Cosfest @ Downtown East

Okay, now that I've got a bit more time, I'll elaborate more on the day's events.

This cosplay event was at Downtown East, in Pasir Ris, which is just beside my town, Tampines. Because I love cycling so much, I decided to cycle all 6 kilometres just to get there. With me was my trusty Canon Powershot IS (actually, my mum's).

I got there in barely half an hour, and was greeted with this sign:



It seems the Tourism Board has prepared for Japanese visitors too. Very impressive.



This is how my bike looks like, by the way. It carried me all the way from there to here, so it deserves a little mention, at least. Urata's Numero Uno, coloured in what I'd like to call 'Caterham Yellow'.



Here's the main hall.



There's a smaller one to the side, mostly a waiting area for cosplayers during the cosplay exhibition in stage. I decided to check it out, anyway, and lo:



They were all on discount, but being the poor pitiful young man I was, I could only afford a $19 wooden kunai. In the end, I got myself a catalogue.



OMG only $39.90! Plus CD! I really wished I had at least $40 then. The stallholder was even willing to reserve it for me.





All sorts of posters and stuff at the Kare Kano no Mise (some Singaporean Otaku shop company or whatnot) booth. I couldn't snap any close-ups, sorry.







Losta fanart stuff too, on the benches at the corner of the hall.



BTW, it's actually Arisa Mizuhara. I'll remember that. ;)



I couldn't bring myself to buy this. Not only am I poor, I'm thrifty.

Moving on, let's have some cosplayer pics!





Believe it or not, this was the very same guy in the picture in previous post at the MRT station. Doing the same character, no less.



Back at the side hall, the cosplayers are getting ready to make their entrance on stage. I particularly like this picture here, cos they look so natural, and I've never had so many girls smile so adorably at me before (I'm deprived). I wished them 'ganbara!' after the shot, to which they gamely replied, 'arigato!'

Of course, you can't expect all cosplayers to be that friendly. found that most of them are quite aloof, or only close to their friends. Ah, well, it's natural. Either that or I'm being too extroverted.



Here they are, all on stage.



Pink Chii's the organiser of this event, or so I suppose. You can see black Chii in the row behind.



A close-up on the panel. We got some big names there, like the director of some Japanese Godzilla movie, a director of this thing, a manager of that company... And pink Chii.



At this point of time I got bored with the stage exhibition, so I only took one picture of Yuna (I saw her at Ngee Ann as well) before going around and shooting the non-performing cosplayers.



Pretty awesome, this Archer costume. I never thought one could pull it off so well. It's well enough for me.



Not sure where they came from, but the costumes are fantastic all the same. My camera lens wasn't wide enough to capture the Nodachi in full length, sorry.





I don't know who the character she's portraying is but I saw a mob of cameramen surrounding her, and just decided to join in. Nicely done, you don't get a lot of cosplayers who can do it so accurately.



Cloud demostrates to Shana and a Kimono-clad girl how to put his sword together.



I bit blurry, but you can clearly see Chikin Little and Shana snapping her cam at the Spidey behind him.









I love the costumes, even though I don't know where the outfits came from. Now I realize how much of a noob I am when it comes to knowledge about anime and manga. (BTW my favourite is the last one)









The Danny Choos (coincidentally, Darkmirage calls Stormtroopers Danny Choos as well) were present too. This scout trooper just got pwnt by a Star Trekkie.



There happens to be another Ichigo cosplayer, no surprise. The Rukia person didn't pull it off very well. My friend calls these people, who can't make it either because of their bodies or faces, 'cosfucks'.



There were reporters present as well. Can't wait to see this creepy face on TV.



I was drawn back to the stage when I heard the Hare Hare Yukai song playing. My cam didn't have enough memory to film the whole thing, sadly.



I stuck around long enough to watch a Kingdom HEarts skit, before moving on again.



The gang, and Guy Haruhi, the same one from Ngee Ann.



It seems that Yuki's a guy too. I think.







Back to the Grafitti wall. It's a bit more filled up now, and everybody was gathering round to watch this pro in a kimono in action.





Honestly, her drawing's really wonderful. Plus, she's a left-hander, a good sign of artistic quality.

One thing about conventions is that you soon runout of places to walk, and end up walking around the same place again and again. You also would happen to meet the same few noticeable people again and again, like somebody in an SOS-dan t-shirt, somebody with an ill-porportioned head, some fat dude in a Command & Conquer 3 shirt, etc. I never saw Darkmirage and his patented 'I am Darkmirage' shirt though.



Here's Shana. I think she's okay enough (the shoes are a bit too much), much better than a plump Sakura (from Tsubasa Chronicle) I was watching on stage, or another plump Sakura (from Fate) whom I saw at one of the bench-booths. There was a tubby Yomi, Chiyo and Osaka trio too.



Another personal fave of mine. The poor girl, she had no pockets to keep her Siemens phone, and I had to hold on to it while I snapped this shot. The guitar looks suspiciously like my Fender Strat, but it turned out to be a Suzuki immitation.









My spoils! Here they are, arranged on my table. A Haruhi necklace, a Haruhi postcard, a Death Note postcard, three Ouran High postcards (I'm practically a beggar, evidently), and the catalogue.

The event in whole was fun, and it was a real shame for me when I left at 5pm and rushed home (the run over Pasir Ris flyover was much harder than when I rode it from home as it's going uphill and there were lots of bumps and sudden turns) to catch my weekly screening of Rec on Animax (I sincerely think they should give it more air-time, it seems like an entertaining show to watch), only to realize that the 5.30pm slot was for a repeat telecast of Music Station, which I've already seen on Friday. What a friggin' waste.

Lucky Triple Seven

I need to find a way to get more hits on me blog... -_-;;

The day started with me completing yet another Physics chapter on the ten years series. Waves Properties is pretty easy stuff.

Later I spent the afternoon at Changi Beach Club with the family to attend a Wedding Solemnization Ceremony. I heard from somewhere that the Singapore Registry of Marriages has registered exactly 777 marriages today. Wonder what they did to the 778th registerer, though.

I was in green camo pants on that day, too. Only cos I didn't have a green shirt. Happy Green Day, y'all. Or rather, Al Gore Day.

The solemnization was quite short, nothing interesting, no pictures taken. I interested myself in mixing orange squash with Coke and wolfing down custard puffs and Otah.

It was over as soon as it started. After a satisfying lunch with Custard Puffs and Otah, I heard for the Karaoke lounge for a couple of songs. I found Romaji lyrics for two certain classic Japanese songs, つぐない and 愛人, and accompanied my mother in a duet as she was more familiar with these songs. It felt really cool, as I found myself training my Hiragana reading skills while watching the subtitles roll.



