Four for four

My results for the 1st semester were out on Malaysia Day. Which more importantly was David Copperfield's birthday. Which more importantly was a holiday.

It would be a pretentious lie to say that I didn't score well. 4.0/4.0. Although I did not get AD for every module, I'm way satisfied with what I received.

Yeap. Could ask for nothing more. And it is true that for every AD I acquire Ngee Ann will reward me with 50SGD. So now I'm more or less RM500 richer. True motivation for all to study hard and score. Hee.

Better keep this up for this will determine my chances of getting scholarships next year. Look forward to next semester's modules, circuit analysis, strength of materials, object-oriented programming and all that.

And still, u nuaa tiy ai.

* Slack and chill baby *

The tea not the fish

KoiGongChaOchadoArteaseIceTalkSweetTalkEachACupEskimosCupWalkerIOICafe

DA XI GUA!

So so so. NRA Freshie Camp was mad dope! Big ups to all GL's and the call-me-tea. You guys did an excellent job in making this camp a huge success.

We bonded. We played. We suffered. We learnt. We had fun.

Day 1.

Was feeling kinda unsure of how the day would go. Mainly cause I don't know many people there and kinda worried that I'll not be able to clique. You know. Still got to school early and reported on time anyway.

That's when I met KOI. Groups were named after bubble tea brands you see. Seriously I do not know that many existed. Andin KOI we have... Serene, Amirul, Daniel, Shihui, Crystalbel, Rio, Chloe and me! Of course with Wilson, Fifi, Qiao Ling and Daryl as our group leaders. Awesome dancers, awesome people.

First, we broke the ice. Blow wind blow, Splat, The food-hand-sign game which I sucked at etc. Really fun. 2 hours into the camp and our shirts' were all dripping with sweat.

Blow wind blowwwwwwwwwww

Then hmm we had our make up session! WOOTS. For the girls that is. I would say I learnt a lot but the biggest challenge is to stay conscious throughout. I'm not sure if it's Venus but sometimes I do think that girls are from a different planet. Guys are from Earth no questions asked.

CleansethenTonethenMoisturizethenBBCream thenConcealerthenBasethenThatOtherThing

Then we got to learn part of our choreo. Song was Poppin' by Rico Love. Learnt the first eight choreographed by Daryl. Loved it. Theme was cool, chill and SWAG. Apparently Rio's our swaggaboy! At night we did amazing race. Terribly tiring. Especially that inner thigh muscle training. I could literally count the drops of sweat as they drip onto the floor tiles.

Good night at 2am.

Day 2.

PHYSICAL TRAINING. Straight up we all woke up at 5am. Prepped ourselves and gathered at the running track. Full on 2 hours plus of pure torture. We had to run more than 3km, pushed every muscle and every single nerve to push every muscle. All the way PUSH PUSH PUSH.

Then finally we had breakfast. Hot milo and bread never tasted better. We even had a choice of Nutella, peanut butter or jam. Not bad eh. Though three days of the same thing for breakfast and supper. Not such a fresh idea. Haha still loved it though.

Um I think we then continued choreography. This time by Wilson and Fifi. Swag, more swag. We then worked on formations. Things are looking pretty good. Then we had a three session class by Ore, Sophan and Ben. MY FAVOURITE TIME OF THE CAMP.

Satisfaction

Ore teaching us isolations and basic animating. Really, really dope. Jaws dropped when he did ticking. My first time seeing it live.

Play that funky music

Sophan teaching us locking! Funk and rhythm for life. Uncle sam point, roach, air guitar. Just so I don't forget. Locking's so much more fun that I thought.

Hip hop is dead

Ben going over basic toprock and six steps. Had loads of fun. Funny instructor. Enjoyed his class a lot.

Chloe had major headache and Crystalbel injury relapsed so they had to book out from the camp. We will miss you. And then and then. We played more bonding games. Two groups are paired together to compete against each other. But of course, we collab cause we're smart people. Kinda felt bad for the game leaders though for having such an anti-competitive pair. Drawing every game is no easy task.

