To IMM

At 1, went to Raffles Place to watch Nava and her friends just finish lunch. Got introduced to some of them, XH's boyfriend included =P. We proceeded to Marks and Spencers to disturb one of Nava's classmates who was working there. After many women's lingerie and men's underwear jokes, Nava and me saw them off at the MRT and stopped at Starbucks for a drink, while we waited for Nadiah. Not only did I accquire the wrong beverage, I think I was conned into paying FIVE TWENTY for what tastes like lukewarm Milo dinosaur. Someday, I will open up a cafe called SCAMBUCKS and give my concoctions exotic names like Expresso Latte Chocolate when in truth, it is merely Milo with foam. Had some girly talk with Nava till Nadiah came and we trained to Jurong East Station. We all got annoyed with waiting for the eternity to arrive shuttle bus and walked there instead. Drank mushroom soup as Nadiah and Nava enjoyed tauhu goreng and some char siu mee dish. Shopped for a bit before heading to Secret Recipes to eat salad which I shared with Nadiah. And I think I got scammed again. Mayhap I should start learning how to prepare and cook my own dishes. Was going to walk to the bus-stop with them when we noticed it was pouring outside. Nadiah kindly showed me to the shuttle bus pick up point and I waited for another 45 minutes before the JE bus came. Ironically enough, the buses to Clementi and Boon Lay came before it.

Casino Royale

Wasted the day sleeping and then...CASINO ROYALE! Joseph came late (as usual); perhaps I should buy him a timepiece for his birthday the next time. Entered the cinema late and was a little to surprised to see the sparse audience peppered randomly. Could have chosen better seats but decided to sit back and relax the show. It had all the ingredients of a James Bond Movie: hot girls, cool gadgets, thrilling chases, stylish villians and an added bonus. A Bond who can actually act! I watched Goldeneye the day before yesterday to conclude that Pierce Brosnan is but a handsome face. The free-running sequence at the construction site was explosive! Try picturing a guy climbing up a construction beam with his bare hands several stories high, and traversing an "obstacle course" with the ease of walking. Wish the ending tied up more of the loose ends instead of finishing with "Bond. James Bond", but I guess, it leaves room for a sequel. Maybe I can emulate Sebastian Foucan and attempt jumping over railings and stuff...

More CIP

gOpen up box with penknife. Retrieve wares. Pack wares into Goody Bag. Make Goody Bag Compact. Pack Goody Bag into Box. Seal Box. Shift Box.

Repeat 1012 times.

But this is meaningful, because I'm doing it out of the kindness of my own bleedin' heart =P.

CIP

Sort of got lost at the Singapore General Hospital Campus before I came to the packing place. I saw Ash's brother for the first time! They didn't really alike save for the eyes but it was sure as hell amusing to see them interacting. Met some new RJC people but didn't really talk to them much cus I was thrown into the thick of counting satchels of chocolate drinks. Hek Bing and Joshua seem like nice, easily amused fellows so I think there shouldn't be much of a problem talking to them. My lethargy and semi-conscious state was clearly not conducive for counting purposes and I lost the numbers when Wei Yi arrived. Together, we counted the 400 satchels TWICE and I reliquished saying the numbers altogether as I was beginning to forget. Lunch followed and then. it was back to packing, packing and more packing. Puva and me were hauled up to the office to cut coupons by Mrs Teo, the SNEC person in charge. It was a mind-numbing job and when the silences were drawn out thin and long, I had to interject some witty comment before I suffocated in it. Wei Yi came over despite the rain to deliver the T-shirts just as we finished cutting the coupons. Had a while to discuss about JC life and our plans for university before Mrs Teo returned and hustled us back to the packing place to double check the number of T-shirts. Mrs Teo is a patient, kind woman but I would appreciate if she was more decisive. She kept on oscillating from one decision to the next, keeping us on tenterhooks and wearing our patience thin. At 4.15 it was time for some briefing which I skipped due to persistent lassitude and low levels of awareness of surroundings. On the way home, I bought a T-shirt and got my hair layered. My head feels so much lighter now and no, its not the alcohol working its magic :P.

