In the morning, just after coughing once, I was strongly discouraged from going for training. So I was left to slack in my room. Julian called me at 12pm only to know that I wouldn't be coming, but he urged me to find a way to attend it. I did get to, in the end.

I meant to go for it at 3.30, but as it would not interfere with certain plans if I went earlier, I arrived at about 3pm. Waited until about 4 while Benedict was called after a mere 30 seconds in the hall. When we finally got a table, I had to 推 for Daryl and Joy. 我又没有给他们好球拉，我推什么呀？ So I wasn't very good over there. Coach finally decided that I should then be the one to 拉球, and thanks to Jerilyn, I was allowed to continue even after I lost the ball.

After that, I played with Julian. Unsatisfied with the match results, 他不服气，要再打一次, this time in a table that was "Sun-Free". I got another tyco spree, so I won. Then, we went out to the Fitness Corner to slack. First, we tested our Pull-Ups, which we failed. Then Daryl challenged me to Push-Ups. He did 10 commando push-ups and I just ignored his request of me to do 20 standard ones. Of course I would feel guilty to owe him something, so I did 10 Knuckles? But he did it too, so 我还欠他. I returned it with 10 commandos of my own, though not as nice as his, I never did it before.

We played around with the Monkey bar, argued over the bar height of the inclined pull ups and climbing the rock wall, before returning to the hall at 5.45 to hear from coach: 你们大半天去了哪里？是不是去打篮球啊？ Sounds dangerous, doesn't it? Not really, he was very nice. He let us play a doubles match, which I lost with Benedict. As such, we had to 捡球. He let us pick the balls on the side that seemed like it had more balls, but he judged the book by it's cover, as the outside had a few balls but the inside was empty. So, we had less to pick than Daryl and Julian.

Following that, to end the day, a match with Daryl. Starting at about 6.15, Benedict and Julian left at 6.25 while we started our 2nd set as they could not wait for Daryl. The first set had been brought to an 18 - 18 deuce after which Daryl finally gave 2 points. Looked good for me, but I lost the next 2 sets 11 - 8 and 11 - 7, after which we left.

I got another impatient bus driver today, but it seemed reasonable for him to be angry as the other drivers on the road weren't sticking to the highway code such as not giving way to the bus and staying in yellow boxes, which caused inconvenience, obviously.

The day was fine. 我的反手差得很。I beat Jia Wei once and lost to her after that, then An Qi threw me down to the 6th table, where Denise was. 她逼我发球到她接得到，还请小小马去教她。When we were done with that, doubles... One of the AT girls and I against Denise and Ying Wen. In a desperate bid to end their day, they did not play their best.

In the afternoon, 第一场跟小马打。Coach wasn't too happy with the outcome, then I had to play with Yen Kar. I tycoed less this time round, about 5? Still quite a number. Following that, was Gerrat, again. I had not forgotten the previous time we played, so I half expected another 3-set comeback. Which WAS what happened. Despite my 2 - 0 lead, I lost the match overall when Gerrat finally got back into his full on mode. Again, he barely missed any of my tycos, he was ready for almost all of them. Nevertheless, a fun match.

The rest of the 90 minutes was spent slacking. I was supposed to 放高球, but they just didn't want to smash hard enough. In the last 10 minutes, 我又跟An Qi打了一场比赛。This time, I managed to counter her hard left smashes. I had to run out of the usual playing field as it was really too much to the left.

So I've spent the first 3 days doing some of my homework. I keep jumping from here to there so nothing is actually totally done. The 2 Benchmark Tests went well.

I meant to leave at 2.45 today, but I ended up leaving at 3.05pm because I noticed that my nails were getting long so I spent sometime cutting it short. When I finally left my place, I worried about the few minutes less I would have for training. Well, the bus ride there was about 40 minutes, not the longest, but a bit slow. And the bus driver was more impatient than others. He was behind another bus at the bus stop, and he just skipped that bus stop completely when no one came to flag it down so that he could overtake the bus in front.

