage, at the same time setting up a strong defensive front to stop their samba attacks.
Surprisingly Brazil did not play a good game yesterday; it was Zidane's performance that impressed me.
Then again, it won't be nice to see Brazil win every time. Just like what Ferrari did to Formula One. Some variations will be nice. Haha.

But then, the World Cup doesn't look like World Cup when no South American team is in the top four. Haha.

With the few options left I would pick Italy and Portugal to be in the finals, and see Italy win. Although I think it will be Germany winning France instead.

All songs suddenly sound so nice when one listens to them on a quiet afternoon.

My mother just woke up. With a person walking around the house and giving the occassional nag, the peacefulness of the afternoon house is broken. Haha.

Its really very disappointing when the team I support loses in a soccer match. And worse still, losing in something stupid called penalty shoot out.

I hate Germany. For killing my favourite team.

I have experienced at least two other penalty shootouts up till this day. The very first was during my primary school days where there was a little inter-class soccer competition organised by the PE department after the PSLE. My class lost in the 3rd-4th placing match because of the penalty shootout.

The second one was the VJC-MJC match last year.

Penalty shootouts are fun to watch only if one is not at all related to either team. Otherwise, they are powerful enough to give heart attacks.

Finally the common tests are over. The only paper which I knew what I was writing was computing. I should be able to pass Maths, although maybe just a passing mark. Physics wasn't too good, and I am going to continue my record of not passing Chemistry. Haix.

The end of this common test was much more anticipated by me, because I can finally watch World Cup matches without worrying about studies, or at least while I am watching.

While the rest of the world can indulge themselves in men and soccer balls and tutorials and lecture notes, the poor computing students will be starting their third coursework next week, for me, right on the very first day when I return to school. This 12-hour coursework will be carrying the heaviest weightage, and the last time I touched OOP was about 2 months ago.



This picture was taken using my hp. Haha. I borrowed a bluetooth adapter from my friend (I seem to have borrowed many things from him) and tried hooking up my hp to Fedora Core last night. Gnome has bluetooth packages which allow me to communicate with my hp quite easily. The bad thing is there's no GUI, so i have to type the commands out in the terminal.

That was last night.

A tutorial I read on the Net recommended an application called ObexFTP, which supposedly "allows filesystem browsing as well as automating complete backups of your files" in my hp. But I had trouble installing it so I gave up halfway.

Then this morning when I woke up, I decided to try connecting again. But hell I couldn't get the obex server working. So now while the computer and hp can see each other, they cannot connect up to each other. I think its because my failed attempt at trying to install that ObexFTP screwed up the entire thing.

I think my computer is in one big mess after I did so many things to it. But I have not yet understood the Linux filesystem, so I don't know how to go about clearing the rubbish. I am tempted to format my entire computer. Heh.

To say the truth sometimes I do get tired fiddling around Linux. Being a new user it is rather frustrating whenever I run into problems and there's no one I can turn to for help. Tutorials, both online and print, are too difficult to understand because usually users of Linux are already very knowledgeable in Unix, and computer science in general. Following online tutorials step-by-step to set up a printer or bluetooth support without understanding what I'm doing is just not my style. I seem to have dived into the ocean without learning how to swim yet. Yes, Linux (or rather, Unix) is as huge as the ocean.

From Starhub's Terms and Conditions:
9. Use in a Network Environment
a. You must not use or permit the use of the Service for the purposes of providing or operating any server services (including but not limited to HTTP/web, SMTP/mail and FTP/file transfer services).

=(

Actually I already sort of know that I'm not allowed to set up my own server, this being a home subscription plan after all. Still, the truth hurts. Haha.


Fedora Core comes with a whole range of packages that allow users to set up servers, and I wanted to try it, but...
So I have to continue to stick with Blogger, until I find some way of getting around this problem. Actually I still have an FTP account here, which I have not touched for a long time, but its rather restricted, this being a school server after all.

Today is 1st July! Starhub officially upgraded its Maxonline 2000 service to 4000, although I think some trial runs had been done over the holidays. There is a very slight increase in download speeds when I used it this morning, but because my computer is slow in drawing up the graphics, I don't end up browsing the Net faster. I think the increase only made my buffer being filled up faster. Haha.

I. Need. A. Bloody. New. Comp. Pu. Ter.

My father seems convinced that the house needs a new one. But he wants good reasons to justify. Even after telling him that I will be using my own bucks to pay. I cannot tell him I want one so that I can whack those pixels on the screen, because he (and I) know very well that my A Levels are coming (f* the alevels!). I haven't thought of a good reason.

