Reading Between The Lines

I can tell what it means, there's no need to be subtle about it. Just tell me.

It's going to be a good weekend, I know it.

Surprises and New Beginnings

I distinctly remember having something blog-worthy in school today, but I just can't seem to recall what it was. It seems I have amnesia.

Hold on, it's coming back to me... Ah, yes. Now I remember.

I was in 1E3 today, taking them for Chinese lessons. Two groups of girls were apparently busy with something, and were flipping through newspapers, especially the movie section of Life.

So I went over and asked what they were doing and they told me they were competing; they were trying to see which group could come up with more names of movies and TV shows within a time limit, and it's pretty impressive what I saw. Granted, I had no idea when exactly they started it, but what I did see from one of the groups was 3 foolscaps full of names, with no repeats.

One of them asked me for a name, and for some reason the first one that came to me was "Godfather". Well. Then Logical P took over again and asked questions like "who's the judge?" and "how would you know there are no repeats?".

They assured me there were no repeats, and then I brought up the point about sequels. Five films each for Superman and Batman(or was it six?), dozens of trilogies, remakes, spinoffs, it goes on and on

Turns out the other team won, due to some exploit. It's not my concern really. I'm just surprised students did things like that. I'd sooner expect them to whip out their handphones and pressing away or plugging into their favourite playlist than engaging in a contest of knowledge. And a Sec 1 class, no less.

Heroes has gone into Season 2! First episode's today and we see new powers of course. We get to see Takezo Kensei, new characters with new powers, and slowly moving toward a second, more powerful villain. So far so good, as they say.

Prison Break started last week, and second episode in and we're reminded of Scofield's genius. A new key character is added in along with many other important figures in a new setting, looks promising as well.

First week in review

It's not my fault the discipline teacher came in from the back door and confiscated a bag full of handphones and mp3 players while I was talking to a bunch of students in front of class, blocking my view.

Sorry kids, but you're getting your stuff back on Monday.

I'm wishing hard for 1N1 not to pop up for Monday. If it does, well, I'm taking care of business.

Went out on Friday night for the Judo BBQ that was supposed to be a camp but cancelled due to certain "issues". The food was not bad and we brought a tent so me, Leo, Ben and Anthony slept till morning until we had dinner at Katong I think. No, Parkway Parade.

Then I came back, waited a while, took a shower and went out with Jo, KS and Jiawen to AMK for Botak Jones. Ate too much again.

Went over to Novena with Jo. He went there to "work out" with his "dumb bell". I walked around until Leo and Ben came over to find me.

Didn't do much, took a few test videos over dinner at McCafe.

Came back, and watched a bit of the Arsenal-Derby match. It indeed is a good season to be an Arsenal fan. Top of the table at 16 points with Liverpool in second with 12 is as good as start any team can hope for.

Somehow I turned off the TV and made it to bed and feel asleep because I don't remember doing those things.

Leo and Ben are coming over later, maybe Jeremy too, for video production and some general fun. I think.

Oh well.

It gets better.

I only hope I don't get the fucked up classes. Seriously.

You know what? Just keep me away from the Sec 1s. They're a riot. And I didn't mean it the good way.

The Sec 3s are okay... Pretty much. I've only had contact with the 3Es so far. 3E1 is really your typical E1; quiet and hardworking. Ah, so much changed since our version of E1 left the school.

It was only today when I started talking to the students. It's for Maths after all. It was in the middle of one of the lessons in 2E2 when a loud yell came from next door in 2E1. Some of my students went out to kaypoh a bit and came back to tell me what happened. Fun class, reminds me of mine.

Dammit that sounds damn old.

So I started talking to them after they found out I was an alumni. One of them started asking me for my e-mail address and I remembered something about that and didn't give it to them.

Well if somebody's gonna find it off somewhere anyway, it's not my problem anymore.

All in all, a good day. Better than yesterday, definitely.

Emo

I put on a different song here today.

It's nice.

What A Relief

As of today, I am a relief teacher of Woodgrove Secondary School.

Stop laughing.

However, I don't know when I'll get work. I don't know if the admin is gonna call me tomorrow morning to tell me they need me there.