Anyway, I arrived at about 3.45pm, only to meet a group of reds complaining about the lack of tables, which, seemed to be taken up by the other players. 5 minutes later, Coach kindly reserved a table for us to play 三分. 6 of us, Daryl and I must 分开. Choices were Benedict, Marcus and the Twins. He got to choose first because coach said so. He took Ben, I took the Lefty, he took himself :D and I was left with Marcus. Both Daryl and I weren't really in the mood today. He told me not to trash them all, which I can't do at all. It was somewhat fun though, and we were leading 2 - 0, thanks to Marcus, whom I figured can perform miracles too. When Timothy joined to start taking us out, Daryl requested that I, a respectable S3, do something about it, which was quite impossible because right now, Timothy is a notch above me in terms of Table Tennis skills. In the 3rd set, at 20 - 16 with us leading, everyone except Daryl, Marcus and I went for a drink. Daryl held his ground as a representative of the whole team in a one-man show while Marcus played for himself and Darren, and the result came to a 26 - 24 win by Daryl. Frustrated by the ridiculous comeback, we decided to just stop there. No one suffered any punishment, which was supposed to be 捡三百立球.

Then I had to play with Julian. This time, the score was 3 - 2, final set 12 - 10. Quite a lucky win because the last ball was a tyco and the 2 sets that I won earlier were both 11 - 9. The sets that he won, however, were 11 - 5 and 11 - 8. But, it's fun to have an intense match nonetheless.

It was about 5.30 then. We (Daryl) went out for a nice talk and break of 15 mins before returning to play for a while, then have a match. He asked for best of 3 but I insisted on Best of 5, and he gave in when I got to serve first. Fun match. Both of us trying crazy stuff. And 短球 doesn't work on Daryl because of his pen-hold. And he's got that epic short serve that I am forced to return lightly. But then, I almost never go aggressive on the returning of service, but I have to say that it's harder to return than other services, because unfortunately for me, it becomes high enough for him to smash when I return that ball.

The bus ride back was even longer. I skipped 3 buses at MacRitchie because they were full. I found one that was really empty because there had been one earlier like 3 minutes ago, so it stole all the passengers, and I got on. During the wait, I witnessed someone come next to me to dig into the dustbin for a newspaper.

Woke up at 10.15am today. Then I took Breakfast/Lunch and slacked for a while until 12.45pm. What next? Training, of course, just a little late today.... by 3 hours.

Now that the inter-school tournaments are over, coach seems to be giving those who did not play much during that period, opportunities to play. I was made to start off against Julian. I won 3 - 1, but it wasn't very easy. A harder match awaited me. Yen Kar lost to me 3 - 2, of which the whole match, I tyco-ed about 10 times. That's almost 1 whole set. Therefore, it was a lucky win.

After that, I had to play with one of the Primary School kid who wasn't too strong as we were out of opponents... Then as Yi Kar and I debated on our Table Tennis skills because he was insulting Mushroom for his skills despite training for the previous year, I told him that if her saw it that way, I was a lot more terrible than Mushroom because I had started much earlier. As we tried to convince each other that the other was better, we were forced to prove the truth when asked to play. As I expected, I lost 3 - 2.

After Yi Kar, I had to play against Hanzhi. First set, I was losing 6 - 0, of which 3 were tycos. But that wasn't the end of it, there were more to come. But then, tycos always even out, somehow, and it doesn't have to be against the same person. So I expected this was my punishment for tyco-ing Yen Kar so much earlier on. Anyway, even without tyco-ing, Hanzhi is like Yirong without Anti.

After that, 2 AT girls. I beat both of them 3 - 0, twice. Coach wasn't happy with them, but I have to say that they improved a lot. Really scary to see people a little more than half my height able to keep fast rallies going. Next opponent was Joy. I won 3 - 1 this time round, her strokes are better than mine.

The match against Zhan Heng was not decided as he gave up halfway with the excuse of his leg hurting. Score was 2 - 1, I was leading then. To end this winning spree, Yan Tian and Seth both beat me 3 - 1, and the worst part was that both of them were merely playing the fool. Yan Tian kept talking about Sean's style of fang gao qiu, which unfortunately worked against me, and Seth uttered words everytime he hit the ball. He said things from Pokemon, Mario and X-Men, which was really random, but I still lost.

