Transformers was a typical michael bay flick, and he really does do explosions with all the boom that hollywood has to offer...
unlike the poor reviews its been getting, i found it to be the best of the 5 flicks i've watched this summer, though i'm pretty sure harry potter will top it...

spent about an hour getting to vil'age at the heeren for dinner, then another hour of chitchat before heading off...

day 1 of my 5 day break was fun =)

it's pouring rain,
jlc(aines).

this year's national day theme songs are really not as good as kaira gong's last year...
"will you" is really cheesy, and the vocalists are just a mish mash of knowns and unknowns...
"there's no place i'd rather be" fares a little better, with kit chan making a return, and the ending is quite pleasant...

going to watch transformers in about an hour with sean/deon...
helping mich out with adriel at the nyc event in town...

the girl who leapt through time,
jlc(aines).

Paper: History HL
Table: R8T7
Difficulty: paper 2 was better set than paper 1

Paper: Math SL
Table: R21T13
Difficulty: pretty simple, i'm hoping apart from the last part of the last 2 questions, i get everything else right...

so this is what it feels like to have what you studied for the whole june hols come to a close...

5 day weekend,
jlc(aines).

Paper: Economics HL
Table: R4T14
Difficulty: Long but managable

midweek break -
so i took a break from my normal routine of cabbing home with clarence straight after my papers to stop over at holland v with sean for drinks at starbucks and lunch at sushi tei...
a welcome change...

4 down, 2 to go...

the way i are,
jlc(aines).

Paper: Chinese B SL
Table: R13T6
Difficulty: this was an exam? i feel cheated...

Paper: Chemistry SL
Table: R22T7
Difficulty: Pretty high, though paper 2 was harder than 1

3 down 3 to go

we're halfway there (livin' on a prayer!)
jlc(aines).

ok so forget what i said about not posting...
here's a daily update on my block tests -

Day: 1
Paper: English A1 HL
Table: R2T11
Level of Difficulty - Rather High

1 down 5 to go,
jlc(aines).

a little over 12 hours to the start of my block tests and i'm psyching myself up for 4 days of intense academia...

as much as its not what i'd choose to spend 4 days doing, it might be just what i need to knock myself out of my recent (by recent i mean 2 and a half year) phunk and get back in the race... 

when we got to church this morning, sher/rachh/guonian/me were pretty much using every single free minute to revise econs... 

4 j1s from 4 different schools freaking out over the same week of tests... x) 

so for a good 100 hours or so, this should be my last post... 

5206, its just beginning.

making it mean something,

jlc(aines). 

went to school today for what would be the last study session with the regulars from my class...

i met mel/patrick at the library, where shortly after we went to dover market for lunch...

heading back, we met cielo and decided to go to the unoccupied B3-01 for the rest of the day...

chun wui/gerald came after their drama photoshoot...

we studied for about 5 hours in total till 7 before heading for dinner...

but before that, here's a little snippet of what its been like for the past 2 weeks studying with the class, and what makes every session an occasion - 

gerald/cielo/me are thawing outside B3-01

cielo, with all the swiftness of sailor uranus, leans forward and pinches gerald's chest

gerald makes a noise that's reminiscent of a cross between a pained shriek and an orgasmic moan

we head back in, and witness our class couple in an intimate moment

gerald, "let's not disturb them, patrick's brushing mel's hair behind her ear, aww!"

cielo, with all the swiftness of sailor jupiter, leans forward and pinches gerald's chest

gerald makes a noise that's reminiscent of a cross between a pained shriek and an orgasmic moan

patrick, "how tender"

we went for dinner at the cheap japanese joint in clementi where javier and i always went to last year... 

met mervyn on bus 166 on the way back... 

who we are now,

jlc(aines).

