Revelations: Jokes abound...

Sad films and Happy films =)

2011-08-28T22:14:00.003+08:00

One of my friends once asked me this question:

How come movies that are usually selected at international film festivals or leave deep impression on you are disturbing, sad, unhappy or have very sad endings? Why can’t they be happy, comedic, funny, slapstick...

At that point in time, I did not really think too much into the question because I wasn’t sure about it, and I was also busy thinking about other stuff at the same time. However, I managed to find a bit of time today to reflect on this question while I was watching “Les Choristes”. For those of you that do not know, “Les Choristes” was a film that won “best foreign language films of the year” in 2004.

For a quick intro to the film:

The point I wanted to drive across is this:

Films and movies are made up of ideas that people see in the life around them. Regardless of how sci-fi the plot may be or how FAR it is away from modern normal life, it will still be about human emotions at its core. Watch any episodes of Star Wars, get rid of the jedi, lightsaber fights, tiew tiew laser gun fights, and what you have left is a story about human emotions. Hatred, fear, jealousy, happiness, sadness. Or we can actually just quote Yoda here, his one statement summarizes the whole first three episodes of starwars:

Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads…to suffering. I sense much fear in you

Get rid of any obvious coverings, and almost any movies is left with the bare basics of human emotions. So why then are movies that leave a huge impression on you usually sad

If you think about this from a different point of view, only when you know sadness can you know happiness, only when you know suffering do you know what it is like to live peacefully. When you are presented with a movie that is fun, happy, comedic, slapstick and “feel good”, naturally you are already filled with all these feelings already. Instead of achieving any more effect, you are already filled to the brim with this “feel goodness” that there isn’t really much else that the movie can offer to you without turning off the audience. Imagine going into a cinema to watch a “feel good” movie and instead you get totally wiped by the plot on screen and get reduced to a crying lump.

How about a sad movie? When you watch a sad movie, you are presented with sadness, pain and sufferings. As you watch those, you may feel fortunate, happy that life isn’t so bad for you or you may even feel for the plight of the characters on screen. Depending on the way the plot moves, it may bring you to an even greater level of anguish or you may actually feel happy as issues are resolved and things turn for the better, or you may even start wondering why such tragedies can occur in daily life.

When you can feel so deeply for the film and the mood changes or whatever, you can feel the direct contrast of happiness, sadness, pain, joy, suffering, a peaceful life… That is why I feel that sad movies can capture the hearts of people even more than that of a happy slapstick comedic show.

On a side note, human life isn’t as happy and as happy-go-lucky as it seems. Sadness, misfortunes are all around us, pain and sufferings are wide spread and things may not go as easy as it seems for you. However, we can choose to face everything that comes to us with a smile on our face.

Discmon

Plot points discussions...

2011-07-24T12:27:00.002+08:00

Before you read this, please note that this article contains spoilers of major plot points in the movie “wuxia”. If you do not wish to be spoiled, go watch the movie first. This is a discussion on several plot points in the film and should be taken with a pinch of salt.

It’s been a while since I had last written anything over anyone or even anything in general.

Today, I went to watch wuxia with my friends. I had absolutely no idea what I was going to get from the film. From the poster, I had expected a ipman-esque fight movie where you watch martial arts exponents spar on screen for the entertainment of the audience.

To be honest, the movie does feature many scenes of great martial arts fighting, but what I didn’t expect from the film was a great philosophical debate about life, justice, righteousness and possibly most important of all, redemption.

The film starts innocently enough where we are introduced to the daily life of our hero: 刘金喜。He works as a paper makers and seems to have a happy life with his wife and two kids. However, everything changes when two wanted robbers turned up in his village and attempted to rob and murder the owners of the general store in the village. After an initial reluctance, he made up his mind to engage the robbers in combat, albeit with a lack of skills, and somehow managed to kill the two most wanted robbers in the whole of China.

A coroner was called in and this is when we are introduced to our other protagonist, and this is when we are introduced to our other protagonist, 百九. He starts questioning how can 金喜，a lowly unskilled worker kill the two most wanted robbers in China, who has broke out of jail by overpowering the guards?
We’ll leave the rest of the details of the plot to spoilers, but what I’m going to do here is to go through a few thoughts that popped up in my head as I watched the film.

Throughout most of the film, we are presented with 百九insistence to ensure that justice is served, going as low as to bring his wife’s father to justice. His insistence serves to show the difference in which law and the world works. In the human world, many things are morally ambiguous, grey, so to speak. Take the scenario presented in “heavy rain” the PS3 visual novel as an example.

In one of the task that our protagonist in heavy rain had to do, he was told to kill a person to save his son. We know that that person is a good-for-nothing who sells drugs to other people for a living. Yet, is it right for us to take his life? In the scenario presented, we learn that he has a family too, that he has children and that he cares deeply for them too and perhaps, he has been driven to sell drugs because he has no other way out. Then, does he still deserve to die? However, we cannot choose grey (to kill, and not kill him at the same time) and we are left with the options black and white. Isn’t that the same way justice and law is being served in society? In law, there is only black and white. We can point to mitigation and leniency, but in the end, the law still clearly denotes who is in the right and who is in the wrong.

At the same time, we also see 金喜history. By this point, you should have been able to guess that he isn’t as simple as he has made out to be. This raises the second issue of being given a 2nd chance in life. More often than not, when someone commits a mistake, he is marked for life and no matter how much he may choose to repent, society may no longer be able to accept him, or in this case, the law tries to get to him again. It’s a basic repetition of “the yellow ribbon project” which I feel we do not really need to go into.

One statement that really stood out in this film was when one of the constables remarked “they’re saying prayers to the Earth Deity, because when they till the soil, they will inevitably hurt other small living organisms in the soil”

It seems like a simple statement at first glance talking about the farmers as they till the soil, but let’s take a moment to think about what it is actually referring to. Think about this, there is an aim that you are trying to achieve, but on the journey to reach that goal, other people may be hurt. Are those “hurt” that you commit negligible? Do we really need to care about them when we are achieving our goal? In the film, 百九insistence on serving justice ultimately leads to 金喜identity being revealed to be that of a murderer, shattering his wife’s heart and at the same time endangering the lives of the villagers and his family. Are those consequences less important than bringing justice to a person who has committed murder 10 years ago? If they are indeed less important, have they become the necessary sacrifice for the greater good?

What is the greater good then? Who defines what we should perceive and take as the greater good? Law? Government? Society? Moral Values?

Similarly, when government adopts any policies, what you are looking at is a trade-off, a necessary sacrifice for the greater good. But is it really true that it is always for the greater good? What the government perceives as the greater good may not really be the greater good for everyone in society.

Another important aspect of this film is the fact that 百九，has two personalities side by side. One of them is where he is forgiving and trusts in the good nature of people while the other side is the side that feels that all humans are scum, that they are beings that will do things for their own selfish gain, and that only law and justice is absolute.

Essentially, grey, black and white in a single character. At the end of the film, 百九helped 金喜to defeat the final boss at the cost of his own life. At this part, we can see his alter ego standing slightly away, holding an umbrella as a single tear slowly rolled down his cheek their eyes connected.

Throughout the film, we see how 百九insistence that justice must be served slowly give way to the trust that he feels that this murderer has really seen the errors of his ways and want to repent from his past mistakes. Many times, the murderer has chosen to let him live even though he could have easily killed him to prevent him from being arrested by the coroner.

That trust finally culminated in the final fight of the movie where he risk his life to save 金喜。The tear on the cheek as he is dying symbolizes firstly maybe, the side that believe in the law pity at this sorry sad state. Because he choose to let his “human” side take over, he ends up dying, unable even to save his own self, let alone bring justice to the world.

Secondly, it symbolizes how this side of him realized that the world isn’t just black and white, and it is at this moment that he agrees with the course of action this his “human” side, which he has tried to buried throughout his entire life, has taken. He drops a tear to the acknowledgement of perhaps a greater meaning of the moral ambiguity that we see in life.

To put it in a greater perspective, you can see it as a contrast between two types of people in this world, the idealist and the realist. The idealist seeks to put ideals in front of realistic situations, they perhaps believe in the good side of human nature or that it is necessary to protect people like women and children. They feel the sacrifice of oneself is nothing compared to the fulfillment of idealistic values.

Meanwhile the realist would feel that the idealist is foolish and incapable of rationale thoughts. The realist would seek the thing that would benefit them, whether or not it would serve good to the society is a thought that does not really concern them. A realist would then see the world as black and white, as a list of things that would benefit or hurt them.

The world needs both types of people, you need the idealist and the realist to coexist, but many times, is that really possible?

These are just some of the thoughts in my head as I watched the film. However, I felt that the director was not sure about what he wanted from the film. It was like he was distracted, like “should I make a mental philosophical film or should I do a fighting, heart pumping, film…hmm?” As such, not all the ideas presented was adequately addressed and the fighting scene ended with bewilderment (not to be a spoiler, but seriously, a lightning bolt?!!?!) I would have appreciated if the film had stick to the philosophical part and addressed it fully.

Overall, it’s been awhile since I sat down to think like that and the above are all discussions and ranting, thus, no obvious conclusions are reached. It is meant for us to think and discuss, similar to how life is grey and never black and white.

Discmon

What is my aspiration?

2010-04-18T15:18:00.003+08:00

Note: This post just happened as I was trying to fill up this form and it asked "What is your aspiration?".

After staring at the question for quite some time and looking blankly at my computer screen, I opened up the notepad application on my computer and just started typing whatever came to my head at the first instant. It was a technique that I used last time where you wrote:"I don't know what I want to write" repeatedly until you come up with something to write.

After rambling on in the notepad for close to 20 minutes, I finally ran out of steam and stopped. I scrolled back up, read the thing once and thought that it would be a waste to press the x on the top right hand corner of the window. So I thought,"Might as well post it up on the blog, which has been dead since..."

Obviously, this post doesn't reach up to the level of polish of all my previous posts (when was the last time I blogged anyway?!?) I only removed some spelling errors. The grammatical errors are still around cause they are the product of the steam of the post so I thought I'll leave them there.

~Ramblings started here~

What is your aspiration?
What do I aspire to be?
What do I want to achieve in life?

.... Sigh~~~ I don't know what I want to achieve in life. Especially after graduating from the formal education system, I really have no idea what I want to do with my life anymore. Maybe it's because I've always been under guidance and rule throughout my whole entire life. My goal was to pass my exams, get into the subject combination that is good for me, get into the good school, continue my studies, get to know a lot of people and have fun with them. Make good friends with them, relate to them my daily experiences, laugh with them. I am like a guy with no aspiration, all I want to do is to relax, kick back, and enjoy life...

Life was much easier when all you needed to do was go to school, study, take tests and exams, do well in them. Make lots of new friends everyday and then just hang out, chill out and relax until the next day starts. Not forgetting the need to do homework and to take notes while you are in class and making sure that you don't break any of the school rules so you have a clean record.

Everything works out properly, as long as your results are good, life goes on, more tests and exams comes your way, and then the big exams comes and then you finish it. You just continue on with your life in a new school and things continue on. You don't need to worry about, what is the future prospect of your career, what exactly you want to do in life, what is the Singapore dream that you want to achieve and be a part of...

To me, my aspiration is to be able to take care of my parents when they are old, take care of my future wife, my kids and my family. Continue to stay in touch with all of my good friends from school and have a job that I like and will be happy to go to the workplace every day. Of course, I will always want to find work to do because at least there's something that pushing my life along and I don't feel that I am wasting every single day of my life like I did during my pre-ns day (december to january 8th 2009) where I basically just woke up, eat, sleep, and continued this routine on a day to day basis until I felt that I was wasting my life.

So, whenever some application form or questionnaire comes along that asks me what are my aspirations, I will become stuck at that question and I'll usually leave it as the last thing that I will entertain in that form. The rest of the form tends to be much easier, things like, "what are your results?" "What did you achieve in school?" and even “What is your contact information?"...

Setting goals is hard for me because I have no idea what I want in life in terms of being outstanding and better then others. For me, I agree with the feeling of "小人物的心声". I don't really care much about being great, outstanding or some scholarship holder. I just want to be contented and happy with life. It sure seems hard and sucky to consider that when everyone else feels that you should do better in life and become an outstanding person.

~ramblings end here~

Discmon

PS: In the end, what I had written down as my aspiration, which I took quite a long time to formulate was this:
My aspiration is to be able to make a difference in people's lives through what I do. The happiness a student shows after understanding something that they had never understood before, the happiness a customer shows when you produce results reaching or even going beyond the customer's expectations.

heh...

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

More then just dying

2007-09-15T09:13:00.000+08:00

Someone mentioned to me that "Jigoku Shoujo" is a lousy anime, as the only thing that it ever shows are people dying, people dying... and yes, more people dying... ...
Which sad to say, I don't agree with that generalisation that that person has said. (Hang on, is that even sad?)

"Jigoku Shoujo" (地獄少女; じごく　しょうじょ）(Because I can :P)is an anime series produced by Aniplex and Studio Deen. The anime focuses on different stories every episode, in which the hell girl is contacted to exact the vengeance of the protagonist of each story. Over the course of the entire series of the anime, you get to see the various circumstances where people use the "Hotline to hell" to execute their vengeance on the person who has made life horrible for them...

Sure, the anime is all about people dying. Come on, you want to make an anime series where somebody needs to get sent to hell? Obviously there must be someone who needs to go there so that the series can even go on... But what I feel is that anime series is more then just an open-ended series where you get to see people dying and being sent to hell after committing horrendous act to other people...

One of the major themes throughout the entire series is firstly: What drives a person to doom his own soul so that he/she can take revenge on whoever caused misery in their life?
This is the part that seriously kept me watching the anime series continuously even though it seems pointless for me to see people getting sent to hell cause they have hurt others.

From each episode, we see that usually before the person execute his vengeance, the person would attempt to confront the antagonist in order to give the antagonist one last chance. This could be seen as also the last chance for the protagonist to save his/her own soul. After which that person would usually be sent to hell, since the anime depicts the antagonist as unwilling to apologise or to admit to his/her mistake...

We also see another trend, the red string seems to be usually pulled during the heat of the moment. Like in the baseball episode, the string was pulled after the antagonist walks away mocking him... Does this shows that humans are usually incapable of weighing their actions correctly right at the impulse of that moment?

The second major theme of the series is: Will vengeance really solve all the problems?

In the first 7 episodes, it is implied to be true... until the recurring characters finally started appearing. The recurring characters sort of breathe a new lease of life to the anime rather then watch the monotony of people dying, dying and... ehh... "I shall ferry this vengeance to hell"... which is... dying... We see the journalist trying to stop people from using the jigoku shoujo to solve their problems because he do not agree with the methods that are being used to solve the problem.

We see the journalist using all sorts of methods to seek an alternative to killing the person off in vengeance. He tries to make them apologise and as the series progress, we indeed see that he has nearly been successful several times, only for the person to pull the string at a later time. (I haven't finish the series yet, so I don't know whether or not he finally succeeded in coaxing some one). One of the greatest break from killing people would be episode 13.

