Enter the magical world!!!(lol)

SQUASH CAMP/CHALET!, Somebody's Me

2009-06-12T06:28:00.000-07:00

Latest update: back from squash camp/chalet held in Costa Sands (Pasir Ris)

Day 1:
Met the rest of the squash family in school at 8.55a.m. We started out playing ice breakers in Court 1. Played "Dog and Bone", hahahaha was dang funny cos no matter what number, Jaron and I will rush towards Marcus/Marcute. Hahaha then there was one instant when Chris called out "All those previously from SJI", then I was the only one from my side going up against the 4 others in the other team. Hahahah totally what the bleh.
10-11: My group called "Group 2" started out with Group 1 playing squash. Did some drills under the tutelage of Chris and Mark.
11-12: Went for P.T. on the track under Zi Chao. Started out with 10 mins warm up run. After that had 400m intervals coupled with statics in between. Clocked 1.12, 1.25, 1.30 and 1.39. Hahaha had the invisible chair static after that, had to sing the "Green bottle" song. Hahaha I bet the others thought we were quite retarded...
12-1: Played Captain's ball. Hahaha Khairul(soccer) and Alvin (shooting) joined us midway. Had loads of fun with them. Never knew Yea Wen liked playing Captain's ball.
At 1, we reported back to the courts. We were given until 4pm to have lunch and make our way to the chalet itself. Combined with Group 1 called "Sui Bian". Hahaha went to KAP for lunch! Took pictures and made our way to the chalet.
Upon checking in at the chalet, we went for wet activity that basically involved bombing people and more people. Presented the group cheers and name. I think our group name was the most succint: Group 2, simply because we are group 2! Our group cheer was a rip-off of SJI's Michael house's cheer: "Rock on Michael". :D Hahaha some of the seniors saved up some cold water bombs for Zi Chao and bombed him. NICE. Hahahaha cleaned up the area and discussed the dinner the juniors are supposed to buy for the seniors. We decided to order Pizzas from Canadian 2-4-1. Discussed the number of pizzas inside the guys' hut and decided to order 16 14inches pizzas. Little did we know....
When the 2 delivery dudes came, (yeps, they required 2 guys to deliver that insane number of pizzas), we were intending to pay using Jia Sheng's NETS, but the guy was like "Oh you can only pay by cash or err..(pause) cash." So we had to run back to our rooms to get money to pay. Luckily Xiuhui, our lovely secretary :D, opened up the squash fund to help us. So yea, we paid $272.20 in total, luckily it's 2 pizzas for the price of 1.
Had a huge pizza buffet outside and ended up finishing only 12 boxes. I'm not sure what happened to the 4 other boxes.. maybe they disappeared for supper or maybe they were abducted by aliens. Hmmmm...
Played charades after dinner. Hahaha loads of fun once again, especially during the guessing of brands.
Went with Jia Sheng, Jaron and Aaron Lam to the front desk to go do our speeches, didn't accomplish much cos we were like almost dead. Reported the spoilt air-con to the front desk. Zhi Jing came and asked us to go back.
It was time for our night activity. Basically blindfolded walking around areas of Pasir Ris Park. Hahahah it's quite fun. My specs came apart by itself during the walk so yea, had to start getting used to seeing without specs for the next 2 days.
Went back after the evnt and some went to sleep. Went back out to the front desk to rest and the seniors told us to go back for something important.
Apparently it's the tsunami drill! :D Basically cos we were situated mere metres from the coast, we had to be prepared to run like mad to the bus stop situated all the way out to take a bus to safety in the event of a tsunami approaching. So yeps, we ran from our chalet all the way out into the night to the bus-stop. Then Zi Chao said, "Hey wait, how to take bus when you all don't have EZ link cards? So how? Go back take!" So we ran back to a checkpoint and kept running up and down from the checkpoint to the bus stop and back. Hahahah running at night is really nice cos it's real cooling. Pity the poor residents though, cos we were running on the drain covers.
Went to the carpark after the run where we were put through some exercise to test our bonds. Basically it's jumping jacks and yea we continued for quite a while. Got "pumped" each time we couldn't coordinate properly. Jaron put in good effort to help us coordinate. Chris debriefed us and we went back to sleep.
Went back out to the front desk once again cos it was soooo stuffy in the chalet. Went back to the chalet again and attempted to sleep on the table. Had interrupted sleep cycles.

Day 2:
Woke up at 9 plus to eat bread for breakfast before going off for treasure hunt. Hahahah had a lot of fun basically walking up and down Pasir Ris park. We combined with Carmen's group for the treasure hunt. Had a lot of help towards the end, thanks to Sherman! :D Hahahaha performed a group skit as part of the thing. Moral of our skit: "An apple a day, keeps the doctor away". Made use of Barney to help exemplify this. :D
After that was the elections speeches. Everyone crowded into the girls' chalet. Mr. Tan, Mr. Seow Teng and some seniors came down as well. Hahaha I guess my speech was the longest? I got cut off by Zi Chao 3/8 into the speech cos mine was the last and everyone was dang hungry and wanted to go for dinner. Hahahaha During the Q&A, when Gloria, the senior A div Girls' Capt asked me to elaborate on my answer, I was like "okay, so it's like this..." and she kinda realised about the elaboration part and quickly modified to answering it in one sentence. Hahahahah dang funny, cos everyone was groaning at the elaborate on your answer part. Hahahaha :D
*Fast forward to BBQ after the elections results was announced. Sherman, the pro scout venture got the fires started! I didn't eat much at the BBQ, was at the pantry preparing the raw stuff by poking satay sticks through them. Dang fun activity to do when at BBQ! :D
After the BBQ, went back in to do stuff and settle pizza money. Hahahah went Macs for supper after a while cos some of the guys needed more food. Went back to chalet to play "Truth or Dare" with Zi Chao joining us. Hahahahha totally the highlight of the camp. WOOOOHOOO Did a lot of crazy things and asked a lot of crazy questions. Hahahahha confidential though. :D
Went to watch t.v. in the girls; chalet after that and snacked on bee hoon. Slept on the table again. Woke up a lot of times to change song playing on Aaron Lam's iPod Touch. Hahahahaha Shaoyuan is amazing. He slept on the stairs. His body will conform to the contours of the steps and he dislayed astounding gymnastical ability by being able to constantly contort his body to orientate himself. I've no idea how he managed to do that continuously for like 6/7 hours that he slept. I hope his spine is still alright.

Day 3:
We were going out for breakfast when Chris called us back. We were checking out and going to have breakfast after that! Went to White Sands and ate at the foodcourt. Hahahha Jaron, Xavier, Adhitya, Kenneth and I went back to school to play squash, despite having just survived the camp! Hahahah

Overall, it was a really fun camp. I believe we grew closer together as a family and learnt a few lessons on bonding. Though we didn't have any presentation related to the Treasure Hunt in the end, if we look beyond the results and search within the process, we'd discover that it applies to our nationals as well. Though we may not be the best or among the best (for the guys' team), we are still one big family! :D

The 2 guys delivering our pizzas! :D

The 12 boxes that we finished. Hahahaha pizza high! :D

Sherman (Senior Quartermaster) and I. Hahahaha he's really amusing.

You, do you remember me?
Like I remember you?
Do you spend your life
Going back in your mind to that time?
Because I, I walk the streets alone
I hate being on my own
And everyone can see that I refell
And I'm going through hell
Thinking about you were somebody else

[CHORUS]
Somebody wants you
Somebody needs you
Somebody dreams about you every single night
Somebody can't breath without you, it's lonely
Somebody hopes someday you will see
That Somebody's Me
That Somebody's Me

How, How could we go wrong
It was so good and now it's gone
And I pray at night taht our paths will soon cross
And what we had isn't lost
Cause you're always right here in my thoughts

[CHORUS]
Somebody wants you
Somebody needs you
Somebody dreams about you every single night
Somebody can't breath without you, it's lonely
Somebody hopes someday you will see
That Somebody's Me
That Somebody's Me

You'll always be in my life
Even if I'm not in your life
Because you're in my memory
You, will you remember me
And before you set me free
Oh listen please

[CHORUS]
Somebody wants you
Somebody needs you
Somebody dreams about you every single night
Somebody can't breath without you, it's lonely
Somebody hopes someday you will see
That Somebody's Me
That Somebody's Me
That Somebody's Me
That Somebody's Me

guess you'll never...
Aaron

Eurhythmy, Lumos, Council Campaigning, Speech Day, Council Elects' Camp, Council

2009-04-09T07:46:00.000-07:00

Hello, sorry for neglecting this blog. Very very busy with school stuff.

Eurhythmy: It's the SCGS dance concert which was very nice. Bryan, Zhaoming, Yicen and I went to watch Kelly dance; she had 2 solos in it. She can dance really really well! Hahaha something interesting happened. I was waiting for her after the dance to give her this huge mini garden of flowers. Saw a lady standing near us waiting too. I told Bryan that it'd be really cool if that lady was her mum. Bryan and I kinda agreed that such coincidences don't occur that often. In the end, that lady really was Kelly's mum! Was a little shocked and Bryan was trying to hold back his laughter. Hahahaha Life is so unpredictable. :D

Lumos: The Hwa Chong charity concert in aid of autism. It was really nice and funny as well. Hahaha due to the lack of time, they had to cut one band out who overshot the time. NJ Western dance had 2 items which were both great. Hahaha went home with Kelly after the show. She looks very different in her guyish attire, cos she was dancing as a guy. Hahahaha either way, she still dances very well. :D

Council Campaigning: The 2 weeks of campaigning was very very tiring but rewarding. I remember meeting in LT3 after the results of the interviews was released on Thursday. The student council unleashed a humongous pile of work to be completed within the week. They wanted posters, videos, proposals etc. I got sorted in campaigning group no. 4 and hence our name "FOuR THE WIN". Vanessa, Hsiangway, Song Ko and Zheyang were in my group. We came up with 4 proposals which got rejected one by one, making us scramble frantically to re-do them and we had to re-film a scene in our campaigning video due to an inappropriate theme. Our banner only came up at the last moment. We had to reach school almost every single day at an unearthly hour to gather and get shouted at by the campaigning disciplinary committee. We had to stay back till late almost every single day to wrap up all our tasks. We had to be punished for our mistakes by cleaning up the school. We had to wear the bright red tie and a name tag every single day for a fortnight. At the end of it all, we had to do a post project elections proposal and personal reflections. Looking back, I totally can't believe that I've managed to accomplish all that. Hahaha I have to thank my group members too for making this journey bearable and I hope we can continue to stay together even after we all get separated into our different committees. I feel blessed to have them as my group members after witnessing some other groups' dynamics. Hahahahha and throughout the 2 weeks, I can proudly say that I did not sleep in a single lecture! Hahahah cos the red tie on a grey shirt screams "Look at me to see if I'm sleeping". And there's dire consequences when we get caught sleeping while wearing a red tie. Hahaha so yea, I'm grateful for the tie too. :D

Group photo of all 59 of the candidates

Creative planning for video with even more creative handwriting. I SWEAR I only write like that under conditons of extreme stress, lack of sleep, 76cm Hg, 8.31J k^-1 mol^-1, backlog of tutorials and while wearing full grey.

3/5 of a Group photo. Hsiangway had training while Zheyang was somewhere else. :D We were all quite shagged after doing the banner.

Our HOT PINK banner. Why hot pink? Cos we're cool like that. HAHAHAHA Vanessa INSISTED on it. Hahhahah :D

Speech Day: NJ dedicated an entire day to speech day. Hahahha it was quite an experience. First venue was in LT5 and the second was in the hall and I was the first candidate. Managed to plow through my speech at both venues. Witnessed a lot of people getting shot and arrrowed during the Q&A round. Hahahha the hot seat round was fun. I had to dance and make some poor guy dance with me cos daryl and yijun ran away. Overall, I guess everyone had a lot of fun for speech day and yea totally an experience we will not be able to forget.

Council Elects' Camp: Received the results of voting on Wednesday and had a briefing for Elects' camp which spanned friday to sunday. Got posted to group 5, the BLUE group! Had Li Shang, Zi Kai, Nazira, Zhu Wei and Shamera for group mates. Elects' camp was totally an adventure. Hahahaha I was already quite used to the punishments a la NCC style so it wasn't too much of a culture shock.
Day 1: Reported slightly later than the rest due to a meeting with Mr. Ng about my PI. Had dinner that was catered from the Chinese cuisine stall. Went for an night hike briefing cum informal gathering with the seniors, including those all the way from the 35th batch. Got to know a bit about the 5 different committees. We had a night hike on the first day in Macritchie, in which Fiona got lost. She took the wrong rg as partoute, which I almost took as well. Fortunately she got out of it unscathed. Rushed back to NJC after the night hike, bathed and laid down to rest. Didn't really sleep as I was guarding the flag to prevent seniors from stealing it. Had to guard the black card they gave us too to prevent it from getting lost. Luckily no incursions happened. :D

Day 2: Woke the rest up at 5.40, about 2 hours from the time we slept. Assembled for breakfast, in which we played a game. Our hands were tied up and we had to feed each other bee hoon. Quite a dumb game and it wasn't filling at all. Zi Kai got the flag stolen. Only managed to get it back after we promised to sing two songs for Mr. Teo. Afterwards, we had a land expedition briefing. Within our groups, we were supposed to discuss and walk from NJC to Bukit Chandu. It was a very long walk and we enterred through the back of the park. So basically the entire morning was spent walking, walking, walking, walking and playing a few station games. Poor Li Shang had a sudden bout of diarrhea in the mdidle of the canopy walk, which meant he had no choice but to directly fertilise the trees. Hahaha, he was like 1000km away from the nearest toilet. Zi Kai got the flag stolen once again. Hahaha Edmund and I had to sing a cantonese song during lunch to get it back. Assembled for lunch before taking a bus to Kallang for our sea expedition (dragon boating) afterwards. Dragon boating was dang fun cos our instructor encouraged us to splash water at the other team. Hahahahha :D Went back to school in time for Payback session 1 aka punishments for our mistakes. Had to do a lot of bridges, push ups, sit ups, crunches, leg raises, running. Did payback session 2 later on in the night after dinner. Everyone was really shagged but through mutual encouragement, we managed to pull through! :D
Had to clean up the canteen after that and we discovered rotting pizza in one of the bags that tore. A few of us stayed back after everyone was dismissed to clean up the mess. Totally saikang to the max but it was quite fun! :D

Day 3: Woke up at 3.00am and assembled to play some blindfold game. Had to do a bit of running around before we started the game cos there were some people who were still asleep. After the game, it was finally breakfast and another dumb breakfast game. After breakfast was another round of payback, where we managed to finish all our stuff with help from our Seniors, the 41st Student Council. At the end of it all, everyone was happy that camp was going to be over and we went back for one last debrief. "Marched" in the flags for the last time and watched this very touching video made by Albert (kudos to him) which highlighted our elects camp. We all opened our black cards together, found a note inside from Letts encouraging us for our term. Looking back, I feel we have learnt a lot from the camp as well as bonded from 43 individuals to a more cohesive group of councillors. Though we are not yet 1 perfect council, I believe we will be able to reach it soon. After we were all dismissed, a few of us headed to Macdonald's for a much needed break from Khong Guan biscuits. I swear the salt on the fries have never tasted so good before. :D
I totally hate Khong Guan biscuits now cos there was a lack of food in the camp and the only thing available was Khong Guan biscuits, which I spammed throughout the camp. After the camp, there are 14 tins of Khong Guan biscuits left! Apparently the school overordered the biscuits. Well, I guess I have a love-hate relationship with Khong Guan biscuits though. I love it cos it saved my life. I hate it because it was too much to handle after eating it for breakfast, lunch, dinner and supper. :D

Council: The next big thing after elects camp is on this wednesday (6th May); the exco-exco elections. The excos of the 42nd council will be delivering their speech and get elected in on the same day. I wish all candidates all the best for their campaign and hope that they will practise fair competition as far as possible. The politics have already started but I hope it doesn't get too ugly or overboard.

I've been getting a lot of calls/smses/lectures from the seniors to run for exco. I will like to apologise to the seniors for not running despite all their efforts of persuasion. I will like to thank them for seeing potential in me even though the only potential I see in me is the potential to have potential. Hahaha personally I've no wish to join in the tussle for power. I feel that some of the candidates do have potential and they require an opportunity to showcase this. I hope that this time round, they will be able to grasp this opportunity. Hopefully, the right people are elected to the right posts and they will be able to serve the college well. :)

The booklet in which my group leaders wrote very encouraging words! Hahahah I will really like to thank them for all their help and guidance during the camp. Thanks to Eugene Ke, Daniel, Rachel, Qingwei, Kuan Loong, Audrey, Venezia and Hui Shan! :D

Black card! Some senior almost tried to fish this out of my back pocket while I was blindfolded. Hmmm, of all places, why the back pocket?! Hahhahahha XD

Inspiring message stuck inside. Was expecting a jigsaw piece though. Hahahaha Idea for next year's camp, we give out fortune cookies and we attach such notes inside. :D

One of our tasks where Zhu Wei was supposed to describe to us what we were supposed to draw under a certain time limit while using simple shapes to describe, while Li Shang was elsewhere ensuring our plants grow well. Hahhahaha XD

The end result! Hahahah totally abstract art.

Hahaha yeps, so that's about all for this update. I shall update this blog soon! I'll be back! :D

Aaron

Road run, Squash, Clique, School life, Diploma (UPDATED)

2009-03-06T06:14:00.000-08:00

Had the NJC 40th road run on Saturday. Had to run 5.2 km. Wasn't really much of a road run since majority of it was in the school compound. Yeps, after finishing the run together with Arjuna, went to the squash courts to play till it was time to go for prize presentation. Aqua did quite well, though Aerius won overall best. Kudos to them.
Went back to the squash court to meet up with my OG and the majority of the squashers to go for lunch and buy equipment. Lunched at Prince's cafe in Coronation Plaza. Was very very hungry till the food came. But yea it's cheap. Throughout lunch, played "Truth or Truth" with Daryl before playing "Truth or Dare" with the rest. Hahahha had to do 2 dares which happen to be on facebook. XD
Dare 1) Doing part of the mass dance with Daryl. Hahahaha this one was dang amusing. http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=67545689621

Dare 2) Hug Ai Hua. Hahahah this one is quite cute.
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=67543879621

After lunch, the squashers went to Queensway to buy equipment. Bryan, Jing Ying and Yicen tagged along. Walked around the whole of Queensway trying to look for racquets. Couldn't find many good ones. Probably because squash is a dying sport and it isn't really good business sense to stock up on the racquets. Ordered 3 Head racquets which are not available anytime soon since Head is doing stock taking now. The team bought the same Mizuno court shoes. It was supposed to be the red and white a la NJC, but they didn't have the size. Met Samantha and her dad, who was there to restring his racquet. So yeps, spent like 2 plus hours just walking around and buying stuff.
After that, it was like a mini-clique gathering at Macdonald's. Original plan was to grap a drink or sit then go somewhere else for dinner. As time dragged on, we decided to just dine there and talk. Had a nice sharing session to open up more to each other. Thought it was very meaningful and very good for bonding. Interesting how a group of people with different backgrounds, from different schools can just get somehow squashed together and stick. Hahaha :D Now we need to think of a cool name for it, other than Aaron of course. XD
So after spending 5 hours at Macdonald's, we finally decided to leave and head home. Along the way home, Jia Sheng and I decided to test whether yawning is truly contagious. So it started with me first, and it really works! It really is contagious. We even found ways to make yourself yawn more. Yeps, we were really bored on the way home. :D

Anyway school life is starting to settle down into a monotony. The worse part has yet to come; PW lessons in the afternoon. :( Everyday is like wake up half dead, drag body to school, trying to stay awake in lessons, awaiting the bell signalling the end of the period, going for lectures, sleeping during some lectures, going for CCA, going back home, trying to do tutorials, sleeping late, waking up next morning again and the entire cycle continues.

Once in a while, there's some interesting stuff that happens that help to disperse the monotony of school. We had SM2 scholars from China joining us this week. Siyuan or Tim is attached to our class. Hahaha he's a very nice guy and dang intelligent. In China, they can't use calculators in their math exams. Hence they have to work out the values of sine, cosine and tangent themselves. Tim demonstrated sin 75, which ended up in a complex surd form, but it is the exact value as shown in the calculator. I feel really lucky that we have calculators here to use. So much easier. Hahaha and I'm using him to practise my chinese. So he will practise his english on me while I try my chinese on him, though it usually lapses back into me speaking english to hasten the process of communication. Hahahaha poor him, having to endure my jarring pronunciations and adjectives. I remember one of the first things I asked him was "Ni chi guo wo men zhe li de ji fan ma?" or "Have you tried chicken rice?" Hahahaha random question.
I keep mixing him up with Yi Xin. Tim's from Hubei, Yi Xin's from Hunan. Through Tim, I've finally got my North, South, East, West directions in Chinese. It's very interesting to talk to Tim, cos he has a lot of random bits of information. I'm trying to learn the Hubei dialect, which sounds very much like the normal Beijing type.
Tim is very hilarious. Today we had a chem tutorial, which he could tag along if he wanted to. According to him, the leader of the SM2 scholars told him "Just go home, baby." Hahahaha the way he says it and the word "baby" is dang dang dang funny.
He's addicted to the Western food stall in our canteen. Probably cos he doesn't get to eat much of it back in his hometown.

NJC did very well for A levels last year. A lot of 'A's floating around. Kudos to the seniors, hopefully we get a day off! :D

Went to ERC on monday together with Arjuna and Tzeyang to collect my diploma. Found out that they have a direct honours degree programme that they are offering, which we are suitable for. Talked to Joey, the very friendly consultant attached to SJI. According to her, we can offer that programme part time alongside our A level studies. As we have already gotten the diploma, we can skip the first year and carry on to the Advanced Diploma in Businees Management. Then we have to go for NS before resuming our studies and receivning a Degree in Business Management (Honours)about 1.5 years after NS. It's issued by the University of Greenwich, which is apparently one of the top 5 in U.K. for their business courses. So yeps, this programme is very attractive. If I wasn't taking A levels, I think I will take up this programme. It is very attractive and a whole lot better compared to our mainstream education. Sigh, the fallacies of our system. Anyway, we all kinda agreed that it's tough to juggle school, CCA and the advanced diploma. Oh well, have to pass up this good chance. :/
But anyway, we're trying to get them to reprint our diplomas, cos they look very plain. Hahahaha hopefully, they will agree. :D

Now it has creases cos I accidentally sat on it. Dang :/

Yeps, that's about it for school now. I'll try to update here more often! :D
Aaron

NJC Orientation, Lectures, Valentine's Day

2009-02-13T05:51:00.000-08:00

Finally an update for orientation week. The theme for this year's is E(nj)oy- Viva la Vida. Note the NJ in 'enjoy'. Hahaha anyway I'm in OG 6, definitely one of the best OGs around!! Hahaha I think everyone says this about their OG, but it's true! Our super awesome OGLs are Gabby, Yi Ping, Qinrui, Qingwei, Lennon and Glennville. The 4 male OGLs were all from SJI!! Woohoooo!

Day 1
Talks took up the first part of the day. NJ's formal colours are blue and white so most of the male teachers were dressed in a white shirt and blue tie. Hahaha spent a lot of time waiting for people to finish registering. BUT finally got it done. I chose PCME, very standard combination, hope I don't die doing it. Yeps then it was onwards to the oasis to sit around. Sat and read Newsweek and the student handbook. Went for the Student Needs Test at 3.30pm, quintessentially a survey about our development. Hahaha finally got dismissed at 4 plus. Went back with Meifeng and Fiona.

Day 2
Had the code of conduct talk in the hall, followed up by PE talk by Mr. Irwan, an ex-SJI pe teacher! Hahaha he joined 'Don't Forget The Lyrics' and I thought he looked quite familiar! I think he left for NJC when I was in sec 2. Hahaha funny guy.
Then we had the informal walk-in. The dances were very nice and I guess Titan's was the best! Hahahaha that's because I'm from Titan, BUT it's true! :D After lunch, we had our first ever Mass Dance session. Partnered with Mingxiu. Danced to the song "Please Don't Stop The Music" by Rihanna. The whole dance was way too fast. Hahhaha but yea, dancing is cool. :) We had a song and cheer session, where they attempted to teach us the school anthem. Hahahah My favourite is the YAHHH!!! cheer.

Day 3
Had mass dance session for the first part. Danced with Clara, one of the IP students. Hahaha still can't get the dance. The rest of the day was station games where everyone got really wet, especially Clara. Poor her. Cos it's her birthday so they kept dunking water on her. Hahaha hence never reveal your birthday! Yeps, then it was wash up and stuff before the CCA carnival stated. Just walked around and peeked at all the booths. Hahahaha Arjuna kept getting pestered by the Indian Dance people. Hahaha in the end, signed up for Aikido, Interact Club and I&E. Hahhaha the I&E thing was under the influence of Arjuna.

Day 4
External hunt was the order of the day. Went to Jurong East to start off. Played a lot of games along the way before making our way to Bishan for more games and lunch. Went back to school for a debrief.

Day 5
Watched the pre-showdown video and went for showdown. Hahhaha it's fun being the defender cos you get to smash water bombs and get very very very wet. Getting wet is the fun part. Hahaha Washed up after that and headed for the last mass dance session. They taught us another dance which is comparatively a lot easier than the first one. It's to the song "Summer Nights" by Grease, a very old song. It's a 'traditional' NJ dance, started like years back. Haha this dance is cute. Had a Titan house session where we learnt some cheers. Hahahah the best is the "Titan, titan, titan titan". Very unique cheer. It upstages "Rock On Michael". Hahaha
Had OG bonding time around the school while waiting for dinner. Dinner was pizza and KFC. Dance party was in the hall! It rocks!! We had a DJ helping us to spin the tracks. Dang cool. Never had one in SJI before. Hahaha Managed to find Clara to dance to 'Please Don't Stop The Music'. A lot of people didn't get to dance with their dance partners cos it was so dark and noisy inside the hall. So I was lucky in a way. Thanks to Clara for the dance! :) Hahahaha Had a lot fun at the dance party. I reckon Bryan definitely enjoyed himself; he was doing random actions like standing broad jumps etc. Hahahaha Adhitya and I requested for a Bhrangra song to be played so all the SJI guys could go up on stage to do what Mr. Arul taught us in Sec 2. Hahahaha Had a lot of fun with the SJI contigent. 37 in total. Hahahaha Once a Josephian, Always a Josephian. Hahahah XD Those were the good old days. Thanks to Mr. Arul, we've gained exposure into the colourful world of Bhrangra dance and music. Hahahaha I miss his "Fruity Friday" stories. :D

Yeps, Orientation was definitely the best week ever! Now it's back to lectures.. :(
Hahahha lectures are actually quite fun if you sit with the right people and your lecturer is funny. Hahahaha our lecturers so far are quite okay. The content is just overwhelming. Hahahaha it's quite fun to observe what people do in lectures. Ai Hua will do a lot of random stuff ranging from drawing pigs on my book to playing with Samantha's leg. Hahahaha I still think my lion looks nicer than hers. XD

Valentine's Day was quite fun. Hahahah received a lot of stuff and felt very bad about not giving on that day. Thanks everyone for all the stuff!! Some of the handmade stuff was very creative like the one from Clara. I never could have made a card like that. Hahaha :D I would like to thank the OGLs too. They gave us our photos in a CD with personalised captions. Hahahh mine's like "Have fun in chess club!" Hahahaha

Some cute chocolate from Qiao Wei. I can't bear to eat it cos it's so cute. Hahahha

OG 6!! :D

K time to sleep. Will update more later on. Cheers! :D

Aaron

3 6E Gatherings, Krav Seminar, NJC Orientation, Mass Dance

2009-01-24T07:43:00.000-08:00

Wednesday 21/01/2008
Had a gathering at SAFRA Yishun for bowling. Dang, I got lost while trying to find my way there. Reached Yishun and followed Zhiheng's instructions to take bus no. 812 which will drop me off somewhere within walking distance of SAFRA Yishun. Did exactly so but instead I started out at the bus interchange and ended back again at the bus interchange after going around in a big loop. Not wanting to loop again, I decided to take a taxi, which is so much easier! Found out from Azizan later on that there are actually 2 places at which you can take 812, and the buses travel different routes. What's up with that?! Somehow I'm really starting to agree with those "Better By Train" ads that you see on buses. At least train routes are clearly stated. Bus routes nowadays are getting as confusing as Confucius' teachings.

Anyway finally reached Orchid Bowl and started bowling. The SJI bowlers arrived as well. Hahaha couldn't recognise them but it's still good to be able to see Josephians. Not long after, some Rafflesians came as well. I think they were there for the bowling selection tests that's held for sec 1s. Hahaha they were a dang funny and cute bunch. Some guy flung a ball backwards after running up to bowl. Now that's the first time I've ever seen anyone run and try to bowl at the same time. Hahaha the ball kinda flew out of his hand and bounced/rolled backwards.
Important life lesson: Never stand behind anyone who's bowling, especially if he runs.
Hahhahaha the coach looked kinda depressed at the performance of those attending the selection tests. Then again, there's always 2 sides to a coin, so they could become good in bowling one day! As long as they don't stand behind that guy when he bowls. Hahaha

Azizan, John, Aikhwee and I bowled 3 games, of which I scored terribly for all. Hahaha I swear it's the lane. It has a slight depression near the center line which cause the ball to move off its intended course. And this depression always appears when it's my turn to bowl. :( And I keep feeling a strong wind blowing each time I bowl. Seems like the strong winds across Singapore has started to take effect indoors as well. Hmmm, I think it's due to a combination of the El Nino and Coriolis effects. As to what those two are, I've no idea since my Geog Elect textbook doesn't cover it. Hahaha that brings back memories of Geog Elect classes, most of it spent talking to Dinesh. I think I'm like level 89 talking-while-teacher-teaches-without-getting-caught. I need to improve that by 10 levels. XD

Anyway after the bowling game, we headed off to take photos and back to Northpoint to go meet Seiyee. Hahaha
(K I stopped here the last time and am finally updating this now.. so I can't remember much..)
Went to Causeway Point to have dinner and meet some other people. Hahaha I only remember 1 scene from dinner. I was poking my teabag/stirring my tea and Cheryl suddenly exclaimed, "This pineapple is very juicy!" Hahahaha I find that very amusing and very very cute. Hahhahha :D Yea, and it's fun to poke your teabag when you're drinking tea cos it gives you something to do while stirring and waiting for the tea to brew. It feels nice to poke the teabag too! Hahahaha

2nd 6E Gathering:
K I can't remember what we did for this gathering but I guess it's the usual of meet-up, eat, sit around, walk a few steps and stop, walk a few more steps and then stop again, sit around, play bridge and then go home. I think we may have watched a movie. It's the "All's Well Ends Well". Say that 100 times. Hahahah don't think it will end well. Anyway yea, the show is downright hilarious. Hahhahaha love this kind of show. Haha yea.

3rd 6E Gathering:
Steamboat at Fel's house. Met Seiyee and walked around a little bit at the library and station. Finally bought a realistic looking toy gun to practise my gun disarms. Hahahah threw the bullets away cos we thought it was spoilt and couldn't shoot. Only found out later that the gun wasn't spoilt at all. Yeps, so had dinner at fel's house and basically loitered around Fel's house for a while before going home. Hahaha our gatherings are usually something like that.

