Took a trip to Japan with my family recently for a week, just came back on Wednesday night. Japan was really cold, freezing cold, didn't expect it to be so cold. And the food was almost always the same. Japanese really love pickles, vegetables, seafood, noodles, little meat, and not forgetting the miso soup (all the soup seemed to taste the same). But the trip was quite OK. Got to visit Mt. Fuji. Well, we didn't get to go up to the peak, but we reached quite a high altitude. The scene was stunningly beautiful, the snow-capped peak, the dried, but colourful autumn leaves and other things..I so loved the view. Too bad the temperature wasn't low enough for us to see snow again. And we also got to visit Universal Studios and Disneyland. Well, the two places are a complete rip-off from the ones in LA, only that everything is spoken in Japanese instead of English, but we still had fun and managed to try the new rides that weren't open when we went to LA. The only bad thing was that it was pouring on the day we went to Disneyland - it was like a typhoon with heavy rain and strong winds, so couldn't take many pictures and rides. Oh..I took quite a lot of pictures with the digital camera, don't know why there's this sudden interest. Must have been inspired from Xiaowei taking pictures with her camera during the class chalet. It's a pity I didn't get to learn new Japanese words during the trip. But I did learn one thing: to appreciate the weather in S'pore. I mean..really, and the food too.
Went for Camp Olympus, this CIP camp organised by the soccer and tennis girls teams with some external organisation, on Friday and Saturday. It's actually supposed to be a three day and two night camp, but I was lazy to go for the full course. Initially, I wasn't supposed to go for the camp because I thought it'd clash with the trip, but then they pushed back the date and I thought I'd go for erm..some CIP hours. The camp was for P3-P6 girls of CHIJ Our Lady of Good Convent. The first day was quite boring, I was even regretting having turned up at all, but the second day was much better. We were supposed to teach the girls how to play soccer and mini tennis, and some other sports, namely floorball, volleyball and frisbee. Obviously, the tennis girls taught the girls mini tennis. The first day of camp, it was raining, so we had to make do teaching the girls indoor inside the hall. There wasn't much we could do and the girls got bored pretty easily. The weather was much better on the second day and we were able to teach them outdoors, which was more fun. The girls were divided into four groups - Apollo, Athena, Venus and Zeus. I wasn't supposed to be a group leader because I couldn't stay for the whole camp, but because Apollo had only one group leader on Friday, I became their group leader temporarily for one day. I managed to make quite a lot of friends with the girls in the group. We all had been warned earlier that quite a number of the girls come from dysfunctional families, and I kind of pitied some of the girls, like Lynn. Lynn came across to me as this rather loud and ungentle girl..sort of like a tomboy, but as time went on, my impression of her changed for the better. All of the HC girls thought she had leadership potential, and she was really enthusiastic during the camp. It's just a pity she has been brought up the wrong way. Another one was Dahlia. I was quite touched when she told me that her father died and she is now taken care by her uncle. She only meets her mum once a week because her mum has her own boyfriend. She even adopts her uncle's surname and becomes a Catholic. Her story makes me realise how lucky I am to be having such a wonderful and caring family. The two girls that I mix around with the most were Joey and Rachel. Everyone thought Joey is pretty and she certainly has a flawless skin and good posture, thanks to her being a ballerina dancer. She can also do cartwheels. Rachel is mixed blood as her father is Dutch, but she looks like any other Singaporean. The youngest girls in the group were Joanne, this P3 girl that is just so cute, and Jia Yi, who has this infectious laughter. The other girls in the group were Claudia and Grace. I really thought Apollo was really a good group, they were really enthusiastic. And all of them, especially Lynn, tried to make Grace, who has some sort of disability, feel part of the group. The groups were supposed to do a group cheer for the campfire, but in the end, the girls did something that was more like a group item. But it was really good effort from the girls..they came up with everything themselves and even included formation of pyramids as part of the group 'cheer'. Really hope Apollo won the competitions that were supposed to be held today; they deserved it.
Went out for lunch to Chinatown with my family to celebrate my father's birthday. It's been quite a long time since we all go out to have a meal together, so I kind of treasure time spent with family nowadays.
Can't wait for the soccer match tonight between Chelsea and MU. As a MU fan, of course I'm hoping that MU will win, but I'm contented with a draw. And Arsenal will also be playing. I still remember that Wednesday night when we came back. The first thing my brother, an Arsenal fan, that my brother did after we came home from Japan was to check the result of the Inter vs Arsenal match, as we couldn't find time to check the result in Japan earlier. My brother was totally gloating over Arsenal's 5-1 trashing of Inter, especially since two of us (me and my youngest brother) had predicted that Arsenal would lose by quite a large margin. Sigh.
