friendly match against nyjc tomorrow at 3.30pm in the hall. i think we'll lose quite badly, adding on to the ugliest jersey i ever own. life concert's on friday, next week will be a good short week with halfday on monday, sports day on thurs and good friday on friday of course.

im starting revision for blocktest 2 already, i think more time means better grades. it should work out this way. 8more weeks to go. study hard and we'll enjoy better.

i dont know why i've been feeling tired recently, and i get tired very easily. im glad the weekends are here, though it will end in just a few hours time. term one was really busy, 2 assesments. there will be none in term 2, so i guess i shall visit my grandparents at their place today later in the afternoon. its been quite some time since i last saw them and my relatives. i better visit them more often, i dont want to regret later.

the first race of the season is gonna start at around 2pm. Formula One will kick off the 2009 season as usual with the first race in Australia. i doubt i'll be going for the singapore leg like last year, economy's bad. really bad. but i will still get my guitar at the end of the year. and the qualifying results from yesterday were a bit disappointing, hamilton starting from last on the grid, he is the reigning world champion. i wonder how it will turn out this year, should be interesting to watch.

anyway, i found out that i visit changi village quite often, almost every saturday for dinner. i had chicken rice at the same stall for 2 consecutive dinners this week, on friday after cycling and saturday with my sister. maybe should suggest changi village for the next ocip outing, but i think most of them would disagree.

gotta spend some quality time with my guitar now, chances like this are hard to come by. have a nice day!

the team

the lake

the worst restaurant

the village

From ocip

the terror in the corner

From ocip

the buddy who turns pink

From ocip

grounded forever

From ocip

wall murals

From ocip

homestay

From ocip

the kids

From ocip

the boredom

From ocip

the scenery

From ocip

Gore

From ocip

i never knew angus had that till a while ago

From ocip

the sg-bac ha games in the mountains

From ocip

the morning walks

From ocip

getting lost

well, i visited melodie's blog and the first thing i saw was the ocip photos. i only posted one the other time, she posted like quite a lot more. the ocip trip is one thing that we will never forget, its been about half a year since the trip and these photos never fail to refresh and bring back those memories again. it was the trip that brought so many of us together, prior to that i only knew zhong zi. thats 1 out of 19. what i miss about vietnam was the company, the weather, my job and every other thing no matter how small it may be. looking forward to another outing/chilling time. im gonna post some more photos soon via picasa, if not it will take forever if i do it from blogger.com

it wasnt really a good day for me today. it started of pretty much alright as usual, and there's the ocip presentation during assembly. i thought it was quite a good job. pe was tiring, adding on to the fatigue from training yesterday. did the 2.4km trial run today, ricky counted 6 when he ran 5, so i ran 5 in the end too. 9min plus, i gotta run faster. thats without any prior running training, so its not so bad.

here comes the decline of my mood today. yesterday mr lee released the math result. today was chemistry. i thought it would not be that bad, but ended up the same as math. i really dont know what went wrong, so terribly wrong. maybe it was just the lack of time. felt terrible for the rest of the day till physics.

miss huang's lessons are interesting as usual. and she returned the scripts today. i couldn't change the mcq marks, so its fixed. then what she did was that we had to add our score ourselves, theres no marks on the cover page. thankfully, 68 out of 100. the paper 2 i had 56. i was never confident about scoring well in physics, and it turned out that its my most consistent subject of all.

i was quite alright after the lesson, then miss jasmine tan called me, saying she wants to speak to me and clarify some stuff. it was about service learning, and its about jin kahn and friends. these idiots claimed that i did not tell him anything about service learning and now they are blaming me for them missing the whole thing. they were informed about it during the holidays and did not come for even a single practice. i wont want to get myself into trouble. if you chose not to come, why blame me? i did my job, you dont follow my instructions and please do not blame me and get lost. besides, you peeps dont even seem to care about this service learning thing, so do you think you deserve even me telling you? that got me really pissed off, although you may not see it written all over my face

the journey home on service 8 was never short and the bus never fails to be packed. and there was this little girl that was crying all the way for a good 45min till she alighted. i really felt like slapping her if the bus was not so packed and i could reach her.

