One Aeroplane Clap...

*clap*
whoo-whoo-whoo!
*clap*
whoo-whoo-whoo!
*clap*
whoo-whoo-whoo!
*clap*
Om-ba-pa-ei-ah-ei-ah, om-ba-pai oh!
Om-ba-pa-ei-ah-ei-ah, om-ba-pai oh!

Ah, the memories of surviving Pulau Ubin and Changi Beach. Few of the many memories I've had here in 2008.

Yes, it's been some time since my last update, but I might as well confess something - This blog's seriously in a coma. I mean, sure it's not updating as often as it would a year and a half ago, but I guess that's just the sacrifice for my busier schedules. My commitments are expected to grow stronger next year, and I can already smell the gists of the broth back here in late November. If the waves are starting to flood the decks, some things' gotta give.

Not saying that this blog has no meaning to me. (Being a guy who likes to archive memories so much until his 'memory box' is already bursting, this blog is the most practical solution to getting my views of the many special moments in my life at the time itself.) But then again, what's the point of archiving your life to strict accuracy if you don't have a life to live in the first place?

So my compromise? Termly updates, I guess. I'll just do whatever I do normally, and after every three to four months I'll just update whatever I can, like a set of minutes. And if there's something really special or if I still feel I need more events to fill up my 'report', I can always intercept or delay the rotation as I please. A bit like what I've already been doing for the past year really, just that it's an official plan with a proper layout.

So don't drop by everyday just to check for an update. (I can see from my cBox that everyone's already got the idea.) Now with that's cleared, let's see what I've been up to from the time of my last update to today...

For canoeing, I raced again this year in the Round Ubin Race! Ended up 5th this year, though. See, Ting Wei and I were expecting rough waves like last year, so the strategy was that we wouldn't get spray covers and just endure the entire course while trying to get a good lead till Chek Jawa, where we would encounter the really big waves and capsize. Once we recover on a nearby shore, we would have rested enough to go for a hard burst all the way to the finishing line in hopes to beating whoever's in front of us.

But the waters were calm this year, so without a wave to capsize us, we had no reason to rest and had to paddle the whole 22km non-stop (with water spashing into our boat). Joseph and Barnabas were somewhere behind us (like last year), but lost a lot of time when they didn't turn at the buoy marking the start of Chek Jawa. Lucas and Zhihong had a rather smooth ride behind them, and since it was Lucas' first time there it was probably an adventure for him.

And news also came that due to the Youth Olympics coming in 2008, all involved sports will have their tryouts around the later half of 2009, forcing all competitions of such sports to be pushed forward to the earlier half. THis means that the Inter-schools will be held around March again, but also means that dragonboating may be around the same month. As such, timetrials will be held more often now so we can quickly form up the team.

I'll be running for K2 and K4! Yay, K4 is really fun! When I first rode one, Winston (who's already left the team to pursue Fencing, God bless him) was the frontman, so I wasn't so scared. But now with new crew possibilities, and me being a more experienced frontman (hehehe), I'll probably be condemned as frontman for therest of the year ahead.

I heard the rumour that if you turned the rudder of a K4 too fast or too far to a side the tiller rope will snap. SO when it was my turn to try out the frontman position, I was really scared and didn't dare make the sharp turns I'd recklessly do with StingRay or Boaz. But after a few training sessions of using the boat, I got over the fear (just need to get use to telling the other 3 people behind me I'm turning before I actually turn).

Ooo, and speaking of StingRay and Boaz, Ting Wei and I have decided we're through with StingRay (sorry girl, it's time you had someone else to take care of you. Such good memories...) and we're now aiming for one of the Advance Kayaks! Yes, we're going for Boaz! But now we have to fight against Nick Ng and Eugene for that boat, so we'll just have to see how it plays out. Worst comes to worst, we'll have to settle with Hybrid (which Ryan and Victor gave up to get Nelo).

Now onto Prefects, I'm now HR (Assembly) Councilor!!! Haha, the election process was a little scary at some parts, but it was still a good experience. The speech in front of the whole Yr 3 cohord will always be in my memory, as it was the first time in my life where I can honestly say I almost fainted (backstage can really be nerve-breaking). But by the grace of God, I managed to pull myself at the last minute and did my speech on stage! At the last part of my speech, I did a mimic of the "Yes, we can" thing Barack Obama did for his elections. Hehe, fancy I was elected into Council the same year he was elected into Presidency...

After that was the interview with Dr. Ong, which I must admit was the weirdest interview I had. For some of the questions asked, I ended up asking myself later on, "What does that have to do with me being in Council?" But I just answered whatever I could and before I knew it the interview was over.

And on the last Wednesday of school this year, it was confirmed not only that I made it to Council, but I got the position I ran for: HR (Assembly) Councilor! So now I have a key to the boardroom, a key for my HR cupboard, a 'Prefect Councilor' badge and the licence to move around during Assembly! (Haha, so cheap-trill...) I'm also invited to go for a Global Young Leaders Conference in Washington D.C. next year! But it's not being sponsored, so I'm washing my godmother's car every week to earn a little money to ease the payment a little.

But I also had my responsibilities: Since being elected, I've had to create my set of 'Standard Operating Proceedures - Assembly', run a HR duty (Sec 1 Registration Duty, the second HR duty I was in-charge of after National Day Celebrations), slug out an Adventure Camp (which for once, the councilors got tekaned as well) and plan out an EOY camp while on holiday in Japan (especially the HR games).

Whatever the case, I still praise the Lord for the opportunity to go through this. I have faith that God will somehow bless me through this experience, hopefully to help glorify His kingdom. (Can I hear a good amen?)

Ooo, and I need to talk about Japan! It was AWESOME!!! My second time there, but this time we went to Hokkaido! And do you know what that means? SNOW!!! Haha, yeah I saw snow for the first time in my life!! It was white, and fluffy, and soft, and it was nothing like the fake kind of snow you find in Korea where it's just small chucks of ice: It was real snow!!! And mind you, this was not suppose to happen; my mom wanted a 'white Christmas' this year, so she claimed the holiday through Christ. And after a bit of searching (and a couple of miracles) she finally got the tickets.

To be honest, I was a little edgy on the idea of going overseas this year. Next year being my last year in secondary life (let's face it, there's a little form of isolation between the yr 1-4s and the IB batch), I wanted to just dig head-first into my duties (in canoeng, prefects or acedemically) and get through this golden year, afterwhich I can spam on holidays for all the world could care about.

But I guess Japan was required to relax me a little bit. Yeah, I also learnt snowboarding there, so now I can do that and ski as well! Also met up with a few family frineds, so we decided to have Christmas Eve Dinner with them (had the honour of saying grace, too). And somehow, I also met up with Joel Yap on Christmas Evening! Haha, he was apparently with a few family friends as well, and we so happened to have dinner at the same pizza house in that nice snowy night.

But when we were heading home, a heavy snow storm struck Hokkaido and as such our flight home had to be cancelled. Mom was praising the lord, cause she wanted to have more snow. Me, on the other hand, was coughing away in sickness, dissapointment and fear, as I didn't want to miss too much of EOY camp (esspecially since HR Games was under me, I absolutely could not miss that). Daddy was somewhere in-between: he was demanding the lady at the check-in desk for the best alternatives to get back to Singapore, but was thankful that we had more time to shop around for souviniers and delicacies we could give to our friends back home.

When we got to a hotel to last the night before our new flight the next morning, I quickly went to the internet service (500 yen for an hour) and checked out my emails to see how progress was doing for EOY Camp and other council matters. Also got a chance to get in contact with Clifton (Head Prefect '09!) through Google Talk and told him to tell the others I'd be a little late as I was caught in a snow storm (no surprise people kept teasing me with the phrase 'snow storm' when I got back).

Anyways, now that I'm back from both Japan and EOY Camp, I've lost my voice to a severe cough which is so bad, I cough everytime I talk. But in the name of Jesus, I'll be healed by the time school starts (which is when the first Fall-In proceeds!).

That raps it up for now, I guess. To one and all, a (late) merry Christmas and a(n early) blessed New Year 2009!!! Luke 7:50!!! God bless y'all!!!

Weekend Mix...

Whoopee!!!

End of exams!!! Celebrations in the house!!! Freedom!!!

Fine, it wasn't that exciting (in fact, it was rather stale), but the Marking Days Weekends was indeed a rather decent period for us all to rest, no one could disagree on that. So what did I do during this period? Well, let's find out...