In episode 13, we see the life of a person whose soul is doomed to hell live out the last few moments of his life. It also shows the inability of taking vengeance to solve all the problems in life. We see that the person, realising that his life is doomed, try to keep himself busy, to seek religious help and various other things in life to forget about the mark on his chest that shows his fate...

These are the two major themes that have kept me watching "Jigoku Shoujo". Its like an exercise of your mind, similar to that of "Cowboy Bebop". As you watch "Jigoku Shoujo", another thing that floats into your mind is the fragility of life. Life is one of the best gifts that you are bestowed with when you are born and we should treasure it as much as possible. As you see the people in the anime suffering from this and that and cursing other people to go to hell along with them, you see that life is precious, so precious in fact, that it can even be used as the ultimate weapon for revenge.

So if you think that people dying is just... dying, especially in this anime series and in real life, I hope that you'll rethink what is the true meaning of being alive. Is life really given to you to simply laugh at your enemies as you slaughter them? or to see violence and gory scene and laugh? Is that the human spirit?

Discmon

Cultural differences in films...

2007-09-05T23:00:00.000+08:00

Argh... subtitles...
Yea, they're dead famous now thanks to the odex saga. (The yellow car is big tree's car) No, this is not going to be a post on why Odex sucked and why they have just alienated all their potential customers. If you want more of that, you can go check the forums over the hardware zones and odex own forum (did I mention there was an apology? erm, was that an apology? ehhh...)

Ok, I'm not going into the "odex holocaust" mood now since I was neutral up until the double 6 incident and eh, I think we all should take a step back and cool it.

Anyway, I was watching "Kiki's flying delivery service". Kiki's flying delivery service is an anime movie created by Studio Ghibli some time back. Its the same studio that brought to us Totoro and spirited away (more famously known among us as 千与千寻). I like listening to the originial Japanese audio, so I had no choice but to turn on the english subtitles to read...

What happened was that the subtitles showed people saying things when there obviously isn't anyone speaking in the japanese audio version. I was going to blame this on poor audio quality of the disc for causing loss of so many vocals...
But then it turned out that the problem was that the English version of the anime added lots of stuff to the film. They made the cat more irritating with more snide remarks and they added more background information that isn't really needed since we could have just as easily derive it from the film itself...

But it goes to show the great cultural differences between the West and the East.
For many years, we had been saying that the East is radically different from the West. The difference is so outstanding that games could be created featuring the war between the two sides with stereotypical images of each factions. Even as the world moves towards globalisation, we still see that there exist differences between the East and the West. The behaviour, attitude, character, of people living in the West and the East are different, and I guess this explains what had happened to the film.

When the film was sent to US for subbing and release in western countries, what had happened was that the subbers felt that more was needed to suit the audience there (something known as localisation). This resulted in adding whole stretches of conversations for certain characters, and creating less stagnant time when no one is talking. How does it show the difference?

Over long periods of time, people had always seen westerners as more "open" while the people living in the east were more "reserved". This can be seen in the way the film is made. In the East where the film is made, the director realises the power of the film when no one is talking and everyone can be just focused on the scenery that is being shown. Supposedly, it is more quiet and people have room to reflect and think, similar to what a lot of people call as being "reserved".

However, for the westerners, this moment of quietness is more then enough to bear. Watching the large amount of subtitles appearing at the bottom of the screen, and switching to the English audio version, you see that the words that are shown as subtitles are spoken only in the English version. It kind of shows the westerners being unable to think about the things happening around them for a moment. They have to be continuously talking about something.

And it shows in their classrooms. We have all seen clips of how the average western classroom look like, and we all agree that the western children are very active while the children in the East are just not as active. Partially, I think that the reason why the English version had so much things added to it was simply due to this difference in our two societies.

Studio Ghibli films tends to give its audience lots of time to watch stuff and not be bombarded by conversations between characters. They like to produce moving images that tells all the story rather then people talking to drive the plot forward.
I like the films that don't talk much, partly because it is very tiring to continuously listen to people talk, and frankly speaking, if I wanted to listen to people talk, I would be listening to my radio...

Another reason for this is that when people don't talk as much, you get to appreciate what is on screen and think about what the producer is driving across to you. Some films have very beautiful scenery that are captured. The moment of silence where soft music plays in the background as the main character views the scenery...
Its one of the methods the director use to give you time to feel the way the main character does and drives you into the story of the movie, tying you in it.

Another reason is that less dialogue means that more things are left to hang in the air. That doesn't necessarily mean it is a bad thing. The director could make it very explicit in the way he creates the scene, but does not need his character to say it. This self-realisation is often more powerful then when a character in the movie reveals it to everyone in the cinema.

Of course, lots of dialogue have its own good. It makes the movie easier to understand if it is too complicated for just the scene to explain the whole story. Dialogue, when done well, could make the movie more lively with more funny and witty remarks, sarcasm and perhaps the occasional jokes and explanation of what is going on.

The difference between the west and the east is omni-present. The only time when that happens is when one of the two loses their roots...
And I feel that many of us here are losing it...

(Is anyone reminded of "I want to BE a caucasian"?)

Discmon

The aims of GP emphasised by teachers...

2007-08-24T23:02:00.000+08:00

I'm sure all the JC students will take a new subject that they will either love or hate. This wonderful subject is known as General Paper, or more affectionately known as GP to many of us.

As you can see by now, this post is going to be a rant/constructive argument on the subject known as GP. (Thanks piaroh for classifying my blog's argument as partial rant)

GP is one of the few subjects that I had looked forward to when I was in secondary school. The reason why I was looking forward to it was due to the fact that I found English lessons in secondary school to be too restrictive when it comes to writing about various issues and social studies to be too politically-correct. GP seems like a beacon of light in a dark tunnel which provides us, students, with a chance to express our own views and opinions on a wide variety of issues that affect our daily lives...

After entering JC and taking GP however, you could say that this "dream" about GP for me has been shattered by a 15 ton hammer, pounded into dust and left to be blown away by the wind into nothingness...

As a GP student, I find myself not evaluating and commenting on what is happening in the world around us, but more on trivial details such as "how to answer this type of question?" and "how to write an essay based on some topic that will not really concern me..."
Is this GP?

What are the aims of GP? The aim of GP is to
a) Create an awareness in students of the world around us
b) Look at the situations objectively
c) Think critically about these issues

Are these aims fulfilled? As far as I can see, this is not that aims of GP that my teacher believes in. Apparently, it is this set of aims:
a) Methods to answer a question
b) Get an A for GP at the A levels
c) Discussion of issues based on strict adherence to the syllables

Why do I say that the teacher has adopted the above set of pseudo aim for GP? Pseudo aims that will not result in imparting of skills to the students that are learning it.

Firstly, we spend more then 90% of our lessons on how to answer questions in the GP exams. Sure, this is a good thing, through constantly going on on how to answer questions in the exam, we would definitely score well for the GP exams. What happens is that we spend each lesson staring at the teacher as she drone on and on on how to answer the question. "You cannot do this...."

Sure we can score well, but I ask how is that going to help us? Through knowing how to answer question, is it true that we will thus learn how to think objectively? What would happen when we go out to the real world? Is everyone going to answer question put to them about current issues in exactly the same way? Is our training now of answering questions sufficient for future events, when all we focus on is answering questions in a fixed set of way?

Face it, questions given in a GP exam would most probably never ever come up again in real life. Just knowing how to answer the questions would probably not do you any good. As society changes, current issues changes as well. The Internet may no longer be a menace in the future to quote an example, but are we still going to say that because we only learnt how to answer questions in a fixed sort of way?

Secondly, through all these discussions on how to answer questions, our GP teacher seem to be only aiming to make sure that all of us get an A for A level and that's that. Then what's the point of me studying GP when it will become a useless subject because we do not learn the skills that are being emphasised in GP? We become a generation of Singaporeans that are only capable of answering fixed sets of question about current issues 10 years ago by the time we step out to work. Isn't that sad?

Thirdly, there is a freaking strict adherence to the GP syllables. Our GP syllables do cover a lot of aspects in our society, but what happens is that the only thing that the teacher does is that she goes on and on on how to answer questions from each topic. Ask yourself, how is that going to help you?

Primary aim of GP: To allow students to think objectively about issues surrounding us. If we don't even go into discussion on the issues surrounding us, how are we going to ever ACHIEVE that?! Through discussion on issues that are already researched for a long long time and which already have a logical conclusion? Oh, WOW!! Internet is a menace, has always been a menace, menace menace menace. Is there any objective thinking available in discussing about whether Internet is a menace when it is so ... overly discussed?

Over the period of five months, so many things had been happening around us. From natural disasters to raise in salary, from Iraq to National Day Rally 2007. These are all the current issues that are happening all around us, but yet, have we ever went to think about them in our GP class? These are the issues where we can feel the impact on our daily lives, that interests us and makes us want to think more about the world all around us.

Isn't GP about current affairs, about the world around us? If so, why are we not having discussions on these issues? Paradox? You got it...

When we go to school, it is not just about learning knowledge and content on our subjects. It is so much more then just plain learning about stuff. Imparting values, becoming good citizens, these are all part of the education of the young. Education isn't just about the mind, it is about the soul as well.

GP isn't so much about the mind, but the soul. The soul that is to be filled up with being able to think critically about issues around us. If GP became a content subject instead, what is the point of us learning GP then? So that we can tell the world that Internet is a menace 50 years ago?

I've heard GP lessons that are extremely interesting, with long and heated discussions on current issues around us. GP lessons where no one falls asleep and though there is a greater emphasis on discussion of issues, their results for the GP exams are not affected. GP is not a methodical feeding of the brain with knowledge that is irrelevant 50 years from now, but life skills that are to be learned, that will stay relevant, no matter where you may be in the world.

Some people argue that it is through touching on these long-gone issues that have been thoroughly researched that we gain the life skills that I had described above.
Yes, it is possible that you can gain the skill... but why not you take a look at this example:

How are we going to think objectively about an issue when it has been researched by scholars, researches and other people. They would have generated their own set of "objective" opinion covering both sides of the story. How on earth then are you going to think objectively, when it has already been done for you? Its like just copying what others had said for a really long time...
Internet is a menace, has always been one, and will probably still be for some more time. We all know that... I have even lost count of the amount of times I had read that Internet is a menace or is not a menace in various mediums. Do you think you can think independently, critically and objectively when the issue has been so thoroughly discussed?

GP is supposed to be a very interesting subject, with lots of discussion on current affairs and independent thinking. At the rate things are going, we will soon have a generation of scholars that don't think, leaders that don't realise...

Remind me again, what is the purpose of education?

Discmon

Legal/Illegal anime

2007-08-14T23:12:00.000+08:00

The Straits Times
Downloaded pirated anime?
Starhub ordered to disclose your identity

The Singapore distributor of popular Japanese animated cartoons called anime has won the right to track down StarHub subscribers who downloaded the programmes illegally from the Internet.
A Subdorinate Court ordered StarHub recently to disclose the identity of what The Straits Times understands are one thousand subscribers identified as having downloaded pirated anime.
StarHub has resisted the company's efforts to get its customer data, but the court ruled that Odex had "satisfied the court of their need for the information".

I am not going to go on the rant of why this is wrong blah blah blah, cause it'll be dumb and I'll probably kill myself more in the process...
But a thought just popped into my mind and I feel like sharing it out...

First question, who are the people who creates the anime?
Its those artists and screenwriters and whatever that are mostly based in Japan. (I'm assuming that they are based there) Notice that it is these group of people that do most of the hardwork of drawing, coming up with ideas on how the series should progress and how to create interest among the audience so that their anime can be a sucessful one.

Second question, who are the people that are earning the most money from this?
It turns out that most of the revenue that is earned isn't exactly supporting the original creative group of people whoa re working on the anime. Most of the revenue is earned rather by the publishing companies. You know you always see on some websites that we should buy this buy that so as to support the original singers and whatsoever, but when it comes down to it, how much really goes back to the singer? More of it would go to the publishing company right?

Third question, who are the people going after those law cases whatsoever?
It turns out that it is also the publisher's too. Just wanted to point out an irony that I see:
The people who creates the anime originally isn't the publisher, however, when their works are being copied, it isn't the original group of people being furious, but rather by some company who has brought the work, done the exact same thing of copying it and then distributing it to the people...

So what does it mean? Don't you find it weird, that it is some company that is doing the same thing as what a lot of people out there are doing, but for the company it is legal, but for the others it is illegal? Especially when the money doesn't really go back to those poor creative people doing all the hardwork...

Also, just a bit of sidenote:
From what I know, apparently, downloading anime isn't illegal as long as
a) No company in your country has license it (ie. use money so that they can do the exact same thing as those people who download anime)
b) You do not charge anyone for downloading it as those animes are usually free fansubs.

Sounds ironical that all it does is a bit money for some thing to become illegal when it originally isn't?
Just some thoughts that I have in my brain over this issue...

Discmon

The meaning behind flags...

2007-08-09T21:45:00.000+08:00

And its the 9th of August, National day is here again haha...
Before we continue, lets go and wish Singapore a Happy National Day haha ^^ Like what all other people would say...

As we are watching the National Day live broadcast on TV, we will always see the Singapore flag fluttering here and there, being waved around by people who are there or the performers themselves. Of course, many people would dismiss it as simply a sign of showing love to Singapore and blah blah blah. I mean, come on, other countries would probably have the same thing too. Flags fluttering everywhere, people wearing red T-Shirt, to a lot of people, this is all standard stuff...

But is it really just standard stuff?

When we look back into history, the flag is more then just a simple design on a piece of cloth, it is a symbol to many different people at different times.

In times of war, the flag is always one of the most important symbol in the heart of the soldier. Once the flag falls, it is inevitable that the morale of the army falls along with the flag and before you know it, the entire battle could be lost and the soldiers could have been wiped off the surface of the Earth. In fact, one of the highest honour that could be given to a soldier would be the flag bearer. In certain war films, you always see that the flag bearers receive the flag with the greatest sense of pride and in the battle that ensues, they are the one that charges all the way to the front, to the heat of the battle, leading their commrades on...

There have also been various stories of people dying for a single flag. I heard a story that a brother and sister lost their life when they country was at war. The story goes like this: The flag is falling, and then the sister grabs the flag and keep it flying. The enemy then shot her. As the flag drops to the ground, her brother grabs the flag before being shot by another enemy soldier...
There have been countless other stories, such as the raising of the flag on Iwo Jima...

All these goes to show how important the flag is to a soldier's heart...

Of course, it isn't just restricted to wars, there are also other places where the flag is a symbol. The sporting arena is one such other place. Notice that after the medals are awarded, the winner countries flags are raised along with the National Anthem. As it is being raised, you can feel the pride of the athelete. From the way the athlete look at the flag...

Also, when there are protests against a certain country, notice that the flag of the country that is being targetted is burnt. It goes to show that the flag means a lot to many people, and it can even be used to unleash a form of hatred and anger against that country.

