Because you can't write to order

Just yesterday, i'd be smacking away at the keyboard, punching up words, frantically keeping up with the pace words flow from my mind. But my sis needed(oh, i'd prefer if she asked, but its more of DEMANDED) MY com. I kinda get the feeling its not really mine. Like, even if u really need it, shouldnt u ask really that hang on to my lil baby with your voice tempered with irritance?

I must be a really possessive person.

Good, good, now the words are coming back.

Went swimming last sun for abt 45min to wash away the O lvl stress and, much to my surprise, got scolded by a lady for bumping into her twice without myself feeling anything at all. And her rude fren rudely(yes yes i'm lacking in vocab) demanded at the top of her voice that i remove my ear plugs.

But i did not shoot back. I felt really calm, and felt no anger. Maybe if my sis demanded my laptop then, i'd have passed it to her(rather, let her keep it) without any complaints. Because i had the Os to hold my focus, to tell me that other things are just small things. That these little guys are out of my range - even if they were to stretch themselves to the fullest, they still couldn't lay a finger on me. Outta range. No harm to me, no harm to my Big Goal.

but for now, whats my Big Goal?

I know i must get back to my gym and weiqi quickly. Ytd visited the library and returned late, then whiled the night away watching Tian Long Ba Bu vcds. Omg i really like the Mu Wan Qing character, though she's neither the main character nor the prettiest one. Just got smth special abt her.

Regardless, the night wasn't the most productive.

This afternoon i went to watch The Teenage Textbook vcd with hz and zishun, nathan and mohd were there too, like a sec2 reunion. U see, i first saw the vcd in sec2 but couldn't complete it, and once again in sec 3, so i told myself, before i leave ri, i'm gonna complete it.

And now i've done so.

That means, soon i'll leave ri too. oh no.

I've read the book "who moved my cheese once again". Indeed, we should often ask ourself, "What 'd you do if you WEREN'T AFRAID?"

But i learnt more than that. Of course, the change i'm facing is the departure from RI to RJ. I had previously looked upon it simply as a natural process - unavoidable, so just deal with it.

That still holds true. But there's more.

" The quicker you let go of Old cheese, the sooner you find New cheese."

"When you see that you can find and enjoy New cheese, you change course."

Old cheese's nice, but how do you fully appreciate its flavours if you aren't aware of others?

New Cheese New cheese here i come..... Let the Rat Race begin.

CHIONG AH!!!!!~~~~

破釜沉舟

Because if u set ur mind on it, then do all it takes to get there, and believe in yourself. Otherwise, no, there's no otherwise. Just GET THERE.

Wrong, no, shut up

Its kind of silly blogging abt this when i'm actually more bothered abt other things, but my sis laptop's gonna cost $1300 to repair, to which my mum said she'd just get her a new one. heh. 2 months ago i was saying, trade in the old thing and get smth new at the NTU fair (its significantly cheaper, we're talking about thousands here) and my dad was saying if its slightly spoiled pass on to him he'll use it but i said no it cannot be used if it can't even get electricity from the mains but no he won't listen and he'll even threaten my own laptop so i dun fight against my own interests so i shut up. Its been months and i wonder why i still remember it clearly but oh well the one losing $ is him so oh well.

Feeling pretty down over today and its not the marks. Physics got 34/50 with plenty of careless mistakes but i thought it was fine for a day's work (i planned a month ahead, but only studied the day before, procrastinating as well as doing chem instead. which 'll prolly screw up even more).

English was 19/30 but then looking at HZ's paper i realised my work really wasn't balanced enough. And kaibin's flair was really outstanding and xiayi's depth of thought was really impressive so no arguments here, i was pwn pretty bad. The difference here, as opposed to my normal essays, is that the marker wrote down many comments and i now understand, my english has deteriorated. But still, 输得心服口服。 Kong of cuz gave his usual talk but it wasn't very much to me personally. Not sure why, perhaps cuz he doesn't even know my name, or maybe his performance over the year was n ot particularly impressive to me personally. Respect as a teacher, yes, i'm a good student i give basic respect to all teachers. But not the kind of, 'i'm really wowed by u -type".

SS not much to talk abt it, the docu doomed everything so my ct efforts are futile. Then it was mother tongue and thanks to his clip which refuses to work on his laptop we had 45min or so of chit chatting with tph and got to know more of his personal history and really really i want more chinese lessons. Its such a shame that we only had his lesson for 1 short year. But i'm glad that whilst i have no autographs or photos or whatever to take away from this year of hcl lessons, my ws are full of scribbled notes taken from lessons, scribbled with wisdom of this one tough 46 yr old. Chinese is a beautiful subject, becuase within many phrases of chinese contain small little philosophies of their own. And there're so many wise sayings and quotable quotes as well, definitely not inferior to english. Just a shame my standard's so poor.做人，要给别人留有余不尽地步。 oh and last time he quoted maozedong, 一万年太久，只争朝夕。

真是至理名言。

Ma, next yr i going sec 3.

