Revelations: Jokes abound...

Commentary on wikipedia's article...

2008-08-16T01:17:00.001+08:00

I admit that its been a really really long time since I last posted anything on this blog. To tell you the truth, I don't feel as much desire or the impulse to blog as much as I used to, partly because I get to talk with more people about the stuff that I observe and also because I don't see the need to worry about these stuff all the time. Also, there's a higher chance of getting into trouble in the current situation I am at so its a good idea to not try anything stupid...

Life's been pretty nice and prelims are coming up... Urgh, another portion of my life is ending...

Anyway,

I was reading wikipedia and I came across this article on National Junior College. As I read through it, I came across some outright flaming and defaming of the college. There is also a large amount of scant attacks on the IP program in the school (not that I am defending it but lets reserve that for another post). Unfortunately, I am not sure how long exactly all those inflamatory content will stay on wikipedia, but you can be sure that the quotes that I raise here are copied directly out of that article on National Junior College.

NJC was also the first junior college approved by the Ministry of Education to introduce a 4-year Integrated Programme (IP) in 2004 to provide a through-train education for capable Secondary 3 students, allowing them to bypass the traditional GCE 'O' Levels and giving them the opportunity and room for more creative pursuits which would be hard to pursue in the traditional GCE 'O' Level path. In practice, the IP is overflowing with sub-par students; and since there are no O levels to remove them, they remain in the college. In a political move to prevent demotion, the authorities have given them the best teachers to save the ailing grades, but efforts are largely unsuccessful. The NJC Integrated Programme disaster was adopted by Temasek Junior College and Victoria Junior College for their own integrated programmes, effectively sparking a chain of catastrophe throughout the nation.

The IP is overflowing with sub-par students? I don't think so (PTM and comparison between JC and IP) It won't be the first time that this thing is raised up by anybody in the JC and this has already become a highly controversial topic for discussion. How exactly do you define a sub-par student? A students who has low grades? or a student with the wrong moral and ethics code? I do agree however that the IP students are naturally getting more attention then that of the mainstream students since they are supposed to be the more important group of people in the school. Judging from the amount of enrichment that they have and the idea that the schools wants to develop them to the best of their ability, you can't stop them from giving them the best teachers.

And who said that the JC teachers are bad? I believe that some of the JC teachers are quite good, and lets face it, teachers who teach the JC will have a different method of teaching as compared to the teachers who teach IP. JC students are already very well-conditioned to doing work, lots of work to achieve the results that is needed while IP students are more conditioned to start debates and do project works. How then can the same method be used to teach the two cohorts? Thus, how can we say that the IP students are indeed getting the better teachers? (In fact, if you aren't even taught by those teachers, how do you know??)

It is interesting to note that IP is basically a rehash of what has been happening in the past, albeit without the O levels as a "method of removing the sub-par students". IP has its own advantages and disadvantages, but the main problem plaguing the IP in my opinion is the way the adminstration is causing conflicts and tensions between the two groups of students, as well as some people in the two groups that believes that their own group is better in some way or other.

Chain of catastrophe? What catastrophe? Results falling? A friend mentioned to me that IP is meant to produce better students, so technically they should produce better A level results from the project works and skills that need to be learned in their syllables. I feel however that these two sets of skills are very different and will thus tend to produce different results at A levels, which has always been more of an academically inclined exam. I don't agree that results falling warrants it to be a catastrophe, but lets see what happens in the long run. Results aren't everything.

The original site which NJC occupied is now the site for Nanyang Girls' High School, which has such architectural beauty and efficiency that it puts NJ to shame.

I'll take this to be outright flaming. Since you hate the current site of NJ now, go be the architect and redesign it. Besides, this is an article about NJC, a comparison with other schools is not needed. Be proud of what you have now. NJ may not be the best, but you know what's called 饮水思源？

Currently, the plot of land along NJC Rise and Hillcrest Road is being developed as part of the College's expansion plans to squander on a hostel, slated for completion in late 2008.

I'll take this to be another outright flaming. Squander on a hostel?! First thing first, this is an encyclopedia and does not require opinions to be included in it. Although seriously, I don't agree on the hostel, particularly as the hostel is meant for the new IP 1 & 2 students(sec 1 and sec 2) when they come into the school. Imagine, a bunch of 13 and 14 year old running amok in the hostel... I can imagine the amount of stories they can start with visiting friends in the middle of the night.... Another good question to ponder, sending this kids to hostel, does it impede with family ties?

NJC was among the first 5 Colleges to be centres for the Humanities Programme alongside Hwa Chong Junior College (now Hwa Chong Institution), Raffles Junior College, Temasek Junior College and rich-brat Victoria Junior College.

The author has something against "rich-brat" Victoria Junior College. Someone should really move this statement to the VJC article... but there's no need to defame any school. Also, why do we always give away prizes while reading things like "We beat other teams like HC and RJ to emerge ..."? I mean, are we enemies? Don't you have friends there? Don't you think its sad that your friends in other JC is now your biggest enemy? Plus, it creates this assumption that NJ isn't as good and that we have to beat other "tougher" opponents to win the award. It seems as though everyone agrees that HC and RJ is good in everything...

Since then, this honour has been overtaken by Hwa Chong Institution, Raffles JC and Anglo-Chinese JC...

Like I said, no comparison needed... Although seriously, a nice question to ask would be how did NJC develop? In the past, NJC was the only college in Singapore, thus all the honour should naturally go to it only (like duh, monopoly). But as the other colleges start to open up in Singapore, more and more of the honour goes to the other colleges. So maybe perhaps NJ didn't really have the merits to win those awards in the first place, but just won them due to the lack of competition? Just a thought...

On some formal occasions though, instead of donning blazers, NJCians simply wear their red tie along with their full-grey uniform. Standing out from the crowd is easily achieved in this case, considering the sharp contrast between the dull grey of the uniform and the bright red of the tie. The trade-off is that such an unharmonious blend of colour makes NJCians stand out like a sore thumb, and they look like a joke with grey matching bright red. Yellow with red looks indignant enough in the case of Ronald McDonald's but grey with red redefines the absolute pit bottom of colour coordination and gives the word "clown" a whole new meaning

This is a very degragatory remark and there isn't a need to go to that extent.However, I do agree that red tie + grey uniform is quite horrible (imagine this coming out from someone who has no dress sense). Sometimes, I just wish that the teachers and event organisers just borrow blaziers for the ushers and the people on duty. Come on, RV forced us to change into blazier everytime a big event comes along, why not do it here too? Or rather, why not just usher in full grey? It looks much much more dignified. The NJ uniform doesn't seem to be designed to go with a tie in the first place, so why force the tie on? I don't feel that it makes them look formal. Blaziers might seem overboard sometimes, but from my experience, that's exactly what we are trying to achieve when we want to look formal.

NJC has received criticism by many for the design of its uniform. Being full grey, water-proof and some say even fire-proof, the fabric is really stiff and rough, something like paper against skin. Because of its highly unpopular uniform design, with many metal buttons in the shape of the college logo (as if the college collar pin is not enough to show the world that one is from NJC), many students have opted for the vibrant and dynamic Victoria Junior College even though they live far from VJC and near to NJC.

Don't worry, NJC isn't the only one. I mean seriously, which group of students doesn't criticise their uniform now? Hmm... can't think of any...
Probably because we want to express ourselves?
Also, is it true that students are opting for the vibrant and dynamic VJC even though they live near to NJC? Where's the proof???
And finally, NJC was born in the era when chinese schools are still found in Singapore (to be fair, there is no such thing as chinese schools left in Singapore) so the buttons could have been influenced by the chinese schools in that period of time. What's wrong with the design of the buttons anyway? Catholic high, River Valley, The Chinese High school all have buttons in the shape of their school logo, so what's with the whole button thing?

Finally, we've reached the end of this rather lengthy commentary. I didn't rebutt every single point (seeing as I have my own arguments against and for various things in NJC). As I was typing this out, I started to wonder if the above comments was written by a current student, an ex-student, a student from another school out to shoot us down, or just what the public thinks of us. Its hard to pin-point exactly, but even as we correct, refute or agree with the points, we have to wonder why these points are made. If made by our own people, what caused these people to react in this way as though they are totally against their own school? Is something wrong with the system in the school? or is it how the adminstrations and the people on top are treating the people at the bottom?

It really begs the question:"Is there something wrong with the school?"

Discmon

Lets take a look at SPA...

2008-07-10T22:47:00.000+08:00

It's been a long time since I last posted anything on the blog... I think a lot of things are happening in my life and I'm feeling a bit, like don't know how to feel properly? But that's not the main point of the post for today, but maybe if I go into a greater level of confusion or something like that...

Note to self: I need to find a movie that makes me cry properly so that I will feel properly again...

Anyway...

Note to all readers: I know that SPA is a National Exam and that release of any materials related to SPA will be severely dealt with and disciplinary measures will be undertaken. What I have written below is NOT a description of any experiments or procedures done in SPA but rather a personal view of the SPA system as compared to the SPE system that I was exposed to in secondary school as well as my own personal take on the effectiveness of SPA as a teaching tool for students to learn practical skills. As such, this post does not violate any rules or regulations set out by the SEAB regarding SPA. However, should a violation occur, please inform the author and this article will be promptly deleted

Science Practical Assessment was introduced to replace the Science Practical Examination that was being used then to assess the abilities of the candidates in performing practical experiments in the respective disciplines. I remembered several rationale behind replacing the science practical examination with the science practical assessment, one of which was that it allows candidates who are taking the exam to not be so worried about their one and only chance to score well in the science practical exams.

I thought that it was a great idea then, mainly because it would be nice to have more then one chance when it comes to a science practical. You can imagine the gloominess that follows a science practical examination when you flop up something halfway, especially when you have prepared many times for the exam. It is also quite irritating when you are measuring something and it just so happens that you made a simple mistake in the set-up somewhere and that costs you the whole of the experiment without giving you any chance to ever rectify that mistake and score the marks that you actually deserve, but lost because of a moment's folly.

Also, another rationale was that candidates were not following proper lab procedures when we are doing science practical examination. I remember not even worrying about whether or not we should wash the burette when we start volumetric analysis in chemistry practical examination at O levels because none of the invigilators would care about you and you wouldn't even be marked down even if you did. That's because in the SPE, you only needed to present the correct observations and conclusion to score that marks you need.

However, in SPA, correct lab procedures need to be observed. Marks are now placed on the way a candidate perform his experiments in the lab and this helps to train candidates in the correct methods of handling the many different types of equipments in the lab. I felt that this was a good change, as I'm finally more conscientious of what I'm doing in the lab, and also making sure that the readings are as accurate as possible the first time round, and not re-doing experiments over and over again because of a speck of dust in the containers.

Of course, I've finished my SPA already, so its kinda easy for me to tell you guys about the good stuff about SPA because I don't have to worry about the next SPA that is coming up. If I had to worry, I would probably be whining about how dumb SPA is and all...

And why is that?
Look at it this way, in the old SPE, the best that the teachers could do was to guide their students in the main methods of practical and then leave it to the students themselves when they step into the lab. However in the new SPA, practicals are now "designed" such that they train us to be ready for the next practical exams. Sometimes I wonder if this really portrays an accurate picture of a candidate's ability to do practical.

Face it, the failure of SPA is that most of us don't even remember any of our SPA skills any more because there is no need to remember them once we are done and over with the SPA. I can't list any examples, but seriously, if you are geared up to one particular type of experiment due to the way the practicals are designed, a good question to ask would be is it really teaching us to use our practicals skills, or are we just simply trying to present to the invigilators and examiners with what they want to see?

What's the point of studying? Is it to get high marks and to be the top in whatever cohort? I don't believe in that. Learning about science and doing practical isn't about getting your As and that's it. To me, its more about learning the skills that comes along with it. How do you make sure that the measurement you get is accurate? How do you make sure that there are no other variables that will affect what you are doing? This is the more important stuff, not about going through the motions checking this and checking that in a robotic fashion simply because we already done that before and is simply regurgitating it in the practical examination hall.

I mean, come on, maybe one day we will find the need to conduct an experiment that we thought up ourselves, and if we are stuck into that geared up practicals... then how?

I would say that SPA has tried its best to teach us skills and sometimes indeed, I would say that our tutors have tried their very best to impress upon us the true meaning of doing practicals, and not because we want to score an A for our science subjects. But looking back at it all, the mock practicals that we were doing that leads up to each SPA, it felt less skills and more repeating of work...

Alright, that was about the skills part. Word has come round to say that next year, SPA will change its format. Currently there are 4 skills which are tested separately in the SPA:
1. Planning
2. Performing the experiment and tabulation of data
3. Analysing the data
4. Pointing out errors and way to improve it.

Skills 2,3 and 4 are tested twice while skill 1 is tested only once. This means that there's a total of 7 tests. There's quite some chances for you to flop up here and there but overall, you won't die because of one miserable flop. But hey, things are going to change next year!

Next year, SPA will only have 2 tests. One in the first year and one in the second year. Skills 2,3 and 4 will be tested in one shot in each assessment. OK, truth be told, its damn freaking hard to do that much things in one shot. Personally, my brain died after completing only one skill. There's so many things to write and report about, so many things to take note of, and now they're only going to give you 2 chances? I thought we were trying to reduce the burden of having a mistake in your practical exams...?

Hmm, sounds like we are going backwards eh? Personally, I'm against the reduced amount of tests. Ah yes, less stress, but that means that the sort of privilege that we have had in terms of making mistakes is severely reduced for the next batch of people taking the SPA exams. Is that the point of having the SPA exams then, or should we just reinstate the SPE, but with a change in the emphasis to that of the SPA.

To make it clearer:
One big practical exam that means you have no chance to flop, but with marks allocated to the way you should perform the experiments like that in SPA.

Sounds like a good idea to me, judging from the way things are changing already in our science practical examinations.

And hey, things are going backwards as usual. Just look at IP, who remember the good old days when there were no junior colleges and there were college departments in secondary schools that prepares students to university?

Discmon

Points of travelling...

2008-06-23T21:59:00.000+08:00

I've just came back from my holiday, and I think a lot of people never realised that I was on holiday until they found that I did not reply a single one of their SMS-es over the period of one whole week... or maybe they knew I was on holiday but conveniently forgotten =P

Anyway...

Have you ever wondered what's the point of travelling?
I know there are already various answers to this question, such as visiting new and wondrous places, taking a break from a hectic work life, or even just plain wanting to get out of your comfort zone and stretch your legs in dangerous and exciting places.

When you go on a package tours, I sometimes get this feeling that the only thing that matters on such tours is to reach each destination quickly and see the most important or most famous part of that place. Following which, you'll go to the nearby souvenir store, buy something and leave the place...

To me, the point of travelling isn't to get to your final destination as quickly as possible. Quoting Discovery Travel & Living, the journey to your destination is the most important part of travelling. I feel that after all these years, I finally understood the meaning of this words.

Just a few days ago, we had to take a train to reach our next destination and its going to be a really really long 6 hours ride to our destination. There was absolutely nothing to do on the train other then walking up and down the corridor, admiring the scenery outside, visiting the toilet, going to the food carriage and looking blankly at the occupant of the seat who is opposite you. Now, who could handle this sort of boredom for 6 hours? Well, I can actually if I have my mp3 player around, but being me, I decided to talk to the two people who were sitting opposite of me.

