Relaxing day

Today was a really relaxing day for me. I woke up at 9am and started playing GTA while taking my breakfast. I played till around 11am, and then went to watch TV. Had my lunch at about 12noon and then relaxed around, read the newspapers and surf the web.

Till around 2:30pm, Wilson called me to ask if I would like to join them for a movie. I joined them together with several other classmates from NJ. We watched War of the Worlds. The movie was superb! The movie stars Tom Cruise. I feel that the movie scenes resemble Half-Life 2's City 17 a lot. Especially the tripod monsters which look alike Half-Life 2's Striders. The movie also somehow reminds me of GTA SA, like the huge motorway intersection, the houses and open lands.

After the movie, we went for dinner with Jiamin and Yoke Teng at Takashimaya. I ate the Japanese rice wrapped with eggs. It was not very nice, the sauce was very salty and it cost me $8!

Later on, we went to Popular bookshop at Orchard MRT. Jiamin was so excited to buy ten-year series and laid down promises to start mugging - although the midyear exams just ended. NJC's midyear exams included many more chapters than NYJC's. Also, their Maths exam had more questions (12 questions) and lesser time of 2.5hrs as compared to NYJC's 3hr with 9 questions paper. Wow, there is really a huge gap between the standard of both colleges.

OK, time for me to sleep. Signing off.

Exams finally over!

Today I had my last paper which was Physics. There was a question on gymnastic's Iron Cross, asking us to calculate the various forces acting on the arms of the person. I'm not sure if I got it correct, but the answers I calculated were ridiculous. =
The feeling I'm having now is quite alike the feeling I had when the O levels finished. I'm very relaxed now after studying so hard for the mid-years. But it is definitely not wise to relax now as there's still the actual A levels coming up in about 16 months. Time really flies, now as I recall the days back in Secondary School, it's as if I'm a 60-year-old man reminiscing his memorable past.

Today as I walked into the college in the afternoon, I met Alex and Kee Guan. Both were my Primary school classmates. We were all from Yangzheng Pri. I then realised there are 15 people from my primary school currently in NYJC, after they mentioned it. Alex is also an NYJCian, while Kee Guan studies in Hwa Chong. It's no surprise though as Kee Guan has been very consistent in his studies since I knew him in primary school.
Few days back, I also met another primary school classmate. The last time I met him during our primary school class gathering back in December, he was in NYJC because of his poor prelim results. But now, he's in Temasek JC. This goes to show that prelim results will never reflect how your O levels score will be.

I've been addicted to GTA San Andreas lately. I've been playing it ever since I returned from my holiday in Malaysia. I've completed all the story missions and now trying to complete other side missions to get 100% game completion status. The game's scope of play is really huge, there are countless things you can do - from street racing to ambulance missions to firefighter missions to flying an aeroplane. GTA SA is a huge improvement over its previous instalment GTA Vice City. You guys should play it too!

It's holiday for me until next Tuesday as I've no papers on Thursday and Friday, and it's Youth Day on Monday. Have great days ahead guys!

Exams frenzy

Although only 3 days of the week have passed, it seems to be one of the longest weeks. I had General Paper and Chemistry exams on Monday, and Mathematics and Economics today.

The worst paper was Mathematics. It lasted 3 long hours and everyone was mentally exhausted after the paper. There was one question on Sigma notation which required long and tedious working, and had 8 marks to it. As there was only about 20mins left, I decided to go all out to solve this question. I wrote an entire page of rough working before getting the answer. I definitely hope it's correct!

For General Paper, I chose the topic 'Do you think young Singaporeans are well-prepared for life today?' Upon seeing it, I knew it was regarding education and I chose it right away. I commented that young Singaporeans are academically successful after receiving at least 10 years of education. But their social life is dreadful and their not ready to settle down to create a family. Look at the decreasing birthrate... Many Singaporeans are getting married at a later age, and by the time they decide to have babies, they're already 40 years old! Imagine a 50 year old man looking after a 10 year old kid. In other countries, he's old enough to be the kid's grandfather! Ok, enough of ranting.

Chemistry was also a tough paper, doubt that I can do well for it. Economics on contrary was quite alright. The MCQs were straight forward, but the essay questions posed problems to me. I did not really study the issues regarding small firms, so I couldn't answer one of the essay questions in full context. I just wrote down whatever I knew about small firms.

Hope that I can get back the paper soon, only then will I know my results.

Holidays ending soon...

Sigh, the holidays are ending soon. My Chinese common test is this coming Friday, yeah, the school ate into our holidays. I've been addicted to GTA San Andreas lately. I've been playing the game ever since I returned from Malaysia. The game is awesome - lots of fast cars and beautiful scenery!

