Economics seem so unreal to me...(perhaps thts is why i take it) It's famous assumption of "ceteris paribus" seems to be an equivalent of an idealist saying "i dun care". lol, still, being an idealist, I can't help but facinate at this perfect concept. How I wish to assume ceteris paribus when making decisions in life.....

Went down to the library on Tues and picked up a National Geographic mag and started reading on an nice article on chasing tornadoes. It proposes an interesting analogy tht i find rather meaningful. For tornado chasers, the tornado is just like a grizzly bear. U wan to get as close as possible to examine it but u wouldn't wan to be with it on the same side of the river. So, the eqaution is simple, sometimes u get the bear and sometimes the bear gets u....

Thurs seems to be the day where i master the art of zombifying in sch, esp today, coz of the extra night prac on mon in addition to the one on wed and the fact that i slept less than 4 hrs this morn as i had to complete my PI. After sch todae, went down to Eason enterprise to get my drumsticks for SYF. woot, they're damn nice, as huge as lao zhou wans it, and stil feels light. But of course good things come at a price, $18 for a pair of sticks. o_0, but its totally worth it. SYF is coming... I shall deny the existence of homework throughout this long weekend... though tht would mean tht i would owe 2 econs essay, be behind by 2 physics tutorial, 2 chem tutorials and 1 maths tutorial. An impressive list eh, think Mr lim would forgive me for missing half his lesson and not doing his tutorial on tues if we come back with gold with honours. lol, but yeah....there are indeed much better reasons why we should come back with gold with honours... Most importantly, lets not make ourselves regret by doing hmwk instead of practising during the weekend:)

Wow...I was in for a surprise when i checked the traffic of my blog. Apparently, ppl came to this blog after searching stuff like "Mr Dave Sim" and "zongjin"....lolz, wonder if thts wat miss wong was talking about the other day, teachers searching their own names in hope of finding their students' blog. As to why zj's name was plugged into a search engine, i can only leave it up to u all to speculate.

The walk to the beach was tedious and long. I dragged my exhausted body and mind across the cold hard pavement. A strong wind was blowing, dark clouds at a distance warned of an approaching storm, but I persisted.
The beach was empty, the usual sunny cheerful outlook was gone, instead shadows of memories haunt the place. The thunder sounded, seemingly to remind me of the approaching storm. Soon enough, the sky was overcast and of a monotonous grey-black colour. Still, I refused to leave. I stood facing the sea.... facing the gale and the waves.
All of a sudden, the air was still...the waves stopped. All was quiet and peaceful. The calm before the storm as they call it. It was the most beautiful moment in my life. One could feel the sheer presence of the unstable equibrillum and it was just so rare, so unique, so special.
A gentle wind started to blow and was trasnformed to a gale within seconds. At the horizon, the curtain of rain started to make its way towards the beach. Just like dominoes falling, it approached at immense velocity. Still, I stood my ground, refusing to budge. As the storm swept across the beach, all hell broke loose. Raindrops hit down hard across my face and waves smashed repeatedly on the beach. My heart was shattered and swept away by the merciless waves, leaving behind an empty shell whose tears were drowned out by the raindrops.

What if, just what if, I had repeated the same mistake while trying to prevent it?

Just changed my bg music yet again. This time is a song tht i went crazy over these few days. "future" by S.E.N.S... or more fondly known as the continuation of forbidden love. The melody starts off with the main theme, solemn, bringing over the theme of it being "forbidden". The whole song is just like a story, like 2 lovers who shares a forbidden love. Therefore, the first part of the song is sad and heart-wrenching, showing the fruastration of the lovers of not being able to be together. The melody then complicates, showing the trials and tribulations they faced. Moving on, when u hear the first cymbal crash, its like the star-crossed lovers overcoming all odds to be together. Their hopes, their ideals, their fantasies are all presented. They no longer worry about the past and look forward to the future, carrying high hopes. When the music goes up 1 key, its like all the hopes and dreams culminating into an overture of happiness. Melody here is unrestrained and truly represents the future, hence the title.... I was captivated by this song as it seems to truly reflect wat i am going through- trying to turn my hopes and dreams into an overture of happiness.... all first-time listeners of the song should be deeply touched by the part when the melody changes key...if u are not, use headphones(note- not earphones)

lol, RJ does not accept blank vote....which only continue to show how screwed up the system is...blah...

