three people from our og went for astronomy training, namely ziming, xueying, and me.
dam unlucky la, the sky was really cloudy and we had to wait till 8 plus before we could see ONE star. then two, but the third one was really hard to spot. fourth one was when we lay down on the tennis court.
we gave them names! A, B, C, and D! A was Sirius, easiest to spot. B dunnoe, and C was Betelgeuse (dunnoe correct spelling or notz), D wasnt identified either. oh and during the training, watch where you go, cos u never know who u might step on ;) especially some people who *ahem* want some time to themselves.

:D

Pulau Ubin's a nice place! But erm I've only gone there 3 times. For OBS (oops). Or let's just find some nice place to go to or something! :D (Wait that is the whole point isn't it? Hmmm.... :P)

Haha and sorry my brain is currently too dead to think about GP. : And my GP isn't good in the first place... Oh well. :)

Then had harmoc concert on Tuesday night and was quite nice actually, I thought we actually sounded quite nice from where I was during the ensemble pieces (i.e. at the piano). Yay! But ManYan and Jacqueline missed Wenxian's small group performance of Fruhlingslied! (Though nevermind, there's always the recording. :D) Yupyup and had CSC and harmoc yesterday and today... Anyway Wenxian talked for about an hour today - which was 60 times what I talked yesterday! Pretty scary...

Sigh and I have Bio SPA tomorrow. :( Enjoy practicals before you get hit by SPAs... (Except those who don't take Bio/Chem/Physics of course) Haha it's a bit "duh" in places, though, especially when you say things like "The periwinkles in the location with green crabs tend to have thicker shells because the thicker shells are harder for the green crabs to break". :P

this kind of things train you up for GP.
Firstly about the professor story. this kind of things have no end. the professor could be like real hardcore and say : "I could go for an operation to open up my skull to show you my brain, it does exist, unless u do not trust ur sense of sight"
Well, thats the ideal thought, just to prove the point, that no operation, none, can ever prove to people that God exists.
That was from a scientist's point of view.
Now from the Christians'.
One of our five senses is touch, meaning feel. And we can feel God. So God exists.

my point of view is the top one, and the bottom one comes from my friend. didnt wanna post but tagboard's not working >.<

ppl out there....be more spontaneous leh...this is an og blog and it shouldn't be maintained by only the 6 of us... Pls do blog to at least show ur presence...If u dunno wat to blog about, xueying's entry is the perfect example....tht is when u have nothing to blog...No offence there, but the entry is indeed relatively long for its content.
As for og outing suggestions, I agree that we should go to a park or something instead of heading to town. And looking out of the my window I see 2 possible places...Pasir Ris Park/Beach and Pulau Ubin...though I believe u ppl will reject these 2 suggestions...I'm fine with ECP though.
Finally, responding to the call for more articles, I found an entry made in my personal blog quite some time ago that is rather thought-provoking. So here goes again...

"
In my spare time while preparing for the last 1/4 of O'levels, I took up a book and read it, titled "Sing to the Dawn". I missed the musical production by our sch and I thought it would be nice to see what the book is about.

After reading it, I was pleasantly surprised, though again like most other literary works that have themes on feminism, the message was just a tad too exaggerated. Nevertheless, it was quite a refreshing experience. Its a story about a girl who won a scholarship in her local school to go to the city to study. Her father opposed strongly against this and when he found out that his son, or her brother had came in second in the exam to win the scholarship, he tries to force the girl to give up her place to her brother. He brother was at first on the side of the father, but as the story proceeds, he was persuaded to take the side of his sister. Finally, after much struggle, the girl was able to go to the city, for the better or the worse, no one knows....

Anw, will jus type out my favourite part in the book, its rather philosophical though... Her goes: A conversation between the girl Dawan and the head monk. Dawan tries to convince the head monk to speak to her father to convince him to let her go to the city.

Monk: But he realised after a long search that no one can stop suffering; one has to go beyond it.
Dawan: How do you go beyond sufferings?
Monk: You learn to stop wanting things. First you realize that nothing that we touch, or see or hear or smell or feel will last forever. Things we perceive will only pass after a while. Flowers fade, parents die, the sun sets.
Monk:Well then, once you realize that things of this world don't last, then you also see that they are not really important. So you learn to stop wanting ordinary things, and are able to concentrate on the higher truths. You...
Dawan: Wait, if ordinary things aren't important, what is then?

