What's the best Christmas present you can get?

A broken drum.

You just cant beat it.



sorry

... who were, if there ever were, Princes of Maine, Kings of New England.

My Christmas Wishlist !

Okay since a friend suggested it, a Christmas wishlist actually sounds like a very good idea.
So after much thought, here's mine :

1. a christmas like the one i had in 2002

2. anyone of santa's reindeer. preferably rudolph

3. a selective memory

4. good books

6. good company. would be nice if it comes with good friends as well

6. better games

7. or at least, a laptop which can run the games i am playing now without lagging

8. a good laugh

9. another lin yutang although i seem to already have two out of only three in print now =(

10. a box to keep things worth the space. Oh wait, i already have that..

11. things that are worth the space

12. someone to do my ee, field study and cas.

13. you.

14. just kidding haha.

There. This must be the longest i have ever spent on a blog post. Santa will have a tough job sorting this list out though. What a pity.

So we are already halfway through what should be one of our last end-of-year holidays and although i have not been up to anything of note ( read : yet to work on ee, cas and field study ), i wish time would slow down a little. I realize that about this time next year, i would already have parted ways with most of the people i have come to know, and like, which is, by itself, a terrifying prospect.

As much as i would like to avoid dealing with things like these, there are just some stuff that you cannot ignore, try as you might. Like how James Bond inevitably ends up with the hottest girls in any show he stars in. I have always wondered why he has not already pipped Genghis Khan to the dubious honour of being the planet's most biologically successful man, but the new movie sheds some light onto this point of contention. Turns out that Fleming cleverly arranged for Bond to be castrated by the bad guy in the very first book he wrote to avoid any unnecessary complications.

I had actually wanted to post something serious, but then i gave up halfway because it was just too damn much of a trouble. At least credit me for having the intent though.

There but for the grace of God, go I.

I finally got to watch the new James Bond movie on Sunday, and it really wasn't that bad, even though it went against half the Bond conventions I can think off.
1. Bond had nothing more than a silencer and a pistol, plus a handy unlimited supply of magazines.
2. Bond cried
3. It had a decent storyline. I have yet to dcide if thats a good thing
4. Bond cried
5. It had a shock ending. For a Bond movie that is. At some point during the movie, my cousin asked me if the movie was ending soon, and i replied no, my reasoning being that the female lead just died and Bond, who was heartbroken, obviously needed time to get over her and end up with someone else so that the movie can end off ... You know, like all others. Pity i was wrong.

Borat's (the title's too long for me to post it..) is showing here in aussieland.

and its only rated FIFTEEN.

not like our motherland where its R21 and not out yet.

hah. i say.

I have plenty of things on my mind right now, so i shall attempt to be coherent.

First off, had a weird dream about tasting strawberry ice cream which, in fact tasted like cookies and cream, which i realized is what i really need at the moment. Sweet.

And on a less frivolous note, i would like to draw your attention to a disturbing trend i have observed for the past year and a half. I realized that although English teachers used to tell us to write legibly so that the unfortunate soul that gets our scripts can at least understand what we are writing, most people seek to do the exact opposite, by writing prose so wonderfuly obscure so that no one understands it.

It is especially trendy nowadays to try and befuddle the average man with convoluted prose, with some even trying hard to do a perfect job by confusing even themselves. Passages like these would contain delightful phrases like existential angst, borne of their inability to use any word simpler than chicken.

Or maybe i am just bitter i cannot understand.

- GONE FISHING -

haha now i found a reason for my to-be absence.

drink and be merry in the land of kangeroos and koala bears.

ironically i prob will be seeing penguins, emus, and a whole lot of shopping. and perhaps stevie too =p

...wait that's not ironic.

Am feeling utterly miserable. Will probably fall sick soon enough.

Would be eternally grateful to God / Yahweh / the man upstairs if He graciously allows me to finish my extended essay and field study before I do.

If you haven't noticed, my last few posts have been intolerably whiny. Which, of course, is understandably boring and uninteresting, because I am working on the assumption that people don't read blogs so that they can empathize with whatever depression one is going through. At least I don't.