It seems that the only way to fly.....is to believe in your dreams

"When will u let go?" I face this problem everyday and yet i do not have an answer. Once, i tot tht i did it, i tot i could put down the burden, but i was proven utterly wrong. Since then, i lost my courage and avoided the problem altogether. Life goes on as usual, but there seems to be something missing within me....

Nostalgia is a weakness....Regret is a vulnerability... To protect urself, apathy is the best solution... but it does take some things away from u... Feelings are no longer expressions, they become tools... A smile hides a knife...tears are just a far more effective replacement for persuasive words... To quote, friendship is nothing but a mutual contract of bilateral interests, once the relationship of interests cease to exist, friendship is just trendy jargon invented by idealistic ppl to descibe a non-existent relationship

Fri
Short day... nothing much happened during sch hours...went to CO room after sch to wait for deng and xl to finish. Wanted to go out for lunch but was raining so ate in sch. Somehow, i got half-drenched by being a good guy and offering to ferry junyi to RI and deng had another umbrella which would have left both of us dry. Stupid deng..(nvm shall elaborate on deng later) After lunch had sectionals, 1st proper sectionals we had since the term 1 and perhaps the one conducted by lao zhou. At 5.30, rushed over to bridge to play a few games b4 going for dinner. ah ha, dinner deserves another paragraph. so lets hop down.

While walking, we called deng up. He said he was at S11 playground and would wait for us there. Speculations arose pretty quickly. I hypothesized a "replay telecast" of di hong at band concert, vin and xl were thinking of a group of ppl. Then, when we reached S11 playground, we could not find him. Called him up and started scanning the surroundings. Finally, we took 2 steps forward and turned right to look into the playground and boy were we shocked. One guy and girl sitting inside (i repeat inside) a cube-like structure facing each other. Blackout sia, lightbulb so bright until fuse break... The guy waved at us and we turned 180degrees and walked off in the opposite direction.
aha, so after dinner, we stoned at S11 and a "chemistry experiment"(note: chemistry not chem) was conducted. Deng's phone was "hijacked" and a message was sent 2 ppl, a guy and a girl. The content of the message was one of expressing a love interest. The reply from the guy was sharp and sweet, "wtf". The reply from the girl was less harsh, "wat talking u" and we were talking about how deng had to dash her hopes by replying immediately to clear up the "misunderstanding". wat follows are my speculations: deng was reluctant to let us send the message, but he seems reluctant to try to rescue his "hijacked" phone, which we can infer....(shall leave it up to u to infer)... Hopefully, our little experiment did them more good than harm, for they can take this chance to perhaps rethink and redefine their relationships and possibilities, i'm not suggesting anything just tht this kind of reality check do not happen often so they should really make use of it.
(disclaimer: the above is a candid opinion on wat happened. It is NOT a scandal.)

after all tht nonsense, went to buy bubble tea and walked to bishan cc in search for a condusive environent to talk though deng might disagree (Obviously to him the playground is more condusive:)) Found a playground there and invaded it, sitting down to crap. Crapped about sch life todae, in general, everyone agreed tht sch hours are the worst time and for the 3 of us from CO, we agreed tht CO is the only thing keeping us alive in RJ. Class seems to take a more background role compared to secondary sch. At 9.30, zj took out his gaohu and started playing. Played forbidden love which sounded eerie in the cold night air. At 10, the weekly meeting was finally concluded and we went home...

oh... I'm so "informed" to make an "informed choice" after council campaigning for the past 2 days tht i decide tht everyone is not up to mark and thus receive 0 votes from me. and i made a mistake in the post earlier on, u only have 30 secs to judge a person, not 3 mins. The list of candidates they shortlisted also makes me question the intergrity of the interview....lolz... just a piece of advice to ppl voting, exercise responsibility. If u are thinking of voting for a new-found friend cos he/she is nice, think again. There is a subtle but significant difference between a nice person and a good leader.
But i shall again contradict my own argument. U all can vote in anyway u wan, coz council seems to be so elusive. Whether a person is a councillor or not would probably not have much effect on u, unless tht person is vying with u for a CCA position.
Or else, u can join me in a blank-vote movement:)
In any case, i shall remain apathetic and indifferent to whatever u all do. When results are revealed, i guess i won't be able to tell a councillor from a non-councillor. There are 2 ways of interpreting this, i shall leave it up to u to choose...

hmm...i'm back again... i dun think i would be able to blog a long entry these days thus will pop in now and then to add short entries. Till after SWF maybe, then i'll write a long one, though i feel inclined to comment on council elections yet again..

