My turn.

Here, let me calm your mind with some delicious music. There, doesn't life feel so much better now?

I need to work on concentration and discipline, so from today onwards I shall divide my time nicely, and make sure I allocate myself time to post, and also time for reading and stuff.

Been extremely busy lately, but it's sad when days go by undocumented. However (sound like an English essay now), I've done some vlogging, so here is the first Tioman vlog. Please go and watch it, and like and subscribe and share with your friends, because it would mean a lot to me. Secretly, secretly, I really want to just earn money off YouTube. That would be great.

What's happened lately? Hell week after hell week has rolled by, with quizzes and assignments and project deadlines and presentations and tests and failing and passing and being grateful for passing and coordinating things and filming and creating incredibly awesome videos and Sports Day and Teacher's Day and Tioman and Brunei and work oh work.

My respect for teachers dipped slightly for a moment, then increased crazily right after that, because we made this video we can't really talk about and can't show any students. The bottom line is that teachers can act, and know how to have fun, and are generally more awesome and more human than we ever thought they were.

First day of last term of Year 5 today. Time doesn't just fly; it clubs you on the head, and then makes a quick getaway on an X-43A while you're dazed and recovering.

Rearranged our seating arrangement again, because it's the start of a new month and that's what we do when this happens. We're starting to have this sneaking suspicion that the random number generator in our GCs is hardly random, because we always end up sitting next to the same few people again and again. Strange.

Anyway, been progressively moving from the back to the front, so now I'm sitting right in the front row with Sree, Deborah and Pin within talking distance.

Had Chem first thing in the morning. Did transition metals and complex ion naming and stuff. Still much easier than organic Chem now. We were all strangely high, and were passing around sweets and things Muru and Aris got from Korea and Adrian from Taiwan (sadly they didn't manage to snag any girls, but oh well).

Had a Biochem prac after that. Totally forwent Prac 3 and jumped to Prac 4, because Prac 3 isn't graded. Simply blended spinach leaves with isolation medium, then spun twice, then split up pellet solution and placed tubes under light (and one tube in the dark). Yeah, photosynthesis.

Wasn't much work, so we spent most of the time just talking and waiting for things to blend and filter and spin and photosynthesise. Talked about Adrian and Aris' exchange experiences, and about how we were all missing Tioman terribly.

Then had a talk during the assembly slot (got to miss the house meeting) about Singapore's marine life by Ria Tan, who was quite awesome. Turns out Singapore's marine ecosystems, tiny as they are, actually do exist, and it really sucks that people are just mindlessly burying coral reefs and killing off precious individuals of precious species. It really is a waste to have such beautiful things destroyed. I mean, they made such a huge deal out of that ruined Jesus fresco, and hardly anybody cares about this. So sad.

Kay, E-learning tomorrow, so no school. Yay.

Night.

Seconds.

I can't believe it's taken another viewing of 'The Dark Knight Rises' to bring me back here again. Yes, I've been busy, and I haven't found the heart to come here and talk about how stressful everything is, and how I don't think I'll do well at all this semester, and how I'm just really not cut out for things like this.

Sometimes you lose your passion in everything, and it takes a tonne to bring it back again. Then I realised I need to blog, because with it returns my love of writing, and my fondness not letting days go by unnoticed and not talked of.

Yeah, I did lose my passion. I admit it. I lost my passion in my work, my passion in school, my passion in music, my passion in writing and joking around. I lost my passion in life. There was a time I felt like I couldn't do anything right, that I'm not capable of doing anything well, and therefore there was no point in even doing at all. I think this happened partly because all the subjects I thought I liked, I do badly in. So if you can't do the things you're in favour of right, then there really is no point, because then you wouldn't be able to move on and make it your living, and then you would be miserable for the rest of your life. Tsk tsk, school.

Anyway, I'm trying to find my way back, and that's what counts. Many things happened in the course of two weeks, which I'm not bothered to recall because that's another thing that's been putting me off resuming posting. It would've taken up too much time.