I've only started attempting a few past-year Chinese exam papers to prepare for the exam. I definitely need to spend the next few days revising Physics, Chemistry and Econs. I've not touched materials related to those subjects since the school term closed!

I sure need to manage my time better... and I definitely hate having exams right after the holidays. Back then in Secondary school, the holidays were like rewards for us, for studying hard for the exams. Now, holidays are for us to study for the exams... :(

Back from trip

I'm back to Singapore after a week-long holiday trip to Malaysia. I feel more relaxed after being away from books and schoolwork. I will also need to restart my exercise routine after stopping for a week and eating so much good food in Malaysia. :D

My family and I took a taxi down from Genting to my uncle's condo in Kuala Lumpur. My Dad parked his car there during the period when we were in Genting. It was about 2pm when we set off for Singapore. We reached Yong Peng at around 4pm, for a food cum toilet break. The drive was silk smooth until the custom checkpoint where there was a huge jam. The car inched its way through the traffic and took 45mins before clearing the customs. From then on, the drive was smooth and we reached home in about 30 mins.

I installed and played GTA San Andreas. The game seems to look the same as Vice City, not much improvement in graphics. There are certainly more vulgarities in the dialogue though. I've only played through the first three missions, hope to reach the part where I can fly a plane soon!

And yeah, Pistons thrashed Spurs in today's Game 3 of the NBA Finals. Although Pistons are still 1-2 down, I'm sure they'll tie the series with a win in Game 4. From then on, it'll be a tough stretch for both teams.

It's certainly great to be back in Singapore, no more traffic jams and it feels more familiar here. Albeit without the delicious prawn noodles, beef kway teo, char kway teo and hokkien mee, I still can live without them. :D Hope to eat all the good food during my next trip to KL.

In Malaysia on holiday

I am currently in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on a 6-day long holiday trip. I'm currently in a cybercafe in Ampang Park Shopping Centre, it charges RM$2.50 an hour, pretty cheap. I've seen RM$1 per hour!

Today is the second day of the trip, and I've visited the Petronas Twin Towers, gone up to the skybridge to get a bird's eye view of the state. I've also eaten lots of good food such as hokkien mee, hor fun, wan ton mee, dim sum which are all prepared in a different way as compared to in Singapore.

Tomorrow I'll be going to more places, not exactly sure where, but hopefully it'll be fun. Something terrible about Malaysia is the traffic jams virtually everywhere! You'll get stuck in a jam for more than an hour or two during peak periods. Now I really treasure Singapore's excellent transport system. In Malaysia, anything goes. You can make illegal U-turn, stop in the middle of a one-lane road to unload things with cars stacked up behind, ride a motorcycle without helmet. These are just the few things I have seen so far.

I'll also be going to Genting next Monday for a couple of days. My mum craves for the casino, I'll just go there to enjoy the theme park rides and see what are the changes since my last visit two years ago.

Till then, good bye!

Star Wars

I finally had the chance to watch Star Wars today. It is my friend's birthday today, and we decided to watch Star Wars together. We went to Lido cinema for the movie. We also shared a popcorn combo meal which cost $9. The popcorn was huge, and it came with two huge cups of soft drinks. The movie was nice, although at times boring. The part I liked the most was the ending where Henniken wore the Jedi suit. At the end of the movie, there was still one cup full of soft drink, the serving was really huge.
By then, it was about 6pm and we all parted as we decided not to have dinner together.

The PC version of Grand Theft Auto San Andreas is finally released in stores. But sadly, it is banned in Singapore. So I've no choice but to get the "online" version. I've been hunting for the game since yesterday, but it has not been released online yet... I'd probably look for it when I go to Malaysia this weekend, hopefully it's not banned there. GTA is a really cool game!

On Sunday morning, my family and I went to MacRitchie reservoir planning to go for the treetop walk. But to our dispair, it opens at only 8:30am. It was only 6:30am at that time. Thus we decided to go for a jog at the MacRitchie jungle trail instead.

The car park there was almost full, and the place was buzzing with activities. Athletes in their sports attire prepared for their race, while others did a slow jog or strolled on the path surrounding the reservoir. The environment was just so serene. My brother and I jogged the 3.6km route, and it felt very much shorter than the 4.8km route I ran during the X-country last year. My target is to finish top 20 for next year's NYJC X-country event, but I'm sure it will require lots of training.

After the refreshing jog, we went for breakfast at the food court nearby. Later on, we went to my Aunt's house to celebrate my cousin's 21st birthday. It was very fun, we ate lots of food and played XBox.