I headed down to Ngee Ann City (the largest Japanese-people hangout in Singapore) afterwards, where this Cosplay Event was taking place. I was planning to document this event a bit, so that I have something to put up on my blog. ^_^ I'm noticing a lot of Cosplay events springing up lately. There's slated to be another one happening at Downtown East. This time I'm planning to dress up like L. >.<

Anyway, they had police officers and metal detectors there. And no wonder, good ol' LKY's making an appearance there too.




This group was performing when I got there, dancing to that irritating Seifuku theme from らき★すた. Later I realized that the Haruhi cosplayer was a guy. -_-"






Quite a lot of interesting stuff in display there too. I still have yet to find out who that Heterochromia Iridium-desu-desu Maid in Green is.





There were quite a lot of Danny Choos present too.



Just had to take this one. It's very rare to see Orchard Road free of cars.

Later on, as things got a bit drearier I decided to hit The Heeren Mall nearby to cool off. I found a really huge HMV store there which took up three levels. It was pretty much the Kinokuniya-at-Ngee-Ann-City equivalent of a record store. Nearly all CDs I could think of, I could find. There were even imported (expensive) albums from Japan, like those of Angela Aki and Gazette. It was then that I realized just how much of a Swaa-koo (one who is uneducated about the world) I was.





Grammar error...







A few more pictures later and I was ready to take the MRT back home. (The last picture was taken at the station itself) Back at Tampines, I decided to drop by Tampines Mall to check out the Isetan Hokkaido fair. It was frighteningly crowded, as everything was crammed into a moderately small area in the middle of the mall. I did manage to snatch some shots, though.








Multitasking at its best.

I think I should go back there again some time. I didn't manage to see all the stalls, let alone identify the things I've taken pictures of. Also, I want more Gelato. Suzuki-san makes some great Gelato.

Reporting... The 2007 J-rock Matsuri

I just recently changed my blog URL, for two main reasons:

1. I decided to come up for a theme for my blog. My theme is 'Tokyo in Singapore', and reflects my mild obsession over Japan and all things Japanese. While I don't live in Tokyo, the least I could do is find things similar to Tokyo here in Singapore, while is surprisingly numerous and prominent. All this encompasses 'Our World'

I woke up at 8am this morning after a good 6 hours of sleep (returned from karaoke with my parents at 2am last night), well prepared for today's big activity. Before that, I had to get today's worth of revision done; the new Integration topic in A. Math. I had to get up to speed with all I missed during the times in class I whiled away doing planning work on my upcoming series of short stories (more about that later).

2. While I was signing up an account for dannychoo.com, I realized my old URL was too long to fit in the 'Website' box. :P

Today was the day of the 2007 J-rock Matsuri, held outside Orchard Cineliesure mall. I contacted my buddy for the day, Shaun, only to find that he had been up to something all early morning and was ready to hit the sack by the time I called. Boo him. Looks like I'm on my own.

I contacted Darkmirage too, but he never replied. :P

With the help of Google Earth I drew up a route to get to the venue. Google Earth is a really wonderful thing, it is.

My journey begins like most journeys to the train station, through the park on my bicycle. Nothing out of the ordinary, and I was blasting Muse on my mp3 player as I cycled. Risky, but entertaining. I get the feeling that I'm going to do a lot of cycling if I do reside in Tokyo, relying on my bicycle to get to certain places (work, public baths) as fast as possible while evading the heavy traffic in Shibuya or Akihabara. As I've said on my KH blog so many times before, I enjoy cycling a lot. I'm very intimate with my bicycle, and with so many years of experience I can maneuver it expertly with only my left hand, leaving my right hand free to sratch my back, tinker with my mp3 player, or even hi-five a random person down the street.

From Tampines station I ride the densha to Somerset, of course transferring at City Hall station. A bit of walking later and I've reached Orchard Cineliesure.



Not exactly what I'd expected. It was pretty small, and the band playing when I got there wasn't exactly the best J-rock thing I've heard. That's alright, I've already long since accepted typical Singaporeans as being substandard in all areas, and covering J-rock songs, and even composing original J-rock songs, are no exception.



The actual place is tiny, and hot, even in the shade. Most of the audience was outside the barricade.



(Left)Aiiiii can give you Gatsbyiiiii Gatsbyiiiii Gatsbyiiiii...



The tape is too narrow.



Shaun told me that majority of the Goth Lolita cosplaying community puff cigs. The sign was quite clear to see, and the cosplayers weren't sucking sticks, but the other plain-clad spectators were.



One of the better performances I caught, only because they were doing a song I knew (Dir En Grey's Red Em). They covered it pretty well, and the singer remarkably sounded a lot like Kyo. I couldn't hear the guitar solo though, as the drums were too loud. That's the same problem I always encounter when jamming with my band at Paradise Jamming Studios.



The emcee's got the moe voice down, but not the language itself. She says 'Matsuri' like 'Mat-su-ri'.



They don't do J-rock. Wait a minute, I found something more interesting. Let's take a look...



Ah. Sweet.



Most of the cosplayers there tend to crowd around Orchard Cineliesure's main entrance, mostly for the air-con, a cooling relief from the sweltering heat outside. I really pity them. One of them had even donned a pink snowcoat for the event. Silly girl.

I decided to check out Orchard Cineliesure too, as I never never been in there before. By this time my lousy Amconics camera had run out of batteries, so no more pictures. I checked out this tiny Otaku shop called Rapid Culture at the third floor and found a neat 5-piece SuzuHaru figurine set at $22. If I had that much money on me then I'd have bought it straight away. Oh, the poor boy I am.

I did have $7 though, but I didn't have enough brains, so I decided to dine in the Kobayashi stall at the basement level instead of the Yoshinoya at the first. The Gyuudon they served there had miso soup all over the tray, gravy spilling over the rice bowl, a tasteless piece of cauliflower, and tough chunks of beef.

I removed the chopsticks from the paper cover bottom tips first, then realized, much to my dismay, the top ends were joined together, like they always used to with the older wooden hawker centre chopsticks (I've gotten used to the newer 'two seperate sticks in plastic pockets' version). But, it's all part of Japanese tradition, so I embraced it with pride and love.

What I really did was focus all my energies into break the bond into two equally flat pieces. For the longest time I had never managed to get it right, and one end would always be bigger than the other. Watching Azumanga Daioh has taught me that this is a sign that I'm clumsy. Quite true, now that I realize it.

It came off perfectly, by the way. I celebrated my newfound skill by wolfing down the pathetic $7 Gyuudon.

I'm never eating there again.

I decided not the stick around any longer. After exploring the rest of Orchard Cineliesure and aweing at how grand it all was, especially as I ascended the top few escalators, I headed back home. On the way back from the station I took a detour to the nearby Community Centre to buy a top-up card for my phone and the check out the Japanese Language classes there which would be commencing in August. I plan to take up lessons as I find I'm not going to go very far any time soon at the rate of how my self-learning is going, and I need something that I can unwind from my hectic revision every Sunday.

Then it's back to home. I have never yearned for my own bed so much, apart from those other times when I'd stay outdoors for over 12 hours at a time, which is rare.

