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Friday, June 30, 2006
ALL SQUADMATES! REMEMBER THE FUNCTION TOMORROW, 5 PM!!
Sighhh Spain lost... Grrr... I shall now support whichever team survives tonight (Germany or Argentina).
Anyway when one returns home after CTs, it's as if the last few days have been a blank... not unlike being intoxicated maybe? Not that I know what it feels like... but my room is in a mess and I'm not very sure how it got into that condition... I'm going to spend the weekend re-filing all my stuff and not thinking about the results...
To make things worst, the CTs weren't much easier, especially chem, maths and physics, which is actually everything except Bio... and I couldn't finish my AQ for GP... Oh man, how do people get A1s for GP when that's like an average of 37.5 for each paper??? I've only done that like once only and even then my other paper wasn't good enough... And what's the point of memorizing the first 3 I.E.s of the elements when the one to come out is the 5th?
Chem MCQ, plainly put, is just a matter of which question is worth thinking about and which is simply worth guessing...
Well, I'm left with Bio S is slightly more than a couple of hours now.... Campbell can actually be quite interesting... hope something comes out from there.... I didn't know there was a phosphorous cycle too! And I want to read Silent Spring by Rachel Carson if I have the time... though I heard it's quite macarbe... talking about the effects of DDT and all...
Well, moving on, HALF the class went out together yesterday (quite cheng jiu). Went to Swensen's and overdosed Enjie on ice-cream... And ate baked rice... Quite ok, but not thaat exotic... We had a nice waitress though. And no, the cases in which I would willingly speak in a high-pitched voice are few and far between =)...
Then to this Icon place for shopping... or rather, hanging around trying to look intelligent while other people shopped... I have NO sense of aesthetic beauty I think.... Even during Personal Grooming, I can't tell whether a colour makes a person's face "light up" unless its super obvious... But ok lar... just walking around... I was kind of amused when Charmaine asked "Do you go shopping" considering that I'm the kind of person that the time of the day my hair looks the most fashionable is the first 30 seconds after getting out of bed...
Icon is full (almost) of girl's stuff... one see's pink everywhere... heh.. Its like when I accompanied my sister to Chameleon in parkway when I was in sec 1 and it was a full 5 minutes before I realised I possessed the only Y chromosomes in the shop... To which my sister told me I could stand outside and advertise the toilet cleaners (yes, I was wearing my AHS PE shirt)
Hmmm I shall not talk about what I feel about Chinese Oral and my tournament because it just makes me feel angry at myself... Needless to say, I think maybe I'm not intended to win an individual medal this year, and no I'm not saying I can win an individual medal, I'm just saying I would have had a decent chance, which is better than no chance at all... Pity it had to happen just as Mrs Chan (the principal) and Mr TYH remembered that we existed and wanted to come support us...
Oh yes... I miss my epee badly..
But anyway a long weekend stretches before us... unless there's any outing or what, most likely it will be St. John training or something... But we'll see (if my cough becomes worst)... Cheerio!
Random: The hardest tune to whistle nicely is Victory by Bond
Oh my goodness... My sister's blog is pink!
Sighhh Spain lost... Grrr... I shall now support whichever team survives tonight (Germany or Argentina).
Anyway when one returns home after CTs, it's as if the last few days have been a blank... not unlike being intoxicated maybe? Not that I know what it feels like... but my room is in a mess and I'm not very sure how it got into that condition... I'm going to spend the weekend re-filing all my stuff and not thinking about the results...
To make things worst, the CTs weren't much easier, especially chem, maths and physics, which is actually everything except Bio... and I couldn't finish my AQ for GP... Oh man, how do people get A1s for GP when that's like an average of 37.5 for each paper??? I've only done that like once only and even then my other paper wasn't good enough... And what's the point of memorizing the first 3 I.E.s of the elements when the one to come out is the 5th?
Chem MCQ, plainly put, is just a matter of which question is worth thinking about and which is simply worth guessing...
Well, I'm left with Bio S is slightly more than a couple of hours now.... Campbell can actually be quite interesting... hope something comes out from there.... I didn't know there was a phosphorous cycle too! And I want to read Silent Spring by Rachel Carson if I have the time... though I heard it's quite macarbe... talking about the effects of DDT and all...
Well, moving on, HALF the class went out together yesterday (quite cheng jiu). Went to Swensen's and overdosed Enjie on ice-cream... And ate baked rice... Quite ok, but not thaat exotic... We had a nice waitress though. And no, the cases in which I would willingly speak in a high-pitched voice are few and far between =)...
Then to this Icon place for shopping... or rather, hanging around trying to look intelligent while other people shopped... I have NO sense of aesthetic beauty I think.... Even during Personal Grooming, I can't tell whether a colour makes a person's face "light up" unless its super obvious... But ok lar... just walking around... I was kind of amused when Charmaine asked "Do you go shopping" considering that I'm the kind of person that the time of the day my hair looks the most fashionable is the first 30 seconds after getting out of bed...
Icon is full (almost) of girl's stuff... one see's pink everywhere... heh.. Its like when I accompanied my sister to Chameleon in parkway when I was in sec 1 and it was a full 5 minutes before I realised I possessed the only Y chromosomes in the shop... To which my sister told me I could stand outside and advertise the toilet cleaners (yes, I was wearing my AHS PE shirt)
Hmmm I shall not talk about what I feel about Chinese Oral and my tournament because it just makes me feel angry at myself... Needless to say, I think maybe I'm not intended to win an individual medal this year, and no I'm not saying I can win an individual medal, I'm just saying I would have had a decent chance, which is better than no chance at all... Pity it had to happen just as Mrs Chan (the principal) and Mr TYH remembered that we existed and wanted to come support us...
Oh yes... I miss my epee badly..
But anyway a long weekend stretches before us... unless there's any outing or what, most likely it will be St. John training or something... But we'll see (if my cough becomes worst)... Cheerio!
Random: The hardest tune to whistle nicely is Victory by Bond
Oh my goodness... My sister's blog is pink!
~JcZw~ at 10:13 am
Saturday, June 24, 2006
My sister finally came back from Spain after being delayed for 12 hours with "technical difficulties"... By all accounts, supporters of Spanish soccer sound remarkably like VJ supporters... Decked out in yellow and red, and cheering "Viva Espania" or whatever...
I wonder why the quality of life in other countries always seem so good compared to Singapore... I mean, people actually have time to be laid back, really really stop and smell the roses, rather us who more or less walk past quickly taking sniffs of the lalang or some other Singaporean plant..
People get to enjoy life, and their holidays are really like what they describe in your average Famous Five or any other Enid Blyton book... School is stressful yes, but hols are hols are hols!!!! And there you don't need to make your living by doing your A-levels and getting a university degree! There are thousands of vocations there... Things that Singaporeans wouldn't think of such as "Cheese making" or "Chipper-of-the-stones-off-George-Washington's-face-on-Mount-Rushmore" but noooo... here there's only one route: Through the universities....
And to boot, they don't take 4 A-levels... (Yes, I go on about it quite a bit)
They have time to BREATHE! We're just hoping from one exam to another... CT1... Mug for CT2... CT2... Mug for prelims (which eclipses our National Day hols to boot) and on it goes... And after A-levels, there's barely a month before we go into NS (for the guys).. Like WHAT!!?!?
The only thing that I can say for Singapore that prevents me from pursuing a career overseas (and probably eventual migration), is that here, genetics count for nothing. That is, all races are equal here, whereas in some other country you might well be discriminated against... Well, you can't win everything I guess...
But in my course of intellectual pursuit last night (or rather, at 2 am yesterday), I discovered that STRESS IS AS GREAT A FACTOR FOR CAUSING HEART ATTACK AS HYPERTENSION!!! in an issue of Readers' Digest.
Well, the bottom line is, I think I'm worried about CT2... there's really a lot a lot to do, esp for Phy.. And we (the fencers) have to do well, cos I can bet my epee Mrs CYL will not let us miss school for our tournament if we don't! Typical.. the week before one's tournament, one's teacher should be psyching the team up. She spent the week before January psyching the team DOWN. But let's not go there....
Anyway, on a happier note, I found the 'keeper gloves which Jasmin's squad gave me during farewell '04... They were inside my father's bicycle helmet, which hasn't been used since I was 5 or something... They could have been there till I ORD-ed!!!
Not that I use them much cos they're a wee bit too big for me, and also because of the extreme rarity of me playing soccer... Fencing, badminton or table tennis is preferable, though not by much, and I also don't get to play much anyway... or maybe I'm just sensitive that they don't fit as well as my fencing glove... Anyway I need to put them somewhere I can remember...
But that said, gloves would have been nice during the Youth Group game with the church people on tuesday... We were doing penalties, and when I stopped Shawn's shot it felt as though the impact had shortened my radius and ulna...
Random comment: I'm not the only fencer who's way of playing badminton has been commented on by classmates... See! It affects us all! Hahah..
Well, I shall wrap up now.. goodnight all!
