Sometimes I think guys have it going for us. Look, we guys don't have to go through periods and cramps each month. Heck, even when I get a small cut, I'm unsettled by the loss of blood and worried whether my cut would clot and whatever. Can you imagine losing blood on a monthly basis?? The last time the blood bank came to my school, I really wanted to donate blood but they had stupid protocols and paperwork that required parent's signature and I didn't have that.

Ugh that's not the point. What I've got to mention is something else. This past week has been kinda "bloody" for most girls that I know of. Pardon my language, I can't speak in euphemisms like Rhoda does... Anyway, I made the stupid mistake of asking two girls (I'm not naming anyone) something that I shouldn't have asked. They were whining and complaining that they've got horrible pimples on their face, so being considerate I asked them why. And their answer? "I'm having my MENSES!! I've got BLOOD GUSHING OUT OF ME!!" Sheesh. I don't need to know that.

And all of a sudden a lot of girls are warning me that if they get moody or angry or upset, it's due to PMS and mood swings. Oh yea I still can understand this. Mood swings are okay. Pre-empting me of your mood swings are good too, cos I have mood swings sometimes too. The worst is when you're stuck in a meeting with 5 other girls and you're the only guy. Yep, me and a group of girls are planning a overnight camp, and while we were deciding which day to put the camp on, all of them started going about their periods clashing with the dates of the camp... And the subject remained on their periods for the next five minutes?? Gosh what can I say, I just sat there and stared into the fascinating wall. Don't get me involved. Don't.

Two months ago I was caught in this conversation with two girls, and invariably the subject twisted to whether they preferred tampons or sanitary pads. And they started discussing which brand was good and whatever details that goes into choosing a good sanitary pad. AARGGH...

No don't get me wrong. The next time I see a pale girl suffering from menstrual cramps, I'm going to give her a nice pat on the head and tell her to get better soon.

Aahh... I'm in one of my happiest moods for this week so far! Erm it's not as if I was sad for the past few weeks, it's just something noteworthy to mention. I got tonnes to say!! Okie okie one at a time...

I absolutely adore my Project Work group! It really amazes me how all my group mates can be so fun-loving and so hardworking at the same time, even though we're all stuck in this trashy PW grading system. I think PW is the worst form of group work assessment, but you guys are the ones that made my day each time we meet... Thanks Ruth for your ever-bubbly optimism and your shuffle outbursts; Chiew Yee for all those whacks that you whacked on my head and being so impossible sometimes; Jin Jen for your tenacity and your cynical wit; and Khairi for those snorts and the high level of enthusiasm... NJ002 is the best PW group in all of Singapore's PW groups! Okie maybe not, but you people absolutely are to me. Let's all clear our Oral Presentation and wipe that smirk off Mr Leong's face!!

And I love my class too! I know some people have said that our class lacks spirit, but that's so passe now... The A01 today is so hip and vibrant and lovely! A few of us got together to form a band to perform for NJ Symphonic Band's fund-raising concert, and our first jamming session on Monday was quite good! And today, we ditched our PW discussions totally to play some really silly, Orientation-style games. Picture this: Standing in a circle, all of us tangled our arms and reached for random hands, then weaving our way in and out, up and down, we managed to untangle ourselves and form a complete circle. And we didn't just do it once, but 5 or 6 times! Perhaps the claps and cheers at the end best signify the enthusiasm and unity that's present in the class... All of us are one big family, and no one should feel left out!! And we're all promoted, so let's continue to strut our stuff next year!!

Had Oral Presentation dry run yesterday. I think my PW group did a fairly convincing job!! Seriously, I think it was a high ME (Meeting Expectations), if not a EE (Exceeding Expectations). I think Mr Leong is blind/deaf in giving us a mere low ME. He wasn't even looking at our moving diagrams! And that horrible, nonchalant, bored-to-death look on his face... UGH. Oh well, at least he did praise us a bit. Yea, a bit... And immediately after dry run, I had to rush off to OGL interviews. Kinda tired of being interrogated, first by Mr Leong and then by the Council, back-to-back!! Oh well but it was kinda okay I guess, was together with Weng Yin and Wei Na, and we came up with a silly water-break cheer... NEWater or mineral water?? Hee hee!!