Tuesday
Immediately after the last paper, I went out with some of the 3.17 people (let's just call them Malachites) to watch Eagle Eye at the Cathay @ Orchard. The group comprised of Jen Yang, Jeremy Bin, Asher, Victor, Julian Lim, Sheng Yung, Junyi, Joshua Lee, David Tai (whom we met at the Cathay itself since he didn't have exams that day: darn 3rd-language students) and me. We quickly went to settle our tickets before grabbing a quick bite of lunch and running back up to watch the movie.

Overall, I'd say it was a well-made epic-rush film, and you can really feel the suspense of the characters as they tackle the climax of the show. Won't spoil the show for you, so go watch it! After watching the movie, we gathered outside the theatre to decide on what to do next. Victor decided to leave while he still could, fore-seeing that more nonsense was about to take place, while I had to leave because I wanted to collect my new school uniform from Bibi & Baba just a few blocks down Orchard Road.

So after lending my jacket to Joshua so he can hide his school uniform inside and play LAN with the rest of the guys, I travelled back up Orchard and trailed my way to the uniform store, where my pre-ordered package ofsize 14-and-a-half school shirts were waiting for me. Just as I was about to pay for the clothes, a whole bundle of doubt on whether I ordered the right size suddenly squeezed through my head in a split second, and I took back my cash with appologise to the cashier and with the request to try out the size again. Appearing a little shocked, she pointed to the rack of shirt samples next to the dressing rooms. I quickly snatched a 14 and a 14.5 and rushed into a cubicle to test out the shirts.

You see, my main problem for my current uniform was that the neck hole was getting a little tight for my neck, and so I'd always suffer from heatiness in the head because my neck can't release heat as efficiently since there's a collar strangling it. So I had to find which shirt size had a looser grip on my neck, and at the same time won't appear to have sleeves ridiculously long over my shoulders.

To cut a 15-minute story short (I could hear the cashier wispering to her colleague, "What's taking the guy so long?"), I finally stayed confident with my choice of 14.5, and made the purchase before dropping by Borders to listen to a few tracks in their music section and travelling on to my mom's office for a lift home.

Wednesday
Me and the rest of the Council Understudies had to come to school for an emergeny meeting with the Prefect Council for a briefing on what other dates we should take note of from that day till the day that the new Prefectorial Council 2009 is announced, and what to do for each event. The closest event was the Nomination Speech this Tuesday, where we had to deliver a speech each for the Year 3 level to decide who they feel should be part of next year's council.

That probably scared the socks out of most of us understudies (especially Arjun, who later claimed he would drop out to purposely miss giving a speech before coming back in time for the Interview with Dr. Ong).

After this meeting, Clifton asked if I was free to scout with him for umbrellas to purchase for the board, and I agreed (partially aware that that decision meant I had to stay in school for another couple of hours to wait for him to finish with Band practice). So to spend of those 2 hours, I first decided to play soccer with the other Prefects. It was a fun match (I've learnt I'm best as Right Defence), until the Year 6s suddenly gatecrahsed our game. Soon we could not catch up with their levels of activeness, and backed out from the game. By then, I still had another hour to kill.

So the remaining understudies stayed in the boardroom to joke about what they would do if they made it to next year's council, as well as a really funny session about what can happen if the wrong people got elected into power. Still another half an hour left.

Visited the library, bumped into Adrian and Liu Yang, chat with them about what they were doing and what I was doing and whether I should go for the Global Young Leaders Conference next year or not, brozed through the Reference Section, and vuala. 1 minute to deadline.

I made my way out ofthe library, and lo and behold Clifton walking in front of me, oblivious that the guy he's trying to call is standing right behind him. I followed him all the way to the Spaceframe before making it obvious that I was floating around, and he introduced me to his companion in the band before ushering me to the near-by shops to look for umbrellas.

After searching around and heavy pondering, we decided to take note of the common supplier of the umbrellas of the shops who we've checked, and order our own Prefectorial Umbrellas (maybe even cheaper). After chatting our way back to school to await for our own transportaions home, I rode away on a 74 before Clifton could say, "STOP TALKING ABOUT POLO!"

Thursday
My first day of Canoeing training in... 4-and-a-half weeks. And I tell you, training never felt this miserable. Not only was I the second slowest by a mile (and as Mr. See would say, "...with enough lag time for the competitor to still paddle back to you and run over you and steamroll you and gammar-ray you till you can officially say you've been owned!"), I clocked two minutes above an hour just to complete 10 kilometers! That's, like, 6 minutes and 12 seconds per km, and that's real disgraceful for a Racing Canoeist. Ah well, at least there's no running today...

Spent the rest of the day playing Rise of Nations (gasp), but after 3 hours of playing I had to shut it off and look out of the window to prevent myself from barfing. I then tried to look throug the internet in sites like YouTube or Facebook or Blogger, but got bored after 5 minutes of brozing. Man, I didn't feel like it that day.

Friday
Had to wake up early again, this time to go back to school and do a prefect duty: The Annual ACPS and ACSJ visit to ACS(Independent). The primary 6 kids were lively with the post-PSLE spirit - too lively, to be exact. I must admit that when I was starting to get to know the class I had to tour, 6C from ACPS with David Hu, they appeared like spoilt bratsshouting as they pleased. But after a while, I personally got use to them and sparked of as much conversations with them as possible to get their undivided attention. Even made friends with some of them, although I never really got to know their names (like as if they got to know mine) so I may never meet them again unless they make it into the school.

*sigh* By the end of the duty, all the prefects who had toact as guides for the students were slumped on the chairs of the CPA 2, lying as if we were in coma from the shock of how hard it can be to control a mob of childish youths. We were so smashed, we begged Michael to give us debrief on the spot instead of having to walk all the way back to the boardroom. I'm just happy that unlike Jamie, I can still smile and laugh about the experience...

After debrief and a proper resting, I decided to help out Cliftom and a few othe prefects in cleaning up and tidying the boardroom. After a nice hour-long clearup, I left back for home to rest from the tought of the P6s that I've met. Ah, the flashbacks were at it again...

Saturday
Another day of training, just that with Ting Wei in a double, and with an additional 4 km to paddle in. The good news was that we could still paddle the standard goal of 11kmph as Mr. See had set for us last year. The band news was that we hit the target exactly. I mean, ussually we'd be 11.5something kmph, and now we're exactly 11.0kmph. That's a real drop in power, we had to admit.

And besides that, we had to face the good ol' Dam Runnin'. Yeap, the good Dam never fails to make us feel like dammin' it. But hey, at least it was a group run, easy push for starters and no push-ups. After cooling down and the dissapointment speech of how long we took to pack up Lower Shed (I'd agree; we've never had to take 20+ minutes just to keep boats for an easy programme), T.W. and I registered ourselves for the Round Ubin Race '09, even though we weren't certain if we'd survive ("Aw, just for the fun of it, lah.").

Strange, weren't those the last words of the guy who decided to eat an entire can of milk powder, only to die the next week from kidney stones after not realizing that the powder was made in China?

Sunday (i.e. today)
Pastor Prince is still preaching in the Hillsong Conference, so a guest speaker from Down Under too his place today. He shared about the signifigance of the Kindom of God - that it didn't just relate to heaven only but the entire rhelm of what the Kinghood of God could control and how it opperated - and how we must radically change to the ways of His Kingdom, and not clique-ishly remain in the ways of the world, in order to see the manifestation of finished works in our lives. I'm bad at sharing messages right off the back of my neck, so I'll just leave those who're interested in listening to go to the New Creation website and download the sermon.

Besides that, I finished my speech (yay!) as well as read up and watched videos of the current Presidential elections in the U.S. of A. And I found this;



Very cute. I must confess that even thought I'm Singaporean, and even without this video, I'm up for Obama for Presidency based on what I've gathered about the elections. (Go, Barack! Yes, you can!) God be with America, as He has already been with Singapore! Matthew 6:25-34!!! God bless y'all!!!

Generally Speaking...

*coughcough* ...dusty...

Ah. 'Ello. Woah, a term and a June Holiday since I last posted. Shows how much busier I've been these days (so those who intend to join IB, better be sure you can handle the heat; I've got Someone watching over me for protection, do you?).

Indeed many things happened throughout the time I was gone:
My 'B' Div Dragonboat got Bronze, just inching behind the 'B' Div seniors and Bukit Panjang Government High (by 0.03 seconds...).
Became a reserve in Inter-School canoeing (I blame Chinese 'B').
Raced and was defeated in Nationals.
Projects of many varieties filling up my diary, many of which my advantage of powerpoint cannot bloom in.
Did badly for Term 3 Art due to poor colouring.
And now, we're in Term 4.