A class chalet is coming up! My crazy class is going to have a 2day1night chalet starting from tomorrow, perhaps as a little pit stop before we throw ourselves into another "exciting" term.

I wonder if anyone will read each and every single word that I typed here. I don'y know why, but I can comfortably read my friends' blogs without problems, but I get sick when I see my own blog with chunks of words tighly squashed together. Maybe I should try another font.

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

They love to say that their opponents have no experience in serving, do not have the capability to carry out what they promise, write blank cheques make empty promises. But I wonder how one can expect the opponents to gain experience or carry out what they have promised if they are not given a chance to do so in the first place?

Elections is here!

Before I begin, I know that I'm not supposed to blog anything that indicates my support of any party or candidate, so I shall not name names ya?

Not that I support any political party though. For now.

On the other hand, if I have broken any rules, please let me off on account that I am only 18 years old ok? Haha.

I'm looking forward to the Elections, not because I want to know who will win (argh, I'm not saying I'm politically apathetic. Why should I know who will win since I can't vote now? Don't worry I will vote carefully when the time comes), but because it adds excitement to my otherwise boring monotonous life. Haha.

I would have looked forward to it even more if they have assigned my college to be one of the Nomination Centres, instead of the primary school a few roads down. It could have been a holiday for me!

The only memories I had for GE 2001 were the lorries that went round my house carpark screaming dialects at us to vote for...I forgot who, then accompanying my mother to the school behind my house and looking at I-forgot-what noticeboard while my mother voted, and lastly watching the news and seeing the ruling party with all smiles and happiness at the stadium.

I was only in Sec1 then.

Now having fully grown into a "young adult", I am slightly more aware of what's happening around me, and so, finally making sense about the importance of elections.

What a politically correct answer =X

This time round the opposition party is definitely more prepared, with more united fronts, clearer goals, and better presentation. The ruling party isn't slacking either, sticking faces of new candidates on my newspapers almost everyday and seeing the same three letters over and over again.

ME. A so-called new generation citizen. Personally, just like fellow other new generation citizens, I think that it will be better if more opposition get elected into Parliament, so Parliament sittings will be more exciting and we may even see them pulling each other's hair and throwing punches and kicks all over!

Lol. Just kidding.

I guess opposition parties can be a watchdog in the government to ensure that they are indeed corruption-free and more goodies will come our way. After all, we have been taught that competition will bring out the best in us isn't it so? Therefore if there is more competition in Parliament, our wishes of having more holidays and less homework may come true earlier!

Yet, I can't help but agree that there is still some way before our opposition can reach the first-class status. There seems to be a lack in eagerness and enthusiasm in helping us the citizens. Perhaps they are highly controlled by the government, they cannot make their voices and opinions known. I can see that they have really made alot of efforts in trying to form good teams and fight for the welfare of the citizens, but they seem to be more engrossed in trying to topple the ruling party rather than serving the people.

"If you truly want to serve the people, you don't have to be in Parliament to do so." -- me

What a sucky quote.

Of course, I can't accept people who hurl abuses at their competitors. I do admire their courage (Not many people dare to scold the government in their face leh!) , but admiration =/= support.

Still, the ruling party should be careful not to get too complacent. They can't really win people's votes if they shake our hands and offer to build some mechanical blocks that stop every 10m upwards only when Elections is coming.

Then again, I (and my parents I guess) find the Lift Upgrading Programme which was recently offered to us too attractive to resist. Got lift stop outside my floor leh. It sounds so good lol.

Opinions aside, this time round all the parties and candidates are very fast leh. Immediately after the Nomination thingy they are already trooping all over town hanging up banners and killing poor little grass as they plunged sharp-ended flags into the ground. There are already some on the grass patch in front of my house, and a few more across the road.

Good luck to the candidates; may the best men win.

A very neutral entry huh? Haha.

If you have inferred from the tone of my entry that I am someone who treats the Elections like a game, please take note I'm not. I do visit websites belonging to the various parties and read their manifestos, understanding what they are doing at the very least.

Email me at brotherhoodofnod24@hotmail.com if I have typed something that I shouldn't have typed. I will answer to it asap. (I'm socially responsible ok!)

I am very, very sorry. It was all my fault. It was my mistake.