So I started the talking and before too long we were engaged in conversations on a wide array of issue. The person was from China and he's off travelling with his friend after finishing their college exams. I think its a great way to spend this short holiday away from home seeing as technically you've become an adult when you are admitted to university...

So anyway, through this conversation I learned about all sorts of stuff, such as different view points on life and society simply because of the upbringing of the person and the exposure to society that the person has. I think the point of travelling is not simply to just have fun and visit interesting places. One other point of travelling is the wonderful people and culture that you meet there. Maybe its because I like talking to people and meeting people, but that's what I see in travelling.

Through this talking, you learn about other cultures and other people's aspirations. The aspiration of a graduate from a small town, the beliefs of a person who went through NS and decides to seek his fortune elsewhere, the thoughts of life from a person who has experienced the same thing as you...

This are the things that I think we should seek out in life. That's why humans are amazing and every life is worth living, its because we are all different and unique.

Discmon
ps. I apologise for not sounding like myself for the time being. Haven't been blogging for a bit and writing essays, so I'm trying to warm back up.

The Final Event...

2008-06-09T19:38:00.000+08:00

Etude 33...

I guess I'll remember this title as the FINAL EVENT that I'll possibly ever do as a member of NJ PA. It's true that I stepped down like a few days ago, but that doesn't stop my love for technical stuff and trying to learn more about the really cool systems that are all around us.

Anyway, some background on the event first:

Etude 33 is a last-minute request from National Junior College Symphonic Band. Basically, we did a recording for them when they had their anianime concert, and because of that (and their unwillingness to pay Victoria Concert Hall a large sum of money to do recordings), we were called in to do a recording for them. I responded enthusiastically to this event (although the rest weren't as enthusiastic) and of course I did the event...

Anyway, Nicholas Lim was the only person who responded to my request for help and so the two of us set forth to do the recording and the event. We met in the early morning at 11am in school to pack our equipments. We had to brave the big rain and storm to reach the school gate and we were pretty soaked by the time we reached control.... (dumb side gate). So anyway, we decided to pack a lot of cables just in case we need to drag a huge amount of extensions to be able to position the mic and do the recordings.

We packed a lot of extra stuff in the end, but this is due to the large amount of uncertainty that we had to deal with...

This is the layout of VCH. For the recording, we were planning to position mics at the aisle on the first floor as it would then pick up what "the audience will hear". This ensures the highest quality of recording, or that's what we thought it should provide...

Unfortunately, because of safety issues and the like (people running for their lives in a fire), the mics cannot be placed at the aisle and have to be shifted somewhere else. The suggestion was to place it at the side of the stage and record from there, however, we fear that this will cause only some instruments to be picked up and would result in a very unbalanced sound. We also did not have a super tall mic stand to hang the mic above the conductor so we had to forsake that method...

Our next course of action was to position the mic in this place where the lights are positioned. Sort of like a hole in the wall...

Basically its the 4 black holes in the wall in the picture above. This holes are normally used to position lights to shine on the stage. Anyway, we managed to position the mic there, however our test recording found that there was a lot of echo. This is because a shotgun condenser do not just take in the sound in front of it but also will take in a bit of sound directly behind it. Since the box is closed, the sound echoes inside the box, resulting in a lot of pickup from the shotgun condenser mic as it takes in both from the front and the back...

Because of that, we repositioned the mic again. This time its outside of the box. Although the recording quality is the best here with a drastic reduction in the level of echo, we were not allowed to do that because of safety issue again.

In the end, we shifted our mics yet again to the far end of the concert hall. There's some sort of balcony on the 2nd floor and that's where we position our mic.

Here you can see a picture of the position of the mic stand...
Anyway, we learned some cable laying skills that really made the cable invisible (position the cable and hide it behind the seats, follow the contour of the ground... blah blah blah)

Anyway, after the set up was completed, here is a picture of the lonely corner I was hiding at (nah, I wasn't hiding, I was openly displaying my presence =P )

For the recording, I used one shotgun condenser mic pointed at the stage and recorded using the AUX output on the Allen&Heath PA12 so that I can control the volume level using the faders. The output was fed directly into the audio input jack on my computer and recorded using Audacity. At the same time, the sound was processed using Realtek HD sound effects manager so that acoustic echo is suppressed. This was a measure taken to reduce the effects of echo in VCH.

Victoria Concert Hall is an acoustic hall. Meaning that it does not need mics or sound boosting systems to ensure that the audience can hear everything. What this also means is that the hall itself is extremely echo-y and sounds will bounce all over the place. To a certain extent, it's a very good thing. Firstly because when you send sound through a mixer and speakers and blah blah, there will definitely be a reduction in the quality of the sound because its a mechanical machine. To put it simply, certain frequencies of sound may be affected by the machines and the speakers. However, this makes recording a pain without PRO equipments because you'll have a hard time with all the echo bouncing around....

Also, do take a look at the long dark strip on top of the concert hall. That's the position of several speakers. MCs, unfortunately, are usually not as loud as instruments, therefore they still need mics in the acoustic hall. Thus, the speakers are positioned. Also, I checked their EQ while I was in their control. Their EQ has a drastic reduction in the level of the bass frequency of the mics, showing how much the bass frequency bounce inside VCH.This also means that most of the feeding that occurred is low frequency feeds, and is only brought about by the MCs who are around.

However, I think it's right to commend that their light and sound system is set up correctly. We do not hear any of the irritating buzzing sounds when the lights are being switched on or off. When lights and sound cables overlap each other, the power cable of the lights tend to interfere with the sound cables as a magnetic field is generated when a current flows through a wire. This results in the irritating buzz that we hear a lot in LT 1 and LT 5 to a certain extent.

Victoria concert hall has a very simple lighting set up not meant for rock concerts or large dramas where the lights have to be very accurately positioned and placed. It boasts several spots light that are aimed at various points on the stage, and a really nice full stage PAR flood + wash. But mostly PAR flood.

The spots are positioned such that their main target is the conductor's usual position and the left and right side of the stage for the usual MCs.
The PAR flood is what I like about victoria concert hall as a venue for large concerts. It provides ample lighting for the orchestra , bathing them in a soothing white light, while at the same time not compromising the performers ability to look at their script.

The control box at victoria concert hall is also well positioned, giving it a nice look at the whole stage and the whole hall in general. This allows it good control to anything that might happen. However, it does not need to be positioned in the crowd as most of the sound is not controlled from control but from the natural acoustic of the place.

Victoria concert hall also has nice house lights. The house lights can be dimmed to whatever intensity that is required and has a nice starry effect on the ceiling.
Overall, victoria concert hall has a simple but adequate lighting system for the events that it runs.

I think its fitting for me to end my NJ PA journey, with a journey to Victoria Concert Hall and taking a look at the wonderous system there as well as setting up my own recording system. Looking back, I started not knowing anything at all and was learning everything from the most basic. From the mixer, to the lighting board, to computer lightings, to the systems of various other venues all over Singapore and to a certain extent, around the world. I believe through all these experiences, I have learned many stuff that the seniors never taught to us (speakers can be joined together etc.) There are many different PA systems all over Singapore, and I strive to understand each and at the same time, learn something new from it (=

Going back to the event, its quite an enjoyable event, with band doing their utmost best at performing. I like to thank them for the splendid night spent there.
Oh... and...Me and my equipments (= in the small little corner in Victoria Concert Hall...

A fitting end (=

Discmon

A thank list that goes on forever...

2008-06-05T12:22:00.000+08:00

... ... ... ... ...
To tell you the truth, I don't know how I should feel today after everything that has occurred yesterday...

With the end of yesterday, the end of 4th of June, the end of PA camp...
I'm officially no longer in NJ PA, no longer the QM, and no longer... in many people's eyes... do not have a life...
(=

Anyway, looking back at it all, its been an amazing and wonderful journey with everyone as we ventured forwards and made sure that we continue to do the good job that our seniors have left behind for us to continue to do. There were many trials and tribulations, many challenges and obviously (with the whole bunch of jokers around) a lot of laughter that we have had together...

So, I've never really done this before. (THIS being giving "thank you"s and comments to people on my blog in a sort of listing fashion, but I guess it has to be done). If I happen to miss out anyone, it doesn't mean that I don't remember you, just that I don't have as much to say I guess... (I'll try my best to write something for everyone)

Kai Zhong:
Of course, we start this of with our dearest President. Never forget how we all met together in PA and started to talk joke and everything. Even though we always call you "a joke" (and you did prove to all of us that you ARE a joke), I think I respected you a lot and made sure to follow what you say as much as possible. Of course, not forgetting the amount of hard disk space that you misused on my computer and using it to watch your anime...
You'll have to find another way now =P

Siyuan:
Possibly the most serious and most militaristic guy I'll meet in a long long time. Thanks for dragging us all back in meetings when we start drifting all over the place talking about lame crap stuff that could drag on for hours. Even though you don't say much sometimes, you make your presence felt all the time in some unknown way, call it the Siyuan's aura. I appreciate all that you have done and your confidence in us. Don't give up and continue pushing onwards. Sometimes its hard to see the small and happy things in life, but I'm sure you'll be able to see it eventually (=

Yu Xuan:
It's nice knowing you and meeting you over this whole period of time. Even though you don't say much, the things you say really gets to the root of the problem and I think this sure saves us a lot of trouble some times. Thanks for your confidence in some of us, and I think we won't forget the mugger of PA too early ^^. And of course, I'll remember all the events that we have done together...

Melissa:
I'll definitely remember how you like to come to control and throw your bags and then leave it quite soon after. Thanks for providing an IP perspective into our PA exco meetings so that we are able to better understand things from the other side. Thanks for being a great treasurer as well or we would not have been able to claim back our money after purchasing so many things here and there. Of course, its not just the role or the job, but also the level of dedication to PA. Thanks for everything (=

Levon:
Haha, our "glam" representative... (went to find a bucket). Ok, that's a bit better. Thanks for coming back to us eventually and I hope that after all this period of time, you have found a reason for all of us to come together and spend our time. Thanks for being THE CCO that keeps things going in the worse of times (=. Your "glam" actions will serve to be a constant reminder of the jokes that was added into PA after coming back (=. It's been a great journey with you to the end of our term.

Nicholas Lim:
Our TO. Sorry that I ate into your job a bit during our whole term >< but I guess in the end you still are the best TO, a much better TO then I would ever be (=. Thanks for your own personalised joke and method of talking that we would never be able to emulate perfectly. Even though you seem relaxed all the time and really slack, when we really need to get down to business, you'll switch moods and we get to see... THE OTHER NICHOLAS. Oh ya, PA aside, thanks for teaching me stuff that I do not know, especially math and science and the like. Overall, its been nice working with you and having you as a friend in PA (=

Eng Yian:
Although I know that there are some things that came between us in the end, I still feel that you are a great friend and a great person in PA. Without you, PA would be very different and we would not be able to reach what we are today. I would like to thank you for bringing new perspectives on the things that are happening all around us and I really like the debates that we used to have in control over all sorts of stuff. Thanks for everything, especially for supporting all of us when we first took over.

Yan Ling:
My classmate for the first three months in NJ and then later, my CCA mate for the next one and a half year. Thanks for supporting all of us after we have taken over and also your dedication to PA. Not just from signing up for events or coming to help us out during our two camps (in which you played a very very integral part in ensuring that we can carry out our camp successfully) but also in responding to those last minute events and also those big events where we simply require a lot of support from everyone. Thanks for always being there for all of us, and I hope you had a lot of fun times with us too ^^.

Huzaifah:
Possibly the most dedicated member to PA even though you were not able to help us out a lot because of the ban that was placed on you. But even with the ban in place and not being able to work with you any event after june, you still stayed with us all the way, you still came to control to talk to us, you still came and supported us in the best way that you could despite all the various limitations that have been placed on you. Despite not being able to know more about you after June last year, I still think that you are really a dedicated member of PA and I know I can rely on you if we ever needed any help.

The EXCO:
Thanks for the wonderful year. I think that through all the challenges and times that we had spent together, we have forged a bond that would not be so easily broken. Call it a electrostatic attraction holding oppositely charged ions together. (= Together, I think we make a great team where we do stuff in a nice and very funny manner even if the stuff is really damn stressful and challenging

PVC:
You know who I am referring to right? Basically, Kai Zhong, Siyuan, Eng Yian and Me. If I remember correctly, our name was derived from Siyuan's blog post after he notes that each of us have a very different take on life. Siyuan is the military freak, Eng Yian is the realist I think, I was the liberalist and the columnist (because I am too ideal) and Kai Zhong is the kopitiam uncle.
Basically, the Polarised View Club...
But it wasn't long before we became the Potentially Very Chaotic event crew. So named because the 4 of us happened to be the group of people who took up all the phantom events that occurred during the first 6 months when we were exco. And this events tend to became very chaotic because nothing is well planned for phantom events.

PVC crew all the way!!!
Oh ya, the standards we set for ourselves then:
-4 man bi-amp set up in 15 minutes
-2 man stereo set up in 5 minutes
-1 man control
-1 man backstage

Mervyn, Hsiang Wei, Grace, Cassandra, Eugene:
I'm sorry I link all 5 of you together because I'm not very sure that I would be able to write different things for each of you. Thanks for everything, especially the support you gave to us when we just took over and a whole lot of our own batch people left us. Probably the first group of people who came back to us after we took over and solved our huge manpower issue and member issues. I like to thank you guys for everything that you all have done for PA, everything in fact. And always staying committed to PA even after all sorts of things came into your life. THANK YOU GUYS!!!

Shijin, Yijing, Jingwen, Li Chun, Jonathon:
Thanks guys for everything that you all have done in PA. Everything over the whole of this year when we were in the PA exco. Supporting us for event and generally just creating more and more joke for us to laugh at (the star folding jokes really get into mind). Even though towards the end I don't really see a lot of you all, nevertheless, I feel the commitment to PA and whatever you all done to help us in some way.

THE JUNIORS:
There's just too many people I need to talk about and express my thank in this post, so I guess I could lump the juniors together as I don't know all of you guys that well yet. Come on, its only about half a year. Anyway, I think I know some of the juniors a bit better and some I don't really know that well... but ...

Thanks for all the support you guys gave to us after you guys joined us this year. With you guys in PA, you brought in lots of new stuff and lots of new laughter and joys for the whole of PA. I hope that I have taken care of you guys well and that I didn't leave any permanent emotional scarring or the like in any of you guys...

I guess the best part is that you guys injected a sort of new life into our already very stagnant jokes that we've been telling each other for the half a year already. (=

Other then that, I hope that you guys will stay committed to PA after we guys are gone (we are gone already technically) Don't give the new EXCOs a hard time and make PA the best CCA that there ever was.

To the new EXCOs:
I think I've said a lot of what I wanted to say to you guys during our meeting and the like already. So, just do your best and set your own expectations. Every EXCO is different, by extension, every PA is different. Make it the best you guys can do !!!

This list could go on forever, not forgetting:
The previous batch:
Thanks for choosing us as EXCO and educating us making sure that we all are proficient in technical stuff. Especially thanks when you came back and pointed out to us some mistakes or errors that we were committing. Thanks for all the wonderful memories that you gave to us when you guys are around, and the wonderful memories that you gave to us even when you guys have left, but came back to talk crap and laugh. Thanks guys for everything. We would never have reached so far without you guys...