Today, I together with Wenhui, went to Compasspoint at Sengkang to shop for a birthday present for my close friend whose birthday is tomorrow. After much shopping, we decided to buy a Converse basketball jersey for him. We'll celebrate his birthday by going to the movies and dinner tomorrow. Hope that it'll be fun!

Anyway, the strong resistance by ex-Nanyang JC students against the name-change paid off. The incident even appeared in the Straits Times on Saturday. The principal had announced that the school's board of directors has decided to keep the Nanyang name. Although I've just been with Nanyang for 3 months, I still feel happy about it. If I'm not wrong, Nanyang JC is one of the only two JCs which has Chinese names. The other being Hwa Chong, Nanyang definitely has the potential to strive for greater achievements both academically and in sports.

National JC will also be having a band concert at Victoria Concert Hall on 6 July. Their concert band achieved Gold with Honours at the recent Singapore Youth Festival. Tix costs $10 each, and the quality of the band will be worth your every cent. :)

Hol Lessons & Sentosa

I had holiday lectures again today. There was Economics from 8-930am, followed by Physics from 10-1130am. There'll be another day of lectures next Tuesday, after that it will all depend on myself to do revision for the upcoming mid-year exams. Although it is probably a blessing in disguise that I am in NY because the mid-year covers about 1 to 2 chapters less than the top 5 JCs like NJ. But I still keep my aims high so as I will be able to reach my target of 4 'A's for the A levels next year.

Few days ago, one of my NJC friends invited me to one of the senior's birthday at Sentosa. I was quite surprised, but glad. Thus this afternoon, I met up with Wilson and Jiamin at PS to shop for a present. After walking rounds around the shopping centre, we decided to buy a puppy-bank which is a coin-saver. By then, it was already 5pm. The gathering was supposed to start at 2pm, so we thought that we were very late. We then took an MRT to HabourFront.

Sentosa has changed a lot since the last time I went there which was years ago. The monorail system had been deserviced and is now replaced by a shuttle bus service. We also had to pay $3 to enter the island. I think it is quite a reasonable price since it includes the bus shuttle service, the usage of beaches and other facilities.

When we reached, there was only a few people present. I thought that there would be a large crowd of people comprising of 04S10 and 05S10, but only less than half the classes turned up. The weather was great and the beach was beautiful. People were playing beach soccer and beach volleyball. Singapore is clearly trying to mimic the beaches in Australia, America and Bali. There were also several small man-made islands lining the shoreline, people could swim from the main Sentosa island across to those small islands.

Wilson, Jiamin and I then decided to walk around the island because the bicycle kiosks were closed. We ended up sitting by the beach and enjoying the relaxing breeze. We snapped several pictures with our handphones, of the beautiful sun setting upon the azure sky, and the palm trees swaying to the breezing wind. We sat there till the sun set and the surroundings were very dark except for the lights from the stalls.

We then walked back to the table where the food was placed. The 3 of us felt pretty awkward since we do not really know the seniors. After eating, we left at about 9pm. We took the shuttle bus back to HabourFront MRT and bade our goodbyes.

There is also a class outing for my NYJC class, and will also be at Sentosa. I hope that the weather will be fine, and we'll all enjoy ourselves playing basketball, volleyball, soccer and all the fun stuffs. :D

Flying Frenzy

I just finished playing MS Flight Simulator 2004, but I still cannot land a Boeing 747. I play the game almost everyday, and have tried flying different aircrafts ranging from small planes like the Cessna Skyhawk, to medium range planes like the Bombadier Learjet, and to the heavy ones like Boeing 747 and Airbus A340. I've had successfully landed the Cessna Skyhawk and Learjet aircrafts, but not the Boeing jumbo jets. I definitely need more practice to adjust the plane to the correct speed and altitude for landing.

I had my flying club interview yesterday, and it was quite an experience.
I took a bus to the flying club in Seletar camp, and saw many other applicants already there. There were 30 students scheduled for that interview session. I was surprised to see two other students from NYJC, since I thought I'm the only one from NYJC to apply to join the club. Other students were from CJC, HCI, ACJC, VJC and some other institutions which I cannot recognise.
I was number 11, and waited for about an hour before it was my turn. The interviewer was the flying club's General Manager, also a retired Lt Colonel from the RSAF. He asked me several questions:
1. How did you develop the interest for flying?
2. How do you keep that interest alive?
3. Will you consider flying as a career in the future?
4. Which plane would you want to fly in the air force?
I think that the interview went quite well, and definitely hope I'd pass it. This is the final selection for the student pilot course. They are only selecting about 50 students out of the 100+ students applying. There's still a 50-50 chance. :D