But hey, those were just the bad highlights. Canoeing-wise, Ting Wei and I have been promoted with 2nd priority to the Boaz (that's a really good thing), and we're still paddling at around 11km/h in a Tiger so we're definitely qualified to race in this year's Round Ubin Race (I don't know about him, but that sounds good to me)!

The 'B' Division II Crew & The 'C' Division Crew (Dragonboat)

The 'B' Division Crew (Canoeing)

Social-wise, I've been going to a decent amount of gatherings lately (and at interesting venues, too). Had a Canoeists' 'End-Of-Inter-School' celebration at Wild Wild Wet, where we had extreme fun (especially at the Tsunami Pool!) and when I had my first theatrical encounter with a horror movie, having watched The Strangers in mid-afternoon ("Don't worry guys, I heard it's a great comedy!" - Davin). Also had Prefects Dinner Nite at the Mandarin Hotel next to Suntec City, where we all (or at least the enthu ones) dressed up in a Retro theme to party with the music (and make fun of the seniors using random song titles).

Me struggling off the tao-pok on Marcus.

Culture-wise, I did something which I think should not be witnessed or attempted by the faint-hearted. Please skip a few pictures forward if you do not intend to view an interesting item in Philippine cuisine: the Balut.

Basically, balut (say: BAlot) is like the typical hard-boiled egg. With a twist. These duck egg already went through fertilization. That's right, the egg now has an embryo.

Don't worry, we won't encounter live ducks when we open the shell; you boil it first anyway, so it'll definitely be dead once served. Here's the batch of eggs my grandma brought all the way from the Philippines:


After a few minutes, the eggs are brought out and broken:

Yeah, what my mom's touching is the egg white and the egg yolk. By now the egg white's hardened to much to be eaten, so that's taken out, while the egg yolk is rather juicy and has developed a few veins to make circulation between the chick and the yolk better (you do know that the yolk is the food supply of the embryo, right?).

'Speaking of chick, where's the embryo?' Good question.

Yup, that's the thing on the piece of tissue paper. Now with a partially-developed head (complete with eyes and beak), that's the main highlight of the whole thing. The main nutrients come from this chunk of a meat (actually, I don't know if it's considered meat yet), and it's supposedly something every mom would like to give her sick child (yeah, possibly to scare the illness out of them).

Ooh, a closer look int the embryo...

Yeah, the good stuff. Ah, well. Here goes my first try on eating this stuff...

Mmm, tastes like chicken. (Seriously.) I mean, the little bt of soup in the egg tastes like a nice salty broth with exposure to the embryo, and the 'meat' is kinda chewy (although the beak was a little annoying to spit out).

Yeah, I went for a second round. The flavour stayed in my mouth till the next day, even after severe brushing... And don't you stare at me with those 'you-Filipinos-are-barbarians' kinda eyes: did you know that this stuff originated from China? (Oh great, I'm still part of that race, never mind...)

Academically, my grades weren't that bad actually. In fact, I feel confident that Term 4 will be at my favour (In Jesus name, AMEN!). Health-wise, I'm still in good racing condition based on my results in the school's Annual Cross-Country Run (And my house won!)

CKS House
(I'm part of the crouching people at the center, next to Marcus Teo, who's directly above the guy with the towel, front row 4th from right)

Against my original thinking, I also ended up running for Council in the Prefects, and now I made it to become Assembly TransCouncilor 2008!

That means I'm (for now) Hadrian's heir, who's coincidentally also a canoeist and art student. As Assembly, I had to make a whole new Morning Duty List, as well as be I/C of National Day Celebrations (which was a little embarrassing 'cause I accidentally signed off my emails as 'HR Trans' instead of 'Assembly Trans', sorry Mike)! And the most interesting thing is... I get to be one of the Chief Instructors for Prefects' Recruitment Camp 2008!!!

Haha, unfortunately there's more to Selection Camp than meets the average student's eye, so I can't really write about the camp (otherwise I'd be spamming this blogpost with tonnes of stories). But what I can say is that I had my fair share of adventure and yes, I was FIERCE! (Don't believe? Have a look...)




Yeah, but besides those 'tekan' moments, I was busy with the logistics of the camp. Very busy.

Anyways, if you want to see more pictures, go to Facebook and check the albums that I've been tagged in. Ah, which reminds me, I've also now got over 100 friends (Currently 135) in my Facebook account!

Ah well, wanted to do a Mikipedia post about my oldest hobby, (Multi-genre) Music Appreciation, but I still gotta revise for Chemistry (exams are just a couple of weeks away!). Miguel, signing out for now.(gosh, how'd I sign off again? oh yeah-) Jeremiah 33.3!!! God Bless Y'all!!!

No. of bracketed statements = x
.'. Luke (x/2):(x-19) to (x+2) = Mig's favourite Bible story

Yo' Jesus So Big...

Well, the past week week had it's ups and downs. Free-periods coming about time after time, June Holiday/ Term 3 projects are slowly being revieled, canoeing trainings are kicking into full-gear in lieu of the competition 2 months from now (that's concidered as 'the last 2 minutes' in training terms; if you actually concider compressing all the hours of training left, you'd get 4 days or less) and the mid-year results (*gasp*) are in.

I feel that it's best I gave my parents the rights to be first to see the results in detail, maybe I'll share about the results another time. But for now, I must admit I had a great time today at church! But before that, I should start with what happened in the morning...

Basically, it was my (and Morriel's) test drive on (our) new roller blades! The family woke up early in the morning and had a quick breakfast before leaving for East Coast Park. Once parked, we found a good spot near by the shore in Section C and began putting on our equiptment. I said I wanted to explore by myself, so Daddy decided to rent his own set of skates to take care of Morriel. Uncle Eking also decided to rent a double bike to take Carlo around, leaving Mommy and Grams to look after the stuff while reading their own books.

I went as far out from our spot (somewhere nearby Marina Cove?) to the gardens out at Section F (the tower was real irritating to climb, esspecially while wearing blades) before turning back. Really interesting how many different characters you can see while moving along this stretch. Two youths racing against each other to the finish on their bikes, a young boy waiting beside the path with a dog on the leash, two lovers sitting beside each other alone in their lonely (but lovely) pavilion, while waiting for the catch of the day to pull against their line; The list goes on.

It's facinating what stories one can create just by seeing these small details of life. R. K. Narayan, writer of the novella Malgudi Days, once said that all he needed for his ideas was to 'look out of the window to pick up a character and thereby a story'. I truely agree with him, because I literally see it everyday. No matter what environment you're in, urban or rural, complex or plain, modern or traditional, even colourful or dull, there's always a story to tell: Let alone, a story to observe.

But we're getting too philosophical here. Back to my journey, passing through the 360 Ski Park, the Bedok Jetty, the Seafood Restaraunts, Castle Beach, the BBQ pits, the shore barricades and more, I eventually ended off my journey where I started it, greeting Grams with the words, "Do-we-have-water?" Realising that Mom wasn't there, I turned to see Dad trying to teach her to skate. I went over to try to help her out, seeing her slow (but steady) progress along the flat concrete road.

Also found Carlo playing at the shoreline with Morriel (who was lying on the sand and embracing the waves like something you'd see on Baywatch) with Uncle Eking and Auntie Lala supervising them. Apparently, Morriel fell once while testing her new skates, and did a little drama-mama on the impact, thus she decided to stop.

By around 11.30, we were packing up all the gear back into the car and decided to get lunch at Burger King. Little mis-communications here and there while getting the orders, but we eventually had our meal. After such (as well as a quick change of clothes), we headed for the city, where Dad dropped us all off a Suntec to goto church.

I told Mom that since it was 3rd Service, I'd might as well go into the main hall with my D.G. if it makes things easier for the group, so we split up and I went to the nearby collectables shop and looked around at silly scultures of Vandolf the Grey/White and Davy Jones and Luke Skywalker and King Kong and Venom and Alien and many other movie characters to kill time before meeting up with the R.A.D.I.C.A.Ls deep in the queue.

Been a long time since I met up with these people (missed sessions here and there because of competitons and exams and so on), so I thought catching up would definitely be a good idea. Apparently, Gab, John and Don (heh, interesting names for a trio) were interested in watching Indiana Jones' latest movie on the opening night. Hmm, better start thinking about those birthday plans of mine...