Mr Ang:
Thanks for all your help over the past one year. I know that I have left some things undone and was not able to fulfil everything you had expected me to do as a QM of the CCA. Nevertheless, thanks for everything and especially helping us when we had some technical problems. I believe that you have given your best to us and I hope that I have given my best to you too. Thanks for the whole of this twelve months (=

Samuel:
Even though you only joined us in January, I could tell that you are a very dedicated member of PA when you were the QM then. Thanks for bringing in new insights and knowledge of technical stuff into PA and especially for always being with us when we were doing events and whenever we had any problems. You also gave us a lot of suggestions and comments on the things that we plan on doing and thus helped us to avert problems and the like. Overall thanks for all your guidance. Oh and especially thanks for accompanying me in control (ok, I don't know which way this thanks should go so I guess its both ways). Thanks for everything, without you, life would have been a lot harder in PA with all those random phantom events that pop out. (=

All the CCA's, groups and people who we had provided support for, especially council:
I guess firstly thanks for giving us events to do? Haha. I hope that we had provided adequate and good support for your events that you had planned for. Through all this event, we had learned a lot of new things and knowledge that we use to make sure that the next event that we do will reach a higher level of standard that the previous one.

If there had been any problems, screw ups and the like during the events we support, we apologise for it and hope that you give us a chance for us to do a better job next time. We learn through our mistakes and we strive to get better and provide better support each time we do an event.

Thanks also for letting me know about more about you guys through all this events. I would gladly say that I know more people compared to when I first entered PA.

This list of thanks would go on and there a few other people that should have been included on this list, but I guess if this goes on, this list would really go on forever and ever and.... pretty much forever.
It's been a really long and eventful year as a QM in PA.

Everything that has a beginning has an end...

Discmon

Usage of words...

2008-05-04T00:39:00.001+08:00

College day just ended, I'm feeling a bit sick, and its been an extremely long time since I last typed anything on blogger. I'm sorry for the hiatus but lets just say that its due to a mixture of the following reasons:

1. Some things just cannot be typed out
2. A lot of time I didn't really had time to type out anything
3. I can't put it into words and I'll hurt quite a few other people and get myself into trouble
4. Ok, I've just been lazy...

But anyway, we'll ignore whatever happened in the morning and the night of college day and just focus on the point I want to discuss.

What is college day? College day is a day where the college comes together to celebrate the birthday of the college of which we are a part of. I feel that it is a very important day in the calendar as the school moulds our character and our knowledge, and prepares us for the future. Obviously, we should give back to the school as much as possible to show how much we love it.

At the same time, I feel that College day is not simply for the college, but for the entire family of students, teachers and staff who walk in and out of it on a daily basis. To put it simply, if there isn't students, teachers and staff in the school, the school would just be an empty shell. An empty shell that does not represent anything, but simply a hollow structure that has nothing inside.

Previously when I was in RV, speech day (equivalent of college day) was a very gigantic affair, with rehearsals spanning over three weeks before the actual event. The whole of the school would be mobilised, with some people being usherers, helpers to teachers and the like... I always felt like I'm a very important part in making sure that the speech day is a success as everyone plays an important part in it. At the same time, the school acknowledges it with the principal and teachers thanking the students who had made it a success...

When I was there, I didn't see the need to hide from the important people who came. In fact, I was always given the feeling that the teachers wanted us to be there to share in the celebration of the school (although, yes they are still very scared that we do anything wrong, but at least they do try) and to contribute to the success of it. I don't feel the pressure to run away from the very important people or what not when I was there and I always felt that its a good chance to get everyone together to really celebrate with the school....

But...
When college day came around, I naturally felt that its indeed an honour to serve the school and to make the event a success, but I'm shocked at the way the teachers and principal treat the students.

At the beginning, our class was told to move tables to the VIP area so that they can have a reception. Sounds fair enough and it seems to be an easy job that will help the college in a wonderful way. But what I don't get is why the teachers have to phrase it like this:

"Basically what you all need to do is to move all the tables out there in that short interval of time and then after that, I want you all to hide in the classroom there and don't make any noise. You must not be seen by the GOH"

....
Ehhh?
To me, without the students, a school is not a school, so why do we treat students like they're some... rascals that should not be seen by the GOH? To a certain extent, the students do contribute a large share of the glory on college day, so why do they not deserve the recognition, and have to resort of "hiding from the GOH"?

College day is a day shared by everyone, so why should the glory and fame only be reserved for the teachers and the hot-shots? The students could very well start a riot and create trouble in an attempt to disrupt the proceedings of the college day, but they do not. Instead, they contribute selflessly to the school, ensuring the success of it. Shouldn't the student be thanked too? Shouldn't they be recognised in their contribution to the school? Shouldn't articles on college day include the students who worked very hard to make it a success? Shouldn't they deserve mention in the school report?

A lot of people would say that this whole issue is crap and arises simply because I had taken a critical stance against the statement that is made by the teacher...
But aren't we held accountable for our words? How many law cases have occurred in Singapore under the accusation of scandal simply because of the wrong choice of a single word or even the wrong implied meaning of a sentence?

When teachers speak to students, they are also faced with the same constraints of choosing the correct word. I mean, teachers do have to convey the correct meaning to students. Not only does it prevent this sort of things from occurring, but it also ensures that the students have the correct set of moral values that should have been imparted by the teacher. If the teacher uses a wrong word and destroy the original meaning of the sentence, it is then the teacher's fault as the student may choose to interpret the sentence in a bad way and get the wrong impression of things.

Taking the above as an example, it suddenly seems like a dishonourable act to help move tables for the college during college day and the job that we do is some under-handed job that should not be seen. But is that true?

Service to the college is one of the values that the college holds dear, but it does not mean that the teacher can give the student the wrong impression of serving. It is the role of the teacher to ensure that the future of our nation is moulded correctly. So isn't the wrong usage of a word causing a different interpretation totally contradicting "moulding the future of our nation"?

Of course, I do not deny that some students could not care less about the whole college day as they don't see the point in it and they don't like the school yadda yadda yadda... This is another major problem... Why do the students not like the school? Why, when they were the one who choose this college in the first place? Is it the students themselves, the teachers or the culture of the school that causes people to be turned off? If its indeed the culture of the school... shouldn't we do something about it? Do something to make sure that people feel that they are needed by the college and are not some "late developers" that is not needed and is actually the dead weight of the college.

Looking back at it all, its basically this:
以人为本。 To put it into English, basically, it means that we should put the people first. What is a country without people? The same goes.. What is a college without students? What is a college when the administration uses the wrong words, brings the wrong impressions to the students which tends to break the college apart?

"Late developers", "Holiday packages", "HIDE"...
What's next? and how long will college day still be a "College day"?

Discmon

"L change the world" without L... Seems very plausible...

2008-03-09T16:31:00.003+08:00

Some time ago, I went to watch "L:Change the world". Before I continue, lets hear the great gasp from everyone who reads this blog:

"OMG!!! YOU ACTUALLY WENT TO WATCH A MOVIE!!!!"

Please note: Spoilers from many different films might appear ahead based on whim of the author. If you are those kind of people who cannot take spoilers, then you might as well just skip this post. Plot points will be used indiscriminately to illustrate points and concepts that will be mentioned by the writer.

Lets begin our review of this movie...When I first heard about the movie, I knew it was going to be another one of those hyped-up movie, but I'm not sure if it was going to be bad or good. "Death note" has caught my interest for quite some time because of the deep and elaborate storyline and the conflict between the two characters. It reminds me a lot of "jigoku shoujo" where a lot of conflicting moral questions are asked, such as is it right for us to send people to their deaths because the world would be better without this group of people? and who is the real decider of what is right and what is wrong?

Naturally, I had hoped that this movie would be able to live up to what it had built itself to be. In terms of character development, storyline and the like. Unfortunately, I was utterly disappointed as I stared at the screen in bewilderment at what is happening there...

It makes no logical sense...

Lets start with the most distinguishing one:
We get taken to this lab or something where they are planting trees and flowers. After the boss scolded some guy for selling this virus to the superpowers in the world (he wants to cleanse the planet of humans using that virus), the guy walks off and then turns around and viciously stabs the boss. The boss dies and the three other people in the area looks "shocked".

After that, the guy who killed the boss turns around and told them that they should go and cleanse the world by killing off all the humans as humans are the ones that have been hurting the environment. After about 10 seconds, everyone in the group accepted that person's idea and actively starts to get ready for that eventual attack on the human race...

Alright, big problem number 1:
Let's imagine this, someone walked up to you one day and tells you this story :"Do you know why the planet Earth is in such a bad state now? Its all because of us, because of the race called "humans". We take but we do not produce, we are greedy and we grab everything before us. Do you remember Noah's ark? that was God's cleaning of the human race and the world. The time has come for us again to activate "Noah's ark", to wipe the planet clean of the race called "human" to......"
(Biblical examples used out of context, please do not treat this as correct)

Unless you are extremely simple-minded or very weak-willed, no one will accept this radical school of thought in a short span of about 10 seconds. Its even more so when the three people are still grieving about the death of the boss. I mean, what the heck?

Another point to note is that even if the 4 people there have already long awaited this to happen, it doesn't make any logical sense that they should be shocked by the death of the boss (which they do) and the person even takes time to explain what the heck is going on...

Personally, I felt that it was a very huge plot hole. Possibly, this scene could be about... 10 minutes long to go through the whole scenario properly, but it got reduced to 10 seconds...

Big problem number 2:
Remember the cute girl whose father killed himself by injecting himself with the virus? Either she has horrible mood swing, or she's crazy. Face it, how often do you see a young girl ready to kill someone, just to seek revenge?

Before I continue, lets take a look at "Peacemaker Kurogane". This anime took a total of approximately 20 episodes (minus those lame episodes) to show how a young boy finally strengthened his resolve to avenge his parent's death. Originally, the boy was reluctant to kill and he even disagreed with it even though he wanted to avenge their deaths, but at the final episode, the boy was forced to kill in a Do-Or-Die scenario and then the invisible barrier to killing others was broken.

All this goes to show how hard it is for a human to kill another human. It take strong resolve and desire to see the person dead and that's when it is possible for a human to grab a knife and just kill a person. And yet....

In the movie, it was established very early that the girl is weak-willed and will not be the sort of person who will grab a knife and go around avenging the death of her father. All the early developments in the films seems to suggest that she is a weak girl without a strong character and will most likely not grab a knife and kill people.

It is thus extremely shocking to me when half-way through the film, the girl disappeared from the medical school and went to arrange a session with the killers so that she can kill them... Sure, acting on impulse you might say, but considering the early developments of the films, if you want to say acting on impulse, there was nothing that happened then that would have triggered such a reaction from her (Let's see, picnic on a rooftop with your friends... ehh?)...

Its a serious "no link" and I wished it made a bit more sense.

Big problem number 3:
For no apparent reason (other then to cash in on those "L" lovers [L doesn't exist], death note fans, and trying to put the story into the world of "Death Note"), L just had to write his own name into the Death Note right at the start of the movie. O-K...

23 days to live...
I was expecting that to be some sort of time bomb for L and the entire movie. Maybe L dies halfway or something and yet he leaves enough instruction for them to follow to solve the huge problem that has arisen... That would have strengthened the idea that L is a great detective...But no....

For the first few days, we just see L wasting his time away, eating candy, and oh yea, clearing that huge stack of unsolved cases (which he does in about 1 day)(23 to 21 to 16 to 14 to 12..., you get the idea)After which, the story starts with only around 12 days left to live.

Of course, this gets even worse because it doesn't seem to create a lot of problem with the rest of the story. By the time the whole story ends, L still have 2 days left to live... Which brings up this amazing question: What's the point of the 23 days if it doesn't contribute to the story?

I have the answer:
To cash in on death note fans...

This whole idea of the 23 days reminds me of a channel 8 tv drama a few years back called "密云20天". The storyline of this shows takes exactly 20 days to unfold and the whole time limit of the 20 days is continuously refered to by the way the film is structured so that it creates a sort of "impending doom" on the viewer. I felt that it was a great way to make use of "time" as it creates a huge connection for everything to link together...

But in this movie?

Big problem number 4:
K...
WHO THE HECK IS K ANYWAY?
She turns up quite early through the film and then through a freakish turn of events, she decides to join the bunch of people that wants to wipe human off the face of this planet.
Remind me again, isn't L and K in the same freaking organisation?

I have a few big problems with this:
1. Why the hell do K wants to wipe humans off the face of this planet?
2. How did she get in touch with those people anyway?

Big problem number 5:
She hijacked a plane...
which brings up the point that it makes no logical sense that the army isn't called in. Ok, we could say that terrorism isn't such a big issue yet during the time period that the story is based in... but even before 9-11, plane hijackers were commonly made to face off with special forces during the hostage rescue process...

...So where the heck are the special forces?

There's still one more big problem, which is the complete disregard for the law of physics, but heck, all the films do this all the time anyway...

If we take a huge step back and just take a look at the film... it seems very pathetic once you try to put the whole "Death Note" universe into the film. By itself, it would have been a great film with quite a good story line if it was developed properly, but too much time was wasted on the whole point of trying to link it to death note instead of explaining what is going on in the story. Too many things were assumed and too many things were glossed over... something you seriously do not want to see in a story with huge character developments and plots...

Just looking at the whole summary above, I could have easily named L as Sherlock Holmes, K as Nemesis, F as 007, and the story would still have made sense.

So...
Equation of the movie:
(A good story with good plot developments) + (Death note) - (Parts of the story deleted to have death note in it) = (L Change the world)

I would rather have the movie go into the psychological aspects of the character instead. It would have been an interesting exploration of how those people think.
Lets all go watch "Paradise Now" shall we?

Discmon
P.S. "Paradise Now" is a movie about suicide bombers and how they are not mindless fanatics who just wants to kill as much people as possible and go to paradise. It tries to delve very deeply into the psychological mindset of these suicide bombers and explain what are some of the things that drives them to do these actions.

Some random photos

2008-02-24T01:42:00.001+08:00

I know its been a really really really (lets just assume that I've repeated and typed the word "REALLY" about... let's see... a million times? Yup, should be enough to get the point across)...REALLY long time since I last updated this blog at all. I know I've not been as critical as how I used to. There are a couple of posts in my head currently, but before we delve into those topics that would see me baying for blood, lets do some other less serious stuff...

By looking at some pictures in my life...
=P

So anyway...

Ahh, doesn't that look a teeny weeny bit familiar? Well, its just the lock on a cubicle's door in a public toilet....

Anyway, that day I had this horrible stomachache and I decided that its time for me to stop enduring all the pain and just end it off at the nearest washroom. So luckily, there was this toilet that was very very clean, and I went in...

After reliving myself somewhat and starting the recovery process from my ordeal, I noticed that there were two locks on the cubicle door. I had obviously locked it on my way in, but I guess I missed the other lock (Don't ask me which one I used first, you don't exactly remember things when bombs are going to be released)...

So anyway, have you ever watched those shows where the doors have like about a million locks? and then, quite coincidentally, the room decides to go on fire? Its those sort of things that always happen on our drama serials (Talk about script writers running out of ideas, that's going to be something for the movie review that I have in mind... but)

I suddenly had this weird idea of "what might happen should someone be caught in a cubicle with his pants down when the room goes on fire"...

As the person tries to relive himself, he smells smoke slowly filling up the small little cubicle that he is in. He does not know what is going on outside, and initially dismisses it as just another inconsiderate smoker who takes advantage of the toilet to smoke... However, as time goes on, he realises that the smoke seems to be turning black, a highly unusual colour for a cigarette smoke... Before too long, he knows it... It's a fire!!

