just before i head down to see half the cast of heroes at vivo, allow me to welcome (prematurely) september, the month of new music!

and what a month it is turning out to be...

the biggest news (arguably) would be Britney's breakout single, GIMME MORE, which in my opinion is much more raw and edgy (it begins with "it's britney, bitch") than her previous offerings, and i'm excited to hear what her album will sound like... 

she's has also leaked a second single, COLD AS FIRE, which is slightly worse, but she's certainly workin' the literary play on words in the title, no? 

speaking of leaking, 50 cent's CURTIS, due for release on 9/11, is out for all to listen to, though this is no surprise, considering how i managed to get all 3 of the planned-to-be-released singles 2 weeks ago... (Ayo Technology trumps I Get Money, featured on SYTYCD 3, and Follow My Lead)

but the more anticipated release on the same date is Kanye West's GRADUATION, with lead single STRONGER, already topping the iTunes charts for a week... 

2 releases later in the year to look out for are Carrie Underwood's sophomore album, CARNIVAL RIDE, featuring lead single SO SMALL (which i cannot find) in october, and Ashlee Simpson's second album that has no title yet, but is due in november... 

have fun sampling!

legendary,

John

so having finished my chem pract 12 planning in class today, along with my TOK presentation proposal, the only academic thing i have left before studying for the exams is my kinetics test tomorrow... =)

looking at my exam schedule, they finally made it fair for everyone (sans ppl taking art) by ending the 2 weeks with math... my second week is pretty much nothing, just math and chinese, while econs is my most stressful subject, with 3 papers over 2 days... 

the mayhem begins 1st october, exactly a month from when tomorrow ends... 

after churning out my TOK presentation proposal, i spent the next hour of the 80min period talking to joash/gerald/justin/anne/liz about their proposed topics, as well as johnchris who can't decide... 

the rest of the day was more or less the same, just chat and little work... 

the funniest moment came during nic's IOP early in the day, when jim asked about the picture of the cat on his slide titled "virtues" and why he had chosen it..

nic's answer:

"virtues are not small, neither are they big, they just encapsulate everything. and i like cats"

last day of term 3 tomorrow ya'll, hope it goes by quickly...

thinkMTV,

John.

in my absence from school yesterday, aom finally returned from ireland, and i hear he was delayed 'cos of a car accident, and from what i see i think he's recovered pretty well, even returning to school in interestingly moss-green sneakers rather than the usual leather loafers... 

it was refreshing going for my first econs class in weeks, and i must say we caught up pretty quickly... just 100 minutes and already we're on par with everyone else =)

but 'cos my basics aren't quite stable, i'll be attending his econs lessons during the sept break next week...

monday - microecons

wednesday - market failure

thursday - ntl income measures & econ devlmnt

friday - govt policies

i've got history lecture on friday right after econs as well...

so my plans for the next week are pretty much set in stone, and i'm supposed to study chem with han an too... 

and to pick up from my last post about HEROES, part of the cast will be in singapore this friday at vivocity, 3pm!

i'll be going down in the hope of getting photos/autographs of Ali Larter (the super-strong schiz), Sendhil Rammamurthy (the narrating professor), Greg Grunburg (Matt the mind-reader) and Masi Oka (the time-space bending jap)... 

this is the group that have just come from japan, while hayden panattiere(the invincible cheerleader), adrian pasdar (the flying politician), milo ventimiglia (the brother of flying politician with the power of mimicry) and jack coleman (invincible cheerleader's dad, also HRG man) do the european route (now in germany)...

the only missing main cast member is the excellent villain zachary quinto, who is busy filming the new star trek movie... 

and i've been recaping what happened in season 1, along with reading about new characters and plotlines... i'll have to find time to watch all 23 eps before sept 24...

another important date to keep in mind is sept 5 (or early in the morning of the 6th) as the Apple special event is set to be the unveiling of a new iPod, be it touchscreen or 3rd-gen nano, i can only speculate... 

oh and i've quite unhealthily jumped on my class' macs delivery bandwagon, cos i was sitting next to joash towards the end of history and i was craving some fried chicken... 

we are really getting quite adept at this routine... 

i'll be doing my TOK presentation proposal in class during tomorrow's 80min class 'cos i couldn't be bothered to do it today, and besides that, my only other assignment left is chem pract 12, which is planning (i'm horrid at it), so right now i'm looking for the necessary apparatus and methodology for my kinetics experiment... 

