Of price and pain, of change and friendships

It’s sad when people don’t care the way they should.

I’m CANOOOOEING in the rain…

Johno and I went canoeing today. And it rained. And it was super tiring… Luckily there was no sun at all, so could canoe without feeling that fatigued.

Something someone said to me bears repeating here though.

It’s like losing them again and again everyday; every goodbye reminds you of that final goodbye, every ‘see you’ is a mockery of the reality that you will never see them again. You hope and you wish and you pray that you’ll stay best friends forever, but look, that’s not what happened to you. When you leave, you’re giving something up, and this is just part of the price you have to pay.

There’re alot of private mushy things added after this, so I can’t repeat them here, but essentially that’s the gist of the message.

I’m already hating school because of this.

It is NOT funny… -.-

It has taken around 4 months, but this blog is finally dead enough for me to re-start blogging here. :D

Alot has happened in the 4 months I’ve been gone. The medical checkup is longggg gone, as I have been so brutally reminded when I checked up on this blog. Lenny has started this really funny blog too, at www.onlyhearthelennard.blogspot.com . I guess you have to know the context, but it IS kinda good…

We’ve also ran through the whole gamut of music major’s recitals. And they’re in Vienna right now actually. Coming back tomorrow, if everything goes as planned.

I’ve also lost alot of enthusiasm for school. Though that’s something that’s started since the beginning of this year… Probably because I’ve sort of lost interest in Astro, and lessons are spread out like those raindrops on the bus windows, so you don’t see as many of your friends as often as you’ll like to.

I’ve just received a comment that my music playlist is gay. Yes, some fat-ass disrupting my music to scroll through my current playlist just said so. I guess it’s a convincing argument, I just checked and every song on it’s sung by a guy. Seriously, I think it’s kinda weird, cause my playlist is TOTALLY random  -.- . I better add some Britney Spears and Pink inside though… You can’t listen to music very well if you have a 173cm imp trying to rap “it’s gay” into your ear.

On a more serious note, it’s the year where people actually turn 18! Which equates to the year where rich people start to learn driving! Which also means I get insanely jealous and wish I had more money… *kills learner drivers*

I wanted to go canoeing today. It started raining. Guess what happened next…

However, I instead had the bright idea of going to Orchard to walk aimlessly around. Seriously. What’s worse is that I actually went to do that. What’s even scarier is that I went to do that all alone. ALONE. With no one else! I was this desperate loner trawling the super wet streets alone, and I got splashed on by a bus! Like wet from waist to knee.

Theo is still wondering how the hell that happened.

I squished my way back home after a totally fruitless attempt to dry myself off in some random toilet at plaza sing, and I went to walk around my estate abit. When the rain stopped I was feeling lonely and unwanted and missing bits of my past, so I decided to find them (find the missing bits, you see? the missing bits of my past… yeah not very funny D:) by bussing to Temasek.

If there was anyone in the school compound, I must have freaked them out. I think the guard was ready to shoot me or something. There I was, standing there like some stalker at the school fence, trying to peer in and re-living the times I had there. I guess I stood there for at least 15 mins. Well, that’s not all. On some strange whim, which probably was some ghost subconsciously whispering to me I walked all the way home, re-living the past all the way. Basically I walked past Alain’s and Kela’s place, then cursed at the ChaiChee school building (in my mind, I’m not suicidal) for always tying up seats on the bus, then walked past Huiting’s place and bought chocolate from the minimart… Stuff like that. Well, I got caught up with “re-living” that I forgot I was actually living and almost got knocked down crossing the road near the Park Connector.

Guess what happened after that. Well the quick version is that I survived everything and went home, but that won’t do on a blog like this, right? Let’s number the events that happened after this, cause things happened really fast.

1. After jumping out of the way, I landed in a puddle. For the second time in a day, I got wet.

2. Stood there and cursed cause I had to wash my nice TEVA slippers again. Which was also MISTAKE 1.

Note: spending time in puddle = not smart. spending time in puddle at side of road crossing 10 metres from a bus stop = death sentence for clean clothes.

3. Bent down to wipe water droplets off my shins.

Note: Again, spending time in puddle = stupid.

4. Bus passed at high speed. I leave this to your imagination, but it suffices to say I got a literal faceful of water.

DO NOT LAUGH. ESPECIALLY AT THE NEXT LINE.

5. Stood there dripping wet. Wiped off water from glasses, cursed louder and stamped foot. Got even wetter.

I will never walk along a road after a rain again.

This wouldn’t have happened if it didn’t rain, cause I would have been happily canoeing. Therefore, I blame everything on the weather. Accursed weather…

ECP

Went to the library today. With raddy. Studied abit of Bio. And abit of Math. Hahahas, didn't get much done, but still...

I wanted to go to ECP to eat, but in the end we went to this Aston's place. There's nice food there, but it's a little ex. Like 8 dollars for a main dish (chicken/steak/whatever), and 2 side dishes, and a drink. So it's all right I guess, its even cheaper than Macs.

Then I went to East Coast to get a coconut. In the end I took the coconut to the sand and just sat there for awhile. Then decided to slowly walk home. The coconut is surprisingly light after you suck all the water out. So now I have this coconut at home, next to me on the desk. It still looks kind of dirty, but I guess that's fine. It's as clean as I can get it now. I feel kind of sad for it. It had its head cracked open and its brains sucked out. And it floated for so long hoping to germinate or something, then kena caught and eaten. Haizz...

Life is hard when you don't have people around you. When you don't have your best friend by your side, always. When all you have are your thoughts, sad songs, last episodes of cartoons, and nothing new seems to be forthcoming. When you don't have any food left in the house, and when you've run out of chocolate and ice cream and fruits. When you probably can never have anyone over. When you find yourself making things up to keep yourself from killing yourself. When all you're doing is waiting for days to pass so that good times can come again. When you know that what you're feeling is probably just a phase, just something you're gonna get through, and you know it cause it's happened before and all, but right now you just can't believe it. When you look at the world, and see nothing but it's potential to go horribly wrong. When you see your future, and see nothing at all. When you know you can do so much more, but not right now. When you cry for help, but no one answers.

Life is hard. Growing up is hard.

X-country

There was cross-country today. Like had to go to MacRitchie at 7.45 in the morning. We were supposed to run, but in the end it rained for like half an hour, and they cancelled everything except the first 2 runs. So it was like boy's competitive and girls competitive (I think), then they just dismissed us at 9.50am.

We went to eat lunch then. The same meepok place near wenn's house. Then went to his house to slack off. I played with Dalton awhile, then wenn took out his guitar hero set. Then played until crazy le. Like 4 hours or something spent there, from 11 something to past 3. Kinda crazy right...

Now I have a sore throat, because I used the microphone to sing like for 3 hours straight, ate a ton of absolutely great blueberry muffins that Aaron's mum made, and ate abit of the salsa chip thingies. And had 7-up to drink. Then I had a headache going home. I think I was too enthusiastic in singing. Then strained everything, like my voice, my head... Or maybe it's swine flu o.O.

Anyways, I think guitar hero is really cool now. And I haven't enjoyed myself so crazily since... Hmm a very long time I guess. Like just going crazy over some little thing, then partying until my head actually hurts, and I actually hurt myself (my sore throat). I think the last time I had this was at the hostel disco thing. Then, I danced until I was sweating in aircon, and my feet hurt, and I seriously couldn't move the next morning in hostel.

I'm happy that I can still have this kind of fun though. I think as NUSHS students, it's hard to find this kind of fun. Or the people actually willing to participate and help it along. Like either there's homework, an exam, a test, or something else to do which stops us from just going crazy. Either that, or somehow people just don't want to do it. Which I think is lame.

I don't understand how people can not want to play. And I don't get why people need structured play. Like an itinerary. Or like we have to come up with some sort of ideas how to have fun before they will actually bother to even think about it.

I mean yeah, sometimes if you don't plan properly things just turn out to be a flop, but I don't think that's a good reason to just not have fun and forget everything else. Haizz. Like it's already so difficult to find people to just go out with, and play around in the shopping centre or something.

I guess alot of people just stop being crazy. Like I don't see alot of people in JC's laughing at some weird random thing anymore. It's like some kind of curse.

Which reminds me; we saw a squirrel today. Outside wenn's house. I was walking with Johno, Jack and Charmaine, behind everyone else, then they said there was a squirrel on the tree. So I went to the tree to look at it, and it ran up the tree. Then Johno said to kick the tree, and the squirrel just ran higher and higher on a branch. Then it suddenly jumped off. We thought that it was going to like jump for the other tree next to it, but apparently it was a failure squirrel. It sort of flew abit, the just dropped like 2 storeys, or around 5m maybe? Then it was like thud, on the grass patch. Like super shocking la. All 4 of us were like omg. Then laugh like shit as it ran away up the other tree. It was only just outside wenn's house, like along the road, where got trees and grass patches. Lucky the squirrel didn't fall on the road la. If not sure die le. But damn scary la. It like just dropped, the got a thud somemore. But it wasn't like stunned or what, it just landed then ran away. So I guess it was fine XD.

