Hungaroring 2011.

The race has just ended, and I'm feeling kinda sad because it's four weeks until the next race at Spa, and I missed more than half of this race, so I haven't really stocked up on enough F1-ness to last me a month.

And the next race is in Belgium, which makes me sadder because Spa was always Raikkonen's special track, and everyone knows we miss Kimi to bits. I think if I brought Kimi up in conversation with Stella she'd probably break down and sob for hours on end. Yes, we do miss him. We miss the Iceman and his nonchalant, totally emotionless ways, and his beautiful racing and his ridiculous amount of self-control.

But anyway, missed this race because I had to go out to dinner with Bruneians to commemorate pre-Ramadhan night. Puasa starts tomorrow and the only meals we'll be having together as a group will be sungkai (because there's no way I'm waking up to join them for sahur). Yeah, that was fast. Blink of an eye, and it's fasting month yet again.

I admire the Muslims here because unlike in Brunei, we don't get to end early or have all PE classes cancelled throughout the month. Instead, they have to deal with full school days and vigorous exercise and the like, which I know is super tiring even with food.

But I digress.

Sort of satisfied with the race results because Button won. I'm all for Button winning, for three reasons. The first is because people have been treating him as McLaren's second driver to Hamilton, and I don't like that. I like Button very much and I don't particularly like Hamilton the most cocky driver on track. The second reason is that he suffered a hydraulic failure last race and had to retire, and lastly, it's his 200th Grand Prix appearance, so you've got to hand it to the guy.

I remember making jokes about him as a little kid, because I found his name so awesome. Button Button Button. How cute. (And yeah, he is quite hot, but not as hot as Kimi, of course).

Vettel second place was quite all right, too, because I like Vettel and his kiddish ways. Joshua thinks he's adorable (man-crush right there).

And Alonso third was great, because a Ferrari on the podium is always a good sign.

Then come Hamilton, Webber (poor Stanley) and Massa, who set the fastest lap of the race and I'm really proud of that.

Okay, going off now. New school week starts tomorrow. And it's a full school week, this time round (man we're getting spoiled with holidays).

Night.

P.S. Selamat berpuasa, guys. May your iman be kuat.

Simulation.

Eyes closing, listening to the Scorpions, going to sleep very soon, and going to type out this post in five minutes.

Great stuff, yes, great stuff. Attempted a Nightcrawler in charcoal, but my pencil outline isn't done yet and I'm already sort of giving up. The thing about drawing is that you should never give up on your vision, 'cause it might look like crap initially, but when you persevere it kinda shows up quite decent-looking. Will try again tomorrow.

Really humid right now, and I don't like it because it's adding to my sleepiness and it's really warm and sticky in a way. Hope it'll rain tonight.

Felt kind of weird today, because it's a Monday even though it's a Friday, and so everyone went around really confused. Monday blues on a Friday is just weird. It's like we're all accustomed to feeling happy while carrying out a Friday schedule and to feeling tired while doing Monday things.

Anyway, had Math for a start, and it's funny how calculus has started to rule our lives. "What is the rate of mutation?" was a question we got in our Evolution Bio prac, and we were tempted to answer with "dy/dx". Oh lord help us all. Differentiate integrate chain rule we're all doomed for life.

Started a new bit of Math today. Some Riemann Sum thing. It's not that Math isn't fun. It honestly is enjoyable when you understand it.

Finally had our Physics in-class today. Hopefully won't get under average, and I have a feeling our average is going to be quite high, 'cause it definitely wasn't as hard as expected. Common sense-ed my way through, but randomly tossed in a few signs here and there, so it probably gave away the fact that I had little to no idea what I was doing.

Had Evo Bio in one of the computer labs. My strange and sudden obsession with 'Twelve Days of Christmas' has gotten half the class humming it at random times, and putting in the effort to learn the lyrics.

Yeah, go us.

Anyway, played around with some simulation thing for our prac, and then answered a few questions with Zheng Wei, Bryan and Verena while Yos plotted our graphs.

Honestly, I don't care what people say about Bio anymore. I'm going to honour it and that's final. If you think it's useless and want to drop it then be my guest, but I hate that people keep telling us we're losers for liking such redundant subjects.

Then went out for dinner with Wee Thean, Woan Chyi, Adithya and KT. Talked about Pokémon and I realise I haven't watched an episode in weeks. Totally got overridden by House.

Okay, night.

T list.

Big debate right now: To go or not to go to the Singapore Toys, Games and Comic Convention.

Oh lord, I would love to go and check out the Marvel/DC stuff, but I'm totally unfamiliar with everything else, and that would make it strangely awkward to be surrounded by rabid fans.

Yeah, it's going to be awesome.

Today's a Thursday, so we started off with PE and then some Malay and then some Geog and then some Math and then some Cell Bio.

Mrs Lim uses this online tool to pick names for presentations, and it's funny because we've all become so addicted to the process of waiting for the names to be chosen (sort of like a jackpot machine) we request for it all the time. Would totally place money on names, but then that would develop into full-fledged all-out gambling, and then that would be totally against school rules.

Cell Bio was interesting, even though it dragged all the way past six and we were tired and worn out. Air-conditioned lab made it better, too.

Cultured some bacteria and some plants with Leyi. Hopefully my bacteria won't GG or anything like that, because honestly, I think I did a really terrible job with the streaking. Absolutely un-precise. Our plants definitely have better chances. Epic fun.

Also kinda spent most of the time singing random Christmas carols while embedding plant stems in agar. And now I know the lyrics to 'Twelve Days of Christmas'. It's drummers pipers lords ladies maids swans geese five golden rings calling birds French hens turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree. Hooray for great memory.

I love Christmas spirit (although I don't celebrate it and Christmas is like, months away).