Back from Beijing

Out of 5 stars, I would give this trip 3 and a half. Gorged myself on dirt-cheap dumplings, sweet and sour fish, Peking Duck, gelato, bird's nest and other delicious food stuff. The places of interest were rather disappointing, with the exception of the Great Wall and Temple of Heaven. The Summer Palace, like most of Beijing, was undergoing renovation or reconstruction in preparation for the 2008 Olympics. Btw, the mascots (Bei, Jing, Huan, Ying, Ni) are ugly. But cute. And can you believe it, the guy who designed them was paid lump sum of one yuan or his efforts. So I looked ahead, expecting to see glittering red ceramic tiles, ornately adored with lifelike dragons. And behold! I see a lot of scaffolding. Bleh. I'll stick with the picturebooks. I sort of noticed Chinese Structures have a distinct pattern for names: Noun -of - Adjective -Noun/Adjective. For example, Hall of Supreme Harmony or Sty of Muddy Tiles (I'm kidding).
Beijing is larger than 2 Singapores; a journey from the North to South can clock 2 hours worth of travelling time on a bad day. You can see bicycles everywhere you turn and on an unrelated note, I think everyone who drives can try stunt driving. It would be nice to see more greenery though but that's just the Singaporean in me feeling jingoistic. Didn't get to buy any T-shirts because all the clothes stores, from the wholesalers to the fashion boutiques seemed to be selling coats, jackets, sweater (winter wear). My mum da-baoed leftovers from our meals to give to the poor and spoiled the moment by saying we should learn to be compassionate like her -_-. The daylight in Beijing is fast fading by 5ish so we were usually back in our situated in the middle-of -nowhere hotel by 6 plus. At least I can comprehend the TV programmes even if I don't quite enjoy them. Though when you're utterly bored, anything goes. Our tour guide lost her purse and with it, all her tips from our fellow tourist companions O_O.

Fencing Chalet

Day 1 or 3 depending on how you look at it

At 7 ish, the mahjong khakis were still awake, not that they actually slept though. They left in Pet's car and there were only 3 people left. Kaye, Pok and me settled for a snooze and for the first time in several days, we had a truly quiet moment. I told Kaye and Pok to go off at 12-ish if they wanted to since Darren said he would come at 2. As it turned out, I spent 2 and a half hours watching a mind-numbing mixture of Kids Central cack and Channel NewsAsia. No wonder they say kids have no creativity these days... A tirade of doorbell rings heralded the arrival of Terence and JX. I had some zzzz time again while they went to the Yatch Club to attempt to steal a boat (not kidding here). Was roused by some loud tapping on the window and guess WHO? It was JX and Terence. Darren came at FOUR and together we watched more Guiness Book of Records. Before that, I showed him the kitchen which smelt as though someone or something died inside. In case you wonder why the turnout was so dismal, it was cus not many people knew about it. In fact, the turnout was so dismal I didn't bother to take photos. Took bus to Tampines Mall and along the way, everyone save me was plagued by Alvin's phone calls and queries. Maybe he was trying to set a world record for most number of phone calls in an hour. Dined at Aijisen and was disturbed verbally by almost everyone excluding Darren. Even two small kids sitting to the tables front and behind had to join in. But JX stole the toy car of one for a moment :P. Played air hockey and decided I really suck at arcade games. Felt lethargic and oddly melancholic hence I left the arcade bunch for home.

Class Chalet: The BBQ

Day 2:

Awoke to see the trio returning and Phil watching TV. Not much action from then till 12ish as after breakfast, everyone but Phil went to sleep, leaving her to play O2 Jam. Phil left around noon as she had been stoning for the past 2 hours with no conscious human company. We watched TV till Larissa,Yun Lin came and in their wake, Zinc, Pok, Balpreet and Jeremy with bags of skewered chicken wings, sting rays and bbq-able food. We split up then, as some stayed behind to watch TV or play console games while the rest travelled to Ubin to cycle.
The Ubin trip was pretty fun; we encountered RI Red Cross (I randomly shouted out to some guy if he was from RI) and someone flipped over in a mishap. Zooming down the slopes was thrilling although the mad, sweaty peddling before that was not. But I reckon it made the descent all the more sweet :).
When we touched down on the mainland, JH and Kang Rui ran to the light the fire as the rest of us strolled leisurely back. I managed to get some candid photos of certain individuals ;). At the chalet, the rest of the lot with several other arrivals were watching the Guiness World Records featuring a man drilling nails through his nose. The DDR was set up soon after and to escape the humiliation of looking like a flurry of arms and legs, I went out to the BBQ area to help out. Caught up with Wu Chien and was glad to see he was still the friendly, carefree guy I knew. Cooked some of the skewered meat and as the daylight waned, people streamed out from the chalet to socialise, eat, drink beer or feed the cats which had been loitering around the area for some time. The SRP people came at 8-ish and Mr Lee still hadn't arrived so I gave him a call to find he was lost in the wilderness of Changi. We ate some DELICIOUS cheese cake which Pet made and as if on cue, Mr Chan and Mr Lee had their grand entrance. With them sated, we dragged them to the dance floor for a DDR show down. They were both sporting and despite the failed attempts, continued dancing gamely. Mr Lee got the hang of it rather fast and outclassed Mr Chan during the VS mode. Played mahjong, DDR (I got Suat to play!!!) and watched the kitchen folk busy preparing more food. The teachers left at 9-ish cus Mr Lee had been invited to the 3M chalet at Tanah Merah.
We headed to Changi Village, leaving behind JH as he was down with fever. Poor chap. Code named "Hersheys" (meant to sound like he-shes and for the more innocent readers, transverstites), they were the targets of our curious eyes. We toured Changi Village for twent y minutes or so. Next up, was pyrotechnics on the beach! With our jar of poppers, we had Kang Rui singing to some National Day theme and the rest of us popping in an imitation of the 21-gun salute. We played with sparklers and wrote 3Q in the sand! All the bright lights brought out pyromanic tendencies in Pok who wanted to pop into the sparklers. Although he did so, with us standing a 3m distance away, there was scarely an additional spark. Another long stroll back to the chalet... Zinc and me HOGGED the DDR and did 30 minutes of workout non-stop! We both did a lot better than before, partly because workout mode was easier and we had learnt to track the beat somewhat. I bathed and chilled out to the clacks of the mahjong tiles and was lulled to sleep by them.

Class Chalet: The Arrival

A Chronological Account

Day 1

The chalet was nice, big and spacious! Extremely conducive for noise making and tom-foolery! It was more of a group chalet as only Kang Rui, Ching Ting, Philana, Jung, Jun How and me were present. We alternated from playing bridge to watching TV to bumming on the king size bed while the laptop hoggers shot aliens and exercised their fingers with O2 Jam. Later, Pam and Kaye came, bringing with them, more glorious food (Packets of Instant Mee and M & Ms)! We watched TV for a bit before watching "My Sassy Girl" on Jung's laptop. It was pretty funny but the sleepy me couldn't quite take it and so went to crash. I realised how thin the chalet walls were when I slept in the furthest bedroom with the door shut and I could hear the characters speaking as clearly as though they were in the same room. Woke up in the evening to the smell of boiled instant mee and clearly, it was dinner time! Played more bridge, watched more TV and I decided to make up for the lack of house work I do; I washed most of the dishes! Pam, Kaye and Jung left later in the night so the remaining 5 of us bummed on the bed, getting into mini-pillow fights, playing Truth or Dare and talking about anything under the sun. Phil got really zonked halfway and went to bed and I followed suit shortly after. The 3 of them played Monopoly an made such racket that Phil shooed them out of the room with a gracefully raised index finger. While we were slumbering, they went to Changi Village and that is all I can say because I did not go with them and so I will let the pictures speak for me :).

What They Did


Romantic Sunrise....

Sabre lessons

There's nothing more annoying than sleeping at 3am, expecting to get a wholesome and well-deserved rest of about 8 hours, but instead getting roused by the strains of the Great Singapore Workout because your condo is conducting some mass exercise day. I'm cool with people getting exercise really, however it does not warrant a wake-up/morning call for the ENTIRE estate. Not like one day of exercise will cut down the obesity rate of Windermere anyway :P.
Cut to sabre lesson later at Juliana's salle. Ate cold lasagne and warm brownies! Did distancing and use the whole piste drills, which I hope I am starting to get a hang of. Fenced pools with my fellow sabreurs. Darren would have pwned everyone but he wasn't there so phew! Fenced Direct Elimination and wrangled wins for all my bouts although the one with Audrey was rather close. Would have had a smaller winning margin for Harold's bout if he had not attempted the newly taught moves that often. Still need to keep on working on disengage, distancing, acceleration and I hope I can muster the willpower to practice them everyday should the weather and my schedule permit.