Ah wells. I wonder what it would have done if Dalton was there. I shall go sleep now. Lol.

CRRP talk

It comes once a year, and yesterday was the last time they'll be talking to us. Ever. Kinda scary once you think of it like that. 3 years have passed so quickly, and the fourth is a third of the way through. Ah well...

We talked about alot of things though; what's wrong with the school, what you think could be improved, what's your best subject, what you enjoy the most... But the weirdest question was what would you most remember or basically take away from this school. At least that was what I thought the question was.

It's weird, the way I've ended up here. Took a test, went for a camp, got a letter. I guess I decided on impulse then; Forensic science was wayy too fun, maybe. Either ways, I found myself starting a new life somewhere far away...

If you're thinking it's an exaggeration, well, it's not. Since whenever I've been going to a school that's around 5 bus stops maximum away? And then I had to travel halfway across the island to get to school. Not only that, I suddenly wasn't able to go to malls after school, or slack off before going home, and still have still to do homework or stuff. I guess the first problem was the people; not many of us live in a single area, and if you're spread out like that, it's hard to find a common place to hang out where's it's comparatively near everyone else. Secondly, no one really goes and loiters at McDonalds in this school. It's a basically go home mug/computer/sleep kind of school.

Thirdly, I didn't have time to even think about hanging out somewhere before heading home. If I "hung out" anywhere, it means home at 8 or 9pm. Which is kind of retarded, really.

Anyways, with this sacred time now totally different, changed and mostly interrupted, I started life in NUS High.

I really don't know how I survived those first few days... It's hard to leave friends behind, and I found myself really irritated by the fact that they could still be together. Yet, it was still my choice, said something in the back of my head.

Over the years, I've thought of many things; I regretted coming here, I regretted leaving, I hated this school, I loved studying what I love, I thought of leaving the school in Year 4... yet right now, from where I stand, I guess I can clearly see what has always kept me here, despite everything that went wrong, or felt wrong.

First of all, was my friends. The people that I meet here will always be a part of me, whether at NS, at work, or if I end up teaching their kids or something like that. I realised in Year 4 that if I left then, I would be starting a weird trend of having 2-year friendships. In a sense that I would be spending full-time with the same group of people for only two years each time; from Sec 1-2, Year 3-4, JC 1-2. And I didn't want that, because I felt it would dilute so many friendships. And evidently, that was one of my greatest pulls keeping me here.

I guess I was also lucky in having really great teachers here. Not that I didn't have great teachers in Temasek, of course I did. But another of the great pull factors which kept me here were the teachers from NUS High.

We were very fortunate to have gotten such a great combination of teachers. When we first stepped into this school, I had a mentor; obviously his name was (is still?) Mr David Ng. I don't know what to say about him, but I know he is one of the most inspiring people I've ever met. Or at least adults. Well, he's also the only mentor in the cohort to have stayed with us the longest XD. Our mentor group was the most (I would obviously assume, some of you might say) united and basically the best, mainly because of him. (Unlike now). It was always easy talking with him, whether in person or on MSN (and who would forget how we found his MSN in the first place...). He made life a lot easier for me, and frankly I was devastated when he left. It's like the earth moving below you, get it...?

Moving on, I guess he had to too. At least we have the dubious honour of having the class with the longest single mentor reign. So there. XD

We had teachers like Ms Seah, Ms Teo, Mr Ang, Ms (Step) (Sharon)Tan (Ee Ling), Mr Lee, Mr Chia, Mr Tang, Mr Tham, Ms Lee, even Prof Lai; (after typing this I realised alot of them aren't Mr or Ms anymore. And it's not that they got married) all who we could talk to or at least felt we were equal to them. Whatever the reasons, they were willing to lower themselves to our level and just take the time to know us, or chat with us personally... even if the conversations were kind of meaningless or time-wasting in themselves. And all these people have been instrumental in my life, in one way or another, and have one way or another, helped me pull through and still be here right now.

Of course, you might be wondering where a certain person that's supposed to be on the list is. I thought him meaningful enough to me to have his own paragraph (again, not as if the others were not meaningful to me... -.- I hate having to do this; it's retarded and it makes life difficult for everyone. But I think it's sort of mandatory nowadays unless you wish to be sued for something. It's terrible the way people can manage to misconstrue something that you say. It's like being told you can't say you're normal because if you're normal, it implies that someone else is "abnormal" and that's politically incorrect. I mean, isn't it stupid. Because of your hypersensitivity to innocent phrases, you take it as your personal mission or something to get everyone to stop using "politically incorrect" words. Actually, I think it's more like whenever someone uses words like smart or normal or "good adjectives" to describe you you just feel guilty because you automatically associate you being "normal", with others (disabled/impaired whatever or otherwise) being "abnormal". So to solve your guilt problem and your shame at automatically and unconsciously making that connection, you take it upon yourself to force others to call the disabled/impaired/whatever person or thing by another ridiculously ungainly term, so that others may soon follow and develop your psychosis; hypersensitivity to a word which accurately describes a condition. Let me tell you, calling a piecemeal function "linearly impaired" isn't going to change a fact that it's not a straight line, or it's broken, or it's bent. It's probably going to insult him that you're seemingly trying to cover up his illness or condition with a smoke screen, or give it less importance, or even downplay it. Just tell it straight as it is; the only time you should be moderating your words is if it has the potential to hurt others. Don't smoke because you can. Anyways, on to the real story... -.-)

After that long paragraph, here we go back to the beginning again. Obviously, things started at year 3. Joining astro was probably the best thing that happened to me. Not only was it great fun in Years 3 and 4, but I had the privilege to have a great teacher guiding me throughout 3 years there. Of course, it's Mr Lim. I learned alot from him. Not just astro things like lens cleaning, though there was a lot of those. Not even just how to be a good leader,  even though there were many of those lessons as well, formal or otherwise. The only words I have to put it in is that he inspired me to do things. In things like IR, or CCA, competitions, planning for Astro sessions, just being a good person... I've learned alot. But because of him, I finally settled on some goal in life (which I'll probably talk some other day, because it's getting late now). And if I had known this would happen when I first came here, I think I would have done it with much less hesitation.

Well, you may notice that many of those teachers above have left, which kind of says something about the school.

However, I realised after all that talk about teachers and such, I haven't talked about the other great reason why I'm still here. I think I'll leave it for tomorrow. It is getting late, but luckily I don't have school tomorrow. Still, I want to sleep early. Get a chance to mull over what I'll do tomorrow.

Rock climbing

Was fun. Yet too bad the place isn't airconed. They closed down that spot le, then the instructor shifted to Toa Payoh Safra. Super far away, and I got lost trying to find the place.

I went to school at 730am yesterday morning. And the day before was ODAC, Astro/The Sound of Music until 10 something. So yes I had a terrible Friday/Saturday long day.
If you're wondering why I went to school at such an unholy hour on such a nice day to sleep in (-.-), I had astro to do. Had to brainwash poor P5 people to join the school. Or the Einstein club, something like that. Like give Observatory tour and talk and all that. Long time never do le, so it was kind of a refresher course.

I went there in the morning, and turns out they were doing rehearsal. And I had to be in FORMAL. So I daoed there and played Patapon 2 until like 10am, when they started. Then worked till almost 1, changed and begun my pilgrimage to the Safra place.

I reached there at around 230 or 3, and stayed there for about 2 hours? Or one and a half hours. Climbed twice, and didn't get to belay at all D: In the end it rained, so we were dismissed and everyone else got their Level 1 climbing certification. Great for them.

I slowly made my way home, and collapsed on my bed. Woke up this morning feeling sick. Like really sick. Went to watch TV, but then fell asleep in front of it and didn't go to church -.- And on Communion Sunday somemore.

Anyways, now I think I'm better. I've been feeling cold the whole day, and I bet it's a fever, but I'm trying to fake myself that it's because of the rain.

The S Rajarratnam Lecture thing is on Thursday, and they replied my RSVP to say I've gotta go there at 3 (half hour earlier), IN MY BLAZER. So a big OH NO to it. I'm gonna see if anyone else is borrowing a blazer. If not, then we'll see what to do. D:

Tomorrow's gonna be a hiong day again. English (zzz. I'm betting 2 dollars that she asks us to "go home and think this through", or give us homework, or simply irritate us with take home stuff.), then Stats presentation, which we HAVEN'T STARTED ON!! Then another round of Calculus. Then there's Lit, and luckily there's no ODAC.

I think Tuesday is going to be even worse la; it's retarded that Tuesday was actually my earliest day (finish at 10am), to finishing at 6pm (AP Bio training). Like now I have English, then Math extra Calc lessons to make us pass the APs with a 5, then now extra Bio lessons. Can't they just let the Bio honours people have their AP prep on Fridays in lieu of the Bio slot? And it's at 4-6pm, smart la. Or was it 2-4pm? Something like that la. After that, we still have Calculus extra extra lesson, to go through the horrible test and do another quiz (which is 50 minutes long. What kind of quiz is that??)

