you know it's time to update when you almost forget the username and password to blogger. almost. and to those who've been in another dimension altogether, i feel it my utmost duty to inform you that the P R O M O S A R E O V E R. that means the end of going to school monday to sunday, worrying where to get lunch and the end of entering classrooms through the windows. together with James, i think i've spent more hours in school than the security guards. serious. and rjc kinda becomes a totally different place during the mugging period, with almost no one around the corridors and everyone in the canteen quiet and listening to their mp3s and you occasionally hear music played (or in our case mrbrown) through the stereo in the classrooms. of course, not forgetting the weird weird noises around the evenings.

you must be warned that this entry will be rather long as i havent posted in a long long while hence much (nonsense) to talk about. i also find it extremely disturbing to see melho's one month old tag: "i do not have ANY tendencies :)" staring at me time and again. of course, we all know the truth about melho hehe. and that was an extremely blatant hint to you, the reader, to tag the tagboard.

having been stuck in bishan for the last 5 years, and living near here, i could possibly consider myself a "local" in these regions. and i find great joy that a library has finally opened here (old news, no doubt). it is small, no doubt, but at least i need no longer trudge to toa payoh or amk to get that book returned and the collection in the library is neat, albeit small. s11 has also undergone a "revamp" that now sees it much brighter and cleaner. i dunno why, but i still prefer the old one, seems more "coffeeshop" style and more airy. maybe its just a tendency to display a fondness for old things as we grow old. and is it me or is the new layout much more stuffy?

don't you think hawker centres and their hawkers are quite interesting people. there's the coffee uncle/auntie who always shouts "sio ah!" to get people out of their way when all their carrying is iced milo or lemon tea, nothing really sio (hot, in hokkien). do u notice how most, if not, all hawkers never seem to carry change with them when serving your order, prefering to double back to the stall to get the change. and there's hawker lingo as well. besides the unique drinks ordering system (that requires the uncle declaring your drink order to half the hawker centre), me and james have discovered a subtle difference in the way you want your meal portions. if you tell the hawker (our dearest prawn mee auntie) you want "duo1 yi4 dian3 mian4", you get charged the same price but with more noodles and perhaps a little less ingredients. if you tell her you "jia1 mian4", then she'll charge you an additional 50 cents for essentially the same increase in noodles. that subtle lingo makes a difference of 50 cents.

the last day of promos was also the assoc expedition prep day. so the odacians taking bio and involved in outdoor buffet (like mua) had about 4 hours to get home, pack and come pack by 3. and that left me with a grand total of 15 min for a nap. before trudging my ass down to rj to begin with briefing, and more briefings. then dinner was at s11 after which, yishan, meiting, gerard, willy and i went to ntuc to buy food. for 60. never underestimate what 2 meals is enough to land you with. we had 2 and a half trolleys full of food and were totally embarassed when we had to occupy one whole lane when cashing out. then we had to haul it up a taxi (with the driver greeting us most pleasantly) back to rj. more packing and briefings before we finally slept at 130am. bad night's sleep for me (and meiting and ruth) because of the aircon, the gym floor and general restlessness leaving me with all but 2 hours plus of sleep only. the first day's highlight was kayaking which was quite smooth sailing before i had to leave the camp halfway because of some unpleasant event to deal with.

all in all, i think the assoc ex fulfilled its explicit objectives and everyone, from facils to overall ic, were impressive in every sense of the word. (makes mental note to mention this tomorrow during post mortem)

last saturday, went to ura centre at maxwell road to visit singapore city gallery, which is this small gallery that speaks of singapore's development and has a miniature model of the whole island of singapore and a built up model of the town and downtown area including what's coming up in marina. personally, i've always been in love with the downtown area, the tall skyscrapers and occasional colonial buildings. honestly, i would quite enjoy just taking a bus around town and absorbing the sites and sounds of the working crowd and the singapore river. hence, i was attracted to visit this gallery right before promos.

i went with xinzi (whose duty was to ensure we don't erm get lost) and we started the tour with a "know your singapore" quiz "hosted" by gurmit singh who was like on crack or something. then walked about displays with the usual information about the heritage of the city, shophouses and size of our downtown and whatnots. the interesting part was this small board that asks "Where is your favourite playground?". there were the standard answers of orchard road, and singapore city gallery and some schools. i wrote "RJC" and xinzi wrote "bt batok park". but there were also the more "interesting" and hmm-inducing answers like this:

"well done, my friend" was written by me because this dude deserves some encouragement man. i mean if honesty is the best policy, this guy deserves full marks.

evidently, this guy is even more of a champion for being honest and leaving his name behind. to edwin, hope your playground of a geylang is real fun and that you have plenty of "playmates".

but remember, safety first.

so after that, we wandered around some "ang siang park" that was like a park smacked in some back alley of chinatown. we wandered around and landed in chinatown mrt station. which was pretty stupid. wandering around aimlessly, considering the haze (which is like the new buzzword) was a whopping psi130 or something. but we had the afternoon to while away so decided to hit the "newly opened" vivocity at harbourfront. and if you're thinking of visiting, i would advice you against it. that place is as ready as i am for the A levels. and the only thing opened that day was probably the damn doors to the shopping centre itself. there was a large crowd that was truly aimless and lost, considering there was nothing you could possibly do with everything largely closed. and the floor came with free dust for skidding around and the escalator handles came with a nice coat of dirt for aesthetic pleasure. the outdoor "deck" like corridor was quite cool and had a great view of sentosa, that was otherwise spoilt by the nice haze going around here. and we caught sight of some as xinzi puts it, "oompa loompas" that were being ushers to welcome people around.


the new monorail linking mainland to sentosa seemed to be running but we didnt go try it out. we did, however, visit toys'r'us, where we saw gender stereotypes being constructed first hand. i think its the number one shopping place to play a fool and not really buy anything. the other good place to do so would be ikea. anyhow we left after that and had dinner nearby. and that neatly wraps up saturday. will blog about sunday's happenings tomorrow for now we must rest and be a good friender tomorrow morning. tata.

if you haven't been preparing for your SATS yet, you are clearly 6 years late and should be panicking your ass out now.