5206

went to school to meet tj to get my chinese file, then studied in the library for about half an hour before going for the mongan lecture... 

it was practically a five.nine affair, if not for pravween... 

the old LT was the single coldest place i've been in where singapore is concerned... it was like what, 10degreescelcius in there? 

it was so cold breathing became a chore coz the air temperature and your body temperature is so wildly different... 

post-lecture, gerald/cielo/mel/patrick/me stayed around to study at the pond benches for another 2 hours or so... 

so with 4 days to go, for the next 9 days till my math paper draws to a close, my primary identity will be 5206... 

sober,

jlc(aines).

5206

decided to head east instead of west today to study...

'cos i was due in church for rehearsal at 6, i thought traveling from school was just a waste of time...

so i diligently went through my stuff for about 2 hours before going for rehearsal with the drama ppl minus elisa...

i received mongan mail (sounds fun doesn't it) yesterday informing me that there's one more econs lecture tomorrow for hl kids from 2-4, so i probably will go for that 'cos i'll be in school looking for tj to get my chinese file... 

rehearsal on sat morning, performance on sunday... 

you and i,

jlc(aines). 

today's study session was a litlte less crowded than usual...
i went to school at my usual lazy afternoon time to find that there weren't any of my classmates in the library, so i settled in to read more about the exciting world of russian history thinking that they'd be back from lunch or something...
after a chance meeting with ckc to get my chem assignments back, i decided to sms chun wui to find out where everyone was, and found out that he was the only one who was in school and was in the drama room...
a little later gerald and him came up, and we studied till around 4ish before leaving...

since today's post-regarding-stuff-that-happened-today is a little short, i thought i'd talk about something else...

first off, rihanna's Good Girl Gone Bad is a pretty good album, and it differs from her previous 2 offerings quite a bit... it could almost be categorized as pop instead of r&b/hip-hop, but only just...
jason mraz's mr. a-z is seriously mediocre, and i have a feeling his debut waiting for my rocket to come is far better, if only i can get my hands on it...

am i confident for the commons that are just a few days away?
not very, but i'm not terribly petrified either...
but the signs of stress are around, though they're slightly different from what i normally feel...
it seems i'm losing my appetite as the days draw nearer, and i can't even think about food without feeling uneasy...

on a separate note, i think i should have taken bio instead of chem as my (un)necessary science, instead of just following (almost) everyone else... hmm...

church rehearsal at 6 tomorrow...

question.existing,
jlc(aines).

i woke up this morning with the resolve to make the most the week i have left before the tests, and though i'd received chun wui's message about studying in the library, i thought i'd try to concentrate at home for a change...

it was not to be...

a few pages into Stalin's Economic Policies, i receive a call saying that an apartment on the third floor of my block was on fire...
since i live on the 5th floor, i thought it wise to get out of the house for a while...
i was faced with that weird dilemma of what i'd save if i had just 30 seconds to grab stuff, so i just instinctively took my phone/wallet/iPod and the notes i had been reading at that point in time...

so with so much quality drama going on, i knew i'd never get anything done if i stayed around, so headed to school to meet the rest of the class who were studying in the library...
agnes and betty decided to close shop at 330 (those slackers), so we had to look for alternative locations...
in the end chunwui/elliot/johnchris/lex/joash/gerald/mel/patrick/me headed to the debate room for another few hours of hard work...

another study session tomorrow perhaps...

you're my favourite work of art,
jlc(aines).

spent 12 hours sleeping off the stayover from last night before heading to church...
since it was rachh's 17th (Happy 17th rachh!), sam/jake/adriel/sher/deb/tiff/rachh/me went for lunch at vil'age, where we gave her a strawberry cake, candle and birthday song...
then it was pool at cineleisure, where tiff left soon after...
the 7 of us then cabbed to sam's place where we watched night at the museum and take the lead...
called in dinner from pizza hut, then cabbed home with sher...

how many days is it to the common tests?
oh wait, its exactly a week away...

i think i need to lie down...

nessun dorma,
jlc(aines).

i signed in to melodie's computer at about 8 this morning planning to blog an early morning post about the uber awesome stayover, but after a few minutes i was just too sleepy to bother, so here it is -