So from tomorrow onwards the week will be hell. On Wednesday, it takes Friday's timetable. So ODAC as usual, together with Lit and the whole host of stuff that comes on Friday. Then Thursday is (luckily!)just chemistry and Calc (again, yes I know....)

Friday is Good Friday. Good is good, but I think it could be better. The school has a talent for scheduling things to make sure you have no holidays, less breaks, more lessons, etc. After this week, the next is AP mock exams. So that means studying. And after that, it's another Bio AP mock, then the real things start. So it's more like from next week onwards, we'll be fully in exam mode. All the way until like halfway through May. And come to think of it, it ends half of our last year here. Time passes really fast when everything is crashing down on you.

Ah well. I shall go to sleep. 7th April is coming soon...

GOLD

It's nice to finally get something you were worrying so much about to go your way. I passed the 2.4 run with 11.55 minutes, which gives me a C at age 17. Which means I get a GOLD! And since I've gotten a gold 3 years in a row, I get a SUPER GOLD! Lucky lucky me. ZZZ.

I spent some time in the Physics Demo lab yesterday. It's so fun la. And I forgot to return the papers to the lab tech. Hahas sorry YH. lol. They were labelling all the little toys with little stickers, and we couldn't find some of them. Like we didn't know what was what for some of them.

I paid 10 bucks to watch the concert on Friday. Aaron owes me alot of drinks now. And I get to miss astro too. That's gotta be good for attendance. And I have ODAC tmr, for doing sets for those late forms people. *sighs. And there's that weird P5 people coming on Saturday, and we've got to brainwash them into joining the school. And I've got to be in school by 730am IN FORMAL UNIFORM on SATURDAY to brainwash them. Until 1230. Then Ill head on down to Toa Payoh Safra, which I don't know where it is, and go rock-climbing. At least that will be fun. LOL.

I'm panicking about NS medical, and anyone who says anything about it will be strangled by me. Seriously. Please don't. It's scary enough. Hmm.

I thank God for that Gold though. 5 seconds away, and He pulled me through. Whoo. *Noticed that God is one letter away from Gold **filed that thought under "important but not particularly urgent. check back in a year's time."

Procrastination

I'm so obviously doing this now because I have English Jian Bao to do. Hahahas. Like 3 or 4 more, I'm not very sure how many we're supposed to have in total. Then there's Lit too. Haizz. Super lazy to do anything la.

I've been watching Wild at Heart on Hallmark lately, and I've decided I want exactly that life. It's so cool, getting to find animals and stuff. Maybe I won't run a hotel, but I think it'll be really fun to be able to just live there, and see that amazing sunrises and sunsets, and all the great animals there. And I'll run a zoo or some sort of animal shelter thing, just to be able to keep animals. It's so super cool la. I don't think I'll be a vet though; maybe I'll be some kind of teacher and pick up some kind of conservationist or ecologist or zoologist skills. Enough to let me play around with animals XD.

Anyways, I had so many things to sign today; Astro camp on 17th June, ODAC rock-climbing next Saturday... I got invited to the S Rajaratnam Lecture. I don't know what it's going to be like exactly, but it's on the 9th of April, Thursday, and theres a reception afterwards, so I guess it'll be fun. And we'll get to see Mr Lee Kuan Yew talk. So, at the very least it's bound to be interesting. Now just got to figure out how to get there. And what to wear. It says Lounge suit but I've never been in a lounge before. Nor worn a suit. So it's kind of scary. I just thought they'll ask us to borrow blazers and that would be it. And I'm going with Mel and Zuxin, so it's not like I can just ask another guy what he's wearing. Gahh....

The Tioman trip is coming along nicely; we got some nice agency people who can make the price go down from 200+ to 150 +. So it's not bad at all. Now if simply getting the people to confirm their slots would be just as easy... It's probably going to be held on the 23-26 of June, inclusive of both dates. So it's actually a 4D3N thing, taking into account the first and last days will be mostly travelling there and back. For 4 days, around 160 dollars, probably (and hopefully) inclusive of breakfast and dinner... I think it's really great.  I hope alot of people can make it though. I can understand if some have work, or are already on holidays. Some are just not interested, and that's fine I guess. Some can't afford it, some parents don't allow it, others may decide not to go because of other commitments or last minute changes to their schedule.

However, I think there's one ridiculous excuse not to go; "because I want to go out with my gf/bf". I think that's the stupidest excuse anyone can give for any event in general. I mean, how many times in your life can you just drop everything and take a holiday with friends? And how many years of your life will you be spending with that wife/husband or whatever? You going to be able to spend the rest of your life with that guy or girl, versus the few more years with your friends; well to me it's kind of clear cut who I should be spending time with right now. It's not wrong to want to spend time with anyone in particular; but I hate the fact that people become so obsessed or in love or whatever with one person they neglect everyone else and place them in second place. As friends, we're not going to have alot of time left together; as a girlfriend or boyfriend, you have a chance of spending the rest of your life together.

Anyways, after that lonnng part on irritating people...

I hope next week I can pass the stupid 2.4 for NAPFA. Retarded; I can get like As for everything but I'm gonna fail because of the 2.4. I can't believe it, it's so totally unfair. zzz.

Haizz. As far as things go, I've run out of excuses to make to put off doing my English any longer. Maybe I'll do 2 today, and the last one tomorrow. Whoo...

CANOEING ROCKS! WHOO

Yeahh! LOL. Damn fun today. And I barely ache at all. I guess everything will start coming tomorrow.

We went canoeing around the whole basin for like the whole afternoon. Was supposed to start at around 10, but it was raining. So sad la at first. Then miraculously, it stopped raining. And the sun came out. And birds started singing. So we went to canoe. YAY. Johno and me went to eat lunch first though. Chicken rice. Then he kope the cup from the chin chow auntie and later used it to bail water. Supposedly. In the end he only used it to splash water at me. Evil person. Then fill my boat with water slowly. And throw fish at me. Evil smelling fish. Damn ass... Poor dead fishy.

Tomorrow going to watch show I think. In the afternoon. Kinda weird cause I thought I would be busy on Wed but now I'm not, then Gel asked me to go watch movie oso. Lol.

Hopefully I don't get sick or something. I think I'm coming down with something le. I wanna canoe another day actually. Hahahas.

Back to blogging

Hmm... I haven't blogged in a long time, so I thought I'll take 15 minutes to type a short post. XD

Alot has happened in almost a month; it's the March holidays the whole of next week. Sometimes I can't believe school is going to end so soon; it's 1/4 of the way through already. The seniors came to talk to us about army on Thursday, and it scared me slightly. Like we won't know anybody at all in army, and the chances of even getting to be in the same unit as anyone else you know is so slim. And we won't ever see some people again; girls are going to Uni or even overseas, and it'll be so hard to meet up. It'll be like changing school all over again, and sometimes no matter what people say I can't shake the "badness" from it. I ca't believe it's actually happening.

Apart from that depressing thought, I got my 1-star! FINALLY RIGHT! It's like I'm totally not fated to get it, I tried for the course like a few times before this but all failed for some reason or another; whether it was me getting sick or having things which clashed and made me unable to go, it always seemed to try to purposely kill my chances. Then, even when they gave out my cert, they spelled my name wrongly. It's some kind of weird sign saying I shouldn't take 1-star qualification. When I canoe with CG and Johno on Tuesday I think I'll be extra careful. In case I drown or something like that. Or get swept out to sea. Or get banged by some boat. Hmm... Or eaten by a jellyfish. Or poisoned by a stonefish. Or get a cut on my foot in the sand and develop and infection and die painfully and slowly from it. Or get so burned by the sun that I get third degree burns, then slowly die from them too. Or when the doctor tries to do a skin graft, then some clip or IV line slips out then I die. Hmm.... I wonder how I'll die now.

Well, I'm currently aching quite badly, still sunburned from a week ago and somehow really tired even though I sleep early and wake late. I really won't be surprised if I have some sort of disease. Probably fatal disease. I hope I recover in time to go for canoeing. Thursday and Friday all got physical stuff, cause the timetable kena changed; Wed and Thur changed around.

On Monday we're going to help Mr Lim with the astronomy module; Tuesday and Thursday is canoeing, and I just found out that Friday there's Prom comm meeting. So my holidays are about burned. Hopefully I can find time for homework, if not I'll be rushing everything in the first week of school. Luckily I'm done with the Bio Assignment nonsense.

Which reminds me. I'll talk about it in my next post. It's kinda retarded really, hahas. Anyways, I think I'll go sleep now. Tired le.

Thoughts on my life

I wonder who reads this. Hmm.

I have decided I hate the 1-star course. I've been stressing out over when to take it (not really, it's just been bugging me), and who to find to take with me, because I'm so scared to take it myself that I can't bring myself to print out the damn form and call them up again.

I really hate this life sometimes. I wish I could just go off somewhere far away from people, with just like one or two of my friends and spend time with them. I've taken to sleeping the whole day today just to make the day go faster. And I'm going to do that for later tonight too. Immediately when I'm done with Lit, I'll just go to sleep. After packing everything for ODAC first, of course. Just thinking of PT made me groan. zzz.

