deutsche satze.

dieses Jahr ist Schule eines ganz anderes Welt. ein schlechtes Welt, mit allerdings und jede Leute (fast). manchmal wuenshe ich laufen, schnell, von Zeuge ich kann in Worte sagen nicht. nichts kann so viele bedeuten.

ahh, this sucks.

somebody said a's results will be released next week.

someone, lyrics

someone who

sees like a child
gives like a saint
feels like an angel
nevermind the broken wings

speaks like a picture
cries like the rain
shines like a star
as long as the fire remains

slumdog ftw!

the 81st annual academy awards started at 9.30 am singapore time at the kodak something in los angeles.

yay for slumdog millionaire! i hope the indian kids who went for the academy awards had fun.

and i think it's sort of a tradition, for all award ceremonies, to award a prize to the dead, if applicable. but heath ledger deserved it totally. for being a wonderful joker. now, who was the singaporean who had a part to play in the dark knight?

and why, somebody please explain to me, does it seem like only a few films were nominated for so many awards? sure it's great that slumdog got so many awards, but at the same time, shouldn't other films stand a chance too? look at the nominations list, all you see is milk, slumdog, dark knight, benjamin button, the reader...

for short film, we have spielzeugland, german for toyland. apparently the producer was the director, so he spent four years of his east german life coming out with the fourteen-minute film. but at least he ended up with a gold guy.

more of the oscars action at http://oscar.com.

recollections.

this week has SO not been productive.

i mean, apart from the fact that i was engaged in school stuff for all seven days.

chancellor's challenge shield yesterday, i guess all of us from jj were too embarrassed to put on our blazers, so they were more like an arm accesory, as S mentioned. yeah so last year jj was second or something, but this year we went and left with nothing. like a saying that goes something like, when you come to this earth, you bring nothing with you, so when you leave, you take nothing with you. i forgot if it's an english or chinese saying, but that's about how it goes.

but we had nice lunch. S and M went to nus for smun last year, so S knew where the good food was. and it ended up that all jj reps went there for lunch. cheap western food, quite good. it's like a school cafeteria style, where you go down in one lane, order and pick up the stuff, then go to the end and pay.

mmm, and the emcee didn't know who steven chia, the goh was. i mean like, the very basic thing you could do, when you're an emcee for an event with a guest of honour, is to check up abit on the profile of the dude. so anyways. when steven chia came in and sat down, alot of people clapped, and she said something along the line of, "yes, very good! that's what you should do when he comes in later, so this is like a rehearsal." then i think somebody pointed out to her that he was already there, so there was a weird moment when she tried to take back her words.

dang my nose is pain. happens quite alot, irritating.

but anyway. one team each from hci, vj and nus got into the finals, and surprise surprise (not!), hci emerged as the winner. they sort of knew the answers to every question, which, after a few questions, became quite irritating. so when they got a question wrong people started cheering.

and for the top ten individuals, there was one each from pj and cj, and the rg girls behind were like, "there're such schools?" and one of them didn't know there's a war in israel. and said it out pretty loud too. talk about being refined ladies from a very prestigious school.

and today, cdc, together with a few jj leaders, went down for nanyang ep day. conclusion, cdc was unhappy with leaders, leaders were unhappy with cdc. i think there just wasn't enough communication.

this week, there aren't many tests, just on on thursday that covers organic chem up till carboxylic acids, but there's spa trial on wed and tomorrow's oscars!

oh yeah i watched slumdog millionaire with sebas, that's why i'm so hyped up about oscars. slumdog's got 10 nominations okay! and if you read sunday times today, yes the bollywood dance scene at the end was very entertaining. sebas and i needed the loo quite badly after the movie but we made sure we waited till the dance was over.

can't believe that i'm a fool again

how was i to know, you never told me.

well,

"i may stumble and fall but i will give it my all, i'll be strong with dignity, 'cause i've tried to be the best that i can be."

sorry that's just random. anyway..

teachers should NEVER show favouritism. if L and M both have the same highest scores in class, there's no reason why Miss should only announce that L topped the class.