We'll skip all those foreign exchanges that countries participate in...
I think one of the reason why we don't feel much for the flag is due to the fact that we see it everyday during morning assembly. Everday, we see the flag being raised without fail and it seems as though the act of the flag being raised is just a common everyday stuff. But when you get down to it, it isn't really that ordinary. The only thing that sustains the flag is the sovereignty of our country. If we lose independence, would we still see the flag being raised?

It is always during times of crisis and uncertainty that we feels all the strong sense of feelings that can come out from very simple symbols. Flags, National Anthem, Pledge... this symbols are all simple symbols that bring out that feeling when we are put into those situation...

The flag isn't just a piece of cloth that we raise everyday, it is a symbol of our sovereignty...
Just a piece of thought that has been echoing around in my brain during National Day.

Discmon

Committments issue

2007-07-26T23:10:00.000+08:00

Some things had cropped up in PA, but I got no mood to type it all out since my thoughts are a bit jumbled up. Maybe I'll go write out a essay guideline before I attempt to chronicle my thought on the whole things that had been happening so far, but first I would want to type out this one.

I had gone as far as to abandon the homework that I have on my table to type this out and give my mind a bit of a break from continuously trying to solve some crazy math problems...

Have you ever found yourself not being able to cope with all your commitments here and there and perhaps... everywhere?
I means, its the newest buzz word around the place where I happen to wander around. People around me are constantly telling me that they are unable to balance this balance that, that their results aren't exactly doing that well and that yes... they are going to be fried, slaughtered, kill, burnt over a raging fire, and eaten with blood still flowing off their body...

And yea, the descriptions can go on and on and on with not much ways to stop it, and its probably only restricted by our imagination...

But I'm not going to say the usual "Learn to organise your time well" and "Balance your commitments with other stuff that you should be doing"...
Instead... have you ever thought to yourself a very simple question: Why did you take up the commitment in the first place?

For many of us out there, the reason is a pure and simple one, because we enjoy doing it. For example, we may have committed our time to swimming because we enjoy swimming. We may have committed some of our time into cycling around the neighbourhood every once a week because we enjoy the feeling of the rushing of the wind as you speed down a very steep slope as you are heading towards your destination where you'll take a bit of break from your hectic everyday life.

Another probable reason is probably because you believe in it. You believe in the cause that you are doing for. It could be for anything: Pride, CIP hours (although yea, it doesn't really sound noble), friends, the community. Its this little reasons in life that spurs you on to continue living. The smile on your friends face when you are working together to overcome a very tough problem and finally managed to solve it, the cheerfulness in the voice of the elderly when you go there and play with them wholeheartedly, the pride of getting a large amount of CIP hours... Its all this little reasons in life that has probably kept you alive all the way until now.
Why destroy this little reasons of staying alive, when life is tough enough already?

There are also a whole host of other reasons that could have made you take up the committment... in fact the list is different for different people. What I have merely listed are those which I feel are my reasons for some of my committments.

What I feel is that, since you have already came this far with the committments, don't give up!! One thing that I had learned so far is this, that is, studying is not everything. When you really come out to society, 4As, and L1R5 of 6 won't get you anywhere unless you know what you are doing. All these little extra committments in life are something that you should treasure, because not only will they teach you to manage your time well, they will also teach you some skills that you won't be able to learn in a textbook. Things like trying to solve a problem, trying to find a common ground on issues and so on and so forth. All these skills are skills that will never ever be taught in a textbook, and even if they do, it won't get you anywhere unless you are some whiz kid....

So when it comes down to all these committment. Yea, I do agree that we should not overload ourselves with committments until we drag down our own studies (which is our main committment), but one thing I feel is that since you have already started with it, stick with it and see it through.

There are many things to learn, and there is only one life.
In the words of the M1 advertisements:
"One life, Live it"

Lets go and live the life we all have choosen with happiness..

Discmon

Harry Potter and the top 10 reasons why its movie sucks...

2007-07-15T10:34:00.000+08:00

I went to watch the Harry Potter movie, which... as per normal, sucks.
Pardon me for using such a strong word, but I spent about 2 hours gazing at the screen, resisting my urge to stand up, leave the cinema to go and do the rest of my homework that is piling up right now in front of me. This Harry Potter movie just won the "Don't even bother watching it now nor renting the video next time" award.

So, we shall start on the TOP 10 reasons why the Harry Potter Movie Sucks:
Its TOP 10 because I want to go and do my homework, but trust me, it gets much longer then that...

10. Story plot
As with all the other Harry Potter Movies out there, the plot of the book is not adhered to strictly. In fact, half the time I wanted to point out that what has been shown on the film is soooooooooooooooooooooooo utterly wrong.

For example: Cho Chang isn't the person who reported about the DA to Dolores Umbridge, it was Cho Chang's friend who did it. And there were even more plot errors that extends from this. In the movie, Umbridge is able to interrogate students with veritaserum, which causes them to tell the truth no matter what happens. This is FALSE. Why am I bringing this up? Because it does not give enough reasons for Harry Potter to hate Cho.

In the original story, hating Cho is more "plausible" because it was Cho's friend who reported to Umbridge about DA on her own accord. This made Harry hate Cho possible, but in the movie, Cho supposedly reported it to Umbridge under the effects of veritaserum. Under normal common sense of human, wouldn't Harry go and apologise and patch up??

So, what happens is that we now have a plot that makes no sense at all...

9. No consideration for people who never read the books before...

Yea, lets face it, with such a horrible rating for a movie, the only people who should ever watch it are those who read the books and are able to resist the urge of throwing something at the screen. The plot of the movie is so incongrous that people who never read the book will spend about 90% of the movie scratching their head as to what the heck is going on!!

Don't feel like reading the story book but want to know more about the Harry Potter universe? Let me tell you that the movie is a seriously bad place to start this. For example:
Hermoine:"We need to go and find Sirius"
(Harry, Ron and Hermoine entered Umbridge room to use the fireplace to contact Sirius)
Umbridge enters:"(ok I forgot what that toad says)"
[next scene]
cut scene ed: HEY!! Ginny, Luna, Nevilly had all just got caught very "conviniently" to go to London together...

8. Excessive use of the daily prophet
Yea sure, in the wizarding world, the way most of the wizards are able to gain information about what is going on in the world is through the daily prophet, that doesn't mean that the movie should spend most of the time where it wants to cut the time taken for the movie to proceed to "use the daily prophet". Come on... even the producers seem to be too lazy to change the way the daily prophet sequence is animated, causing the whole prophet thing to looks super repetitious...

7. Luna Lovegood
Ok, I admit that her description did fit the ones in the movie, but for gods sake, why is she prettier then Cho and even Ginny?! Harry is supposed to like Cho because of her looks (If you want to argue about this, I would like to point out that it is so freaking explicitly stated in the Quidditch match when they first met) And on another side note, Cho doesn't really look pretty in the movie.

Also, Neville's plant is supposed to play an important part in the meeting with Luna. In the movie, it seems like its there for the sake of it being there... Urgh...
At the rate the movie is going, you'll think that the movie producers can just go and make an alternate story line already...

6. Oh wow, very exciting battles
Remind me again, when did wizards ever get to become swirls of dust in book 5? If you can apparate, why bother apparating with sand falling off you when you are going to enter a battle? George and Fred already demonstrated how apparation looks like right at the start, which is just "pop". So, what's with the sand? Style for the sake of style? No thanks...

I was mentioning about the battle inside the department of mysteries in case you don't know. Come on, the death eaters aren't that lousy for them to not reflect the stunning spell that was sent at them. Harry's reaction might just have been this...

Harry:"STUPEFY!!"
the death eater got blasted away...
Harry:"Oh man, that was just way too easy... wonder how could they kill so many people last time??"
and much later...
Harry:" Hey, I thought I just stunned you about like.... 2 minutes ago?"
..."STUPEFY"
the same death eater got blasted somewhere... who will appear again in a while
(OH yea, stupefy is supposed to be red, not some weird electric white colour)
Boring battles, when it was so freaking exciting in the books...

5. Fred and George Weasley havoc creation...
A very major plot point in the book was the Fred and George Weasley havoc creation during the time when Dumbledore isn't in the school. I wanted to see how the producers could make this thing look great and nice, but they decided to spare themselves the trouble of choreagraphing trouble, and take the easy way out, with only one small little fireworks display...

4. Department of mysteries...
Its quite self explanatory, it just sucks. The producers just cut everything there off, and ends off with a very lousy battle. It shows how lazy they are and how they just want to get the movie out and be done with it. Sirius death was supposed to be more then just a cut-scene (which is a cut-scene in the movie) Oh, I don't even want to remember my feelings there when I saw the battle...

3. Usage of snide remarks
It could have been a saving grace of the movie, but I think here, it makes the movie even more lousy. It shows that the producers realised that their movie sucks, and on a feable attempt to rescue it, they put in a few snide remarks trying to give everyone some comic relief. Sure, comic relief was successful, but....
It makes you think that the movie is lousy until they have no choice but to do this sort of thing...
It destroys a lot of the atmosphere created during the course of the movie leading up to that point...

2. Dumbledore battles
a) Dumbledore vs Fudge and several Aurors...
Oh man, this was one of the best several seconds parts of the entire story...
"Enough of this rubbish!" side Fudge, pulling out his own wand. "Dawlish! Shacklebolt! Take him!"
A streak of silver light flashed around the room; there was a bang like a gunshot and the floor trembled; a hand grabbed the scruff of Harry's neck and forced him down on the floor as a second silver flash went off; several of the portraits yelled, Fawkes screeched and a cloud of dust filled the air. Coughing in the dust, Harry saw a dark figure fall to the ground with a crash in front of him; there was a shriek and a thud and somebody cried,"No!"; then there was the sound of breaking glass, frantically scuffling footsteps, a groan... and silence.

Don't you think its so freaking exciting this part, and it got reduced to..
...Dumbledore grabbing onto Fawkes and disappearing...

b) Dumbledore vs Voldemort
This was slightly longer, but its much more fantastic then the incident above, but its too freaking long to be copied out...
Sigh~~ and the movie just created their own fight sequence, which reminded me badly of Dragonball Z...

Yea, the fight sequence sucks...

1. Overall boredom
Yea, the movie was supposed to narrate the whole storyline of "Harry Potter and the order of the phoenix". To tell you the truth, I don't see from the movie how is that plot going to relate to the order of the phoenix. Except for scattered talks about the order, there isn't much of anything else for us to think that the order is that very useful in the world of Harry Potter. However, we all know that in the book, it was one of the most important plot elements for the order of the phoenix...

Due to the lack of a focus during the movie, everyone was falling asleep and just waiting for the boring movie to end. Nothing makes a complete sense in the movie, with the front being distinctly non-related much with the ending. It was boring. The book however had very exciting parts and kept an overall sense of darkness thourghout the entire story

I wanted to add some redeeming qualities of the movie, but I realised that what was wrong with the movie is that the people who made it are just looking for a quick buck.

With a large fan base, the creators of the movie are taking it the easy way out, by just using the name "Harry Potter" to generate revenue, while trying to create something that was less then satisfactory to give those fans out there a reason to give away their money. The filmers were lazy enough to use the same sequence of the prophets to talk about different things, just changing some scene here and there. Dumbledore's battles reminded me of Dragonball Z, and we don't even get to see the Dumbledore VS Dawlish, Shacklebolt, Fudge and Umbridge fight..

I won't say that the movie is great or even good at all... It felt so hastily made, things were just put together, ignoring the exciting parts in the book. Even important plot developments that were made known in the book were largely ignored.
I stopped watching since the 2nd movie cause I felt it didn't follow the storyline, but now, the 4th movie felt like a feable attempt to just earn that quick change...

Won't it be better to just concentrate on one part of the plot instead and make a good movie out of that part?

Discmon

Fire at Hillview Park (06/07/2007)

2007-07-06T02:23:00.000+08:00

I believe that I already had a very intersting day so far, but it has just gotten a bit more interesting...

At around 12am today, I was kinda tired and was half-sleeping and half-awake on my sofa in front of my computer when I heard a tangled mass of shouting. At first, the shouting had not made any sense at all to me, and I dismissed them as some football fans cheering for all their worth when someone scored a goal.

After the shouting failed to cease after quite some time, I decided to take a look outside the window, and what I saw had an effect much greater then 10 cups of coffee or green tea added together, taken with whatever you want that will wake you up. There was a large fire on the 6th floor on the opposite block. Ok, that sentence did not do justice to what I had saw just now... so...

The fire had started at appoximately 0010 at Hillview Ave, Hillview Park. Blk 19-A, 6th floor. This place is near the ministry of defence.

Ya, as you can see, the fire was pretty big and it basically was burning like crazy. Black smoke was simply just pouring out of the house. When I saw the fire, the time was about 0015 hours. As the fire progressed on, you could hear the glass panes shattering into pieces as they fall off from their window frames. Looking closely, you could see the frames of the window melting and the glass pane just dropped out of the window and fell all the way to the ground.

Admist all the chaos, shoutings of "FIRE!!FIRE!!" could be heard, and people from my block were trying our best to wake everyone up with our shouting so that everyone can evacuate as fast as possible from the block opposite ours. At this point in time, the fire was spreading quite rapidly and the SCDF isn't there yet. The SCDF has already responded, but their fireman has yet to arrive.

At around 0030 hours, the fireman started arriving, and at the same time, the fire spread to the 7th floor of the same block.The balcony on the 7th floor was the first to burn along with some of the household items being placed there. The fireman that has arrived were hacking intensely into the door on the 6th floor and they were running up and down the stairs trying to evacuate as much people as possible. People that has refused to respond to the calls of "FIRE!!FIRE!!" and to run for their lives.

At around 0045 hours, the fire on the 7th floor was put out, and efforts could be seen to control the fire on the 6th floor. Slowly, the fire on the 6th floor slowly became smaller and more controllable.

However, things were not over yet...

At around 0100 hours, about 1 hour into the start of the fire, explosions could be heard from the house, accompanied with a sudden increase in brightness in the fire of the house on the 6th floor.

The was followed on with about 5 more explosions, in which each time, the house became brighter for a brief period of time. The fire on the balcony area has became smaller and thus we were able to see what was going on inside the house a bit more clearly. From what we could see, it seemed that the rest of the house, particularly the corridor are all in flames, and we believe that the explosions could be due to the fact that the fire had reached the kitchen of the house and was setting off the gas there.

Around that time, we could see blue flames, characteristics of gas, present inside the house as the house is burning away. After awhile, the 7th floor balcony caught fire again, albeit a small and controllable one this time, and it was soon put out easily by the fireman.

During this period of time, firemans could be seen continually progressing up and down the building and making sure that everything is alright and ok.
At about 0145, the fire on the 6th and 7th floor was completely put out, the police had been called in, and there has been a police tape erected at the first floor of the block.

Based on sources, the fire was an electrical fire, and was started when probably, a electrical appliance overheated and started burning, causing the curtains near the appliance to burn as well. This caused a chain effect, and soon enough, the entire house was on fire.
Currently at 0209, investigations are underway to determine the exact source of the fire and necessary precautions are being taken. People who have been evacuated from the block that was on fire are still waiting at the ground level for further instructions while the other people from the nearby blocks have all returned back to their houses.

