surprisingly we din have to queue for nasi lemak.

saw this freak thing on the foreshore/ intertidal/littoral zone of the beach. transparent slimey slug-like thingy. and this other colourful spotted sluggy thingy, and more of the ugly sea cucumber-like thingy. changi beach seems to be littered with mangled fish bodies and these aliens today. freaky.

photos are on flickr.

it was going fine, until we saw the posters of Paris Airshow 2005. and of course, since Asian Aerospace is only the 3rd biggest, it sux when you see photos of Paris. i want to see Ariane rocket, i want to see more planes, i want to see rockets!

ok ok.
there were so many POLICE walking around (and also standing still), that it felt like i was in Police Academy. shakes head.

yeah Airbus 380. not extremely fascinated with it, it's just a Big plane. yes amazing that they can make it Big, and even more amazing that many people want to buy it. but otherwise how fascinating can it be. can't beat AA2004 where all the top fighter jets came to sell themselves. alas this time round RSAF is shopping for aircraft trainers (only found out when i flipped the papers after dinner), no wonder they kept showing trainers.
i guess you cant expect them to come out with many new exciting planes every 2 years. but it would be nice if there were at least some team acrobatics. at this rate, there'll never ever be crashes at sg airshow.
well the A380 did try to do some fancy maneuvers, respectable for something of its size.

french. i remember in jc2 i used to spent half my time doing S paper hw. even though there were 4 other main subjects. now im spending half my time doing french, even though there are 4 other modules. maybe that's why i couldn't take it during sec1 (erm, ambiguity realised, heck).
i must stop getting my grammer wrong. why is there an insane amount of grammer. writing is hard enough, how to speak in realtime. and then that day the lecturer tricked us with "Payan" vs "Payon", both of which sound disgustingly similar.

i dislike lousy chinese funeral bands. i think they desecrate they entire thing. yucks.
i dont want drumset, i dont want electric guitar, i dont want Erhu, and i dont want Synthesizer, never.
someday when im bored i'll plan out my 'dream' funeral.

i was born free into the world, obliged to no heaven, part of no will. i live my life as a reckless fool, with my feet on my own unknown path. free from the shadow of death, free from the ties that bind. i will die as i will, answerable to no god, at mercy of no soul, at the call of no necromancer, at the door of no devil. on my death i will be held to no rites but what i myself could value. i will be obliged to no entity. i will be still, the memory.

funerals are meant to be filled with old people. old friends. old acquaintances. a pity if they were still young. old customs. old memories which no one can share, no one can understand, and no rites can undermine.

argh i want new camera. i want canon S3 IS.

funeral funeral funeral.
"traditional" chinese funerals.
of my aunt. not that close. but well.

nowadays (these few months, or something), i feel like im an outsider, peering in inquisitively at chinese customs. intriguing. a wrong perspective fascination? i dunno.

the gradual loss of culture. probably. a meaningless ritual?
so many nice stuff to find out, and appreciate, but it's just seemed to be presented and treated in such a way that there's no serious value in it. no pride.
the change in language, religion, values and whatevers all just hasten the decline.

interesting funeral.

forgot to mention the other day, sunday on the train home, i fell asleep. the last i saw was hougang station, then after that.. boom, Punggol. freak. then i was like nevermind, just go back one stop, and Crap, 11.47pm, no more trains towards Harbourfront. uh-oh. great. so i went out, and wow punggol station is like in the middle of darkness. and some bus leaves the bus interchange, unrecognisable number. not like there are many buses or ppl around. and as the ppl disperse and disappear, i realise how lonely this station is.
i decide that it's abit too far to walk back(to sengkang).
and it's rather late to ask my father to come and pick me up.
and then i walk to the road, and great, the road is like freaking empty. like almost Totally empty. was like thinking can i even find a cab. but after awhile, miraculously one empty cab arrived. thank goodness. and it came before midnight, haha. (there was still a slight surcharge)
darn ulu empty punggol.

Asian Aerospace 2006 on saturday. tell me if you wanna go too

#(#*)#*% National Service #(%#%#U%P)(@#%

stupid ICT callup clashes with French Immersion date. i hope they let me disrupt/defer. else im going to really press on them. what a waste of my life to do those things. it's such inefficient use of manpower. waste of my time.

so it was done. 270+241=511. considering i was rather jittery at the start, considering that my sighting was worse than that, considering that i felt a little physically tired, it was just about there. somehow the clicker seems so far away, and my draw is so inconstant. and i should have redrawn many of them.
well well.
stress is stress.

team shoot was the best. with a team who never shot together before. and mostly havent even tried the shooting pattern. i think we had a fantastic score against the team seeded first, being the 8th and seeded last team. 197 vs 206. and all the way they seemed to be trashing us. we were all surprised by how close the scores were. almost almost.

nice jx came to watch me shoot. glad she didn't feel too left out.