That's all for now. I'll update on the Short Story thing later on.

My last publish was March 20th. As I happen to be quite free right now, what the heck. Time to revive this old thing. Gonna get me a new skin too.

Just recently I caught word of this webcomic that's been around for quite some time now. Being a former fan of the Bonus Stage webtoon series, a lover of all things Japanese, and an avid manga fanatic, I decided to check it out myself. This webcomic is called 'MegaTokyo', it is done by a slightly-obese 20-something white (presumably Wapanese) guy called Fred Galla- Ah, whatever. The last name's hard to spell. For a white guy, his knowledge of Japan and its people is quite impressive. He draws really well too. The story was a bit boring in the first hundred or so strips, mainly revolving around two American guys and their random adventures in a fictitious Tokyo, especially with the character called Largo (who is a representation of Fred's co-producer for this comic, Tony Caston. The guy with red hair up there) running around blowing people up, guzzling b33r all day, and modding computers n3kk1d.

My hopes weren't completely let down, though. The protagonist, Piro (with the glasses), is a really interesting character, especially since he was modeled after this Fred guy himself. He enjoys Visual Novels, speaks incredibly fluent Japanese for a White guy, is easily smitten by 15 year-old Japanese schoolgirls, and plays as a female character in a certain fictitious MMORPG. Later on, he even gets to find love in this other equally likable character. I can really relate to him. If I happen to be able to meet him in person, I think we'd be good friends. He's good to be friends with.

Sometime down the road as I'm progressing with each page I realize that Tony Caston had left the crew. I only realized that when I noticed Largo's silliness and annoying attitude died down, and he got funnier. I did read a Wikipedia article about Megatokyo, and it did mention Tony abandoning the project, but I wasn't really sure when that happened. Think it was sometime a year ago, judging from my estimations (I don't read the blog entries underneath each strip. It takes too much time, and Fred/Piro likes to rant a lot). Boo to you, Caston. Piro's version of Largo is way better.

I don't want to spill too much information, so I suggest you go read it yourself*. Mind you, this webcomic started in 2000, and seven years later it's still going strong with just over 1000 strips (of course, the Shirt Guy Dom* and Dead Piro Day* strips did contribute). There are plenty of extras in it too, like side stories, mini drama-series featuring the cast of Megatokyo, even comic artist rants (though not a lot). It touches on the not-so-comfortable lives of Japanese idols, a fantasy-like Tokyo city where potential bad guys sign permits commissioned by the local Police Force so they can destroy the city, |/VCR3D|B13 13375P34K, cute cosplay, the 3vils of Otaku, and anime rip-offs (which pulled off really well).

(Speaking of rants, I found that Piro (the character and the actual person) seems to be quite t3h Emo. He has very little self-confidence in himself, thinks too lowly of himself, and this tends to hinder his admirable ability to support a trice-a-week webcomic series. It took the biggest toll in the beginning, where there'd be several days when he couldn't work out a proper script for the next strip and would just leave us with a message saying, 'can't do anything, sorry, am taking a break, will continue next week...' It's really good for him that his fans are (as quoted by him) "the most patient fans in the world". And I think he really deserves it. Keep up the good work, man. It's worth the wait.)

Back on topic, the thing I liked most about MegaTokyo was that Fred did it with a strong sense of bearing and a clear awareness of what he had to do. He effectively touched on certain sensitive issues, like how one's low-self confidence could ruin the life of the person closest to him, and how the 'Otaku effect' affects the idols they worship to the point of insanity and ruthlessness. Besides that, the storyline itself is compelling. Compelling and complex. So complex I don't know how to summarize it for you.

That's all for this 'revival'. Just a little extra info, I took 3 days to cover all 1000+ strips from day one-2000 to the one done some time this afternoon. In total I spanned not more than 8 or so hours. Even I never knew I had such m4d5ki11z.

20-3-07

Lots of things to blog about, but right now I don't have much time. So I'll summarize.

Today was my last Physics tuition at the CDAC Student Centre near the mall. Got rushed by my parents to go early. As such, I had time to bring my Sangokushi Taisen cards out to play another session at the mall arcade. Sangokushi Taise is fn. If you don't know what it is, I'll show it to you. Soon.

Cycled there as usual. Cycling in cool nights are really refreshing. It feels absolutely awesome, the wind brushing past your face, and you get a good workout out of it too. I didn't need to sweat it out, though.

Haruhi Suzumiya of KawaiiHeavens has gone off to deployment. I'm gonna miss him so much. He brought so much life to the forums, and to me. ^_^ I'm wishing him all the best.

Got a new tune for my old blogskin. Hope it works, I haven't tried it yet. :P

Chinese New Year was great. We had Monday and Tuesday off from school to go about doing all our CNY stuff. On Sunday we had relatives to our place. I've never had to play so much Mahjong my whole life.

Monday was free for us to do anything. My brother and I decided to hit the streets, more specifically Bugis Street, to see if any of the shops were open. None, of course, but it was a picture-perfect moment, seeing the street market completely vacant, and snapped photos of it.

Tuesday, I had my classmates from school visit. It was totally unexpected, but nonetheless I prepared the mahjong set again. My parents liked some of my friends, but not a few of them. Possibly because of the way they behaved. I notice it too, and I agree with my folks.

Wednesday, back to school. As usual, a few sets at the pull-up bar with lag assistance. I gotta train up to do at least one. And that includes cutting down on my fats too. I have fats? Sure.

Saturday. Jigsaw Puzzle comptetition day. Signed up for it a few weeks ago. Woke up early in the morning just to ride a train all the way to the west side of Singapore just to attend. It's at a place called Ngee Ann Ploytechnic. Met school alumni Sean there. His band is still going okay, and he's taking a course in photography. Nice choice.

Anyways, as it turned out that event wasn't all about the jigsaw puzzle competition at all. It was more of a presentation by the Nature Photography Club (a boring one at that) about nature, and photography. The Music Conducting club who performed there weren't that entertaining either.

The hall was pretty chilly by the time the competition got going. y fingers fumbled on the pieces, but in the end our team secured 3rd fastest to finish the 90-piece puzzle, all in a span of 15 minutes. Sounds noobish, but it was harder than it looks. First place? Pioneer Secondary, team [insert number here]. Second Place, Pioneer Secondary, team [insert another number here]. Third place, Junyuan Secondary Diffusion Boyz (I came up with this name. That's what we call our foursome of science brainiacs.).

Rushed off afterwards, all the way back to Bugis, to attend an unofficial Sangokushi Taisen tournament. Met a lot of sgcardgames.com forum people there. Got knocked out in the first round, due to my inexperience (literally, my account had lesser experience and thus my Heihou was weaker I think I was the lowest-ranked guy in that tournament). It was fun, though, and I hope to attend it again.

That's pretty much what happened over the past few days. Man, suddenly I'm getting better and better at doing summaries.