Ending the term with a round of cleaning up the classroom is not what I enjoy, firstly because I forgot to bring a rag so I was sort of useless and also because the place is really so dusty and dirty, especially the fans and lights. I took a bus to school today, met Lionel on the bus and so sat next to him. That bus had no place to stand anyway. I usually stand on Public Transport because it keeps me awake and the seats can be saved for those with priority. Anyway, I arrived at 7.10am, not too bad, but much longer than the last time.

When Ming Xuan arrived in school, he directed his finger at me and very "kindly" informed me that I was about to die. The reason: I had not reminded him to bring his Physics file to hand up. None of us had remembered last night anyway. I have yet to know what he did, I shall ask him later after posting this.

We first returned the Report books, which wasn't too difficult, then started cleaning every single desk present in the classroom. Some people ripped apart a shirt to share. Then we cleaned the windows and the shutters. After that, we moved the desks and tables to a position such that there was a clear space in the middle where many people could move about like particles of gas (in random motion) without obstruction. When our tall people did the honours of cleaning the fans and the lights, it was a sickly sight that came down. Dustballs of unknown age fell from each fan and light, and when they requested a change of rags, few were up for the job as they would be receiving an extremely dirty, black, wet cloth in return.

I was part of the slacker clan with Ming Xuan and San Zeng as we did not do much. I myself found pride only in picking up litter, but that job was taken by Samuel. As such, we did the least we could, which was to sit aside to ensure that we did not block others. However, I found myself within the vicinity of Zhi Ming cleaning the light. In the process, I became the only one in the class to get caught by a dustball. Not too much though, so there was nothing to fuss about. However, I was sure I didn't want to be in the same position again for fear of the worse.

Thanks to the co-operation of the class, we finished cleaning the classroom by 9.15am but we had to wait until 10am for the official time of the mass dismissal. Thus, we sat and talked. San Zeng found a red coloured 1 dollar coin from somewhere, while I picked up a gold name tag belonging to one "Ng Yong Xiang" which fell off one of the lights during the cleaning session. Then I watched Hong Fu play chess and although he lost, I was impressed by his brain and told myself that I would never be able to play chess. His loss was a very close one though. Both players were down to about 5 pieces? Hong Fu had just his King and 3 pawns remaining, all of them which were blocked in their routes. His opponent brought his own King forward as well as a Knight, after which a pawn secured a promotion for a Queen, which eventually resulted in Hong Fu's defeat.

After we were dismissed, I went to the bus stop to decide if I should go out. I wanted to eat, but I didn't like the idea of coming back to go home. From Bishan back home, the journey is way too long. My bus arrived, but I didn't board it. Then Keefe came and suggested that we go and eat. With that, my decision was confirmed. We went up to Bishan and he found his friends there. Having begged to eat KFC on the train constantly, when his friends were going to KFC, he joined them. Thus, I was left alone.

I went up to the Food Court, sat down next to the Prata Stall and took 3 Cheese Prata. Now I feel that quality for extra money is worth it. It was delicious in good amount. I finished it and then started off back home. When I met Darrin at the station, he called me a loner because I didn't eat with him. He should have asked me earlier, or vice versa. Whatever. That was the end to the first semester of this year, and I'm already upset that half the year is gone, but I'm happy to have spent that time knowing more about the 2 friends I can rely on, Ming Xuan and San Zeng :D

The second last day of school was still enjoyable. Leadership camp was quite fun, but only because of the activities. Monkey See Monkey Do was so epic, our class had "great" coordination. Nicholas got picked at least once in each game, wasting one chance of each zookeeper. And it was so simply because he was the one who called the shots even though he was never the Monkey King. Forfeits included singing Baby, Mass Push-ups and Choong Meng's own set of push ups.

