Hola! I'm finally back here on this blog. To all the faithful people who have been visiting this site diligently, I'm sorry I haven't been updating... Sorries... Well, I've been quite busy with school and studies this few weeks, with the O'Levels coming up in another 2 weeks' time. Another factor to consider is that my conputer is down. Well... It's not the hard disk, but it's the stupid LCD screen. I mean, of all the components of the computer, you would least expect the LCD screen to spoil, right? But shoots, that's the case for me. Everything of my files and folders are working fine on my hard drive, but what is the computer for without the screen???

Yups, school has become quite dumb as well... I'm going to school for all the lessons half-heartedly. Most of the time, I'll skip all the lessons of the day after English in the morning, stay in class with Luke or Derek or OZY or Keat Fu or anybody else who's skipping lessons, self-study or go out to eat chwee kueh with Jun Yuan... Man, this is so pointless... But the redeeming grace is that there's this magnificent speakers in my class, so we'll plug in our MP3s and MDs for some blasting music... I've been blasting Hillsong's for the past few days, while doing Maths papers and singing along with Luke...

And last thing... Yesterday was my graduation assembly. Spent the entire afternoon taking pictures with Daniel and Bush and a lot of friends with the teachers... Yar, Basuki, you've got a cool digital camera there, you filyh-rich mafia... Then the awesome thing is, I hit a 10 for my L1R5 prelim score. Initially it was 19 for the combined 3 prelims score, but after some tweaks and moderation and major biasness in my favour from Mrs Pang, it was brought down to 10. Yup, it's good. Highest in my class, was of course, XZZ with 9, while me and Alex were joint seconders with 10 apiece...

I'm not really going to blog often these few days... So all ya faithful blog readers, sorry again. I'd gotta get a new LCD screen first, so until then, I'll have a perfect reason to study cos the computer's down... Haha, take care..

It's a bit early in the morning now... Okie, maybe a bit too early... Yar, I was thinking that since I couldn't possibly get any more sleep on my bed, I might as well get up and do something constructive to wake myself up.

All my prelim 3 results were out, with the exception of Combined Humanities, which I have yet to get back the last SEQ section for History Elective... Let's see, I've got 2 A1s, 2 B3s, 2 B4s, and one stinking C6 for Additional Mathematics... I'm not saying my results are phenomenal, but it's definitely a marked improvement from all the previous prelims. And it's also the first time that I'm clocking a below-15 for my L1R5... That, people, is awesome enough for me. Uh huh... From now on we're sticking to a "Post-Prelim, O'level Prep Timetable"... I sort of like the flexibility of it, cos most of the subjects will be lectures in the Auditorium, and it's much more relaxed than classroom learning. Only drag is we've got English first thing in the morningat 0710... We get to skip morning assembly JUST for English. Gosh, Mrs Bala for my morning breakfast is not exactly my cup of tea...

Yups, I'm going to be stupid for a while. Just changed the music playing now to a song from Powerpuff Girls... Yesterday during Chemistry in the Auditorium, I heard this bunch of corny dumb-asses playing this exact song from one of their hand phones... Yep, so in the midst of doing Chemistry MCQs, Luke and me were singing "love, love, love, l-l-love. . . l-l-love. . . makes the world go round..." in typical Buttercup crooning. Pretty neat huh??

Last night was the Mooncake Festival Party at corps. I wasn't really feeling very enthusiastic about it, so I went to take a slow walk in the park instead... I was sort of hoping Yicheng would change his mind and stay for the party, but he didn't. Yar, when I came back at around 2100, Andre was saying something about going to the park to play with candles and lanterns... Sheesh, Can't believe I'm back into the park again... Haha, over there we were throwing sparklers into the trees and making heart shapes with the candles. Rachel and Cheryn were incapable of throwing the sparklers straight, Andre was burning cardboards, David was trying to make a big bonfire... In the end, all the lanterns, candles and whatever sparklers left were burnt. The cleaners are so going to hate us pesky people, cos what remained was a big pile of burnt debris and loads of wax...

Okie, I'm imitating Bubbles now... "You can't hurt me with the things that you do! I'll pick up dandelions and I'll give them to you!" Yar, keep playing the song over and over!!!

Ah ha... I got good marks for English again. Topped the class for my composition and functional writing, but flopped slightly for the comprehension... And I got good marks for Social Studies too. Both of these two subjects are my stronger ones, so I'm naturally hoping for a A in both of them. Well, what can I say, I'm on a good track for distinctions... Watch and weep, all ya creeps...

Yar, the past three days were extremely hectic. Whenever the teachers wanted to return the scripts by class order, they'll always "call upon the class chairmen" to distribute. And it's quite sick to keep walking down the aisles of the sitting rows just to distribute the scripts. What's worse is everyone wants to know whether they passed the paper or not, so people like XZZ will follow me like a shadow everywhere while I'm distributing, and he'll finally be satisfied when I pass him his paper... Other queer people like Jesper refuse to accept the paper if he knows he flunked it, then Jun Yuan is always demanding to know the "first digit of the marks so that I'll know whether I did good or bad", and Luke Wee will always go "how much did I get?"...

