Just Jie Yang now.

Yeah man, I used to dream about owning one sexy Ipod, so today, when my dad and my bro went to some tech fair, they saw the deal that Xiaotian told me about, which is the bottom three items, all for 428 bucks.

The deal is 8% off, or you can get a skin and charger with your poddie. I wanted to get the charger, and the skin plus charger is like 70+ bucks, compared to 8% being just about 30 plus bucks off, so I went with the “accessories deal”.

Even the packaging is cool.

But it’s still charging now, and my stupid Zen Micro is forever taking “25-30 mins” to transfer all the songs out. To be exact, it’s taken 40 mins already. Stupid Creative. Hope I don’t face the same problems with the Poddie.

I’m converting videos now though.

Kinda long, around 20-30 mins for a 200mb video file. Hope it’ll be faster, there’s the whirring sound of the CPU fan that is bothering me.

No more boring days at IBN. Woot~

But that is after I fill up the Pod.

• Will I fit in?
• Can I cope with the work?
• Biology or Physics as the last subject?

But there are obviously, some hindering factors that I expect. Like for example, if I land in the same class with enemies of mine. How to be warm to them?! It will be knocking my head on the wall, then smashing it in with a sledgehammer. And then if I am in the same class with them, then what am I gonna say to people from other schools about them.

*This is based on the general assumption that people who are my enemies are known to do stupid stuff.

“Ay, Jie Yang, that guy from your class/school right?”

I’ll go “shit” underneath my breath.

Can’t be a hypocrite, so must acknowledge their presence. See, fitting in is hard when you carry along baggage from your past.

Then there’s the problem about schoolwork. I’m not like those peeps who are dilligent, and do their mojo everyday after class without fail. But I’ll try to do that, cause I have no plans to scrape my ass on the first test.

And then I still haven’t made a choice between Biology and Physics. I assure you, I’ll be taking an econs-based course at U (if I can go there), and definitely not science-based. So I will choose the slacker, less time consuming Physics, but the little knut lies within the fact that Mrs Loi killed all passion (the little few bits of it in me) for the subject. Cool eh, Mrs Loi? Bet you never knew the job you did to make a living and not to “groom young minds” could have such an impact on someone’s life.

I could take Bio. But my two brothers’ knowledge in Physics would be rendered useless, and I need to mug a helluva more for the subject. But I definitely would like Bio over Phy. Then again, the passing rate for Bio is so low that I think my grade look like a huge blot of ink on the report card.

Gah. Physics then, I guess.

JC is just going to be two years. I don’t want to do stupid stuff and be rembered in Hwa Chong as that stupid guy who never did grow up.

Wait, am I already known to be that guy?

Parents cannot listen nowadays, and children simply don’t bother to listen.

That’s why this generation is facing what others term the parent-child gap. I’m experiencing a severe lack of understanding, ability to empathise, and helpfulness from my parents. Those who are closer might know that my parents are the strict kind, stemming from the childhood sicknesses that make them paranoid of every single activity that I undertake.

But I think it’s time for them to stop.

My parents say that they know me, they understand me. I think they know me possibly until around 14, then somehow they don’t know anymore. I rarely let them into my life. I don’t want the sermons on how to handle my life, my work, everything, or even worse, be scolded.

But the problem is, my parents still think they know me well, read me like a book.

I wore my blank face, occasionally alternating with my utterly-bored-face. My parents think that I didn’t like what’s for dinner. Actually, I’m mulling over the fact that I am here, at home, doing nothing, while my classmates are having fun at chalet. A 4A chalet, can you believe it? I think it’s the greatest act in the whole universe, my class trying to act bonded. I bet, they’ll just split into their own cliques after a while. But back to the topic. I mentioned the chalet to my dad somewhat 2 weeks back, but I doubt he remembers at all.

His knowledge only has my brother’s Bangkok trip registered on it.

It isn’t fair to have near-perfect brothers before me. Though they say they do not compare me to my brothers, let me ask you a simple question. If you stare at a pair of roses for a day, then you take a look at a leaf, the leaf would not look as nice as it should be right?

Dad and Mom never once understood how hard is it to forge different lies to cover up the early absences from events, being unable to turn up at gatherings and stuff. Now, they want me to back out of the research programme because the air con is too cold. I can’t take it anymore.

If you get bitten by an ant, are you gonna stand on your bed and not move?

I am the one who sign the contract, who have to explain my absence, have to make sure that no relationships soured. I have do the PR while they stay at home and decide my life.

