Random points:

1. Prelims are over. I got cheated for Chem S. They tested stuff that doesn't usually come out which is almost never tested as a basis for a question in the actual exams. And there was no choice of questions. Ran out of questions I could do like 45 minutes before the end so I drew the devil and wrote crap on my question paper. Great. Guess what I'm getting - unclassified.

2. Anyone want to watch Pirates of the Carribbean? Or any other movie?

3. I'm blind. I never notice people I know when I'm outside. Happened to me zillions of times before. Grrrrrr.

4. If it doesn't rain this afternoon I'm going to clock in 20-30 km on my bike today.

5. Radio's playing one of my favourite happy songs, Green Day's When I Come Around. Oh no they just said they're going to release yet another Best Of album. That's sad.

6. Today started off a very bad day for me, the day's getting better and better. Positive thinking?

7. Oh well.
- posted by K. C. @ 3:07 pm

 
Some people are nuts: http://www.delphion.com/galleryarch

Anyway today was a slack day, woke up at 7.30 am (supposed to be 6.30 but alarm set wrongly damn!) to have an early cycle, did my Sunday Morning Road Loop (Braddell Serangoon area) and the Bishan Park-Sin Ming Loop. I'm getting weak; I can't like cycle continuously at a reasonable road speed without taking rests. Especially uphills I die badly.

Then at 10.45am cycled with Weizhen, went to the hills, and ate roti prata at Casuarina Road. Excellent. Everybody should eat there at least once, it's much better than the hawker centre crap we're all familiar to. Then we cycled around aimlessly and ended at around 2.15pm. Yaay. Nice day. He could see that I did go mad again. But heck, not like I care if it's someone who's open minded about stuff.

This afternoon I just slept. And slacked. Yaay. And the new Sunday Times might have more colour and all, and have 1 extra page of comics, but the articles seem too hard to try to be classy - those fashion, yuppie lifestyle kind of stuff. Don't think it'll stay on that way; Singaporeans are, afterall, working class at heart. They're more concerned about the price of rice in NTUC or the cost of a movie ticket, not the different hairstyles you can get at $100 or fine dining. I trust the Straits Times to understand, and to cater to that eventually.

I'm going to heck care about Chem 'S', we have this booklet of notes and I don't get a single concept out of it. It's way beyond Chem Olympiad stuff. Reimer-Tiemann Reaction? Hofmann Degredation? I won't care. The chances of one particular concept coming out is not worth the effort mugging for, and there are many of these concepts. I'll just fake my way though. It's just prelims anyway.


- posted by K. C. @ 9:53 pm

 
I'm halfway through my short story, actually more like 1/5 my way through it, and I hope I complete it by end of next week.

Anyway goodnites, I've got lots to cycle tomorrow, from early morning onwards, gotta become stronger. If I build myself up physically and mentally by cycling maybe then life won't bring me down as much.
- posted by K. C. @ 11:48 pm

 
The more I think, the more I find life pointless. I used to think that death is equally pointless, after having seen at close-up the aftermath of an intentional death. Now I'm not so sure anymore.

I have to stop thinking about it. Gotta distract myself, gotta think about other stuff, gotta immerse myself in other thoughts, gotta knock myself out if all fails. But it's definitely not good to think about anything too hard, for too long.

Don't worry about me; I'm probably such a loser I'll end up doing nothing to my life, good or bad. I'll just remain the same old wretched way I am forever.

Anyone game to go somewhere to chill out with me? And just crap around listening to music at HMV or something? I feel bored.
- posted by K. C. @ 9:42 pm

 
I have a good idea for a short story. I'm currently downing books on how to write fiction. I hope I'll come up with something decent.
- posted by K. C. @ 9:27 pm

 
I have not been out in such a gloomy rainy day in quite a long time. Today, I was in Orchard Road with my friends.

The last non S-paper was over today, Biology MCQ, by an unearthly time of 9.30 am. Then we decided to go somewhere special, and Orchard it was, after loads of hemming and hawing. It rained really heavily when we were on the bus, and it didn't end until much much later. I'm not a good converser in large groups (cause the topics of conversation always result in stuff too lame for me to comment about) so I just kept quiet and concentrated on the music I was listening to.

We got off at Orchard Macs, and two of us out of 8 ate there. And we got bored. Then we went to BK, on a whim, as they had some promotion, and the rest of us ate there. $3.50 for fries burger and drink, not too bad. But it was only valid for that specific branch. There was this book sale outside which the rest took interest in, but I didn't; the books there were not my kind; they're more of the unsellable nonfiction variety so I just looked at the Dennis the Meanace comics. Almost wanted to buy that, until I remembered how poor I am. :P I dunno, my tastes are so different from the rests' these days. I still like the kiddo stuff, philosophy stuff, humour, music, et cetra, but those friends I know; they've moved on to finding interest in non-entertainment subjects. In other words, stuff about how British commandos train, the culture of the western world three-quarters of a century ago, et cetra. Stuff that I find boring. Really, are my seemingly common favourite topics becoming forgotten by the people of my age? Perhaps.

Went to Centrepoint and Gerald went to look at sunglasses, and the rest sorta acted dumb around shop windows, so I snooped off to buy the Adidas bottle, blue this time - another one, cause I need 2 for my bike - as I didn't want to bother them, I'd rather sneak off quietly then join them again. Less trouble. I don't think my plans should affect what they are doing.