Feeling really tired right now, so short post for tonight.

Night.

P.S. I love Twitter because whenever you tweet something, it's good to know people on your T list have got your back.

Eclipse shower.

Tolkien's Elven languages are so beautiful. There's just a ring to them, that pleases the ears and sounds so delicate and charming and lovely. Amazing, really. The pronunciation, enunciation, expression, yeah, it really raises the elves a notch above the other races.

Listening to Enya's Ániron at the moment, and it makes me love LotR even more. So peaceful yet so epic. I love it.

Didn't post yesterday because I got lazy and wanted to watch House instead, and there really wasn't anything to talk about.

Math early in the morning today was all right, because I didn't get terribly lost and was completely okay with it. Honestly, I can't imagine Math class without Mr Chia. Man, it's going to be so sad without him teaching us next year.

Then had Malay, where cikgu jumped us with a karangan we had no idea was going to happen. Did a crappy job (but then again, all my karangans are really bad because my Malay is simply atrocious).

English was great, because we watched a documentary on the Chinese people of China (not the "me" kind of Chinese, where I only call myself that because of my Chinese roots and have the Chinese literacy of an ambitious tourist, but the real Chinese people of China) and how they toiled to learn how to speak English in preparation for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. It was really moving, actually, despite how we mocked Chinese accents afterwards.

I love how their instructor guy told them that they learn English not because they're wannabes, but because they take pity on the foreigners for not understanding Chinese. Their work ethic is ridiculously strong and driving, and I love how they know that the advancement of themselves and their country is going to be built on a foundation of understanding and comprehension brought about by effective communication. If they won't learn Chinese, the Chinese will learn English and trounce everyone.

I feel so ashamed now. I claim to be Chinese yet I neither read or write Mandarin. People think I speak Hokkien funny even though it's really the only Chinese dialect I'm reasonably fluent in. I may look Chinese, and hang out with Chinese people, but on the inside there's very little Chinese about me. I have relatives I see annually who say the same thing whenever they see me, "Oh here's the English person/So you speak Hokkien now, eh?" So they belittle me for frankly, sucking at being a Chinese person. It gets worse when it comes to food. I don't eat pork, and am generally uncomfortable with Chinese cuisine. Do I blame my upbringing? My parents and brother are "Chinese" enough.

In answer to questions about my strange accent (which a lot of people think is weird, or that I'm faking), no I didn't grow up in Asia, and yes English is my first language. Three or so odd years in Birmingham was enough to see me turn from a toddler to a rather English-accented little girl. I'm rooted there.

As I've always said, the most Chinese thing about me is probably the fact that I eat with chopsticks sometimes. How sad is that? So people regard me with disdain. I love it how people talk about me in Hokkien and think I don't understand. Dear lady who serves us hostel food, I know what you say about me not being able to speak Mandarin. And it hurts.

MoE language proficiency test was interesting, because it wasn't really gathering information about how well Malay students in Singapore handle the Malay language, because the only Singaporean Malay taking the paper from our school was Aisyah. Their survey results are going to be contaminated with Bruneian and Indonesian data. Fun.

Okay, going off now.

Night.

P.S. "You are my adversary, but you are not my enemy. For your resistance gives me strength, your will gives me courage, your spirit ennobles me. Though my aim is to defeat you, should I succeed, I will not humiliate you; instead, I will honour you, for without you, I am a lesser man."

P.P.S. Spilt an almost full box of Eclipse mints in the Audi today, because Kian Wee didn't close it tightly enough and I flipped it over. Five second rule totally applied there.

Jobless nerds.

Going to type this post out in five minutes, because I'm exhausted and want to go to sleep early tonight, but don't want to forget about today. Not that I ever will, because I have footage to remind me of it.

Yeah, woke up early today (even though there was no school) to meet up with the class (or at least, a third of the class) and film our National Day video (because every class has to submit one, God knows why).

By some epic coincidence met Chee Seng on the bus, and then met Bryan, Yos, Zheng Wei and Joo Kee at the interchange, and then met up with Shuen. Wasted pretty much a lot of time at Vivo throwing around random ideas for shots, but then managed to pull through. And then Cheese and Joo Kee decided to cameo as a gay couple every scene. Don't ask me why. Hidden homosexual tendencies, perhaps.

Lunched, met Mr Yeo, went to Esplanade, saw the Merlion, had Shuen run across bridges, bought drinks, had Leyi catch up with us, made fun of Bryan being a "noob tourist", bought more drinks and then took a bus to Orchard to film our last scene of the day (yeah, we've still got more coming, which will hopefully be done soon).

Then went to Plaza Sing where Zheng Wei, Leyi, Bryan and Mr Yeo wanted to watch the latest Harry Potter instalment, so we left them and went to play pool.

Yeahey, lost only two games, which was pretty awesome, mind you. I enjoy pool 'cause it involves no ball-throwing or catching whatsoever, and 'cause I'm quite okay at it. One day when I'm older and way richer, I'm totally going to buy a pool table (whoa I'm so ambitious).

Came back, and coincidentally got on the same 196 as a few of the hostel girls and Wee Thean. Had dinner (and crepes, which were part of our cluster celebration), and then came up to edit footage.

FCPX is going to be brilliant once I get the hang of it, which I hope is soon. It's rather different though, but I'll talk about that some other time.

But yeah, 405 is awesome. We're not ashamed to be complete retards in public (when was I ever ashamed to do stupid things in public?), and have complete acceptance of homosexuals and mentally retarded people. Jobless nerds, that's what we are.

Okay, sleep now.

Night.

P.S. After our disastrous encounter last year, I've finally come to terms with Yos' camera. It's somewhat awesome.

Nürburgring 2011.

