Hmm... just found 10 minutes to squeeze a post in here...

Guess what? I saw a book that Fuda brought to school yesterday and I just had to borrow it... It's called "Cracking the Da Vinci Code". It is essentially another of those anti-Da Vinci Code books (actually, anti-Dan Brown). Basically the book was written to refute claims or 'facts' laid out by 'The Da Vinci Code', such as Jesus was married, the church tried to suppress women, the Holy Grail being a person etc.  I don't exactly trust whatever Dan Brown writes, but the way the author of 'Cracking the Da Vinci Code' argues his point is rather terrible at times.  I'll try to read more today and present some of the examples tomorrow...

 

Well, quite a lot of things happened these few days, especially over the weekend...

Friday night I went for Tampines Junior College Chinese Department's performance at Tampines Junior College. The performances include some pieces by the Chinese Orchestra (which is definitely NOT as good as TJ's), 2 dramas (rather interesting, even though the stage was rather simplisctic), a martial arts performance and some song-singing (some were really good, but some just couldn't quite make it).

Saturday was supposed to be a rather free day except for the Bio students, who had to school to sit for a practical test. That explains why Jeffrey was grumpy when he was replying my SMSes...haha... anyway, I went out to meet him in Tampines to buy souvenirs for the choir juniors. I met Leslie first, who was waiting for Desmond. So in the end we all went together. We bought dog tags for the juniors (expensive!). Went to the venue of the junior treat senior session together... Ate and sang and played bridge... Around 11pm we (the seniors) received our gift from the juniors... so shocking! The guys got brassieres while the girls got panties (underwear)... Eewwwww... at least the girls can use their present... haha! I'm thinking of throwing it away...

Sunday came and my family was coming to visit me... Got a lot of supplements, haha... Went out to eat lunch at Seoul Garden. It was my sister's birthday by the way. Seoul Garden was not exactly a posh place to eat, but it was a new experience for my family anyway. That's one of the disadvantages of staying in BP... not much variety, unlike in KL or JB or S'pore. But BP is still a OK place to live in (at least there's not as many snatch thieves as JB)... 

OK, nothing much to write about now. I guess I'll have to read up on some current issues or stuff and comment on them...

Woohoo!
I had my first blood donation yesterday in school... The entire process from signing the form and filing in particulars to the storage of a packet full of MY BLOOD took quite long, about 2 hours coz the queue was rather long.

After the filing of forms etc., they take a small sample of blood from you. The nurse used this thing on my finger that is kinda like a stapler---*tack*--- and then she squeezed my finger while using a capilary tube to suck some blood out through capilary action. she then drops some of the blood into a beaker full of copper sulphate. I learnt later that this is to test if the iron content in your blood is sufficient or not. Blood that sinks down would be accepted...

Then it's the long long wait for my turn...

When it was finally my turn I was quite excited... can't really explain what I felt... I don't think I was very scared because this is not the first time I had a needle poked into my arm... haha... I was a bit freaked out though when my vien bulged up (It was nearly hemispherical in shape!) when the nurse injected something into it. I had to hold this rubber bicycle handle sort of thing while I was lying down. Afterwards it was just squeeze, release, squeeze, release.... Finally, after 5~7 minutes when my blood started flowing into the pack, the nurse stopped the flow of blood to the pack. However, she still had to fill 4 test tubes with my blood. Quite sad seeing your own blood sent away...haha...

Anyway, an advice to people intending to donate blood. If you had blackouts or felt faint after seeing blood or even after having cut yourself before, DON'T donate! My roommate felt faint after his pack was filled halfway through and the nurses discontinued it...

Hmm... one sad thing was that the number of Yr2 guys who donate was 57 while that of the girls was 100+. Yr 1 students were more balanced... 118 guys, 120 girls. Mr. Ng and Ms. Rita Wong kept wondering... Anyway, the numbers were placed in a table, and when we saw it we told Mr. Ng about it and he started telling us we could make a chi-squared test of independence between the sex of students who donated and the batch of students who donated (Year 1 and 2)... haha... sorry, this joke applies to Further Maths students only...

