Teachers' Day. The day when teachers become kids all over again from receiving all those presents, and the day when kids become Santa Claus, giving out presents to their teachers.

We 'celebrated' Teachers' Day in school today. I added the two aprostophes because it wasn't really much of a celebration, since there was no real party of anything like that for my form teacher. Sure there was a class card for her, but nothing else. Nobody likes her, you see, so there were no gifts and I suspect not even a "Happy Teachers' Day!" greeting for her. You might think we're heartless or something like that, but you don't know her. Shan't go into details here. Long story. If you ask me personally then I'll tell you.

Anyway, I got gifts for most of my teachers! Scoured the mall for 45 minutes yesterday, because I didn't want to get any of those mass-produced useless crap souvenirs for my teachers. I reckoned that it should be something more thoughtful. Sad to say, I failed fairly miserably. Only managed to get a book for Miss Tan, my English teacher and some Belgian no-sugar-added chocolate for Mr. Teo, my Biology teacher. He really loves chocolate, you see, but he's almost diabetic and has high blood pressure, so I got this no-sugar type for him. Unfortunately it was just regular chocolates for Ms Goh and Ms Chua. I really couldn't find and think of anything special to give to them. Bummer. I also drafted personal messages to all of them.

I was apparently the only one in class who came to school with a bag full of wrapped presents (wrapped myself, obviously). When people laugh at me and ask me why I'm doing this when nobody else does, my answer to them was simple; I wanted to thank the teachers for all they'd done. You can call me an emo kid if you like, I don't care, because I truly believe in thanking those who've guided me.

For the Teachers' Day program, we had some "Mr Cool Marist Competition". Lazy to type anymore, so forgive me for not giving details. Anyway after school went for lunch and bowling with Nigel and Jared before going home at about 5 pm.

Apologies for bringing this post to a rather abrupt end.

General outlook of exams so far: Totally effed up.

Took CL paper today, and didn't manage to finish both Papers One and Two. Paper One because I couldn't think fast enough. Paper Two because of a reason that's totally retarded and is guaranteed to make you go "What the hell?!"

I couldn't finish Paper Two because I was dozing off while doing the paper.

Absolutely fabulous, isn't it? I'd read the passages at the front of the paper and realised nothing was going in, so I went to to do the two comprehension passages first instead. Had to go back and re-read the entire two sections I'd missed out on. The section where you're supposed to choose the phrase to fit in the passage was a matter of innie-minnie-mynie-mo as usual.

How scintillating.

It's only 10.30pm now and my eyes feel like they're being weighed down with a brick. I am seriously not a nocturnal person. Well, at least not when it comes to studying.

One subject down, seven more to go. Oh, and add those science practicals to the list too. T_T

English Language paper today was not so well done. Paper One was a screwup, with me unable to finish my situational writing. Sheesh with only 15 minutes left I really couldn't do much, so all I did was write a couple of paragraphs of rubbish and then sign off. In horrible handwriting, I must add. Hopefully I'll still be able to scrape a pass of, say 17/30? My composition was expository as usual. I have no idea how people can think of stories to write in an exam. Topic was ' "Singapore is selling its soul to obtain the tourist dollar." Do you agree?'. Apparently quite a lot of people chose to write on this topic, and I'd originally hesitated to do this one as well, seeing that it was basically Geography and most people would have the same points as I did. But with time awasting and myself being unwilling to think of stuff to write about "Heroes", I simply carried on. What resulted in the end was some rubbish about the IRs tearing the moral fabric and development of a pseudo-culture, which is probably about the same in terms of content as others' essays.

Whatever, hopefully my use of language and coherence will pull me through. And you know what? I'm going to make a promise. If I score well for my Paper One essay and scrape through with at least 17 marks for the situational writing, I'll type out my entire essay, all four pages long of it. Seeing that my handwriting is rather miniscule, that amounts to about 900+ words? That doesn't seem good, suddenly I'm feeling less confident of my chances.

Paper Two wasn't that hard, and hopefully I'll score really well for this one. Tomorrow's paper is Chinese, which I'm not going to care about. Off to study Geography in a while.


P.S. My blog is not dead. It was simply in a state of temporary hibernation.

Sometimes one's skeletons should never be aired to all and sundry.

You aren't the only one who has problems.

Attempts to elicit sympathy and commiseration will only result in further derision, because it's pathetic. You do it so as to attract attention, to get people to empathise. And it's not that others don't. Everyone feels sorry, because it is foreign to normal human nature not to, but still. Still it carries on, like a never-ceasing thorn the side, not because it's a pitiful cry for help, but because of your wholly inappropriate medium of expressing it.