I think I've engaged myself in too many commitments. I need a break (Khairi says "I'll buy you a Kit-Kat). Maybe I should let other people take charge of certain stuff and just be a follower for a change.

Maybe there's more to this life than it meets the eye... Remember Mr Lee Hak Boon always said to "live not for the sake of existing only, but live to live"? There's a much more meaningful purpose for me to be on this earth. And I wish not to exist, but to live. Live for Christ. Father God help me to focus on You, to know that I'm living for You and I'm loving You, for in the end, it's all for You...

Whoo! Loads to write, but I'm kinda lazy. I shall blog selectively then... Haha... Let's see, submitted our final final FINAL copy of Written Reporton Wednesday, but not without some nasty scares. Tried to open the WR document in school, but the document was in .wps instead of the usual .doc, so me, Ruth and Chiew Yee had to sneak out of school and travel all the way down to my home just to change the document settings (because only I had the finalised soft copy). That's done, then photo-taking was a blast. Got back all my results, I've got DDEE and B4 for General Paper. Okay I get to retain my four A'Level subjects, but I want to drop Economics. I'm satisfied with my results I guess... I can't say phenomenal... (=

Went to Raffles Junior College open house on Friday with Sarah. What, 3 different people asked if the two of us were together!! Aargh must everyone assume that just because a guy is with a girl and that means they're a couple together? EEKS. Anyway, RJC is HUGE!! So huge that it took us an hour just to tour 3 blocks (they had 6 or 7 blocks in total I think). And the facilities are spanking new and nice. Met Nicholas and Clement too...

Yesterday was the Digital Life Canon Photo Marathon III 2005. I went with Kat, Adriel and Yurong, though I was horribly late, so I didn't get to register. Central venue was ACS Barker Road, so after every 4 hours they'll issue a new theme and we have to upload a photo in relevance to the theme. This year first theme was World in Motion, then Child's Play and lastly Fashion in Action. So the four of us went around taking photos; first we went Suntec City, then Little India and the Bugis area for the second theme and we went to Corps and Junction 8 for the last. The shortlisted photos for top 10 weren't exactly outstanding either, but they were pretty good. And NAHH, us amateurs didn't win anything. Reached home at 2330 hours last night...

Went to Ruth's today after Sunday service for Project Work. As usual, we were talking nonsense and playing, then we tried to find our homes with Google Earth, disturbed Kai Jie and Annie online... After that I went down to town cos Apri said they were having an old A01 outing. But it turned out to be 4 A01 souls only, all from NJ and none from the other colleges. Waited for Linus to turn up but I had to rush home, so didn't get to see him.

I've been meeting new friends all week. Met Greg's friend Damon on Tuesday, then there was these two girls at RJC that I met but don't know their names. And there are newcomers at Friday youth service Jeanne and Eileen and Reginald; well I sent messages to them as a form of follow-up, Eileen and Jeanne are from CHIJ St Nicholas, Reginald from SMU. And not forgetting Erica, who comes for Sunday services and I'm just following up with her... Met her in person today and she turned out to be Edwin's and Benny's classmate back at Nan Hua Secondary! Small small world. Yesh my social circle expanded slightly... =P

LONG LONG WEEK... I'm tired. And sleepy.

Monday: GamesFest. I'm in Aerius Captain's Ball team, sprained my finger. Oh wait I blogged about this already. Look at previous entry. Slept: 2 hours.

Tuesday: Project Work Day. The whole day was PW meetings, briefing, then an Oral Presentation Workshop after that. At night I had to rush the Written Report draft. Slept: 2 hours.

Wednesday: S-Cube Seminar. I skipped that. Stayed at home to slack, while Qiling the ring leader got some of the girls over to her house to swim and sauna. So in the end less than 10 people went to school. However, I did go school in the afternoon for NJ Open Day briefing, then did Greenlink banners. Then travelled down to Jalan Sultan with Junying to settle the Greenlink shirts. Still doing Written Report. Slept: 5 hours.

Thursday: Marking Day. Technically, no school as the teachers are marking our Promos papers. But most of us still went back to school to prepare for Open Day. I stayed in school from 8am~6pm. Rushing Written Report submission. Slept: 4 hours.

Friday: Normal lessons. Got back Economics MCQ, I got 14/30. Sickening. More preparation with Greenlink and ushering duties. Youth service at night was great. Slept: 6 hours.