Koitease

Then in the evening it's ICE BLENDED NIGHT. Space jump, parody dance battle with chase-around-the-tree tamil battle music, and all the September babies' were called out. Had we even a cake. Shweet.

Virgo and Libra

We then practised our choreo and new formation till about 1.15am. All the other groups were still practising then. We were the first to go to bed. All the others only started sleeping at around 2.30am I think. Some even later.

DAY 3. FINALE.

We woke up at 5 as usual. All the other groups were still sleeping. Haha. We quickly washed up and continued mugging choreo. I didn't had the chance to shower. Don't care.

Quick breakfast. More choreo. Running. Out. Of. Time.

Finally it's time for showcase. Did make up and it's show time. We were the 6th group to perform. We all got to the front and started poppin', chillin', swaggin'. We all tried to keep it clean and together. All nervous and stuff but we got through it. =)

Then the judges had their showcase. Dope dope and more dope. Then even a popping battle between Sophan and Timothy. Also my first live one. Ochado won the best performance. We got the earliest group award. Haha. Well there were most horny and hungry groups as well. We were alright.

KOI =)

Break camp!

Bubble tea never tasted sweeter

Really wish to have more fun in future dance classes and meet more awesome people.

A1 + A2 + A3 + A4 = NRA

*I still suck but I won't for long! *

Chassé no more

The opposite of blue

This blog had been static for over a month.

This blog had been stagnant for over a month.

This blog had been stationary for over a month.

This blog had been paralyzed for over a month.

This blog had been hibernating for over a month.

This blog had been in a coma for over a month.

This blog had been on hiatus for over a month.

This blog had been on vacation for over a month.

This blog had been collecting cyber dust for over a month.

This blog had been no-one-will-care-if-I-cheat-this-last-one for over a month.

Ten carefully thought of ways to define my blog's current state. I am in no way a lazy blogger.

*Irony comeback!*

Blah. Hi people. If you're still there that is.

Dancesport module finally ended. We had a fun time. I think I'll miss it. We took a photo. That's me. And my partner. The female closest to me. And that's Ben by the way, the male closest to her that is not me. I don't know where was his partner.

It ended with a sorta-kinda-something-like-a dance grading. Chacha Jive Waltz Salsa. Sounds fancy right. I don't really fancy the word fancy. Too fancy for me. Anyway I think my partner and I did well. With luck we could pass with merit. Keep in touch we must.

And. My exam's over too. 5 modules all tested. Not too bad for all of them. Made another mistake in my mechanics paper though. It's like curse. The blind spot will always be there somehow. Nevermind. Hope to score a 4.0 GPA. All fingers crossed.

Now I'm having my 7 week vacation. At least that's what they call it. Vacation. Though I do have CCA going on, camps and stuff. In fact I'm going for the NRA's freshie's camp coming Friday. Hope to know more people cause seriously I totally have no connection to anyone there at all other than a few of my friends.

In other news, I've been watching The Big Bang Theory. It's a sitcom starring a theoretical physicist, an experimental physicist, an astrophysicist, an engineering and a blonde. Yay show for nerds. Who doesn't love a heavy dope of unnecessary elaboration on Star Trek and science related topics?

Jim Parsons, who plays Sheldon won the Emmy Awards two years in a row, owning Steve Carrell and Alec Baldwin. Like anyone care but me. I'm completing all episodes up till season 4. Season 5 is out September. Can't wait!

Live long and prosper.

* Sucks to be under 18, especially when Final Destination is showing! *

Floating frogs and mexican waves

I had a blast today. Well, of course last Friday was pretty boss too. Went to Marina Barrage to skip class and have fun learn about the reservoirs and water technology. Though after that we had a programming test which was just pfff.. let's just say time was of the essence.

Anyway. 10 ES scholars plus Lehwoon and I (we were invited) got to have a luncheon and Q&A session with Prof Barry Marshall, Prof Tim St Pierre, Prof Carmen Lawrence, Prof Tony O'Donnell and Prof Kadambot Siddique in conjunction with the Science For Our Future Festival.

