short womans

i think that this is a true blue mud cake! it was so sticky and muddy! i think i managed to make it look so professional! if you look at the side that isn't dusted with cocoa, you would think there's nothing on it, but actually i used icing sugar and it dissolved in the condensation =(

rich truffle mud cake

told you that sunday is make-a-rich-truffle-mud-cake day!

look at the nice chocolate! it's so smooth and (a bit too) sweet. i shall have to use proper couverture next time, because i think this one will make the cake way too sweet.

this is my first time baking using the water bath method! but i burnt my mittens slightly while trying to adjust the cake pan to stay in the centre of the water bath >.<

this is like an ant's view of the world. look at that red-hot heating element that burnt my mittens.

this photo is labelled DCSF4981. another 1, 4, 8, 9 permutation... anyway, don't know why the cake didn't bake evenly on the surface.

i think the cake is too thin. next time i'll use just one cake pan. this time i divided the batter into two cake pans because i wasn't confident of the proportions.

i want to watch 881 and so many other movies. incidentally, my piggy bank has hit $881 today.

everything of the now

why do the numbers 1, 4, 8 and 9 keep appearing in my life with all sorts of permutations?

pyun ji

they seem to know what song i like...

minimalist

boo i'm typing this at the old house, which is so ulu and has a very slow connection speed. my kim jong kook song is taking forever to load =( anyway, school has been quite pointless these two days, just getting back papers. what i really want to know is how i did for geography! but no, mr lee tells us we got between A, B, C, D, E, S and U.

i went to claim one mark from ms ooi so that i can possibly hit an A for gp =( i personally believe that her blouse is one that boyle would think is nice.

went for lunch at mos burger with yishi, yihui and clara. omg we had to wait so long for seats, and then there were two kids who bullied us by grabbing the tables before we even started to walk towards them. damn! cannot get bullied a third time, so we just cut in front of the boy who tried to steal an almost-vacant table from us. then acted dumb after that.

oh there was a little boy who kept trying to smile at clara!

i think i'm in serious need of dieting/exercise, what with the raywen cookies, strawberry shortcakes, thai express, botak jones, mos burger that i've been eating =( so, i braved the hot sun today and walked here from city hall.

this time, i walked on the opposite side of the road, looking at a completely different set of shops. i also pointed a lady in the direction of the mrt. walked past the very run-down shophouse at the corner of tiong bahru. this time, it's in a blue netting; i think it's going to be torn down. i walked past a chinese opera rehearsal too.

and i think sunday is make-a-rich-truffle-mud-cake day.

i would like to write about the myanmar things, but there's so little i know, and so much i don't understand. quoting tracy turnblad, i think i've kind of been in a bubble... thinking that fairness was gonna just happen. it's not.

kam sa hamida

aiya it's ok la

yes it was strawberry shortcake that i made all by myself yesterday! first i made the biscuit-cake thing that looked so weird and tasted so bland. (covering the cake with foil when baking is mummy's trick to making it nice!) then i went to buy the strawberries which were super expensive. sliced them and tossed them with sugar, and they became more and more slimy. anyhow, the presentation was quite anyhow because i was quite flustered when trying to assemble everything together.

i think the strawberry shortcake was so nice! but shanghui said it was 'worse than ok' =(

next time, i'll have to use more sugar for the cake, and less for the strawberries. i'll also try to use thinner cake and strawberry slices. must try to flavour the whipped cream with some strawberry juice too, and then make the presentation much much nicer! and then i'll finally try to make a strawberry cheesecake. on the other hand, i have a peanut butter cookie recipe and a famous amos cookie recipe that i have yet to attempt.

it was raining heavily in the morning today, so i took a bus from j8.

lunch was so late, at botak jones. went with beejuan, seibu, clara and weiyang. on the way there we played many rounds of dangyunhaji! i ate the fish and chips. omg so nice. and then i got cheated when i bought the large chicken gumbo, which was some weird-ass soup that i probably finished $5 worth (out of $6), because the regular ($5) was so tiny compared to the large ($6).

and so the j1s have finished their promos. i wish you did well. last night i thought, maybe 因为做得不够好, 所以你无法爱我。the cookies i made you weren't half as good as those i can make now. i just wish you would try the things i make now.

