Random

Bus and Taxi Drivers seem to have very good concentration such that they can drive for many hours a day, continuously. If I were to take the job, I might do well for a week, but after that, in a couple of hours daily, I think I would start to miss passengers and in the case of Bus Driver, miss the sound of passengers requesting to stop. It would be so common for me to hear it that my brain treats it as nothing. That, would of course, lose me the job and get me an angry response from commuters. Add to that the highway code to follow, but it's easier to overcome that since one is constantly driving.

The IT Course today was really fun. First, Alfred and I did not turn up for yesterday's session (we didn't sign up for it) so the teacher was afraid that we might not be able to cope with part 2 if we hadn't gone through part 1. So he took time off to give private "tuition" for the first half hour. He told the rest of the class, those who had been present yesterday, to do as they wished. At 9.20, Joel came into class. He too, had not attended yesterday's session, and worse, he had signed up for it. So, he had to take off even more time. The "tuition" dragged on to 10.25, after which Mr Lee called for a 5 minute break before today's lesson officially started. His measurements of time were obviously different from ours, for his 5 minutes was in fact, 15. We only started at 10.40.

So the Flash Animation was rather amusing. Action Script looked really similar to PHP but the functions, I had never used them. It was a very slack lesson and I'm sure it could have ended 3 hours earlier, but I suppose time had been reserved for those who had problems, and considering that he had started 100 minutes late along with a 35 minute Lunch Break, That's about 2 hours and 15 minutes, but if added with the time he spent going around personally to handle certain issues, that would probably sum up to 3 hours. Anyway, we learnt how to assign keys to a certain action and how to set boundaries for an object, but Alfred's one was bugged, Flash's fault. Then there were other funny things that ActionScript did, which was pretty cool.

After release at 4.30pm, I went for training. Yeah, 1 and a half hours, 3 games. Didn't sweat much. That was how slack it was today.

Another partially satisfactory training session today, but nothing is free. I was so frustrated with the Doubles matches because I really cannot play Doubles, and each set seemed way too long. I lost two and won one, and there was someone new today, Glen, whose 拉球 is so accurate and has so much spin. He was part of the reason we lost, but more of my fault, failing to hit those balls properly. I was against him all the time. Anyway, when the Triple match finally ended, I was allowed to get a Singles.

First, against Nicholas, where we deuced 3 sets of which I got 2, then I won the last set. And we deuced up to 17 - 15. Nicholas beat Glen earlier on, 3 - 1, which he got 2 drinks for. Next, I played Glen. 我终于能好好地拉球了，如果我丢，就是我的错. Fun enough as I got really lucky with my 放高球 today. He asked for a casual rematch, then we 练一下, then, Doubles AGAIN. This time, full time Doubles. 3 matches, and surroundings weren't that clear either. It was fine, I suppose.

Oh and add one more Doubles match. Xin Wei and Ee Jin against Deirdre's sister and I. Went better than expected, she did surprise them anyway. And to end the day, a Singles with An Qi, which I lost again. After that, was slack, 捡球 and 蛙跳. I haven't recovered from last week's session, so this will require more time.

What felt like a bad day was half true, but at least it was only half. Leaving 1 hour and 5 minutes early this time round, I expected to enter the hall 15 minutes early. But what happened at MacRitchie made that 5 minutes late. I took my bus to MacRitchie Reservoir and saw Denise on the bus but did not recognize her until she told me later on. She took a different route anyway. At MacRitchie, I was just waiting for my next bus when an old man came up to me and asked me to tell him when I saw a Bus 130 coming because his eyes disabled his ability to see from long distances. I had never seen it before, and apparently, neither had he, for he told me to check the board to see if 130 was on there. It was, but the problem was, which stop does Bus 130 go to? So I told him to wait next to the Pedestrian Crossing in case there was a need to cross over to the other stop quickly.

My bus came by, but I felt that I should skip it as it wasn't very nice to leave him to find someone else for help. So I stayed to look out for that seemingly rare 130. When I saw a pole next to the stop that I was at, I looked up and saw a list of numbers. 130 wasn't on there. I looked over at the other stop and found that none of the numbers on that pole matched the ones next to mine, and 130 was displayed there. At that point, I was sure that the old man should cross the road to the other stop, but when I tried to explain that to him, he didn't seem to understand. Well of course he couldn't see the figures on the pole. When 130 finally came, it moved off towards the stop at the back, so I told the old man that he should cross the road then, which he did. After the bus left, I got a shock. Another Bus 130 was passing by, so I wondered if I had pointed out the wrong bus to him. But after some thinking, I am sure that I had led him to the right bus. Firstly, he was looking at the bus which was a mere 2 metres away, when he crossed the road, so he could not have missed the number. Anyway, even if his eyesight was that bad, the bus had an electronic 130. The 2nd bus, was a plate 130. Also, it seemed to be empty of passengers. Therefore, I conclude that they were 2 different buses.