Since Sherrie had the queue ticket this week, she was frantically asking us to lend her items she can use to chope (local term for 'reserving informally') seats for us while we were (close to) the back of the line. We needed 21 seats for our D.G. today since we had friends wanting to join us, so we were really trying to find as much items we had to give her as possible (I gave here 3 Hillsong postcard invitations, my bible and notebook, my tissue packet and my sweater vest). Heavily loaded, she quickly stumbled her way to the front of the queue with all the jackets and bibles and notebooks and took her position with the ticket she had.

Finally, the 2nd service was fully flushed out of the Rock, and the queue was beginning to move. While walking our way to the gates, a friend told me that her sister had a picture taken dring the latest dragonboating competition, and apparently I was captured in it*raises eyebrows*. Others started questioning about how I happened to be there, and I had to explain about the canoeing team and how in ACS(Indep) both canoeing and dragonboating are one CCA.

Another good conversation sparked off had to be extinguished again as we then entered the hallway of gates into the auditorium. We slithered our way to the corner of the auditorium which is ussually packed with the youths of D.A.R.E. and the young adults of ARROW, and eventually found the full stretch of row booked for us. After sorting out who should sit where, we settled down minutes before Pastor Gabriel opened the service with the pre-service announcement.

Now I must admit, when I came into the hall, I was somewhat in a state of condemnation over a few things that happened lately, and was feeling a little doubtful of having a good week ahead. But boy, was today's sermon a GOOD ONE (and relevant, too)!!!

In a short summary (which I find hard since there's so much to say), Pastor Prince was showing how the words of Paul in Hebrews 10 explain to us that condemnation is no longer valid in our lives, since the price(s) to pay was all settled on the cross at Calvary and that we must thus keep our hope - direct translation, the joyful expectation of something good - firm in our hearts, since they will be satisfied. He also pointed to Romans 5:19-20 about how 'where sin abound, grace abounds more' - in direct translation, 'where sin abounds, grace abounds beyond measure, and still more on top of that!'.

Since we're now covered on all sides, sinning can no longer condemn us, and along with that the temptation to sin. But in the same way, if you accept the condemnations of sin, forgetting that Christ paid for everyhing on the cross, then you would also except the many other curses related to guilt. (So rebuke condemnation NOW!)

A good example of these blessing put into practice would be the life of Abraham, and how despite the lies he said which brought kingdoms into famine, he died as one of the wealthiest men of his time. Another example would be in Matthew 1:1-6 (a part of the geneology of Jesus as the promised seed of Abraham), where four women who didn't deserve the honours of being part of God's children were actually mentioned, instead of any of the other women in the timeline who were more likely to be permitted with these blessings. This shows how God can bring about your salvation even from the 'evil' situations of life!

The sermon was made more funny by the way all the youths screamed "Woo!" whenever Pastor mentioned Pastor Dan's (former Youth Pastor's) name, as well as after the announcements when Pastor's latest DVD sermon from last year's Zone concert was being introduced in a video (the later part of the video mentioned that the DVD had dual language in Japanese, and started showing Pastor Prince preaching in dual mode {hilarious}). Shawn then came on stage to perform a solo of the closing song, I Will Run to You, before Pastor Prince came back on stage to tell the church to rise (in Japanese) so he could bless us.

Dismissed with "Syonara! Arigato!" and an honourable bow, I quickly left the hall to meet up with Mom and the others at Carrefoure (is that how you spell it?), thanking God on the way for the new high He's given me to begin my week ahead! But just as I got out of the Rock, I heard Salsa music beking played. Apparently, the Samsung sales event downstairs had a performance of precaution instruments. It was so good, I could feel the Spanish blood I had in me tingling! I squeezed my way through the crowd that was forming alongside the raillings to have a better view of the performance.

"Mom can wait," I told myself. "No one of my type can resist such lively music." Boy, I stayed on till the performance was over, and by then I was literally drunk with the music. A great revalation with complimentary jive: I'm oh so prepared for the week! But giving myself a few seconds to snap out of it, I met up with the family and bought a dozen donuts to take back home to enjoy.

Well, that's about it for now. Until next time, whenever next time is, here's a little spoof for y'all dedicated to those Christains that are feeling spiritually low, or anyone for that matter who just needs someone to hold on to. As a word of encouragement, please don't lie to others (or God for that matter) that you've got no problems, and just Say His Name. (I don't have the technology to extract background music, so here's the original song - Say My Name. Just open this in another tab or something and read the words here along with the song.)

Romans 4:6-8!!! God Bless Y'all!!!

Say My Name by J.C.
(Chorus)
Say My name, say My name
When others imitate you, say "Jesus I love You"
No need to be ashamed
Say My name, say My name
You actin' kinda tired
Leave it to Messiah
Why treat me so strange?


Say My name, say My name
When troubles are around you, I'll be right there for you
Claim victory from My name
Say My name, say My name
You won't take long to find me
One quick call and I'm here
Quickly say My name

Any other day
I would call, you would say
"Jesus bless my day!"
But today it ain't the same
You don't read My Word anymore, by the way
Could it be that you left your whole faith on your Father at bay?


If your faith is low, first of all, let Me say
I am not the one to sit around while you're played
So tell the devil that I'm the Christ that you claim
And he'll return the thangs
That he stole from you yesterday

(Bridge)
I know you say that you're in control of things
Something's going down that's the way it seems
I should know the reason why you're acting strange
And distractions holding you back from me
Don't you know I'll be blessing you
With Deuteronomy 22
Why can't you just tell the truth?
Dont let satan tell you what to do

(Chorus)

What's up with this?
Tell the truth, why you sad
How would you like it if
I told you it's not that bad
Don't try to change it now
Sayin' you've already lost
When 2k years ago, I said "It's finished!" on the cross

It's hard to believe that you'll survive, by yourself
When I just heard the voice
Heard the voice of prayers "help"
Just this question
Why do you feel you gotta lie?
Fellin' caught up in your game
You just need to say my name

(Bridge)
(Chorus)

(Where my angels at) Yeah-yeah-yeah-yea-yeah
(Can you say that? C'mon) Yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah Yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah
(Holy spirit say) Yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah
(I can't hear ya) Yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah
(All the angels say) Yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah..yeah Yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah
(Holy spirit say) Yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah Yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah Yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah
(Break it down) Ohh ooohh oh ooh ohhhh
(J.C., take it to the bridge c'mon)

(Bridge)
(Chorus until fade)



[Boy, imagine Jesus breakdancing...]

Fizziques...

Oh my goodness.

Exams have begun rolling, and Language Arts and Human Societies were battles poorly fought on Day 1. And now being Day 2, which starts off with Student Council Investiture duty in place/intergration with Chapel, Physics was the deepest drop...

I heard from many that they also found it just as hard, but I'd rather put it aside for now. After the paper, I decided to go over to Zheng Wei's house to practice a little more on Advance Mathermatics. I'll just have to go by faith that things turn around tomorrow...

Anyway, this spoof is dedicated to those who found the paper rather short and tough, and only had 4 Minutes to finish up. (This one would sound a lot more lame 'cause most Madonna songs have very few lyrics these days. Ah, well. Techno...)

Matthew 10:1!!! God bless y'all!!!

Local Student
Scholar
(Both students)
Teacher

I'm outta time and all I got is 4 minutes
I'm outta time and all I got is 4 minutes
I'm outta time and all I got is 4 minutes
I'm outta time and all I got is 4 minutes

I'm outta time and all I got is 4 minutes
I'm outta time and all I got is 4 minutes
I'm outta time and all I got is 4 minutes
I'm outta time and all I got is 4 minutes

Ha ha
Yeah
Ha ha
Write it down, come on

Hey
Uh
Come on
Ma' Scholar

Come on boy
I've been drawing a speed-time graph
For a bouncing ball

Well don't waste time
I need a sign
On how to answer free-fall, ooo

How can somebody read seventeen pages
Then answer it slow
There is no room for both

Well, I can handle that
But it's just sad:
20 more questions to go
(20 questions to go)

(Bridge 1)
If you know it
You already got it
If you thought it
It better be written right
If you see it
It must be real just
Write the word and grades will give you what you want

(Chorus)
Time ain't waiting
We only got 4 minutes to write the word
No hesitating
Grab a pen
Draw the curve
Time ain't waiting
We only got 4 minutes to write the word
No hesitating
We only got 4 minutes, 4 minutes

(Bridge 2)
Keep it up, keep it up, don't be a pri, hey
Inertia, uh
You gotta draw the line, hop
Tick tock tick tock tick tock

That's right, keep it up, keep it up, don't be a pri, hey
Inertia, uh
You gotta draw the line, hop
Tick tock tick tock tick tock

Sometimes I think
What I need
is a force interaction, yeah

And you know how to draw force resultant,
And that it's good, by the way forces move, ooh, hey

The ball that fell is paved with good displacement, yeah

But if I fry from fright
At least I can say I did what I possibly could
Tell me, how bout you?