4:57pm

i personally believe that the metal rod hanging from the ceiling in the middle is so unphotogenic, because it doesn't have a handsome face. erm, i also believe that our government should aim to remove it so that we can build our future.

there is still one word to describe the most perfect person: loveless.

synchronise

i woke up so early by myself even though i slept so late last night. don't know why. but i started baking and it took me the entire morning/afternoon! and then i need to run to post a letter far, far away in nevereverland.

i think that i've moved to the point where i no longer rely on instant cookie/cake mixes. i've already started doing things from scratch, and you're probably the one who made me brave enough to do so. if only i did earlier, then i could collect more of my own recipes. now i'm running out of time.

all will be revealed tomorrow!

nice song

love lie life die

went with weiyang to make contact lenses today. it took us round the west of singapore, from boon lay to orchard to bukit batok. hmm ms pereira once treated us at swensen's at boon lay. happy mooncake festival; i don't think there'll be moon tonight, because there's a great cloud cover.

i believe you will pull through promos.

但愿人长久，千里共婵娟

sneaky sneaky

why do i sense strawberry shortcakes in my near future!

i think this two could make such a good couple!

party

Your Birthdate: November 22

You don't love lightly. For you, love is always a serious undertaking. However, you are able to love many types of people. You can bring out the best in almost anyone. Love surprises you often. You never know when or where you'll find it next. Number of True Loves You'll Have: 4 Number of Times You'll Have Your Heart Broken: 5 You are most compatible with people born on the 4th, 13th, 22nd, and 31st of the month.

What Does Your Birth Date Mean For Your Love Life?

golden flowers

wow it is unbelievable that prelims is finally over. the j1s promos have also just started. and sadly, only the h3 maths and art people were still having prelims. the maths paper was so bloody hard la. the geometry question were so hard that i just gave up and did the other two shitty topics. but then the combinatorics was also so hard that i just submitted three questions instead of four.

my leftover cookies from friday are still so crunchy. yes i think i'll sift the flour and baking soda next time. forgo the salt and use smaller chocolate chips too! oh i met amanda today. she's going to bake mooncakes tonight!

i want to get my contact lenses done within the next two days. i don't think the moon will be round by tomorrow night.

46

yay i finished reading through all the h3 things. and i got the specimen paper from raywen, so hard =( i did only one geometry question in like one hour. anyway, the trees in his estate are all numbered; it's so cute! i know where tree 48 is. do you? i found many old issues of national geographic in the reading room. i even found 1998 kfc coupons inside them; you can really tell how much inflation we've gotten over almost ten years.

there were two children playing hide and seek the ball with their father at the field. i think it was so fun to watch where they hid the ball.

dinner was at empress road food centre again. surprisingly, raywen pig didn't eat a lot. i had my first sugar cane drink in don't-know-how-many years.

dangyunhaji!

97 49

the bus stop that has the bus to raywen's house should be queenstown, not commonwealth! who cares about whether you get more buses at commonwealth if you had to walk for 350m in the hot sun if you used commonwealth...

it's been such a hot day. went to eat with raywen at empress road food centre first. there's no more ivan's porridge =( we studied in the reading room like last time, before going up to his house. so happy i did both graph theory and plane geometry today.

omg haha he showed me the korean game shows and i'm hooked on them now! ji hyun is some powerful queen la! ohoh i saw the banana that kelly bought for raywen; it's so damn funny somehow. i'm also very amazed by the two screens that his computer has.

anyway, raywen eats like a pig. it's unbelievable.

runner

i'm so high now! i think it's the couverture. omg i'm reading on padawans. today i stood at the staircase outside the seminar room with nadz and we waited until what i wanted came! so high now i need to jump jump jump!