If you want help, ASK. Don't just wallow in your self-pity. And don't think others will stop simply because you told them to in your blog. Again the mockery persists because of the medium used, to have others feel sorry for you.

If you have no idea what I'm saying, then this message is not meant for you, so you shouldn't be offended or anything.



I promise to blog about something more positive the next time.

I wasn't kidding when I said I'm dead for prelims. What little bordering-on-the-extent-of-miniscule amount of revision I've done is all over the place. Half a chapter of Physics here, a quarter of Biology there.

There's this horrible sinking feeling whenever I try to do Chemistry or Math. A feeling of dread and urgency in the pit of my stomach that doesn't go away no matter what. My solution to the problem? I stop attempting to do Chemistry or Math. Brilliantly conceived, but it doesn't help. I feel like tearing the hair off my head in frustration. Or just screaming at something.

I totally hate E. Math. Why the hell would I want to know the probability of taking out a blue ball from a bag filled with balls? As such, I've always been handing in examination scripts that are half blank. Sometimes I pass, sometimes I don't, but I sure need much more than a pass if I want my A1. Thus begins the feeble attempt at the insurmountable.

Chemistry isn't all bad. I find organic chemistry and macromolecules rather easy, but it's the stupid chemical calculations that'll be the death of me. 196g of iron? 4 moles? To hell with it.

Well enough of that.

Got back the pre- and post- test English papers today. Before you start scratching your head and going "Huh?", let me explain. At the start of Secondary Three, my English teacher, Miss Tan conducted a English Comprehension pre-test to assess our ability with the language. We did the test and heard no more of it for a whole year. Now before I go on, let me go on a bit about my English teacher.

Miss Tan is rather well known for her strict marking. In short, almost everyone whose paper she marks gets absymal grades in both comprehension and composition. Now when I say absymal, I mean single digit out of 50 marks absymal. Well, not for myself, but that's besides the point. In short, everyone is or was seeking to get just a pass grade from her.

On to the post test. Now, the post test was the same exact paper taken two weeks ago, and the purpose of the two tests was to see how much we'd learnt and how our marks had improved from absolutely dreadful before learning all the techniques from her to just dreadful or better after. Obviously there should have been improvements in terms of marks, and in most cases it was true, there were cases of people getting 12 marks the first time getting 30 now. Some had only marginal improvements of 2-3 marks or so.

Guess by how many marks I've improved by?

5? 10? 8? 3?
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Nah. None of the above. I improved from the first time around by a whopping zero marks. LOL. I got exactly 25 marks on both rounds. HAHA top that. 12 marks for comprehension and 13 marks for summary the first time; 13 for comprehension and 12 for summary the second time. Now that is some funny, because it seems that I'm the only one in the level who managed this. I must admit though, this time around I was slightly careless and lost 2 marks off my summary. But hey, I'm not complaining. At least I didn't get something lower than before.

Oh, did I mention that I'm screwed for prelims?

One week to go and I still haven't really started revising, or more appropriately, learning from scratch, seeing that I don't listen during lessons much.

I'm bloody screwed for prelims. Period.

Sweet sixteen isn't diabetically sweet so far, due to the fact that I'd gotten myself yet another present by twisting my ankle during PE. =S

Went to school this morning and got a pleasant surprise. Yi He, Songyuan and Ronson had bought me a present, though I suspect it was because I "let slip" it was my birthday today =P. Not that I did so to get a present of course, since I rather wasn't expecting it. Still, I was really touched. Thanks guys.

Together with the present, a Crumpler camera pouch of sorts (first and only ever item since it's really expensive, this brand is) was a handwritten (and drawn) card with a rather lewd picture in front that depicted "Birthday Boy in Birthday Suit". HAHA. I shan't elaborate. Thanks also to all those who bothered to wish me a Happy Birthday. It's really the thought that counts, though I really had no idea how they found out, seeing that I obviously didn't go around shouting that it was my birthday.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Him once again for sixteen years of giving and guiding me along. Thanks to my parents as well, though they won't be reading this.

Crap, this is becoming a thank-you speech. Time to shut up.

This post might or might not contain vulgar obscenities, depending on whether I bother to manipulate my words or not. Not by any fault of my own, it's just that those were the cirumstances, as you'll see later on in the post.

I just shortened my life by about 10 minutes. Count it as a birthday present I got for myself, though not one I'd wanted, that's for sure.

