RJ Lit Week

RJ Lit Week is here! A slew of performances by the Lit classes ans some Raffles players, talks and movies are in store! I caught "Othello" today, starring Lincoln, Isabella and Janessa. They were re-enacting the scene in which Othello murders his "faithless" wife, whom he mistakenly suspects is having an affair with his lieutenant, Iago. As they say pictures are worth more than a thousand words, I'll let them speak on my behalf =)...

Cabaret

Cabaret

What good is sitting alone in your room?
Come hear the music play.
Life is a Cabaret, old chum,
Come to the Cabaret.


I am no patron of the arts, but when I saw the trailer on Arts Central one night, I knew I had to watch this. Deliver Cabaret does: The powerful vocals and nuanced acting of the varied cast, the titillating pelvic thrusts and sensual moans of the strutting dancers, the glitzy razzmatazz costumes right down to the illumination of the stage lights. I only wish the slight letdown of an ending could be more fufilling and hopeful. Love does not conquer all here. And that is reality.
Kudos to Emma Yong as the psychotic slut with questionable taste in nail polish (Sally Parker Bowles) and Fei Xiang as the deliciously naughty, sneering and leering Emcee. They were undoubtedly the gems of the show.

RI dramafeste

After a passable GP test, decided on a whim to watch RI dramafeste. $3. And well worth the money I say.
First up, was BB's play on how a son tries to cope with his jailbird father's suicide with the assistance of his psychiatrist friend. I missed part of it as I came late (asking some RI backstage crew for directions). The storytelling was linear and interjected with flashbacks and retrieved memories. In fact, the play ended with a flashback. The acting, while passable, wasn't remarkable and the characters were not well fleshed out. A decent but unfortunately, forgettable play which left little impact on me.
Second, was HH's Before Patient 1; it was on the choice of an estranged son to treat his ailing father, who had walked out on his family and indirectly caused his son to have a permanent limp. The cast of about 9 people was did a wonderful job holding the play together as everyone seemed perfectly suited to their roles: The remorseless and obstinate crippled son, the 2 earnest and competitive medical students, the troubled second son etc. The emotional tension was balanced evenly with welcome moments of dark humor. Didn't quite understand the loosely used medical terminology though. The relevation that the example the doctor was using to teach his students a lesson in medical ethics was actually himself was subtly hidden and slowly unveiled. It was the best of the 3 plays (with MT's following close behind), in my opinion.
Third and last was MT's Because, a tragic retelling of how a mother's death results in a rift between a father and his increasingly mentally disturbed son. (Misery,death and despair...seems to be a common thread in plays). Towards the end, the story lapsed into predictable plus a tad melodramatic cliches and in a move reminiscent of Medea's, concludes with the father shooting his son in an act of mercy. The acting of the cast was more pronounced than that of BB's but slightly weaker than HH's. The co-ordination of lights and the haunting music certainly set and sustained the brooding, melancholic mood of the entire play. I especially liked the 3 "voices in the head". Clad in black and faces painted with white makeup, they sinously prowled around the tormented son, whispering and hissing their insidious poison. I'm not sure how BW's and MR's play will be like and I'm not intending to watch them tomorrow. Think I'll ask Jordan about the plots. As of now, I would like to think MT stands a good chance of winning Best Ensemble or Best Play but things could change tomorrow...

Moor-Tarbet

A plague o' all your houses, they have made worms' meat out of mine.