And when all the people DO get their scripts already, there'll be this sudden flurry of activity to compare their results. Others, like Jun Han sitting beside me, will stare at the paper with venom in his eyes, and point an accusing finger on the offending careless mistake he made, and utter "f*ck you" at the paper... Sheesh, he's not cursing anyone, but he's cursing the paper... Ol' Bush would always whine, Dansen would give a whoop whenever he did well "unexpectedly"...

Okie, enough for today... Tomorrow will be all the Elective Humanities scripts and hopefully the Pure Humanities scripts as well... Man, I am SO hoping for an A tomorrow. Nothing like a distinction to satiate my hunger... MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...

Whoo... It was a long long day in school today... First activity in school today was class photo-taking session. Haha, photo-taking sessions are always hilarious-ly funny... First thing I stepped into class, there was Cedric in this funny hairdo that resembled some kind of carrot top or something. I mean, he's not in my class, so I wouldn't exactly be sharing a class photo-shoot with a carrot... Anyway, he got hell from his form teacher later at morning assembly. Ms Seah was ordering him to go wash out the gel from his ridiculous carrot hairdo, and also commenting that he looks like one of the guys in Street Fighters... Haha, there's Dansen in my class too. He was always commenting that you should have a weird hairstyle for photo-takings, so he came to school in this waxed-up messy hairstyle which really suited him... Okie, he looks like he just got out from bed, but there's this frizzy quality in his hair that made him look good. Luke, on the other hand, tried the same hairstyle, but he looked like he just took a walk down Florida and one of those typhoons hit him... 'Lo Luke, it doesn't suit you to have your hair all askew... Anyway, ME, on the other hand, just went in as myself. No gel, no wax or anything, just my plain ol' hair flattened to my scalp...

Yups. The photo-shoot was a breeze. The lady-in-charge just ordered me and Basuki into the spaces beside where Mrs Pang should be. Well, it's the second year in a row that I'm Mrs Pang's "right-hand-man"... After photo-taking, we were all whisked to the hall to check our Maths and A Maths prelim papers... *Drum roll... I FINALLY hit a A1 for my Maths, and as for A Maths, I only got a miserable C6... Gosh, I think this is the first time in almost a year that I've finally gotten an A1 for Maths. Yar yar, I know how everyone is telling me that Maths should be the only subject that you could most easily get a distinction, but yep, I'm finally getting that dratted A1 that has eluded me for the past year... Grr... A Maths? Gosh, it was a flop. Could have done a lot better, but as usual, I was careless here and there, then ended up with a stupid 50-plus result. Kat is so going to be disappointed, cos she was working with me on my A Maths paper 2 just the day before my exam...

Checking of the Maths scripts took up the whole day. After that, I was in school playing badminton with a lot of people from my class... Yup, we're training to be the next generation of national players, Susilo-styled... And now here I am, arms aching, legs cracking... And fingers almost breaking from typing all these words...

Haha, Kids Central is showing Boohbah now... Gosh, stop asking me why I like to watch these kind of crappy shows. I just HAPPENED to switch on the TV set and out popped this bunch of Boohbah... Really, you'd gotta believe me... Well, for those of you who don't know what a Boohbah is, good news is, I don't know they existed either. It's only about five minutes ago when I finally learnt about these adorable Boohbah. Click here if you want to play with the Boohbah, and they are seriously cute...

Okay, first things first. A Boohbah is the same as many Boohbah. So far from what I know, Boohbah applies to both a single Boohbah or many of them. There is no plural form of the word Boohbah. Okie, a Boohbah looks like a glob of paint / a slosh of fats / some kind of big splat with big lumps of fats... Whatever... They look like fats to me anyway. Well, there are altogether five of these Boohbah, available in five different colours, ranging from blue, pink, orange, yellow and purple. Of course, my favourite is the Pink Boohbah... They have these big eyes and a row of blinkers just above their eyes, and (according to me) they have a huge passion for dancing. Awesome and neat... They will gyrate around, twirl about in splendid speeds and they'll do this cute little snuggly action by withdrawing their heads into their flexible necks... Or they'll close their eyes and the blinkers will blink non-stop... Man, you'd just HAVE to experience this yourself...

Erm, enough about Boohbah. My prelims are officially over today. No more 2nd or 3rd or 4th prelim, cos it all ended today. But the lousy drag is, it's the O'Levels after this. I've still got 5 more weeks to cram everything... Life is still centrifuging at top speed, but the time frame seems to pass by so-o-o slowly... And I've changed some parts of this blog, updated where it should be etc. If some of those "quackie linkings" are gone, that means the owner of the blog is no longer blogging... And note the Boohbah links too. Go visit them... Yups, that's all...

Yups, school ended very early today. And it's going to be like that for the next few days too. All the prelim papers left are the Paper 1 MCQ's left, so I only need to be in school at most for one full hour for the paper before we are dismissed... Uh huh, today's was Physics Paper 1, then the MCQ questions fried my brain. (Sizzle...) There were a lot of calculation questions, then you are supposed to think "formulatically" and equate some formulas together to get the answer... Whatever, it's just very tedious, and yep, it's tough... Heck, Physics is my lousiest subject, and I think it'll still stay that way...

I've got Geography Paper 1 tomorrow. Yar, I'll get to sleep late into the morning, cos the paper only begins aat 1000, then ends 1115. Dumb. Why can't the school just cram all the one-hour papers into one single day, then you just get it over instead of spreading it one-paper-a-day... No choice, the school exam board intended to stimulate this prelim like the actual O'Levels.