Then there was another activity where we had to form a circle, be connected in some way (simplest way was hands) and move one full circle as a group and arrive back at our own seat. 2 circles of 19 each, the slower group was forced to do a forfeit. Well, my group was faster thanks to Kaiser's method of getting together as a smaller circle so that we could move faster. As such, the other group had to walk down the corridor of our floor shouting that our class rocked. It was really funny and some of our group even joined them.

Then we had yet another activity where we remained in our circles and the coach would shout out a number. If 1, we moved one step forward as a group maintaining our circular shape. If 2, we backtracked two steps. On 3, we all had to sit on the knees of the person behind us. The circle had to be small enough for the right amount of space between each person. Ming Xuan was behind me while I supported Alex, and San Zeng, that idiot, caused us to break formation by giving Ming Xuan a zap, who transferred the same action onto me. I'm incredibly vulnerable to that, so of course I was shocked. After the coach was satisfied, we had to do it as a whole class. This time, Jia Hui was in front of me while Ming Xuan remained behind me. At least Keng Wee was there to separate him and San Zeng now :D. Anyway, we were not quite successful, but the coach seemed ok with it. When she told us to reverse positions such that I now had to support Ming Xuan, we fell a total of 3 times.

There was one last activity, although that was after recess, which involved 6 to 7 people in a circles sitting down. Legs were stretched out to meet at the middle, and by holding on to each other, we had to get up into standing position at the same time as well as not bending our knees too much. We failed that, so the coach allowed us to get up one by one. After we were successful with that, we had to go up 2 people at the time. Then 4. After that, was the whole group. We managed to do it finally albeit shakily.

Recess was not as entertaining as yesterday as we got only 40 minutes and there was no one to talk to. My juniors.... all disappeared :(. Meanwhile, Darrin totally ignored Ming Xuan throughout the day and me as well, but he decided to stop that ridiculous attitude towards me at the end of the day.

Report Books came back today instead of tomorrow. 18/38, better than I expected as I felt that I really did badly this time round. Of course, that isn't satisfying either. And at 18th position, my average is 68.8. So those ahead of me are really those who qualify for this class. San Zeng beat me totally this time round. From following me by 0.1%, he is now ahead by 1.3%. Darrin and I currently have a 0.5 mark difference, while poor Ming Xuan fell to the back at 28. Not to say he's a weak student, he's just giving us chances for now :D. He definitely has the ability to do well, after being able to tell me every single thing I needed to know even though he doesn't look like he heard them either. He has a knack for knowing the essential stuff that I usually miss out, so he's the number 1 reliable person to look for whenever I am in need of information.

Training was not too bad, but I definitely did not play as well as I did on Sunday. Lost to Kai Xun 3 - 2, then to Yan Tian 3 - 1. When I asked for a rematch, I beat Kai Xun 3 - 0 and lost to Yan Tian 3 - 2 after that. And that's ALL I did that is worth mentioning, in 3 hours.

Somewhat ridiculous day today. We started off with a Etiquette talk about how to be a gentlemen. The speaker was really funny with his actions and his stories, some really disgusting though. He got Kaiser to spray cologne in public as a demo. He taught us how to stand, walk, sit and introduce others (seniors first)

That talk lasted until 9.40am. Then it was recess, until 11am. A nice lengthy session of slacking. I just got 3 pieces of French Toast, went back to class with Russell, finished it then realized that it was only 10am. Went back to the canteen, got a pack of French Fries, then sat and ate it. Soon after, Benedict came with his own pack of fries, filled with light sauce by accident, and chilli. The smell was horrendous. It's like a garbage bin, seriously. And he still said it was nice. Well, we sat there and talked. Benedict's recess was from 10 to 10.40, so we had twice the amount of their time. Soon after, Tristan came, then Xin Wei joined the group followed by Reuben. We sat and chatted until about 10.55am. Then we went to the hall to watch a movie.