now im tired and lost about the results. from ABC to BEE. i really want to know what happened. maybe its a sign that i should start studying again.

talk about yesterday first. wasted the whole day away. slept in the afternoon, watched baseball and drank at night. couldn't sleep at night, so waited till quite late when i feel a bit more tired and finally slept. john turned pink after a small sip of absolut citron. zhong zi turned red. i actually got to play the rory gallagher's guitar at waikay's place yesterday. it was like a guitar wonderland. you have gibson vos that cost well over $8000 and many fender custom guitars. i really love the rory strat, but thats $4000 plus. so, forget about getting it soon.

lack of sleep, i was yawning away during training today. when i get bored even in the court, i'll just yawn and energy level drops. this could be why i can't stop moving in court, if not i just can't play for nuts.

the blocktest result was sorely disappointing. although its math only, its bad enough. not a fail, but just not good enough for me to feel good. i will start mugging next week, and resume the hunt for As. i can do it, we can do it. continue to believe and keep the faith strong, for God never gives up on you. unless you give up on yourself.

im gonna sleep. see you around tomorrow.

still undecided if i should go for the meet-up later on at clarke quay, i'll be late for sure.

its been quite a long and lazy afternoon, playing my guitar and doing nothing else. i think that slow songs have their appeal, they are more challenging but sound better than those heavy distorted high gain stuff. im starting to play more variety, pop/rock/metal/blues all are good. feeling quite tired since morning, guess i slept too much. if you have the time, listen to 'Comfortable' by john mayer. dont ask why its john mayer again, he is really good. thats a very nice slow slow song.

i think i will just go later, but leave early and come home to sleep. training again tomorrow, i'll see what the coach has for me.

blocktest one is officially over for me, at least the assesment part is over. results will be out in a couple of days. physics wasn't that bad, but wont be good either. but i hope it turns out alright. 65 rank points, i hope to meet that target.

service learning is over too. went to telok kurau primary school and stayed there for about 3hours. and guess what, nothing screwed up! nothing at all! im so glad that nothing really crop up anywhere, despite the fact that we had less than 1month to plan and prepare amidst all the blocktest and stuff. ms jasmine tan gave us full marks for today's performance, and im rather happy its finally over. although we were dealing with primary school kids, they are totally different from whats over up north in vietnam, but quite similar to those at the SOS orphanage. no, its a VILLAGE. im not the photographer this time, but its still my camera. well, i guess these kids are hyperactive, they cant stop running around. although its just a short session with them, im very tired. but its quite a good experience for me, planning and executing everything. thanks ricky and chan too, they deserve it. if the class can finish the scrapbook by friday, maybe we could, friday would be another free day.

i have no paper tomorrow, good luck to those who still have. but i have loads of stuff to do. cycle in the morning, this time will be 60km. sleep and go out to get the service learning photos printed at my favourite konota. if you want to print photos, go to konota at peninsula plaza. its really good, just ask olivia. drop by waikay's place late afternoon, meeting the ocip peeps to chill again at clarke quay. too much of this isnt much fun, but i still look forward to it. now will be time to play my guitar, weight training and sleep.

"Cant seem to hold you like i want to, so i can feel you in my arms.
i was the one you always dreamed of, you were the one i tried to draw
my dear, we're slow dancing in a burning room."