felix felicis

today's chemistry paper was so much better than yesterday's physics paper. and we've all finished prelims (except h3 maths). i can't believe that h3 maths is actually the ultimate last paper. even h3 art ends before us.

anyway, i didn't hit home to mug today. went to mcdonald's with yihui, jia en, yishi and beejuan for breakfast. weiyang was at the next table and then we were all talking about birds and feathers and hello kitty. wobble wobble!

we watched hairspray at vivocity! zomg the movie was $8, but it was so nice! i like all the singing, and john travolta's so funny. went shopping at candy empire, and so today i've spent almost $20.

i baked cookies again, and this time they were perfect! everything seems to go right today! they came out all so perfect, and slid off the baking sheet easily, but i should try less butter next time.

my second and third attempts at making the chocolate ganache were not so successful. luckily i didn't use up all the couverture on the second attempt. it still came out hard like poop. but on my third try i got the ganache softer! i think using a sweeter chocolate and less icing sugar should do the trick!

i've finished wasting the couverture.

holding a fire

i took a bus to school again.

today's probably the first time i've done so many physics mcq at one shot. i think i'm beginning to understand many physics concepts. question 29 is so tricky! i spent a total of $10 at the wanchai cafe today. they should give 50% discount on main course items for students too.

cookies need love. cookies, like love, are quite hit-and-miss too.

we used to stick out our tongues.

做到没有你也很OK

today, i was the first customer at pastamania. because it was such a hot day, i took the bus to school, and listened to holst's jupiter on mobtv. the maths test was quite fun. prawn paste chicken wing is nice.

you wouldn't feel anything, because you never felt anything before anyway. i can't take the pain today.

learning the trivial cases

tonight i did something so unusual, something i haven't done in a long time. i actually prayed. i prayed for you to do well in promos.

one leg long, one leg short

i tried to add milk into the betty crocker recipe.

i solemnly swear that i will not do it again, even though they looked quite nice.

because they weren't nice. they crumbled on the slightest touch.

and so i tried making little cookie pies.

then i tried cookie tarts.

and got cookie cupcakes in the end.

i personally believe that it was lucky i wasn't making this for anyone's birthday. erm i also believe that this is a possible recipe for a cake, because the texture was quite like a cake. i think our education such as bukit timah, pasir ris, everywhere, such as, and i believe that they should teach us how to make cookies with milk so that we can build our future.

i think the chemistry paper today was quite fun, just that i didn't know how to answer the cocaine question because i don't smoke! will they give sympathy marks to people who personally believe that cocaine is smuggled as cocaine hydrochloride because cocaine hydrochloride is solid while cocaine is liquid?

make a good mother

i didn't like the lasers question, but i checked many of my answers with raywen for the physics paper. think i got much correct. during the break i was mugging geography with yihui and clara. then we got so bored we played mindless games like reciting pi to as many decimal places as possible, and naming elements and giving their relative atomic masses.

saw you in the canteen today. i wish the ending wasn't like that. even if you didn't like me, i wish we could still be friends. and if you wanted me to, i would make you cookies and cakes everyday, even if you liked my peanut butter cookies that came out like 豆沙饼.

the geography paper was so shitty. i think it's time to play neopets, but i really miss you.

V-I cadences

last night i heard the funniest shit on the news report about the punggol waterway. some thing said about a 'man-made natural water bed'. there was a friendly lady at the durian place today. i bought from her twice. and then it was raining in the evening. whatever happened to postsecret?

willy teleconnect

climatology

earth receives radiation from the sun in the form of short wave solar radiation, and emits long wave terrestial radiation.

the greenhouse effect comes about because our atmosphere is opaque to long wave radiation but absorptive to short wave radiation. this means that while it tends to allow insolation to reach earth's surface, it has a tendency to trap outgoing radiation so that the heat is circulated within the atmosphere.