*Who who who who and who?*

Professors from UWA (University of Western Australia). All of whom are great scientists. Like REAL scientists. Scientist scientists. One-drop-of-this-another-drop-of-that-then-BOOM-smoke-everywhere scientists. Not like that but yea they are the real deal. Won prestigious science awards and the most talked about one, which was also half the awesomeness today was based on, is the Nobel Prize laureate in Physiology or Medicine won by Prof Barry Marshall.

*Go ahead, google him*

Long story short. He proved that Peptic Ulcer was not caused by stress and stuff but the Helicobacter Pylori bacteria by drinking a petri dish of the bacteria himself. Sick huh. Yea sick, and yes he was literally sick with gastritis after 5 days. But again, brave and impressive. His discovery pretty much owned decades of scientists and doctors. It was deemed as important as the discovery of polio in vaccines.

*Go google 'Ig Nobel' too, strange things by great people *

The Q&A at the luncheon and the talk afterwards was quite inspiring. For them to share their thoughts on world issues such as food security, climate change, development in science and technology, even politics. Basically multidisciplinary professionals are needed to solve any problem or threat the world is facing. Scientists, engineers, psychologists, doctors, politicians. Everyone. Of course they were great speakers as well, especially Prof Marshall. Very humourous and interesting speeches from him. Needless to say we all took pictures with him afterwards. Biomedical Science students even asked for his signature on their petri dishes.

*Props to Ms Sarah Lau for hosting the talk*

Yeap. It'd be awesome to meet more great people. Meeting them made me feel small, but also made me realise that I could one day be as big as they are.

Whenever doctors say your illness is caused by stress, it means they don't actually know what's wrong with you.

- Professor Barry Marshall

* Performing magic to cancer patients this Saturday, so ready to get inspired even more. =) *

Squeeeeeze

Mahalo =)

I've been occupied with quite a lot of stuff. I've come to realise that life is starting to pick up velocity, with probably an increasing acceleration. No single day is totally free and easy. Everyday there's assignments to be completed, work to be done, notes to be read and of course, fun to be had.

Can't do much about it can we. Roll with it.

Past few weeks had been pretty enjoyable. Um ES collabed with EBM (Engineering with Business Management) for the Sports Carnival. My team and three other represented ES for captain's ball! Haha. I call it, the minimum-skill-maximum-wit-game. We played a total of 6 matches, won 3 lost 3. Had a really great time competing among ourselves as well as the EBM people. Though it's kinda annoying how they outnumber us and taunted the other ES team members during the game. Sportsmanship... *Poof*.We did not win anything. Nonetheless, we showed respect.

Dance classes. Fun as always. The steps are starting to get really technical. Must. Unnoob. Myself. Met a few new friends. Zipeng, Serene, Elias, Joseph etc. Oh oh and the Magic Arena inducted a new member! He's called Kae (As in K). Pretty cool huh. He's been into magic for about 4 years and is currently semi professional. Specialises on stage and street. Not really into card sleights though. Anyway definitely gonna learn something from him. Ban ban ban!

Then um. For the ES family. Eugene got a new name. Edmund Alixe Calibre. Other than his obsession about his laptop cleanliness, I really take my hat off to this guy when it comes to programming. He could probably speak C, Java, C# and all better than chinese. By the way did I mention the Powerpuff Girls here before? Weilin (aka Bubbles as she's um.. petite) Huifang (Blossom because of her long hair I guess) and Ruiqi (Buttercup because only one left). And uhhh. Eltech LCL with Ekko and Ben. That went well. Currently working on Compro Mini Project Stage 2 with Keith. Should be done in no time. Soon we'll be all busy and fed up over physics LCL. This just never ends. As Calibre would phrase declare it, an infinite loop.

Oh the fun of inside jokes.

Haha. Just for fun. Let me summarise the few words and slangs widely used by my friends. Or pretty much all Singaporeans.