How i wish we'd grow younger instead of older.

I'd be wiser.

Self doubts and uncertainty, actually they never left me;
'em imps only waiting for this opportunity.
To scare me.

oh there goes hari raya

Today's soccer was rather messed up, only 3/8 turned up lol. thx for coming zijian chenz and fangjin, thats like a combined 5-6 hours of mrt time? lol i know boon lay is damn far out, but then eh the facilities arent too bad right. +the 'hill' we climbed and the echo we heard, the view was scenic too, no? Oh yes and chenz i beat u at pool 3-4!!! ok ok i lost but still 3-4 is a pretty close score :)

Some rather lagged comments abt Mr. Ban ki moon's ascension to secretary general of the UN. I think(everyone knows, actually), he's got a tough job on his hands. Too many toes to avoid stepping on, lesser men might just freak out and play the "Secretary" and shrink away from the "General", lets hope not him.


Come to think of it, we ourselves everyday have to do the same things too, go abt our lives and not piss too many ppl off or they could get in the way of our ambition.But student life is still easy peasy. I mean, who's toes do we have to look out for? Fellow students are but 16yrs of age, and all belonging generally to the same type of people. Our youth simply arent as diversified as youths from , say, london. And that could be a good think. What about teachers? hmmm they are more colourful individuals due to their life experience, but it still pales in comparison to the kind and variety of characters Mr. Ban has to face, not to mention to soldiers(and bombs) behind these powerful men. From the "God-fearing" Bush to the Muslim Countries, ranging from the moderates to the radicals, not forgetting the Muslim-country-but-secularly-run Turkey which strangely doesn't get the kind of support one would expect from the EU. And throw certain (officially) atheist countries like china into the mix, and u know the full range of characters Mr. Ban's gonna meet. And lets not go into the crises that 'd arise if issues are not settled wisely and diplomatically. Suffice to say, the reason why wise men worry for the human
race's ability to survive the next century, is because the possibility that we might not make it is very REAL.

Now after looking at how insignificant i'm in the whole framework of this big, complex, world, i shall head to bed tonight - worrying not about the nukes and the house effects, but over my tweeny weeny lil problems i'll face tmrw. Nothing learnt, it seems :)

Oh i did learn smth today. Some interesting pick up line thats much more poetic then those greg posted on friendster some time ago. Spotted on Jingna's site, i shall reproduce it here, without her prior permission :)

我讨厌春天，但是我喜欢鲜花
我讨厌夏天，但是我喜欢雨天
我讨厌秋天，但是我喜欢落叶
我讨厌冬天，但是我喜欢雪花
我讨厌这个世界，但是我喜欢你

nice right!

But of course, i 'm under no illusions over its effectiveness. Otherwise she'll be attached by now =P And Chinese Lit students 'll be the hottest dudes around, cuz after scrutinising the fanwen tph gave out over the the past few days, many of whose authors are from CLit class(or at least i think so), i'm perfectly convinced they can write like this, if not better.

If only, come next Mon, i could do so as well.

get wise

"

Here lies the body of William Jay,

Who died maintaining his right of way-

He was right, dead right, as he sped along,

But he's just as dead as if he were wrong.

"

No wonder they say, hit the books. not because of the 黄金屋，nor the 彦如玉，but because within is wisdom.

Funny to know someone thinks u write funny

Its one of those days again.

When i do nothing but surf useless stuff and re-read my own blog after seeing on jingna's blog that she laugh when she reads my blog which i thought was strange and after rereading my blog, conclusion is, she's strange =D

Oh today was the second last tuition lesson and i feel further and further away from my A1. Despite having written an 'A1 Plan' this morn and entered the steps into my google calender, its still a no-go. just a feeling of despondency i suppose, those chinese essays turn into a blur when scrutinised by my eyes, well aware that 1wk simply isnt enough to internalise the intricate grammar of my "Mother Tongue"(come to think of it, MOTHER TONGUE seems to suggest that its my native language, like, i'm a native speaker of chinese??).