I wonder why the quality of life in other countries always seem so good compared to Singapore... I mean, people actually have time to be laid back, really really stop and smell the roses, rather us who more or less walk past quickly taking sniffs of the lalang or some other Singaporean plant..
People get to enjoy life, and their holidays are really like what they describe in your average Famous Five or any other Enid Blyton book... School is stressful yes, but hols are hols are hols!!!! And there you don't need to make your living by doing your A-levels and getting a university degree! There are thousands of vocations there... Things that Singaporeans wouldn't think of such as "Cheese making" or "Chipper-of-the-stones-off-George-Washington's-face-on-Mount-Rushmore" but noooo... here there's only one route: Through the universities....
And to boot, they don't take 4 A-levels... (Yes, I go on about it quite a bit)
They have time to BREATHE! We're just hoping from one exam to another... CT1... Mug for CT2... CT2... Mug for prelims (which eclipses our National Day hols to boot) and on it goes... And after A-levels, there's barely a month before we go into NS (for the guys).. Like WHAT!!?!?
The only thing that I can say for Singapore that prevents me from pursuing a career overseas (and probably eventual migration), is that here, genetics count for nothing. That is, all races are equal here, whereas in some other country you might well be discriminated against... Well, you can't win everything I guess...
But in my course of intellectual pursuit last night (or rather, at 2 am yesterday), I discovered that STRESS IS AS GREAT A FACTOR FOR CAUSING HEART ATTACK AS HYPERTENSION!!! in an issue of Readers' Digest.
Well, the bottom line is, I think I'm worried about CT2... there's really a lot a lot to do, esp for Phy.. And we (the fencers) have to do well, cos I can bet my epee Mrs CYL will not let us miss school for our tournament if we don't! Typical.. the week before one's tournament, one's teacher should be psyching the team up. She spent the week before January psyching the team DOWN. But let's not go there....
Anyway, on a happier note, I found the 'keeper gloves which Jasmin's squad gave me during farewell '04... They were inside my father's bicycle helmet, which hasn't been used since I was 5 or something... They could have been there till I ORD-ed!!!
Not that I use them much cos they're a wee bit too big for me, and also because of the extreme rarity of me playing soccer... Fencing, badminton or table tennis is preferable, though not by much, and I also don't get to play much anyway... or maybe I'm just sensitive that they don't fit as well as my fencing glove... Anyway I need to put them somewhere I can remember...
But that said, gloves would have been nice during the Youth Group game with the church people on tuesday... We were doing penalties, and when I stopped Shawn's shot it felt as though the impact had shortened my radius and ulna...
Random comment: I'm not the only fencer who's way of playing badminton has been commented on by classmates... See! It affects us all! Hahah..
Well, I shall wrap up now.. goodnight all!
~JcZw~ at 12:32 am
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Not a little has transpired since I last blogged... Hmm.. went back to school again to study a few days back... And of course, the highlight of the weekend...
The Year 1s at the first tournament of the June-July season, the U17, on Saturday...
Didn't go too badly I guess... We still managed to prove that VJ has the best Men's Epee Team of the JCs, but we still have to work really hard if we want to do well in the Inter-School... Though I have to stop thinking about that and think more about CT2...
Chermin fared the best, winning 2 of 4 duels in the preliminary round, and then thrashing his CJC counterpart to get into the Round of 16, in which, unfortunately, he met Daniel Foo from PRC and got taken out 15-9... But not after putting up a reasonable fight... His opponent didn't really pull away until the 3rd segment... But then again, he hasn't been on form since FSI, so I guess Chermin was kinda lucky as well... Still, not a bad performance for one that has touched real equipment for only 3 DAYS, against one who has fenced for 4 years... Heheh... Not to mention that for the second year running, the JC fencer who lasted the longest in the tournament was from VJ... Go VJ!
So some (more) pictures:
Alex (on the right) and his round robin
HuaZhou (the left hander) and his round robin
ZhongQi (on the right) and his round robin
Chermin (with the black shoes) in his DE. Guess he moves the best of the lot (He totally octaved his opponent to death... Poor guy didn't know what hit him... he kept doing the same thing over and over again, and kept getting hit the same way). Still, its early days yet..
Good experience, and good attempt, but the ultimate aim will still be Novices... Oh and thanks for sacrificing the one day of studying for this =)
So evidently I went down to support them... Unfortunately I was feeling kinda weird throughout... as in physically... felt very weak, tired, aching, cold, hot, sore throat... But I had to keep yelling at them
"DISTANCE!! FOCUS!! BACK OFF!"
plus having to exert by demonstrating how to do circular sixte and octaves and quartes.. Kept symptoms at bay by dosing myself with Strepsils from 7-11..
and on top of that, there were about 30 plus CJC people yelling instructions or cheering for their own side, so I had to employ every muscle I was introduced to in St. John to make myself audible... At the end I felt totally dead, so after Chermin went down to Daniel Foo, I quickly said "bye" and left....
Thank goodness for the Nort East Line with its interchange at Outram which emptied the train a little... My legs were killing me more than they have ever done in AGI or NDP.. At Outram I got a seat and fell asleep almost instantly (and who cares about the people who think I fell asleep so that I wouldn't need to give up my seat to another person who needed it more) and almost missed Kembangan...
Went home and discovered I had a fever and put myself to sleep quickly...
Sunday: Fever abaited, but left me with a sore throat... Kept zao sia-ing at church... blah
Monday: Totally lost my voice!! I was speaking with a really really low tone punctuated by moments where my voice would snap and go so high it's almost inaudible... I know not a few people who would give much for the entertainment of hearing me speak with a high pitched voice =D Haha, well pity you didn't see me yesterday... Went to school to study with Enjie, as mentioned above... At 7-11 where I bought biscuits for lunch, the woman was giving me weird looks... Like she thought I had throat cancer, or emphysema, or something... Anyway I beeped and whistled through the day like R2D2 gone wrong...
Tuesday to today: Voice more normal, but serious serious cough... Insomnia due to cough and blahblahblah.... Something called laryngitis or whatever... So eating numerous apples and healthy stuff... Oh well... Just praying it doesn't trigger my asthma again...
Alright, anyway I shall get back to finding out about "Measurement and Analysis of Growth in Microorganisms"... Cheerio, and to all readers, wishing you a healthier last week of hols than me...
Oh yes...
1. My sister's coming back from Spain tomorrow!
2. Spain won 3-1! Waha!
A penalty is a cowardly way to score
- Pele
I agree... but if you get into the situation where you foul someone so badly that you get penalised, I guess you asked for it too eh...
The Year 1s at the first tournament of the June-July season, the U17, on Saturday...
Didn't go too badly I guess... We still managed to prove that VJ has the best Men's Epee Team of the JCs, but we still have to work really hard if we want to do well in the Inter-School... Though I have to stop thinking about that and think more about CT2...
Chermin fared the best, winning 2 of 4 duels in the preliminary round, and then thrashing his CJC counterpart to get into the Round of 16, in which, unfortunately, he met Daniel Foo from PRC and got taken out 15-9... But not after putting up a reasonable fight... His opponent didn't really pull away until the 3rd segment... But then again, he hasn't been on form since FSI, so I guess Chermin was kinda lucky as well... Still, not a bad performance for one that has touched real equipment for only 3 DAYS, against one who has fenced for 4 years... Heheh... Not to mention that for the second year running, the JC fencer who lasted the longest in the tournament was from VJ... Go VJ!
So some (more) pictures:
Alex (on the right) and his round robin
HuaZhou (the left hander) and his round robin
ZhongQi (on the right) and his round robin
Chermin (with the black shoes) in his DE. Guess he moves the best of the lot (He totally octaved his opponent to death... Poor guy didn't know what hit him... he kept doing the same thing over and over again, and kept getting hit the same way). Still, its early days yet..
Good experience, and good attempt, but the ultimate aim will still be Novices... Oh and thanks for sacrificing the one day of studying for this =)
So evidently I went down to support them... Unfortunately I was feeling kinda weird throughout... as in physically... felt very weak, tired, aching, cold, hot, sore throat... But I had to keep yelling at them
"DISTANCE!! FOCUS!! BACK OFF!"
plus having to exert by demonstrating how to do circular sixte and octaves and quartes.. Kept symptoms at bay by dosing myself with Strepsils from 7-11..
and on top of that, there were about 30 plus CJC people yelling instructions or cheering for their own side, so I had to employ every muscle I was introduced to in St. John to make myself audible... At the end I felt totally dead, so after Chermin went down to Daniel Foo, I quickly said "bye" and left....
Thank goodness for the Nort East Line with its interchange at Outram which emptied the train a little... My legs were killing me more than they have ever done in AGI or NDP.. At Outram I got a seat and fell asleep almost instantly (and who cares about the people who think I fell asleep so that I wouldn't need to give up my seat to another person who needed it more) and almost missed Kembangan...
Went home and discovered I had a fever and put myself to sleep quickly...