7 of 9 IB debaters dropped by TJ for a spar early yesterday morning, lunched at the nearby macs, then sean/me went to school to meet up with the 4/11 ppl to play tennis/pingpong/squash... alex lim was there too, presumably from badminton with xinquan...
the 3odd hours there were really fun, though the heat kinda took the kick out of playing tennis...
i had to unfortunately not follow jit/elendrus/xinquan to btp coz i was due at the stayover at about 6...
melodie's grandma's house (it was empty and made an ideal location for our party/stayover) is one of the nicest houses owned by grandparents, as far as my memory of grandparents' houses serves me...
chic samsung (it's not that hard to imagine) plasma screen, tonnes of space, and efficient domestic help...
at around 12, there were mel/patrick/joash/gerald/cheryl/elliot/darren/gen/jim/chunwui/shaoxiong/tedkin/lex/me there, though not all of us stayed over...
in all, i watched Eurotrip and National Lampoon's Van Wilder (2 of the most vulgar, hilarious flicks i've seen, courtesy of chun wui), skipped Little Miss Sunshine because someone yelled MAHJONG, so played that from 3 to 5, Cluedo earlier in the evening, Wii Tennis, ordered in pizza, and witnessed alota drinking later in the night... tedkin had a serious hangover this morning...
so i (attempted to) sleep in the small zen-ish room with the mel/patrick/elliot/joash at around 530, but the chatter outside, the sleeping bag and the rather dusty cushion i took from the debate room kinda made sleeping a tad difficult, so drifted in and out for about 2 hours before finally giving up and joining those who were awake for some early morning channel newsasia documentaries on snails and self-experimentation of vaccines, but as exciting as those were, i kinda just drifted off to sleep for about 20minutes (5 songs off Maroon 5's Songs About Jane), before realizing more ppl were awake...
all of us minus tedkin went to macs for breakfast, then a bit more cards before packing up...
stayed behind with tedkin/lex/mel/patrick watching american idol reruns from the seattle auditions, and when mel's ride was coming, i decided to make a move to jurong for the exhibition...
the audience at the debate actually tripled through the course of the debate from 2 to 6 ppl...

that's my weekend...

one more week to the block tests, and more study sessions with the class planned next week...

jump in,
jlc(aines).

i'm gonna be rushing around tomorrow like nothing...
i'm like beyond double/triple booked already...
spar at 10, rush to school to meet the 4/11 ppl to play pingpong/squash/tennis at 130, then off to the five.nine stayover, and i'll be missing worship pract and the planetshakers conference and the CAM retreat...
on saturday, i've gotta be at jurong regional library at 130 for the exhibition debate, and am missing COP at night coz of Jump In! at 730...

i think she knows interlude,
jlc(aines).

i woke up today after 6 hours of sleep, and since it was pretty early and the study gathering in school was about 2 hours away, i proceeded to do my usual net surfs, downloading fantasia's sophomore record and whatever...
i left the house, hopped on a train via my usual route, and just as i was about to press play on my iPod to listen to michael buble's Me & Mrs Jones, the time on the top of the screen told me it was 940, and our meeting time was at 10...
since i was already on the train, i got off at dhoby ghaut, dashed as fast as me and my overflowing crumpler/enormous history file permitted to the taxi stand at partk mall and asked the driver to speed...
10minutes and $8.40 later, i was at the benches at the pond, but only chun wui was there...
i was kinda worried coz my classmates this year seem the early type, rather than the perpetually late ppl i've known for the past 2 years...
but anyhow, it granted me more time to concentrate on my stuff, so yeah...
gerald/patrick/mel/darren came along, then lex after his D&D meeting (deon they all like screamed JLC while i was walking through the sac after seeing aom to ask him a question, but didn't get a chance to talk to him coz lex was busy telling them something... bobbie jen did tell me that she saw me at wheelock yesterday, though it wasn't reciprocated... sorry!)
chunwui/mel/darren/gerald/me went to wachee (is that how you spell it) for lunch, brought back food for the other 2, studied for a while more, spent over an hour just chatting, then we left...
i went to sean's place before heading over to vivo to watch ff2 with yewjin...
a really b-grade film, nothing up to the standard of the rest of the summer blockbusters...
dinner at carl's jr, then back...

