Lift up your heads open the doors let the King of Glory come in and forever be our God

so the week ends, and its on a pretty high note...
its been really stressful, as i'm sure anyone in my level can tell you..
ISO due dates, many assignments and warandpeace-long 6-page yin1yong4wen2...
debate trainings and spars with the national team...
the on-off-on-off srjc dep intermediate team which is now officially off...
that does leave time to help/support sean and the year 3s...
anyways, the week ended with me pigging out at the manhatten fish market...
the last time i went there was with darius/cherry before we went to watch corpse bride, and coz we were rushing, i didn't get to fully savour the food, and i promised myself i'd do that slowly one day...
so today was it! and savour-worthy it was... i loved the oysters especially... if there were a restaurant recommendation for the season, this would be it...

finished watching one tree hill episodes 10: brave new world and 11: return of the future...
can't wait for episodes 12/13 which have been screened in the states...
the OC episode 12: the sister act - a whole new story line involving kaitlin cooper...
and of course, american idol: Denver and San Fran...
Vegas next week, hideous/tone-deaf psychics and all... x)

as i suspected, this year is going to be a big year for new albums...
the first 3 releases of the year:

Yellowcard - Lights and Sounds
first single: Lights and Sounds, your's truly rates 3 1/2 stars, below tracks off Ocean Avenue

Fall Out Boy - Take this to Your Grave
first single: Grand Theft Autumn/Where is Your Boy?, also below par compared to From Under The Cork Tree


Britney Spears - Britney & Kevin Chaotic: EP
first single: second track Someday (i will understand), released some time ago last year, 4 stars, and the EP in all its 3-song glory is far better than anything she's ever produced... stongly recommend title track Chaotic


and the single of the week:
Natalie feat. Justin Roman - Where are you, off self-titled album of early last year...
very simple song with unusually high notes... x)
prosperity,
john.

i certainly was not born into the life of a geisha

its been a fulfilling week...
trained again on thursday, and realized i needed lots of research into particular areas of my ignorance...
i've got a ton of work for the weekend...
went home on the same train with clarence/jitwei, who're really nice ppl to talk to...
the class in general is pretty welcoming... x)

it is not for a geisha to want

went to watch MOG with darius at marina today...
cherry was grounded, so couldn't come...
hope you like your present, both of you!
it was a decent show, lives up to its 3 1/2 star rating...
now i'm totally anticipating "proof" and "rumor has it"...
oh and hmv is having a serious clearout sale...
cd's from 12.95 (the nice ones like britney and stuff) and movies at really low prices...
the calendars were below a dollar lah!!

these are not the memoirs of an empress, or a queen...
these are memoirs of a different kind

new one tree hill soundtrack for season two out soon!!!!



chaotic,
john.

AMERICAN IDOL 5!
the fever has started and am i glad it has...
the first episode was kind of disappointing in terms of talent in chicago,
but the chemistry created by paula, randy, simon and ryan go to show why it's the most popular show on tv...
i loved the two pairs of twins, but besides them, the 16 year old girl singing the power of love and the 17 year old guy singing summerwind, there was hardly anyone else good...
but what some lacked in talent they made up for in the natural flair to entertain by being so comical to the point of ridicule... x)
tomorrow the auditions move to denver, and i can't wait till the top 32 have been picked...

in other news, school's back after the long break, kluang and all...
had training yesterday, and one more either tomorrow/friday/saturday depending...
spent most of my free alice periods talking to javier in the library coz he's being held captive by patrick soo (am i ever glad timothy so much more blur)
oh and during today's free IHS totorial, part of the class was playing truth or dare, and another group were playing poker... elandrus, his council status notwithstanding, was playing music on his palm, while he/yewjin/me/sean were chatting/taking photos while i was doing the C math course work...
LA (B) - not going well... teacher has an a doctorate in the wrong field...

i just wanna live,
john.