It has been 12 years since our condominium was first built, and this was our first major fire. It sent a jolt through me when I first saw it, and at that time, shouts of "FIRE!!FIRE!!" had already been going on. The fire alarm came on after some time, but it was the "FIRE!!FIRE!!" that probably saved many people's lives from the deadly fumes that were being emitted from the 6th floor.

It was also noticed that the only escape route for many of the people was the single fire stairwell. Everyone had evacuated from that stairwell. Some people on the upper floors however, refused to evacuate from their homes for some reasons and people on the opposite block was frantically shouting at them, hoping that they would realise what is going on, and start evacuating.

The entire condominium was awake in a matter of minutes and everyone was gathering around and trying to alert everyone to the fire that has occurred...

We will continue to bring you updates on the fire in hillview park as the events after the fire progress.

Discmon

The top 100 ways to celebrate before your exam papers come back...

2007-06-29T22:59:00.000+08:00

...And common test is over, for those in junior colleges in Singapore that is...
Most of us don't really want to see our papers again, lets face it, who in their right state of mind would say that they have been fully prepared for this common test? Most of us are being driven crazy during the holidays doing all sorts of stuff already, add up the large number of projects that we need to do, and you can get the idea...

But the papers will still come back eventually, and lots of people would find it nice to enjoy themselves as much as possible before... they "d-i-e", so while they are doing trying to enjoy themselves as much as possible, I've been pretty bored since my hobby currently is to cut up pictures and music and edit them...

So....

As an inspiration from one of my older posts, we go...:

The TOP 100 ways to celebrate before your exam papers come back:

100. Looking at your computer
99. Reading this blog post (My blog is interesting ok ^^)
98. Playing Maplestory when you know that you are too old for it
97. Trying to ignore the fact that you are too old of it
96. You remember the time some koreans looked at you in surprise when you talked about "Maplestory"
95. You remembered the reason they look at you
94. You rewatch the entire getbackers series
93. You attempt to imitate Amano Ginji with his lightning ability
92. You decide that you just cannot be the lightning god like Ginji is
91. You felt that the word lightning god doesn't suit the context of Ginji
90. Ok, you mean we need to use rei-tei right?
89. You decide to find out more about yfc from nicholas
88. You are bored so you decide to help them sell tickets
87. You are told to sell about 5k tickets for fun, laughter, peace and joy
86. You attempt to help them with their projects
85. You find yourself pressurised from all sides while helping them with yfc
84. Attempt to plan a outing for some group
83. Lets say the group is disco
82. You plan to have an outing to east coast park
81. Attempt to teach someone how to ride the bicycle
80. You remember the times when you teach people how to ride a bike until they injured themselves
79. You attempt to create mass havoc at east coast park
78. It involved the whole of Disco, a few bikes, a few bystanders, and a few sounds such as "OUCH!!"
77. Actually, the sound is more like "BANG!!!!"
76. That's because "BANG!!!!" sounds nicer
75. You decided to respond to people's tags who asked you to do surveys on your blogs
74. You remembered that the above point made it to the previous list
73. If you happened to forget what post is that, you went here
72. If you still don't know what the list is about, its about "The TOP 100 ways to show that you have a lot of time on your blog"
71. You decide to tease the person who tagged you by pretending that you never seen the tag
70. Hang on a second, did I see a tag?
69.Oh, I DIDN'T, do not attempt to ask me to do a survey, muahahaha!!
68. You read a very inspirational e-mail sent by your friend
67. You read and re-read again and again and again
66. You feel inspired by it, and you want to thank your friend for that wonderful e-mail
65. You also celebrate that there is less spam in your inbox and some good e-mail once in a while
64. You started a sounds fx editing frenzy
63. You looked to youtube as a wonderful source for obtaining all sorts of wonderful sounds effects that come from anime
62. You realised that youtube just isn't as good as before
61. You decided to celebrate that fact, as that means youtube will become lousy and be gone from the surface of the world wide web, the database, the server...
60. You went to salvage sound fx from games that you once had
59. You tried to open the folders that came from the installed game to extract the music file
58. You realised that 50% of the sound effects file that are found there do not appear to be a file type that windows media player can recognise
57. Hurl insults at window media player
56. You heard that audacity can open all sorts of ulu ulu file type
55. You wanted to edit some window media audio file (.wma)
54. You realised that audacity cannot open up any .wma file
53. You hurl insults again at window media player... and oh ya, at those developers behind those file type patents
52. OH COME ON!! If you don't want me to edit the files with external program, get me a nice editor that you guys create for those .wma file types...
51. For the sake of your new handphone, you go around creating a new wallpaper for it
50. You celebrate your many failed attempts at doing it as you are unable to fit the pictures correctly
49. You celebrate your lack of knowledge of the size of the screen
48. You found out the screen size after visiting the site of the phone company
47. You realised that the site is VERY well organised and you decide to praise those people there
46. You open Photoshop CS to edit some images that you want to put as the wallpaper of your handphone.
45. After many many tries and many many edits and re-edits and edits, you did it!!!
44. You try to show it to your friends your hardwork, but they don't see the joy of it...
43. Sigh~ to yourself, and celebrate that you are not common
42. Hey its nice to celebrate that you are yourself
41. You appreciate who you are
40. You know that you are perfect, because God created you to be perfectly the way you are to be
39. You refused to do the holiday homework that are being stacked up on your table
38. As a added insult to injury (to the teachers) you hold a "Burn it ALL" ritual
37. To add the salt to the wound, it included adding a large amount of copper salts to the fire
36. Imagine, burning homework with blue flames...
35. Hey, its the curse of the homework that is causing the blue flames, we should burn them all then we would be saved from the curse that are present in the homework.
34. You start getting prejudiced about SOME people
33. You don't get why about 99% of them are lousy idiots who refuse to help you at all in anyway.
32. You tell yourself that you'll never become this sort of people... EVER
31. Of course, you celebrate to yourself that this people will never ever make it in society
30. ... scumbags...
29. You remind yourself of the happy things in life
28. You remember the old days where life was much simpler and there are less of this... LOSERS...
27. You celebrate very happily that you aren't this pack of LOSERS who can't do anything forever
26. You decide to spend more time with good friends that can talk about the same topics
25. The topics drag very long and encompasses a wide range of stuff
24. You find happiness in talking about all sorts of stuff as you feel that you are back to the old days
23. You take a nice long nap
22. You slept...
21. and slept...
20. and slept...
19. and slept...
18. and slept...
17. and slept...
16. and slept...
15. and slept...
14. and slept...
13. and slept...
12. and slept...
11. and slept...
10. and you woke up!!!
9. You look at the new day and see a new beam of light leading your way
8. It shows you a tunnel which beckons you to come forward
7. As you walk towards that beam of light, your past fears and worries slowly disappear around you
6. You feel a sense of lightness in your steps and even in your thoughts
5. Relaxing and enjoying, you feel yourself drifting towards the light
4. The light, a source of hope for you, is something that you'll soon be able to feel
3. You see a place, where you don't need to worry about two days of the week
2. You don't need to worry about yesterday, as it is already over, and you can do nothing to it at all
1. You don't need to worry about tomorrow, as all it brings is unforseen challenges and difficulties
0. All you need to worry about is today.

Life becomes easier, when everything is dealt with day by day.
Take life.... one step at a time...

Discmon

Non-physical training camp...

2007-06-18T18:29:00.000+08:00

Its been a tiring week...
In fact, that should be considered quite an understatement, when you take into account the fact that I had two camps back to back, with no chance to even catch a nap on my bed at home before I ran off to the next camp.
But anyway...

PA camp was excellent. I think its great to spend time with PA, and everything there. I finally got to learn everything else that I've heard about but have yet have a chance to touch. 3 days and 2 nights later, PA camp was over...
Ok, I'm deliberately cutting the part on the PA camp short because I have quite a bit of things to comment on the PLTC that I had just went through.

Ok, so what exactly is PLTC?
PLTC stands for Patrol Leaders Training Camp. It is essentially a training camp for scouts who are aspiring to become leaders of their patrol. Now then, many people would associate the idea of a training camp with physical training and mental training all at the same time, and personally, I agree with that definition.

Having been through a few june camps and one major PLTC, I know how powerful a physical training camp is when it comes to training you mentally to lead your patrol and to bond yourself with other people who are in your troupe and patrol. This year's PLTC however was different, it was different in that the emphasis is not on physical training, but was rather on just mental thinking...

I felt that this departure from the traditional formula of PLTC was a great idea at the beginning, but you still have to get back to the fact that it is a training camp. Lets have a basic overview of discipline in the PLTC this year...
Walking 99% of the time...
Firedrill, no one bothered to run and no one bothered to wake anyone else up
Final parade had really lousy showcase of footdrill
Serious lack of initiative on many parts of the campers.

Lets face it, many of this things are the exact opposite of most leaders. Leaders are the ones with the initiatives, the ones who are able to inspire and lead and pull his patrol through in the worse of times. Leaders aren't those people created through theory, but through practice and practical application. It is this people that are able to lead patrols.

In most PLTCs, physical training is heavily emphasised, with punishment dished out on a particulary normal basis. This PLTC, punishment was minimal, and even slow movement was quite tolerated. For many of us who went through PLTC, it was the thought that if one person never made it, it is equal to everyone not making it that drove us all to gain this initiative. It was when the training was really tough both physically and mentaly, do we start helping all the other patrols and helping each other to pull through.

When a camp is tough, you see the good and bad side of people. Some people are willing to help people pull through all the obstacles in the camp as one team, others are able to inspire and motivate the entire camp to endure all the crap that the planners throw at them. These are the things that makes the PLTC a viable training camp because its puts the "would-be" leaders in a situation where they have to take charge as much as possible to get everyone through it.

To me, PLTC wasn't about all the lectures and stuff, it was about the things that you learn as you are helping each other out to avoid additional punishment and to give help to those who are not really up to the standard. This are when leaders are made, they are able to work together with their patrol and care for the young ones, in this case, the people who are not physically able to make it.

For a quick example, in most PLTCs, the first fire drill, though usually not that good, would be quite average. People would be running around waking up as many other people as possible, shouts of "fall in" could be heard and even cries of where the patrol is located can be heard. People were running around, helping others to get there.
For this one, the first fire drill.....
30 seconds after the siren, 2 person woke up, bypassed all the other classrooms and just walked down the staircase at a leisurely pace...

You call that a leader??!

To me, each person has their own leadership style which they should discover themselves as they progress through their life. Some people would demand full and total control while others might try to get as close as possible but when things are bad, will have a sudden mood change...

Leadership isn't so much of a theory thing, but more of a practical application in the times.
I mean, when has there ever been a fixed set of rule for leadership??

Discmon

Unconventional post

2007-06-11T21:17:00.000+08:00

Just a short post that would be quite uncharacteristics of what I have been doing so far.... but anyway...

Q: So... why do you have to wake me up in the middle of my sleep? ehh? ehhhh? ehhhhhhh?
A: Eh, for the fun of it!! [ouch] OKOK, it isn't just for the fun of it, but that's about 99% of the reason why I am doing this now [double ouch]...

Ok anyway, today marks the beginning of my first ever ... 7 days no home no bed experience.
What it actually means is that I am going to be in camp for 7 days. 3 days in PA, 4 days in PLTC...

Wish me luck guys that I come out alive, and don't get UUUU for common tests haha....

Discmon

Warranty......

2007-06-06T10:30:00.000+08:00

Remember those warranties that you always get whenever you purchase something?
That flimsy little piece of paper that allows you to fix your com up for free during the warranty period as long as its under the warranty period?

Now, a lot of people would say that the warranties are useless, come on lets face it, even Garfield agrees with all you people out there:

... ... ... ...
... ... ...
... ...
...

Ok [awkward silence] I forgot where is that particular comic strip, but I read it once somewhere before...
Basically, ehh, to give you guys a thematic overview of what that Garfield comic is about, its just about those warranty that is given to all those merchandise that you buy...

Garfield notices that every single appliances in his house is spoilt, and then he notices that today was the day that all the appliances warranty card expired...

It kinda makes logical sense in the world we have today. Very little products are able to outlive the warranty given by the various companies. Most products will spoil in some way within about 1 week - 1 month after the warranty period ends. To repair the product however, would require an absurd amount of money, such that buying a new product would be better...

Yes, its quite true that most companies have to do that to earn their profits, but you got to love the old days...
You'll know what I mean, in those days, warranties are useless...

But anyway, if your machine still happen to spoil before the warranty hits, you'll be really really happy. Recently, I decided its time to send my computer for repair...
And lets face it, when you realised you got free repairs, your entire mindset totally changes...

I realised that during this whole period of repairing, I pointed out every single defect in my computer system from the most basic to the most unusual. It just feels like what I should be doing to make sure that my computer is totally up to standard. I think its something that you do when you are assured of a free meal or a free lunch...

Heh, originally, it was just the faulty right speaker.
After the first visit, the battery problem was pointed out too (I got it replaced free of charge)
Before too long, the hanging taskbar problem was brought up
And just the last visit, even that non-irritating flickering screen problem was brought up too!!

At the rate I am going, I am sure that I am going to ask them to recoat my LCD screen very soon already...
Talk about taking advantage of free stuff...

Well, its still better then "the sale that you've all been waiting for" which according to my mother, isn't really that worth waiting for ^^

Discmon

CLDDS performance...

2007-05-30T09:00:00.000+08:00

I realised I had been going back to RV a lot this few days...
But come on, its great to go back and feel that old environment which all of us are quite familiar with, although yesterday's trip isn't as fruitful as a lot of the other trips back...

The fruitfulness of the trip is dependent upon the following few factors, which are rather self-centered:
1) Number of Rv-ians I get to talk to
2) The amount of people I got to talk to
3) The amount of people I get to interact with...
4) The amount of people whom I get to talk to...

Eh, ok, its actually just one factor, which is dependent on the number of people I get to talk to... But come on, most of us go back other then just to see the school compound or do some other stuff, the next few things that all of us want to do would be to find people to talk to, old friends who are not yet "old" enough to graduate from RV...

Today's main topic however is the CLDDS performance.
This year's cldds performance was... different if you ask me.
Firstly, they changed their style. Its the most distinctive feeling the moment the show starts. Starting with the introduction of the emcees at the starting. It was much much different compared to last time, with emcees making a lot of humour and jokes out of the starting to get everyone's attention. I think its a great improvement from last time.

Another point of difference is that the emcees becomes a sort of evaluation after each show (except for the final one which I feel is supposed to leave you thinking). After each and every show, the emcees would come out and sort of do an evaluation of the show before it. It does help us to think, but its a great departure from what they used to do. Last time, the only intermission between shows are very very short comical skits that serve to lighten the mood.