1. Sia (Something like 语气助词, can be used in literally ANY context at all)
- I feel bored sia.
- Nothing to eat sia.
- Anything also can sia.

2. Imba (Meaning very, or exceptionally)
- His card skills damn imba!
- This guy's magic imba pro!

3. Zai (Meaning pro)
- Oh my god those dancers so zai.
- Woah you so zai ah break my highscore.

4. Sien (Not our sien as in bored, it means.. I don't know how to explain)
- *Calculator drops on floor* Sien ahhh.
- Wah sien, forgot to bring notebook.

Combo : Wah damn zai ! Eh you so imba make me feel very sien sia.

Assimilation shall be rejected. Hee. Gah. Haven't watched both Transformers and Harry Potter. Life will not be taken out of me! Will update as soon as I have the time. And the mood. Ciao ciao.

* 697[43 w58oo j6 rqf974853 t84o, dy3h53o 5yqm!!! *

Sickmoid curve

• Dancesport presentation (Done)
  
• Close up magic performance (Passed)
  
• Eltech LCL (90% done)
  
• Compro mini project stage 2
• Compro written test
• Physics LCL (coming soon)

Yeap. Just got over and done with my magic performance for the poly experience at Makan Place. Actually I'm now still at Makan Place. With Yiyong and Kerin.

Anyway. Poly Experience is like a programme where the secondary school people come to poly to see how's our everyday school life is like. Pretty fun. I represented The Entertainer's Club and I was to perform close up magic to the secondary school students.

In fact, I just got back to NP from NTU for my R&D research before I rushed to Makan Place. Which was quite interesting. My groupmate, Zhe Hao and I, met up with my professor supervisor. Prof Chen Shun Shou. He's a nice guy. Though I have to say. He's a nerd. Downright geekish nerd. He showed us his latest camera sensor bla bla bla. Then we got a short lecture from Prof Liter on some electronics stuff, diode, transistor and all that. Just realised I totally forgotten about doping. Damn damn damn.

Back to NP. * Jump skip! *Zoey Kahmeng Sue Daryl JM were already there. I left my bag aside, picked up a deck, got on with it. They're quite friendly. At least they were not weirded out by my sudden appearance. Hoped I did not established the tadda-I'm-a-magician-let-me-fool-you-with-kiddy-kiddy tricks image.

Self reminder : You're not some wizard who's above the audience. You want to be a normal person who's able to bend logic and reality in the spectators' mind.

I did my sandwich routine, have yet to name it, two card monte, umm... and a few others. Couldn't remember much. It wasn't a lot though. Just a warm up. Haven't been performing in the public in a long long time. Then I saw Jasper. Not performing, with his girlfriend. Then I met up with Yiyong and Kerin to have dinner.

Then I'm here. Meh-nyway, it was fun. Tomorrow. Round two. Time to really amp it up. I shall attempt the invisible palm perhaps!

The fun is just beginning. Let's see how long I can last.

*Hard work alone can never make the cut.*

185 days

Here's a long long post for not posting a long long post for a long long while.

Life is good. Course is fine. Chess is good. Dance is great. Magic is AWESOME.

The first common test was just a few weeks ago. I'd say I did okay. Fairly well but I know I could do better. And I shall. My coursemates did great too. It's a lot of fun bonding with them.

Chess trainings on Tuesdays are by no means a relaxing CCA. After the sessions my brain is totally fried. If you do not play chess. You would have three things on your mind right now.

1. Chess is boring.
2. Chess is for nerds.
3. I'm going to skip this paragraph.

Anyway. I have seniors there who play really good chess. Might sound retarded but it's fun losing to them. Last week went well. I lost only a game and won the rest. Nowhere near their level though. I'm decent yes, but not good enough.

Dance class is awesome. The instructors are really great and friendly. Though I'm probably like the only person there who has no dance background whatsoever. My friends have their own crews and stuff and I'm just. Me. Meh gotta start somewhere. Why not here why not now right. I suck but hopefully not for long.

