6000 km and counting...

My fingers hurrt. Alot. Thanks to Lennard.

Ah, I'm ok... mostly. Really tired from China and I have some sort of diarrhoea (its correct spelling!) as a souvenir too. Nice right.

Anyways I liked the plane ride best. Having people serve you drinks and stuff is all nice and stuff, but it's even better when they actually ask you what you want. And the airplane food was the best food I could handle so far, with the exception of the pizza hut incident...

We went over to the airport at like 6am last Tuesday, and it's been whirlwind-ish since then. Sat on plane. Arrived in Shanghai Pudong. Sat on bus (grr no maglev train) to hotel. Slacked off for rest of night after small briefing. Went out to buy food at night (illegal much!!) Went to buy like drinks (2L bottle omgomg) and saw a KFC.

Second day was horrible, was supersuper hothothothot.... Like even hotter than Singapore la, and I thought that was impossible on it's own. Not only that we went to walk here and there and they brought us to so many freaking places... some museum, then a robot testing thing that was super dusty... And we discovered a hands-on of the effect of expansion and contraction of gases; Josay's bottle was like empty and he capped it outside in the super hot air, then we went inside to the robot lander thing and put it in front of the aircon and it shrunk so much that the bottle sort of piaked... Which was super cool. And there was this mini-science centre thing that had a Jacob's ladder and some Bernoulli's principle behind it. All it did was make stuff float like without hovering, I think Mao has some pics...

And if I remember correctly we went out again to buy food cause for lunch or some late 4.30 tea we ate at this restaurant which you had to cook your own food and they had little fire pots and stuff to do that with... Something like our steamboat in Singapore except the cooking pot was individual. It was cool. So we went to this super-market in the afternoon and bought like some stuff (food, more drinks, etcetc. Did you know that their drink cans are 355 mL? WOW), and our dear Mao and Shenrong bought 400 yuan of stuff. From a supermarket!! Like a toy walkie talkie, loads of food, a heart shaped flyswatter... ZZZ

Anyways we went out again in the night and took a taxi all the way back to the supermarket. Found it closing so we went to buy bubble tea outside and walk walk abit. Decided to walk back, then saw this little igloo thingie selling CDs and DVDs. At 16 yuan for one. NOT PIRATED. OMG. (exchange rate: 1SGD:5YUAN) So we bought some stuff (I didn't :D) and slowly waled back. On the way we saw a streetside shop selling DVDs. Again we bought a few (I didn't :D) but when we tested them back at the hotel they were lousy quality. REALLY LOUSY QUALITY. But who cares. I think they were like 1 sing dollar each? lols

So beginith out third day. We went to this science centre-like place, and I bought the penguin from there. XD But more importantly, we had great fun going in some of their exhibits and playing around. There was the mystery of reproduction or something, and in the end cause me and Mao and the scholars went to watch some Dinosaurs 3D (in chinese!!) movie we couldn't see the light exhibits. (jack+josay didn't go watch with us. Lucky them.) So we missed out on the physics-y part of the whole science centre. But it's ok cause we went to this observation tower that had 200 stories later. There was a rollercoaster inside but it was closed. Sad right. The main thing was, you could see like reallyreally far away, and it was so much fun... you could see how much pollution there was in the air, it was super hazy, but we still managed to take loads of photos. And we had fun riding the elevator, which rose at a speed of 7m/s and stopped in 48 seconds. And there was this human recorder inside who was the guide, but they all sounded like they simply memorised the lines instead of knowing what they meant. I mean it was like chinese, which was okay, then Jap, which sounded flat, then english, which REALLY sounded flat. It was worse cause all she did was stare blankly into space when she said that. It's so much like a memorised script.

We went to this museum thingie which was like 100km long and spun like a maze inside. The whole history of Shanghai was there, and the times were represented by wax figures. Which was veryvery scary. And apparently people kept throwing money into the exhibits where there were ships, so a running joke was that there was money to be found floating on the surface of the seas and rivers of shanghai. and on the ships themselves, cause some people missed I guess.

We went to this floating restuarant at night, ate there and drank wine hahahas. Then kena confiscated when the waiter came around and said "your teacher doesn't allow you to drink." Sad right. What a waste of good wine. Anyways it was the Shang Hai Tan or something; basically it was on the river, and there were so many lights and we took loads of pics hahas.

