Sunday, May 29, 2005
A Luxury Relinquished
The internet access to the room has been... Well, cut off, to put it simply. Thus, I had to resort to visiting a cousin just for internet. And since I can't stay here all day, this post is just a note to all my diligent readers (har har) that I might not be updating in a while. That's about it.Have fun y'all, and happy holidays.
P.S.: Watched Star Wars over the weekend with my clustermates last week. It's a fun movie to watch, although I must say, it seemed kinda rushed:
39 INT. GENERAL'S QUARTERS-TRADE FEDERATION CRUISER
Anakin and Dooku continue their fight. It is intense! Finally, in one last energized charge, ANAKIN cuts off COUNT DOOKU's hands. The Jedi catches the lightsaber as it drops from the severed Sith Lord's hand. COUNT DOOKU stumbles to the floor as ANAKIN puts the two lightsabers to his neck. PALPATINE is grinning as he watches COUNT DOOKU's defeat.
PALPATINE: Good, Anakin, good. I knew you could do it. Kill him. Kill him now!
ANAKIN: I shouldn't . . .
PALPATINE: Do it!!
ANAKIN cuts off COUNT DOOKU's head. A huge EXPLOSION somewhere deep in the ship rattles everything.
ANAKIN: ... I couldn't stop myself.
Right... You've been a Jedi almost all your life and suddenly a two-word command is enough to make you slice off someone's head, against your own will. Next:
128 INT. CORUSCANT-CHANCELLOR'S OFFICE-EARLY EVENING
MACE WlNDU: You Sith disease. I am going to end this once and for all.
ANAKIN: You can't kill him, Master. He must stand trial.
MACE WlNDU: He has too much control of the Senate and the Courts. He is too dangerous to be kept alive.
PALPATINE: I'm too weak. Don't kill me. Please.
ANAKIN: It is not the Jedi way . . .
MACE raises his sword to kill the CHANCELLOR.
ANAKIN: (continuing) He must live . . .
PALPATINE: Please don't, please don't . . .
ANAKIN: I need him . . .
PALPATINE: Please don't . . .
ANAKIN: NO!!!
Just as MACE is about to slash PALPATINE, ANAKIN steps in and cuts off the Jedi's hand holding the lightsaber. As MACE stares at ANAKIN in shock, PALPATINE springs to life. The full force of Palpatine's powerful Bolts blasts MACE. He attempts to deflect them with his one good hand, but the force is too great. As blue rays engulf his body, he is flung out the window and falls twenty stories to his death. No more screams. No more moans. PALPATINE lowers his arm.
PALPATINE: Power! Unlimited power!
His face has changed into a horrible mask of evil. ANAKIN looks on in horror. PALPATINE cackles.
ANAKIN: What have I done?
And less than a minute later:
ANAKIN kneels before PALPATINE.
ANAKIN: I pledge myself to your teachings. To the ways of the Sith.
PALPATINE: Good. Good. The Force is strong with you. A powerful Sith you will become. Henceforth, you shall be known as Darth . . . Vader.
ANAKIN: Thank you. my Master.
PALPATINE: Rise, Darth Vader.
And a little ways after that:
ANAKIN enters a room full of YOUNGLINGS huddled in a corner.
YOUNGLINGS: Master Skywalker, there are too many of them. What are we going to do?
ANAKIN looks back at them with a stern expression on his face and ignites his lightsaber.
Within the space of ten minutes, Anakin had transformed from Jedi to Darth Vader, and evidently, his morals disappeared in the process, too. Where's the plot progression in that? And how can you kill off Duku Langsat after less than five minutes of lightsabre duels if Yoda couldn't even do it in Episode II? What the heck???
P.P.S.: The script is taken from http://scripts.cgispy.com/newsboard.cgi?action=view&num=2&user=script
Zhen was here at 4:09 pm,
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Saturday, May 21, 2005
If you're bored...
Not too free right now, even though I'm in store for a long weekend (got lots of work to catch up on). Because of that, I'm just sharing a couple of mindless flash videos with anybody out there who would bother to watch it.Video Number One - Suzukisan!
This video is made from random snippets of popular culture which appear while a catchy, Japanese tune about trading Pokemon is being played in the background. To achieve full enjoyment of this video, watch it once without subtitles, then once again with them on.
Video Number Two - Fight! Kikkoman
About a Japanese soy sauce superhero of the Kikkoman Corporation out to defend oriental condiments against their western enemies. Hilarious in that it's so damn senseless. Highly recommended for a minute or so of laughs.
Video Number Three - Irrational Exuberence (Yatta)
A video along the same lines of Suzukisan!, with a funny play on the translation of the Japanese song employed. I have no idea what it's about though, except that it's mindlessly funny.