Whoa there, we seem to have come across a bout of bad luck, what with Vettel getting ahead of Massa with a lap to go over a course of a botched pitstop for Ferrari. And poor Jenson (as what trended on Twitter a moment ago) suffered a hydraulic failure that forced him to retire.

I believe the hydraulic failure caught the wrong McLaren, actually. Even though Button wasn't running a strong race (starting in sixth, then suffering a bad start), I honestly am biased enough against Hamilton to not want him to win the race.

Still, second place is the next best place after our win two weeks ago. Yeahey Alonso really can drive the car to its maximum potential, and I'm glad about that. Massa finished fifth, which was really quite unfortunate, but Vettel beat him fair and square. It's kind of ironic how German drivers didn't do as well for their home race (just like how British drivers sometimes do badly at Silverstone, too).

Anyway, got an email from Roslyn about how badly my side of the CCA is degrading and how she was disappointed in us and my student leader skills.

Yeah, it was a total wakeup call. All this while I come on here and post about how I "swear" we'll be doing better next CCA session, but it never happens. I've probably failed everyone, and I feel terrible and depressed and dejected. What have I been doing? There's no excuse. Maybe I'm just not cut out for leading.

I've brought us nowhere and we're heading nowhere. Unproductive disappointment and I'm really, really sorry about it. I don't know how I'll be able to look my members in the face anymore. So yeah, that's basically what's been happening. "Ya Wen never does anything."

It's saddening and I'm sad and I'm going to take this like a boss and work my ass off this semester. Even if we don't win competition awards, I want our side to at least gain some respect.

DSA 2011

Getting used to Lion now, and man it's pretty neat. Interface is pretty sweet, and the new trackpad motions are slowly being adjusted to.

Although their automated spelling correction really annoys me. Turned it off because I like to be able to purposely misspell words and make them up when my vocabulary fails me. Gibble asdd lnme edd d mmm yeah? Yeah.

Couldn't feel chuffed about not having to go to school when Bruneians have school on Saturdays today, because I had to wake up earlier than usual schooldays and go to school and like, do things.

Yeah, our DSA camp was today, and we were all there to lend a helping hand. I love how so many of us were so eager to sign up and how we were okay with waking up early and dealing with nerdy little children (no offense, the nerdier the more they belong in our school).

Also, we get a free shirt. But the design's been the same since 2009, and I have that shirt in a hideous cyan-ish shade from Year 2, and now we had a light purple one that isn't less easy on the eyes. Well yes, the design is rather keepable, but they honestly need to pick better colours. It's like our senior management is colourblind. Not all colours go well with our school green, okay?

Manned the Bio station in lab 2 with Samantha, Ian Foo and Galen. Kinda panicked during the first round, so it was quite a bit of a mess when we sliced beetroot before we were supposed to and wasted some, and then the cleaning up after that was confusing, too. But after that we got all smooth and calm and organised and were pretty efficient, although the day simply drained us.

Primary school children who know they want to do Math and Science for the rest of their lives are sort of scary. These kids are like little nerdy people who are destined to grow into even larger nerds (sort of like us, really), and because many of them are so keen on entering our dear school of Math and Science (and because they're from Singaporean primary schools), the competition is freakishly fierce.

Like, if I were an eleven or twelve year old and had to carry out the experiments these kids were supposed to do today amongst all that scary competition, I'd have broken down and given up. But man these kids are smart. It's hard to decide whether they're just robots trained to give desired outputs when fed input, but some of them really do have the potential to become awesomely awesome in terms of intellectual capability.

Watching our DSA camp again just makes me wonder (yet again) how I managed to get into this school. How on earth did that happen? I mean, I left half the entry examination paper blank, and sat there shaking during my interview, and then told them I hadn't any interest in mathematics. It was a recipe for failure that backfired completely. Yeah, I was half-hoping I wouldn't get in, because I didn't want to leave home. So yes you have to give us foreigners credit for bravery, even though we aren't as smart as a lot of people here. We've got spunk.

But it's true, doubt does creep in on me sometimes, when I feel as if I'm just not cut out for it. This doubting happens less nowadays, but it's still there, and was today. I bet if I'd tried to get in through DSA I'd have failed miserably.

The kids were cute, though.

Oh, and we saw Lim Jeck's sister because she came to our lab, which was amusing because she sort of looks like him. Kept an eye out for Cyrus' brother, too, but didn't see him.

Then came back, slept, and then went out for dinner with Fatinn. Walked about Clementi Mall eating frozen yoghurt and talking about life. Where would we be without friends?

All right, going off now. Want to finish off 'Stardust', because it really has been way too long.

Night.

P.S. Talked to Stanley about F1 earlier today, and he's going to be so happy Webber's on pole again. The Ferraris are fourth and fifth respectively, but the other teams wouldn't count on that. Forza Ferrari.

Lion.

Really excited at the moment, because I've finally gotten Lion (after it was released like, two days ago) and now I'm running FCPX (huge thanks to Wee Thean). I haven't gotten 'round to using it yet, but it looks an awful lot like iMovie. It's like Apple's trying to make everything simple for amateurs. Seems simple enough to use.

But part of me is kind of disappointed, because now I can't really impress people with my mass of FCP knowledge that I had when using FCP7 as everything looks so cute and easy and laid out for you. With FCP7, at least we could look somewhat really professional using it, and now it's like we're editing home movies for the family to watch around dinner. But no, I won't judge it by its appearance alone. Now I honestly can't wait to get my hands on some footage so I can put the editing to the test.

Oh man I am so excited.

So, Lion. I've just started using it (about half an hour ago) and everything seems so easy I find it insults my intelligence. When I type, it's like typing on an iPhone, because it likes to auto-correct you and tell you what's right and what's wrong and then suggests words for you to use. I don't like that. This is why our spelling is atrocious without spellcheck. I bet people from the 1800s could spell a hundred times better than we can now. Mr Darcy couldn't have proclaimed his deep, ardent love for Elizabeth in bad, misspelt English now, could he? That would've been so unromantic.