I have since come to the conclusion that having an interesting life directly prevents one from posting anything other than uninteresting bits about your life, because, erm, actually, I am only posting this because I have absolutely nothing better to do. Its kinda like a school term, you can choose to sleep, party or study, but the catch is that you can only do two in any given term, so some activities really are mutually exclusive.

You can surmise that my past few weeks has been quite interesting, as a friend thoughtfully observed. Thankfully, my life has settled down to its usual boring self, so this blog might actually become interesting again.

Twenty Odd Fellas and Two Sir's

so on wed we had a gathering for stevie, who is leaving our motherland for the kangeroos and koala bears in australia.

we gave stevie a spongebob from the ol' days (this one with legs and limbs all attached though), a cookie genre jar (sorry, inside joke) complete with farewell wishes on a card, a tennis ball, and believe it, our class conduct file of 2005. last updated - 06 Jan 05. haha oh well i guess its because we gave up after one week.

there also was a potluck dinner for him, 60% of the food was prepared by ethan's mum, 60% of the food was finished by darren. chew.

oh speaking of which, there was another chew at ethan's house (that's where the gathering was..dimwit), one which rather enjoyed the bridge games and the occasionally chatter.

After the potluck dinner, we gathered round the piano and sang two songs for stevie, Crazy Son (as always, it's sort of our anthem) and You Raise Me Up by josh groban. at the end of last yr, stevie played the music video of groban's You Raise Me Up, showing us his emo side.

following which, we watched a production by one of our dear "odd fella" who left us earlier this yr, Countdown. The screening of Countdown was filled with "oohs" and "ahhs" as we waited for our random classmates to appear and then die (its a signature of our friend's films that only 2 or 3 live at the end)

As we said our goodbye's at the end of the night, as another one of those close to us leaves us in the near future, i have this to say:

Dear Sir/Stevie (whichever your prefer),

You have been an inspiration to not only me, but also to the rest of us from pointsixteen. From your unique ways of teaching, to the various values of life you cultivated in us, we will always remember our LA(B) teacher. I wish you all the best in the years to come, and may you settle in quickly and comfortably in the land of the kangeroos and koala bears. And dont forget, "using mineral water to bathe is a CARDINAL SIN!"

Thank You and Goodbye

Yes, as kentay puts it: we do tend to get rather emotional sometimes.

Twenty Odd Fellas and Two Sir's

We all think we are masters of our fates, except for the occasional lazy sophist, but the world has this way of throwing up things that makes everything that we have done seem farcical and stupid.

We are confident that our intellects must be worth something, that if we try hard enough, we can sort things out, although all we are doing is running around in circles, and without even knowing it at that.

And sometimes, things happen in such a way that leaves you reeling, something which i can, unfortunately, testify to.

And, after all these, we still believe that thinking can get us out of the rut it has gotten us into in the first place.

Even though all i am mostly thinking about is you.

I am stuck at 900 words and unable to make any further headway (sideway or any other way) into the TOK essay, so I guess i am going to call it a day and stop working on the damn essay. To work on a blog post. Great.

Anyway, someone said that a certain philosopher, I think it was Stuart Mills, was so easily found out and dismissed because he wrote so clearly. More obscure philosophers like Kant, who must have been a bachelor or else never had to explain anything to his wife, remain rather popular to this day. I was doing my best impersonation of Kant, so hopefully, this piece will turn out fine.

I have also been aching in parts i did not know have muscles, thanks to a rather enjoyable game with some of my friends a couple of days ago, and due to regrettable lack of foresight in not warming up beforehand. We even had two courts, because we thought we needed the exercise and because Bernice offered to pay for the courts, but mostly because Bernice offered to pay for the courts. Pain notwithstanding, i must say it was rather fun, because i would rather take a few knocks along the way than to miss it entirely. Besides, I did have some fun along the way.

Even though it leaves me like this. And seven bucks poorer, if i may add.

i will watch

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

when if it comes out.