I got caught in the rain while getting back from home. Actually I wasn't intending to come home straight, cos Luke and me were initially planning to go play somewhere and don't care about tommorrow's paper, but then along the way it started to rain, so I took a bus back instead... Convectional rain with torrential downpour... Oh great, a great way to revise Geography...

Convectional rain is formed where temperatures and humidity are high in the afternoon. It is evident from the large cumulonimbus rain clouds with the occasional lightning storm. The rain that falls is torrential and heavy, but it usually ends within 30 minutes to one hour. One of the more common types of rainfall in Singapore.

Yup. I know my stuff okay... Speaking of that, Geography Paper 2 was a piece of duck. (Quack...) Hopefully I'll do well in both papers, then Mrs Pang will stop breathing down my neck about my lack-of-attitude towards that subject...

Everything in my life is still going on good, so don't mess it up before I get diplomatically aggressive and annihilate you. Scram, irritants. But wait a minute... No one is irritating me or pestering me or up my neck right now... Sheesh, whatever...

I'll have to start revising now if I really want to do really well. Geography calls...

Wahoo... Still feeling great. Somehow it's the rainy and cold weather these few days that really defines my mood these days... Yup, the prelims are okay. Both the Mathematics papers were good, and Physics today was "kinda" good... I know nuts about lenses and logic gates, so I went into the exam hall preparng to be shot by the paper. But it turned out okay enough... Whoever set this Physics paper must hate lenses too, cos there was only one lousy question on it...

Changed the music again... Yeah, again... I dunno why, but the previous music ("Who Am I" by Casting Crowns) website went down for some reason, so the mp3 can't be processed. Okie, what's playing now is "After The Music Fades" by Shaun Groves. Catchy tune...

Uh huh, I'm finally getting some grips on my life also... The class tee-shirt is FINALLY settled after all these months. Everyone in my class now has a shirt now, and I've still got 7-8 people who haven't paid up. That, is my greatest achievement... Actually, not mine, but more of Kwang Han's... Yar, he did most of the dirty work like go down to collect the stock, got the $200 loan from his band teacher, haggled the price etc... Then I ditched him halfway along the process and he still carried on the workload. Great man, that Kwang Han. But it was still Luke's fault right from the start. Who asked him to sit happily on his laurels for 4 months before a "decent" artwork for the class tee design came out??

And speaking of Luke, you better stop black-mailing me, or else... And to all you nosey people (especially a certain Fred...), I'm not telling any secrets. And I'm not fishy. Stop trying to pry into my brain for some pointless info. And stop those ridiculous rubbish that Luke's telling all of you. Maybe I should round all of you up and tie you to a chair. Gosh, you should be doing your homework. Prelims now you know?? O'levels coming soon too... Yar, go do your homework. Just concentrate on your homework and don't bother about me...

Whoo, what an interesting September holiday... Haha, normally my holidays are normal... Yup, "normal" spelt N-O-R-M-A-L... But this Sept holiday is way too abnormal. It's like a lot of things that are not scheduled to happen, or stuff that I don't really need answers to, or events that I'm not expecting to happen, well, all of these weird stuff are choosing to happen in this one-week holiday itself... Sort of like those movie trailers where they keep stressing the rubbish oxymorons, like "expect the unexpected", or "anticipate the unanticipated"... You know, those kind of rubbish that the movie guys do when they want to try (in vain) to get you to watch some cheap-skate movie...

Yar, this past one week is a real heck of an eventful one. Let's see, I've managed to complete at least 4 subjects worth of revision (check), got enough rest and sleep (check), gotten used to my hectic school life demanding 3 prelims (check), and yup, kept a close walk with God (check)... Then there are those things that I didn't really expect them to happen, but they did... Wish I could say those things, but most of them are quite personal, and a couple of which I promised to keep it a secret with the person it may concern... So, much as I would like to say it out, I guess I'm going to censor all the stuff that I'm not supposed to say... Okie, at least it's the "nice-and-sweet" stuff that's happening, not those "terrible-and-horrible" stuff, so what can I ask for more? I'm a happy and contented man...

Life is awesome right now. Year 2004 has gone by three-quarters already. I dunno, I guess it's time to focus more on my studies, cos the dratted O'levels seem so much closer now... It's time also to focus on all my relationships with my friends, cos I've been neglecting that for quite a while... Yups. Gotta go catch some sleep...

I'm posting this because Charmaine is complaining that blogger can't process the posts instantly... Well, I'm proving her wrong, and that there is nothing wrong with my blogger account or with blogger or with the Internet...

Okie, nothing much... Went over to church just now for leaders' meeting, then was watching Della and her dancing gang practicing on stage for a while. Man, I'm mightily glad that I'm not dancing with them... Yup, meeting ended shortly, with Matthew reading this letter that Peirong sent over from New Zealand. Then was lazing around for a while with Michelle, watching Della getting inspiration for her dance steps. Yar, Michelle did this weird flower thing, and Della immediately got the inspiration to integrate into her steps. Then I did this communist-waving-the-red-book thingy, then Della interpreted it into a gangster with a high five... She ended up scrutinising every action that we made, so she can get ideas to choreograph from...