Interhouse Fencing

Tralalalala! I'm on cloud nine because MT IS CHAMPION FOR INTERHOUSE FENCING FOR BOTH BOYS AND GIRLS! Great job Brian, Matthew and Isaac, you guys really showed those BW ex-fencers something! And I got my fencing T-shirt, tracksuit and patch today too!
The fencing exco was in charge of holding interhouse fencing. The turnout, although much better than I had expected and signup sheets had foretold, was not enough to form a full team for some houses (There were walkovers when it came to HH and BW girls). At the start, things were relatively disorganised and last minute. Some of us hastily set up the boxes, others attempted to get the competitors prepared to fence while the rest were busy labelling the equipment. Several games later, the tempo was more or less set, with several delays due to the lack of or faulty equipment.
All the bouts were incredibly fast, most ending in less than 3 minutes. As skill and experience were precious little for many competitors, aggression, speed and a large dash of luck was crucial for scoring points. The atmosphere was saturated with tension and excitement as the fencers from each house tried their utmost to best their opponents. Raucous cheers and laughter filled the hall as the crowd egged on their respective participants. I got so carried away myself that several times I simply stood at the corner, eyes riveted on the swashbuckling action. Joanna had to remind me to keep on helping the waiting competitors to suit up so things could flow smoothly. Sabre training was carried out as per normal deeper into the hall but it wasn't very interesting, which salved my guilt at not being able to take part =P Reub Yeo and Reub Foo popped by for a moment to view the show before leaving to rehearse their Lit Week sabre bout.
My camera was out of battery =( and I couldn't take any pictures or videos... Dang, it would have been swell to put some of them up for Open house or the fencing blog. In an impromptu prize giving ceremony, Joanna (our guest of honor =P) distributed the trophies to the elated MT winners. At 6.45, the competition and training too were offically over. We had the arduous task of finding Juliana's jackets and britches from a mess (or mass) of stinking, sweaty fencing equipment. It took us about 20 minutes to get all of her equipment and ours too, distinguished from the rest. Each of us took home some of our senior's equipment to wash after putting the rest into the fencing store. I went out to watch Touch Rugyby for a bit before returnin for Joanna's Interhouse fencing debrief. Utterly drained but still buoyant from MT's double golds as I trudged to Bishan MRT alone.

MT ROCKS!!! Oh yeah... =)

Interhouse Basketball

4 hours of sleep and a PE lesson involving some hybrid of handball and net ball. No wonder I was shagged after one game. The sweltering, sweat-inducing afternoon heat did not improve matters. To hammer more nails into the coffin, Moor Tarbet was only 6 strong after Jenna and Nat left for Netball (they did return later) Generally, Moor Tarbet put up a good performance, drawing with Buckle Buckley and Morrison Richardson. It beat Hadley Hullet with a decisive 16 point gap and walk over with Bayley Waddle as no-one turned up. My goals were all hook shots and I didn't really get to handle the ball much. Every house had some formidable basketball players that posed a challenge, which Clara, MT's basketball player, would gamely set out to tackle. She saved our game from the jaws of defeat on many occasions. Way to go Clara! Sup, Natalie, Jenna, Kelly, Rachel, Jeannifer, MT would never have been second without our combined efforts! I did not play Jing Yi, my neighbor from Buckle Buckley, as we were in different halfs. The games were relatively clean and had few or almost no fouls. On the next basketball court, the adrenalin pumping guy matches were peppered with fouls and expletives, especially when the lead was narrow and the time was racing away fast. I left the basketball court after watching MT clinch a narrow one point victory over BW; they were still in the lead having won all their games, so I'm assuming they beat HH and got first =)! Went up to the parade square to watch Netball (MT was doing so well, lost one match and drew one as of then). Met Darren and chatted with him about Lit Week and Reub's party till we split at the traffic light. Was thoroughly worn out by the basketball game and tutorials relentlessly await when I return home...