Krav Maga Seminar:
Attended it on sunday(01/02/2009), conducted by Mr. Tommy Broom, Expert Level 4. He's from Sweden and he's very very big. Hahaha he brought along another female instructor, Graduate Level 1. Hahaha poor Jeremy. He got kneeed by her many times. Anyway we did stick work for the entire seminar.
First it was attacking with sticks, then defending against a stick attack with a stick-like object and finally defending against a stick attack with bare hands. Then it was pressure test where 2 people would come at you with sticks and continually attack you with them. Hahaha one thing I've learnt; it hurts to get hit at the kidneys. Hahahah
yea so basically for stick defence is rush in everytime. Never flinch away or avoid the stick cos the person is going to attack you again. Burst right in and try not to get hit while doing it. Hahahaha then again, do not make anyone swing a stick-like object at you. When in doubt, run.

So yea, reported to NJC on monday morning. Met the SJI guys outside, rather surprised to see Li Wei there since he scored 9A1s. But he doesn't have higher chinese so couldn't get posted to RI. But he seems to like NJC! Hahahha

I'm in OG 6, Titan theatre, currently Terra house. I'm still trying to get the steps for mass dance down! We're using "Please Don't Stop The Music" by Rihanna. The beat is dang fast and there's like too many moves for too little words. Hahahah still trying to get the hang of it. In SJI, all we did was Bhrangra dance, which seems a lot easier. Hahhaha learnt some cheers as well. NJ's cheers are very different and somewhat funny. Not much rhythm to them and a whole chunk of words BUT it still is quite nice. Hahahaha Oh and I'm trying to get the tune of the college anthem down. :)

K shall update more about orientation after the orientation week is over. :D Hahaha

Video of our Mass Dance

Hahaha it's a very cute dance. :D

Aaron

6E GATHERING, RESULTS AND KRAV!

2009-01-16T08:21:00.000-08:00

Alright finally an update since the last post. Hahahaha for want of a better phrase.

Anyway yeps so on the 11/01/2009, we had a 6E gathering. Met at 6pm at Causeway Point to have dinner at Pasta Mania. Was supposed to go watch a movie after that but the girls didn't want to and so we proceeded to some playground to hang around. The rest were playing 23, which is a mathematical card game so it requires you to think. I don't think my brain could handle such a strenuous task after floating around in cerebrospinal fluid in my skull for the past month. Abraham and I didn't play it and just chilled somewhere else listening to music. Suddenly, an egg dropped from above and landed right in the middle of the rest who were sitting in a circle. It was thrown by some jerk who decided that egging people was fun. This is weird as the group wasn't even making any noise at all. The only time people make noise while doing math is in Mrs Tan Eng Hong's class! Hahahaha can't never forget those lessons. Luckily Abraham and I were standing somewhere else so we didn't get any egg splattered on us. Sadly, the rest had bits of egg splattered on them. Whoever who threw the egg should really be Krav-ed. Can't imagine why anyone would want to do such a thing, especially now when the economy is in recession.
So some went to Fel's house to clean up while the rest went to Civics centre. Fel's house is nice. There's like this big fish tank right at the door and it contains fish! Yeps, just in case you were wondering what's inside the fish tank. Hahaha
So after everyone cleaned up, Fel's house had this egg-roma. I never really liked the smell of raw eggs. Smells like raw eggs.
Of course, when eggs come to mind, a question pops up. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Hahahahaha in this context though, which splattered out first, the yolk or the white? Hmmmm, food for thought.
Yea so after all the eggcitement, we went to some shelter to play 23 again. As before, Abraham and I sat somewhere else and talked. Took some cards and attempted to predict my results. Hahaha i kept getting all the high cards. Yea so I basically got 10+ for every subject. Hahaha
At around 10 plus, we disbanded to go home. The guys went back to the scene, and tried figuring out who threw the egg. Of course, we couldn't find the person. Dang, what is wrong with some people?

The very next day, it was RESULTS DAY! 12/01/2009. Reached school at 1.45pm. Met JP on the bus. Chatted a bit about NCC and results. Anyway seeing everyone again makes me miss SJI like mad. Hahahah got to hug Bryan Lauw after such a long time! Hahaha :D So anyway, gathered in the hall. I tried to avoid making eye contact with Mr. Ho. Hahahha both Mr. Ho and Ms. Chia were just smiling away. So yea we started off with prayer. Then it was the principal's speech, which was interesting since he's the new principal and I have not heard him talk before. I think his name is Dr. Koh. His diction is much better and his content is a little more direct. Hahahaha Mr Lui, the principal who went through 4 years with us, did his speech too. Hahaha I miss his speeches. SO yea, went through the powerpoint slides showing the top scorers and how SJI did. Our MSG this year is 10.4, which is the lowest ever in SJI's history! So kudos to SJI and hopefully our juniors can do better than us and bring SJI to greater glory! Hahahaha
(If you are reading this, remember to send your son(s) to SJI!!! SJI is a good school. And no, they didn't pay me to say this. )
Congrats to Li Wei, who scored 9A1s; he totally deserved it! :D Hahaha will miss all his weird antics. XD

Anyway so at 2.45, which is like 45 minutes after the official time for release of results, we finally lined up according to index number to collect our result slips. Hahahaha when it was finally my turn and just when I was mentally prepared for any bad news, Ms. Chia told me that I had to pay for some lit seminar in order to collect my result slip. Hahaha apparently a lot of us owed the school money for the seminar in which Suzanne Choo was the speaker. This was a bit surprising as Mrs Beryl Ang said that she invited Suzanne Choo to the seminar. Apparently the school had to pay her! Hahahaha I thought she came because she wanted to give back to the community. But yea, so each of us had to pay $10. Opened up my Form A, and saw a whole lot of codes and stuff and couldn't really understand much.
Headed to the office to go pay for the seminar in order to collect my results slip, hahahaha waited like 1 hour just to pay $10. No idea what the people in front were doing. But yea it's fine cos I like the way the office smells. Hahahaha :D

Finally collected my result slip. Hahaha I got a huge shock when I saw my results! K here's a summary:
1) English: A1. A miracle considering my oral conversation. Hahaha I remember it's on hygiene and I actually said, "Actually I don't mind dust as long as I don't see it" to which the examiners gave me that o.O look. Hahahahaha I think Ms. Chia was also relieved that I actually got this. If not, it will make our class look bad.

2) Literature in English: A1. This one is the huge shocker! Hahaha I don't remember doing any work in class and Mrs. Beryl Ang was so worried that we might just flunk lit because of the work we do in class, or rather, the lack of. I was expecting a B3 or B4, since I wrote dang little. Hahaha I remember Hari telling me that he wrote 8 pages for the essay and I was like "WHAT?! 8 pages." That's like all my lit exam scripts combined together. So that's about 1 piece of paper for every question, which has 2 parts. That's dang little! Hahaha After collecting my result slip, I went to the staff room to look for Mrs. Ang and she almost died when she heard my result. Hahaha We concluded that it was her homemade pastry. It seemed like those who ate a lot of it didn't do well for lit, while those who ate a little or none at all, did well! Hahaha nay, but seriously Mrs. Ang is one of the best teachers ever. She would make all those pastries for us to try and buy all those snacks to accompany us during lit classes. Hahaha Her lessons are also very interactive, since we're mainly discussing about anything and everything, except the lit texts. That's why I've always enjoyed her lessons! Especially when Sudharshan, Zach, Raj and Hari start their own internal Indian quarrel. Hahaha Of course, that doesn't mean Mrs. Ang doesn't teach. She does! Except very few, mainly the left side of the class, listen. The right side is chaotic. Hahaha George will start touching me/I will start touching him and start crapping, while SiRong reads his Chuck Norris jokes, and Terry will just sit there. Then the 4 people behind us will start their quarrel. WeiJee, Timothy Chan and James will just start doing their own stuff. But that's Lit Class! Hahaha

3)Combined Humanities (SS and Geog elect): A2. I expected something lesser as I didn't have time to finish the papers! Hahaha I still remember at the end of the Geog exam, I was thinking "Dang no time to finish, because I spent too much time on drawing meanders. Never mind, next time just leave the meanders last". Then it dawned on me that I'm not taking Geog anymore! So there's no more next time! Hahaha I was dang lucky for SS, since I decided to study 1 out of 6 examinable topics and it came out! It's the Iraq and Kuwait conflict. :D I need to thank Mrs. Nevina Ho and Ms Cyndia Leow. Hahaha I knew on many occasions Mrs. Ho wanted to kill me for not paying attention in class. XD

4) E Math: A1. Thanks to Mrs. Tan Eng Hong and my math tuition teacher, Ms Tan, I managed to pass my math. Hahaha HEY! I just realised both of them have the same surname. Hahahaha

5) A Math: A2. Though I'm happy I didn't fail my A Math, I regret not practising more and for a longer period of time! If not, I might have gotten A1. Then my aggregate would be better. But yea, I'm still content with it :D

6) Physics: A1 Very happy about the result. Thankfully I didn't fail my Physics! Hahaha I think Mr. Ho was surprised and happy that I made the A1 grade for Physics. Hahaha I would like to thank Mr. Ho for his dedicated teaching, my cousin who taught me once and Mr. Sie for helping me out for this subject! :D

7) Chemistry: A2. I think only one guy in our class got A1, making Mr. Kwang very disappointed. :( That also means no Shrangri La Treat. :( But anyway, Mr. Kwang is still a very nice teacher who has a unique sense of humour, albeit leaning more towards the weird side. Hahaha I can't never forget the "Making Lessons Come Alive" part. Hahaha And he's a good RME teacher too! :D

8) Biology: A2. Quite happy with this since I only started studying like a few days before. Was still studying even on the morning of the exam. Hahaha I'm gonna miss Mrs Lim's lessons. They never fail to make me realise how long 50 minutes is. Hahaha and it gives plenty of time for Ben Chin and I to discuss rabbits. :D

9)Chinese : A2. This is from last year. Hahaha I've no idea how I even got an A in this subject. I think Mrs. Tay is glad that I didn't fail. Hahaha

10) Higher Chinese: C5. Another pleasant surprise! Thought I was going to fail since I couldn't understand the questions and passages. Hahaha I need to go tell Mrs. Tay soon. I think she might freak out at the thought that I even passed this subject! Hahaha :D

So yeps, L1R5 aggregate is 8. After bonus points, it's 4. All together 9A and 1 C. Hahaha I'm happy with it. Got really lucky for this exam. :D

Anyway quick Krav update. Did a lot of chokes and more chokes for this week. And played some weird games that supposedly trains you.

Accidental Injuries: Scratched on the face by Michael. Elbowed in the teeth by Alvin. Headbutted on the nose by Jeremy (this one is probably the worst, since my nose still hurts now.)

Accidentally Injured: Elbowed Simon on the chin. Punched Alvin in the face. Elbowed Gary's cheek. Fingered Jason's eye. Poor Jason. We were doing choke defenses. Everyone was to stand around in a circle while I stood in the centre. So I'm supposed to defend the chokes which came from every direction randomly. So when Colin did a back choke on me, I raised my arms up to pluck his hands. So while my arms were rising up, I accidentally fingered Jason's eye because he was standing too close. The worst part was that he wasn't even the assailant. Wooops, sorry Jason! Really didn't mean to. :/
And apologies to the rest whom I accidentally injured while practising. Really didn't mean to. :/

Yea, BUT I guess that's part and parcel of training. You get injured half the time time and the other half, you injure people. But at the end, everyone still comes back for more. :D

Aaron

FULL CONTACT SPARRING!, More Krav Maga (Edited edit)

2008-12-29T08:16:00.000-08:00

Monday (29/12/08)
WOOOOHOOOO, just back from my first sparring session of Krav Maga. Its quite funny, since the other were just talking about it. Sparring sessions are extremely rare and only occur when the stars are in their right places. There must also not be any new people signing up. Woah but sparring is dang fun and dang addictive.

So everyone had to do a total of two rounds lasting 3mins. I was chosen to do an extra round so the fights were almost non-stop for me.

Initially it was a 1 on 1 fight. Edwin, my instructor, paired me up with Wei Sheng. He has just completed his BMT so he's done the BCCT (Basic Close Combat Training; if I'm not wrong). He has perfect 6/6 vision while I was as blind as 2 bats(cos both eyes are equally bad). So I was a little nervous at the prospect of fighting him. So we entered the cage and started. I think I made the first move by doing a low front kick, which left my shoe print on his thigh. Then I started doing flying kicks, which Edwin told me to refrain cos I guess it can be quite dangerous. So that kinda took a chunk out of my combative options. Then I started doing chain punches. And Edwin was like "Hey, no wing chun!" Hahaha
So the fight carried on and kinda passed by in a flash. Wasn't really injured by the end of it. It's tiring but it was a good fight. I hope I didn't injure him that much cos I jolted his brain a few times and slammed into his ears a couple of times. He suffered from a high pitch whining noise in his ear and dizziness. Got my brain jolted a few times as well. The dizziness that follows is pleasurable. *Cough

Then it was 2 versus 1. I was up against Damien and Elvin. Didn't hit Elvin much because he's quite old (40~50 years). Damien has very good reach due to his height and long limbs. So it's quite tough trying to hit him. He's like level 99 range. It was quite tough to concentrate on both at the same time. I think he punched me in the ear which is slightly red and tender now.

So like almost immediately after my last fight, it was my turn against Aaron and some guy whom I cannot seem to catch his name. Yeps, that guy is dang fast and powerful. And he keeps doing his jumping kicks. Dang, I had to hold back from doing mine. It's quite weird, cos I'll start chambering my leg, then remembering Edwin's instruction, pull it back. His right hook gave me a bruise just above my left eye, which I'm hoping will not worsen cos it might blind me temporally in the left eye. Took a direct roundhouse kick from him to my solar plexus, which knocked the air out of me. That feeling is really crappy. So I went berserk on him and both of us got into a clinch and I kinda caused his knee to somewhat pop out, which ended the fight for him then. Woops, hope he's fine.
So I had to fight Aaron and after a while the fight finally ended.

The worst part was that there was "Buddy P.T." after the sparring sessions. It's basically doing push-ups with your buddy on your back, carrying your buddy and doing squats and doing "Aaron's leg lifts". It's crazy stuff.

Anyway sparring is dang fun. The adrenaline rush, the feeling of getting hit and the sensation when you land a clean punch right in the middle of someone's face is dang cool. It's addictive. It really tests what you've learnt and makes you realise your mistakes. The pain acts as a reminder. Now I need to start working on my evasion. I realise I'm too static, allowing people to blast my head. Can't wait to spar again! :D

Tuesday (30/12/08)
Back from Krav again. Lesser people today, I think some died after yesterday's sparring. Hahahaha nay. So today was escapes. Hahaha new guy joined us; once again as the only member of the welcoming committee, I helped out with the introductions. Nice guy. Hahahaha hoped he wasn't too freaked out by the demonstrations by our lovely instructor, Suhermman. Hahaha I think he was too into the New Year countdown mood. He accidentally knee-ed the face of the guy he was demonstrating on and kicked the knee of the same guy. Poor guy. BUT this rarely happens.

Anyway had an exercise named after me today. It's that dang sadistic ab-xercise(abdominal exercise) which almost killed me on the first day. Hahaha I think Edwin was a little tired of demonstrating that same thing because no one knew what it's called. So he decided to call it "Aaron's leg lift". Hahahaha cos I'm usually the last one to finish the repetitions of that. I have a love-hate relationship with it; love it because I know it's good but hate it because it's bad in a good way. Hahahaha I know I'm not making much sense but you'll get it if you try. :D

Aaron

Krav Maga, Thoughts...

2008-12-26T09:04:00.001-08:00

Another week of Krav passes by. Did a lot of groundwork this week, which is quite fun except for the swiveling around on the ground part. I really need to work on my breakfalls/ukemi, keep forgetting to tuck my chin in. Gonna break my neck some day if I don't do it soon. Realised that doing a stationary breakfall as compared to having someone push you to the ground is a totally different feeling. Each time I do it, I can feel my brain getting rattled inside my skull. According to JiaSheng, a very nice judoka dude, I'm hitting the ground too hard and the dizziness will disappear once you're used to it.
SO my new year resolution is to do about 20(?) ukemi everyday! I feel good; having a new year resolution before the year is up. :D

I think the groin guard doesn't really work. I got knee-ed in the groin and could feel the impact. Hahahaha BUT I guess the pain's good. Injuries and pain are good reminders not to commit the same mistake again. I'm still trying to figure out how I got this shoe print on my chest now. Judging from the sole, it think it's probably a pair of New Balance trainers. I don't remember getting kicked there. Oh well I guess that's what happens when you do groundwork. I have cuts on my first 2 knuckles as well; I guess it's from punching the tyres. Hahaha those tyres are a mystery. No one seems to use them and they just hang there. I guess it's because they are new tyres so hitting it can cause cuts due to the prescence of the threads.
Hahahaha I guess I'm lucky; others got elbowed in the face, bitten on the forehead, punched in the ear etc. Hope they're alright.
*Just in case you are wondering, I'm not the one doing all of the above damages. :)

Hmmm, I think I need to start doing some soothing exercises. I'm like a lake. Seemingly calm and nice on the surface but the water currents beneath can be very strong. The water currents refers to packets of aggression concentrated somewhere. Maybe it's the Krav training. I guess it's partly because of certain emotional stuff happening right now, mixed with the nature of Krav training. Somehow they just blend together to create a very explosive mixture. I need to learn to control that. Maybe I'll do some tai-chi exercises.
And I need to start blocking out certain things. Though it may be difficult to do so, I'll need to start trying.

Oh if you've just read the above paragraph and feel slighlty alarmed, please don't. I don't have a violent streak in me. I'm generally happy and nice, unless provoked. :D

Aaron

It's over! Part 4, Krav Maga Lessons, 6E gathering, Bas Rutten

2008-12-12T06:59:00.000-08:00

DAY 3: (Long overdued)
Woke up at 7/8 bright and fresh, thanks to the lack of snoring. Had a very good sleep with Seiyee by my side. Yeps.
Everyone started getting up and washing up, lazed around till about 10 plus when it was time to return the key. Dropped the key off at the counter and started walking to White Sands. Had breakfast at MacDonald's, ate 2 apple pies! I realise I like to eat desserts for breakfast; ate the Hershey's pie for breakfast on day 2. Yea, after the breakfast, the rest headed to somewhere to have a post-gathering gathering while I had to head home to study for the diploma exam held on the following day.

Yeps. And that concludes the chalet. Had a great time, love to have more of it.

Anyway, went to FightWorks to register for Krav Maga.
*For SJI Guys: Remember that "Mr. Commando" guy from Ace camp while we were sec 2? He's now my instructor! I had a big shock when I first saw him there as well. I thought he was the Muay Thai instructor, but when he turned around, his shirt read "Krav Maga Instructor". BUT he's not as bad as he seems; in fact now he's a really nice guy with a somewhat sadistic sense of humour. Hahahaha

The first lesson was very fun. After introducing myself to the rest, Suhermman(that's Mr. Commando) led us down to the alleyways surrounding the building. I was slightly reluctant to leave the nice gym with the padded flooring and Muay Thai girls. *cough. So, we were doing knife defences. I paired up with Itzah, who's a very nice guy, and he patiently explained to me the technical details of the defences. Did the 360 instinctive defences which was crazy. Since Krav Maga is considered a RBSD (Reality-Based Self Defense), hence training is carried out in a very realistic manner, which means the controlled use of excessive force. So Itzah and I started pounding away at each other's forearms. That's fun as well!
Towards the end of the first training, the instructors made us do some abdominal exercises (I like to call it abxercise), which totally killed me. Got abrasions on my lower back cos we were doing it on the road. I discovered a set of muscles I never knew existed the next day; think it's called Transversus abdominus.
Next day, whole body was aching BUT I'm addicted to Krav Maga! Yeps, can't wait to go back for training every day.

So moving on, just had a WGPS 6E gathering on monday(22/12/2008). Went to Kallang to ice-skate. Or rather they skated while I sat outside and read. Couldn't skate because my whole body was aching and I didn't wanna risk any new injuries, cos Krav gives enough bruising. Luckily I didn't skate cos those who did developed blisters on their feet which will prevent me from going for Krav. To those who have blisters, get well soon! Remember RICE: Rest, Ice, Compress, Elevation. Oh wait, I think that's for sprains..
While reading, I spotted a very familar face: Lee Xun! He was there with some SJI friends to ice skate as well. Kudos to him for graduating from the NCC Cadet Lieutenant course.
After skating, the rest went to KFC to have dinner. Didn't eat cos it was too early to eat and wasn't really hungry. Was still deliberating whether to go for Krav or to watch a movie with the rest. Krav is fun and gathering with the rest is fun as well. In the end, finally decided to go for Krav. Haha sorry for seeming anti-social! Krav is just too addictive. Hahahah :)
(Dang, they are closed on 24th and 25th. Hopefully they won't be closed on 1st, though it's highly likely they will be. I mean, what better way to start a new year than to get brutalized? :D)

Yeps, that's about it.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!! :D Remember to stay safe! And PLEASE DON'T DRINK AND DRIVE!!

Bas Rutten! (Slightly Explicit)

Hahahaha gotta love this guy. He offers very practical tips! Err, use at your own discretion though. Hahaha :D
I like this quote from Bas: "I don't believe in an eye for an eye, I believe in two eyes for an eye...but that's just me." Hahaha

Aaron

It's over! Part 3 (EDIT)

2008-11-30T06:44:00.000-08:00

Day 2 of 6E chalet
Since Aik Hwee was snoring loudly throughout the night, I didn't get much sleep. Kept my eyes closed and did some breathing exercises to stimulate chi flow through my meridian channels. At round 5 plus/6, detected some movement and almost did a single leg takedown on the person standing at the mattress edge. Identified the leg as a friendly leg belonging to either John or Matthew, and hence did not execute the potentially damaging technique. Hahahaha woke up with very cramped legs from the 1/2 cleistogamous flower position. Went to wash up and discovered that Fel, Matthew, Seiyee, John and Limying didn't sleep at all the previous night. They spent the night talking and someone mentioned something about me and an IJ girl. Hmmm..
Sat there with Matthew, watched Cheryl sleeep and listen to the background snoring provided by Aik Hwee.
At like 7 plus, Matthew and I planned to stop Aik Hwee from snoring by launching an aerial projectile, in the form of a pillow, at him. I took the first throw, but somehow I confused my longitudes with my latitudes, my stalagmites with my stalactites and kimono with yukuta, so I ended up hitting Limying instead, waking her up in the process. So sorry Limying! Luckily didn't disturb Cheryl's sleep. The pillow did narry a thing to even induce a change in frequency in Aik Hwee's snoring.
Talked to fel for a while and basically did nothing till 9. I think Cheryl woke up first, plonked back down for a while, then rose back up to go wash up, before plonking back down on the bed. Haha :) Had to return bikes by 10.30, so we were off at 10 plus.
Another useful bit of information I discovered that I'll probably never use is that it is more difficult bringing the bikes down the stairs then up. Yeps.

After returning the bikes, it was back to the room to escape to Escape. They were having their 8th anniversary so ticket price was only $8.80, and because Cheryl used her mom's card to book, we got 4 complimentary passes to Escape. :)

Escape looks exactly the same since I last visited it 4 years ago? We went on the roller coaster first just to warm up. Proceeded on to the Viking, where the only thrill was the mist fans blowing at you while you queued. Then we went on some spinning thingy. I had a revelation at this point; the reason why they call it Escape is because you're meant to escape from that place! It's quite boring. Hahaha Poor Seiyee sat alone in the spinning thingy. Centrifugal and inertia forces acted on him, making him slide all over the seat.
Next we went to the haunted house, which I didn't wanna enter at first cos I was scared. No seriously, I have hauntedhousenophobia. Entered cos the girls really wanted to go and have a look. While queueing up, the introduction video warning you not to take photos (the occupants of the house are sensitive to light) played 5/6 times.
They broke us up into 2 groups of 6 each, so as to prevent occupants from being disturbed I guess. I went with Cheryl, Jiayan, Fiona, Seiyee and Matthew(?). Walked at the back. Inside was pitch black, first thing I thought of was the pupil reflex action. Hahaha yea, so the girls were looking down on the floor and just following the person in the lead. I had to prevent Cheryl from knocking into the pillars. The presence of marshals made it a little anti-climatic. One guy was like "Anyone else in your group?" And I have to confess I was ever so tempted to say "Yea, the one behind me" and point into empty space. Hahahahaha But nay, I'm not so evil.
Anyway can you imagine working in a haunted house? You face the possibility of getting punched by freaked out people thinking you're a ghost, or just punching you under the pretext of self defense, or tripping over expensive props which could lead to your boss freaking out, or having fake blood accidentally spilled all over you and people thinking you're one messy eater.
BUT you get to work in an air-conditioned place and if your boss ever catches you sleeping in a corner, you always have the excuse that you're replacing the mannequin, which you accidentally broke before your pupil had enough time to dilate fully. Yeps.
Went to the "Wet N Wild" or "Wild N Wet" ride next. Sat at the front with Seiyee at the back. Waved at 2 random girls in the canoe in front of us. They kept waving back. Hahaha went a second time with Matthew, this time sitting at the back. Got really wet. Conclusion: Sitting at the back makes you wetter; sitting in front makes you get caught on camera. Yeps.
On the way out, someone wanted to try and win an overly sized Winnie the Pooh bear for another someone, because someone knew that the other someone likes Winnie the Pooh. *Yes it's a very complicated thing, almost like a food web on page 352 of the bio texbook.* Plan was for that someone to pay while I threw the hrings. It's that kind of get the ring over the bottle game. Due to certain circumstances, the plan fell through and the Winnie the Pooh was left dangling. That makes it more like Winnie the Pull! Hahahahaha XD

It was the last ride we took before we escaped from Escape. Some of us were feeling a little hungry and the plan was to go eat. Bought myself a nice cup of Chinese tea. The marvels of tea. :D Started helping Cheryl to collect the money for the chalet from the guys so it will be easier for her. Tze Han was left with $1 after paying his share.
Went back to room and started playing murderer. Listened to Shan & Ros while playing. Radio kept switching off by itself and needed a few shakes each time to continue playing. Screwed up the stacking of the cards. Original plan was to make Matthew murderer but lost track of the Ace cos Shan said something funny over the air and as fate would have it, it went back to Cheryl again for the second time in a row. Terribly sorry, glad I could explain it to you before you left. Hope you understand.

Lionel arrived. Finally met him for the first time since that fateful day. He's very tall now. But I'm quite happy with my height actually. :D
Went for dinner which was pineapple fried rice again for Seiyee and I. This time we got even portions. Haha it really is quite delicious! After dinner, went back to the room where I had to start studying. Managed to cover chapter 9, 15, and a little bit of 4, albeit skipping small portions. Studied for 2 hours till about 10, when some had to leave. Aik Hwee was leaving so we were all quite relieved. Hahaha not that we have anything against him but it meant no more snoring! I felt like leaving as well cos there was nothing much to do in the chalet but stuck around as Seiyee needed me. Hahahaha just kidding! That sounded wrong. We discovered a towel which I think is Cheryl's. Yeps.
Anyway I went to bathe and we played a few games of Indian poker before switching to those crazy orientation games. Started out with "Black Magic", which only Kerina, Fel and I knew the reasoning of. Hahaha had a lot of fun playing this. Mostly it was Kerina doing the questioning and I, answering. Hahahaha Evil twin (His name's Aaron as well) made it more confusing for the rest by throwing in possibilities of word syllables, word count, question count etc. Hahahaha Got one item wrong as Kerina referred to the T.V. screen as being black. But I thought it was grey. So guessed wrongly. Hahaha Cos it's difficult to exchange info without giving the secret away, a lot of weird terms came out like "changing the tone", "continuous variation", "discontinuous variation" etc. The variation part came about after the TV screen incident. Hahaha
Proceeded on to the "How many maa-maa jumped over the wall". Discovered an alternative method to it. Then it was the "Bang, who died" which went on for quite a while. Hahahaha but I guess the best one was the "Open-Close" one. Hahahaha that one was dang hilarious. Hahaha then Kerina did that "MRT" thing on me which was yea.. Hahahaha
*I have to thank John Tan and Wei Jee for teaching me all those orientation games. Hahaha we were playing it during bio class, when we were supposed to prepare for the O levels. Those were the days.. Hahahah missed Wei Jee a lot, dang amusing guy. Hahaha 433 rocks my socks which I weighed down with a rock! :D

Was feeling very sleepy. So I went to sleep. As to what happened after I doze off, you would need to ask those who were still awake if you wanna find out. OR you can listen about my dreams. :)

Day 3 above!

It's over! Part 2

2008-11-29T08:18:00.000-08:00

Another thing that is over is the 6E class chalet held on the 25th to 27th Nov at Costa Sands Downtown East. Hahahaha every time I think of Downtown East, I think of the "Quotes of Brian Lee". Miss 433 a lot!

First Day
Met the guys at Causeway at 12.40? Sorry for being late guys! Was held back for a while. Anyway took a bus to somewhere, and then took the MRT to Pasir Ris and walked to the chalet. Finally met Abraham for the first time ever since that fateful day. (It's also fated that I'm unable to remember which day that was.) Along the way, found out from Cheryl that Costa Sands actually has self check-in counters! Woops, so Cheryl's dad made a wasted trip, cos he was supposed to help us draw key. Sorry uncle!

Yeps, so finally checked into the room. We were all expecting something a lot bigger, but it was just a small room, with one toilet, one t.v., two beds plus 2 pull out mattresses. After settling in which is basically dumping all the stuff somewhere and sitting down, the t.v. came on cos I wanted to watch the 2.30 to 3.30 show on channel 8. Not that I understand what they're saying, it's just the princess is very cute! Especially when she smiles! Hahaha seriously! (Go watch it! Every weekday) :D So while everyone was thinking of things to do, I was watching the show and thinking of things to do (As in at the chalet, not to the princess). Initial plan was to go to Escape but it was getting kinda late, and they wanted to wait for others. So we went over to E Hub.

The girls went to sit on the indoor Ferris wheel which I guess can be quite fun if you tried to throw something upwards and timing it such that you can catch it back once you reached the highest point. The guys went bowling since there was nothing else to do. Played 2 games each. Saw Zenn and Samuel there as well. They were having their own tuition chalet. The girls disappeared for a while, think they went to eat. After finishing the bowling games, we went back to the room to play cards. I wanted to watch the "Ten Brothers" show on channel 8 but Lim Ying wanted to watch some show on channel U, so I let her have the t.v. while I went to study for the upcoming Diploma exam on Friday. Managed to finish Hofstede's Model and Porter's 5 forces.

Dinner was at the food court. Tried the Pineapple Fried Rice, recommended by Seiyee. It's quite nice. We were discussing why the guy at the stall gave him more, a nicer looking pot and a pot that doesn't spin each time you push it. Hahahaha we were quite bored.
Just then, we spotted some Xinmin people and asked Matthew to go over and say hi. He was like "No, then they will ask me where's Christabel?" There was a short pause as he kinda realised he just shot himself in the foot. Right up till then, I had no inkling about anyone called Christabel. Seiyee and I kinda realised that as well and started pestering him about it. Hahahahaha what a nice dinner topic.