All right, enough about Lion for now. I'll need some time to getting used to all the new trackpad gestures (and I've become ridiculously swift with the old ones, it's kinda sad that I have to hesitate and get everything wrong now).

My day was totally made by this Japanese exchange teacher guy who got into the same lift as I did this morning. He stepped in and was all like, "Good morning!", and I was like, "Good morning," back, and after that I felt strangely cheerful. So that's what a happy morning greeting does to you. No wonder the Japanese have such a great, admirable work ethic.

But then again, Yos pointed out that it's probably only Singaporeans that are miserable and sullen and glum in the mornings, but he's generally racist, so I don't know how credible that is.

A good "good morning" makes mornings good indeed.

Physics was fun and confusing. Oh yeah. Such fun.

English comprehension quiz thing (because I'm not calling it a test) was fun too. Now these are the types of questions that you can enjoy answering. Spotting irony and deciphering writers' thoughts. What made it more enjoyable was that it wasn't graded (and Mr Chin lied to us when he said it "probably was").

I have a feeling Ms Tong likes referring to us as "girls", because we're an all-girl class (which is extremely, extremely rare in our school). Yeahey Economics.

Chem quiz was, well, here's to hoping I pass. Mrs Chong is going to be so disappoint, but I hope not.

Then had CCA. Have good plans for SDMA, and new instructor guy is (insert opinion here). Will consolidate plans next week.

Had dinner out with Wee Thean, Kelvin and Adithya. I don't think I'll ever grow tired of having dinner with these people. Eating together is probably what bonds hostel people.

Okay, going off now. Want to watch 'House', and have to wake up early to help out for DSA tomorrow.

Night.

P.S. So, so glad our Malay video got into the top five. Winning would be nice, yes.

Temper.

Okay, first 'Could you please unblock Twitter' email to the Boarding Office sent, and hopefully, hopefully, they'll consider my plight, take pity on me, and then unblock Twitter. That way, it'll save loads of frustrating moments and depression when I can't locate wifi in my room and I have to like, tweet things.

I'm so addicted to Twitter, there will soon come a day where I'll have to feed off Twitter with an IV drip, and I think I might need to seek counseling or something, I'm not sure. Made a Twitter reference in an essay two weeks ago and got it back during English today, and Mr Chin circled the word "trend" (followed by a hashtag) and question-marked it. Mr Chin should totally get a Twitter account. His epic thoughts need to be shared, and I bet he'll garner more followers than I have in like, a week.

Well yes, I'm now officially a fan of Mr Dustin Chin, English teacher extraordinaire, master of indifference and captain of "owning Ryan".

Speaking of Ryan, he sort of exploded in class today because he couldn't solve a Math question. Well, you can't know everything. Loved how Mr Chia dealt with it, because all he said was, "Ryan, you're disrupting my class" and it was a ridiculously awkward moment.

Have a Malay ujian tomorrow, and I'm feeling terribly unprepared.

Racial harmony-ed during ACE. Yeah, we all know it's uncool to be racist. In fact, it's uncool to be severely biased or pious because it's unreasonable and unnecessary.

Then redid our Physics practical, because our results really were a mess.

Wore my glasses to the scholar meeting just now, because I figured since I look smarter (or nerdier) in them, I'd be able to pass off as a more "scholarly" person. Honestly, you can't really define a "scholar". Nobody's perfect. Some people study too much and some people couldn't care less, but we're all scholars, right?

But the presentation is always the same. Study, participate, have fun, don't stray. Work hard, be diligent and caring and responsible. Yeah, totally, man. I think I have sufficient moral values for that.

All right, going off now, have land use to evaluate (yeah, I'm a proud Geog student).

Adieu.

P.S. Our Pokémon video is almost at a thousand views. We'd love your support.

Fame.

I think I might be in love with my laptop right now. Oh man. Watching House on it for the first time and everything's so clear and beautiful and the colours all stand out (makes my New York cityscape wallpaper look even more amazing, too) and I think I like, fell in love, man.

It's like I think about it before I go to sleep, and when I wake up in the morning I'm all excited to see it again, and when I use it I love the feel of the keys and the way the screen looks crystal clear. Ah, love.

Brought my old Macbook to school though, 'cause this one's too precious. The contrast is scary. It seems to take forever to boot up (which, of course, is still faster than your average PC) and it's sort of slow in doing things, but it totally works and I feel bad about letting it go so young. That's all right, because I have a photo montage in the works on it and so I'll still be using it for a few days.

Asked Phan for my The Sims 3 disk a few moments ago, so I'll be able to install it here and sim with extreme awesomeness. I still only have Late Night, but that's okay. Won't be spending too much time gaming because I have like, priorities (cough excuses cough). But I will definitely get CIV5 when I see it (been wanting to play it since last year, but like, Mac versions of games are hard to find, and like, expensive). I'm cheapskate. Ridiculously cheapskate.

So what if I like money. Money's what makes the world go round nowadays. I mean, I'm all okay if it's for other people, but when I buy things for myself I feel as if I've totally wronged myself (or some part of myself). I hate feeling guilty after buying things. I know I shouldn't, because the money's all mine, but still.

School ended at five today, but I only had two hours of class, which was fun (and gave me time to watch House and select SPSO photos for that photo montage I'm supposed to do and like, sleep). No Malay, no Chem, no PPV (never did I even stop to consider Math Honours).

Yeahey, now to go and be productive.

No idea how to do our Physics prac. None whatsoever. Absolutely clueless. Going to ask around tomorrow. Need enlightenment.

Adieu.