The monk talks about Nirvana, the concept of the highest stage in Buddism, where man is freed from the wheel of life, of being reborn, of suffering, or pain. He experiences nothing, nothing at all.

Dawan: No happiness or joy either?
Monk: That's the point child. What's the sense of being happy? In the end you only lose the thing that makes you happy anyway. Nothing lasts forever, you know.
Dawan: Nobody was talking about it lasting forever, sir. But what is wrong with just trying to make it last a little longer?
Monk: A little longer? What for child? What's the sense of going through life always dreading the end of some fragile happiness?

I especially like the last part, evokes a lot of thoughts. Will leave you with a parting thought: Who's right? The monk or Dawan? Why?
"

long time no blog cos of FLU

I'm back from my flu! but some of it is still with me =(

Had mah joyride yesterday! Man it was fun. my pilot was BG Gary Yeo, who happens to be Mark's uncle :P.
Wanted to get front seat, but lost when we played Oh Ya Peh Ya Som. Haiz, so had to contend with the back seat. Cockpit small and cozy, but it could get quite warm if we were stationary.
40+ sorties on the flight simulator definitely made me much much more familiar with the plane's instruments and the surrounding scenery, than my other two companions.
First we were taken to 1500 ft. then we turned, went down to Alpha training area, above Pierce reservoir. Then we went to Bukit Timah Hill, made two 2 G turns. (in layman terms, during a 2G turn u feel twice ur weight.) so yah, then we climbed to 4000 ft as we proceeded into Bravo training area. There our dear co pilot, (which i so wanted to be) took control for around 5 seconds. Then we circled and had a magnificent view from one side of singapore the the next. We were sooo lucky to have good visibility on that day. As the timer on the instrument panel clocked 25 mins, our pilot took us down to 1500 ft, and made an approcach towards seletar, at 800 ft. Due to the fact that my landings on the simulator SUCKS, i tried to pick up some tips from the pilot. However, on the 800 ft approach, it was a missed one, I think i heard ATC asking him to perform a missed approach. So he pulled up. On the next approach, we came in at 500 ft. This time, airspeed, 75 knots, VSI -5, Flaps 30 deg, i couldnt really see the glide path, so yeah, that was it. Everything was maintained until flare height, and touchdown. Yay, what a fun flight, hahaz. As i was gonna leave the airport, i was presented with a pleasant piece of news, I'm accepted into the flying course! orlanda quick quick! sign up now!

Opium ink should sound vaguely familiar to those who took o level lit and studied pdd(poems deep and dangerous)...

The Student
by Derek Power

I am guilt ridden
My work unstarted
My paper blank
I have been using opium ink again.

Outside the blossom telescopes into fruit,
Inside my mind there is a blight.
A train whistles
I reshelve my books,
Shunting them into another sidetrack
I don't feel up to it today,
Tomorrow I'll get down to it.

The party will be good experience,
There's bound to be discussion.
I'll work all night tonight,
Tomorrow I'll work all day.

The commercial whirlpool
Draws me into town.
I buy some study aids,
They will act as pacemakers.
I rearrange my furniture,
Now the stadium is set for action.
Meanwhile my grant is being gobbled up
By that scythe-armed bandit,
'Jack Pot or Not'



lolz...anione feeling the same?

randomrandom stuff

Yay and now that I've finally finally written about outing... Suppose it's time I just blogged about other stuff? :D

I want another outing! Or BBQ! Or something! :D I can volunteer my house (I THINK) except that it's in Jurong (oops). Anyway outings aren't impossible what, it's just that it takes time to plan? Or you can always just arrange something, grab a nice random date (like during CNY? Or just a weekend?) and people will turn up (usually) as was the case with my class' BBQ last night. :) Which was really really really fun!

Yup and Harmoc concert this Tuesday... :) Come watch if you're free (a bit late but oh well)! 8pm CHIJmes Hall. Wenxian will be playing Fruhlingslied! :D I have sore fingers from banging octaves on the piano once too often today during pract, though. :P

Sigh and I just don't have the energy to mug lately or anything, except maybe last Thursday after school (and before Harmoc) where half my class just stayed in the classroom before CCA and did homework and so I did too? Don't really know lah but last couple of weeks have just been really odd. Oh well...

