Saturday, November 29, 2008.

so there was rise camp, of which i must say i had a great time hanging out with the juniors after dunno how long. it's always nice to see familiar faces.

and thursday.

and friday.
yeah went for YO concert with 4B people (patrick jerald jieliang junsheng kenneth me), while jerald brought along david and austin.

to be honest the concert had a slightly above-average 1st half and a 2nd half that blew me away. the bruch was nice (good job jonkoh), while saint-saëns was ok lah. khachaturian had energy but somehow something was missing here or there.

copland was just WOW. really. besides the slight rushing (but who cares!). really now that i think about it i know why appalachian spring ranks as one of my top 25 listened-to pieces in my 47GB itunes. really it's a beauty, and it was nice. WONDER HOW SOME PEOPLE CAN SLEEP THROUGH THIS. mug too much delf already ah.

then weinberger blasted us all apart, really. the off-stage trumpets kinda caught me off guard, and the crazy organ (finally someone uses the vch organ! =D) entrance was wow. really, why didn't i ever listen to this before.

and there was of course, a happy christmas and a merry new year, sung by someone's someone. erhem.

so after that we followed jonshin to rochor beancurd (yeah why was it even there in the 1st place, i thought it was supposed to be somewhere near raffles place.) and had some fun there, BESIDES all the nonsense about me.

sometimes i wonder why a class like 4B, the genius class as claimed by teachers and parents and students alike, can contain people who are so deluded into thinking that (shan't say.).

sometimes ah. you must realise that i'm short you know.

yeah.

anyway i need to start mugging JLPT. i realised at the rate i'm going that i'm going to die from under-mugging. so.

Labels: Life

{ 9:08 PM }

Tuesday, November 25, 2008.

ok fine, just so that they don't complain,

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the 2 other Geoggers in 4B, barry and dennis!

wow they have the same bdae lol.

wonder who the 3rd and last geogger is. :D

anyway i have been relatively inactive on internet mediums cause of 2 things:
1 - rise night game, which is tmr night (aka im staying overnight there.)
2 - rp attachment (material sci) with the 3 other in-singapore-and-not-yet-mentioned 4BchemRA people.

it's fun really. BESIDES the grain/brain thing and whatnot.

so we spent ONE whole hour talking just about names, on how genevieve is a cool-sounding french name, how tony should name his daughter (or for that matter anyone whose surname is Li/Lee) Lily Li(Lee) Li Li (lol that's so corny.) and how japanese names just look WEIRD in chinese.

some of the more spectacular names in 4B:
Jerald Han Bojian
Benjamin Yong Zhiyi
Kenneth Yong Zhiyi

wonder what those 3 would have to say.

*feels jerald slapping me*

anyway went to mind cafe on mon RIGHT after rp attachment (which has A LOT OF PLAYTHINGS, including a thing that can stretch your hair, x-ray stuff and human hand bones), and came a BIT too late (no it was just very late =D). it's a nice place leh, and there's even a 20% discount at Safra Tampines!

4B, who wants to go there?

*feels slaps all over*

ouch.

(rant)WHY MUST I BE LIKE THE ONLY PERSON LIVING IN THE FAR EAST IN 4B?(/rant)

should start mugging jlpt, to prove the eoy screw-up was a fluke. =D

Labels: Life

{ 9:29 PM }

Wednesday, November 19, 2008.

was in rjc for rjce rehearsal. (yes li jinghui you ponned it)

wasn't that much of a foreign place, seeing as i knew all the ri guys (that effectively meant also 1/2 of the rj people) and a few rgs people.

rather fun though (the icebreakers) but then again some people weren't exactly very keen on the games.

anyway rhsl was quite interesting, with 5 flat-sightreading stuff and random shosty stuff (then again i like shostakovich, so =D)

something nasty happened during break, and THANK YOU YONG ZHIYI YOU HAVE A VERY SMALL MOUTH.

on a side note, i'm glad you're ok now.

Labels: Life

{ 8:40 PM }

Tuesday, November 18, 2008.

ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls and everyone in between, the class of 4B'2008 present to you:

4B TUITION CENTER!

'tis where you get every kind of tuition there is in the world. your one-stop supply of tuition begins and ends here!

we offer:
english
chinese
vietnamese
german
french
japanese
malay
indonesian
thai (lol xD)

art
music
computer studies

mathematics
biology
chemistry
physics
geography
history
literature in english
literature in chinese
social studies

drums
violin
piano
cello
guitar
timpani
voice

redcross skills
npcc skills
scouts skills

soccer
basketball
rugby
hockey
judo
gymnastics
athletics

and now for the weirder subjects:
swearing in english
swearing in chinese
sleeping
anime-watching
psp-playing
flirting in english
flirting in thai
body-building
body-destroying
CLE
particle studies
clean hamster studies
dirty hamster studies
PRPP
MarvelVSCapcom
DotA
Generals
O2 Jam
xbox360 mastery
cca-ponning
cca-leading

and the most elusive class of them all:
art of thinking.

hurry! do not hesitate, for 4B Tuition Center is the market leader in providing quality tuition to everyone that needs it!