Yeah and then they went to look at these crystal stuff at this shop, those glass like sculptures that reflect multicoloured light, damn expensive, waste of money, really, when you can look at them for free at the shop anway. Stuff that girls find beautiful, which is the same stuff that makes males go broke. Urgh, I hope my future girlfriend would look for cheaper pleasures.

And then they went to Shijia's house, while I wanted to hang around Orchard for a while more. Since they're going to play board games surely a 7th person won't be welcome anyway. My favourite hangouts, Kino, HMV, Orchard Library. I used to go to these places all the time so it's like I had lots of catching up to do. Especially in the alternative music department. Starsailor's better than expected, if I were richer I'd be listening to their new album right now. Money isn't the root of all evil. Desire is.

So that about concludes today. I'm not going to mug for Bio S. It's a lost cause, since it's a prelim paper.

Yesterday was crappier. I royally screwed up Physics (probably 15 marks lost so far and counting) and was super depressed. As in, depressed before that, right from the morning. I should have kept away from sharp stuff. And I've been having problems sleeping. Stress maybe?

I hope.


- posted by K. C. @ 6:57 pm

 
Stupid Blogspot refuses to work again, for the nth time.

Anyway I screwed up Maths today, was totally lost in the whole paper, integration, statistics, didn't have much time to do everything since stats was unusually tough (yeah right Guanzheng, Stats is NOT always easy). Gonna get a low C or something like that, I'm terrible at Maths.

By the time I took my bag from the locker most of those I know had already left, the few who were remaining were either in a hurry or eating lunch so I went home. Myself. Quite depressing, was mulling over stuff sitting in the back of the bus staring at the sky slowly getting dark, with my earphones in my ears of course. Really felt self destructive but I'm just sleepy now. Tired. We get sad, then we get tired, and then tired of sadness. Sad of being tired. Whatever.

Am listening the Power 98 right now. Great stuff. Only in the afternoon do they but all their RnB crap in the backseat and play the real stuff. No Doubt's Spiderwebs just ended, earlier there was Coldplay's Yellow (live) and Phantom Planet's California, and quite a lot of great stuff. Really they should play even less of RnB then they'll beat Perfect 10 hands down. The less RnB, the more real songs. Wonder what people see in RnB anyway, and so few of the people I know actually like it. More of a marketing thing I bet.

Anyway I've had this friend, and we are slowly hating each other more and more. I mean, I can't get myself to consider a person who goes against my ideals to be a friend. He cheats, does not respect the rights of others, is selfish, isn't honourable, does not take responsibility for what he does or says, and expects everyone to empathise with him, while at the same time being insensitive to others. Oh and he lies too. Perhaps it's just his personality; that he can't help it, but surely, friendship can never last when the other party is plain nasty. And he hides his nastiness from many people; he's manipulative. It's hard to tell so beware of such people. I mean, before I knew about this he appeared to all of us as a nice guy who's always willing to help. As in, helping with homework, et cetra, but he probably expects something out of it. Whenever I am unable to help him in return he turns nasty.

What I had said isn't on a whim. I can assure you that. It's always better if empty friendships end. In the end, when the going gets tough, you will definitely know who your true friends are. And I can be a good friend too, if you want me to, that is. Just don't leave me alone.

- posted by K. C. @ 2:36 pm

 
Nice things always start with 'Hey, I've got a crazy idea.". Then it's like, the response slowly builds up, and a group of people decided to do that crazy idea, with some modifications to the idea. And it's fun.

So today Xuanrong Weizhen Yaofeng and I (since we all lived no more than 2 MRT stations from Bishan) went to Bishan central to eat (originally I wanted RI but then we didn't feel like going all the way), despite the fact that we're in the middle of the evil prelims. We were walking to the usual old S-11 (yup, Xuanrong's favourite ban3 mian4) when we walked past Seoul Garden. $8.99 student's meal and it was the right timing! So we decided to eat there instead, on a whim. I like that kind of spontaneity - the unpredictableness of it all, in particular.

The extra charges were equally unpredictable. They charged for 1. $0.50 for paper towels, 2. $3.00 for soup base for the table 3. service charge 10% 4. 4% Gee Ess Tee. Ended up being $11.70 per person, but still it's OK, considering how much worse it would have been at normal prices. Ugh. They wanted to extort another $2.50 for freeflow drinks, but we decided to go thirsty.

These days, they have a much larger variety of chicken meat, but less of everything else, so we just took a little of every kind and yup, we became eating machines. Eating and cooking machines I mean. There's pizza there too - although quite plain, and the other types of usual stuff. Ice cream, etc. We didn't stuff ourself to death like Weizhen and I did at Sakae Sushi, which was a wise choice considering how salty the food was and how thirsty I am right now.

And of course we did crazy stuff - pineapple chicken (there was no pineapple taste), orange juice chicken (but orange doesn't go well with meat), egg chicken (the egg burnt), corn soup green apple (tasted too much of corn ugh) and I wanted to do fried rice - but realised how lame it was. And Weizhen tried to sneak some freeflow lemonade in a bowl, but he was so excited he blurted out about it and the waitress knew, and she informed us in this super formal way that drinks aren't supposed to be filled into bowls or something like that. Hilarious. I really have these friends of mine to thank for cheering me up, when I felt rather crap after all that Prelims and all.