Secondly, a great difference that a lot of us had felt was the change in the tone of the drama. Previously, the reason why we kept on coming back to watch the CLDDS performance, was because each and every skit left you thinking about life and all its various different aspects. They had a certain sort of impact on you and you are left to start thinking about all the different things in life. This year, they had changed the theme slightly, from the last time impactful and thought-provoking drama, they had switched over to a more comedy based skits, with lots of emphasis placed on the entertainment factor, and less on things like thought-provoking-ness...

I was a bit disappointed in that aspect cause I was looking forward to CLDDS performance in that it always tends to amek you think about life and all the various differnt sections of life. It felt more like what short skits are about, the impact, the feeling... But it does show us like the fun part in life...

Thirdly, they had less of a common theme this year. Previous years, their performances were all explorations on different themes. In 2003, the theme was "love" and I think last year it was "happiness" or something like that.
This year, I'm not very sure, but its either "escape", "joke" or "reflections". But I'll be preferring reflections as all three skits sort of show you reflections of each and every character...

The theme isn't as strong, and it became less of an exploration of a theme, but more to a series of skits based on CLDDS mindsets. Previously, their explorations I felt were good as they allowed us to see the same things from many different angles, and exploire that same event through the eyes of many different people.

Having said all these, breaking away from the tried and tested formula isn't that bad, its just that a lot of us who come back to feel that nostalgia don't get to feel it so easily. Nevertheless, their final play is still their old standard, their old methods...

Of course, the performance pleasure could have been much better, with less sniggering and giggling from the crowd at points in time when it isn't really funny (and in fact not supposed to be funny). I mean, giggle when you are at the last 10 minutes of your life and reflecting on what you are doing???

I don't know, but I feel that the impact of the final skit would have been much better, with less sniggering and giggling...

Discmon

Some comments on things...

2007-05-27T01:19:00.000+08:00

Its great to be back in RV, to the place where I belong...
I happened to went back to RV today because it was RV open house. Of course, there were a lot of other reasons involved, but lets make it clear that it got nothing to do with some ideas that some people have in their minds about me, but rather because of the few reasons listed below:

1) Lots of friends in RV who are in batches after us, so its a good chance for us all to go back and talk about stuff
2) There's been a lot of thing happening in council and what I've only been hearing so far are from fellow student councillors and also some thought on the things happening from various people. It was a good chance for me to find out what's been going on from the adminstration point of view.

The visit to RV was quite fruitful, being able to talk to many people, but not really sitting down to talk properly, so I guess its half fulfilled (at least its half). For the second part about adminstration, it turns out that Mrs Look somewhat had the same idea with what I had in my earlier post on the "On a discipline committee in an IP context". The general idea is that with IP, things would need to change...

So anyway, I won't be talking too much on RV, since I think it would be quite standard. (refer to earlier posts)
After the visit to RV, I had to make my way to Geylang to some Union house to get a book prize award for my O level results.

It was a long trip from RV to Geylang there, and after asking passer-bys once and referring to the map held tightly in my hand countless times, I made my way all by myself to the union house. After reaching the union house and receive the award, there was a complimentary catered lunch, so obviously I set down to take a bite.

Now then, lets begin our show of why "Children nowadays are too overly-protected"
First thing first, who says children nowadays can't make it to the place where they receive the prize all by themselves? Its a bit darn simple, considering that Singapore is already a very safe country... Why then do all the people there have to guess who is my parent...?? Why? I became a lot of other parents children today, all of them were guessing that I am a child of this parent, a child of that parent.... Can't they see that it is possible for a young teen like me to find my way here? Besides, I'm a scout!!..

There's only one more thing to talk about, although a lot of thing did stand out clearly in my mind.
Its the behaviour of people in what people would so call as "elite schools"

Everyone knows that you are the "cream of the crop", the "best of the best". Good results, good scores, usually the making of the good citizen, the future leaders of our country, the people with good attitude and characters...
Wait, hang on a second, did I mention good character and good attitude? Good character and good attitude??!!!?!

Ya right...

I was trying to talk to this guy during the lunch time after the prize presentation is over. Turns out he is from an "elite"school (which I will not mention here, although I seriously don't see any problem in poking fun at them). So we were talking talking and it turns out the only thing he knows to do is to give single word responses, or even better, just a nod of the head...

It breaks my heart to see the future of our nation not being able to open their mouths and talk about stuffs...
But, any attempt to break out from single words, ended as insulting remarks. When I asked him about his aggregate score that allowed him to get his award, this is something that I got:
"Oh, I got 258, it was very low and lousy"

...
LOW AND LOUSY???!!!!
Nevermind, the statement above explains it all...

Discmon

Ubin again...!!

2007-05-20T23:49:00.000+08:00

Q: So, you continuing your criticism streak?
A: Nah, probably not. I realised I've descended once again to that state of life where I feel that everything is very bad and going wrong... So, its time to blog about something that makes me happy and relaxed at the same time. Although there is something going around in the back of my brain to criticise on, I'll be keeping that till it really erupts ^^

Q: That can't be good for your health
A: Neither would it be if I leave it on my blog now...

Q: So anyway, what has been making you happy? ehh? Someone proclaimed their *er hem* to you??
A: Ehh... no. Its very simple actually. I went to Pulau Ubin !! Its been about 2 years since I last went there because of the Ubin hike. The moment I saw Ubin, it brought back lots of memories. Things like carrying that freaking heavy bag all the way to the campsite, the village which we always get to see as our last glimpse of Ubin before leaving it, the amazing amount of bicycles available for rent...

All those things there bring back a lot of wonderful memories that I had accumulated over my four years in scouts in RV...

Q: I guess you are stuck in nostalgia ehh?
A: Ya, kinda. For the first time since I first went into a JC right, I felt relaxed and really enjoying a simple pleasure in life. The simple pleasure is the pleasure of being able to enjoy nature and be with some of your friends at the same time. At the same time, you also get to relive some of those memories that you had on Ubin. Things like the first ever checkpoint that I had on ubin to the final most god-damn checkpoint that I ever had on Ubin...

After all that, there were also other memories such as the path which is most covered by the trees on ubin, such that that area has a much lower temperature compared to the regions around it. Then there were also the wild dogs roaming around, the wild chickens and the danger of running into wild boars...

Q: So other then all those memories reliving sessions and the wild animals sessions and the "KILL THE WILDBOAR" session, did you have any other stuff to do on ubin??
A: Ya, for the first time... I get to experience the wonder of cycling on Ubin. Its like one of the greatest things that can ever happen to you!! You know what it is like to everytime see cyclist ride past you when you are doing hiking on ubin? You feel like knocking them down and taking the bike for yourself...

But now!! You get the bicycle and you can abuse it. Ride past people walking and whistle... wooooo!!!! Ubin becomes so much much more accessible with the bike... The bike, one of the most important inventions... on Ubin... The bikes on ubin may seem old and ready to break at any moment, but they serve the job of providing a safe and comfortable ride on ubin...

Q: So, since Ubin is so beneficial to you (in fact, haven't seen you look so happy for such a long long time) are you going to try to go to ubin anytime soon again?
A: Of course I am haha... Already have a planned trip back on 15th, but that one is for some important stuff, so it might not be as enjoyable. Then again, I'm hoping that the class outing I am planning people won't mind going to ubin to cycle, instead of the East Coast Park... But then again, I don't think this would be very easy to do...

Q: Good Luck Then!!
A: That doesn't sound like you...

Q: -.-"
A: Eh anyway, thanks for the encouragement haha!! Hope to see Ubin again sometime soon...

Q: And you had to use the Q&A method for this post. I see you doing well in typing things out today leh...
A: Oh come on, its been quite some time since I last used this method le la...

Discmon

Accepting help? Not so easy...

2007-05-16T02:20:00.001+08:00

I'm awfully sorry to many people out there who are waiting for the post over the amazing race and all, but lets just say that something cropped up today/yesterday and I thought it would be nice to reserve one entire post on it...

Do you know of a subject called project work?
The subject which quite a bunch of people would denounce it as useless to our learning process because of various reasons, including, but not limited to the fact that half the time, your supervising tutor is the one shooting down everything that you are doing, and apparently, sometimes, your supervising tutor will help changes things for you so that you can pass or something like that...

So, personally, I find that project work is a bit useless, cause we already have more then enough projects on our hand already. If you tell me that project work was supposed to help me work well with my group mates, then lets just say I already have more then enough practise just trying to clear various other projects from many other subjects...

But today, the main point isn't to shoot down project work as a subject... yet (we'll reserve the shooting down after we experience the whole project work process, that way, the arguments will be less one-sided and be a result of short-sightedness)
It was more to talk about other group's reactions...

Our project work class was told to present our group project proposal to the class for 2 main reasons.
1. To ensure that our gropu project proposal is heading on the right track
2. To start training up our oral presentation skills

I agree with what the tutor had said about the above 2 points. Besides, these skills will be helpful to us in the long run even after project work is done and over with. It will become a very important part of our life as we grow up.

But, its either I am being over-sensitive, but some groups are very defensive about this. Take today's situation as an example. The tutor encourages us to help point out each other's mistakes and everything so that everyone can improve. Obviously, I had my own fair bit to share to help other groups, maybe its the way I put it, but the group responded with very inflammatory remarks and actions.

Actions such as pissed-off looks and the like, remarks such as: "You already bring laptop every project work lesson, you are supposed to be prepared what" which I responded back casually with: "Bringing laptop not equated to being ready" as I did not want to enter a fight or quarrel with somebody from another class...

I know that pointing out mistakes is a rather painful task. Lets face it, who wants to have their mistakes pointed out by others? Even I do not want that to happen to me. Is this because we are an Asian society, therefore, "face" means a lot to us, so much so that we cannot even accept any remarks on ways to improve ourselves when that was the original actual aim?

Even my group members were telling me to not tell others about their mistakes. Personally, I feel that this is a very selfish thing to do. As a Project work class, we are trying to work together towards the common goal of an A grade (if you aren't, at least consider the feelings of perhaps your other group members). If we are to work together towards that A grade, part of this working together can be acheived when we point out each other's mistakes so that we do not commit them when the real time comes.

Without all these comments, how would you know where you have gone wrong? This was part of the motive of having the presentation, so that we can help each other out by pointing out each other's mistakes and correcting each other. "Face" isn't that important here, and lets face it, how much more "face" would you throw if you flopped in front of the examiner compared to flopping inside the classroom which isn't even considered in the final score?

I know it might be I am being over-sensitive over what had happened in class today, but I could seriously feel a small amount of anger directed towards the group. I am not usually sensitive to what other people say or do, but today, I don't know why, but I felt a sense of being attacked and provoked by the member of the group who uttered the remark... I just hope that it isn't because I am returning to my other life, which sees things beyond the normal picture... (and I don't want to go back, being the naive person is better)

Being an extrovert, I tend to open my mouth more often. This, of course, tends to bring back lots of negative things, but I feel that being extrovert in this case allows me to help other groups, which in due course, the other groups would help us too when they give us feedback on our things.

If the class was to be totally silent after each and every presentation in order for the group to not lose face, what's the point of having the presentation in the first place??

Suggestions from other people might be hard to accept, especially when they are criticising your own actions or something like that, but, if no one points it out to you, when will you know that that is a fault?
When it is too late, perhaps?

Discmon
P.S. Please do criticise on this post as without the comments, this thing would be damn one-sided. It would be nice to hear what the other project work groups feel and think about this subject so that I know if I am being over-sensitive here... Thanks

The Malay culture appreciation programme

2007-05-12T16:43:00.000+08:00

Stupid blogger decided to be buggy, so I've not been posting for some time until I fixed it thanks to the blogger support group that asked me to set the url to http://www2.blogger.com...

It feels as though I just been through a malay appreciation programme, and its all thanks to MLDDS and me getting into the crew for their performance. MLDDS performance main topic was talking about what makes a malay a malay? Similar to the age-old question that some chinese had been asking in Singapore on what makes them chinese...

In order for the few non-malays in the PA crew to know what the play is about so that we won't be bored stiff or find that the play is too indigestable, Huzaifah, also in the PA crew for MLDDS, brought us through some important but rather unknown facts about the Malays in Singapore.

Some of the things are like:
-Not all Malays are muslims
-Malays is a mixture of races
-Why there are seemingly more Malays in ITE
-Why Malays in JC's are considered cream of the crop of the Malay community...
-What causes us to perceive that Malays are slacking off (which Huzaifah admits is due to some mindset in the Malay community)
-etc.

The long list was cut short cause honestly its a lot of new facts that I am still having some trouble digesting. I mean, it feels a bit weird that although we are living on a island surrounded by Malays left, right, centre for don't know how long, it is only until now that we know more about the Malay culture...

At the same time while trying to understand what Huzaifah is saying to grasp the basic background knowledge, we were bombarded with the things during the play. After sorting out most of the technical stuff, we were somewhat more able to enjoy the play and try to understand more of it.

I should say that after this play, I learnt a lot more about the Malay community then I would have done if I had went for those professional courses that try to show you how life is like in different countries. To me, those courses are boring and indigestable. They just tell you facts after facts and reinforces things that you probably already know, compared to things that are only revealsed only with close discussions on the topic with friends, like in this situation...

And lets face it, why bother knowing about all those other countries in the world when you don't even know your neighbour well enough? And also, not all professionals teach well. I mean, how do you know it is up-to-date and true? Half the time, they would most likely be reading out from somewhere...

Don't you think its more realistic when its told to you by someone who is in the community itself and is facing it everyday?
That's what I got to experience during the MLDDS rehearsals that we had ^^

I feel that for this event, I had taken away more then just precious memories and PA techinical know-how...

I had also taken away a greater amount of knowledge of the Malays in Singapore..

Discmon

Jazz Night

2007-05-01T09:53:00.000+08:00

And this marks the end of Jazz Night...
And man, I think it was good, in the performance point-of-view and not the technical point-of-view...

heh...
The songs are really nice and the singers are really good. During the rehearsals, I tended to phase out listening to their magnificent voices reverberate around the theater and the backstage. Their voices are rich, strong and bounce around the walls of the theater as it makes its way around the entire place.

Personally, I felt all the really nice parts is during all the solos. The solos are really nice and add on all the effects lighting and its totally awesome... You know, imagine a single beam of light illuminating only a small section of the stage and then you see the singer with the guitarist there. Then of course, they are both seated on chairs. Its really a nice sight to see, and then the guitar reflect the lights off it...

Ok, I'm starting to drift off again, reminisicing the magnicificent image in my mind...
(hits myself in the head)
Ok, I'm back...
A lot of the songs are really nice, in that you'll continue remembering them even after it is over, songs like "ain't no mountain high enough", "don't worry 'bout a thing". Its not just about it being really nice and the singer is really good, but at the same time, don't you think that the lyrics are damn inspirational.

For example in "ain't no mountain high enough":
Ain't no mountain high enough, ain't no valley low enough, ain't no river wide enough... to keep me from getting to you...

Also there was those songs that I basically just sit down there and feel the song and voice wash over me, songs like emotions:
"In the words of a broken hearts its just emotion... taking me over... caught up inside me, lost in the soul... ...
I caught myself reminiscing about some things when I first heard this song and subsequent times too, but that's beside the point...