Yeps, so after dinner, it was back to the chalet to play cards. Cheryl and Limying wanted to go night cycling. I had to decide between night cycling and studying. Finally decided on night cycling. Couldn't let the girls go out alone so late at night. Managed to persuade Seiyee to come along as well. Aik Hwee followed as well. So the 5 of us set off on a magical journey to far away Narnia. *cough* Sorry deviated for a while. Yea along the way, we met Zhiheng who gave us directions to go and rent the bikes. Thanks to him, we managed to find the bike rental shop.

Along the way, the whole usual ghost/spooky stuff came out but nothing actually happened. At the shop, we took quite a while to decide on the bikes cos there were few bikes left for us to rent and the owners didn't wanna take the clean ones out. I ended up with a bike that had a baby seat attached to it, Cheryl had this old WWII bike, Seiyee had a bike that didn't brake properly. So we set off for the park. Basically we just cycled around till they passed the playground where the rest wanted to go play the swings. I didn't follow though cos I hate sand so just paced around revising Hofstede's Model and Porter's 5 forces. While I was revising, this little cat came up to me, and went between my legs. I could tell it was a female, cos it was attracted to me! XD Hahahaha Cheryl and Aik Hwee came over and Aik Hwee started scaring the cat. Poor cat. Cheryl was trying to look at the cat while Aik Hwee was scaring it away. So the cat went on its way, cos evidently it thought that survival was more important than an attraction towards a human male. I guess that's what they call "Fatal Attraction". :D It's like natural selection, survival of the most adaptable.

So we cycled all the way back to the chalet where Seiyee and I had to haul up the bikes to the second floor. Had a little problem with Cheryl's bike cos it had a weird design. Took a while to figure the best way to lock the bikes. But finally night cycling was over and we headed back inside where the rest were still playing cards. Hahahaha I never could understand all that obsession with bridge; maybe it's because after you know how to cheat, any game will lose its flavour quickly.
Yeps, took my bath and spent quite a while persuading Seiyee to bathe, which he was reluctant to, even after night cycling. Hahaha

Then it was time to sleep. The girls took the bed while the guys mattresses. Tzehan, Aik Hwee and I were supposed to share one mattress. It was a very weird sleeping position as the wall prevented me from extending my legs fully. Aik Hwee, being small sized, had no problems curling up and taking half the mattress. Tze Han and I had to share the other half. I couldn't really sleep much throughout the night cos before I even droop off, Aik Hwee started snoring very loudly. I kept poking Tzehan to poke him, but I guess Tzehan was already sleeping so the message didn't get conveyed. Had to wake up a few times to reach over and nudge Aik Hwee. His snoring will stop for a while and before you can say "Snoring Sally Sells Super Slippery Sea Shells by the Seashore", the snoring will start all over again.
Besides it wasn't just the snoring; I had to sleep with my legs crossed. Imagine sitting cross legged, lean back and then hold it for 4 hours. It should be included as some advanced yoga position for its level of technical difficulty plus mental grit. I think I'll call it the half cleistogamous flower position. :)

Day 2 above!

Aaron

It's over! Part 1

2008-11-29T06:10:00.000-08:00

Finally after 2 long years of constant "hard work", suffering under long lectures with content heavy enough to create a "Yo mama so heavy.." joke on it and meeting many lecturers with a plethora of characters and jokes, DIPLOMA IS OVER!! I hope we can get our certs by the end of the year. The management is proposing we wait till the end of next year where we graduate officially with the rest of the adult students, which was shot down the moment it was proposed. I can't wait to see how the diploma would look like, hope it's printed on recycled paper! :D

Just to backtrack a little, we started on our last module, "Market Entry Strategies in a Globalised World", the day right after O levels ended. The module was very heavy on content and had extracts from previous modules, especially the marketing part. Our lecturer is quite nice, shared with us a lot of interesting stories, showed us a lot of whacky video clips (Simpsons!)and told us a lot about India. They gave us our notes in a binded book! I was hoping for a file, which looks a lot nicer. Anyway exam was quite alright, India came out and luckily what I studied during chalet came out! :D
I kinda miss our accountancy lecturer, Mr. David Goh. Though his voice is as dry as a dried-up Oxbow lake, it helps to deliver his punchlines effectively. He always mention about being poor and taking bus no. 11. Couldn't get it at first, until someone pointed out that 11 refers to your legs, so taking bus no. 11 means walking. Oh and once he was talking about financing, so he mentioned setting up a stall and selling 100 minus. Couldn't get it again, till someone mentioned it's a rip off of the drink 100 plus. Hahahaha Gotta love his jokes. :D
I still remember our first lecturer, Col Chan Chee Pong. He's one of the best! Very nice fatherly figure. Back then at Robinson Road, the campus was so much better than at River Valley! Miss the old campus.
Our lecturer for the mentoring module, Ms Sufi, is also very nice. She's the only lecturer that celebrates our birthdays with Sweet Recipe cakes and curry puffs from Old Chang Kee. Gotta love her thick Indian accent. :D
Ms Debbie Woon, our marketing lecturer, has to be the Best Dressed Lecturer. I remember first time I saw her, she was wearing leather boots with what-seems-to-be a safari outfit? That kind you wear to animal reserves in Africa. Yea, her eclectic dress sense that never fails to amaze me.
Oh and I have to mention Dr. Eric Lim, our lecturer for the module "New Venture Creation". Not because he stands out or anything, but because he gave me 94/100 for the exam! XD But yea, he's a very nice guy as well. :D
Somehow I realised the lecturers are actually nicer than some teachers in schools. I guess it's because they treat us as adults.

2 years of materials, 7 modules, 6 files and 1 binded book. :( Was hoping to add another file to my collection.

Last module!

Anyway, purchased the equipment needed for Krav Maga. I don't see myself wearing all that protection and fighting. I don't think I can even move after loading everything onto me. Tried kicking with the groin guard on; felt weird. I guess they really are groin guards; they guard your opponent's groin by preventing you from kicking properly. And I'm having a little identity crisis: I can't tell which goes where. The shin guards look like the forearm guards; the knee pads look like the elbow pads. Oh when I went to buy the equipment, the guy gave me a "Large" size for groin guard without asking. Hahahaha And yes it fits. Hahaha I'm starting to sound like those guys who love comparing the size of their mid-level appendages. BUT hey! I'm a Large size!! XD

I love the gloves. Very thick and nice. But I think I'm gonna get blisters wearing them cos the leather rubs against the webbing between the fingers each time I punch.

Oh and the whole set has the words "Krav Maga" emblazed all over it. If I wore the whole set, I guess I'll look like some walking advertisement for Krav Maga. But it's smart of IKMF(International Krav-Maga Federation) to come up with this little franchise like idea to increase profitability.
I need to decrease the time taken to wrap my hands, presently I take at least 15 minutes to do it. Should try to decrease it to 5 minutes. Yeps.

Aaron

FINALLY!

2008-11-13T06:06:00.000-08:00

Never thought I lived to say this, but yes, O Levels are finally OVER!!! After 4 long years of studying and 1 month of exams, my brain can finally degenerate properly without having to deal with the huge influx of information. And I can help to conserve the environment by recycling all my papers. :D That's like killing 2 birds with 1 stone, or as I like to put it, killing 2 stones with 1 kick. :)

Yeps, O levels was generally alright.

English- Can't remember much, I'm hoping it's okay?
E Math- I'm hoping it's okay too
A Math- Lost quite a few marks for paper 1.
Chemistry- Paper 1 was tougher than previous years.
Physics- Unconventional paper 2
Biology- Manageable
SS or Social Studies as the MOE calls it (if they didn't, I might have thought it was actually Singapore Studies)- Quite screwed as usual. The subject title doesn't really complement the content inside. They should just remove it as an examinable subject.
Lit- Not very well done, no time to write much.
Geog Elect- Lost 4 marks because I spent too long drawing meanders and didn't finish the last part of the last question.
Chinese- *Cough *twiddle thumbs (The yellow frame within the paper is quite nice though)

Yeps, hope the markers can read my handwriting.

Dang, Diploma lectures start tomorrow worse still, it's in the morning. :( On the bright side though(not because it's in the morning), there's only 1 module left before we get our diplomas! :D

So now with O levels out of the way, I can finally proceed on to after exam activities. I'm taking up Krav Maga for next 2 months. Krav Maga basically refers to a specialised ancient type of Babylonian-Polynesian pottery, which encompasses carving and sculpturing. The English word "Carve" comes from the ancient Babylonian word "Kravos", and the word "Pot" comes from "Magaros". Finally bought my textbook from Kinokuniya after bio paper. Still need to buy equipment. Can't wait to start classes! :D

I'll try and do the testimonials for the class like some time in the near future.

Aaron

The Academy Is- About A Girl

My Chemical Romance- Famous Last Words

2008-11-03T20:55:00.001-08:00

The Script- Man Who Can't Be Moved

2008-10-17T09:26:00.001-07:00

MAJOR UPDATE! Birthday, 156th Anniversary Speech & Graduation Day, Sec 4 Paraliturgy & Farewell Assembly

2008-10-02T08:24:00.001-07:00

Apologies for not updating this period, very busy. Anyway yea birthday was on 22nd September, the day we all got back our prelim scripts. But let's not discuss the prelims now. I would like to thank everyone for their wishes and for the presents. I'm now of legal age! *Cough... So yea this birthday is like the best ever.

On 20/09/08 was the 156th Anniversary Speech & Graduation Day. Guest of Honour was Prof Tan Chorh Chuan and the whole ceremony was very formal and nice. A few days before, we were made/requested to write letters to our parents who would open it on the day itself. There was a template provided so everyone followed it. Saw many parents crying/laughing while reading the letter. Very touching words. My letter was mailed home since my parents didn't attend the ceremony. The ceremony started with a prayer, speeches, songs, the presentation of awards and more songs. Everyone in the whole cohort had a chance to go on stage and collect their envelopes which contains their CCA record and certificates. The whole thing was videotaped and hopefully it will be delivered to those who ordered soon.
Yea so after that, the majority of the class headed to Seoul Garden at Takashimaya for a treat by Mr. Simon Ho and Ms. Daisy Chia, the best form tutors ever. Hahaha something dumb happened. I was walking with Mr. Ho through Taka to Seoul Garden and he asked me, "So Aaron, where are you going after 'O' levels?" I was like, "I'm not sure cos my parents haven't decided yet, maybe China or Europe..(after 2 steps..). Oh wait sir, are you asking about my travel plans or which JC I want to go?" Him, "Err, JC?" Me, "OH". Hahahahaha dang funny. It's like asking someone about the traffic and he talks about ERP. Not much of a link. :D
While at Seoul Garden, something dumb happened again. William, who was scared of the hot oil spurting out, pulled his elbow back, toppling the plate of freshly cooked bulgogi beef that i was holding onto me. After that I banned him from cooking and cooked everything for him. William is a dang funny guy. Once on the track, he turned to me, lifted up his pant leg and said, "I realised I forgot to wear my socks today." Me, "?!" How do you wear your shoe and forget that you have forgotten to put on your socks? Hahahahaha very amusing guy; he will be missed.

Moving on to the Sec 4 Paraliturgy & Farewell Assembly, which was held today(02/10/08). It's the informal cousin of the Speech 7 Graduation Day and marked the last official day of our 4 years schooling in SJI. Our class T-Shirt could not get rushed out in time so we just wore our uniforms. Then again, it's not the shirt; it's the spirit the shirt embodies. Almost all the classes that had a shirt ordered black T-shirts. It started off with a prayer session led by our chaplain, Friar Michael, who made us reflect on our journey through SJI and write it down on stars which will remain strung up for the rest of our 'O' levels papers. Very motivating. The farewell assembly that followed had the rest of the school population joining us. We sang songs together for the last time as a school. Congratulations to Fintan for winning Best House, Ruizhi for being the first to win both Junior and Senior Josephian awards, Lionel for winning Best Sportsman of the year, Aik Seng, Nigel, Sassin and Ruizhi for being awarded the LaSallian Distinguished Service Award.
Yeps, so after that ceremony, we went back to our class for the last time. Stripped the class bare of everything so that the sec 3s can make it their home next year.

To Mr. Simon Ho, who will be posted to MOE HQ, thank you for everything you have done for our class in your capacity as our form tutor and more. You are one of the best teachers I've met and I'm proud to be in your first and last graduating class. I'm sure everyone will miss you. :D
To Ms Daisy Chia, our form tutor as well and one of the few brave female teachers who volunteered to have your head shaved in the name of charity. I admit that I don't have the courage to shave my head and I'm a guy. Hopefully one day I will be able to emulate your act. I'll really miss your english lessons where we discuss everything under the sun though our visit to a publishing house never really happened. Thanks for being such a nice and caring form tutor! (Please send your sons to SJI!)
To 433, undoubtedly the best class and the most talented among all the other talent classes (cough), I love all you guys and all the best for 'O' levels! :D I shall reserve the farewell messages to the rest of the class after 'O' levels end!

Friar Michael leading during paraliturgy

Our Head of Level, Mr Jeremy Liew, giving his speech with the school theme for 2008 "My Talents, My Interests - Making A Difference"

Class lining up for the year badge presentation. The badge is a miniature school badge with "Class of 2008" etched in the scroll.

Mr. Ho pinning on the badge for me. Hahaha i got to hug him and Ms Chia after that! Hahaha Ms Chia has a very motherly hug, that pat-pat kind of hug. :)

String of stars filled with everyone's reflections, i think the pink one is mine.

Mr Benjamin Lui, our principal, addressing us for the last time. A bittersweet thing cos finally I don't have to endure his speech yet I will miss his long-winded speeches that have no link to what he's trying to say. :D

That bell welcomed or "rang" us in when we were all sec 1, and that same bell has "rung" us out now. A unique tradition of SJI. I managed to capture a video of the bell ringing; i'll be willing to send it to those who request for it to keep for your collection! (Just don't mind the butt that appears towards the end) :D

I'm finally a member, albeit an associate member, of the SJI Old Boys' Alumni(SJIOBA)

My testimonial from the rest of the class. Hahahaha many interesting entries here:
1) Bryan Lauw confessed that he loves the hugs I give him!(then again who wouldn't?) Hahahaha Not that I'm gay or anything, just that Bryan Lauw is dang adorable! :D
2) QiJian wrote something about liking a girl called min, which i don't! Hahahaha
3) Hahaha many people wrote "smart" which I guess is quite true, just that they forgot modest as well. Nay just kidding! Hahahaha Benj Chin wrote something about "smart slacker who is sure to score straight As for his 'O' levels". Hahahaha NOT true. The only As I think I'll get on my cert are those in my name, Aaron, which does not appear on the cert anwyay! Dang, I need to add the "Aaron" behind sometime soon.
4) "Funny guy. But you're so corny you could be a farmer!" WHAT?! Hahahaha I think it's Khairul who wrote that. He's the only guy I know who writes his "a"s like "a", with the extended tail upwards. Hahahahha quite a funny line.

Something from the teachers. If fel see this and the title, I have a feeling that she's gonna say something about the "Mr. Organiser" part. Hahaha :D

My math teacher's, Mrs Tan Eng Hong, words to me. Something about reaching out for the stars, sounds like some dance performance. Hahahaha Mrs Tan rocks! Best math teacher I ever had! :D

The best class ever! This was part of the decoration of our class board. Exactly what it says, "34 of the best, English TDP". Love you guys!

Reflection: I remember I wanted to go to Hwa Chong for obvious reasons, but couldn't due to my PSLE score. So I went to SJI and have never looked back. If time could rewind and my PSLE score increase, I would definitely choose SJI over HC anytime. Doesn't matter if SJI doesn't share IP with Nanyang or if we didn't have IP and had to take O levels or if it could increase my chances in my love life(because it wouldn't) I would still choose SJI anyway I probably wouldn't fit into HC and I can't imagine myself promoting HC.
However SJI is different. I fat ( the alternative past tense of fit as coined by me, not exactly a proper word but yea) right in almost straight away. Met plenty of good people, made many friends, met people from all walks of life and went through so many things that has made me stronger. Of course, not saying that HC does not do the above, but I guess they do things totally different from us. In SJI, we try to abide by the Lasallian ethoes of Faith, Service and Community just like
our Founder, St. John Baptist De La Salle, did. He sacrificed everything for "the last, the lost and the least." I'm proud to be a Josephian and hope to be a true Lasallian one day. Ora et Labora
I shall reflect more on my time in SJI after 'O' levels, so till then!

Aaron

6E Class Gathering, Teacher's Day

2008-08-31T08:41:00.000-07:00

This is for all primary 6E class people, we're going to have a gathering after 'o 'levels and the details are as below:

Proposed Activity: Chalet
Proposed Date: Last week of November
Duration of Activity: 3 Days, 2 Nights
Venue: Chalet or aaron's house

The above is just a general outline, please check back for more updates.
Kindly confirm your attendance with fel, tze han, sei yee or me. Drop me a tag or sms. :D
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Teacher's Day's performance on friday was not bad, though we had it in the hall, prefered the PAC. Amos planned a pizza surprise for Ms Chia and Mr. Ho. Thanks to both of them for contributing so much to our class. We started using those pizza cardboards as target practice and pummelled them. I fell on my knee while trying to do a spinning kick in socks on concrete floor. Ouch. Bruise still present. The performance was quite alright, though not quite as good as previous years. Most notable performer was Alistair, singing "You Raise Me Up" by Josh Groban. It raised quite a riot but yea, his courage is laudable. Our class band was good as well, with our head prefect leading us in song.

Met up with Fel, Yingyu, Lim Ying, Jiayan, Grace, Kerina, Tze Han, Aik Hwee, Azizan and Zhi Heng at Causeway point. Decided to go bowling at Yishun SAFRA. The St nicks girls disappeared for some unknown reason. Made our way to Yishun SAFRA but found it packed with RSAF personnel; they were having a competition. Decided to go to Orchid Country Club and bowl instead. Luckily there were lanes there and the bowling shoes there have to be the most colourful i've ever seen. The girls didn't play cos Yingyu was injured by Fel. Poor her. Aik Hwee was mocking TzeHan while he bowled. Poor him too. After bowling, headed back to causeway point to have dinner and catch "Money No Enough 2". It's quite a touching and funny show. Missed the last bus home and had to take the MRT, reached home at 12.45. Yeps. Rather fun gathering though we need to do something more inclusive next time rather than let the girls sit around and watch the guys bowl. :D

Aaron

Prelims are finally over!

2008-08-25T06:20:00.001-07:00

Prelims officially ended this morning at 9.00 am. Bio paper 1 was the last paper. I love it when they put paper 1 as the end since it's only 1 hour and after that you can go home and sleep, which is what i did.

After exam activity: Supposed to meet Keith, Tzeyang and Xiangan at Le Meriden at 11.50 but i woke up at 11.30. Luckily my house is rather near town so reached there at 12.20p.m. My gene allele for punctuality is co-dominant, with the lateness allele slightly dominant. So we played pool, the place was empty and nice. Walked over to Cathay Cineleisure to watch "Meet Dave". Quite funny though i'd still think parodies are the best. Played air hockey at Timezone for a while; i almost killed a girl. Woops. XD

Prelims were alright i think, though physics was quite screwed up; all about cathode ray oscilloscopes. English was a little different though, expository topic: "The education system in Singapore sufficiently prepares students for the future. Do you agree and why?" I think if this was the real 'O' levels English exam, i'd probably get a marker's report slapped on me left, right and centre. Hopefully Bang marks it, cos she may not go too hard on it. A Math papers were quite screwed especially paper 2, since i was cramming 2 years of bio the night before A math paper 2 and Bio paper 2. Didn't practise any A math questions and slept at 2am. Almost slept during the a math paper 2. The Olympics were dang distracting too, i watched a lot of it while "studying".

I would like to thank my eraser for helping me during the physics and chinese papers. Couldn't get the answer for some questions and i figured since the tossing-eraser method works for joe, it should work for me. And it did! Not sure about the answers for chinese though, couldn't even understand the close passage, hopefully the eraser gave me the corect answers! :D And i realised that chinese words look vey foreign to me now, looks like 50% jap, 25% korean and 25% mongolian!

Had 'O' level English Oral exam last Wednesday, i think i screwed up the picture discussion and possibly conversation. The topics were on hygiene and home. The picture was about some people washing a coffee shop, which had limited inferences to be made about it. I think i used a lot of slang and colloquialisms in my conversation. So oral was real screwed and it looks like a B3 for english at the end of the year. :(

My brain is exhausted from all the late nights, last minute cramming and guessing of exam questions. Don't think i can do well for prelims at all. Didn't start preparing early. I put both Study Plan A and Plan B into use for these prelims; Plan A being mugging for the paper the day before and Plan B being selecting 1 paper to mug for and wishing that the 2nd would be easy. Bad strategy.

Anyway away from prelims now, EVERYONE should listen to "Muttons Till Midnight" on FM 98.7 from 8p.m. to 12p.m. every Monday to Friday . For the dang funny segment, tune in only after 10p.m. where the real show starts. The music, DJs and programs are the best! The "Shan & Ros" show from 4p.m. to 8p.m. is also quite funny (especially their "advice" on relationships) but the Muttons are still the BEST! So listen out for it, especially all the parodies!
*According to them, parental guidance is advised.

I'll like to thank Wen Sheng, my cadet for writing me a farewell/testimonial. So sweet of him. :D Hahahaha the content is quite refreshing as well, including this section called "First times". Basically i'm the first...
1) person who told him where to get cards.
2) 'My Chemical Romance' Fan to forget the lyrics to "Disenchanted". (I've no idea how this came about.)
3) person that has an iPod Touch that has one-tenth of my iPod memory. (okay, i admit i have only 1 song stored and i keep replaying it. XD Okay, that's fake but i do have a small thing. Song memory that is. :D
4) specialist to sleep with Kee Hao in Malacca. (This didn't actually happen cos i ended up sleeping with Theodore who was sick.)
5) specialist that i gave my toothpaste to. (Cos i thought Kee Hao would bring toothpaste and i could share with him but he thought the same way about me too. So we had to go borrow toothpaste.) :D

Yeps, real sweet of him and i'm sorry i couldn't make it to the Farewell party cos i was busy. Oh mom is thinking of selling our house and moving back to the condo, which is good cos dad and i can start playing tennis together!:D But it's kinda bad cos the condo is meant for me to move into once i grow up and my parents will continue living in the other house so selling it would mean i would have to continue staying with them, which again is good and bad. Just like a Dichotomous key. Oh well. :)

Remember Muttons Till Midnight!! :D

David Archuleta- Crush

Olympics, National Day, Your Call

2008-08-09T08:51:00.000-07:00

Final update before prelims start next week. Thought the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony was real cool. I think the mass drum display was the coolest. Dad dozed off when the atheletes were still streaming in. He missed the lighting of the Olympic flame which was what i was waiting for. Hahahaha he was inspired to start learning how to speak chinese.

Watched the National Day Parade as well. Pales in comparison with the opening ceremony. Then again both are kinda different. Anyway Happy National Day Singapore!

Good luck to anyone having prelims next week! I've a ominous feeling about my results.

Secondhand Serenade- Your Call

never received any chances before.. either that or i blew it before realising it.

Aaron

Westlife- Walk Away

2008-08-01T08:40:00.000-07:00

Here we are
Just a little older
Time goes by
But did I ever tell you why
I want you so much
It came to me
When you were not around
You'll always be
The one to understand that's why
I can't miss your touch

All my life
I waited for someone
And all this time
You were the one
So

If you want a man that is here to stay
Swearing he's forever true
I'll never walk away
I'll never give up on you
And if you want a love that will save the day
No matter what you're going through
I'll never walk away
I'll never walk out on you

I've been a fool
I didn't see behind
The friend in you
And baby don't you ask me why
It just couldn't be love
Cause from the start
You would be the one
To cure my heart
But I just didn't look this way
And now I can't get enough

All my life
I waited for someone
And all this time
You were the one, so

If you want a man that is here to stay
Swearing he's forever true
I'll never walk away
I'll never give up on you
And if you want a love that will save the day
No matter what you're going through
I'll never walk away
I'll never walk out on you

And with a kiss you turned my world around
The greatest rush of all was to be found
Oh yeah
You changed my whole life
Coloured up the dark skies
And this I promise you

If you want a man that is here to stay
Swearing he's forever true
I'll never walk away
I'll never give up on you
And if you want a love that will save the day
No matter what you're going through
I'll never walk away
I'll never walk out on you

The Gathering Of Kindred Spirits

2008-07-27T06:46:00.000-07:00

Finally updating this blog. Went for "The Gathering Of Kindred Spirits" held in SJI on Friday night. Wow, i regretted missing the one that was held when i was in secondary 2. Definitely one of the best events in SJI, unfortunately it's bi-annual.

This year's was special. My class had 8 people performing, forming 2 bands with George, Amos, Nigel, Benj Chin and Hari in the band "Black Panelle" and Tim Chan and Wei Jee in "Banana Pancakes". Sean Sim was one of the 3 emcees. So i had to go and support them!

We also had around 15 students from the Beijing No.8 Middle School here for an exchange program, singing "Welcome To Beijing" which i think is one of the Olympics Theme Song. I've never heard the song before. They had a slide show on the major attractions in Beijing while the song played. Real cool to have them perform for us. Rather timely arrival.

So after theirs was Christopher's piano performance with some other guy and it was real good. I remember when i was young, which happens to be a long time ago, we used to have a piano at home. My parents left it right smack in the living room hoping that i would bump into it and get interested in learning the piano. Alas the only interest i had it in was sitting on the chair so they gave it away. Hahahaha i must admit I'm terrible at instruments, no talent in music. I remember those days when we were forced to learn the recorder. :(

After that was a dance item which was pretty slick though Keith beside me was complaining about looking at guys dance. XD He was eagerly waiting the CHIJ TP dance segment.

After a couple more dance items by the Tamil Language society, a mixed groups and SJI guys, it was finally the CHIJ TP dance segment. I think we chose the correct day to attend. Their routine on Friday was titled "Bad" while the one on Saturday was titled "Sage". :) The "Bad" routine brings a whole new meaning to the word "HOT". It was just sizzling and one of the best, if not the best, dance performance of the whole evening. XD I should have gone for Euphoria, the TP dance concert held recently.

After the very short dance item by the girls which was quite sad cos all the other dance items were longer, it was a presentation by CARE, a foundation dedicated to helping AIDS patients. The presentation kinda brought the temperature of the room back to normal (earlier on, the girls had almost brought on immediate global warming). The presentation went on for about 7 minutes about the plights of AIDS patients.

The music ministry sang and it was time for intermission.

After intermission, khairul came looking for us and wanted us to go up and sit with them. He was like "The TP girls are behind us!". To which Keith and i didn't believe initially until we went up and verified. So we decided to change our seats and moved up to get a better view of the stage. Not to get closer to the girls or anything, just wanted to get a better view (of the stage, of course). :D

Hahahaha the girls were screaming each time the emcees introduced a band. And i have a feeling they were purposely leaning forward each time when they screamed so they could laugh at us cringing. But it's fine with me. :D

Ms Daisy Chia, our form tutor, performed! I was shocked when they announced that she was going to sing. But she sang real well!

Mr. Simon Ho, the other form tutor, was kind enough to subsidise our tickets so we only paid half price. Dang should have bought the ticket for Saturday as well.

Anyway, i think the best bands for the night were Black Panelle and Banana Pancakes, not because they were from my class, but because they truly rocked the stage. Screamed for them until i went hoarse. Hahahaha 433 ROCKS!!

Ticket!

Beijing Students

Emcees for the night, Sean Sim on the left.

Dancers from the Tamil Language Society

That's about all for Kindred. Hopes Kevin still has some so i can grab from him. Yeps.

Aaron
you should have come, i'm sure you would have enjoyed it. oh well.

TV, Anniversary Parade, Chinese Oral

2008-07-02T07:11:00.000-07:00

Yeps, anyway, to many who are wondering why i appeared for only a few scenes on the TV show on tuesday, it's because the producer used Mr. Marcus Koh's interview instead because he was the most fluent mandarin speaker amongst us or rather he was the only one who could speak proper mandarin and not mix any english words in. If they had used my interview, you would have thought that it was the Korean channel showing, not channel 8. XD

Oh and SJI could have won if not for all that pauses(some were legitimate while others not) Hahahaha and i think our welfare won the other schools. Our participants were treated to pizzas, KFC chicken and wide buffet spread, while Kranji was shown giving their participants dumplings.

Yeps, once again, everyone is cordially invited to the SJI's 156th Anniversary Parade.

Venue: St Joseph's Institution (38 Malcolm Road)

Date: 05/07/08 (This coming Saturday)

Time: 1800 (for the Anniversary Parade Segment)
1630 (for the Passing Out Parade Segment)

Guest Of Honour: Mr Matthias Yao, Mayor South East District

Reception will be provided to all guests (a wide spread nonetheless). :D So do keep your saturday evening free!

Anyway, today was chinese oral for most in my class and i decided i should try and help them by predicting the question. So i took William's oral book and flipped to a random page, which question was on "Racial Harmony". Hahahahaha So i proclaimed that Racial Harmony would be coming out as the question. Initially no one believed me but eventually they realised that racial harmony has not yet be tested, racial harmony day is fast approaching as well and racial harmony is an integral part of Singapore's society. So it kinda dawned on them that racial harmony could come out and many didn't study for it. Hahahahaha and that's only my first prediction. My second prediction was that my first prediction would be wrong! Surprise,surprise, my second prediction was correct! :D The topic for today was on increasing prices and inflation. Yeps, so if you need my help in predicting exam questions, feel free to contact me. :)

Aaron

AP, TV show

2008-07-01T07:46:00.000-07:00

Yeps so to those of you who watched the channel 8 show at 8p.m just now, you might know that SJI lost BUT we set out to achieve what we planned so you should still be proud of SJI! Oh anyway, i'm the guy in the green camouflage fatigue with a black drill stick under my arm.

Anyway, i would like to invite all of you reading this, your family and basically anyone to the 156th Anniversary Parade. This parade marks the stepping down of the Secondary 4s and the hand-over of command to the incoming Secondary 3s leaders.

Venue: St Joseph's Institution (38 Malcolm Road)

Date: 05/07/08 (This coming Saturday)

Time: 1800 (for the Anniversary Parade Segment)
1630 (for the Passing Out Parade Segment)

EVERYONE IS INVITED!

I'll be standing in the ranks of the Guard Of Honour Contigent. Should be front row and just next to the NPCC contigent.

Yeps, so if you are free on that day and would like to experience the rich history and culture of the SJI Uniform Groups Order, please feel free to come and immense yourself in our splendour and perhaps, you can consider sending your son to SJI and making him join a Uniform Group Order. :D

Aaron

Father's day!

2008-06-15T07:19:00.000-07:00

Spent the day at grandpa's house "celebrating" father's day with the rest of the family. It was just a potluck lunch and then just slacked around the house till time to leave.