Better get going with studying for SAT now. It's only a week away and I'm only like at Word List #5, and there are 50 word lists altogether. I'm really going to go crazy studying all those words. But I guess I gotta work hard, especially since I'm missing church camp just because of SAT. Bleah.
Kind of hungry now...think I'm going to go off for dinner..
Welsh heartbreak! Wales lost 0-1 to Russia at home and now they're out of Euro 2004. So sad! I wanted Wales to qualify so badly, especially after Russia had tried unfairly and unsuccessfully to get Ryan Giggs banned for this game. And now... Sigh.. Life is so unfair sometimes, or maybe all the time..
Never mind the fact that Holland beat Scotland 6-0 and that van Nistelrooy scored a hat-trick, I'm still sad about Wales not qualifying..
I love Punk'd! I think it's such a cool show. It's really hilarious to see the celebrities getting punk'd. Those who were punk'd in tonight's episode were Jessica Biel and Nick Lachey, husband of Jessica Simpson. The expressions on the stars' faces everytime they saw Ashton Kutcher and realised they had been tricked are just priceless. Another bonus to watch the show is of course, the cute Ashton Kutcher. =)
I think the camp was quite an enriching experience for me in the end. And to think that I joined it for less than honourable reasons. Initially, I thought I was quite a lousy group leader because I was a bit scared of the kids, but I guess it was ok as time went on as I managed to sort of interact with them. Had fun during the scavengers' hunt. I think that was my favourite part of the camp, and kite-flying too, watching the kids fly the kites. I was quite touched by the kids' enthusiasm in doing the activities, and sometimes, by their innocence too. Like during the obstacle course, they still tried to do their best even though they knew they're not good at the activities, like skipping. And unsurprisingly, the kids are not as innocent as I was last time when I was their age. They now know how to use handphones and watch WWE. Kids are getting more mature at such younger age it's getting quite scary. Oh well. Overall, the camp was quite fun and I think the kids really enjoyed it, and we didn't do too badly in the end.
Felt quite sheepish when I found out that 5566 were actually the ones who were at PS the other day. Saw a very large crowd in front of a stage and since I don't listen to Chinese music, I didn't know it was them on stage. It was really very crowded there, so I was quite irritated actually. Oh well..
Was thinking how fast time flies as I was looking through some university brochures I found in my room. Next year, I will sit for the 'A' level exams, which marks the end of JC life and the beginning of university life. Will have to send in applications next year, sit for SAT II and fast forward..before I know it, I'll have graduated, found a job, started a family and stuff.. I know I say this many times before, but it's just..scary.
My gut feeling has kind of failed me big time over the weekend. The only result I predicted correctly was that England would beat France. I thought NZ would beat Australia but was proven wrong. The same goes with Scotland vs Holland. Sigh. And the Tennis Masters Cup hasn't been that great too as my favourite players didn't reach the final. Oh well.
Sometimes I wonder what I would be like if I don't have my secondary friends around me. At the end of the day, I guess they are the ones whom I can really confide in and talk about practically everything under the sun. With JC friends, I don't know, it feels..different. I guess it's because I've known them much longer than friends made in JC. Just want to say thank you to anna, zanet, saby, jessie, huiling, wendy and many others (I know you all won't read this, but never mind) and especially to bernice for always being there!
I've done nothing since I woke up. Only took shower, had lunch, read newspaper and came online. Today was the first time I actually woke up past noon. Woke up at 1.30pm and my first thought was my alarm clock must have been spoilt. True, I did sleep at 3.30am trying to finish reading a book, but then I usually would not have slept for 10 hours if I sleep around that time. I feel completely listless now. It's like I'm wasting my holidays slacking away all the time. I better get going with SAT soon, or I'll end up wasting $80 and my second and last chance.
My brother on tuesday: yes! we have espn line here..and i watched the liverpool vs mu match and a little bit of the chelsea vs newcastle one. can watch soccer matches now, like the england vs denmark friendly.
My brother on wednesday: (cursed) the espn line just got cut off. (gave me the angry and crying face) now i cannot watch the england vs denmark friendly. and ferrero also lost, what a bad day.
My brother last night: yes! we've got our espn line back, and now i can watch the match. not like you, in s'pore.