So yeah, what I will talk about is today, and possible long weekend plans. Because I discovered that when you talk about plans, you have to carry them out lest you risk embarrassment of someone asking you about it and having to come up with excuses.

(Singapore's) National Day celebrations at school today, which lasted about two hours. First up there was marching and stuff, then we went to the hall to watch people guess quiz answers and lip-sync national day songs. Despite me complaining throughout the procession about it being propaganda and brainwashing and stuff, it's strangely hard not to grow overly fond of this country. It's like, when I first found out I was coming, I (no offence Singaporeans) told myself to dislike everything about this country (except its ridiculously clean public washrooms) with relentless feeling. But then four years down the road, I find it difficult to resist singing national songs, and I find myself telling other people that this really isn't a bad country to live in. As much as I hate to admit it, Singapore honestly is managing itself pretty well comparatively.

So yeah.

Also I think a lot of the foreigners felt quite homesick when they sang 'Home', because it applies to our home countries, too. Not everyone has the privilege of receiving good education in the comfort of their hometowns, and in the comfort of living at home close to their families.

After the celebrations, I met KT, Kelvin, Adithya and Wee Thean, and we wished each other happy national day (it's funny because it doesn't apply to any of us).

Went out for a class outing afterwards to Vivo. Less than half the class went, namely Anh, Boon Chong, Adrian Tan, Muruges, Nicole, Deborah, Kian Wee and Nathanael. Kelvin crashed, and then Yos and Aisyah (using "crashing the 505 class outing" as an excuse to cover up their date) showed up when we were being cheap (that's like a characteristic of our class now) and eating at the food court next to the bus interchange.

Then went to Daiso and me and Debb spent ages solving these things they labelled 'Brain Exercises', which were basically made up of two plastic orbs joined in the middle (sort of like dumbbells) which had coloured beads in them. The goal was to separate the beads (there were two colours). Super addictive. We bought one each. Debb solved it three times, I solved it twice. Awesome.

While we were doing that, the rest of the class played ball (with a ball and frisbee also from Daiso, told you we were cheap) around the water area thing on the rooftop. Fun.

Then Wee Thean and KT came and we went to watch The Dark Knight Rises (with Debb and Kelvin). It was good the second time round, and I felt as if could understand it more, too. So yeah.

After the movie Debb left, then we had dinner at Sushi Tei, and then dessert at Haagen-Dazs. Yes, we know how to enjoy life.

I love talking with the guys. It's what made living in the hostel and in this country so bearable. Like there are these people who know you and who you know well and whenever you're feeling lonely you can count on them to hang out or something.

So for this long weekend I'm going to have to work on our English project, take my laptop out for repairs (the battery isn't functioning), and write a speech, amongst other things.

All right, going off now.

Feels good to be able to type here again.

I also love typing.

P.S. Can you believe it's only a Wednesday?

P.P.S. Oh, and the Olympics have started, and I was strangely attracted to the archery event. Good aim is sexy.

The Dark Knight Rises.

It's minutes to midnight (and a good Linkin Park album, too), and I'm sitting here in crazy humidity (it hasn't been this humid since week 1, I think) typing these words.

The internet connection here is still terrible, so it's like nothing's really advanced all this while we've been staying here. Sure, uploading is faster with LAN connection, but that's all there really is.

Let's see if I can finish this post in ten minutes, because there is a time constraint I'm working myself on. And also because I slept for four hours this afternoon, which was a complete waste of time and now I am lagging behind many things.

Went out to watch The Dark Knight Rises last night with half my class and Suen Rong and Wei Ren (because we had extra tickets). Was quite excited, all throughout Chem and the Biochem prac (really tense Biochem prac, if I must say). Speaking of the Biochem prac, I didn't like it, because instructions were confusing and everyone was lost and it was hot and humid and we had to wear lab coats. Tsk.

So yeah, back to The Dark Knight Rises. Had high expectations for this movie, given it's about Batman and it's Christopher Nolan. It did blow my mind, actually, but I still need to gather my thoughts right. I really didn't like the fight scenes (Catwoman fight scenes were great, but everyone else looked so slow and ungainly in those costumes), but the plot was amazing (apart from the ending).