M studied, and her effort is worth recognition.

i told my mom about it, and she asked why i didn't stand up for M. because i didn't know the scores until like ten minutes after L's achievement was announced.

i could have stood up then and questioned Miss, "why M got the same score as L but you never say she top the class?", but i guess that'll only make me look/sound like a bitch in front of two classes. and prove that i'm such a kaypo i go look at other people's scores.

sad life.

"but you'll just have to accept that fact that life is sad," says mdm goh, making the whole class laugh.

typical j2 post.

the teachers really love us alot. otherwise it cannot be explained, why we have four tests the week after the valentine's weekend.

mon's econs and gp, tues's bio, thurs' math.

sheryl was offering valentine's dates in the canteen:

in the form of red dates. "retro leh!" says sheryl, proudly exhitbiting the paper packaging.

and lihuan's rose was much much larger than mine.
yeah, painted thumbnail(:

HAHA.

tomorrow will be the last possible day of pe lessons from hell. because our dear seniors from some ancient batch are leaving after tomorrow.

so, let's see, no more:

-crazy abs training that makes people unable to laugh for the following week
-egoistic introductions to exercises
-mockery when we show signs that we're tired
-stupid hand burning under the sun
-push-ups on prickly ground
-outrages of modesty
-embarassing rabbit hops
-demands like we're some ug
-big-time flirting that doesn't do anything other than stoke hatred

which i think, gives us all reason enough to rejoice and welcome back female pe teachers with open arms.

What will you do to find out if your crush is into you?

teenagers have alot in their lives.

i mean like, just look at us, in jc, we've got (at least) five subjects to handle, the better ones will have more, then cca, then when we turn j2 all the remediation lessons start bombarding us, and somehow we rediscover homework.

but more than all that, we cannot forget our private life, i.e. love life.

idk, this sounds weird coming out of my mind right. though i've got a boyfriend.

but think about it. when was your first crush?

mine was in kindergarten. k2. this boy was really cute. i still think so when i see my photo with him. taken just before our graduation performance. but idk what he looks like now, we never kept in contact.

then you begin to wonder as you grow up, what exactly is a crush? last year the girls in class had this eye-candy fetish and all of a sudden almost everyone would go all squirmish when they catch sight of the guy htey thought was good looking. i questioned. they said it's not a crush, it's just eye-candy.

till now i don't see the difference, since rumours have begun with girls and their eye-candy. isn't that what happens when you have a crush?

and, why do people have crushes? because they long for a partner? or because they read too much fairy tales?

back to my k2 guy, i remember imagining us living together, taking care of kids, cooking, everything like parents do. and in my imagination we still looked like when we were six. yeah. six year olds carrying babies and cooking.

so assuming i'm an average girl, crushes are who we think are potential husbands/wives? which means they are potential boyfriends/girlfriends?

oh yeah sebas, just so you know, i never had a crush on you. we were super good friends, and before i could imagine anything, poof! we were together. like magic.

okay back to the topic. so crushes are supposed to become boyfriends, speaking from the girls' point of view.

and love is supposed to be mutual right.

so assuming having a crush is having a secret love for that particular someone, what if, girl A has a crush on guy B, and guy B has a crush on girl A too?

crushes are meant to be secret i suppose, like how the eye-candy thing is supposed to be secretive too. but turned out everybody knew everybody's ec.

so if crushes are secret, then girl A would not know how guy B feels, and guy B wouldn't know what girl A feels.

but what if they find out somehow?

if i were girl A, and one fine day i realise guy B's actually just as into me as i am to him, i think at first i'll be happy for awhile.

awhile, because then i'll wake up. like hello? a crush? something caused by hormones? idk. crushes usually aren't friends right. so whatever we know aboutt he other person may be due to horrible stalking to find out what his name is, what class he is in, what time are his breaks so we can look at him from afar, what cca he is in, if he already has a girlfriend...

but we don't actually talk to them do we? i guess the most common reaction for girls if their crush suddenly appears infront of them is to get dumbfounded and be retarded for a few moments.