That's about all I can say...

Another is my results for JCT... I think I shall put them out here so that I can be constantly reminded to work harder:

• Physics-----A                            
  
• Mathematics-----B                     
• Chemistry-----B                          
• Further Mathematics-----C      
• General Paper-----B4                  

 

*sighz* must work harder!

Haven't been blogging for quite some time... let's see what I can write about...
 
I've bought a new pair of shoes at Queensway and it cost me S$99. Went to the cheapest shop I could find.... where other people were selling shoes for $100-$150, theirs were $40-$120. Anyway, I realise that sport shoes corrode rather quickly... It's only about 1 week and I can already see signs of friction on my shoes... *ouch*... 
 
I was glad Winnie was around... if not, the 30-min or so travel to Queensway would have been really boring.  And I didn't have to waste my breath asking for directions... I hope she gets to buy the pair of shoes she likes soon...
 
I didn't go for the study group (again) because I bought the tickets to watch the SAJC Dance Club performance at Kallang Theatre. I went to Kallang with Vi. Met the rest at Kallang MRT station (Eric and his girlfriend Fen Ru, Han Wen, Lita, Grace and Feny)... Fuda was going to be a bit late so Vi and Han Wen waited at the MRT station for him.
 
The dance performance was good... as good as TJ's... at least their Indian Cultural Club's performance was a traditional one... I found out that the dance instructor of SAJC's Dance Club is the same as TJ's. He rox man! The interesting performance (that got the loudest cheers) was a mass dance performance by the school teachers themselves. That seems SOOOOO unlikely to happen in TJ. I didn't quite like one performance... the one by the NUS students. They were basically dressed in rags/hay... looked like stone-age people and the dance didn't seem quite graceful to me... I dunno... maybe it's those abstract art thingies again... Well, at least they were not all dressed in skirts (even the guys)  like the last time they performed in TJ... One obvious thing that I noticed was, the proportion of the male dancers to the female dancers were definitely more balanced that TJ...
 
There won't be a study group this Friday as we're going to the TPJC Chinese Orchestra performance. Then on Saturday we'll be going to the 'Junior treat Senior' thingy. And tomorrow is Racial Harmony Day... we're allowed to wear traditional costumes to school but sadly I have none...
 
I've just finished reading another book by Sidney Sheldon called 'Tell Me Your Dreams'. It was not bad, but I guess my all time favorite Sidney Sheldon book has to be 'The Doomsday Conspiracy'... Joanna borrowed it that day on my recommendation and she thinks it's great too! I'm currently reading 'A Stranger in the Mirror' (also by Sidney Sheldon)... many people in the hostel are reading nowadays...
 
I've nothing left to write...

Hmm... I've been reading Yi Jian's blog recently. Here's something he advises all bloggers:

"...You know what I think about blogs? I find blogs that describe every single inch of what I did today, or yesterday, or the day before, not so interesting. What's interesting is what one feels or thinks. I mean, c'mon, who wants to know what you ate for breakfast. Write about what counts, the interesting stuff..."

Hmm... first thing I must tell you all is that Yi Jian is a real thinker. Philosophical. And I guess that's what makes his personality and character so different from other people I've met in my life. I mean, there are people out there who are 17-18 years old but still (to me) act like a 12-year old. I guess once in a while everyone tends to become childlish or something but these people are like that 24-7. I dunno why I get irritated by these people though... maybe life has been too easy for them? Oh well...

Oh, by the way, Yi Jian's blog is http://thoughtstreak.sapphiresky.org/ Check it out...

Back to me... Post-JCT... I'm beginning to slack again, but I'm trying to recruit people to counter that by reminding me to go study. I should be drafting my final study plan for this year soon and hopefully, hopefully I can stick to it as much as I can.