(Bridge 1)
(Chorus)
(Bridge 2)

Pens down!
Yeah (tick tock tick tock tick tock)
Yeah, uh huh (tick tock tick tock tick tock)
You've only got 4 minutes to write the write

You're Hired....

Well, yesterday was the second of a two-day worrkshop for Peer Support Students, and I must say it was rather fun going through the different stations our future juniors would be going through on the first day of school next year! There was absailing, and teamwork games, and class-control workshops, and the sort.

Well, to be honest, I never fully volunteered to be a Peer Support Leader. For one thing, I told my Pastoral Care Teacher that I was willing to participate ONLY if it wouldn't pose a risk to my Canoeing training (especially at this season, when the Round Ubin Race is just around the corner).

How did she respond? She went to the Year 1 Level Head and quoted to her my situation, and so she in turn told Mr. See to excuse me during the workshop.

Well, at least Mr. See didn't look like he didn't believe my side of the story. But yet again, he didn't look like as if he believed it either. Nevertheless, he, as well as Mdm Goon (who was visiting yesterday's Land Training), warned me that this may take up some time during the 1st Term, and so I had to make sure it didn't effect my other commitments (Canoeing and Prefects respectively).

They both had a point. Listing down my commitments, I have;
Acedemics
Canoeing
Prefects
Peer Support
(Christianity isn't a commitment: God isn't in my world, my world's in God!)

And the fact that I also want to pursue high roles in at least one of my commitments (Maybe a Committee Member in Acedemics, maybe Treasurer in Canoeing, maybe Chairman of a Committee in Prefects, etc.), I really need to plan out my time evenly. And I know I can't do this on my own, so through Christ ALL things are possible!!! Amen!

I think I better go plan out the rest of my holidays just to ensure there are no collisions or anything of the like. (I already have 7 Camps, 3 Smart-Formal Events, 2 Part-time Pay-free Oriental Jobs and a Race to attend through the holidays! May the Lord my God be with me in the excitement!)

Well, Psalms 5:12!!! God bless y'all!!!

Five, Six, Seven, Eight...

Heh, first day of the post-exam break. Suppose to last 5 days long, and if you can't find anything to do at this period of time, you've not only about to waste over a hundred and twenty-five hours of free time, but also about to suffer the painful agonies of boredom. Something I particularly feared about last night.

But I guess I'm slowly being proven wrong that my break's gonna be stale. In fact, I'm starting to see that God's sprinkling a little - or should I say a lot of - adventure into my day!

The day starts off with me changing into my tangtop and shorts for the first Canoeing training I've had in a month. Slightly excited, and slightly lethargic, I stumbled around the house trying to remember the gear I would usually bring to morning training.

While searching fora second set of clothes to change into after coming back on land, I remembered the SMSes Ben Sim sent me about an emergency meeting for 'ALL prefects' at the Boardroom today at 7.45. I wasn't sure if I was suppose to go, or if Mr. See somehow fought the Canoeist Prefects out of it, but I took the latter opinion.

But then I felt a slight sense of insecurity, and so I decided to bring a set of my uniform just in case. Getting a lift from my Dad to MacRitchie, I strolled through the paths and to the chin-up bars, remembering the small details a regular to MacRitchie would notice.

Ah, yes. The beauties of the flora and fauna of a century-old man-made reservoir. Then just ahead at the last path, there's the rough outline of Mr. See pointing out to Brandon the different kinds of cloud formations in the sky. Ah, and there's Eugine telling more lame 'Kevin Beck' jokes, and there goes Mr. See in response by sub-strangling him with his left arm. Oh, he sees me here.

Wait a mintue. He's frozen seeing me. I wonder why. Walking towards him, he walked towards me as well, but without the need of much distance he asked in a loud but gentle tone why I was present. Before I could answer, he told me that Davin called him yesterday and informed him that the Prefects couldn't go for training today. I shortly asked back if he didn't excuse us, of which he answered back that it was organised by Mr. Samuel Sim so it was best if he didn't get us into trouble with him.

After commenting that he really appreciated the fact that I made the effort to come down for training today, Mr. See dismisssed me on the spot and so I ran my way to the bus stop. I checked my watch: 6:45 a.m.. Praise the Lord for an early dad to drive me to 'work'! Once most of the passengers behind me had already got off the bus (which was when I was nearing K.A.P.), I started putting on my uniform over my tangtop and slipping my gadgets (wallet, phone, MP3, blackbook, pen, badges and tie) in their respective places.

If anyone else was watching, they'd probably be thinking I was a very late student who couldn't tell if it was Sports Day or half-day. It took about three stops before I finished the full uniform, just about another five stops before arriving at school. At the final stop, I alighted with a slight sprint to the traffic light, before dashing across Dover Road and across the AstroTurf on the mark of the Green Man.

Along the journey, one of the cooks from the SAC (canteen) was cycling to work beside me, and we both had a short conversation in Chinese, of which I was so proud of God for giving me the ability to speak even that much without making myself unclear! Praise the Lord!

Arrived at the Boardroom just in time, with Ben Sim asking where I came from, and with me telling the whole story in a jumble of mutters. I then asked around what the meeting was all about, and David Hu said it was because the Senior Admin caught the Boardroom in a tragic mess, of which Mr. Samuel Sim was going to scold us on.

Ah. So I skipped training for a scolding, I thought to myself. But I was already there anyway, so I might as well just go through it. After socialising with other Prefects in a hustling atmosphere while waiting for a few more Prefects, attendance was checked and Mr. Sim soon arrived. Lined up into our respective committees, we stood up and greeted Sir before sitting down on the floor again, this time in echo silence.

He then introduced the matter in a formal tone, which was that a member of the Senior Admin once paid a visit to the Boardroom and found it in so bad a mess she started taking photographs of it with her handphone and showing them to Dr. Ong, who later called in Mr. Sim and Mr. Bongard for an explaination of the matter. They were both then reminded that if the maintainence of the Boardroom could not be sustained, then the Boardroom would soon be taken away from us.

Mr. Sim then added a footnoting that he wasn't going to scold us but rather point out an emphasis on a lesson we have to learn. He concentrated on the matter of how we had to take care of our assigned properties and not take it for granted, or it may jolly well be taken away from us again.

He tried using an analogy of a small girl with a big appetite to show how we had to maintain a good reputation by being first and foremost a good example, of which a Chinese scholar or to couldn't understand due to such specific bombasticness. Mr. Bongard later joined in and gave comments somewhat similiar to Mr. Sim.

They both then left us with a task: To clean and re-arrange the entire Boardroom from top to bottom within the next 3 hours.

We too the job seriously yet excitedly, and so the Trans-Council came together for a minute or two to discuss how the proceedure was to be carried out. They then divided the Prefectorial Board into 4 groups, of which were the respective committees, and they assigned shifts and roles within the shifts for each group, so that not too many people would be working inside the Boardroom at any one time.

Plans were slightly mis-communicated at the start, but after a few minutes or so we started catching well. As part of the Fund Raising Committee, I was involved in the cleaning and movement of the cupboards and shelves. Also had to help try to borrow custodian equiptment from the Estate Office, but by the time I arrived they they had already given out all the stuff to the previous batch that came.

After clearing out and cleaning the shelves, we brouht them outside along with the other items so as to allow the Student Act Committee to mop the floor. With the shelves and cupboards removed, the Boardroom looked a whole lot bigger than before. The SAC and another committe then scrubbed away busily while I went to rest along with the remaining Prefects at the Round-a-bout Dumpsite where we temporarily moved the furniture of the Boardroom to.

It felt rather weird sitting on a sofa in a surrounding that could easily allow cars to run you over, but it was nevertheless a good rest ith other Prefects. Some of the enthusiastic ones tried playing Table Tennis with a real tennis ball and the Council Meeting table just to kill the time, while some were playing a sport that was a mix between Soccer and Cricket with a rubber duckie, while some were standing at the window of the Boardroom watching the other Prefects mop the floor and pretending that they were making fun of them so that they'd get paranoid, while some were like me and sat on the sofas chatting about the current matters in our lives.