The thing about superhero movies like this is that unlike The Avengers, or Spider-Man (in general), no superpowers are involved. Just a wad of cash and really psycho people.

And what makes superhero movies like The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises amazing is what drives seemingly ordinary people (born ordinary, mind you) to do extraordinary things. The concept is that anyone can become a hero. What I admire the most though, are the villains. Villains without superpowers need more drive and depth to work (not like simply losing control of greed of enhanced powers, or having supernatural armies, etc), and an admirable amount of calculation is required to make major heists or attacks happen. It takes brains, and strange motivation that nobody understands. And it's these villains that are hardest to crack.

So yeah, The Dark Knight Rises was extraordinarily well presented, although I didn't like that Batman had to make out with every girl who simply looked his way. And I loved Tom Hardy as Bane. Such class. And power.

So today, we had English, and then Math. Nothing eventful, apart from Han Jie's second presentation (because he botched up the previous one). Talked about gay marriage and stuff, but nothing too deep 'cause I was a bit speechless.

Yeah, that's it.

P.S. Phrase of the day: "Unwholesome consumables." I'm going to start using this in everyday conversation.

Hockenheim 2012

Hooray, Alonso has done it again.

Clinched pole yesterday after some rain and stuff, and now he's won the race. Only person to win three times this season, so yes, of course I'm proud.

Massa had a terrible race though, 'cause he had this collision and his nose came off (car nose, not that thing on his face) and he had to pit early. Grosjean too. Then Hamilton suffered a left rear puncture and the race pretty much ended for him. Action came back when he tried to unlap himself and attacked the frontrunners, making Vettel very angry because it prevented him from taking on Alonso in first place.

Then after a lot of drama and generally being an ass (and helping Ferrari while he was at it, so no complaints there), Hamilton retired.

Button drove a great race, but then got re-overtaken by Vettel towards the end, so ended up third. Although there is some controversy because Vettel had all four tyres off the track when he did so. Stewards are probably arguing about it right now.

Massa ended up twelfth, totally and disappointingly out of the points zone.

Kimi fourth. To quote him, he said, "If Vettel gets a 25 second penalty, I not only get a podium, I also got to avoid the podium interview." Man, you gotta love the guy.

Oh, news just in. They've awarded Vettel a 20 second penalty, so I guess Kimi really did get what he wanted, and Button's in second place now. Kobayashi goes up a place, and Vettel ends up between him and Perez.

Germans probably won't be too happy about that. Schumi's race wasn't too good either. Ended up seventh after qualifying third (Webber got a five-place grid penalty).

Tsk tsk.

Upcoming week has five quizzes and a Batman movie.

It feels quite wrong to talk about The Dark Knight Rises openly now, because of the recent shootings in Colorado. I don't know how to feel, but we shouldn't really associate this with the movie itself. I wish we could freely appreciate the movie as the work of art it is, and not be reminded of how it provided some sort of incentive for this man to shoot innocent people in a movie theatre. Sad.

And the Bruneian helicopter crash two days ago was really depressing, too. So many dead at once, in such a small country with such a small population. We're all shocked.

Selamat Hari Keputeraan.

Long week happened, and I felt too obliged to try to do work and therefore didn't write anything here.

Eventful things happened pretty much every day (because what is life if you don't stop to appreciate the little moments?), but Term 3 Week 3 can be summed up by two key things. Firstly, the combined ACE lesson with 506, and secondly, Lee Han Jie's current affairs presentation for English.

Goodness, I swear I hadn't laughed this much in class since, well, as far back as I can remember.

I mean, there were plenty of sleepy moments in class too, like when nobody could stay awake during Physics, or Math, when my class isn't reduced to a dreary, unresponsive zombie-like state, we're pretty awesome.