-slow dancing in a burning room. john mayer

Earth Hour on 28th this month, im gonna do my part to save planet earth. if you have been watching tv, you should have seen the ad. im not sure if local channels have it though. i was thinking why "vote earth''? i dont understand whats there to vote about. you might be wondering too right? its actually the decision between 'Global Warming' and "EARTH". which would you choose? its said that earth can still be helped. and the light switch is the vote. so what you just have to do is to off the lights at home on 28th for 1 hour. from 8.30pm to 9.30pm. for more information, look here: http://www.earthhour.org/home/

blocktest shall end on monday morning for me. physics is the last paper. so it means that i have no paper on tuesday and it shall be my free day! anyone wants to go watch detroit metal city and chill out somewhere. it should be a good comedy. anyway, i have a feeling that something is gonna screw up on service learning day. i'll wait and see.

how nice of EMG to introduce this new colour for their pickup! if these dont cost more than $300 for a pair, i will swap the pickups on the les paul ultra for these. if not i will just get the seymour duncans and a fishman power bridge. the guitar seriously need some kind of transformation. the electronics are rubbish compared to the gibson.

there are some stuff that you enjoy doing it over and over and over again. i looked through the ocip photos and watched the video again. now im thinking of the trip again, and i would love to go back this year with the same people. how nice would that be? remember this?

How Mimosa Smell Like?

physics can get rather boring when you stare at it and keep practicing for hours. so, i decided to search for some stuff on google-"How mimosa smell like?"

theres this perfume, that contains the smell of mimosa.
heres the description of the perfume:

sunny, transparent floral that shimmers n’ shines with dashes of mimosa, green leaves, rose and jasmine. It’s
a sweet and gentle fragrance that never tries to
overpower your nose or leave a flower-scented vapor trail behind you. Instead, it dances on your skin, joyful and playfully feminine, giving off delicate hints
of sunny summer flowers enhanced by a
powder-soft musk base. Easy to love and a
perfect fragrance for any occasion.

i guess some parts of the above-mentioned dont really match if you compare how the mimosa behaves. then i wiki-ed mimosa. its actually a big family of this kind of weed that have about 400species. it has a high content of dimethyltryptamine in its roots, thats a potent psychedelic drug. when smoked with something else, it causes intense visuals, euphoria and perceived extensions of reality. in short, hallucination.

but i think in actual fact, the mimosa, i mean the real plant, should smell good and its quite beautiful. people cultivate it in france, and tourists visit the place just to watch the mimosa in full bloom. its not pink though, more of golden colour.

its time to get back to physics. i thought mimosa had no smell initially.

im still tired from the bike rally 2 days ago, have not recovered yet. something is just not right somewhere. but ive slept quite a lot, 13hours after the event, and 11 from yesterday till today. got up at 8.30am and did not miss the math lecture at 9am in school. amazing, hahaha (:

there have been rather weird accidents happening on the expressway in Singapore over the past few days. the first one was about a drunk dude running across the PIE, a very busy expressway. well, he did not die. instead, a motorcyclist did. he collided into a car that braked hard to avoid the drunkard, and was hit by an oncoming lorry. the second one was a traffic police being hit by a vehicle while rendering assistance to a motorist. i dont think he's very badly hurt though.

another thing, the japanese yen is getting stronger. so japanese goods and imports are becoming more expensive. lenses are becoming even more expensive, guitar equipment too. thankfully bicycle parts are made mainly in the USA. and Singapore is the 10th most expensive city in the whole world, 3rd in Asia. We are just behind Tokyo and Osaka. Hong Kong's in 11th, and London is somewhere behing Singapore too.

Bike Rally 09

got to ecp pretty early in the morning tho register for the 128km self-torture. but at least i had quite some fun, leave the cramps aside. the flagoff was 5min late, so it started at 7.05am instead.

To Labrador Park
it was still quite tight, everyone is still packed rather closely, not much chance of overtaking. reached labrador park quite fast, since at that time was still full of energy. at the checkpoint, i had 1 banana and a cup of gatorade.

To NTU SRC
this was slightly more spaced out, some people left labrador park a bit later. a very long section, went along west coast highway, pasir panjang. somehow managed to reach ntu in jurong. still full of energy, not tired. at the checkpoint, had 1 banana and a cup of gatorade. i just filled my bottle with gatorade in the end.