Then I went to NTUC to buy tea and random stuff again, since I didn't buy the tea at AMK the other time. And I went home and fell asleep. Yaay now I'm watching Holland V and then I'm gonna mug Stats. Hope I won't be too careless tomorrow, Stats is all about being careful, I realised.

And guess what, this was a happy entry!


- posted by K. C. @ 6:55 pm

 
Ugliest bike in the world: Trek ProjectOne custom bike
- posted by K. C. @ 2:58 pm

 
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name
But what's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game
The Rolling Stones

Evil lurks behind every intention. Evil and hate. It's the world new order, peace and logic is passe.
- posted by K. C. @ 3:47 pm

 
Click on Homemade Pong on the right sidebar. I've debugged it and added a feature to silence the irritating BGM. First programmed two years back, it was left to languish in ruins, until I finally corrected the bug today. Enjoy!

(I feel guilty doing this in the middle of prelims, but I need to unwind right?)
- posted by K. C. @ 1:54 am

 
Biotech was okay I suppose, slightly on the good side. Not that I'm good at Bio though.

Yesterday was a crap day. Really wanted to cycle, but the weather was like, against me or something. It poured throughout the day, and drats I did not close the window upstairs properly. Result: Wet bed, wet paper on the floor, wet floor, dripping wall, CD covers dappled with raindrops. Spent a hell lot of time drying everything up with rags, and fortunately nothing was destroyed. Except perhaps some used rough paper lying on the floor. I know, my room is damn untidy.

Then I mugged for Biotech, and I couldn't really focus, all the details leaked out of my head almost as fast as they went in, but heck, I still did OK for the exam. As compared to Maths and Chem. Heheh. Probably am dying anyway, missed out some major-ass stuff in the essay question oh well... mediocricity is my middle name. Stupid exams, wonder how the S papers are going to be like, the thought of it makes my legs turn into jelly. Or Jello, depending on where you come from.

Then today after the exam everyone wanted to go home straightaway, no destressing activity or anything fun (except someone wanted to go to Borders but I find his company excruciatingly boring due to a complete difference in interests.) so I decided to go to AMK by myself to look for another water bottle so that I can have 2 on my bike on long trips, or as and when I need 2 bottles.

The Adidas bottle was sold out at Sports Connection (Perhaps due to the recent paranoia about toxic mineral water bottles - something to do with dangerous PET plastic and difficulty in washing properly). Damn, now I'll have to look again tomorrow at somewhere else or something. Ambled around AMK, bought a Pilot G2 refill at Popular, ambled all around, went to NTUC, bought Lays chips at special offer, teabags and delicious sushi. I always end up buying weird stuff at a supermarket. The other time I went to an NTUC I boutht Mixed Herbs and Edam cheese. Guess I'm like pressuring my mum to cook more exotic stuff.

Anyway ambled around even more, while eating my sushi (expensive stuff, but great), noticing how much AMK Central has changed. I don't really feel nostalgic, only remembered eating at the LJS there with a primary school friend who I've lost contact since. AMK to me is just another place to shop. It might be where I grew up, but I don't remember much of it, except the park behind Block 134 where I lived.

So then I went home and did boring stuff. Idled around, Holland V on TV, slacked around, surfed the net and chatted online on IRC, yeah boring me. I downloaded some MP3s.

Am listening to Silence Is Easy by Starsailor, nice song, heard it this afternoon on TV Mobile, and decided to download it on Kazza (amid all the decoy files that contain some random instrumentation then silence.). Am currently listening to Barenaked Ladies' It's All Been Done and cover versions of Rolling Stone's Sympathy for the Devil, one by Jane's Addiction and another by Guns N Roses.

Silence is Easy - Starsailor
Everybody says that they're looking for a shelter
Got a lot to give
But I don't know how to help her

I should just let it go
'Til they learn how to grow
And how to liberate

Everybody says that she's looking for a shelter
Got a lot to give
But I don't know how I felt her

They should just let it go
Till these cities learn to grow
And how to liberate

Silence is easy
It just becomes me
You don't even know me
You all lie about me

Everybody says that I'm looking for a home now
Looking for a boy or I'm looking for a girl now
But I can still let it go
I can still learn to grow
Into a child again

Silence is easy
It just becomes me
You don't even know me
But why lie about me?

Silence is easy
It just becomes me
You don't even know me
Why do you hate me?

Silence is easy
It just becomes me
You don't even know me
You all lie about me

Silence is easy
It just becomes me
You don't even know me
You all lie about me


- posted by K. C. @ 11:32 pm

 
Biotech Option Bio Paper this afternoon. Wish me luck. Haven't had much to blog lately.
- posted by K. C. @ 11:39 am

 
Why isn't my last entry appearing?
- posted by K. C. @ 11:04 pm

 
OK so at school, for some arbitrary reason they decided to give out these leaflets titled 'A Guide to Difficult Times' - why, are exams difficult times?

Rather amusing though, seeing the way how they try to guise it up to make it cool and hip and whatever. As if we can't see through this pretense at our age. Maybe it would be much more convincing if they take a serious tone for a serious subject matter. The content seems reasonable though; nothing glaringly awful could be spotted.