so yeah i'll wake up, because i realise that i haven't talked to that person, i only know what's outside, not what's inside. i could have observed his actions since forever, but i wouldn't know his character until i really get to know him.

same goes for the guy. if he has been stalking me all these while, he wouldn't know me inside out either.

so getting together...may not be impossible, but prolly friends first. but i guess before that i'll be so bloody embarassed that i'll never look at him again. too bad for him that likes me then.

idk, what will YOU do if you find out your crush has a crush on you?

calling you, acoustic, blue october

Calling You (acoustic) - Blue October

Song Lyrics | Blue October lyrics

(:

bikila and rono will appear soon.

i was exploring heartware's website, and then i discovered all the testimonials. sebas has his face in han ying's photo.

idk, will somebody ask me to write a testimonial for heartware sometime?

meanwhile, to appease teachers, parents, relatives and myself, i am trying to figure out math.

bannister

BANNISTER: Sir Roger Gilbert Bannister struck me as a very outstanding person.

the 4-minute mile, during his time, was almost scientifically deduced to be impossible. but bannister did it in 3min 59.4sec

we could say that bannister was probably a born runner. he only began training at the age of 17, and previously he had never worn running spikes, nor ran on a track. but one year later, after thrice-weekly training sessions, he could run a mile in 4 min 24.6 sec. and the next year, in 1948, he was selected to be an Olympic "possible", but he turned it down, cuz he felt he wasn't good enough. but the 1948 olympics made him more inspired to be a great miler, so he trained hard for the next olympic games, which would be in 1952. he ran the 1500 in helsinki in 1952, and set the british record with 3:46.30. which placed him fourth. but to him it was a failure.



so after the 1952 olympic games, he set the big goal, to complete a mile under 4 minutes. he failed quite a number of times, but the historic moment came on 6 may 1954. the stadium announcer was quite cute. he knew of bannister's goals, and he knew that alot of people went down to support him, so when he announced the results he purposely said alot before telling the people the timing. reportedly, it was like that:

"Ladies and gentlemen, here is the result of event 9, the one-mile: 1st, No. 41, R.G. Bannister, Amateur Athletic Association and formerly of Exeter and Merton Colleges, Oxford, with a time which is a new meeting and track record, and which - subject to ratification - will be a new English Native, British National, All-Comers, European, British Empire, and World Record. The time was 3.."

then the crowd cheered like mad and nobody cared about the digits at the back.

but apparently the 4-minute impossible mile thing was a myth. for nine years, which was sort of war time, all the records set were a little more than 4 minutes. so human beings, who love whole numbers, took the number 4 as the magic figure. but it may have been broken during the nine years, because the war-time interrupted athletic progress.

nevertheless we shouold acknowledge bannister for achieving his goal, especially when he's a low-mileage trainer.

but yeah, the sad part was that his record was broken by another guy just 46 days after he set it.



and, he's sir bannister because in 1975 he was knighted for his services as the chairman of the sports council of england. he was also the sports illustrated sportsman of the year in 1955.

idk, would dr. bannister or sir bannister sound nicer? cuz this dude was a medical student.

owens

after house comm meeting today, i just felt that i don't know enough about our house names. so i wiki-ed, and here they are.


OWENS, after James Cleveland Owens. aka, Jesse Owens, but Jesse was never his name. one of his teachers misheard "JC", for james cleveland, as jesse, and so the name started.
i guess he's a great sportsman because of his olympic achievement, first american guy to get four golds in track and field. it was the 1936 olympics in berlin. hitler wanted to use the games to promote Nazi supremacy, showing that ethnic africans, e.g. owens, were inferior.


it's a sort of tradition for the goh person to shake hands with all the athletes right? so on the first day, hitler went round shaking hands. but. only with the german winners. so the olympic council people told him he had two choices, either to shake the hands of all medalists, or none. he chose the latter, and never turned up for subsequent prize presentation ceremonies.

