back to the routine

So I’m going to try and make a conscious effort to post more often on this waste of web space, to the point that days on which I do not post look like days in which I fall ill or something like that.

Anyway, today’s school was slack to say the least. I had a grand total of 2 (two) lectures to attend all day – each lasted 40 minutes. Pity that students are only allowed to go home from 1.10 pm onwards. So when the last of my lectures ended at about eleven thirty, most of the orientation group  – myself included – headed first to the library to sit around and relax, then to the canteen for lunch, and finally to the bleachers to inanely kill time and create an overall impression of unproductivity.

I re-installed Warcraft III on my laptop a couple days ago – I half-regret this decision. My level of DotA skill has dropped to astonishing lows, and all the games I’ve played on Garena have featured multiple leavers. Human beings suck.

I’m waiting on results for my English Language Elective diagnostic test – they should turn out fine though. Then again it’s the waiting that irks me most, not so much the actual completion of test.

the party

Yesterday was the final day of orientation – implying that it was the day all us newbs, along with the OGLs, got to scream, dance and generally party our asses off. Before the whole orgy, for me, was the English Language and Linguistics diagnostic test – it went pretty oddly, but fairly well.

The party itself started off shoddily, thanks to some crappy emceeing (those two really needed a crash course in engaging crowds). However, once it got to the dance segment, the energy levels of the cohort skyrocketed and never flagged.

In between the start and the dance segment of the party, I was called up on stage to play some lame game. My being singled out by the emcee and forced to hit the stage was the brainchild of my group’s OGLs; damn those fools.

Nevertheless that didn’t spoil the fun at all – this was the single most fun I had partying of any sort. Not to say that I’ve actually partied a lot prior, but still.

I love my orientation group, especially the leaders.

the OG

It just got made better by the arrival of a fellow ex-ACS(I) guy. Today was the first OG outing – it came after a load of cheering, games and dancing. As a group, we headed to Harbourfront station and then to Sentosa, where we immediately hit the beach and played random games like frisbee, volleyball and captain’s ball. The volleyball was made funny by the fact that among the six or so OG members playing it, none of us could actually play volleyball. It was literally a beginners’ game; every rally that lasted longer than three legit hits was considered good.

After all the games, dancing, dunking (to be precise, a grand total of two people got dunked: the leader of another OG, and me), and trash-talking, our OG went for dinner at VivoCity’s FoodRepublic. The food there is to say the least relatively highly priced - I paid six-fifty for a steak and spaghetti. That doesn’t sound that bad, until one considers the fact that the rashers of steak were thin as paper and the amount of spaghetti served couldn’t fully feed a mouse. The over-dinner chat was lively and brisk – that, and the various ghost stories going around. Empirical, first-hand observation has taught me that quite many girls could actually get scared out of their skin in well-lit places.

And speaking of being scared, I’ve got a test tomorrow – it’s a requirement for the subject I want to sit for.

acjc

I was posted there – weird that I didn’t write about it much earlier. Today was the first day of school – it was a blast. Due to perhaps a slice of good fortune, I was drawn together with nice, friendly group leaders and decent group-mates. The activities conducted were fun – I particularly liked the one where people, sliding across benches on their arses, played rock-paper-scissors with each other such that the winner continued their slide to the fabled other side. It was good, wet, brainless fun (literally all I did was throw papers – fools my adversaries were for not willing themselves to let loose their clutched fists).

I’m hoping that the orientation will continue in similar vein, and hoping too that my classmates rock as hard as, say, my group leaders. Tough ask perhaps?

My family is fucking screwed up. No, not the dysfunctional, slightly off-key kind, but the darker, more serious kind. I have harboured, entertained, and almost carried forward thoughts of running away and doing something crazy (read: anything in between suicidal or brilliant) but alas, WELCOME TO REALITY.

I just wonder how childish adults can get. I’m certainly no epitome for maturity, but the way my parents are going at each other, I could fill in nicely as a counselor for them. It’s retarded, the way things are progressing. Whether I’m nonchalant or affected, I’m certainly not being given peace and quiet.

This is getting fucked up. Fuck this.

rants galore

I wish my parents would stop ringing me up every two milliseconds after evening when I’m out.

I think Lord of Avernus and Axe are getting imbalanced; they should be given significant nerfs.

I hate people who jump to conclusions and continually theorise “I’m..”-style. “I’m older than you and I’ve seen more than you – you should believe whatever I say.” “I’m a psychologist – I know you’re lying so admit it.” Fuck you all.

I hate people who jump to conclusions anyway – they could have spent a few seconds looking a tiny bit further into the matter before shooting their mouths off.

I like Left 4 Dead a bit, but I detest the fact that I get a cranking headache after I play the damn game for any longer than fifteen minutes.

People should stop picking Ryu at Street Fighter games – he’s overrated as heck.

I hate how bus stop signs claim that the frequency of a bus is “8-10 minutes” but what actually happens is that every half-hour, three of the same bus will beeline towards the bus stop.