Sunday: Fever abaited, but left me with a sore throat... Kept zao sia-ing at church... blah
Monday: Totally lost my voice!! I was speaking with a really really low tone punctuated by moments where my voice would snap and go so high it's almost inaudible... I know not a few people who would give much for the entertainment of hearing me speak with a high pitched voice =D Haha, well pity you didn't see me yesterday... Went to school to study with Enjie, as mentioned above... At 7-11 where I bought biscuits for lunch, the woman was giving me weird looks... Like she thought I had throat cancer, or emphysema, or something... Anyway I beeped and whistled through the day like R2D2 gone wrong...
Tuesday to today: Voice more normal, but serious serious cough... Insomnia due to cough and blahblahblah.... Something called laryngitis or whatever... So eating numerous apples and healthy stuff... Oh well... Just praying it doesn't trigger my asthma again...
Alright, anyway I shall get back to finding out about "Measurement and Analysis of Growth in Microorganisms"... Cheerio, and to all readers, wishing you a healthier last week of hols than me...
Oh yes...
1. My sister's coming back from Spain tomorrow!
2. Spain won 3-1! Waha!
A penalty is a cowardly way to score
- Pele
I agree... but if you get into the situation where you foul someone so badly that you get penalised, I guess you asked for it too eh...
~JcZw~ at 4:19 pm
Friday, June 16, 2006
Well well... who'd have thought that studying outside home is actually effective?
I didn't, until two nights ago when I was watching Spain thrash Ukraine, Enjie messaged and asked if I wanted to go to the Esplanade library and study.. Having nothing to lose, I answered in the affirmative.
11.30 the next day found me in the Esplanade library... Its actually quite a pleasant place... Can study, and when the sun is too hot, the blinds come down automatically, and if you're sick of studying, there is always the view of Marina Bay to admire.
Behold... the view from Marina Bay...
Well, we actually managed to do maths for 5 hours (excluding lunch), till the late afternoon!! Except for well, maybe 10 min when we walked around a bit to stretch our legs.. There's a whole section dedicated to "dance injuries". Okayy... Oh there were also a lot of SAJC people there...
Following which, we went to eat fried mars bars at Raffles City... unhealthy.. heh... I proceeded to go home and take a 18 min 22 sec run to work it off... Hopefully I got it while it was still glucose and not after it got converted to fat...
So I'm considering going back to VJ or something next week, since I like live within walking distance...
Right anyway my take on the World Cup matches that I've watched so far:
England vs. Paraguay / England vs. Trinidad and Tobago:
England is 10u5y. Well, they do have pretty good players, but a miss is as good as a mile, and they have been doing that a lot... If it weren't for a mistimed header and a Chelsea defender, T&T would have killed them.. I suppose Peter Crouch had to wait till the number of attempts was the same as his shirt number before he scored? Haha... Oh well, but I'll still root for them cos I think they have nice jerseys...
Argentina vs. whoever:
Oh-my-goodness. I say Argentina can reach the final... =) I want to watch them play against Holland. Nice to know that my new fencing socks are the same colour as their jersey..
Spain vs. Ukraine:
Support Spain!! They have my favourite 'keeper... haha... watching Iker Casillas save 3 penalties against Ireland in the last World Cup is what captured my imagination... But the outfield players play pretty well too!! I say they can go far also!! Argentina and Spain for the final!
South Korea vs. Togo / Japan vs. Australia:
Go Asia!! I think we made a lot of noise during the korea match... and my brother and I nearly died when Japan lost after Australia did a VJ...
My brother and I went out again at 7 pm to kick his soccer ball around on the field outside kembangan, together with a couple of slippers to mark out a goal... It was really wet and both of us got quite soaked... Me cos I was diving for the ball, him cos he slipped while taking a kick... Playing soccer gives a new meaning to the phrase "Am I my brother's keeper". Oh yes. That field's not too bad if you can find a level patch... that's also free of mimosas... Attempting a bicycle kick while forgetting you're standing in a mimosa patch is painful to say the least... But it was quite hard to see the ball... cos it was already dark and both of us were wearing all black... I wonder where I've put my gloves I got as a farewell present from Squad 4 '05... not that I get to use them much... hmm...
Well, some pics before wrapping up...
During camp, I discovered the Mount Kinabalu pics on a noticeboard... I've lost mine cos the comp they were in crashed *sobsob* so here are the only two I have now... taken through the glass of a locked noticeboard...
The Sec. 4s and the netball girls (one of which is now in my junior class) before the ascent to the mountain... I had one of the brightest jacket in the entire group I think... heh... plus of course, the first aid kit...
The peak of the mountain... That's me and my bright blue jacket and coconut head... and the other is Brynner and Zhiyong at the sign which says "Low's Peak" which is not very low... Anyway heard that there's one more trip this year... I'm pushing my brother to go... its such a great experience!
Ok new topic:
One of the four-man VJ epee teams, the only 4 taking part in the U-17 (pity its so close to CTs)... From L to R, Hua Zhou, our resident left handed, Chermin, my junior-class-junior, Alex, and Zhongqi, the new captain. They all have considerably more styled hair then Maurice, Daniel, Eldon and I put together... =)
Coach, teaching them about blade assembly and all the things that can go wrong with an electric epee.... Oh well...
Ok then that wraps it up for tonight... its back to transition metals and whatnot... so long!
I didn't, until two nights ago when I was watching Spain thrash Ukraine, Enjie messaged and asked if I wanted to go to the Esplanade library and study.. Having nothing to lose, I answered in the affirmative.
11.30 the next day found me in the Esplanade library... Its actually quite a pleasant place... Can study, and when the sun is too hot, the blinds come down automatically, and if you're sick of studying, there is always the view of Marina Bay to admire.
Behold... the view from Marina Bay...
Well, we actually managed to do maths for 5 hours (excluding lunch), till the late afternoon!! Except for well, maybe 10 min when we walked around a bit to stretch our legs.. There's a whole section dedicated to "dance injuries". Okayy... Oh there were also a lot of SAJC people there...
Following which, we went to eat fried mars bars at Raffles City... unhealthy.. heh... I proceeded to go home and take a 18 min 22 sec run to work it off... Hopefully I got it while it was still glucose and not after it got converted to fat...
So I'm considering going back to VJ or something next week, since I like live within walking distance...
Right anyway my take on the World Cup matches that I've watched so far:
England vs. Paraguay / England vs. Trinidad and Tobago:
England is 10u5y. Well, they do have pretty good players, but a miss is as good as a mile, and they have been doing that a lot... If it weren't for a mistimed header and a Chelsea defender, T&T would have killed them.. I suppose Peter Crouch had to wait till the number of attempts was the same as his shirt number before he scored? Haha... Oh well, but I'll still root for them cos I think they have nice jerseys...
Argentina vs. whoever:
Oh-my-goodness. I say Argentina can reach the final... =) I want to watch them play against Holland. Nice to know that my new fencing socks are the same colour as their jersey..
Spain vs. Ukraine:
Support Spain!! They have my favourite 'keeper... haha... watching Iker Casillas save 3 penalties against Ireland in the last World Cup is what captured my imagination... But the outfield players play pretty well too!! I say they can go far also!! Argentina and Spain for the final!
South Korea vs. Togo / Japan vs. Australia:
Go Asia!! I think we made a lot of noise during the korea match... and my brother and I nearly died when Japan lost after Australia did a VJ...
My brother and I went out again at 7 pm to kick his soccer ball around on the field outside kembangan, together with a couple of slippers to mark out a goal... It was really wet and both of us got quite soaked... Me cos I was diving for the ball, him cos he slipped while taking a kick... Playing soccer gives a new meaning to the phrase "Am I my brother's keeper". Oh yes. That field's not too bad if you can find a level patch... that's also free of mimosas... Attempting a bicycle kick while forgetting you're standing in a mimosa patch is painful to say the least... But it was quite hard to see the ball... cos it was already dark and both of us were wearing all black... I wonder where I've put my gloves I got as a farewell present from Squad 4 '05... not that I get to use them much... hmm...
Well, some pics before wrapping up...
During camp, I discovered the Mount Kinabalu pics on a noticeboard... I've lost mine cos the comp they were in crashed *sobsob* so here are the only two I have now... taken through the glass of a locked noticeboard...
The Sec. 4s and the netball girls (one of which is now in my junior class) before the ascent to the mountain... I had one of the brightest jacket in the entire group I think... heh... plus of course, the first aid kit...
The peak of the mountain... That's me and my bright blue jacket and coconut head... and the other is Brynner and Zhiyong at the sign which says "Low's Peak" which is not very low... Anyway heard that there's one more trip this year... I'm pushing my brother to go... its such a great experience!
Ok new topic:
One of the four-man VJ epee teams, the only 4 taking part in the U-17 (pity its so close to CTs)... From L to R, Hua Zhou, our resident left handed, Chermin, my junior-class-junior, Alex, and Zhongqi, the new captain. They all have considerably more styled hair then Maurice, Daniel, Eldon and I put together... =)
Coach, teaching them about blade assembly and all the things that can go wrong with an electric epee.... Oh well...
Ok then that wraps it up for tonight... its back to transition metals and whatnot... so long!