this may not be the latest tracks, but here's my fave new music on my playlist this week - 

Quietdrive - Time After Time

Jordin Sparks - Tattoo

Paula DeAnda - Doin' Too Much, When It Was Me, Easy

Kat DeLuna - Whine Up

Kanye West - Stronger

50 Cent - Ayo Technology (justin timberlake is amazing)

Mandy Moore - Umbrella (yes, a cover of Rihanna)

and to wrap up, Ratatouille is the second 5-star movie this year after the Bourne Ultimatum (which i've not watched yet), and i'm hoping to watch it soon...

happy thursday ya'll!

she wants it (gotta give it to her),

John. 

oh and just a little update on the build up to HEROES season 2 on september 24 - 

Ep201: Four Months Later

Ep202: Lizards

Ep303: Kindred

Ep304: The Kindness of Strangers

can't wait!

relative to alota ppl, sleeping at 2-ish yesterday was early... when i signed out there were still other sl math ppl signing onto msn, but i think we managed really well, yay us =)

all the calls/sms-es/online convo's about the area of a friggin' snowflake payed off (or so i hope)

i'm still a little unsure of my portfolio 'cos others have like 18 pages on average, and mine's only 12/13... but 'evs, i'm glad i'm no longer thinking in terms of geometric progressions anymore...

so as expected, i arrived in class bleary eyed, and the first thing i did was to go see my classmates' portfolios 'cos i had left one part blank, so having got the answer (and also after taking a look at jitwei's), i spent the first HL2 period typing in the debate room, but i realized i forgot to bring my calculator, and being slightly excel-illiterate, i could only do the last part back in class during the first break, and after running to print in the library, i realized there wasn't any chinese, so that was 160mins free so far... 

at lunch, i found out that ckc wasn't around either, so that was another hour gone... 

i spent that period talking to han an around the school, about ppl/music and everything... 

then it was my first lesson of the day, math, where we were given the last 20mins off 'cos dy had finished teaching vectors, so sean/me went to the sac (my third time in total) to grab some food before HL2, which was free again...

i was planning to go to the debate room to catch some shut eye before history (i didn't think i had it in me to stay awake), but when i got there, turned on the aircon and was about to arrange some of the many cushions we have, i saw an anonymous lady outside, and she came in and was like oh, we're having training now... so after a stunned moment, i was like are you larissa, and she was like yeah, so i figured she was here to train the club, so i had to find alternative locations...

thinking that point.eight would be relatively empty, i went there only to find gareth getting aom's students to join j.ong's class, and i was like no thanks... 

so i went to the sac where i found the rest of my classmates who did not have econs, which was a sizeable number, and after talking for a bit and giving gerald a fake url for question 8 of portfolio, i went to talk to han an/zhang yuan, but i should totally have just stayed with the class 'cos han an was just lying his a** off, which was pretty funny, but got boring after a while...

i went up with the class slightly before history to find the hl math ppl sitting outside our class doing undone homework (like seriously, who does that kinda thing anymore? we're not 12 you know), and i had the opportunity to catch a catnap for about 10mins before ty came in, so i didn't collapse completely during class... 

headed home with clarence/aikwee(point.six)... 

2 lessons are seriously not worth coming to school for, but at the same time, i'm a teensy guilty about not going for econs, but i really wasn't in the mood, what with my head still reeling from math... but then along the corridor gerald/gen/chunwui were discussing the finer points of fiscal policy, and i realized that nowhere in the crevices could i find the definition of fiscal policy and promptly freaked out inwardly...

when the sept hols begin i'm really gonna have to start studying (involuntary shudder)

oh and if anyone was wondering the supposed holiday isn't on friday, which is aces day with a twist (literally) this year, 'cos instead of the usual walking, there's supposed to be some dance... 

and speaking of dance, the 2007 Asean Scholar's JC Dance Part, EQUINOX, will be held at the marriott hotel next tuesday evening...