Lack of sleep is finally getting to me....zombied around in sch todae.. think i will slack off for astro till after SWF else i might die of exhaustion. Almost missed my stop todae when coming home. Lets see...wat happened in sch todae...oh yeah, 1st lesson was a rude awakening to a half-asleep me as our class got lashed at for the 1st time in RJ. Well... she had her point but her methods seem somewhat extreme but well, guess will have to be more careful when dealing with PW...

aha...lets talk about band concert yest... wonderful performance put up. things to note in esplande: 1. audience are performers as well- every single sound can be heard from any corner of the concert hall. 2. do not bring bags- if they have the time they'll pour everything out and decide that u still can't bring ur bag in and force u to leave ur bags elsewhere. Apart from tht, tot tht raffles winds were wonderful with their pirates of the carribean, they seem more relaxed and forceful in expression. RJSB on the other hand, apart from their SWF choice piece, seem to be restraining their expression but well- overall they did fantastic, the celtic folk dance was extremely refreshing, especially the piccolo solo- so nice melody:) 13 bucks was worth every cent of it- kudos to the band ppl....

Sorry for incoherency in entry. falling asleep already but well... i need to complete chem tutorial 1st...signz....

我只能永远读着对白
读着我给你的伤害 我原谅不了我
就请你当作我已不在 我睁开双眼 看着空白
忘记你对我的期待 读完了依赖 我很快就离开

I'm blogging extremely frequently nowadays...seemingly trying to find an outlet for expression of fruastration in the vast web community... This week seems to be a real turning pt of JC life as everything launches into full gear and I'm just like left behind, hanging in the middle of nowhere.

haiz.... never felt myself near breaking point since a long long time ago. Nearly snapped over trival matters in class. If i was in RI, i would not give a damn about lashing straight out but nvm... In RJ, the "apathy" mode seems to be the most reliable and secure. U can't get into trouble and wat others think and say would not affect u. lol, thts why u see me stone sometimes, just dun feel like doing anything, dun wan to care and dun wan to knoe..... Everyone in RJ seems to be on a high, on whatever i dun knoe, but when the majority are like floating in the air, the one standing on the ground(me) would stick out like a sore thumb.

Having lots of thoughts these few days, sorted out my piorities and basically decided my plan for the next few months. CO is going into full swing with SWF and concert approaching. CO seems the place i can channel energy into without fear of backlash. Thus, i'll escape to music... Leave everything else to nature. I had enough of wearing a mask, i dun wan the mask to become part of me. I had enough of giving in fear of losing much more....

On fri, lots of ppl went into philosophical mode, including me. After sch, part of the class was discussing topic "human are shallow in a way or another". A rather interesting argument i came up with goes this way (its sort of circular reasoning), if a human being brings himself to consider another human being shallow, isn't the first human being himself being shallow?.. At night there was no astro training so went with xl and deng to eat at S11. Saw jx coming back for scout's camp along the way, suan him about his uniform, less than 3 months turn brown already...haha... then we ate and then tok cock for about 3 hrs straight. A lot of topics covered, mostly jc life.... felt much better after the session. The 2B should really stick together and come together more often to tok. It's really nice to have someone to fall back on outside of the class. Sometimes i just wish someone in the class was on the same wavelength as me, could read my thoughts. Since Wenting left for 1S12A, no one in class have been able to do so. sianz...i miss my sec 4 class "gang of four" (coined by mrs koh), me, vin, deng and zj. The 4 of us could like tell wat one another was thinking and know when and when not to say certain stuff. Argh.... i miss tht kind of telephathy...

finally, noticed a substantial increase in the daily traffic of my blog. To all new readers welcome, but read at ur own risk and i do knoe tht my archives link is not working, i'm just too lazy to go find out wats wrong. the archives are still available....can click on the link and change the date in the web address. So there....

我愿变成童话里，你爱的那个天使，张开双手，变成翅膀守护你...