Haizz. If I could I'll quit this school and travel around the world or something. Not for fun, but to find something I've lost. I'm so... weary of everything here. It's not boring, it's only tiring on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays or if I have a lot of work... but I think I've grown tired of what I'm doing all this time. It's not like I want to go to army sooner, or anything. But I want to just go away from all this nonsense and think things. Away from school and Astro and ODAC and everything.

Everything and everyone that used to make me look forward to coming to school is either gone, dead, or changed. So many teachers have gone, and they all seem to be the ones who are actually good. So many things about my CCAs have changed, and now that I've handed over Astro, it's like some midlife crisis thing; I have nothing to live for anymore. A few more weeks to help them clear up stuff, APs in a few months, a few more emails, 3 more terms of modules to get the stupid diploma... Then what? There's nothing left anymore. I don't even have an urge to get 1-star anymore, and that was something I have been looking forward to in such a long time. Next, what? 2-star? Hah, I've given up on that dream. As well as being an OBS instructor. I don't even know if I want to take the physio modules anymore.

It's like slowly, throughout the course of my time here, I've been drained of everyone and everything I loved. I used to be able to rattle of long lists of Astro facts and various topics; now I can't even remember most of the facts about subatomic particles. I used to aim for Gold in Napfa, and feel really happy when I got 26 points. Now I don't think I can even get a pass. My pull-ups have become terrible, I have to try so hard to get to a double digit number. I'm angry at myself for being phail in everything, and getting angry at myself for being always angry and depressed, and getting angry over things and people for the stupidest reasons. I can't stand ODAC because of the noise in the room, and I'm starting to hate the sound of laughing, talking people every time I go for it. Everyone else is busy with other things, or other people, and I can hardly get a word in edgewise sometimes.

I can hardly bother about the A level results; I wouldn't be surprised if I failed. I guess a lot of things just don't matter alot to me already.

Theo misses...

His Aaron. I wish we were still in hostel. I wish he didn't have Chinese. I wish he would be more free and have more time to play with me. D: Too bad none of those wishes will come true. Or when they do, it will be too late.

I wonder what Alain's doing in Australia. Suddenly I have this really strong desire to go back to Temasek to find people... Until I realised that even if I go back they won't be there anymore. I miss them a lot, and all the whiny lovesick songs on my playlist aren't helping either.

I can't believe I'm going to be 18 soon. Ben's already 18... Maybe I'll ask him to buy that Jolly Shandy thing for me. I wanna try it, but I think it'll taste sort of like mountain dew. Which now I have a craving for.

I wonder if Wenny can come with me to do my 1-star. I very scared to go myself.

I miss Sylvie too. All the random things in Lit class. Like doing those funny drawings for Ms Koh. And only she and Celine could draw... And how she'll get off the train at Cheenatown. Or at Outram la, cause she lives at Cheenatown.

I want to donate blood on my birthday. Johno says he's coming but I think he may forget. He forgot to fix my toaster for like... EVER. Poor toasty... At least now I'm very sure he can never start a fire in my room. He just won't stay on unless I'm pressing his toaster lever down, which means staring at him. So it's very safe. Maybe they should make all toasters like that. There won't be a single toaster fire next time.

I miss all the long days last time. When we came to school and there was the ring and we had so much fun, and we had an enemy (his/her name rhymes with "enemy"), and we slacked around, and a 2 hour break in the middle of our day was heaven, something coveted, and when we got it we were so happy and everything. When we would all wait for each other before making the great pilgrimage home, and Johno would get off the 196 bus, and we'll watch him walk off and never, ever, except once look back at the bus, and we'll all take up this huge area on the floor of the train and sit down, then stone until it was our stop.

I feel like I'm fighting demons floating around my head. My head feels heavy, I'm super tired yet sleeping does little to no help, I'm eternally depressed, from one thing to another. Life has made me sad. I won't be surprised if I find myself killing myself or something. *yawns*

I think I'll shower, and sleep now. It's getting kind of late, even though 96% of the people in my level will probably say otherwise.

IT'S LATE, PEOPLE! IT'S PAST 9! HOW IS THAT EARLY!? gah. *emos and falls asleep in tears*

Astro handover

It's weird being the only ODAC member who doesn't have 1-star. Hmm...

And it feels weird to have handed over Astro le. It's fine cause it's all finally over and we don't have to be hounded by people or bothered to plan sessions or stuff like that, but it feels kind of lonely. And it's so different. I think we need to have a session where all the old EXCO members go out to eat. We did that yesterday night at Subway, but we weren't full strength yet. Mao and Josh and Ewin and the Year 5s weren't there, so it was kind of a small group. But it was still fun.

Oh, I won 20 dollars of adidas vouchers. Great huh. Anyhow go eat eat, then got some scratch and win thing. Then who knew really kena "Congratulations! You have won $20 worth of adidas vouchers! Please redeem your prize immediately at the counter."

I didn't even know at first la. Scratched it off a little bit with my nails, then saw congratulations. Then I was like cheh. Must be coke. Or chips, or a free meal or something. Then turned out it was adidas vouchers when I borrowed a coin to scratch it off fully. So amazing. Then went to redeem la. Now got adidas vouchers for dunno what. I rarely buy anything from adidas anyways hahas. Too expensive. So get ready for an influx of adidas presents from me. LOL.

We went back to the school afterwards; went to settle EXCO stuff. I need to send the new positions and all to so many people later on, and type emails and stuff. But who cares, really... We're done, and that's all that matters, I guess. Even though it's a little sad and all.

There's so much homework to do! There's Lit which is due on Monday. And I need to start doing English as well; that woman wants 4 or so more essays on newspaper stuff. Very irritating to do. Then there's the presentation too. And the results of the Math test will come back. SUPER SCARY...

I need to take 1-star by myself now. And I thought that when I finally took it I'll have like so many people taking with me. It seems like every time I try to take it something crops up. Sick, nobody going, stupid plans changing... ZZZ

Hmm I forgot I need to come up with the final workplan. I think I'll just do like a rough draft. It's irritating to keep changing things around.

I remembered something! We saw a three-legged cat. I think it was born without the fourth leg, because there isn't a stump or something. It's just like a normal cat, but without a leg. Yeahh. Poor cat. We miaomiao at it then it loped over. And like stone at us. Then we had to go back to school le, cause Astro starting le.

I think it's really irritating when everyone around you has a girlfriend. Last time it was fun going to school. Now it's damn sian. Always people busy or what. Or want to go out with gf. Or spend whole day jalan jalan. Zzz. Now very boring to go school le. Only go lesson, then ODAC then Astro. In between is eat only. Haizz.

A short post

Is it supposed to be disturbing if you only feel truly joyful watching sitcoms? I've been watching The Nanny, The Simpsons, or the Fairly Odd Parents everyday for quite some time now, and recently it's only during these times in which I feel happy and can forget everything that's happened. Every other time there's like something hovering over me, and draining all my will to socialise and be happy and stuff. I'm sorry Johno if it's affecting my attitude or whatever at ODAC, but I hope you'll understand. And yes, I've reasoned it all out, and there's nothing that seems to be making me sad and all, and there's no reason for me to carry it over to CCA time, and in spite of anything that's happened, is happening or could happen, there's no use mulling over it or feeling sad, and after all that I know you'll try to say, I still feel sad. And that's just it I guess.

I have 80 years or so here. Therefore, I don't think little things like this matter a lot anymore. Hopefully, I won't even have to die XD

is happiness part of relativity too?

I refuse to talk about ODAC.

Astro was fun. I need to get pictures from Kenneth first; I'll continue this post with all the pics attached.

Hmm. No pics for now. Kenneth left them in hostel, and no one is online yet. So I'll continue with the story XD

We rushed out to buy drinks and stuff cause it was so late already. Then met Tan Li on the way, which was lucky because it turned out there was so many things to carry. And I didn't even get to shower first. We bought ice and drinks and cups and tissue, then lug all the way back to school. Just in the nick of time, we finished everything. Started the attendance taking, then food. Rationed EVERYTHING. We have to get more Hawaiian pizzas. They go really fast.

We went abit crazy near the end of the party; we stacked all 24 boxes up on a table, and Mr Lim  started pulling them out from the bottom. He did this twice, then Mr Wong, and I think Mr Tien. Then I tried it, and it actually worked! Hahahas. Then we had a 2 way pull-off, and it worked too! Amazing la, we were like on a roll. So we decided to try pulling out 4 at one go. But it failed miserably. I think there's a video of it somewhere. I have to find it later. We almost did it but in the end the thing collapsed. Sad right?

We cleaned up the place after that, and moved on to splitting them up into groups. Then played games while I walked around stoning. Too tired to play bah. Then dismissal; in the end, it was quite a short session. But it was fun. And it's still kind of sad that this is probably the last session we're going to plan. And we're going to graduate so soon. And yes, a year will pass really fast. That's one thing I've learned, from so many places; seniors and teachers, from Mr Lim to Eugene and Reiko.