Saturday [today]: NJ Open Day. Okay I'm going to talk more about this. I'm parent ushering and there's a Greenlink booth to attend to. Met in school at 7.30am, meddled with Greenlink booth, then went for usher briefing. Student's Council, they're as inefficient as they can be. The 4 routes are disgusting. Anyway, after briefing I went back to help out with Greenlink cos I couldn't be bothered with the Council. Blown balloons, had my hair sprayed with red. I first ushered this parent with his son from St Joseph's Institute, then later two more parents with their sons from SJI joined us too. Walked from library to hall to Sigma labs, then led them to LT5 for Principal's talk at 11.30pm. Hmm somehow I felt more confident in ushering after that? The irritating thing is I have to constantly be polite, engaging, informative, and being gentleman-ly by letting them walk first. Then I bumped into this two girls from Kranji Secondary, Jocelyn and Kee Wei? Think their names were something like that. Offered them a tour around the school. Oh Jocelyn is Yuxuan's cousin... Small small world. Led them around everywhere, sneaked into classrooms, seen the performing arts CCA concerts, rifle shooting, talking rubbish with them etc etc. They're great! Haha, then left them somewhere and went back to Greenlink. After a while Joel came over to NJ, together with Sarah, Yurong and her friend. So I toured them around this time, Yurong wanted all the Bag-Me goodies. After Open Day ended, cleared up at the library, "marvelled" at the Council's stupidity again. (Especially the part when they think their organising skills were excellent. How self-deluding.) Went for dinner with Yurong and Sarah at Pastamania J8, got loads of stares from every stranger. Later I realised that my hair was still red. Haha. Then went home tired and sleepy. Hope to sleep: 8 hours.

It was GamesFest today... C'mon la if NJ really don't want to do anything for the day then at least let us stay at home?? Hee hee but it was fun! I joined the Aerius Captain's Ball team, we won our opening match (9-3) and lost the rest of the 3 games, so Aerius was in 4th position. Haha that's morbid but we had fun and met new friends who were in Aerius house too. Even more fun when more than half the people playing were from my class, and the last game which was 3rd/4th placing, it was 05A01 vs Terra house. Hee! My class is waaayy cool!!

I sprained my finger. Fourth finger on the right. Darn I can't straighten my finger without feeling the sprain, and it's all swollen.

Getting busy soon with Greenlink and Open Day, as well as Project Work. This afternoon after school, met Yurong at Jericho to discuss changes to the Friday youth service, the jobs of the Fellowship committee etc etc. I realised I'm overstretched. I need more blood in Fellowship comm (=