and so im sunburnt. yet again. as weiren said on sat night, i get sunburnt often. well, i do things.

more amusing photos on the flickr thingy.

woah i played 'so much' Xbox. Ghost Recon 2. ok i think it's quite a good game now. haha. went high on shooting enemies. so fun. 4 ppl just kept running around and blasting enemies. yeah so i played alot. i practically never touch consoles. i was rather good at it too.
but after thinking back on it, trying to shooting with console controller is like so pathetic compared to using keyboard and mouse. mouse really works wonders.

long time no see camp ppl. a year. familiarity. hope they get on with their lives

Been rather too busy to blog, so many things happened too !

wah-hah. friday was the first star-gazing session that i attended. amused that the lecturer is so on about this. entire introduction into astronomy just to get to black holes. but nice. very nice guy. Einstein's universe is fun. except for the project.
well. star-gazing. it stopped raining, wonderfully. and the rain cleared up the sky. so it was great other than some wet grass (and my bag got wet and my notes had wet edges, blah)

saw many many things. Sirius the attention seeker. Orion belt, the ultimate landmark. some Extra satellite. two planets: Mars and Saturn.
Saturn is my favourite of the night. Saturn Saturn. with it's Rings. so so pretty. gosh. that itself is worth getting a telescope. and the little speck that's Saturn's moons (Titan, Rhea and Tethys). ultra cool. (din catch the oval shape of Saturn, the Cassini Ring, and all 3 moons)
saw a nebula (m42 Orion Nebula) too, with 4 proto-stars(Trapezium) in it, baby stars, newly formed. beautiful as well.
and Pleiades, Seven Sisters. when i looked through i saw this whole mess of stars, well more than seven. so pretty.
hard to see much with so many ppl sharing so few scopes. binoculars can indeed see many things. but as it goes, once u see something better, it's hard to settle for less. of course there were many other things i couldnt name

nope, the arrows din go well today.
one round of 243 sans one arrow.

so few ppl shooting. so many people missing. what happened to everyone.

If the same sun in the heavens cannot accord us the same warmth, perhaps it will be better to pine on the inconstant orb that is the moon, at least it is ever as cold.

shot 3 rounds in 2 hours today. hm.
30m, all 80cm targets.
1. 273
2. 246
3. 258
a little odd that it went up on the 3rd. i started compensating for tiredness instead of trying to force my arm to stay straight. same ol problem of shifting right. such a waste to have a grouping on right-red. still havent broken 300 a round, and 50 for an end.

thanks to jx for telling jh the sky is clear tonight.

nice and bright full moon. with little clouds.
jh looked out the window and managed to see 2 or 3 clear stars, which is amazing considering that he is surrounded by christmas-tree-bright HDB flats. he cannot resist the urge and goes downstairs to take a look. he lugs his laptop along, hoping that no one would be silly enough to try to rob him.
sits himself down at this barbeque area by the roadside, after deciding that it's better to be surrouded on four corners by four lamps than surrounded on all sides by 16 storey rows of staircase lights.
he shields his eyes from the glare with his arm, trying not to break his neck, and trying to use up all the vitamin A in his eyes.
not bad, many many stars visible. all the brightest of the constellations.

- Bright Moon
- Orion belt triplet
- red red betelgeuse, Bellarix 24 Ori, Saiph 53 Ori, Rigel 19 Ori at the four corners
- orion belt points to bright Sirius.
- close to moon and off the line joining moon with orion belt, prob Saturn. cancer is supposed to be there at the same spot, but not visible.
- off centre on the other side of the line, Procyon 10 CMi, of Canis Minor.
- Pollux 78 Gem and Castor 66 Gem pair from Gemini, pointing towards orion belt.
- and on that line, Alhena 24 Gem. the three brightest of Gemini.
- Mirzam 2 CMa beside Sirius, Canis Major.
- Wezem 25 CMa, Ahara 21 CMa, another pair of Canis Major, pointing towards Orion legs.
- and far on the left side, Canopus, probably.

if only he had more magnification. and less light.

surprisingly good, for me. since im usually pathetic.
287/360 for 30m 122cm target
256/360 for 30m 80cm target

let's see if i can improve on that.

i need strength potions!! or endurance potions. my score would go up a damn lot if only my arm would stop shaking.

i managed to get to NTU, end up in South Spine, and find the Language labs, practically all by myself. such an unfriendly place, with so little help and lousy maps.

great weather today, absolutely great weather. (serious. i dont care if you dont agree)

yea i agree the nicest rainbow in singapore that i've seen. biggest fullest.
and it was the first time i've seen a double rainbow. a main one and another more faint rainbow outside of it.
very beautiful

yeah, and such a pretty sky. with so many colours. and with a patch of lovely cheery blue sky, which was rather out of place coz it was mostly rainy. and a sunset which was being attention seeking.