Desperately trying to end his "bomb dropping" ceremony, he attempts to force everything out while at the same time pulling up his pants to make the necessary escape. However, he now realises that he is unable to open up the door of the cubicle... because there are too many locks.

"**** *** locks"
Slowly and desperately, he attempts to unlock each of the locks on the door one by one. The heat in the toilet is getting higher and higher and the man struggles to breathe while trapped in the very very small cubicle that has "no way out". The amount of locks on the cubicle door seems to go on to infinity (Don't ask me how many locks that guy had used when he used the cubicle in the first place). The fire is slowly consuming his surrounding, will the person be able to make it out alive to live another day.... ....??

(Ok, we'll cut the story here, interested people who have nothing to do is more then welcomed to continue the story...)
(I just got a great idea to make PA blog alive!! Start chain stories>< ...)
Anyway, you get the idea ^^
Whoa, doesn't that picture looks nice?
Just so happened while I was on my way home one day, the train decided to go past the track at that moment in time (I nearly died) Ok, I didn't die since I wasn't even near the track when the train came wooshing past, but I managed to whip out my phone and caught this lovely picture ^^

I like the blur-ness of the photo but I could do with less of the background scenery and more foreground. Should take note of that next time when I do this sort of impromptu photo involving a train, my life and natural scenery...
(Although how likely that is EVER going to happen again will be quite another story)

Alright, enough rant.
Oh ya, if you are interested in looking at the train, come and find me!! We can go pick rambutans together near the track. I think the trees are still around ^^

Discmon

Singapore films...

2008-01-14T19:42:00.000+08:00

One of my friends mentioned to me about why Singapore films cannot make it. He said that Singapore films are either too artistic or they are too local. Personally, I see nothing wrong with it, but let’s explore his points of argument first.

Firstly, Singapore films are too artistic.

His criticism lies in the fact that because Singapore films are too artistic, it results in a reduction of the amount of people in the world who are able to enjoy the film properly. The films are thus not able to make it globally and is also part of the reason why up to now, the Singapore film industry do not have really big blockbusters or box office hits that it can be proud of.

What makes a film artistic? A film is artistic when it isn't the stereotypical Hollywood fare, which basically consists of "Boom!", "BANG!", "Fwoosh!", "Swipe" and then the usual sex scenes that go over the top with the lust for flesh... Ok, I admit that this is a very narrow view of what exactly is an artistic film, but I can't really get a good definition of it.

A definition that I had arrived at after watching artistic films for some time is this:

Artistic films are films that make you think; films that have lots of hidden meanings and specially chosen phrases to highlight a certain idea that is behind the film.
They are films that may seem simple at first glance, but when you go deeper, it becomes a very complicated affair.
They are also films that want you to have your own interpretation of it, to have you come to your own conclusion when you finish watching it.
They are films that make you want to look for a plot analysis so that you know what is going on and to figure out exactly the entire meaning behind the film...

This is what I call artistic films, and if I am correct, and my friend is correct, very little people appreciate this type of films.

Secondly, Singapore films are too local.

Over the period of the last few years, we have seen films such as "I not stupid", "Money not enough", "Just follow law" and the like. We all know that these films are a highly satirical take on the things that are happening in Singapore and may be not very understandable to a foreign audience. This, according to my friend, is the second reason why Singapore films cannot make it to foreign market.

His criticism on this is because it is too local, a foreign audience is unable to understand the large number of dialects and other variants of Singlish being applied in the movie. At the same time, people will not be able to understand the big fuss being kicked up in the movie over a very trivial issue because they are not part of the happenings and thus is totally disconnected.

For example, if you are an expert in Maplestory and now proceeds to tell a lengthy story to your non-Maplestory friend about how you kill Balrog, your non-Maplestory friend will be going "WTH?!"
Same here...

After listening to my friend criticism of the Singapore film industry, I did not have enough time to reply to him so this is my take on the situation.

Firstly, what is wrong with Singapore films being too artistic?
What exactly is wrong with it being too artistic? Or rather, what is wrong with a film being artistic in the first place? An artistic film is still a film. It’s still a film for audiences to enjoy and to remember and to discuss with other people and their friends.

Besides, isn’t it a good thing that our films are artistic? For one thing, it means that Singapore films are able to be differentiated from the rest of the films out there in the world. It’s a good departure from the stereotypical Hollywood films which basically goes something along the line of “lust for blood” and “lust for flesh”. At least Singapore films will not be confused with American films out there… I mean, it’s a good thing; we will be able to build up a “brand-name” for Singapore films.

Also, if you guys had been following the news lately, there have been lots of reports coming in from westerners where they are criticising Hollywood and the film industry in general. They are usually criticising it for its use of on-screen sex and violence to attract people to watch their film. Criticisms have been lashed against slasher films, splatter films, films that have been created to satisfy a population’s lust for blood and the raw flesh…

Other than that, there has been alarming cases of people who have become numb to the experience of killing people in cold blood because they watch so much violence on tv and in the movie. To some of these people out there, they feel that killing people is nothing, like the way it is being shown on tv. Killing people to achieve joy, is that what we want our next generation to become?

Artistic films are a great departure from the traditional formula of hack, hack and slash, slash. At least we see more to life than just killing and slashing, fighting for some cause that seems to have no logic in, and then end of almost all films with the line “happily ever after”…

Secondly, what is wrong with a film being too local? I mean, seriously, what is the point of a film other than to try and earn lots of money from it by making it a great box office hit? Well, I feel that another point of a film is to inspire, to motivate, to make you think about some philosophical details in daily life that we have already taken for granted and also to make fun of daily life while trying to transmit an important message.

Some years ago, I watched a short film about the last few days of primary school for two friends and how they spent it. It was a very short film and that’s probably the reason why it left such a deep impact on me. It is these films that touch our daily life that leaves such a great impact on us, and probably the reason why we keep remembering them after all these years. Human experiences are somewhat similar all over the world. We all experience happiness, sadness, despair, fear, excitement… All these are common experiences that we all enjoy at some time or other in our life, and even if the film is “too” local, the experiences created, the human spirit, its still present, it’s still there, it’s something that humans all over the world can relate to.

Look at the Oscars…
There are even awards for “best foreign language films”. Sure, Singapore hasn’t won one yet, but how do we judge a foreign language film? Probably on the way it can touch our lives? Isn’t that one of the best measurements for a good film?

So after looking at all of this, what is exactly wrong with Singapore films? Is there anything wrong with Singapore films being too artistic and too local? Isn’t it a good thing that we are able to experience the human spirit instead of continuously embracing the lust for flesh and blood?

Personally, I like Singapore films because they are close to my heart so that’s why I am writing this in the first place, but seriously, Singapore films isn’t that bad. Judging from opinions from abroad over the last few years, Singapore films will continue to grow and one day it will be a synonym with good films.

Discmon

Wet-weather importance

2008-01-12T09:14:00.000+08:00

The new year is well under way, and I have yet to post anything on blogger... This seems so weird don't you think?
Anyway, the main reason why I haven't been posting is because I got owned by the amount of work I need to do with the start of the new year and also the orientation that has just ended recently.

Talking about orientation...

(I've decided not to go into a day-by-day analysis of what happened, although I might do that if I manage to clear my homework before my memory during this period of time becomes fuzzy)

It defeats the purpose of my blog somewhat if I go into a day-by-day analysis anyway, so ... too bad.

Have you ever planned events?
Events that are fun and you want it to happen?
And then...

While I was helping out during orientation, I couldn't help but notice about the very significant lack of wet-weather planning. It seems as though the organisers of the event thought that the weather will always be on their side and that it wouldn't rain during the orientation at all. I think that this is a highly optimistic view and that it should not be the case when planning an event at such a major scale where it concerns the impression that they make on the new students in our school.

To quote an example of some of their "wet-weather" program:
They were having mass dance at the track. This is an open-air area. Other then the fact that most people who are learning their mass dances there get roasted most of the time, it is also susceptible to rain. Of course, PA is once again unaware of any other alternative programs should the weather turn bad, so I asked one of the councillors about the wet-weather program. I was shocked by the reply...

"What happens if it rains here at the track??"
"Oh, [Insert name] says: "We continue dancing""
comments: Erm... I'll keep all my equipments now, you can continue dancing.

You get the idea don't you. Just to make a point here, it will NOT be only my equipments that will disappear, I'm sure that the rest of the J1s will DISAPPEAR too. Of course, there is always the "chase everyone back and force them to dance" method, but lets just say that it isn't very appropriate don't you think?

Planning for a wet-weather program is a very important part of planning for an outdoor event. Seriously, you will not be able to know what is the weather going to do to you on the day itself. Besides, we have been doing project work for the whole of last year, councils been doing "project work" for at least 6 months already. Surely you would have learned something from project work even if you had been lagging around and not doing much to help your group...?

Just planning for the wet-weather however is not enough. Similar to what I have mentioned above, the wet-weather program that has been planned must also be feasible to occur. A wet-weather program that involves people dancing in the rain so as to have "more enjoyment" isn't exactly going to work out properly and it'll probably send some angry parents to the school at a very short notice. (I'm looking forward to the June parent teacher meeting, its always an annual affair where war is executed) Even when you do have a wet-weather program planned, please make sure that it is feasible and that it can be executed.

We all learned that in project work already, so why now? Why do we continue to make this sort of mistakes in the process of planning for our events? One of the aims of project work was to make us more able to do this sort of stuff. Then I would like to question if project work has indeed helped us at all when coming to this sort of events if we continue seeing this pieces of planning that are not complete at all?

Alright, this has already became a question of the purpose of project work...
Of course, I won't say that orientation was a flop. Sure, it has its good and bad points in planning, as do almost all other events. The important point here is that we learn from our mistakes and do not repeat them so that we can make our next event a better one. Overall, orientation was a exciting and happy affair (my teacher aren't exactly happy) and we got to have lots of fun, lots of jokes and meanwhile, attracting lots of J1s to our CCA.

Hopefully, most of those juniors will be staying in the CCA and become an active member of that CCA, then we'll have less worries when we depart from them in June.
Of course, June is a bit faraway from now...

Or.. is it?

Discmon

Thoughts on third anniversary...

2007-12-20T09:00:00.000+08:00

And... another year has gone by...
And seriously, I can't believe it myself that I am still typing this blog even now. Three long years have passed since this blog had its first post published. It's been a really long time...

Before I go on, have to thank all those people who read my blog from the very beginning (not much of you guys left), and also those new readers who I found out recently or not so recently ^^ Especially some of the guys in the "blogs you should read session", those are the blogs that have somewhat provided a good read for me and some of my inspirations to write, but lets not rake history on this fine occasion.

Anyway, once again, I'll not be around to celebrate the blog's real anniversary (which is, and has always been, the 31st of December). Darn, I just want to spend a quiet Christmas in Singapore and then start worrying about stuff, but hey, guess that won't be the case.

Looking back at this year, its been a year of changes for me.
Of course, the first thing that is going to struck you guys is that I am in JC now, and that is quite a big difference. I mean, new school, new campus, new uniform, new rules, new life (to a certain extent)... and you get the idea.

I think after all the changes of this year, I still miss the good old days. The good old days of being able to laze around in school with my classmates laughing at their daily jokes of daily life while gazing at some of the photos that they have taken in school. The good old days of lazing at the gate during assembly while catching people for being late. The good old days where you have a lot of different rooms to go to to catch up with your friends...

I mean, this are things that can be replicated don't they?
But I guess it can't be replicated entirely, and even if it can be... I don't want that to happen.

That's cause those good old days are in my heart and in my mind. I don't want those days to be clouded over and replaced by something else just as similar as what I am experiencing now. The days that I am experiencing now will also eventually one day be stored somewhere in my heart and mind and I'll, too, look back at it and call it "those good old days"

Do you remember the question of why do we usually hurt the person we love the most?

I finished watching saishuu heiki kanojo (最終兵器彼女）and they sort of answered the question although the question was never really posted in the first place. I forgotten which episode was it but...

It's because you care about the person, and that's when it will really hurt you. Look at it this way, if this person was a stranger. He came up to you and say that you suck. Other then the fact that you would feel like sticking a chair up his mouth and whack him upside down, you won't feel much...

But what about a person who you considered a friend, a confidant, your love? What happens if that same person came up and say that to you? Would it be different? A logical answer would be "yes". Of course it would be different. I mean, would you care about some careless comment on the street being flung at you? or would you care about some comment from a friend who's been with you and understands you for some time?

This of course, illustrates the fact that the only true person that can hurt you are those who you care for and love for. The rest of the people out there, you can treat them as transparent, as not being in existence, but can you do that the same to the people you loved and the people you cared about?

Its hardly possible, and this makes it why only the people you care about can hurt you...

However, this brings us on to the question of "why do we usually hurt the people we love the most?"

Point 1: Lets take a look at the above point, who are the people that can hurt you emotionally? Since you are able to treat those people around you who you don't care as invisible, as not being in existence, we already rule out that the large majority can't be from those who you don't love. This leaves those whom you love. It's more of a perception then anything else...

Point 2: Another possibility is because that that person cares for you. When you do some stuff that may put yourself in danger or something, that's when you hurt that person because the other person is trying to protect you. Its kinda confusing here... but I hope you get the idea...

Of course, there is always this argument that too much love tends to hate (we've seen it a lot of times...) While not necessarily denouncing it as false, its another possible explnation for why you ususally hurt the people we love the most. Cause as you love them, you might just go overboard and start to hate...

But I guess we'll reserve this question to another time...

Meanwhile, on a lighter note, it's the end of 2007. Start cheering cause 2008 is coming along. And as they always say, a new year brings a new hope, tomorrow will be a better day!!

So, to all you guys out there reading this blog and also those who I cherish and spend time with and of course to all you random blog readers who just happen to stumbled on this blog, I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2008

(I'll be on the plane then, don't forget to cheer with the rest of the world in that timezone)

Haha, see you guys in 2008! And hopefully we might just see this blog in its 4th anniversary (=

Discmon

Lessons...

2007-12-14T22:15:00.000+08:00

I realised something...

Whenever a holiday approaches, there would be lots of chalet and lots of outing and the like. And as with almost all chalets and all outings, they will somehow, through a series of fortunte/unfortunate events, plan a BBQ...

And when there's a BBQ, you realised that somebody has just got to light the fire. Sure, it may seem like a very simple and basic skill and some people has indeed passed it off as "Somebody with enough sense will come and help us light it in the end". Of course, it quickly becomes apparent during the attempts at lighting up the fire that it will not be the case...

And some people have indeed dismissed it as a "simple act of throwing everything together and putting a matchstick there..."
It's a sad case and it demonstrates that should our generation get stranded on some remote island in the unforeseeable future, we would probably die of hypothermia or the inability to cook anything we see on the island...

Anyway... I went to light a fire yesterday at the 1D (2006) chalet. Yes, they are in secondary 2 this year, but as I don't want to confuse myself, its stuck like this. Anyway, you tend to learn things while you are doing stuff, so...
I've compiled this list of lessons learned (I thought it should look apparent)

Lesson 1: If you are a scout, you better know what you are doing
Well, lets face it...
Which CCA in school starts fire to cook their own food using twigs and sticks?
Which CCA does not use solid fuel as their main form of fuel for their fire?
Which CCA does not cook instant noodle during outdoor cooking?
If your answer to all those questions are scouts, you'll be right.