After collecting dust for an extensive period of time...

The last post I made was on the 2nd of January, 2007. Today is the 16th of Febraury, over a month later. Yep, time to update my blog.

A lot of things happened over the span of more than one month. My uneventful birthday, my situation with a certain Chinese syllabus, all the new anime and stuff I've been watching, and new developments on my computer. Let's see if I can go through...

12th Jan was my birthday. Incidentaly happens to be the day before our school's CCA (interest club) Fair. Being in the NCC's marching contingent, I spent most of the afternoon under the hot sun, followed by the cold rain, practising my footdrills with the rest of the guys. Not the best birthday, as hardly anybody greeted me, there was no cake, there were no presents. Not like I was expecting anything.

CCA Fair. The marching contingent thing went quite well, after that the contingent was pretty much free to do whatever they wanted. I wandered around the milling crowds in the school compound with my precision drill rifle, ocassionally doing a few rifle moves, swings and gyrations with it, while meeting up with parents of Secondary 1 students and talking to them about the NCC.

My band's been doing fairly well. Fairly well. Cassis by Gazette has been covered, the drummer and vocalist is touching up on Baretta. I've already mastered my guitar solo. We were going to have an upcoming performance for the upcoming Chinese New Year concert.

I upgraded my 256MB RAM for a 512 one. And got the computer corrupt because of it. Turns out I forgot to remove the 126MB RAM as well. The differences in RAM size broke my comp. Had to get it fixed at the computer shop. Spent a long time waiting for Hitachi to send a replacement for my corrupt hard disk. Got the computer repaired in the end, but now it can't make sounds. It still can't make sunds. Really fsked up. Shaun couldn't do anything about it. I better send it back to the repair shop soon.

Release of the 'O'-Level results for the graduates of 2006. A tearfest, it was. I promised my teacher I'd set the record this year, and achieve 7 distinctions in the exams, one up from the current record at 6. Now everybody, even the principal, is holding me to that promise. Ugh.

Today was the day Hachigatsu (my Visual Kei band) got into full VK dress and performed Cassis live on stage in the school hall. Everybody loved it. My solo was perfect. I had a great time. Video and pics should be up soon. I'll show them to you.

And I'm having a running nose right now.

See ya guys later.

Akemashite Omodetou Gozaimasu!

Happy New Year peeps! Yeah. Joy. Hurray.

Alright, let me tell you how my December 31st went. Jan 1st comes later.

December 31st, 2006. Woke up at around 9AM, which was quite early in my usual vacation standards. Today was a special day; the family's going to the airport to meet a friend of my mum's from the Philipinnes, Aunt Gay (as in 'happy'). Mum's been telling me all about her, especially about her husband, who happens to hail from Tokyo, Japan. I was psyched. At last, a living breathing Japanese specimen I can converse with, in (broken, extremely basic, with bare honorifics special to 'gaijin' picking up the lingo) Japanese. All throughout the journey there by car, I was practising my "yokoso", "hajimemashite" and "watashi no namae wa..." 'introductory speech'. Aunt Gay (as in 'happy') has a son too, whom I later learnt was a trilingual 9 year-old with a strong Philipino accent named 'Kent'.

We watched through the glass walls as the family picked up their luggage at the belt and approach us at the automatic doors. I was the first one to greet them, with a cheery 'yokoso!'. The husband responded with a polite 'domo, domo'.

It was refreshing, to say the lest, to even be around their family. Aunt Gay (as in 'happy') and Kent were quite adept at the language too, obviously, and I listened intently to their conversations despite having a zilch clue of what they're talking about. I didn't note that Aunt Gay (as in 'happy') address Nodo Kunio-san as 'tousan' and Kent as 'nisan'. So these addresses are universal in the family, I figured.

I wanted to ask the good 'nihonjin' of his opinion of Singapore's international Airport, Changi. I made a slight blunder with 'airport' (I didn't know it was 'kuukou'), as he didn't understand when I asked him (even the way I asked him, was suck), "Changi airport suki desuka?" When Aunt Gay (as in 'happy') explained to him, he understood, and gave me quite a decent reply, one I didn't understand and made my mum comment on how little of the language I knew, and how ineffective it was in normal conversation.

We saw the family off at the car park (I greeted them "dewa mata desu", and got another reply from the whole family that I couldn't understand), and went home ourselves. We had to prepare for tonight's Countdown party at Changi Beach Club. At least, my folks had to. Me and my bro were just tagging along just to get out of the house a bit.

Meanwhile, I decided to play PangYa on the computer. I haven't touched it for a long time now, and I just picked it up again yesterday, after a certain incident with me and a PangYa figurine Gachapon machine at the nearby Gaming Store. I had also checked that I was entitled to receive a Christmas sweater for my Kooh character, as a free gift from the PangYa staff for the Christmas event (man, I'm so late, aren't I?) Sure enough, we I logged in I received a message saying that 'my gift has arrived'. But, upon checking the Gifts section, I got a pleasant surprise.

Somebody by the name of Cyprel (female), who happened to have a very nice game of golf with me the day before, has gifted me with a new character (Arin, whom I have been pining to own for ages now), two caddies, Xuexue and Bruela (no images available), whom I've not a high enough level to employ, a chocolate brown blouse and skirt set for Arin to wear, also too high a level for me to equip, and a set of Mach 4 Rocket Booster clubs, also which I am not 1337 enough to use. I am eternally grateful for the Arin she gave me, though. Then again, there's always the possibilty somebody has hacked into her account and given everything she owns to me. I managed to test her out a bit (I was thoroughly impressed at her stylish and adorable way of playng golf) before I was rushed off to the car, bound for Changi Beach Club.

Dad and mum were participating in a 'Retro Night' event. And I had nothing to do. However, I made myself busy greeting the folks there, and spent a bit of time in the Karaoke room, before heading back home out of boredom.

I had to take the 29 Bus from a nearby bus stop to the Tampines Bus Interchange, wrom where I can transfer to another bus that would take me home. The street was completely deserted, save for an occasional passing of a vehicle. The area around it was eerily dark, too. A dimly-lit park downhill to my right, a derelict WWII building to my left, and nobody at the bus stop but me. There had been rumours of 'sightings' around these parts, but I couldn't care ush for that.

As I sat there waiting for the bus (which always takes a very long time), I decided to chat up with Him up there. No, I didn't pray to him, I didn't confide in him. Shameful as it is, I do not possess the Faith. I hold a very scientific viewpoint towards Life. I do not Believe. That said, It was only idle chatter. I told Him about my problems of 2006, and how I resolved to avert all of them in the coming year. As He quietly listens, I explain how I've always been making New Year'S Resolutions every year, but I usually forget them before February ends. This year, I have vowed to drop my procrastinative attitude. If you're like me, I suggest you make that resolution too. Before it's too late and you get too lazy.