Finding an authorized place to sit was the immediate problem as Hong Fu was not present to organize the class. In the end, Zhi Ming took a random spot. It was a really huge space. Keefe, San Zeng and I followed suit, after which Ming Xuan came. 5 minutes later, the whole class was clustered in that space, but all I cared about was that there was enough space to lie down and stretch my legs because that's the hardest part, sitting in the hall. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within was shown, a 2001 movie which totally made no sense in the beginning. There was nothing at all to explain the events at the start, but the plot gradually unmasked itself. I felt that it was really lame but it did seem good for a movie in that era so yeah I shouldn't be complaining.

Half of the hall were immature people who clapped at every change of scene which they felt deserved a round of applause which was totally uncalled for. They were really idiots who felt that they were cool, to use a less insulting term. Well, Apollos kept disturbing pupils outside the hall who came to count the number of lights in the hall as it was part of their activity. He gave them random numbers and told them to go away. Meanwhile, San Zeng, Ming Xuan and I, we were fooling around for quite a bit.

It's a great start to a fine ending week. Although it was tie day, we were given leeway during the major talk of the day to take it off in our favour. And now, I am treasuring every period in school that is kept away from studying, so I'm quite happy with the post exam schedule as it's all talks. Last year I'd rather have lessons, this year, I prefer them.

The first period today was started off with the confirmation and finalization of Exam Results. But before that, Ms Leng mentioned about our Conduct grade. By default, everyone has a grade of "Very Good", which will be demoted to "Good" should the student be faulted thrice. She added that 2 people in our class had gotten "Excellent", one whom had been given that because he did his job well, and another for honesty. For the former, Ming Xuan thought that it was Kaiser. She elaborated on the one who was honest by saying that it had made a difference of 5 marks in one of his papers and was thus recommended by the teacher for his conduct grade to be promoted, and immediately Ming Xuan and Darrin looked at me because they knew about the loss of 5 marks in my Physics paper which pulled down an already unsatisfactory grade to a borderline pass. Well, now we have a strong feeling that it's me, but we can't be sure until the report book comes back on Friday. Kai Xun felt prejudiced as he had lost 7 marks in his Higher Chinese Paper due to miscalculations as well.

I didn't care about the marks displayed on the sheets of paper. We had 35 minutes for 38 people to sign and confirm their marks, so we lacked time as some busy bodies also enjoyed comparing their results by pondering over the sheets of paper for extended periods of time in such an inconvenient environment. Also, what's done has been done. I'm not going to bother about the current screwed up combined results, I've gotten motivation from her to do better in the future.

After signing on the 6 sheets of papers, we were brought to the TK Low Hall for a talk on commercials. The teacher in charge felt that the 3 classes present were really quiet and encouraged a little bit of noise. Well, the commercial talk was really funny. He started off by telling us that NASA had recently found a moon which was full of cheddar cheese, even the surface was liquid cheddar. I almost believed it. Then he let us imagine scenarios in which more powerful people told us that same thing such as the principal and a news broadcaster. Under which circumstances would we believe that story? The news broadcaster is the most likely one. So that's how commercials started.

We were shown several commercials in local TV which he criticized to be "bullcrap". Then he showed us Thai advertisements which he felt were really creative and true enough, the one about the Cheers Beer advertisement was incredibly epic. He edited out the part where the beer came in and I thought the purpose of the advertisement was encourage people to be happy. He explained afterwards that the happy people portrayed celebration, and where celebration comes in, beer is involved. Thus, the significance of the people's excitement was important in the advertisement. Well, the link is here. Cheers Beer Commercial.

Recess, at 9.20am. I went to the Canteen, saw an empty queue in every single stall and went to buy my usual Chocolate Bun pair. Then I got scolded by DK. He said "Who gave you permission to buy food?" Well, he was in the wrong at the end, and he didn't apologize. But then, I had run back to class and just eaten the food there. 1 hour recess, Kevin was blasting music on his mac.