"Who Am I" from Casting Crowns is playing now... "Not because of who I am / But because of what You've done / Not because of what I've done / But because of who You are"...

Erm, that's about it... All I need to do now is to get in touch with a lot of people. There's a whole list of people I have to catch up with, so I'd better start now... And thanks to Cheryn and Wilfred. And Michelle too, didn't forget you...

Yawn... Just managed to study finish EVERYTHING for Higher Chinese prelim... 0200 into the night, I'm having the paper in another six hours' time. Gosh, I might as well go find something else to study, cos the time now is really too late to go back to sleep... But on second thoughts I'm sleepy, so maybe it's still prudent to go back to sleep. Whatever I'm trying to say, I don't know what I'm trying to say... Sigh, rantings from a sleep-deprived Guan You...

Yup, English prelim today was quite manageable. The comprehension passage made enough sense for me, I did an okay piece of exposition on "Winning is everything in a game", even though I was similarly sleep-deprived the night before. Stayed up till around 0100 on Wednesday night / Thursday morning to chat with Wilfred on MSN... And now it's Thursday night / Friday morning, so it makes up two consecutive late nights. Man, I seriously am chalking up a huge debt of sleep to myself. Anyway, Fred and me were deep into discussion of the old subject again... He was pledging his "unwavering allegiance" to the dark side, and I'm representing God on the lighter side... Yar, no actual fights or debates, we just happen to be on the topic. It went on throughout the night about the 7 Deadly Sins, about me trying to convert him back over to God's army, then some scary prospect of the unleash of the Devil: Full Force... Guess I shouldn't have said "try me" at 2349, a direct quote from Fred...

I read those messages on the tag-board, every single one of them. Yup, it's full to the brim with Fred's and Gerome's beliefs... Hey guys, whatever the case, just try and cool it a bit okie... We don't want to start a fight on MY blog. If you want a fight, go drag it to YOUR blogs... Haha, just kidding. Anyway, I'm keeping my mouth shut over this matter. No comments from me. Zilch. Ditto. And you two can continue flooding the tag-board, cos it's darn interesting to me. Really seriously. Do continue... *opened arms with an invitation card

I've decided. I'll go to bed.

Darn sleepy right now. I'm going to type as many words I can before I decide to go to bed. Today was a jam-packed, lined-up eventful day... It was teachers' day celebrations in school, so it's a halved-day. Morning was the ACES Day workout at the field, then the school got some dance instructor to demonstrate the new version of the FunDance...After FunDancing it was a mass movement to the school hall for the Teachers' Day Concert. This year those Student's Council guys came up with this Teachers' Day Awards, with titles like Most Approachable Teacher, Most Jovial Teacher etc., and the entire thing looked as if they randomly slotted the teachers' names into all the categories, so that all the teachers will end up with at least one title. There were only about 10 or 11 titles, so you'll get up to 10 different teachers in a Most Jovial Teacher Award. There was this crackpot magician performing some Houdini-styled escaping act as well. Corny... Then the stupid Council, the class chairmen were only needed at the grand finale, but they gathered all of us at the BEGINNING of the concert, so I was languishing aimlessly outside the hall waiting for the finale, all the while missing out on the starting performances. Yar, heard Paul Twohill's rock band was good, and Justin Jap was a good singer as well. In the end, all the chairmen couldn't give two hoots about the Council, so all of us entered through the back of the hall and watched the concert... Lousy Council, I never banked on them to do anything properly , and obviously they are in the Council only because they hold a decent organisation of themselves (surprise) to act fancy...

After the concert in the hall, my entire class stayed back to celebrate Chek Haw's birthday. Yup, Jacob ensured that he bought the creamiest cake available, so after the traditional "Happy Birthday to Chek Haw" in a bellowing baritone, we promptly smashed the cake into his face... Then Daniel tried to act hero by starting a food-fight, but the class ganged up to food-fight HIM... Not to mention my "good" friends Luke and Yich, who tried to cream me with the smacked cake as well... Then Kwang Han, Luke and me went down to Bukit Merah Central to finalise the designs for the class T-shirt. It took a awfully long time at the office deciding the colour schemes and design... After that I was at Cheryn's house, either sleeping or in a drowsy state for most of the time.

I've been thinking about the Wilfred issue again... Not really thinking about him choosing the "darkness path", but more of my own purpose in following Christ. If you have the time, go to Cheryn's blog. She's got "Majesty [Here I Am]" from delirious? playing as her blog music now... And for once, it's a song that actually sums up my entire spiritual direction towards God. Ultimately, it's God's love that actually motivates the Christian soul, and Christianity is always based on the true assertion that our God has revealed His love for us, such that we are to follow Him likewise with the love. "Forever I am changed by Your love, in the beauty of Your majesty"...

Yup, the song playing now is "Blessed Be Your Name", originally written by Matt Redman, but this is the rock-and-roar version... I think it's the guys at Soul Survivor who added the electric guitar distortions and all that stuff. I have it on full volume and blasting from the speakers right now... Awesome... Oh right, make sure you listen through the entire thing, cos there'll be this weird voice at the end of the song. It's quite funny, although I can't make out what the heck that voice is saying...

I'm hungry. I haven't really ate anything that qualifies to a full meal for the past 48 hours... Gotta go get some chow, before the stomach acids decides to digest through my stomach walls and induce frothing in my mouth... Bleaugh, disgusting...