So here is the leaflet, scanned in GIF format, in not-so-good condition after having stashed the leaflet haphazardly into my pocket. Files are about 500KB each. (I suppose JPEG would have been much better but I'm too lazy to change it. Do scans compres badly under GIF since the colour isn't perfectly uniform?)
Side 1
Side 2

Most amusing part are the words in blod and blue : "Don't hurt yourself, Don't hurt others" - uh.... too late. My friend found it funny too, in my context.

And of course, they encourage people to look for a teacher counsellor. Not that any of them in RJ are credible though. (Remember the day in RJ after that tragic news; all they could do is to gather everyone who knew her, then ask if we were okay, then told us we could go, after we had waited ages in anticipation that they would say something meaningful or worthwhile. I thought she was credible at first, after she handled another thing rather well last year, but then, yeah, I know better now.)

The RI GEP department ones were definitely much more credible, although I won't say the same for the ex RI psychologist. Ha. If anybody needs help in RJ, good luck. Hopefully RI and RJ will merge soon enough, and maybe both schools can share RI's counselling staff. Cause at this rate - I dunno - the density of people who - uh how do I phrase it - might need help is sky high.

Maybe because at this age everyone's much more alone than last time. Everyone's so focused on studies, everything else takes a back seat. Unaviodable, when studies alone make us gasp for air - how much more effort can we really put in into other stuff? And there's the guilt too; no one ever wants to have fun because they've been conditioned to feel guilty about it, since everyone else does so anyway, and lesiure becomes 'childish' and meaningless to them. Well, obviously academics aren't everything, but the culture is, you'll have to at least pretend that it's the only thing that matters, because everyone else does so anyway. Well it's going to end soon, JC life, but it'd made me more cynical, definitely, more jaded, more depressed. I hope it gets better from here on. It has to.



- posted by K. C. @ 10:09 pm

 
Looks like, the Physics exam was incredibly smooth sailing. Hooray. Will blog more later.
- posted by K. C. @ 5:34 pm

 
To hell with Chemistry. This one sucks. I'm going to fail. This is bad.

Physics will probably be as crap.

I'm going to freak out, at any rate.

Today I've done Capacitance, G field, E field, superposition

Theres these topics left:
Electricity
DC Circuits
AC
B fields
EM induction
Analog electronics
Charged particles
Quantum Physics
Nuclear Physics
Physics of Fluids

Apparently I've neglected Physics too much in favour of the other subjects.

Somebody save meeeee.......
- posted by K. C. @ 9:19 pm

 
Really, exams are like cycling Mandai Road. Lots of up(hill)s, down(hill)s, and in the end, I'd hopefully get where I want to, even if it's a torture climbing the hills.

I miss cycling much more than I would miss exams though. Which reminds me, On Thursday I must ride. Or I won't get much chance for the rest of the exam season.
- posted by K. C. @ 5:46 pm

 
Exams, I didn't like freak out halfway during the exams or something.

Maths was quite depressing, considering that I was all rusty and all (does anyone make WD-40 for brains?) and that the lack of practice had made me make some oversights here and there. If I'm lucky I can get a B for this paper. No A. But heck it's just prelims.

Bio was not that bad, considering that the topics I didn't touch mostly didn't come out except for the 5 marks on Ecology definitions (though even if I had read through properly I probably still won't know the definitions, heck, I have survived for years without ever being good at memorising definitions.) which I sorta guessed my way through. REALLY GLAD that Liver and Nervous system didn't come out AT ALL, and evolution was but one of the many essay question options.

I'm too tired to mug now. I'll go finish up my inorganic chem tonight, and hopefully I won't crap out for Chem. The teachers of our batch have an undisputed love for setting insanely tough papers, about every Chem test we ever took in RJ was tough, and we know for a fact that it's not because we're lousy or something. At least the RJ Chem department is mcuh better than the Bio or Physics department, much more organised, professional and reasonable. (They print photocopied answers for tutorials without fail!)
- posted by K. C. @ 5:40 pm

 
STUPID EXAMS
MUST THEY BE THIS HARD
I HAVENT FINISHED BIO
AND MY REVISION FOR MATHS IS CRAP
I WILL HAVE NO TIME FOR PHYSICS AND CHEM
WHAT AM I DOING
I DUNNO
AND ANOTHER CYCLIST JUST DIED YESTERDAY OUR DAYS ARE NUMBERED
IF THINGS GET ANY WORSE I'LL BECOME A DANGER TO ALL OF YOU
- posted by K. C. @ 12:10 am

 
Bad things happen in clusters. And now I'm here, awake, after only 1 hour of sleep due to a Bad Thing I Don't Want To Talk About, and a badly-timed mugging marathon. I want to sleep but just can't, due to the Bad Thing I Don't Want To Talk About, as it's worrying.

I dunno if they call it hallucinations, but the street sign looked as though it was a stationary cyclist for a while, and everything looks made out of cardboard.

Guess what it'd be really nice if someone could spare me some diazepam or some other anti-anxiety, sleep inducing drug. I know I need sleep. Things are gonna be tough due to the Bad Thing I Don't Want To Talk About. But really, I can't.
- posted by K. C. @ 9:03 am

 
OK my stiuation is resolved, I think. Now I'm gonna mug my heart (vena cava, aorts, bicuspid and tricuspid valves, chordae tendinae, trabeculae, both atria and vetricles, coronary artery, pericardium, etc) out. So as long as my neurones can take it. Be prepared for a ride, neurons, I'm going to blast you guys with loads of action potentials through your axons and dendrons and neurotransmitters across your synapses. There will be a good probability that this will work (5% level of significance), and I shall prove it; using mathematical induction.