One more year. And that's it. Yet I don't feel happy, or actually, after the initial sadness has worn off, I don't feel much at all. I guess I already feel detached from this school; after I drop astro it's just going to get worse. I think that's what I do; I cut ties early on so they hurt less in the end. Did I do this when I left TMS? Maybe. Actually, make that a probably so. My di thinks so too. When I went back to see Alain off, or just go for their celebrations of stuff, I just didn't feel connected anymore. I felt like just a stranger coming back and stalking some of them.

And that's the way I feel right now. I didn't feel like I belonged here since I came into the school; no matter how much I tried to distract myself with orientation in Yr 3, singing songs, trying to act hyper in games, or laughing at really lame and stupid things, being enthu for cheer, always going out in hostel, sleeping in other people's rooms, doing illegal stuff in the various hostel rooms, sneaking Mitch inside, cooking food, playing Maple, having people sleepover with me, fighting the system with every opportunity I got, trying to keep myself happy in spite of everything that's happening around me... It just didn't work. It just doesn't work. Deep down I didn't feel like I belonged anywhere; I wasn't a Temasekian anymore, I'm not bound anyway to this school or it's people. And no matter how many people, or how many times they told me that it'll be okay, or they'll be here for me no matter what, or that we'll keep in touch, or any promises they made; it never held a ring a truth in the words. I guess it's true that you're all alone in this world, despite anyone you meet, or any friends you make.

Right now, I don't feel like I could be as happy as before ever again.

WHY DO THINGS KEEP CHANGING!!

Aaron changed my display picture today. He cam-whored himself and took a picture on my phone and put it as my wallpaper. It's quite a good photo though, so I think I'm going to keep it there. Now everytime I pick up my phone I have to think twice before I realise it is my phone and not someone else's.

I still have Lit to do. I can't believe I haven't done it la. Got mindmap and something else; I can't remember what so I can only do it in school tomorrow. Sucks.

At least there's no Math and ODAC tomorrow. So it's just Bio, then break till Lit, then break from 3-6.30 then Astro. Kinda a huge difference, because last week was the super-duper-uktra-hiong Friday, and now it's the I-have-alot-of-free-time Friday. Hmm...

*UPDATE AT 9PM*

EVERYTHING IS DRIVING ME NUTS!!!

I have to go for an extra PT session tomorrow because if not my attendance for Saturday won't be taken, even though it's not that I'm ponning the Saturday, I'm just taking it on another day. And I was planning to go out and buy stuff for astro welcome party, and spend the afternoon settling the schedule for the night session and the games and the groups. And I still have to draw up a workplan, which I'm starting to have ideas, and I have to get Josh and Mao to help do something now... And now I need to pack for ODAC and now Astro at night, and I don't have a towel, not to mention clothes. It's already 9, I'm so super tired and I still have English and Lit to do, and the worse thing is all these things aren't last minute! I can't believe I've been trying to do things early for once and things just keep piling up even more... I end up doing even more work than before.

I hate this la. I shouldn't have gone to ODAC on Monday in the first place; I leave Astro for one day and things get so screwed up, and it's under my name!!! And I thought like, oh, it's okay, I owe Johno for being like so pissy and emo alot of times at ODAC, and I feel so bad about ponning on Monday when it's a legit CCA compulsory day, so I went for ODAC instead of Astro. And now he just asked me to go for PT tomorrow, and I need to revamp my whole plan for tomorrow, finish up Chem, English, Lit and tomorrow there's gonna appear a Bio assignment. I really hope nothing's going to replace the Math session (cancelled), because now I need the time to plan for Astro, and if anyone else messes up my timetable, I'm sorry, I'm going to say NO. And yes, I'm going to pon it. Whatever it might be. I can't keep making compromises and changing my times around. I'm not Zhongming, or Bao, or kor, or whoever else who can spend the whole day in school and think nothing about it.

I've finished crying. I won't do English anymore, or Chem, or any homework tonight. I'll just pack for ODAC, and try to figure this out tomorrow. I can't function like kor, I don't go for extra PT sessions or Astro sessions or extra lessons because I think it's fun or on a whim. I can almost bet that something is going to crop up again tomorrow. I have a feeling I'm going to blow up at someone tomorrow. If not in the morning then at astro, or Bio, or in between Lit; or worse, in ODAC. I really hope that doesn't happen, I hope Johno doesn't shout at me, I don't know what I'll do.

Another thing I can't believe is that my trip is cancelled. What is the meaning of having to submit a proposal for a trip 6 months in advance. This is totally ridiculous, I don't even have any trips that ask me that far ahead! I don't care if it's from someone high up or what, the point is, I got that email, and I think someone is going to have to answer for it. HUHH. I HATE THIS SCHOOL!

I asked Jack to go out and buy food for astro early, but apparently he thinks he needs to come for ODAC too, because he didn't on Monday. So there's no one left to buy food now, cause we still need to plan for the party itinerary. And there goes my plan of eating out at NUS one last time. Great la. Astro is really eating up my life.

I think I've calmed down since just now, and now I'm thinking of whether to post this. It's so angry, and I've said so many things i would never say, EVER. I was going to edit this, but my di says it's better to just post it as it is. He came up with some reasons, like I'll probably look back on this one day and laugh, and that he wants to read what it says, and that anyways, speaking truth to power is never wrong, even though it might not always be right. It's strange to hear words like that pop up at me, through him. I was the one who taught him that. Together with "don't talk back to me" and "don't be a busybody". Anyways, thanks for the chocolate. It always helps to know that someone cares for me and loves me. I don't know what I'll do without you, k? So anyway, here goes nothing...

Ride of my life

There's PE tomorrow. And I'm already kind of tired just thinking about it. Maybe that's what they mean by "riding the eddies of time"

I really don't feel like going for PE tomorrow. It's a good thing there isn't ODAC on Friday, I don't feel very well. Though it might be because of the chocolate I ate today. I think I need more.

I think I'll devote the rest of this post to someone who has helped me alot. And even though he's sometimes really evil I don't think I would be where I am today if not for him.

He's sat through like an hour or more of my calls for a time, once or twice or a few times. He can be really caustic and sarcastic and basically evil at times, but at certain moments... he can be really good to me. I don't know what I'll do if he wasn't here sometimes, but most of the time I wonder why I even know him, so... -.-

He jokes around alot, but he still has time to talk to me. Though he usually spends it bullying me. Yet I appreciate how sometimes he takes the time to answer my questions or entertain me. He sometimes plays games with me, but always quits them in like supersuper fast time. But it's still fun XD

Apart from that, he's still my korkor, no matter what happens. Even though he's really mean, he still bothers to cook soup for me, or buy bread in hostel. And it's these little things that I cherish most about him.

English class

English is boring. Even with chocolate, it's still a chore to listen in class. And there's so much homework!!!

There's the stupid English essays and stuff like that, and we haven't even started on the lame Economist. Well, I'm going to tear out the nicest page in that magazine, and throw away the rest I guess. It's such a waste of money, especially if you're forced to buy it. Retarded. Also, there's the English project coming up. We have the emergency pack too. And apparently, a one page essay on why the emergency pack is needed. Which I'm obviously not going to do.

We're talking about McDonaldization now. Kind of a stupid argument. People are so resistant to the idea of McDonald's taking over their culture because they fear something. And one only fears something because they have something to lose. Look, in Singapore, why is there no uproar over the fact that Americanization or McDonaldization is taking over our culture? It's because we never had any culture in the first place! Because our forefathers and whatever people were immigrants from everywhere around the world, there is no sense of losing anything at all by adopting supposed "Western cultures".

Yes, there are traditions that have to be upheld, like Chinese New Year or Deepavali, or Hari Raya Puasa. I'm not saying that everyone has to drop all that and adopt "Western holidays" or "Western traditions" like Halloween or Thanksgiving. Look, I'm Christian, which is supposedly Western, but it's not like I have to stop visiting people during Chinese New Year. Or I have to stop eating reunion dinner. I guess what's lost is simply the meaning or the original intention of the symbols used. Like praying to ancestors during the cleaning of graves thing. Look, after all, it is still our choice if we want to become "Westernised" or not. It's not right to wage war against an icon just because you fear that it might take over your traditions or cultures. In fact, it's useless. People will always want what seems new or modern; how can any sort of tradition (the very word implies antiquity) compare with that? The way to "defend" these would be to inculcate these traditions into the very fibre of the people; going up against a symbol, whether you view it as gallant or stupid, is very rarely going to help improve the image of what you're trying to defend.

Sheesh. And that's what we have been going on for the last like 1 hour.

I mean, what is there to lose? Why is everyone so scared of something they once named progress? They support it when they're gaining from it, when all seems well, when everyone is rich; the moment trouble starts looming, or your own power base seems threatened, or your political power seems to wane, they go against it, and say that America is trying to take over the world. What if Singapore develops a new software or technology that helps eradicate famine or AIDS or cancer? Will the dissemination of this technology be viewed as we trying to take over the world as well? Some times I wonder why those engineers or developers or researcher just destroy whatever they've been working on, because "what if the rest of the world deems it as a threat to their cultures/traditions/political power/economic power". Good luck for the rest of the world; how about we simply keep all our technology to ourselves. How about every country just do that; what kind of world will this become?