Reub's surprise party

After 3 hours of mugging Chem, my good old pa drove me to East Coast Park. Darren had planned a surprise party for Reuben on the pretext of going cycling with him. At Macs, I chanced upon a group of CAPpers when Ben Soh came over to speak to me, but I did not join them as I wasn't too chummy with them. Waited for a bit when I met Kenny, Mickie and Ryan D. I chatted with Mickie to pass the time and befor we knew it, an hour and a half had past. Kalps and Sarah came over then, and we headed to the underpass to surprise Reuben, who would be supposedly appearing in 10 minutes. Some of them stuck candles to the cake while we...waited some more. 30 minutes later, Reuben and Darren arrived and we sang the birthday song to the melodious strains of Ryan's guitar. Reub seemed genuinely astonished (at least to me since he's quite a good actor)and touched as well. Look's like he truly believed Darren's ludicrous story about being captured on Gotcha. No idea he could be that gullible =)! We walked to Macs and splayed out our chips and chocolates and goodies on the table for consumption. Reub broke his birthday pie and distributed it to all of us. He was chewing on it when he suddenly said he tasted wax. But as Darren puts it "Ignorance IS bliss!" =). Chng popped by and gave Reuben a tiny pair of shoes (small feet), in reciprocation for Reub and Darren's birthday gift to him (a big doormate in the shape of feet) Spent the rest of the evening bantering about anything and everything. Darren and Ryan D provided entertainment in the form of guitar music. Both of them sang and strummed to the close scrutiny of our eyes. Liked Darren's singing of Rent, despite not knowing how the song sounds. Perhaps I'll pick up strumming...someday =P. Towards 9, people were beginning to leave in dribs and drabs and we all vacated Macs at about 9.45. Kenny's brother, Justin, kindly drove Kalps, Chng and me to Bedok MRT. It probably took 20 minutes off travelling time and saved 55 cents on my ezlink card. Trained and chatted with Kalps till she got off at City Hall.

Pirates of The Carribean

Went to West Mall with Joseph to catch the 10.00am show of Pirates of the Carribean. It more or less lived up to my expectations with the potent mixture of action, romance, adventure and other ingredients. The convoluted plot twists kept the audience guessing and by the end of the movie, some issues were still unresolved. The cliffhanger of an ending strongly hints at a sequel (in this case, the end to the swashbuckling trilogy) andI hope it'll be a good finish to story. The flaws were that some jokes fell flat and certain scenes seem to serve no purpose apart from providing an adrenalin rush. All in all, it was worth the $9.50. Ate dumpling soup for lunch and chatted idly with him at the food court before going to the food fair on the first level. Shared a big box of Mua Chee and we were both thoroughly stuffed when we were done. Parted ways at Bukit Batok MRT station, he to SA for his seminar and me to home to attend to those clamoring tutorials...

BPGH Concert

Watched Re-cycle, Pang brother's latest horror offering with Nava at J8. Not your run-of-the-mill horror movie though, as the fantasy element stood out quite a bit. Had some fun spotting the references to Silent Hill, Mirrormask, the Ring and a range of other movies. The scares were mostly well timed and the haunting visuals set the desolate mood of the mysterious alternate reality superbly. The flaws would be the cheesy emotional scenes and certain other parts, which slowed down the pace of the movie and evoked laughter (probably not the intended purpose) from the audience. The ending was however, a bit of a let-down... It was worth the 7 bucks, more so after they threw in a $2 off on movie tickets voucher =).
Trained with Nava to Somerset, where I alighted and proceeded to Hereen for window shopping. Met Rong'en at Raffles Place MRT at 7 and together, we strolled to VCH to catch Beauty and the Beast, a musical by BPGH. Overall, the musical was fine. The actors were relatively at ease palying their parts and were even more natural then the emcees. The costumes were appropriately periodic and did not take away too much attention from the audience, Clever tongue in cheek references to recent events (Zizou's headbutting of Materrazi ) had the viewers in stitches. The singing, while recorded occasionally and inaudible sometimes due to technical faults I believe, was fairly melodious. On the downside, the performance was marred by poor coordination of the lights, several bloopers by the actors and choppy transistion from one scene to another. Even so, the CO performances, rousing dances and hilarious video by BPGH media club and lastly the merits of the actual performance itself made up for it all. I got a free rose from some BPGH students which I then gave to Aisha, one of my accquaintances (we met through CAP). Left VCH alone since Rong' en was to be meeting his friends and sleepily endured the journey back...