I have no idea what to do when I get a class.

Meanwhile...

This is the way it was, the way it is and the way it will be.

Iron Man

AWESOME.

Sorry if I get hyped easily. I'm a people person. I get influenced and I influence. I get hyped and I hype. Way of life, amigos. Way of life.

Welcome to Rapture

I am Andrew Ryan, and I'm here to ask you a question: Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?

No, says the man in Washington, it belongs to the poor. No, says the man in the Vatican, it belongs to God. No, says the man in Moscow, it belongs to everyone.

I rejected those answers. Instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose Rapture.

A city where the artist would not fear the censor, where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality, where the great would not be constrained by the small.

And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well.

*****

Bioshock is a godly game. Anybody who has a computer good enough to run it should play it. I completed the game a few days ago. Oh man.

Awesomeness.

SGCC: Final Showdown

So the day where the prizes are given out has come. I went down quite late actually, reaching at around 2.30. I went up to Level 6 first, and there was seriously very little people there.

I tried the NYP driving simulator which was, I have to say honestly, fucking hard to drive. It has a full force feedback seat setup complete with a G25 and it even had a canister somewhere for smoke to come out from. But it's so hard to drive it the first corner I took, I spun out.



The guy in charge tells me to treat it like a real car, and I was thinking "yeah, I must surely know how that feels, being a person who has never driven a real car before".

Later I call Gerald and he tells me he's at Level 3, where the prize presentation is. So I went down, and basically stayed there for a while until the guys decided to have a short lunch at Long John Silver's in Marina Square.

Gerald left for piano lessons, and we came back. I got mad bored and decided to make a video.

Part 1:



Part 2:



Then the prize presentation started finally, and these are the winners:





A Hwa Chong team won Bronze by the way, I missed it because I was busy fiddling around with my phone camera.

So after the whole thing we went up to the convention to look around somemore, and I went around taking some photos.











So we went to Starbucks downstairs and had a coffee and somehow we ended up talking about food we couldn't stand. Turns out the Mat had this whole issue with cheese. Oh well. It's like Voon's apparent avoidance of beef. And since I don't really like the greens, I said that if Chiong hated bread (he doesn't) we could make a burger and we'll see who eats it first.

Later on, we met up with Gerald again. We were going to have dinner with his SCGS girls! So cool. We went up again to only find three out of the possible eight left there.

Oh well.

We went to Marina Square first. We had to take a coin flip to see if we would be at a fast food restaurant or the food court. We went to the food court. Then when we got there, and we found seats, the Mat remembered about this place just down outside the Esplanade called Makansutra. So we decided to go there for the similar priced, better food.

I got chicken wings and satay for everyone and it wasn't filling in the end. But what the heck. It was nice having dinner with girls for a change.

Gerald, Chiong, Voon and I went to Bugis arcade. I started by joining a big crowd watching some guy solo through House of the Dead 4. I wonder why it always gathers so much attention. Later I saw this guy soloing too, but dual-wielding the guns. You gotta admit that it's damn cool.



I went around playing random stuff while Gerald camped the fighting games area. Voon went off earlier and then I left Gerald there to catch the last train.

I have to say I didn't know when exactly the last train was, but whoa if I ever got it right. It was the exact minute the last train got here, and I think I was on the last train back to Jurong East too.

Talk about timing.

SGCC: Might As Well Anyway

I went there yesterday after all. I was forced to go out together and ended up in school as early as the previous days.

I sat down at Koufu and read Shadow's Puppets. I know I'm skipping books, Cat. It's the only one there at the library when I went there the other day. Then I had a second breakfast, a light one, with Chiong and Gerald.

I saw Voon walking past and yelled out at him. He went to sign his attendance and came back. We talked for about an hour before heading up.

At a point after lunch, I finished the book. It was nice and all, seeing Archilles die. But now I have to agree Ender's Shadow was still the best.

The day went by peacefully. We even got to play DotA. I happened to team up with some of the best players in our school, and played against my Compassvale boys:



...and a bunch of Tanjong Katong noobs, since they finished their work. We won both, the first in about 40 minutes and the second in about half an hour (although we aimed for 20 minutes). I remember wanting to fight the RI guys, but oh well.