I bought a shirt for my dad cos i think shirt is the easiest to choose and i didn't have any others in mind. Anyway, i think my dad's real cool and here are the reasons why:
1) He's quite fat round the tummy area, so he's kinda like a big teddy bear, which is quite cute and very nice to bounce on. :D
2) He's a very nice person who doesn't get angry easily; very easy going.
3) He buys me many things (Yes, I'm spoilt. :D), sometimes without me even asking for them. Eg: He went to Indonesia and bought 5kg weights back for me and i didn't even mention anything about buying weights! He's quite random too! :)
4) He understands and uses modern gaming terms when talking like "LOL, IMBA/INBA(in battle alone), pwn/pawn, noob/newb, etc".
5) He can serve up a mean plate of chicken, among other things.
6) He can play Badminton, Tennis, Squash, Hockey, Cricket, Billiards and used to take part in competitions. When he was younger, he competed in Badminton, Tennis and Squash tournaments all in a single day, though the strokes are all slightly different.
7) I found out from his school certificate that he used to be in the Debate Society and Art Club when he was in secondary school and was the captain of the hockey team as well. That's real cool! :D
8) He sings along to My Chemical Romance when i play their songs in the car. He's those rare dads who listens to MCR! Hahaha
9) He makes really lame jokes about random things and rolls his eyes when i tell him something lame. :D
10)He will conspire with me to do stuff without the knowledge of my mum. Hahahaha shhh, don't tell her. Maybe "conspire" is too strong a word, let's just use "plan secretly". He understands that guys need to go do guys stuff. :P
11) He is very modern in thinking. Eg: He plays poker with me. People of the older generation would frown on this as they think it promotes gambling and worse still; the father playing with the son. I rather play normal 5 cards poker but he prefers "Texas Hold em" style and he taught me how to play "Russian" poker. Hahaha he's very good at bluffing and keeping a straight face while i can cheat easily at cards so the poker games can drag on for quite a while. We even played at Starbucks once. Anyway poker games are very good bonding sessions and we don't really bother about what people think when they see us playing poker.
12) He responds to "Pops", which is what i usually call him. Imagine a crowd and he's somewhere around. If i called out "Dad", it's quite hard to differentiate cos many fathers are around. However if i called out "Pops", i can easily get his attention.
13) Oh and he has a very cool name: Paul, which was derived from "Fong" by one of his friends. Basically he was playing squash with a guy and they both came out of the court very tired and breathless. So the guy was trying to comment about my dad's strokes and he pronounced "Fong" as "Paul" cos he was breathless. Try pronouncing "Fong" in a breathless and weak voice; you'd get Paul! :D

Yeps, so my dad's a very cool dude and i love him a lot! :D

Westlife- Obvious

2008-06-12T08:25:00.000-07:00

http://youtube.com/watch?v=jgrNZ3o0_Rw

Yeah, ooooh...
We started as friends
But something happened inside me
Now I'm reading into everything
But there's no sign you hear the lightning, baby

You don't ever notice me turning on my charm
Or wonder why I'm always where you are

I've made it obvious
Done everything but sing it
(I've crushed on you so long, but on and on you get me wrong)
I'm not so good with words
And since you never notice
The way that we belong
I'll say it in a love song

I've heard you talk about
(Heard you talk about)
How you want someone just like me (just like me)
But every time I ask you out
(Time I ask you out)
We never move pass friendly, no no

And you don't ever notice how I stare when we're alone
Or wonder why I keep you on the phone

I've made it obvious
Done everything but sing it
(I've crushed on you so long but on and on you get me wrong)
I'm not so good with words
And since you never notice
The way that we belong
I'll say it in a love song
Yeah...

You are my very first thought in the morning
And my last at nightfall
You are the love that came without warning
I need you, I want you to know

I've made it obvious
So finally I'll sing it
(I've crushed on you so long)
I'm not so good with words
And since you never notice
The way that we belong
I'll say it in a love song

And sing it until the day you're holding me
I've wanted you so long but on and on you get me wrong
I more then adore you but since you never seem to see

But since you never seem to see
I'll say it in this love song.

Back from malacca.

Outing

2008-06-07T08:03:00.000-07:00

Paintball on thursday was cancelled cos Bryan Lauw decided he could not come and Xiangan was grounded. Could not meet the minimum number of players required to play which was real wasted cos the weather was so nice. :( But Keith, TzeYang and i decided to go and play pool at The Grassroots Club.

I arrived like 10 minutes late cos the bus wouldn't arrive. Sorry guys! Because of me, we arrived too late; all the tables were taken. So i wanted to go Le Meriden to play but Keith suggested going to his house to play. Flipped a coin and we were off to play at Keith's house. Ate at The Naked Fish Shoppe at Grassroots, had the set lunch which was quite cheap and nice. :D Wasted quite a bit of food cos i ate 3 pancakes earlier on in the morning. :(

Finally reached Keith's house and went to the clubhouse to play pool. The table had a big hole and one of the cue sticks was missing the ferrule so we had to share sticks. But it was free so yea. After our booking ended at 2, we decided to go play tennis. Hahaha Keith went to change and take the rackets out. Keith and Tze yang teamed up against me! They ended up hitting a few balls out of the court. Tzeyang had to leave earlier as he had to rush for tuition so keith and i decided to hit the gym. Met Keith's hamsters which were as sleepy as him. Did some upper and lower body workouts and went off when Dad called me. Remember that report of this german expat who drowned in a pool due to the powerful suction force of the jacuzzi? I saw that very pool he died in. Noticed it was closed and asked Keith. It's been closed over a year now. Not sure if they have already changed the water cos the pool is still filled up. Should be quite scary to walk past at night. Anyway quite a fun outing though it was a little like a P.E. lesson. :D

The stick without the ferrule. Tried using it, doesn't work as well.

Tze Yang

I've no idea what we were doing.

Keith Federzzz waiting to hit some balls.

Tze Yang gearing up to serve an ace.

Group picture after tennis! The camera was angled way upwards.

After pool! We had to share that cue stick.

Oh and guess what i found at Keith's house?

The sucker fish got assaulted by the other fish. Its guts were floating around the water.

Found this in Keith's room. Hahahahaha quirky find.

Will be away on a short trip to Malacca on the 9th and 10th June!

Yeps,
Aaron

Chinese drama, Filming, group study

2008-06-02T07:30:00.000-07:00

Happy holidays people! Anyway, went for Felicia's chinese drama production on 24th May. Met up with Meifeng and Yingyu at Woodlands. Took 961 to Nanyang and suddenly Tze Han appeared! Yea, met Ron, Ed, and Haopu at Nanyang. They were playing on the swings. (?!) Yea, started pointing at some dots in the skies. We were quite bored waiting. Edmond went to check out the story about why the auditorium is dedicated to Siew May. Anyway John finally arrived and Ed met him for the first time. Sounds kinda wrong. Went in for the show and almost instantaneously, John whips out his Social Studies notes and studies. That's why they call it Social Studies. You're meant to study it while socialising. Get it? HAHAHAHHAHAHA

Yeps, the show was real nice and funny though i missed out a lot of parts. The performers were rapping away and my brain was trying to translate as fast as possible. I think i overclocked my brain. So missed out quite a bit in between in the process. Yeps, after that went back to woodlands. Was at the bus stop where we saw this lizard with another lizard's tail in its mouth. I thought it was because the lizard was hungry, but Yingyu thought otherwise; thinking along lines of sex.
Went back to Woodlands, had Macs for supper. Yea and went home after that.

Right, so on 31st May(Saturday), went to film the final stages of the competition. Met the 3 hosts, Pornsak, Guo Liang and a new comer. We were competing against Kranji. It was quite embarrassing for us since we didn't have any posters; they came with 3 really huge printed posters. They had more supporters then us. YanQiang and i had to lead our side in doing cheers and Pornsak joined in the clapping for the "Warpath" cheer. We did "Warpath", "Hey Joseph", "J-O-S-E-P-H-S", "Glorious Green", "North South East West" and finally "Hail Hail Alma Mater" cos we didn't have anything else to cheer. I can't reveal the result of the competition now so you guys will have to watch the show on Channel 8, Tuesdays 8p.m. nearing the end of June. The date for airing has not been confirmed yet, but just keep your eyes peeled for the advertisements. :D

After filming, went for group study at Woodlands library with Yingyu, Meifeng, Cheryl and John. It was too quiet. I need a little bit of noise to study. Hahahaha oh and yes, i do talk to myself. Only when i'm studying (not very often) and when I'm alone. Hahahaha Cheryl left at 5 plus after finishing her chinese essay, which was 4 pages long! Mine is like only 2 pages. :P Yeps, i managed to finish my A Math worksheet, Physics SPA skill 3 plans and 1 Bio Paper. That's like the most amount of work I've done in a single day in my entire life!

The play titled "Find X Dream"

TO THE 7 PEOPLE: PAINTBALL ON THURSDAY!! MEET AT KHATIB MRT @ 1015. PLEASE DON'T BE LATE AND PRAY FOR GOOD WEATHER! MAYBE SHORT POOL SESSION AT GRASSROOTS AFTER THAT. PLEASE BRING NECESSARY EQUIPMENT. THANKS AND LOVE YOU GUYS A LOT.(i know you love me too) :D

Aaron

Holidays!

2008-05-23T07:16:00.000-07:00

Finally holidays are here! Had last training for the term yesterday, didn't have to go to school today cos i don't have any parents-teacher meeting scheduled.

Anyway, something dang funny happened on wednesday during chem lesson. We were supposed to do a chemistry practice paper and i was doing it with Bryan Lauw.

Background info: Bryan Lauw kept pestering me to tell him about the girl i like and related info about her, cos i knew who he fancy. So after his relentless pestering, i came up with a name and said "Her name is Pamela."
So while doing the chem practice paper, he wanted to know more about Pamela and he drew/wrote "Aaron <3 Pamela" on my paper. Hahaha a Bryan Lauwish thing to do.

When Mr. Kwang (our chem teacher) gave back the papers, i found this written.

Hahahaha yea, the blue heart and words are Bryan Lauw's, while the words "How about me?" in red ink is Mr. Kwang's.
Both Bryan Lauw and I was totally stunned when we saw that. Hahahahaha then Mr. Kwang was joking about him being jealous so he wrote that. Hahahahahaha

Note: There is a girl called pamela (many actually) but i don't know her.

Anyway, on tuesday the people from MediaCorp came to our school to film the chinese show "Record Challenge". SJI's taking part in some hula hoop event where we are going to compete against Kranji Secondary. They wanted NCC Land cadets to take part to make up 40 people, together with NCC Air and St John's. Since my sec 1s were taking part, i had to go as well.

First they requested a school cheer, so the 2 sec 3 ic(from Air and St John's) and i had to lead in the cheer. After shouting myself hoarse while leading the cheer, they were like "Good take, now do again, this time we filming the cadets replying." SO after shouting with what was left of my voice, they were like "Okay, once more. This time after the cheer can you all clap to show enthusiasm." Had to shout once more just to film the last clapping part. After that i think my vocal chords were distorted. Couldn't even talk properly, everything came out in a deep-throated growl. Then they wanted me to conduct a briefing while they film. Luckily Tony(St John's guy) helped me cos i really had no voice to conduct a briefing.
The producer(if I'm not wrong) briefed us on the filming procedure on that day. Basically, we were going to break the cadets up into groups and have a mini competition among ourselves after that, while they film. After they filmed the other group, they came over and film my group. I had to conduct a brain storming session while they film. Had to repeat the briefing cos they wanted to film me briefing and the cadet's expressions. They even had this part when they just film them nodding, pretending to listen to a briefing while i just stood there and waved around, acting like I'm briefing. Had to keep filming the same part over and over again. Filming finally wrapped up at around 6.30 p.m. and then it was interview time. They wanted to interview the 3 ics and 1 cadet.
The producer wanted us to talk about our experiences and learning points during the interview. The interview or the questions were not the tough part, it was the language used. He wanted us to use chinese cos we are Chinese and the air guy and i are taking higher chinese. Hahaha then we were like "How about we say in English, then you subtitle us? Cos if we use Chinese and English, it'd seem very messy". But he was like "Just try to use Chinese, don't worry". Hahahaha actually i don't see much of a difference cos if i used chinese, he'd still have to subtitle cos no one can understand anyway. Hahahaha but yea, initially, we wanted to do the interview like all 3 of us together. Then they decided it was too messy and did it individually and i went first. Had a couple of out takes due to wrong vocabulary and expression. One of the points which i had to mention was about arranging them from tallest to shortest, so i said "排他们从最高到最低". At the end of the first scene, he was like "人是高矮, 不是高低. 从那里再 re-take." Hahahaha had to do it from there again and it went on and on, most of the time i need to re-take cos of wrong usage. Then for the ending part i was like "所谓 practice makes perfect, hence I'm confident that we can make it", didn't use Chinese anymore. If they use my interview and my chinese teacher sees it, she's going to kill me. Finally finished filming at 7.45. Quite tiring but fun. :)

Yeps, anyway the show is every Tuesday 8p.m. on channel 8. They'll only finish filming SJI's segment on 31st may. So maybe on the 10th June, it'll be ready to air.
I may be appearing on the show, if they select clips with me on it, so look out for me! :D

Aaron

Quick Update

2008-05-13T07:55:00.000-07:00

Dang comp crashed, not sure what happened. Can't surf the internet through the browser but can access msn. Weird. Anyway, dad was nice to lend me his laptop to surf the net, updating from his laptop as well. :D

Yeps, so mid years are FINALLY over, this term is quite screwed, the papers were quite tough especially chemistry, physics and A Math. Scored 58 for chinese! Luckily i didn't fail, because i was crapping throughout the 2 compos. Hahaha for the letter writing to a friend overseas, you're just supposed to write your address. But i thought it was meant for those envelopes that has a small transparent window to let the postman see the receiver's address. So i created a Shanghainese address, which didn't work. Hahahaha heard some guy even created a French address Hahahaha Next time i'm not going to think about the envelope while writing a letter.

Just as we all thought that we could relax after mid years, the school started chinese intesive preparations for the O level chinese paper on 26th may. Since most people are all taking chinese, so those taking higher chinese were affected as well, though our paper is in october. Everyday it's chinese for the first 2 periods, then chinese mock exams for the last 2 periods. That's like 3 hours 20 mins of chinese every single day for 2 weeks!! ARGH luckily we don't have to come back this sat to sit for another mock exam.

Going away on the 9th and 10th of June to Malacca for school trip. Bringing the sec 1s there. Hahahha think it's going to be quite fun, though i won't be able to share room with ron. Sorry ron, i know you want to share a room with me and conduct night activities, but mdm wants me to sleep with Kee Hao. :( Maybe next time. Can't wait for the malacca trip, i'm going to spend all my allowance shopping. :D Hope dad gives me about S$2oo, which should be enough for the 2-3 hours allocated for shopping.

Organising paintball on the 26th. It's a class gathering to relieve stress after the chinese o levels.

*If you're from 433 and currently reading this post, please remember to bring your indemnity form (signed) and $25 tomorrow for paintball. Pass it to me at any time of the day. Thanks. :)*
Yeps, need to sleep now. Nights!

Aaron

Lit Sem, NYGH MD

2008-04-19T07:06:00.001-07:00

Went to the N6 literature seminar today at St nicks, met Teng Ping on the same train, met sudarshan at the mrt, and went together with him. Had a lecture on how to write well for unseen and presentations on the texts. SJI's one rocked!! We had a cool video with a nice song, "Teardrops on my guitar" plus a neat presentation.

It ended quite early, so took 74 to nanyang to go watch the Nanyang Modern Dance Society's "A Hatful of Stars 2". Supposed to meet fel first but fel went off with her friends so i stood there at the side gate, looking at the security guard who was looking at me look at her. Aik Hwee and Tze Han arrived later on, but they decided to go hwa chong first. So i was there alone again. Finally fel arrived and was about to walk in and almost got stopped by security guard, cos i was wearing my school uniform. Went into the school and walked around since we were pretty early and fel's friends went to play the swings. They even have swings in school!! Dang cool. And this auto gate as well.
Hahahaha yeps, went inside the Siew May auditorium for the show. The music was great, dancers were stunning, dance routines were neat, in short, the whole production was brilliant. They invited intellectually disabled kids from D'Artistes to dance as well, and i thought it was real sweet and cool to have them perform as well. Adds more meaning to the title of the show. They danced with a lot of passion and the little boy dancing was real cute. Hahahaha :)
Before the show started, fel was like "Where's your flower for Cheryl?" Me: "Oh, woops i don't have one." Yea, so i decided to fold a paper heart and write some well wishes on it. Another problem popped up- i didn't have any nice origami paper or marker pens, so had to use foolscap paper and a G-2 pen. Yes, i know, foolscap paper and a pen. Real pathetic of me. Hahahaha and i had to fold the paper heart in the dark cos the show was commencing. Luckily the paper heart turned out quite alright. Then i wrote on it and used the word "great" twice. Something like "Congrats on the great show. It was great". ARGH It should have been "It was cool/fun/nice/etc" but i had to write "great" again. I bet Ms Chia would roll her eyes and kill me if she found out that i used such english. Dang, so was looking around for people selling flowers(according to fel) but couldn't find any, so had to pass foolscap paper heart, with bad descriptions, to Cheryl, in front of her parents. I almost died of embarrassment.

Yeps, after that went back to woodlands with fel. Talked a lot about primary school life on the bus. I realise i've forgotten a whole chunk of primary school life. Sigh, age has caught up with me. Time to slow down the aging process. Hahhahaha and something funny happened at the bus-stop. Fel's friend asked fel whether i was her brother. Hahahaha like woah, since when did me and fel look alike? Hahahahaha dang funny.

Ticket!

$5 Program booklet! Very nicely done.

Yeps, that's about it. :D

Aaron

2008-04-13T07:32:00.001-07:00

Been quite a busy week, monday was founder's day, last founder's day for us. :( Drilled the 5 cadets marching in supporting contigent on tues, wed, thurs. Had training on friday, drilled the rest of the cadets. Heard that the 5 cadets' performance was bad during their 1st rehearsal, so that would mean more drill practices next week. To get my 100 hours to CIP, i have to go for some trial cross country run on wednesday. Think they're gonna make us run.

Went for drama club's play on saturday. Titled "Out of Order", it's supposed to be about problem kids, problem parents, problem teachers, problem girlfriends and problem life. It was real short, like about an hour, expected more cos it's $15/ticket. They even had an short analysis of the play where you get to ask director and actors questions. The only cool and funny part of the play was when the scholars started speaking in vietnamese and tagalog. Very entertaining though i hear the scholars talking almost everyday in the toilet. Hahahhaahaha

Had phototaking on friday! Got to wear no.1. Luckily the hall's air-conditioned, would have died in the heat. Jun Hong was real nice to give up his pace stick cos he already has a lanyard. So i took the pace stick and eugene didn't get to pose with it. Muhahahaha After the phototaking, someone took my peak cap!! So i have a peak cap that's 2 times smaller now. I've no idea how the swap took place. Now i've to go hunt for mine. (To all NCC Land guys, if you are reading this, check your peak caps. If it has a slightly torn cap strap at the corner, it should probably be mine. So please return it! Thanks!! :D)

Epaulettes. I think they're the coolest part of the uniform. :)

Rank + epaulettes + collar pins!

Empty no.1 shirt.

Ticket!!

Booklet. A lot of the Simpsons characters inside.

:D

A pity you couldn't come.

Aaron

2008-03-30T06:51:00.001-07:00

Went to the St nicks fiesta yesterday. Met keith at the mrt and both of us had no idea on how to get there so had to ask Gerald. After walking in the heat, finally got on the bus and reached st nicks. Wow, the school is real big, almost twice the size of SJI. Met meichi and collected my ticket. Hahahaha she has grown prettier! Hahahaha XD

Then went to buy a can of coke that costs $3? I think keith dropped his tickets when he heard the price. Hahahaha So walked around a little bit, checked out the stalls, saw amos, weijee and tim chan. Then we decided to dedicate the song "Low" by Flo-rida to all the SJI guys. Spent at least 40 mins waiting for our song to be played but somehow they kept playing all the other songs. Hahahaha they must have been searching high and low for it, no pun intended. Hahhahahah Went to the hall and played some cannonball game. Got 2 Mr. Bean like bears. Gave one to Janice. Went to macs for lunch and went back to st nicks and walked around. Nigel and Weijun sat at some corner and started mugging while keith and i went to the LOST maze game with Janice and friends. Hahahahaha the maze was rather lame though the air con was nice. :D Hahaha Janice led the way round the school and we went to play some games. Keith left cos he was quite bored and i met tzeyang, who left earlier on. So Janice, Tzeyang and i decided to go try that meteorite spinning thing. Hahahahaha the whole ride was dang cool. You just had to stand against a wall without any straps and the thing would just spin round and round and angle upwards while spinning. It's quite safe cos centrifugal force would keep you pressed against the fence. The whole ride was real fun!! After the ride, Janice had to go back to her stall to help while Tzeyang and i went to the games stall to meet Sly, who was trying to get rid of his coupons. Met Janice and her dad, who couldn't recognise me. Hahahaha watched a little bit of the closing ceremony and went back. Should have stayed longer cos according to Janice, they were doing the St nicks family dance. Hahahaha never seen it before. Yeps, the fiesta was real fun! SJI should have one too, rather than having road runs. :D

The bean bear!! He's called beany. :)

Aaron

2008-03-20T07:18:00.000-07:00

Fill My Little World - The Feeling

I had a dream we went away,
left this city for a day,
You took me southwards on a plane,
and showed me spain or somewhere.
But in reality your,
not so keen to show me anything,
and I thought you liked me.

Hey show some love,
you aint so tough,
come fill my little world,
right up,
right up.

Someday your going to realise.
(i want you to) To fill my little world,
right up,
right up,
right up.

So what you gonna to do with all this stuff,
pilling up, filling up, taking up. (my little ....)
you misunderstand me,
all i wanted was some evidence,
that your really like me. (you really liked me)

Hey show some love,
you aint so tough,
come fill my little world,
right up,
right up.

Someday your going to realise.
(i want you) To fill my little world,
right up,
right up,
right up.

Maybe its all too much,
how come we're so messed up.
Maybe im not enough,
maybe i'm just to much.

Hey show some love,
you aint so tough,
come fill my little world,
right up...

oooh ooo.
yeeahh.

Hey show some love,
you aint so tough,
come fill my little world,
right up,
right up.

Someday your going to realise.
(i want you) To fill my little world,
right up,
right up,

Hey show some love,
you aint so tough,
come fill my little world,
right up,
right up.

Someday your going to realise
that im passing you by, so fill your little world,
right up,
right up,
right up,

come on and show,
come on and show,
come on and show.

Love It When You Call - The feeling

I found the switch, I turned it on,
I hit the ditch, You carried on,
I was so near, now you're so far,
Are you quite sure, just who you are?

Oh I ... I know you could choose a friend but you don't have the time,

Oh I ... I wonder if you ever get to say what's on your mind,

Well take a little time, come on take a little time,

I love it when you call,
I love it when you call,
I love it when you call - but you never call at all,
Say what's the complication it's only conversation!
I love it when you call - but you never call at all, Woah -Oh !

(He loves it when you call)x2

Remember me? I used to be,
Your best time buddy that you couldn't wait to see,
Oh getting old, It takes a toll,
And heart's gettin' broken leads to people growing cold,

Oh I ... I am flipping with a coin that's got a tail on either side,

Oh I ... I am gonna be the one that makes you stop and realise,

You could have it all,
Yeah we should have it all,

I love it when you call,
(He loves it when you call)
I love it when you call,
(He loves it when you call)
I love it when you call - but you never call at all,
Say what's the complication it's only conversation!
I love it when you call - but you never call at all,
Woah -Oh !

(He love's it when you call)x2

Yeah I wonder where you've been,
Yeah I wonder who you've seen,
Yeah I hope you find your dream,
When you do i hope it's all it seems!

I love it when you call,
I love it when you call,
I love it when you call - but you never call at all,
Say what's the complication it's only conversation!
I love it when you call - but you never call at all, Woah -Oh !

2008-03-13T08:10:00.000-07:00

how do you repair a broken heart?

how do you pick up the scattered pieces?

how do you fix the pieces back together?

and how do you ensure the heart beats again?

Quick update

2008-03-10T07:06:00.001-07:00

Hahahaha, yes i know i've been neglecting this blog, so just doing a quick summary of day 1 and 2.

Day 1:
Was on the way to airport in a taxi when i suddenly realised i didn't bring my camera charger. Like omg. Decided to buy batteries after touching down there. Went to terminal 1. Still prefer terminal 2. Yeps, so touched down at the airport after a few hours in the small plane and was fetched by our guide. Took her car to the hotel and rested for a few hours before heading out to Wal-Mart to buy batteries. I was paying at the cashier when the cashier starting asking me something in their dialect. So i was like "Huh?". He repeated the question in normal chinese and i was still like "Say what?" In the end, i finally figured out he was trying to ask me for small change since i was using a RMB 100 note to pay for RMB 15+ batteries. Hahahahah my first conversation with a local person. Ate KFC for lunch and received a little KFC christmas toy. Went across the hotel to some friendship store to look at stuff. Staff there are quite friendly. Hahahahah Hahahaha Then went to the shopping street and shopped. Our guide actually wanted to bring us to see some bridge that supposedly symbolised the city of Kunming, but nay, between shopping and touring, i'd rather shop, which we did. Hahahaha And that's basically the first day.

Day 2:
Met up with the rest of the group. Supposed to act as translator for dad, but ended up more like a summarising translator. Yeps, went to some place where there were lots of seagulls. Guide introduced us to a poem written by a famous poet and started explaining each and every word. I didn't get any word she said, was more worried bout getting pooped on by seagulls. Hahahahahaha Then we went to play bumper cars!! Hahahahah, there was like this other couple and junx and i started out bumping each other, but somehow it kinda ended in a foursome. Hahahaha bumper cars are so fun!!

Then we went to a place to find out bout the origins of Pu-erh tea, according to my diary. Can't really remember this but yeah, it must have happened, that's why it's in my diary. Unless i dreamt about it. Hahahahaha Dreaming about Pu-erh would be the best!! :D

According to my diary here, there was a huge moutain of poop in a toilet. Can't remember that either. Hahahahahaha yea. (Note to self: Take pictures of whatever that is written in diary)

Then it was a 5 hours journey to Dali, everyone else was more or less sleeping cos they just arrived on that day. Hahaha Reached our hotel which is quite posh and we played pool!! Finally learnt what pool is in chinese.

Yeps, so that's bout it. Miss china trip a lot cos it's so fun. :D

Aaron

DAY 3 OF YUNNAN!!! (Finally..)

2008-01-18T05:33:00.000-08:00

Yeps, finally got down to updating my blog. Luckily i kept a small diary so i can still remember stuff. Yeps, so anyway today we travelled to the old town of Dali where we finally bought Pu-erh!! Hahaha Our first "biscuit" of pu-erh since we touched down. The old town was real cool with small little canals at the side.

The old town

Our Dali guide who's from the white tribe?

Hahaha anyway, so we travelled to some weird shop which was boring so everyone kinda plotted to go in for a little while and get out as soon as possible which interrupted my "appreciation of chinese art" (cough..) Hahahaha

After that we went to a "white" village where we watched a performance and drank tea(!!) which wasn't really nice. There were 3 cups of tea that were supposed to invoke memories of some thingy but i didn't drink 2 cups at all cos they had ginger and some weird thing in it. Dang, was hoping for pu-erh! The performance was basically bout how the men wooed the girls and with all opera, it takes quite long for them to get to the main point. After that, we went to see how the people weaved and dyed their clothes.

Then we had to travel to Lijiang which took 3.5 hours to an accident on the way. Since the roads had only one lane for each direction, it took quite a while to move forward.
That's the queue of vehicles waiting to pass the site of the accident.

We finally reached the real old town of lijiang( i think the above one was recently constructed). Yeps, so we shopped around at the old town which had a campfire where you can dance around. I think janice's family joined in the dancing. Hahahah so dad and i went scouting for more puerh. Hahahahah reminds me of an incident. I walked into a tea shop with my dad to look at puerh. So the salesgirl was talking in chinese so i had to translate it into english for my dad (Yeps, me translating chinese to english for others. Where has the world come to? Hahahahaha :D )Then the salesgirl suddenly told me that she's trying to learn english as well. Hahahaha so we kinda chatted a little bit about learning english. Then when we were about to leave the store, she was like "Come over and play next time when you're free!" with a little twinkle in her eyes. Hahahahaha omg sounds quite suggestive. Hahahahahaha dang i'm cute. Hahahahhaha XD

Checked into our hotel which was the best throughout the trip. You get to live in villas rather than rooms. And there will be a buggy driving you from the entrance to your villa. Hahahahaha and a housekeeper is attached to each villa. Yeps, so we bunked in with janice's family. They took 2 rooms, and we took the master bedroom and aunt meow took 1. Hahahaha the villa even had a computer! with internet access(though laggy). There's a kitchen for you to cook as well.

Entrance to the villa.

Walkway

The t.v. in our room!! We got quite a big room.

The living room in our room!! That's the creaky old bed that i was supposed to sleep on and it folded itself in on me!!! ARGH hahahahahah and everyone else was there. Hahahahaha dang

So it wasn't very late and junx and i decided to play cards! Went over and invited janice and benjamin but they didn't wanna join in so we played for a while. Hahahaha i slept on the thick and cushy sofa!!

Aaron

DAY 4 OF YUNNAN!!!

2007-12-31T07:14:00.000-08:00

Woke up to breakfast cooked by our housekeeper. Quite nice. Anyway, we travelled to the real ancient town this time. Went to look at the "Mu" mansion which used to house the "mayor" of Lijiang. It's real big inside. They have this tiger skin that the guy sat on a few hundred years of it. Didn't take any pictures though. The mansion has paths leading up to a temple which we were warned not to pay attention or money to the fake Taoist priests inside that can supposedly tell your future. Our guide said that one old man was conned into giving them RMB2888 for telling his fortune. Poor man.

Entrance

Entrance to the main hall with the tiger skin!

So after the mansion visit, we were given time to go walk round the ancient town. Dad and i bought more Pu-erh!! Hahahahaha Don't you just love pu-erh? You do, don't you? Hahahahah anyway, we had to walk to our bus which was parked very far away. Along the way there was this sudden big Mao statue.

There it is! It's quite cool.

After arriving at the bus, we went to lunch and then on to watch Impression: Lijiang at the bottom of the Snow Jade Mountain. Our bus driver joined us as well. The show is directed by Zhang Yimou and it was supposed to be very spectacular. I'm not so much of a theatre-art person so i only have 2 words to describe it: never ending. Yeps, the thing just goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on and..you get the idea. The only thing i found spectacular about the whole production is the number of performers performing. Same style as another Impression show i watched at Guilin. Maybe it's because Zhang Yimou directed both. The music was blasted slighlty loud, the performers' voices were muffled and the storyline was bland. It took a whole lot of banging(tables, that is. XD) and singing just to get to the main part. I think it took almost an hour to reach there and another one to reach the conclusion. Basically the play is about this young couple that seperates due to parents and the girl runs off and commits sucide at the bottom of the mountain and the guy finally commits suicide too at the bottom of the mountain. Yeps, that's all there is to it. Along the way, they introduce to you about the Naxi people there and about the horses as well. I remember something about their horses being unique due to their small size yet hardiness. Then again, if you look at it as a whole, in which part does horses fit into the main play? Yeps, so it was pretty much a very boring and slow 2 hours till the play finished. Hahahaha Janice looked pretty bored as well. :)

After being tortured visually, we headed out of the main performing area and went to take pictures of the Snow mountain close-up. They had this big urn in which you can scribble your wishes down on a paper and throw it in.