It was your initative; I should have consulted you first before I carried out my action.

Go ahead and scold me..don't keep quiet..for I will feel even more guilty.

But, everything can be reserved to the original state. Just tell me, and I will see to it.

Again, I'm very sorry. Forgive me.

Blogging is an implusive action. Now I'm wondering why i blogged the previous entry. Haha.

Finally another week has come to an end. This week has been quite peaceful, except for a chain of emails that doesn't sound too friendly.

Initially I was thinking of staying back in school to watch the Dance concert. Not to say I'm interested in dance, but there's nothing to do at home. Then in the end I still came home, because I don't want to go home late at night in uniform with a bag and file. Haha.

Had a ride in the back of the lorry to Tampines, thanks to a friend. This ride was not too enjoyable, because the dark clouds were looming overhead and it seemed like rain was going to fall anytime soon. Then I couldn't help but relate those dark clouds to lightnings striking me on my head or tonardos blowing me away. Haha.

Luckily I reached home well before it rained, just in time to catch the rare event of the setting sun casting bright red light onto every single thing.

Finally today, I'm sitting on the cupboard with my back resting against the window.

Last year around this time, i was a quiet individual sitting on the chair at a corner, watching my peers giving speeches why we should choose them to be in the exco.

Now, I'm one of the seniors in the room, listening to juniors giving their speeches on why they should be in the exco.

The reason why I did not apply for any post in the exco is simply because I cannot lead a bunch of people. That fateful day back in Sec 3 when my seniors arrowed me to be the President, I quietly accepted the role. Thinking back, I should have rejected it. For I may just be the reason causing the downfall of the computer club.

Finally, after 2 struggling years, I had stepped down. When I got into VJC and eventually picked iCOMP as my CCA, I had decided that I will not take up any exco post again. I have already caused enough trouble.

Thankfully, in my peers there existed someone capable enough to lead a cca, and iCOMP is still going strong today. The exco was a perfect combo. Technical skills, communications skills, Leadership skills, organisational skills, you name it, they have it.

However, this new batch of juniors leaves much to be desired. While its a bumper batch this year, with record number of people joining iCOMP (all thanks to the principal), their technical skills are far from standard. In their speeches, and the interviews made in the past 2 days, most were commenting how they have no technical skills, but instead having the passion to lead the club blah blah etc.

Ok, its true technical skills are not the most important skills one needs to be in the exco. But one cannot know nothing about computers and want to be the exco of a computing club! How can a president lead a nation if he cannot speak the people's language?

I personally believe that one must have the technical skills. It is very very very important. Sigh.

On the other hand, there are some with the skills, but they lack all the other skills needed to be an exco member. At least they didn't protray that during their speeches and interviews.

I see myself in them.

Of course, I'm not going to overturn the entire ship. There are people with qualities required to lead a computing club.

I usually don't believe in interviews and speeches, because I believe that one should not be judged by first impression. I just can't help but feel a little worried how they are going to take over when the seniors have retired. Seriously, i dunwan to see yet another cca collapse.

Hopefully, things will change as they start to know the seriousness of leading a cca like iCOMP, and not follow in my footsteps.

I know I should be studying, but i still took out some time to try out the Fedora Core 5 i downloaded not too long ago.


Don't you think its beautiful? Haha. Actually the login screen is even more beautiful, but I couldn't get a screenshot of it.

The setup process is much more user-friendly and easier to apprehend than the Core 3 setup. Everything is laid out neatly and complicated details are removed. But then, perhaps they have removed too many things.

The new layout is a pleasant surprise. The new design and logo are cool looking. However, the functions are still pretty much the same as in Core 3.


Above: The loading screen after logging in.

Since Core 5 is optimised for Pentium 4 computers and I installed it on a Pentium 3, it can't help but was abit slow. But the speed is still acceptable overall, even slightly faster, in my opinion, when compared to Core 3.

I spent abit of time today trying to mount my Windows hard disk onto it, so I can access the Windows hard disk from Core.

Haha.

Of course its not without its problems. After mounting the Windows hard disk on Core, the login screen and a mstask error keeps appearing when i use Windows, and apparently there's no Flash player that supports Firefox 1.5/ Fedora Core 5 combo. Website text was a problem until I imported fonts in from Windows. Even then, there's still a problem with the formatting.

Whatever it is, Fedora Core 5 will be here to stay, in my computer. Haha.

I shall end this entry with an image. Have you ever seen text-based Internet browsing?