~JcZw~ at 10:59 pm
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
DARN it!!! Went for CCA this morning, when Daniel and I put the new primary team through an intensive accelerated period of individual strategies, mental training blahblah... AND... The thread of my epee's tang got worn almost smooth, that means although the blade is hale and healthy, I cannot attach a handle to it!!! What's the world coming to man!! And why do these things only happen to me, like we're 3 weeks away from the second major tournament!!
Anyway they're going for their inaugural tournament this saturday... The U-17 where Daniel got his medal last year in spectacular fashion... haha... All the best to them.... Pity Jon Boon is overseas... otherwise he could take part...
Aiyarrrr, how come my blade always got problem.... thats the advantage of other sports over fencing.... Say, soccer... your ball is either inflated or deflated.... it's never grounded, kinked slightly, kinked a lot, loose or whatever... it's All-or-nothing (Guess what I studied yesterday). Really worried sometimes about the survivability of VJ fencing... Not that I'm supposed to be too concerned cos I'm now sorta "graduated", but still...
Speaking of graduated...
Just watched the SJ camp and handover... it clashed PRECISELY with FSI... so on the first night I came just in time for half of night games and night walk... I think the best think in night walk is to do what Clarice did and just talk and talk and don't leave any awkward silences... Hahah....
Oh then due to an infusion of caffeine via a thick and sweet bottle of coffee my mother made me, I managed to stay up till almost 3.30 am talking to Kok Keng, who was on sentry duty... Hmm... Sort of reflects the thoughts I had when I myself was going to handover... But as I said last year, its too late of recrimations at this point of your NCO life... the only thing is you coming back to make sure your juniors don't make the same mistakes... And yea, being enlightened on certain issues the day before handover is still not too late yea =)
The log room at 1.30 plus at night... Wonder if I'm breaching any security with this picture... Oh yea... I took my best ever hose-and-tap bath due to finding a hose which actually FIT the faucet, thank God... heh... Spent the night sleeping on the wooden table outside 2H...
Up at 5 am, when I accidentally rolled and fell off the table... Watched PT, did 5 chin-ups (I'm going to be unfit by the time I enlist....), climbed the ropes... Hmm prepared for topo by sleeping all over the place... then topo was almost called off by rain but oh well...
Anyway ended up with... err... Mortigen? i think... Well, ylt's group anyway, with Joyce... Since there were only 5 of them (6, plus Joyce), it was quite an easily organizable (yea, I know there's no such English word) group... For the life of me, I can't remember who is the person I know who lives in Aquarius-by-the-park.... And happily, Junhao didn't repeat his performance outside Temasek Sec...
Fell asleep on my feet in tampines... I was literally walking around with my eyes closed... -_-"'.. Fell asleep again at Tanah Merah MRT... I just leaned against the escalator, and next moment Joyce was whacking me with her file yelling at me to wake up... Whoo thanks.. haha... Quite cool... I haven't done that before, not even during NDP rehearsal... Falling asleep on one's feet... All the other seniors didn't believe me when I told them that...
Campfire was super muddy... Campfire prep consisted of Weiquan, Sihui, Samuel and I filling water balloons, climbing the structure to set up the firestick etcetc...
The view from the structures
From the grandstand... The condition of the field was really atrocious... haha...
Samuel's triple water balloon... can see the three colours... haha...
Oh and after dinner, each of us collected about a dozen water balloons and hung them on the structure to throw at people later... hahah...
The lighting up of the cyllum sticks, taken from the bridge where I was sitting.... Oh followed by the mad hurling of water balloons... heheh... I threw my best ever water balloon... lobbing it over two of the seniors before it landed on some poor person on the other side of the bridge.... Ok, I'm sadistic...
Mr Chen lit the fuse of the firesticks... Zhongkai and my part of the engineering went well.. haha... the thing released as planned... Just that it hit a LITTLE off on the campfire...
Campfire performances were quite good I guess... Hmm I liked... err.... can't remember... Think it was the last group? One of the dances I think.. Think campfire performances are one of the few things which have improved over the years... Think my sec. 1 performance ("Hound Dog" under Jarrod and Bixia) was still the most fun one... haha... probably cos I didn't have to think... Still remember Jarrod telling me I danced like I marched ("Stiff")...
Went home during singalong... Shown above... Yes, its badly taken...
Came the next day with all my barang barang from team event, just to watch their handover... Played a little soccer with Xuan Ming, discovered I still possess a certain measure of goalkeeping skills, and picked up an abrasion on the knee for diving on concrete (The last time I played was over a year ago I think... ), discovered I cannot play as an outfield player... I tried to head the ball and ended up eyeballing it, resulting that now my specs are giving slightly more fuzzy vision -_-"'
Well, handover went as planned... Watched the seniors pass on their files... watched the berets fly through the air... Poured some water on some of them... haha... Well... Here's a little bit for Squad 4'06 to contend with:
During all your time as an NCO, you did everything that you thought was the best, that is, given the chance to go back in time, what you did was what seemed best to you. This means you have done your best under the circumstances (that is, no one did anything wrong deliberately), and this means you don't need to look back thinking about anything with too much regret, but rather looking on it as a learning experience (trust me, such skills will be important in the future). You have made mistakes yes, but the only thing left now is to pass these lessons on to your juniors...
On a personal note, I remember when you all just entered SJ... We were sitting in 3G, in the old library block, with Wei Lun and I contemplating giving fake names (which in the end we didn't), playing Whacko..
I remember HP at Kiaboon's house, teaching you all how to polish shoes and knocking over the bowl of water next to her fishtank..
Camp, and all the Melvin-related stuff.. Being your COS IC
Being your OC. The soccer games after CCA. Outings, dinners... It was always fun to hang around Evelyn and Sihui's squad.. haha..
Then our handover, and sitting at the computer night after night, talking to some of you all, trying to stave off the feeling of "what am I gonna do with all my time now"
Watching you all dance during farewell.... I still have the videotape somewhere...
Well, now you yourselves are seniors yourselves... SJ life doesn't end with Squad 4, as we've realised... But there's still a different journey out there... Well, no matter what, well done, you all have been thoroughly lovable and cooperative (well, in the time when we worked with you all), and its been a pleasure to watch you all develop and etc =) God bless and all the best for your future!
Anyway they're going for their inaugural tournament this saturday... The U-17 where Daniel got his medal last year in spectacular fashion... haha... All the best to them.... Pity Jon Boon is overseas... otherwise he could take part...
Aiyarrrr, how come my blade always got problem.... thats the advantage of other sports over fencing.... Say, soccer... your ball is either inflated or deflated.... it's never grounded, kinked slightly, kinked a lot, loose or whatever... it's All-or-nothing (Guess what I studied yesterday). Really worried sometimes about the survivability of VJ fencing... Not that I'm supposed to be too concerned cos I'm now sorta "graduated", but still...
Speaking of graduated...
Just watched the SJ camp and handover... it clashed PRECISELY with FSI... so on the first night I came just in time for half of night games and night walk... I think the best think in night walk is to do what Clarice did and just talk and talk and don't leave any awkward silences... Hahah....
Oh then due to an infusion of caffeine via a thick and sweet bottle of coffee my mother made me, I managed to stay up till almost 3.30 am talking to Kok Keng, who was on sentry duty... Hmm... Sort of reflects the thoughts I had when I myself was going to handover... But as I said last year, its too late of recrimations at this point of your NCO life... the only thing is you coming back to make sure your juniors don't make the same mistakes... And yea, being enlightened on certain issues the day before handover is still not too late yea =)
The log room at 1.30 plus at night... Wonder if I'm breaching any security with this picture... Oh yea... I took my best ever hose-and-tap bath due to finding a hose which actually FIT the faucet, thank God... heh... Spent the night sleeping on the wooden table outside 2H...
Up at 5 am, when I accidentally rolled and fell off the table... Watched PT, did 5 chin-ups (I'm going to be unfit by the time I enlist....), climbed the ropes... Hmm prepared for topo by sleeping all over the place... then topo was almost called off by rain but oh well...
Anyway ended up with... err... Mortigen? i think... Well, ylt's group anyway, with Joyce... Since there were only 5 of them (6, plus Joyce), it was quite an easily organizable (yea, I know there's no such English word) group... For the life of me, I can't remember who is the person I know who lives in Aquarius-by-the-park.... And happily, Junhao didn't repeat his performance outside Temasek Sec...
Fell asleep on my feet in tampines... I was literally walking around with my eyes closed... -_-"'.. Fell asleep again at Tanah Merah MRT... I just leaned against the escalator, and next moment Joyce was whacking me with her file yelling at me to wake up... Whoo thanks.. haha... Quite cool... I haven't done that before, not even during NDP rehearsal... Falling asleep on one's feet... All the other seniors didn't believe me when I told them that...
Campfire was super muddy... Campfire prep consisted of Weiquan, Sihui, Samuel and I filling water balloons, climbing the structure to set up the firestick etcetc...
The view from the structures
From the grandstand... The condition of the field was really atrocious... haha...
Samuel's triple water balloon... can see the three colours... haha...