P.S. The music video for Rebecca Black's latest single 'My Moment' was released last night, and it's already gotten hundreds of thousands of dislikes (and probably like a million views). Prefer 'Friday', because it was a whole new level of crappy it was fun and catchy, but this one is just a bit weaker than all the generic pop songs we get nowadays. Nothing special at all.

Delicate.

Listening to a bit of James Blunt right now, and wishing my laptop could connect to wifi so I'll be able to get on Twitter (yeah, I'm still a hardcore Twitter addict).

And although I'm listening to James Blunt singing about being someone's man, my mind keeps going back to Damien Rice's 'Delicate'. It's a lovely, lovely song. Heard it during the closing sequence of an episode of 'House' (yeah, it's fun to discover songs through television shows) and couldn't get it out of my head (just like 'Some Devil' by Dave Matthews a few days ago).

Ah yeah, it's another Monday today (and thanks to Rebecca Black everybody knows that it comes after a Sunday). Man, three full weeks of school has just flown by. It's scary.

Had Math first thing in the morning, and I was surprised I didn't fail our graded class task. Hooray for upgrading.

Everyone was sort of hoping we wouldn't have Physics (again), but then Mr Yeo had to burst our bubble by telling us we had a prac. So yeah, prac it was. Spent two and a half hours in the dry lab poking a piece of conducting paper with pins and stuff. Myat and Glenn are insane. This is partly why our class is so weird. Insanity is apparently contagious.

Then had Bio D (or Evolutionary Bio, whichever you want to call it). Mr Soh is sort of awesome, because he totally knows how to ignore Ryan. Actually, any teacher who can learn how to deal with Ryan within a short period of time is awesome in my book. Talked about exploding whales and stuff. Yeah.

House meeting was interesting. Made level reps eat disgusting things, which, compared to what I've seen on 'Fear Factor' (anyone remember that show?) is nothing, but really appalling all the same. Bread with loads of McDonald's curry and barbecue sauces, salt, sugar, and slabs of butter. Ew. They're all probably going to fall sick or get hypertension or diabetes or throw up, at the least.

All right, going off now.

Night.

Going to wait until late at night to post this, because our school wifi is somehow only detectable during certain late-night ungodly hours.

P.S. The Shaytards has totally gotten to me. I can't look at James Blunt's 'Some Kind of Trouble' and not think 'Babytard'.

P.P.S. Oh, and I totally forgot to post a link to the latest vlog here. Go Bruneians.

P.P.P.S. One day I'll bring my stuff to YouTube. After all, if nobody's going to watch my vlogs, what's there to be afraid of?

Macbook Pro.

Transferring a bunch of data and cross-checking between laptops now, and it's driving me crazy. It's like moving into a new house, where you have to make sure you don't bring anything you don't want to and you move in everything you need and then you have to arrange everything nicely before settling down.

And just like moving into a new house (the last time I moved was like, six or seven years ago, but it was such a huge event there's no way I could ever forget), there's this sense of satisfaction one gets when everything's settled nicely and you can just sit back and relax and enjoy yourself.

Glad 'cause Wan Shen's helping me transfer MSN emoticons by sending them back to me after I've sent them to him on this laptop.

Anyway, after burning such a ridiculously large hole in my wallet, I don't think I'll be buying anything apart from food in a long while. It's scary. Like all that money just gone. Poof. My mum's totally okay with this because it's my money and she thinks it's funny that I was freaking out about it when she called me earlier this afternoon.

But yeah it was totally momentous. Walking into a store and buying a Macbook Pro. Insane, man. That's just insane. (Although how else would anyone buy things if they didn't walk into stores to buy them?)

Thankful for Fatinn because she was totally my voice of reason.

All right then, going off now. Really frustrated because my new laptop can't connect to wifi.

Night.

P.S. Oh Lord, where has my productivity gone?

Everyday I'm Shufflin'.

It's official: Bruneians love 'Ahh'. And they love to shuffle, and are generally one of the awesomest people alive.

I love Bruneians. Yes I do. I love our spontaneity, our epic artistic talent, our randomness and our love for bursting into song and then singing shamelessly loudly in unison.

Oh man, I'm still high. Tonight was simply awesome. That's all I have to say about it. One word just sums it up perfectly. Rebecca Black was right. Fridays are "fun fun fun fun" when done right (which in this case means dinner at the Hyatt, performances and random bouts of shuffling and singing).

Kudos to the guys who managed to learn how to shuffle in like, three days and owned it on stage, and to the other NUSHS Bruneians who put hard work into memorising dance routines and to Emily and Feyra for memorising a song in like, five days (and also to yours truly, who only got the chords on Tuesday). Yeah I deserve some credit too. We all do. We're all awesome and I love how we didn't give up no matter how last-minute it was and how frustrated we got at times during the week. Bruneians should always stick together like this. We've got the spirit. That's why I love us.

I figure photos are going to be up soon, and I'll probably be up all night transferring footage and editing the vlog (after all, it is still a Friday night). Oh man, the best thing about this all is that after all our fun, we've got two days of no school to look forward to after that.

Man, best Friday night I've had in ages.

School today was okay. Mr Yeo wasn't here for Physics, and English was spent talking about art and further discovering Mr Chin's pure epic-ness (for the simile "as annoying as an agitated Ryan Ng, he cancelled out "an agitated", implying Ryan's annoying all the time). Ryan took it all in good grace though.

And need to go and clarify things for Chem. I've completely forgotten about everything we learnt last year in Sem 1. All those orbitals and overlapping and shells. No idea man, no idea whatsoever.

Had to skip CCA to attend our Sultan's 65th birthday celebration, and ended up canceling it because many of us video people opted to join the photo group on their field trip and Dr Li was sick and Mr Xie went somewhere. Will get work going next week, I promise.