The release of Project Work results last Thursday leaves me rather doubtful about the way it was marked.

While the problem is not so serious in my college, I have heard and read of other junior colleges with ridiculously low grades. Students of particular jcs are complaining that the number of band 1s and 2s are exceptionally low, when compared to other jcs.

Even in my school, I have at least two friends who got lower grades than I thought they should get. They are supposedly good speakers, hardworking people who have put in alot of effort in their projects.

Yet there are jcs that registers unusually high "good" grades, with only a mere less-than-one-percent scoring less than "good" grades.

[There are claims that some students who slacked through their projects got good grades while students who have sloughed their guts out got low bands instead. This I shall not comment, since "amount of work put in" differs from person to person.]

This seriously makes me question the creditability with regards of the marking of our projects.

According to stuff I read on the Net, our projects are marked by our college teachers and thereafter, moderated by Cambridge markers. However we students have absolutely no idea how our projects were being marked. Were the grades given by a single teacher who marked our projects by his moods? Was there any fixed marking scheme that the markers adhered to?

Perhaps there is no ground for questioning if the grades were sort of standardised across the entire Singapore, or at least the entire college. But it doesn't make sense when a supposedly fantastic project was marked down and the students were not duly rewarded for the work they put in. Also, the percentage of the different bands across the different jcs differs by significant amounts.

In short, there are too many analomous points.

I personally think that the marking scheme, our exact grades, our exact marks, how they marked our projects, where we have gone right, where we have gone wrong, and comments, should be released to us students instead of throwing us a grade and not telling us how we have gotten the grade.

Its like dropping dead after being hit by something and not knowing what hit you!

I think that will be seriously unfair to us students, given the fact that we have all put in alot of time and effort into our projects, doing surveys, conducting interviews, running around Singapore doing case studies, carrying out experiments, combing throught books and the Internet and whatever, and spending hours and hours compiling our information together into a file.

Not forgetting all the time spent in doing nice Powerpoint presentations, and rehearsing and rehearsing over and over again to ensure we can do the best presentation ever.

Complaints aside, our project work is already over and there is no use trying to change the way it came out. Hopefully the next batch of students will be treated with more fairness and there will be more transparancy with their marking.

Isn't that what the government is supposed to do?

So it was our Sports Day yesterday.

Sports Day is one of the very few events where we can don our house tees and throw VJC into a bright sea of colours. At least 1 out of 365 days where one won't see the same beige colour everywhere he goes.
[seriously I think we should make our house tees an official attire to wear in school]

But then, wtf our juniors get house tees made of better material.

Early in the morning during maths tutorial my classmate asked the probability that it will rain yesterday.The moment he said that, it started raining. Luckily it stopped soon.

Heard a pretty surprising piece of information from my maths teacher. It turned out that the college was prepared to cancel lessons and pushed Sports Day up to the morning if the cross country team had won the previous day.
But they didn't, so we still gotta go through half a day of lessons.

Then again, I wasn't in the mood of lessons yesterday, partially because of Sports Day, partially because of the release of Project Work results.

While the whole world ended lessons at 1210, the 5 of us made our way to the computer lab for our coursework. After one hour of non-stop typing, then panicking that I have only 3 1/2 hours left with so much else to do, we made our way to the field to meet our civics tutor.

I got a Band 1! =D

With no time to celebrate, I made my way to the grandstand, and soon after, the Sports Day started off with the mascot race.

Sports Day is generally the same as all sports day in the world, nothing special.

There were some extraordinary events. There was a 200m caterpillar run where each house sent out a team of people, form a queue, hands on the shoulders infront like a train, with all their left legs tied by a string, and led by their mascots to the finishing line.

As the name suggested, it was at catepillar speed, whether the actual race itself or the preparations before that. It was amusing though.

There was also a teachers-vs-students tug-of-war. That was interesting. 12 students fought it out with 12 teachers at the field, one race per gender.

The female tug-of-war was more interesting. The teachers won one, the students won one. But students lost out in the deciding match.

The male teachers[plus the guest of honour] thrashed the male students in 2 matches. No fight at all -.-''

As usual there was cheer-leading competition. I find that the performances were all about the same. Shake pom pom, run here run there, jump here jump there, throw here throw there. I'm not biased, but Aquila's performance was slightly more refreshing. Haha.

As for the races, not of much surprise. The winners were mostly, if not all, sports players.

Aquila was champion house for Sports Day!