And during tuition today harold was obsessed with my leg hair hahaha come on dude it's MAN! i know lah, hot models with hot Swimmer-type legs are hair-less, but plz i'm no model i'm an intellectual =)

Come to think of it i haven't done much intellectual stuff today. Was supposed to
1)Read chinese model essays (which did not succeed, as elaborated above)
2)Memorise xue er you passages (which got me, um, 45/70 for my sch zuo wen so, not much motivation heh)
3)Work on the sihuoti phillip sent me. Which i still INTEND to do. Just procrastinating, thats all.

But there's a sense of urgency for weiqi, cuz i know any major improvement HAS to come from this 2 months. Next yr's just simply gonna be too busy, as pet made disgustingly clearly known to me last nite. u see this snr in rj,is well , "specific and vague at the wrong times". Bad stuff? Crystal clear. Gd stuff? Find out for urself. Oh wait pet dun get pissed.

Not again. =p

Figured it out

Cleared room today, before going 'pool and pool' with greg, that is, swimming pool and play pool.

Good workout it was, plus the rides were ok lah, went lakeside there to swim. oh yeah and i managed 50 laps =D my back's chao ta now though heh. my mom (who was helping me moisturise my back after the chinese doc's oil sort of dried it up) said that some skin even tore. Aiyoh. stupid 12 o clock sun. next time change time!!

Not that much things done today, just clearing up the mind.

And figuring out that the choice of subj this wed ain't likely to be like , FINAL one.

Good thinking.

time wasted

Wasted time doing smth that was a waste of time.

Shan't elaborate, later ppl say i lame again.

But first half was gd, 2nd half was forgettable.

now, now, its injury time.

Useful

Its been a pretty productive half-day for me.

I've plotted my tasks for the next 2 wks, that is, packing my room, making jc subject choices and O levels HCL.

Then i compiled a whole list of goals i want achieved by the end of dec holis, before sorting them into groups where i could formulate plans to reach them.

Plans as yet unformulated. But u won't believe how many hours i took to do the earlier 2. Plenty of thought req., ya know. Alright, i'll relax with a game of weiqi, then i'll go formulate these plans.

=)

tick tock tick tock

Time's running away.

Post ct, Day 1-

Things accomplished:

1) Discovered key weakness in chinese Os, that is , my zuowen, cuz my sentences look too angmoh. And i sound pretty angmoh too. And that reminds me of the phonemics course where i realised my english had too much chinese influence. Neither here nor there, how?

2)Changed skin for Raffles Weiqi Blog: Ok, at least this is done.

3) Won 2 games on kgs: yay. thats gd.

4)discovered my tablet pen can use the handwriting on msn. whee.


But frankly the botched trip to vivo spoiled things.

and maybe cuz i haven't been working out, even my appetite suffers. sucks.

tick tock tick tock

Tmrw will be better.

Of final year Tests

The thing to do when ur supposed to study for lit but just can't get into the mood for it, i suppose, is to hone your writing skills elsewhere. like here.

I've always felt a sense of emptiness after exams, and even more so this year. Reason being, u stuff urself will SOOOOO much info building up to the exam, and in a matter hours later you could very well throw them away with no real consequences. This being especially true this year since i will only be taking like 4 subjects next yr compared to 9 now, which mean 5 can be flung outta the window.

I'm pretty sure the knowledge i mugged for, will largely be forgotten in a couple of days time. It'll be like the recent rank graph of kgs high dan players, take Cornel Burzo, a top european player for example, dropped right from 8d to 7d in the kgs rating shift that , at the other end of the spectrum, saw Ben rise to 6k, pat to 3k and me to dan :)

Not sure if u feel it, but there's some 'deadness' in my words. Post exam emptiness, i say.And i'm scared i'll let it overun me, cuz i really want to make good use of the next 2months of my life. So this empty feeling better not drag over. Time to highlight things i wanna do in the coming 2 months, in no particular order(yeah yeah i'll prioritise, later) :

1) Work out the league for raffles weiqi's holi training: This is one headache, cuz i'm not sure how many registration mails i received in all. Ok here's my rough idea for the league (actually, this format was planned for a combined training camp with rjc before qiuping, but the rj ppl couldn't make it so it was scrapped) -

We'll have 4 groups: Group A , Group B, Group C, Group D where players are grouped according to strength. Each group will consist of 3 players, with the exception of group A, which will have 4 players.

Based on the original requirement that each participant is to commit himself to 2 games a week (frankly, this should be increased if we want to go intensive), a round robin of each group will be completed weekly. Group A, requiring 3games instead of 2, will just have to fork out the extra time.

At the end of each week, the top player of each group will be promoted and the bottom player demoted. I anticipate the problem that scores will be tied (everyone wins1 lose 1) so we'll need to work this out but the purpose behind this system is to facilitate reviewing, as follows:

GroupA's top player shall review 2 selected games from his Group's matches.
Group A's 2nd shall review for Group B
Group A's 3rd shall review for Group C
Group A's 4th shall review for Group D

In other words, Group A will be a 'teaching' group.