P.S. Life as a student is hard, but it'll always be amazing.

Always and forever.

I don't think anybody needs further proof of how nerdy my school is, but here's what we're posting on Facebook right now:

"Chemistry jokes are okay, but Physics jokes are really gaining momentum."

"Where does bad light end up? In a prism."

"Biology jokes are slowly evolving, while Mathematics jokes need to start differentiating 'cause they stale."

"Chemistry jokes make people react."

"Maybe we should integrate them for novelty, but then we'd have to c."

"Geography jokes are cliffhangers, while History jokes are just old."

Oh lord what has happened to us all. It definitely is a school requirement to be at a certain level of "geek-dom" before you're admitted. Honestly, the jokes we make in class are just so nerdy I doubt anyone less nerdy would find them funny.

Anyway, PE today was fun, Malay was slack, Geog was short, Math was funny, and Cell Bio was well, Cell Bio.

We were ridiculously disappointed because after being released an hour early by Mrs Lim and rushing up to 01 to rub it in the faces of the "History people", we found out they got released half an hour before we did.

Honestly, I don't think we've ever been released before the History class. Never. It's so unfair. Sometimes they head down to our Geog classroom to stand by the windows and laugh at us before walking away. It's heartbreak, man. Life is so unfair.

Sultan's birthday celebration is tomorrow, and so far we've only had two probable effective practice sessions (of random dancing, shuffling, singing, and guitar-playing on my part). Well, we are sort of experts in the "last-minute preparation for random performance" area, so fingers crossed all goes well and smoothly and we own it like bosses.

There's nothing more embarrassing than agreeing to be "free entertainment" and then botching everything up badly.

Priorities, priorities. My lips are sealed.

Okay, tomorrow's a Friday and I'd love to just kill it tonight by not sleeping to celebrate the coming weekend, but I'm tired and tired people need rest, so yeah.

Night.

P.S. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2 came out today, and I'm still as bitter as can be. I'm pathetic. Somebody help me.

Ahh.

Listening to a bit of U2 right now. Oh I love U2. The Edge's guitar sound is so light and lovely on the ears.

I'd talk about how frustrating the Internet connection is right now, but I won't because I really enjoy the upload speed we get with LAN. 200 MB vlog took like, fifteen to twenty minutes to upload onto Facebook, and man that feels good.

If only our download speed were that reliable.

I'm currently debating whether I should start posting my vlogs on YouTube and like, gain a wider audience, but then again, I doubt anybody'd bother to watch. It'll most likely end up like my blogging; useless and unread (or watched, in this case), and when you talk to people about it, they tell you truthfully that it's boring and it's "got nothing, really. It sucks."

Honestly, though, I'm not making anybody read this. It's just so that I can remember each day as it passed and not like a blur of time that sped by when I wasn't paying attention. I want to savour every day and all awesome moments that come to pass. I don't care if you don't care, but sometimes it hurts when people tell you your thoughts are "nothing".

But yeah, I would like to vlog on YouTube. We'll see how it goes.

Funny thing, I don't remember what we did during Malay today. Oh that's right, absolutely nothing productive. Read a passage from our textbook and that was it. Found out from Cikgu (yesterday, actually) that our little video got into the top ten and now we're waiting for results to see if we get into the top five. Sounds fun. Ash will be chuffed. We don't suck that much, after all.

Had Math after Malay. Mr Chia is still as awesome and as unusually happy as always (he really is getting happier. When you compare it to last year when he began teaching us, nobody remembers him laughing or cracking jokes or anything along those lines). Integration? What's that? We don't remember an ounce of it (yes, because you can measure Math concepts that way).

I like Chem. Honestly. I like it because I totally understand it, and because Mrs Chong is fun to be taught by. I have a feeling she enjoys our total lameness, even though we keep getting distracted by Bryan's strange comments and Ryan's eager but annoying contributions to the class.

Oh yeah, International Year of Chemistry all right. It's a good year.

Econs. Hmm Econs.

Okay, I'm off now.

Night.

P.S. I love Bruneian spirit. We'll stick together like nobody's business.

P.P.S. It rained all night last night and it was awesome.

Haunting.

"Gravedigger/When you dig my grave/Could you make it shallow/So that I can feel the rain..."

That's part of 'Gravedigger' by Dave Matthews, and I think I might've fallen in love with this song. It's so haunting. Heard it last night, and it was the first thing I thought about when I woke up, and it stuck with me all day and and still is. It's scary how obsessed by mind is with the notion of being able to physically feel beautiful things after I'm dead. It's a lovely idea, but death best be avoided, so no, not looking forward to that.

Was dying during school today. Totally need to get more sleep.

Math was confusing because my brain couldn't function properly and just wasn't bothered to think, and then Physics was horrible too.

Thankful for Bio though, 'cause we watched this movie about how Darwin used his theory on evolution to pick up chicks (particularly his first cousin, which he later admitted was a bad idea because of the limited gene pool their children would have).

Interesting times, those.

But yes, I like the idea of evolution and natural selection. It's a beautiful yet cruel process. The weak die and the strong survive. That's how it's always been.

Short post because my brain is really, really dying.

Good night.

P.S. Poor "book talk" lady was probably forced to give a talk on a certain book. They shouldn't spoil books, honestly. The joy of reading comes partly from character and plot development, and discovering things through the writer's genius. Not when someone lays out the plot and characters for you and then recommends you read it.

Silverstone 2011

Oh my goodness, I could just explode with happiness right now. I'm ridiculously overjoyed and I can't stop myself smiling like an idiot every two seconds.

Alonso has just won the Silverstone Grand Prix, and it's Ferrari's first victory of the season, and I love how Facebook simply burst with commotion (haven't been on Twitter yet because of the LAN restriction). I love all my Ferrari-loving friends and how we act as if we've each won a million bucks when Ferrari accomplishes awesome things.