On friday we had a rocket competition at a school. You had to have your rocket stay in the air the longest, and we used gunpowder for the fuel!! Super cool. And they had a demonstration later of the water rockets, which were called "水火箭", and we heard "水果箭". So we though they were launching fruit rockets instead of water rockets. Super funny I tell you...

Anyways we won first prize. Mao, Shenrong, Tianwei and me. Yay for glory to our school... lols. We went to this 古城 afterwards (some old city next to the school.), and bought some stuff again. Took loads of pics, and I paid 3 yuan for a stone. It's a pumice stone, the stone that floats on water. REALLY COOL. Though abit the ripped-off, though yet againit's only 60 singapore cents, so... Ah well. Went back to hotel super tired only to be told to go to watch the quiz round. We sent Hongbo. Didn't win anything from our school, (not his fault!!) but still kinda sian. Was too tired la I guess.

On Saturday we went to this temple (apparently a temple, I didn't even know it was a temple until I looked at the itinery in English. It was super modernised and was more of a shopping street than anything else.) Anyways Shenrong bargained green lasers from 500 yuan (crazy. super marked up.) to 93.75 yuan for us. (3 lasers 95 yuan, last laser 90 yuan) Even better, these were 10 milliwatt lasers. COOLIOUS. BEST PURCHASE EVER!!! HAHAHAS.

bought some stuff for njw and Mr Lim cause they're leaving. bought torches. bought some souvenirs. Saw this old woman who asked for a bottle from josay (you know like in singapore they collect cans of drinks to sell for scrap. apparently bottles are collected in Shanghai more, cause I saw two old people collecting bottles on the whole trip.) She was super happy when josay gave her his bottle of drink. I still had to much to quickly drink up, but only after we walked away Mao realised that she had an empty bottle of water in her bag. So we turned back to give her the bottle, and she was like super happy... So cute. I almost donated money to her hahas... What a nice old woman.

We walked past the laser seller like three times to get that bargain, and that was the least of everything. There was so much bargaining, and sometimes when we decided we didn't want to buy it the shopkeepers would scold us. Some people are horrible. Ate at pizza hut. Spent exactly 150 yuan for all 5 of us (tianwei hongbo went off on their own, and pocket money was 30 yuan per person. So 6 sing bucks for lunch. Total price=30 sing bucks for a pizza hut meal for 5. Isn't that just so nice. Don't you wish you stayed there... cheap meals, cheap goods, cheap everything... How nice for njw... except the heat)

Bought loads of stuff at the chenghuang temple place. Laser, torches, a drawing of sorts for mr ng... and mr lim. anyways we then went to a museum and all we did there was slack and sit down. Then came nanjing road. What a horrible road. It's like super long road of high-class shopping, and we had to walk down the entire length of it. Saw a Breadtalk at the end (面包新语, not 面包讲话)， bought 3 pieces of bread and ate them all... Also found this shop selling some ice-kachang like dessert. Bought the strawberry (草莓) one, and Mao bought the green bean (green bean juice!) and jack bought the mango flavoured one (芒果). Learned alot of new cheena words then XD. I should stay in China longer man... I'll probably get like a C or even a B in chinese soon.

Nanjing road is really long. That's what I learned too. Hahas...

We had this closing ceremony where we sort of crashed the whole hotel restaurant serving us... They gave us a rocket (which btw we already bought before, so mao shenrong tianwei and me have 3 rockets yay... ) and some souvenirs. Discovered by word of mouth that there WAS internet, all you had to do was plug ur com into the lan port. sian right... didn't know at all. Anyways, packed up and prepared to go home.

We sat on the Maglev train on the way back to the airport. So fun. So fast. I have some pictures of the train's speed, it went up to 400+ km/hr. Half the speed of the plane. Almost. Cool right. The waiting for the train took 15 mins, but the ride itself lasted 8 minutes only. Kinda retarded... Well, went back to the airport and went home. Josay got caught at like every check-point... First was his check-in luggage kena caught cause he had too many batteries/lasers/etc in his pencil case. Passed eventually after he opened it up and stuff.