Oh and after dinner, each of us collected about a dozen water balloons and hung them on the structure to throw at people later... hahah...
The lighting up of the cyllum sticks, taken from the bridge where I was sitting.... Oh followed by the mad hurling of water balloons... heheh... I threw my best ever water balloon... lobbing it over two of the seniors before it landed on some poor person on the other side of the bridge.... Ok, I'm sadistic...
Mr Chen lit the fuse of the firesticks... Zhongkai and my part of the engineering went well.. haha... the thing released as planned... Just that it hit a LITTLE off on the campfire...
Campfire performances were quite good I guess... Hmm I liked... err.... can't remember... Think it was the last group? One of the dances I think.. Think campfire performances are one of the few things which have improved over the years... Think my sec. 1 performance ("Hound Dog" under Jarrod and Bixia) was still the most fun one... haha... probably cos I didn't have to think... Still remember Jarrod telling me I danced like I marched ("Stiff")...
Went home during singalong... Shown above... Yes, its badly taken...
Came the next day with all my barang barang from team event, just to watch their handover... Played a little soccer with Xuan Ming, discovered I still possess a certain measure of goalkeeping skills, and picked up an abrasion on the knee for diving on concrete (The last time I played was over a year ago I think... ), discovered I cannot play as an outfield player... I tried to head the ball and ended up eyeballing it, resulting that now my specs are giving slightly more fuzzy vision -_-"'
Well, handover went as planned... Watched the seniors pass on their files... watched the berets fly through the air... Poured some water on some of them... haha... Well... Here's a little bit for Squad 4'06 to contend with:
During all your time as an NCO, you did everything that you thought was the best, that is, given the chance to go back in time, what you did was what seemed best to you. This means you have done your best under the circumstances (that is, no one did anything wrong deliberately), and this means you don't need to look back thinking about anything with too much regret, but rather looking on it as a learning experience (trust me, such skills will be important in the future). You have made mistakes yes, but the only thing left now is to pass these lessons on to your juniors...
On a personal note, I remember when you all just entered SJ... We were sitting in 3G, in the old library block, with Wei Lun and I contemplating giving fake names (which in the end we didn't), playing Whacko..
I remember HP at Kiaboon's house, teaching you all how to polish shoes and knocking over the bowl of water next to her fishtank..
Camp, and all the Melvin-related stuff.. Being your COS IC
Being your OC. The soccer games after CCA. Outings, dinners... It was always fun to hang around Evelyn and Sihui's squad.. haha..
Then our handover, and sitting at the computer night after night, talking to some of you all, trying to stave off the feeling of "what am I gonna do with all my time now"
Watching you all dance during farewell.... I still have the videotape somewhere...
Well, now you yourselves are seniors yourselves... SJ life doesn't end with Squad 4, as we've realised... But there's still a different journey out there... Well, no matter what, well done, you all have been thoroughly lovable and cooperative (well, in the time when we worked with you all), and its been a pleasure to watch you all develop and etc =) God bless and all the best for your future!
~JcZw~ at 2:45 pm
Monday, June 12, 2006
Oh you be the B-field and I'll be the E-field
Let's dance through the cosmos, my lover!
With the ether set aside you and I can freely glide
Supported on the wings of each other
Before I met you, my skies were never blue
"My misery", I said, "just enlarges"
My head was always stuck in that negative old muck
And my feet were attached to plus charges
But then you came along with a different kind of song
Though its true you were trapped round those currents
But you had no start or end, you said "Come along, my friend
We don't need these monopoles, you've my assurance!"
You took me by the hand and we jumped up off the land
And at first I was afraid it would pain me
But I looked into your eyes and it made my realize
That your "d by dt" could sustain me
You said "You be the E-field and I'll be the B-field
Let's dance through the cosmos, my lover!
We'll leave earthly Q's behind and our destiny we'll find
Supported on the wings of each other
-By Walther Fox Smith and Marian Mckenzie
Sung to the tune of "Loch Lomond"
Guess which topic I studied today =) But aiyar, I really must buck up!
Let's dance through the cosmos, my lover!
With the ether set aside you and I can freely glide
Supported on the wings of each other
Before I met you, my skies were never blue
"My misery", I said, "just enlarges"
My head was always stuck in that negative old muck
And my feet were attached to plus charges
But then you came along with a different kind of song
Though its true you were trapped round those currents
But you had no start or end, you said "Come along, my friend
We don't need these monopoles, you've my assurance!"
You took me by the hand and we jumped up off the land
And at first I was afraid it would pain me
But I looked into your eyes and it made my realize
That your "d by dt" could sustain me
You said "You be the E-field and I'll be the B-field
Let's dance through the cosmos, my lover!
We'll leave earthly Q's behind and our destiny we'll find
Supported on the wings of each other
-By Walther Fox Smith and Marian Mckenzie
Sung to the tune of "Loch Lomond"
Guess which topic I studied today =) But aiyar, I really must buck up!
~JcZw~ at 1:03 am
Saturday, June 10, 2006
Ok... yar, for those that don't scroll down to the tagboard, I made a mistake... I meant we were one of the [relatively inexperienced] teams (the omitted words are in square brackets). Also, we were fencing an Indian team which was something like their association for fencers in the Army, sort of like our SAFSA... not neccesarily National per se...
Well, we had our tournament on home ground... it was off VICTORIA street =D haha oh well, it was still in Singapore though... opposite the Carlton, where our SDD is going to be held... heheh...
On wednesday was equipment checking... this *beep* Pasir Ris Cres kid was doing the mask check, and instead of forcing the wire grill with the strength of his arm, he used his BODY WEIGHT as if he was doing CPR!!!! Of course the grill gave way (he poked so many times!!!) and created a great hole in the mask (well, relatively great)... What the... so I had to go n borrow one from Coach and spend 1 hour trying to force my grill back... pah!!
Thursday: Men's Epee Individual, Women's Foil Individual, Men's Sabre Individual
Left home with Maurice carrying TWO masks... what a load...
Reached SMU well before time, and got my mask (whose grill i forced back) to be tested by a national fencer this time. Lo and behold, it passed the test. Was I shocked? No. Hahah...
These are the three fencing locations... Air conditioned, nice colours and such ambience.... So unlike Clementi lor!
The main hall on the third floor.
The corridor outside the hall. That's Daniel (on the left) fencing with this really really PRO guy from Taipei! Shall talk about it more later..
The... room on the sixth floor.. Also well ventilated, but enclosed. When the girl foilists screamed in excitement, I thought the world was coming to an end. That's a foilist, complete with metallic vest n all who happened to get in the way, not anyone I know...
My round robin pool.... I SHOULD have beaten Melvyn Li, with the score tied 4-4 and going to priority time... He fleched, I circular sixte-d and did a perfect close quarter hit on his backside. No light. The *beep* referee forgot to REARM the box!!! SO angry!!! And when we restarted, this time he managed to hit me instead haiyooo... hurhur sobsob... But now he'll think of me when he sees the bruise on his posterior.
Lost 5-2 to Weiwen, a Singapore national fencer, and 5-0 to the Thai feller. Managed to hold the Indonesian 4-4 before I did a highly mistimed fleche (i reckoned my stophit on Singaporean timing blah and ran right onto his blade) and lost.
Well, all the JC fencers, including me, Maurice, Daniel, and our counterparts from CJC all got eliminated from the preliminary round. Sad. Oh well...
Anyway as we all know (read the papers) Kuwait won... Hmmm we saw Koreans who can fleche with absolutely no sound, completely horizontal and really long range like 6 meters or something...
We saw the above mentioned Taipei guy who's so super fast, and we can't even see his blade (must watch video in slow mo).... Here, he's on the way to killing a Singaporean 15-9 (he's the right hander...). He's got a really funny way of fencing where he holds his arm up exposing his entire arm, but he can take attacks and parry really fast! I mean, its a totally unorthodox style of fencing, but it works!!!
Kuwait people who can double and triple flick, and even do foil flicks right across the back to the opponent's tailbone... Anyway, Singapore was outclassed completely... Except for Zixian, our fellow FM-er, who made it the furthest before being taken out by a combination of Taipei and cramp... haha well done! Oh yar, did I mention that everyone is like super tall.... Especially the Koreans...
Kuwait vs Kuwait... Hmm the sportsmanship of certain parties should not be discussed in public I guess... Mr Flicker is the one on the right... The one on the left was in Maurice's pool and eventually won the tournament...
Saturday: Men's Epee Team, Women's Foil Team, Men's Sabre Team
Team event was today....
We drew India, as mentioned... Hmm no pics of today cos I rushed back to AHS very fast... But Korea was doing well again, and Qatar and Kuwait were at it hammer and tongs... oh yes, thanks to Zhongqi our new captain for coming down to take a look...
Our match... was ok, but I guess I could have been a little less mediocre... But I think my teammates did a better job than I could have on this particular day.. Apparently Eldon hasn't lost his tyco-ness while serving in NS... We lost 35-45, which may sound not too bad, but we could have done better... Still it was a fun match...