the tropics receives the greatest amount of insolation while the poles receives the least. this is because the insolation is more concentrated when the sun is more high-angled. the amount of atmosphere that insolation passes through also increases towards the poles, implying more scattering, reflection, and absorption by the atmosphere and hence less heat received by the ground. as such, there is a net flow of energy from the tropics towards the poles.

five factors affecting regional temperature variations:
1. proximity to sea
2. altitude
3. ocean currents
4. cloud cover
5. aspect

the tri-cellular model:
1.ITCZ, horse latitudes, polar fronts
2. hadley cell, ferrel cell, polar cell
3. trade winds, westerlies, easterlies (surface winds)

pressure gradient force drives the movement of air, simply because of a pressure difference. the coriolis force affects direction of air movement. always acting perpendicular to direction of flow and increasing in strength with higher wind speed, the coriolis force deflects winds towards the right in the northern hemisphere, and towards the left in the southern hemisphere. the coriolis force is the strongest at the poles, and zero at the equator.

aloft, there is little friction to air movement, and thus coriolis force results in purely westerly flows. near the ground, friction slows down the winds, and thus coriolis force is limited. as such, surface winds follow a diagonal path.

at the ITCZ is a zone of low pressure, because air over that area is being lifted via convection. at the horse latitudes we find zones of high pressure, and deserts are common here. this is because the descending air, lacking in moisture (shed over the ITCZ), heats up adiabatically as it contracts, causing a further drop in relative humidity, and making it even harder to reach dew point.

because of the tilt of the earth and its revolution around the sun, places polewards of the tropics will experience changes in seasonality. on the solstices, the sun is directly overhead the tropics, and on the equinoxes, the sun is directly overhead the equator. this affects the length of day and night at different latitudes.

in the westerlies aloft, there exist narrow strips of high-speed winds called jet streams. these arise because of a stark contrast in temperatures of the air masses that meet at the ground surface. jet streams have been associated with tonradoes and hurricanes, because they are believed to aid in removing air from the centre of these storms, causing a continual drawing in of air at the surface. jet strems are also known to lock high pressure cells over regions, and cause anomalous weather patterns.

to form precipitation, there must be condensation occuring. this happens if air is saturated and in the presence of condensation nuclei. three types of lifting: convective, frontal, orographic.

we examine the precipitation and temperature characteristics of four climatic zones:
1. tropical rainforest (singapore)
2. tropical monsoon (monrovia, liberia)
3. tropical savanna (bamako, mali)
4. subtropical desert (cairo)

(consider annual temperature range, diurnal temperature range, annual rainfall, annual rainfall variability, and vegetation. these change with latitude, cloud cover, type of rain, etc.)

global dimming. see 13th november 2005 post.

cyclones form over warm seas between 5 to 15 degrees north and south of the equator. these are circular tropical storms characterised by high wind speeds of above 119km/hr. there are three types of cyclone damages: storm surge, wind damage, and inland freshwater flooding.

case studies for cyclones:
1. hurricane andrew
2. hurricane mitch
3. hurricane agnes

the strength of cyclones is measured on the safir-simpson scale. efforts at predicting and monitoring cyclones include the use of satellites, aircraft reconnaissance, radar, warning systems, evacuation exercises, and first aid strategies.

the earth is currently in an ice age. the pleistocene ice age has been punctuated by several alternating glacial and interglacial periods. studies show that we are on a deglaciation period.

five evidences for climate change:
1. tillites and striae
2. deep-sea sediment - foram and oxygen isotope analysis
3. ice core - carbon dioxide and oxygen isotope analysis
4. tree ring analysis
5. pollen analysis

natural causes of climate change:
1. milankovitch cycles
2. sunspot activity
3. volcanic activity
4. plate tectonics

cities are known to be hotter than the countryside because of the ubran heat island effect. there are six causes: higher thermal capacity, urban structure, sensible heat transfer, pollutants, heat from combustion, and lower wind speed.

other changes in the urban climate include the urban-induced precipitation, reduction in solar radiation, lowered relative humidity, and country breeze.