The performance was really really nice, and how can we forget about the crew for jazz night:
Jazz Night Crew 2007
House Controls
Ray Chuan
Si Yuan
Jing Wen
Onstage control
Ivan
Nicholas
Backstage
Yi Bo
Zhi Ping
Mellisa

Yup, that should be about it, minus the huge amount of usherers running around all over the place, guarding the doors and escorting people to the toilets...
Well, things could be better on the technical aspect, but I think its already been a great considering the freaking large amount of mics and also the amount of things we needed to worry about when the event was going on...

Haha, cheers for Jazz Night!!

Discmon

On a discipline committee in an IP context

2007-04-29T00:00:00.000+08:00

I was wondering if I would ever get the mood to type this log at all...
And I guess I have finally gotten into he mood as I sit on the bus that is going to take me to my destination today (which is bukit merah in case you are wondering)

After staring aimlessly at the scenery and playing some games on the computer, I think it is time for me to chronicle my thoughts on this topic:
The feasilibility of a discipline committee in an IP school.

As many of you should have known by now, rv has officially went IP (much to the displeasure of many people, but that's going to be another story). What does IP means? IP is a programme in which students do not need to sit for the GCE O levels paper, and instead progress for a 6 year education which leads up right to the GCE A level papers.

The theory behind it is that, with a 6 year education that will not be interrupted by O levels, students will be able to have more time to develop other skills rather then a pure "rush for the O levels mentality"

True, the IP program is indeed trying to do that, but many of us feels that O level is still an important indicator of our studying and so on and so forth.
What we are considering right now is the effect of the student council in rv when it has to be the bridge between the new group of students.

Because of the IP program, 2 years from now, RV would have its first batch of 5th year ip students. As we all know, most JCs do not have prefactorial board or even a discipline function inside the student body. The raionale is very simple, as 17-18 year olds, won't we have a sense of maturity and there isn's a need for us to be constantly watched over. Besides, how effective do you think it would be for your friends to discipline you in the first place when you are 17-18 years old:

"Hey, tuck in your shirt!!"
"**** you.... shut the **** up. You think you what? Council chiang ah!!"

Ok, that was just an illustration, but ya, this sort of things could happen...
So we turn our attention back to RV.

In the rv student council, there is a discipline committee. Its job scope included disciplining. I was in that committee for 4 years, and let me tell you that catching others isn't an easy thing. Other then the fact that you'll face this sort of scenario as descirbed above sometimes, you'll also question yourself on what is indeed the direction of the student council. Isn't the student council supposed to help the students??

So, after this ironical part, we move on and we face ourselves with the new 17-18 years old. They are supposed to be more matured and supposed to require less watching over. If we still have a discipline committee in the school, don't you think it might hinder their development. Many of us in JC now are experiencing a different sort of life from what we had lef in secondary school. I feel that this experience is an integral part of our development. If we continue to have a student council in rv, won't it deprive them of this experience? Will they still then be able to be as good as those normal group of students who went through the O levles and got to experience life in a proper JC??

Personally, I don't see how discipline committee can continue to stay alive in the student council. The student council is already undergoing a revamp or something, and the only way I can see discipline committee continuing on in this new environment is to stop being the "bad people" of the school and catching people, because of the maturity factor, and also because of the fact of how effective it would be when your scope include 17-18 year olds.

Probably, discicpline committee can rework itself as the feedback unit or somewhat, which focuses on the discipline part or such or something like that.

Its just some random thoughts that I had over the discipline committee.

Discmon

Some funny and important things

2007-04-21T02:03:00.000+08:00

You know, I had been debating with myself on what should be the topic of the post today. A lot of things has been happening recently, especially with my father's sudden interest in waking me up and attempting to scold me at the same time, and then appearing to be sleeping when I finally decides to sleep. Lets just say that that is highly amusing and very laughable...

After much thought and many other considerations, here we go:
Did I mention that the voting process for the 40th student council in NJC has finally ended?
Indeed, it has, and the entire process is highly laughable as well, except that its much much way more sarcastical then the methods I have shown above.

Lets start with campaigning stuff before we move over to other stuff.
Firstly, you guys are heading for a term of office in the council. In this one year or so, how are you going to help us or anything? Sure of course, all of you guys say of "serving the school, the college, the council, the student" blah blah blah. I would notice of course that everyone who wants to be in the student council wants to serve someone. So you've been telling me this telling me that, are you going to tell me how are you really going to serve us? Do you plan to raise our grieviance to the teachers or are you planning to conduct more forums??

You know, it would help our decision making for a lot of us, if you let us know what you are planning to do to help us? If you have a clear action plan, it is more likely that you will stick to it and that it will be more successful. But no, you know what, apparently all the councillors can't tell us much about what they are going to do...
It sounds kinda stupid, but apparently, the councillors are "instructed not to make any promises, nor have any action plans" for whatever they have in mind. This, I feel, totally contradicts the idea of having a student councillor.

For one thing, the student councillor is supposed to be the "bridge between the school adminstration and the student body" (I've heard that long enough that I can practically recite it to you without any hesitation) The councillor is supposed to fight for the rights of his/her fellow schoolmates. Without knowing the grieviance of the people who they are serving and not even having a clear action plan of what they may try to do to get to know these problems, how are we supposed to rely on this group of people to help us to solve our problem?

Heard of "you can't survive on a diet of hope"? That totally matches the scenario above.

Also, did somebody notice the very stupid thing about people who don't want to be councillors, but cannot withdraw from the election?
It sounds a bit stupid, but there are indeed a large amount of people who are walking around NJC, telling close friends not to vote for them. Its not a chance of reverse psychology, but they sincerely do not want people to vote for them.

Something bad must have happened for such a large amount of candidate to want to pull out from the campaigning process. It is very scary, especially when it came to the time for me to vote when I noticed that there is a severe lack of choices for us to vote...
Perhaps, the council itself should find out what is wrong with its system, such that such a large amount of candidates want to pull out from the campaigning process. From what I heard, its got something to do with the red tapes that are present all over the council. Doing something requires approval, blah blah blah.
Which reminds me, are we in a JC?

Of course, while I am at it (criticising the things that had happened), lets have some rather amusing "jokes" that we see around the canteen once in a while:
"I am sure you know the lord of the rings, there is a land called Rohan. You will remember me, vote for Rohan"
-Did I mention that I have never read LOTR and did not watch the movie too?
-Oh, did you notice that your name is about... one letter away from Roshan? Should we start killing you? Health regeneration too fast ah...

"Polarbear has fur, NJ has jenni-fur"
-Personally, I nearly vomitted when I first heard the wording.
-Isn't polar bear supposed to be violent...
-Did I mention that the fur-trade is going strong? Better not let people out there know there is a Jenni-fur out in NJ, you wouldn't want NJ to be crawling with hunters do you?
-Although on second thought, this could be quite interesting ^^

"Nj has a lion, it needs a tiger, vote for Mehul (beautiful tiger)"
-This is getting quite corny... sure I remember your name, I just don't see how you are going to help us from this poster...
-Oh ya, did I mention that getting hunted by a lion is hard enough already, we don't need an extra tiger to join in the hunt. We have lost enough lives at the moment.

"Smart people approve Apporv, vote for apporv"
-So if I don't vote for you, I am stupid?!! pfft...
-Which raises an interesting question, how many smart people are there in Nj anyway?

"Special agent for the student body"
-wtf...
-Note that this guys nickname is agent cause he is zhuai, but that's another story altogether...

"The magika of radhika"
-right....
-so eh? who are you anyway? A witch or a fellow njcians?
-You planning to cast magic spells to help the student? Personally I don't mind full body binding all the irritating teachers, and then providing cheering charms for all the students. Add some complex wand-work, and we might soon be locomotor mortis-ing...

Oh ya, I noticed that God was written on one of the posters in that sort of christian style, like bless you whatever...
Does anyone ever notice that NJC is named as National Junior College and not anything that starts with a st. Please do remember that NJC is a secular school. You are not supposed to have a religion.

Oh ya, this applies to Guitar ensemble as well. "Thank God for his amazing Grace..."
Did I mention I know too many Grace already? How many more "amazing" ones are we getting??

Discmon

Simple life...

2007-04-13T21:18:00.000+08:00

Well, this marks the end of another hectic week... and a rather hectic weekend ahead of me...
That's not a very good piece of news, especially when you consider the already-reaching-critical-heights homework pile and the incredibly-insanely-large amount of projects that we need to worry about over the entire course of this weekend.

And we've got our NAPFA test tomorrow, another very important item for all of us to worry about...
But, at least we've reached the end of the "weekdays" of the week and are heading into the marvellous weekend, where, hopefully, things would be nice, turn out all right with minimal conflicts and I can get some sleep even though there is a critical-heights homework pile.

Oh yeah, as many of you might have noticed by now, I've finally pushed myself so hard that I managed to get a site meter on to my blog. It took me a long time to get the strength to get that site meter up and running (which for the last two years had not been on my blog because I've been too lazy).

Anyway, have you ever asked yourself this question? And that is, how do you want to lead this life that you have?
Do you want to be rich, famous and known throughout history as some person who did some marvellous thing, is a "groundbreaker", or something like that?
Of course, one of the interpretations of life is to live it the best that you can and leave something behind for people to remember you by. It could be anything of course, from being the president of some country, to being the highest level character in Maplestory etc.

But, I don't know how many of you all would agree with me, but isn't it nice to just live life as it is and be happy. I find that being happy, finding the simple pleasures in life is the best thing in life. Things like sitting on the couch and watch tv with someone, type blogs and know that some people out there are reading it, listen to radio, hum songs... Essentially doing the simple things in life, but enjoying it at the same time.

I choose to lead a simple life if I can do it. Get a job which I like and can enjoy myself there, don't try to stand out, lead the simple life as shown in the song "小人物的心声"...
This leads to worrying about less things. If you worry about less things, like all those things above, won't life be much easier? You won't have to worry about this, worry about that, and I don't need to worry about my hair turning white...

...Which is pretty white already, but at least I'm not a lao chio bu!!

Discmon

C&C 3 has arrived...

2007-04-05T22:40:00.000+08:00

I wonder how many of you guys remembered the "Top 100 ways to show that you have a lot of time on your hands"?
Today, I am a bit bored and is not in the mood to do any homework. This is probably due to the fact that tomorrow is a really really nice public holdiday. So anyway, I finally managed to get command & conquer 3 to work.

So to celebrate this extrodinary feat of getting command and conquer 3 to work on a laptop...
Unfortunately, I don't have too many inspirations for this list, so I've decided to keep it short.
The Top 10 ways to show that you love command & conquer 3:

10. You went to the release event held on monday at Orchard Lido to collect your special Kane Edition of Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars after having your lessons in school despite the fact that you are very tired and have a lot of homework waiting for you to do.

9. The moment you reached home, you started showing off the awesome box art to everyone in your family and proceeded to celebrate your acquisition of the game that you've been waiting for a long time.

8. You change your desktop wallpaper to those of command and conquer 3. You also devoted a large amount of time on celebrating that Joe Kucan is back to reprise his role as the infamous leader of NOD, KANE!!.

7.You started imagining what would have happened in school should you refuse to do your homework and told your teacher that you were at Lido yesterday. Basically, something like this:
"Why did you never do the homework?? Eh, why you never do the homework uh? uh?uhhh?uhhhhh?"
"Teacher, yesterday I was at shaw towers. Top floor there..."
"OMG, you play C&C 3 too?!!"
"YEAH!! ITS SO COOL!!"
"Anyway, WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON?? GDI or NOD or SCRIN?"
"Eh... GDI!!"
"Alright man, you are officially exempted from homework for the whole of this week!! If you had supported NOD... or worse... SCRIN....."
-end of imagination-

6. You went on to wikipedia.org and read the article on the universe of Command & Conquer so that you know what has happened before the tiberium wars.

5. You announced that 26/03/2007 is a very good day regardless of how many homeworks were there, or how many times you got scolded because its the day of the release of Command & Conquer 3.

4.You start talking about how imba late game GDI are. Just imagine, 30 mammoth and about 20 ++ juggernaught. Just imagine, the power!! Somebody, stop him...

3. You stayed up all night playing the game as it is very fun.

2. You start researching on the origin of the name of Kane and of Nod. It apparenlty is inspired by the holy bible. The first murderer, Cain who kill his brother and was banished to some NOD.

1. You look at everybody and start screaming that "KANE LIVES!!"

OK, its a bit short, but its really damn fun haha ^^

Discmon

CT's are supposed to be better then most teachers... right?

2007-04-01T01:01:00.000+08:00

I once told myself sometime last year that I'll stop massive criticisms on my blog because I realised that it send me into thinking that the world is a very dark place and that we are unable to escape any of the tortures of life...
Basically, it turned my life upside down and I had to redefine for myself what exactly is happiness...

But I think I had enough of what had happened over the last few days, and it constitutes a post on my blog. I originally wanted to talk about something really abstract, but as it was way way way too abstract, I guess that abstract topic is out of the question. We will, therefore, return to the criticism part...

Have you ever wondered to yourself this delightfully rhetorical question?
Isn't civics class the greatest and most fun lesson to take place in a JC?
Well, about 99.9999999999% of the time, it should be the greatest and most fun lesson in JC. I mean, what other lessons are there in JC where you do not need to learn anything new and you get to talk and crap around with your civics class?

Well, welcome to my civics class. We had spent our last few civics lessons stoning at each other. That isn't because we are all introverts or we hate each other. (Firstly, I am a 22-point extrovert and is the noisiest in class without any competition from anyone) Its either because our civics teacher suck-ed, or we started on the wrong foot with our civics teacher.. or so I hoped before we got to know each other "better"...

Lets just recall what happened when we first step into civics class:
I was looking forward to get to interact with my new class because I changed combination of subjects. Civics lesson to me signify a more relaxed atmosphere between teachers and students, allowing both parties to joke around a bit and laugh, creating a bond between the both of them.

We were a bit late because lecture ended late. Anyway, because of the slight hold-up, the moment we entered the civic class venue...
"Do you know what is RESPECT??"
note: the above was spoken in the most haughty and the most 理所当然 way I have ever known...

Of course we know, its just that we, as a new class, are waiting for everyone to come in so that we can all greet you at exactly the same time. Sure, you don't want us to be united, no problem... That, unfortunately, set the mood for the rest of the civics lesson, so we basically just stoned at her, and I decided right there and then, that we are on the brink of war...

She conducted the civics lesson as though it is a disciplinary lesson, requiring our full unstoppable attention. It was way too one-sided for a civics lesson. No one talked, everyone just stared at her talking on and on. She did not even care to give us the chance to have self-intro. She herself doesn't even want to know self-intro in the first place... She alternated between calling our names, and giving us disapproving look when we talk about our past during the whole length of the civics lesson...