I'd finished tuition at 8.30pm and decided to go over to McDonald's to mug a little. Didn't get much into my head, due to the crap that happened. Anyway, I don't usually go inside when I go to study alone, because of the freezing temperatures and because of the bloody speakers which blare out McDonald's advertisements repeatedly non-stop. Unfortunately tonight almost all the outside seats were taken, and I had to settle for one next to the designated smoking area. I repeat, NEXT to the smoking area. Well there were these two chaps sitting at the table beside mine, and I didn't really give much attention to them for a while.

Sad to say, my indifference, it seemed had to be interrupted, and rather rudely if I may add. It seems that some Singaporeans can't string together a sentence without adding an obscenity into it. You see, when those two nitwits communicated, almost every sentence they spoke was punctuated with references to male or female genitalia, broken or in dialect. I'm not saying that I never use obscenities, but that was pure overkill. Mountain out of a molehill? There's more to it.

A couple of minutes later, one of the two guys, a particularly brilliantly daft person then decided to light up and smoke. Sunshine here nonchalantly manouveured a cigarettte from the box he had on the table (something which I failed to notice before I sat down and he lit up) and proceeded to engage in one of the most stupid activties that the human race participates in. I simply cannot understand why people smoke. The bloody retard. And there he was, blissfully spouting smoke while directly under the "no smoking area " sign. I had half a mind to remind him that he was smoking in a no smoking area, but the prospect of being assaulted with hokkien obscenities (and those limited to genitalia at that) by two ah bengs did not appeal to me very much. I decided to bear with it for a while. Big mistake. Just moments later the other guy decided to play 'monkey-see-monkey-do" and started smoking as well.

You might be asking: "Why the hell didn't you move, then, dumbass?" In answer to that, I can only shake my head and reply that I was harbouring the hope that my faith in Singaporeans' considerate behaviour was justified. Not so in this case. Oh, and I wasn't inclined to subjecting myself to mindless McDonald's fast-food propanganda while having my arse frozen inside. So I decided to bear with it for a(nother) while. After all, they'd leave soon, wouldn't they? Big mistake -_-ll

One of the nitwits (not Sunshine but his friend) talked on his mobile phone a few times. During his conversation he demonstrated further his fantastic aptitude at repeating Hokkien obscenities every sentence. His parents must be proud of him. Possibly a third of the things he said were basically the same vulgarities over and over again. Get some manners, dude or at least have some variety. From the rest of the conversation I managed to decipher the word "goods" and things like that. Overreacting, am I? It gets worse.

Just a short interval later, a couple of friends of our two friends came along. Basically the same gangster type. They began conversing in what can only be termed gangsta-l33t-sp33k, the reason being as before; incessant spewing of vulgarities. I couldn't leave now, that was for sure. Anyway it seems that the two were pirated CD vendors or something, because Sunshine's partner kept bitching that customers kept coming every day to exchange CDs because the movies couldn't play, and one of the guys who'd just joined was saying that the VCD of "My Super-Ex Girlfriend" wasn't working properly. That's nice to know. I'm sure if you guys brought your faulty goods to the police they'd help you with it. By putting you in jail. Thankfully a while later the new guy suggested they move over to the smoking area when he saw Sunshine lighting up with a new cigarette. Perhaps in consideration of me. There's still hope, then.

All in all, a fairly harrowing experience. I might have exaggerated things a little unknowingly in the process of typing this post, since I was there for only forty-five minutes or so, but I assure you that it is wholly unintentional. Oh, and I did manage to not cite examples of the obscenities used. Promise kept! =)

P.S. I'm going to stay up till 12a.m. tonight just for the fun of it. I'd like to experience the exact moment I make the transition from good ol' fifteen to sweet sixteen. I hope I can stay awake.

English "O" level oral examination for my class was held today.

I hereby claim the title of "Shortest time taken to complete the exam". I'm not saying I was bad or anything like that, just that others took twice or even three times the time I took to finish off the exam. No really. Quality or Quantity? Go figure.

Missed out one or two points I wanted to add, and my reading went flat for one sentence. I'm guessing I'd scraped a low thirty-plus marks for it. I'm an optimist? Oh, and I sorta hemmed a hawed a little and basically talked absolute rubbish for one of the questions, and did I mention I used Singlish? Ouch.

All in all, could've been much better done.

P.S. Adrian tripped and fell over his chair in front of the examiners. I was looking at my picture at the moment and couldn't help laughing.

Realised how image-less my blog was becoming and decided to post this =P

This is the first page of a new song I've just started learning concurrently with another song I've been learning. I might be violating a little bit of copyright rules here, but I won't tell if you don't.



Very interesting name for a song, to say the least. Was kind of amused when I saw the title.