Magic is probably the most fun. Of course I am still very much in love with the art of card magic. Few of my seniors there are experienced card handlers and performers. I have so much to learn from them. And there are also beginners. I had a great time sharing my ideas and effects with them. How I wish I had someone to coach me when I was starting out. Still I'm proud of myself today for what I have achieved with my bare hands. And decks and decks of cards. Nonetheless, gotta improve on my sleights, patter, performance, and define my style. I'm not quite there but I will be!

I guess my attitude is what kept me going on and on in my entire life. That good-not-great-could-do better-thinking of mine. I truly believe that if you're think you're good, you can never be better. That's why I am never satisfied with myself. No I'm not really a perfectionist. But if it's possible to achieve perfection then there's no reason not to. I do not aim to be perfect, I aim to be the best that I can.

Psycho shit right.

Alright. Enough of that nonsensical self indulgence. I am still, essentially, ME. Still very talkative, still very random, still very SARCASTIC. Like the other day I talked to Ekko. Actually just yesterday.

Clara : Ekko you permed your hair?
Ekko : Yea.
Me : You did? Kinda looks like you forgot to comb your hair after waking up from bed.
Ekko : Are you tired of living?
Me : Be thankful. True friends don't lie.

Ah. Sarcasm is pure artistic. I love my life. Uh as a summary of everything I wrote of course, not just the sarcastic part.

Last but most, y leyjj jyhq rut k jue. T'b ku fkiir eu fkxq rut yv br jysq. =)

* The hardest part is always to convince yourself to strive for perfection knowing that you will never get there *

Mindstruck

I'll just jot down my ideas here in some weird language that no one understands.

" Slice according to edge. Shifty Lavand style. "

I'll let it grow for now.

Today was quite a day by the way.

*I zoo I dance We own*

Double dose of Rose

It feels extremely uncomfortable to not watch a movie in such a long time. I believe the last one I saw was Scream 4. Anyway, common test is over and I resumed back to my slacker-waking-at-noon-midnight-movie-watching-and-all-that mode.

Spoiler alert

X-men First Class

The 5th X-men movie. A prequel to the prequel of the three sequels before which I found out later had nothing much to do with the sequels so that makes it actually just a prequel to the prequel, which I'm not too sure if it was even a prequel to the sequels.

Anyway. Basically depicts how Professor X and Magneto met, became comrades, agreed to disagree, and went on with their separate paths. An interesting movie in the sense that it answered a lot of questions. Which makes the X-men series made a whole lot more sense. But again, the whole thing felt like a hole filler as in every scene made a point to explain certain things and some parts are just there just so there is a link to what that is going to happen. Which can be a bit redundant if you look at it as a movie on its own. Kinda hard to understand but once you've watched it believe you'll get what I mean.

Though some of the questions that we were all wondering were answered in a pretty-stupid-what-the-hell-that's-it? manner.

How did magneto get that cool megaman helmet thingy?
He stole it.

How was Professor X paralysed?
Accident. It happens.

How did Beast became blue?
Needle incident. What to do.

How did the name X-men come about?
Random suggestion by random fling.

The acting was good. Considering that I don't recognize half of the cast. Of course the problem I had was that there wasn't too much of a depth towards the acting and emotions and stuff but meh I don't expect much of any of those from an action movie. Oh oh and of course, the main foucs. The mutants. Darwin, Angel, Havok, Prof X, Magneto, Mystique, Guy-who-looks-like-hell-boy's-uncle, Banshee, Beast, Energy-sucker-dude, Diamond blonde, Tornado guy etc. They were all pretty cool.

Best scene : Wolverine.

Other than the wink-at-audience joke scenes and some cheesy lines. Overall I enjoyed the movie a lot. Fun. Exciting. Just what I needed to get over my screwed up Engmech paper.

7.5/10.