Thus, you can see that when it comes to fire lighting, a scout better be ready to apply what he has learned over all those years that he has spent living. It would be an absolute disgrace if a scout is unable to start a fire at a BBQ. Come on, its so much harder to start a fire without a firestarter and when you are using plain old firewood.

Anyway...

Lesson 2: Make sure you have everything you need to start the fire
A lot of things can go wrong during a BBQ, and one small little thing you can avoid is to make sure that you have everything you need. At least the most basic stuff such as the following list:
-Lighter/Matchstick
-Charcoal/Firewood
-Firestarter/Kindling
-Tongs
-Metal grill
-Food

Of course, some of things up there aren't strictly necessary, although you might like to take a look at the equation below:
NO TONGS + HOT CHARCOAL = PAIN

Lesson 3: Don't borrow stuff from people
Well actually its quite simple to adhere to actually. And there's a lot of reasoning behind it.
Basically it follows the second lesson, which is to make sure that you have everything needed for the BBQ. If you really do not have the item, do go and buy the item and try to refrain from borrowing from people. The problem with borrowing is that you do not know when the other party might need it back, and this could pose severe problems to your fire lighting process, especially when you have lots of problem on the initial part...

Anyway, there isn't much to say here... haha

Lesson 4: Firewood is different from Charcoal
Ok, technically this lesson would only apply to those people who light fires using firewood before and are quite used to using firewood already.

When you are using firewood, the firewood only supports the fire and its takes a short time for it to be burnt until it can no longer support the fire. However, if the wood is very thick, it will take a very very long time for it to start burning and thus it will not create a huge blaze suddenly.

Charcoal however is a bit different. Charcoal is hard to burn initally but once it starts going.... Nothing can stop it short of water. Seriously...
For Charcoal, white embers is enough to ignite another charcoal simply because it can concentrate the fire inside the charcoal and thus burns at a much higher temperature compared to firewood.

To see a very obvious difference, do the following.
Throw a bunch of firewood on top of a blaze and then throw a bunch of charcoal in a charcoal fire...
For the firewood, you'll see the wood quickly burn and the flame would suddenly become much higher then before. However, it will also quickly die down after that. For charcoal however, the flame would not grow any higher for quite some time. However, once it starts to burn, the flame would really start going up and it will be sustained for quite a long period of time...

Anyway...

Lesson 5: Always have a bunch of jokes handy
This should be quite obvious. Keeps the mood up while you are trying to freaking light the fire. Of course, the joke has to somehow be able to connect obviously. No point telling a primary school kid jc jokes ^^

Lesson 6: Failure is only when you give up
Especially true when you are talking about charcoal as charcoal is ... very easy to light.
All you need to do is to get a large fan, which brings me to...

Lesson 7: GET A BIG FAN -OR- BUY AN ELECTRIC FAN
[Kinda self explanatory don't you think...]

Lesson 8: Have a wonderful time there
Yes, this is the STANDARD for all BBQs. Don't forget to try to start truth and dare, and also to start various gossips and lame jokes. Bring in their brothers and sisters who you might know and you'll start getting really interesting results heh ^^

Lesson 9: Do not kill me after this
Did I mention that lesson?

Haha sure did...

Discmon
P.S. I had a lot of fun there incidentally ^^ Its more of ranting and joking here (=
I know they can take a joke =P

Going "home"...

2007-12-07T10:20:00.000+08:00

I think its a great feeling to see everyone in disco all over again...

At first I was worried that all my jokes and common lame stuff that I had built up over the last 2 years or so had disappeared and would not be able to fit in with their humour anymore, but I guess I was wrong when about 5 minutes after I entered the chalet, everyone burst into laughter... from one of my jokes...

So at least I know that I can still fit in to the committee that I feel so bonded to and have made the best out of my 4 years in rv. Which is a good thing as the statement of "Once a disco, always a disco" has a bunch of living walking proofs now.

It was a rainy day, but rainy weather doesn't symbolises sadness and depressness. It all depends on whether or not you can make the best out of it. I managed to find my way to the chalet in spite of the heavy downpour (it was raining for the entire day that day) and promptly frighten Geraldine who was trying to scare me when I was walking into the chalet by scaring her back!! Following that, I counted about 5 minutes later when the first joke came out and everyone burst into laughter.

It suddenly feels like the good old days, like I've never left disco, like I've never left this bonded family and friends to go to this new place called NJC. It brings back a lot of fond memories, of disco outings, of eating food, of playing catch with the latecomers (over-exaggerated on that point, I assure you) After a while, it indeed felt like going home, like I've been there all along, telling jokes for the whole of this year to them and hear them laugh and enjoy themselves at the jokes of my daily life...

Of course, there were a lot of other things to laugh about other then my ridiculous jokes that are derived from daily life. Like Geraldine's obsession with bad people on serials, Weilin being scared of "Scary Movie 4" (what?! Scared of a comedy??), Changlok attempting to scare the 3 girls during the viewing of "Scary Movie 4", trying very very very hard not to walk over to the NP chalet and gloat, Jason's story of his failed flights and failed landings (at least he's still there to talk about it =P), Sebastian fanning the fire trying to repeat what happened at PA bbq (I don't want to talk about it)...

Its a nice feeling to be able to laugh at so many stuffs in our daily life, just looking back at it, I think its one of the most enjoyable days of the december holiday so far where I don't have to worry about things happening at home, at school, at my cca, at my own life...

I hope that no matter what happens, disco will always be together... And even as time goes on, we will all be able to somehow come back together and still have this chalet and the reunion dinner that we always have. Once again, converging together to laugh at the good, normal and bad things in life.

As time went on, we see the senior batches slowly drift away from the rest of us. Their jokes and antics no longer a daily part of our lives, or even a part of the chalet or reunions. I seriously do not hope that that will happen to our batch too, so that we can try our best to go turn up, to be there and to laugh once again at the jokes of our life...

And before I go, that blog song that I added to my blog is dedicated to you guys...
(A LOT of people is soooooooo going to find me and hack me into pieces for adding a blog song to my blog, trust me)

It's a great feeling to be able to go back to a home that you sorely miss...

Discmon

Situations that the government put people through...

2007-12-01T00:47:00.000+08:00

Sometimes you will start wondering to yourself if the people in the government has nothing else better to do but to create disturbances in our life...

Anyway...

If you guys had been following the news lately, there have been a news on some shop houses going on fire and because of the way the shop keeper has positioned their wares, the people were trapped without a proper way to escape.

So anyway, this is our story...

My grandfather works in a shop house, not totally for profit but more for having some thing to do while in old age. So anyway, if you want to place any of your wares outside your shop, you will need to pay a certain sum of money ($600 in this case). Now, the bad news is that that area is not properly sheltered and is thus quite exposed to the sunlight and the rain. Most of the shop houses there have thus went to purchase their own "curtains" so as to shield their wares from the elements. This would then make it viable for them to place their wares outside...

Anyway, the cost of using that area has just been paid for. So, things were going on fine....
Until...
Somebody from the government came and say that we MUST take away the "curtain", if not, we must pay a fine of don't know how much money. They gave all the shop keepers a time limit of three days, following which the fine will be imposed and various other actions will be taken.

I have a few reasons to feel that this is not justified:

1. 3 days to remove
Well let's take a look at it this way. This "curtain" is very well-secured and it has been in use for some time already. Sure, we can take down the things in about a few minutes (we took about 30 minutes when we really took it down that night), but have you ever considered about the predicament of the shop keepers? How are they going to display their wares now? 3 days to re-organise your shop is, frankly, too little. You need time to plan and move all your wares such that they can fit inside your shop. This is coupled with the fact that most of the shops there are small shops, thus there isn't this sort of big storage areas where they can keep everything...

3 days to move everything and continue working? You got to be kidding.

2. Why do it after people have paid the $600?
Before we continue, it's good to note the sequence of events that has led up to this scenario:
1. Some people went around finding out if the people wanted to use the area in front of their shop. If the shopkeepers decided to use that area, they must pay $600.
2. Some people then went around in the middle of the night (seriously middle of the night) and then painted down the yellow boxes defining the places where we can put the stuff
3. After painting it, some guy appeared and told my grandparents that they must take down the "curtains". If not, they will incur a fine.

Let's see what went wrong:
-If the shopkeepers had known that they are not allowed to keep the "curtains", I would highly doubt that a large amount of people would not want to continue hiring that space to put their wares since it would mean that their wares would be exposed to the elements
-Under further questioning, the person responded that the $600 are non-refundable and cannot be given back. Which means that no matter what happens, your $600 is stuck, even if you don't use that area because your wares are stuck out in the elements.

From what I see, it sounds like a ploy to earn money. (other then saving people from a fire hazard, which I still don't see how... More on that later) Let's look at it that way, a lot of shopkeepers there are wondering if there is still a need for them to use that area. When the rental notice came, most of the shopkeepers just continue using it seeing as they already have the curtains installed. So after earning a quick $600 from all the shopkeepers, they decided to tell the shopkeepers that "Oh, too bad, no more curtains"...

I mean, look at it this way, it sounds like a contract that gives you all the details minus the fine print, and I don't think we should expect that from the government...

Yes, we all know that the reason why this is being put into place is because of that incident that has happened some days ago. We know that safety is of the most utmost importance for all but is there a need for us to go to that extent. To me, the actions that are being taken seems to be less of safety for people but more of a chance to make money out of a situation...

If you are indeed out to protect the citizens from the dangers of fire hazard and the like, won't it be better to educate the shop owners and the people who live there of the proper evacuation methods should a fire really breakout? Won't it make a lot more sense to tell people what they should do in the real case of an emergency rather then to make the lives of the shopkeeper harder by trying to make them waste their money by making them tear down the "curtains" that they had built themselves several years back, all by themselves?

Let's take this, imagine you are trapped in this building and the building is on fire. Now the fire is raging very greatly and you want to get out of this building alive. You KNOW that there is an escape route somewhere but you do NOT KNOW how to use the escape route to get out of there alive...

This is exactly the same situation that we are seeing for the fire escape route for the shop house. The things are placed in such a method that there WILL be an escape route, a good question to ask however, would be how many people really KNOW how to use it.

When it comes down to it, you are just asking yourself who is the easier person to bully?
Will you bully the shopkeepers? Or bully the public? A lot of time it becomes easier to bully the public, and since there isn't any big shops or big companies in this mix, it suddenly becomes a lot easier to bully everybody...

Anyway, I'm predicting that something like this will happen because its typical of what we have been experiencing...
After about 2 or 3 weeks, some random guy from the government may appear and they will provide all the shopkeepers with this new accessory such that they can shield their items from the elements. This will obviously incur another unnecessary cost on our dearest shopkeepers and they'll have no other choice but to buy it anyway...

So, just my take on the situation, anybody has any comments?

Discmon

Event at VIVO + Analysis = Chance to Learn!!

2007-11-10T19:29:00.000+08:00

I guess most of you can see by now that this post will be another one of those where I go and dive deep into PA stuff and then leave most of you out there gasping for breath as you try to surface to get a bit of air before you go back in again...
Well, you could say that its becoming a bit of my hobby, but I think its quite nice, and as Eng Yian as kindly put it, we need a LOT of case studies...

So anyway, I was at vivo city today to eat lunch (after ventures) and it turns out that they like to wander around before eating lunch. I happened to run into a PA set-up for a concert to be held at the roof tops of vivo city and... lets just say that I decided to take a closer look =P

Before we go in any further, lets have a brief overview of what the event is about:
This concert is a part of the crime prevention campaign that is being held at vivo city (no prizes for guessing why). Anyway, they had gotten in a PA crew to set up for the concert that they are going to have, and lets just say that the first look of the set up is enough to make me stand up in awe!!...

Anyway...
As you should be able to see by now, the title of the concert is... yup: "Roof Top Jam Dance Party". They mean it quite literally, as the dance party part is happening in the night, but the concerts are still held in the morning and afternoons.

And before we go and plunge our head in, lets have a general overview of how the set up looks like, shall we?

Now as you can see from the picture, this is an outdoor event. However, their set up can rival even that of the most expensive indoor PA system. We will be going in-depth into each section after this brief overview, but lets take a look at the environment first.

Firstly, since the event is held at the roof top of vivo city and is also an outdoor event, the speakers and amplifiers need to be strong enough to overcome the large amount of noises that will be flooding the event spot. As stated by the golden rule, people absorb sounds, and this is further aggravated by the fact that it is a wide open area. Thus, the speakers and amplifiers need to be strong enough to be able to project the music that is to be played to the large audience that should be present there at night.

Because of a lack of reverberation, there can be firstly a lack of warmth in the music. Warmth in music is created through reverberation of the sound wave around the venue. This can seriously hamper a band's attempt to bring soothing and warm music to the audience as the effect may not be there.

The remedy for this would be to either create a separate foldback for the audience that creates an artificial reverb by setting delay using an equaliser, or if the mixer is high-tech enough (Allen&Heath PA12 has this functions), it can create an echo in the main mix as well using the sfx functions. This way the warmth can come back...

Another important thing that the PA crew has done is to set up two separate group of speakers. One group is set to face the audience that can have a seat and watch the event while the other group is set to face the rest of the crowd present at the event. Before we go on further:

If you can see in the picture on the right, the large dome structure that you see standing there is the place where the concert is held. If you noticed from the picture of the overall view above, the event is actually facing inwards towards the audience. So what about those that are at the event but are not seated? The PA crew has them covered and has set up the other group of speakers that I had mentioned to take care of them.

Lets take a look at their speakers that they have set up for the rest of the audiences:
Now, notice that even though this could be considered an auxillary speakers for this event, it is still very large and seemingly very powerful. This is to compensate for the fact that they need the music to be able to cover almost the REST of the rooftop. This way, the dance party can then be carried out and also at the same time, important announcements can be made.
They had also done a good job of splitting this speakers into twitters and subwoofers. This would sure allow the speakers to pack a punch during the dance as each speaker do not need to cover a large frequency range and thus prevent sound distortion. At the same time, it can provide the booming chords needed for the times when you need to get people's heart racing during the dance.

Now, lets head over to the main group of things shall we?
Lets take a look at the... SPEAKERS!!

I must say I am very impressed by the speakers, just take a look at it:

Yes, if you still can't see it, its composed of 3 twitters along with 2 subwoofers (OK, one of the twitters seems to be blocked out). Evidently and also based on some of my assumptions, this is a bi-amp system that uses a crossover to allow each speaker to only have to project a limited frequencies of sound. Before you start going on the question of how many amplifiers they need to do this, let me explain the wiring for their speakers...

Their tweeters are all connected to each other. The idea is something like, they have 2 NL4 jacks behind, and one of them is an input while the other one is an output. (It looks that way). One of the speakers receives the signal and then transmit the signal on to the next speaker. This means that the amplifier powering this set of speakers is probably a bit powerful so that it can do that, but whether or not this is even possible still leaves a lot to be discussed (perhaps we can go and take a look again?) The two subwoofers however seems to be separately wired for the event...

Now, we always hear complaints from performers that they can't hear themselves, but I think this crew has really taken it very literally...
Yea, as I have mentioned, I feel that they have taken it way too literally. If you count all the black boxes on stage that are acting as the stage monitors, there are approximately... seven stage monitors. 4 in the first row, 3 in the back row.