This debate only comes about because of the feelings that some people have against a particular country or religion, which breaks out whenever topics like this come up. Bah English is kinda retarded. I can't believe that people actually think of these things in their free time. BORING.

Events in my life

ODAC Camp was AWESOME! I hope nothing like that happens ever again.

I think that was the first time I slept at 3am. Seriously. Super tiring, and I won't be surprised if I fall sick because I ran in the rain. Yet... Thanks to the greatest group on Earth, Shui Sheng, Arun, Natalie, Yun Hui, David and Lennard for sticking with all the stupid stuff in orienteering, like walking the huge circle around the bridge when we should have just crossed it and done. Or walking and eventually running  in the rain just to try to get more checkpoints. And even though we failed miserably and was like last too, I still enjoyed it all. Except the rain. That was terrible.

I slept at like supersuper early yesterday, and I only woke up at 11am today. Crazy right. The light is hurting my eyes even now, and my joints keep cracking everytime I move. I can't lift my hand above my head very far, and when I have them up there I don't want to go down again. Even when I take a deep breath my chest tinges slightly, and my elbow kinda hurts alot more now. It looks kinda infected, now that I think about it. I'll wait for pus then I'll see what I'll do.

There's SO MANY PROBLEMS WITH THE CAMP AND 1STAR!!! GAH. Irritating like anything. I thought everything would be solved if I simply cancelled the trip or postponed it to March, but apparently I have to wait for what Ms Loh or Mr Tan says on Monday. Even if they wouldn't cancel it or insisted that we had to have it in Feb, I thought I would just not go for it and get someone else to replace me for that trip. Now I can't get an answer until tomorrow, and then I'll have to make arrangements. Which raises problems on Ms Lee's side; the canoeing course had to be replied like yesterday, and I thought that by today I could get a straight answer from the teachers.

However, now the Water Venture people just won't let me sign up for the course. They went to fill up the course or something like that, and closed the course, so no matter what I do I can't take it on 14 and 21st. So now I'm hoping that they don't cancel or postpone the trip, but that would mean that I'm causing trouble for the NUS people's side. So I'm stuck both ways, just because I couldn't get an answer on time. I can't go for the 1star course cause it's too late to sign up for it, and now even if I cancel the trip or postpone it to March it's too late to do anything cause it won't help with anything; I'll just have to tell everyone to book a different date for the trip again, and tell the NUS side too. At least now I'm settled for the 1star course. I'll take it myself in March or something.

As for the trip, if it happens on 20Feb, it's fine; if they cancel or postpone it, now it's fine too.

My main gripe is now I have to think about the meeting tomorrow. It's either ODAC PT or astro meeting. I don't want to pon ODAC but I'm not wild about going for more training in this state. Yet I don't want to drop everything and go for Astro in case we end up wasting time in that session. I need more time alone to think about all these things. Or time in the shower...

So things to think about:

whether to go for ODAC or Astro tomorrow, or just postpone Astro.

how to solve the problem about all the trips and courses and stuff.

next friday's Astro Welcome party.

The club's website/blog thing

Trip to the symposium thingie. Consent forms, bus booking etc.

EXCO planning

Homework

how to get people to give blood with me on the 26th of June. Which is a Friday. So I'll probably have to like pon CCA. Or I'll ask Ms Lee to send us all to donate blood. HAHA. Actually that's kinda cool. Hmm...

Well, I think that should be manageable enough. It seems a lot more when it's floating around in my head.

When I first heard this song, I immediately thought of Mao and Roy. Lol. It's called Lucky, by Jason Mraz and Colbie Caillat.

It's quite a cool song, go find the lyrics or get the song from me. Kinda mushy though. Lol. But so... lovely I guess. Can't find another word to describe it.

Oh thanks kor for the offer of soup. I like soup. And bread. XD

And I guess from here on I'll be writing about the horrible (I would say black Friday but I think that's kinda racist nowadays. You can't be too careful.) Friday. So read on if you're above 18, and like immune to puking and horrifying scenes of blood and gore. Also, mild torturing scenes past here. Other wise click here to leave now.

Well, it started pretty tiring on it's own; Math, then Bio then Lit. I was kinda sian already, especially after those 3 rather tiring lessons on their own. So arrived the first level of hell. As with all roads that lead to hell, it started out kinda all right. We went into the ODAC room, saw that the bananas were nice and ripe and we were like HOORAY. Bananas are ripe! Wheeee. Then we had this small briefing about the route, and the clues, and the compasses, and the maps. So that's how we started off.

We had to find the letterbox of doom first, so we travelled all the way to Clementi central before we realised that Avenue 2 was far behind us. So we walked back and finally found it. Took a picture of it then went off to find the parking lot. Then it rained. Like it started with a small drizzle first, then it stopped, so we though, hey, that's not too bad. So onwards to the next place, which was somewhere near a bridge or something. We went to the wrong bridge, then walked a huge round before finding the stupid erection of a 2 story whatever. Loser la, it was like hidden down this minute jungle path thing. zzz.

Ran and ran in the rain. Saw an accident. Some car hit motocyclist, then the poor guy the bike like dao fan, and his hand and arm was injured. I think he kena flattened by bike. Ran and ran... All the way to the 4th station, the lamp near the playground. Had to take picture in the heavy rain, so my phone got like soaked. Luckily it didn't short out or burn.

After that, we tried to find the trading chinese place thing. It was so late liao la, and we were torn between coming back late or finding the stupid place. Walked/ran another huge round before it was like 5.55pm, so we had to head back. Or get hell from Johno. Or Ms Lee. Or both. In the end we still came back late, even after running in the rain and all. I think that's why we didn't get punished or something; everyone was too pathetic looking. They just gave us less food. Which was fine by us. *sad*

After that I broke for Astro. Went to handle the club. I think we did a good job in spite of not having a plan. The rain spoiled stuff again. After so many weeks without rain, it has to appear now. Such is the way the world works. Hahahas. We didn't go to NUS, and we distracted the club with a movie while we thought up of stuff to do for the rest of the session. The Year 1s were kinda crazy so Mr Lim took them away. He did some brain-washing thing to them, which turned  out pretty well actually. They were much better behaved after that, when we were showing the scopes to them.

We set up both Dobs, and the new scope and the poor Orion. Let them mull over it for awhile, then we decided to like introduce them to how to set up the scopes. Made them sort of like study how we set up the scopes, and threatened to make them do it later, and if they do it wrongly... well I left it hanging XD. Anyways, we had Kenneth and Rion do the Orion scope (Thanks guys!), while I did the white Dobsonian. I didn't set it up though; I just introduced like what to do, what not to do, what to use, what not to lose, basic stuff like that. Jack and co. set up the thing, while I tried to think "What would Mr Lim do if he was the one being the teacher." I think it was rather fun though, and went ok factoring in the lack of preparation and the sudden-ness of everything and the change of plans. I guess I haven't had the real taste of being a teacher yet, they always look so terribly busy with preparing materials and stuff. And I guess it is tiring. But I still think I'll like to be a teacher next time. Or at least teach something. I haven't forgotten about being an OBS instructor! Hahahas...

Well, then we talked to Mr Lim about stuff until 11pm. While I prayed hard that my shoes would dry by then (fat hope, life doesn't work that way, it's too evillllll.) Went back for PT, which I don't remember alot of, except for planking and running. And getting shouted at. Which I think was totally unnecessary. I think I always feel angry when people start shouting at me. Whats wrong with asking nicely. I think I'll feel more guilty and learn more from it if, even though I'm slow or late or something, no one shouts or scolds me. I'm more scared if I do something that makes someone be more quiet or use a softer tone against me than if that person starts shouting and irritating me.

Anyways, after PT we went to sleep. Sort of. I feel asleep so many times during PT, and I closed my eyes when I was running once and felt myself slipping away. I didn't do that anymore after that happened. Wait fall down or something. Showered then slept. terrible sleep. So cold, then got mosquito somemore. And I was sleeping at the corner. I think Lennard was very happy in between me and Johno; I blocked all the wind and Johno had a sleeping bag so I guess it was damn warm for him. In the end I went hunting for a nicer spot to sleep. Student Lounge, canteen, Netball court, Concourse... all so cold de. In the end I went to the grandstand and tried to sleep next to korkor. He went back to do stuff, and I koped his sleeping bag to sleep awhile. He brought toast back but I was too tired to eat it then. So by the time i ate it it was soft liao. Still edible though, so I shared with Bao.

Then we had a nice breakfast. Ate like so many bananas, didn't like the Nutella or the brand of Peanut butter, so I tried Milo and Ribena instead. Separately. I wanted to try Milo and Ribena first, but people kept asking me to pour Ribena for them, and Johno asked me to pour Ribena into his cup. Stupid la, I didn't get to be first to drink Milo+Ribena. Zzzzz. So angry.

We played Captain's ball, which we sort of owned for awhile. Then we got tired I think, so played frisbee, in which we were okay. Mostly. Then we moved to the Netball court to play (duh) netball, in which we were severely OWNED. I realised I can't defend at all, I keep forgetting that I can't block others from shooting, and that I have to mark my complementary person instead. Terrible... Kinda not open to netball now hahas.