so as with all big events the media people always like to tell stories. so they suggested that hitler never turned up because he didn't want to acknowledge owens' wins. but when interviewed, owens said that when he passed hitler, he (hitler) stood up, and they waved to each other. and he said that it wasn't hitler who snubbed him, it was his own american leaders. he did not receive any recognition from the presidents. only after around 20 years, the next president named him the ambassador of sports.


but after that his life sort of became less intersting. he was supposed to follow his team to compete in sweden, but he chose to return to the us to make money from advertisments. but it didn't really work out and in the end he became bankrupt and was prosecuted for tax evasion. he carried on with a few more jobs, then became a goodwill ambassador, stressing on the importance of hardwork, religion and loyalty.

there was this "black power salute" protest by black athletes in an olympic game some years later, but owens did not support it. so the participants criticised him.

before he died at the age of 66 he managed to convince the president then to not boycott the moscow olympics because the games are not supposed to be related to war/politics. yeah anyway he died of lung cancer because he smoked for 35 years.

coming in the next post is bannister. there were alot of great bannisters, but i guess the one the blue house is named after Roger Bannister, the first man to run a less-than-four-minute mile. though the record was broken 46 days later. so, please stay tuned(:

to sebas.

the trying period didn't take too long. and i'm thankful for that. sebas, i love the way you fit into my life.

fll journey

my fll process with heartware wasn't very long in my opinion, though it was significantly longer than for the est of the volunteers. but i'm thankful for the team of thirteen referees, though we were only left with a team of twelve on the event day. exclusive of mr et, of course, whom i met just one day before the event, but that was all it took for me to respect him for who he is. the head referee.

the fll referee journey began on 15 nov. the first referee-timekeeper meeting at heartware office. i didn't exactly feel like going, cuz i was preparing for my germany trip. but i went anyway, and met alot of interesting people. sean, the 24 year old nus guy, bahari, a poly guy who joined just cuz he thought it'll be fun, sheryl, who was in jj for her first three months but went to sa eventually, joy, rj timekeeper who had her name on her wushu jacket, chiew lin, meiting and jiawen, hc triplets, and heartware staff. we played ice-breakers, and in one game we had to choose a food item to represent ourselves and we took turns to call each other by that. we had ice cream and ice kachang, which was quite confusing, and sheryl and i were prawn crackers and prawn noodles. kenneth was carrot cake. brown was ikea meatballs. joy was pizza.

since sebas and i got together, it was the first heartware meeting that we weren't present at the same time. but it was fun nevertheless.

my next fll meeting was with all the other volunteers already, at phpss. there were two other referee events before that, but i was more than ten thousand kilometres away at germany. this fll meeting, i went with sebas, and it was that day that my group of people, led by field manager wei hui, knew that i'm attached. because cheryl was saying that i'll have high expectations of my future boyfriend, and i asked why "future". and that was the day we met volunteers who were not referees/timekeepers. nicolette, from cj swimming, ayuni, srjc grad, cheryl and rachel, who kept switching their names (and cheryl has three ccas in rj), and weihui who had a deck of poker cards with weird photos on them. there was this very quiet nus guy, but i forgot his name. he reminds me of bowen.

and that day, we went for lunch at the bishan kopitiam which i went to with 2/1 people that time we visited mr chin for cny.

that was the last fll session with games. we took a group volunteer photo in the canteen, but as with most heartware group photos, i don't think i'll get a copy of it.

one week later was another all-volunteers meeting at heartware office. this time they made an exception, no need to remove shoes. i was present with sebas but since we played different roles in this project we weren't working together.

and this was the day we were given our table groupings. me at c4, with terence and cs, and xue er as our timekeeper. it was terence's first fll meeting that day, apparently. we very briefly went through the table layout and possible scenarios. i was supposed to be giving the briefing for my table, but then because sean's sounded much more interesting so in the end we sort of merged. luckily we did, because i was running out of stuff to say. sean went for skirmish while i was in germany, so that old guy had more stuff in his head.

the next few days were spent corresponding with kwan yong, who was in charge of our schedule for the next two referee meetings. i first replied his mail because his name was upside down. in his next mail, he sent me the link. i wanted to post the upside thing, but it couldn't show up. but do click on it yeah, it's quite interesting.

