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The all-new formulated 'Mrs Lee's teaching method', sleeping pills optional.
I guess I don't have to say any more.

Take a close look at your timetable, people. 3 Achieve's form teacher and co-form teacher have just swapped positions. That means more of Mrs Lee, less of Mr Sam Soo, since it also probably means Mr Sam Soo would be too busy with other activities to fully take care of his own form class. I am thankful that the first day of Term 3 didn't immediately start with 'pedal to the metal' as its motto. In general, today marks the return to the Devil's own playground.

Speaking of the timetable, I must also give an immense appraisal to the school management. I congratulate them on having finally perfected the formula which generates the highest possible amount of misery for its students. It was a big 'Wow.' when I saw the subject slots combination on some days. Good work, keep it up.

Still a little homework left over from the holidays, best rush them out as soon as possible.

I thank my family, especially my mother, father, and brother for their endless moral support. Last but not least, I would also like to thank all my teachers in school for all the precious homework they've provided to last me through every second of the last week of the June holidays. T_T

I would also like to dedicate a piece of hate-message towards our Grammar assignment. May I add that if I was raised while being taught English through grammar books like these, I will with no doubt fail every single english language test in my entire life? Such books do not serve to teach, they serve to confuse.

I cannot emphasise more on how much I really love staying up late due to a mild case of insomnia. Staying up late guarantees you a rise in stress-levels which results in a rather irritable and erratic behaviour. And of course, such types of behavious really fulfils its purpose in making you very unique.

Since I could not sleep even if I wanted to last night. I did homework till 1 in the morning. Realising that my brain still refuses to enter the delta state, I went to get a lukewarm milk drink and watched MioT.V. Not just any other television show, if I didn't remember wrongly, the description framed the programme as 'A soothing audio visual journey to lull babies to sleep'. Yea... And I embarked on the night's most peculiar 'journey' ever. It consists of staring at screens showing weird fluffy coloured shapes, picturesque natural scenery, along with relaxing music to back it up. Now, I'll need to first state that I am no longer a baby in any way, but that programme did help to dampen the senses. A little.

Woke up today morning at 8, and to my delight, the homework on my desk smiled at me so glaringly I felt that it was considerably heartwarming. After clearing up hygiene and breakfast matters, I decided to return the favour and started on them. This continued for the rest of the day till evening.

Phew, my fitness level can now be officially put into the 'laze-around-so-much-you-want-to-die-is-it?' category. Just wanted to run the stairs to get in shape, but a few flights already had me dead. Thank goodness the weather was cool in the evening, or else the pathetic 55-storeys couldn't have even been achieved.

...I still remember a time during which the English teacher enquired on what we think of people who wrote poems. One of the most striking replies was, 'RETARDED!'. And I was like, ok...So people do think I'm retarded. I was just beginning to suspect it myself...haha, just kidding. Sometimes I really feel that although I talk differently from others, for instance, using more bombastic words and such. Or talking about philosophies to a level which one may not exactly call normal. However, I really don't wish to be isolated or differentiated just because of that. Aftera all, words are just a babble of sounds initiated by our brains and delivered by our vocal chords. All in all, it is a way to communicate. And all of us do have our own way to getting our message across, am I not wrong?

Not forgetting statistics, research have shown the ratio of human communications of Words to Body language, 3:97. That's right, most of our interaction with our peers, we understand each other by body language 97% of the time. If it's hard to understand, picture this: Try comparing a person with [A STRAIGHT FACE AND RIGID LIMBS,SPEAKS IN MONOTONE] and another with a [FACE FULL OF ANGRY FACIAL EXPRESSIONS AND HANDS FLYING ALL OVER THE PLACE IN FURIOUS GESTURES,SPEAKS WITH VOLUME VARIATIONS] saying this, "I cannot believe how long it took him to get this tiny job done! Moreover, his work is totally crap!". Imagine the first one, and you will think he's trying to crack a joke. The latter conveys his message much better.

That brings me to the awkward state of remembering how I am also often poked fun at for my mild obsession with statistics, which, trust me, I am trying my best to correct. I still lead the life of a typical teenager, for which I am glad for. A teenager still trying to get over the effects of hormonal outbursts. Sigh.