Hatred

They say blood is thicker than water. I spit on that. I hate her, honestly I do. I don't think I've loathed anyone so much in my entire life. My family is not happy. She makes it worse. I wish on her things I've never wished on others. I wish she was just dead. I hope I'm saying this in a paroxysm of emotional turmoil. Happy families are or is a card game. In reality, they just don't bloody exist.

The Unalloyed Disaster

What you see up there, is an apt and succinct description of my ACTUAL PW Q and A. The presentation was fine I suppose; I didn't stumble or speak too fast and the audience seemed to be engaged. I mean, not like they could be up to any hanky panky right under the noses of the judges. I just hope the judges were looking my way when I was looking theirs, instead of the script. Its an utter shame none of the questions we painstakingly combed the report for and anticipated were asked. Murphy's law at its finest there. The judges clearly didn't take a shine to our project; our solutions were branded as naive and not addressing the crux of the issue. I think I mangled my question.

Q: How would you reconcile the fact that adolescents are likely to create a disturbance if they are attracted to parks and older people go to parks to relax and enjoy the serenity?

A: I think it is a generalisation to say that adolescents necessarily disrupt the peace and serenity... (downhill from then on)

The other group's members said I sounded confrontational and almost dismissive of the judge's opinion. BAAAADDDD. Towards the end of my answer, I began repeating my phrases and "yeahs" and "ums" started to flavor my sentences. I was rather thankful when the judge told me I could stop talking. My classmates said I bordered on the hysterical throughout the course of the presentation, smiling brightly and smothering oh-no-we're doomed giggles.
Went to enjoy MacDonald's breakfast meal with groupmates and classmates after we handed up our file. Submerged my 1 and a half pancakes in hot syrup to take away the bitterness of PW Q and A. I hope I don't die of diabetes in future.
For the rest of the day, it was SLEEP, then fencing training. Fencing as always, was fun.

Sabre Intensive Lesson 1

Only person from RJC till JX came but anyway he's assistant coach -_-. Did the usual warm up and lunge drills but in a deviation from the normal, we didn't do footwork exercises but bladework instead. We did drills to help us judge our hitting distance and it was through such drills I found my lunging was haywire in many ways: speed, order of movement and timing. David then explained to us the key to winning simultanni, which was taking 2 slow and small steps to access the opponent's reaction, before reacting to it. Practiced that drill with Harold, a brand new sabreur, and then decided I needed a LOT more drills before I get the hang of it. While I managed to garner the points sometimes, it was probably because he was slow in his extending his arm, rather than me employing the strategy. Fenced Sivi and clinched a win with a score of 15-12. Must have been rather lucky considering I am worse in her in all aspects. Fenced David and predictably lost even though he was fencing like a novice. Was thankful he was trying to show me the different possible scenarios that could ensue in a bout. My reaction was probably less than up to par..:(. Think I better religiously do lunge drills, footwork and bladework before the next lesson on Sunday.

Lunch at Mad Jack's

After a disastrous Chem SPA I will not go into further detail about, I went to Mad Jack's at Bukit Timah with Nava, the Siaus, Ash and Puva for a well-deserved lunch. We dallied at J8 for a while as people went off to buy bread, visit the loo, enjoy the aircon so I was rather hungry by the time we reached the place. Ash's and mine inital order of baked rice was rejected as they didn't have any more :(. Pity. Have never tried baked rice ever before. Mistakenly ordered a bottle of mineral water as I didn't see the difference between the aforementioned and plain water. We shared a plate of fish and chips that was worth the $6.90 as the fish portions were quite big and defintely crispy and succulent. The fries were just fries. I drenched the entire dish in tartar sauce which we then eagerly attacked. Even the salad, stuff I don't normally consume because I hate vegetables was much more edible then usual. Ash and I were certainly messy eaters as the plate was strewn with food remnants and dollops of tartar sauce.
We split up after the meal; the Siaus to collect their specs, me to home and the rest to Jurong Point for yet another makan excursion =P.