Advantages: Weaker players will obtain instruction from our top players.
Disadvantages: Stronger players will be saddled with teaching responsibilities.

I considered an alternative model where the top player of each group, before promotion, shall take on the responsibility of reviewing.

As stated, this is just a very rough model of which details awaits thrashing out, probably this coming friday. Comments please.

2)Pack my room: Its in a mess. huge mess. not sure how i'm gonna clear this up.

3)Study chinese Os: Alright alright i'm cursed with a b4 for prelims. And as zijian correctly pointed out, my chinese still has that yang qiang yang diao feel to it. 2 weeks to perform a miracle. I still want my A1. Question is, how badly?

4)Plan a new workout: Which has kinda been stalled, and will rest on how my back copes. Its feeling better lately, and i'm excited abt switching workouts. gotta balance it with plenty else thoguh.

5) Get ready for floorball: Yes, i want to succeed in sports. Which'll go in line with 4), since i must put in more cardio for fitness. No fitness, no play, simple as that.

6)Update wardrobe: Yeah i realised, i only have 1 pair of long pants that i'd wear out. i got jeans, but i dun like wearing jeans, so i should start going for what i like. My clear out clothes that i'm not gonna wear, cuz plenty of them were bought under influence of 'mommy dearest', who, a-hem, is no fashionista and doesn't know my tastes as much as she think she does.

7)Select subjects for next yr: This will be a big-time decision, since i'll want to plan my uni education, even if only vaguely so, along with jc subj combi as well. time to talk, ask, consult. Big-time, thats the word for it. Slowly, slowly, no room for regrets.

8)Update the skin of raffles-weiqi blog: gotta rope minghui in for this though, shit, shoulda asked him just now.

9) Plan my own weiqi training programme: Yes i gotta do this yet again. Filled with enthusiasm once again after my hiatus, back to my love of replaying pro games, but i know this holi is my last chance for another huge leap in skills. First was towards the end of sec 2, when even on holiday i brought sihuo bk along to do. paid off when i returned. 2nd leap was after studying under phillip. Now 's time for the 3rd leap, and my 3dan swa next yr. Must do even more sihuo, play more, study pro games and more importantly, play the new stuff. Experiment!

10)Read more: yes, that includes the classics as well as economist kinda stuff.general knowledge.

11)Follow up on DMP modules:Strictly speaking, this should be 2 diff points, but u see how many i already have... diao. Ok this refers to improving my pronounciation of words (phonemic course) and learning Predicate logic (sentence logic course)

12)Learn more about my own religion: As i found out during a convo with a friend this week, my knowledge of buddhism is really poor. Saw a video of a speech by a monk and i didn't quite buy into what he said, explaining some sutra thats supposed to ward off diseases like SARS. oh well.

As you can see, there're HEAPS of things to do. Can i do it? oh the monk told a story that made sense too. As follows:

A basketball player, after a vigorous game of bball, discovers his contact lenses, which were the permanent type rather than disposal types, missing. He searches the bball court high and low and still can't find it. So he return home sadly and tells his mom, "mom, i've lost my contact lenses...". Upon hearing his words, his mom dashed to his school, and return hours later with the lenses.

son: Mom! how did u find it? U didn't even know whr i dropped it!

mom: Of course i can find.

Son:Even i couldn't, how did u?

mom: You were looking for so plastic, i was searching for $3000 bucks!!! (taiwanese currency, but still pretty much)

As u can see, Its All a Matter of Motivation.

Digressing, i was chatting with hy today, who said that upon gg to openhouse last fri, she was surprised by the change in personality of her snr, presumely cuz of the presence of guys. Then i saw my documentary today of teenage mental illness, in particular personality disorder. the doctor commented that such a condition was rare amongst teenagers, as disorder to a person's personality requires the establishment of one in the first place, something which teenagers are still in the procress of developing. So perhaps we should not call it change. its development. euphemism, yes, but they're there for a reason. Additionally, i think, single sex schs are pretty unnatural; a person's true(if there's such a thing) personality cannot be attained till he/she comes into constant contact with members of the opposite gender.

In the spirit of digressing, i rmbr that cabinet minister george yeo started blogging and in an interview he was saying smth to the effect of, if you've nothing interesting u should not be blogging. But then interest is smth thats just so subjective. My life is of interest to me, even if its not to u. This awfully long post is of interest to me, even if it isnt to u. How do u judge the value of a blog? By the number of visitors? That'd be akin to judging girls by their number of suitors, which, in the modern era, 'd be frowned upon by feminist (i haven't come to a stand on the issue meself). Thus, the effectiveness of a blog in attracting readers is not the same as the value of a blog.