That's the urn! People were quite urn-nest in putting their wishes in. Hahahahha Pardon the pun.

That's the snow mountain in the background.

After that, we went to White Water River where we had to change to those eco-friendly buses. While we were heading back, a fierce wind kicked up and a mini-sandstorm occured. It was dang cool!! First time in a sandstorm!! Hahahaha so i turned back to look at the sandstorm blowing over only to get sand thrown in my face. Dang. Couldn't take picture of it.

That's basically the whole scenery with the Snow mountain in the background.

On the way back to dinner, we stopped along the road to take pictures of some weird stone protuding out. No one really went down cos it was rather plain.

Yeps, that's it.

After dinner, Janice's family and our family set off for the ancient city which becomes a lot livelier at night. All the pubs will come alive and there will be people inviting you in to sing with them. Hahahaha we went shopping though. They were selling shirts with the Naxi language printed on them which was dang cool. Didn't buy any though. After walking round for a few hours, we headed back to our hotel to sleep.

The Naxi language is real cool. All drawings.

Aaron

DAY 5 OF YUNNAN!!!

2007-12-31T06:00:00.000-08:00

Woke up earlier today, booked out of the hotel we stayed in and sat the bus to the 1st bend of the Lijiang river. It was quite cold when we got there. Omg mum bought more strawberries from the stalls there. They were selling some cool antique stuff. We just took some shots and went back up the bus. Didn't get to take much cos you have to pay to go closer to the river. So we had to take from a distance and my batteries gave out halfway.

That's the entrance to the place that we couldn't go in. :(

If i'm not wrong, that's the 1st bend. Then again there are a few bends down there!

Anyway, we continued on towards Shrangri-La and we had to say bye to our Lijiang guide. Finally reached there after like forever. Met our new guide who looked quite young but we found out later that she's 28! Hahahaha and she will take part in singing competitions. So she sung us a song to welcome us. While refuelling at the petrol station, we met 2 dogs, 1 of which is real small and cute. Janice went around the bus to avoid the dogs cos she finds dogs scary. Hahahaha Then the dogs kinda chased after Tricia for a while.

That's the small cute one and the big buffy one! Awww..

Went for lunch after the dogs and we met another ASA group and both groups had quite a time discussing the different itinerary. After that it was more discussion of the itinerary. Hahahahaha

Up close and personal with a yak!

K it's wasn't a real yak. The restaurant actually had this! Hahahaha XD

After lunching, we went to the ancient town of Shrangri-La. It was real cool and had this temple and a big golden thingy that you could turn. Each turn represented one recital of the entire buddhist scriptures if i'm not wrong. The thingy requires a few people to push cos it's heavy. There were people selling some barbecued stuff at the town center and we saw more dogs!!

That's the big gold thingy.

Entrance to the temple after climbing lots of steps.

Booked into our hotel which had a third bed for me!! So no more sleeping on foldable beds for 2 nights!! The hotel was kinda boring though cos it only had mahjong as the recreation. Our toilet got stuck and the tap water is dang cool. It comes out cloudy. After a while, lots of bubbles rise to the top and pop and the water becomes clear again. Quirky. Anyway, since it was a while till our dinner. Dad, Mum, Aunt meow, Junx and i decided to go walk around the hotel and visit the shops opposite. Bought some stuff and went back to the hotel for dinner. So after dinner we decided to have a kids.. err, i mean young people's gathering a.k.a party at janice's room. Hahaha it was quite awkward at first cos it was the first ever. Hahahaha TongTong asked whether i am JC2. Hahahaha Omg, found out that TongTong is actually Company leader in Girl Guides and Janice is her junior. Small world. Hahahaha We played indian poker, murderer, a failed round of taiti and watched some funny chinese show. Supposed to teach Janice and Benj how to play taiti but we kinda failed. Dad called and i had to leave. Felt so bad for breaking up the party.

The hotel we stayed in!

Indian poker!! :D

Aaron

DAY 6 OF YUNNAN!!!

2007-12-28T07:03:00.000-08:00

Woke up at 8 today which was the latest time throughout the whole trip. Had 4 eggs again since the restaurant didn't have much to offer. The meeting time for the whole group was 12 so we had loads of time to spare. My mum, aunt meow, Junxin and i went to walk along the streets to kill time since it was so boring. Dad stayed back at the hotel cos he was sick. At 12 we all gathered back at the hotel lobby and set off for lunch which was at some one's house-turned-restaurant. We had a hotpot which was quite cool. After lunch we went to the park which was up the mountain. Along the way, we stopped over at some place to get some medicine which supposedly helped relive the acute mountain sickness(AMS). Didn't really want to eat it cos it was a bright red capsule. Some bought those small little fire-extinguisher like tanks to breathe from. It's for those who "que yang" or lack oxygen. Omg, i only found out later that "yang qi", which the guide was mentioning all the while, is actually chinese for oxygen. I always thought "yang qi" is the yin-yang thingy in taichi or traditional chinese medicine?! So i always thought "que yang" meant lacking in the "yang" chi. No wonder i couldn't figure out how you could breathe in the "yang" energy. Hahahahahha Thanks to Junxin, i finally know what oxygen is in chinese. XD

The medicine to cure AMS! Didn't work for dad though.. Poor him..

Anyway, we had to switch to those eco-friendly buses once we got there. The buses would drive up the windy roads and you could choose to get off and start walking a few kilometres if you like. The temperature there was like sub zero so you could see some snow at the sides of the road and ice blocks floating on the river. There were millions of piles of yak poop all over.

The 1st stop

Ice blocks floating along the river.. It's dang cool!! So sad we can't see this here.. :(

I can read the tibetan words on the bottom.. It says "Green toilet" Hahahahha :P

At the 3rd spot, we decided to get off and walk. Poor dad was so sick due to AMS, he stayed on the bus the whole time. Awww, should have bought the small oxygen tank for him.. At that moment, my camera batteries went dead on me. So i had to borrow Junxin's camera. Cool they had this walkway that stretched all the way to the lake and you could step off the walkway and walk/slide on the ice. It was dang slippery and that is a very bad place to fall cos there's a lot of frozen yak poop everywhere. I wonder if falling on them will cause the poop to splatter all over or will it just remain the same like an ice cube. Didn't get the chance to experiment though so.. hahahahahaha that's what happens when you go to higher altitudes. Your brain is deprived of oxygen and you start thinking quirky stuff OR it's just me.. Hahahahahaha :D

After descending from the place, we went to the a "zang zu" person's house. "Zang zu" is one of the ethnic groups. Anyway we took a tour of his house which was real dark inside.

That's the house!!

That's the guy who lives in the house. Nopes, he's not dead, he's just sitting there watching us watching him while we watch him watching us watching him! Hahahahah :D

Animal skin we discovered in one of the walls. Looks like a raccoon or possum.

After that we went to a dzi beads shop where TongTong's mum bought her one. Hahahaha It's supposed to help in studies. Should have bought one. Hahahaha Yeps so we went back to the hotel.

That's our bus driver!! He may be old but he's real groovy. One of the best drivers i've met!! :D

After dinner, we had another party in which Janice suggested we bring pillows to her room for a pillow fight. Had no idea why that idea came to her but we all knew why in due course. So we played this game where we drew a card each and the one with the lowest card would be attacked by everyone else. When it came to Benjamin's turn to be hit, all of us but Janice couldn't bear to hit him cos he's so small. Janice literally went on top of him. Hahahahaha poor Benj. Omg never knew Janice could be so violent. (EDIT: K It wasn't that violent. Just a little tiny weeny bit. :D) After all, she seemed very sweet, shy and gentle. Hahahaha It's quite amusing seeing how siblings fight though cos i don't have one to fight with. Hahahahahaha :D

Anyway Day 7 has been updated!!

Aaron

DAY 7 OF YUNNAN!!! (EDIT)

2007-12-27T00:38:00.002-08:00

Woke up at 6 which was the earliest timing we had to wake up by cos we had to rush to the aiport to get ready to take a flight back to Kunming. The flight only took an hour whereas by bus, it takes 8+ hours. Said bye to our Shangri-La guide and our driver who was preparing to rush back to Kunming to meet us the next day.

That's the airport!

That's our plane!!

I took this while the plane was flying. I think clouds are real cool!!

That's the plane's engine at the bottom!

Arrived at Kunming and met Yaoli again. Went to a shop selling crystal cos according to Yaoli, only tourist shops have the cleanest toilets. Hahahaha once again, TongTong's mum looked rather interested in getting something for her. hahahhaha omg and Tricia was playing "ice and water" with me. Yeps, the game where the catcher freezes everyone and you have to unfreeze your friend. Sense of deja-vu. Used to play it in primary school. Junxin and TongTong were just standing there watching me get frozen by Tricia. So evil of them. Hahahaha After that we proceeded to have lunch. The restaurant was quite special cos it had small stools and normal chairs that you can choose to sit on. The guide chose small stools for us since we couldn't make up our minds. I wanted the normal chairs though cos once you sit on those small stools, it's near impossible to get up and my legs are rather long which makes it hard to sit.

That's the restaurant

That's how tiny the tables and stools are. They scattered grass everywhere which just made it rather slippery.

After lunch, we headed to Jiuxiang cave where we got to paddle through some gorge and then paddle back. Had to climb up and down steps cut into the rock face and at the end, they had this 300+ steps for you to climb before reaching the top. Some people opted for the sedan service which seemed quite dangerous to me cos the sedan sways a lot.

The entrance to the place.

You have to take a lift all the way down to start which is real cool! The only thing not cool is that when you go down, you have to come up. :)

Blind fishes that live in the caves. Quite cool.

That's a lion!!

That's the super big Lingzhi that a farmer found and donated to the state government.

Waterfall inside the cave.

They have horses which you could ride down. Only for individuals, not for groups. So had to take the cable car down.

Cable cars!! :D Dang fun to look down.

Bird's eye view(no pun intended) XD

So after the cave trip, we retreated back to the hotel for dinner! They had this famous painter painting and they would auction off his art pieces. Janice's mum won a painting for guessing the four words hidden in the painting. hahahaha There was this bamboo casing on the table that contained some kind of beer that has 50% alcohol content. It was taken away though cos everyone thought 50% was way too high. hahahahaha could tell Janice wanted to try that beer. :P In the end she had to make do with the 3.5% one which tasted very diluted. hahahahahha

That's the guy painting!

Yeps, so after dinner we had another party which was the last one for me. Hahahah omg we were real bored after a few pillow fights though i don't think Benj or Janice got bored when it came to attacking each other.. hahahaha XD So we made the worst mistake of the entire trip: TongTong decided to invite tricia over for a short while. BAD move. She came over and started attacking me while the rest fled to the other bed giving me supporting me optically. Omg that little girl is evil. Tried to bite me. Luckily she's small and light. So no damage inflicted. After that we were forced to play hide and seek. hahahahha she saw through the plot for benj to hide in the other room. Finally, the one who suggested the terrible idea or TongTong carried her back to the room. Omg, it's all TongTong's fault!! After she left, peace and quiet returned. But we were getting real bored and ran out of ideas so junxin and TongTong started talking bout jc life, which left Janice, Benj and i out of the conversation. Had no choice but to talk about runescape with Benj. Hahaha Janice was already stoning on the bed. Then we started exchanging school ghost stories. Janice's mum called and we had to go off. Hahahaha though it got a bit quiet sometimes, it was still fun!!! :D

Aaron

DAY 8 OF YUNNAN!! (EDIT)

2007-12-20T05:32:00.000-08:00

Yeps, so i'm back!! Updating blog from the last day upwards. hahahaha took like 500+ photos, yeps.. So woke up today at 6.45, almost couldn't get up after last night's partying. Omg back was aching due to the center metal bar that i slept on throughout the night.. Went to the restaurant and ate eggs!! I realised that in other countries, if you can't get used to the food or if you are worried about getting food poisoning, just pile up on eggs. They are wholesome and build abs(hahahaha inside joke XD). Omg our bus driver met us at the restaurant. He left DiQing airport at round 8+ a.m. and reached Kunming at 11 p.m. while it took us 1 hour by plane. Omg, during breakfast TongTong's mum slipped and fell. Hahahahah then TongTong was like quite calm. Hahahahah Anyway, after breakfast we went to ShiLin or stone forest. Omg, took like loads of pictures.. The stone forest is real cool but there were too many people there. Just gonna post the important pictures..

This is the outside of the toilet!! hahahaha the toilet was before the main stones.

It has a 5 stars rating and mini tvs inside!!
Yeps, so we walked around ShiLin. hahaha the rocks are actually from the seabed. According to yaoli, that area was actually a sea centuries ago. Then the seawater receded and left behind the rocks that formed the seabed. We climbed up and down the rocks which was quite fun and it led us to the pavilion where you could have a pavilion's eye view of the whole area. It was dang crowded.

The main stone?

That's the piece of rock that came loose during an earthquake. Apparently if you have a guilty conscience, you shouldn't walk underneath it.

No idea what this is except some carvings on a stone.

Sword peak.

This is a rare deserted passageway cos the whole place is usually packed with people and stones.

Supposedly a lion?

I have a fetish for deep dark holes.. and alleys as well.. hahahahaha :D

That looks like a horse.

View from the pavilion, reminds me of something out of LOTR

Yeps so after exiting the forest, we took a ride to qicaiyunnan or 7 colours of yunnan. Had lunch there, omg couldn't really eat. Got real sick of eating 10 courses every meal.. Hahahahha they served us tea in wine glasses and there was no beer!! Bet Janice was quite disappointed.. :P hahahahha After lunching at the entrance, we walked in and saw lots of peacocks caged up. Apparently you can order one to be killed and have it cooked in your own way. The park had like thousands of peacocks but many people ordered them to be killed to taste the meat.. I wonder how it'll taste like. I'm thinking a cross between chicken, turkey and a weird taste.

The entrance.

PEACOCKS!!

Piggy fishes at the small pond

Anyway, after that we went to some place where they were selling jade and local products. Left after a while for the foot massage at some bee place. Weird. Anyway that place was rather scammish. They gave a free foot massage to us while they introduced their products and diagnosed your health through reading your palms and looking at the colour of your nails. I didn't really like the guy attending to my parents. He seemed rather nervous throughout, even after a while of talking. Usually people settle in after the introductions.
After the foot massage, we went to a coffee factory cum flower market. hahahahha They even have Pu-Erh Milk Tea which is like omg? The flower market was cool. They were selling this cute eggs that you could put in water and a plant will grow. Dang cute, but can't bring back to Singapore cos of the soil content inside.
Went to a restaurant for the famous mushroom steamboat. Omg i've never seen so many types of mushrooms in my life and i think mushrooms are quite yucky. They have spores, weird colours, twisted features and weird taste.
After a rather weird tasting dinner, it was time to say goodbye. Went to the airport and bought 2 group photos. As last minute shopping, we bought 1KG of Pu-Erh tea at the DFS, which was dang cheap. I, or the plane officially left Kunming at 21:37:57. Was quite sad to leave everyone, missed all the fun parties we had at night. hahhahahaha Pillow fights were the best!!! though they got a bit violent when it came to janice and benjy. hahahhaha :D We really should have another one of those!! Then again, i wasn't really that sad to leave tricia. Omg i'm so mean but she did try to attack me!! XD hahahhahah

Tea we bought at the airport!!

Reached home at 4 a.m. plus. Went right to bed and snoozed. Yeps, so that wraps up the whole trip!!

Aaron

2007-12-10T06:58:00.000-08:00

This song really describes how i feel now.. sigh.. Anyway, leaving tomorrow..

Somebody's me by Enrique Iglesias

You, do you remember me?
Like I remember you?
Do you spend your life
Going back in your mind to that time?
Because I, I walk the streets alone
I hate being on my own
And everyone can see that I really fell
And I'm going through hell
Thinking about you with somebody else

[CHORUS]
Somebody wants you
Somebody needs you
Somebody dreams about you every single night
Somebody can't breath without you, it's lonely
Somebody hopes that one day you will see
That Somebody's Me [2x]

How, How could we go wrong
It was so good and now it's gone
And I pray at night that our paths soon will cross
And what we had isn't lost
Cause you're always right here in my thoughts

[Chorus]
Somebody wants you
Somebody needs you
Somebody dreams about you every single night
Somebody can't breath without you, it's lonely
Somebody hopes that one day you will see
That Somebody's Me [2x]

You'll always be in my life
Even if I'm not in your life
Because you're in my memory
You, will you remember me
And before you set me free
Oh listen please

[Chorus]
Somebody wants you
Somebody needs you
Somebody dreams about you every single night
Somebody can't breath without you, it's lonely
Somebody hopes that one day you will see
That Somebody's Me [5x]

given up all hope

Aaron

2007-12-09T07:22:00.000-08:00

Just got our new flight schedule due to the fault of ASA, i'm leaving on the 12th at 0210, which means i will leave house on the night of 11th.. Yeps, so won't be contactable.. be back on the 20th at 0110.. Craps, only going for 8 days instead of 9 due to ASA, and to think they claimed "Laid foundation over a quarter century" on their baggage tags.. :(

Yeps, omg i need to rush out my holiday homework!!! And i want a Mont Blanc pen!!! I think they're real cool.. hahahahhaha

REMEMBER TO MISS ME!! :D

Aaron

2007-12-07T07:47:00.000-08:00

YAY! According to dad, the first part of the operation is successful. Hope everything will be alright for the other part of the operation..

Oh and we got the shares!! 1 lot of it which is going to be spilt into half between me and my dad.. and the share price has been going up this few days!! :) hope it reaches the projected prices by the company..

Aaron

2007-12-07T07:07:00.000-08:00

FINALLY BACK FROM MALAYSIA!! Bought lotsa stuff.. especially tea!! i love tea!! omg the stuff there are super cheap.. reached home at round 11 a.m. plus..

omg at round 2 plus, my uncle called my dad and said that my aunt had a heart attack and was going into the operating ward.. the doctor said one of her arteries burst which my dad says is quite dangerous!! omg even up till now at 11 plus, the operation is still in progress.. omg i seriously hope nothing untoward happens to her!! Must pray for her recovery.. waiting for update from dad..

omg then before we left for malaysia, we were informed by the travel agency that there were not enough seats on the plane to china.. cos my family, aunt and cousin are travelling together on the same tour, so we need 5 seats.. turns out that the plane is full due to overbooking.. so now the group needs to be seperated and we can only go for the 8 days trip instead of 9 days.. and we thought ASA Holidays was supposed to be a reputable agency.. dang..

Please get well

Aaron

2007-11-28T05:06:00.000-08:00

Oh i will be going away to malaysia from this friday onwards to around next thursday and going to china from 13th to 21st.. yeps, so won't be updating the blog that often or going online.. OH REMEMBER TO MISS ME!!! hahahahhahah XD I'll miss you guys too, especially you.. :D

Aaron

2007-11-27T07:10:00.000-08:00

Oh yesterday on the way back after the movie, we squeezed onto the bus and the guys were at the back while the girls were in front.. so there was this guy and his son sitting on the bus and he started laughing really loud to amuse his son who's quite young.. hahahhaha his laugh is kinda like George's and mine combined (for those in the know, you can guess how weird that sounds..)yeah so imagine this grown man guffawing quite loudly on a rather crowded bus and his son giggles back in amusement..and it went on for quite a while.. i know, seems quite spastic of the guy.. hahahahaha the girls thought it was us even though it wasn't..

But somehow i thought that the guy wasn't spastic at all.. i thought he was quite sweet to entertain his child in a different way even in the face of public mockery.. i mean everyone was turning their heads round trying to detect the source of the laughter.. but i still think it's real cool of him.. in fact i don't think many fathers would actually publicly show their love for their child, no matter how unique the method is.. hahahhaha i support him!! :D reminds me of my dad!!

then aik hwee and the rest were trying to imitate him by imitating his laughter audibly loud.. like wth? so mean of them.. hahahahahah yea..

And i got a new nick yesterday.. cos i was wearing my house t-shirt with "Michael" splayed on the back.. so Cheryl and yingyu started calling me michael.. hahahahahhah
luckily i'm not in "Marcian" house.. :P

dang today me and my dad couldn't sneak off to malaysia to play pool cos mom wanted to go to the bank.. :( so we'll try tomorrow to try to sneak off.. heheheheh XD oh and i introduced my dad to the rubik's cube today!! and he's not bad with it.. hahahahah :)

YAY! i'm planning on investing in some shares with my dad!! like round $1000 of my savings.. and my dad's okay with it!! hopefully we can get picked during the drawing round if we decide to invest.. time to go scout round for some deals.. :D

Aaron

Class gathering

2007-11-26T07:31:00.000-08:00

Just got back from class gathering.. hahahaha it's real cool.. though we got lost, waited for a bus for like 124737458937589370 years when we could just walk a few minutes, arrived at the wrong park, etc.. hahahhaha but it was still FUN!!!

Met the guys at 12 plus at Woodlands, soon after, yingyu and cheryl arrived and we stood there for a long while while deciding on where to go.. finally decided to go cycle at pasir ris park.. was raining when we got to White Sands so we headed off to burger king for lunch, where i got scammed!! i ordered large iced milo and they gave me a cup that's just slightly bigger than a Rubik's cube.. omg and it's supposed to be large?! yeps.. then we were gonna proceed by bus to pasir ris park to go cycle.. so we waited for the bus for 5510548948914987 minutes before it finally arrived and we alighted at the first stop.. should have just walked..

hahahhah then we found ourselves in Pasir Ris Town Park which is like a miniature version of Pasir Ris park. played at the playground for a while before going to the real Pasir Ris park where we rented bikes for $6 for 2 hours.. quite cheap.. then we cycled to the huge playground and took lotsa pictures and climbed everywhere.. finally got on our bikes and biked all the way around the park.. took some pics on the beach.. aik hwee was being real sadistic by attacking any crabs in sight.. like wth?

yeps then we rode around for a lil while more and returned our bikes where we walked to white sands. Aik hweee had his dinner first cos he was real hungry.. after the dinner we took the mrt to tampines to go watch a movie.. Aik hwee, john and tze han disappeared when i was going to pay for the tickets cos they wanted me to pay for them just because i paid for cheryl.. hahahaha i'll probably pay for them when i turn bisexual or deca-sexual.. XD hahahahha Watched Fred Claus which was a real coool show.. had dinner afterwards at Kopitiam.. i didn't know they accept cash!! i thought it was the cashless dining concept.. hahhahah yeps..

finally got home at like 10 plus, just in time to catch a small part of the 10p.m. show.. hahahhahaha

Oh on the way back after the movie, we squeezed onto the bus and the guys were at the back while the girls were in front.. so there was this guy and his son sitting on the bus and he started laughing really loud to amuse his son who's quite young.. hahahhaha his laugh is kinda like George's and mine combined (for those in the know, you can guess how weird that sounds..)yeah so imagine this grown man guffawing quite loudly on a rather crowded bus and his son giggles back in amusement..and it went on for quite a while.. i know, seems quite spastic of the guy.. hahahahaha the girls thought it was us even though it wasn't..

But somehow i thought that the guy wasn't spastic at all.. i thought he was quite sweet to entertain his child in a different way even in the face of public mockery.. i mean everyone was turning their heads round trying to detect the source of the laughter.. but i still think it's real cool of him.. in fact i don't think many fathers would actually publicly show their love for their child, no matter how unique the method is.. hahahhaha i support him!! :D reminds me of my dad!!

then aik hwee and the rest were trying to imitate him by imitating his laughter audibly loud.. like wth? so mean of them.. hahahahahah yea..

And i got a new nick today.. cos i was wearing my house t-shirt with "Michael" splayed on the back.. so Cheryl and yingyu started calling me michael.. hahahahahhah
luckily i'm not in "Marcian" house.. :P

dang me and my dad can't sneak off to malaysia tomorrow to play pool cos mom wanted to go to the bank.. :( so we'll try tomorrow to try to sneak off.. heheheheh XD oh and i introduced my dad to the rubik's cube today!! and he's not bad with it.. hahahahah :)

YAY! i'm planning on investing in some shares with my dad!! like round $1000 of my savings.. and my dad's okay with it!! hopefully we can get picked during the drawing round if we decide to invest.. time to go scout round for some deals.. :D

yeps.. k i think i'm gonna sleep now.. photos later!!

-Aaron

2007-11-22T07:24:00.001-08:00

Wheew.. finally got started on my commonwealth.. should be wrapped up in a few days.. hahahahaha i still need to summarise the interview of Mr. Soo kok leng.. he's real cool..

hahahahahah was looking through my camera when i found this pic of Tze Yang aka Papergoat in Shanghai.. hahahahhaha

hahahhaha i have decided to name it "Lil Dragon Meets Big Dragon"!! hahahahhahaha :D As to who the big and the lil dragons are, you just need to use your imagination!! XD

-Aaron

2007-11-16T07:30:00.000-08:00

Went for Bizworld competition on thursday at SP, omgomgomg, our team was just $1 short of winning $500!! actually we could win more, but $10 was unaccounted for so we dumped it into the expenses, hence profit was less.. dang..

Woke up at 6+, made my way down to SP, almost got lost finding the gate.. our team angel was a guy called Edmond(strikingly familiar).. yeps, so the theme was something related to our school.. we came up with 3 ideas, a bracelet, a ring and a jukebox(my idea!! hahahaha) But the jukebox was a last resort thing in case we sold everything.. Basically people will pay us and we will sing the school song!!

Anyway, we were selling rings made up of raffia strings and straws and lots of scotch tape.. my job was to stick the raffia to the straw while grabbing the scissors and scotch tape which everyone else needed.. yeps.. gathered a total amount of $100+, luckily we only sold 30% of our shares to the venture capitalist, if not our profit will be way lower..

But the whole thing was quite fun though my $8 registration fee was lost.. hahahahah i think jeremy put in 50% of the team registration cost of $80.. luckily my calculations were right!! didn't make a big loss..

Wheeew.. omg i think i'm slacking way too much, i should start on my commonwealth essay soon.. luckily my diploma assignment is done!! Back to runescaping now..

-Aaron

2007-11-05T05:47:00.000-08:00

Here without you- 3 doors down

A hundred days have made me older
Since the last time that I saw your pretty face
A thousand lies have made me colder
And I don't think I can look at this the same
But all the miles that separate
Disappear now when I'm dreaming of your face

I'm here without you baby
But you're still on my lonely mind
I think about you baby
And I dream about you all the time
I'm here without you baby
But you're still with me in my dreams
And tonight it's only you and me

The miles just keep rollin'
As the people leave their way to say hello
I've heard this life is overrated
But I hope that it gets better as we go

I'm here without you baby
But you're still on my lonely mind
I think about you baby
And I dream about you all the time
I'm here without you baby
But you're still with me in my dreams
And tonight girl its only you and me

Everything I know, and anywhere I go
It gets hard but it wont take away my love
And when the last one falls
When it's all said and done
It gets hard but it wont take away my love

I'm here without you baby
But you're still on my lonely mind
I think about you baby
And I dream about you all the time
I'm here without you baby
But you're still with me in my dreams
And tonight girl its only you and me

-Aaron

2007-10-27T07:33:00.000-07:00

omgomgomg now it's supposed to be the school holidays!!! ARGH.. and we still have school till 9th.. :( and i need to start on my diploma assignment.. craps.. 2000-2500 words on how to find a mentor.. think i will start on it after 'o' level chinese..

dang.. i need to start doing something bout my time.. too much t.v... i really broke in the sofa.. k time to start doing some meaningful stuff like thinking of meaningful stuff to do.. yeps!!

Aaron

no words can express how i feel towards you now..

2007-10-09T08:17:00.000-07:00

YAY!! exams are finally over.. actually they were over last thursday... hahahahha i'm just too lazy to blog.. yeps.. been slacking around this few days.. i think i've left my body imprint on the sofa.. basically watched t.v. and played poker with dad every night..

yeps.. so went to the corporate office on sat for the first lecture on mentoring.. our lecturer was Dr. Veera Maraj..(you can google her name if you're curious..) hahahhaha yeps.. the lecture was quite alright..

went to carrefour at suntec on sunday.. they were selling this styrofoam-ish swords and plastic shields.. and my dad was being dang spastic.. he wanted to spar using those swords in public.. yeps.. he did something out of the movies.. like those scenes where the person throws a sword at his defenceless opponent and expects the opponent to pick it up and fight.. yeah.. i was the "opponent".. then on the travellator up, he picked up another sword and "hacked" away at me.. yeps.. so if you happened to see a grown man swashbuckling with a teen using foam swords at suntec on sunday, now you know who those two were.. hahhahahahhaha seems like the spastic trait runs in the blood.. hahahahhahahha i feel like buying those foam swords.. it's only $2 each.. :P

had sec 4 farewell's assembly on monday.. we finally got to sit on the second level of the hall!!! though i was standing due to the lack of space.. omg a few teachers are leaving SJI... Mr. Sydney Tan is retiring, which is real sad.. Ms. Mara is also leaving, which means there goes one of the best history teachers around.. yeps.. :(
there was a lecture in the evening and we got a new lecturer!! she's ms sufhee abidi.. she speaks with this real thick indian accent which is real cool.. :D

yeps.. going to play pool tomorrow at le meriden before going for another lecture.. dang.. xiangan supposed to bring his ..... along but ..... couldn't come.. oh wells.. hahahahha

oh thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday!! appreciate it!! :D

Aaron

2007-09-21T08:04:00.000-07:00

wheew.. exams are next week.. can't wait for exams to end.. diploma lectures was re-scheduled again.. we are having our first lecture on the sat of the same week that we finish our exams!! dang.. can't slack much.. hahahah oh well.. omg i hate physics!! :(

Aaron

2007-09-15T08:44:00.000-07:00

yeps.. must mug like mad this few days.. anywyay.. the rifles have arrived!! omg those metal cased ones are dang nice!!! the wooden ones are not so good though.. rather off balance and slippery.. hahahaha yeps after exams we're gonna paint and number them!! :D

ooh met lydia at the bus stop yesterday.. hahahaha yeps.. dang peninsula didn't have the thing i wanted.. on the way back, there was this accident on the highway that caused an hour of jam.. and the bus was dang cold.. funny how buses are dang cold when it's raining or when there's a jam.. hahahahha

saw this on xiangan's blog and decided to do.. hahahhaha

Yeps.. wowowowowowo

Aaron

2007-09-09T07:34:00.000-07:00

tomorrow's the start of a new term and it's onl 2 weeks and 2 days more to final years!!! omgomgomgomg k i'm gonna start mugging from now till then.. hahahahahha need motivation which happens to be my birthday(which falls on sept 22)!!! *hint hahahahahha

YAY my mum bought me a new school bag!! i hope the rifles have arrived.. hope i don't get any fibreglass splinters stuck in my skin when i use them..

lalalala dang i think i better go finish up my chinese newspaper cutting now... yeps.. :D

Aaron

OBS DAY 1

2007-09-05T08:55:00.000-07:00

wheew.. arrived at the jetty at round 7.45.. thanks to xiangan's dad who helped fetched sean and i to the jetty.. hahahhahah yeps saw lots of sad faces there.. hahahaha we gathered in our watches and proceeded off to pulau ubin..

my watch is Kurt Hann, kurt for short.. kurt hann is the founder of Outward Bound School.. we have 14 people in kurt, namely Bryant, Clement, Brendan, Francis, Ronald, Bryan, Darell, Stanley, Randy, Vivaldi, Keith, Azriel, Daniel and me, Aaron. Our instructor is Narfeeza or Narf for short.. The rest of the instructors are Zippy, Yvonne and Abidin. only four watches are going to be in camp 1: Kurt, Bo Seng, Munshi and Marshall. the other 16 watches will squeeze in camp 2.