Sign up with any 4B member, and all queries will be directed to Mr. Chantharakulpongsa.

Labels: class

{ 10:16 PM }

Monday, November 17, 2008.

AHH MY STUPID LOUSY LASTED-FOR-TWO-MONTHS-YET-COULD-STILL-SCREW-UP-SO-FAST HANDPHONE IS SPOILT. so it's now being sent for repair and yes, that means that that EVEN-MORE-LOUSY-HANDPHONE-THAT-RESTARTS-ITSELF-EVERY-5-MINUTES is going to accompany me for the next week or so. what luck.

anyway, people have been thinking about life and relationships in general (and side note: I DO NOT HAVE A RELATIONSHIP WITH A CERTAIN PERSON, UNLIKE WHAT SOME DELUDED (pardon me for using that word when it's meant for hbj only) CLASSMATES THINK. zzz.).

when people need help with some issues in life, we go up to them and offer them help.

yeah my help isn't useful i can guarantee you that.

but i know that everytime someone confides in me i can see the weight lifting off that person's shoulders. that's cause i've done it too, and i felt it before.

it's a way that friends help each other. one gives and receives right? so while receiving other's favours (burden as others may put it), one must also try his/her best to help and give.

because when you give, you feel joy. joy that the person now doesn't feel as horrible as before, that you managed to brighten his/her day (even if it may be just a miniscule amount).

just persevere, ok? that's what friends are for.

Labels: Life

{ 10:33 PM }

so i was in malaysia for the weekend yes so if you tried to contact me im so sorry i didn't reply cause i don't have roaming.

and i learnt:

causeway customs is like a zero-order reaction - there's bound to be a bottleneck.

(sorry for the random chem insert there.)

speaking of chem, i shall make nigelfong jealous (if his honour would even spend time reading this lousy blog):

Suria KLCC's Kinokuniya was selling books at DIRT-CHEAP prices.

and those textbooks i found in nus co-op were going for at least S$60 cheaper there!

so duh, i bought 3 chem textbooks (i sincerely apologise if anyone hates chem)

and 2 cds.

i have this stupid irritating habit of buying cds everytime i go to a different country. so far i got one from japan, US etc.

feeling tired now. I WANT TO GO OUT FOR SOME CLASS OUTING SO CAN HAMSTER AND CHAIRMAN COME BACK NOW.

Labels: Life

{ 12:00 AM }

Thursday, November 13, 2008.

and wep has finally concluded.

actually, besides the LACK OF PAY, wep was actually a rather cool programme you know! it's a way to feel how the outside world is like, where there are no 4Bs, irritating superiors that nag at you and hidden cameras all around you so you can't break rules. otherwise, i made quite a number of friends there (not only RI or other schools, but people who are like 30-something-ish), and interacted with a number of people.

including a few ex-RI guys, one of which was a client of morgan stanley (or so it seemed).

he very kindly asked about the state of RI now, and i grimly answered, as honest as possible. the discipline had vanished, competition was no longer too friendly, theft and dishonesty was all abound etc.

he was taken aback.

i asked him why, and his reply left me stunned. he said, ri then was a wonderful school with wonderful friends, keen but friendly competition, and very very strong friendships and class spirit.

he added, that weekend he was due for a class gathering. imagine, he graduated from ri in '84! and they still make it a point to have a class gathering, 24 years from their graduation year!

i know and i trust 4B will (and can) match and even better that, but i'm just disappointed in ri as a whole now. i'm sorry i sound very evil, un-patriotic and an idiot, but i miss the school that was there a few years back.

anyway as usual i was bored, so:

morganstanley?!

what do you get when you mix a bunch of stirrers, a class-sick person and a lot of time?

a nicer photo of essentially the same thing.

anyway this was inspired by shneg, who wrote the names of all of us when he was bored in a classroom during oip.

jlpt lesson was unanimously disastrous for us, as we learnt that if you don't study for jlpt you might as well donate your $45 to charity. it was really screwed.

won't be around for the weekend.