I guess my brother is also a sports fanatic like me. I wish he'd just stop complaining or proclaiming about the ESPN line back home. That's always the first thing he tells me whenever he sees me online. Sigh. He'd better be thankful he can watch soccer matches back home. And I better hope the line will still be there when I go home so that I, too, can watch my share of soccer matches =)
During the class chalet, Xiaowei taught me 2 Japanese words. One means thank you, and the other means you're welcome, i think. Promised her I'd remember the two words, but knowing me, I've forgotten the second one. Arigato was the first word. And the second word? I know it is some pretty long word. Haha. So xiaowei, if you're reading this, sorry i broke the promise. What's the second word again?
Think I'll go and eat doughnut now. Evidently, lunch isn't enough for me, and since I skipped breakfast, I may as well have what I was supposed to have for breakfast (which was the doughnut) as tea.
Haven't had tennis training for a long time and well..it felt a bit weird to train again. Had to run one big round through tchs swimming pool, then enter through the main gate and run past the canteen. One big round..and it was very tiring. Still had to do sprints up the hill and crunches and push-ups. Super tiring. I was exhausted. I think it's partly because I haven't been sleeping enough these past few days. Oh well..good thing is I seem to get more tanned.
I seem to be sleeping at weird places at the weirdest hours. I was waiting for a web page to load last night and since my brother was watching tv, decided to sit at the sofa and close my eyes. But instead, I slept all the way till 7.30 morning, on the sofa, and the computer was switched on till morning because my brother thought I'd wake up at some point in the night or something. Sigh. That was not the only one. I fell asleep in front of the computer screen before, sitting in front of the table while studying or simply just while tidying up my stuff, and also while reading newspapers. Sigh. And always fall asleep at the most unwanted times.
Was supposed to have class chalet from yesterday to tomorrow morning, but because of training, had to go home today. I'm now very tired and sleepy, not surprising due to the lack of sleep in the first night. And I'm also sun-burned, because of cycling in the afternoon, but cycling is fun! Haven't cycled for quite a while, but cycling gave me a sense of freedom, a chance to enjoy the view and smell the sea air and also exercise. Should go cycling more often.
Clay's song..the more I listen to it, the more I like it.
What are you doing tonight
I wish I could be a fly on your wall
Are you really alone
Still in your dreams
Why can't I bring you into my life
What would it take to make you see that I'm alive
If I was invisible
Then I could just watch you in your room
If I was invisible
I'd make you mine tonight
If hearts were unbreakable
Then I can just tell you where I stand
I would be the smartest man
If I was invisible
Wait..I already am
I saw your face in the crowd
I called out your name
You don't hear a sound
I keep tracing your steps
Each move that you make
Wish I could read what goes through your mind
Wish you could touch me with the colors of your life
If I was invisible
Then I could just watch you in your room
If I was invisible
I'd make you mine tonight
If hearts were unbreakable
Then I can just tell you where I stand
I would be the smartest man
If I was invisible
Wait..I already am
I reach out
But you don't even see me
Even when I scream out
Baby, you don't hear me
I am nothing without you
Just a shadow passing through...
If I was invisible
Then I could just watch you in your room
If I was invisible
I'd make you mine tonight
If hearts were unbreakable
Then I can just tell you where I stand
I would be the smartest man
If I was invisible
Yeah..so happy PW is over. It's taken up an unbelievably huge amount of time. OP was yesterday, didn't do too well, but who cares? And we're also finally done with the file, which amounted to 701 pages. Bottom line is..no more pw! No more pw meetings, minutes, source evaluation, colour coding, printing pw stuff, sending pw stuff to both emails and yahoo briefcase, filing stuff, carrying the bulky file home, etc. Phew. And we have class chalet today. So happy, kind of looking forward to it, hopefully it'll be nice.
That's it! MU beats Liverpool hands down. 2-1. Same scoreline as last season for the corresponding fixture. Only this time, it's Ryan Giggs who scores the double, not Forlan. And Chelsea trashed Newcastle 5-0. OK..seriously, I never expect Chelsea to trash them. Arsenal won by luck, such a huge deflection to goal. Sigh. So it's still a three-way title fight.
Tennis Masters Cup starting this week and this event will be the decider for who'll be the year-end No.1. Personally, I would like Ferrero to be number 1, but I don't mind Roddick also. Too bad Ferrero got into the tough group, whereas Roddick got into the easy one.
Have been wanting to change the template for quite some time. Finally managed to. Haha..didn't know I can do HTML also. But there're still some problems here and there. Quite lazy to fix them now. Oh well. Supposed to be doing my source evaluation now for pw, but end up changing the template. Haha. Still have 5 more evaluation to go..