To Kranji Reservoir
this was the tough one. there's this super long stretch of flat road that cuts through the cemetry. then the smelly farms, and the reservoir. it was rather hot at that time, but i guess the sunblock lotion worked well. so at the checkpoint, 1 raisin bun, 1 banana and more gatorade.

To Yishun Stadium
Mandai Rd was terrible, a very very terrible place to cycle. they have like 8 uphill sections, which was nothing but long stretches of slopes with little of them in the other direction. this one nearly killed me, i thought of giving up and just ask the person to send me back to ecp. but its not even halfway through, i wont give up so easily. at this time, im just behind the lead pack by 5min, so had ample of rest at the stadium carpark. again, 1 banana and gatorade.

To Serangoon Stadium
quite tired by the time i reached the stadium, despite so much rest at yishun stadium. muscle fatigue starts to set in really quickly, start to have cramps on both legs. palms are sore too, imagine the amount of vibration that they have to withstand. 1 banana and gatorade, i dont seem to get sick of them just yet.

To Changi Beach Carpark
this was one of the worst sections to complete. 1km plus uphill stretch along the Old Tampines Rd, the one near ikea. slow to a crawl, experiencing more cramps than the previous stage. but managed to get over this ridge after a long struggle. weaved through pasir ris, and it began to drizzle. then came out of pasir ris o the part i dread most. the uphill slope at loyang. i've been trying to conquer this uphill part for quite some time since it was near my place. i've made it through quite a few times, but not today. the cramp was so terrible that once i dismount from the bike i couldnt even straighten my legs. once the muscles contract the cramps come. took a short break there and pushed the bike over the hill. the rest of it to changi beach was my usual route, but i have never felt so challenged by this part till today. had a few soyjoy, a banana and gatorade.

To ECP

the usual park connector route, with the coastal park connector then to east coast park. its not just so simple, its all the way at BIG SPLASH-its right at the other end of the huge ecp.

Results

topped the inter-jc category with a timing of 5h59min and a few seconds more. but no prize, its non-competitive. thats the cycling time. reached that place at 2plus. the best part is that i still have to cycle home.

there will be a few things i would not do for the rest of this one week break. i wont cycle, i wont eat another banana, i wont even touch gatorade.

so today, i cycled a total of 155km, got some rather weird tan-lines. you will know why its weird when you see them. theres one that runs along the length of the forearm. its distinctly one side tanned, one side fair. im really tired, still have balloon sculpting tomorrow.

blogging at 4plus in the morning? you are not seeing things, it is indeed 4plus in the morning. the 128km bike rally is gonna start in less than 3hours time, and leave me a sms if you want to encourage me or what, i can read them at checkpoints. thanks to some who have did.

see you at the checkpoints!

i think the choice is clear to me after today. i went to the NUS open house with my sister as she had lab meeting in the morning. there's this cool Polish dude in her lab. i asked around and talked to quite a number of profs. if i were to take Mechanical Engineering, which i think i might, i will specialize in Aeronautical Engineering in the honours year. so i will have 2 certs, hopefully a first class in Mec. Engin and i will also get a cert on the Specialization in Aeronautical Engineering. if not i will end up in chemistry, i dont mind either. just NUS will do.

then went to suntec to get my audio-technica headphones. spent like $115 on it. but its really very good. anyway, yesterday's dinner was full of jokes. what else could anyone expect with john and fiona around and we were at HOOTERS! thats the restaurant where the waitresses are dressed in tight sleeveless and flourescent orange short-shorts. sat there for quite long, the food wasn't bad. shared this vodka mix with melodie that we did not stir. well, it was a good night out with the peeps. without ocip, there wouldnt be such friends.

and happy birthday to val. xie. i think she deserves a spot in my space here. and now i know why black friday separates her birthday and melodie's. its a prelude. i dont think she will read this and she better not read this. if she comes by, john will just go crazy.

out to chill

finally, PART I of blocktest one is finally over. just pray hard and hope it wont turn out bad. results will prove if i had put in enough effort for this exam.