At 10.20, we made our way to the Shaw Hall where we were told that we could remove our ties for a more comfortable environment. It was a school forum talk where we could suggest improvements for the school. I did not listen to the elaborations of each student much, but I could roughly guess where they were heading. Suggestions such as air-conditioners in classrooms, allowing PE-singlets to be worn even after recess, not a compulsory rule to wear the PE-singlet. I'm surprised no one asked for Mixed School (OK, not really surprised), and I don't want it anyway. One of them even asked why his friend was not elected president of the student council. Although that wasn't a suggestion to improve the school, it was really daring of him to suggest that. It's like asking Obama why McCain isn't the president of the US. And Ming Xuan's friend, asked if it was legal to play poker in school, to which the reply was obvious, after which he pointed randomly (I think) into the crowd and said that they were playing poker. I don't think it was true as the teacher confiscated nothing.

Anyway, for the fun of it, I told Ming Xuan his own handphone number. A couple of seconds later, my handphone number came back. Darrin asked him what his number was and got it recited back to him. Not to be beaten, he asked for his house number, and got in response the correct string of numbers. I was baffled by that, but he then told us that those were the only numbers that he remembered.

So that's that for today. We were stuck in the hall until 12.10pm. Tomorrow... we will be looking at a Film Critique?? And a... what's this, Etiq talk? OK.... sounds fun?

Today's training session was very good. The moment I arrived, cuo qiu. Then when the twins came, cuo qiu bi sai. I won, so I was rewarded with a drink that I had originally declined.

I left Julian behind as I went for Lunch alone. Feeling in no mood to eat, I merely took a chocolate cone from Macdonalds. I regretted this afterwards when I returned to the school, for by then I had started to feel hungry.

I was asked to play with Yi Kar, who had just come back from the Lianhe Zaobao tournament. I beat him 3 - 0, but he was really missing all his la qius, the balls went past his bat physically. I was promised another drink if I beat Yen Kar too, and it was 3 - 2, but he forgot about it. I didn't chase him for the drink. Next was Nicholas, I won 3 - 2, to which coach's response was for a best of 7, continued. Lost one, won one, so overall I won 4 - 3. Another drink if I beat 2 more opponents, coach said. Next was.... I'm not sure of his name??? 3 - 0 it was, anyway. The final opponent was supposed to be Liang Heng, who went home, and Nicholas wasn't happy with our match so he wanted to play again. I lost 3 - 2 this time, so coach passed him the drink.

The Doubles game was depressing, I was already worn out by Nicholas, I was paired up with the weaker of the 2, and it was very hot. The worst part was jiao huan. Yi Kar, Nicholas, that guy whose name I don't know and I. Yi Kar picked Nicholas immediately when given the choice as he felt that the other guy was much weaker, which turned out to be true. I lost 2 and won 1, and even then it was 3 - 2. Guess which one we won? The one with Yi Kar, of course!

Up next, was Gerrat. I can safely say that this was the most intense match of the day. He caught every single lucky ball I shot at him including those that hit the sides of tables or went just over the net, and they catch 99% of people off guard, causing them to lose the point. The net ones may be ok, but the balls that touch the side of the table are nearly impossible to return consistently, but that was what Gerrat did. He was ready all the time as though he expected his opponent to be aiming for that spot. So it seemed like if I did that, I lose, because I myself did not expect him to return those balls. I lost to him, 3 - 2, final set 11 - 8.

Then we have.... the Nanyang Triplet???? A drink for beating all of them, and I totally failed that. Beat Joy, got trashed by Jerilyn and lost to Yirong. Jerilyn's chang jiao causes the ball to feel so heavy and I can't pull the ball up. And then Yirong, with her Anti and her smashes which always seem to go in..... I just couldn't win.

Lianhe Zaobao cup was not a disaster that I had expected. Even if I had been through the first round, Julian would have beaten me anyway, he got a Bye. I played with some SSP guy who didn't seem to be up to standards. But then, neither was I. I lost 3 - 0 with scores 11 - 8, 11 - 9 and 14 - 12. I served out at least 5 balls, was faulted for Service thrice and hesitated a lot which resulted in at least 5 worthless outs. Thus, I feel that I could have won but due to those ridiculous mistakes, I was unable to win. Yi Kar was my advisor for the match. Sean and friends showed their support as well which I really appreciate. Sean, Seth and Yi Kar will be moving on tomorrow so I wish them luck in their match. :D