Whoa... Today's a long long day. And since it's a long long day, this entry shall be one long long paragraph. No spaces, no pressing of the "Enter" button, just one big chunk. Okay I shall start from the very beginning and maybe my brain will be active enough to relate all the happenings today. Whee! Morning I woke up at 7am, bathed, ate instant noodles cos there was nothing else for breakfast. Then I took a long bus ride to Pasir Ris Park to meet the rest of my Greenlink excos for river keeping. 6 of us; we were without Shufen and Kevin. Haha they must be out having their own rendezvous... Anyway it was drizzling slightly, but we still put on the gloves and picked litter for the next hour. Got about 10 bags of thrash? Then we had a meeting over lunch regarding what we plan to do for NJ Open Day. Left for home after that to rest for a while before getting out to meet Yurong at Orchard MRT to go to FCBC Marine Parade, partly to go see Luke-y whom I last saw during Teacher's Day, partly bacause Chris Ngoh invited me too. [Oh deviation: Last night's youth service Ngoh came over, we watched VeggieTales] Well me and Yurong agreed to meet at 4pm, but we were both late and we couldn't find the bus-stop and we tried hijacking taxis and hitchhikings in the end we managed to grab a taxi and blew $9 off the cab fare. Yup worship was great! Somehow worship sessions in big crowds is not inhibitive at all. It's like, we sang the song "One Way" last night during youth service, and they sung it at FCBC too, but the experience is totally different. Bahh my rubbish rantings. The sermon was about the heart and how the attitudes of the heart should be towards God. Then caught up with Luke, met a few new friends mainly from Ngoh's cell, and went for dinner with them. And guess what? I met this guy called Winston who happened to be our Greenlink t-shirt supplier! All along I've been operating through Adrian to do our shirts, and what a small world to bump into Winston proper... HAHA. Uh huh he offered me a ride home, along with Caleb and three new friends (Jinyi, Justin and Karen). Here's the really interesting part~ While Winston (he's 21 by the way, the rest of us are J1s) was driving out of Parkway Parade carpark, this red car appeared and tried to cut our lane, and Winston tried to close the gap but the red car managed to squeeze in. That's not all. 3 minutes down the cramped carpark exit, the red car again tried to cut into the lane. But this time round we were on a single lane with space for only one car, but the red car kept pushing in and in the end Winston just zoomed ahead, scrapping the red car's left windscreen mirror. Well the mirror was merely twisted out of shape the wrong way; it didn't drop off. But the red car and it's occupants were as angry as red. The 3 occupants drove ahead, blocked the lane got off their car and demanded Winston to get down the car. But stubborn him claimed he was in the right of way, so our 2 parked cars caused a massive jam by the one-lane exit. Yup it was chaotic... And the three of them were scary. There was a middle-aged man and woman, together with a younger lady. They stood in front of our car, preventing us to drive anywhere. But the stupid thing was, there was a massive jam at the back, and they yelled at us to shift to the side, but how is that possible if they're standing in front of the car and the car was stopped diagonally across the lane? If we shifted back we'll knock the wall; but if we shift front we'll knock those buggers. And they started brandishing out their handphones to call people, for a while we thought they were calling the police, so Winston cleverly decided to stay put in the car with the windows and windscreen windows shut. Boy, did that angered the man and the woman. And the young lady kept talking on the phone, but it turned out that they were calling their own family here, cos soon another car stopped behind us. And out came 5 more people, so there were a total of 8 people surrounding our car, with 5 seventeen-year-olds and Winston. Gosh it was tense. The cars caught in the jam had to redirect into the opposite lane, and as they drove by one-by-one, us in the car could see their curious faces. The stupid woman was shouting at us from outside the car (remember we're locked and shut inside), and then shouting at the other cars trickling by who were curious to find out what happened. Eventually when we realised that they hadn't called the police, Winston called the police himself. At one point the man got so pissed that he almost wanted to break the windows, cos he was just standing in front of our car but Winston wanted to shift the position so as to not block the traffic, but in doing so he had to drive forward, and the man thought we wanted to knock him down and escape. ON TOP OF THAT, us in the car started talking nonsense and rubbish and laughing and joking!! We even got out a pen and paper and wrote "Move away, we need to go home and study" and Caleb showed it to the 8 people outside our car! HAHA! Can you imagine what it was like? The 8 people outside, pissed and angry, then us inside the car laughing and joking and playing tic-tac-toe... They must be thinking that we're mocking them... then one of the guy offered Caleb his IC in exchange for us winding down the windows and negotiating with them, (what the hell... no link la!!) then another started kicking our car! Well the carpark authorities came soon after, then Jinyi got so scared that she started crying, and the police came too and finally Winston got down from the car. Whoa the man was staring daggers at him... The police didn't do much either. They just took down their particulars and ascertained that it was an accident. But the stupid thing was, the stupid woman asked us why we refused to get down the car, we told her we were scared (which was true), and she started "I'm 60 years old and there's only 3 of us, and you youngsters are afraid of an old man and old woman like us??" CRAP!! You buggers eventually had 8 people surrounding our car. Well, the police let us go first cos they sort of deduced that we weren't in the wrong, but their entire family stayed behind to talk to the police... Don't know what they were asking, didn't care either. Winston said he wants to call the New Paper reporters and predicted the headline to be "Malaysians bully Singaporeans"... HEE HEE, oh their family didn't look local. Winston drove all of us home after that. 45 minutes trapped in that tense carpark, by a bugger chicken nugget family. Yup this entry is long. I've never got a brush with the police before so of course it's frightening to me. Whee. (=

PROMOS ENDED!! OH YEA!! I ROARED AT THEM AND HAD THEM BANISHED! I PLUCKED THEM OUT BY THE ROOTS FROM THE FACE OF THE EARTH AND CAST THEM TO OBLIVION! I STRUCK THEM WITH MY MIGHTY POWER AND SQUISHED THEM TO BITS! I WHACKED THEM AND HURTLED THEM INTO THE ROLLING PATH OF A CHEESEBURGER! GOOSE, IF I HAD THEM PROMOS UPON A SARUM PLAIN, I'D DRIVE THEM CACKLING HOME TO CAMELOT! WHOO! THE FEELING'S GREAT!