I don't think this is a good set up because there are just way too many stage monitors, and just too many way for feedback to occur here with seven stage monitors. Face it, if seven stage monitors are on at the same time and they are THAT freaking close to a mic... I hate to imagine what would happen. Even Mel was asking how is it possible...

As it turns out, the crew did suffer quite a lot of problems. I was there when the event just started, and they ran into several monstrous feedbacks right at the beginning and then it evolved into an endless whining from the speakers coming at around the high-mid frequency (although I think this has to do with the wiring... More on this later)

Either way, 7 feedback monitors is suicide, but might just be needed for those sort of rock concert that they are going to play around with. And lets just say that we had more then enough of rock concerts for a while after the end of year celebration (I am soooooo not going to get started on that)

Anyway, I went to take a look at their mic placements, and I guess there is somethings we can learn from there as well...

This is their mic placement for their drum set. I know it doesn't look very clear (The camera isn't that powerful). But anyway, there is a mic for each drum and each cymbal. So basically, the WHOLE drum set is mic up to the speakers...

Did I just say that?!

Yes, everything is mic up, and I got no idea how they are capturing it. But I think basically what they have done is to ensure that the gain on this mics are not very high and they use super-directional mics to ensure that they won't pick up the rest of the sounds from the other drums creating a super powerful drum sound coming from the speakers. But it does show what we can do with a lot of mics and a lot of mic points...

Next up, some of the mic placements for the players:

Yes, their mic placement for their saxophone players are very good. If you can see it in the picture, the saxophone mic just happens to be positioned at the correct place for the sound from the saxophone to be captured easily by the mic.

Also, before we move on to the next section of our event analysis, it is to be noted that most of the mics that are used either uni-directional or super-directional. This is to ensure that the mics will capture from one and only one sound source. This will allow the peopel up there to control all the inputs and outputs easily and also prevent situations where a certain sound overpowers the rest because it is picked up by the rest of the mics as well.

Oh yea, just a note before we move on to the lights system.
For all their keyboards, guitars and what-not, they have given them direct insertion boxes, ie DI boxes to send the signal up to the mixer. Its good as it minimizes the problems of using a portable amplifier (end-of-year celebration comes to mind) and also allows a good input to be received to be sent to the speakers (no distortion, no nothing). Unfortunately, the pictures for this section seriously cannot make it, so we're not putting any up here...

Next up, we're onto our lights.
As already mentioned, this IS a dance party (at night that is) so obviously you'll need something to fire up everyone's mood (although a dance party in a crime prevention campaign doesn't seem to exactly fit in). Anyway, lets take a look at their lights...
First off, we go into the simple stage lights, also known as par lights.

If you had noticed by now, this is an outdoor event. Why do I say that this set-up can rival even those of the indoor events? Well, just take a look at the lights...

All those black little things at the top are lights. Their power cables are wired by connecting it to the lights (obviously) and then coiling the cables around the metal all the way until it reaches the source of the electricity. Sure it takes time, but it sure looks good once its done (especially when you can't see the cables easily)

And before you think I am easily impressed...

Here is a bunch of intelligent lights, also known as intel lights. There are 6 intel lights and (not in this picture) 4 intel lights positioned on the stage most likely to provide some background lighting.

Now, I am not pro at lighting and setting up powerful scenes that uses light to convey emotions and feelings... yet. But this seems to be a very versatile set up to allow the PA crew to whip up the mood of the crowd and also generate the effects of slow moving soothing music. Lights are usually very versatile unless your set up sucks, but they may impair your performers ability to perform (which is highly evident during the end of year celebration).

Also, lest you think the lights float up there by themselves...

Here is the control for the height of the intel lights and also where they are placed. The picture is here just to show you how versatile light can be if you have the proper equipments. Tanglin secondary also has a few sets of this light holding structure, and lets just say that their intel lights are the mobile intel lights...

Sorta reminds you of mobile suit gundam... but anyway...

Now, lets take a look at the wiring...
This is where I think the PA crew has screwed up.
The wiring is brought down from the control that is located on top all the way down to the place where the stage is. They had placed all the cables along the same freaking straight line. That includes balanced cable, power cable, light wiring, receivers....

Did I mention lights and sound together?!
Remember me talking about the high-mid whining coming from the speakers? At first I thought it was a ground loop (which can be quite common when your ground sucks or if you have lots of equipments) but the frequency of the buzz is too high for a ground loop. (50Hz in the US and 60Hz in much of the rest of the world). Evidently, it can't be a ground loop, and besides if it is, they COULD have lifted the loop using the DI boxes already ("lift" function inside DI boxes will potentially disable all problems brought about by a ground loop). Its got to be something else.

I've got a feeling that it is due to the light and sound cables being placed together. The current flowing through the cables generate a magnetic field around the cable. This will thus creates the interference. Adding on to the fact that this is a constant interference, and you've basically just sealed the case.

What the PA crew might have done is to lay the lights cable totally separated from the sound cables. That way, less interference could have occurred and thus allow the audience's ear to not be pricked by the never ending high-mid whine...

Now then...
This is the control that was present there. It was located very far away from the stage. There are both pros and cons for this...

Pros
Its location allows it to be at the same spot as where the audience is. This way, the people at control will be able to hear what the audiences are hearing. This allows accurate adjustment and allows the audience to enjoy the performance at the highest standards.

Cons
Its far distance means that it might not be able to consider the audiences that are seated in front (I can imagine an audience being blasted out of his seat thanks to the subwoofers =P). Also, there can be a lot of communication problems between control and backstage bcause of distance. This can be a significant issue especially in such a dance party where the sound of the instruments crashing is often much louder then what you can hear with your ear (Trust me on this).

They are equipped however with headphones and gooseneck mics, but I question the ability of the backstage to be able to hear anything through the barrage of crashing instruments that might happen later on. Also, their's is one way, so backstage can't report anything back to control. That's definitely a seriously bad news. But it might not be that bad since there isn't a curtain...

And that's about it for the evaluation of the event at Vivo City. I had combined my evaluation of each parts as I went along describing so that you guys don't need to go back and forth on this page to understand what is going on.

If any of you guys have the chance or are interested, lets have an outing to vivo before this event is over. That way we can all catch a nice movie, spend time together and also examine a cool PA system ^^

Amount of time it takes to observe a system: 10 minutes
Amount of time it takes to evaluate and analyse: 25 minutes
Amount of time it takes to type this out as an archive: 1 hour 30 minutes
Amount of time this knowledge stays with you: Forever...

Discmon

Things that make you happy

2007-11-08T01:46:00.000+08:00

I realised that I had been very happy for the last few days, and I know the reason why!!
It's not because I had completed my holiday homework (which I would be definitely happy to get rid off), nor is it because something extraordinary had happened in my life (It won't for a long long time to come). It's just because there have been a lot of small things that have been happening that have been keeping me happy...

Lets start with yesterday...
1st thing that made me happy
I was able to slack at home and created another brilliant wallpaper for my phone. Ok, I didn't really draw everything by myself. Basically, all I did was to use photoshop and edit out parts of a photo that I need and then put them together in a way that I find that it looks nice. It won't be the first time I had made a wallpaper, but I think it made me able to relax and enjoy putting things together on photoshop. So it contributed to me being happy.
Here's the wallpaper that I made yesterday haha:

You might have noticed that the top of the picture seems to be a bit empty, but that's simply because the top of the phone is more cluttered with text and thus I try to reduce the complexity of the wallpaper by not putting so much things at the top...

Anyway, now on to the second thing that has been making me happy...
I had managed to book the BBQ pit for PA!! It was quite a last minute affair as it turned out that east coast park bbq pit won't be as ideal as what we thought it would be. In the end, the excos called me and asked if I could get a bbq pit at my house there. Of course, this was plagued by much difficulties (which included some family trouble that caused me to be unable to ask them about this). After enduring much difficulties, I finally managed to get to talk to my parents and before too long, I was off to booking the bbq pit.

The good news is that nobody had booked on the ideal date that I wanted the bbq. Therefore, I was very happy about that cause things are going my way!!

And we go on to the third thing...
My eyes did not get worse.
I was seriously worried about my eyes. I had been using the computer quite often over the last few days thanks to the holiday and I had been experiencing those sort of situations where the object you are trying to see starts to go out of focus quite commonly. My eyes are also starting to get tired more easily, and I was hoping that my eye won't get any worse (any worse and I'll be blind without my spectacles).

Anyway, with my spectacles spoilt again (my spectacles ALWAYS spoil), I decided that it's time to go for an eye check-up, and at the same time get a new pair of spectacles. After some careful examinations, it is concluded that my eyes have not became worse and all I needed was a new pair of glasses as my current ones is nearly beyond repair...

So yea, I am happy about that ^^ It shows that my short-sightedness and astigmatism would probably not get any worse then this.

Now lets see, what's the 4th thing.
Oh yea, it is being outside of the house. I don't know why, but somehow, I like it when I am outside of the home and am all by myself. I kinda like being able to go around Singapore by myself without any interference and just do random stuff such as visiting shopping centers to check on things and possibly run into people I know accidentally and have short chit-chats... Sounds kinda like a slacker eh?

Anyway, I went to funan to check on the price of a Nintento Wii console, and I guess being outside by itself is a very happy thing. All I had to worry about is to get myself home safe and sound and not to get into any big troubles while I am out there (that hasn't really happened... yet)

Ok, that's what happened yesterday, today...
Today, I think I am happy because I met everyone in 4D again.
To me, 4D is very different to all the other classes that I have had. 4D is a very noisy class and lets just say that the class is usually in a state of "organised chaos".(If chaos can be organised, that is...) I guess I am missing that state of organised chaos, where things such as calling other people's names in a funny way, doing childish stuff, talking about politics in a fun way and targeting 4A with all our actions are normal everyday stuff.

I miss the calling names session every morning too...
"Caiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-zhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii"
"bobobobobobobo-yuan
"CHYUAN-sheng"
"marTIN"
Yea, the list goes on...

And I think its just this great feeling to see everyone all over again, seeing their happy faces and learning about the funny stuff and the crap stuff that has been happening in each other's school. Another great thing is that we somehow all have a common interest in computer games (ok, some of us) and I think that really sets them apart from all the other classes which I had came from. People nowadays are getting more and more studious, so studious in fact they are starting to eat books, and I just missed the days where everyone just drop whatever homework they are doing and start doing some fun stuff together...

Yea, sorry no photos (because I don't like taking photos of people) but lets just say that today is those days that will stay vivid for some time.
And oh yea, today I am the main cook for the bbq all over again. I think I did a great job !!
We'll let those who went to the bbq to comment on that statement =P

Looking back at it all, it actually isn't that hard to make yourself happy. We have seen countless stories of people throwing their life away as they struggle to earn cash in what they hoped was the path to happiness. We had heard tales of people trying to achieve something but in the end, they lost their happiness.

Happiness is always there, always present, just waiting for you to embrace it, for you to accept it with your hearts. Its the simple things in life that makes you happy and keeps you going on in this, perhaps, dark world...
So, wake up to a smile... The world is waiting for you!!

Dedicated to all you people out there!

Discmon

Mediacorp + PA = Improvements

2007-11-01T22:38:00.000+08:00

I guess some of you guys out there might have received a frantic sms earlier today which goes along the line of: "OMG!! There is some freaking big event at JEC!!!! COME COME COME !!!!!"
Ok, I exaggerated the contents of the SMS, but it did go along something like that. Their system is quite well prepared and yup, this is for the record ^^

Basically, what happened is that I ran into the filming session of the current affairs show in Singapore "有话就说". Other then the fact that some times their comments are seriously shallow and their topics do not usually go into the really important issues in daily life that we talk about daily, their show is pretty much ok!

Anyway, I had learnt previously that this show do their filming at different shopping malls every week, and they are hoping that one day, some members of the public might just come up and start a conversation with them. (in fact, that was the original aim of the series and was also the very reason why it stood out from the rest) This is the second time I ran into them and lets just say that I couldn't resist myself from stopping and taking a very close inspection of their system...

Basically from preliminary examination of the system, they basically comprise of three distinct system, which you can see in the photographs below:

These three photos are basically placed in the order in which they were arranged there. My technical skills are not up to the standards of mediacorp yet, but based on observations, I can deduce what each section does...

I shall now move into each of the sections, based on which one I perceive receives the first input.
The first section to receive the input is the second section, the one where you can see the tv screen in front of the two person sitting at the mixer. Their main job is most likely to control the amount of output for each of the cordless mics that were used. They had used a total of 11 cordless mics.

If you can count the number of receivers on the rack, there are also 11 receivers.
The output that they have obtained is sent out to the first section.

The first section consists of one mixer and a bunch of amplifiers. Basically what I think it does is this:
It takes in the output from the second section and then its main job is to
1) Record the signal to tape for post-filming editing and what not
2) To be broadcast to the public
This is especially true since there is a large amount of public audience there listening to the talk, and they have already set up two speakers there to broadcast what is going on to the public.

Section three consists basically of the visual component of the recording process and also the place where the director does her work. The third section can be split into two distinct groups...

The first section correlates to basically the rest of the video taping crew, whose main job, I believe, is to capture the footages that were being used during the actual process. This is more complicated then how it sounds. Just look at the whole length of the set up there that is used for capturing the videos...

The second section is basically where the director does her work. If you can see the small little black gooseneck on her table, this gooseneck mic sends signals from the director directly to the host of the show so that the director can instruct the host what to do should the director feel that something should be done. Also, notice the large amount of screens that are in front of the director? This screens are used by the director to determine which camera should be used at a particular time for the final show...

Oh yea, there is also the cameras section...
For this particular shoot, 4 cameras were used. One was trained on the overall view of the layout of the show, one was on the host, one was on the group on the right, and the last one was on the group on the left usually. In this way, the director can quickly adjust his camera angles by switching cameras to obtain the view that she wants her viewers to see...

Anyway, now on to the technical aspects that we have learned today:
1) The reason why cordless mics are used.
-Corded mics are not used because it would be a great hassle. Just imagine if you have approximately 11 cables running up and down the stage connecting the participants of the show to the mix. It would not only add complication to the event at hand, and will also drastically increase problems with troubleshooting should such a need arises

-Condensers are also not used because it would have picked up too much background noise and this will have a seriously negative impact on post-filming. Also, the condenser would have been located at a large distance away from the source and this could result in cancellation due to sound waves not being in phase. This is especially true when the venue isn't built for acoustics.

-Cordless mics are used because they do not create a huge mess on the stage and also at the same time, can be very close to the original source of the sound. Through that, chances of feedback, cancellation caused by reflective surfaces and capturing of unwanted noises are very largely reduced. Thus, cordless mics are best in this situation, although interference caused by near-frequency wave are not unheard of.

2) Each cordless mics had its own receivers
-This is because when two mics share the same receiver, the receiver will not be able to receive both signals at the same time. If one mic sends out a signal, it will cancel out the signal from the other mic because the receiver cannot handle this. This will thus allow the event to run smoothly because there will not be cut-off resulting from mics use and it might also be easier to troubleshoot should a mic be faulty during the shooting process

3)Stage monitors
-A single stage monitor was used in the recording process. The stage monitor was placed right at the front where most of the participants of the show will not approach. This reduces the possibility of feedback occurring and in fact, should totally negate feedback because the stage has been built in such a way that no one will reach there. A very good learning point...