I reached home at around 11:15PM, and played a bit of Family Mode PangYa (1P/2P gameplay on a single machine), whilst admiring my new, absolutely beautiful, Arin.

At 11:57, I turned on my TV, and prepared my digital watch. I do this every year: Synch my watch with the New Year countdown. That was when I made the startling discovery that Gurmit Singh, JJ Lin and Jun Yang all play DOTA. Anyways, yes, in the end, I did get my watch synched.

Haypi Klismus!

Christmas Day. I woke up with a bad throat which hasn't recovered since yesterday. Unsurprisingly, there was a sense of ordinariness in the air. Ah, yes. As expected. Went for a Christmas-y teeth-brushing, a Christmas-y shower, and a Christmas-y change of clothes.
I had a Christmas-y breakfast of hot chocolate and pizza bread. Then I spent some Christmas-y time on the computer. Really, it was such an oridinary day. Resumed my Galactic Empire Campaign on Empire at War. Took control of Aeten 2 and Fresia from the 'Rebel Scum'. Usually I can choose to allow the battles I enter to 'auto-resolve', which quickens the process and immediately shows me the results of the battle, but there were a few instances, where a Rebel fleet ambushed my planet Carida's orbit and destroyed my Space Station, that I sent my Strike Force Navy to hyperspace in and intercept and personally ensured that I eradicated all enemies from my space. I had spaghetti for lunch. Yum.

Oh yeah, at around early afternoon my brother and I headed for our shop at Dhoby Ghaut MRT to get a free haircut (and prepare for school's re-opening. My fringe was already well below my eyes). From there we walked to Bugis Street (Passing by CHIJMES and checking out the Maid Cafe once again, along the way) and went shopping for shoes. We didn't really buy anything (due to our limited budget) and ended up just browsing the shops. I stopped by Kinokuniya for a while to browse through some Japanese - English dictionaries. Even the smallest ones costed over 15 bucks.

We took the MRT back to Tampines, where I got myself a $2 Ramly Burger (special Christmas present for myself) from the night market, and spent a dollar on the DrumMania machine at Century Square shopping mall.

Got back home with the 291 bus. Dad had prepared pizza and salad. I had a few slices, and ate a bit of leftover spaghetti. Then I opened my present, and ate that as well (chicken patty).

And here I am, blogging as I listen to God Knows by Aya Hirano, YOU by YURIA and Fuhen by Rin on Otaku's Dream Mix, one of my few personal favourite sites on the web. It has a Flash MP3 player that stores and can play 500+ anime OPs, EDs and insert songs.

That's Christmas for me. Hope you have a better one.

Jokes galore! (Not entirely SFW)

Jack Schitt

Who is Jack Schitt you ask?

The lineage is finally revealed. Many people are at a loss for a response when someone says " you don't know jack schitt."

Now you can intellectually handle the situation. Jack is the only son of Awe Schitt and O Schitt.

Awe Schitt, the fertilizer magnate, married O Schitt, the owner of kneedeep N. Schitt, Inc.

In turn, Jack Schitt married Noe Schitt, and the deeply religious couple produced six children: Holie Schitt, Fulla Schitt,Giva Schitt,Bull Schitt, and the twins, Deep Schitt and Dip Schitt.

Against her parents' wishes, Deep Schitt married Dumb Schitt, a high school dropout. After being married 15 years, Jack and Noe Schitt divorced.

Noe Schitt later married Mr. Sherlock, and because her kids were living with them, she wanted to keep her previous name. She was then known as Noe Schitt-Sherlock.

Dip Schitt married Loda Schitt and they produced a nervous son, Chicken Schitt.

Fulla Schitt and Giva Schitt were inseparable throughout their childhood and subsequently married the Happens brothers in a dual ceremony.

The wedding announcement in the newspaper announced the Schitt-Happens wedding.

The Schitt-Happens children are Dawg,Byrd, and Horse.

Bull Schitt, the prodigal son left home to tour the world, and recently returned from Italy with his new bride, Pisa Schitt.

So now when someone says, "you don't know Jack Schitt", you can correct them.

Obsessions

A psychiatrist was conducting a group therapy session with three young mothers and their small children.

"You all have obsessions," he observed.

To the first mother, he said, "You are obsessed with eating. You've even named your daughter Candy."

He turned to the second Mom. "Your obsession is money. Again, it manifests itself in your child's name, Penny."

At this point, the third mother got up, took her little boy by the hand and whispered, "Come on, Dick, let's go."

Car in Heaven

Three friends are in a car driving to the ballgame when a big truck runs them over, killing them instantly.

They find themselves at the Pearly Gates being interviewed by St. Peter. "OK, you," he says, pointing to Vito, "How many times did you cheat on your wife? And don't lie, I'm St. Peter you know. "

Vito hangs his head and replies, "Honestly Pete, I was with two maybe three different broads a week."

St. Peter says, "OK, your car in heaven is that used Geo Metro over there, goodbye."

He looks at Eddie and asks, "How many times did you cheat on your wife?"

Eddie replies, "I must admit that in 15 years of marriage I did cheat on my wife 3 times."

St. Peter says, "OK, your car in heaven is that LeBaron, goodbye."

He then looks at Jacob and asks, "And you, how many times did you cheat on your wife?"

Jacob lifts his head high and replies, "I am proud to say that over 20 years of marriage, I never cheated on my wife! In fact, my beloved has been dead for 2 years now and I remained celibate the whole time!"

St. Peter replies, "Very impressive. Your car in heaven is that Ferrari convertible, goodbye!"

A couple of hours later, Vito and Eddie are waiting for Jacob at the park where all three had planned to meet. Jacob arrives a couple of minutes late in his Ferrari, and his friends notice that he is sobbing like a baby.

Vito asks, "Hey! Whatsamatterwidyou? We should be crying! We're stuck with these ugly buckets and you got a new Ferrari!"

Jacob, between sobs replies, "I just saw my wife on a skateboard!"

Oh, and another random thing. If you ever have the time, and happen to be a fan of anime and related stuff like me, check out Darkmirage's Anime Blog. Quite a lot of decent stuff in there.

Cheers.

12-12-06 (One of the few days which ca never get mixed up between the English and American calendars)

Today was like any other regular Tuesday during the vacation, except I had a whole new bizzare dream (me, being an NCC Sergeant, commanding a squadron of female marionettes (or mannequins, if you like), leading them in a FIBUA (fighting in built-up areas) mission and carelessly leaving my rifle somehwere around (though I was more like unaware I even lost it) (no difference, f that happens in real life I'm a goner).) which ended up with me waking up slightly later than usual, at around 11.

Dad's asked the three of us me, brother and sister) to hit the library this afternoon and borrow some books so we can spend the rest of our holidays doing more worthwhile stuff like reading books instead of whiling our time away on the comp and wasting the electricity bill. I did spend some time forum-ing and catching up on episodes 8, 9 and 10 of Death Note on Youtube, though, before having lunch, then catching some Saber Marionette J to X on Animax channel before setting off.