Fencing and Frisbee

We played frisbee for inter-class games during PE today. Our class stood out like a sore thumb, being the only Bio class out of a horde of Physics classes. And the team was sorta imbalanced, 6 girls and 2 guys in ours and the reverse gender ratio for 6S and 6M. But we fought with zest, zeal and a little dirtiness (mud:) ) thus scraping a 0-0 draw and sadly, a 0-1 loss.
Speed up the day to Fencing training, my favourite part of the day :P. This session wasn't as memorable or exciting as previous ones. Maybe a relatively serious exco meeting regarding the interhouse fencing publicity campaign made me more morose... We did distancing drills and footwork drills (no PT yet, thank you David :) ), followed by pools for the girls. It was one of the rare trainings since the start of June that all the girls were present and I wish every training could be like that. But with the advent of H3, attendance has become spotty. The guys got to spar electric whereas David trained Reub Foo one on one. Following pools, David let me spar with him, his handicap being his usage of the left hand. Despite my fervent attempts, I managed to hit him only several times while he garnered many hits on me. Well, in any case, it was enlightening experience. Each bout I fence tells me I have so much more to work on. Hopefully, I can go up several notches before Pesta Sukan arrives...

An oily PE lesson

I would much rather have played a game of bball or floorball, despite my dislike for it, but NO..they had to to give us a lesson on sports massage. The demonstration by the PE teacher was already highly amusing; Gina was alternately giggling and squealing in pain from the pressure she was applying. I thought that the sensual way her dextrous fingers travelled up Gina's thigh was rather..artistic (open to many intepretations :) ). OK nvm... To our mortification, the PE teacher told us that we had to find a partner to perfom the massage procedure on us. Feeling a little tired so I lay down and let Shu Yi treat me first. The moment she began slathering the aromatic oil on my legs I was captured by a paroxysm of uncontrollable giggles. Yes, maybe I not only have funny bones, but funny muscles too :P. We decided beforehand to massage on leg only so we would spend less time washing it off. The massage wasn't too bad, but I was't greatly refreshed or revitalised by it. Sleep, not massage, works wonders for me. When it was Shu Yi's turn, she too was sent into a fit of laughter by my nimble strokes. Think I hit her legs a little too hard for the chopping motions though :S. By the time all of us were done, the dance studio floor was pretty much coated with oil. Then the next bombshell, "We don't want the dancers to slip and fall during practice so can you wipe up the oil with your socks?" EWWWWW.... Floorball anytime man, seriously :)

PW Parco Trip!

Met Kaye at Bugis MRT before going to National Library to scan the microfilms for newspaper articles that could possibly help us. A very helpful and amiable librarian assisted the clueless us with the handling of the machines. We initially intended to cover 2 years worth of Straits Times, but on seeing that one year already consisted of 40+ rolls of micro film (3/4 a cabinet), we wisely decided to shorten it to the first half of 2006.
The machines were userfriendly, but since I'm not very IT savvy person, I bungled up and the whole roll of film ended up unwinding. Thankfully Kaye saved the day, by extracting the film out and laboriously rolling it back into the reel. Scanning through the black and white of the film gave me a mild headache after a while, their jarring stark outlines indelibly etched in the slate of my mind. Soon after, Kaye noticed that the computers outside could be used to source for information too, at a rate of 3 cents per minute. All that after using the microfilm for slightly over an hour, but I reckon better late than never. The librarian helped me to check if either of us had signed up for a database account previously, and I was immensely astonished to discover I had an account since 2002. I think I must have created it out of sheer fun because I'm addressed as Mr Florenzo, an architect with a salary below $20'000.. O_o. We met Shu Zhang and went to Level 8 to look for reference books on parks and gardens. Photocopied several pages of notes and got a haul of fantasy books from the teenage section.
Next stop, Parco's fountain, to conduct interviews and shoot videos of kids frolicking in the waters. Luck was with us for we snagged 3 interviews with relative ease; a pair of security guards, woman in red and man in red. To add on, all of them gave answers that were favourable to our project (no we didn't threaten or bribe them or anything :) ). I attempted to take photographs of the man in red without his knowledge and somehow, despite my pretty poor disguising skills, he did not see realise that anything was amiss at all. Our PW had been finished for the day and we prowled Parco in search of a skirt (on my wishlist) I eventually bought one from an OP sale for $10. Must really thanks Shu Zhang and Kaye for so patiently touring Parco with me, despite their agendas and rummaging through the veritable stack of clothes to find the floral printed XS skirt I coveted :P. Do I look forward to the next PW outing!