"The power of accurate observation is frequently called cynisim by those who dun have it" The above is deng's msn nick which I totally agree:)

Raffles Rendum: Is RJC cold and unfeeling?
The above is an initiative by the council i think to poll the students on the above topic. The answer is obvious and i think i gave an analysis in a previous post as to why, but what interests me is the fact that when I was there after school today, the no. of stickers expressing disagreement is more than the no. stickers for agreeing. Then i saw this guy who looked at the board, comtemplated for a moment, stared with disbelief at the area representing disagreement, and finally pasting 5 stickers on the agreeing section. kudos to the guy, at least he was honest. Guess i'll have to add highly delusional to the characteristics of a typical RJC student.

When Shannon said about back-stabbing in RJC quite long ago (after O1 i think), I took it with a little doubt, yet now with council elections approaching, i think i have no doubts at all. Apart from that, I also realise that the elites in RJC are not what they really should be. The principal talked about elitism today, that with tht talent and ability, we have to take up the responsibility. Yet, look at what we are doing now. If u hadn't realise that the council, the supposedly highest leadership rank in JC, is about to be chosen like some glam popularity contest under the fadcade of democracy, u are very slow. And the worst part is that those who are practising democracy are misssing the responsibility part. If u dun get wat i mean, u will after i list down some examples.
"I'll vote for this guy coz he's shuai4, I'll vote for this girl coz she's chio"
"hmm...I'll just vote for everyone i know"
"I'll vote to get him/her out of CCA/class comm"

Get it? Responsibility indeed. Elites indeed. The candidates now add on to the effect with their wat i would name politely as irresponsible campaigning tactics. The first word that came to me was childish, but tht would mean tht they are child-like, pure and innocent which is obviously not true. The most disgusting tactic would be back-stabbing, tarnishing a person's reputation to reduce his number of votes. lol, if that is not enough, u interact with the person as though he was a friend.
The whole system is just screwed up. MPs grew up in their neighbourhood, spent years to build rapport with its residents before he goes up to content as a candidate for election. Yet, in this elitist college, we seem to believe that we can judge a person within 3 months or even worse, 3 mins. We seem to believe that through a person's empty promises and lies, we can see his/her true self. And the worst thing is that we call ourselves elites. When u see someone with no leadership potential but u know he/she'll get through elections through populist votes, u knoe that something is seriously wrong with the system.
For me, i shall continue my silent protest and refuse to conform to this madness. I'll hand in a blank vote lest someone i knoe well enough for me to judge is running. Cold and unfeeling? u bet. Irrationale and highly delusional? Yup, without doubt.

Meritocracy
A continuation to the above agenda. Now its the sch admin. JAE was quite some time ago but i shall use it again to prove my point. 16+ pts - 2(for CCA) and just becoz he/she handed in an additonal piece of paper, he/she gets the place instead of a 6-pointer who go B for CCA and does not take higher MT. Come on lar... u call this meritocracy, u call this open and discreet? Elites, thinkers, leaders, pioneers, yet they all fall short of common sense logic. Unless ur class of elitism are those who make bombs and crash planes into buildings, else we are all just an insult to the name cast upon to us by society. Elitism- nothing...just a bunch of jokers fooling around acting as if the whole world owned them something

p.s. I do agree that there are exceptions for every case, and i do know some of these exceptions as well. I'm just reflecting the general trend among the college population tht i can't stand...

After reading xunqi's entry, I felt obliged to blog... Upon re-reading my previous entry on RJCO, realised tht perhaps i was a little too critical and cynical.... but my bottomline remains- tht we need to trust our heart instead of our brain. How much we put in now, how much we sacrifice, would determine how much we walk away with after SWF.... Even if(i'm saying IF, but touch wood) we do not get gold with honours, we would go away with much more. The experience would intensify our passion for music and bond us closely together as an orchestra. By then, gold with honours would just be the icing on the cake..... overheard about the plan to go Malaysia in the June hols to perform yest...hopefully it'll go thru, as it would serve as an excellent sending-off for the J2s....