not going for the quads tomorrow coz too few ppl, but friday is still on...

the new american idol 6 collection is a really cool concept, though some of the best songs of the season are missing... i'd so kill for an iTunes account right now...

besame mucho,
jlc(aines).

went to study with clarence and carmella at some place near our places, a cute joint that was rather heartland-ish, but was conducive nonetheless...
we were at macs across the road for about an hour and a half first because it was raining and we went there before it opened...
the rest of the 4 hours or so passed by quickly, and in that period of time i tuned in to the radio (not by choice, but because it was playing and i didn't wanna waste my iPod battery), and i realized how long its been since i've listened to regular radio rather than tracks off my iTunes playlist or youtube/dailymotion vids... its fun coz it blends new tracks with those i had not heard in a while, and it was a pleasant throwback to the 90's and early 2000's, spice girls and the lot...
besides an appreciation for radio, i did take back some studying, though i've got miles to go (before i sleep, and miles to go before i sleep)
gonna study in school with the five.nine ppl tomorrow, hope its equally fruitful...
then its ff2 at night...

met sean and darius at orchard for dinner, and the rest of the night was one in which i felt more relaxed than i have in quite a while...
from the time we met at iShop wheelock, we just started chatting about anything and everything, and the conversation never ran dry all till just before midnight...
we walked most of paragon, then settled in din tai fung for dinner, where sean recounted his experience of pulau tinggi...
looking at some pics from my class blog, the place did seem kinda picturesque, but i'll take sean's side and lament the third-world-ness of the whole thing... like i said, were i him, i'd never have gone...
pre-u sem was not worth it...
and i also realized that i've not really been making the effort to keep in the gossip loop as i should be, and i've missed out on some stuff ppl have said about others and myself even... its fun to find out what ppl really think when you're not around...
post-dinner, we headed to darius' new apartment at draycott 8, an uber-modern affair that is really chic...
we went to the colonial club house first for 2 games of pool and a little tour, then up to his apartment to just chat the night away, recounting our times in primary school, secondary school, and IP for darius and myself...
it was hilarious and just so relaxing...
it really shows that it doesn't matter how long a friend has been out of the country - you can just pick up where you've left off and let it roll from there...

under my umbrella, ella ella, ey ey ey,
jlc(aines).

chris daughtry's album has been dissed for being really bland, in that one song sounds similar to the next...
but if you like one song, like i do, then it makes for a really good album...
which also explains why its so sucessful on the charts...
sophie ellis bextor's trip the light fantastic, while having one of the coolest names i've ever come across (i chanced upon the album at gramaphone on the day i came back from thailand), is another of those can't-tell-one-track-from-the-other album that isn't as good, but is very mind-numbing, in a good way when doing your work and whatever...
the fray's how to save a life (ok i'm a little outdated, but i had to find out what made it such a bestseller last year) is the epitome of the grey area between alternative and mainstream pop...
maroon 5's songs about jane is a lot better than it won't be soon before long, and in my opinion balances nouveau-jazz really well with quick-tempo pop, rather than the dance-pop of the latter...
timbaland's presents shock value is basically a collaboration with who's who in the recording business, along with a tonne of new acts that are trying to break through, and doesn't really feature alot of him singing... making noises is more accurate... its a good album though...
michael buble's third offering, call me irresponsible, is another excellent collection of new and old songs, but is more playful this time round...
i can't wait for rihanna's good girl gone bad, and the first single, umbrella is fast becoming the sexyback of this summer...

so i'm watching fantastic four 2 with sean/yewjin this wednesday, after a rehearsal in church...
the class sleepover has been moved from tomorrow to friday, a day which i'm triple-booked for, so i've gotta decide what to cancel...
2 spars on thursday and friday, planetshakers concert on friday, COP in church on saturday...
might meet darius/sean for dinner tomorrow as well after studying in the morning/afternoon...
can't join the class for a study session in school on wednesday unfortunately...