Whoo... I'm not required in school for lessons for the past two days, not counting today... Well, it's not as if I don't have to go to school AT ALL. You see, it's all the Science practical prelims, and my school has decided to implement a practical schedule similar to the actual O'Levels, so I only have to go to school on Wednesday for my Chemistry practical in the afternoon. As for yesterday and today, it's Biology and Combined Science practicals, so theoretically speaking, I have no need to go to school. But those drat teachers wanted us back for extra lessons, so we still have to go to school...

Okie, let's start from where I left off... The last time an entry was made on this blog was Monday, and a long one indeed... I shall try and provide the details from Tuesday onwards. Here goes:~

Tuesday 24082004 Normal school day. What I recall from that day was the first thing that I reached school, Chris showed me this article from his Catholic News, and the article was about Satanic worship and it's explanatory contexts... Chris asked me an excellent question. "Why did I choose God above Satan?" I didn't have the answer offhand, so I gave him a vague and general answer, but promised to get back to him. I endured all the lessons for the day, cos all the teachers are trying to equip us with all the knowledge they can as there's a long weekend ahead of us, due to the practicals. After school, Mr Lee gave us a crash-course "Chemistry Practicals for Idiots"; it lasted for an hour. I was at Cheryn's house after Chemistry to complete my Social Studies homework. That Cheryn arh, normally her "Boo"-es has absolutely no frightening effect on me whatsoever, but that day she sneaked behind me while I was focussing on writing the last word to my SS assignment, gave a loud "Boo!" and jumped at me... And I jumped too... I went home shortly after to try and prepare my mind for the next day's practical, but failed miserably. I was too sleepy...

Wednesday 25082004 Chemistry Practical day. I think I only woke up from my bed at 0930. Whoo... I think it's quite a long long time since I woke up this late on a weekday. Yup, I went online, saw Yicheng online too, and asked him out for lunch before the practical starts. Spent another long long time typing a message for Wilfred, and when I was about to finish he came online too... (Fred: Take care ol' man) Anyway, the skies started turning very black at this point, so I thought I had better get out of house pronto to meet Yich if I didn't want to get caught in the rain... But alas, t'was too late... The skies started pouring very heavily the moment I stepped out of house, and I walked/ran in the rain, saw Yich dry with an umbrella in his hand, and that's when I looked into my own bag and found out that I actually brought my umbrella along... Dang it, walked in the rain for nothing... Yar, ate lunch, went to school and waited aimlessly for one hour for the practical to begin. In between, Luke, me and XZZ (still very lazy to spell his name) went to the piano sited at the canteen, and Luke initially sat down wanting to play the piano, but we later found out that the piano was spoilt beyond repair... All the keys didn't work, cos the hammer thing to hit the piano strings were all broken, so there was this pile of snapped hammers inside the piano... Believe me, ALL the hammers were ALL broken, so the piano was in effect a dead one. What to do, we took some of the hammers for ourselves. I've got the smallest 79th key hammer, and the 50th and 52nd key hammers as well... Okie, back to the practical. My titration was quite okay, and at least my endpoint reading tallys with most of my friends... It was the Qualitive Analysis part that I screwed up. The questions keep asking me to warm the solution gently, but I hate using the Bunsen burner, so I couldn't really be bothered. I was supposed to test and identify for some gases evolved, but I didn't get ANY gas at all... Never mind. I ended up ad-libbing half the results...

Thursday 26082004 Technically speaking: No School Day. But Mrs Bala and Ms Tan wanted extra lessons, so I still have to be in school... Mrs Bala was at 0800 in the morning, but I overslept. I only went for Ms Tan's lesson at 1200, but it turned out that there wasn't supposed to be any Maths lesson yesterday... That Daniel Basuki, he went to fix the wrong time with Ms Tan, and according to Ms Tan (who came over to clarify only at 1330, after the supposed "maths lesson" has ended), we were actually supposed to come on Friday (today), but Daniel went to tell the class it's on yesterday... Stupid, I wasted a trip to school for nothing. But then Shao Hong and Luke spent the time there coming up with the design for the class T-shirt, then Kwang Han and me took a long long trip down all the way to Bukit Merah for the fabric printing shop... First we had to take the MRT all the way to Redhill, then waited for about 20 minutes for a bus to take us to Bukit Merah Interchange, and we spent only 5 minutes in the shop discussing about what T-shirt to use... That woman at the shop, she could have just told us that we could email her the designs, but we went all the way there just to get a name-card with her email on it... Anyway, I came back to Bishan, was at Cheryn's house yet again. No, she didn't try to scare me this time round... I went for tuition at Jericho at around 1800, and saw Sarah and Sharon there... Whoo, haven't seen Sharon for eons. She's got this sort-of 'frizzy and messy' hairstyle now, and I'm absolutely positive she looks like my mother now... Haha... Okie, that's it for now...

Goodness, today was a very tiring day. All my muscles are aching, and I don't think I'll last very long before I plonk down on my bed permanently... Yesterday night before I went to bed, I had this awful feeling that a lot of things are going to happen today. Well, today was indeed eventful, but it was not any of those bad stuff...