firstly, i would like you peeps out there, look out for this new dude. one day he's gonna make it big. i know this is a bit late, but congrats on being under the radar of maestro guitars. hope you get endorsed soon! for those who dont know him, he's zhengyi. my very good friend from anglican high now in vjc. here's a video of him, covering the song 'For you i will(confidence)' by teddy geiger.



i've been practicing rather crappy but fun songs recently. check yes juliet by we the kings. ridiculous song. still have to clap before the chorus. im gonna kill anyone who suggests that we should play that on any show. gonna start practicing very hard now, i've got the holidays to play my guitars and study PHYSICS!

im gonna rest and chill out tonight. the weather's pretty cold, so its really chill. a bit of alcohol once in a while is fine. (: see you doods tonight.

general paper's likely to pull down everything again. just hope for the better tomorrow.

skipped the practically useless math lecture to leave school at 1pm to study at home. will miss school tomorrow, self-declared study leave.

as usual, i dont get the sunburn fom the tryathlon. got tanned though, who doesn't? band concert yesterday was rather alright, but i think the conductor was rather interesting. he managed to tick off the whole crowd inside the concert hall. at least he has some potential that allows him to complain, the guitar conductor was just a pile of rubbish.

there were plenty of flowers at victoria concert hall yesterday, including a 'SPECIAL' species that usually grow in the fields and have pink flowers. i got a shock when i saw that weed/flower/plant in the concert hall. never knew weeds/flowers/plants listen to music. but it was still a good day yesterday.

so now will be shower, guitar, study sleep study and sleep. good luck for blocktest one, though your birthday falls on the toughest day.

tryathlon was a flop. the weather wasn't cooperative. heavy downpour at about 7 in the morning at Sentosa, i managed to get there at 6.30 by maxicab. after so much planning and stuff, things still went quite wrong.

gideon did not get the bike he rented. so he used mine.
parents should not be allowed in the transition area, but there were so many in there.
keep left unless overtaking. the latter would be possible only if the road was wide enough.
finisher's trophy? how 'bout a tin of milo powder.

cycled home from Sentosa. 50km, i completed it in 2h30min. average speed of 20km/h. managed to get home sooner than i thought. at this speed, i should be able to complete the bike rally next week under 7 hours.

im tired. sleep and study through the night. long day tmr. again.

sometimes, some things are just not within our control. i cant stop time although i wish i could. simple things are so tough to get them done. just like some simple words are hard to say because they can carry more meaning than what you think.

but, life goes on. 5days to start of bt1.

its been a hectic week. really thank God that its friday tomorrow, and i'll drag myself to school again. it hasn't been a really enjoyable week for me so far. pushed myself to the limits. got home tired and sore yet still have to study.

i was glad that there were some people around me that push me on. like my classmates. they never stop mugging. if i stop, i'll lose out. so i'll never stop and i want to try keep up with them.

after training yesterday, it was with the coach, i really start to hate him even more. last time was his lack of ideas. now he's lazy. i dont know what he is aiming for, but i dont really care since i'll be more or less gone even before the season ends. i got really tired after training yesterday, the hamstring strain is keeping me from walking properly today. i still have to cross the overhead bridge that has 2tiers to get to school in the morning.

i aint got much to say, rather dead from the day to day fatigue. i dont have much time left to revise my work, somehow the blocktest dont feel like an exam. milo tryathlon this saturday, bike rally briefing and band concert on sunday, bike rally and badminton training camp the following week. holidays will be doing balloon sculpting for service learning, after physics blocktest will be the actual service learning. i still have 3 more weeks to go till my good break.

i heard that there's plans to go back to vietnam during december period. hope it wont coincide with the canada trip.

anyway, for bike rally, the route is more or less out already. so it will be
1: East Coast Park
2: Labrador Park
3: NTU
4: Kranji Resevoir
5: Yishun Stadium
6: Serangoon Stadium
7: Changi Carpark
8: East Coast Park

total distance will be 128km, its no easy feat. so please support the cyclists if can. i'll be one of them.