Oh well, time to sleep.

And so... yesterday marked the end of my 5-day Stop-Motion stint in school. Let's just say that my team made some progress. Significant word here is, 'some'.

I'm especially proud of this little bed which I made myself, after all, it's only made out of mostly chopsticks and ice-cream sticks. This bed will be where Campre (The main character of the video) and his wife will be sleeping before their city goes up in flames.





And this is the cupboard where we all keep our stuff. I can really see that we guys certainly do not have the knack for neatness...



Overall, the whole of the 5 days was considerably fun. We grooved along to podcasts of The Mr Brown Show while we did our work and not forgetting many tongue-in-cheek comments made by many of us to lighten up the mood. Let's hope that this project would be a success.

" Ivan, I really feel that you should just find yourself a nice girl and settle down. *Throws in a mischevious glance* "

Onward.




Deceive.
Deceit.
Decoy.
Inversion.
Immoral.
Inhumane.
Lies.

For this list of words above, it starts with 'deceive', and it ends with 'lies'. Mendaciousness is but a mere vicous cycle, and the words in between are but a fraction of its side-effects.

Ever had anyone lied to you?
Yes? No?
Well, was it painful?

For the most of us, it would be a 'yes'. But as for pain, I'm not referring to the times when your parents promised to buy you something you want yet they went back on their word eventually. That is no pain, that is merely a reason to cause a bout of screaming and shouting at our parents when we were younger.

As we all know, most people do things for a reason, unless you belong to IMH, that is. And the most oftenly used reason for carrying out deception would be to call it a 'white lie'. Just what is a white lie? According to the dictionary, it would mean: "a harmless untruth'. However, we cannot really correctly judge the harmlessness of a 'white lie' everytime we say it. So the main point is, just how harmless is a 'white lie'? How about this, someone kept the secret of a dying loved one from you for fear that you would break down (Very drama-like, I know. C'mon, it's just an example.) and therefore felt that it was only right that you shouldn't know about it. But what happens when the worst strikes? One can only imagine. Bear in mind this, The truth may be dangerous, but lies are fatal.

There is a fine line between truth and fabrications. Between black and white of anything, a grey area lies. Henceforth, we have what we call the 'distorted truth'. Any idea what it is? A piece of distorted truth is information that is partially true, however, it is usually tailored to suit the perpetrator's selfish motives. Evil as it sounds, this is actually common. Lawyers do it all the time, they rephrase an accusation in such a way that he cannot be charged for slander or contempt, just so that he could coerce the defendant's witness in blabbing out something to his interest. Let's use a more daily-life example... Now tell me, when was the last time you gave an excuse to your parents or friends that you were busy with something else and unable to attend to their request just so that you could have the time to yourself? Was it a lousy excuse? We may criticise liars, but who are we to look away from ourselves?

Back to what I said earlier about the agony resulting from deception. If a lie is minor and can be resolved after a seemingly small dispute, then perhaps no major emotional trauma is inflicted. So, yes, what I'm about to enter here is the pain that comes from lies of emotional origin. Lies that cause a bleeding gash in your heart mostly have to do with relationships. For those of you who read the news, try to recall the frequency at which you see articles like, "Man, age **, kills wife and her lover." What may have driven them to it? An injured beast is one who is at it's most fearsome point where it may lunge at any moment. People like these, probably forced against the wall after a huge emotional shock, tend to do the unspeakable. Their imaginations begin to tear the person apart with its countless suggestions of worst-to-happen situations. Something which we may never get to understand...for now.

Untruths are something which we can never avoid in this scheming world of ours, so it now all boils down to how we are able to deal with it. The same goes for heartbreaks, it would pain me to know anyone whom I am acquainted with to drop into depression over a lost lady who has set her eyes higher, vice versa for the girls. Keep your head about you, and I think you have him.

"Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to the truth..." -Kahlil Gibran.

Delicate Steps'




Slow sensual steps towards each other,
The singer and music shifts into a canter.
Fingertips brushing, in this close embrace,
Arrastre! Let our love turn into race.
Chase me through the rhythmic footwork during the staccato,
And attempt to match the elegant glide for legato.