When we got past immigration he kena again. They saw the gunpowder rocket and I think panicked a little. Opened it up and like peered inside. LOL. Poor josay.

Asked for cards in flight, saw a sunset through a window in the plane (not window seat but still can see abit. So cool.), landed, passed immigration, took bag, bought macs (i bought a big mac meal and upsized it just to get the cup XD.) and took a taxi back to school with the scholars. And yup, I'm back here again XD. Loads of tests and stuff, but who cares. I didn't go to school today. Had diarrhoea and was really tired. Ah well. I'm going out to eat now. Lol. *HUNGRY*

FRIDAY'S HERE

First thankies baobao... Now its 9.23 in the morning, and we got drama liao.

The year 4s are damn funny; they could actually have a fight when they were having PE. Which was amazing. Lucky Mitchell was right there la. Stopped the two idiots, apparently one of them is Jensen and the other is some unknown guy. But seriously, how old are you man... And I don't care what the reason might be I don't think it's correct to really start fighting and beating each other up all of a sudden. This is what our school stands to produce man... Haizz.

Anyways me and Aaron spent the whole time looking at them through binocs; right after they started fighting Aaron took out his binocs and we just stared at them, like birds or something. It was quite hilarious, then we decided to look throught the little gaps in the metal grille instead of over the whole thing, cause it was getting abit too obvious, and we were afraid someone would like come find us and all. But it was still great entertainment.

Coming back to the thing that really matters, thanks Bao for writing that... But it's still rather saddening and all though. Something tells me that it's probably not going to fix itself before school gives out at the end of the year. And that's the way it goes I guess...

No school today, the most wonderful day of the week... Friday rocks. No ODAC cause I gotta go for the China trip briefing, and even then I have a feeling that I'm gonna be late for astro too. And yeah, that's it for now, and I think I'll spend the entire day sleeping or something. *Hopefully*

Happy Birthday!! XD

I decided to not post this in the same paragraphs or something with all those depressing things... So this is my lighter note:

BIRTHDAY SHOUTOUT TO SPONGE!! MY BEST FRIEND SINCE FOREVER, AND BEST DI EVER!!

IR my ass

Look at it this way; it's tearing apart the whole level. I've seen more of my IR group and my mentor than some people who I live next to. Together with the coincidental slurry of people travelling here and there, going to conferences, going and coming back overseas... I hate it.

It wasn't always like this. People didn't use to be too busy or too stressed out to even spend some time with their friends. Once there was a time when our timetables were fuller; yet we still somehow found the time to go out and catch a movie, or slack around, or just spend time with friends. Yet now we're rarely having back-to-back lessons from 8am to 5.30pm like we used to in Year 3 or 4, but we only seem to be able to relax, let our hair down and slack off willingly when there's like, Frisbee. Or DOTA. Or CS. I never needed games to be able to spend time with my friends; it's something we've forgotten here in this school. Of all our chances to just have fun and relax with each other, there's no better time. And no one seems to see that, and they may say everything about how I'm so slack and not motivated, but still... they've lost it. And I lose them. Probably forever.

It pains me to lose anyone; not losing anyone was one of the things I promised myself when I hit Sec 1. And as it turns out, there're many ways in which those words could be interpreted; but the main reason I swore those things to myself was to prevent me from causing the loss of any one of my friends. And it's just not working out here.

I'm already giving up; it doesn't matter whether I'm able to save everyone of them, or hold on to everyone. But still, a big part of me wants that to happen. But it knows that if even my best friends are drifting away... it must be serious. If I can't count on these people, who am I going to have to count on?

Situational awareness; most people here have just forgotten that, forgotten it as if it never existed. I remember every debt I ever owed; not just in the most basic terms as of money, but of favours done for me, with things done with me, with time spent with me. And people don't seem to get that at all. They're leading all their selfish lives, going all on without thinking about what they're really doing. And that's just sad; they can't see something right in front of their eyes, but can calculate velocities and predict mechanisms and remember facts. It's so ironic.

It's hard to lose friends, but even harder to have to live through the losing process of a best friend, to see things degrade in front of your very eyes, and have no power to do anything to change it.

It's hard to stand by and observe. It's hard to wait and cross your fingers and hope that something can change in time, or to wish that things could go back to before, or hope that past problems won't repeat themselves.