'cos there are a number of asean scholars in my class, the link to the party blog is on my class blog, so do check it out if you wanna go... i hear it's quite the social event...

during lunch today i found out quite a number of my classmates are going, so i'm tempted to go as well, date optional (but recommended)

before i sign off, just a little rant (i've been doing this lately, but some ppl are seriously way too comfortable with themselves) - 

it's not like i'm desperate for help to get the portfolio done, seriously...

like if you don't wanna help just say so, no need to ignore/make excuses...

it doesn't really matter if you get it done half a year (i exaggerate) in advance, but it's really the marks in the end...

and with that attitude, my points are so gonna continue to stay at a comfortable level above your's...

oh and did i mention it's math? to think i needed to ask you for help for that... 

just like a tattoo,

John.

the MATH PORTFOLIO has been the bane of my existence for the past 36 hours, and i'm not really much closer to finishing it, not because i don't have the formlae, but because i'm not quite sure what the questions require of me...

week 9 was mixed, and there were some instances where i needed to punch someone (particularly someone having a midlife crisis with the initials ps)...
i'm really glad i sat right in the front of the lt during the security dialogue so that he could see me clearly from right across the other block of seats and i could give him my best what the hell am i wasting my thursday here for face...

other than that, i uncharacteristically dropped everything i had been doing in the week and headed over to clarence's place on wednesday with et/xq for a night of mahjong...
kinda died the next day in school, but joining band c during swimming pe with deon and seeing the uber-cool circular rainbow after i got out of the pool was quite refreshing... =)
post-swim, just before history pract started, this conversation transpired:

Mel: Sir, have you looked at the sun?
ty: ??
Mel: Look at the sun. There's a halo around it.
ty: (searches for an intelligible response when there really isn't one in these cases, all while giving that strange grin that is usually seen on alligator's before they swallow a small rodent)
Justin: don't listen to her. She's trying to make you burn your eyes.

other than that, deon/sean/yewjin/me celebrated han an's birthday with Hairspray and Manhattan's Fish Market, and x-zone, much to my dismay... x)

once this week passes it'll be back to studying just like2 months back...

i have pride in my heart 'cos i know where i'm going,
and i know where i've been...

John.

returning to school for the last 3 days of this week has been kinda laid back, mostly because there has been a severe shortage of lessons, what with aom in ireland (its cold there according to his email), IOPs during strand 2, and free TOK lessons...

i've practically only had history and chem, but these hardly count 'cos history was just documentary watching and chem was just an overdue test...

wednesday was what should have been the final interclass debate adjudication, but the sec3s weren't available (according to the email i was cc-ed from the english department), so there's one more next week...

thursday was my level's charity cafe day, and it was tonnes of fun...

i didn't think i'd wanna skip any classes, so i only went down to sell during the first half of the 160minute break i had smack in the middle of the day...

i have the dubious honour of selling the last box (or at least 9 or 12 of the eclaires in it), which deon/lucy/me bought and shared with some of the other of the point.12 ppl, but other than that i just spent most of the time counting cash...

oh and the apple crumble that elliot baked was apparently a hit...

uncharacteristic of me, i also bought paul's class' brownie (he promised it would be moist), and gareth's class' pastry thingy...

the next half of the break was spent in the debate room with sean/deon doing work...

today i spent the first period (chinese teachers are away doing oral exams, so that's free too) playing hearts with daryl/tedkin/justin...

and since chem was free, i spent it at the sac with mel/daryl chatting before pe...

although it was raining, hyc still insisted that the class swim, but since i was with the other land pe ppl, we just sat around in a circle talking for that hour...

oh and allow me to lament about the ridiculous unfairness that's going on with regards to my class' PE lessons...

because i have had the misfortune of being landed with hyc, the waterpolo teacher, the class has been swimming for like since the second half of the year began (ok its waterpolo, but no diff)... so it was natural for me to assume that once the other classes began swimming, we would be rotated to doing other activities that the other classes have been doing now, like tennis or something... but NOOOO, its still swimming...

i fell disgustingly cheated and antagonized, seriously...

then it was math investigation briefing (due the monday after next, super stress)

sean and i went to sushi tei at holland v after that, our regular post-week hangout, and after ordering, i looked across the counter and spotted yewjin/javier, so we went to join them for lunch... funny coincidence... poor deon couldn't join us 'cos he was doing council duty for custodians' day which consisted of washing bathrooms...

you never knew,

John.

a serious bout of gastric kept me home for the latter part of yesterday and today... 