what about now,
jlc(aines).

fantastic 4: rise of the silver surfer is the first of all the summer blockbusters to feature sneak preview shows...
not just that, it might as well be released on the 13th instead of the 14th, what with the huge number of shows in all theatres...
anyone up for it on this coming wednesday? =)

as i read dozens of blogs, current and past entries, it got me thinking - in my 5 years of pre-tertiary education, i've kinda done most of what i wanted to...
i've gone through the 6-month whirlwind that is AC OM, dreamed of doing it again (as i've dreamt of doing all those once-in-a-lifetime experiences again after the feeling of it being over)
that same year i immersed myself in the creative nirvana that is CAP, and also wanted to join the alumnus and come back as a mentor and all that jazz, but after paying the 10dollar membership fee i've never been back...
(its a pity i was such a ditz when i was younger and didn't have the habit of blogging blow by blow the amazing events as i went through them as i do now, but there's really no point rehashing them 3 years later is there)
a year before that i did the music bit of secondary school life by getting silver at the syf, and performed at foa the next (that's the only thing i've never quite wanted to do again, i think coz it didn't leave with with that much of a hangover since it didn't really give me that much of a high)
i jumped on the IP bandwagon (my year was the second year IPs were around, but it was really the year that made it very in vogue), applied to everything, got accepted into everything, chose one excellent school over the other great ones, and never regretted a minute of it...
there are 4 things i take back from nj, or more importantly, the njcIP, that i would never have gotten so early on if i'd stayed in ac in '05...
i understood what class spirit really REALLY was about having been in a really close-knit class, i experienced, prematurely but gratefully (as it would turn out to be the only real time i'd get to), the extreme high that is the first orientation of any jc (dance party and all), i ran for council and was an ogl, working with J2s and J1s that treated us 15yrolds as equals, and i made some awesome friends (guys and girls), some whom i had known before and grew closer to, others who were knew and exciting characters, all adding a robustness to my circle of friends, an addition i would never have had if i stayed in my comfort zone of 8 yrs in ac and same faces from a long time back...
i almost repeated the application frenzy in '06, but stopped short of mailing the filled-in forms, and decided to settle for the IB course...
not to mention debating all this time...
it was a cca i'd never even thought about before secondary school, but it turned out to be the only constant... though i never did get the a div champions trophy i wanted, meeting team c and helping establish nj's debating culture by winning the b div was a high on its own...
there's only been one thing i've never done so far - being part of the leadership body of a school...
i went for the selection camp in sec 1 (a camp that many of us who went still remember as probably the last tough camp before they scaled it back subsequently) and ran for council in 05, but these were really for secondary reasons, for the rush that it brought with it, so not experiencing them didn't stay with me at all...
this year's council campaign thing was more significant, in that it was one of those things that i wanted to do, and not getting the chance to do it despite having tried was quite a dampener, and i was just reminded of that hearing from the councillers who just got out from camp this week...
but you make yourself up and get back in the race...
not doing OM, CAP (and council) this year kinda goes against everything i'd planned to do - jump right into the hectic lifestyle i'd been missing for quite some time...
i'm glad i didn't though, coz it meant that i went for oep with my class, and it resolved the disconnected-ness i'd been feeling from the beginning of the year that was really getting to me...

so yeah, 2007's turning out pretty ok so far, and as we're approaching the half-way mark (oddly represented by the term exams that are stressing all of us out), i'm hopeful that the rest of it will be something i can smile back upon...

that's life,
jlc(aines).