Soon, the mopping was done a Phrase 1.2 of the 'Renovate My Boardroom' plan was complete. While waiting for the floor to dry so we could bring in the furniture, we had a short break at the SAC, where I tried for myself a plate of baked rice fromthe Italian stall, of which tasted rather good but wasn't exactly worth $3.

I then went to the piano, where I saw the Prefects who could play piano show their stuff. For one thing, I never knew David Hu could play the piano. For another thing, I never realy realised how geonrome-flexible Prefects were on their taste of music. It was rather cool listening to them talk about a rather big spectrum of music, let alone watch them play it on the piano.

But before I could play He's A Pirate, we had to go back to the Boardroom in a jiffy. When we came, strong volunteers were called to help in the movement of the heavy furniture, of which I volunteered for. Removing my shoes, I went into the empty Boardroom with other strong and big-sized boys and we tugged in the shelves and tables and sofas and cupboards and so on and so forth.

The place slowly took shape, and I must say it was fun rushing around the room trying to move stuff to that perfect spot for that perfect feel! Slowly, but surely, the Boardroom took a new shape, and we were soon satisfied. We actually managed to rearange the tables in such a way that now we have a new Council Meeting arrangement, which is now a hexagon UN-shape instead of the old rectangular 'Mr. Trump'-shape! It was so cool, since now our Committee/Level/Prefect/Mentor Meetings could be held in such a more modernised format!

Soon, Mr. Bongard came to inspect the place, of which he gave a rather emotionless but comforting approval. He then emphasized that we had to make sure it stays this way, and make sure our mistake never repeats itself again. Hadrian then gave a debrief by stating that Phrase 1 on the Renovation Works is now complete, and that there was more to expect such as painting the walls!

We were then dismissed, of which I went home by bus along with a group of Year 3 Prefects. Arriving back home, I read the Bible at 2 Samuel 7:18-29, a segment where King David thanks and praises God for his victories after bringing the Covenant Box back to Jerusalem. The prayer comforted me in certain uncertainties I had for the past week, and I was at great peace and love!

I then went to sleep to rest after a good workout back at school (which was pretty fun while it lasted, if you ask me :D). My mom then invited me for high-tea at the Toast Box just nearby her office after fetching my younger sister from school, and we had a good meal to ease off the afternoon.

After the meal, we went to the Christian shop a couple of storeys up and looked around for stuff, of which Morriel found a manga comic of the Gospel, while I found another Ron Kenoly CD (Yay, Soul Gospel!!!). We then went to mom's office so she could fix a problem with the computers, since Kip McGrath sent us a new programme to include into the study plan but apparently didn't send clear instructions on how to run the programme.

While waiting for her and dad to fix the problem with help from a techie-on-the-line, Morriel drew more pictures of unicorns while I listened to my new CD in glee (Hehe!). Once everything was thankfully fixed, we headed for the Botanical Gardens for dinner at the Hawker Centre underground.

After meeting up with a coleague in the midths of the meal, we finished up and left for home. And that brings us to me going to my computer and typing out this post. Hmm, I guess God's really got control over the envents for the next 5 - sorry, next 4 days of emptiness and will be filling 'em up with activities to keep me entertained after all! Nothing to worry 'bout!

Well, after a fun and exciting day of redoing the Boardroom, and a calm and relaxing night of food and soul, I guess I better turn in now.


Psalms 91!!! God bless y'all!!!

What Time Is It...

At last.

It's all over.

The Final Common Test, is finally over.

Good, now we can all relax and enjoy the next 5 days of freedom to ourselves. But I must say, God was truely with me during the paper, if not truely with the lot of us! The papers were a lot more easier than expected, and I can confidently say I can make good grades for this test, most likely even heading my targets! Ah, well. It's now in the markers' hands, so the only thing I can pray for at the momment is that God would give favour to the markers. :P

Anyway, I doubt I can type out all I missed out for the past 2 or so weeks, so I'll just try to draw them out. (Hehe, a picture is worth a thousand words...) I'll try to upload as many as possible, see if you can guess what the events were (take note, I'm not good in drawing faces accurately, appologies...):




[3 more pictures to upload...]




Ah, well. Better get rested for tomorrow! Wouldn't want to miss my first Canoeing training in a month! Ah, I'll get to meet StingRay again! But wonder who's gonna be my new partner...


John 14:11-14!!! God bless y'all!!!

What reputation....

Ghah!

*sigh*, Raam B., for the last time NO we're NOT reviving the Detectives' Case! No one is interested and almost everyone has played a villan already, so there's more or less no point to it. Just leave it to the past and concider it a treasured memory once and for all, I say.

Apparently, Raam was going around blogs like Tim's and mine under the name of 'Nobody' and posted a few odd-structured sentences in the cBoxes. For Tim, he had;

13 Aug 07, 21:07nobody: oh yah found ah kong's blog
13 Aug 07, 21:07nobody: any1 wanna kno ask me this old ah ah
13 Aug 07, 21:08nobody: not realllly old tho13 Aug 07, 21:08nobody: but rather at an age similar to those who post as thy lamenting song of the sea (or of thy girlfriend)
13 Aug 07, 21:09nobody: does thee has 1? referring to lament master goh timothy?13 Aug 07, 21:14nobody: aaaahh tim i thot u didnt have any, d= so how could u guys have wacked part Cs with ur ball???xdld)::()

And for me, I had;

13 Aug 07, 20:59nobody: this is nobody here. nobody is sending this message in Leemiguel Raefusheng's message cbox. This is nobody here reading these blog posts. This is nobody here doing nothing.

I wasn't online last night, so I only found out about this this morning during P.E.. Tim was telling me he suspected it to be one of the Detectives due to the way the messages were typed out. And true enough, the common guess of Raam was right. I don't know if this was part of a plan to revive the Detectives, but NO NO NO we are NOT starting up again, and that's that. (Hmm, maybe I should post about the Detectives one of these days...)

*sigh*

Anyway, on with the post. I've been having doubts on myself, so I shall just type it out like a journal to relieve a bit of the stress. Please don't mind philosophical text.

Recess
I've come to discover why I go through sudden emotional changes during Recess, why I could have sworn I felt happy a minute ago, but at another momment during the Recess period I can suddenly feel somewhat sad. It's because of culture shock.

For the first half of Recess, I'd ussually make my way down to the canteen to buy myself a snack to last me for another quarter of a day. It's during this time that, after buying my food, I get a chance to go sit around with friends and classmates at a table and chat with them. Or even if I can't get involved in the topic because of no prior background knowledge of the subject, I can still rest in the thought that I am welcome to listen and see if my pinion can have a stand the moment I know a particular aspect in the conversation.

In other words, this is the only time in Recess where I can socialize with my schoolmates. Take a seat. Chill out. Have a talk or so. Invite more people so as to raise the variety of the chat. A few laughts here, a few points there. Overall, a nice social conversation to relax with, to show that you still have good friends indeed.

Then once I finish my food, I slowly place the plate back in the collection bucket, or crumble the paperbag into the bin, and make my way back to class. As I walk back, I may meet up with more friends and we'd probably tell each other a few comments on current affairs like training and duty schedules or how life's been to us. If there's no one, then I'd just smile to God and thank Him for the satisfying chat I've had in the SAC.

Then comes the sad part. The moment I step into my classroom, I here the shouts of people engrossed in their computer gaming in their PCs, telling each other how impressive the other's moves were and how their moves could have actually been better. Time after time, I hear opposite corners of the class reminding the main party their reservations for their next game. Time after time, I hear the screams of harshly-defeated gamers that regreted giving their opponents that tiny chance that meant their own downfall. Time after time, I even hear mini-fights which spark off due to these disaterous dissapointments.

And how do I join the club? Well, basically put, I don't. Or at least I can't.
True, it's partially because of how, as a prefect, I follow the rules. And yeah, it's also partially because I don't want to jam up my computer with all those space requirements. But take note when I said partially.

My main reason is more of my incapabilities with computer games. For one thing, I never got use to games that required me to press a series of keys to unleash a special force a number of times within a limited time frame, ussually limited because the opponent is also attacking you. I ussually find myself whacking the keys/joystick buttons randomly in great despair and hope that I could survive under the grace of God, and half the time it works for me.

Then there's also the fact that games get more and more complicated as time passes. Even though it's been about four years since I've started playing Worms, I only have the trial version. Eeryone else has the full version, some even with the 3-D version, and so they've got more experience on new weapons and features I never heard of. In the end, I'd still be averaged out as a person with no experience of the game and tossed aside.