That was supposed to be The Matrix's tagline. But I so do not like the conclusion of the Matrix. I mean, what happened to the protagonists? Trinity died, Neo's fate is unknown but I presume he died too. I don't know..I just hate love stories that end tragically. Like this one. I'm a sucker for happy endings to movies, and I don't think I can quite qualify this ending as happy. But that's besides the point. The main point is, I don't even get the movie at all. Only some parts. But other than that, the movie left me with many more unaswered questions. Why is Agent Smith suddenly in the ship? Why are there so many more people in the ship than what I remembered last time there were in Reloaded? What happened to the Frenchman? What happened to the Twins? And most importantly, what happened to Neo in the end? Did he die or did he not die? Argh!! So many questions. So irritating! But I don't regret watching the movie. I mean, it was one of the movies that I've wanted to watch this year. And to not watch it will probably be worse.
Speaking of movies, was just thinking of all the movies that I've watched this year. 1)Hero 2)Shanghai Knights 3)Hot Chick 4)Catch Me if You Can 5)The Matrix Reloaded 6)Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle 7)Legally Blonde 2 8)The Matrix Revolutions. Missed out on quite a few also. Sigh. Kind of watched quite a lot more movies this year than I normally do. Maybe that's why my mum told me to not spend so much money.
Forgot to talk about Malay 'AO'. Basically, I screwed up my paper. Paper 1, I could not find anything to write for all the topics, so I settled on one with the easiest type of question to answer, something about the steps that can be taken to ensure that s'pore is a leading nation in sports. Paper 2, I nearly didn't finish. Finished right on the dot. Summary was quite hard, didn't know which part to cut down. Still I'm hoping I'll get a reasonably high mark for summary. Cloze passage was hopeless, made quite a few careless mistakes here and there. To make matters worse, I was freaking cold throughout the whole paper, even though I was wearing jacket. And halfway through paper 2, I had stomach ache, which I presumed to be gastric. Sigh. So if I ever don't do well, I'd know what to blame it on. But seriously, I really hope I did well enough to get at least a distinction.
Thought I'd leave a post before I go to sleep. It's been a really busy and tiring day, and I can't wait to close my eyes and just sleep. Had to go to school today at 8am for OP rehearsal. I was predictably late because I slept only at 3+am, so obviously, I woke up late. After that, went to dentist and he put on the retainer. It felt funny the first time he put it. It's not as painful as braces, but it's definitely more uncomfortable. I can't even talk properly now! He warned me that I'd talk in a funny manner for about 2-3 days. Sigh. And I have to wear it like 24 hours a day, except when I'm supposed to clean it after meals. Thought I'd be rid of stuff on my teeth. Thought that I only had to wear retainer for like 12 hours only. Sigh. In which case, I've decided to sort of not follow his instructions completely. I'm not going to put on my retainer while eating..it's so uncomfortable swallowing food.. and I'm definitely not going to wear it on Tuesday when we're having OP. I'd probably be very incomprehensible if I wear it. After dentist, it's off to the library with Ai Lian to do CIP. Nothing much really, just shelving books at Orchard Library. We clocked 6 hours today and even though we didn't do anything other than shelving books, my legs feel like jelly right now. I just realised how tiring it was to walk up and down the library, finding the correct shelves, pushing the trolleys and stuff. And we found so many good books that we decided to take all the good books that we found, and in the end had to each choose 2 out of about 5 or 6 (not counting those that we didn't put aside because we knew we already had quite a few books to choose from) because we'd already borrowed 2 each on sunday. Met Jacqueline, this ex-classmate of mine I haven't seen since July, near the end of my shift. Didn't even recognise her at first. And also saw this freaky man. Ai Lian should know. Haha. At night, attempted to do PW, or more specifically, attempted to complete at least half of the source evaluations. But didn't manage to. So I still have 6 more to go. Such a slacker. Ended up chatting instead of doing PW. Sigh. Was looking at the soccer results just now. How lucky can Arsenal get? They scraped past 2-1. Why are they always so lucky? And Leeds was trashed 1-6 by Portsmouth. Kind of pity Leeds right now, with all their problems and everything. Sigh. Think I better go to sleep now, so tired. And tomorrow is going to be another tiring day. Finally, I'm going to watch Matrix Revolutions with Anna and her brother tomorrow. Hopefully, I'll not be too disappointed with the ending.
I went to the dentist yesterday and he took off the braces, but only for the upper part of my teeth. Now, my teeth look so weird, they are like so big. Got to go back to the dentist in one week's time to get my retainers. The yellow stuff he put into my mouth to get the shape for my retainers was so totally gross.