the whole business with the green form in school is just getting silly... 

the person at reception was like looking at my attendance history while i waited, and i was like what, if i had been sick before you're not gonna let me be sick now? 'evs, seriously... 

anyways, its not as if i've missed anything substantial...

while hanging out at the reception waiting for said person to finish her CSI moment, i looked through the teachers' MC list, and found out that aom and ckc were away, so that meant for the whole of monday i only have history and math, and today i would have had english and math only (chinese is free 'cos of oral exams... mine's on the 21st)

important news - Heroes Season 2 premieres on 24th September!

and in other news, SYTYCD finale this wednesday will be between the expected top 4 - danny, lacey (favourite to win), neil (my favourite to win) and sabra...

te busque,

John.

Disney Channel will be releasing the 4th single off High School Musical in 2 weeks' time - I Don't Dance... this follows the highly successful What Time Is It, Bet On It and my personal favourite, You Are The Music In Me...

i've been listening to the soundtrack, and its pretty good, though quite short (10 tracks, with one rather silly bonus track with a weird title... go ti iTunes to see it)

i really like All For One in addition to my fave mentioned above... 

anticipating september 9th! 

summertime,

John.

these 5 days have not exactly been the most productive, but i don't regret using my time the way i did one bit... 

there aren't exactly any assignments that are urgently in need of submission, so i don't quite feel the need to lose sleep just yet, which is kinda weird considering i have slaved over the majority of my weekends this term... 

nonetheless, its already week 8, and in 3 weeks the september break, no scratch that, september lecture series will be on us, and then TOK presentation and just 4/5 weeks to the EOYs... fast hor... 

went for ER with adriel on saturday, and josh's cell group meeting was an interesting experience... i'm not sure its exactly the most productive, but i can't really say much 'cos i dun think i've had a productive cell group meeting back in bmc either for a long time (or ever, you pick)

post-ER, we went with josh's family to Waraku east coast for dinner, then back to his place to chill before heading to terminal 3 to send him off to brunei...

(i know you'll read this posthumously, but you'll be fine, i have not shard of doubt about that... stay safe josh!)

back at the hiew residence, we were kinda locked out 'cos their domestic help was asleep (the kind of sleep that nuclear winters would not interrupt)

adriel/jake/me then went back to adriel's old condo a la breaking and entering, and spent half an hour or so lazing on the deck chairs.. it was kinda fun, a clear cloudless starless sky and memories.. 

solid rock,

John.

the class thingy at sentosa today was absolutely awesome... 

allow me in my half-awake state to recount what transpired - 

i met up with JC/chunwui/cielo/mai at vivocity to take the rail into the island, coz everyone else who was supposed to come was late...

later in the day, gerald/elliot/joash/jim/patrick joined us, so there was an even 10 of us there...

i've never been to sentosa's beaches so early in the morning (despite having stayed on the island ate lease once a year during my 13 out of my 17 years), and it was really peaceful... 

there was this short point in time when we just watched cielo hold a conversation with the sea, which was one of the most surreal experiences i've had, and only the truly artistic have liberty to do things like that x)

gerald/elliot's arrival was heralded by a rather loud argument over a premature alighting from the bus... 

in essence, dropping at the ranger station instead of the beach caused elliot to drop a half-metre baguette on the bus... 

we played 2 games of ultimate frisbee, and the second one was a lot more exciting and ended in a draw coz we were just way too hot to continue playing... 

after a few hands of cards we made our way to vivocity, but because of bad movie timings, JC/cheryl(who left before the movie)/elliot/cielo/joash/me (liz/anne came at the end of the show) detoured to gerald's place instead to watch Transformers on DVD... 

it really is a good show, albeit immensely cheesy on a second watching, with many hidden puns/jokes that can only be caught with subtitles... 

(on a side note, gerald's house is a really chic apartment opposite park palais, which if i remember correctly is near where meltee/chups stay, and i was surprised to find that he is an only child)

left before the rest headed out for dinner (i assume they went along with JC's bukit batok idea?) 'cos i had to be in church in about an hour for worship pract...

tried one of abby's munchie donuts (which she gave adriel), and it really does not match up to the amazing ones from dunkin'... 

five.nine is great company, seriously =)

maybe it's God speaking,

John.

while watching the (rather tacky) ndp earlier this evening, one thought hit my mind - interpretive dance...

because there really isn't any other way to describe a huge water droplet that releases inline skaters dressed as red prehistoric fish...

don't get it?

allow me to explain through interpretive dance...