Anyway, yupyup must blog here okay? I know blogger's confusing but try to blog anyway? :D

Overdue entry about outing. :D

Yupyup... what's below is actually a really really overdue entry about outing (which by rights should have been posted about a week ago so... oops. :P)

Essentially, I'm quite glad that I got to go for lunch with everyone (even though I kept complaining about still having lessons) and I think lunch that day was fun... And reading through Ziming's entry - oh no! Orlanda and Vanessa got tricked!

Then met up with everyone after my Physics pract and we all took a bus to Nicole's house, and saw her dog! (Hmmm. As I was saying, good thing Wenxian wasn't there. :P) And we also saw Kiat's amazing fantastic mind-boggling handstands/walking on hands. :) And it's strangely quite fun to watch other people play bridge sometimes. And also Tim had been commenting that he could see his house while we were walking to Nicole's house, so afterwards we walked to Tim's house (taking the long way around) and sat around the playground area... And saw this really pro little kid that kept roller blading past us. :P And saw Tim's brother too.

And then for dinner... We were at first thinking of Orchard but decided that it would be too crowded on a Friday evening. Then we got sidetracked and talked about other stuff, and when the topic of dinner was brought up again we realised that by the time we got to Orchard it probably wouldn't be crowded anymore, so we happily took 105 to Toa Payoh and went PS for dinner. But I think dinner was actually really really great because of the talking and all (even though you guys were ganging up to take photos of me). :D

Opium ink

haiz...i'm currently using opium ink on my weekend homework...stared at it for 2hrs, still nothing done... feeling the fatigue resulting from the full time-table now, and the 3hr travelling time everyday is of little comfort. Totally zapped out and lagging...yes lagging...The award-winning illogical conversation I had with xueying last night was the best proof... Having CO prac tmr and the CO room is 25mins walk from Bishan interchange(yikes) Hoping to at least practise a bit, for the last 9 hrs of prac I had, I was only actively involved for perhaps 1 hr, while the rest of the time was spent listening to a certain "crazy conductor" ranting...

Will post something here...read this article on someone else's blog...thought it was quite meaningful...2 points though, 1. I'm not a christian, 2. I'm not seeking to convert anyone...so here goes..

SCIENCE AND GOD

"Let me explain the problem science has with Jesus Christ." The atheist professor of philosophy pauses before his class and then asks one of his new students to stand.

"You're a Christian, aren't you, son?

"Yes sir," the student says.

"So you believe in God?"

"Absolutely."

"Is God good?"

"Sure! God's good."

"Is God all-powerful? Can God do anything?"

"Yes."

"Are you good or evil?"

"The Bible says I'm evil."

The professor grins knowingly. "Aha! The Bible!" He considers for a moment.
"Here's one for you. Let's say there's a sick person over here and you can cure him. You can do it. Would you help him? Would you try?"

"Yes sir, I would."

"So you're good...!"

"I wouldn't say that."

"But why not say that? You'd help a sick and maimed person if you could.Most of us would if we could. But God doesn't."

The student does not answer, so the professor continues.

"He doesn't, does he? My brother was a Christian who died of cancer, eventhough he prayed to Jesus to heal him. How is this Jesus good? Hmmm? Can you answer that one?"

The student remains silent."No, you can't, can you?" the professor says. He takes a sip of water from a glass on his desk to give the student time to relax.

"Let's start again, young fella. Is God good?"

"Er...yes," the student says.

"Is Satan good?"The student doesn't hesitate on this one.

"No."

"Then where does Satan come from?"

The student falters. "From...God..."

"That's right. God made Satan, didn't he? Tell me, son. Is there evil in thisworld?"

"Yes, sir."

"Evil's everywhere, isn't it? And God did make everything, correct?"

"Yes."

"So who created evil?"

Again, the student has no answer.

"Is there sickness? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness. All these terrible things, do they exist in this world?"

The student squirms on his feet.

"Yes."

"So who created them?"

The student does not answer again, so the professor repeats his question.

"Who created them?"

There is still no answer.
Suddenly the lecturer breaks away to pace in front of the classroom. Theclass is mesmerized.

"Tell me," he continues onto another student. "Do you believe in Jesus Christ, son?"

The student's voice betrays him and cracks. "Yes, professor. I do."