It's just that when you stick by a team (and I've totally mentioned this before) and people laugh at you because they think it's overrated and you have no taste and that their golden years are a thing of the past, it feels amazing to prove them wrong. Ferrari's finally got their car up to competitive pace again, and although their qualifying was compromised by the rain, Red Bull's imperfection (yes, they make mistakes, too) botched up one of Vettel's pit stops and let Alonso win.

McLaren also made dire mistakes, with Hamilton almost running out of fuel (and Massa almost managing to overtake him for fourth near the end of the race) and Button coming out of the pits missing a wheel nut (causing him to retire). A very bad day for them, especially with British drivers in a British team at a British circuit. Disappointing, yeah.

Williams was disappointing too, because they did quite well during qualifying (with Maldonado out-qualifying Barichello), but then they ended up out of the points.

Webber should've been in second, but RBR told him to "maintain the position". No comment.

Anyway, race aside, hung out at the High Comm today, and then got strings. Vlog should be up soon.

Night.

P.S. And this video of a little boy aka the mini Warbler singing and dancing just made my day ever better. Talented, adorable children enjoying themselves are always a joy. So cute.

P.S. I'm still so happy right now.

How is babby formed?

Realised I forgot to add this link to my post yesterday. I can't decide whether the fact that this incident actually occurred is funnier than it is sad, but all the same it relays a pretty distressing message.

Is this person somehow unable to use spellcheck? Or is he or she typing with her eyes closed and his or her brain turned off? I don't understand. How could anyone's education be so terrible? It's insane. It's unbelievable. Aren't these people even slightly ashamed at their atrocious lack of knowledge? It's horrible. It's absurd. It makes me want to cry myself to sleep at night over our sheer pathetic-ness. Yes, it's plain sad.

But hell yes it's hilarious when cavemen say it with gruff voices and dead serious faces.

And then there's Brendan's Facebook post about how this Chinese couple were unable to start a family for years because they hadn't the slightest inkling of what sex is and how babies were conceived. It's pure brilliance. Proves that innocence can be maintained and sometimes there can't be enough exposure. Article is here. Apparently their parents never had the talk with them whatsoever.

Anyway, I'm totally glad it's a Friday today, because I'm lazy and like to sleep in.

Didn't have Physics today because Mr Yeo wasn't here (again. If he's sick again, there is something seriously wrong with his immune system). It's funny how we stayed in class until the hour was up, even though we could've left much earlier. I love how 05 roll.

Died-ed during our English essay (non-graded, thankfully). I can not organise my thoughts. Not at all. It's scary.

Econs was interesting, not because of what we had to learn but because there were no guys in our class. Zheng Wei opted out of that tutorial slot after he realised he'd be the only guy there, so yeah, it was a very unmanly class.

And then had Chem. Every time we greet Mrs Chong after a lesson and say 'Have a nice day Mrs Chong' she cracks up. We don't know why. Perhaps it's because we're the only class to ever do that in the history of the school (all thanks to Ms Sion). I swear, I'm going to miss it when we shuffle classes next year. It's so strange saying "Thank you *insert name of teacher here* without adding something afterwards. 05 is awesome because we're mysteriously able to decide whether to say "have a nice day" or "may the force be with you" and say it in unison.

Watched 'Ice Age' in one of the school computer labs during CCA, because we really didn't have any other place to go. Productivity will increase next week, I promise.

Okay, going off now.

Good night.

P.S. Whoa there, I look smarter in glasses? Really? And it's a good thing? Wow.

Nonchalant.

I've noticed for quite a while now that the hostel Internet system resets my "new" password every few days, makes me use my old one (which was the jumble of letters and numbers they gave out when they started this new, highly advanced system) and then tells me I have to reset my password because it's expired. It's funny because I reset it to the same password every time so it's no problem for me.

Friday tomorrow, and I'm feeling good about the upcoming weekend. To do work, and like, stuff.

Played around with frisbees today during PE, and then finally finished off that quiz thing during Malay afterwards. Beat Faiz's team (aka the "Malay people") by half a lucky mark, because Cikgu accepted Yos' Indonesian answer because he couldn't remember the word "belacan".

Yeah, it was fun, and we were all good sports and did awesomely, I have to say. Go us.

Geog was once again strangely unproductive, because all we do is listen to Mrs Lim talk and then discuss things. Math was confusing and by Cell Bio my brain was half-dead. Honestly, I think it's a bad idea to have it that late in the day. Hey, we're only human.

Addicted to 'House', because I decided to rewatch it. Love the guy, but now I have severe doubts about pursuing a career in medicine because frankly I don't want to kill anybody. So yeah, basing my future on a television series. Great decision-making skills.

All right, it's late and I want to read some 'Stardust' before I go to sleep.

Adieu.

P.S. Why hasn't it rained yet?

Downplay.

Waited half an hour for this page to load, so I'm quite unsure if the connection will hold until I'm done and ready to post this. Oh the little frustrations of life.

Tension's increasing, wishing it would rain very, very soon or I might explode. Erratic weather. People who like unpredictability and surprises should totally come and live in the tropics, because with climate change, it's never really mundane monotony anymore (unless sudden shifts in the weather becomes the norm and that in turn becomes boring and predictable).

Suddenly it's hot and humid and the next moment it's freezing and then we're all confused.

'Required Reading' is trending on Twitter right now. I don't see how anyone would hate that. 'Required Reading' is obviously required for a reason. That's why it's "required".

I mean, to quote VFD members from Lemony Snicket's 'A Series of Unfortunate Events' (which I worship almost obsessively), the world would be a better place if everybody was well-read. It's not hard to pick up a good book and become absorbed. Reading is an outlet, not a chore.