Labels: Life

{ 8:43 PM }

Wednesday, November 12, 2008.

having read different blog posts, i myself find it difficult to give up 4B '08. it's easier said than done, really, and i nearly cried on the job on monday.

but there's an easier way to visualise it:
4B '08 lasts till the end of 2008. that means, there are 2 more months left, even though many of us may not be available. use those 2 months well and fast, and we won't miss our class that much anymore.

anyway we graduate on the 31st of december right?

according to the apr crap i received today.

anyway APRs are wonderful stuff for statisticians - a lot of weird stuff come out.

1 - a 99 for Math1 EOY is a 70-79 percentile - 20% of the cohort got full marks?!

2 - cBw's Lit CA was 74, EOY was 74 and his overall was 76?!

yeah and weirder stuff will soon appear.

as i described to jeremysia, if you were to graphically represent my gpa it would look like a trench.

beside the 2.8 lie the 3.6s, and beside both 3.6s are all 4.0s. so you get a rather nice trench, which looks cool.

anyway it's always the same 3 subjects i phlail in. chinese is always 71, ss always misses by narrow margins (2/3 marks) and jap always dies.

anyway i am currently an employee of Mandarin Oriental Singapore, and the worst part of the WEP is NOT:

1) not being paid
2) getting owned by everyone
3) standing for 8 hours w/o chair

but:
not being able to eat the SUPER-TEMPTING food even if it's right in front of your nose.

sucks right?

but actually it's quite fun, some guests even know im not a worker but a student! that's like, so cool.

Labels: Life

{ 9:01 PM }

Monday, November 10, 2008.

the inevitable post on grad nite must come.

first, a summary of the day:
i arrived slightly late (3:20) and only helped out in a few areas, while spending some time playing bridge and/or a$$hole dai di (it's not bad playing 6-player! i was like, queen, for dunno how long? =D).

that obviously wasn't the fun part.

sneaked off to esplanade library for 15 min with renyong around 6 to settle some stuff (it still hasn't been settled, rarh.) then got myself a drink or two before the camwhoring session started. photos on fb, but i'll try to upload the best of the best (obviously all the unglam ones =D) here.

then was the whole thing, as planned. food wasn't worth it to be honest, but the $65 isn't just for food (DUH.) "nice" songs came up (as usual i just stoned), and the smaller highlight of the day was the -insert adjective here-est man award.

AND.

BOJIAN GOT THE "BEST DRESSED" AWARD! =DDDDDDDDDDD

actually i dunno why we started nominating him for the "Most Uniquely Dressed" award, but apparently Keng Yong and co. thought it was Best Dressed we were going for, so they dragged him on stage 1 award too early. BUT. BUT. we just went mad cheering like siao, and in the end he won it (i think the emcees were also a little shocked at the noise coming from the 2 tables in the middle of nowhere lol. isn't it good to have loudhailers like kenneth and me? then can win more prizes =D)

and FONG won the "Best Hairstyle" award (i feel honoured to be the 1st person to congratulate him xD). See, his hairgel has something special about it, doesn't it?

anyway then the best part of the whole grad nite came, the singing of the batch song and the cheers.

after that we then camwhored till past 11 where we walked back to City Hall MRT. and sorry shneg you didn't manage to pull me into the Northbound Train =D

second, thoughts on the day:

it is the end.

that's something about nature that we must acknowledge. time never flows backward, and until a time-traveling machine has been found (i don't think there will ever be so), we must realise that time is always forward-traveling.

i teared yesterday, with countless others (while singing the batch song), because I didn't want to let go and I feared to let go. We are stubborn people, born to resist change (when it's so good why fix it?). but we know, all of us, deep down in our hearts, that time cannot flow the other way, so there is no point trying to argue against time, no point clinging on so madly to the past, even if it had been the 2 most wonderful years of our lives (oh yes it certainly has.)

there will only be one thing that can beat this evil demon called time.

it is the heart.

in it contains the keys to beating this - memories, and bonds. memories let us travel in time back to the past, and as we relive every memory of ours, as we savour them all, we appreciate all that has been done, as one group of friends, of brothers, of people.

the bonds however can be brought on forever. even as we succumb to time and old age, even as some of us say goodbye to others, as long as the bonds are there we will forever remain as friends. and i hope that exactly 20 years from yesterday we all can meet up at the RI campus, as people of 35-38 years old then, and celebrate the wonderful class that is 4B '08.

but everything needs a full stop. yesterday marked the final dot, the period, right on the class of 4B. 4B will cease to exist in this world (for we will never recreate the exact 4B i have known and loved these 2 years), but we all know, memories last a lifetime, and bonds will forever remain.

onward to jc we go, and may we keep those memories intact forever!