The first thing that went through my mind when I saw the title was basically "What the hell?!" interspersed with some "You've got to be kidding me!" for good measure. I mean, "Vegetable Salad is Ready"?! I have come to the conclusion that once again we have a classic example of acting under the influence of alcohol and/ or drugs. Sad really. Either that or the composer is seriously demented. Who the heck would choose such a name for a song? I mean, the guy could've called it "Lemonade Squash" or something and I wouldn't have thought him the worse for it. Definitely not what one of those pro performers would want to be caught playing is my guess. Or having the song title announced at their demos at least. Haha. I'm joking, of course.

Oh well, at least the other song I'm learning is nice =)

Chinese 'O' Level results have come out. No A1. A rather disappointing B3.

I prayed really hard that He would give me what I wanted, but I didn't get it in the end. Still, I'm honestly not angry or anything because I know it's in His scheme of things for me. I tried my best and it didn't pay off, looks like I'll have to do the same once again in November, hopefully omitting the 'it didn't pay off' part this time around.

Thank you God for everything you've given me.

There a a number of types of people I can't stand in this world.

1) People who think they're really good at something but actually suck, and act as if they are serious pros and (attempt to) boss people around, or people who think they're oh-so-sophisticated and are always condescending.

2) Posers

3) People who act like posers but can't pass off as posers for nuts.

You'll notice that the first type had a rather long definition, but I did have to narrow it down to the two annoyingly similar types. The third definitely ranks higher than the second, since people who can't pass themselves off as what they think is cool to them shouldn't even be doing it in the first place. I'll not comment on the second and third types and just concentrate on the first one, since it was the first type of person that inspired this post anyway.

There are people who say that what you dislike in others is what you dislike in yourself in truth or something like that. Clearly, the person who thought of this particularly guffaw-inducing analogy was under the influence of alcohol and/or dope in addition to having a rather big ego. Here's what could have happened: The person in question was really high when he thought to himself, "Wouldn't it be nice for me to come up with some bullshit analogy that makes no sense just so there's something for people in the generations to come to remember me by? (*furrows brows in concentration) Ah I know! (*Writes down gibberish on a piece of paper)"

Back to topic.

Case 1: There's this particular idiot in my school, who absolutely thinks he's a total gem. Really arrogant. He talks like his English is so perfect, complete with some idiotic accent and all, but it really doesn't hold water. I'd know, since the idiot lost to me in Grabble (BIG CLUE HERE). There are a lot more things that happened that make him such an idiot, including some that occured during the game, but I won't mention it here. If you ask me maybe I'd tell you. Oh, did I mention that he thinks he's really cool? Is he? A resounding no.

Case 2: Played soccer this morning. This guy went, and apparently he thinks he's some soccer pro. Is he? Absolutely not. I'm not griping about his skills, I've many friends who can't play fantastically and I don't think the worse of them for it. But this guy thinks he's really good, and likes bossing people around or telling people off if they lose the ball etc. For example, I'd been talking to a friend next to me when this guy asks why the two of us are marking each other. I WAS TALKING TO HIM. You think you're funny? Then why are you standing in the middle of the field doing nothing?

I don't mean to be all negative and all, but honestly, I just simply can't stand this kind of people. Idiots. Do let me know what you think.

T_T My internet finally works! The @#$!^$% connection has been down for the past three days, and it totally sucked.

Chinese 'O' level results come out tomorrow, and I've said this before, if I don't get my A1 I'm screwed, seeing that I really need my Chinese results to pull my absymal grades up.

Gotta go for tuition.

The procedure's done, and the cyst's been removed. The most common question people ask is "What happened to your lip?" if they don't already know or "Does it hurt?" if they do. I've answered the first question already, and as to whether it does hurt, no, it didn't during the operation itself, the only thing I felt was the initial sting of the needle going in to inject the anaesthetic and a tugging sensation when the doctor was cutting the cyst out. It didn't hurt immediately after that since my lip was totally numb.

It did hurt somewhat after the the anaesthetic wore off. Sporadic stabs of pain on my lip. It doesn't really hurt now, just a slight dull ache and the swell, which has gone done some. So other than having my lip looking and feeling like an overripe grapefruit, I'm totally fine.

The cost for the operation, I'm glad to say was less than expected. Total costs came up to only be about $800+, a far cry from the $1200-$1500 price largest estimate given to me by Dr. Roland Sim, my surgeon. He charged only $400, much less than what doctors at other hospitals would've charged. Nice guy, really. The rest of the money went to lab costs for analysis of the cyst and hospital charges. So one chapter of my life closes.