It's hard to be a Watcher.

The darkest day in theo's history

Today is a sad day in the history of theo. Oh it was fun. Bio quiz. Then sleeping. And singing in the Ms Kong Fan Club. (Ms KFC).

Tomorrow I'll have cake for breakfast. Hooray. Fun eh. But not my life. I miss temasek. I miss my friends, both of the past and those that were there just 2 months ago. People change. Sometimes I can't help but feel, for the worse.

IR tomorrow. Yay. Before that, Inorganic Chem. After IR, sleep. And wish Sponge a happy birthday. Sometimes I feel I have the potential to be either a goth or a totally hyped up person. I'm like a needle, just waiting, dancing, shivering on a knife's edge. Ready to fall. Soon.

Bad things are happening. Once again, soon. It's on my board; "a chill wind passes, and I dread the day I ask: 'Are we still friends?'"

Good night. And thanks for even coming here.

Gray Sky Morning

WHOO no blogging in a long time... Had astro last night, which was really tiring cause of little kids running around... It makes you wonder if we deserve it for causing our own seniors so much trouble. And if only when we were younger if we hadn't caused them so much trouble, would we be getting trouble right now?

Anyways, Mr Ng has apparently found a new job. Wow what a nice way to end a half year "not working" spree. XD. He's leaving on 12 August, and I have a feeling it's at about 5 something according to the schedule on the SIA website. It's so useful. Yet kinda not sure if you don't have real places and dates of the flights. So we'll see.

We're thinking of meeting up with him on that day, at least those who can. There's PE on that day at 4.30pm, so yeah we had better just try to get back on time. If his flight is even at 5pm hahas.

It's so sad. But a part of life I guess. I'm going to cry... Haizz.

On a lighter note, China trip is next week. Briefing on 18th (a Friday), and then we're off. Hooray. Haizz I really hope most of us can go see Mr Ng off. Really alot of things happening; China, Tioman, Mr Ng leaving, just finished some scouts-astronomy collaboration. IR just started, and we're like going to Japan to present our project when we're done...

Sometimes I wish I had a friend from Temasek here. Just watched the Temasek videos again; read my Espace profile thing, which said that I was going to join water sports... It's such a long time ago that we did that, and so many things have changed since then. And seeing all the Temasek people in the video, I wished I was still with them. Many things have indeed changed... I need to go back to them one day. I'm going to cry again... Today's a sad day for me I guess.

It just shows how easy it is for me to fall apart I guess. And I can't help but think how we're all falling apart already, and going our own seperate ways. Johno isn't coming over alot anymore to slack with me; Raddy doesn't talk as much to me anymore. Kor's the same as always; he's mellowed a little and puts up with my crap abit more... YH and MH and even Bao are so busy nowadays, what with flying, or IR or council, it's hard to find time to even talk with them. Aaron's doing his music stuff, Pam and Char and even Michelle are doing their new band thing, or some other music stuff... Ryan's always DOTAing or in Counterstrike Source; Mel's kinda going for alot of of symposiums and stuff and I'm not seeing her as much as before... And a whole host of other people are always too busy to like just DO stuff.

I feel like going out with sponge. That's what best friends do. It's also something I haven't done in a long time. Everytime we go out I have to drag someone along with me, and it always just feeling like they're tagging along, instead of having fun. And there's always the feeling like tehy would rather not be here at all, and it spoils the whole thing. Even from Johno...

I really miss the old days. And yeah I almost cried again...

Looking out my window now, all I see are clouded skies, and oddly enough, they're exactly how my life feels right now. And I know you're supposed to look for silver linings and ray of sunshines, but sometimes, like now, it's horribly difficult.

I have so much to do now, and it feels like Alain leaving all over again.

I will NEVER, NEVER, NEVER do anything like that to my friends. Ever.

I can't. And I won't. I did it once. And now I know how they felt. And I've left them far behind. It's just not worth it. Not one bit. And so guys; I'm sorry. I'll be back one day. I just need you people to wait. And believe. And trust me, even though I don't deserve it at all. Cause one day, I'll be back. And this time, I'll be the one waiting for you to come back.

I love you all.