These videos take very little time to download. So, set aside some of your precious seconds and go manually reduce your IQ.
Zhen was here at 1:09 am,
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Monday, May 16, 2005
Deaths
With a title like that, you'd have thought that the post I'm about to make is a depressing one about lost friends or relatives, and how they had affected my life.Thankfully, I'm not about to do that.
Instead, I'll be talking about three different kinds of deaths that occured over the weekend, of which the first is one of wheat and yeast. Here's a picture of the scene of the crime;
Yup, our food supply was sabotaged once again by the friendly neighbourhood rodent population. This really pissed Yee Kiat (roommate) off, because both packs of bread were his. And within the space of a week, too. Anyway, we still have not gotten the rat trap we wanted to get yet, but by the look of things, we'll probably never buy one (because we're just too lazy to go looking for one). Moreover, it isn't as though we're starving, or that a little 'rattrition' (har har) can kill us. Hooray for the mice.
The next death is that of crustaceans. A group of us choirboys and girls went out to Marina South on Saturday night to eat (semi)live seafood, steamboat-buffet style for the low, low price of only S$12. What made an already enjoyable gastronomic outing more, well, enjoyable, was that we get to cut up and clean the live crabs ourselves. The only problem was that we didn't have any idea how to do that, and when we did ask around for advice, we were told, helpfully, to "Just wash the thing lah". Thanks a lot. Kel Ley and I then proceeded to chop and rinse them like surgeons suturing with a jackhammer. It didn't really matter in the end; only three of us (out of ten) actually ate the crabs. We had more decapod than we could handle.
I must also add that the prawns were so fresh that some of them actually jumped into the pot out of their own accord (okay, they were really struggling to break free from human fingers, but thinking along such lines spoils the narrative). Not that it made us any less guilty cooking them alive, though. We were already remorseless to begin with, for one thing...
The third and final death is Death. As in the Grim Reaper, the skeletal one with a scythe to harvest your soul when you pass on/cease to be/expire and go to meet your maker/become stiff/are bereft of life/rest in peace/push up daisies/are off the twig/kick the bucket/shuffle off your mortal coil/run down the curtain and join the bleedin' choir invisible (if you know where that came from, you are my new best friend. For a day). This particular Death is the one found in Discworld books by Terry Pratchett, recommended to people with a warped sense of humour and a predilection to British wit and lameness. The book is Reaper Man;
And it's about Death facing forced retirement, and as a result, spirits of the dead have nowhere to go, causing the Discworld to be flooded with lifeforce; ghosts appear, dead people come back to life, poltergeist activity, etc.
It's also the primary reason why I slept at 3:00AM last night and had done absolutely no homework over the weekend. Wish me luck...
Until then, may death entertain your life but hopefully not make you a morbid individual.
Zhen was here at 9:50 pm,
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Friday, May 13, 2005
Of Results and Rodents
This week, I received (as well as the rest of my class) my progress report from my civics tutor. Before I continue, I must first introduce you to this little piece of paper. This dreaded document is handed to students after every major test or exam, and it details how well (or how badly) you have progressed so far (hence the name). Listed on the paper are a student's exam results, attendance level, conduct, civics tutor's comments and occasionally, the principal's as well. For this blog post, only the first item is of importance.When I first came down last year, I knew nothing about A-Levels Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics. As for Economics, the lecturer/tutor I had in my previous college was lousy and spoke too softly for our own good, so you can assume that I'm illiterate except in Production Possibility Curves and Elasticities. Anyway, during the June holidays, I decided against returning home so that I can (hopefully) study for the Common Test that came immediately after that. However, due to my (now failed) attempt at picking up basketball and an ungodly amount of slacking and hanging out, I didn't really do well for the test.
Alright, I'm just kidding.
In fact, I screwed the bloody thing up really, really, REALLY badly;
Yup, you saw it right. I didn't pass a single A-level paper. Granted, I haven't wisened up to Singapore's expectations yet (it was so much easier to score back at home, and I missed half a year's worth of work), but wait till you see what I got for end-year;
A 'whoopping' improvement from an F to a D for Chemistry, and a one grade promotion for GP. Heck, I knew that I wasn't going to score, but actually performing so terribly felt like getting kicked in the nuts by a kangaroo. I banked too much on Chemistry back then because I liked Organic Chemistry, but a slew of careless mistakes and cascading calculation errors (or error-brought-forward) made me lose a lot of marks...
It was bad enough to bring me into a depression phase of two weeks, of which I spent by skipping every lecture to read Dune novels, Sherlock Holmes stories and Oscar Wilde's works in the library (looking back, it was quite a productive depression phase, but anyway...). To make matters worse, my scholarship, and even my promotion to JC2 were on the line. I needed one AO-level and two A-level passes to prevent the horror of being retained. I only had one A-level pass in Chemistry. As for my scholarship, even conditional renewal seemed like a distant prospect... So, I waited ominously for both the principal and MOE to tell me that I'm a dreadful student and scholar and then to order me to leave the country.