4)Backstage crews
-For this filming session, there wasn't a very physical backstage crew. But it is still somewhat present to some extent. Instead of running out to solve problems, they had (most likely) foreseen most problems and thus do not have to worry about them at all. Should there be any problems, they address it during the commercial break when the cameras stop rolling, thus allowing the event to be very smooth when you see it on TV.

-Also, the backstage crew have very good communication with the director running the show (remember her gooseneck?).Other then that, each member of the control crew also have a headphone. This must most likely act as either a control monitor, a director instruction receiver, or both. By using the headphone, they reduce the possibility of feedback caused by control monitors (This is VERY rare by the way)

Time for us to improve and apply what we have learnt!!
I'll upload the rest of the photos that I have taken when I have the time haha ^^

Discmon

End of year celebration...

2007-10-22T22:16:00.000+08:00

...And the year-end celebration event is finally over. Its given most of the people in PA a lot of headache, a lot of new jokes to crack, more experiences to boot and also the realisation of how a ground loop occurs...

But anyway, following the lead of Siyuan and also Eng Yian, I thought its time for me to bring out another contextualisation of the events that has occurred...

With the end of the first utopian year, the monarch decides that its time to wage a war against our neighbouring kingdom to prove how strong we really are. Province PA was asked to conduct large scale intel gathering operation, using both CBs, SoM, SoS and Survey. However, this was met with large scale resistance from the rival kingdom who has casted magic shield, minor protection and greater protection on their provinces in anticipation of Province PA intel gathering attempt. Also, province PA was all by themselves in this information gathering process as others were all trying to get ready for the war that is going to occur

Just as Province PA reports that the intel gathering process has been largely a failure, the monarch orders that the war be declared. Province PA makes a lot of noise that there isn't enough information to substantiate that we will be able to win this war but the monarch doesn't care much and continues on with the assault. The slightly larger province in the kingdoms tries to share their CBs, SoS, SoM and Survey using utopiapimp, but the information was either out of date or inaccurate. Province PA attempts to point this out to the monarch, which the monarch listens but did not attempt to correct anything as it is already too late as war has already been declared. At the same time, Province PA was attacked by a stream of meteor showers...

At the beginning of the war, not all the provinces check the forums regularly, resulting in less then half of the kingdoms taking part in the war. Province SC which is supposed to coordinate the attacking forces are not able to fully execute their plan due to lack of commitment from the rest of the province who are unenthusiastic about the war. Province PA criticise the monarch on what has happened and attempts to get some things done...

In the second final battle that would mark the end of the war, Province SC is finally able to get most of the people there, probably because the rest of the kingdom realises that there is a need to be active or they'll be wiped off the map thanks to intra-kingdom conflicts. At the same time, CBs, SoM, SoS and survey finally starts to yield positive results for Province PA in their information gathering attempt. Province PA is shocked by the information gathered and attempts to control the situation by sending out additional reinforcements to handicap the opponents main attacking forces...

On the eve of the final battle, Province PA was finally able to receive the promised aid that Province SC has announced at the beginning of the war. As the soldiers come in, Province PA realises that there is a need to quickly train them up to be elites. Faced with no other choice, Province PA decides to send them for accelerated training, casting patriotism on themselves at the same time in a hope that they can get the required reinforcements by the time the final attack begins.

On the day of the final attack, Province PA decided to split its forces into three distinct forces, each commanded by its own general. Meanwhile, Province SC starts the main attack long before Province PA forces are ready due to Province SC mentality of having the first strike.is an additional advantage. Province PA first strike team responded after hearing what is happening in Province SC. Province PA sends in the first aid team to prepare the Province SC. However, Province SC somehow cheats the game system and denies the trade balance due to Province PA. Province PA grumbles but does not receive any positive results, this causes Province PA to prepare a retaliation against Province SC after the war is over. Currently this has resulted in meteor shower and thief ops being conducted on Province SC.

During the actual attack, Province PA broke up into three province to better coordinate the attacking forces on the enemy kingdom, while Province SC continues the attack as one main attacking force.

The first attacking province begins the attack on the enemy kingdom and face heavy resistance. However, the rest of the kingdom did not check the forum during this period of time, resulting in the first attacking province suffering from heavy retaliation after the initial failed attack. Even after posting of urgent messages to the other provinces, little help was provided due to the unintelligible communication.

Second attacking province starts to get bombarded by large amount of communique from the Province SC and also from higher command. As second attacking province tries to coordinate what has happened, third province attempts to find out what the heck is going on, casting SoM and SoS on each other. Resulting in large amount of confusion especially on higher command.

Mercenaries that were hired started imposing its own methods of attack that did not take into account what we had planned originally. The mercenaries casted meteor shower on the province that Province PA was attacking, resulting in heavy casualties as the third attacking province begins its weakening attempt on the opponent kingdom.

First attacking province meanwhile runs into big problem as it finds itself on the verge of collapse. Higher command finally gets through the communication blackout with the first attacking province and immediately sends in large amount of aid and at the same time reestablish communication with first attacking province. Province SC at the same time somehow misfires and begins intra-kingdom conflict against the first and second attacking province while war was still begin carried out. First and second attacking province silently fights off Province SC while higher commands notes what is going on and attempts to find out what the heck is going on by casting crystal eye.

Finally the monarch realising what is happening, decides to order for a mutual peace, which was quickly accepted by the opponent who had more then enough fun taking over the honour of the first attacking province. Second and third attacking province falls back and regroups while first attacking province attempts to mop up what is going on the stage.

However, higher command was not very sure of what is going on because thief ops and unsuccessful spell casts are not part of the info provided on the paper. You can read the first battalion accounts on Eng Yian's blog and the second battalion accounts on Siyuan's blog.

Meanwhile, intra-kingdom conflicts has begun, mainly due to the outstanding trade balance issues that Province PA isn't very happy about.

Discmon

Content then happiness?

2007-10-14T16:05:00.000+08:00

I was trying to configure my blog layout this morning, and I am thinking of removing much of the links section on the side(save for the "blogs you should read" section and the "group blogs" section). Incidentally, I also had this sudden strong desire to prune the "blogs you should read" section and replace those blogs there which just isn't as good as what it used to be...

Anyway, that would most likely not happen so soon, as I haven't been reading other's people blog for some time already, but yes, I am sure that once I have the time to sit down in front of my computer, that would happen...

I stumbled onto this a few days back, and I thought it was quite interesting. Just wanted to share it with you guys:

we can never be truly happy, but we can be content with what we have now.

How very true, the one things that everyone pursues in life is happiness. Although we do not directly pursue happiness for the sake of happiness as that is not possible, but we do pursue things in life because it provides us with happiness. Its sort of like, if you want to live happily with lots of money, then you'll be pursuing money since it will provide you with the happiness you need. It's the same if you like video games, you'll then pursue video games to give you happiness.

But I do not agree that we can never be truly happy, as stated in the quote. I feel that it is possible for us to be perfectly happy, and the reason for that is that we are contented with what we have now, and not the other way around, which is we can never be totally happy, but we can be contented with what we have.

Look at it this way, if you are contented with your life already, then what would make you unhappy then? You are already at the apex of your happiness and that's what make you perfectly and truly happy since you do not aim for anything greater then that already. Being contented with what you have is a recipe to be happy, and it isn't a sort of comforting thought that since you are not really happy, but at least you are contented...

Being happy is one of the greatest things in the world. As mentioned, happiness is the immaterial object that people all over the world are trying to obtain through whatever means possible. Many historical events can be said to have its root in happiness. It is because of the need of happiness in their life that poor people work so hard to get out of the poverty cycle, it is because of the need to lead happy life that many people take up arms to fight for a greater future.

The pursuit of happiness is a universal one, but I just wanted to put a point across and that is it is because you are contented with your life and that's why you are happy. Of course, there are many ways to look at happiness and I believe there is such a thing as perfect happiness that is not induced by drugs... even if its for a short period of time...

Are you contented with your life?

Discmon

Just imagine...

2007-10-09T22:04:00.000+08:00

We're almost finally back to the standard good old days in JC life. Just have to wait a few more days and I'm sure we'll be stuck right back into our daily routine of coming to school, looking at the teacher, doing homework, writing essays criticising the education system...
Yea it goes on...

Anyway, today there was a rehearsal for the year end celebration in LT5, and I think we just came across a joke of the year award nomintation so here we go...

About a few weeks back before the rehearsal, some councillor came to find me and asked me how he could procure a drum set in some way or another. The councillor is calling me as well, PA is helping out to support the event and I guess he got our job scope wrong...
Anyway, I told him that firstly, PA don't provide drum sets (we don't even have one in the first place) and that he could try finding Sebastian's band or even the concert band in NJ for the drum set...

Nothing much was heard about this thing for the next few weeks...

Finally, the day of the rehearsal finally approaches. Within minutes of us setting up the system, the councillors went up to me and asked me the same question again:
"Where can we get drum sets?"
"Ehh, like I told you before la, you can get from Sebastian's band, concert band..."
"Sebastian's one don't have snare drum, then concert band borrow from harmoc"
"Then borrow from harmoc lor"
"But then... harmoc don't want to lend..."

Ok. that's not the joke yet.
Another councillor approaches:
"The band kp, don't want to play le cause they don't have drum set..."

Ehh, wait a second, did I hear... A band without a drum set, then they kp don't want to play because they don't have drum set?
Ehhh... Band that does not have a drum set?
Imagine this:

Imagine a PA crew without microphones and speakers
Imagine chicken rice without chicken
Imagine prawn mee without prawn
Imagine nasi lemak without rice
Imagine a car without 4 wheels
Imagine a TV, without a screen
Imagine a radio, without a speaker
Imagine a newspaper, without news
Imagine a programme, without content
Imagine an exhibition, with no information
Imagine a book, without a single word in it
Imagine a fish, without a gill...

You get the point don't you?

Top 100 things to do while you are in control

2007-10-04T17:17:00.000+08:00

Because I'm kinda bored... and since I've been wasting my life in control as our dearest 2359hr has put it, I thought I'll just prove that I've really been wasting my life away. Good news is that I am enjoying every single second of it...

Below is a compilation of the things that we've been doing in control ^^
You can go and poke 2359hr for photos, he's been acting a bit perverted(!)

100. Trying to put the key into the keyhole
99. Holding bets with someone on whether or not you can stuff that key into the keyhole
98. After that, demand for the things that have been placed in the debt
97. At the same time, fake the original bet so that it contains much more then what it used to have
96. We have been promised an xbox360 with one year xbox live subscription
95. Kz, you better do it ^^
94. Taking photos of others without permission
93. Taking photos of them doing all sorts of stuff
92. Taking photo of them trying to stuff the key into the keyhole
91. Taking photo of them using the computer
90. Taking photo of them yawning
89. Taking photo of them doing homework
88. Taking photo of them sleeping
87. Taking photo of them doing random
86. Keep on taking till you are no longer able to take because of some reasons
85. Plugging in your MP3 player into the mixer in the control
84. Complain about the song others listen to
83. Insist that that song is nice and that you everyone should listen to it
82. Setting up the perfect EQ and warning that if anyone touches it...
81. Destroying the perfect EQ intentionally to irritate the person
80. Threatening to put the soldering iron through the xbox if the xbox leaves control
79. Threatening to put the soldering iron through the gulliotine card set if it leaves control
78. Threatening to put the soldering iron through the pingpong tv set if it leaves control
77. Threatening to put the soldering iron through kz
76. Using the soldering iron as a weapon of mass destruction!!!
75. Making control look like a computer lab
74. Ivan's laptop
73. Dhika's unable-to-support-monitor-laptop
72. Mel's brand new laptop
71. ZP's scratched like don't know what laptop
70. Fighting with each other for bandwidth
69. Playing O2jam comparing points competition
68. Owning Dhika at O2jam!!!
67. Watching anime in control
66. Be a Full Metal Alchemist fan like kz
65. Be a saddist and scream "CLASSIC!!" when somebody gets impaled in RE 4
64. Be a saddist and scream "YES! YES! STAB STAB!!" while watching Gundam SEED
63. Laughing in joy while watching the first 7 minutes of Elfen lied (not recommended)
62. Trying to tell others that the anime you are watching is not a gay-gay anime...
61. Trying to convince people that dying is more then just dying...
60. Teaching others about some basic PA stuff
59. Stare in astonishment at the councillors
58. $1000 for 12 intel lights?
57. Burning hellnotes ^^
56. Abusing our system
55. In a good way by producing better quality sound with the central speakers
54. Memorising the distance that the front speakers are away from the delay speakers
53. Trying to tell others that the fader is 100mm long
52. Trying to tell them that Allen & Heath has a 10 degree inclination
51. Trying to tell others what is ringing out
50. Trying to tell others how to create crazy effects
49. Studying
48. Studying till you sleep
47. Studying till you are so bored that you decide to play games
46. Studying while you are doing an event that doesn't require your attention
45. Studying while you are eating dinner
44. Studying fake-ly, by doing event and ignoring your homework completely ^^
43. Kop-ing the PA event rations
42. Accuse others of taking the food
41. PA event rations court case
40. Taking PA items so that you can charge your phone at your seat
39. Be found out by the PA QM aka secretary of state security (according to 2359hr, it is "confirm+chop"
38. Getting owned by him ^^
37. Calling TO toad
36. Writing toad all over the board
35. Start gossiping about each other
34. Gossip about each exco
33. Gossip about the people who started the gossip
32. Gossip war ensues
31. Gossip war draws to a close after the intervention of the end of the day
30. Commenting about current affairs in the control
29. Trying to make fun of the current affairs through mock portrayal
28. Thinking of how to make next year's night trail more exciting
27. Thinking of how to implement elfen lied into next year's night trail
26. Thinking of how to put jigoku shoujo into next year's night trail
25. Make fun of people's hairstyle that looks like Ai Enma
24. Commenting that people change their hairstyle now and then with mock surprise
23. Accuse some people of sabotaging our system by changing things here and there
22. Finding out that the public address system is going "silent hill"
21. Talking about silent hill and how to add it to the night trail for next year...
20. Visiting the military affiars forum
19. Typing your blog post in control for fun and laughter
18. Showing others some lame youtube video
17. Learn about male toilet etiquette from youtube
16. Laugh at the sketch show from youtube
15. A sort of anime dance from youtube
14. Watching anime from youtube
13. Turning on the fan and complaining that its hot in control
12. Banning the entry of certain people into control due to humidity that is created
11. Opening the control door to allow aircon to flow into the room
10. Playing games together
9. Repairing cables and have fun at the same time
8. Threaten the usage of the soldering iron to obtain what we want
7. Tuning the clock so that it is no longer 5 minutes fast
6. Laughing at each other's exploit
5. Commenting on each other's blog and attack them with your own opinion
4. Typing this out
3. Typing this out typing this out
2. Typing this out typing this out typing this out
1. Typing this out typing this out typing this out typing this out...

Did I mention typing this out?

Discmon

Symantec customer service??

2007-10-03T18:40:00.000+08:00

I know I still got a chemistry science practical assessment tomorrow, but I don't think that posting a short post here, watching anime, doing some project work stuff, won't really affect my practical tomorrow. Or rather, would it?

But heck, here's a bunch of good news (or bad news to those of you who wants to see me distressed, sad, angry, sick... basically the bad stuff in life). The good news is that my computer is back up and running, fully operational and everything is going smoothly. This is for the record, and for anyone who happens to run into this problem as well...