In the morning I was still quite alert and active. Had PE in the morning, and I remembered I still had the energy to race Daniel for a 400-metre sprint. Well, nobody won, cos Daniel gave up trying to catch up with me after 200 metres... Then a whole group of us headed down for basketball. Our Maths teacher wasn't present in school today, so we had a free period after PE. As usual, when a teacher is not present, my class will opt to sit around, talk crap and do nothing, instead of doing self-studying. And to think that Prelim 3 is in another week's time... Anyway, I was minding my own business until I noticed a whole group of people crowded at Wilfred's place. It turned out that there was this big debate going on about some heavy religious topic. Fred was trying to argue that he didn't need Christ in his life, as well as a lot of theology-styled questions about the Christian faith. Those countering his claims were Luke and Vincent, resident Christians with me in class, and XZZ (lazy to spell his name out...) with Chris of the Catholic faith. I didn't join in their debate until recess time, but it was clear by then that Fred was still quite sceptical about Christianity, and soon the topics extended to whether we should believe in pro-creation or pro-Science... I mean, as a Christian I should probably believe in my faith and try to provide my fair share of explanation, but Fred seemed to be making sense even though the stuff he mentioned was irrelevant in the Christian concept. Theology or not, I'm not one to engage myself in such discussions. I wasn't really in the mood to argue with my friends anyway, so I just left them to continue to argue their way through...

Double English was a mental grog... I was feeling so sluggish and foggy by that time, and I was having trouble focussing on the comprehension that I was supposed to be doing. Then after school, I went over to J8 with Dora and Emmeline to get Ben Wong's birthday present. And since my entire cell group and Biru's cell were planning to share the present together, I figured that we can afford to buy a big big expensive present for Ben. Hopped for lunch first at Long John's, then Dora was commenting that both me and Emmeline were slow in getting what she was trying to say, but it turned out that she was the slowest to finish her lunch... Anyway, we spent the next half-hour walking from shop to shop trying to decide what to get for Ben. Girls will always be fussy, so we walked around aimlessly not getting anything at all, until we finally decided to get many small little gifts that will amount to our entire budget. Oh yar, we ran into Cheryn and Nisha (I know it's spelt wrongly, but I don't know the correct spelling) also, and after we got all the presents, I went over to meet them... The bus ride home was very fun. Nisha kept pinching Cheryn's cheeks and then later, her ears... What to do, of course I'd gleefully join in... Yup, then spent a while talking to Cheryn about Wilfred and Yicheng, then I went over to Jericho in the hopes of meeting Biru there... But Biru wasn't there, instead Sarah was there studying... What, it must have been ages since I last saw Sarah at Jericho. Yup, had a little chat with her, then tried solving her Maths but couldn't, called Biru but she couldn't be contacted, then went home... The worst thing was for the past 5 or 6 hours, I have not been hanging out with any guys at all. All the people that I hung out with after school were all females, so for most of the time I was this stucked-up male among many females... It's not that bad, cos I did talk to Adriel for a while at Jericho, so I'm not hopelessly lost in the female world. I hate being the only guy in many females, cos all they talk about are all the female stuff, female friends, and worst of all, their female "thing"... Bleaugh...

I'm going to take an early break now... Or maybe, just maybe, I can squeeze in a little bit of studying before I drop asleep on my bed...

The past few days haven't really been emotionally very good, but at least I try to manage and dictate my life, rather than sulk around and wallow in the dust. I got diarrhoea on Tuesday and Wednesday, but it's not your normal diarrhoea... It's the midnight diarrhoea, cos these bouts of diarrhoea didn't hit me in the day, but I have to wake up in the middle of the night just to go to the toilet. Too bad, I have to sacrifice my sleep to camp at the toilet, or else my mum will scream if I dirty the bed.

I got back my report book yesterday. I did a phenomenal improvement from Prelim 1. For one thing, I managed to pass all my subjects this time round, and I'm probably the very rare people with the staright flush, as my Chinese teacher would put it... And I hit a A2 for English!! I mean, the whole batch of us did so badly for English that the department had to moderate 3 extra marks for every one... So initially I got a 67, but with the added three marks, I got the class highest 70!! "Absolutely disgusting", says Luke. And I topped the class for Combined Humanities too. "Simply incredible", says Guan You...

I think girls are crazy. In the midst of writing this, I was conversing with Dora on msn... That crazy woman, she turned on her webcam and turned the cam to everything else in her room, except her darn ol' face. It's just annoying, cos she'll turn it to the TV, then wave her big hand in front of the cam, turn it round the room, wave again, then shake the TV remote control, wave again... But the scariest part was when Dora positioned the cam in front of her eye, and stare into it... Brr... Cheryn is another crazy nut. She decided to decorate MY foolscap paper cover with her drawings/scribblings on it, such that all I can see now is "CHERYN ROX" all over the sides, and some other scribblings which I don't even dare to look...

Okie, I think I'll probably get killed for blogging all these... But never mind. Girls will always be girls. They'll want to kill you initially, but then you can think of ways to make them want to un-kill you... Haha, Dora just invited me for the "web-cam torture" again...