Literature today. I did King Lear caught in the storm, on how it symnbolises his emotional turmoil. Then for Practical Criticism I did this sonnet about some guy leading a miserable life. Yesterday was Economics, which I scrunched it up and threw it away like some thrash. The day before was Geography, was hoping for some nice answers but I think the attempt was luke-warm. Maths was okay but still horrible. Economics essay became rubbish rantings. Ted Hughes' poem "Chaucer" became imaginary cows. [which was wrong by the way]

Nahh I shall not worry about promos. They're gone now. Nothing will bring them back.

I'VE GOT MATHS PROMOS TOMORROW!! Oh gosh oh gosh!! I don't feel prepared at all! I'm still like, languishing somewhere in vectors and analysis and I can't seem to move on!! Oh shucks this is bad. But actually it's good. I don't know, just this once I had more fun dealing with maths since O'Levels ended. Gosh I hate maths. But now I'm actually enjoying all the rubbishy formulae and graphs and diagrams. WHEE!!

Oh, I realised that your friends play a very important role in your stress levels. For the whole of this weekend I've received a total of 26 different messages from different people encouraging me "all the best for your promos" or "don't stress" or "bring your calculator or you'll end up counting with your toes". Yeah, but this is a double-edged sword. Haven't they studied Economics?? The Law of Diminishing Marginal Returns states that as more of an input is applied, each additional unit produces less and less additional output. In simple terms, instead of the more the merrier, too much becomes detrimental after you reach a certain threshold point. Sure I thank God for caring friends, but I'm more stressed out than ever. Thanks Alex-o for acknowledging that it's overrated though haha...

AARGH. You would do well to note that I never ever send out such stressful messages. I only send such messages when people send them to me first. It's just for the purpose of reciprocation...

And I realised too that when you study you get hungry. Take for example plotting f(|x|) from a f(x) curve, you have to reflect the right side (positive side of the x-axis) over to the left side (negative). So you get something like a fold-over, and immediately I think of Grilled Chicken Foldovers. And the sigma notation looks like a sweet. And differentiation makes me crave for jelly beans. And vectors is a chicken nugget.

Okie enough of studies. Let's talk about what happened over the weekends now. Let's see, Friday's fellowship night I led worship for the first time. Technically speaking it was second (first being Christmas party worship last year), but still it was the first time that I had to chose songs, tell musicians what to do, pray, lead the worship etc. Frankly speaking I was nervous, and I was playing the guitar too so all the more stressful as I had to constantly refer to the chords. AND I planned to say some personal views about how we fail to set our hearts right and not dedicating our lives for God and everything... But thank God everything came out alright.

The rest of the fellowship night was games. Duck Duck Goose was awesome!! Of course it was my ingenius idea haha! And we played the newspaper game and Toxic Waste too... OH OH MY GROUP CAME OUT TOPS FOR TOXIC WASTE GAME! Yep I wasn't part of it cos I was coordinating all the games, but still I'm proud of them!! [beams]

Sometimes I wish I had lesser commitments. Being a cell group leader is tough enough already. I can't even keep up with every single member of my cell! How can I take charge of the entire youth church's fellowship if I haven't even establish a strong fellowship bond in my own cell??

And today... It was Young People Sunday (YP Sunday) at church. Gosh I envy those kids! How I wish to be ten years younger and going for kid's church singing all those kiddy songs and going for object lessons... Hee! Oh well I feel old. And as you get older you have more duties. And with more duties you get more responsibilities. Darn. Okie okie back to YP Sunday. Andre, Cheryn, Dora and company did candles formation on stage and it was brilliant in the dark. My cell group stayed up on the balcony of the auditorium and prepared balloons, and when service ended we heaved the entire bunch of balloons and sprinkled confetti down onto the congregation below... I think it must have been spectacular from below, but I can't tell.

I've got a sprained left arm (resulted from sleeping on one side only for 2 hours), a swollen left thumb (resulted from tying balloons today), swollen left fingers (excessive guitar playing), and a stubbed toe (knocked into the table). My left side of the body is klutzy. I'm on my right side this week. Pun intended.