http://acarol.woz.org/
a LEGO Technic Difference Engine. rather impressive piece of work. considering the kind of calculations it can perform. amazing. i would love to do it too.

http://homepage.mac.com/helipilot/PhotoAlbum31.html
Aerial Photos of Mexico city by a helicopter pilot. some of them are really really pretty. aerial photos are just so nice.

http://www.stellarium.org/
Stellarium Astronomy Software. impressive software to view the night sky star charts. no matter where you are. just input your longitude latitude coordinates and it will read the time off your computer and display what is showing on the sky (and what is supposed to be showing). really pretty.
settings for Singapore : Latitude = 1.362, Longitude = 103.755

so many nice things =]

doing O level maths is so fun. it's so enjoyable. i can't imagine how i did it last time. i can't imagine how i learnt it too. even though i should be old enough to remember things, i still can't figure out. brings back memory of yit fun struggling with his Amaths, and then him doing the entire ten-year-series, and then passing his Amaths finally. pity after that he faded and faded progressively, out of existence. pity. what silly joy we had back then. i wonder if the GEP dept would be horrifed to know that their students spent most of their time playing silly games.

Update:
I remember sticking reinforcement rings onto the belt of the "Pear", our most hatred chinese teacher. he was facing away from me, and i just did it. must've been the phase when i was onto reinforcement rings. gosh, im utterly amazed, i've forgotten this thing for Years. omg. now that is something to remember. i have no idea why i did it though, or how it happened. i know i got mild trouble for it. i pleaded pity out of it, or something. highly amusing. i must try not to forget this again. i clean forgot that for a short phase i was onto reinforcement rings, i dont know why.
i wonder what else i did...

found on the operation manual of my new calculator, so darn amusing. =]

"Operational Notes:
To ensure trouble-free operation, observe the following points:
1. Do not carry the calculator in the back pocket of slacks or trousers
2. .."

yeah, after so many years, my sister is using my old calculator. i rather miss it, with it's familiar M+ button that i pressed 1 million times (not a figure of speech, i counted).

Love theme from Star Wars Episode 2 Attack of the Clones.

amusement. =]

-

of é leaf

And i come out of the house, wondering if it'll be a nice day today
And my eyes fall upon a yellow leaf by the rails
Pale yellow in the pale sunlight,
floating in an dreamy ocean of pastel colours
This wilted leaf, gently curled up around its stalk,
brought me joy in its expired state

A tendril of its stalk withered brown,
chases after the last dab of green on the blade
The soft waxy surface folds back
like a lady shying from praise
Progressively it fades into transparency,
no longer a leaf holding on to life
Soon all that will be left of the yellow-white petal will
Be a hollow brown skeleton

first french test of 2006.
french is just so fun. or maybe it's because of the teachers that i've gotten so far. both lecturer and tutor are mad, ultra hyper, and suspected to be married to each other. understandably too.
french test and i cannot follow the listening comprehension, sux.
and he put all those insane questions in his quiz, "culture" section indeed. name of french movie, name of 2 french male actors, name of president, colloquial phrase to use to show disbelief, possible things to bring to a dinner invitation. gosh. couldn't help laughing.

i think what he said the other day was very apt, he said something like "i dont understand why the girls dont find me funny". somehow, i wonder if sections of the class are too reserved/shy to laugh out, or if they dont get the jokes (minor jokes, or wordplays), or if they just cant catch his french. poor lecturer dont get much of an audience with his wisecracks. mostly me, kevin and two other guys have any reaction to his stuff. pity, he's such a fun person. it's sad if you're entertaining but people dont react. cold water. and he complained that we four guys keep talking, as opposed to usually girls always talking. glad that at least kevin can follow most of the joke stuff, it's impossible to retell a funny part, it just doesnt work.

french lessons are just great. the most fun lessons in my entire life. i think everyone should take french, in university, or in NUS. or whatever. it's like, there's so much enjoyment of the language. it's like talking about culture, talking about fun stuff, not just dry grammer. or vocab. it's such a lively thing.
i doubt it'll be as nice to do language lessons outside of school. with all those old people students who have lousy sense of humour and who prob cant take jokes or whatever. at least all youngsters who are of the same group have more to share and talk about.

i think it's really unfortunate for people to get to level 2 french without properly learning level 1. it's so hard to add on grammer if u recognise the forms of the basic ones. it just gets more and more complex. and old simple rules get broken down, variants introduced, exceptions to the norm, nonsensical stuff, more tenses, stuff which cannot be explained in english and have to be Felt, peculiar differences in expression and tenses. somehow, i am so totally comfortable with the explanation "because it sounds nice". somehow it seems to make much more sense than other reasons.

i miss being able to talk in class. in All my classes.
and i miss Fast lessons.

oh, and i love the word "manifestement" = obviously.

陈晓东--风一样的男子

“也许我是将风容解在血中的男子
也许我是天生习惯自私
你用温柔和真挚
面对我在爱里放肆 的样子”