Of course as can be expected from most teachers which are like that, they have zero sense of humour. Remind me again, someone has zero sense of humour? For example:
You are late for morning assembly:
Teachers with a bit of sense of humour would say:"Don't be late again, ok?"
"ok"

However, there is this weird breed who has ZERO sense of humour:"I have told you all before, I "expect" (she emphasies the EXPECT) you all to be here before the first bell rings.. (normally, its second bell, but she wants first, so what can I say... Personally, she doesn't even appear until the second bell)"
note: The above was spoken with very very slight variation in tone and a "I hate you and everyone else in this godforsaken world" face. Oh ya, that expression on her face came out in her voice too...
"...(wt...)"

Lets continue shall we?
Physics teacher, Mr Tan decided that he wanted 2 reps for his subject. Personally, I don't see any fault with what he wants. I mean, having 2 representative means that the other can help in case the other isn't here, or the workload gets way too extreme...
You would think there is nothing wrong with it too right? But wait, our civics tutor has a lot to say about it...
"Why are there 2 physic reps in the class, there is supposed to be 1 only"
"But Mr Tan picked for 2 physics rep..."
"How are we supposed to write the testimonial...? (which I think is a horrible reason not to have 2 physics rep)"

A week later:
"Who are the physics rep in class"
"Sashti and Bernice"
"Why are there two physics rep in class, you are only supposed to have one"
"Mr Tan wanted two..."
"No, there will only be one physics rep in class..."

(I got a bit pissed...I hate teachers who tries to exert their influence over other teachers, who teaches much better then her anyway currently)

"Hey, Mrs ___ (censored: the word is too horrible to be seen), look, its Mr Tan who wanted the 2 physics rep, not us. If you are really against this, please find Mr Tan and stop taking it out on us..."
She returned me the "I do not need you to tell me" and "I hate you and the rest of this world" look.
Basically, if I were a bit more vulgar, the "F*** YOU" look...

And she also meddles with our economics class teacher. The economics teacher I think is quite good too, although she just graduated. She managed to clear a lot of my doubts and clarified a lot of things I did not understand.
The ct wanted to exercise control over how she organises our classes schedule...

And she still has to do it with that "F*** YOU" look...

Personally, I had about enough, and I think its the first time I have some much to talk about the misdeeds of a teacher. (other then the legendary L^2M, but, at least that teacher rocks ok) Besides, even discipline teacher (such as Mrs Look and Ms Phua) don't command that sort of hatred from me at all.

I was wondering if there were any people out there who hates their life, hates their job and hates their surrounding, shows it outside with the "I hate you" look, talks with a certain sense of "I am SUPERIOR!!!" ...
...and still can survive...

I just found one...

Discmon

P.S. Oh ya, she maintains her "I hate you" look everywhere she goes, even to the teachers...

26/03/2007...

2007-03-26T21:57:00.000+08:00

Its been some time since YongHao first announced to everyone in class that Command & Conquer 3 is coming out, known as tiberium wars...

The DAY has come...

The fate of humanity is in your hands...

The third war is about to begin...

KANE LIVES!!

Discmon
p.s. Unfortunately, it seems like both Yong Hao and me are suffering from the same problem currently that is preventing us from playing the game. DARN IT!! Its all thanks to the fact that our video cards are not supported by the game. Crap...

Recent events!!

2007-03-21T21:27:00.000+08:00

Well, it hasn't really been a very long time since I last posted, and besides, the posting frequency has dropped rather drastically following the end of O-levels and also the December holidays...
March holidays was spent in a blur and we were all freaking tired from running around doing all sorts of things.

Lets see, there was job week camp which took up 2 days. I think I already mentioned enough of the job week jokes that has occured in the previous post... Some of them are still popping up in my head once in a while during the period of time when my mind blanks out in lectures...

Then after slacking around, there was the fun-filled PA camp, which I will not bother elaborating since I will just describe it as FUN, FUN and MORE FUN!! You can get glimpses of what had happened by following the link to the NJ PA blog and just looking at all the photos that our legendary TO, Dhika, has put up...

And, lets see, today marks the beginning of aries, which means pisces has just ended right...
Hmm...
Pisces ended...
Which date is it ??

Think... Think... Think...
20th March...
Hey, doesn't that date sound soooooooo damn familiar??

Why, its none other then our dearest author's birthday!!!
[A sudden outburst from the poor guy who asked questions last time a really really long time ago]
"CONGRATULATIONS!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!"

Happy Birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday happy birthday, happy birthday to me !!!
Woot!!!

Its been a really great birthday, think its the first time I received so many people wishing me happy birthday...
Don't really feel like counting, there was really a lot. Thanks to all you people for remembering this very important day to me, the day I was born and welcomed to this world..

And I want to thank Jing Rong, Mun Yee, Xiao Ying and Huang Yun for that nice gift they sent to me. Its really nice, and I have it displayed prominently on my desk.
And I guess I won't be falling sick often anymore, cause I have an apple tree on my desk now that produces apple everyday for me to eat!!

Thanks guys!

Discmon

Jokes of Job week!!

2007-03-13T14:18:00.000+08:00

The march holiday has started, and job week is over!!
Ok, job week isn't really over, but its over for me. I've done enough job week for this year already I think, and am not planning to continue on for the third day onwards, cause usually there's no point to do it after the first two day...

Anyway, job week usually means there is a lot of job week jokes that come up as we do our job week. Thanks to a series of unfortunate events, this year we have quite a bunch of job week jokes that came up. For me, I feel that the amount of job week jokes we have is about enough to start a compilation here on the blog...

So here it is:
Really really really real job week jokes
(They had really happened before)(And we're not being sarcastic)

Joke #1
Scout: 请问你有没有工作给我做?
The old man who looked like a chinese: 我不会讲华语...

Comments: And besides, the only reason why I talked to him in chinese is because he looked like one...
And yet...
Anyway...

Joke #2
Person: What is the scouts association??
Venture who just did job week for the first time this year: ehh.... It is an association which the scouts join...

Comment: Very nice paraphrase...

Joke #3
Scout: Do you have a job.... (he got cut off)
Person: wait wait... (walks into the room)
Scouts: (waiting at the door for the person to come back and say he's got a job or something)
Person came back with a bundle of newspaper...
Scouts: 我们不是来收报纸的...

Comments: Is it just me, but some people are getting way too familiar with charity organisations??

Joke #4
Person: hmm... tell you what, why don't you play chinese chess with my son??
Scout: ...[stun]

Comments: the person who got that job was me by the way ^^

Joke #5
it sounds a bit weird, but most people would rather give you newspaper and clothes, rather then to give you a job where they pay you a bit of money...
Thanks to NKF...

Joke #6
I was working with my partner, and she was wearing Yi Xuan's scarf (which is supposed to be cursed as Yi Xuan earned very very very very little when he wore that scarf this year) Anyway, for a certain block, for every door I knocked, 90% of the time someone opened the door. For every door she knocked, no one answered...

Comments: Talk about being lucky...

Joke #7
The top way to earn money during job week......
Be cute!!
-quote from myself

Comments: I would like to clarify that I did not use this method to earn money during job week... Jia Min would have a far easier time compared to all of us as she believes that she is cute (which we all think is acbc)

Joke #8
The same venture who said that the scouts association is an association which scouts join...
Later that day:
Someone: What do the scouts do??
The venture: ...........(refuse to reply)

Comments: No one wants to commit the same mistake twice...

Ok, at least this year there was less philosophical statements and such... so we never had to endure it like last year...
Anyway, congratulations to those people who had just started doing job week for the first time this year. For us, veterans of job week (its the 5th year I properly did job week and the 9th year that I had even a job week) life is getting a bit too repetitive...

Especially when we utter the same sentence over and over again to all those people who live in Singapore...

Discmon

The 101th post...

2007-03-05T19:12:00.000+08:00

Hey guys,
Just in case you were wondering, the post before this was the 100th post posted by Discmon on Revelations: Dark Shadow Games...
It's taken quite a bit of time for us here to hit the 100th post, but I think hitting it with posts that are organised and meaningful is better then writing post that are lumped together, everything stuck together and talks about every day daily stuff just to hit it...

But anyway...
Its quite ironical that we have to hit the 100th post with post that starts saying good-bye to people whom I cherish as friends... Kinda reminds me of the reasons why I picked the title for the blog in the first place, but I guess that sort of shows the truth about life, in that it is bleak and dark enough already...
Which sort of reminded me about the idea of "why make life harder for yourself?"

07S16:
Yup, I know that this whole class is splitting up and all...
But still, I don't think I'll forget this class anytime soon. I mean, I spent a happy 3 months with you guys, without you guys, I wonder if I would have had fun in NJC, with all the crappers in the class and the lame jokes going everywhere...
It feels a lot like my old sec 4 class, minus the no. of boys present in the class...
Imagine that, a girl-domination class could be as crap as the boy-domination class that I came from.
Isn't that great ^^

A lot of you guys are going to go across the road, and I don't know, but, remember this. Don't look back, and start thinking about whether or not life would have been better if you had made another decision. Remember this, there is always too many factors to consider when you are thinking about whether or not you had made a good decision...

So yup, don't worry. The group of us who are staying in NJ will cheer you all along the way while you guys are in HC. Its only a bridge away, don't forget to come back and visit us often...
HC is too big for us to navigate, besides, you guys already know where to find us ^^

Discmon

Remembering...

2007-02-23T22:25:00.001+08:00

Ok, in case you guys are wondering, that freaking short video above was made by me...
So, for all you blog surfers out there, I guess you know my real name...
But that's soooooo beside the point...

Anyway, I realised that usually when I do full self initiated things, like games and some other projects, I usually do it to the best of my abilities. So, I kinda managed to finish that video in one day, dragging it all the way into the night and finishing the final review of the video at about 1am...

It was a dark and stormy night (ok, that isn't true...) I was thinking... thinking that the civics class that I'm in would soon be broken up. Quite a bunch of people are heading across the road, and another major group of people are going to change subject combination such that they would no longer stay in the same class anymore...
As I think more and more of it, I realised that everything with this class will soon be coming to an end...
There is a need to cherish the time we have left together, and also a need to remember all the times we have had last time...

It just so happened that I went to watch the disco video that I made last year, and it gave this sort of push to go and make a video about 07S16 as well... The class that I had been in for the last two months or so...

So, I went to my computer and started making the short video.
I did not really know what came over me, but the video made me work into the night to complete it in that one instance when my feelings for the class is freaking strong...
As I watch the finished video, there was this deep sense of "goodbye" coming over me... It feels quite sad that everything is going to end just like that...

That's when I added in the final few sentences...

I want to thank you guys a lot. Without you guys, I don't think my first two months would be as interesting as what it is now, and thanks to you guys, I realise how it feels to have a class which you like to be in...
And of course, thank yourself, for creating the desire in me to make this video for you guys...

Thank you...
And no matter what happens, I won't forget you guys...

Discmon

NJ Superstar Event

2007-02-17T10:58:00.001+08:00

Happy Chinese New Year everyone !!!
Wow, its time to say good bye to the dog year and say hello to the year of the pig...

A pretty good excuse to fall asleep don't you think?
Yesterday, Pa took part in the chinese new year celebration over at NJC. I was posted over to the LT5 team and was at control working the mixer (the machine that controls all the sounds coming in and going out over to the speakers)

Things were pretty smooth except for two freaking accidents, one which is the singer did not catch the starting of the song, while the second one was the one over the "A Public Affair" song, which became jittery...
Fortunately, quite a bunch of people think that it was done on purpose thanks to the actions of the two people on stage at that point in time.

Phew~ great sigh of relief.
Anyway, just to tell you, the pa people in control was in those sort of "OMG, I can't believe this sort of thing happened" and were promptly cluthcing their head in despair...
Anyway, PA crew for NJ superstar: Jennifer, the listener, Ming Xuan, the HEAD, Xiang Wei and Mervyn, the IP backstages, Siyuan, the super backstager, Zhiping, the sound-controller, and Yuxuan, the expert-but-a-bit-nothing-to-do light controller.

It was quite fun even though we had to stay aleart 100% of the time. During the intervals where someone was singing and there wasn't much going on on stage, we were able to crack a few jokes here and there over in control and talk a bit of our own lives before we had arrived in NJC. It is a great time to interact and talk about things...

Also, I think a lot of people realised that the mixer is the most interesting job, followed by the backstage and then lights. Although lights would become more interesting if there was the intelligent lights (those lights that are super big and look like some sort of rocket). Looks like lots of people would be very interested in the mixer job...

I LOVE THE MIXER!!!

Anyway, Happy chinese new year everyone...

Discmon

What equates happiness??

2007-02-12T20:43:00.000+08:00

Sometimes I wonder to myself why am I always so happy?
Sure, you guys always see me bouncing around and laughing about, making humorous remarks to lighten up the mood if things get even a teeny weeny bit serious. Add an occasional joke here and there, and I think you'll be able to get a perfectly correct mental picture of our dearest author here!!

But looking back at it all, I don't know if in reality I am really that happy...
I mean, I have enough trouble in home. For some stupid "good" results, I need to go and change my college all over again, and at the rate things are being done, it seems as though I had done a great grave mistake and I still need to even prepare a whole speech persuading the point on "why I should stay in the college I am in now??"

Sure, seems like nothing right? Well, it would be nothing, if one of your parents don't spend half his time reminding you that he wants to hear how you are going to persuade him...

If this was the only trouble, I won't be writing.

When I am at home, and even outside, I live in a sort of constant fear that something might have happened at home... For example, mother collapsing thanks to argument from my dad, and even when I am at home, I never know when my dad might just come in, look at what I am doing and coincidentally provoke an argument to seal off my fate for the rest of the day...

Life at home is indeed a challenge beyond proportion...

I look back at it all, and I wonder why am I so happy around other people? Why can I always look at the bright side of life, smile a bit, and move on even when the situation is seriously horrible? Why? When my life is already in constant dread and fear that when I come home one day, some thing might have happened, and there is no way for me to reverse the damage that has been done...

I find myself enjoying the time when I am outside of the house. When I am with my friends or even alone, just admiring the beautiful world outside. It provides a sort of serenity that I find myself able to relax in...

That's why I treasure all my friends so much. Everyone of you out there who I know and treat as a friend, are really really precious to me. Without you guys, I sometimes wonder to myself how could I sustain myself through all these days? From O levels, to the release of results, from sadness to happiness. Entertaining you people, regardless of whether it is a lame joke, a humorous remark or perhaps some other things, and looking at the smile and laughter coming out, and even just plain interaction, talking about everyday stuff and laughing at perhaps some other everyday things, creates a great feeling inside me...

Friends, is something that is priceless, can never be replaced, and will always have a special place in my heart...

I want to thank all of you out there, particularly Disco, 3/4D, the morning canteen group from last time, the 963 crew, 1D(2006) and also my new friends in NJC...
It is you guys, that had knowingly, or unknowingly, brought me through all the days where I am down and out...

I thank you all...

Discmon

O level results...

2007-02-10T02:31:00.001+08:00

I guess some of you might have seen or rather guessed from the previous post comment section...
But in case you hadn't noticed, O level results are officially released...
As of yesterday at 1430hours, the O level results for the 2006 O level exams has been released, along with its usual emotion running high side-effects...