the events of the two days that just passed are in stark contrast to the tone of the week... following up from the boredom of wednesday/thursday, yesterday started out in painful monotony... i passed timothy lim in the corridor, and he didn't even realise i hadn't come to school the previous day, nor did he bother to acknowledge my presence that day...
watched the OC again in the library before checking out early to get to nj to get my gpa...
first things first, my new ex-mentor who took over from soon hoe must be some descendent of the great houdini, for she managed to elude a good number of staff and students, including myself, all of whom were trying to locate her... the concept of handphones must have missed her as, although she owned one, she failed to answer any one of my dozen calls...
thanks weige/joel/terrence/jolynn and angeline tay/sharon chan/stella koh and 2 other teachers i can't remember for helping in the search...
had a good chat with most of my ex-teachers in the hour and a half i was looking...
went to class to say hi during stella's lesson, then had to rush to citylink mall's dining@sakae for lunch with sher/rachh/tiff/jane...
its the only place i noe with a sashimi buffet...
followed jane to buy her legally blonde pink nokia 6111...
went back to nj for the post-orientation dance party...
meandered the crazy crowds with meltee/yingting/jamie/ghariza/shihui/gimlim/nat/sam... loads and loads of fun, much better than last year's, what with watching ppl dance and singing along to "hey juliet" and "don't cha"...
our sentimental moment was totally ruined midway through "100 years", but whatever... x)
jamie must send me the pics yeah? =)

slept in coz i didn't have to go for the NCS briefing...
met javier for the australian university exhibitions at the orchard hotel... spent 2 hours looking around, getting recommendations and collecting booklets of info... pretty productive...
had tea at the coffee bean, walked around wheelock before parting ways...
sam's birthday celebration was, as is customary, an affair of food, jokes, most original gift ideas and table tennis...
*happy 16th!*
quotable quotations:
DUNT be a fag - adriel
rick james says happy birthday - josh
this world sucks: otherwise we'd all be falling off - jake
au contraire yoda, besides do or do not, there IS a TRY - your's truly...

get together,
john.

some hearts they just get all the right breaks
some hearts got the stars on their side
some hearts they just have it so easy
some hearts just get lucky sometimes...

my 400th post on this the 12th day of the first month of 2006...
considering that my side (the express-ib divide is pretty literal now, considering we have classrooms on opposite, facing sides of the new block) of the level is being rained on in kluang, malaysia, i took the liberty to excuse myself from school today...
this comes after staying in school for 7 hours without any checking-on or supervision by ANY teacher, even though timothy requested that we report to him in the library...
spent the time doing my math/ISO and watching harry potter and the chamber of secrets...
met up with javier/rey in 4.3 to do more work/chat...

when i lost my mind,
john.

one good way to pass time is searching amazon/itunes for music of the past that you might have missed, and more often than not, there're alot of nice tracks to sample... plus you can take a look at all the album art, coz everyone noes that a tune without a proper album cover isn't too nice... x)

reached church a little later than my usual self...
had a quick lesson at a new venue before meeting up with the jyc gals to chat and what not...
went for lunch at sakae airport with jake/josh/sam...
adriel didn't wanna join us, but word has it that he went with pet later...
took a train to paya lebar, and subsequently bumped into jane/sher/rachh...
went with them for THEIR lunch at delifrance and a long chat... jane's got some interesting life tales which i must say make for good conversation...
walked around talking alot more before heading to the bus stop with sher to go home...

school next week's basically a one-day for me, considering i'm not going for the kluang trip, which i've heard is being skipped by quite a number of others as well...
lots of time for my own work then! =)

we could be happy,
john.

new class, new school, new year...
i survived the first week!!! x)
and if you're reading this, congrats! you've made it too...

4.11 stephen is just like any other typical ac class, with nice ppl and other more annoying ones, though i think its better than a lot of the other ib classes and way better than most, if not all, of the O level classes...
gotta get use to the system again, not having the liberty to sms or call openly in class (or outside class for that matter), not having wireless access any and everywhere, not being able to eat in class (what are hungry ppl/teachers meant to do??) and not being able to wear nice coloured socks/shoes...
*the phone thing is definitely the most unreasonable... this week alone we didn't noe which classroom/lab to go to more than twice, and numerous times my classmates and/or teachers were late for class, and i couldn't even give them a ring!!*
but whatever, at least there are some pretty cool ppl around to talk to/learn from...
classmates: sean/stuart/justin/patrick/joel/nigel/jitwei/yewjin/daniel...
teachers: sock hoon/alice/carol/my new ISO mentor, the german Stefan Karl... x)