The problem occurred after usage of Symantec Ghost 2003. What happened was that I tried to use ghost to do a full backup of my computer. The operation was fine and it asked me to restart my computer. After that, it attempted to execute ghost in DOS to execute the image creation process. The screen then became stuck with an hourglass in the middle. Thinking that it was just processing, I left it running for about half an hour as I tried to revise some of my homework.

After deciding that it is not going to do me any good to wait any longer, I decided to restart my computer and then I realised that it just gets stuck in the same place all over again. I tried the other option which gives me the chance to go back to window, but it just stuck there for a much longer time...

After analysing the system after miraculously locating a command prompt, we realised that the entire master boot record of windows xp has been wiped. Ghost prompted that we can use the ghreboot.exe file to get back to windows, but it was to no avail, as it just result in another hanged screen.

In the end, after trying almost all the methods posted on the symantec website, we were on the verge of giving up. We then decided to try to use a diskette to boot into ms-dos and then execute the ghreboot.exe. It finally worked, and I was back to windows in pretty much no time after that. I would like to thank my floppy disk drive that did not fail on me even though I kept it in the drawer for the last 3 years...

Anyway, just a major note: Symantec services suck...
Imagine this highly possible scenario:

After trying out a lot of the DIY methods listed on the symantec website, we decided to call their technical support services and see whether or not there is a chance that they can help us. What we got instead was this reply:

"I'm sorry, we no longer support Ghost 2003. Please either buy our newest ghost software or update your ghost 2003"

[Excuse me, YOUR ghost has wiped out my master boot record, severed my connections with thousands of bytes of data on my computer, destroyed part of my life, and oh yea, made me highly focused for my promotional exams, but I don't need to thank you for that]

"There's no other way, we no longer support Ghost 2003. Please buy the newest version and then try to back up your computer again"

[*coughs* My computer has crashed because of your software. Why would I want to buy a new version of the same software, try to backup another computer and see it crash in front of my eyes? Why? You have made me lost don't know how much amount of data, and now you ask me to buy another one of your software?! So that you can crash it again?! NEVER!!]

Did I mention that after that they also sent an e-mail to us with the slogan:
"We value excellence in customer service"
asking us to rate their customer service...

Did I mention "excellence in customer service"?

I was highly tempted to delete my whole symantec software off my computer and replace it with other software companies anti-virus software after this incident...

Yes, I know that a lot of company policies nowadays is to stop supporting their old software, old system, even old OS, but then again, at least you can look into it somehow, rather then telling me that there is no other option then to say too bad, and move on. This is especially when the fault is directly caused by the software that has been developed...

Customer service is more then just letting your customer hear your smile through the phone, it is about the service that you provide. What you have provided is as good as a phone jail that is depicted in The Sketch Show.

Fastforward to 3:27 left and you'll know what I mean...

Discmon

Are you sure that that place is a library?

2007-10-01T21:57:00.000+08:00

Just a slight update, my com is still crashed, my data is still stuck on that (goddamn) drive and yea, nothing is really good about my computer situation currently...
The good news is that I have more than one computer at home, and the second good news is that the promotional exams are finally over...
Excellent...

Anyway...
In a fit of after promos exam fever, I decided to go out and go around all over the place. In the end, it landed me between the arcade and the library. Things that happen in the arcade are pretty much always the same for me. There's the cursing towards the monitor, the cheering after the completion of a freaking hard level, the jeering at a really lousy player of a game, the raised eyebrow of shocking revelations of some people's method of playing and racking up that high score and the astonishment associated with totally owning everyone else in the game...

I decided that I should pick up JSP and try to learn it, so I went to the library to borrow books on it and at the same time source out methods in which I can attempt to retrieve the date on my hard disk. And that's when I realised that there are no libraries in Singapore that resembles a library...

Let us all imagine a library, the library of our dreams. It is a sanctuary of peace, quietness and the sound of paper being ruffled as the pages of a book is being turned. It is "supposed" to be a quiet place, highly conducive for the student's to study, for the fiction hungry people to gobble up fiction, for the people-who-have-nothing-else-better-to-do but to sit in the library but read newspaper...Library is a place for all of us to be able to seat back, relax and read some nice books and even do our homework...

So why is it that libraries here are near total opposite of this?
I think we had heard enough of the familiar criticism of parents bringing children to the library. They bring the children to the library in the hopes that they can borrow some books and become "smart" (how they become smart is a mystery to me). The parents sit down on some benches and start talking with their neighbours, immediately turning part of the library into a mock coffee shop. At the same time, the restless kids decided to convert the library into the catching arena. Happily running all over the library and exclaiming "you're it" at the top of their voices...
That's SO normal...

I'll add to the list.
Recently, a bunch of young kids decided to turn the library into a place for a perfect picnic. They entered the library and found a spot near the vending machine located inside the library. They then proceeded to empty out the vending machine using their money and very soon, they had a rather noisy party picnic going on. The noise generated was loud enough to irritate everybody that was on the same floor of the library. Just when you thought things were not going to get worse, they brought on 5 decks of TCG (duelmasters in this case) and proceeded to deck it out in the library very noisily, attracting the attention of everyone.
What a useful way to make use of the library eh?

And it doesn't end there...
People come to the library to study right? Hmm... Well, they do, as long as they don't bring their boyfriends/girlfriends along. Not all of them are like that, some do encourage each other to be better, but these are the not so ideal ones...
Instead of revising and doing their work, they spend more of their time pretending that the rest of the world don't exist and that they are still wearing their uniform. They soon drift off into their own mini world, oblivious to the rest of us. You know, you could just go somewhere else if you want to "mess around". Doing it in the library is as good as asking for the public to write in a letter (and then everything goes on and on)

Lets continue on shall we...
Upon entering the 4th floor of the library, I got this impression that the 4th floor of the library has recently been sold to another company. The 4th floor was amazingly noisy (it was about 4 times the noise level there on normal Saturdays and Sundays). It seems that more and more student decides to have more class outing and picnics there... and I wouldn't even be writing this had I not seen that some people had decided to blast their mp3 players at the maximum volume so that people all around can hear it...

I don't know if this is unique to Singapore, but apparently, the library in Singapore is more of a haven for the exact kind of behaviour that we do not want to see occurring in the library. People being inconsiderate, people not knowing that it is a library, people coming to the library without the correct purpose in mind. It shows how little books mean to us. The books sit on the shelf looking down as the people in the library ignores their presence completely. Is that supposed to be what a library is supposed to be like?

A lot of the things I described has happened on the 4th floor of the library, and yes, its supposed to be a bit noisier there, but at least spare a thought for those who are there really to study. You could do just that little by talking softly instead of screaming, not blasting your mp3 player, not holding picnics there and even just be there for a proper reason...

Recently, the things that are happening on the 4th floor are gradually being spread throughout the rest of the library...
The books are on the shelves, and they are not touched by the people...

Then why do you want to go the library in the first place?

Discmon

More then just dying (II)

2007-09-19T17:17:00.000+08:00

I got this off some body's blog post who felt that my last paragraph has been targeting him:
(Whether or not that is really true is no longer my business since he has already assumed that)

When people die,it means people die.That simple.everything comes to an end.Nothing matters anymore when your body goes into the incinerator.Only people who do not wish to face death directly (for whatever reasons) will claim that death( in whatever way) is something that is not acceptable.

Firstly, I did not say that death is not acceptable. Death is after all, a natural phase of life. We are born, we live, and we die. However, are you sure that when people die, they just die? If its really that simple, then why do we have funerals? or to make it more specific to you, military funerals? Why are there even procedures for funeral in the army anyway?

We have seen that many people die fighting for the cause that they believe in. Lets just take a look at the wars that have occurred in the past century. The Korean War, The Vietnam War to name a few. Aren't this wars fought by soldiers? by people? who believed in what they are fighting for? Wars ultimately results in the loss of countless lives, so are you saying that this people just die?

Is their death so worthless to you that all it accounts to you in your head is that they just die? We honour these soldiers because they are willing to fight for what they had believed in, to secure what they had hoped is a better future for their loved ones, even if it takes their lives. So they had died and that's it?

If that's the case, I guess you haven't grasp the factors that allows victory in a war. In Chinese, it would be:"天时，地利，人和" For translation sake, it would be the right time, terrain advantage and approval of the people. So your soldiers die and that's that... Say goodbye to approval of the people for me ok?

Imagine what would happen if your loved one joins a war that he believes in, he dies, killed by enemy fire (hopefully) and then all you get is he has died, and even after the war, they are treated as though they had just died...

How would you feel? Do you feel he has died in vain? Has he been recognised for his contribution to his country?

“国以人为本” This is a idea that has been echoed over the century by various military tactician. Without people, there won't be a country. If the people don't support the government, its as good as the government does not exist. It will not be able to function, it will not be able to declare war...

Now imagine if you are that person who have lost a loved one. Would you continue treating this country as your home if to the government, the person just dies? Or as the way you phrase it, "everything comes to an end"?

If life has given you the chance to laugh at your enemies as you slaughter them, do it without hesistation.Ahhh...the scent of vengeance is so alluring.Will your enemy give you any quarter?No..Think about it, kill or be killed.Would rather be the one that is suffering(and see your loved ones suffer with you) or would you rather slaughter your enemy for your own survival.It's your own call.

Firstly, your first situation is not the same as your second situation. It is one of surviving vs the lust for blood spill. Its largely different. Killing someone to protect yourself doesn't give you a "scent of vengeance (which) is alluring to you". A largely different situation, but thanks for generalising (=

That way, I guess my explanation for this point can be largely omitted... if you don't see the difference, I am sure other people out there do see it, you could ask them...

An excerpt from some blog.Ahh...if only life was like that, there wouldn't be war, there wouldn't be people committing suicide, and everyone would be peace-loving.Sounds nice eh, even the cynic wants to experience this kind of life.But wait, this is A.D 2007 not some some distant future in 30394324823984 years where the enitre mankind has attained this kind of enlightenment(i doubt we will exist for that long anyway). Sadly there is only a pitiful few who think like this now( I am not one of them for sure).

We see why the world is in this pitiful state now, don't we?

If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face— forever.
-1984, George Orwell

I was not aiming at a utopia, I was just saying that life is precious, and that we should treasure it. There is capital punishment, simply because life is a treasured commodity. Everyone values it, probably even you, and this makes life precious and death more then just death.

Discmon
P.S. As a side note, all quotes are as they are on the original blog correct as of 19/9/2007 at the time at which the post is published. As such, any editing occurring at a later time after this blog is published will not be accounted for.

If we could take forever to complete our papers...

2007-09-19T13:23:00.000+08:00

I wrote a copy of the first draft of this post while I was having my general paper exams. (anyone remember my criticism of the way GP is being taught...?) My general paper exam wasn't too bad, except for the apparent paradox where I criticise GP in the GP exam paper... Not exactly a good sign, but the teacher cannot exactly mark me down just because of that...

Anyway, I was sitting in my seat waiting for my exam to end when I thought about this question: Why do exams have a time limit? I have decided not to visit Cambridge website until after I finish typing the main body of this post so that we can have a fun time guessing the reasons for it...

1. People will take forever to complete their paper
Just imagine if you can have the time to check through you work over and over and over.... and over again until you are super satisfied with it. I think we'll probably see some careful people lingering in the examination venue until probably one week later where they will be finally satisfied with what they have written down on their answer script. We'll probably see a few dozen invigilators needed for each paper since the invigilators need to take shifts just in case some people decides to take 2 days to complete their paper. Then, the invigilators will need to bring tents, sleeping bags...

2. Timetable nightmare
Imagine if some guy had to take an English paper after the Math paper and there is no time limit as to how long the person can take to complete his paper... Hmm, I would imagine that that English paper would be delayed, delayed, rescheduled and rescheduled again before we can finally take the paper. To that end, we'll probably see examination time tables stretch over one year long. Now that's cool, we can take a year off from studying and we just need to take like 8 tests over a period of one year... Excellent!!!

3. Taking over of the exam venue
Yea, quite possible. Imagine if you had an exam venue in some school hall, and the exam decided to drag for about one week. Quite cool actually, but then the rest of the school will be devoid of their assembly since they do not have a proper place to assemble anymore..
Cool, no morning assembly!!
Anyway, that would probably mean an illegal take over of the exam venue by the examination authority in order to facilitate the running of the exam. Quite cool, I would like to see a court case where Cambridge v the schools of Singapore

4. More chance to cheat
Yea, I think this is probable cause like if your exam last over a month, you'll probably find lots of chances during that one month to cheat and not be discovered while you are inside the exam venue. Cause the more time you have the more chances you get when it is possible haha...

5. Increase in amount of questions
Cause there is more time... actually, that could probably mean you have infinite question since the amount of time that you have for the exam is proportional to the amount of question you have. So if we go according to that, as time tends to infinity, question would tend to infinity too...
Oh man... and I thought I had enough of integration tutorial already...

6. Large scale event
Examination suddenly became a very large scale event, cause there is need to purchase tents and sleeping bags for the invigilators, there is also a need to generate infinitely long list of questions for the candidates to do since they have infinite amount of time on which to spend on the question. Then, food also need to be provided as otherwise the candidates would complain that their welfare is not taken care of, so then there will be a cook there to cook food in packet lunches and which is served to their table for them to eat as they do their examination paper...

7. Large scale food poisoning
Well, cause exams take an infinite long amount of time, cooks will need to be called in to cook for the candidates who are taking the exam to eat. Then there is always this possible chance that there is something dirty inside the food and then all the poor candidates would then suffer from food poisoning and then there will be a lot of germs inside the hall as all the candidates start puking the food out or needs to be sent to the hospital...

8. No admittance to sick people at all
I think currently sick people can be admitted since the only MC that Cambridge recognise is that of chicken pox (other then of course, if you are dead). Anyway, if we are going to have infinitely long exams due to the fact that we no longer have time limit, we would probably not be able to let sick candidates come into the venue anymore (which means chicken pox won't be the only MC that is accepted anymore)since they will pass their germs on to everyone inside the enclosed exam venue... This could become a very horrible situation in which everyone falls sick...

9. Raise in examination fees
Yeah, I think there will be an increase since now we need to provide food and all... Yea, means poorer people can ill-afford to take part in an exam then there will be more financial aids needed which could drive some country to become even more poor, or if there is a "no welfare" option...
Hmm... not such a good idea to raise that fee I guess...
But it also explains away the reason why Cambridge needs an examination fee in the first place...

10. People sleep in the examination venue
Think should be quite fun. Imagine looking at your friend sleep for the first time in your life. Quite cool, and then there is always this chance that a couple would sit together during the examination, then when they sleep....
Uhh... and oh yea, it will make the exam even longer cause when you sleep right, you might just happen to drool on your answer script, which means you need to rewrite everything...

Ok, imagine this highly not possible scenario:
You decide to take part in the O levels, so you paid your examination fee. The Cambridge authority informs you that you need to take a year off your schedule in order to complete this paper properly. You went to take the English paper which dragged on for about 3 months since the last person who left the examination venue took three months to check through all this work properly. Each paper that you take lasted for three months as the last person who left the examination venue left it after sitting there for three months. About 3 years later, you finally completed your examination after all the dragginess and so on and so forth...

Well, I can imagine there will be much less graduates from O levels since most people would not have the patience to sit through all these free time waiting for the moment when your next paper would begin...

Ok, this is crap...

Discmon