The day started out like any other day at NJ, with about half the class missing in action. (this is supposed to be normal) and after staying in school and stoning and trying to supress our emotions for almost the whole of the day, we finally set off for our old school to pick up our results...

There was a really happy reunion of our class when we were in school, and I realised I miss a lot of the old jokes that we had created... Things like EMSSLSSSSSS and also sending clouds into the air and also not forgetting the absolutely fun and exciting 4A-4D aircon war...

And then, things started beame more tense as the time comes when we finally get to receive our results...
We are receiving the results in the hall, and I was slacking around in the canteen and was one of the last few people who went into the hall to wait. When I got there, my class surrounded me, and I was quite shocked anyway...
The following ensued:

"Hey zhiping, EIGHT A1s!!!!"
"HUH??!?"
"OIE!!, you got 8 A1s la...."
".....??!?"
"Oie, zhiping... WAKE UP WAKE UP!!"
"Should we just taupok him?????"

After which my class people shoved me over to the board which I hadn't noticed which showed the top few results in our school. After finding my names on the list, I promptly went into shock and could only look at the list and stare with my jaws wide-open...
It sounds quite funny putting this down and writing it on paper...

Anyway, I knew something was going to happen when I reached home that night as I would need to start contemplating about the JC that I want to be admitted to. In my own opinion, I want to stay in NJC, not just because a lot of my friends are there, but also because I like the environment there. Somehow, I feel relaxed there and also quite settled in. Also, their studying method there (though some people accuse it as mugging) is the type which I am quite accustomed to and is my preferred style of studying...

Add up and I really want to just stay on, even though my results should qualify me for HC and RJ...
Which equates to arguments at home which resulted in stalemate and isn't over yet...

It gets a bit sad la...
8A1s is supposed to be a very happy thing, and for me, its something that exceeds even my most basic expectaions, but why make it such that I need to make a choice between a better school, and a school which I prefer to be in? Ya sure, I need to make the choice anyway, but it gets real idiotic when we need to do it when I just got back from PA duty at about 11pm and still have to listen to them rant on and on and on until well over 12am before I could finally take a break, a shower and even some of my own private time...

I mean, could I just say wt__?

Anyway, I should be very happy now, what with such a good results, but I am not really happy with how the way the day has ended, with another argument with my parents over the choice of JCs... It gets so IRRITATING, and its going to be so hard to convince them that I should just stay in NJC...

From what I heard, what I had seen, and what I had experienced from the other HCJC people that I had met, I don't think I'll be too happy if I had went over to HC. The moment I received the results, I knew the day won't end as nice as the way the day was half-way through it... ...

But lets end the ranting session for now, there will still be plenty of arguements and plenty of debating over which jc I am going to be admitted to, but I'll most likely be sticking to my choice of NJ... because I feel that is where I should be based on the above reasons which I have given..

Anyway, I need to thank the self-study group that the four of us were part of during the period of time after prelims and before O level. This four people included Yong Hao, Zi Ang, Yuping and me. Not bad, all four of us had improved for our O level results, and I definitely need to thank this group for helping each of us out and getting through O levels.

Of course, we also need to thank garfield, for providing varying amount of destressing materials during this self-study period...

Not forgetting, all the teachers who had taught us and probably gained quite a bit of white hair from trying to teach us and make us learn. Yup!! Without them, I don't think I would be able to get these results for O levels...
And finally, not forgetting, the TYS!! Without these publications, where would all those exercises for O level be??

Discmon

Day Of Judgement!!

2007-02-08T20:08:00.000+08:00

It's the day we've all been waiting for...
The day that determines our destiny, our fate, our future... our...
(please add on by yourself, I'm getting a bit starved on the vocabulary)

No matter what happens, just remember that you had done your best, and don't go and kill yourself over it...
Ya, this applies to everyone who is receiving results tomorrow.

Hey!! Anyone ready to blow-up from the over excitement????

Discmon

...

2007-02-06T17:57:00.000+08:00

I'm really sorry about what has happened yesterday... I also don't know what to write here...
It feels a bit... sad to put it all down in words...

Do you like a person because you want to protect the person?
But I think I've sort of made my decision... and all I hope is that everything will work out in the end...

And I hope I can go back to the way I used to protect you...
And still be a good friend..

Discmon

Photos/Songs

2007-01-28T00:58:00.000+08:00

Well, I know that my last post was on a rather controversial topic, and I did had a sort of debating match on msn within about 15 minutes of me posting the post...
But that's quite beside the point, and the argument was pretty long-winded anyway, and hopefully the situation will resolve, although I partially do not agree with sitting there and eating everything that they are throwing at you...
So ya...

Anyway, someone mentioned to me about uploading all the photos that I have taken during our orientation. Reason being that it would allow us to remember everything that had happened should we separate into different classes, get transferred out or get kicked out...

I had uploaded all the photos, and really simply by looking at them, I start remembering some of the more things that had happened in our class since the first day we meet. The photos that I had added are mostly concentrated on the day of the external hunt.

Of course, I realised that it isn't just photos that will make you remember stuff, music also reminds you of a lot of things. Seriously, when I hear songs like "A public affair", "we're all in this together", "summer nights" and even "upside down", my mind start bringing up images associated with hall and full of people dancing. It also reminds me of the whole class learning mass dance and me getting sabotaged by the OGLs...

Its a really great feeling to know that there is so many ways for you to remember something that is close to your heart, like your class people that you have school with for the first three months in a JC...

But then, we all hope that the friendships that we would had built up by the end of the first three months would stay strong? right?
I hope it will... Life is so much more bearable with friends...

Discmon

Cold-heartedness? Singaporean?

2007-01-24T20:26:00.000+08:00

Sometimes I wonder to myself whether or not the public has a life or not...
I mean, seriously consider it, how many of us had suffered the brunt of a complaint letter that had been directed to your school/college/group/organisations? I am sure that many of us had to go through all this sort of things and treat it as a "learning process", as quite a lot of people had been saying to me...

But suddenly, I realised and figured out something that I had been wondering for some time. The exact reason why people say that we, Singaporeans are cold and heartless, unwilling to stop for a moment and help other people who might be in trouble and are unable to laugh at any jokes, no matter how good... and the entire list of "cold-heartedness" will go on and on and on...
That is because there is always new revelations of cold-heartedness in Singapore...

Lets begin by looking at the people of other countries. Maybe we'll start with Australia. When we were at Australia some time back, we had stayed in a B&B (Bed & Breakfast). It is a form of accomodation where a person rents part of his house to you to stay for a short period of time and also provides you with breakfast in the morning before you, presumably, leave the accomodation for the next part of your journey.

While I was staying there, I was touched by the hospitality of the owners. We stayed there for Christmas and I'll never forget that day where we survived on canned food and instant noodles. No shops are opened in Australia during the days proceeding to Christmas. The owners kindly allowed us to use their kitchen to cook our dinner and had continuously offered us some of their dinner lest we starve. Their hospitality was excellent and I never forgot how their food had contributed to our "survival" over christmas in a foreign country.

The people we met in that country was also quite ok with jokes and blunders. They do not flinch at the sight of a joke that might have been played on them, but instead take it in their strides and continue doing their business...

Here, in sunny Singapore, however, things are not the same. For one thing, jokes are not tolerated. I heard stories about a "candid camera" in Singapore that collapsed because people "attacked" the producers of the show for commiting the joke on them... Unable to handle a joke, that sounds possible...

Secondly, I also realised that somehow, the older aged people in Singapore do not have any childhood memories, or even teenage memories. All of us have been children and teenagers before, why start writing complain letters to organisations that we may represent, criticising the actions that we have taken that may have affected you in the most minor and slightest way? Here comes the gist of why, we, are heartless and cold:
We are unable and are unwilling to tolerate any actions that infringe upon our own space...

No wonder people are so cold. Someone sits down on the table that you are seating and attempt to strike a conversation with you so that the eating time won't be so boring. A common Singaporean would snub the person, thinking the person is a "busybody" and ask him to mind his own business. It seems as though everyone in this place is wrapped in their own cocoon of thoughts and are unwilling to show any signs of warmth to people around them...

What has contributed to all this? Is it the high standard of living, of trying to maintain your life in Singapore? It seems highly likely, especially when you are god-damn familiar with the phrase "You can die, but you can't get sick". All of us are wrapped up in our own cocoon of problems and in the end, we forget the idea of being young and having fun. Our society is cold as everyone is working and working and working... Busy as bees would be good expression, but do we need to also take up the feelings of being protective of our own "hives"? Just like the bees?

We, as teenagers, have bits of fun once in a while. Sure, the public who has already lost their childhood can continue writing in things about our "bad" behaviour that reflects the bad name of the group we may belong to. But what good does it do? I feel that in the end, it just makes the society we are in even more colder and more heartless.

As young people, we are conditioned not to have fun, not to act as teenagers, but to act as cold, heartless Singaporean, who finds joy in giving a happy face on the surface, and then proceed to write complain letters after complain letters on the smallest thing that affects your very life...

At the rate things are going in Singapore, we will never ever fulfill what the Government is going on about creating a more caring society. If the public is unable to take a joke, to remember their childhood and their "fun" during the days and, instead, spend half their life writing letters to organisations complaining about their youths behaviour in public which we will assume, for discussion sake here and also for clarity sake, is a minor problem, I doubt the younger generation will ever, in their whole life, understand what is meant by a more "caring society" thanks to the example set by what is so-called the "general public". Which result in the continuation of the "heartless Singaporean"...

Of course, not all the public have forgotten about their childhood and are quite tolerant of our actions. There are also warm-hearted people in Singapore, the group of people who helped the people around them in the smallest way...
Then again, this people are considered by the rest of the people out there as people who are made use of...

Why live life like that, harbouring this sort of protectionist point of view, when life is hard enough...?
Go spread the seeds of happiness, as what choco love told us when he first appeared in the shaman king anime...

Discmon

Short films, long impacts...

2007-01-21T06:47:00.000+08:00

Its been a pretty eventful week. Yup, and I got no idea why, but I've been kinda running out of ideas to write on my blog. Its pretty much due to the fact that my 2 major sources of inspiration for blog post is gone... I remember the days when I was in the student council and in RV, there really was a lot of things to write then...

Of course, the reason why I am writing this isn't because I am lamenting that my 2 major sources of inspiration are gone, but its rather because I really want to type something down. I've been casting my mind around and moving them around all over the place trying to get an idea and I managed to get something, or I wouldn't be here anyway...

So, have any of you ever watched a short film or play before?
My first exposure to short film and play was in my secondary 1 life. A long long time ago before I had even set up this blog and write out stuffs. There was a CLDDS (chinese literary drama and debating society) in RV. As the long title suggests, what they do is that they are interested in chinese language type of drama and debating...

Anyway, when I was in sec 1, they had a public performance called 学艺新声 (xue yi xin sheng). It was basically a "short story project". They had 2 short stories and 1 slighlty longer story. I wasn't an avid audience of short plays then, seeing that I had not yet been exposed to them until then. But after watching the three short shows, I told myself that I would watch their next year performance no matter what happens.

What really gripped me about short films is that it really impacts you as you watch it. The message that the show send to you as you are sitting down and watching it is very strong. The characters only appear for a short amount of time, they don't do much, they don't talk much, but you feel for them. It is this strong message that is sent that kept me watching short films and plays. The message, the events that happens in the play keep you on the edge of your seat. There isn't any chance for laid-back-ness (this word does not exist). Things just keep on progressing on in a short play, and this is what makes it nice. It is because of all the short length and such that makes the message that the play tries to send to you very strong and very easy to pick up.

To me, short films and plays are the medias that has the easiest time sending tears into your eyes, or a hollow feeling in your heart, but it is also the easiest for you to feel happy and excited about the things that happen, so much so that you are hanging on to the edge of your seat.

It is also one of the reason why I don't really watch drama serials. To me, drama serials are not able to send a really strong message at you (although there are a few that break out of this and are really really good) but most of them aren't really up to standard. What happens in the end is that drama serials feel like they are trying to satisfy fans who adores seeing their idol up there. Besides that, drama serials have a nasty habit of dragging events, espeically korean serials (da chang jin comes to mind pretty easily). What happens after they drag? The message that they were trying to send is kinda lost or reduced in strength...

Also, I'm not sure if this is a problem in Singapore, but due to the large amounts of serial being produced here, I'm starting to be able to predict what may or may not happen in the serial. It also gets a bit boring when you see directors reuse the same idea over and over again. I'm really glad that they had abandoned the idea of a loony in their serials for the time being...

What happens is that I don't really get anything out of the drama serials other then laugh at their stupidity and occasionally pitying their horrible condition of life. There isn't those message that tells you things that makes you wonder what is friendship and so on and so forth...It is pure enjoyment when you watch this serials, but I feel that plays and films aren't just there to bring in money, it is also to show, as what arts central says, the meaning of life.

The short films that I managed to watch so far really touches your heart, your mind and your soul. The short films focuses on normal everyday stuff, and it is this normal everyday stuff that is closest to your heart that leaves you hanging on the edge of your seat as the message comes sinking in...

The greatest thing about short films is just that, its short, sweet, but it leaves you with a lasting thought.
Of course, only the good short films and plays out there can do that...
Which so far, has been quite plentiful.

Discmon

Crap mode...

2007-01-15T17:52:00.001+08:00

It's been some time since I last posted anything on the blog. Duh, you can check the dates...
I've not really got much to write about, but I feel like writing something, its just this gut feeling inside me that I want to do something on my blog. I'll be updating the links section later with more people's blog once I find the time to do it. I realised that my link section is shrinking thanks to the whole bunch of people who has decided that they want to delete their blogs.

It should be quite nice for all you people out there to read some new blogs, so I'll be getting to them later. We might also just be able to see some promotions from other blogs to blogs that you should read. But, that's going to be another story...

Orientation at NJC had finally ended!!

It had been a crazy one week for orientation, and it was very very tiring. It's not as bad as those major training camps, but I think its tiring enough for many of us. On the last few days, its almost like the standard "reach home and d-i-e" equation that most of the training camp equates for us...

Anyway, lets talk about my NEW og (orientation group), which I'll be treating as a joke session...

Our og has a total of 28 people... out of which only four people are boys...
Is it just me? or is it that NJC is turning into a girls school...?
Ahh, who cares about that point, NJ is also known as mini-rv to a certain extent, and since RV is turning into a girl's school as well, it shouldn't be surprising that NJ is turning into a girl's school as well...

Out of the 5 boys, only one of them is a pure local singaporean... ME!!!
Ahhhhhh!!! Come on, for the last two years at least it was 50/50... now its 1/5...

Out of all 28 people, only one of them is RV...
Remind me again, NJ had intake about 120++ RV pupils this year during PAE, so how many rv people are there in my class... ONE!!!!

Ok, I know I've taken an odd combination of subjects, but that's beside the point right?
Argh, I'm crapping...

Oh ya, lets not forget to congratulate the auto-ct rep...
And I'm seriously going to start throwing things at disco people who are in hc very soon...

Discmon