Chocs and fencing

Mr Lee was really sweet today! I was running to the Entre booth to see what the big hoo-ha and chanced upon him contemplating which chocolate packet to buy. He let me choose one to share with the class =)! Upon Yin qi's persuasion I bought some candy floss and shared it with Xin Hui, Jin Rou and Shi Min.
Fast forward to fencing training because the rest of the day as most school days are, was uneventful. Darren wasn't here as he was doing lights for SYF drama so Reub suggested he be substitute captain -_-. We went to the fencing store to wait for Mr Teo and play a trick on JX. Reub tried to shut me in and I got inspired :P. When JX went in, we shut the door on him and refused to release him till he promised to treat us. The meeting commenced soon and Mr Teo brought some white macademia nut chocs for us all =). Settled boring and serious meeting stuff which I will not put here for the sake of preserving confidentiality. Did parry-riposte drills with Joanna followed by speed-change drills with Charmaine. Watched the guys fencing round-robin for a bit, Reub Yeo is pretty zai...he beat everyone save for JX (he was presiding) at pools, even the pro Reub Foo! Fenced Charmaine, Joanna, Yu Hua, Nicole and Box round-robin next. Lost to my seniors Nicole and Box 5-3 and 5-0 respectively. My blade control and beat blade needs a lot of polishing up; Box kept on doing parry-ripostes on me :(. Shared Mr Lee's Hershey chocs with the sabre people so they would be happier and have more energy to fence =)! Next week we get to fence David, never mind the obvious one-sided result! Can't wait...
Walked to Bishan Mrt with Reub Yeo, chatting about BW house and other stuff... Was informed that RP got Gold for SYF. (YAY!) Congratulations to all involved =)! Parted ways at the MRT since he went to J8 to buy something before meeting the RP people while I had to get home.

causality

The philosophical concept of causality, the principles of causes, or causation, the working of causes, refers to the set of all particular "causal" or "cause-and-effect" relations. A neutral definition is notoriously hard to provide since every aspect of causation has received substantial debate. Most generally, causation is a relationship that holds between events, objects, variables, or states of affairs. Causality presumes that all those things much have at least one cause,factor, or reason. It also usually presumed that the cause chronologically precedes the effect. Finally, the existence of a causal relationship generally suggests that - all other things being equal - if the cause occurs the effect will as well (or at least the probability of the effect occurring will increase).
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I was in the throes of indecision, wanting and not wanting, hoping and not hoping, when you, the revenant in red, sealed it for me. So it is then...

