E-Learning today was great. 4 subjects only. Compare that to last year. What was it? 7 Subjects. And the portal wasn't lagging at all either, how great is that? Last year it'd take 15 mins to load a page with one question, 2 mins to answer it, and then click submit, and another 15 mins to display the next question. All I can say is that I spent only 1/4 of the time that I spent last year doing this E-Learning, I even had time for training! Last year you had to start early and end at like 11.59pm, plus minus 1 minute. Nah jk but it really could go that late to about 11.30pm, firstly because of the amount of work, of which 80% you would hate, and the fact that the portal was lagging with over a thousand students on the same website simultaneously. So, today was an excellent E-Learning day and I shall look forward to the next one in July, if it is just as good as this.

But of course, everything comes with it's downsides. Expecting a long day of staring at the computer the night before, I went to Studywiz to check if anything was out yet at 12am. I saw an E-Learning survey, so I took it. They asked me things like "Are you satisfied with the amount of work you get?" and "Are you satisfied with the speed of Studywiz?", something like that. Well, naturally, I wouldn't know at that time what it would be like today, so I used experience from last year. And of course, after what I said in the paragraph above, I went to check the Disagree options for those questions. And then there was a box at the bottom for "Additional Comments/Opinions". What did I put there? I requested for less work and a faster portal. Now, that's really unfair, after what they did today. 4 subjects compared to 7 last year, and I want less? And Studywiz was working fine, I don't need a better server. This is a case of "Don't count your chicks before they are hatched". I did the survey too early, more than 8 hours early, in fact.

I guess I should go and do the survey one more time and fill in the opposite of what I did the first time. I really didn't expect today to be a good E-Learning session, I thought it would be the same situation as last year, and with even more work. So, Strongly Agree and Disagree should cancel out to become Agree, so that should be fine. And I shall emphasize on my satisfaction with E-Learning today to make them happier.

Anyway, I was up late into the night this morning, listening to really funny conversations on Skype. It was just... epic. And as a result, I slept late, which means not enough sleep, so I was tired during training, I could really feel a significant drop in my reaction time and I was not in the mood to run for even 2 metres. Thus, training was somewhat bad today, but somewhat bad is in between quite bad and OK, so it's not too bad. I did really badly in the 3-point thingy though, it was quite cold today and I couldn't move.

We lost to RI with a score of 3 - 2. Even cheating with 5 China guys didn't work. But it does mean one thing, our SG players have got talent. So when they're up against Sports School, we'll see if they can do us proud and show us that RI has better players than Sports School, which will completely throw away the meaning of Sports School and shame them. It might be ok for Sports School to lose to China, but not to SG players.

Today is E-Learning day. Starting on it now.

Yesterday's training left me tired after 3 consecutive days of training. OK, Day 1 was only 1 hour, but hey it's wasn't easy beating that kid. Then I did a whole day on Saturday (No not full, I left at 4.30), and yesterday I did a complete Sunday, or almost. In the morning I was just doing Umpire duties, and of course with every match you'll see some great points. I started officially in the afternoon.

Threw myself to the last table, again. No, coach did, because we were supposed to be letting the Primary School kids have a chance, but how's that happening when they are all put at the second half of the tables and I'm at the last? So I decided to be the nice guy and play rallies with them. Didn't hit hard or use any cheat serves. Their strokes are better than mine, I can assure that. So, when I got to Table 7 (I started at 11), I couldn't play nice rallies anymore, my opponents were getting stronger. OK, so I climbed to table 5, and Daryl was at Table 3 :). He lost to the Thousand Thousands, so I met him at Table 4 :D. I took the first set but he leveled it with the 2nd and then he chose to start at 5 - 5 for the third set when he found out that I started Service, and not 8 - 8. Why's that, I wonder, he can easily take my serves. So whatever, we brought the score to 10 - 10. Deuced again. Then in a lucky shot, my service hit the side of the table, and of course he was caught of guard, so he missed that. I had Advantage now. I ended the match with a high ball and got lucky again because he missed the smash :D.

OK after that it was a lousy game for me. Doubles with a Primary School girl, against another pair of Primary School girls. My strokes went all wrong, not that I was perfect, but I could definitely do better. OK so we lost that. Then we went on to a Singles match with HZ... And she hits real hard. Not worth giving high balls, but that's what I did best, and it wasn't that great either. Still, I clinched a 3 - 1 win, then we moved on to Doubles. Me and HZ, vs Julian and Benedic. How's that fair. We've got 2 Power Smashers and a Super Lucky guy playing, and I got nothing. So I lost, lost and lost again. Didn't win a single one even after pairing with all 3 of them. That just shows how weak I am at Doubles. Ended the day by beating YK's brother. Like, finally? This was where my high balls proved useful and worthy. Another 3 - 1 win.

OK enough on that, the new term started today, and I was very sleepy. Fortunately it was Monday, and Mondays are basically half days, we just have to last until Recess and the rest of it is slack. But tomorrow's erm... ok day, I'm looking forward to the match against RI. Then on Wednesday we'll be at home, and after that will be another long day, then on Friday I'll be watching another match depending on who our opponent is. A somewhat eventful week to look forward to.