We've been wanting to have combined sex ed with 506 for two weeks now, because Ms Dass and Mr Wang (06's mentor) have awesome chemistry together, even though they argue over virtually everything. Anyway, since 06 and 05 have good rapport, we managed to get Ms Dass to say she didn't mind a combined session, and Mr Wang to agree to place his mentor class in Ms Dass' hands (because he evidently doesn't prepare for these lessons).

The story played out like this: On that fateful Wednesday, Adithya came down to my class and asked if we were going up to his class or if his class had to come down to ours, since Mr Wang apparently told 06 that they were having a combined session. Ms Dass then told Adithya to ask his class to come to ours (because we didn't want to climb stairs). Adithya promptly returned to his class and told Mr Wang that Ms Dass had invited their class to join sex ed with our class. Genius orchestration.

It wasn't like sex ed at all. It was more like watching a brilliant television talk show with "abstinence" as the word of the day. It was epic, and the session was filled with the laughter of fifty-odd students, Ms Dass's "what-on-earth" face, and Mr Wang's clueless hand waving and general BS.

If every ACE lesson were like this from now onwards, I would look forward to every Wednesday.

Then the next epic thing happened on Friday, when the remaining six were supposed to present their current affairs reviews during English. It went completely ordinarily, with Ms Dass jotting down notes and most of us listening politely and sometimes exclaiming in outrage, until Han Jie took centre stage.

We didn't think much of it when he posted a link to an article reporting the incident where that guy ate this other guy's face in Miami last May, although we were probably a bit curious as to how anyone could talk about and evaluate the issues found in the article.

But then, oh my goodness, he pulled it off so brilliantly, and so nonchalantly, too. "Look, here is a picture of the man attacking the homeless guy," and "And in this slide you can see the cannibal has been shot dead," were delivered so casually I didn't know whether to hide in disgust or laugh.

And it got worse (or better, actually). He concluded his presentation (after an interactive session concerning whether we would kill and eat other people if we were starving to death) with a slide that made us laugh for at least five minutes straight (I do not exaggerate), bent double in mirth and with tears streaming down our faces.

Ms Dass laughed until she cried too, and she said, "Why, Han Jie, why? You're making me cry," and "I need a tissue, please," punctuated with a lot of laughing. It's funny how we found it hard to be serious considering we were talking about gruesome murder and the like.

Here is a photo of that brilliant slide.

Excellent abs workout.

Today, we went to the Hyatt to celebrate our Sultan's 66th birthday. Good food (the bread and butter, I loved it), then we performed, then we ate again and took a tonne of pictures. Last year for the Year 6 seniors. I realise I'm going to miss them terribly.

Also, finished reading 'Unholy Night'. It's scary how Seth Grahame-Smith writes complete rubbish yet somehow is able to make everything seem completely plausible. All we know about the Nativity has been rewritten into something more human, more real (although we know it's a work of fiction), and more relatable. Great characterisation, has touching parts, and gruesomely detailed, too. The author is somehow able to cast just the right amount of doubt onto religion that makes sense, and is also able to inject bits of faith into the story as well, which I totally admired. Great work. I foresee a movie.

Okay, Monday tomorrow. Have two hours of Electrochemistry and a Biochem prac to look forward to.

P.S. I find myself spending too much time doing Chem nowadays.

P.P.S. Stats is sexy.

P.P.P.S. Congratulations to Lim Jeck, for achieving first in the world for IMO. I love how our entire school is so proud of him.

Silverstone 2012.

It's a Sunday, the Silverstone Grand Prix is over, and there's school tomorrow.

So I'll wrap this up chop-chop (I just looked this word up and found out it's Chinese origin, so like whoa), so I can focus on stuff like my ARP and Chem review worksheets.

Woke up quite late today, because I totally wiped out after yesterday's long day.

Spent my afternoon catching up on the Shaytards' vlogs, and recapping our first Biochem lecture (actually it was more of randomly doodling on my notes), hanging around Tumblr, trying to perfect this song, watching 'Away We Happened' (because that's part of our ARP), psyching myself up for the race.

Then the race started, and suddenly everything sort of burst into life. Tweets rolled in like bullets, and I desperately tried to find a live streaming link that would last me (settled eventually for this French channel, of which I understood absolutely nothing, but it was comforting to be able to hear the revving engines and see the cars on track).