nadir

i read too much into
things
words taunt
smiles mock
glances thaw
festering

spread them out
like bones bleached
in the pale sun

and the maelstrom
in my mind
persists

no longer i can never wear my heart on my sleeve

The divine cookie

During one of the numerous breaks, Suat kindly offered to get us some cookies which me and Jay ( cookies not good!) kindly declined in return. We were idling as usual when Jay lo and behold! Spotted a dark chocolate Subway cookie lying in front of us all along! What can I say? It had to be a divine sign that it was meant for us! Clearly, They wanted us to devour it with ravenous relish and not make Suat share her's with us gluttons. We kindly offered to share the cookie with the rest, which they all kindly demurred. Chomp Chomp Chomp then...and only crumbs were left lying.
Another interesting incident occurred today. CT and me stepped into the MRT and there was this man ranting and raving about schools. I for a moment flirted with the thought that he was talking on the handphone and paid him no further mind. CT and me traversed to the side doors and were innocently minding our own business when he turned around and started talking to us in his purposefully, very loud voice, about the education system and the government. He started broadcasting his sometimes politically radical views to everyone on the MRT while CT and me exchanged looks of bemusement. I wasn' sure if he was unhinged or simply trying to emulate Chee Soon Juan. Was attempting to tell CT to get off at the next stop and later realised she wanted to tell me to move away from that spot. In any case, he resolved the issue for us by moving away, much to my relief. There are other ways to express views without implicating others, try Speaker's Corners maybe...

Beach bash and birthdays

Nadiah, Nava, Ash and me chose to be beach babes or bums for today and visited the sparkling white sands and sun-dazzled azure waters (sounds like a tourist brochure huh? :P) of East Coast Park. It was a long MRT ride, but I wasn't too bored cus we were doing what girls do best, Gossip! We weren't too sure exactly how to get there, but a nice, helpful Malay boy led us most of the way. Upon arriving, Nava and me took to the sea almost immediatly, while Ash and Nadiah stayed on the shore, taking random shots and laughing at our antics.
It was a pleasurable feeling to feel the kiss of the water on our skin and sway as the waves washed us in. I nearly lost my green slippers when a sudden rush knocked them off my feet. My short attention span had me getting restless in no time and I retrieved some floating kelp and dumped it on Nava's head =P! Went back to the shore to engrave our names on the sand and enlose them in a heart shape (no, we're not lesbian :) ). Nava and me indulged in sand-slinging for a bit, with her getting it mostly on her hair, and me getting it almost all over. At 1 plus, we left the beach to wash up (Nava took eons cus her hair trapped kilos of sand particles =P ).
Next on the itinerary was lunch at Far East Plaza. After buying some snacks and drinks from 7-11 and a bubble tea shop, we met up with Puva and Siau Xi at BK. Nava bought Nad birthday sandw1ches (No cakes for her, they're fattening) and we sang as she blew out the lighter flame (no candles :P). Rui joined us shortly after and we ate again, a proper lunch this time, at Tanah Rose restaurant.
Rui had to meet her fellow canoeists for team dinner thus being such good friends, we accompanied her to Wheelock place. Saw Muddy and Vanessa amongst the canoeists, long time no see folks! We bid goodbye to Rui and gallivanted at Borders, attempting to find the elusive Kamasutra, -_- (Nava's idea). Since Nad wanted to get home as quick as possible to feed her hungry bro, we all trained back at 5 plus.