:D

I am somewhat satisfied with training today. I went for AT training in the morning, and it wasn't too bad, but there are really mischievous kids over there who said I bullied them because I did not give them a good ball to hit when they hit it out. They told me I had to go for 5000 years of prison because of that. OK, fine, I won't even be able to complete 2% of that sentence anyway. ZH was also getting somewhat bullied, so he told coach he wanted to play with me, just to get away from them. What do you want to see in a match between us? The results are known before they are out. Of course I lost, 3 - 1. So after that, at 12pm, I took a bus back to J8. And the China people ran across the road in between moving cars just to catch the bus.

Lunch was 2 Standard Sausage Buns from Bread Talk. Enough to last me until 4.30 anyway. So I got back to MSHS, had a slight quarrel with Ee Jin :(. Then coach made me train like usual. Played with the I-will-trash-you guy, then assigned to beat that kid that I always lost to. Like, finally?

Random

Sleeping positions are important. If your neck is not properly supported, you might find yourself with a stiff neck when you wake up, and it is NOT fun to have a stiff neck. I had one the other day, during my exam, so I couldn't write properly. But no I was not sleeping during the exam, I meant that I had a stiff neck while I was doing the exam, I got it in the morning, and it hurt.

When you wake up in the morning, hear a crack somewhere around your neck and your neck starts to hurt when you move, don't panic, it's just a stiff neck, your spine is not broken or anything, but the bad news is that you're going to suffer that pain for at least 2 hours.

Stiff necks cause your neck to feel pain when you turn beyond a certain range. At the start, you can only move about 5˚ clockwise and counter-clockwise, and this slowly improves over time. It can last up to 3 days, and it hurts a lot when it does. At this stage, you're probably going to feel pain every 20 seconds as you turn your head quite frequently.

When you first get a stiff neck and you're in a car, be prepared to feel pain VERY frequently in your neck, because car rides are bumpy, and bumpy means causing your head to turn, be it up or down, left or right, at that point in time your head cannot handle it

When it does start to improve and you feel yourself able to turn 30˚ both sides quite comfortably, you will still feel very afraid of turning your head because you don't know at which point it might hurt.

In 2 hours you should be able to turn at least 60˚ clockwise and counter-clockwise without any pain

When you can finally turn 90˚ on both sides, you can start to manually handle your neck. Rubbing the back of your neck with your hands will help, then occasionally try to turn beyond that. The pain will be a lot less throbbing compared to when you just got it.

But that's not the end yet. Even when you can turn 140˚ on both sides, you might still not be able to turn your head upwards fully. Continue to rub your neck from time to time.

Stiff necks are really painful when you need to turn your head. And when writing, it's incredibly agonizing because you have to turn your head to read the words you're writing, and when you do, you feel a sharp dose of pain strike the back of your neck, and then you would have to stop writing and possibly cry out (No I didn't). So be sure to have a good pillow that will support your neck high enough when you're sleeping, say at a 20˚ angle. Sleeping without a pillow is fine, but try not to sleep flat. Lean to one side, as lying flat means your neck is straight, and it's going to be straight for at least 6 hours, which could result in a stiff neck.

Yesterday, Social Studies lesson in the morning. Our teacher just talked and talked, but at least her talking was interesting. Then after that, I went with Keefe, JL and WL to J8 for lunch. We wanted to eat KFC, but then we saw Bishan Gay so we went to the Food Court instead. OK after lunch, came back to school for training. Training was ok, JL played so crappily. Only 5% of his smashes went in, but at least we didn't lose to anyone. And we're both Lefties, which puts us at a disadvantage when we play Doubles :). I was quite tired today.

Starting a new life...

OK I REALLY REALLY REALLY hope I'll be posting on this blog like much more? From a 108 posts, I reduced it to 15. It looked so rubbish last time. Assume that this blog starts here but was created in 2007 :). I left those posts there because they were worthy enough to remain there.

Macbook Power Button problem

I just found it out about 5 minutes ago. So, my macbook was hanging for unknown reasons and refused to sleep. I forced it to shut down and booted it up again. When it stayed at the start-up screen for 10 minutes, I decided to try and reboot it again. But this time, I pressed it too hard, and the button sort of went in and got half stuck. I could not get it out. How to fix it? I got this from the internet. Just press the button in and turn it clockwise or counter-clockwise. The button was not straight, which was why it was half stuck.

Mac Update

Just updated my mac, getting used to Safari 4. Been having fun with the Xbox, almost completed all my homework, it's just copy and paste now, but it's handwritten.

NAPFA

Today was NAPFA test 5 stations. I did the 2.4Km yesterday. Clocked 13 minutes and 33 seconds. But I missed my C for the Sit and Reach by 1cm. Everything else is all A or B. I did 30 Inclined Pull Ups and 64 Sit-Ups. Even my Standing Broad Jump was a C.

So today was Cross Country and it was a really nice "run". I think I walked more than I ran in terms of time. Anyway, I finished 108th of my level. Many people didn't take it seriously and walked the whole length. I enjoyed it. First time because last year I had TT Tournaments.