As I pull you closer I could see,
Your inviting lips curl into a small smile filled with glee.
Never mind if the minstrel sings off-key,
I was just thinking, for all these delightment I might charge you a fee.

Dreamy jazz music swims through the atmosphere,
My pulse quickened as you leisurely sidled up my rear.
Hands still locked, I lead with my gaze.
In the fliparound turn, I conveyed wordlessly that it my heart you cannot seize.
The melody initiates the rhythmic swaying of your hips,
But please do understand that affection is not about fighting for keeps.

Just like two dancers in a ballroom,
Love resembles two playful butterflies playing catch,
While their own shadows loom...

Second day of stop-motion course, this is turning out to be an elaborate project after all. So much areas to take care off, puppets, backdrop, and filming. The puppets don't like me... I made clothes for them yet they hate me to their guts. All we needed was 4 hands and 4 boots for our 2 puppets, ended up making about 8-10 hands and boots each. They just keep breaking! Shall put in my best effort anyway.

There's so many things I want to do, yet time forbids. Really feel like playing badminton with the guys. Also, I think I've got inspiration for a poem coming up, but I just can't find the time to put pen to paper yet. And what about my self-lessons in Francais?! And yet homework has remained the dreadful attention-seeker. The stop-motion coursed has already drained away 5 days of my holidays. Moreover, the last time I tasted the biscuits and marshmallows produced by my Charity Bazaar group really had me worrying about the problem of presenting something edible to our customers on the actual Bazaar day itself. Haha.

Ah, anyone here likes jazz music? Recently found it very classy and soothing. Hmm, 'classy'. Sounds like a great word, brings to mind the Tango and Waltz.

I should really stop making the phantoms of the night my companions for blogging at such a frequency. Currently, it's 12:43am. How come it's so cold? Must be my 'friends' circling around me. Oh, I've got the air-con turned on. T_T

...OK fine, I gotta admit that was cheesy.
Well, anyway, today was a bullet-train ride. Rushing to so many places in one day tires one out quicker then I would expect. My Dad drove the whole family to Clementi's McDonald's Drive-thru and got us our breakfast. Haha, we were breakfasting in the car while my father sped towards Toyota's New Car Collection Centre 'cos we were about to be late to pick up our new car. And when we got there, seems like our car agent hasn't even got there yet. But, cutting straight to the point, haha, I love Toyotas.


Majestic.


After which, we headed to TradeHub21 to tint the windows and windscreen of the car. UV Protection is the hype nowadays, haven't you heard?


A quick lunch was taken at a nearby cafe while waiting for the adhesion process of the solar films to finish. One to thing to add though. NEVER, EVER, try and poke at others' 'refuse matters'. I had a rat ran out at me while I was walking at the back of the cafe, where all the rubbish bags were. No need to know what I was doing there.

Following which, I went to attend to a few religious matters.

Went to the Singapore Flyer for the first time during the evening. Well... I don't know what to comment on... Let's just say that whatever that was seen while aboard the Flyer wasn't anything I haven't seen before. In other words, the only fun part about it was that you get to be lifted 165m above the ground... And did I mention I was freaking afraid of heights?




Please tell me you didn't see those feet of mine trembling...



Frankly, the cabin was kind of cramped. People were scurrying around taking pictures (Me included, of course) or just trying out the views at the different windows. Not like you could see hell in one and heaven in the other, anyway.



Part of the track for Singapore's F1 Race. Undergoing reconstruction, getting prepared for the upcoming GP, I presume?



I love the sky in this picture, it looks like...


...The doorway to heaven?



It appears that the Flyer would brighten itself up with brilliant coloured lights as the day transits into night.


It was tiring day today. But before I end off today's post, I have something to comment on regarding something I saw in the cabin of the Singapore Flyer. Well, I was just going about my business of taking pictures, suddenly, my eyes were brought to the attention of a couple sitting down in front of me. Guess what they were doing? *Listens to the dirty suggestions of yellow-minded people*. Well, the guy was grabbing his girlfriend's ass. And oh yea, kneading it too. You know, like how you must knead flour before you can make light, fluffy bread? Yea, KNEAD, what's wrong with people nowadays, what must it take to make them understand that matters of the bedroom are not to be brought all the way up to 165m in the sky?!? If there are some of you who are apparently too lazy to flip open the dictionary to check up on 'knead', I have a simpler translation. It means, the guy had his whole hand on her ass and was pinching it wholeheartedly. (Sorry guys, no pictures. You all are already perverted enough, anyway.)