John. 

Mandisa Hundley from american idol season 5, next to elliott yamin and chris daughtry, probably has the best album out, eclipsing taylor, katharine, kelly, bucky and paris in terms of quality... 

it is unbridled gospel music for the 21st century... lovin' it right now...

drake bell's It's Only Time is pretty good as well, especially the acoustic version of Found A Way from previous album Telegraph...

and the MTV Asia Hip Hop countdown on weekends is really useful in summarizing what's shaking up the r&b/hiphop scene for the week... i recommend Amerie, Mario and Ne-Yo's singles... 

and topping the iTunes chart for the past week or so is Sean Kingston, and his two singles in the top 10 are really raggae/r&b in terms of feel, good for a casual listen...

Mr World 2007's winner, Spain, is a pretty good judges' choice, but the pageant had alot of better contestants in my opinion, in particular Australia (it was a evidently a slow morning, and i was flipping between this and J.Lo's Dancelife on MTV, which is shaping up to be Making The Band meets 8th & Ocean, a pretty cool concept)

class outing tomorrow..

unrestrained,

John.

so mutual apologies for discomfort have been exchanged, initial assumptions safely buried..

The ACSian debater, or debaters to be more precise, are individuals with heart, compassion, reason and excellent damage control mechanisms to draw on when the circumstance requires..

to the anonymous commenter - it appears (or at least from what i gather, i dun quite bother reading anonymous tags 'cos they mean nothing) that the ACS IB name, particularly the debate society, has been used in a certain context that has caused some misunderstandings..

if said person is really from AC IB, count yourself an imposter 

if not, it seems he or she is embarrassed of whatever institution he or she comes from, and needs to use a better school to increase the (perceived) credibility of the comments made..

all truth in its due course,

John. 

strangely, my class' attendance for the cross country thingy today was pretty good, especially compared to other classes... 

only justin/sy/sx/gabriel/darren were missing, or i just didn't see them... 

i went pretty early at about 7, and met johnchris who was the only non-council/competitor member of our class there... 

the mass race/walk started at like 9ish, and it would have been safe to turn up at that time, but it didn't make much of a difference for me coz i was on MC anyways.. 

so after getting paul's cake from deon, i spent the rest of the day sitting with mel and the commentators, all 6 of whom were my classmates save for asykin... 

i'm kinda tempted to volunteer to be DJ at next year's thingy, coz the music, while at times good (in the alternative/indie vibe kinda way), certainly lacked the contemporary billboard hot 100 feel that are most suited for these festival-esque events... 

met up with sean/deon/lucy to give paul his birthday stuff, then went with sean/deon to Estivo, the chic little hideout behind NJ which i loved back in the day...

spent around 2 hours there eating, chatting and reading mags... 

honestly, skipping this thing would have been easier than skipping tomorrow, and i wouldn't have come had it not been paul's birthday... 

anyhow, seeing that my class is kinda on about showing up for these things, i'm not sure if i should skip tomorrow... 

but considering i don't actually have any house (my name isn't on any house list after i left school back in the day), and if they take attendance according to houses, i'm totally safe...

either that or i can say the heat today caused me to have a severe migraine (i AM on MC for physical activity, so its pretty believable, and besides, tomorrow is purely physical games right, and since i'm still covered, why go)

oh and i hear point.12 had some class (or part-of-the-class) thingy planned, which made me think of the ebb in any class outings post-OEP/june-hol-study-sessions... kinda felt weird not having anything to do after leaving Estivo...

i thought of dropping by NJ to visit my IP-mates, but was kinda zoned out coz of the heat, so gave that a miss... and it would have been weird explaining to security why i was there dressed like that (not a difficult task, but a time-consuming one nonetheless, something i doubt i was up to an hour or 2 ago)

another time perhaps... 

shock shock me,

John.

this post is entitled The ACSian Debater, for more reasons than one...

it came across as frustrated, tinged with angst, perhaps emotionally wronged... 

but once it was read from beginning to end, it was merely indulgent...

perhaps pardon is warranted in the heat of the moment...

the initial sting that the very best of us have felt...