One of the biggest hindrances to studying or doing revision effectively and efficiently must be DISTRACTION. The television was my bane in primary school and the computer in secondary school. These do distract me sometimes, but I realise LAZINESS is still the worst culprit of all. I have like 5 hours to study after dinner but I never fully utilise it. Of course, I don't mean spending all 5 hours goggling at my notes and tutorials. My attention wanders, but there is no physical object that distracts me; that's why I conclude that LAZINESS is making my grades drop.

I just don't feel like staying in my room sometimes... and I keep going to other people's room to talk to them... (and likely to distract them more or less)...

Going to Queensway later... the PE test is coming up and I need to buy new shoes...my shoes are disintegrating now...

As I have said the day before, I was a judge at the first ever Anglican House Talentime...

Hmm... I felt a bit awkward at first... You see, there were 5 judges in total, and I was the only one who was a student! OK, apart from that, I was really not sure how many marks I should give so I changed my scores 2-3 times for some contestants.

Well, the competition was not held in the 'American Idol' method, but rather the 'traditional' way based on the total marks given by the judges. There were quite a lot of glitches here and there, especially the AV system... Tang Ning and a female secondary school student were the hosts.

OK, concerning the performances, which were dominated by people singing Chinese songs... they were mostly terrible! Teribilis Est! Just can't stand them! In the end I saw that I gave the lowest marks among the judges. Well, what do you expect? I think I've heard a fair number of good performances to know where these people stand. Before the competition, Mun Yin and a few of the girls were calling me 'Simon'...haha... Anyway, it was quite exciting to be judging other people for the first time... *evil stare*...

Oh, I nearly forgot to say about the results. Third prize went to Nguyen who sang Le Ann Rimes' 'How Do I Live', 2nd prize went to a dance performance by a group of secondary school students... And the first prize... *drumroll*... goes to Zhang Ziran! Rather expected... Bai Xi didn't perform as good as he did during Temasek Idol.

Ay... saddening... I thought that I could get an 'A' for Physics. Now I know I'll not get. And I miss the mark by 1 mark! Guess that's the most frustrating part... Oh well, if everything goes well with F Maths, I'll get BBBC for this common test. For GP, I'm still as skeptical as ever...Mr. Peck (my GP tutor) told me that the essay question I chose was marked by Mrs. Lau, who is a Literature teacher (ARGH!!!X100). Nearly no hope of getting B3 or B4... *waiting for a miracle*...

Got my maths back... 70%...not good but I guess still OK... Have to try harder! I guess it's a 'B'. Got half of the FMaths paper back... I'm have the third highest mark and guess what? It's 26/50! The marks are like this... 48/50 (Anbu), 33/50(Widyson and Zong Yi), 26/50(me)... It was quite shocking loh... The teacher was commenting on the huge gaps of marks. He gave us back the papers by giving out the highest to lowest... I was wondering what happened to those top scorers like Yi Cheng, Brian, Gan Hong, Yadong and Hui Min.

This reminds me of something I wanted to say... Mrs. Kitty Tan ALWAYS reads out our marks before giving back our papers of assignments... She'll be like: "Aiyoh", "Not bad", "Never study lah" etc. If you think I'm disapproving of her manner, well, you'd be wrong. I support it (even though I'm the victim at times). It was the same during primary school(always) and in secondary school (sometimes). Always makes me see where I'm standing amongst my classmates and spurs me on...

I was lying down to rest yesterday after dinner and I fell asleep. Woke up around 2am... not a suitable time to study, I thought. So I was planning to wake up around 5am to do some homework that I was supposed to do the night before. Instead, I woke up around 6.40am and it was time to prepare for school already... *sighz*...

This incident sure won't happen again today... there's a 'Talentime' programme on tonight at the AHS hall (for hostel boarders only)... Sadly, there will be less than 10 participants. There will be 3 judges I think...Miss Ow is one of them, and guess what? I'm one of the judges too! Of all people they had to choose me! Ay... anyway, dunno who's the third judge yet.