went back to 05ip04 on wednesday to say hey...
got the latest on whatever was happening (joel's an excellent keeper of the times) and caught a pic of what had to be one of those "oh my goodness" moments in life... the entire canoeing team was running round the track carrying multi-coloured umbrellas! they're doing it to raise funds, and i applaud their every effort, but do forgive me for finding that absolutely startling!
trained at sam's place with josh on thursday and stayed over alongside paul/sean... was a fun nite of work and music videos...
skipped pe to go for the cca presentation by chee wei on friday...
had an end-of-week lunch at pasta fresca along sixth avenue with sean/javier/rey yesterday... saw nigel and his family (i think) buying some stuff along that row of shops...
cabbed home to sleep for 17 hours till noon today... i'm so not used to the 4-hour nights yet...

chinese homework: describe sophia bush's face...


john.

describing my hols: points to pic...
that's how fun, how ridiculously non-constructive the last two months have been...
i dun think there's ever been such a vacation without worry or work before...
but that just means that when i go to class tomorrow, it marks the beginning of a few weeks of intense catching up... gotta get myself on par with everyone else...

as much as i look forward to new experiences, i'm still hit with that universal new-year-ahead vibe - trepidation towards what is unknown...
will my class be nice?
will the work be too much/too tedious?
will i have the fun i had this year?
comparisons: another flaw where introspection and hope are concerned...
at the start of a year i look back and wonder how i could ever have doubted the year that had just past, how i could have feared and dreaded going to school and what not, when in hindsight, there were so many things to look forward too... i wouldn't have traded the year in all its entirety for a year without stress...
but as another year dawns, i look back and see how much fun i had, and that same fear creeps back in, a questioning fear...

can't help it i guess...

new school,
john.

spent the past 50-plus hours out, only returning home to sleep after church just now...
the last fling before school reopens on tuesday...

chilled at parkway on friday after pulling myself away from one tree hill season 2...
dinner at bedok corner...
thanks for walking me to maricelle's place!
celle's second consecutive end-year party was larger than the first, though i stayed for a few hours only...
it was great to see mer/tis/jo/celle/weiliang again for the last time in '05... x)
walked over to the hiew residence to spend the night...
watched jake play checkers with rachh for awhile before josh returned from his party (we coincidentally watched kung-fu hustle at the same time on axn, silly show)
spent the night reading/playing star wars: battlefront 2/watching smallville season 4...
slept around 230 'coz worship prac was at 9 the following morning...
jo tng/sam/ben/deb ng and i made up the small worship team for the first day of the new year...
3 songs: the reason i live/blessed be your name/to live is Christ
went back to the hiew residence to slack the rest of the day away...
watchnight service was normal, though earlier than usual coz the new years day was was a sunday...
pet/adriel/sam and i had supper at simpang while the hiews went to the beach to watch the year pass...
jo tng/nat/joanne/jane&kaiho joined us...
it was by far the least happening location for counting down i've ever been at, though the company was really fun and funny!
7 of us squeezed into joanne's car heading to jo tng's place to while away 4 hours before going to the airport to see joanne/chris see off...
played word/song games the entire time, while sam/jake napped at the hiew's... josh was surprisingly the only one who stayed awake...
the 7 of us (minus joanne who went to mustaffa/plus veen) squeezed into junjie's car heading to the airport...
arrived to a large group of about 50 bmc ppl...
pet/jake/adriel went off to the former's place while sam/josh and i went to mac's for breakfast, where they both promptly knocked out...
an hour plus later we cabbed to church, dropping josh off on the way (knowing full well he would not be awake in time for church)
slept for half an hour before worship prac started...
post-church, tiff/rachh/sher and i hung around in the cm room watching deb play drums before the former 2 left... sher/deb lam and i talked a bit before sher and i left in her parent's car for serangoon, in which time i found out that their family knew jeremy lim the squash played/my ex-classmate...
fell asleep after 2 epsiodes of one tree hill, so now i'm at sam's place for his housewarming party... x)

its 2006,
john.