Oh yes, one thing very worthy of mention was that the Indian fencers were really friendly, so unlike the average Singaporean.... We wished them luck for their match against Kuwait, and later they came out to talk to us after getting eliminated themselves.... So we shared some info with each other.... like how we were studying, how most of them and Eldon were in the army, how most of us, including one or two of the Indians, had been fencing for around a year (while some of the others had been fencing for 4-5 years... what!)... Well fun yar... haha...
FSI gives SO much experience
Well, I shall wrap up here for now.... SHall blog about camp too in the near future if I have time...
Studies are clawing at our heels and I really have to get down to studying!!!
England won!
Well, we had our tournament on home ground... it was off VICTORIA street =D haha oh well, it was still in Singapore though... opposite the Carlton, where our SDD is going to be held... heheh...
On wednesday was equipment checking... this *beep* Pasir Ris Cres kid was doing the mask check, and instead of forcing the wire grill with the strength of his arm, he used his BODY WEIGHT as if he was doing CPR!!!! Of course the grill gave way (he poked so many times!!!) and created a great hole in the mask (well, relatively great)... What the... so I had to go n borrow one from Coach and spend 1 hour trying to force my grill back... pah!!
Thursday: Men's Epee Individual, Women's Foil Individual, Men's Sabre Individual
Left home with Maurice carrying TWO masks... what a load...
Reached SMU well before time, and got my mask (whose grill i forced back) to be tested by a national fencer this time. Lo and behold, it passed the test. Was I shocked? No. Hahah...
These are the three fencing locations... Air conditioned, nice colours and such ambience.... So unlike Clementi lor!
The main hall on the third floor.
The corridor outside the hall. That's Daniel (on the left) fencing with this really really PRO guy from Taipei! Shall talk about it more later..
The... room on the sixth floor.. Also well ventilated, but enclosed. When the girl foilists screamed in excitement, I thought the world was coming to an end. That's a foilist, complete with metallic vest n all who happened to get in the way, not anyone I know...
My round robin pool.... I SHOULD have beaten Melvyn Li, with the score tied 4-4 and going to priority time... He fleched, I circular sixte-d and did a perfect close quarter hit on his backside. No light. The *beep* referee forgot to REARM the box!!! SO angry!!! And when we restarted, this time he managed to hit me instead haiyooo... hurhur sobsob... But now he'll think of me when he sees the bruise on his posterior.
Lost 5-2 to Weiwen, a Singapore national fencer, and 5-0 to the Thai feller. Managed to hold the Indonesian 4-4 before I did a highly mistimed fleche (i reckoned my stophit on Singaporean timing blah and ran right onto his blade) and lost.
Well, all the JC fencers, including me, Maurice, Daniel, and our counterparts from CJC all got eliminated from the preliminary round. Sad. Oh well...
Anyway as we all know (read the papers) Kuwait won... Hmmm we saw Koreans who can fleche with absolutely no sound, completely horizontal and really long range like 6 meters or something...
We saw the above mentioned Taipei guy who's so super fast, and we can't even see his blade (must watch video in slow mo).... Here, he's on the way to killing a Singaporean 15-9 (he's the right hander...). He's got a really funny way of fencing where he holds his arm up exposing his entire arm, but he can take attacks and parry really fast! I mean, its a totally unorthodox style of fencing, but it works!!!
Kuwait people who can double and triple flick, and even do foil flicks right across the back to the opponent's tailbone... Anyway, Singapore was outclassed completely... Except for Zixian, our fellow FM-er, who made it the furthest before being taken out by a combination of Taipei and cramp... haha well done! Oh yar, did I mention that everyone is like super tall.... Especially the Koreans...
Kuwait vs Kuwait... Hmm the sportsmanship of certain parties should not be discussed in public I guess... Mr Flicker is the one on the right... The one on the left was in Maurice's pool and eventually won the tournament...
Saturday: Men's Epee Team, Women's Foil Team, Men's Sabre Team
Team event was today....
We drew India, as mentioned... Hmm no pics of today cos I rushed back to AHS very fast... But Korea was doing well again, and Qatar and Kuwait were at it hammer and tongs... oh yes, thanks to Zhongqi our new captain for coming down to take a look...
Our match... was ok, but I guess I could have been a little less mediocre... But I think my teammates did a better job than I could have on this particular day.. Apparently Eldon hasn't lost his tyco-ness while serving in NS... We lost 35-45, which may sound not too bad, but we could have done better... Still it was a fun match...
Oh yes, one thing very worthy of mention was that the Indian fencers were really friendly, so unlike the average Singaporean.... We wished them luck for their match against Kuwait, and later they came out to talk to us after getting eliminated themselves.... So we shared some info with each other.... like how we were studying, how most of them and Eldon were in the army, how most of us, including one or two of the Indians, had been fencing for around a year (while some of the others had been fencing for 4-5 years... what!)... Well fun yar... haha...
FSI gives SO much experience
Well, I shall wrap up here for now.... SHall blog about camp too in the near future if I have time...
Studies are clawing at our heels and I really have to get down to studying!!!
England won!
~JcZw~ at 8:40 pm
Friday, June 09, 2006
FSI on thursday, followed by a hasty migration to AHS for SJ camp, a night filled with coffee and a 1.5 hour sleep, then a long long day which had topography and campfire....
Heard from Maurice we're drawn to fence the India National Team in the team event tomorrow... If I'm not wrong, VJ is one of a few (if not the only.. did SMU?) groups fielding a team. Hope we can at least put up a good showing tomorrow...
My feet ache like mad from being wet and standing for too long... Been raining the whole day and I've been running around the field climbing the structure, getting wet with kerosene and whatnot....
Well, post more about the competition and the camp another time.. Really sleepy now...
Goodnight!
Heard from Maurice we're drawn to fence the India National Team in the team event tomorrow... If I'm not wrong, VJ is one of a few (if not the only.. did SMU?) groups fielding a team. Hope we can at least put up a good showing tomorrow...
My feet ache like mad from being wet and standing for too long... Been raining the whole day and I've been running around the field climbing the structure, getting wet with kerosene and whatnot....
Well, post more about the competition and the camp another time.. Really sleepy now...
Goodnight!
~JcZw~ at 9:59 pm
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Hmm life has settled down to a certain monotony now... I'm over my outburst a few days back... until I get another fit of temporary insanity... Well, its either studying, playing computer, or eating chocolate or oranges.... Just that I've just finished the last orange, so I should stop the chocolate too.... Anyway, let's hope my target area hasn't increased.
Not that I've studied very much either... Its like plus minus 1 topic a day or something... Sighhhh and I'm unsure for all my subjects, even Bio. Guess my only hope of a B or higher is GP, and even that is hard to get... Well, we'll see how it goes.... I wonder how people actually get A1s for GP... thats like, 37.5 AT LEAST for each paper... and Mdm Ang was feeling really kind today so I got nearly 3 hours of Maths tuition. At the end of it I was absolutely brain dead and couldn't remember simple integration... grrr... Well, at least I got my money's worth =D
Oh yes, these two days has also been preparation for FSI... Painting masks (Glossy black paint!!), washing masks (yay now the bib of my mask is reasonably white, but it still smells of rust.... Kinda eerie... like the smell of blood... Ok that was the first aider in me... or maybe the vampire =D), drying masks, and begging Coach via SMS to rewire our blades on time... The weather has been hot so many days and the very day I choose to wash my mask, it rains within 3 hours of me bringing my mask out to dry! I had to complete the job with my mother's hairdryer...
Heading down to SMU with the rest of the team minus Eldon for weapons control... They say that this fencing location is really cramped, but at least its air conditioned... But hey! they should let all the ang mohs fence in Clementi and let them melt in their suits! Well, it ought to be interesting to see what kinda fencing style the Thais and Koreans etc have.... It'll be really great to see professional sabreurs in action for once, for instance... Oh yar! Tomorrow must clear all my Selangor tapes!
Oh yes, speaking of which, two more activities are coming up which will break monotony yay!
Maurice and I volunteered to help Coach paint FM after its renovation... Hahaa.... Hmmm i wonder how it would turn out... the last time I did a mass painting job my father had to help me cover up all the mistakes... but that was when I was 5 years old or something....
SJ camp also coming up on thursday (migrations between SMU and AHS in the near future) and I am sorta looking forward to it, if only to see old squadmates again, even though I only can stay one of two nights... And yea, cadets who read this may feel that I'm crazy or what, cos when I was a cadet I never believed my seniors when they said "SJ camp is fun what"... Ahhh we must try and get David to dance his Father Abraham during campfire if he turns up =D Well, can't write about it here... Hmm hmm
Well, my sister also left to go on a backpacking tour around Spain / Portugal with a bunch of friends.. must be quite fun =) Speaking of which, she watched the clip of the "Last 4 minutes" on Cosiety, and even she went wow with appreciation! Haha, I mean, she said that she fell asleep during soccer finals last time (well, no offence, to each his or her own). Oh well... heh... Oh yar, my whole family also saw Phoon's picture of my nerve-shattering nosebleed (the second most nerve wracking incident in my life...) on his blog and laughed and laughed...