When I finally reached the school at 9.05am, we started off with 发球. After about 5 minutes of serving alone in which I missed like 80% of them, Denise was put to 接我的发球. I managed to find new ways to make her 吃发球. After about half an hour, I think, we all had to do the intensive mass training. I can only last 30 seconds, I think, maybe less. At least there were 5 people in the queue (Zhan Heng, Julian, Me, An Qi and Kai Ling), so there is sufficient rest time. I think we did about 5 rounds each before we were allowed a nice break, in which we just talked. The twins and Benedict were going on about the World Cup at first, then the conversation turned to schoolwork. After that chat, 比赛. Something I looked forward to. But I quickly realized that today was not my day. I just didn't have the mood to react quickly today. First match was against Denise, which wasn't easy. We deuced until about 14-all in the first set, and the overall result was 3 - 2.

Next, Darrel and I against Hanzhi and Ying Wen. 长胶.... yikes! I had developed a partial phobia for 长胶 ever since the previous match with Jerilyn. 猜球后，铭轩就请我出去把他的功课本子交给他. Taught by Denise, Ying Wen was able to use the Touch method to 接我的发球, which put me at a disadvantage. Nevertheless, we were able to win thanks to Darrel's on and off mood. Sometimes he can put bad situations right, miraculously. I went back to the bench and then Timothy was telling me how he hated 长胶, to which I asked who he had lost to. His response - "Who else has 长胶？“ I was baffled by that question. I told him that the 3 girls over there (wherever I was looking at, that was), ALL had 长胶. Yeah, very funny question. He went "Oh" and then muttered "Kai Ling". I was about to find out that I couldn't deal with 长胶 too. Jerilyn and Ying Wen. Double the threat. Ying Wen told Jerilyn the "Touch", but it wasn't needed, really. She was that good. I tried every trick serve I could pull off, but she was able to take almost, if not all of them with ease and even countered them, which put Darrel in a difficult position to take the next hit. We lost the first set, won the next set, lost the 3rd set, won the 4th set, thanks to Darrel and Jerilyn making a lot of the finishing moves. Of course, Ying Wen was able to continue the rallies if either of them failed, and it mostly resulted in 短球, which I am unable to predict. In the final set, at 10 - 9, Jerilyn 发丢, which gave us the win.

Last opponent, Dawn. 又是长胶!!! Couldn't defend myself against her, and I didn't dare to 拉球 much today. All I could do was return and hope for the best, literally. The scores were close, and luck happened to be on my side again. Intense end to the morning, anyway. Everyone started to leave. I was the only one who stayed back for the afternoon session. Lunch was French Toast, thanks to the canteen being open.

The afternoon part was the bad part. I lost to Zhan Heng 3 - 2 first, which wasn't too bad. I expected a loss but I still hoped to win. He evened out today's tycos with this match. He was doing really crazy moves that I had NEVER seen before and the balls still went in at amazing spots like the edge of the table just next to the net. The AT girls didn't seem happy after a Doubles Match due to what they thought was miscalculations, so we had to play again. This match lasted 1 hour, because they kept taking breaks and some other stuff that delayed it considerably. Also, An Qi's rubber wasn't in a good condition. 教练奖我一杯水, which he insisted on, again. And finally, I was able to play Singles again. The problem was that An Qi's power mode was back. I lost to her, but the worst part is that she had a "broken" bat. Then to end the day, I had to play with Julian. I don't know what we were doing, but it definitely wasn't a proper match. We still tried to keep the points on our side, but we didn't try our best to earn them. When he asked for a rematch, I had to go. Today is the day where I really cannot stand another match because my legs still ache from Wednesday's 蛙跳.

Weekdays are spent at home on the computer 24/7 for the whole day. But Wednesdays and Fridays make this "law" untrue.

Training was intensive enough today and I originally wanted more. Arriving at 2.45pm, Timothy said: "Finally someone has come!" and asked to play with me. Well, it was what I wanted to do after all, so I did. Didn't feel the mood though. So after about 20 minutes I went back. Darrel, Darren and Benedict had arrived. I had to 推 while they 拉, again. At least I learnt the technique today, just haven't mastered it yet.

After that session, we were given a choice of 双打 or 三分。 Immediately my head went: 四个人怎么打三分？ A couple of seconds later, I realized who would come in if we chose 三分，so I immediately said 双打。Darren and I first. We won this 3 - 0, but that was because Darrel was playing the fool. I paired with him next, and I said that I was going to teach him a lesson. Well, I didn't do much, but they led 2 - 0 and I forced him to be serious, which led us to a win. The last match, we were losing 2 - 0 again but decided to play for real in the end, so we won.

After that, 捡球. Instead, we slacked and talked. After a while, we played amongst ourselves, singles. I played all 3 of them and won, and Darren lost to Benedict. Then just before we left, we were reminded again to come on Friday or suffer the punishment. Then coach asked me who played well among the 3 of them today. It was a hard pick, but I chose Benedict. It didn't make a difference though. Coach decided to make them all do 蛙跳, 6 times after the twins protested. I wasn't sure if I had to do it, but I joined them. :D

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