As you have already guessed, it's Maths and Bio.
- posted by K. C. @ 10:35 pm

 
Rest in peace Johnny Cash. I'll remember to listen to your songs, though I never really liked country. Your covers of NIN's Hurt and U2's One are great though.
- posted by K. C. @ 12:46 pm

 
I'm too depressed to mug. My efforts to be a good son just got mocked at, insulted, unacknowledged. I dunno if I can, or if I should, be as close to the members of my family anymore.

Sigh. I'm going to become anaemic at this rate.
- posted by K. C. @ 11:17 pm

 
Am halfway thru Trigo only today what am I doing?! I mean, I did go to J8 to buy my mum a birthday cake and my aunt a birthday card, but, where did all my time go? Arrrgh! All the unrevised stuff, and no one believes the state I'm in. And everyone around me's acting weird. I don't know why. Maybe my fault. I dunno. And I really need some self control, because this is the second time this week.... oh nevermind.

I sorta miss J8 all over again when I went there. The cinema especially. The good old RI days (actually just the sec 2-4 days) when we watched movies almost every week or something. And the friends, the hanging about J8 and slacking around Macs (most memorable time was when we were eating there for breakfast, some of us 3P 2000 guys, and we ended up having to sneak into school as we were late. )and KFC (The memorable Tower Burger - they had this tower burger promotion that so happened to start a couple of days after September 11 2001. Amusing. We stacked up the empty burger boxes and re-enacted the Sept 11 incident.) and Delifrance (once). There's also Music Junction, which was where I bought most of my CDs, the good old times hanging out with my friends and pointing to different CDs and exclaiming 'this sucks!'. And of course, the perennial argument then was whether 3 Doors Down's Kryptonite or Loser was the better song. I vote for Loser. In RJ, I thought we would have a cool place called Holland Village, but no one ever went there, despite it being equally fun and all. I went there for like what, 5 times, in 2 years?! Sheesh. What a social life. My luck to have mingled too much with the uberintellectuals rather than the cool guys. Of course some of those who used to be cool guys turned into uberintellectuals too. But what the hell, JC life is ending anyway. NS sucks, but it's gonna provide a better social life at least. I'm confident of that. :D

Dinner. Bye.


- posted by K. C. @ 7:58 pm

 
I'm glad I don/t live in the USA; they have the RIAA hat preys on little 12 year-olds. Obviously it isn't just an coincidence, as this is their very first lawsuit of the 261 in their anti-piracy frenzy. So they wanted to show the worst-case scenario that can happen if someone downloads pirated music. Single mother having problems making ends meet, just because 12 year-old daughter oblivious of the real big bad legal world, and sheer lack of maliciousness.

It's not as if the compaines in the RIAA are even innocent. Charging $20 for a album, then paying the artists only $0.50. Oh, surely that is not intellectual theft/prostitiution/etc. File sharing is not going to stop, and eventually consumers must, and will win. I'm not going to buy as many CDs anymore. And I for one, used to buy more CDs due to discovering new music on Kazza and Napster. (Though now with all the crap songs I don't bother as much.) In fact, people like me are going to end up paying the RIAA bigshots less when file sharing ends. And people like me are numerous. They'll probably lose out.

I'm all for file sharing, cause it's the only practical thing to do.

- posted by K. C. @ 10:02 am

 
Tired, but not excruciatingly so. Went to Bishan park with family and relative to indulge in arson a.k.a. Mid-Autumn Festival (a Chinese festival). Gorged myself with mooncakes (every kind. Pieces of: Durian, snow skin. Plain, snow skin, two yolks. Plain, baked. Yam, Shanghainese style.) Burned candles, welding them together into exotic curves and all. Fun. Left a big mess of wax though, though I tried to clear some of the way by rewicking the puddles with newspaper. Lots of smoke and ashes, not nice. Not nice for the poor cleaners too. Sigh. I feel guilty.

So I haven't been mugging much the past 2 days, due to my burn-out from Monday and Tuesday (scroll down). Am ready to start tomorrow, Friday, again. Full steam. You see, I have recovered more than enough, owing to yesterday's bike ride and today's jaunt to indulge in arson.

I hope I make it. Chem I'm 2/3 complete. Bio, Maths, 1/3 and Physics about 1/2 owing to low-intensity revision in the previous weeks. I hope I make it.
- posted by K. C. @ 12:36 am

 


Singapore's National Day Parade 2003
Image copyrighted by Lee Kin Chung

- posted by K. C. @ 12:19 am

 
Yeah I biked to Ang Mo Kio Avenue 2, just to prove to Weizhen that the slope there is no biggie - it really isn't. The slope after his house is more vicious though, and a couple of slip roads are even more vicious. Though not the Hors Categorie stuff like Old Upper Thomson Road. I cycled all of them. Then I was feeling rather bored so I rode to Weizhen's house and gave him a call. We talked about stuff, mainly about how wicked my bike looks. (I beg to differ. I'd rather have it in red rather than blue, it'd look even more wicked. Or matt black. Red anodised wheel rims would be nice too.) And yes Weizhen, those are fresh.