Well, they did tell me that I'm a dreadful student and scholar, but miraculously, I was allowed to stay.
So I mugged, and here's what I got this year;
Not too bad, I think. Of course, in comparison to certain other second-intake scholars *cough* Gideon Ho *cough*, that's lousy, but for now, I guess I'll just have to push myself even harder. Whenever my mom asks me what am I going to do about my results, I just shrug and say, "Study harder lor".
And now it's time for the anti-climactic, half-assed conclusion to my so-called inspirational success story (at least for now...). If a slacker like me can improve, I'm sure you guys can do wonders too. Mug!
Now... Why is the word 'Rodent' in the title? That's because on last Thursday morning, my roommate Alexander Yap killed a rat in the pantry which unfortunately happened to be stuck inside an empty rubbish bin; this good friend of mine poured hot water until the poor little creature died from scalding and drowning.
Should've taken a picture...
Anyway, a relative of the deceased, seeking vengeance, invaded our room sometime over the weekend and sabotaged our supplies. Here's an amatuer photograph of the aftermath;
In light of the attacks, the members of room F-1/10 have declared an all out war against all pests which plague the ground storey of the hostel block, be they mammal, insect or mollusc. Steps to prevent further attacks by our enemies have been taken; our borders will be closed and secured at certain hours of the day and our Baygon cans have been mobilised. Our arsenal has also been improved by the purchase of salt from our ally, the prosperous (though at times avaricious) NTUC Fairprice, in order to battle the evil snail forces. Wish us well for our campaign to purify our lands from the unwanteds! We shall not be humiliated by the lesser beings any longer! Onward to victory!
*Ahem* Got carried away there. But I have to admit, that was kinda fun.
Zhen was here at 12:02 am,
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Tuesday, May 10, 2005
This calls for a celebration!
In an enthusiastic, kiddy tone: Now that intensive choir practices have finally ended, I can finally do my tutorials, sleep early, and catch up on schoolwork and studies!Reality check: A naked man has a higher chance of surviving in the Amazon river than me actually beginning to study again.
Reason: Time and time again, slackers like me will find excuses not to study. This time around, it's my one year anniversary living in Singapore! Therefore, I've decided to celebrate the event by not studying and by blogging instead. That, and because I just spoke to a good friend of mine, a certain Benjamin Lee from secondary school, to whom I have not spoken to in almost a year. With two good excuses like these, I shall not deliberate further and just go into mindless-rant mode.
Ben and I have known one another for almost six years, and I'm proud to say that he's one of the more crazy, perverted, and yet at the same time, intelligent and musically inclined Catholic I've ever had the pleasure of meeting in my life (not that my other friends are shallow, boring, stupid and atheistic, so if you consider yourself a friend of mine, don't take that as a personal attack). In addition to that, we were Scouts, and both of us played Fallout too, so it wasn't surprising that we clicked. Back in secondary school, we used to skip school (in uniform, no less) to play Counterstrike (beta 6.0!) and Diablo II at nearby lan-gaming centres. What's worse, we don't pay, half of the time. And we got caught on several occasions too (or was it just me?). Fun times.
Today, I spoke to him on MSN for the first time in almost a year, and found out that he's now living the life of a foreign student in New Zealand (about friggin' time!). Not only that, he's also in choir! Another shared interest to add to the list... Of course, because he's good at the bass guitar, he can read scores better than I can, so...
Anyway, it's great to catch up with old friends and acquaintances, and even better when you find them in the same predicament as you; we're both students in alien lands, trying to eke a miserable existance out of what we're given.
Of course, Singapore isn't too different an environment from Malaysia as compared to Auckland, but hey, he's living in somewhere much colder than this equatorial island! Besides, I believe that his supply of fresh milk is kinda guaranteed there, so that's an added plus. Anyway, it's up to you to decide who's better or worse off.
Which brings me to my next point; it's been one year since the arrival of the second intake of ASEAN pre-university scholars on May 10th 2004. I have grown a little wiser since then:
1- My vocabulary of Chinese dialect words has increased, for one thing, allowing for more flowery conversation with the locals.
2- Choir has made an undeniable impact in my life... I can write a long, sappy post about this but I don't like to sound soap opera-ish so I'll save you the horror. For now.
3- I've learnt that Singaporean local food sucks. It's nigh-impossible to find good food anywhere outside of trendy eateries at shopping malls, and from what I've heard, it's too troublesome to look for good hawker food too.
4- Hostel food makes instant noodles taste good. Not because it's lousy; the food is edible, but the dishes repeat themselves every few days to the point that Maggi becomes a welcome break from the routine.
