Thursday, December 07, 2006
It has been six months (5 months plus, round up) since I last posted, so I decided to clear the “web” and “dust” over here by posting a “marathon” of posts. Don’t blame me, school SO busy, need to MUGGGG so much to get ‘A’ leh… of course no time to post lah! For the past month (Nov), I had been diligently going to IMRE for my research attachment. When u are alone in the lab with four walls and with the experiment set-up in front of you, it is quite natural that people to some self reflection… The past 6 months was very memorable (everything in IP is always very memorable one, I think…), reason being it is the last 6 months of “honeymoon years” of IP, in the coming two years, we are going to get down and dirty with A levels.
So here it goes… you might want to get a glass of water
OBS
OBS was fun, gave me lots of exciting and new experience, doing things that I will never do again in my life. I think my watch rocks. Holt ROXXORS!!!! Again it was a bunch of people from different classes, of different personality, doing things together crazily. I still remember how Gladys laughed at Tony and Xuandao when they used the poncho that Jade used to cover herself while doing her business into the sea for their blanket. They thought of many creative ideas in preventing themselves from rolling into the sea when they slept at the bow. They thought of tying themselves to the rail but gave up the idea when there is a possibility that they will strangle themselves before rolling into the sea. Xuandao also talked about the jib as a 比喻 of Zhirong “let fly” à “hehe”, “back the jib” à block zhirong! I still remember doing cartel sentry with Doris, Reg, Kenneth and Jiafang. I ended up being “chilled to sleep” by the sea breeze, while the rest of them just chatted all the way for the whole night. But the best experience that I got was from Sea-Ex as I missed kayaking so much after kayaking at SJI ACE camp in Malaysia two years ago. The weather was not bad, slightly breezy and cloudy, and the sea was relatively calm. Being one of the leaders (though I was leading at the back) around was really satisfying and as the back-man, I got to encourage those hopeless souls who couldn’t catch up with the rest. I’m very happy to see everyone so determined when their bodies and minds were put to test. Don’t think back-man is a slack job okay! We couldn’t be too fast or too slow. Too fast and we will demoralize those already-hopeless souls. Too slow, we will have a hard time catching up. This is more difficult that rowing all the way as we don’t “row with momentum” – a different mentality. I was overjoyed when I learnt that we came in 2 hours before the other batch of IPs!!!! Kudos to everyone man. In addition, we sailed one of the tightest diamond-formation the instructors ever seen! Brought me great sense of achievement also!
I think if we can put determination in kayaking into studies, I think we can really become crazy muggers! Hahaha. Well… I think we must have determination to push ourselves and drive ourselves beyond our personal limits (a.k.a “comfort zone”), that is what OBS is all about anyway. When we succeed, we won’t care about all the sufferings we have go through… I mean, if you get straight A’s in A levels, you think you would still care about all the “studying-till-4am-and-wake-up-at-6am” efforts? Come to think of it… perhaps Reg learnt too much on determination in OBS.. HAHAHA. (don’t murder me reg…)
OBS (part II) – Hypocrites?
On another note, OBS really made some of us sound like hypocrites. How many of us actually complained, groaned, moaned, and cursed about this OBS before we were “forced” to sign up? “I rather have another week of enrichment week”, “Wah! So ex, pay so much just to torture ourselves” I still remember Louisa and Samantha repeating Mark Low’s “ONLY!” in front of the whole LT when he mentioned the price. Then one week later, some of us came out saying “I want to go OBS again”, giggling about the fun memories that we had and even talking how different the camp would be if zhirong (and his can-de-lah spirit) was around. (And he indeed was at the punggol jetty to pick dunno-who up). How hypocritical were we….
Fantasy…
So there was one free CAAL period somewhere during term 3, and Cat STRONGLY suggested on watching High School Musical as a class and everyone “unanimously” agreed. While watching the movie, Kenneth said he watched the movie before. Given that this movie can make Kenneth sit down and watch it again, I thought: this movie should have some substance. After all, we know Kenneth’s life is mainly occupied by soccer, studies and Jiafang… wah, got extra time for this movie, confirm-plus-guarantee-chop damn good…
Well, I think the movie was really good, the plot was inspiring, the songs were catchy, but the ending was very predictable, given that this type of movie should have a positive ending. How can Disney produce some movie that will shatter dreams of kids that watch the show?!?
A quote from iWeekly (translated from Chinese): no doubt it is a fantasy movie, “sugar-coated” and “well packaged”, but we just like to make ourselves feel crazy and fantasize on our own future.