Fencing makes my day

The school day is drab, dull. Fencing trainings are the sparkles that brighten and spice it up. They send me into a high of delirium as the adrenalin rushes with my blood. Must be the enjoyable interacting with the people I can hit on so well with, even better than some of my classmates.
I attempted to teach Joanna some of the new techniques and drills we had learnt and practiced since the start of the holidays and skipped the sabre lunch as a result. Think I was rather impatient and gave her short shrift at times because I naturally have a low threshold of patience and did not sleep too early the night before. We practiced the drills for about an hour before talking about all kinds of random topics, from David's girlfriend to the U-17s. After a while, Jing Xun, Darren and Reub came and we compared our common test results. From what it seems, I don't think I'll be alone during Chemistry Remedial =P! Misery indeed loves company. Laughed at Darren's new haircut, commenting now he looked as bad as Reub, which got me the finger from them both. They threatened to lock my fencing stuff inside the PE store, but I had already taken it outside earlier when I was meeting Joanna :P.
For once, we did not do bladework and footwork drills at the start of fencing. We did distancing drills instead, with the rules being a maximum of 3 steps and a lunge and yellow cards given for parrying, bad posture and crossing legs. Best of all, blade contact is banned. Was tired out after scraping 2 narrow wins against Joanna and Yu Hua.
We moved on to electric fencing not long after. It was essentially the same drill except that we were now wired up. When Darren asked me to help him clip, I mistakenly clipped it to the back of his lame instead of the side of it -_-. My incredible blurness strikes again! Fenced with Charmaine 5 points since Dar and Reub had finished and it was a really close fight, which ended 4-5. Learnt that despite comments from the coaches or referees or anyone else, fencing has to continue. Distraction only serves to lose your momentum. Sun Lu fenced someone else following us and gained 2 points in rapid succession with his speedy lunges. But the punchline was when he overbalance, fell and the person tried to go for the kill. Sun Lu gamely stuck out his blade and ended up getting the point :P, sending all of us into guffaws of laughter. Dar and Reub went again and JX got suited up to electric fence. No-one appeared to one to fence him so I decided to give it a shot :P. Given my severe lack of experience, I was given a huge advantage. One light his point, two lights automatically mine. It was a challenge for him to hit me without getting hit and the final score was 5 - 2 in my favor thanks to a big dose of luck. Reub took perverse pleasure as quoted from JX in saying Counter-attack No when two lights came on :P. Still, that bout was quite a sham.
Did some free-fencing with JX and he was being nice and sweet. I managed to get 4 points of him before succumbing to a quick attack. Presided for Reub and Dar and as always, the score between them was fairly close. Did some sparring with Reub (my nemesis, I can never seem to score points off him :( ), and got struck many times in a row with the same trick. My distance keeping needs to be more consistent and I have to stop parrying while stationery. Hand speed is also really slow... :(. Sparred with Darren, JX (5-15), and Joanna before calling it a day, it was already 7+. The 4 of us trooped to the canteen to cool down and hydrate ourselves before leaving for our homes... It has been a fruitful experience; every bout has a lesson to teach as it exposes your shortcomings.

Speak of the Devil

An EXTREMELY hilarious incident occurred today... We were all waiting outside A45 for Econs to commence when Suat and Kaye began talking about our new GP teacher, Mr Lee.

Chat transcript

Florence: Suat, you looked so exasperated just now!

Suat: I was exasperated! He's so irritating!

Kaye: Worse than Mr Teo

Suat: Actually Mr Teo isn't that bad...

Kaye: Hi Mr Teo!

*Mr Teo walks past, with an unfathomable stare at them*

Gavan: You were saying?

I couldn't help but crack right up laughing. Talk about speak of the devil. I wonder what surprises Maths Tutorial will hold in store for Suat and Kaye =P...

New GP teacher

School resumes. I felt it more strongly today cus in place of Commons, we had *GASP* lessons! Off to a great start by paying attention during Chem lecture and things gradually went down hill after Maths Lecture (I forgot my notes, so read my fantasy book :)). The rest of the lessons were mostly uneventful save for GP where we finally caught a glimpse of our GP teacher. A nice enough quirky fellow it would appear, maybe its a trademark of all philosophy teachers (I KNEW it does things to your mind). Prone to histronics and amusing monolouges, which is a good sign as it would bode more GP lessons that I DO pay attention in. Mr Lee is more serious than Mr Khoo when it comes to discipline, and has a stickler for respect for the speaker. So goodbye to all those side comments, eating in class, listening to mp3 and other little misdemeanours that Mr Khoo has so tolerantly condoned all this while. We're all gonna have an interesting time for the next 1 and a half years I daresay...
Fencing brought a shock when Henry said that the school had passed a rule ending all CCA trainings from next week onwards on the pretext of giving us more time to study. It is utterly nonsensical and completely ridiculous! The J2s had few problems coping with their CCA despite the promos and technically, since our syllabus is cut, we should have even less stress then they did! I shall have to content myself with the fact that the school works in mysterious ways unbeknowest to us all -_-. Had PT and was rather tired out by the first half an hour or so. Reuben came late and we all voted unanimously for him to do lunges for a minute and a half. Misery does love company :)! We did circular blade whacking drills for the next hour or so and resulted in some of us getting blisters. (ouch! :( ) I will be savouring the next training since it will possibly be one of the only few where most of us will be present, training TOGETHER. It's gonna be harder to foster the spirit of co-operation and camaraderie with people attending trainings in dribs and drabs due to H3 and various other commitments... Sigh, the halcyon days are already fast fading into the dust...