Whoo... Today was a wonderful day. I had my English O'Level Oral today, and it was absolutely spiffing. I don't know about you, but teachers always make oral exams sound as if it's some kind of stringent test to mark you down, then all the students are talking about how tough it is to communicate fluently. And I'll repeat again, I don't know about you, but what I think of all that hype are just pure absurdity... I had an absolutely great time talking nonsense with my examiner, and it's not just nonsense... It's constructive nonsense, the kind of nonsense that actually makes sense. Haha, whatever. I can't resist a full-blown account of what transpired today, so just bear with it...

Yup, in the morning was flag-raising assembly as usual, no deviation from the normal routine. But what made the impact was the morning devotion. Starting from yesterday, every morning there will be this guy from some Christian denomination or organisation or church giving a devotion about the Beatitudes in the Matthew gospel... (Go read Matthew 5:3-11) Yar, this morning's devotion was something about changing your attitude to suit Christ's nature. Then my Principal got all the Chinese people who didn't hit a distinction at the O'Level to stay back for a lecture. So even all the way from my classroom, I can still hear the P screaming "animatedly" about poor results and goodness knows what. And I think now all those who got B3 and below are all forced to retake the exam again... Man, this is tyranny, and I'm mightily glad my Chinese was over last year... Yup. So while the P is still hogging the mike, Mrs Bala called about 10 of us down for more oral practice... After that was normal lessons, Ms Tan managing a double Maths going through some Maths paper, then Bala managed to wrestle the last Chinese period for more practice with us. I like Bala's eyes. When you talk, she'll give you her full attention, but it's those eyes. She has these piercing eyes that fixate itself firmly with your eyes, and the more you look back into the eyes, you'll picture of deep waters...

During the practice sessions I was already feeling the jitters, cos the actual oral exam was in an hour at that time. Then it's not helping when Mrs Bala is giving me that piercing-eyes-with-deep-water treatment. It was worse during lunch. While I was eating, my hand started shivering, and by the time I entered the exam hall, I think my skin went all clammy and I blanked out. So much so that when Bala came round for a last minute prep talk, she had to ask me whther I was okay or not... There was this waiting area at the back of the hall, then in the middle were the tables where you prepare for your picture and reading, then all the way up front before the satge was the examiners themselves. I think the Cambridge people intentionally did this set-up to nerve-wreck all the students, cos sitting there waiting for your turn with the examiners able to look at you all the time, it sort of makes you "watch your step"... I don't know, I think I waited for about an hour or so, talking to Yicheng (who was due after me) and doing stupid stuff like waving to Derek at the other group etc...

Anyway, as I was sitting there waiting for the examiners to beckon me over, I was sort of trying to spot what they were likely to ask me for conversation. But I didn't proceed far, cos the examiners were done discussing quite fast, and I didn't have the chance to try and formulate some topics. Yar, there were two examiners sitting down there, but for the entire oral exam, it was only the examiner on the left that did all the talking. Eh, she was quite cute and sweet, and the best thing was she had on this earnest-looking kind of face that lets you think she's interested in what I'd say... I think she's the type of teacher that Jun Yuan will like... (Go and ask for her msn!!) And the strange thing was I only began to relax after I sat down in front of the examiners. The reading of passage was quite okay, although I think I missed about two words. Picture discussion was next, and for the hell of me, I couldn't make out how the picture could be interpreted, so I just gave some comments which I made on the spot, sneaked a peek at Ms Earnest-Looking, and she seemed to buy my explanations. And when she tried to interrupt me, I just steam-rollered her over and continued talking whatever I can about the picture. Ha! She didn't get the chance to ask me anything, until at the very last when she managed to squeeze in a prompt, which was relatively easy...

After the reading and the picture, I thought this couldn't be more easy. For one thing, I was no longer nervous by that point, so my thoughts were flowing quite smoothly, and whatever nonsense that I was speaking made logic even though I don't know what I was speaking... And Ms Earnest-Looking seemed to be getting sick of getting steam-rollered all the time, so she just went straight to conversation. And the other examiner? She was this older looking lady, and I looked at her once, but she seemed more interested in our school hall's roof, so I focussed on Ms Earnest-Looking instead... After all, Ms Earnest-Looking is quite good-looking also, and she's cute... Okie, back to the oral exam... The conversation question was about my grandparents, and I was probably fortunate. I was expecting some horror question, but this was manageable. So I talked naturally, made up a few stories along the way and basically just gave my two cents worth... I tried to give Ms Earnest-Looking the Bala's-piercing-eye treatment, but I didn't succeed. She herself have her own kind of look also, like she's trying to be very interested in what I'm speaking, hence Earnest-Looking... And Mdm Roof-Looker finally decided that she'll look at me instead of the roof, but by then I'm done with my conversation...

It was only much, much later when I found out I had the easiest conversation with the examiners. All the rest of my classmates were complaining about having to answer some question about marriage in old couples, but surprisingly I had no such question. By right, the examiners should ask a basic question and then maybe some prompts after that. For my case, I only got the starting question, nothing else... Eh, according to Mrs Bala, that is supposedly good news because I've covered all the grounds of the topic.

Whatever the case, I'm glad and satisfied. At least I'm confident about this oral exam, not like those written exams you take and you are uncertain about the outcomes... Nuggets... Going to book a time with God right now. I've got a lot to thank Him for...