Talk about wisdom with age. How would they understand how I would ever feel? No one lies more than me just to get out of stick situations, no one has such strict parents to deal with. Possibly no one has also developed so many different faces to wear to different people. They won’t know about it though.

I’m just very tired.

But there’s no break, hon.

Today’s newspaper were shocking, with the news of the dragonboat capsizing and the 5 missing. You know, that really puts the images of rowers/canoeists being all strong and invulnerable under scrutiny, because the feeling is that they would know how to react under such conditions.

I broke out of the fever this morning.

After 4 days of panadol, cocooning myself in a blanket, sweating, then get chilled and then burning all over again, I woke up to found out that I hadn’t ate my medicine at the 2am “shift”.

Turns out, I didn’t need it.

But my brother needed it though. He’s down with fever too, see. But I got a bacterial infection of the mucus, thus the bad flu, while his is viral, caused by over-exhaustion.

He’s missing his trip to Bangkok too. So, now he’s a prince. He’s got my room, just because his bed is there, and I’m banned from entry to get my stuff. Bloody hell. And my eldest brother, thinks that I should be submissive to his demands, because, well, I am the frail, young kiddo.

My foot, you nut.

(I’m pretty sure you’ll make some snide remarks to me after reading this, but don’t bother, I probably wouldn’t care much about your wise words.)

I’m still sweating.

I really hope I’m well by tomorrow, easing my poor lungs. It’s been coughing all day, followed by the blowing of the nose, and then on and on and on. There’s traces of blood in the mucus too, think it may be the bursting of the membrane blood vessels.

This sucks.

Top scorer this year for PSLE is uber cool, getting 294. Here’s what the Straits Times reports.

Natasha, 12, whose father is a technician and mum, a housewife, is from the gifted education stream.

ST HILDA’S Primary pupil Natasha Nabila binte Muhamad Nasir is the top scorer in the Primary School Leaving Examination results that were released in schools at noon on Thursday.
Her aggregate score of 294 set a new record for the examinations, beating the last highest score of 292 set in 1993 by Nanyang Primary boy Justin Lau Yang Zheng.

Natasha, 12, whose father is a technician and mum, a housewife, is from the gifted education stream.

The Singapore Examinations and Assessment Board described her results as ‘outstanding’, as she was ahead by six points from the next two highest scorers, Zou Yuhan of Geylang Methodist Primary and Rebecca Teng of Tao Nan School, who both scored 288.

The Education Ministry said in a release on Thursday that of the 49, 817 Primary 6 pupils who sat for the exams, 97.7 per cent did well enough to proceed to secondary schools.

I am not sure whether this is a good thing, for the high scores show that

1. Students may be getting smarter.
2. Parents made false complaints about the difficulty of the paper.
3. The people setting the test may have been too lax on the standard.
4. The student MIGHT have cheated. (It’s highly impossible though, cos she’s from GEP and all.)

There’s of course the obvious reason, which is that the “enrichment classes” actually work for the students.

Hope not though, this might fuel the greater misconception about tuition that more is indeed, better.

Happy.

To be honest, I think she’s a great role model for the Malay community. After all, she broke a 17 year record.

Pity her sis though.

I hate being sick.

I stopped blogging for a while because of the late times that I reached home from “work” at IBN, and my brain is always stony after the attachments.

Then yesterday, at IBN, I kept sneezing. Like, holding the world record for most number of consecutive sneezes, screwing up the measurements of samples due to my frozen hands and all. Thank god, there was hot lemon tea in the pantry, and the Streps that I got from the provision shop that made my day a bit less painful.

Mind, my hands are still a tad numb and less agile than usual when typing this post.

I made my way home early (around 5 p.m.) after the running nose and the chilly feeling in my body became unbearable. My mentor let me home, of course, after another guy in the lab said, “peng you, don’t spread your stuff here lehhhh”.

So I went home. Then I told my mom and all, and she nagged, as usual, for my inability to take care of myself. Obviously, none went into the short circuited brain of mine. After an early dinner, I put on a tee shirt, put the blanket on, and slept.

No dreams.

Then two people woke me up with their voices, but I couldn’t be bothered to open my eyes.

There’s Night at the Museum, which is exciting, and fun, and funny. But I got…

Just watched finished Nobuta Wo Produce, super touched, so I thought I’ll share a song from its OST, that kinda encapsulates the feelings experienced during the show.

Last year’s wishes, are this year’s apologies.