Nothing left to crap...

Oh well, finished 'The Da Vinci Code' 2-3 days ago... Hmm...generally I think the book is OK, but I can still sense that the author is still 'fresh'--not up to those really good writers yet. Still, it's a nice read, not to mention controversial. The newspapers have been printing articles on him and his works (and his critics).

I've been reading Thomas More's 'Utopia' for the past few days and it really is quite a bore... I mean, there are lots of 'solutions' to problems like crime etc. that are simply not applicable in modern society. Can't blame the author though... it was written in the 1500's (in Latin!). I'm thinking of not reading it altogether now and return the book to Yi Jian. He's currently reading Plato's 'The Republic' and Niccolo Machiavelli's 'The Prince'... all very 'cheem' stuff, eh? Anyway, I've borrowed another book to read instead called 'Animal Farm' by George Orwell. I borrowed it straight after Ching Mien returned it to the library (Now he's reading another George Orwell book 'Nineteen Eighty-Four'). Haven't start reading yet, but i heard it was quite an interesting, humorous and satirical book.

JCT results are being revealed all too quickly... seems like all the teachers have become super-efficient... I've got my Physics and Chemistry back already, and I'm expecting my Mathematics later. Got 72% for Physics, which is actually quite OK...hopefully I can provide me an 'A'. As for Chemistry, I got 62%, which doesn't look very good, but is actually my best so far...a 'B' maybe? Not so hopefully for the maths and GP papers though because I think I really flunked them...

Better work now for a better tomorrow!

Whoo! June Common Test is finally over!

I just have to say this... I think this is the hardest test that I've ever taken. My target was actually AAAB+B3 but now I expect BBCC+C6. I'm not joking! It was THAT traumatising... It's too late (again) to regret... I've studied but it was all too much and too little time. Oh well, I'm going to draft a serious study schedule one of these days to prepare for the Prelimanry Exams (which will be due in around 11 weeks?). By then I hope to be able to secure AAAA+B3 or AAAB+B4.

I've also other things to worry about... I just found out how my money slips away so fast... In the past 2 days I've spent nearly S$70! Unbelievable! I found out that the culprit was eating outside (like at Yuki no Yaki restuarant at cineleisure, buying Famous Amos cookies etc.) and watching movies (like Spiderman 2)... guess I'll just have to reduce on those expenditures...

Actually, I spent $17.85 of the $70 I mentioned above to buy a current bestselling book by Dan Brown called 'The Da Vinci Code'. It's a thriller and it really is quite interesting even though I've just read the first 50 pages or so (of the 600-page book) Hadn't had a nice time to read books in a long long time. I think reading is rather crucial to improve one's language standard... It may help in GP also, but I know this guy who doesn't read and still manages to get B4. He just improves his vocab and read GP notes and stuff.

Now that the test is over, I'm actually feeling a bit bored... that's why I went out with Eric and Yi Jian to watch Spiderman yesterday and went out today to Orchard with Yi Cheng, Wai Kit, Ching Mien, Wilson, Kok Vui, Jiann Hooi and Tang Ning. Never enjoyed myself as much in a long, long time. But still, I'm feeling quite bored. I didn't make plans for this 4-day long 'weekend holiday'... I'm thinking of calling up Jeff and Cliff to go play badminton or something. Maybe Ching Mien and Wai Kit may want to go along. They're actually playing tonight with KV and Jiann Hooi... I'm not playing because I've lent my racquet to KV and I'm also not as good and the 4 of them enjoy playing against each other (Quoting Ching Mien: playing 'Legendary Matches'). Oh well, they don't actually stop me from playing too. Maybe I'll join in next time...

But for now, I'll just be reading The Da Vinci Code and trying to compose the 'Spiderman' theme song...