global warming is likely to be caused by humans, although there are some who argue that the earth is simply reaching an interglacial period. the increase in atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, water vapour, and other greenhouse gases due to human activities causes more long wave terrestrial radiation to get absorbed.

the heating up of earth produces some positive and negative feedback mechanisms:

1. with higher temperatures, water vapour concentrations will increase due to higher evaporation rates. this would serve to trap more heat.
2. with higher temperatures, polar ice caps will melt, and the albedo of the ice caps will decrease, causing less reflection of insolation. this would increase the radiation, and thus heat, received.
3. with higher temperatures, more clouds would be formed. the clouds could either trap heat from escaping the earth, or reflect insolation from the sun. studies show the latter effect is more dominant, implying a negative feedback mechanism.
4. with higher temperatures, marine life would fluorish. increased rate of photosynthesis by phytoplankton can help to absorb much carbon dioxide into the ocean, and thus marine food chain, which would eventually become part of the seabed.
5. with higher temperatures, icebergs will be released into the oceans from the ice caps. these ice bags contain mineral-rich dust that has accumulated over millions of years, and are capable of supporting microscopic marine life. this can attract and set up an entire marine ecosystem at the iceberg, and thus help to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

consequences of global warming:
1. increased sea levels
2. plant migration
3. intense storms
4. poleward migration of tropical diseases
5. changing patterns of tourism
6. drought
7. changing agricultural productivity

el nino southern oscillation is the term for the cyclic changes that occur in the walker circulation over the pacific ocean. during normal years, the circulation pattern is such that there is high pressure and thus stable conditions over peru, and there is low pressure and rain over indoaustralia. during an el nino event, the circulation is reversed so that indoaustralia experiences drought and peru gets rain.

el nino has great economic impacts on peru, mostly because it causes the humboldt current to be weakened, bringing less nutrients to the waters near peru. the fishing industry is thus affected. also, the guano industry is affected because the birds that feed on the fish are not able to survive. during el nino, some parts of peru also receive rain and thus cotton fields experience greater yield.

the 1982-3 el nino event caused heavy rains and flooding in peru, drought in asutralia, india and africa, and hurricanes in tahiti and the philippines. cost of $40 billion worldwide. the 1997 el nino brought severe drought to indonesia, and coupled with the forest-burning schemes caused haze pollution to the south-east asian region.

drought. refer to the cheater essays.

-fin

rayray

let's try this again.

hydrology 2

a river's kinetic energy comes from its potential energy. the kinetic energy is used in overcoming friction, transporting load, and erosion. laminar flow occurs in viscous liquids, but turbulent flow occurs in water, so lots of energy is lost.

manning's equation states that a river's velocity increases with increasing gradient of channel and hydraulic radius (cross-sectional area over wetted perimeter), but decreases with increasing coefficient of roughness.

velocity affects a river's efficiency. doubling the velocity quadruples the kinetic energy it possesses. river competence (weight of load carried) varies with the sixth power of velocity, while river capacity (volume of load carried) varies with the third power of velocity. the hjulstrom curves show us that as a river's velocity drops, the heavier and larger materials are deposited first, and only at very low speeds can fine particles be deposited. this explains the formation of levees.

there are four erosion processes: abrasion, hydraulic action, attrition, solution. erosion leads to vertical downcutting, whose rate increases with river rejuvenation, lateral erosion, and headward erosion.

there are four transportation processes: traction, saltation, suspension, solution. bedload can become suspended load when river velocity is sufficiently high.

the hjulstrom curves consist of the competent velocity curve and the settling velocity curve. competent velocity is the minimum velocity required to erode a particle of a certain size. settling velocity is the minimum velocity required to transport a particle of a certain size.

features associated with river deposition are alluvial fans, levees, floodplains, and point bars.

three types of rivers: straight, meandering, braided.

things associated with meandering rivers: concave bank erosion, river cliffs, convex bank deposition, point bars, thalweg, helicoidal flow, ox-bow lakes, meander movements.

things associated with braided channels: markedly seasonal river regimes, incoherent banks, high width-depth ratio, anabranches, mid-channel bars, strong erosion during high discharge, great deposition during low discharge, steep channels.

drainage basin analysis involves strahler's method of stream order analysis, bifurcation ratio, and drainage density.