so my next referee-timekeeper meeting was on the follwing wed. it was a very heated up discussion with sean, me and terence. the rest pretty much kept quiet. i don't remember if it was then that we met ernest. either wed or thurs.

because the next day i went for the meeting too, since fri i had to be in school. ernest was a referee nominated by the head referee, who was his sec sch teacher. he received a special welcome from ida, but not exactly in a good way but in heartware there's nothing really bad. because he was overseas the whole time we had our other meetings. so ida had to print all the referee handouts for him, and that amounted to quite alot. referees have alot of responsibility.

the thursday meeting was much quieter, prolly because we had less questions to cover. then we went on to dual-lock all the mats and the models. and double sided taping the bottom of the mats so they could be attached to the tables. and that was the day i left my scissors at heartware. i don't think i'm going back to get it, since i live at jurong and heartware's at bishan and i've got no more third lang.

and the next time we met was on saturday at the national library. it was one day before the event. mr et was marking attendance and he came over to where me and sebas were sitting to ask if i was stephanie. sebas (and i) were astonished by his air of authority. he had this kind of voice that would make you want to listen to him and work with him and respect him. powerful.

that meeting was to set the area for competition purpose the next day. we helped pack the goodie bags, (and took some home ourselves), and we divided into our job groups to go through stuff that would happen the next day. referees and timekeepers and our runner basically stuck the models on the mat, qc-ed them, took them off, pack them back into their boxes, labelled them, and slack. and we were very happy about it.

and that was the day i started to know cs. i saw him on the phpss day, but only talked to him on this saturday.

and that night, he sms-ed me to morning call him the next morning.

so on 11 jan i woke up at 4.30 am. morning called sebas at 5am, then called cs at 5.30. by seven am at the national library the orange referees were very prominant around the other blue volunteers, whom mr et called the smurfs.

11 jan shan't be described further by words. pictures say much more.



we're not clapping, we're doing the chicken dance.















my favourite photo!

heh.

die. monday got chem test. whole of organic chem. now i know what to bring for fll. chem notes.

and...math test on 20 jan, entire book three. well erm, i'll study for it, hopefully i'll get a decent grade.

went to shop for cny shoes at jp, three hours of futile walking about. gahh. luckily we're going to bugis tomorrow, sebas and i. only maybe in the afternoon...maybe we don't have much time. thanks to fll at weird timing. where got people do recee at 3-6 one.

last week of school hols

so. school starts next week.

but i guess fll takes priority now.

new year resolutions

okay so there's only a little more than an hour left of 2008, plus an extra second of course, and i've made decisions for the coming year.

it'll be another major year like last year, yes, a's.

so, in 2009, steph will:

study hard.
play hard.
取之社会，用之社会。

and i'll be ready for yog, olympic syllabus or not.

shadow of the day

omg i just realised linkin park was filling up the void during my time in germany. minutes to midnight, almost the entire album.

alena always played this particular cd while driving, sometimes she'll skip songs cuz she knows i don't like screamo, and it turns out the rest of the tracks i've been listening to was those songs.

and the radio station has been bombarding those songs too. whoah.

now "shadow of the day" brings me back to the dark roads of biebertal. not because there're no streetlamps (though there really aren't), but because the day's really short and we always go out in the dark and return home in the dark.

where everybody keeps right and the road has no markings and sometimes we'll see animals at the side of the road (alive, of course), and alot of times i'll look out and see snowy land(: and christel would have to keep switching her fog lights on and off because they're on only when there are no cars coming the opposite direction.

merry christmas!

here's a
very merry christmas to everyone!

You Are Merry and Spontaneous

You approach the holidays with joy and playfulness. You refuse to let the holidays be stressful. They should only be about fun. The holidays truly make you feel like a kid again. And you believe it's your job to make everyone else feel like a kid too! Of all the types, you're the most likely to give someone a gift early... because you can't wait. You're also the most likely to wrap your presents quickly - or not at all.

The Wrapping Paper Test