I'm tired and sleepy, but I'm in excellent spirits right now. I got back all my results for Prelim 2 yesterday. The results were generously good, a grace from God... I don't know if I sort of deserve those good marks, cos I'll be the first to admit that my study preparations weren't as thorough as some of my other friends, but I still thank God for it. I think I should just put all my trust in God and let Him control all the situations, but I still find myself guilty of not trusting Him fully. It's like, I put my faith in God for some decent results, but I still end up worrying for nothing even though I'm supposed to trust that He is in control, and YET God still rewards despite me not trusting fully.

I think God is awesome. He really is. Despite of the fact that I didn't believe fully in His sovereignty, but God still decides to answer my prayers and bestow me with some decent-and-nice results... Guess I should really smack myself hard on the head and wake up to the fact that God is always in control. *SMACK*

One of the things that come with good results is when you compare your results with your friends, you always end up out-scoring them. For me, I've got one of the better results than most of my classmates. And whenever they ask me how I did for the prelims, I'll (very humbly and modestly) tell them of my (good, if not very good) results... Here's the clincher: when you get good results, chances are that you want everyone to know that you've got good results. That's agony for me, cos if I try to tell everyone that I got good grades, I think I'll probably be smacked and whacked and slammed and whammed by everyone whom I got better results than. I'm not trying to be proud or arrogant here, cos I'm not. I'm just proud FOR myself, but most importantly, proud for what God has blessed me with. If there's anything I find myself worthy of praising, it's God's glory. So right now, I don't care what anybody says about me being arrogant or stucked-up, I'm shouting this for good: I'VE GOT EXCEPTIONAL GRADES FOR PRELIM 2... Yup, it's good to get that off my chest...

Today was an exhaustive day. I'm due in school at 0730 in the morning for Maths extra lesson, and if you've got any sense at all, you normally don't wake up this early on a Saturday morning, unless your house is on fire. Then again, only maybe... But hey, 0730 on Saturday morning is way too early, and Ms Tan just kept droning on about Maths Prelim paper corrections. After Maths at 0930, Daniel, Bush and me went down to Corps to volunteer for flag day. Both of them needed their 6 hours of CIP, and I'm just accompanying them for fun. We started out fine, got some generous donations. Then me and Daniel went in to our school staff room to solicit some donations. Mr Pereira was funny; he rambled on about us doing flags in the staff room, then grumpily donated his smallest coin denomination that he had (20 cents), before screaming "Bomb!" at Daniel... Ms Tan was superb as well, we didn't even ask her, but she donated all the same when she spotted us. Then Daniel and me went to talk to Mrs Pang for a while, got down to Mrs Bala for English Oral practice, then went to Upper Thomson with Fred and Zhi Jia and Alex for some crispy prata. Then we met up with Bush later, parked ourselves under the overhead bridge outside Bishan MRT and collected for all we were worthed. Signed out our flag bags at 1600, then went home...

Yawn... I'm going to drop heavy on my bed tonight, but that will be later. I've still gotta finish my Maths practice papers...

Grr... I've had some weird mood swings for the better half of today. In the morning I was disgruntled, in the afternoon I was more of grumpy, then it became ruffled a few hours ago and now it's back to grumpy. Got back the full English papers, Higher Chinese papers and all my Combined Humanities paper. The results are incredible... I got B3 for all the three subjects, and I topped my class for English and Combined Humanities, and Higher Chinese was one of the better grades in the class. By right I should be over the moon, but I'm still very piffed... Don't know why... O'level Chinese results were out today. Only 4 people in my class got As, but all A2, none A1. Everybody seemed pretty disappointed, cos mostly got B3, which isn't quite the same as a A... After school I was at Jericho for half an hour playing table soccer with Ben, then just remembered I left my test papers in school, so I had to detour to retrieve them. Stupid "LONG" distance between my house and school... (Whack me, Luke and Yich and Fred) Then went over to Cheryn's for a while. Thanks for trying to make me happier, mosquito... Then just got home from tuition; only me and Biru were there. I'm in a stupid mood now, sort of wishing I'll disintegrate into some slug or something like that. I wonder if there's a name for such a feeling. Sluggish??

Okie, it's a bit late into the night now... Almost nearing midnight, but I'm still wide awake and alert like an owl. And Cheryn, I'll sleep before midnight, so don't whine...

The past few days were incredibly brilliant. The long and extended weekend allowed me plenty of rest and sleep... Yesterday I was out for practically the entire day shopping and slacking, so I'm feeling slightly more refreshed now. Got back English comprehension and summary this afternoon. 29 out of 50, which was a big big surprise because I wasn't even thinking of passing. Mind you, passing English in our school is considered a phenomenol feat, considering the traditional high failure rate... But now according to George, me and Guang Wu got highest in class. Guess I should probably put more faith in God...

Another thing is that I'm going to be "promoted" tomorrow. The DM thinks that "Class Monitor" doesn't suit us, so he's upgrading us to a new post termed the "Class Chairman"... So now I've got a new badge, wear a tie everyday, "higher status" in school, got more rubbish responsibilities etc. I think it's junk, cos they don't really make any difference... Stupid Luke, don't even start on your Chairman Low and Little Red Shit Book and whatever communist comrades...

Oh right, Daddy's birthday tomorrow, DPM Lee Hsien Loong is going to be PM, and Chinese O'level results are coming out.

Looking forward to tomorrow, and I hope it'll be a good day... Going to catch some sleep now.