Just like how we learn of the effectiveness vs value of comedy. Eg the 'mai hum' song mr brown make. effective as in funny, yes. Value? I would say not as much as the other clip the teacher showed us, as the speaker spoke on the issue of Native Speakers (native to where?)

So u see, there's a purpose in studying after all. U can forgot all the information, but retain the skills of evaluation.

As i demonstrated here, to mine satisfaction if not yours.

First time in a long while...

This past 7 days has been a 'new' experience. look.

First time in a long while...

1) i got injured: Nuff' said abt this one.

2) i miss gym for 5days in a row: refer to 1).

3) i play weiqi: And i find myself 1dan, after a hiatus of a month or so. KGS decided to jack up
their ranks, and the interface is new as well.takes some getting used to.

4)i win: refer to 3).

5)i cut myself: no, not suicide, i cut myself while shaving today. Time to get shaving cream?

6) i sleep at 2am: And it had to be the night before Maths. Perfect timing. Not studying, destressing.

so u see, there's just 1 paper left, and plenty more new things to do, once my back clears up.

better give it some rest tonight :)

so thats what squats are for

Its worse than i thought.

My gosh its real tight. So i went to see a chinese doc who helped me tui na and said i'd be lucky if in 2 days time ( by the time the medicine he gives me finishes) i recovered 50%. heh. no weights for 2wks, according to him aww.

anyway he was asking how i injured it, so i related the whole story to him and when he heard it was at gym immediately he assumed i added too much weights. YAO MAN MAN LAI!@@#!#! wah lao eh... i used the same weights as last session lor. not like i'm some novice... i've been to the gym for a year already ok!!! ok ok... 11mnths, not a year. ok ok, minus the month in beijing, 10months. fine, minus the month i fell sick and had 2 doses of anti biotics.... 9months. aiyah but its still quite long ok.

haiya but nvm better wait the 2 wks. no pt rushing and getting hurt.

but then today has been terrible. u know its hard when u can't move abt as u'd like to.haiz. i know my math's good, even though my mock test got like 22/60. i'm just confusing differentiation with integration. i'll get it right tmrw bah, i just need a clear mind. then why am i awake now, u ask. cuz i need to destress!!!!!


it'll go fine, it will, will.

hurt

my first injury in a long while.

Strained my right back's muscle today. And guess what it was from - studying.

Stayed up late to mug last night, first time in a long while since i adopted my 'healthy lifestyle' plan. Cuz i slacked last nite, so i had to study all the way till morn. And my back felt funny this afternoon after 3hours of tuition in the morning.mom was saying, its due to sitting up straight for too long so i thought it was nothing much till i hit the gym. Did my dumbell bench press and twisting shoulder press fine and probably aggravated it when i was shifting the weights for Squats. Tried awhile more but decided to call it a day, given the consequences of hurting ur back, which basically means u can't do any other exercise.

Yucks.I'm hoping it heals quick, i hope it doesn't interfere with my holiday workout plan.

Went open house ytd and found out that Floorball trains on 1,3,6, which's fine for me since i only need fri to be free for weiqi. Just wondered if i could cope with so heavy cca load. Anyway i've heard plenty of ppl saying floorball's soft and all but hey, if ur man enough u go in and make it man, man.

And if i train hard enough, i might just make it into my hall's team this dec.woohoo!

But now, back to the books.

so much to say, so little time

i said i won't be coming on till its all over. its isnt.

i'm glad it isnt all over, cuz my chem ca, thx to guanxin, is unexpectedly high.

but i still can't run away from the fact that i slacked ytd, and many other days away.

my month -long study plan's now compressed to 3 days.

just great.

scared silly

I'm pausing the chinese-blogging thingy for the time being.

its terrible now.

past few days were fine. very good in fact. only monday lost discipline once, ytd nvr study bio.

then today heard greg completed physics and chem and i haven't started either and only started maths and chinese, neither which i can increase my gpa in.

i'm scared silly. really.

been blog-surfing and forum browsing, when i'm supposed to do bio cuz i reorganising my notes on word doc.

but after today i'm gonna can that plan. its a dumb idea to open my lifebook now. just an arena for me to flee from work. I've been telling mum that i want to RETIRE. heh. I agree with walter's group presentation. RP should just have 5-6 subj from sec3 on.

oh well. too late, i guess.

Death.
Claim me if u will.

but just not yet.