We headed to the nearby mall first, as it was pouring rather heavily and there would be no shelter during the journey from the bus interchange (and mall) to the library. I checked out my usual spots (my good friend at the Gaming Zone shop wasn't around with his PS2, so there weren't any free games to play today), and when the rain finally stopped to the library I went.

We spent quite a long time there, individually. I read a book about the country of Japan, that explains its geography, history, cultures and other related stuff, followed by one part of a manga series that chronicles the life and times of Buddha, followed by a Tom Clancy novel (Splinter Cell), which I only managed to read halfway before I felt it was time to go. I ended up borrowing the Tom Clancy book, one called "Kafka by the Shore" by Murakami Haruki, "Goodbye Tsugumi" by Yoshimoto Banana, and a non-fiction book on the difference perspectives of Terrorism.

I find Haruki's book rather interesting and inspiring. The main character of the story, Temura Kafka, seems to remind me of myself a lot, somehow drawn back from society, spending time with himself, reminscing about stuff, that kinda thing. It's really a fresh read.

Oh, and all the while I forgot to cancel my jamming session with my friends. Kwee. I bet they're all mad at me right now. Oh well. Deal with it later.

15 Fun Things to Do in a Supermarket

1. Get 24 boxes of condoms and randomly put them in people’s carts when they aren’t looking.
2. Set all the alarm clocks in Housewares to go off at 5-minute intervals.
3. Make a trail of tomato juice on the floor leading to the rest rooms.
4. Walk up to an employee and tell him/her in an official tone, ‘Code 3’ in house wares... And see what happens.
5. Go the Service Desk and ask to put a bag of M&M’s on layaway.
6. Move a ‘CAUTION - WET FLOOR’ sign to a carpeted area.
7. Set up a tent in the camping department and tell other shoppers you’ll invite them in if they bring pillows from the bedding department.
8. When a clerk asks if they can help you, begin to cry and wail "Why can’t you people just leave me alone?’
9. Look right into the security camera, use it as a mirror and pick your nose.
10. While handling guns in the hunting department, ask the clerk if he knows where the anti-depressants are.
11. Dart around the store suspiciously while loudly humming the theme from “Mission Impossible”.
12. In the auto department, practice your “Madonna look” using different size funnels.
13. Hide in a clothing rack and when people browse through, say “PICK ME!” “PICK ME!”
14. When an announcement comes over the loud speaker, assume a fetal position and scream “NO! NO! It’s those voices again!”
15. Go into a fitting room, shut the door and wait a while, and then yell loudly “There is no toilet paper in here!”

New Year's Resolutions!

Yes, I know it may be a bit too early for that, but, seeing the events that passed me by the past week, I felt I needed to get a few things straight with myself, and immediately. I've been doing some backtracking of late, and the things that flow through my head isn't exactly stuff I'd like to see myself doing. In fact, it's getting me all EMO. Ew.

I mean, I'm getting all depressed just thinking about it. What better than to blog my thoughts here?

I have been slacking like never before this week. Either that, or I have finally reaised the severity of my actions (or rather, lack of actions) after a deep remniscing under my blankets, as I lie in my bed with my eyes to the ceiling one night. For most of the past days of my vacatons, I've spent majority of my time holed up with the computer, doing what I do everyday, except with more intensity (I hope this word is acceptable for use here), only because I have the time to do it. As such, I've done it to such an extent that whenever I'd log on to my forums I'd find that nobody had replied to my posts yet (goes to show how frequent I 'frequent' these forums), and this in turn gets me all impatient, and whenever I'm impatient I'd go downstairs and raid the fridge for something to eat. And that means hogging all the little tidbits, fruits, milk, juice, and even cold water that's in there. Looking back, I realised I've become no better than a freeloader in the house. And that gets me down. (As you might already know, I tend to be sensitive about these little things.)

I've earlier planned to meet up with friends and complete my holiday homework by this week. Till today, I have done nothing of the sort.

I've made arrangements to send all my good friends around the globe a postcard apiece to wish them a merry Christmas. This had been thought of since the beginning of last week. Getting my contact's home addresses were easy enough, but I could never get myself to haul my butt outdoors and find a Christmas tree I could snap a picture of me standing beside with my Canon camera, till only 2 days ago. And my Selphy postcard printer had run out of ink, meaning I've only been able to send 2 postcards off, while I await an opportunity to grab another ink cartridge.

I have a 'job' at my dad's shop at Dhoby Ghaut station, at the far corner of a little junction known as Dhoby Xchange. The sad part to this is, hardly anybody comes by to even browse at the windows of the shop, and that leaves me extremely bored. So bored, I'd lock the doors of the shop and head off to Plaza Singapura shopping mall for nearly an hour, gallivanting and shirking my duties. I feel guilty that I'm even paid to do this job.

You know, when misery hits you, it tends to throw a 1-2 punch. The '2' to all this depression is that, when I look around, I see people who've carved deep niches for themselves, who've succeeded in the things they do, who better me in terms of performance, who are renowned for what they do. Famous voice actors, successful anime creations, forum admins, DrumMania experts, blogger-reviewers. I compare myself to them, and agree that I'm no more than a midget as compared. So, I asked myself, why is this so? Then I said to myself, it's only because the world is unfair. It only offers opportunities for certain people to shine in these areas (and very often these people have the money I don't), and leaves nothing for the rest. Now, I tell myself, it's merely for the fact that I don't got the freakin' mentality to be what they are, to go the miles they've covered, to toil like how they work. I'm a slacker at heart, and a procrastinator, at that. And a lazy ass, at that that.

Procrastination is my biggest concern here. I am very concerned about it, and I desperately want to remove it from my attitude, my behaviour, my character.

Just this afternoon, a friend had asked me to add his Friendster account to mine. I was clearly very free, and I was doing nothing at all in the computer save for playing a casual game of Solitaire, but I lied to him and said I was playing an Online game and I would do it later when he pestered me about it.

When he asked the second time, I finally hauled my ass up, logged into my Friendster, and sent him an invite. WIthin a few minutes.

I was procrastinating over a tiny matter that'd take only a few minutes to do. Damn myself, I'm getting lazy too.

As such, I have made a vow to improve myself come 2007. the 3 most important reslutions, I shall write on a piece of paper and stick it onto my desk, so that every day when I sit upon it I will see it and know, that is what I aspire to achieve for the betterment of myself, and for my value in the hearts and minds of those around me.

1. I resolve not to procrastinate and laze about.
2. I resolve to be responsible, and honest.
3. I resolve to be diligent in my duties.

And I shall start by completeing my NCC Camp blog posts as soon as possible. :)

November Rain (1)

On the 27th, 28th and 29th of November, I attended an NCC (National Cadet Corps.) cmp in school for a whole 3 days and 2 nights. "Nevember Rain" chronicles these 3 end-of-the-month days as I underwent, uh, events and stuff during this camp. So, yeah, here we go.