To conclude, I like Sports Day. Its a tad boring sitting in the grandstand for a few good hours, but its fun just to be part of the event, to feel the atmosphere, to look at people having fun.

Hello World.

Absence of an entry lately is due to a lack of time and motivation to bring myself to this page. Haha.

Last week was relatively peaceful..except that it marked the end of all my Science SPAs. After 1year 4 months and 14 gruelling SPAs later, its all over. [Actually I have already lost count of the number of SPAs I have done.]

Last week also received the confirmation slip of my A levels exams...by accepting that I am going to pay 493 bucks for 5 subjects, there is no turning back now. I can't drop anything, but have to continue till the end. Haix.

*******
"Are there any financial assistance available?"

"Oh yes there is, but you should note that the more subjects you take, the more you have to pay. So if you are unable to get financial assistance because your family income is over the cap limit, you can always go and see *."

(* => my 20th Jan 2006 entry)

******

Although Science SPAs are over, we the computing students are in the midst of Coursework 2. The task is to create a website, and I only have 4 and a half hours left with nothing much to show. Haix. Its getting on my nerves. Haha.

Just completed my NS registration last night..after receiving an reminder sms from them over the weekend. There was a hell lot of things to fill in. Have to spend so much time on it. And the earliest free date for medical appointment is in mid-June. Sianx.

Tomorrow is Sports Day! No I'm not running haha, I'm just happy that something is happening in the otherwise uneventful week. Haha.

But then, tomorrow is also the release of PW results. The entire year of hard work is still rather unforgettable. I just hope I can get a not-too-bad grade.

Yet we the computing students have to wait later than the rest. For our coursework, originally on Friday, is pushed up to tomorrow. While the rest of the school is released at 1210, we have to face the monitor screen for another hour.

On the other hand, some of my classmates are guessing that our CT will only give back our results after Sports Day. Its not the first time my class is the last in the entire level to receive something. =X

Mugging season has already started for many year2s...many people are hogging the library tables during free time to study. Even my normally-slack- : p -classmates are burying their heads in books now...which includes me. Haha.

Fairly normal entry, fairly boring entry, fairly boring me.

Its very frustrating when I stare at a string of letters and numbers and symbols and I don't understand why is the formula written this way, how it is derived, and the concept behind.

I used to be complacent, accepting whatever formulas and equations the textbook gave me. Now? I am stumped by the simplest concepts, and I can't answer my own question when I ask "why is it this way?"

I can just sit down and read through every single piece of notes all over again, but I don't have the time.

Good News:

My handphone is repaired and back in my hands! The battery and some internal part is spoilt. The hp was back home today, and after charging it for 6 hours, I'm using it again. =)

Bad News:

Everything inside is erased. That will include all my smses, some pictures that I took with the camera, some pictures my friends had sent me, and each and every single of my contacts.
Perhaps its a good thing to start anew. People I have already lost contact with shall be erased, and in my phone remains only people that I'm still in contact with.

Meanwhile, my apologies if anyone smses me and I reply asking who you are.

Another Good News:

I have transferred all my data from the spoilt computer to a working computer!
Turned out its a easy job. I just plugged the hard disk into the computer as a slave and it worked fine as a secondary drive. Initially I thought the computer will get confused with two Windows.

Yet Another Good News:

Well, my mother says if its spoilt, then buy a new one.(haha so generous)
Haven't told my father that the computer is spoilt. Because if I told him, most probably he will try to fix the computer rather than agreeing to buy a new one. I am still considering my options.
But then at this weird time, it doesn't make much sense if I buy a new computer. I will (most probably) be mugging, and after that I have to enter NS for two bloody years. And there's also the laptops becoming more and more powerful these days.

Yet Again Another Good News:

I've finally downloaded Fedora Core 5! Total of 6 iso images, each taking 30-50mins to download (I picked a Singapore mirror ftp haha) Now they are eating up 3gb of my disk space (my this hard disk only got 7gb of space =( )
Shall find one fine day to burn them all into cds, then delete FC3 before installing FC5.

I signed up for a trip to Silicon Valley. Was informed that I only need to write an essay and whether I get selected will be based on my essay.

Then came the news that there were too many people signing up for it and thus, an interview has to be conducted to select the final students.

Well, I didn't get through it, so I have to stay put in Singapore.

No reason was given, though I guess its because of my late submission of my essay, my sucky performance during interview. And sheer bad luck.