Watching Anger Management as I type this. Hilarious. Hahaha.

I received this rather suspicious message on my mobile phone yesterday.

通知:为提高公司知名度，京华公司特举办全球手机号码抽奖活动。您获得8万美元。请速与 XXXXXXXXXXX 王先生联系。

For those of you who can't read the message, and for those of you who hate Chinese and simple can't be bothered to read and understand what's being said, here's the message translated by yours truly.

"Notice: In order to enhance our company's image and make it more well known, Jinghua Company has held a global mobile phone number lottery. You have won 80000 US dollars. Please contact Mr. Wang at XXXXXXXXXX asap."

Obviously, I blotted out the numbers, because this in all probability is one big scam in which you call the number and a machine registers your phone number and uses it to make international calls all over the world, racking up huge debts. Or I could be just selfish and not want others to get the money. You decide.

The number in question was an international number, and it all sounds totally phony to me for a number of reasons. First off, notice that it's supposed to be a global mobile phone number lottery. I don't know about you, but that's total bullshit if you ask me. Who the hell has that much resources to obtain millions of mobile numbers? And this coming from a company saying it wants to be more well-known (read: it's NOT well known). Now, if Microsoft Corporation were to hold such a thing, there would be a splinter of believability to it all, since everyone knows Microsoft and how huge across the globe it spans. But "Jinghua Company"? Besides, who the hell would give out cold hard cash for free like that? You want to publicise your company? 80000 US dollars will buy you some nice big billboards, and the rest of the money in the money pool could go a long way in TV ads and, who knows, buying over an English Premier League football club or sponsoring their gear so you can splash your company logo all over the club jersey?

Secondly, the message was sent in Chinese. Nothing wrong with that, but if you wanted to publicise about your company, you'd do it in a language in which you'd have the highest chance of having people undestand, right? Sure, China is growing blah blah blah, but English is the key to the world.

Thirdly, if you won a lottery, nobody in his right mind would send you a notification that you won via SMS. Snail mail is infinitely more secure, and security's imperative when it's eighty thousand US dollars you're talking about. The message goes on to say to contact one "Mr. Wang". I mean, what the hell? Now you're giving out names, too?

What a big joke. Only some 3-year old kid would fall for such a dumb scam, except that the only problem is that a 3-year old can't read. Or it could all be true and I really have won 80k US dollars, of course. In that case, would you like to call our dear Mr. Wang for me and arrange to collect the money? I'll give you a quarter of it if you don't get riddled with millions worth of phone bills. Or if you get the money and stay alive.

Went to see the specialist at Mount Alvernia Hospital after school yesterday to check my lip. Remember when I said that the operation would cost a whopping $400-$500? Well I was wrong. See, the bloody thing is going to cost more like, I don't know, something in the $1200-$1500 range? When the doctor quoted the price, I totally freaked out inside. ONE THOUSAND @$!%# BUCKS AND THEN SOME TO REMOVE SOME SMALL FREAKING LUMP? By the way, the lump is called a 'cyst'. And there the guy was, telling me nonchalantly that the procedure would take him only ten minutes and that it was 'nothing to him'. Doctors sure do earn bucketloads of cash. If some ten minute procedure earns someone like him half of a person's monthly salary, I hesitate to think what some big op would. But then again, you can't fault him for his expertise, after all, he earned it by studying a ton. Besides, it's their lives people are entrusting doctors with, and it's like the specialist said, I can't leave the lump there for the rest of my life.

The doctor also went on to ask whether I would like to have the procedure done 'asleep or awake' i.e. under local or general anaesthetic. If I were really squeamish, I would've opted for general anaesthetic, but this time (and I really hope it has to be the only time), it wasn't a matter of having a big ego and tellling myself that I'm oh-so-brave-so-I'll-be-able-to-do-it-awake-and-brag-to-my-friends-later. It's just that there was a little problem with the money involved. Apparently, general anaesthetic is going to cost more. No, I'm not miserly. But a thousand bucks more is no joke, don't you think? Right, so maybe you didn't get my point. Doing the procedure under general anaesthetic costs about $1000 more. Ruddy brilliant, I say. Now I don't even have a choice. Local anaesthetic it is, then. I'll just enjoy the view while the doctor slits open my lip and digs out the crap. 'Aren't you scared it's going to hurt?' you say. Well, to hell with it. I'll just clench my fists (see, I can't grit my teeth since it's a lip operation) and bear with it. Ouch.

The operation's scheduled for this Friday at 3.30pm, meaning I've to register at 2.30 and be warded or something.