I feel better now definitely. And I got some brake pads too. For my crappy commuting bike. Now at least I would be able to brake safely. $6. Pretty worth it for safety. I was eyeing those Koolstop pads but at $16 per pair it's nto much point. Not as if my bike needs more braking power (I mean my GT, not my crappy bike), I can make the wheel skid far before the brakes run out of strength. I don't really go offroad that much either.

There's this cool song Boys of Summer by Don Henley, and the cover by the Ataris is equally good too. It has a nice melody and skillful guitar parts, and even good lyrics. But then, it's a love song. A bit sappy, but still a very good love song.

Dinner. Bye.
- posted by K. C. @ 7:07 pm

 
I'm screwed, prelims start in what - 5 days - and I'm in this state! Damn it's getting to me. I've only revised bits and pieces here and there. There's really no chance for prelims anymore, and I can't get myself to study as much as I want to. Yesterday I just bottomed out at conic sections, simply couldn't continue, felt crappy. Fell asleep, nightmares, et cetra. Woke up feeling wholly depressed and then I simply couldn't control myself so yeah. The last time was on Friday. That's a bad sign.

So I'm slacking around now, trying to 'stay sane' (as a friend put it). Maybe I should go ride my bike, it's theraputic. I know I should study, but it's not going to be very good if I break down or something. It's already bad enough as it is. Like I said all I need to do is to pull myself together before the A levels.

Today I killed one of those lizards that pervade my home. Lots of insecticide. The place stinks now. But the lizards are irritating nevertheless. They crawl around the home whole day long, sneaking here and there like bullets, then hiding where you can't catch them. Well today I managed to kill one. I was chasing it around my books and bags with the insecticide, spraying furiously. It was severely poisoned by the insecticide I sprayed on it, so I ended its misery by decapitating it. Cruel, I know. Sigh.


Unwell
Matchbox 20

All day staring at the ceiling
Making friends with shadows on my wall
All night hearing voices telling me
That I should get some sleep
Because tomorrow might be good for something

Hold on
Feeling like I'm headed for a breakdown
And I don't know why

[Chorus]

But I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell
I know right now you can't tell
But stay awhile and maybe then you'll see
A different side of me
I'm not crazy, I'm just a little impaired
I know right now you don't care
But soon enough you're gonna think of me
And how I used to be...me

I'm talking to myself in public
Dodging glances on the train
And I know, I know they've all been talking about me
I can hear them whisper
And it makes me think there must be something wrong with me
Out of all the hours thinking
Somehow I've lost my mind

[Chorus]

But I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell
I know right now you can't tell
But stay awhile and maybe then you'll see
A different side of me
I'm not crazy, I'm just a little impaired
I know right now you don't care
But soon enough you're gonna think of me
And how I used to be

I've been talking in my sleep
Pretty soon they'll come to get me
Yeah, they're taking me away

[Chorus]

But I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell
I know right now you can't tell
But stay awhile and maybe then you'll see
A different side of me
I'm not crazy, I'm just a little impaired
I know right now you don't care
But soon enough you're gonna think of me
And how I used to be

Yeah, how I used to be
How I used to be
Well, I'm just a little unwell
How I used to be
How I used to be
I'm just a little unwell


- posted by K. C. @ 1:43 pm

 
Arrgh I hate Maths. Can't concentrate. Stuck at conic sections. My brain hurts.

Lots of bad news on TV today. SARS is back, lots of cyclists got killed in first half of 2003, et cetra. Nothing's nice these days. I'm seeing red.
- posted by K. C. @ 12:15 am

 
OK I did finish the whole of Organic Chem (!) yesternight. It was horrible, forcing the facts one by one into my weary brain, but it worked. Draining, depressing and exhausting, but now I know a lot more about Organic Chem now. Towards the end I had to take lots of breaks in between in order to remain clear enough read the next paragraph, the words made no sense until I rested for a while - lying on the bed, doing random stuff, etc. In the end, I did manage to survive.

I was up to Arenes in the afternoon, then to alkyl halides by evening, then I pushed all the way to the end, which was NMR, ending at something like 1.30am (not including the bout of insomnia - I was more mentally tired than physically tired) or something. Felt super terrible after that, I don't think I can pull off another of this today. This morning I was still sufferring from the aftereffects so I'm just slacking. Tonight will be an intense session still, but not as intense. I don't want to end up hurting myself doing this.

Today will be Maths and Bio. Tomorrow will be Physics and Maths probably. Then I'll see how much I've completed.

The weather's really unpredictable these days. Grey clouds, then a sudden glimpse of sunlight, sometimes super-humid air, sometimes a downpour, it's getting irritating deciding whether to go ride my bike. But then, variety is what makes life meaningful isn't it? I'd rather have these than the sweltering April-May season of 2003. Those cloudless skies - urgh. At least now we have shade.

My throat's a bit hoarse, I'm sneezing a little. Perhaps yesternight was too tough on me.
- posted by K. C. @ 1:09 pm

 
Well trying to cram in the afternoon was only marginally useful. I never studied well in afternoons anyway. Ended up spending precious mugging time cleaning my bike of all the sticky grime from those Bishan Park little purple fruits. Arrgh what am I doing?!

Anyway I'm confident that tonight I can finally get down to study proper. I do better at nights.
- posted by K. C. @ 7:21 pm

 
I have this nifty counter that tells me how people came to my blog. One of them searched "Singapore is doomed" in Google Australia. Not a very reassuring sign.