Rise of Nations? Bah, everyone's taling about Command and Conquer II already. No point going around saying, "I play Rise of Nations!" when everyone else has something even more advance.
And how about the point that I still have this 'side-effect' with playing computer games.

Basically, once I finish paying a very complex computer game after a few hours or so and leave the screen, I feel rather dizzy and sometimes loose my grip on the meaning of life at times. As in, life suddenly looses its meaning and I seem to loose track of where it started or left off. I just loose direction until my mind regains contienceness within an hour or less, most of the time sped up if I quickly read my Bible. This effect doesn't really happen for simple games like Solitare or Pinball or even Diamonds; it happens more on games which are, well, 'complex' - Rise of Nations and anything beyond, as far as I've tested.

Now, obviously I can't spend hours on a computer game during a minaturely-compared recess, but for the situation in school there are a couple of problems I'd still face. One, well, there IS no Bible in the classroom, and unless there's a signifigant important reason I don't think I want to risk bringing my Bible to a class terrain. Two, I mentioned that it takes an hour or less for the 'life-is-meaningless' mindspell to wear off. And how long is recess? 40 minutes. Take away the half I use in the SAC, and we get 20 minutes. Take away the time that will be spent to play the game, and we'll be left with, well, nothing.

No time for me to ease my head before the next lesson starts. I may loose my optimism. And it's my optimism that keeps me working through the lesson. No optimism, probably no survival. Christ IS my optimism, and I think I'll keep Him in my mind as constantly as possible, especially during school hours when I need it well.

Don't get me wrong at that point: school isn't miserable to an extent that I'm struggling to strain out the joys in it. In fact, I think it would be if I introduced computer gaming to become a part of recess life. It would make things harder for me to cope in my studies, so I thinkit's best if I never try starting.

So all that was said in the last 8 paragraphs could be sumarised to one simple stand: I can't and won't play majorly complex computer games during class. And wha does this result to? Me having to stay in a restricted solitude of muteness, while the rest of the class carries on staying 'busy' on their tablets. Solitude that I can only spend on homework and (when I don't have anymore homework by memory) draw things on the Homework Board.

It's here where teachers miss the phinomenon where pictures 'miraculously' appear on the Homework Board to astound their eyes, changing their themes once every week. The one of the Kraken. A couple about Castles. Another couple about Ships. And even another about the Class Flag I composed a couple of weeks ago, which apparently Chairman Tim finds high interest in and demands the creation of more flags for the different clans of the class, something I'll get to once I can switch off the 'Philosophy' in my typing.

Yes, all of those pictures that ended up on the board were there because of me. Or more accurately, because of my loneliness. People drop by once in a while to critic, providing comments from how accurate my art is to how I can improve on some details to even what I can add or erase to make it more interesting.

True, it's those moments when I can talk to someone, and maybe from there spark another conversation that involves other topics, and maybe from there invite more people to join in and increase the fun in the chat, and maybe from there we even go so engrossed in the conversation we end up singing to the tune of 'We're All In This Together', which for some reason is playing in the background.

(*walks to Living room* "Morriel, turn it down!" *walks back to computer*)

Now, where were we? Ah, right. Yes, my actions of drawing on the Homework Board may result to an easier and more enjoyable recess that doesn't involve the misery of watching others play Marvel vs. Capcom while I stand there thinking hard for the next theme to put up. But I promise you, that is NOT my main intention for doing so.

I guess this period of silence is good for me - I can reflect on what I've done in the past few hours or so, I can finish up on work before hand, I can sit down and spend time with those who don't feel like gaming for reasons more emotional than practical, I can practice my drawing skills in hopes that I can start drawing comics again like how I tried back in Nanyang, I can even rest along side the window and draw its curtains to see the sunlight streaming through and praise the Lord within the silence for the fact that He'll always accompany me wherever I go, and will 'never leave you nor forsake you'!

I can't change others' lifestyles just so that mine feels a lot more comfortable. That would just be concidered a non-socialized decission, which would then be a greed, which would then be a sin, which would then circle around to mean one thing: I didn't trust God.

Well, overall I'll say I trust Him with my heart. And I'll also say I trust Him in how he handles my heart. And that, in my terms, would include a comfortable recess worth having before begining another half of the school hours. Besides, the drawing tips are coming really handy! Yay for drawing! :P

I guess all I can do is cherish those moments in the SAC, and after that walk back up to class, upright and dignified, with the mindset that everyday's a gift from God, even if it means you wouldn't spend it with others you really feel like spending it with. Maybe God's got something for them, and it doesn't rquire me as of the time being. I shouldnt interfier with His plans, for they're the best of the best of the best of plans. (For those who haven't believed, you have NO idea how awesome these plans have been to many Christians around the world and time...)

Or maybe it's because God wants me to pay more attention to someone else in the classroom, maybe someone sitting at the back corner of the room, sitting by his desk head in arms and waiting for God to help him out in a problem. I'll never know, or at least until God tells me so since He always instructs in many ways pre-hand.

Whatever the case, I'll always be thankful that Christ is still there beside me and is still listening to anything I'm concerned about in His plans. He's probably preparing a way to prove me wrong that my recess always have to be half-gloomy right this very moment!

Lunch
Say, it's during these second-halves of recesses which I wonder why people would actually want to friend me so much that I even end up being asked day after day wether I could go for lunch with them. I have a rough idea how God's changed me so much that I've become a good friend to others. I'm friendly, flexible and willing to go the extra mile for the satisfaction of pure intentions. But what is it from these that make me so, well, 'friend-attatching'? I know it's got something to do with my friendliness, but what exactly, I do not know.

[End of ePOM (Yes, for once this really IS an Extended Essay.)]

Well, to think it takes so many paragraphs just to write 'Recess' and only a couple for 'Lunch'. Very ironic, indeed.

Now on with archiving. For yesterday, painting in Art was cool, as I've leart how to paint shading! (Yay, art!) Kept singing the theme song of Pinky and the Brain with Tim and ZWei 'cause either Shil, Raam or ZRong made a special shade of pink. The singing annoyed ZRong to extents, let's just say. Raam was certainly playing around with the rest of the colours, I remember, and so he ended up with an entire tray of brown, of which the rest of us almost sang the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory theme song (chocolatey goodness, mmm...).

It was also around this time when my picture of the Flag of the Dan Empire was drawn onto the Homework Board for display as written somewhere above. Tim asked what the different elements in the flag meant, but another class started before I could say anything. Well, I never did write an explaination about the flag, so here's my say;

The White Cross: 1)Unity within all corners of the classroom. 2)The Roman Numeral of '10'
The Red Thirds: 1)Distinctly different variety in student population despite unison. 2) We're on the Red Level.
The Green Third: 1)Peace within the heart of the class. 2)Path for the snake [see Red Snake].
The Red Snake: 1)Read Genisis 49:16-17, and it says that the tribe of Dan 'will be a ruler for His people' and that 'Dan will be a snake at the side of the road, a poisonous snake beside the path, that strikes at the horse's heel, so that the rider is thrown off backwards'. 2)It faces upwards to show the class' progression towards a better class environment and our strive for the best.

Hopefully, that answers the questions. Tim also asked for another two side flags to be drawn at the sides of the flag. Hmm, I'll take it the two flags would be the Royal Standard and the flag of whichever cluster in the class is the greatest. Will see...

For today, PE was a fun round of Tennis, besides the 'Nobody' investigation. Paired with ZWei, but eventually had to move to the grouping of Shil, Raam and ZRong. Half-way through the game, I helped Shil with his NAPHA on Sit-ups, of which he gave up on because he was shagged from the Tennis, especially one with Raam and ZRong (because you always had to run an extra mile to catch the misguided ball). Had a practical test later in the Life Science Lab with Justin, and I guess things went pretty smooth (good job, Justin!).

Also had a rough estimate of how Mr. Ang found my group's documentary after hearing his splitting comments. Hopefully they were accurate enough, my predictions I mean. ISO was good since the new mentor was giving me more tips on how to improve my presentation, although he said it that there was nothing he found bad about it - it's only that it can do a lot better, that's all. For Maths, we wer told to do a lesson plan on Trigonometry, which got me praying 'cause I, along with a large portion of the class, had no head or tail on the topic. And glory be to God that Tim, the guy who kept complaining that his tution centre gives him 500-odd questions of Trig for homework, nudged my leg and asked me to be his partner! Praise the Lord XD!

Training is still standardly confidential, but let's just say that Kenneth and I have improved in our strokes! We're still crossing our arms, but at least our catch is more or less balanced! Now to work on co-ordination...