Camp 1 was dang nice.. looks like a villa from the outside.. We were shown to our dormitories where we could store our bags.. cos camp 2 had to sleep in tents, we had to sleep in tents instead of dorms.. hahahaha the dorms were dang nice. It's kinda like a bungalow, with 3 levels, spilt into 2 for 2 watches.. dang cool.. there were 2 toilets for us which we could use!! 6 showering cubicles for 30 people.. which is real good considering those in camp 2 had to share toilets with 16 watches?! hahahah feel so fortunate to be in camp 1!!!

Went to our store on the ground floor.. darrell and i were the store i.c.(s).. discovered many reasons why camp 1 is better than camp 2.. our dome tents are newer, roomier and a lot easier to fix.. All you have to do is just re-attach the collapsible tent poles and pull.. the tents in camp 2 are the A-shaped tents, which required a lot of tying and knotting and it's smaller, older and looks very fragile.. hahahahaha so YAY for camp 1!!! our backpacks are newer and our store is a whole lot bigger than those in camp 2.. yeps..

After packing, we went for lunch in the canteen!!!! Yeps, heard those in camp 2 had to start eating their rations.. that's another reason why camp 1 is better!! i feel so fortunate to be in camp 1.. :D

After lunch, we were shown the 24hr medical centre before proceeding to play some trust-your-friends game such as the blade of grass and the trust fall.. hahahaha omg when the first person dropped, my head snapped forward in a whiplash effect.. and that person was only the lightest one.. we were all quite scared of clement falling cos he's the heaviest.. but he survived.. actually everyone did.. afterwards we went for "belaying school" as narf puts it.. pitched our tents cos we were done with our activities.. hahahahha we were the first watch there so we could choose where we wanted to pitch our tents!! :D hahahaha then it was dinner!! had our first lesson on trash management and conserving the environment.. hahahahahha

we had a briefing about the medical pouch by abidin, who loves saying stuff like "this is the moment when u guys go wow.." then when we go "wow..", he goes "good boys.." hahahahhahahha spastic..

Yeps, that's bout all for day 1!! Camp 1 rocks!!

Aaron

OBS DAY 2

2007-09-05T08:25:00.000-07:00

wheew.. woke up at 0555 today.. rather tired.. had our very first p.t. which was very unique.. hahahahhaha yeps.. we were supposed to do high elements today.. but it started raining like mad and we had to retreat to the multi purpose hall to use the high elements there..

so according to narf, we had to fulfill the roles of being climber, belayer, assistant belayer, anchor, rope manager, knot helper and motivator in order for us to earn our OBS wristband which will certify us as "rangers" for land expedition the following day.. yeps.. so we were climbing the swaying rock wall and we had to do it with a partner.. the rain was being blown by the strong winds into the hall.. wow.. really bad weather today.. almost like a typhoon!!

so after our high elements, when the rain finally ended, we lunched and proceeded to trek on to camp 2.. i was the i.c. or chief navigator and luckily, i didn't get the whole group lost.. hahahahha XD when we reached camp 2, we went for our kayaking lesson with the rest of the camp 1 watches.. it was quite fun.. they taught us those capsize and rescue drills.. omg poor francis, out of everyone the jellyfish chose to sting him.. dang unlucky.. and stanley's head got hit by a paddle.. ouch..

yeps, after dinner for our circle, narf presented us with our wristbands!!! ours was red, Bo Sheng's was orange, Munshi's was blue or yellow and Marshall's was yellow or blue.. hahahahahah i don't think the camp 2 watches got any wristbands.. though i heard from xiangan who's in camp 2 that some of them got it.. oh well.. camp 1 still rocks!! :D

my wristband!!! oh the words engraved on it are "OUTWARD BOUND SINGAPORE"

Aaron

OBS DAY 3

2007-09-02T08:03:00.000-07:00

Woke up at 05 55 as usual and assembled on the big "H" of the parade square.. did the usual p.t. and wake-your-friends-up games but this time we played some really weird squirrel game.. right.. hahahahhaha omg zippy has some seriously crazy ideas..

so today was land expedition.. we were no longer normal participants.. we were now rangers.. hahahahhaha according to abidin that is.. yeps, bryant, vivaldi and i were made the land expedition leaders.. i was the chief navigator.. yeps.. so we were about to set off when it started raining and cat 1 warning was issued.. so we all lazed around under the shed opposite the instructors' lodge and most of us just slept.. craps, woke up with a rather stiff neck from sleeping on the ground.. then it was finally time to go!! We gathered up all our backpacks, tents and sticks and started doing pacing..

while we were walking through the forest in search of the 4 checkpoints that will lead us to the "hidden oasis", we started singing and azriel and keith started doing spongebob imitations.. hahahahhahaha both of them were really spastic.. poor keith, he was literally spamming himself with insect repellent but those mozzies still came.. woots.. we got a bit lost while finding our first checkpoint cos i read the map wrongly.. XD so we had to seek some help from narf and backtrack to the junction to go and search for another trail.. finally we found it.. took us a while to find the small yellow sign pegged to the tree.. then we had to play an activity to earn our clue for that checkpoint.. it's called key punch.. basically we arranged our life vests in random order and we had to punch the numbers on the life vests in order without verbal or physical communications..

That's our first clue!! contained a map piece..

so onto our second checkpoint which was found a rather short distance away from the first.. we had to play a game called tarp flip.. basically flipping the tarp over onto its other side without anyone touching the ground.. fortunately, my watch has only 14 people as compared to the usual 16 for other watches, so that made doing the tarp flip easier..

2nd clue!! contained 3 pieces of cardboard with 3 letters on each "S", "A" and 'N"

next checkpoint was freaking faraway.. all the way to the other side of pulau ubin.. passed the reservoir again.. omg had to push everyone on because we were running out of time.. we had to be back in camp 1 by 3.30 p.m... yeps.. so went to the jetty.. couldn't really find the sign.. calculated coordinates and double checked still couldn't find it.. narf told us to look nearer the jetty.. did so and found the sign!! i think the coordinates were slightly off.. cos we were at least 30m from the sign.. we didn't do our activity there in the forest cos it was too cramped.. went back to camp 1, where our last checkpoint was, to do it.. the 3rd activity was called "stone jungle". basically each of us picking up a stone each and by only using our left hands, passing it around the circle without any dropping for 3 consecutive times.. hahahahah we had a lot of fun doing this..

that's our 3rd activity.. it contained a paper that stated "look for a weaved cube"..

finally our 4th checkpoint was somewhere in camp 1.. found it at the place outside the multi purpose hall.. that was where we played the "stone jungle" and "helium stick", which was our last activity. for helium stick we had to lower a hula-hoop from chest level to the ground using only one index finger.. completed it after a few tries..

4th clue.. received a paper that said "one for all, all for one" which is basically the words etched onto the wall behind us... hahahha

so albeit being a bit lost and tired, we managed to reach all 4 checkpoints, complete all 4 activities and yet still coming in FIRST!!! YAY FOR KURT!! hahahahaha in fact we were so early, narf asked us to go back to our dormitories and shower first..

went down to the canteen for a warm, cooked and proper dinner!!! hahahahaha after dinner, narf brought us to our 1st night campsite and explained what has happened to 2 watches from camp 2: apparently they got lost while out on sea expedition and were tri-yaking through a mangrove swamp.. the tides changed and the water receded so they were left paddling on mud.. they had to start carrying their tri-kayaks through mud and they were on the other side of pulau ubin facing johore.. without dry clothing, tents and food.. their instructors radioed for help and the 4 camp 1 watches: Bo Sheng, Marshal, Munshi and Kurt(us) were asked to help carry their back packs and tents from the camp 1 site to the safety boat so the 2 watches that were stuck could at least make camp somewhere.. we were all quite worried bout the 2 watches cos trudging through mud and carrying a tri-yak is so not fun at all.. Later on(the next day), we found out that they had actually walked around 1.6km carrying their tri-yaks and found a npcc campsite that was nice enough to give them shelter for a night.. so they got to shower and sleep in bunks.. hahahahahah we all thought that they would have to sleep in their tri-yaks and in wet mdudy clothes.. but cheers to them!!

so after helping move the stuff onto the safety boats, we gathered at "orchard road" to try to solve the location of the "hidden artifact" using the clues that each watch had earned.. the map piece showed the island of pulau ubin and a part of singapore, the letters added up to "SEMBAWANG", the pieces of paper gave a brief outline of the route and every watch received the same "one for all, all of one" paper.. so we had to travel to sembawang during our sea expedition and find "a weaved cube".. Before dismissing us for supper(yeps.. warm delicious supper!!!), the instructors asked each watch to nominate 2 guys who will be the sea expedition leaders for the following 2 days.. oh and the hidden oasis that abidin was talking about referred to the toilets found in camp 1.. err right..

we got warm green bean soup for supper.. yummy!! :D hahahhahaha ronald and i were the 2 nominated from Kurt(our watch) to be the sea expedition leaders, Munshi nominated amerpal and gabriel, Marshall nominated edmond and arun, Bo Seng nominated jia lei and sean. when everyone else had been briefed on what to bring the next morning and dismissed, the 8 sea expedition leaders had to stay back and discuss the positions.. jia lei and sean would be the navigators cos both of them are in scouts, edmond and arun were the port side markers, amerpal and gabriel were the starboard side markers and ronald and i were the sweepers.. hahahahahahah with that, we had to go back to our dormitories and start packing..

OBS DAY 4

2007-09-01T08:15:00.000-07:00

today's the day for our sea expedition!! woke up at 0500 to bring all the equipment down from our dormitories store to the "one for all, all of one" place.. my back was aching like crap cos i slept on a dang rock throughout the whole night..

met at 0555 for morning p.t. and wake-your-friends-up games.. coool!! i met bryan lauw and wenhan!! hahahhaha they were in shackleton.. met back at the "one for all, all for one" place to start briefing and wearing life vests.. there was a sea expedition leaders gathering and Yvonne told us the guidelines on what to brief them about and we had to discuss and come up with the details.. i was appointed the spokesperson for the sea expedition leaders which meant i will convey what we have discussed to the rest of the fleet.. after the briefing we were all ready to start moving the kayaks (which i kept getting mixed up with canoes until everyone corrected me.. hahahhaha), paddles and load equipment onto the boats.. had a safety briefing at the Indiana, which is dang cool.. reminded me of pirates of the caribbean..

before we got out to sea, the sea expedition leaders, (which were shortened to sea-ex leaders by the instructors, which was then shortened to S-EX or SEX leaders by the fleet..hahahahha XD, had a last briefing in which i told everyone bout the plan for the diamond shape and did a final cheer which went something like, Me: "Are you guys ready?" The rest: "yes..." Me: "i can't hear you.." The rest: "lol u deaf arh?" Me: "walao.." hahahhahhahah i got jacked by the rest... hahahahhah

then it was time to go!! as planned, the navigators, port side markers and starboard markers would go out to sea first, then the rest would follow fill in the spaces to try to create a diamond shape.. ronald and i would be the last to push off cos we were sweepers.. the route was to head for camp 2 first as a warm-up and then head to coney island and then on to sembawang.. while heading back to camp 1, it started raining and it was a cat 1 which meant heavy rain and lightning.. so we beached up back at camp 1.. and waited till 1230 for cat 1 to pass.. during that time, the sea ex leaders had to get together to discuss the break times, lunch times, route and expectations of the fleet..according to Yvonne, at 1400, the tides will be against us at a resistance of 0.4.. which meant we had to paddle doubly hard and gain as much ground as possible.. before leaving, we had another briefing with the fleet where i told the fleet bout the currents and the break times.. finally it was time to go.. before we left, i tried doing another cheer in which i got jacked again just like above.. hahahhahaha

the channel crossing was quite fun.. hahahhahaha the instructors were shouting at us to keep going before a ship came and ram us.. hahahahhaha we reached coney island and started our journey!! hahahahhah being sweeper is really quite fun.. u just have to keep up with the last kayak.. and the last kayak usually moves dang slow.. omg and the navigators were always moving fast so the gap widened between the front and the back.. so occasionally, we would ask the navigators to slow down.. which they didn't really do.. hahahhahha i think the whole fleet was pissed at the navigators for going so fast..

at round 4 plus.. we stopped for a break in which the instructors called for a sea-ex leaders briefing.. they told us that we only covered around half the distance in 3 hours plus and reaching sembawang before sunset was impossible due to the speed at which the whole fleet travelled.. besides from 1700 to 1800, the resistance of the tides would increase from 0.4 to 0.7.. they gave us a choice of either returning to camp 1 or continuing on to sembawang.. we voted 6:1:1(neutral) to go back to camp 1.. so we went back and rafted up in the 4 separate watches.. i told kurt that i had good news and bad news.. the bad news is we had only travelled half the distance and we need to travel that distance again.. omg every one's faces immediately dropped.. but the good news is we were going back to camp 1.. at that moment, it took a while for the words to register in every one's brains.. their faces immediately lit up and everyone was raring to go.. hahahahha

so we turn our kayaks around and set off for camp 1.. it was much easier this time round cos the tides was pushing us forward rather than backwards.. did the channel crossing as before and the instructors suddenly asked everyone to gather.. i knew we were going to do something else cos obs never cancels an activity without replacing it with another.. they told us that we had a choice: go back to camp 1, have a nice shower and eat and sleep, OR go to camp 2, where we can experience what others went through like no showering cos all our towels were left in camp 1.. of course, everyone wanted to go back to camp 1 but in the end we went to camp 2.. hahahahaha the way they proposed the options was slanted towards us choosing to go to camp 2.. so there's not much of an option..

yeps, so beached up at camp 2 at around 1905.. realised we kayaked for 6+ hours.. had to drag the kayaks and paddles up to the area outside the boat shed.. joel peed in his shorts duirng the briefing cos he drank too much water and his urine kidna dripped onto the floor and congregated in a puddle.. yeah.. then went to pitch our tents in the dark and ate in the dark.. i think camping at camp 2 was a better idea cos we could meet our friends from the rest of the 16 watches based at camp 2.. hahaha met george, kevin, xiangan, dinesh, bryan lauw, chris, john, amos etc.. found out that the watch, cheng ho, and some others have never been to camp 1.. which is so sad.. hahahahaha kevin was wearing this kodak towel as a cape and was like "nein, ich bin kodak man" when i asked him whether he was spiderman.. hahahhahah met back at the boatshed for a final debriefing and packing and went straight back to our tents to sleep..omg i went to xiangan's tent and realised the tents that camp 2 watches used was seriously small and clustered.. our dome tents were so much bigger and nicer as compared to theirs..

Yeps..

-Aaron

OBS DAY 5!!

2007-09-01T07:29:00.000-07:00

Yeps, so today we woke up at 05 55 again for the usual routine of p.t. and waking-your-friends-up games.. most of us were all like jelly fish, just floating around cos we were mostly too tired from yesterday's sea expedition.. so after breakfast in which Bo Seng took our digestives biscuits, we started preparing for the return to camp 1 by loading all the bins and tents onto the safety boats.. once again sea-ex leaders had to gather and start supervising.. that's one thing bad about being a leader for this kinda stuff, you want to help your friends carry the stuff but the instructors want to hear your voice supervising them.. there's a conflict in the roles you must play and some people will comment on your eye power.. oh well..

yeps, so we set off from camp 2 to camp 1 with me and ronald being the sweepers again.. helped push off the kayaks before we set off.. the instructors tried to make us form a diamond shape but to no avail.. it's nearly impossible to form a diamond shape in the sea.. it was an easy 20 mins paddle to camp 1 where we had to beach up, wash the kayaks, paddles and life vests and once again, we had to unload the safety boat and some complained of tired eyes from all that eye power.. hahahahha XD john foo's sunblock kinda spilled out during the paddling and he had SPF 50 sunblock all over his left butt.. it looked like winter on his shorts.. hahhahaha

then we had to gather for a circle and the sea-ex leaders were called upon to give the group a final de-brief and what they taught bout the whole expedition and i was like "i believe each and everyone of us here has done very well so we all deserve a round of applause" hahahahhah then the instructors wanted the whole fleet to describe the expedition in 3 words and our infamous navigator jia lei said, "damn pro navigator" to which we all clapped and said "good joke" hahahahahaha did a final josephian cheer and proceeded to bring our stuff back to our dormitories store.. oh the "weaved cube" that we were supposed to find is actually friendship!! friendship forged during the sea expedition weaves us together.. real meaningful..

ronald and i quickly grabbed 28 bottles from the cluster of bottles on the ground.. Bo Seng saw what we were doing and did the same.. hahahahhah we carried the water bottles back to the store.. it was freaking heavy.. we decided to pour away the water inside since we would be doing that later on as well.. then it became sooo light we could make it swing round and round the bamboo pole..Yeps.. so back at stall, i had to supervise as the store i.c. some went to wash the camping equipment while i checked the quantity of the store items.. found we were missing four bottles, 1 compass, 1 whistle, 1 tent peg.. hahahah had to run around grabbing stuff and ended up we only lost 4 bottles and 1 tent peg.. which the whole watch paid $3.40 for.. omg munshi lost 1 bagpack.. which meant the whole watch had to pay $120 for the backpack.. like omg how can a watch lose a bagpack? it's so big?! Yeps, by the time we were done scrubbing the toilets upstairs and packing the store, we were late by 1 hour.. according to zippy and narf, the canteen stopped serving at 1245.. so when we got there at around 1245, they were still serving!! so zippy and narf had lied to make us move faster.. hahahahah had a very delicious lunch in the canteen, making it the 4th provided meal over the stretch of 5 days.. hahahahhaha feel so lucky to be in camp 1.. those in camp 2 can't enjoy so many cooked meals!! :D

met back at the multi purposee hall for the last activity.. we were supposed to do a final last element but because we overshot the timing by an hour, the activity was switched to souvenir shopping!! hahahha we rushed to the souvenir shop and started choosing.. daniel bought one of everything.. from the stitch on badge to the keychain to the giant mug to the round neck and collared shirts to the pencil case.. hahaha crazy dude.. i bought 1 round neck and 1 collared shirt.. they didn't have the black collared shirt on hand so i chose white.. dang should have gotten the royal blue one.. hahhahahaha it's dang fun to shop!!

went back to the hall for a final briefing and received our certs and stickers.. took the symphony boat back to punggol point jetty at around 3.20 for dismissal.. hahahahahhah said bye to the instructors.. kinda sad.. cos narf was a really good instructor.. hahahha omg zippy being hyper as usual, tried to turn on the radio on the boat for us.. she accidentally unlatched the radio control from the radio set itself so it dropped to the floor.. then when she finnally switched the radio on, she played classical music for a while before tuning to FM98.7 cos we were all dying.. hahahahahhahha

My cert!!

hahahaha yeps so went home and had a nice normal dinner.. yay!! i only suffered 3 mosquitoes bites for the whole camp!!! :) hahahahhahahha obs was real fun!! :D

-Aaron

2007-08-26T07:21:00.000-07:00

yeps, going for obs tomorrow!! hope it's not as freaky as lydia describes it.. hahahaha XD here i come wild boars!!

i think i'm more excited bout getting back from obs then anything.. somehow i would rather go for BMT then obs.. then again.. maybe not.. ahhaha at least obs will prepare me for outfield.. :)

i will miss modern civilisation, my phone which i just got back, my family and friends, my warm bed and bolster especially, my cards since i can't bring them there, my daily cup of chinese tea, proper meals, internet, t.v. and most of all: the feeling of just being close to you...

wish me luck people!! :D

Aaron

2007-08-25T07:08:00.000-07:00

omg i can't believe it.. OBS is just like 2 days away.. :( i don't wanna go for obs.. and they don't allow us to bring army uniform for long pants.. which was what i wanted to do.. :( and my army cap doesn't fit me anymore.. and i can't find the army harvesack that is supposed to be part of the standard battle order.. and i still haven't gotten my aquatic shoes.. and i haven't written my will yet.. :( and because of OBS, they've cancelled training which means i can't play with those rifles.. :(
nevermind, i will view OBS optimistically and face it cheerfully.. bite all ye want mozzies, u will never suck out my spirit!!.. k now that was some random thingy.. hahahaha

anyway, i just got a new post.. i'm not the unofficial official armourer!! cos i'm the only one who knows how to open the heavily guarded armoury!! hahahahahahah yay!! we took the rifles out of a spin on friday.. just to get a feel of them and they are freaking heavy.. and they seriously need oiling and wiping.. and mdm has selected me and dinesh to write the article for NCC(LAND) for the Josephian annual.. and it must be submitted when school reopens.. :)

yeps, just got back from watching the last few minutes of the campus superstar results show.. the little boy won..

i would like to bid edward farewell.. he left for america this afternoon at 1p.m. 333 would always miss you and you know that!! hahahaha bon voyage!!

That's edward!!

omg and the class blog has finally been reviewed and unflagged.. seems it's a potential spamming site according to blogger.. now it isn't!!

Yeps that's bout it..

Aaron

-you're wrong.. the first thing i miss when i'm back from OBS is not the sea or the sand.. it's you...

2007-08-19T06:51:00.000-07:00

wheeew... been designing these few days.. the pds crest and the class blog.. both of which are not quite done.. wheew and found out on friday that sji's amoury has M4 or M5 rifles!! actuall useable rifles!! so we can practise/perform pds using those rifles!! since no one is using them to shoot anymore.. yay!! so next training, we are gonna draw arms!!

that's the pds crest that i designed.. must go add some colour and stuff to it..

yeps.. omg rush hour 3 is dang nice!! i hope there's gonna be a rush hour 4.. that'd be dang cool!!

Aaron

u are still the best ever..

2007-08-16T07:27:00.000-07:00

Quick update on me life so far.. Common tests 3 are over!!! YAY!!! and i passed me E math!! 65!!! like finally.. hahahahaha Anyway, according to eugene, mdm has ordered the pds rifles which are on their way so i can finally play with a rifle of me own!!! hahahahha then we can have daily training for PDS to synchronise the whole squad.. PDS p.t. would be rather fun as well!! :P

Yeps.. met up with the 6E people on wednesday.. went to cine.. i wanted to watch simpsons!!! but ended up watchinhg secret.. omg i almost fell asleep during the show.. then the girls kept disturbing us.. hahahaha the rugby scene was real fake.. omg simpsons would have been much better.. then went to take neos.. not my idea.. but oh well.. hahahahaa :)

Can't wait for rifles.. dread obs.. :( Yeps..

Aaron

-u are still the one..

2007-08-05T07:23:00.000-07:00

had a lot of fun yesterday at edward's farewell party.. reached there at round 5.30.. proceeded to start cooking as "Chef".. hahahha we had lots of fun barbequing the chicken wings... George was supposed to fan the fire, but he ended up fanning the chicken.. Xiangan took a bite out of one chicken wing to test whether it was cooked and threw it back with the rest.. had to seclude his chicken in a corner..but lost sight of it after a while.. so i guess someone might have found his chicken to taste abit weird.. hmmm.. hahaha yeps..

after the bbq, we started the whole performance.. we played SJI charades, where basically u had to act a teacher of a student and people would guess.. yea.. lotsa funny imitations.. then george did his stand-up comedy bout people in our class.. hahahahaha the one bout ruizhi a.k..a Junior Josephian was hilarious.. hahahahha then they started singing "Perfect" by Simple Plan, which is kinda like 333's class anthem.. yeps.. we're cool.. then it was time to cut the cake as we celebrated George's, Edwards' and er...Singapore's birthday.. hahahhaha dang fun..

The best part however was after the cake.. i didn't really wanted to go into the pool but what the heck, it's gonna be fun.. so i offered to be dunked after amos got dunked.. cooool.. timothy tjakrawrinata and keith? dunked me into the pool by lifting me up by my arms and legs and swinging me hammock-style into the pool.. it's quite coool when u hit the water.. not pain at all.. rather cooling.. hahahhhaa then we started acting like navy seals.. a few of us would suddenly surface and drag people into the pool... hahahahhaha dang fun.. but many got away cos they claimed that they didn't have extra clothes.. dang.. suddnely.. junteng's soccer ball flew into the poool and he flew into the pool and we started playing captain's ball in the pool.. yeps the pool wasn't so deep.. 1.7m so i could kinda stand in the pool.. hhahhahahaha captain's ball was dang fun.. amos tried pulling my pants down at one time and junteng was all over me... hahahahha then qijian would heckle amos by splashing water around amos.. hahhahaha we ended the game at round 2130h.. and i'm glad to say.. WE WON!!! woohooo!!! hahahahhaha next time after common tests, we're definitly gonna play captain's ball in the pool again!!

xiangan's dad was nice enough to drop me, sean and nigel home... yeps..

Aaron

2007-07-29T07:25:00.000-07:00

COoool.. SJI bagged prizes in all 4 categories of the Lit festival on saturday!! Mrs Beryl Ang and Mr. Ghazali will be treating us all to lunch!!! YAY!! :)

attended precision drill squad(PDS) training on thursday.. yeps.. when everyone else were taking advantage of the early release and going town.. it was raining cats and dogs and water.. and the bus driver wouldn't reverse to fetch us from the school gate.. so alec, damien and i had to run 70m towards it in the rain in our full no.4 and bags.. :( was dripping like a tap when we finally got on the bus.. luckily the rain stopped before the training started if not we would be spinning rifles in the rain.. not a very pleasant thought.. wow.. found out we are actually practising to perform during the SAF open house.. nvr knew that.. our instructor was a master sergeant from the MP PDS.. he's real good at it. omg the rifles are dang cool.. i think they are mark v rifles.. and they are real old.. dating back to world war 1/2? They are even heavier than the rifles used now.. Cooool.. some people had rifle parts dropping off the rifle.. yeps.. they are antiques.. wheew.. training was fun but tough.. we had to hold the rifle in the same position till everyone had the same angle before we proceeded to the next step and my arms almost fell off cos it was so cramped up.. now it's okay though.. took a few days to recover..

had a very slack training on friday.. played soccer and practised the pds routine with the school's wooden rifle, which is a not very accurate representation of the real PDS rifle.. thought of a few moves to be added into our performance routine.. yeps.. we have to perform during the next school event.. cooool.. i came up with this dancing round your rifle thingy which both alec and i thought was rather spastic..

common tests are so close i can hear their breaths.. sigh.. must go mug..

Aaron
hmm..wonder why u don't come online nowadays.. u must be busy..

2007-07-25T07:51:00.000-07:00

ouch.. my head hurts.. my ass hurts.. my back hurts.. dang during touch rugby today, i was running forth with the ball, went on to the wet patch and slipped and i fell on my ass, bounced off the ground, fell on my head this time and my brains are now shaken.. worse still, there was a math test during the course of the day and my brain juices were kinda flowing around in my skull during the test.. stil having headache now.. :( lesson learnt.. i will bring my boots and wear them the next time round though they are kinda small and old.. (i need new boots!!) better sore feet then splattered brain..

dang there's pds training tmr in full no.4!! i was supposed to watch harry potter tmr!! ARGH.. now must postpone it to next week.. hope it's still screening.. :) yay.. finally finished deathly hallows.. such a masterpiece.. yeps..

Aaron

2007-07-21T08:33:00.000-07:00

Back from Renaissance.. wow.. cool concert.. though it was a bit screwed up.. hahahahha the video could not play when it was supposed to play, and the sound didn't come on when it was supposed to come on.. hahahaha

i love the "We are the fumblers" song by the SJI military band alumni.. The song was created to "celebrate" one of the most eventful parades in SJI's history.. first the band was late for the parade, 2 guys fainted just waiting for the band to arrive... then one bass trombone player suffered heat exhaustion and the SJI/St pat's combined band broke formation.. then the drum major dropped his mace.. After the parade, the drum sergeant went right home with the band room keys.. so the whole band waited till half past 12 midnight just for him to return with the keys.. some parents called the police over their "missing" children.. yeps.. so it was all a big fumble.. dang coool parade..

More photos:

Lennart Green's autographs on my decks!!

OOh, i bought this old magic magazine today.. it's dang cool..

That's the cover page.. Yeps.. it's the original print!!

That's how old the mag is.. before i was even born!!

Yeps, and i still am dang pissed at the phone incident.. Yes, a teacher catches a student using the phone in class. There are so many ways to proceed. 1) Confiscate his phone immediately. 2) Confiscate his phone, then inform the parents. 3)Confiscate his phone and inform the class tutor. I think she should have done no.3. At least inform the form tutor before going straight to the head of level. It's like jumping authority when you just go immediately to the head of level without the courtesy of discussing the course of action with the form tutor. Oh when something negative like confiscation of phones is taking place, it is only polite not to stand there and smile, as though it is like some funfair taking place.

Aaron

2007-07-20T06:21:00.000-07:00

OMG today's the most unluckiest day of my life.. EVER. I'm dang freaking pissed.

Disclaimer: The content below is entirely based on personal opinions and does not constitute part, or wholly to flaming. As the diary puts it, the final interpretation of the content rests with the author himself, namely me.

Wei jee was caught playing with his phone during elect class and C.L. not only confiscated his phone, she told B.T., who is the acting head of level. So B.T. storms in during math and made everyone stand up with hands in the air, like criminals. Then he started going on about the school rules and stuff and made everyone surrender their phones, which he confiscated. He collected round 20+ phones and he didn't give back our sim cards.. Yes, school policy dictates that the sim card must be given back to students upon confiscation. So he's not acting in cohesion with school policy. To make it worse, he barred us from bringing our phones to school for the rest of the term or year. He also threatened to keep our phones until the end of the year. Oh and she was still standing there with a smirk on her face. How lovely.

Those who did surrender their phones are also not allowed to bring their phones to school. So they got punished for obeying the school rules. Highly ironical. So basically what has happened is that from 1 guy being punished to 20+ guys' phones getting confiscated to 35 guys not being able to bring their phones to school? Wow. This matter has clearly been un-clearly blown out of proportion.

The head of level wouldn't do such a thing. He would give us a warning and then do some spot checks here and there just to make sure. Where did the spirit of community, which is ironically located among the 3 core values, disappear to? How can there be community when forgiveness is not included? For such a small matter, it has been blown up to a big issue. Sure, we flouted one of the rules. Nevertheless, a mountain out of a molehill, i say.But it's only the first time for our class no? All the other classes would surely churn out the same or even more number of phones not being surrendered before lessons start.

Poor wenhan, he got suspended from the prefectorial board because he didn't surrender his phone. The suspension was carried out in a very cruel and unkind manner, asking him to strip out the tie and badge in front of the whole class. A personal talk outside the class would have been much better.

Great, we have a concert tomorrow at the NUS cultural centre which ends at round 9-10. How do we contact our parents? Through almost non-existent public phones? Through the borrowing of a friend's phone that has probably been borrowed many time?