Woke up at 5am on the 27th, to pack my stuff for the camp. I had received an E-mail from a kind fellow cadet (a junior one at that) listing down all the things I needed to pack. Why didn't I do this yesterday, then? I was at the country club with my family last night, having a great time at the karaoke lounge.

Had a quick breakfast before setting off to school. Arrives at 7.30am, just in time, though I wasn't exactly obliged to do so, being a specialist and all. Yes, I'm very 'special' all right.

After falling in and registration, the camp kicked off with the Part As (the secondary 1s) occupying an empty classroom to take a certain badge test, while the Part Bs (secondary 2s) grabbed mock rifles from the NCC store room for an arms rill training session. I, being an administrative officer, didn't have much of a specific task to do as we had already done our part prior to the actual camp (writing, planning and recording stuff), and as such I was pretty much free to do anything I wanted to. I decided to tend to the Part Bs.

There were a bunch of food packets at the cafeteria when we got there, after everbody had done their stuff. Upon checking what was inside (assorted yet tiny muffins, one in each packet, a tiny slice of raisin cake, a tiny spring roll) (too tiny for my liking, but it's better than nothing), we decided it was a complimentary breakfast from our teacher-in-charge (complimentary yet surprising, since I never expected such a guy like our TiC to give us something like that), and finished them all. Those who didn't want to eat their muffins gave them to me. I felt pretty full after that.

Later on we discovered the food had actually belonged to the school's Symphonic Band, who was having a camp of their own here in school as well. They just laughed it off when they heard about it. Guess that was nothing serious.

Free time! I pull down my sleeves and headed for the school field along some other cadets. While they played soccer, I did the obstacle course (window, parallel bars, vertical ladder, low wall) and leopard/worm-crawled a bit in the grass. It felt good to work out like that. It's not something I got to do everyday.

Lunchtime was the usual hustle and bustle. You can say it's almost like an exchange plaza. People'll be putting up their extra food on offer and the guys around them would bid for a portion of it. I ended getting extra carrots and chicken.

Each one of us also got a tiny cream puff for dessert. They would be passed down from the ends of the tables, hand to hand. And if you knew what us NCC Boys usually do with our hands, I doubt you'd relish the idea of eating a cream puff that had been touched by at least 5 NCC Boys either.

And then it began to pour. Hoo boy. The rest of our time was mostly spent slacking around under the shelter of the school. This went on till dinnertime, where the same food business ensued.

I headed for the showers after that. I was so eagerly awaiting a chance to freshen up and change out of my uniform. Unfortunately, the Band boys had beaten me to it. T'was slightly crowded, the floors of the cubicles were slightly flooded (hey, it rhymes! In haiku!) (anyway, the main reason I try to get to the showers as fast as possble is to avoid having to shower with dirty water slushing about my toes).

Fortunately, I found a vacant shower at the end of the row of cubicles, whose floor was fairly dry.

Unfortunately, there was no shower head, just a tap in the wall.

Fortunately, clean water still flowed through it, and that was good enough for me.

Unfortunately, I forgot to pack my soap.

Fortunately, I had shampoo. I used the foam from shampooing my hair to scrub meself up (ew, you might say, but that's recycling).

Unfortunately, I only had stick deodorant, and you know what they say about not using stick deodorant on your armpits when you haven't soaped them up properly.

Fortunately, I didn't smell much, after my shower. As such I didn't have much of a use for it.

Unfortunately, I had already finished me shower.

(Musings: Don't you find it irritating, when the bathroom floors are wet, it makes your feet wet, and those are the same feet you have to put through your track pants so you can wear them? The mere thought of it feels so damp and dirty.)

The Band guys were preparing to watch a movie in the AVA Room, and their teacher-in-charge had invited us NCC Boys to join in. I don't particularly enjoy horrow movies (it was called 'Fragile'), but I was only in it for the air-conditioning in the TV room. I whiled away my time lying on the cool wax-wood floor, facing away from the projector screen, and listened to the movie audio, and the laughs, chatter ans screams of the audience. It's quite fun doing that; it kept me occupied the whole time I was lying still at that position.

Movie ended at around 10pm. Time for a nightwalk! Us specialists were tasked to numerous checkpoints around the dark corridors of the school (all the lights to the corridors are purposefully left off for this activity). A good friend of mine, Joey, and I were stationed at a 4th floor corridor, adjacent to a pitch-black pathway that ended with a door leading to a stairwell that goes down. Light pours in eerily from the door windows into the corridor; the atmosphere in there was perfectly spooky. To boot, there had been rumours flying round that the bathrooms connected to this corridor were haunted.

Joey and I decided to avoid that place. We stayed a good distance away, where the surroundings were still visible, and awaited the juniors' teams to pass by us and get directions from us.

By the time everything was done, and everybody had had their suppers and had turckered away in their bunks, it was 12 midnight. Next day. Time for post number 2.

Which Tomoyo42's Room Character are You?

You're Nayuki! Zzz...
Take this quiz!








Quizilla |
Join

| Make A Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code

Wow. I'm that lazy. Cool.

To Attend a Wedding...

This morning, I headed for school to hand up a consent form for an upcoming NCC school camp. I had to sign in at the sentry post inside the school gate, and noticed that some of my classmates, or rather, groupmates of mine who are working on a certain project with me (tell you more about this project later) have signed in as well, just 2 minutes before me. I submitted the consent form, then went off to look for them, See Wee, Ranson and Samantha.

Sure enough, they were at the canteen (cafeteria). Turns out, a meeting was in progress. A project meeting, whcih I was supposed to attend. Yet, nobody contacted me about it yesterday, or initially. Lucky me, I didn't know about it, yet I was able to attend. I made sure to pass my phone number to the group laeder before I left for my afternoon activity.

My 'afternoon activity' was going with relatives to attend a temple wedding, for my youngest uncle and his girlfriend. Yes, temple wedding, the kind with no air-conditioning. Truth is, I've never attended a wedding before. So I thought this was really cool. I had prepared a set of formal clothing and a tie yesterday night, for the occasion. Boy, did I dress smart.

The temple wasn't very far away. In fact, I even recognized it, passed by it everytime I travel to dad's office or someplace in the middle of the country. This was my first time actually going inside it. The main hall was large, a Buddha statue sat in the middle, the walls were lined with little ornaments that a donor could label his name on, and two tall pagodas of golden ornaments (also for donations) sat at either side of the hall.

I was quite amazed at the fact that a temple wedding seemed so much like a church wedding. Instead of a priest you'd have a monk; the monk would be chanting stuff and giving the couple his blessings; he would also give friendly advice to the bride and groom on how to treat each other, and stuff like that. And I could watch everything from a seat near the 'aisle', a breadthways gap between two columns and four rows of chairs lined up in the middle of the hall.