Lunch was at the hawker centre at Clementi Central. Ate my usual thing, and bought Cheeu Kway? Dunno how to spell. Vanessa, you can try to pronounce it in all the different ways you can hahahas.

Rushed back to deliver Rad's food to him before he went home, then we slowly cleaned up the place. Went home at around 3 something after a debrief. That's a funny word. With so many wrong connotations... HAHAHAHAHAS. Forgot to take the form from Ms Lee, but I don't think it matters anymore. ZZZ.

And that's about it for the camp. After recounting all those horrible memories, I don't think I want to go for ODAC session tomorrow. The pain just keeps getting worse, and I just took some painkillers and muscle relaxant. (Not Panadol) Some kind of medicine that works well for fevers too. I hope it doesn't kill me. I feel another round of the flu coming on. My nose keep running now, and I can't breathe through it properly. And just when i though I was all done with the flu. I guess after so much stuff going on my immunity is just low.

I think I shall go for dinner now, cause I'm feeling really sleepy now, and i don't want to sleep before I can eat.

A length of prose

Darkness falls a tad too early in the suburbs of math and science.

I don't feel... innocent or carefree anymore.

Why is life like that? Ups and downs and all arounds. Spinning in a washing dryer. Colours flying like birds, thoughts, emotions.

Flitting from space to space, never stopping to rest or feed. Never stopping for rest.

Take heed, all who chance at life. She'll pull your hair and stick her thumbs up your nose; and somehow...

Leave you with lessons so deep the Trench is but a dimple, so painful the sun is but a candle. And you'll leave each lesson, with half a brain, emotions shot, heart a-broken, head so messed up.

Both less a person and yet something more; both sane and insane, both Sad. but Wiser.

In pain, yet unfeeling. I'm not in denial.

Both sad, yet... Unfinished?

I pray it turns out well. For I do not dare say, I do not dare speak out, I do not dare. I wish I could. But I'm scared. And I hoped you knew. Apparently not.

I love you. ok. nitez. My heart is still heavy. Do you not understand? 3, it's been. No, 4? 3. Yes, 3. Do you not know me? I'm scared. Scared to say, scared to speak. plans? I do not dare; have it your way

Help. I'm both sad, and scared; alone and not known; hurt that you don't know. Or see. Or feel the way I do.

I hope one day you see. There's alot you don't know about me. Your best friend, me.

 

 

~To a friend. I think. No, I hope.

I've decided to become a songwriter.

I spent the whole today making words rhyme with each other when i was playing, and I made this song:

So far the tune is Lenka's "The Show". The chorus. Anyways I call it "Nothing to Eat"

 

I only want just a bite of your ba kwa,

Why don't you give me a little bit please la.

New year is here already,

But I'm still hungry

I want to eat more goodies...

I just want some pineapple tarts

Don't want the ones that are shaped like hearts

But you just kope the last one

Never ask if I want

New year just isn't sweet

When you got nothing to eat...

 

Yeah that's it. I'm still very good but I think it's better than songs like "Who let the Dogs out". Or something like that. Lol. I think it's a nice song though. Everywhere I go no pineapple tarts de. Even in school. Hmm... And ba kwa so rare la. Ice cream also. Finish so fast. Anyways... Dinnering soon. And I got like nothing left to say. Hahas

Camp next week

Friday and saturday next week. ODAC camp. Wheee.

*Survive until canoeing. SURVIVE UNTIL CANOEING. MUST... SURVIVE! FOR CANOEING...*

The new year 5s in ODAC seem to be okay. They're mostly decent, but I can't get used to such a big group. But they're fun! And you can talk to them! But they're crazy and fun! Unfortunately no matter how many times I say that I can't say I love big groups. At least they're not irritating. Or mouthy. Or love talking back. Or trying to undermine you. Or being rude. Grrr. Anyways Johno says we'll see first, but somehow... I don't know. There's distance. And it's been there for... a very very long time I guess. Haizz.

Another thing is the astro trip... Which reminds me to get the number of people going from Yeye. Gah not online. Diaoness.

I think I'll donate blood on 26th june. Then I can tell my kids that the first thing I did when I turned 18 was to donate blood. So cool right. Then donate again in Sept, exactly 3 months after that with Johno. then again for Christmas. Haha.

I think I'll go sleep soon. So I'll publish this first bah hahas...

Meaning unmeaningly

Sometimes everything just seems so empty. And it's happening alot nowadays.

There's alot of emotions going on, all at once.

I think I'm going insane.

I don't mean that in a joking way.

It's for real.

As if that matters.

Knowing doesn't make things easier...

My legs still hurt really badly. D:

And I'm still coughing and sniffing and I can't seem to breathe properly. I really Ms Lee doesn't pump us so hard for PE tomorrow, I don't think I can take it.

Enough about my poor health now... I realised that I miss wrestling with wenny alot. We went to his place today and it was so fun fighting with him on his bed. Until his knee hit my nose. It's still a little sore. And that adds another part of me that hurts...

I keep wondering about how ODAC's gonna change. It was fun on Monday playing Captain's ball. Eugene and Ada came over to play with us, and it was damn fun. Maybe because there was like so little people. And we kept doing stupid things like throwing the ball halfway across the track and having Eugene actually catch it. Amazing right. And everything's going to change on the 30th. Jack says it's gonna become like a runner's association. I guess all you need is Mong and Aaron and we have every runner in the level. Oh and Mel too I guess. I hope ODAC doesn't become like a runner CCA. I can't stand running and running all the time. And it wouldn't be fun anymore.

I don't know. I can't stop thinking about all these things and no one seems to be so bothered by them and everytime I bring things up people just do or say the same things over again. Like kor will just ask me to stop whining and go away, and johno will keep trying to maturely reason it out and wave the problem away. Conrad will just make jokes at everything and dumb the issue until it even seems stupid for me to be worrying about it, and wenny... Well wenny listens but he usually can't help much. he's always so busy with music or stuff.

The Fray - How to Save a Life.

That's a really sad song, and I guess that's roughly how I feel now. I'm losing friends, and whatever you try to do to solve my problems or deflect them or ignore them, I think it's still happening.

I feel I should add on to those lines of the poem. Or song. It ends so abruptly... but I guess that may have been the idea of the writer. But the way I imagine it, that story doesn't have a happy ending. At least, not right now, it doesn't.

Why can't anyone understand that I know things have to change, and at the same time I don't want them to change. I don't get how pointing something like "we'll still be friends" or "You'll still keep in touch with them" is supposed to make it any easier. I know we'll still be friends. I know we'll meet up many, many times. I know that this is just the conclusion of a chapter in our lives, and there's so much more we won't see if we don't move on. I know that if I ever want a son and kids I'm going to have to deal with this some way or another. I know that from a purely reasonable point of view we should still go our separate ways and write our own books of life, and blaze our own trail for ourselves. I know that eventually we'll meet again, if we're lucky, then it's on life's path; if not, then in heaven, and I know we'll compare lives then and see all the things we've done, together or otherwise. but I don't see why knowing all that makes any of it any easier.

It's over three years since I left Temasek, and even though now everyone's left too, everytime I think of being there it still hurts. I don't know if it's just me or something, but is it something so hard for anyone else to feel?

I changed the title of this post. It was actually "I'm not looking forward to PE tomorrow... " but I think this reflects my mental state much more accurately. Maybe it's the knee on the nose talking. Maybe it's the consumption of what should be an illegal amount of ice-cream (1.5L and counting after I got home). Maybe it's because I'm hurting so much everywhere. Or maybe it's just my severe lack of sleep. On that note, goodnight.

Once again, I'm sick

Nothing has changed at all since Wednesday... I think I'm going to be aching for the rest of my time here... ODAC on Monday and Friday, PE on Wednesday... Judging by yesterday's PT session, there's probably no time for anything to heal off before I've got to torture myself again.

And I'm officially sick again. Some kind of flu thing, my nose is blocked and I've got a cough and a slight fever. I took medicine for I think it's going to last till Monday. What a great way to spend the weekend. Then it's back to school and training.

I shouldn't have gone for Astro or something. Didn't really do much cause I was so tired. Couldn't even climb the stairs to level 3. And I'm still tired after waking at 11am today. Sucks la...

I HATE RUNNING. Or I need chocolate at least to do it. Thanks Lux for the chocolate. I'll buy chocolate for the next few ODAC PT sessions. I can't get used to the rhythm of the crunches though. I'm just too used to going up and down at my own speed. I kept going down automatically after going up and then I have to go up again to do it with everyone else. And the push-ups were killer, not because we had to go down all the way but we had to lie on the floor. It's the rest periods between the push-ups that made me like super tired la. But I think I did pretty well, in spite of having a funny nose at that time. I kept breathing in the sand and dust on the floor from the pushups, and I had this urge to keep sneezing. Other than the fact that I was almost sick, it was quite fun. Especially after the chocolate. XD

Maybe I should employ some massager person to get rid of the aches every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Or buy an OSIM chair. Or just get Josh and Lennard... Lol sorry guys XD.