I shall count the number of revolutions the wheel makes to roll me towards Sleep. Or count the number of times he kneaded his- ...forget it.
Goodnight.

William Shakespeare's plays remain popular and well-respected even hundred of years later, people never stop loving, or hating. And why? Because these issues are all explicitly timeless. Shakespeare's plays empathises on tragicomedies, which include: King Lear, Hamlet, Macbeth, among many others. The themes of these plays are also, timeless, which is the main constituent as to why such art pieces remain revered to as far as about 400 years later.

Romances, Kinship, Human suffering. Aren't these timeless? No matter the era, or the place and country, all of us would have probed into these areas of life at one point or another. Oh, by the way, here's what William Shakespeare looks like:


Nice hair, William. Nice hair. Very flamboyant, I just love how those 2 tuffs stick out from the side...


Moving on, let us introduce the conceptionalisation of immortality.

Firstly, 'Immortality' is the title of a book I'd just devoured recently. And NO, it does not glorify fairy tales of deities or some mad king looking for an elixer of life. Instead, the author bites onto timeless topics and writes them into the form of a novel. Main characters: Paul(Agnes's husband, and later on, Laura's), Agnes (Paul's wife. She has nothing to do with the other Agnes, by the way.), Laura (Agnes's younger sister), Bernard (Paul's friend), Professor Avenarius (Laura's secret lover). I have got to admit, the sophistication of this writer really blows me away, there are some parts of the book which I had to read a couple of times before I could fully comprehend those crap-seeming words into decipherable ideals. Out of so many novels I'd read, this has got to be the one... 'The Sophisticated One'.

Laura suffers the heart-rending experience of having many men walking in and out of her life, but none shall become her true love. Her life can be comparable to an attractive woman walking in the Tube tunnel all alone in vibrant red clothing, she receives stares of varying purposes, but all the attention shall only serve to heighten the loneliness. Busy commuters all rush towards a destination, while Laura shall drift through life like a piece of broken plywood on the open seas. This, is her suffering. In another case, Bernard, a news reporter on radio, known for his controversial reports, one day had a man ran up to him and awarded him a certificate. On the certificate was printed, 'A compleat ass'. Paul had probably known he was hated by many for his news reports, but he could not have expected that. The incident affected him greatly, he considered it as a direct hit to his self-esteem. That day shall be deeply engraved his mind, the sight of 'A compleat ass' never to leave him. Therefore, that certificate shall be immortal for as long as he lives. Isn't it the same with us all? Everyone are not spared their fair share of criticisms all the time. Just have to bear with it, we are who we are, and no other 'compleat asses' are gonna change that.

Agnes and Laura always had a kind of invisible sibling rivalry between them ever since they were young. Be it the amount of attention from parents, or marriage partners, they've had clashes of sorts. Their mother had always doted on Laura more. Agnes even had this visualisation: "At an execution ground, there is a mother who is about to watch her husband and two children get gun down by the vicous rifles. At this point, the lieutenant gives her two choices, she could choose to rescue two of the executees. The mother rushes forward, and carries off her two precious children. The husband realises that it is his duty to die, in order to save the rest of his family. He gazes sadly at the backs of his wife and children as their distance gradually widens. Now imagine this, what if the option of 2 executees turned into 1? Which child would the mother save? Agnes or Laura?" The two sisters have helped out each other a lot since the past, but both of them knew it was nothing but a facade, a mask that was deemed neccesary. When their father left almost all of his assets to Agnes in secret, Agnes decided it was right to keep what's hers. She felt that Laura had been too busy pursuing life's pleasures rather than taking care of their ageing father. This, is 'kinship'. However, we must also remember that kinship is a fine, delicate line on which we must tread with caution. For as warm as it can sound, the person on the other end of this thin thread can always bite back. But love stays as this thread's strengthener.