Anyway today it occured to me that after almost two years of Junior College life, I have a decent idea of what maturity is, in terms of real life. It is to believe in these:
1. To be selfish. Eventually, people come and go, and they don't matter in the long run.
2. Emotions are frivolous. They don't get you material benefits.
3. Boring is the way to go. Innovation and creativity often fails.
4. Material benefits are the only way to go, too, as idealism can't fill bowls
5. Education is not meant to educate, it's just a means to get a good job to get more material benefits.
6. Cynicism is justified, progress doesn't matter, so as long as the material things are still there, regardless of whether the underpriviledged do too. Moral courage is unnecessary and impossible, et cetra.
7. Make more money. Cause eveyone else is.
8. But still, pretend that the world is more than materialism. Because it's easier to live in a social circle that does not know how materialistic you are. That's why it's always nice to let everyone you know notice that you donate to the charity and et cetra.
9. Yeah people die, it's tragic, but of course material possessions are more important.
10. When it it is beneficial to oneself, sooner ditch a loyalty than to lose out.
11. Leisure is for kids and teenagers, success and material possession are for adults.

I do not believe in any of these. But I'm the minority, no matter how. All those ideals about courage and compassion and empathy we learn in literature, all those idealised advice we receive, is it the reality of that word called 'maturity'?
- posted by K. C. @ 1:45 pm

 
Sanity or prelim results? Arrrrghhhhh I can't choose!
- posted by K. C. @ 12:38 pm

 
Today's ride was rather interesting so I'll blog about it. Vital stats: Distance: 28km, Max Speed: 43.0km/h.

Whoohoo! I finally got a decent max speed, at the downslope on Braddell Road. It's quite scary really, when you're moving almost as fast as the typical left lane slow vehicle. And of course, every little bump feels like you're going over a rock, even with a suspension fork. Cool stuff really, though it's damn dangerous. Perhaps, I like it cause of my subconscious self-destructiveness? Hey Freud experts, what d'ya think?

I decided to take a new route, to spur myself on to more cycling. Haven't cycled much lately due to my 1. practical exams 2. feeling very depressed lately. So I decided to go by instinct, only that I had to reach the Braddell Togoparts.com Mass Swap along the way. So it was:

Bishan
Kallang Park Connector
Braddell Road (towards Toa Payoh and Serangoon)
Bartley Road
Upper Paya Lebar Road
Braddell Road
Togoparts.com Mass Swap@Braddell View Carpark
Braddell Road
Lornie Road (to end of Lornie Road then a U-turn)
Upper Thomson Road
Bishan Park
Home

Lovely ride, filled with downhills (and uphills of course - duh). Most excitingly, these roads are heavy roads so I'd never have gotten to ride them at any other time, since on the road Sunday mornings are really quiet. I managed to buy a bottle cage, for all of $4 (a new one costs $10), another of those Minoura Duracages. I had already bought one new when I bought my bike. At 250% the price I'm paying now. Damn. But seriously it's really worth it. Such places are nice places to go to for bargains.

Reached home and found the Truvativ Catalogue in my letter box (I requested it online). Turns out my crankset is rather low end and is nothing to speak of, no special alloys or whatever. So here's a pic of it:





Not very nice, but I guess it's on par with the low end Shimano stuff. Definitely better than the Shimano Altus one.

Yeah so now I'm gonna wait till I'm a little less tired, then it's cramming time. The situation is critical. I MUST do something about it, even if it kills me.

- posted by K. C. @ 2:17 pm

 
After this bicycle ride this morning (I am planning to make it last the whole morning) I am going to study in full force again. One and a half days of unwinding - that's enough.

There's this Togoparts.com Mass Swap about 3km from my home. It's sort of a bicycle parts Sungei Road, where you can buy 2nd hand stuff from other people and so on. Gonna try to get a bottle cage there, those things where you mount a water bottle on. My finances are in critical condition though, am trying to pay off my loan too quickly.

Yup so there. After Friday I feel better, and I hope this bike ride would help more. Then I cram. Physics, Bio, Chem and especially Maths. Prelims are looming uncomfortable close, crushing my lungs, suffocating me, and the only thing I can do about will have to be studying.



- posted by K. C. @ 8:51 am

 
OK deleted my original post. But what I want to say is, it's not as if I want to do so OK? It's how I deal with the situation. I cannot help it.
- posted by K. C. @ 9:03 pm

 
Bio practical was OK I suppose. Some problems here and there but that's expected for Bio.

Crap happened today again. Nothing would've helped it. Hope that it gets better from here on.

Also today the postman delivered two 32W flouroscent tubes to my hope. I took part in this Philips Lighting website promotion where the first 200 sign-ups get a free tube. Yaay. Now there's no excuse for my family to resort to those really cheapo tubes taht blow out in just a few months.
- posted by K. C. @ 5:17 pm

 
Exams suck. Cramming sucks. It hurts mentally, like force-feeding does. That's why. Don't eat foie gras. They force-feed the geese until they have fatty deposits in their livers. Yeah imagine their Glisson's capsule and hepatic portal vein and bile duct and cananiculi all destroyed. Argh. Too much liver histology for me.

I wish the world would just keep quiet and leave me in peace. My mind hurts. When I distract myself with studies, sooner or later I still feel crappy in the end, after I'm mentally exhausted.