Still have to do English. Hand up on Monday. I hate doing newspaper cutouts, especially if the rationale is to "make sure we read them" Retarded. Then there's stats and Lit too. Lit looks fine, but stats looks horrible. 5 questions, and it's all on a new subject. Hopefully stats can be done by tonight. I'll just look for tomorrow's Reflect section to do English. And Lit can be done like later or tomorrow, it's a reading article thing, so... Other than that there's still Bio, which looks horribly hard to do. Loads to write somemore. Chem will have to wait for the lab notebook to return to me... And that's it for next week!! Hahas.

I hope the info about the Feb trip comes soon. We need to tell Mr Leek and anyways I'm hoping ODAC can come along too. So there's still alot of work to be done, and hopefully I don't collapse so soon, cause it's just going to build up. Looks like this sem isn't as easy as I first thought it would be.

Then there's prom planning, and Tioman trip planning, and Astro workplan to settle. Haizzzz....

I hope I don't get so beat up on Monday. I would love to be able to feel my pectorals without pain again...

Theo aches everywhere...

P.E was kinda stupidly difficult today. I think I hate leg lifts now... Then had to shower without soap cause johno took so long to go shower. In the end just shower when aaron suddenly came in. Ah wells...

Learned abit of knitting thing from shelly. Kinda repetitive. I think it's murder on the hands la, you keep doing that motion again and again. Slowly drain the life out of your hands... LOL.

I'm totally addicted to James Morrison's Broken Strings. Yeah. Go search for it yourself. It's a nice song. Hahahas...

I thin I'm gonna go sleep soon. I'm really tired and I ache everywhere. ZZZ

P.E. tomorrow!!!

I'm packing for tomorrow's P.E lesson. I think P.E is fun, except for running...

Needa pack so many things, and I don't have a nice shoe bag to pack it all in... Sian la. I asked someone to kope a bag from somewhere but apparently not showing... lol.

Packing's always a difficult thing to do since hostel. Now I gotta bring towel, clothes, socks, etc... Luckily don't need soap cause johno dug up some from somewhere. It has those little stony bits inside it that sort of disappear after awhile. It's super cool la! XD.

He says it's for like rubbing off dead skin or something. Kind a weird way to do it right? I thought it would be some sort of massage thing. Expensive soap, that.

I just had a thought about the soap; maybe that's how they get skinless chicken!!! They just rub it on the chicken and then when the stones disappear then you get skinless chicken! So easy la. Cool right...

THINGS TO BUY: shoe bag o.O

I want one of the carabina thingies from the ODAC booth!! I didn't get to kope them on the Friday cause of the Astro meeting. I didn't guess it would drag that long la. Actually lucky, we had food to eat afterwards. Nice food somemore, though it was abit weird. Like the chicken was dry but i guess that's because it's been left out so long. And the dessert was some weird cold dish of fruits and something like mayo. But it was still nice, and the bread was just so simple and good, with egg and cheese. I didn't care for the egg though, I don't really like hard-boiled egg, it makes my stomach rather weird if I eat alot of it. Still, for free food, it was REALLY GREAT!! I wonder if they'll serve more of this kind of buffet at the yr 6 Parents session thingie. I hope so... XD

There's P.E tomorrow; YH and Lenny's the P.E. rep for the entire year. Or so. I hope we don't do so much training, there's already PT for ODAC on Monday and outings to canoe or rock-climb or stuff like that on Friday. And I have to come back for astro too. So it's like so much training liao, if Wednesday also got training = die. I'll start getting aches that will not go away forever...

It's so tiring to travel here and there everyday, next time I'll like rent a room for my son if he ever gets into NUS High... After I tell him everything about the school and send him to a whole board of psychiatrists.

OH, there's the focus group thing coming up somewhere in April. Our last time to complain to them le. LOL. I still remember Mr Ng sending us to go do the first ever focus group discussion thing. Just because me and YH can apparently talk nonsense. Then send us to go for it. Then added Bao. Or something like that la. Super hilarious man...

I hope the Punngai trip gets through. And I hope the ODAC people can make it too, it'll be super fun. Though I need to confirm the Astro side first. And find out how many we can send. *wonders when the info will come in.* And I kinda hope nothing changes so much in ODAC. So many people are joining and stuff la, I think it's not going to be very fun le. At least we'll be doing canoeing. FINALLY!! I have a strange feeling I'm not going to be very good in it already, I've wasted away in the so many years since the last time I canoed... I can't seem to be totally good in everything la. I don't care much about the academic stuff; I'm never going to be good in those kinds of things anyways. But canoeing, going out and doing stuff, astro, physio or even normal stuff... I can't seem to be like really good in just one thing. Dancing, singing, whatever... like I'm just not good in anything. Since coming to this school, I can't even have fun properly. There's always no one to go out and be crazy with me, everyone always wants to play com or rock-climb or do something structured... Like only reiko could just go out and slack around and still make it fun, or stay at home and anyhow whack songs to sing and stuff.

Sometimes I feel like I don't even belong here much. I mean, modules like physio or IR are nice to do, and if I never came here I wouldn't have done so much astro or even outdoor stuff. But the point is like everyone here seems to be OK with just rock-climbing or com playing or LAN gaming or doing homework or... that's it I guess. I don't know... Sometimes I just feel like everyone here has forgotten how fun it is to just sit down together and sing a song or poke each other, or even watch people play on the PS or XBOX or something... I remember we used to have fun just going to someone's house and reading a book. We screwed up the stories or the words or the expressions in the book, and we had an even better time than going out or "getting a hobby". We used to go crazy trying to dance to songs that'll we'll play, and we used to think that "tuo diao" was the greatest chinese song in the world and that we should keep the volume down when we played it cause of parents outside... The guys just didn't care about anything anyone said, and we were so easy with each other and everyone else. We knew that what we said would stay with whoever heard it, and everyone could trust everyone else.

Now here, there's someone sniping at you at every other word you say, or spoiling things with blatant discriminatory things. It was never an issue back then I guess, and everyone here is so uptight about these things... I'm not talking about racist stuff cause 99.999% of the time it's all for fun; we're perfectly capable of laughing at jokes or slurs about ourselves and usually, that's how it starts anyways. Those aren't a problem. I guess things just don't seem so open with everyone else anymore.

Well... it's always weird how I get carried away like that and write until I suddenly look up and feel really tired and notice it's like 11pm... Time tends to bend weirdly around me. Hmm...

I'm not angry

or anything... I'm just kind of disappointed that even you would want to work against me.

I hope you know what you're doing... I mean I understand your argument about how you think I'm doing this for myself and all, but I think you should take a look at what your reason is for opposing the swap. If you absolutely love the new classrooms and would like to stay there for the rest of the year then yes, it's a valid argument; put together a group of you and talk to me or something.

But don't oppose me because you think I'm doing this all for my own, that I'm the only one who wants it. I've already done my best to find out who actually seriously opposes the classroom swap; so far no one has done anything, and I've gone ahead with my own plans.

Even so, it's not a final decision. If Mr Chua decides to approve it, we still have to decide whether we want to move back or not. Whether the Yr 3s will agree to the shift back or not. Whether there are serious opponents to shifting back or not.

My point is, I don't mind if you come to me and say you would rather have the new classrooms. Then we'll take your opinion into account, and see what we can do. But I don't want to be discouraged or stuff by people who oppose me because they think it's wrong for me to "think entirely of what I want". As far as I know, the worst case scenario that I've known about is: "I can't really be bothered, both ways are fine."

If both ways are fine, then why object to shifting back? Answer that question truthfully first, then get back to me.

If it's about how you think I shouldn't be "speaking on behalf of the whole level", then bring that up separately and don't confuse it with this issue.

If it's about "I REALLY REALLY WANT the NEW classrooms, I HATED the old ones, why didn't this happen sooner", then why is there no objection so far?

And if it's: "I want the old classrooms really badly", or "I prefer the old classrooms, but don't mind the new either", or "I don't freaking care about either as long we have a classroom", then just don't say anything, cause I'm already on it.

From my point of view, I think that even if the whole level was "I don't care, as long as we have a classroom", and there was only one person who wanted the old classrooms, I still think that we should at least try to move. If there's no objection to moving back, then surely the door is wide open to move back! Don't confuse the issue with: "It's a hassle to move back now", or "Why is he stirring up so much trouble", because you should have taken that into account when you answered.

I've already tried to keep this as low-key as possible; as long as there's no strong objection to moving back, I don't see why I need to trouble people with extra worry and work. I've offered to personally email all the teachers involved in the swap, and personally go to the Yr 3 classes and see if they're willing to change with us. There isn't any hassle for the average person, just the fact that you have to remember to go up to "Blk D 5th storey" instead of "Blk B 4th storey". 

If that's too hard for you, then I can't help there, and you should have answered with: "I'll really rather have the new classrooms. I love them and I'll rather not change back."

I hope this is the end of it, because it's a stupid thing to bring up and it doesn't help anything.