then again, it is far too sunken in one direction that even sympathizers are want for some sense of reality, some consideration of the other, some thought... 

that's what it is - thought was missing, feelings trumping reason, loyalties trumping balance...

so now, loyalty...

the ac family? 

the spirit of an ac debater?

the wit? the humour? the perfection, excellence and immaculate debating? 

i sit here, a debater having studied for 10 out of 11 years in ac, conversing with a teammate who has been a debater for the school in the last 5 years, and we discuss this expounding of what makes a debater in AC... 

friends, seniors, passion, outbursts don't an ac debater...

proclamations of being the one team to beat certainly don't either...

it may have been an arguable truth in certain years gone, but even then, the circuit (this ethereal entity that determines the is and isn't of debate) was by no means polarized, not even bipolar in nature... 

that's why we compete...

that's why competitions are intense as the levels get higher...

that's why the top seedings rotate on a yearly basis...

that's why the debating batch of 2003-2008 have trophies as evenly distributed as talent... 

that's why one does not indulge in such talk... 

give recognition where necessary, reflect out loud in moderation, and always be of deliberate thought...

all that is life is lived in balance,

John. 

gave school a miss on thursday only to return on friday to find out that the chem test has been postponed to monday (and coincidentally, we don't have an SL1 period on monday week A, so i'm sure how this is gonna go), math investigation has been pushed to august 14 (so i can't do it over the long break), and there was a practical period i missed...
so i went with sean to do a makeup pract with joshua the lab tech, and it was quite a fun practical involving the water and ice (because water is the most advanced and complex of all chemicals, no?)
for once in a long while there wasn't anything to do, and after looking around the sac/anglo-Os, i just went back home...
and on the way home i had the most delightful exchange with someone from midc regarding the forced attendance at the debate finals on saturday...
i could have just skipped it really, seeing how many ppl didn't even bother to show up...

the weekend (or just saturday really) was much more enjoyable, despite having to waste 5 hours at singapore power building...
met up (or just saw) many debaters whom i have not had a chance to talk to in a long while...
miche/val came along to support acjc (or just al to be more precise), but they lost to rj in the end (rj was good, congrats especially to aaron for being the top ranked speaker of the series)
paul was joint 5th (yay paul!)
but before the thingy itself, sean/paul/me met at cine for lunch at pastamania, then dropped by cheers to get survival materials for the waste of time ahead (namely bottled drinks and magazines)
i should have just brought my work like paul did, but oh well, FIRST movie reviews are productive in themselves...

the latter half (or third, more accurately) of my saturday was more fun, not only because it was FOP, an event which i attended from 2003-2005, but skipped last year coz hillsong weren't there...
but i decided to give it a shot this time round because miche told me delirious? was playing...
so met sher/rachh/quonian at kallang for an early dinner before heading to the stadium... unlike the friday slot, saturday night was way more crowded...
they did the batch-entrance thing again, which was really well organized, but that meant we had to make do with the overflow room and not get to see the thing live...
met gerald (who was reading harry potter 5) in the queue, and i assumed he was meeting friends (i feel bad for not asking, especially since he asked me if i was there alone, which should have been some indication), coz he had went with joash the day before...
(i also feel bad for not asking him to join us during the thingy itself, considering i was sitting 2 rows behind... sorry!)
the best thing about FOP this year was martin smith (no surprise there), and he is one HECK of a singer... i still get chills remembering the contemporary/spiritual candlelight setup he did near the end of FOP'05, and that note he held for goodness knows how long...
he really knows how to work a crowd...
the second best thing about FOP was the way delirious? presented their song lyrics... no usual yellow subtitles beneath a live video feed, not even the strobe/LED panel that hillsong used in their DVDs...
they actually had their lyrics embedded in things like bus stop ad signs and newspaper headlines... i especially dug the one for History Maker...
i'm so needing to re-obtain The Mission Bell, World Service (both of which i lost went my HD crashed a year ago) and get Now is the Time: Live from Willow Creek...

week 7 is the short week, and by short i mean 5-odd hours out of our usual 44-hour work week...