Even as a grown woman, the reason why she would still be so obsessed with sibling rivalry was mainly because she felt threatened by her sister's presence in front of her own husband. She even tried to persuade Paul to ignore Laura when Laura had suicidal thoughts. She was right to feel threatened, because when Agnes died a few years later of a car accident, Paul remarried. Remarried to Agnes's sister, Laura. Paul was devastated by the death of Agnes, even though he knew Agnes didn't really love him. Their love had dissolved into nothing a few years into their marriage. The initial excitement of wooing, of being a couple, had been extinguished into melancholy grey smoke. This, is romance. Or is it? Therefore, we must keep in mind what the researchers tell us, LOVE is only a chemical reaction which lasts for around 12 months, it'll need constant maintainence after that. After the 'raging hormones' die down, things will just tune down from lust to cuddles. Professor Avenarius, Laura's secret lover, could do nothing about it when Laura wanted to marry Paul.

Sufferings, Kinship, Romance. Humans will always suffer in one way or another, that's what we were born for. Kinship will never be eradicated, our family will always be there, whether you like it or not. Romance is a need, not a want (We all have hormones, don't we?), it only just depends on how you resist it. These timeless topics will retain immortality, just as how some people have gained immortality in our minds due to something they did which affected our lives greatly.

From a personal point of view, immortality just means something or someone who is here to stay. You can whine and scream and kick around about it, but it won't do any good. Sufferings, who likes them? I'm sure many of us likes romance, that's why so many of you are raving about the 'Twilight' series anyway. But don't romance just comes with its own share of sufferings anyway?

"Time doesn't lounge around waiting for you to catch up. Timeless things do, but they can, and will turn charmless if you stand around waiting too long to treasure them."

Worked myself into depression state early in the morning by cancelling my basketball meet. C'mon, how do we play with only 3 people? Sigh, and so I went for the next best alternative, sports with my sister in the afternoon. People, please do remind me next time not to play sports in the scorching afternoon sun. Guess I really have nothing to do at home, so might as well devote the whole day to my sister... and my sister's sister. Since, well, someone was complaining that rotting at home was such a torture.

I really have nothing much to write, because if I do, everything will have to involve my sister. Which is rather boring to read, may I add? But anyway, looks like I still got to play basketball after all. Plus badminton, and a walk in the park. Fushan Garden is such a picturesque location...


You gotta forgive my brother, He looks a little...dazed. Ok, maybe not dazed. Comical.


Came home, did some schoolwork. Yea, that's about all. And also, I've been picking up a little French recently. It's night now, so... Bonne nuit!

What a flurry of events that zoomed past these few days. Movie outing with my guy friends yesterday (Yes, I didn't mispell it, it's not 'gay'). Night at the Museum 2 was quite funny, I guess. But they tried to inject too much of a story plot this time, leading to its humour being inferior to that of its predecessor.

I dreaded today since the dawn of yesterday. I knew it was going to be an arduous day to pull through... Sigh. I was supposed to go to Yishun Junior College for an C.S.I (Crime Scene Investigation) Workshop, but I had to meet my fellow classmates at Woodlands MRT Station first. Guess what, probably it was due to the morning mental haze or my raring enthusiasm, I took the train straight to the Yishun Station. ...
How convenient, I had to take the train back to Woodlands MRT Station just for the sake of meeting them. Shouldn't have done that.

Anyway, this C.S.I Workshop has to be one of the most mind-blowing ones I've ever attended. Fibre testing, Ink testing, Soil testing, Blood testing...what next? Awesome.

Here's some pictures of the blood test experiment and a debriefing session:








And after that, it was a mad rush in a taxi ride to Republic Polytechnic. The taxi had 15 minutes to ferry me across 7 kilometres, which in the end, cost me 7 dollars... Perhaps it was because of the long period of time that passed since the last time I took a taxi, wow, taxis nowadays are unexpectably fast and high-tech. Their engines, I mean. The driver was travelling at 100km/h and I didn't even know that he was driving that fast. I mean, by the time my father's car is nearing 100km/h, the whole damn blob of metal would be groaning like a Nissan Serena, while the Hyundai Sonata taxi which I was riding in would just be purring softly. Just in case you didn't know, the Nissan Serena is one of the world's slowest accelerating car with a timing of 0-100kmh in 28 agonising seconds. And to top it off, that thing is hideous!