Insidious

I watched this online just today morning. At about 2am. I was quite excited for this as the makers were the same people from Saw and Paranormal Activity, which I have to say is one of the best horror film I've seen. Like I said in my previous posts, my friend told me that Paranormal Activity was real footage real story, therefore I thought the movie was real and couldn't sleep for two hours. Only to realise that it was all acting. That horrifying experience was priceless.

The cast also made me look forward to this. Patrick Wilson's a great actor. He did a tremendous job in Hard Candy. And of course Rose Byrne. Oh who was in X-men by the way. I first saw her in Get Him To The Greek. So yea the cast caught my attention.

Insidious is basically a mix of supernatural and pure horror. Talks about astral projection. Meaning the soul leaves the body when it is unconscious. So you can travel and fly and stuff. Pretty cool huh. Though the little boy in the movie lost his way and ended up at a realm called The Further. Demons and tortured souls wants to take over his physical body and his parents are to save and rescue him.

The first half of the movie is scary. Where the mother's just doing her motherly duty and got the shit scared out of her. And the ladies in the movie all believed her while the father was like 'What the hell people are you serious.' The second part when the father went saving his son got a bit weird. It became like one of the episodes from Nightmares and Dreamscapes. Haunted house, green light, red light. The mood changed and it wasn't as scary as before but it was still good though.

Though I must admit the demons are kinda funny looking. The first demon behind the curtains at the cradle looked like dude-who-look's-like-hellboy in X-men. And come on, we all know the scary boss demon or something is Darth Maul from Star Wars okay. And the rest of the demons were just zombies from MJ's Thriller.

I love the fact that the movie is shot like in the 90s' or 80s' fashion but of course in high resolution. The jump scare scenes were AWESOME. The *bam!!!* and *smile with eyes wide open* really got me. I didn't enjoy the ending though. I kinda knew that it was going to end in some bad way once the second part started. And it did. And Elise just had to die didn't she. I thought she was gone after the gas mask scene but she got another extra 30 minutes of screen time. And it wasn't the boss demon who possessed Josh, it was just some random lady ghost. The ending was rather weak.

Top 5 Ughhh-hell-that's-creepy scene. If you watched it already then you'll relate to this.

#5 : Dancing guy. (The song rather than the dance)
#4 : The blink.
#3 : Single lady jump scare + smile.
#2 : Family jump scare + smile.
#1 : Darth Maul behind Josh.


7/10

* Please let this holiday be what a holiday should be*

Strings and skates

Spent quite an interesting friday night with Japheth, Ruiqi, Weilin, Xinhui & her bro, Clarissa & her bro, Sam and Annabelle. Funny story behind. Belle invited me to her church service. Japheth who was sitting beside me in class at the time, saw that message and told me that he and two of the powerpuff girls were going too. So to please them, I went.

First time at Suntec City. Didn't know it was that big. Apparently my theory of calculating girls' walking speed by using the formula for total resistance in a parallel circuit does not apply to the two girls.

The whole thing seemed to be pretty big. A queue, a crowd and all that. We got seated and they started to play games. Some milk squeezing and burping contest. No offense but I find it incredibly odd. Oohh then the service started off with a few numbers by the live band. The music was decent. Though I later told Japheth that it got to a point where the music just continued on and on and on and on. Repeating the same verse over and over and over and over. Longer than the pause in MJ's I'll Be There's last line.

Pastor Dan was giving the service. He explained a few verses from the Bible. Alamakite, Ephod, David = Beloved, pool = blessings etc. Pretty interesting to listen to. Could see that he's really passionate about it. Told a few stories about how terminal illnesses were cured and lives were changed. Then it ended with another few songs.

Japheth then asked me if I had accepted Christ and Ruiqi asked me to go to her church again. They were being really nice and kind, I do appreciate it but some part of me in my head went 'Here we go again...' I don't blame them though. It's a natural thing to want to let others understand the truth that you see.

Trained home with Weilin. To sum up our chat on our way back, all I can say is 'Two weeks, no way'.

*Common test is within the next 24 hours. That only means one thing. HOLIDAYS*