stuff to do:
1) chem pract 11 report
2) chinese individual oral script (21st august, 140pm, boarding school hall 8 music room)
3) chinese project (or what is known as an exercise in copying and pasting)
4) english A1 strand 2 written commentary - Death of the Naturalist

and before i end, allow me to lament the absence of SYTYCD on singaporean TV...
it is such an amazing third season, and i can only get it online...
this week was superb, with neil/lacey's contemporary routine clinching the best dance of the season thus far...
and the group dance this week was to ciara's Get Up (with a Matrix motif), which had a beginning that was oddly similar to the one the dance folk at ac did for te lle event this year (the chest thrust thing, which was really quite nice, despite the fact that the dance lasted all of 1 minute)...
the top 6 are lacey/danny/neil/lauren/sabra/pasha...

paint this big'ol town red,
John.

so yesterday passed by pretty quickly, in that pt gave us the last half hour of his pract period off, and since i wasn't planning on seeing bng for EE, i just waited around before going home with clarence (did that for the first time since dunno when, monday and today too, and elendrus was with us on monday), not before meeting yewjin/mervyn/et outside the dean wing... some of them are watching simpsons this friday, not sure if i'm going...

today, as all wednesday week Bs are, was HL day, and once again i spent the 40mins of TOK that's in between my 2 breaks doing nothing productive (just read the second review of HOUSE at dempsey road, this time in last week's 8 days that jim returned me during history)...

but the crux of my post today will be a little snide, and i will name names, but i'm not gonna regret it... so sue me for pointing things out that i happen to notice (and trust me, i notice most things that go unobserved)

so during HL 1 - english A1 strand 2, we proceeded with our IOPs as usual, and gabriel started off with a conventional topic that was presented quite brilliantly, and then songyeong presenting a rather unconventional comparative analysis which struck a chord with me considering i did GOST as well (seems there are 4 of us in class doing this text, much to my surprise when i read through tedkin's list yesterday)...
then it was jaime's presentation on two east-west stories, and unlike the previous two, this presentation lacked direction...
let me clarify that i'm in no way saying this arbitrarily, but i'm picking up from where bjc left off, where he kept up a steady stream of questions (that till the end remain unanswered, quite appallingly) that were meant to find out what exactly the presenter thought the writer of said stories was trying to convey to the reader, particularly in terms of whether said presenter's assertion that rushdie was opposing religion in an aethistic context was justified...
but that's hardly what i'm trying to drive at (though nonetheless it is something worth commenting on, no?)
what i'm really building up to is this -
(ok before i get there let me perhaps explain why i'm particularly flamboyant when i write about said presenter - on a clear day in july, the monday of term 3 week 3, pt told our class that the top HL English A1 student was her, and so duirng the break post-lesson, i was sitting with some .13 ppl in the SAC, and when she walked up, i was like "hey jaime, congrats on english"... and guess what the response was? no "thanks", no "nah it wasn't all that great"... it was strange grim expression, no utterance, and a subsequent about-turn before she walked away... for a moment there i was slightly shocked before i remember some of my levelmates telling me that another person had done something similar earlier in the year, so i didn't think much of it, besides b**ching to some other ppl about it, as is my moral duty to make known to the select group of ppl all things worth b**ching about that go on in our school, but i guess now's as good a time as any to post it up here)
i took frequent breaks from reading the texts that the presenters were touching on (as well as finishing off the last 2 acts of hedda gabler, but i have a knack for hearing what's going on while reading something else, coz how else would i have survived aom's econs lessons), and as i took a look around the class, most ppl were paying attention (its a mutual thing, i'd never want anyone to sleep in the midst of my presentation), but nonetheless there were a few, in particular gerald on my far left... he even slept during the Q&A, a feat few ppl could achieve...
but (and this is one hugeass but) when jaime's presentation came up, said sleeper was all awake, applauding her effort at the end of it like it had been the gospel reinterpreted or something...

so there lies the irony, perhaps even the hypocricy in it all - sleep during your classmates' presentations, wake up during said other-person's presentation...
i'm not the most enthusiastic standee when it comes to showing my appreciation for a presentation/performance, but at least i do what i do in equal measure, regardless the person in question...

maybe i'm just being b**chy coz i was annoyed after what happened a few weeks back, but there lies the beauty of having someone do something to give you the poetic/dramatic/blogger's licence to compound everything for ppl to read, innit...

in other news -
chem test on energetics this friday, everyone seems to say its pretty hard, so yeah...

impacto,
John.