Month: October 2005

We do not have the power to control what confronts us, but we have the power to control what follows us.

If we have a situation, in this case A Levels, are we going to let anxiety and nervousness follow us? Or are we going to let peace and goodness follow us?

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Was a bit in the dilemma if a later enlistment date is better, or should I make it earlier? So, some people prompted me to email miw and ask, and this was the reply: “Please be informed that your enlistment date is based on your PES status, therefore you would need to proceed to CMPB and clarify with the Officer if you can join an earlier intake.”

Well I suppose that confirms it then. Not worth the trouble. Besides, I can find a job and enjoy some fun too. Just that other people come out earlier than me. Was worried about uni admission stuff also but then it isn’t really affected. Guess I was just thinking that being together with most of everyone else would be better, then again, perhaps I’ve got some purpose to be in the april unit, perhaps God wants me to meet some people during the april enlistment, perhaps the four months before the enlistment are going to be fruitful.

Suddenly felt very kan chiong today, suddenly 2 weeks didn’t seem enough, suddenly it seems that I don’t have time to practice as many papers as I want to, suddenly…

Wasted 2h at parkway eating lunch thanks to josh, and took a while to do the maths paper. wanted to study econs but then must study for computing mock tomorrow. and then all the computer labs so noisy, everyone doing PW OP, no proper place to study, and thus I went home.

May the peace of God that surpasses all understanding guard our hearts.

finally, the first week of self-study. it seems that suddenly we’re doing a lot of computing, which seems to be taking up a lot of my studying time. and hence I had less time for other subjects. cos have to prepare exercises for the remedial and that’s good. finally we are doing some productive stuff for computing after eons.

econs S took up 2 afternoons! and still havn’t finished going through the questions yet. and mr cook haven’t marked some of the scripts, including mine. aiyo. but I realised I did the questions that we are supposed to choose, not those that he didn’t want us to do. it was quite entertaining though. mr. cook was quite funny. he ask us to bug the movie distributers by calling them to bring in some movie so that he can watch before christmas. he say he’d post the contact on blackboard and ask us all to bug them. then he started playing with some toy figure on his keychain and put on the OHP, and say: this person’s a window cleaner. so he moves it and try to “clean” the transparency ink, as if “cleaning” “the window”. lol. and then he used the analogy of promiscuity of people who mention Keynesian and Classical theories here and there, all over the place, without mentioning if it’s K or C, as if in a few lines you “sleep” with K, then in the next few lines you “sleep” with C, and so on. haha. what an analogy.

and then it seems that my junior class has become semi-PRs of V26, often coming there to do PW and use the computer for various purposes, especially the girls, thanks to the high proportion of the guys in iCOMP. haha.

went running this morning, realised that quite a number of people jog too. and coincidentally met kash.

today managed to get the photos ready. found out that the laser printer ink will stick on the back of the smooth glossy paper (unlike my bubble jet ink), and printed the messages, and gave them out to a few of my friends and classmates whom I met. haha ym and nl were so excited, and saying the photos were very nice, and they wanted to look at everyone’s first 3 months photos in the photos. wx and kx said very pro, managed to do such a nice thing in such a short time.

anyway, just received my enlistment too. it’s 21 APRIL!!! Yes, that’s very very far away. gonna find some job attachment or something. the architecture one looks interesting, besides, I’d like to try something new/different. mediacorp is so stingy, only $10/day, who want?
Oh, also found out that J.Low also same timing as me, and coincidentally, jun gang, my primary school friend, too! what a small world. PES C people unite! =p

Somewhat feeling very happy today. I realise that there’s a common thing among us. We enjoy giving things to others, especially to show our care and appreciation. It’s more blessed to give than to receive.

And so, today is the day. It seems like VJC has caught on a video culture. everyone’s doing video, other than iCOMP, there’s SC, house comm and others. (partly thanks to me? lol.) mrs chan’s presentation was quite entertaining, and I must say mr domch and mr tang did a great job on the comic-like thing, along with some of the photos I supplied =). icomp video isn’t really that fantastic, though it does its job. then there were other assorted performances, including a female chinese singer which isn’t good at all, a drinking competition which made some teachers and students puke, a band which has good instruments but a lousy vocalist (why is it always like that?!), amongst other things. I think the most entertaining one was my batch’s house comm mini skit and shyam’s solo performance. the house comm really cracked us up with their puns on harry potter, VJC stuff like the canteen and 3-house and petrol kiosk, CCA drafts, results, prelims and what-not. it was really funny.

then it was victorian anthem. and then what? not mass dance. some anti-climax announcements. some collection of souvenirs by ct reps. some shouts of I want You were heard unentertained. some more announcements. meanwhile people started exiting the hall, including my classmates. then someone shouted into the mic and said hold on, after the collection of the souvenirs the mass dance will being. by that time, only a faithful 1/4 of the school population was left in the hall and we did a pathetic whiney whiney. then I left cos I can’t stand it. sigh. what a fiasco timing of the mass dance. this is not the first time mass dance screwed up. the last time was a wrong starting song – friendship – which chased everyone away. PA Crew and SC: wake up! If this continues, I forsee mass dance enthusiasm will decline in the next few years. I hope not.