Malay today was fun, I have to admit. Finally got 'round to quizzing each other, and it turns out our general knowledge really, really sucks. Sure, they're things that aren't necessary for survival, but it feels good to know things, and knowing things is good for conversation (from what I gather).

Huge thanks to Leyi for drawing up something for our friendship patchwork thing, because without it we'd be in huge trouble (absolutely no thanks to myself, who regrets not doing much and is ridiculously grateful).

Had makeup Physics after ACE, so had to stick around and talk about electric fields with Mr Yeo.

All right, going off now.

Night.

P.S. I don't care which era a song is from, or if it's old, or if it makes me seem old if I listen to it, because if it's good, it's good, and good songs are hard to come by nowadays.

Memes.

What makes someone a winner? Charlie Sheen definitely thinks he's one, but I don't know what gives you the qualifications to call yourself that.

Watching my Internet connection slowly seize up and slip into a coma right now. Can't open any web page so I'm stuck here typing on one that's already open. Yeah, it's frustrating at times, but I'm not succumbing to being "Access denied" by LAN connection.

Flag-raising this morning was fun, because the lightning alert sounded before anyone could say anything, so we were dismissed and had to listen to the announcements in class (which is a bad thing, because then hardly anybody listens). Didn't rain though, and I was disappoint.

One reason why I love rain is because I can't stand that tension in the air when humidity is high before it rains. It's like something might spontaneously combust or something, and then I'm all like, "Why you no rain?"

Had Malay today, which meant we had to just keep working on our little quiz thing. Probably going to get owned tomorrow but that's all right, we're good sports.

Died during Math because of the graded class task. Yes, I'm stupid and I'm uncomfortable around numbers, but it sucks to always think of yourself that way. Even though it's the truth.

And then had Chem, which was fine. Mrs Chong spent half an hour trying to get the class to understand a question which she claimed was "one of the simpler ones" and everybody was confused and lost for a while. I think it was the presentation. I'm unsure. Or maybe we were all a bit down in the IQ zone today (well, most of us, anyway).

Spent an hour playing Munchkin and then it was time for Econs where there was a definite attention deficit.

Need to get my game on.

Night.

P.S. One of Wei Ren's badge designs say '5.0 GPA? Challenge accepted'. Now why can't I take myself seriously?

Dark of the Moon.

There comes a time when certain change has to occur in order for us to strive forward, a time when the old has to be cast aside and mercilessly replaced by the new, a time of advancement.

Yeah, I need new strings.

It's been far too long since I've had new strings, and since I got back I've had this nagging feeling about getting new strings because spending the June holidays locked in a cupboard has done nothing good for my strings.

Went out with Woan Chyi yesterday to Clementi to get a set but Yamaha didn't have the ones I wanted, so I was disappointed and cried all the way back (actually no, we went to get some sustenance at Fairprice instead).

Saw 'Transfomers: Dark of the Moon' earlier on at Vivo with Kelvin, Wee Thean and KT. Yeah, it was definitely entertaining, with great CGI and Autobot-Decepticon action, although there was probably less plot than Twilight. And since Megan Fox left, Sam gets conveniently (as Joo Kee put it) dumped by Mikaela and hooks up with a disappointingly less hot British chick. Sigh. But yeah, you have to admit those are big shoes to fill and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley did all right.

It's interesting how the older we get, the more okay we become with jokes concerning sexual innuendo. I remember back when I was twelve or thirteen or so, I'd like, turn red as soon as anyone said the word "sex". I guess we eventually figure out that it's totally okay and nothing to be embarrassed about. Either that, or we were embarrassed for adults for having to undergo this, um, interesting process.

Anyway, feeling great at the moment because there's no school tomorrow because of Youth Day. I feel oh so youthful.

Adieu.

P.S. This dog is awesome. It can fetch beer, man.

P.P.S. You know what has a lot of sexual innuendo? 'Blackadder'. I kid you not.

P.P.P.S. Oh, and they played MCR in the cinema and I was so happy.

Somewhere Only We Know.

Just realised that there is indeed a strong emotional ballad about being forever alone, and that's Eric Carmen's 'All By Myself'.

I can practically see the forever alone-ness oozing out of the song, when he almost blubbers the words "...all by myself, don't wanna be all by myself anymoreee." Talk about a depressing song.

But yeah, challenge totally accepted, and I'm going to come up with a forever alone song no matter how long it takes me and what I have to do to get there. I'll probably have to settle on a genre first, though.

Had epic amounts of break today, with Mr Yeo on MC and Mr Chin away (God knows where he goes on these occasions, but yes, he was away today, despite how mysteriously. It's like nobody ever questions his absence. He could be some sort of secret undercover kick ass FBI agent for all we know). Kind of pointless, actually, because we only had one article review to do until two in the afternoon when we had Chem.

So just wandered around and rubbed it in the faces of people from other classes who weren't lucky enough to get as much break as we had while secretly envying them for not being completely bored out of their minds with the amount of nothingness we had.

Had CCA, where we sat around Computer Lab 1 'cause our beloved Mac lab is in the library and the library was being used for Chinese O'level orals.

Then went out to eat at Rocky's with Wai Yin, Ji Hyun, Wee Thean, Adithya and Jung Min. Ji Hyun only came because we offered to carry her bags and then wouldn't return them until she had dinner with us. Epic fun, and it's especially funny when we tell a joke and it takes an additional minute or so before the Koreans get it. I think it's just their way of thinking.

All right, going off now. So glad it's a weekend already.

Night.

P.S. Hooray for Internet memes.

P.P.S. Youth week is over, and you can't help but feel sort of appreciative for the student council's efforts. Hooray for random person-in-bear-suit hugging.

P.P.P.S. "My dog eats kimchi." -Jung Min