-fin

quizzes

How You Are In Love

You take a while to fall in love with someone. Trust takes time. You tend to take more than give in relationships. You need your space and privacy. You don't like to be smothered. You love your partner unconditionally and don't try to make them change. You stay in love for a long time, even if you aren't loved back. When you fall, you fall hard.

How Are You In Love?

Your Mood Ring is Yellow

Imaginative Wondering Thoughts Peaceful

Mood Ring Generator

last night i was chatting with auntie ruolin about the online quizzes. so fun, i'm her best friend in the sandwich quiz.

cake able tall suave

omg chemistry was so shitty. i forgot that we started early, and so i miscalculated my time, like big time. and i ran out of time for the last question, although i think i managed to squeeze three marks of the nitrobenzene mechanism in less than two minutes! i guess yihui has put it well: at first quite happy because it's not as hard as expected, but quite sad after the paper because you know you could have done better.

i got skinned by my long-needle compass today =( after chemistry paper i was sitting in the canteen watching the litters mug away. yihui was mugging geography and we had lots of hand actions for everything!

i've had lots of fatty food today. first i got a chocolate cake from sonya that was so dense and nice! then i had lunch with jia en and seibu at the hongkong place again. this time i tried the cheese-baked scallop! it was so expensive for so little, but i think it was very authentic, because the scallop was still on its shell! and for dinner i had mcdonald's (upsized).

i also slept a lot today. plonked onto my bed immediately after i got home. i've been listening to ruolin's shadow again and again. it's been a very cool day.
how was the cupcake? i think the cake was nice. everyone thought the cake was nice, but not everyone thought the chocolate was nice. dawn and huixing found it nice. but seibu and friends found it too bitter. i think you would have loved it, because it's chocolate, and because it's intensely cocoa-coloured. i wish i could run to you and tell you how hard the chemistry paper today was!
i think shanghui would like it. by the way, tare panda is my bed sheet.

cupcakes

i've been up early today making cupcakes!

i think the recipe for the mix was so nice, because the vanilla smell was so strong and the mix tasted quite nice even before baking!

rise, rise, rise! i was worried that they might get too high and then my ganache would stick out too high as well.

but they all came out so nicely!

the ganache was so hard! i don't know if i used the wrong cream, but the ganache turned out too hard and i couldn't pipe it onto the cupcakes at all.

used spoons to put them on instead. looks like aa flow, eh? so sad, they couldn't turn out like the pretty ones on the net, but i think i'll sprinkle some rainbow chocolate rice on them! hope they taste good!

trash the paper

i have proven to myself once and for all that summation of r^3 is the square of the summation of r! omg i am horrified by the maths paper. it was harder than CT2 =( induction!!! so irritating. and omg i actually didn't try to use cos^2 + sin^2 = 1. slapslapslap. my bag strap broke too. and the hall was so cold. and every human geography question seemed to be asking the same bloody thing about urbanisation pattern!

i think i lied a few times in the essays today. must pray for forgiveness. luckily a transport question came out! last night raywen told me that in singapore, they tax our petrol to make it expensive so that less people will drive!

had hongkong dessert with seibu at weiyang's recommended place in j8.

i'm so glad that today has ended. yipee can make cupcakes tomorrow.

newspeak

You Are An ISFJ

The Nurturer You have a strong need to belong, and you very loyal. A good listener, you excel at helping others in practical ways. In your spare time, you enjoy engaging your senses through art, cooking, and music. You find it easy to be devoted to one person, who you do special things for. In love, you express your emotions through actions. Taking care of someone is how you love them. And you do it well! At work, you do well in a structured environment. You complete tasks well and on time. You would make a good interior designer, chef, or child psychologist. How you see yourself: Competent, dependable, and detail oriented When other people don't get you, they see you as: Boring, dominant, and stuck in a rut