Alonso led very well initially, but we all know the results now. Strategy was kind of a bummer, because he started out on the hard option tyres, and had to end the race on softs, which gave Webber an advantage over him. So, with the faster car, Webber won the race. Vettel ended up third, but I don't think he was expecting to win.

Massa finished fourth, his best position of the season so far, I think. I'm so glad he's managed to find his own pace now, and I bet he'll have less criticism to deal with now. Kimi and his teammate Grosjean finished behind him, followed by Schumi (it was a good lineup, honestly, because these are all drivers I like). Schumi qualified third though, poor thing, but his car really didn't cut it.

I love following Lotus on Twitter, because they're really funny and tweet the awesomest things. Them and Red Bull have the best sense of humour there. Lotus' hashtag of the weekend was '#GodSaveOurTyres'. Very appropriately put.

Button and Hamilton had very disappointing home races, because they were tenth and eighth respectively. British fans mustn't have been very happy with that. And Di Resta didn't finish, so the Scots couldn't have reason to celebrate either.

And somehow Perez attacked Maldonado and both of them spun and that was that for them. Terrible results for both of them, with one DNF and one 16th place (15,000 Euro fine for Maldonado). Tsk. And Kobayashi somehow rammed into his pit crew during a stop (25,000 Euro fine).

Okay, that's it now.

Good night. Week 3 starts tomorrow.

P.S. Oh, and Rowan Atkinson was in the pit garage and that made it awesome.

Purchases.

Woke up really early today (for a Saturday) to figure chords out for this song we're performing for Sultan's birthday celebration next Sunday.

Van left at 9.45-ish in the morning, then reached our High Comm, then we like, practiced a bit and then we had KFC for lunch (because Auntie Mal ordered and she's nice). Bruneians and unity, it's funny but we really are like some dysfunctional family. We may not be close sometimes, or we may hardly talk to everyone else, but in the end we're still in this together.

And it's also funny how we've been asked to do things like this so many times, nobody questions it anymore (except Nick Ho, who was a bit hesitant and confused as to why we are requested to do such things). Sometimes I wonder why, if they care about our grades so much, they would further affect them by giving us reason to divert our attention and divide our time, but then in the end it's all down to proper time management and self-control. After all, we have obligations.

So anyway, got dropped off back at school, then went out with Fatinn immediately afterwards. Our agenda was to buy socks and groceries, but we ended up walking around Bugis and buying more than intended.

I hardly shop, so I'm rather proud of myself when I get things I like. Went to Kinokuniya and procured set of 'A Song of Ice and Fire' (up till the most recent one) for a cheaper price than if I bought them individually (because there has been such a hype lately about 'Game of Thrones', the hit HBO television series). Also picked up 'Unholy Night' by Seth Grahame-Smith (remember him?), which I shall start reading very soon. Also bought myself two Marvel keychains, one of Iron Man and another of Spider-Man. Awesomeness.

Walked around with Fatinn because she wanted to look for a new pencil case and shoes and stuff (general girlish browsing).

Back to Clementi, walked around some more, coincidentally met Kevin and Nick Kong, bought our groceries, then ate at McDonalds with Emily (who also coincidentally met us there because she was planning to meet up with Kevin and Nick to buy durians, which I did not intend to stick around for).

Managed to catch the final session of qualifying when I got back (it got delayed 'cause of the rain), and it was great and terribly exciting. Alonso on pole (yeahey) after he managed to barely squeeze into Q3, followed by Webber, Schumi (brilliantly done), Vettel, Massa (back in form, thankfully), and Kimi (next to his old teammate, such nostalgic feelings).

Celebrated a bit on Twitter with Pin and Joshua Sia. Yay Ferrari fans.

Tired now so I'll go off.

Night.

P.S. Oh, and yes, we did get socks. I've lost so many socks this year it's not even funny. I don't understand where they all go. I was like, down to three functional pairs. Atrocious.