Labels: class, Life

{ 3:58 PM }

Friday, November 7, 2008.

grad ceremony was nothing much to me, srsly.

after grad ceremony, we went to camwhore with our subject teachers, and i guess as much as we hate the work they give us and demand from us, we missing them and them missing us - it's mutual. many of our teachers miss our class (lol CHINESE xD) and i feel sad having to part with the teachers.

then after that we went to watch quantum of solace (my 1st movie in n months, where n>4). an AMAZING number of people turned up - 17 people!

then later about 13 people squeezed onto the bus and went towards patrick's house to spam mahjong and/or bridge/risk.

and then was the highlight of the day (or so i thought) - the dinner, where we just poured out a lot of feelings for this class. it's magical that 2 years can do so much to a class so diverse (at the start) and so unique. how is it that we can "click" together, i really don't know, but there's something we have that makes our class so special.

and after that benyong and junsheng coerced me into going to yishun. obviously i knew it would be faster to take mrt home from ang mo kio, but those 2 evil people made me go all the way to yishun x(



luckily that emo feeling hasn't struck me yet. i suspect it's coming, at least within the next 2-3 days.

that horrendous feeling i felt when i attended the rise bbq '08. that whole night i just broke down for about 2 hours.

knowing you are leaving something behind, knowing that all these things you do together will but remain non-existant, only to be remembered in the mind, knowing that all has been but a dream and will never ever occur again, that scares me.

fear is an emotional response to a threat or danger. so why do i fear leaving 4B '08?

it is not a danger to leave a class for another class (provided the other class does not have sledgehammers), and it is not a threat at all. but i miss this class so much, for everything you guys have done (i know i haven't done much) that i fear that these memories of such a wonderful time spent will be forgotten.

i fear that next time, when i try to think of RI i forget that i was in 4B '08. i fear that next time, when i walk down a street and see one ex-classmate, we fail to recognise each other. i fear that next time, these friendships and bonds built up in this class within the short timespan of 2 years will be broken.

that would seriously hurt me very much.

as much as 4B is a class, 4B is a group of 33 people, some more imba than others even though all people are created equal. these 32 other people have given me just so much that it's impossible for me to imagine that i was never in this class. all the fond memories of our class, as 33 and as 1, together in various events and activities (OBS, 3rdLang, concerts, Interclass events, BBQ, EOYs2008, classchalet2008 and all other activities we have done together as a class or part thereof).

it's just too much for me to say it out now, for everytime i want to say it out loud i feel the pain in me, that pain of giving up something i truly loved.

人有悲欢离合，
月有阴晴圆缺，
此事古难全。
但愿人长久，
千里共婵娟。

may we stay as a class forever in spirit. may we forever remember these 2 years, these 2 glorious years of fun and wonder. may we keep in our hearts the wonderful class of 4B'2008.

Labels: class, Life

{ 11:58 PM }

Thursday, November 6, 2008.

class chalet was the BOMB man.

ever since when did i ever attend such a crazy and mad chalet, i do not remember. and whatever happened yesterday just defied any form of classification.

on one hand you have the people who play bridge until london bridge falls (sorry i phlail at being lame), and bid crazy ones like 5 hearts and 7 no trump (KIDDING. we're NOT so mad).

then on the other hand you have AOT.

then on another hand you have people playing risk and watching anime.

then you have the classic xbox360 people playing it for >16 hours straight.

AND.

you have shukiat and his genius idea.

Shukiat: "Who wants to play strip dai di?"

and there, it all began. a 4 player strip-dai-di, where specs and watches did NOT count as articles of clothing.

predictably, shukiat got owned. so for >1 hour yesterday night, 30+ guys lived with a person wearing undies only. and shukiat doesn't exactly have much figure, you get what i mean? not very pleasing to our eyes, and anyway he was supposed to take out even his undies (cause apparently he lost 6 games in a row o.0)

and there was beach camwhoring, SALSA!, stargazing, badminton, mahjong and booze too (yeah that's why benyong's drunk now). and whole-night gamesfest (pity i couldn't join the rest in staying up for the night - i had to go to sch today, so i slept at 4.)

it's barely 1 night and I'm wanting it back very badly.

Labels: class

{ 10:09 PM }

Tuesday, November 4, 2008.

ok peeps it's over.

school's over.

my last day in ri, over.

NOT.

either way:

what would you think of today? is it:
1) the last ever day of your RI (before the merger) life? OR
2) the day before the biggest exam of your life (for the past 4 years)?

i guess most people would think (1). but i can't let myself think that. get the thing done and over with, then let me reminiscence back on today and think similarly.

so here it goes. TODAY IS THE DAY BEFORE THE BIG THING.

the O.

get the mood there. it isn't the day to say your goodbyes and emo about leaving ri and singing your last National Anthem with boys only.

it is time to do CHINESE.

so let's ace this.

(sorry i'm very task-oriented :D)

Labels: Life, school

{ 2:46 PM }