5- The probability of finding a good looking Singaporean chick is higher than in Malaysia, considering that it's the material hub of Southeast Asia. And that's also because the proportion of Chinese people in Singapore is higher than in Malaysia. Good looking girls with nice personalities are a different matter... But then again, most of the time, you only look at chicks to look at them, right?
6- I've learnt how to use eBay; I bought my (not so) sleek 40GB 4th-generation iPod for S$400 from a guy who worked across from my school. Granted, there's no warranty left and it's a tad scratched here and there, but overall, I'd like to think that it was a good deal.
7- More than half of the time, lectures are a waste of time.
8- The public transport system here is freakishly efficient. And to imagine that once, it took me more than two hours to wait for a bus and to ride it back to my house which was only 6km away.
9- A lot of other things which escapes my mind at the moment.
Therefore, no matter how much I bitch about this horrible island and its culture, Singaporeans, please don't be offended. I'm just showing my appreciation for what good (no kidding) your country has done to me for the duration of my stay in my own, weird way. In fact, I'm planning to work my way towards a place in NUS, too; that's gotta be a compliment, right?
Right?
P.S.: On an unrelated note, our beloved deputy principal of St. Andrew's Junior College (who, thankfully, is the voice of moderation in the campus) made an announcement today about a guy with a doctorate who posted defamatory stuff on his blog about some other dude in A*Star (some research company) who's about to get sued for defamation (duh). So, she advised bloggers to remove all defamatory stuff ("about students, about teachers, about your friends...") to prevent pissing off people. She even continued to say that it might not be too necessary to do so because we don't really have much to be sued for, being students and all.
I like my DP.
No, really.
Zhen was here at 10:00 pm,
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Wednesday, May 04, 2005
Silver or Gold
Silver or Gold.We got a Silver.
When it was announced that the St. Andrew's Junior College choir, my choir, received only a Silver award for the SYF Central Judging, I was so disappointed that I couldn't engage my body to produce anything more than a couple of claps. Although Silver isn't too bad an accomplishment considering the fact that two years earlier the choir did just as well as we did, but the fact that a Gold was within our grasps makes our loss all the more depressing.
What went wrong? Were the acoustics bad? Was it our nerves? Our volume?
Frankly, I have no idea. I just know that we didn't do our best today. In fact, when we were having our final warm ups in the holding room before heading for the stage, we produced what I thought was one of our best sounds ever. You could literally hear our confidence then; we were that sure of ourselves. But, in reality, the playing field is vastly different from what we're used to. On the stage, things took a turn for the worse, and we simply underperformed. That's why we were praying for a Gold so badly; we knew that with that level of performance, we wouldn't be able to get any better than a measly Silver. Yet we held on to that tiny sliver of hope that somehow, the judges will overlook our mistakes and award us a Gold.
Tough luck.
Another reason for the overall sombre mood of the choir is that we have merely sustained our performance from two years ago and haven't improved. Now that's not too bad, but coming from a JC where the general opinion is that the Saints Chorale sucks, an SYF Silver has many implications. The choir, already branded as one of the lousier choirs from the 16 JCs, retains this unfortunate image. Furthermore, the school doesn't treat us any better than public judgment, either; we have only two working keyboards, of which one is slightly off-pitch, and we have only a choir cupboard to store all our scores, keyboards, etc. And to imagine that bloody cupboard is even smaller than the dresser I have in the hostel... Meh. With a Silver, the odds of a change of situation is highly unlikely.
The only consolation we have is that we really had only about two and a half weeks to prepare for SYF anyway. Prior to our concert (which was on 15th April, by the way), we didn't have much time to work on our set pieces, and even then we only just started practicing our third set piece. Moreover, about 10 new people joined within the week after the concert; taking all these into account, it's amazing that we even managed a Silver in the first place. Good job everyone. I thank you all for being willing to put your time and effort into something I believe in.
But I must say that I really feel sorry for the Yishun JC people... They were the only Bronze medallist today. They must feel much shittier than we do right now.
As for you JC1 Saints chorristers, I expect you to put as much, if not more, dedication into the choir as the batch before you (well, most of us) did. I hope those of you who originally intended to join only to help us out in SYF remain as permanent members, especially the guys. Did you know that we only had four Basses and three Tenors for the entire second half of last year? If you don't want that to become a problem you'd have to face after your seniors step down, you'd better start recruiting again or make the leavers stay or something. I'm sorry that you didn't get as good a start this year as you would've expected, but we've done the most we could. Just work on your future juniors so that our choir doesn't remain a Silver when the next SYF comes around. If you guys screw my - our - choir up, I'll come back and kill each and every one of you.
Sorry for droning on so much, I hope you'd understand.