Right ok... I shall stop here then... cheers!
Not that I've studied very much either... Its like plus minus 1 topic a day or something... Sighhhh and I'm unsure for all my subjects, even Bio. Guess my only hope of a B or higher is GP, and even that is hard to get... Well, we'll see how it goes.... I wonder how people actually get A1s for GP... thats like, 37.5 AT LEAST for each paper... and Mdm Ang was feeling really kind today so I got nearly 3 hours of Maths tuition. At the end of it I was absolutely brain dead and couldn't remember simple integration... grrr... Well, at least I got my money's worth =D
Oh yes, these two days has also been preparation for FSI... Painting masks (Glossy black paint!!), washing masks (yay now the bib of my mask is reasonably white, but it still smells of rust.... Kinda eerie... like the smell of blood... Ok that was the first aider in me... or maybe the vampire =D), drying masks, and begging Coach via SMS to rewire our blades on time... The weather has been hot so many days and the very day I choose to wash my mask, it rains within 3 hours of me bringing my mask out to dry! I had to complete the job with my mother's hairdryer...
Heading down to SMU with the rest of the team minus Eldon for weapons control... They say that this fencing location is really cramped, but at least its air conditioned... But hey! they should let all the ang mohs fence in Clementi and let them melt in their suits! Well, it ought to be interesting to see what kinda fencing style the Thais and Koreans etc have.... It'll be really great to see professional sabreurs in action for once, for instance... Oh yar! Tomorrow must clear all my Selangor tapes!
Oh yes, speaking of which, two more activities are coming up which will break monotony yay!
Maurice and I volunteered to help Coach paint FM after its renovation... Hahaa.... Hmmm i wonder how it would turn out... the last time I did a mass painting job my father had to help me cover up all the mistakes... but that was when I was 5 years old or something....
SJ camp also coming up on thursday (migrations between SMU and AHS in the near future) and I am sorta looking forward to it, if only to see old squadmates again, even though I only can stay one of two nights... And yea, cadets who read this may feel that I'm crazy or what, cos when I was a cadet I never believed my seniors when they said "SJ camp is fun what"... Ahhh we must try and get David to dance his Father Abraham during campfire if he turns up =D Well, can't write about it here... Hmm hmm
Well, my sister also left to go on a backpacking tour around Spain / Portugal with a bunch of friends.. must be quite fun =) Speaking of which, she watched the clip of the "Last 4 minutes" on Cosiety, and even she went wow with appreciation! Haha, I mean, she said that she fell asleep during soccer finals last time (well, no offence, to each his or her own). Oh well... heh... Oh yar, my whole family also saw Phoon's picture of my nerve-shattering nosebleed (the second most nerve wracking incident in my life...) on his blog and laughed and laughed...
Right ok... I shall stop here then... cheers!
~JcZw~ at 8:23 pm
Sunday, June 04, 2006
Until I've had a little perspective and have done a little thinking
3 days
3 days
~JcZw~ at 11:59 pm
Saturday, June 03, 2006
What's wrong with me
I slept until almost 12, woke up, had lunch, and fell asleep again. What the...
Ok let's take the events of 2nd June in chronological order. So I went for my medical checkup and yes, I'm sure everyone has read / heard of how its like but I'll still write about it anyway =)
Met chuaH promptly, more or less at 0745 at Tiong Bahru MRT, nearly took the wrong bus to CMPB, and finally managed to find our way there. Why does the sign in front say "Defence Technology Towers" while the sign that says "CMPB" is on the SIDE of the building??
Apparently chuaH's eregistration went haywire, so he had to go to do all his admin stuff again... Meanwhile for me there was registration where they gave me this file with a lot of medical looking stuff there... Yar then we were all in this big central room with a lot of little rooms around where you can go to complete your stuff... not unlike NAPFA... heheh.. Here's a list of all the interesting stuff that happened to me...
1. I met Andrew and Jerome from my primary school classes heheh... Apparently Andrew has finally broken his voice..
2. I met David, squadmate from AHSJAB. The way he walks can be picked up from a mile away. If my classmates think I walk stiffly, they should see him... Haha he's still the same old friendly and very funny David.
3. I noticed the signs in the medical checkup place have bad english. The sign at the X-ray counter said "After you finish, wear back your shirt". WEAR BACK your shirt??? What the
4. The lab station was interesting... they prick your finger, take a little blood and go centrifuge it.... Funny thing, it doesn't hurt at all... And really there is no sensation no nothing... Just a pressure of the capsule and suddenly "Hey, there's a hole" kinda thing.
Oh then there's the famous urine test in the toilet that's so dark you can' tell whether the bottle is about to overflow or now -_-''' So I went into the toilet which was all wet and there was no place to put my bag except a ledge between the sink and the urinals... and I threw my bag up, and my bottle flew up also sighhh... This thing only happens to me.... So I had to guess which side it would fall: Left, into the urinals. Right, into the sink where some careless nut might have disposed of his stuff. Forward, to me, which was what I was hoping. Well, I guessed correctly... Forward's good =)
My test was normal.... The technicians were all very agitated... like "STOP there! DON'T come near me! Ok thats fine! Throw quick!"
5. Some poor guy who couldn't pass his urine test cos he didn't... have the resources, to put it nicely
6. The lab tech who jerked the needle a bit while it was INSIDE my arm.... It was quite easy for him to locate my vein though...
7. The lab tech who must have been a VS guy cos I heard him say "thanks arh"
8. The eye station. The guy took my specs, put it under his refractorymeter or whatever its called and said "Oh my *blasphemous word*" Apparently my eyesight was high enough to get me a PES D. So now I got to go back to CMPB on July 12th at 2 pm. Oh kay. I get to skip two periods of GP and one of Bio.
9. The MO consultation, where the guy said that I may be exempted from "training in dusty environments" due to allergic conjunctivitis. Oh my goodness. Then BMT how? Like its all dusty. Well, he did say "may"
10. The IQ test. Bet my eyesight is now worst. It was on an MS-DOS programme, on a screen which was shaking. And I bet it reflects bad IQ.
Well, all delays aside, ChuaH, David and I emerged from the organizational chaos within half an hour of each other... So the three of us went for lunch together... a full FIVE hours (so much for 2!) after coming in
Back home for 1.5 hours then I emerged again, this time to find Enjie at City Hall. With lunch in such close proximity, I just nibbled some onion rings... Well then, it was off to Jubilee Hall for Liling's concert... When I think "Strings from the heart", the words "chordae tendinae" also come to mind, but never mind... Lucky Enjie was around cos I don't think I would have managed to find Jubilee Hall without him... heh... Oh yar.. we also learnt not to hold bouquets upside down...
Right, so
badly taken night shot of the String Ensemble...Bad because my digital camera chose to AP me and REFUSE to switch on even though it had been working perfectly when I left the house... Even changing to fresh batteries didn't help. Grrr. So I had to resort to using my phone. We were like the earliest there.... the CT councilors tore my ticket so badly tsktsk... right through the frayed knot...
Well, the concert was good, even if I don't know much about string instruments or music in general in fact, but I liked the second song more... haha... Well, now I know all the high pitched music in horror movies are played by violins... heh... But it also provides the music for the Death Star sequences of Star Wars..
After the concert, we tried to find our class' resident violinist, and of all the doors leading to the front, we had to choose the one door out of three which did NOT lead backstage... sighghhhghgh... yea so we were like thinking that if we had to go home without delievering our stuff it would be the biggest foul-up ever. Well, apparently unlike Rome and its streets, all doors do not lead backstage. Well, we met Liling on the stage instead after cheating and using handphones... ooops... Yup, gave her the bouquet (which smelt... like flowers hahah) and the chocolate which Enjie managed to wedge inside.
Oh yar, ran into my sister's old classmates also... they were quite scandalized when they heard how "S1" is now "A1" (being former S1s themselves) and I was trying to find Chris to explain to them about the new subject combis.. Apparently my sister's classmate's younger sister is also a violinist... small world huh...
Ok, talked a while to them, as well as to Liling, then we pushed off... Enjie had a burning desire to eat fried mars bars so Chris and I followed him... I resisted temptation cos I'd eaten three consecutive fast food meals already and visions of my liver rotting was more than enough for me to decline... Plus fatigue from the morning's activities was making itself felt.
Right, that's a super long post now... So its back to studying.... Until next wed when FSI and June Camp come!! My turn to go sleep deprived then..
Ok thats it then... gotta go and figure out where to start... and to catch up on 2 months of unread Readers' Digest =)
I slept until almost 12, woke up, had lunch, and fell asleep again. What the...
Ok let's take the events of 2nd June in chronological order. So I went for my medical checkup and yes, I'm sure everyone has read / heard of how its like but I'll still write about it anyway =)
Met chuaH promptly, more or less at 0745 at Tiong Bahru MRT, nearly took the wrong bus to CMPB, and finally managed to find our way there. Why does the sign in front say "Defence Technology Towers" while the sign that says "CMPB" is on the SIDE of the building??