cabbed to school for the spar today, which wasn't too bad...
the debate itself was kinda weird, and like i've experienced in recent debates, its only towards the 3rd speakers that i see exactly what needs to be reconciled, dropped and prioritized... i should really try 3rd again after half a year not doing it...
went up with paul to get our books from our lockers to study, made a trip to the staffroom to collect my history assignment (aom and tj weren't around for me to collect my other stuff), went back to lock up the room after nj had their debrief, then cabbed home...
(NB: my cabbing was because i was food poisoned on sunday by a bad prata at simpang bedok, so haven't been feeling right for a while now, and i wasn't up to travelling the friggin' long distance to and back from school... and which also the reason why i didn't eat any movie snacks, particularly by normal 4.20 (over-priced compared to 3.80 at GV) B&J ice-cream at cathay, or have my normal vanilla shake at billy bombers, or my chocolate cream chip/iced latte at starbucks for that matter)
at around 350pm, while waiting anxiously for my torrent containing michael buble's Call Me Irresponsible album to finish, i toggled the windows on my iBook to do my usual check on who is online, and i was a little taken aback to see not a single one of my classmates there, and it occurred to me that i just might have been left out of the loop on the movie thingy...
so i dropped chun wui an sms, since he was the one who asked me a few days back, and to my horror, they had bought tickets for 415pm...
so i threw on my red Gap tee for luck, dashed downstairs and hopped into the first cab that came my way, and was there just 5mins before the movie was due to begin...
Ocean's 13 was pretty funny, though nothing compared to the novelty of 11...
after about half an hour of indecision (its a group phenomenon), we decided to go to BB for dinner, where i had the bolognaise and hot chocolate instead of my usual club sandwich and said shake...
we then walked to plaza sing, where we proceeded to walk every floor (minus the 7th cinema storey), only going into bloomington's (coz of the promiscuous products) and yamaha music plaza (for duh reasons)
and ended up at starbucks where i traded in my said choice drinks for their freshly brewed coffee (far from good, stick to their frappes, trust me on this)
i made the unwise decision of making it a venti, coz for some reason 4.20 seemed so much more economical than 3.40/3.80 for the tall/grande sizes...
so everyone left about an hour later, while i spent another 20mins nursing the rest of the coffee while flipping through the photos of OEP thoroughly for the first time...

that's where it is,
jlc(aines).

thinking back to oep exactly a week back, the random songs that we'd just burst into collectively keep playing back in my head, the ever-ready, ever-available tunes of dashboard confessional's VINDICATED, oasis' WONDERWALL and howie day's COLLIDE... listening to them really brings back memories... and its only been a week!

didn't go for the econs lecture that everyone seemed to be talking about yesterday... i doubt many went either x)

nj spar tomorrow in school, then hopefully ocean's 13 with the class, though i've yet to hear back from anyone 'bout it, so fingers crossed..

4 in the mornin',
jlc(aines).

you simply have to watch the new iPhone ads on the apple website...
i've never been so thrown by a piece of technology since i dunno when...
its such a must-have, my gosh...

to a place where i belong,
jlc(aines).

chatting is an underrated art form...
after church today, elisa/rachh/sher/me went to simpang for prata, then to tampines mall for mos burger/tako pachi, and we chatted...
elisa left for the airport, and jasmine/rupen came along, and we chatted...
they left soon after, while the 3 of us went to delifrance, and over 3 cups of coffee (2 hot, 1 cold), we chatted...
a grand total of 5 hours of non-stop chatting...
i found out quite alota stuff i'd never quite known, and i like knowing things, so it was 5 hours well spent...

heavy heavy,
jlc(aines).

so my brain has shut itself off since returning from thailand, and the mere thought of embarking on the promethean task of memorising half a year's worth of IB syllabus makes my head spin...

but what's gotta be done has to be done, so here's the list of stuff i have to/want to complete in the next 24 days:
1) TOK mock essay, question 3 (they haven't given us the acutal question though they promised they would)
2) EE proposal AND the essay itself
3) IOP - The God of Small Things
and but of course, 4) study...

wantin' to catch you,
jlc(aines).

happiness is waking up at 2pm on thursday and friday after 2 nights of anticipated movie sequels to coffee and 12 dunkin' donuts (and 6 mini dough balls, but who's really counting), and 7 episodes of smallville season 6...

it won't be soon before long,
jlc(aines).