In the meantime, i'll enjoy my holidays (or what's left of it after EE TOK and the usual rubbish)

end of yr reflections (2)

greetings netizens once again

finally the academic year of 2006 has ended. funnily enough, i end off the year the same way i started it. tea. yep. oh well more on that later.

as usual, the annual reflections come to afore again, here is mine for 2006.

well definately this year wasnt as great as 2005 (well which year can compare?), but it still was enriching nonetheless. in life you have to give and take, and i guess the past yr is no different. while i made some new friends and seen my grades sky-rocket (yea cmon take me seriously now eh), i lost contact and slowly slipped away from close friends that i made over the past 2 years. it seems that this year the environment that im in has changed slightly (yes yes, but im not refering to the haze), i now have classmates who are more worried about the upcoming test and their grades as compared to people who just love fun and prank others for the heck of it.

point in case, my famed mugger class of fivepointtwo just recently had a 'class party' on monday, where if you can believe it, played CHESS throughout the party. cmon, WHO plays chess during a party? oh well more on that later.

i guess i just have to accept this culture change and try to fit in as best as i can (some from pointsixteen say im in my element, bullshit i say). perhaps i really do have to try and move on.

over the course of the year, i have lost close friends. some have moved on with their life overseas, some just slipped away due to the segregated nature of the level.

moving on to a lighter note, one thing that has improved is my grades. at the start of the year, i was slightly apprehensive as i was worried about how i had to transcend from 'math-god, science-god' in pointsixteen to 'noob' in 5.2. thankfully though, i sort of scraped through the first half of the year, then hard work saw my results in the final year really shoot up. thx to my teachers though, they really helped me out a lot.

time has passed really fast this year, all the homework and assignments over the course of the year has sped up time. i shudder to think of all the stuff due early next year, im just gonna relax for a while then try to clear some work in late december.

to be very honest, i would say that 2006 has been a very forgettable year, mundane and full of routine. perhaps this is because 2006 pales in comparison to 2005, or just that i didnt enjoy myself for most part of the year. oh well this is my blog and im entitled to give my honest opinions...so sue me if u dont like what im writing.

please keep checking back for my updates on the "tea" and the "class party" soon.

i promise i'll update soon.

like in a few days.

yea.

sorry to my split personality for yet another long absence.

hopefully this wont be just another cameo appearance. (like all decent kids i promise to persevere in this endeavour)

cya soon.

Class party yesterday was decently fun, even though the naughtiest thing we did amounted to having a game of cards in our Chem teacher's house ( which i abstemiously refrained from).

I am sorry I didn't say a word to you yesterday, but i think to do it any other way would merely trivialize all that we have agreed to in the first place. I, too, wish we could remain acquaintances, but i think i need some time. Maybe, sometime in the future, when i am over it, things will be like what it once was. This will, hopefully, be my last post on this issue, because I never would want to revisit this period again.

There is also nothing to be really sorry about, on your part, because you have made your decision, and I am glad that you did.

I should be the one thanking you actually. So...thank you. For the times.

You are missed.

I am sorry.

I didn't know post exams can be such a complicating matter. I used to think you study hard through the year, sit for the exams, and get a two and a half month respite for being such a good boy, i.e. studying compulsively for anything they throw in your way.

In the midst of it all, of course, i marvel at the fact that i can still spend an entire day on my bed reading a book which has nothing to do with the four essays i am supposed to be working on, due to a conspicuous absence of other more interesting activities.

I just found out that i am in for a shelling tomorrow because of my failure to turn up for Physics Olympiad, although i have only been informed about it two weeks before the competition and has hinted subtly several times that the only thing i will be able to do there is to fill my name in. Not that my other appointment last Friday went too well, but i would still like to believe that it was considerably more enjoyable than staring at physic questions for five hours in a lecture theatre. I didn't have much choice to begin with, and am now faced with the extremely undesirable prospect of having to see my physics teacher tomorrow for a (hopefully) short but understandably unpleasant meeting.

Which i think is distinctly unfair.