Apparently chuaH's eregistration went haywire, so he had to go to do all his admin stuff again... Meanwhile for me there was registration where they gave me this file with a lot of medical looking stuff there... Yar then we were all in this big central room with a lot of little rooms around where you can go to complete your stuff... not unlike NAPFA... heheh.. Here's a list of all the interesting stuff that happened to me...
1. I met Andrew and Jerome from my primary school classes heheh... Apparently Andrew has finally broken his voice..
2. I met David, squadmate from AHSJAB. The way he walks can be picked up from a mile away. If my classmates think I walk stiffly, they should see him... Haha he's still the same old friendly and very funny David.
3. I noticed the signs in the medical checkup place have bad english. The sign at the X-ray counter said "After you finish, wear back your shirt". WEAR BACK your shirt??? What the
4. The lab station was interesting... they prick your finger, take a little blood and go centrifuge it.... Funny thing, it doesn't hurt at all... And really there is no sensation no nothing... Just a pressure of the capsule and suddenly "Hey, there's a hole" kinda thing.
Oh then there's the famous urine test in the toilet that's so dark you can' tell whether the bottle is about to overflow or now -_-''' So I went into the toilet which was all wet and there was no place to put my bag except a ledge between the sink and the urinals... and I threw my bag up, and my bottle flew up also sighhh... This thing only happens to me.... So I had to guess which side it would fall: Left, into the urinals. Right, into the sink where some careless nut might have disposed of his stuff. Forward, to me, which was what I was hoping. Well, I guessed correctly... Forward's good =)
My test was normal.... The technicians were all very agitated... like "STOP there! DON'T come near me! Ok thats fine! Throw quick!"
5. Some poor guy who couldn't pass his urine test cos he didn't... have the resources, to put it nicely
6. The lab tech who jerked the needle a bit while it was INSIDE my arm.... It was quite easy for him to locate my vein though...
7. The lab tech who must have been a VS guy cos I heard him say "thanks arh"
8. The eye station. The guy took my specs, put it under his refractorymeter or whatever its called and said "Oh my *blasphemous word*" Apparently my eyesight was high enough to get me a PES D. So now I got to go back to CMPB on July 12th at 2 pm. Oh kay. I get to skip two periods of GP and one of Bio.
9. The MO consultation, where the guy said that I may be exempted from "training in dusty environments" due to allergic conjunctivitis. Oh my goodness. Then BMT how? Like its all dusty. Well, he did say "may"
10. The IQ test. Bet my eyesight is now worst. It was on an MS-DOS programme, on a screen which was shaking. And I bet it reflects bad IQ.
Well, all delays aside, ChuaH, David and I emerged from the organizational chaos within half an hour of each other... So the three of us went for lunch together... a full FIVE hours (so much for 2!) after coming in
Back home for 1.5 hours then I emerged again, this time to find Enjie at City Hall. With lunch in such close proximity, I just nibbled some onion rings... Well then, it was off to Jubilee Hall for Liling's concert... When I think "Strings from the heart", the words "chordae tendinae" also come to mind, but never mind... Lucky Enjie was around cos I don't think I would have managed to find Jubilee Hall without him... heh... Oh yar.. we also learnt not to hold bouquets upside down...
Right, so
badly taken night shot of the String Ensemble...Bad because my digital camera chose to AP me and REFUSE to switch on even though it had been working perfectly when I left the house... Even changing to fresh batteries didn't help. Grrr. So I had to resort to using my phone. We were like the earliest there.... the CT councilors tore my ticket so badly tsktsk... right through the frayed knot...
Well, the concert was good, even if I don't know much about string instruments or music in general in fact, but I liked the second song more... haha... Well, now I know all the high pitched music in horror movies are played by violins... heh... But it also provides the music for the Death Star sequences of Star Wars..
After the concert, we tried to find our class' resident violinist, and of all the doors leading to the front, we had to choose the one door out of three which did NOT lead backstage... sighghhhghgh... yea so we were like thinking that if we had to go home without delievering our stuff it would be the biggest foul-up ever. Well, apparently unlike Rome and its streets, all doors do not lead backstage. Well, we met Liling on the stage instead after cheating and using handphones... ooops... Yup, gave her the bouquet (which smelt... like flowers hahah) and the chocolate which Enjie managed to wedge inside.
Oh yar, ran into my sister's old classmates also... they were quite scandalized when they heard how "S1" is now "A1" (being former S1s themselves) and I was trying to find Chris to explain to them about the new subject combis.. Apparently my sister's classmate's younger sister is also a violinist... small world huh...
Ok, talked a while to them, as well as to Liling, then we pushed off... Enjie had a burning desire to eat fried mars bars so Chris and I followed him... I resisted temptation cos I'd eaten three consecutive fast food meals already and visions of my liver rotting was more than enough for me to decline... Plus fatigue from the morning's activities was making itself felt.
Right, that's a super long post now... So its back to studying.... Until next wed when FSI and June Camp come!! My turn to go sleep deprived then..
Ok thats it then... gotta go and figure out where to start... and to catch up on 2 months of unread Readers' Digest =)
~JcZw~ at 3:47 pm
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Sigh
Two weeks ago I thought I was in love
With the borrowed golden blade =D heheh what were you thinking? =Pp
Well, unfortunately the owner of the oh-so-well-balanced golden blade which I thoroughly enjoyed using swooped back from the UK and took it away. And my own is still not rewired *whine whine*... argH!! Should I trade in mine for a new grip? Hmmmm... anyway... yar today Coach lent me one belonging to another fencer... n this one, unfortunately has a heavy blade and light handle, a stunning contrast to my own (light blade, heavy handle, which is brilliant for flicks heh).... Oh yea there was point control but not as much as I would have liked....
Training was also quite tiring... Doing all conceivable sorts of compound parries not to mention intensive close quarter!! Have to adapt quickly in time for the July tournament... Sigh I really really hope we can do well!! I wonder how people can swipe their blades behind their back so quickly.... and fleche so fast... practise practise.... in soccer scoring from say, 20 - 30 meters is an achievement... in fencing, its scoring from 4 or 5.... And for certain vertically advantaged individuals, of course the range opens more.
Everyone's form has deproved since January cos now we can't afford to think of fencing everyday all the time like we used to.... After CT1 one realises that "hey there's a bigger world out there and being a good fencer is not going to get you into university or the workforce" (more's the pity)...
And if we meet a certain Pasir Ris Cres bugger who does NOT have to content with studying for CT2...
Well, to balance that out, our raw fencing skill has also improved since January.... just must see whether we're on form during the tournament lar...
NS Medical Checkup tomorrow... Heading down to CMPB with ChuaH... hope they don't find that I have some med. con. like diabetes or something... As certain people have said, "Ah, if the stick turns BLACK, then you should start worrying".... oh kayyy...
Also is Liling's string concert.... heading down with Enjie tml... First time attending a concert somewhere other than VJ... Hope I don't commit any unforgivable breach of concert etiquette and get myself booted out of the place... No doubt I shall be blogging about the above two activities in the next 72 hours also...
Well, ok I shall stop here... time to sleep goodnight!
Two weeks ago I thought I was in love
With the borrowed golden blade =D heheh what were you thinking? =Pp
Well, unfortunately the owner of the oh-so-well-balanced golden blade which I thoroughly enjoyed using swooped back from the UK and took it away. And my own is still not rewired *whine whine*... argH!! Should I trade in mine for a new grip? Hmmmm... anyway... yar today Coach lent me one belonging to another fencer... n this one, unfortunately has a heavy blade and light handle, a stunning contrast to my own (light blade, heavy handle, which is brilliant for flicks heh).... Oh yea there was point control but not as much as I would have liked....
Training was also quite tiring... Doing all conceivable sorts of compound parries not to mention intensive close quarter!! Have to adapt quickly in time for the July tournament... Sigh I really really hope we can do well!! I wonder how people can swipe their blades behind their back so quickly.... and fleche so fast... practise practise.... in soccer scoring from say, 20 - 30 meters is an achievement... in fencing, its scoring from 4 or 5.... And for certain vertically advantaged individuals, of course the range opens more.
Everyone's form has deproved since January cos now we can't afford to think of fencing everyday all the time like we used to.... After CT1 one realises that "hey there's a bigger world out there and being a good fencer is not going to get you into university or the workforce" (more's the pity)...
And if we meet a certain Pasir Ris Cres bugger who does NOT have to content with studying for CT2...
Well, to balance that out, our raw fencing skill has also improved since January.... just must see whether we're on form during the tournament lar...
NS Medical Checkup tomorrow... Heading down to CMPB with ChuaH... hope they don't find that I have some med. con. like diabetes or something... As certain people have said, "Ah, if the stick turns BLACK, then you should start worrying".... oh kayyy...
Also is Liling's string concert.... heading down with Enjie tml... First time attending a concert somewhere other than VJ... Hope I don't commit any unforgivable breach of concert etiquette and get myself booted out of the place... No doubt I shall be blogging about the above two activities in the next 72 hours also...
Well, ok I shall stop here... time to sleep goodnight!
~JcZw~ at 10:51 pm