Anyway, after that went back to class. On the way, kin was telling me that it feels different. I agree. It somehow felt different from VS. At least I felt sad while watching the powerpoint in VS. But now, it is sad that I don’t feel sad at all (how ironic). But the sad part only came later during CT, after we ate our ice cream, in which mrs koh contributed her words of wisedom, and some of us had “speeches” about our experiences in VJ and our thoughts. It was really good to share with the class like this. I said to the class: the other day I was looking at some of our photos from day 1 till now. Some of us changed a lot, changed our hairstyles, the way we look, but some of us didn’t change. But in every way, we all have grown in the 2 years, and I hope that we bring back something and learnt something.

After that, my class guys went play LAN which I didn’t join, while I went to eat carl’s jr. which fantastic. It’s expensive, large-serving but worth it. The Beef Chilli Cheese Fries is a must-try. It’s different from KFC/Taco Bell’s. Much tastier.

Past few days haven’t been really studying…been busy helping out a little with VJC website especially the front page flash, and also editing and printing photos for my classmates and my friends. And I wanted to print some wordsa the back of the paper, but I realised that it didn’t dry. So I left it there over night, but it still didn’t dry. As I was rushing for school, I accidentally stacked them, alas, I stained the glossy part of the photo paper with the black ink. Grr…so sad all spoilt. Need to reprint. How careless of me. Should have known that those backs of glossy paper from photo shop are too smooth to absorb printer ink. sigh.

Tomorow is open house. Catch the breeze.

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Oh ya, I just received my PES status notification letter recently. It’s PES C9 L2. Thank God for the deformed chest =)

1. Life and people
All lives intersect. Death doesn’t just take someone, it misses someone else, and in the small distance between being taken and being missed, lives are changed. People died instead of other people. But there is a balance to it all. One withers, another grows. Birth and death are part of a whole. It is why we are drawn to babies,…and to funerals.
Strangers are just family you have yet come to know.
No life is a waste. The only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we are alone.

2. Sacrifice
Sacrifice is part of life. It’s not something to regret. It’s something to aspire to. Little sacrifices. Big sacrifices. Sometimes when you sacrifice something precious (like your life), you’re not really losing it. You’re just passing it on to someone else. You lost something, but you gained something as well.

3. Anger and forgiveness
Holding anger is a poison. It eats you from inside. We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. And the harm we do, we do to ourselves. Forgive. No one is born with anger. When we die, the soul is freed of it. But now, in heaven, in order to move on, you must understand why you felt what you did, and why you no longer need to feel it. You need to forgive.

4. Love
Lost love is still love. It takes a different form, that’s all. But when senses weaken, another heightens. Memory. Memory becomes your partner. You nurture it. You hold it. You dance with it.
Life has to end. Love doesn’t.

5. Your Life’s Purpose
You are where you are for a purpose. You are supposed to be where you are, your existence is to do what you do. You make things good for other people, is where you are supposed to be.

This book has been very inspiring, as inspiring as Tuesdays with Morrie. Most of the lessons can only be appreciated by reading the book, for some of the above are paraphrased and you won’t know what it really means until you read the story, especially #5.

Nevertheless, most of the lessons are very true. I think #2 is very appropriate. If you read the story, it really illustrates this: Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13). Jesus passed life on to everyone else.

Okay, it’s back to school since a week back, and it’s a silent “torture” to

patiently wait for all the papers to be received back. Glad that I got an A for

Maths, and finally passed my Physics with a C. Economics was pretty bad at

D/E depending on the rounding up/down. Computing was quite bad, partly

because I didn’t study, also because a lot of people did badly too (everyone

has to come back for remedial?), got a D without coursework, C with

coursework included. And mr gi played an interesting US Navy Seal training

video from Discovery Channel , supposedly to inspire us to work hard for the

prelims, and focus on details.

Well, it seems like the tables have turned. I used to worry about Maths and

Physics as they were my weaker subjects. Now I worry about Computing and

Economics. Hopefully all will balance and be good in A Levels. As mr ho has

pointed out, it can go both ways – up or down. I trust God.

Lessons in school now seem kinda waste of time. Cos after school is quite late

and tired, can’t do much in school. After that go home even worse, a few

hours then sleeping time already. sigh. more than half my class skipped school

today. pro.

mr. chua asked me if I’m doing any video to make farewell assembly more

exciting. well not much time left, if I wanted to do, should have done last

week. But alas, I went to do a mass dance video instead. He say maybe I can

tweak it. Well not much inspiration to do it. I was asked to design SDD ticket

recently. And was also asked to provide a design for a sponsored notebook

for open house. hmmm…

There are 2 kinds of people who complain about their results:
1. People who seriously have bad results and need to buck up.
2. People who have relatively good or average results which can be better,

yet they complain a lot, and worry unnecessarily, and talk as if it’s the end of

the world and they are going to be retained.
I suppose I’m neither of the above.
People from #1 should really work on their complains. That’s alright.
But what I cannot understand is people from #2. They can continue ranting

about how “bad” their results are, but when compared to myself, they are

very good already. Why worry so much? Who of you by worrying can

add a single hour to his life?

I know I need to work hard, perhaps the hardest I’ve ever worked in my life in

terms of studies. Need time too. Need lots of practice again. After about 2

weeks break, almost forgetting a lot of things.

But God is good.

“Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don’t try to figure out

everything on your own. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make

your paths straight.” – Proverbs 3:5-6

“Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get

worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you

deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.” – Matthew

6:34

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On a another note, happy birthday to yt!