MG funfair was yesterday, but I didn't go down there. Heard it was quite fun, but I don't like funfair atmosphere with the throngs of people. But I went for the class party, which was supposed to be after the funfair. It was supposed to be kind of a farewall party for a Malaysian friend, who was going back to Malaysia. But, it turned out she already went back to Malaysia. But we still had fun gossiping and eating leftovers from the funfair.
Went to Orchard library today with Ai Lian. We were thinking of doing CIP in the library, but were not allowed to because we were not in school uniform. I mean, who would go out in school uniform on a Sunday? Anyway, there was another girl with us, a secondary school girl. She also wanted to do CIP, but she was also not in school uniform. She was quite persistent though, and proceeded to sort out books even though she was told she could not CIP and she did not have a name tag. Wonder what happened to her later. So, me and Ai Lian just walked around looking for books to borrow.
We also went to see the Subaru Impreza Challenge that was taking place just outside Ngee Ann City. Quite interesting to see the contestants placing their palms on the cars. Even more interesting to see that they did not give up despite the rain. I would not have dared to take part in such a challenge. Even if I dared, I don't think I would have lasted through the rain. There were still quite a number of people in the challenge. Last time I heard though, there were only 33 left, out of 120. Anyway, I was trying to spot Daniel Ong among the whole mass of people. If I weren't wrong, I heard on the radio that he would be taking part in the challenge with other celebrities, like Rod Monteiro and some MediaCorp artistes, but I couldn't spot him. I was adamant though that he was still in the challenge, and poor Ai Lian kept trying to convince me that she didn't see him. Instead, we saw Glenn Ong and Bernard Lim, the host of Wheel of Fortune. Anyway, I heard Daniel Ong on air in the evening, so I have no idea how he fared.
My whole table is still in a mess! I've promised myself to tidy up my table after promos, but obviously, I've been putting it off till over the weekend. I could not stand the sight of a whole pile of promos scripts, promos past year papers and tutorials. Tried to file in the papers on Friday night, but fell asleep in the middle of doing it. And missed Survivor too! I woke up at 11, but thinking it was 2 in the morning, I went to sleep for a while more. But when I woke up, I saw that it was only 11.10. Started blaming my brothers for not waking me up earlier. I mean, at least I could have caught who got voted off the show. I didn't even tape the episode. And I heard it was one of the most shocking episodes with the most shocking twist ever and one contestant actually quitting the game. Sigh. Promised myself to catch the next episode. Anyway, tried to finish clearing the papers this evening. Managed to. My table still looks slightly messy, but it's much much neater.
Time really flies by without me knowing it. Before I know it, it's already the first week of November. And I have Malay paper in 5 days' time and I haven't started looking through my Malay stuff, only doing some papers. And PW too, the Oral Presentation, in like about one week's time. That means that in slightly more than a week's time, I'd be rid of all the PW stuff, which has been driving me crazy these past 2 weeks. It'd be nice, right? Except that no one told me the seriousness of oral presentation. I didn't even know we'd have to memorise our speech. OK, maybe I intended to be more familiar with my speech, but definitely not by memorising it! And SAT is in about a month's time. And I have done nought about it. It'll be the second time I'm taking it and I really want to do well. Oh well. I'll just take things one by one. My main focus now is of course, Malay. It's amazing how time seems to be crawling so slowly during the period right after the promos, and yet it seems to be flying at a breakneck speed now.
And before I know it, the Matrix Revolutions will be out on Wednesday! Of course I'll probably only be able to watch it after my Malay paper. But still. I can't wait to know the ending of the whole trilogy. Will Neo manage to save the last human city? Or will it all only be a dream? I'd be angry if it's all a dream. I mean, taking us all on this whole ride and in the end, it's only a dream. But I don't think it'll be a dream. Anyway, I don't know what I'm talking about now, but I just can't wait to see the ending. Frankly, I still don't really understand The Matrix, understand most of it but not all, and I'm even more hopeless with Reloaded. But as they say, "Everything that has a beginning has an end". So I'll just watch the last installment of the trilogy.
This is the second straight night (or morning) I'm going to sleep at dawn in the morning. At least it's good that we're having a holiday later, so I can at least catch up on some things and start looking through my Malay stuff.
I may be disappointed with some of the grades, but overall, after taking things into perspective, I can't say I'm not satisfied with my grades =).
To make things better, MU has just won Portsmouth 3-1 and Ronaldo scored his first goal for MU. Yeah!