Movie marathon!...ok not really

Went to PS to watch Silent Hill then 4.30 by Royston Tan with Lestari. Upon coming out of the station, was plesantly surprised to be accosted by Xi-an who was off to watch King and the Clown with her classmates. Chatted with her for a while before meeting Lestari at the GV ticketing counter. Out of the 2 movies, I preferred Silent Hill for a rather superficial reason, the special effects :P. Despite the savage mauling the critics gave it (2 out of 5 stars), I thought it was a pretty decent movie. The storyline was intriguing, never mind the logic loopholes, (its a scare-fest after all), the CGI was convincing, the acting was relatively well-executed and the atmospheric music set the eerie mood throughout the entire movie. Let's not forget the cringe-inducing yet necessary gore which I felt was tastefully inserted. The ending was a bit of a let-down though, not that most horror movies have conclusive or happy finishes. We left cinema 4 only to enter cinema 6 for 4.30. True to its arthouse film nature, the film had MINIMAL dialouge and many long sweeping shots of emotive actions (Xiao Wu with tears streaming down his cheeks, the Korean tenant contemplating whether to smoke) .But it acheived the purpose of exhibiting the loneliness and occasional deviant behaviour that stems as a result, that Xiao Wu suffers from. Some things in the film are left unexplained, like why the Korean tenant leaves without tell Xiao Wu and why there is school in December, but there are fragments of hints to allow the viewers to make their own decision. The poignant ending, which I will not disclose, does provide some sense of closure to the story, though not to the multitudes of queries and thoughts in my mind...

Extra Fencing Training

Read, slept and then geared up for my first lesson of extra fencing with David. Pleasantly surprised to see not only Joon Faii but Alvin and Jun Hao as well, thought I would be the only one from RJ training. Did bladework with David one-to-one almost continously for about 30 minutes. It was generally fine except that 2 bad habits kept resurfacing: 1. Upward Lunging Motion 2. Inverse L-shape. And it would seem, my balance is as good as a ship on a choppy sea -_-. Felt rather exhausted and sweaty by the end of it all, an indicator that I need to work on stamina. Chatted with Julian a bit, than sparred with her electrically, with Alvin presiding. Manage to scrape a victory with a VERY strong albeit somewhat unfair handicap (one light her point, two lights mine). I was a lot less aggressive than usual and the will to attack seemed to have diminished slightly. Maybe it's because this isn't a competition scenario. Or perhaps I decided to be more of a thinker, instead of just blindly lunging to obtain a simultanni. Vacillitated from practicing a fast attacking motion to watching some of the foilists spar. Foil does appear relatively interesting, in a different way from sabre of course... If opportunity permits, I'll try my hand at it sometime. Got a soya bean drink to replenish my thirst, bid goodbye to David and watched Jun Hao and Faii spar with Henry (foil coach). No prizes for guessing who won =p... Departed for home soon after, brimming with thoughts and notions...

Paradise Found...

within yellowed parchment pages and honeyed words, do i gallivant and grace worlds enchanted with all things, strange, wonderous and infinitely beautiful. you may sinfully indulge in flagons of sapphire wine, or rise above all, to bite the Sun. you may tread on the hallowed path of the Downward Spiral and rot, only to find yourself more whole and replete than ever before... Paradise was not lost, it has never been lost... It does not wane with the falling of the golden grain in the hour glass, but starves, etiolated as They choose to seek it cheaply elsewhere