Finally, I abhor mainstream music. Everywhere I go I hear “Low” or “Soulja (LEARN HOW TO SPELL, BITCH) Boy” or “When You Look Me In The Eyes” – it has to be one of those nonsensical musically-deprived noise passages. Rap is awesome when people actually think of lines, be they catchy, clever, meaningful or whatever. Rap stinks when it goes all commercialised, when people use words like ”shorty” every four syllables, and when it’s accompanied by awful-sounding synth tracks.

The Jonas Brothers will never have a chance at awesomeness though. They are the worst band on earth by a light year or seventy.

a lot of lan

Today was the first time I took up the five-hour package at IRC. It cost me eight bucks, a load of energy, and quite some straight thought – I had images of beer-throwing pandas and blue-skinned female archers swimming in my head for a couple of hours after leaving the LAN shop.

This was on top of yesterday’s four-and-a-half, albeit un-straight, hours of play. These few hours of play have cruelly exposed my complete lack of practice at DotA. The CS was fun though - I took a fancy to the all-snipers map despite my ineptness at moving crosshairs over virtual heads and clicking left-mouse-buttons thereafter.

Within the Warcraft III user base is a bunch of random people with a bit of time and imagination. These very individuals have come up with games like Pudge Wars, Wintermaul TD, and Escape From Gay Heaven, and in the process made Warcraft a far more interesting game than what it was to begin with. I had actually experimented with the World Editor back when I still had Warcraft on my computer, but none of the ‘games’ that I created had any aim, plot, or entertainment value as we know it. Perhaps now that I’m using a relatively new laptop, I should install Warcraft again and maybe re-hone my DotA skills.

Tomorrow there’s band practice – but thank goodness there isn’t any practice this coming Saturday. My recently-purchased second Metallica shirt will have its first run-out tomorrow, anyway. I like wearing band shirts to band practices – it serves as a stark reminder of the sheer narrow-mindedness of so many people over at where I attend band rehearsals. Those people need to be exposed to.. different things.

tiresome and tiring are two different things

Playing soccer is certainly tiring when done for long enough, but never tiresome, at least to me.

Eating the same food every day is tiresome, but in most cases not tiring.

ACJC band practice? Surely tiring, and definitively tiresome. I am able to attest to this having attended a grand total of three rehearsals with that group so far.

Yesterday’s rehearsal started at about ten-thirty. Before that, Hisyam and I met up at good old ACS(I) to formulate and execute the Master Plan. I must say it went fairly smoothly, at least for the best part of yesterday’s time at ACJC. The practice itself, however, completely sapped whatever energy and enthusiasm I might have had prior to it. Combined rehearsal was well-helmed by the conductor and whatnot, but the sheer dryness of the music, married to several other unspeakable factors, contrived to drive me into a state nigh sleeping. Lunch break was spent with Hisyam first eating, then heading back to the Great Old Secondary School to catch up with seniors and peers alike.

*I miss ACS(I) like mad*

Then came sectionals, in which there were two distinct segments. One was helmed by Person D, an ex-ACS(I) and current ACJC member. The other was supervised by Person E, whose gender would never allow administration into ACS(I)’s secondary-level forms. (Note: No actual names will be provided due to the threat of flames, fire and high people). The part that Person D took was informative and useful, and importantly, slightly beneficial. The other part, however, was a colossal waste of precious time; it would have been better spent with indivdiual practice methinks. Thankfully, that was the very last part of the day’s practice.

So after the whole bore-fest ended, Hisyam and I met Amos and Dennis – who had just finished practice with the IB band – and then went to Clementi for dinner. The over-dinner conversation served to remind me of what I had missed about ACS(I), and further amplified by sheer disgust at .. something else which too cannot be mentioned. After that, Amos and Dennis went home. Shaun Ng and a friend of his arrived, and together with Hisyam and I went to play LAN and then pool. Fun times – I had never previously played LAN and pool in the same day. Left 4 Dead is a nice game, a quite viable time-killing option in my opinion. Sadly, my tendency to pick up headaches after playing first-person shooters will deter me from obtaining this game.

I MISS ACS(I) A LOAD.

Up And Coming Recording Projects

In the works are:

-Comfortably Numb [Pink Floyd] (Solo)
-Some blues jam shit
-Master of Puppets [Metallica]

And in the longer term:

-Domination [Pantera]
-Creeping Death [Metallica]
-Sweet Child O’ Mine [Guns 'n' Roses]

And if I continue to delude myself (read: in perhaps a couple of years):

-Damage Control [John Petrucci]
-Cliffs of Dover [Eric Johnson]
-An entire Metallica medley

I VOW TO NAIL THESE SONGS/SOLOS AND HAVE THEM ON MUSIC FILES.

These few days have been especially draining, in more ways than one. I’ve been given a lot to think over, and it hasn’t really done much good for me and others around. More than once I’ve hoped for everything around me just to cease to exist for a while, just so that I could collect my thoughts and try to function at the level I’ve always been known to.

Evidently none of the methods that I’ve tried have helped: failures include listening to loud music, playing loud music, singing loudly, spending endless hours on the computer yelling at the screen for no apparent reason, and more.

Just fuck off. Stupid world.