Sure we are to be blamed for not surrendering our phones but even more surely is that the matter per se has not been settled in a satisfying and compromising way.

Disclaimer: Once again, everything you have read above is based on personal opinions being typed out and should be in no way regarded or interpreted as flaming material. Any hint of sarcasm or insult detected is based on reader's personal interpretations and should not be stated as factual.

Anyway, today's racial harmony day was fun, as usual. We were treated to a screening of Hotel Rwanda which i think is one of the best movies ever. dang nice.. Tutsis versus Hutus. War is really a stupid thing altogether. Yeps.

Aaron
Aaron

2007-07-16T07:02:00.000-07:00

it's been a long time since i blogged!! Yeps, last wed, i attented the Lennart Green Magic lecture at City Bayview hotel from 7.30-10.30p.m.!! omg it's the coolest lecture ever!! and my parents were cool to let me go for it even on a school day!! :) Lennart Green, who is from Sweden, is considered one of the masters of magic, especially for cards. When he was still unknown, he performed during the Federation Internationale des Societes Magiques or FISM international competition and was disqualified because the judges thought he cheated during the performance because everything he did was just impossible!! 3 years later,he joined FISM again and this time he allowed the judges to shuffle the cards and was finally awarded the coveted World Champion Close up Card Magician.. Yeps, that's how good he is!! The function room was cold... dang cold.. finally he walked in and wow.. he is a real nice guy!! his english was quite fluent though he's swedish.. and he's reallll funny.. hahahhaha

the master before his perfomance..

That's one of his most famous effect, he will be blindfolded and will pick out the cards in order belonging to any suit called out from a shuffled deck!! He claims the thing sticking out is to maintain contact with the mothership.. XDD

Yeps.. hahahahha had the SJI info day on Saturday.. wow.. we had to introduce the diploma programme to parents and we had a lot of fun.. Alex was gushing over emma watson and katie leung and arjuna was gushing over emma watson... and i was gushing over the rocks like a waterfall..hahahhahaha XD we played golf as well!! with personal coaching from Mr. Chua!! hahahahha

went out with the cousins on sunday to go play tennis.. was playing and then it started drizzling..luckily it stopped after a while and we continued!! so fun.. i'm starting to like tennis!! hahahhaaha went to auntie's house to grab a drink and i drank like $10 worth of wine? hahahahah after that we ate durian!! yeps..i know.. alcohol and durian = recipe for disaster.. but nothing happened!! :D hahahha then the topic of the conversation swung from my phone's unlock code to why people consume alcohol.. hahahaha yeps.. random topic.. and all the coool stories came forth!! hahahahhaha :D

Aaron

2007-07-06T07:19:00.000-07:00

omgomgomg there's this guy on the SMC forums selling a deck of Jerry Nugget's playing cards for only $180!!! omgomgomg i want that deck!!! it's a card collector's dream!!! ARGHHHH!!! i wanna get it!!

coool.. dad and mum bought this 3+2 Italian sofa set.. it's like cream coloured and i think the accent of the coffee table is not rich enough to complement it.. oh well maybe it's time to get a new coffee table!! :D i always wondered why they never call it a tea table.. TEA ROCKS!! yeps.. tea table sounds wayy cooler than coffee table.. XD

Aaron

2007-07-05T07:25:00.000-07:00

ooh, timetable got reshuffled... hahahahaha k i'm lagging in the announcement of this.. wheeew.. so now we have 2 math, 3 sciences on the same day!!! and the 3 science periods are 1 after another.. omgomgomg.. we have p.e. for first period and we are not allowed to wear p.e. attire to school..which is rather sad.. :( hahahaha

ooh, they handed out the OBS forms today.. dang, it will be on 27th to 31st August.. which means we will miss out teacher's day celebrations and i will not be able to go back to WGPS!!! ARGH!! noooo.. unless i go for OBS Sabah.. which is 12 days.. nay.. i'll stick with the local one!! :)

yay!! our seats got reshuffled so now i'm sitting next to ARJUNA!!! hahahahahahah it's like hiking in bukit timah.. everyday's a new experience!! hahahaha he's danggg random, sometimes calling me "dear" and "darling" just to make me feel insecure.. i've no idea what he's talking about sometimes.. hahahahah and he acts dramatic just to entertain me? hahahahahha dang cool.. and George is sitting behind me!! hahahahahah so we are kinda laughing at Arjuna the whole day.. and george has a few names.. he can be called George, Ivan, Abraham, tomivan and potassium. hahahahahhah and his correction tape is called thomas..cos he borrowed his brother's correction tape and his brother's name is Thomas and it was stuck to the correction tape.. so when i wanna borrow it, i'll be like "George can u lend me Thomas?" then he will be like "i didn't bring thomas today, i brought George.." hahahahah like omg we 2 are seriously spastic.. George and Benjamin would be speaking in malay throughout the whole day to which Arjuna exclaims "It's sooo boring when they talk in malay, i can't eavesdrop!!" hahahahahahahahah omgomgomg and Arjuna will be telling me bout Ms Chia, Mr Kwang and Mr Ho.. it's entertaining sitting next to Arjuna!! hahahahahhahah
:D

yay, anniversary parade is coming up on saturday!! soon we can take over and do anything!! hahahahhahhahaha yay!! finally after 3 years..

Aaron

2007-07-03T06:12:00.000-07:00

Young Enterpreneruship challenge-national enterprise convention on saturday was quite fun!!! went to singapore polytechnic for the workshop.. woots realised i slotted in Terence instead of tze yang.. woops.. hahahah omg we need to come up with a business proposal by 13th july!! Big problem there.. cos we do not even have any idea of what to sell!! ARGH.. hahahaha must go cook up some weird invention...

MILKRun was fun!!! :) hahahaha was kept busy througout the whole of sunday just because of the stall.. hahahah everything was rather messy especially in the first part: the ice and drum were delivered wrongly, the ice were melting very fast cos i was too near them.. hahahahhahha XP, i had to order more drums to store the extra ice, ice mountain was sold out even though they were giving it for free somewhere else, had a lot of coke and sprite and green tea left over!! dang.. now i must re-sell it during anniversary parade which is on 07/07/07..(oh if u are thinking of buying a drink on that day, come on down to SJI at around 5+p.m., and buy a drink!! :D

i miss shanghai like mad!!!! :(

Aaron

2007-06-27T07:24:00.000-07:00

yay!! back from live firing today!! ARGH!!! i am 1 shot away from marksman!!! ARGHH!!! i got only 9/10.. dang.. i think my last shot hit the board or somewhere around.. cos i was so tired holding the rifle up in prone position.. ARGH!! my first 5 shots with the sandbag support were all clustered.. dang nice!! omg and the rifles are real loud.. i took off my ear plug just to listen and it wasn't really ear shattering but still loud!! hahahah it's dang cool firing real bullets!!! u feel powerful.. hahahahha XD

omg poor jeremy chia.. he was firing and firing and firing and he got burnt!! by the empty bullet casings that flew out of the dust cover.. he's dang unlucky.. the 2 shells..(yeps.. not only 1 by 2!!) as usual flew out of the dust cover on the right but they rolled to somewhere near his exposed waist (which should not be exposed..cos he didn't straighten his uniform properly after proning..) and he kinda contacted with them.. ouch.. after being ejected from the dust cover after each shot, the shells are dangggg hot.. u can still feel the heat of them after the firing is over.. so poor jeremy had to go see the medic where he was treated for burns at his waist.. ouch.. and jun hong has somewhat a same experience.. he brushed aside a shell that had flown over to his side and his fingers are now hurting cos they got slightly burned..

i need a new bag!!! :D

Aaron

2007-06-26T07:44:00.000-07:00

wow.. watched the school's SYF gold performance today at the PAC along with some magic show.. hahahahha dang coool.. the drama performance was dramatically dramatic.. couldn't really understand the sec 1's performance that was before the SYF performance.. OMG the magic show was quite cool.. hahahahha jian fei is quite good.. it wasn't a really good venue to show card stuff though.. cos some cannot see the deck changing colour etc

There was this talk on sexuality on monday and the guy who presented was one of the famous magicians in Singapore: Andrew Khong!! omg.. he seemed like a cool guy.. and i got to talk to him.. hahahaha i love his dove manipulation act!! k maybe i should consider doing stage magic rather than cards.. that'd be dang cool!!

mr. soo was asking me to go join the Singapore Magic Circle 1st ever Legerdemain Magic Competition.. it falls on the 22nd sept which coincidentally is my birthday!! hahahha i dun think i am joining though.. it's like so close to end of years.. :( oh wells.. next time perhaps!!

Aaron

SCHOOL'S STARTING!!

2007-06-24T06:13:00.000-07:00

omgomgomgomg holidays are going to be over in a few hours.. luckily my holiday homework are more or less completed.. hahahahah except the projects which have collected a lot of dust.. must start doing them once school reopens which is tomorrow.. rather depressing thought.. hahahahah nvm, must look at it positively!! School is fun!! But lessons are not.. :( hahahahahahhah

yay, i managed to watch the 2 films of the Ju-on series. hahahahah omgomgomg it's dang funny and spastic..it's not scary at all.. :( i kept laughing when the boy appears.. he's quite cute!! and i still can't draw any conclusions after watching the whole thing.. hahahahha

omg school's starting tomorrow and it's going to be a hectic week.. i still have to go discuss the stall for the MilkRun on Sunday.. Dang.. my logistics are found wanting.. it's real tough organinsing..

sometimes i wonder if i should still clutch at this straw.. to continue or not to continue.. a sign would be good..

Aaron

Interesting Things that took place!! hahahahha(Edit)

2007-06-12T00:48:00.000-07:00

Wheew.. i'm back from China.. miss it a lot.. miss u a lot.. hahahahahha not sure miss which one more.. hahahahahha k

Lotsa stuff took place over the course of 10 days and these are all of it!!! Ready?

1) Our favourite game----->Taiti!! omg they were playing taiti almost every night.. hahahahah i wasn't cos i was bowling, pooling, sleeping, ironing(details are in later posts..) hahahahah sometimes they play RMB 0.50 per card left.. hahahaha

Taiti in action using Ghost cards!! :)

2) Our 2nd favourite game----> INDIAN POKER!!! hahahahahhaha i introduced this game to the rest.. hahahahha Me, yiwen, tim and junteng were playing it on the second night and poor tim had to drink a lot.. hahahaha me and junteng escaped with only having to drink once or twice.. In the middle of the game, tim had to go toilet.. so we came up with this evil plan to arrange the cards.. so he would lose.. he has already drunk like 4/5 cups? hahahahha so we arranged the cards.. and he came back.. and guess who lost? TIM!!! hahahahahha so he was about done drinking his 5/6 cup when i was like "err.. how many more rounds?" Junteng was like "2.." I was like "not 2.. still got 3 more.. this round voided..cos the cards were arranged.." At this point, Tim just stoned there.. hahahahaha then he realised he had drunk another cup of water for nothing!!! hahahahahahaha but he was too bloated with water to kill anyone of us.. so evil of us.. muhahahahahahha :P poor tim.. Then Junteng was like "I'm thirsty" cos he haven't drunk a single cup yet.. then the next round he lost!!! hahahahaha so he had to drink... hahahahahha he just cursed himself.. The other groups that played INDIAN POKER on the other nights used "Honey water" as punishment.. ahhahahah i think it's Coke + water + sprite? hahahahhha

3)Our Favourite Activity---->TAUPOK!!!! A lot of Taupoks took place in Shanghai.. hahahaha k here is one of the most memorable ones.. Note: Taupok is a very fun activity that aids community bonding.. All taupoks carried out are carefully controlled to make sure the guy getting taupoked is not going to be injured. Please carry out all Taupoks carefully!!

PROJECT RUNESCAPE:
It's called Runescape cos the target is Ryan Singh.. His initials are RS, hence Runescape. No one really likes him so he was the first target.. The original plan was for the taupok party to be in room 1404 in Dorure International hotel in Shanghai.. I would call Ryan's room, inviting him and jonathan up to play "runescape".. Jonathan is part of the Taupok party too.. hahahaha so when everyone is hiding and ready, a few of us would pretend to play taiti on the bed when Ryan comes.. When he enters, there are 2 plans: Plan A, Timothy would shoot at Ryan and that would act as a trigger to make Ryan run into the room and then we would pull him on the bed and Taupok him.. Plan B: When Ryan walks in, Jonathan would push him forward and we would drag him on the bed and taupok him!! hahahaha but then again, we were taught a valuable lesson that day.. Things often do not go according to plan.. I called Ryan and he didn't wanna come.. so George was like "let's go to him!!" Ryan stayed on the 13th floor. So the whole gang went to the lift and guess who we met coming up? It was Ryan and Jonathan!! So we were all shocked and ran back to 1404.. Ryan came running after us.. he still didn't know bout anything yet.. K so the plan wasn't going to work cos he was already inside and sitted.. So i had to make up Plan C.. which was something like.."k now everyone's here.. let's play Runescape!! K first take off your shoes cos we are going to stand on the bed.." Everyone did. "K, now take off your specs in case they break.." This was like a God sent opportunity.. In the original plan, after taupoking him, someone needs to pull Ryan's specs off before more people jump on top.. So now there was no need to pull off his specs while keeping him pinned down cos he took it off himself.. "K now everyone get onto the bed" Knowing Ryan, he will probably jump onto the bed first, which he did.. then it was time.. we all shouted "Project Runescape!!!!" and Lu Han dragged Ryan down and everyone went on top.. hahahahahah it was dang fun... but Ryan wasn't Taupoked properly cos his head was sticking out of the bed while it should have been his whole body on the bed.. so we couldn't put too many people on top.. ahhahahaa i was kinda slow in taking pictures.. i was like "wait wait haven't take yet!!" while they were all getting up.. hahahaha still managed to get a pic though.. :) hahahaha Ryan was okay with everything and we went on to plan other Projects.. XD

Project Maplestory/Gorilla:
Maplestory refers to Brian Har who is crazy over maplestory and everyone wanted to taupok him for fun, especially Lu han, his roommate.. Gorilla is Zhi Xun who is hated by everyone.. Project Gorilla didn't take place cos we all knew that he would go and tell the teachers after being Taupoked.. dang.. Project Maplestory was around the same as Project Runescape.. but not on the same scale cos Brian is quite small.. The taupok room is always 1404.. So he was already there and a few taupoked him and it ended like a few seconds after he got taupoked.. not very fun..

Project Terence Lim:
hahahahahhaha k this isn;t much of a project.. A taupok plan is only deemed a project if it's planned in secrecy.. terence lim knew about the taupok way ahead of time.. hahahhahaha Justin loves taupoking terence lim.. hahahahah cos he's dang spastic and funny.. so he was always being taupoked in the rooms when we played Taiti.. hahahahha There was this incident in Shanghai though.. we all agreed to taupok Terence on the 14th floor where we all stayed.. He was like "no..no.." he wasn't really given much of a choice though.. So outside our rooms, there's this empty space where u can go there and talk or whatever.. we used it to taupok him.. hahahahha poor terence.. he's always getting taupoked.. hahahhahah he's so spastic, when i told him that Alex bought a plastic gun shooting those bullets with suction cups on the end of them, he immediately ran out of my room and was like "HEY I WANNA GET SHOT!! SHOOT ME!! SHOOT ME!!!" hahahahaha dang spastic guy..

This is Terence!!

And this is Terence getting Taupoked!! hahahah i was kinda slow in taking the pic. XD

On the last 2 nights, we had this small taupok group comprising me, yiwen, justin and brandon. We all taupoked each other first before moving from room to room to taupok others.. hahahahahhaha Justin came up with this method of taupoking called "Guerrilla method" in which u squeeze that guy's ass while taupoking him.. yea i know.. kinda weird.. only justin and yiwen did this method.. hahahaha Then we went to 1403, where Alexander and the rest were busy taupoking each other and we joined in taupoking everyonne.. Of course, to be fair, everyone must get taupoked once.. Alex came up with this new Taupok move called Reversal.. in which the first "taupoker" becomes the "taupokee".. it is done when someone jumps on top of you.. and u immediately roll to the side and jump on top of him.. hahahahahha very good way to bait your victim to taupok u... hahahahhahahhahahahah XD

TAUPOK!!!

4) hahahahahhaha LuHan accidentally got his clothes laundried for free!! He left his clothes in an NTUC plastic bag and the chambermaid took it thinking that he wanted it laundried.. Laundry was meant to be left in the specific laundry bag.. So the total cost for the whole laundry was RMB 180 and LuHan had only RMB 50 left in his wallet after only like 5 or 6 days.. hahahahha he spent a lot of food.. I think the management admitted it was an oversight on their part and did not charge him for the laundry.. dang coool.. hahahahahah LuHan is also quite unlucky.. he's always getting scammed.. He bought a pig lighter at the Hangzhou night market and found out that he could get the exact for a whole lot cheaper in Shanghai.. He bought an ice-cream for RMB 3 and found he could get one for only RMB 2.50 at another place.. hahahahahha he bought shirts for RMB 84 and found out that he could get it for RMB 50 elsewhere.. hahahahahhahah he's always being teased bout getting scammed.. hahahahha he's dang scared to ask for the prices now cos he scared later the prices are lower.. hahahahahhah XD

5) On the 3rd or 4th day, Kathleen came over and sat with us(The Black Dogs) for dinner..hahahahhahaha we were the only table that had no teacher sitting with us until then.. hahahahha from that meal onwards, no other teacher came to sit with us anymore.. hahahahhaah wonder why.. must be the jokes and comments.. hahahahahahah then on the 9th day, she came and sat with us again.. she looked a bit hesistant before sitting down.. hahahahhahaha we are a traumatising group..

6) There was this restaurant we went to for lunch on the 6th day.. it was just after the Suzhou school visit and we needed to change out of our uniforms..As usual the Black Dogs ate together.. each room had one table and each room could be serperated from each other using the sliding doors. So that's what we did. As Tzeyang pulled the doors close, 2 cockroaches scurried out and the hysteria began.. Everyone was screaming and stuff.. then Junteng was throwing the red dates around and screaming "Cockroach!!!" They really do look like cockroaches at first glance.. hahahahah we are one weird group..

7) It was at MacDonald's in Suzhou.. Stealth and Brightsparks were eating together.. so 10 of us in MacDonald's. Yiwen was at the counter ordering and he wanted some Chilli.. so he cupped his fingers and said "La Jiao".. The waiter gave him salt in a cup... HAAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH dang hilarious.. hahahahaha k on to incident 2.. So Yiwen had no use for the salt but Justin did.. He borrowed some Ketchup, squirted the Ketchup and some Coke onto the salt and waved his hand over it. Then he was like "George!!! come quickly!! There's heat from the chemical reaction!! Quick!!" So George comes running over, put his hand over the pile of mixed ingredients and was like "What heat? Where?" At this point, Justin and the rest slammed his hand into the pile and it kinda splattered.. hahahahahhahahahaha George just got pranked!!! hahahahahhahaha Justin is soooo evil.. luckily i was just watching from another table.. hahahahhaha dang bad of Justin.. and to think George lent him the Ketchup..

That is Superstar GEORGE!!! hahahahha XD and don't say "where?" :P

lalalala i really miss those fun times we had in China...and i really miss the weather in China..not the pollution though.. i really miss the prices in China.. i miss everything bout China but there's something here that cannot be found in China----> you... :)

Detailed day posts are below...10 days in total!!

DAY 1 OF HANGZHOU!!! (EDIT)

2007-06-12T00:26:00.000-07:00

Woke up at 5.30 a.m. today.. had to rush like mad cos must reach airport at 6 a.m. Dad drove to terminal 2 and stopped at the sign with "6" on it.. turns out it led to terminal 12.. so dang.. had to rush all the way to terminal 6... hahahahahahha i was among the last few that arrived.. XDD

Checked in my luggage and had to go join the rest who were about to walk in into the depature hall.. Working in the airport is quite coool!!! very nice.. hahahahahha so we were very bored walking up and down the airport cos most of the stuff are quite expensive.. so we decided to go play the X-boxes.. hahahahha i played this super dumb game where the person changes to a gorilla and hops around.. i kept hopping over the edge and dying.. :P

Lu Han and George ate Burger king while i went to the toilet.. then it was time to board the plane.. we were taking a Boeing 777(i think..) The plane was quite nice, rather new.. hahahahahahha

George was dang excited to go China cos he's Indian and Indians are rare in China.. he calls him "Superstar".. hahahahahhahaha It was dang weird inside the plane.. cos people were watching movies and listening through the headphones.. suddenly a few people would laugh.. ahhahahahahah i didn't really watch much, just kept listening to "How to save a life" by The Fray.. ahhahahaha i was really bored.. Our Instructors were Claudine and Kathleen, 2 of the few who owns the company that conducts these programmes for the school.

Wheew.. finally reached Shanghai Pudong Airport ahead of the scheduled arrival time.. had to take another 4.5 hours bus ride to Hangzhou.. and there was no lunch!!! ARGHHH.. hahahahha oh well.. We checked in at the Braim Seasons Hotel.. which was kinda boring.. ahhahahahhaha

We had dinner in Hangzhou and it wasn't very nice.. so there were a lot of leftovers.. we decided that the table in which we sat would have a permanent membership for those seated.. which means only the same people would sit at the same table each time.. It's kinda like Dudes of the Round Revovling Table.. hahahahahha

After dinner, it was time for SHOPPING!!!! wheeww.. we were brought to the Hangzhou night market where we had a lot of fun bargaining!!! especially me.. George wanted this wallet that was RMB 85.. i helped bargain it down to RMB 40.. which is quite reasonable.. hahahahhahaha the shirts there were around the same price back home so i didn't buy any...

Then we headed to a small mart that looked strangely like 7-11 but under a different name.. hahahahha i bought the instant noodles that were like RMB 2? dang cheap.. hahahahaha back to the hotel for taiti!!!

This is Yiwen, my roomate!!

Day 2 below..

DAY 2 OF HANGZHOU.. (EDIT)

2007-06-11T08:37:00.000-07:00

Wheeew.. went to Zhejiang Provincial museum this morning.. took a lot of coool shots there.. all the ancient artefacts and stuff.. had to design a brochure to promote it which i am not very good at.. hahahahahhaha

YueFei's tomb was up next. YueFei is one of the famous generals throughout Chinese history.. His actual tomb is based here.. and there were the statues of the 4 people who betrayed him kneeling down in front of his tomb. During the days of the cultural revolution, u could spit or pee on them!! cool eh? But now, it's not allowed.. Poor guy died on a charge of "maybe there is or maybe there isn't". i bought a coin with YueFei on it and "JING ZHONG BAO GUO" on the other side. dang coool.. only RMB 3.. i think i'm gonna display it somewhere.. XD

2 of the 4 traitors.. u can spit or pee on them if u want to? which i didn't..XP

Look!!! My chinese name!!!

On the way to lunch to eat the famous Hangzhou dish called "Dongpo rou", we though of a group name for those who eat at the same table. So it's me, yiwen, jun teng, tim, george, john, terence lim, lu han. We called ourselves the "Black Dogs". hahahahha George came up with it.. And for our group of 5 comprising of George, Lu Han, Terence lim, Tim and i, we decided to call ourselves "Stealth" cos u can't see us.. hahahahahhaha dang coool group name!! we invented the stealth clap by accident, cos jun teng was giving george a high-5 and he pretended to miss cos he "can't" see george.. hahahahahha we adopted that clap and called it the "stealth clap". Then came the Stealth group clap later on..

After lunch we went to Wahaha, which is one of the biggest company in China dealing with beverage.. Yeps.. it's almost everywhere.. We were shown into the boardroom and they played a video on Wahaha. We got to see the production line of Wahaha which is something no other tourist would be able to see cos it's sooooo private.. The automation was really coool.. all the guy had to do was put unopened cartons on the machine, and the machine would automatically bang it into a carton, seal the bottom, and it's ready to be packed with bottles. There's even another machine to seal the top before it gets shipped off. It's really different from watching it on t.v. Before we left, we got a free sample of the Apple Yoghurt drink that Wahaha produces!! It was still hot as it was just fresh off the production line. :D tasted quite nice!!

Next it was the Lin Biao Museum Project 704. Lin Biao was Mao Tze Tung's successor, but he tried to assasinate Mao and he did all his planning in his hidden palace underground, which we went to. It was fabulous.. the tunnels are designed in such a way that the wind would always blow through and the temperature is always cool.. there's something interesting bout this place.. if u go there 1 day, look at the walls and ceilings.. there are footprints all over the place.. those footprints were left by Mao's supporters. They stomped on the walls to show their anger at Lin Biao. Lin Biao is quite a weird guy. He's afraid of water and light. So his house needs to be waterproof and his windows have 3 layers. The first layer is a normal glass window, the second is to prevent UV rays from coming in and the third is bulletproof. quirky..

Inside the underground palace.. my footprint isn't there though.. :(

my adaptor wouldn't fit in.. :(

Had to go back to the hotel after dinner for debriefing and packing.. hahahahahah took a while to pack..

Day 3 below..

DAY 3 OF HANGZHOU.. (EDIT)

2007-06-11T07:47:00.000-07:00

oooh.. went to the Traditional Chinese Medicine museum which was built way back in the Qing dynasty.. dang cool house.. it's sooo big!!! i wanna have a house just like that!! it may be haunted though.. anyway.. the museum showcased a lot of stuffed animals!! they had this bear that had a paw cut off. So they stuffed the bear and they stuffed the paw.. and they took the gall bladder out too. All in the same exhibit. omg they even stuffed a cute lil bunny.. TCM is weird.. u can eat geckos to cure some common illness or alternatively u could just pop a pill in? Eating geckos? yuck.. not coool..

Stuffed cheetah..or leopard..definitely not lion though.. hmm.. :)

After the TCM museum, we went to the Cultural street of Hangzhou, which is rather boring cos all they sell are traditional costumes and stuff.. BUT they had this dang cool archery shop all the way at the end. You could shoot an arrow for RMB 1.. so we played 15 arrows or RMB 15.. I got 1 or 2 bull-eyes.. wheeew~~ ahahahaha dang fun.. i shot using the crossbow, longbow and short bow.. crossbow's the easiest to use and a lot of power.. short bow's the hardest.. very inaccurate.. dang.. i got an abrasion on my left arm where the bow string whipped it.. :( ahhahahah but it's still fun!!!

We headed to the Tea Museum next for a visit.. very nice.. the greenery and everything is alot nicer than back in Singapore. Somehow, the leaves here in Hangzhou are greener and crisper than those back here. i like the trees here!! hahaha we were given free sample of the highest quality Longjing tea.. which is green tea.. but produced in Hangzhou.. We could buy the tea if we wanted at RMB 300 per can for the highest grade and RMB 120 per can for the lowest grade. A lot of people bought a lot and the person helped us overpack the containers. She would pack the can full of tea leaves first, then dump a whole pile more on top and squeeze down, jamming all the extra leaves inside.. so we got more tea leaves for the same price.. hahahaha and they were giving away a free small bottle of tea for every purchase of 3 big cans or RMB 900.

Since it was still early, we headed straight for Suzhou with only one rest stop in between the 3 hours drive. The rest stop was dang cool.. there would always be someone there cleaning the floor leading to the toilets and the toilets had this huge carpet in front of it that stated the day of the week. So every single day, they would need to change the mat to suit the correct day.. dang coool..

Finally reached Suzhou!! We stayed at the Suzhou Conference hotel which is absolutely coool!! It's 5 stars? according to Kathleen.. We were lucky enough to stay at the new block which was ultraaaa coool.. they had internet connection wired to every room, automatic sensors that determine when the porch light goes on, etc. And me and yiwen got the room with the pool view!!! XDD hahahahhaaha yiwen was like looking out every now and then.. hahahahahha and we found out there's a bowling alley!! So a few of us sneaked out to go play!! k it's not really sneaking out, cos the bowling alley is located in the next block.. Then George and John didn't manage to sneak out successfully.. they got caught by Mr. Karl Lee and went back to their rooms. They tried again but this time Mr. Gary Sim was there and they had to sneak out a third time just to get to us.. hahahahah one game in the bowling alley is quite cheap.. only RMB 15 per game. but the alley and the balls were rather old.. :( hahahhaha but we still had loads of fun.. Justin would touch my ass before i bowled to "curse" me to get a gutter ball.. strangely it worked!! hahahahahhahha dang.. i must have been traumatised or something.. hahahhahahaha

Yiwen looking at his ball roll.. sounds wrong.. hmm.. :D

Day 4 below..

DAY 4 OF SUZHOU.. (EDIT)

2007-06-11T07:06:00.000-07:00

Woke up slightly later this morning.. ahhahaha we were going to Lion Forest or ShiZiLin.. and omg it's dang nice.. One of the Qing Emperors had been there before and had written only 2 words to describe it---> Zhen Qu or Truly interesting. This is a must-see for anyone who goes to Suzhou!! There are a lot of rock formations jutting out here and there and you are allowed to climb up, down, in and out of it!! the weather was also very cool.. We had to do a treasure trail activity in the park and we were purposely misleading all the other groups by stopping at some unimportant place and pretending to take pictures.. hhahahahah.. we reached the last point in the second place!!! YAY!!

Emperor Qianlong's words.. i find it truly interesting..pun intended.. :P

Next stop was the Suzhou No.1 silk mill.. i finally got to touch a silkworm!! they are so soft and small and cute!!! hahahaha the guide said that they taste like peanuts.. which i did not confirm.. hahahahha they brought us to the production line where we could see the cocoons being boiled up and silk strands being pulled.. the smell was kinda weird and disgusting.. they also brought us to another part of the mill where they showed sik strands being converted into sheets of silk and designs being painted on it.. Dang cool.. So unlike the silk factory i went to in Guilin..

Silkworms!!

The kunqu opera museum was pretty dead.. cos no one really watches it now.. even though it was the mother of operas in china.. yeps.. i wanted to watch it but Mr. lee said the previous batch almost fell asleep while watching 1 scene.. cos 1 scene is 20mins.. and they need 1 scene to say "The weather today is very nice, let's go out and view the fishes in the lake".. Not a surprise that they almost fell asleep..hahahahhaha but i still wanna see it!! they took it off the itinerary this year cos they were scared that we may just fall asleep before the performers even finish talking about the breeze..

The next one was the new Suzhou Museum designed by I M Pei.. that isn't his real name.. his surname is Pei. So when he went to U.S. people asked him for his name and he said "I am Pei." So they thought his name was I M Pei. hahahahha weird.. yeps.. the museum was a very nice place to visit too.. Even though it's new, it doesn't stick out from the rest of the old buildings beside it like an eyesore.. The architectural design of the museum makes it blend in while retaining its modern identity.. I M Pei was the same guy who designed the Lourve in Paris. cooool.. the museum is also connected to Zhong Wang Fu..which was the home of some very loyal dude.. i think..

We proceeded to Shan Tang Jie which is like Clarke Quay, except a whole lot quieter and emptier.. they are still constructing a lot of stuff there.. so it's pretty new.. and something interesting happened.. We, as in the Black Dogs, were walking in a group along the waterfront.. we saw a group of teenagers having a picnic there.. and when they saw George, they all went nuts!! hahhahaha the girls were all squealing and pulling at the guys to look at George. hahahahha They even invited us to go over but George was too shy and walked away.. hahahahaha dang coool.. hahahaha then we were walking like bodyguards with George in the middle.. hahahahha and when we were leaving on the bus, guess whom we saw? the same group!! and this time George waved at them.. hhahahahahhaha dang funny...