Following the wedding proceedings, the whole family transported to the nearby Mall, where my uncle had made a lunch reservation at a Chinese restaurant. Everybody sat round the table, which had an additional turntable in the middle for dishes to be shared across that wide space, and tucked into seafood, find meats, and sweet desserts.

ArcherKnight 's Training Day!

What's ArcherKnight, you might ask? It's just another name I found to fit my initials, AK.

Anyway, those pictures you see up there was taken this afternoon. See, having challenged a certain member in a certain Anime Forum to a Roleplay Duel thread, anf having tken up the new RP Duel title of ArcherKnight, I decided to go out to the archery range with some friends to have a feel of how nocking and loosing an arrow with a bow really feels like, so that I can portray my battle moves more realistically (yes, I incidentally put in that kind of effort). The guys you see in the middle, they are all me. I'm holding a normal wooden Curve bow, without any sights. es, without any sights. So, I didn't know how or where to aim. As a result, I just aimed the best I could. Some of my arrows flew completely out of range from the target (mostly due to me taking fast potshots without aiming), some were lucky enough to hit the outer rings of the target, and a handful were lucky enough to land in the middle spot. The experience was enriching and fun-filled, nonetheless.
If you happen to take notice of the guy to my right (his name is Ron, and he was the level 70+ MapleStory Hunter/ best friend who introduced me, a level 17 MapleStory Bowman, to arrow shooting) and his bow, you'll notice that his is very different from the one I was using. It's something called a Compound bow, and it is so-called as it consists of a metal frame, and system of compound strings, and a special loosing system which hangs off your wrist and you operate with a flick of your finger. You had to undertake a course to use that, he said. And that course costs over a 100 bucks. Meh. (Note: Ron is a left-handed archer, which is rare.)

I went over to the nearby bowling alley afterwards, and found some of my school friends there at the pool tables, and joined in. Now, I have played Pool qutie a few times now, so I'm not exactly a newbie at it. Managed to pot at least 5 balls in a row, before missing my shot at the 8-ball and losing the game. Oh, well. I'll do better next time.

Since I don't have any more space to put up my desktop picture right now, I'll do it next entry.

A Newfound Love...

Hi again. From now onwards, I'll try to include a snapshot of my desktop to accompany each blog entry. This time I'm using a Fate/Stay Night image, the icons are neatly arranged, my Nagato Rainmeter skin was on, I was listening to that famous teriyaki Boyz song at the moment, and my cursor (though you can't see it) was on the 'pause' button of my WMP.

I won't be getting the drums anymore. My geography, Physics and A. Math got 1 B each. I really need to buck up. Oh, well.

But, what's this newfound love I talk about? Look over to the left. There's your answer.

Fate/ Stay Night. I only just recently finished all 24 episodes of it. I loved it a lot. Hell yeah. Haven't seen a series quite as good as it. Originally it was a Graphic Novel game, and I'm still roving around the net looking for a place to download it. I'd tell you more about it, but then this post will become more of an anime review entry, and unfortunately, I always refrain from doing that in my personal blog.

I skipped school today to send my grandma back to the Philippines. She was going back via Tiger Airways, and that meant we had to send her off at the new Budget terminal. Meh, the terminal was good enough to pass off as an airport building. It was pretty modest, for something so budget as 16 bucks a flight ticket. What I didn't find 'budget' there was the Han's Restaurant food. Meal prices nearly hit 4( a plate, and the cheapest soda there was $3.

Hmm... That's all for now.

Friday the 13th!

Hurray. Friday the 13th. I woke up this morning with a sprain in my left hip. Mum said I shouldn't overwork it. Thing is, I have to work my left hip every time I put my left foot forward to walk. Guess I'll have to endure the pain for the whole day. Ugh, how dreadful.

Today is Friday the 13th. Judgement Day. The day we get all our exam results. Actually, not all. I only managed to find out a few subjects.

E. Math paper I: A1
Chemistry: A1
Biology: A2
Chinese: D7
Social Studies: C5

My Chinese teacher confided in me after class and asked if I had considered switching to the Chinese 'B' syllabus, which is much easier, and will allow me to spend time I usually use for Chinese revision, to revise for other subjects, seeing that my grades are simply not up to scratch, and won't look good in my 'O' Level result paper. Much as I favoured this idea, I had to discuss it with my dad first. I told her I'll get back to her next Tuesday with my decision.

School ended early today, at 10:15am, as the Sec 4s were having their graduation Ceremony. I don't get it. They haven't even taken their 'O's yet. What's more, Prom Nite (for Sec 4s only) is on this evening.

I hung around for a while till the ceremony ended. Me and a few other friends from class were supposed to be joining a group of Sec 4s as we all went to the Temasek Junior College Open House to check out life in a JC. Hurray, turns out Yi Qin (my newfound friend from a church I don't even go to) was going as well.

It was like attending a Japanese School's Cultural Festival. Booths everywhere, friendly ambassadors showing us around, and performances on a stage. I made friends with one of the ambassadors, Yi Jun (think that's how you spell her name), and realised that she was an IP (Integrated Program, some new thing implemented by the local Ministry of Education so smart people in special schools don't have to take the 'O' Levels and can immediately stream to a college of their choice) student from Dunman High, and was only 1 year my senior (most normal people go to college only when they're 17). Wow. Never thought I'd meet one of them in the flesh. I even used to believe they were nothing but fairytales. Huh.
She later told me that there were about a 100 others like her in this school, another 100 if you count the 17 year-olds. And the Cut-off Point for the school was 7 for Science stream, 8 for Arts. That's a lot to achieve. But I'm willing to aim for it. I liked that school a lot. In fact, my dad had always been telling me to go for that school. Daddy knows best, I know.
Most clubs here in the school are started by the students themselves. There's the MAGIC Club, which stands for Manga, Anime, Games, Imaging and Cosplay, typical Japanese Otaku business. That one interested me a lot. There's another one called the LEO Club, forgot what it stands for, but the club stands for community service. There's a very neat Creative Writing Club, an equivalent of a Newspaper Society, and a Taekwondo Club that seemed to have been started by a Blackbelter in the Martial Art.
I followed Yi Qin and friends around the campus while my classmates attended a talk in the air-conditioned auditorium. There I tried a bit of Touch Rugby, and got to know more about this certain college subject known as 'Knowledge and Inquiry'. It's mostly based on asking questions to the world and the things that happen in it. Cool.
The bus arrived fast, at around 4:30. However, I stuck around a little while longer to watch Yi Jun's Choir performance, and to bid her a last farewell and thanks before I rushed off. She's a really nice person. And I feel even more motivated to aim for this college now.
So, wish me luck. I'll be posting the rest of my exam results really soon. I'm aiming for 7 distinctions this time, cos my dad told me, if I get the 7 As, he'll get me an electric drum set, just what I've always wanted, though it costs about 1K+.
I really want the drums. I can't afford to get another B or less.