The students went off at the end of the day. The couple of Whitley girls so many guys crowded around (mainly because they needed the most help) stayed back a while to take photos. Of course I was in none of them, as far as I know. But I did manage to get one of them:



So it ended with, of course, a debrief. It wasn't something very important, just a few things about today and tomorrow, so I took a few pictures of the people standing around.







I didn't go today because I don't have to anymore. And it was pointless because I was more hassle than help.

I'll be going for the GCA at Suntec tomorrow. Go see who wins, and if Compassvale or Whitley wins anything.

SGCC: Enough Is Enough

I've decided not to go tomorrow.

And I'm not going to talk about today. There's nothing much to talk about anyway.

I'll just post some pictures I took.







And in case anybody knows about this:



Now bugger off and don't bother me.

SGCC: Nothing New Today

Shuwen wasn't around in the morning so I took over her all-girl Whitley team.



The whole brainstorming discussion was not good. It's not that I couldn't understand their ideas, they just couldn't understand the whole concept of "gameplay". It was a little hard to explain so I gave up and got Lynette to talk to them. I guess women do communicate better among themselves better somehow.

The girls bought chocolate for all the guys who helped them out, myself included. Not particularly wonderful though. The pack of Maltesers (which, according to the Mat, "has my name on it") they gave me almost caused me to lose my throat. I ended up giving them out to the other helpers.

But you know, it's the thought that counts.

The rest of the day was pretty much boring. For me, that is, I slack a lot and I'm damn proud of it.

Here are more pictures that I took today.









Two more days to go for me. Three more for the students.

SGCC

Singapore Games Creation Competition.

The 3D Game event is held in NYP (again, of course) and random DET and DMD students have volunteered for this event as "facilitators". Or "group leaders". Basically, it's free labour. But hey, we get our perks too.

Not sure if I can say it, shhhh...



The first day's pretty okay. My team's from Compassvale Secondary and apparently a bunch of Sec 4 Normals who are having their N Levels. So only one guy turned up and left before lunch time for another exam. Poor kids.



I'm not even sure if they're coming tomorrow, but I told him exams are more important than this after all, so place this as a second priority. I'm sure anybody would understand.

Well, looking forward to another day of slacking. Sure hope I'll be able to get some backup when I need it.

Time to get some shuteye.

Heroes

The cast of Heroes was in town on Friday!

I went down to check it out with Voon, Dyehair, the Mat and the Mat's girlfriend.



I was there quite early, at about 1 (the event's at 3) and the queue for the goody bag thing was already four times too long, so I just waited till everyone was here and waited along the side.

And it sucks because I was at the exact spot where this stupid LCD TV was blocking our view of the stage. Great.



If only I had one of those shirts the staff for the event were wearing.



The view from where I was. Right next to the red carpet!



And the moment arrives. The crowd goes wild when the emcees announced their arrival, and I took this video. I lost concentration and forgot about it so I only managed to catch Masi Oka's face.



Here they are on stage.



It was a very short thing, they left within ten to fifteen minutes after arriving. Greg Grunberg (Matt Parkman) was the one doing most of the talking during the event, and I couldn't hear shit because of the crappy sound system they had in place which muffles up anything anybody tries to say.

And to let you have a feel about the amount of people there.



You'd understand why we just left after taking those photos and went straight for a late lunch.

After lunch and a lot of talking, we left and as we did I took a last shot of the place.



Well. There you go. The entire afternoon spent on being able to be less than a metre away from Hiro and Niki.

Ah, stupid starchasers.

"Remember," said Ender, "the enemy's gate is down."

Ender's Game doesn't suck la. It's good.

I don't want to get too much into why it doesn't, but it has its own things to love about and that's enough proof for me that it doesn't suck.

What's more, without Ender's Game there would be no Ender's Shadow. Respect the source!

I zoomed through it pretty quickly though, with some parts of Bean's story still quite fresh in my mind.

A lot of things going through my mind.

I think I should sleep to sort them out.