What's Your Personality Type?

conditional promotion

last night joel was chatting with me while he was in class! it was so fun, because he was more responsive than ever. even near twelve midnight, i was not spared from physics, because adrian suddenly asked me quantum physics questions =(

this morning i went to school early because i wanted to study geography. it was raining, and i went for mcdonald's breakfast. rain in the morning reminds me of the morning of 19th march 2007. i had a cup of hot milo in the canteen eventually. then studied in the library with amanda for a while.

saw you in the library.

it was such a cold day. and then the air-conditioning wasn't working at first in the AVT. then after the paper it was so blazing hot. went to buy a mango cheesecake from coffee bean. i think the physics paper was quite fun, but i didn't like having to choose questions.

assistant, not assisstant!

ersatz

this photo was taken at my uncle's wedding dinner. i think it was so cool, because he had this whole group of sword-bearers from his army thing to stand along the red carpet for the wedding couple to walk through under the swords. it was so grand and romantic. there's just one problem: the glasses on the table don't seem to be sparkling. and quoting bree van de kamp, people care about details.

the rain this morning/afternoon is making it so cold that i'm sitting here without the fan on. anyhow, joel is online now and playing dota. why does everyone play dota? this morning, mummy used the sexist thing against me again. 'you are a boy, don't say 'don't know' to everything.'

i'm going to sweep and mop the floor later. and then i'll study population and urban geography. economic geography is for tomorrow.

问

i recently found this photo. it must have been the december 2005 concert, because i had red hair. this was so long ago that i think shanghui was still in violin2 at that time. that means the violin scroll that is peeking into the photo just in front of leening must be his violin. danil is the centre flautist at the back.

i never knew that i would become a violist. i remember that joel taught me to read alto clef on the first few days at rise. he was testing me random notes from the score of vivaldi's winter, in the green book. i don't think anyone reading this knows what the green book is anymore, but it's enough for me to know. once, joel was listening to me play hoffmeister over the phone. and once, he came to my house to play on my violin.

then mr sze took me for lessons and put me through grade 8 stuff. vibrato like knocking on the door. i don't think i can still do that. like zhaohan says, i don't use vibrato at all. mr sze signed me up for syto and the audition day was my first encounter with mrs wong. she looked at me blankly when i asked a question. then after a while, she said 'huh?' at first, i didn't really like mrs wong. but turns out, she was very much likable, and she played trombone when she was young.

after i got accepted into syto, there was the first meeting for all successful applicants. that was when i got to know tiapyang, who was the 'chinese high boy who played very stiffly, like a china person'. not insinuating anything about china people, but that's what mrs kan said about his performance at the audition.

when i was in syto i was afraid of trying to join the main orchestra, because the pieces they played were all so hard. but then when i was in syto, everyone else was in the main orchestra. and when they were in the main orchestra, i was in the audience. it's sad that i joined only after joel left. maybe if time was turned back, i would work harder to get in earlier.

at one of the assessments, mr casteels asked if i was ready to go for the main orchestra, and i said 'no, i think i'll wait one more term.' then i missed the chance to play in the firebird concert. eventually, i went to the main orchestra. but we never got the chance to play at esplanade. my first desk partner was grace. the first piece we played was beethoven's symphony (can't remember which one). grace was very helpful when i couldn't count in the slow movement. she drew so many vertical lines to mark out the beats.

i wonder if i'll ever be on stage again. i haven't touched my violin or viola for so long that my calluses are turning soft already. that's not good, is it? i don't think i can do position shifts anymore, nor trills. octaves are definitely gone. maybe a few years later i'll pick up everything from where we all left off.

same old

today's outing took my to city hall, through raffles city, through raffles hotel, to a little shop selling baking things.

monologues

i am finally done with the chemistry revision tutorial. spent the entire day on the 2005 and 2004 papers. this is so exciting tomorrow i'm going to buy ingredients for cupcakes! last night i dreamt that i failed a written assignment for economic geography. but today was a better day. even the trees downstairs had flower blooms. joel's online now!