Yay.. back to the hotel after dinner and it was time again for bowling!!! wheeww... once again we bowled and i got the highest score!!! hahahahaha wheeew.. my arms were aching though.. so we went back to my room to iron and watch another horror movie on HBO.. it was kinda tough ironing your uniform on a table.. hahahahha kinda weird too..

Day 5 below..

DAY 5 OF SUZHOU..(EDIT)

2007-06-11T06:20:00.000-07:00

Wow.. had to wake up early this morning to prepare for the school visit.. had to wear our school uniform.. they asked us to iron it if it was crumpled.. which i did! hahahahaha the iron was pink!!

Arrived at the senior block of Suzhou no.10 school.. wow.. it was dang big and dang nice.. it used to be one of the palaces of the Qing Emperor so everything had to be nice.. it is a school but it doesn't look like one.. looks very much like some museum.. there are a lot of pavillions where students can just go and hang out.. omg their library is an entire classroom block.. wow.. if only SJI was like that.. hahahahahaha omg the girls there are also very pretty!!! and the girls to guys ratio is like 3:1? lol unlike SJI's.. which is 0:1.. XDD

They have this in their school..

and this well.. omg i love that school!!!

We had a lesson on writing couplets which is rather interesting.. even though we didn't write any.. hahahahaha cos it's quite difficult to follow up on the first verse.. then it was time for China's favourite sport----> BASKETBALL!!! Yeps, we all changed into half uniforms and headed down to the big field to play basketball with the sec 2s.. it's obvious we were going to lose.. hahahahha like whatever.. only a few of us played.. not me.. cos i was wearing my hosue t-shirt, which is red, and the rest were wearing white.. so i was standing out like red on white... yea.. omg if i played, they will surely target me!!! so i didn't.. alright confession: i don't play basketball at all.. :P hahahahahahaahaa

We seriously got trashed on the court.. even though we were bigger and older.. one guy from the other team did a three pointer!!! Then we realised it was time to release our secret weapon---> George. hahahahahaha the other team was kinda afraid to touch him.. hahahaha maybe it's because they have never seen an Indian before.. So George was like a superstar in Hangzhou and Suzhou. hahahahahaha dang cool.. But the match ended like a minute after George entered.. then we all headed back to the bus!!!

We went to Hanshan temple next.. there is a legend bout the bell that's inside.. it was built in the Liang period of the Southern dynasty.. Han Shan, a monk during the Tang dynasty, had an apprentice, Shi De. A misunderstanding caused them to be separated and ShiDe sought his master for 20 years to clear the misunderstanding and found him in the temple. Both stayed on as monks. The following year, there was a flood and a bronze bell came floated to them. The monks tried to bring the bell in but they failed so ShiDe vaulted off a bamboo pole and landed inside the bell's cavity.. and floated all the way to Japan. So to call ShiDe back, the monks cast a bell of the same size and shape and HanShan tolled the bell every day in hopes of calling him back. The sounds were so loud that they reached ShiDe in Japan and ShiDe tolled back. So their friendship continued. Hmm... weird legend eh? Yeps, u need to pay RMB 5 to go up to the tower and ring the bell.. which i did!! hahahahahahah u are only allowed to ring it thrice.. which i did!!! and u are allowed to take pictures.. which i didn't!!! :( luckily terence went up and i asked him to help me take a few pictures.. which he did!!! :D hahahahaha

That's the bell!!

We moved on to Guan Qian Jie which was a rip-off.. they started charging money recently just to go in and shop.. which is dang dumb.. and Claudine and Kathleen didn't know bout it till we reached there.. so we made a wasted trip there for nothing.. so we decided to go straight to some other road to shop!! hahahahaha we got approached by a syndicate member and it was dang cool.. he brought us to this shop where they sold fake shoes and clothes etc.. they even offered some of the rest some drugs!! lol.. we did a lot of bargaining.. for the shoes..not the drugs or the condoms.. XD TzeYang was looking at this shoe which they were selling for RMB 400? He was like can give me a price with only 2 digits? Bad bargaining.. so i stepped in and offered a last price of RMB 100.. they were like no, we can't cover our costs and etc.. so i had to pull TzeYang out of the store when they didn't give us our price of RMB 100.. finally the guy came running over and was like "okay how bout this, RMB120 is the lowest i can go.." I was like "oh he only brought RMB 100 with him.. how can he pay RMB 120?" So we were about to go off when he was like "okay..okay.. i break the rule for u students.. RMB 100" So yay!!! VICTORY!! hahahahahhaa i love bargaining!!! :D So TzeYang saved a lot buying that shoe!!!

wheew.. then we headed for dinner.. had MacDonald's which is dang cheap!! i ordered Big Mac meal and it was like RMB 16? yeps.. SGD 3+ dang cheap!! After meeting up with the rest, we headed back to the hotel for debriefing again!!

After debriefing, it was time for BOWLING!!! hahahahahha this time we played in pairs.. so i was teamed with Justin.. hahahahhaha we got 2nd or 3rd out of 4 teams.. dang.. hahahaha after the team game, we played individuals and i scored the highest score!!! hahahahahha the score could have been higher but i let alex bowled the last shot for me.. and it went into the gutter.. hahahaha nvm..

Then it was bed time!! hahahahha Yiwen and i took a few pictures in our room with me in my acquired SJI track jacket.. hahahaha i call it a joint venture between me and George.. hahahaha so his jacket became mine for a few days.. hahahahhahah thanks George!!

Day 6 below..

DAY 6 OF SUZHOU..

2007-06-10T01:59:00.000-07:00

woke up early today to go for lessons at the Suzhou No.10 school. Had a lesson on Suzhou's history.. i love that school.. it's so big and nice.. The lesson was rather dry and i almost slept.. hahhahahaha

we had lunch after that lesson. we were supposed to go to Suzhou Industrial Park after that but the bus broke down.. so we were given free time to go wander around while waiting for another bus to come along. i bought some stuff at some shop.. hahahha arrived back in time before the bus pulled off..

We finally arrived at Suzhou Industrial park. It's huge and very nice. It's a joint venture between Singapore and China and we were supposed to have 70% of the shares while China has 30%. But along the way, we got played out and we ended up transferring 40% over to the Chinese consortium. Yeps.. we pumped in millions of money into it and lost a lot. We moved to the big conference room..and there's this Chinaman talking to us about the SIP and he was rapping away.. the teachers did warn us that we might fall asleep. omg..it's true.. even the replies he gave were rappy.. turns out that he had memorised the entire script and has said the same dialogue to every single investor that goes to SIP. wow.

Then we went over to Jia Sheng's dad's company located in one of the many buildings that SIP has. His business is a joint venture between him and a Belgian firm called Bekaert. They do industrial coating. He showed us one machine that costs US$1.5 million.. that's like wowzers.. hahahaha omg he was even kind enough to give us samples of some of the things he does. So we got CD moulds, which are useless without the proper machinery. hahahhaa i gave mine to someone..

We proceeded to Shanghai immediately after the SIP visit. took us a while to finally get out of SIP and into Suzhou..it was a few hours ride before we finally reached Shanghai.. Shanghai is dang nice.. it's like both colonial and modern buildings exist together. We were given time off to go and eat on our own. We almost got lost on the way to KFC which was a good long walk from the hotel. We were staying at the Dorure international hotel which has translucent glass doors and walls for the toilet.. quite weird.. it had this cool machine in the lobby that helps u clean ur shoes!! so cooool!!!

Had debriefing and played taiti for a while before sleeping.. very tired..

Day 7 below..

DAY 7 OF SHANGHAI..

2007-06-10T00:15:00.000-07:00

Wow.. woke up at 6.00 plus today.. cos we are visiting a mulit-national company(MNC)( and they fear the jam. Coool the hotel restaurant where we eat our breakfast has this dang hot waitress.. very beautiful.. lalalalala

anyway.. we went to Bristol Myers-Squibb for the company visit. It's a pharmateutical firm that is dangggg big.. the guy talking to us is the vice president of the Shanghai branch. He gave us the brief outline of the MNC in the conference room. dang nice.. he brought us to see the production line and we had to wear the lab gear. With nice coats, lab hats, lab shoes.. i tried to get my cap to look like the beanie that britney spears wore.. but yea.. didn't really work out.
At the end of the whole thing, he gave us a free sample of the multi-vitamin that is not released in Singapore. It's dang cool..

Due to the length of time that the MNC visit took, we had to go to Raffles city first for lunch before going to the Shanghai urban planning center. yeps.. Capitaland brought over the name of raffles city to one of the malls there. It's dang cool, they even have Breadtalk!! like omg.. that's super rare. We ate at Papa John.. hahaha saw a waitress that looked like Zhang Ziyi.. hahahahhha

Shanghai urban planning centre was quite nice.. it had the model of the city of Shanghai.. the bad part was most of the exihibits were in chinese.. and there were no english translations.. :(

After that we went to the Shanghai museum which was dang coool. dang, i left my camera on the bus.. so wasted.. they were showcasing all the olden day stuff.. dang coool.. they even had the director's chair(those foldable chairs) back then in the Ming Dynasty. sweet.

Yay, today's dinner was good. We went to a restaurant called bullfighter. I ordered beef steak. hahahahaha there was this dang hot waitress there. hahahahahah the beef steak was rare.. so when i sliced into it, a lot of blood gushed out.. cooool... hahahahha and we had ice cream!!! wheeew..

Went back to hotel, had debriefing again.. and we played poool!!!! ahhahahaha there was another hot girl there.. coool.. china has a lot of beautiful girls.. XDD seriously.. Mr. Karl lee was right.. he said that Jiangnan's girls are generally better looking.. :)

Day 8 below..

DAY 8 OF SHANGHAI... (EDIT)

2007-06-09T23:27:00.000-07:00

Went to the same restaurant for breakfast again. omgomgomg the same waitress was there again.. XD Went to antique street after breakfast. I bought the little red book that Mao Tze Tung wrote!! Only RMB 15.. dang coool, flipped through it.. wow.. almost slept..

Cool, they brought us to this art street that the government wanted to tear down. But since all the artists converged there, they didn't do so in the end. We found this dang coool 100+ year old German piano. George, who is grade 5, played titanic.. the sound came out a bit weird cos one of the string snapped. Then YiShu who is a grade 8, started playing Canon D.. so the two of them just kept playing and playing.
The people working there stopped to listen. Claudine and kathleen were also invited to go see the mini performance. Of course, i had to show off my talent too eh? So i sat down and played silent night. The air resonated with the sound of silence. hahahahhaahaha i offered to play Jay Chou's Anjing but they all wanted joel to play.. for rather good reasons too.. hahahahahah XDD

That's George!!

That's the piano!!

Went to Yuyan.. ate noodles for lunch.. LuHan got scammed again. His noodles were RMB 29 but were not as nice as ours that cost only RMB 19. hahahaha poor him.. we were given a crossword puzzle and supposed to ask people for the answers. But we just filled it in based on general knowledge.

Went to some place, i think it's mo gan shan lu. it's like 1 k.m. of shopping. Think Orchard road and stretch it till it's 1 k.m. .. coool!! We discussed our businees plan in MacDonald's.. We met up with Bright Spark and they told us bout this shoe shop in some alley.. So we broke up and went together to the shop. We were a bit scared about going in cos it was located in this alley, and u had to walk into a dark passage and climb up the stairs. So we waited near there till we spotted some other tourists going in too. Then we followed. hahahha we hatched a very simple but elaborate scheme. We were all going to pretend we are malaysians. (Cos if we say we are from Singapore, they know that the exchange rate is 1:5. They will jack the price up by a lot more.)And i am the only one who knows how to speak English and Chinese. The rest were supposed to know only english and malay. Hahhaha the shop keeper thought i was from China and kept saying "dou shi zhi ji ren". hahahaha i didn't really argue with her on that point.

Joe saw a shoe that is like RMB 200 and asked me to help him bargain it to RMB 90.. hahaha the ironic thing is that he is in higher chinese and he's asking me to translate for him.. ahhahaha but that's part of the act. omgomgomg, he almost let slip a few chinese words. The shop people were rather reluctant to give us RMB 90, so we just climbed down the narrow flight of stairs and were about to go when they came over and kept saying RMB 120 is the lowest. We just told them RMB 90 is the highest and walked off. Then they came running over and were like "ok ok, 90 for u" hahahha victory!!

We went back up and while joe was fiiting into his shoe, the guy asked me where are the rest from. i was like "Malaysia". i was like "i'm from malaysia too." They were all a bit shocked, cos they kept thinking that i'm from China. Actually i was thinking to myself whether i shld tell them i'm not from China. Because if they still think i am from China, they are bound to ask me which part of China i am from. And i cannot think of any part of china that speaks the pure form of mandarin except Beijing. Since i didn't use the beijing accent from the start, it would be quite weird if i suddenly start using that accent. So i said "Malaysia!!" hahahaha omg and they complimented the way i spoke.. they were like "you speak chinese like a china chinese.." ahhahaha omgomgomg my spoken chinese is soooo dangg lousy.. hahahahaha what an elaborate scam.. hahahaha :)))))

Went back to meet the rest for dinner at Yi Cha Yi Hu. I ordered beef!!! The ambience and food were verryyy nice.. the toilet was nice too.. hahahahhaha

After dinner, it was time for the river cruise.. i almost lost my ticket!! cos i accidentally dropped it.. luckily i found it.. hahahaha the river cruise was very nice.. ahhaha the breeze on the deck was dang coooling and nice.. hahahahhaa the sights of shanghai is really dang nice.. a lot of buildings had lights all over them.. dang cool..

That's Mr. Karl Lee!!!! cool teacher.. :)

That's the pearl tower!!! dang shouldn't take pics of a boat.. :(

Went back to hotel room after cruise.. went to play pool!!!! ahhahahahhaa played from 10 till 12.35? hahahaha and omgomg i realised i had the key!!! so yiwen was kinda locked out.. hahahaha woots sorry yiwen.. but luckily he was inside tim's room watching t.v. hahahaha omg the tobacco smell on me was dang strong.. had to air my shirt. hahahaha i had to drag myself to bathe and everything.. before dropping dead on the bed.. ahhahahaha

Aaron
Day 9 below...

DAY 9 OF SHANGHAI...(EDIT)

2007-06-09T21:20:00.000-07:00

Breakfasted at 8.. almost couldn't wake up cos i played pool till so late last night.. then it was time for the Scavenger hunt.. :)) we have to travel all over Shanghai looking for clues and asking people for directions.. Each group had to make their way to the finishing line!!

We started at Jing An park.. had to look for Indonesia in JingAn park which was kinda weird cos we're in china.. so we went round and round and round.. then we saw it!! It's a restaurant called Bali Sarung or something like that. Took pictures of it and had to find a bronze dude with a bowler hat somewhere outside the park. Headed back to the Tourist infomation centre and the lady told us to just keep walking straight and we should be able to find it without crossing the road. So we did. We walked straight on and reached a junction. Because she said we do not need to cross the road, we turned right and went one big entire round around the whole construction site. Along the long journey, we saw this couple quarrelling and we were all waiting for them to start slapping and spitting at each other.. but they didn't.. so we continued walking and ended at the starting point.. We were all like dang pissed.. so we decied to go for lunch.. LuHan decied to buy an ice cream along the way, cost like RMB 3..very cheap..

Indonesia!!!
Along the way to Burger King, we saw some discs that were going at only RMB 5!! hahahha and that was the first price they gave.. poor YiWen.. he bought the exact same ones at RMB 12 per disc after bargainning.. hahahaha and that was when we found the bronze dude by accident.. he was just a few metres away from the person peddling the discs. Like wth.. the lady at the tourist infomation centre gave us the wrong info!! She herself said no need to cross the road but the bronze dude was across the road!! ARGH, should have realised that crossing roads in china is the same as not crossing roads. You just walk.. no need to stop and wait for the green man to flash or anything. ARGh! So we lunched at Burger King just opposite.. dang cheap.. RMB 21 for a Whopper meal.. Poor LuHan realised he got scammed again.. Burger king sold ice cream for only RMB 2.50.. we all came to the conclusion that LuHan is definitely 101% always scammed.

Bowler hat!!!! :)

Yay, we finally got onto the metro and travlled to XinTianDi to look for the next clues. Got the clues, and travlled to the Shanghai science & technology museum.. wow.. it's dangg cool.. omgomgomg and a bee realised i was as sweet as honey and attacked me!! i was running and screaming like mad.. hahahaha not cool. Last stop was the new Xiangyuan Market that had gone underground. Bought some stuff again. Dang cool, i helped the rest to bargain for the shoes from RMB 200+ to RMB 80.. hahaha i love bargainning!! so coool..

Something we saw on the metro.. be careful!!! XDD

Something at the Science & technology museum.. dang cool.. :)

Dinner was lousy.. the food tasted like crap.. I had to hurry out the business plan and script during dinner. Back at the hotel, the time for the business plan presentaion arrived. Ms. Tracy Goh was kind enough to tell us to wear formal clothes because it was going to be a formal business plan presentation. So the whole of Stealth group wore polo striped shirts, all tucked in. The presentation was held in the hotel's conference room. We were the last group to present our proposal. It went very smoothly without a hitch. George made everyone laugh by using chinese. And then it was intermission. George and i hurried down to the hotel store to buy a present for Kathleen and Claudine. We ended up buying Snuff bottles that had the 4 beauties painted on the inside of them. Luckily, there were only 2 sets left. We bought both of it for RMB 300, which is dang cheap.

The snuff bottles we bought!! dang nice right? hahahaha i still prefer 4 of ur pictures though.. XD
Had to rush back to my room to place them in a safe place and had to rush back for the announcement of the best business plan. Guess who won? US!!!! hahahahaha so happy that Stealth won. All the judges agreed that our business plan would definitely succeed in China. hahahaha made me feel like investing in our plan and turning into super-rich billioniares in a year. hahahhaha back to earth* So we won ourselves an uncarved seal and a map of China. Did the Stealth group clap to celebrate.

The teachers told us we could go party till the cows come home but we need to wake up in time for breakfast the following morning. So we decided to go play pool again!! i played till 12 plus and went back to pack with a few others. Should have stayed a while more cos Mr. Gary Sim came at around 1 a.m. to play too. I heard he's quite good. The rest played till 3 a.m. plus and went back to the hotel to play Taiti. hahahahhaha Mr. Gary sim kept losing. hahahaha

Wheew.. going home tomorrow.. will miss this place a lot.. :(
Day 10 below!!

DAY 10 of Shanghai... (EDIT)

2007-06-09T21:04:00.000-07:00

Wheeww.. woke up this morning at 8, pretty much slack day today. Breakfasted at 8.30 at the hotel. saw that waitress again.. XD hahahha yeah.. went back to the room to enjoy the last few minutes of China. I found out that George bought a box for the seal for only RMB 4!! Argh.. i totally forgot about the box.. and the ink.. nevermind.. i will try to get it at the airport.. or so i thought..

Travelled from Puxi(hahahaha everyone laughs when this is mentioned.. hahahah must be the relation to something.. :D) to Pudong.. passed by the B&Q complex.. it's the size of IMM and only sells sports goods.. dang coool.. i wanna go there next time!!!

Checking in at the airport was slow.. Alex who bought the magic UFO thing had to throw it away cos the magnets could potentially affect the aircraft.. yeps so his RMB 30 went down the drain..i mean the bin.. Then it was the typical farewell scene at the airport. Claudine and Kathleen were staying back to conduct another tour. Alexander and i presented the snuff bottles to both of them. awwww.. so touching.. hahahah then mr. gary sim made use of this opportunity to hug claudine.. hahahahaha then i was like, "Mr. Sim , cannot be biased!!" then he had no choice but to hug kathleen as well. Then i was like, "Mr. Sim, your hug was one second lesser then what u gave claudine." Then he was like, "of course la, i'm not blind." so bad of him!!! hahahhaha

Yeps.. saw some seals at the airport.. omg they are like twice or thrice the prices outside.. hahaha and then a few of them wanted to spend all the RMB they had.. so they spammed the vending machine(which sells stuff twice the usual price outside..) Some bought some of those cute panda puppets and soft toys..hahaha dang spastic way to spend money.. hahahaha finally it was time to board the plane.. It was a boeing 777..rather old.. so sad to leave China.. i wanna work in China next time!!! :DD

Panda on my hand!!!

Panda loves bamboos!!!

We played Taiti with mr.sim on board the plane.. omg he really isn't good at taiti.. the rumours were true.. hahahahha the landing was smooth and it was home sweet home and home sweat home.. i hate Singapore's weather now.. so hot and humid!!! ARGHHH.. dad picked me up and we went back!! i missed the wedding dinner cos it was quite late.. i wannted to go but my mum didn't want me and me dad crashing in during the middle of the wedding..

I regretted not buying a lot of stuff.. :(( and regretted buying some stuff.. :(( hahahahah like wth.. doesn't matter.. there's always next time!!! hahahahahhaha

See ya!!

dang didn't realised u went to england.. then again no one told me.. have fun there k? :D missing you..

Aaron

2 more days more to Shanghai!!

2007-05-29T07:19:00.000-07:00

dang i need to go for math remedial tmr.. 5 hours!! omg.. then i need to go to JTC to go interview the chairman which is dang cool.. hahaha and i get to play squash before leaving for shanghai!! wheeew.. i've packed most of me stuff.. and my dad still has not exchanged my Renminbi.. dang.. nvm if there's no time, i will just bring SGD there and change!! the rate shld be the same..

yay.. i hope the next few days pass asap(as slowly as possible..) hahah i've done my shoppping list.. not very long.. i lead a simple life, you see.. *cough

i'm gonna miss you.. even though we hardly talk at all.. i will still miss your "presence".. yea.. take care k? goodbye..

Aaron

2007-05-22T07:13:00.000-07:00

YAY!! i scored 73 for my sec 4 Chinese prelims!!! which makes me 4th in sec 3 level..according to marcus chan.. hahahah cos he got the same mark as me!! :) wheeew.. can't believe i scored 32/40 for my chinese oral.. i almost let a english word slip out.. hahahahhha XD

Cant wait to go shanghai!!! ARGH.. must go buy my vitamins and toiletries.. dang..

Aaron

2007-05-20T06:49:00.000-07:00

wheew.. i'm leaving for shanghai in a few more days!!! k almost another week to go!! then it's back to the motherland!! craps..i haven't gotten all my essentials yet.. :(
nvm will get them next week..

lol trng on friday was dang weird.. ivan cried? jun hong became emo and almost cried? lol like whatever..

omg i did dang bad for this term..like real bad.. i improved in some but deproved in some.. and the equation is not balanced.. cos i deproved more than i improved.. k i'm going to break the no-bringing-of-homework-to-shanghai rule.. i think i'm gonna bring my ten year series for add math.. yeps!! i will try to do a few sums before sleeping..

omg we have to go shanghai for lessons too.. with suzhou no. 10 school.. that's quite cool except we need to wear our school uniforms.. :( omg i need to brush up on my chinese if not i will torture everyone there!! ARGH..

Aaron

2007-05-13T06:43:00.000-07:00

CRAPS!!! Right now if i could turn back the time, what is the very first thing i would change? MY CCA OPTION. YES. NO STUPID ORGANIZATION IN MY LIFE. NO PEOPLE RUNNING AROUND ASKING U TO DO STUPID THINGS AND TRYING TO CONVERT U. DANG. I REALLY REGRET JOINING THAT CRAP OF A CCA.

why am i so pissed? cos thiaghu suddenly said, "there will be trng on monday." and i only got to know bout it tonight and i already had plans for monday.

i know you people have no life.. let me me live my own then..

dang i really hate ncc.. it's just sooo freaking dumb..

go burn.

:(

2007-05-11T06:34:00.000-07:00

wheeew.. common tests are over.. and i can slack now!!! YAY!! so now it's runescape everyday..playing badminton on monday.. long time never play baminton..wonder if i even know which part of the racket is the head... XD

AND I GOT DISTINCTION FOR THE DIPLOMA MODULE ON BRANDING, MARKETING AND SELLING!!! :D hahahahahha just had to do that.. cooool.. distinction is the highest grade u can get and represents 80% and above.. omgomgomg hope i can get another distinction for the module on Corporate culture..that means i will have 3 distinctions!!! :DDDDD ahhahahahahha i supeerrr high now..

omgomgomg i can't wait to go shanghai/suzhou/hangzhou.. but crap, our flight is at 8a.m. in the morning.. and check-in is 2 hours earlier..so means i must reach the airport at 6a.m. and must wake up at 4a.m. ARGHHH!!! yay, and yiwen is my roomate.. we're gonna have so much fun together... *cough* XDDD

Aaron

whatever, i dun know what to think anymore..

common test coming...ARGHH

2007-05-05T07:33:00.000-07:00

wheeew.. common tests are next week and i am mugging like crap now.. and i played squash today!! i know i just flouted one of the rules of mugging but my mum asked me to go play..weird eh.. hahahahha but i went!!

lalala on the way back, i decided to torture me dad by playing william hung's album on the car's radio.. hahahhaha yeps! i bought his album when i was p6.. still with me!! XD my dad was really agonised by the singing..muhahahhahah it's a good album to play when on a road trip cos it keeps u awake!! :P

k back to runescaping and mugging!!

Aaron

what devil art thou that torments my heart?

2007-04-30T07:48:00.000-07:00

lalala long time no post.. yeps.. omgomgomg now is just mugging everyday till next week..then it's squash!!! :) wheeew...

saw a very interesting thing on the magic forums by one of the people there..

Why did i start magic?
So i can bring a smile to her face.
Why did i continue magic?
So i can bring a smile to everyone's face.

aww... hahahaha kinda applies to me.. yeps :) very moving answers right? :D

"We Might As Well Be Strangers" by Keane

I don't know your face no more
Or feel your touch that I adore
I don't know your face no more
It's just a place I'm looking for
We might as well be strangers in another town
We might as well be living in a different world
We might as well
We might as well
We might as well

I don't know your thoughts these days
We're strangers in an empty space
I don't understand your heart
It's easier to be apart

We might as well be strangers in another town
We might as well be living in a another time
We might as well
We might as well
We might as well be strangers
Be strangers
For all I know of you now
For all I know of you now
For all I know of you now
For all I know

Aaron

ARGHHH!!!

2007-04-24T07:35:00.000-07:00

omgomgomg..there's like so much stuff to do and so lil time!!! and i'm here blogging..yeah.. XD craps..diploma/enterprise hub used to be all fun and slack, now it's fun and information overloading!!!

k i need to do a powerpoint on coporate culture with yiwen, i need to submit business plan for competition, i need to form a group to do the business plan, we need to present it, the 4th module test is coming up, common tests are also coming up, we need to attend some workshops to learn more entrepreneurial stuff, i need to practise my math which i haven't been doing... ARGHHH!!! stress, stress, stress

BUT i like it.. :P hahahahha omgomgomg can't wait to go shanghai.. i have to pay only $790!! that's like dang cheap!! but that means my edusave will be wiped out cos i paid the remaining using edusave.. dang.. ahhahaha but i am looking forward to shanghai!! MOTHERLAND I COME HERE!!! hahahahha in chinese english.. XP

Aaron

EDITed

2007-04-22T07:30:00.000-07:00

wheeew..had lecture on sat bout writing business plans by Dr. Jurgen Rudolph, the director of ACPE himself!! hahaha yeps, and i played squash again!!! hahahha reached home ard 2, was eating lunch when junxin called.. then packed stuff and went Warrens to play squash.. hahahhah like omg, i still think the Ceiling at Warrens is very low.. XD lalala just kept playing and playing.. wheeew... hahaha and junx was dang cute..she did a back wall shot, the ball rebounded off the glass wall, bounced off her head and flew out of the court.. hahaha dang coool!!! like soccer.. :D

oh god..common tests comin up in 2 weeks time.. :( dang.. i must go study like mad now... yeps

Aaron

2007-04-18T07:34:00.000-07:00

wheew.. got back from yeomen service at turf city today!! dang fun!!! there were so many people and hot girls..hahaha woots..i mean hotdogs.. yeah.. :P had to wear the dang spastic green uniform.. :(

yeps..lalala so went to leo's house to play squash again last sunday.. lol i was late..by 30 minutes...cos the bus and mrt left just as i arrived.. dang.. hahahah sorry shafik and terry!!! lalala yea..we played mainly doubles, which is dang fun.. cos me and terry can just stone at the back and watch shafik and leo trying to kill each other.. ahhahaha so weird.. cos we were bored, so we decided to start rallying which means we would play shots down the side wall to the back continously for as long as possible.. hahaha so me and terry started rallying while shafik and leo stoned at the T waiting for to hit any front balls.. suddenly, at the end of a rally, leo started moving to the side wall to stretch.. hahahah he stoned until his muscles cramped.. hahahaha dang quirky..

hahaha and then i was like "terry when the ball come to us again, we start rallying k? if we get the ball..." hahahah cos leo was jumping up and down taking most shots even though he's supposed to just take the front shots..hahaha so we just kept laughing each time he jumped... :D

we're going to have Gerrard Ee's talk tmr!! yeps.. he's the chairman of the new NKF and his son, sylvester, is in our class!! hahhaha omgomgomg i remembered sth dang coool.. we were playing charades for P.S.E..so it's sly's turn to go up and act out a word.. then someone said, "hey sylvester, if the word is money, just point to yourself!!" hahahahha like wth? hahaha that was dang weird.. hahahahhaha and George's turn at charades was reallll weird.. he was pointing at his groin as he walked forward...yeah so it looked verrrry wrong..and someone guessed "Pussycat dolls", which was obviously not the correct answer..hhahahah omg 333 is the best!!

lalalala and i did not play squash today... dang... :((

Aaron

2007-04-10T07:51:00.000-07:00

had oral today.. and i did quite well for it!! got lots of smileys from the teacher.. hahaha smiley = good lalala i kinda enjoyed oral.. hahahha woops but somewhere during the conversation, i lasped back to a bit of slang so i kinda pronounced "because" as "cause" without the be.. hahaha luckily he didn't really fuss over that part!! XD wheeww.. so fun..

hahahah and omg fencing is so dang coool!!! hahaha i learned a lot bout fencing from john, who's a fencer.. i like the whole fencing suit with the helmet and all.. dang coool!! :) hahahha i wouldn't mind joining fencing too.. woots.. it's like hop hop poke hop hop.. and u get to attack someone!!! :D

Aaron

2007-04-09T07:51:00.000-07:00

lalala watched mr bean's holiday today with yiwen and terry..hahaha quite funny.. i love rowan atkinson's facial expressions.. very nice.. and we bough terry an Adidas belt!!! cos terry's jeans were dropping down like london bridge, so we decided to bring his birthday present forward and bought him a belt costing $XX.XX..secret.. hahahaha the belt's quite nice.. hmm.. maybe i will ask for thatbelt for my birthday.. heheh XD and omg i wanna watch pirates of the carribean 3!!!

lalala yay!! and i got my dosage of squash today!! hahaha now eagerly awaiting my next!! :) yeps

Aaron