Quite true indeed…
A few days ago, I left my research institute early and I decided to watch Step Up alone… yes.. ALONE, after several failed attempts to ask people to go out with me when I’m very busy usually. After watching, I think Step Up was a “trap” laid for teens (like us). Do you know that the movie production cost was only 12 million (USD) and gained 65 million? And it is ONLY based on box office in USA and Canada. The plot was quite well balanced with drama, romance and action, though there were certain parts where it was quite vague to me (due to cultural differences perhaps?). In terms of the casting, the girl (Jenna Dewan) was pretty, hot, but PLEASE PLEASE, the guy is NOT HOT AT ALL. There is this difference between guys who fit into the role and guys who are hot, Channing Tatum (very weird name) belong to the prior category. He has small eyes, crew cut, big built and his anything-would-do and heck-care personality just fit entirely into the role of a “rebellious” teen. And because of his personality, his romantic scenes are quite flat… the kiss was really flat… For girls, forget about Channing Tatum, for guys, forget about Jenna Dewan, as both of them are already together (are your hopes dashed yet?)
The action or the dance scenes were really good, but since this movie is about dance, so more or less the quality should be there.The ending was not that good as it was TOO FAST! (Faster that Jay Chou’s AE86!!) I can summarize the ending in about 80 words…
Skinny’s murder inspired Tyler and Mac to fight for their dreams. Tyler decides to dance with Nora and rushed to the performing theatre in time. Tyler persuades Nora to give him a chance to dance with her and realize his dream, even though she prepared a solo routine. Nora eventually agreed and their performance was stunning. Mac, Director Gordon and the dance scouts were impressed. Director Gordon accepted Tyler’s application for a transfer to the school, while the dance scouts expressed interest in both dancers. (85 words)
And that was the last 20 minutes of the movie..
And with this I give it three stars. To any dancers out there, try not to judge the movie because the choreography was really cool; don’t let your emotions control you! Be neutral!!! It is meant to be cool anyway…
I think movies like Step Up or High school musical will never happen in our lives. Sometimes, we just need these fantasies to inspire us and keep our fighting spirits on the high. Some people may think these movies are stupid and crappy as they are all virtual reality and burning holes in our pockets. However, I think success in our lives beings with little seeds of ambitions, which are quite “virtual” at the initial stages.
Ass Week
As usual, study until damn late like only one week before the tests. I think most of us have the hang of last minute studying after 2 years in IP, which is never recommended, but as long as we get A’s (A+ for Reg), who cares? If it takes Reg to do TYS 2 times to get A+, she confirm , die-die, plus guarantee chop will do it. Sometimes, I kind of get jealous to see someone so “on” in studying, while I’m playing CS-CZ everyday… haha. Gives me the motivation to mug sometimes, THANK YOU REGINA LIM! (HAHA.. sounds damn sarcastic…)
Higher Chinese O levels
- HCL prelims are stupid
- HCL O levels Prep camp was quite stupid and crazy as well
- HCL 应用文 was really stupid
- HCL 作文 was stupid too
All these equates to me getting a B or lower. Why stupid? The Paper one was totally crap after trying to spot on the topics for like one whole month
When friends become not so “friends” (maybe not even friends in the beginning…)
-1- Sometimes, I do feel like whacking Kenneth and Andrew (and the rest who went for the same tuition) they did question 2 in compo before!!! What a big “WAHLAU!?!?!”! it is as if they got a tip off! And I had no choice but to do that stupid bao zhang bao dao in which I myself have no idea what I was writing, confirm can get only 30+ only. While Kenneth and he rest will get 45+ scores. The world is just so unfair, some things in life are just so based on luck and chance, study probability also no use (no more MA2104 YAY!) on another note, perhaps I might get a “tip off” in A levels?
-2- An encounter on Bus – One day as I was going home from NUS, coincidentally, I met a friend on the bus, both of us were equally surprised to see each other (yea.. go calculate the probability please…). Since the seat next to me was wet, so my friend sat opposite me. I tried to spark a conversation and it ended up being a question-answer conversation. Obviously, I’m the one with all the questions.
Eventually, I gave up, and between us was a gulf of silence and air of solemn. My friend was “lucky” (well.. perhaps not lucky) to be busy with sms-ing, but I had nothing to sms! I had an iPod in my pocket (that time I still haven’t lost it yet), but that is the no.1 item forbidden in the art of socializing! With nothing to say and nothing to do, I decided to look around aimlessly (just like most passengers that travels alone).
But the funny thing here is that I can’t look in front! I thought: my friend would think I am starring at him/her, so better don’t look straight. So my friend ended up being the “roadblock” of my vision and I had to swing my head from side to side.
Lesson learnt: when you think you are the luckiest person on Earth to meet your friend on the bus, think again… may not be THAT good after all. But maybe, I treated this person as “my friend” while this person treats me as an acquaintance. Then that would be really, truly, deeply saddening… :(
This is first half of the “marathon of posts”, I will try to post the remaining stuff when I have internet connection in HK. Oh, by the way, I wrote the above posts when I was traveling on SMRT every time I go for research attachment. People can get quite emo on trains as well (:
Read, You Must...7:41 AM