i went to the art blog to look at some of the old posts and i saw the mural post. i think those were such happy times, even though we had to go again and again to do the painting. i think it was so worth everything. i was afraid of climbing up the scaffolding, but after a while i wasn't anymore. i love the mural.

twinkerbell

the mock chemistry prelims was so fun to do that halfway through i had to exclaim that it was very fun to do. but a bit hard. i bought a really expensive kitkat thing from 7-eleven, because the price tag wasn't there. and it wasn't very nice =(

i spent almost a whole day with raywen and terence studying in the canteen. then i went through some hwa chong maths question with raywen. omg they're still so difficult after i did them once. i think it's nice to be talking to old classmates after a long time. sometimes i really wonder what everything will be like after ten years.

i got treated to teh peng and muffin by raywen (technically). but i think i earned it! i ran errands for him today lor.

saw a kitty with a bell. it's so cute! when it ran, the bell would go ring ring.

distractive: distracting and attractive

good shot

hey there i just came back from the rise bbq and finished drinking lots of water and bathing. i must say it's nice to be there as a senior, and we no longer have the obligation to cook and clean up. there were so many people there, like half of them i don't know. but nicholas, weicheng, jingxun and shuxiang were all back.

i think it was quite fun. i liked the wind that kept coming from the sea. oh yes mr sze was this funny jungle speed game with the boys. it looked like some voodoo thing and they were all having so much fun.

as for me, i got to try jingxun's russian vodka, which was some good shit. my first shot took me more than ten minutes to finish. haha shuxiang thinks that it's like disinfectant, but i quite like the warm feeling it gives. i downed the second shot at one go! and i took a third one. omg so nice.

played a lot of bridge with weicheng, shuxiang and nicholas. haha shuxiang was under such bad luck and never won except once! and even though i was like so not clear-minded i still won a lot!this was fun we should do it more often. played a bit of the werewolf game also.

last night i missed you terribly, and i dreamt that mr lee left us to go overseas to study without telling us.

i miss so many people now.

search

i am up and not tired even though i really should be sleeping. i did some chemistry papers today and they made me feel quite confident for the prelims. also, zhehan has been bugging me the entire day! there's a rise bbq tomorrow, and i'm sitting here reading cupcake blogs.

maudlin

last night i was talking with joel till so late and i still felt so awake. the sky was turning orange with gusts blowing through the house. at 3am. why is one hour only sixty minutes long? there should be 100 minutes in one hour, and 100 hours in one day. we do count in base 10 right?

i am so exhausted now. probably because i've been staying up late for the past two nights. and probably because i attempted the hwa chong maths paper.

喝茶談天

pico nano micro milli centi deci kilo mega giga terra
metre kilogram second ampere kelvin mole candela

i am very happy today because joel was online.

dictionary.com's word of the day is 'solecism', which is the word i learnt together with 'egregious'. i think the past is catching up with me.

amine anime

i just did six hours of the 2006 'A' level maths paper. it is such a killer trying to do some of the questions, although i must say some questions were good revision on physics. and i think that the old syllabus is so much harder. i need to go and recall el nino, recurrence interval and rational runoff method.

i keep getting hope and disappointment time and again. when joel appears online and then away.

anachronism 3

term 3 has been so exciting. time has passed quickly, but some things seem to be so far away now. in week 1 it was common tests, and then i went for milk run with amanda and auntie ruolin. weeks 2, 3 and 4 revolved around you. within a span of a few days in week 5 i was onto applying to ucas. and i made my cello debut at orchard, although it was quite shabby. in week 6 i made a very successful banana cake, and in week 7 i completed the maths mock paper under times conditions. in week 8 i used a new cookie recipe and in week 9 i changed the type of chocolate chips i used. in week 10 i altered the recipe and it's perfect now. i also found the integral of 1/(x^3 + 1).