Wind
Walking along the street, a gentle wind blew.... providing a much welcomed relief to the sweltering heat of the afternoon sun. Strolling with no aim in mind, the wind became the timely compainion to help make walking down the road easier, bringing a rare smile onto the face. Turning into the corner at the end of the street, the wind suddenly vanished. A sudden realisation- wind does not change direction, he panicked. Turned around and lunged, trying to grab on to the tail of the wind to make it stay. But...all he grabbed in the end was thin air and he started falling..... down a bottomless pit of despair. Falling and falling.... the mistakes of the past and the expectations of the future started to haunt him. He curled into a ball, crushed and defeated. Then a glimmer of hope appeared, he opened his eyes and saw light..... He stopped falling, he stood up, he understood- tht it was a natural process.....

yest was april fool's day... the only joke tht tht went through was most prob the one by the PE teacher, who claims to want to hold NAPFA yest, but in the end allowed us to play floorball:) Floorball is damn fun...more fun than soccer, coz we can beat the other PE class in it ...haha..

After sch had bridge training and rushed down to Somerset MRT after training for class dinner at Marche. For all my efforts of not being late, I was the first guy there at 7.03pm when we were supposed to meet at 7pm. lol, the girls kicked up a fuss but well at least most the ppl turned up in the end. Went to Marche to "see off" the ppl leaving the class, we hogged 3 tables to ourselves and basically had a lot of fun. At my table, we were busily teasing Mr Lim and Miss Wong.... and nic was the true mastermind...came up with a lot of funny ideas...The infamous 2 words of "I love you" was a true hit. With a spark of inspiration, we called up Mr Dave Sim, the teacher who apparently took a liking to our class after taking us for an hour(according to Mr Lim), and hui bin "chatted" with him and said the "magical 2 words". Mr Lim told us not to freak Mr Sim out but apparently he was the one freaking out, whereas Mr Sim's reply was hen2 hao3 wan2....which was dotz....
yeah...marche food is damn nice....but also quite ex... and the teachers treated us... lol, must go finish up my econs essay else will feel damn bad... Towards the end started taking a lot of photos and gathering around to talk. As I was rather tired(end of week+long day), I went into half-asleep mode which saw me slipping into a retrospective mode, tht is started imagining what it would be like when I look back on yest after like a year....Would it bring a smile and would it be so intense tht tears would well up?

A dedication to 6A(though most of them would not read this anw, it's more of a reference for myself)

Three months ago, when I first came into the class, I was like- oh no, i dun knoe anyone. The only ppl i knew were wenting who was just an CO-mate tht i didn't really knoe and nic who was in the same obs grp as me in sec 3. Most of my friends had at least 1 close friend in their class and I was tempted to change subject combi to change class, just like wat teddymon did. But I did not, and i guess i wouldn't regret it ever. I stayed, becoz i had faith...

In three months time, it is remarkable tht from complete strangers, we have bonded together with such unity. Recalling my sec 3-4 class, i think it was only in sec 4 tht everyone was comfortable and settled. To think tht we have done it in 3 months is indeed special. Though there were occaional hiccups, we overcame them. We tolerated diversity, accepted radicals, differientiated the differences and intergrated the similarities.

Thank you 6A for the wonderful 3 months. Remember the civics lesson tht we had to write something encouraging for everyone in the class on a piece of paper with his/her name on it. It was a rather ordinary affair. I mean, like in a few seconds, how can someone pen something that is truly sincere and from the bottom of the heart. However, after getting back my piece of paper, I guess I was wrong in a way. What u all wrote did not matter...it's only words after all, words, photos all seek to remind and provoke, but without memories, they are like limbs without the body. Thus, it was the memories and recollection that came with it that was truly important. Nevermind if the words u all wrote weren't meaningful, the fact that for these 3 months, no matter how small, everyone of u was part of my life and I was part of yours.. This fact alone, made the piece of paper priceless.

Sorry to anyone tht i may have unwittingly offend and pardon me if u find me ani-social. My MBTI test shows me to be a INFP and if u recall, it happens to be the extremist of the extremist.:), so pls bear with it. I can assure tht u'll see another side of me once u knoe me well enough.

Finally, though 6A is undergoing some physical separtion and dilution, we must keep our spirit intact. Even if we're miles apart, as long as the spirit is intact, it would drive all of us together.....

My favourite quote from my pri sch friend: 3 mnths seem like a min when u think bout it, but the min u spend remembering it is worth the 3 months of time.

A poem to round it up... (a repost)

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

I took the road less travelled by..... and it has made all the difference for me....