I took a nap this afternoon and had some bad dreams, only remembered it was about some murder. A nasty sign, really. I get all kinds of crappy dreams, only no good dreams. The stress is getting to me. Feel like pounding stuff. And I'm not talking coherently, after spending all my coherence on my GP essay about art being useful rather than Oscar Wilde's claim that "all art is quite useless". Wilde's a gay guy, literally.

My knuckle hurts, got scraped but I don't know how. (Weizhen if you're wondering it's NOT that.)
- posted by K. C. @ 10:54 pm

 
OK I'll add in to the sudden torrent of blog entries from RJC Science students about the Chemistry pract disaster. The Chem department is having yet another its sadistic whims again. No one - not even the uberintellectuals - had sufficient time, and the questions were just plain weird. There was this titration where the manganate solution took ages to decolourise at the beginning, giving the impression that the solution wasn't prepared properly. There's this graph that nobody was really sure to draw 1 curve, 2 curves, 2 straight lines or one of each. There's this qualitative analysis that was plain confusing, and design questions that almost everybody had no time to do. Yaay. Everyone's failing. So I shouldn't feel that sad, cause it's doesn't mean I'm lousy or anything. Simply means, the paper was hard. Well at least I didn't leave any parts completely blank, managed to churn up some nonsense for the design questions.Evil chem teachers:1. Poor students who are trying just to pass: 0.

But as I've said, prelims are well, just prelims. Not a life-or-death thing.

Anyway I'm beginning to hate cycling to the train station. Had major jams on the road due to slow moving traffic and badly planned traffic lights. And my brakes aren't working properly, neither are the gears. Dangerous. It's just too bad that my good bike is way too good to be locked up and left unattended so I have to make do.

I'm slowly getting more depressed while today passes. Nothing really nice happens. Feeling a little slicey dicey.
- posted by K. C. @ 9:16 pm

 
Physics pract was OK I suppose, not perfect though. And it isn't very nice doing it barefooted (my shoes were soaked in the downpour). Damn the rain was really terrible this morning. Wet the whole hall at school - imagine that.

Felt a bit depressed this afternoon, friends being lame and boring (in a lame way, not the boring way, well you know what I mean) and all. Soon sleepiness overtook. After I left all the wet stuff to dry at home.

Oh, and today, while being cooped up in the LT for almost 3 hours until the last shift had started their practical exams, I was sitting with the neighboring class 3A instead of my own. I really enjoyed their company, though we didn't really talk or something. They're a cheerful bunch. And they're - how do you put it - more human. Not the kind of jaded, cynical, zombiefied people I see in 3B. I can at least communicate with them. Somehow, I simply don't like 3B. Maybe it's the bad first reputation I gave them or something. Or maybe it's the way the class is. But hell, I seem to prefer almost every other class.

Perhaps it's because in the past few years I've always been in my favourite class of the batch. RI 1/2 J was way cool, we had the coolest teachers and even cooler classmates. 3/4 P was equally great but due to the admin mix-up I was assigned a different class for the first few days. I really envied that class, until I found myself in that very class after the mix-up was resolved. Cool huh? It's like a miracle or something really.

This time, 3B is definitely not my favourite class. But heck, it's not as if there's much more of JC time left anymore. I don't mind not seeing them next time, or at least most of it. I'll remember some of the nicer people: the air riflers, some of the ex-RI guys I could relate better to, Siew Jin, Jeanette and those girls I could talk to better than the rest, yeah. I'll remember them, and I appreciate their niceness. Dunno about the rest though.

Ugh. Sleepy. And I'm not coming online for the rest of the day. Exams beckon. Sigh.
- posted by K. C. @ 6:47 pm

 
SHIT! I have not got anything done lately. Of course I've been trying to relax, convalesce, get my marbles back in a pile again, et cetra. It worked more or less. Somehow I don't feel as destructive anymore. Though my school work is down the drain. But whatever, prelims don't matter for me. Not gonna get any scholarship yet or get some strange USA universities anyway. It's not as if it's gonna be too late if I apply after the A levels. I just have to pull myself together before the A levels. Simple as that. That's my goal.

But still I have to work for i and I probably must start right now. Yeah. No matter what the A levels are looming, prelims or not.

In short, first of all I must cast all that emotional turmoil aside. Mugging is more important. I dunno. Perhaps that's a bad thing to say, putting academia before mental health, but trust me I know my limits, and I won't hesitate to focus on other issues if they are more pressing. First I have to cope with being lonesome. It's a fact. When exams come everyone is essentially alone. Friends don't want to do anything but to study. Friendships and loyalties and everything else do take a back seat. To put it bluntly, most friendships are dissolved temporarily (I hope) for the next few monts, the way parliments are dissolved before the elections. Immediate concerns first, whether you like it or not. It's human instinct to be selfish when the going gets tough, I don't blame them if I can't even have any decent conversations with my schoolmates. Perhaps if I were more focused I'd be the same too.

Of course I won't like go all insane over studying like they do. You see, I need my distractions or I'll like go crazy. I still play video games in the midst of exams. I still cycle - it's healthy and fruitful since it keeps me mentally perked up - and blog, of course. Puritant abstinence from all lesiure has never helped me.

The pressure is mounting, and I have to study. Seriously. Prelims or not. Cause it's the only way. Or at least, the only way that I know off. Hopefully, and probably, I won't go crazy.

See you around. I won't be like gone forever. I'll still update. :)
- posted by K. C. @ 9:09 pm