Look at that! It looks like gigantic wardrobe or something!

Well, the presentation of our STP Project went reasonably within expectations. However, the long-awaited buffet to which a hungry guy like me who hasn't eaten his lunch yet would appear extremely attractive to him. If it wasn't for the fact that all that was left was gravy and used plates. Great, so am I supposed to learn how to lick gravy now? What makes RP think 4 pathetic trays of food would be able to feed up to around 50 people? What, so it's down to food rationing now huh? So, the choice was made between my team members to fill our wailing tummies at RP's food court. And I was wondering, when would be the time I could enjoy my food without having a certain person's name thrown at my face all the time? Jacqueline and Li Qin didn't stop at...-that. Don't take spicy food if you can't tolerate that burning sensation... A huge lesson to be learnt...from Jacqueline.

Reached home at 4pm. Tired as hell. I've been attending to so many things all day. Guess it's a day off for me tomorrow then, basketball in the morning! Haha!

The moment you open your eyes. As light shoots itself into your cornea as glowing rays, what comes first to your mind on how to start your day? A bad start may not lead to a bad end, but starting your day well doesn't do any harm, does it? You better tell me that the first thing you do in the morning is to brush your teeth, otherwise I'll never talk to you again for as long as I live. Hah.

Alright, hygiene issues aside. I just adore GOLD 90.5FM, tuned into the station early in the morning. Gosh, average temperature in Singapore recently is a staggering 32 degree celsius. And believe me, 32 degrees can do a lot of things. No, I'm not talking about frying eggs here. More like, letting fly your temper at just about...anyone. Keep your cool everyone, turn on the air-conditioning if you can.

GOLD DJ: "As you know, currently it's the Great Singapore Sale, my young daughter saw this vibrant poster flaunting the retailer's selling point, 'Big Bra Sale!', and she asked me a somehow disturbing question about it. As a mother, I had to quickly jump in to correct this 'language' mistake. I told her that the catchphrase 'Big Bra Sale' was referring to a big sale selling brassieres, not a sale selling BIG BRAS!"

Gosh, I was giggling like mad in a futile attempt not to wake up my snoozing parents. I love it when word play is involved. Intellect is the foundation of power.

Today, during the evening, I went out for a walk by myself. Ok, maybe more like a trek or something. I walked to Sembawang and then back again. Even visited Sun Plaza for while. But, such urban hangouts are commonplace, and my interest for them fizzled out a long time ago except when I have to meet my friends there or to purchase neccesities. And why did I take such a long walk for no reason...?

Actually, that question was for myself. Perhaps partially because I couldn't bear to look at the walls smirk at me or I just wanted to go somewhere alone to relax myself. And of course, sightseeing, the environment always provide such a great level of enjoyment. On my course, I saw a all-smiles father teaching his son how to ride a bicycle. How very heartwarming. ^^ After all, his son DID almost ram straight into me. (...) I also saw many things, I saw-


...A lizard? Cute.



Well, over here you can see me at Sembawang Crescent. Hmm, just what is it about pink flats that attract me...?


The foliage is gorgeous, isn't it?



Ah yes, 3M. The manufacturer we all cannot live without. And yea, I'm taking this picture from beside a canal. Now, if only photos could transmit smells...



Kinda small compared to CWP, but oh well, it'll do.



Just a pretty photo I've taken. The reflections glistening off the 'erhem'-canal-'erhem' water is nice too. But it would do fine if you just appreciate the flowers alone. Not everyone knows how to appreciate canals. 0.o ...What am I saying?



Riverside living eh? Gotta be expensive. But when Singaporeans face the problem of the lack of rivers to cast our gaze of admirance upon, canals are the next best alternative. And...yes, the one in this picture IS a canal.



Who says canals are useless except for the gross fact that it carries sewage? We can fish! Sewage fishes, unfortunately... Went over and took a look at what big shots these Uncles managed to hook up. And er... I'm sorry but, do guppies count? >.<


Well, I can't stay up too late today, I've got a project meeting in school for my morning tomorrow, and I'm going out for movies with the guys in the afternoon. On top of that, my legs are aching after the long walk today. Good night, everybody.

"I think I've found a new hobby. Canal-spotting!"