That's about it for now. If it'll thrill, the first person to tell me how many times I said 'time after time' gets a sweet from me XP! Mark 13:11! God bless y'all!!!

You tell me...

Today was the OneACS National Day Celebration.

When I got there at Queenstown Stadium, I searched t=for the rest of the prefects, which I found at the canteen. We then had a short briefing on our duties before being led out to the field. My duty today would be 'Miselaneous', basically being that I do whatever I'm told by the teachers in-charge of us, for this case Ms Goon and Mr. Bongard.

Walking down the steps of the stadium, I saw all the many different uniform groups in their uniforms and props, and it looked cool. On ground level, I walked past ACS (Independent)'s cluster of students, and found Tim, Matthew, JKit and Raam. I tried to force myself to say a "Hi" or something, but I was somewhat so amazed at the uniforms that all I could do was just wave without even smiling.

We then went to the opposite end of the stadium, where we met up with Mr. Bongard and a few Student Councilors from ACJC. The councilors then taught those who were having cheering duty a few new cheers. Man, their version of Dynamite is a lot cooler than ours.

I, along with the other Miselaneous people, were then told to protect the back gate of the stadium, making sure non-ACS people don't enter and ACS student don't exit. We did it in half-hour shifts, and I was one of the people on the first shift. And coincidentally, the marching started half-way in my shift.

Thankfully, I was still able to watch the marching from where I was. But it wasn't as grand as how it'd have looked like from the breachers. One thing that facinates me about marching is how different groups of people can come from different directions and somehow end up at a standardised position by the end of the music. Ah, well.

Then there was the waiting of the GOHs and the speeches, which took up one and a half shifts. By the time it was the March-Past, I was seated down on the track eager to watch what was going to happen. And so the music started playing, and the March-Past was on the road...

As I watched the contingents march by, I had a sinking feeling in my guts. I knew it was because I was so awed on the systemacy of the whole thing that I thought to myself how cool it was to wear one of those uniforms and say I did something important in them.

As they marched off the tracks, they slowly loosened up and became more mobile again. Soon, troops of white and black were taking off their caps and running for their bags that were in piles beside the back gate. Yeah, it really does look cool, even when you're easing off.

I watched them as they left for the buses at the back of the stadium, around the same time I took on my shift again. Protecting the gate, I looked back time after time to see friends from the different UYOs. Tim and Matt were looking sharp with their riffles for NCC (Land), JKit and Raam were bright in their white attire for NCC (Sea), and even Faraaz looked neat in an NPCC (Sea) uniform, along with Sanjev and ZWei.

And what do I wear? Berms and a white shirt saying we're 'Igniting the ACS Spirit'. If I was told to wear a blazer, at least I could tell myself I was still wearing a suit. But compared to the UYOs, I was just in civilian clothes. I felt deprived. I felt naked. I felt... I felt...

Yes. That was exactly how I felt. Couldn't draw so better myself. But soon my shift as over so I had to report back to the breachers, thus I departed from the misery of watching my uniformed friends.

For the next hour or so, I watched the games that carried on for the OneACS thing. Being positioned on the opposite side of the stadium, I didn't really get a good view of what was going on, let alone know what was going on. But soon after the hours ticked by, prize presentation was quick gone, and we were all dismissed school by school.

By this time, all the UYOs had already dissapeared. I walked my way to Queenstown MRT Station, where I took a train to Dover and caught a 74 to Clementi to change to a 75 or 184. And it just so happens that when I reached Clementi, Joel and Kirby were on the next bus!

They then told me about the documentary preview in class. They mentioned details like how we were going to be pinalised for typos in the subtitles, that the class clapped when I slammed the table, that Mr. Ang laughed many times through the film and even that Toj whistled when he saw me naked in a blooper. And when the bus came, Kirby was still there to tell me rough details on how things went.

That cheered me up a lot, I guess. Well, I better brush up on my ISO Report now while I still can. John 2:13-22! God bless y'all!

Give it a try...

Or should I? I don't know. It's just over there, and I can just take it. But shoudl I? Would it do any good? What can I get from it all? What can others get from it all? What would God get from it all?

Tim raised the point about a re-newed ClassCommittee for the class, and I've heard that he wanted to resign as Chairman. When he asked if anyone wanted to take over any roles in the committee, the class was all silent.

I was seated at the back of the class, lookng around if there was anyone willing to inherit other positions. There was no one. This was my chance. I could be entrusted with a class and take responsibility over it. Tim was willing to give up the position, and the class seems to trust me very much. Five years after being told once that I could not be trusted with the role of a group leader, I could just get the post of an overall class leader.

And all I had to do was just raise my hand, and the authority was all mine.

With nothing to loose, I was just about to raise my hand when suddenly, a thought was raised in my mind. I then wondered if my decision to get the title was a bit far of the charts of responsibility. What if it wouldn't be necessary for me? What if a little greed was involved? I searched across my mind to see if there was anyone or anything that I would effect in a negative aspect if I took that title.

What about Tim?

Oh, yah. For one thing, you only get even the least of one LEAPS point (Leadership Enrichment Achievement Participation Service) if you get the minimum of a year of service in a class committee. If I take away Tim's role at this stage, his counter will stop and will continue on me. Through this, I'll end up recieving the one point in my report, probably without any spared for him. That was just unfair.

I was aware that last year, I also had a chairman for each semester, but I think they left with Mrs. Sharon Woon closing one eye. I wasn't sure if Mr. Dave Tay would do the same thing.

And besides, all Tim has to do is just to endure another two terms (or more like 1-and-a-half, since a half of Term 4 would turn into a holiday) of doing the job and he'll get the point. It couldn't be that bad for him, it's just registering classes, attending meetings, organising events and the sort. Not like as if he'll be making treaties with other classes, declaring war on others, negociating trade with the senior levels or colonializing the juniors.

Comparing this with my determined will to get the 'throne', I decided it'll be better for Tim to get the point first. I could probably wait another 3 years for my next chance to get Chairman. So I slowly placed my hand back on the table before anyone saw my previous decision. Tim looked around. No hands. He sighed, and scrooled back into his chair, fine with the decision and allowing Mr. Tay to continue with the rest of the administration matters our class had to settle this morning.

I looked down. 'Did I miss a good chance?', I asked myself. But it was done, registered, archived, noted. I guess I'll just stand back and stay as Language Arts Representitive still. Which brought me to another point: who would want to be LA Rep when I leave in the first place? I can't leave unless someone takes over, just like the same situation as Tim. So like I said, I'll just have to stay here for the rest of the time here.

Just as simple as that.

Now, wasn't that sad-sounding or what? Let'scontinue the day with some (shortified) liveliness!

P Sci, we had the chance to play around with illusions and all, basically circulating the topic of ME! Yes, it's a topic on me! And why do I say so? Because it's a topic about light! And light involves rays(raes)! So as we've always learnt, anything that blocks a Rae, creates a Shadow! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!! I never knew I was involved in such a bright topic! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!! Man, I now feel so light-headed! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!

*sigh* This is fun!

After seeing how my path can be altered with the help of blocks of glass (wow, a bending discovery! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!), we also... erm...er...we also...

...man, I can't recall so much but just P Sci. Can't be that corny, can it? Ah, well.

Anyway, for training, since Hao Qing went for the interview/test to enter another school, I'll be rowing on my own for today. And with that, it means rowing the Bluenellow. Let's just describe the training in four simple words. Here we go;

"Ouch, my abdomen hurts."

Well, that's all I need to say. I'm just happy Hao Qing is still my partner for the competition, and that I'm not going to row in a K1 for the race. And if the test he took today really was an entry test, then I better enjoy Hao Qing as a partner now while I still can. If he'd like to go to wherever school he's being test by, may God be with him as well! I respect HQ for being such a socialble guy, even when he's so new to the team :)

Now, if you'l excuse me I'll have to go to sleep early to recover my abdomen or I'll fall apart tomorrow in the middle of ACS(I)'s Youth Day celebrations....

God bless y'allzzzzzzzzzzzzz...........

De-stress during holidays
Owning ('being better than') Lenin-Stalin documentary
Campaign skills (leadership)
Unslackable (majorly)
Memoriable project
Educational
Navigation improvement
Timothy's average-score problem
Accounts for whole of Term 3 (History)
Real world (training for)
Young ambition

(Just to answer those who've been asking on why I've placed so much effort on the project - always answer it the 'Mr. Ang' way.)