The old man stops pacing. "Science says you have five senses you use toidentify and observe the world around you. Have you ever seen Jesus?"

"No sir. I've never seen Him."

"Then tell us if you've ever heard your Jesus?"

"No, sir. I have not."

"Have you ever felt your Jesus, tasted your Jesus or smelt your Jesus? Haveyou ever had any sensory perception of Jesus Christ, or God for that matter."

"No, sir, I'm afraid I haven't."

"Yet you still believe in him?"

"Yes."

"According to the rules of empirical, testable, demonstrable protocol, sciencesays your God doesn't exist. What do you say to that, son?"

"Nothing," the student replies. "I only have my faith."

"Yes, faith," the professor repeats. "And that is the problem science has with God. There is no evidence, only faith."

The student stands quietly for a moment, before asking a question of His own."Professor, is there such thing as heat?"

"Yes," the professor replies. "There's heat."

"And is there such a thing as cold?"

"Yes, son, there's cold too."

"No sir, there isn't."

The professor turns to face the student, obviously interested. The roomsuddenly becomes very quiet. The student begins to explain.

"You can have lots of heat, even more heat, super-heat, mega-heat, whiteheat, a little heat or no heat, but we don't have anything called 'cold'. We can hit 458 degrees below zero, which is no heat, but we can't go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold; otherwise we would be able to go colder than -458 degrees. You see, sir, cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat we can measure in thermal units because heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it."

Silence across the room. A pen drops somewhere in the classroom, sounding like a hammer.

"What about darkness, professor. Is there such a thing as darkness?"

"Yes," the professor replies without hesitation. "What is night if it isn'tdarkness?"

"You're wrong again, sir. Darkness is not something; it is the absence of something. You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light.. but if you have no light constantly you have nothing and it's called darkness, isn't it? That's the meaning we use to define the word. In reality, darkness isn't. If it were, you would be able to make darkness darker, wouldn't you?"

The professor begins to smile at the student in front of him. This will be a good semester.

"So what point are you making, young man?"

"Yes, professor. My point is, your philosophical premise is flawed to startwith and so your conclusion must also be flawed."

The professor's face cannot hide his surprise this time. "Flawed? Can you explain how?"

"You are working on the premise of duality," the student explains. "You argue that there is life and then there's death; a good God and a bad God. You are viewing the concept of God as something finite, something we can measure. Sir, science can't even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood either one. To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing. Death is not the opposite of life, just the absence of it."

"Now tell me, professor. Do you teach your students that they evolved froma monkey?"

"If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, young man, yes, ofcourse I do."

"Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?"The professor begins to shake his head, still smiling, as he realizes where the argument is going.A very good semester indeed.

"Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavor, are you not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you now not a scientist, but a preacher?"The class is in uproar.

The student remains silent until the commotion has subsided.

"To continue the point you were making earlier to the other student, let me give you an example of what I mean."The student looks around the room. "Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the professor's brain?" The class breaks out into laughter. "Is there anyone here who has ever heard the professor's brain, felt the professor's brain, touched or smelt the professor's brain? No one appears to have done so. So, according to the established rules of empirical, stable, demonstrable protocol, science says that you have no brain, with all due respect, sir. So if science says you have no brain, how can we trust your lectures, sir?"

Now the room is silent.

The professor just stares at the student, his face unreadable.Finally, after what seems an eternity, the old man answers. "I guess you'll have to take them on faith."

hmm...wats this thing bout blogging at unearthly hours.... If u are a frequent user of blogger, should have realised that time and date of the blog could be changed. *points below... time now is 11.25 p.m. on jan 15...

lets see, what can i blog about here? hmm... the "tao pok" incident seems to be a nice topic... A concerned parent with a rare surname "situ" wrote to ST forums to "report" a potential dangerous act fondly termed as "tao pok" carried by students from a top JC in the AMK-Bishan area. Despite calls from the students from this top JC to tao pok the son of this apparent "situ", he seems to be safe till now (at least from what i heard) Well... whoever "situ" is, he succeeded in his "complaint" for the principal of the top JC involved was forced to slam "tao pok" on the morning assembly and the ST forums published two letters in response 2 days later...

Moving away from unhappy stuff, Zev'Feior had the first OG outing. Yay! *Applause. Xueying commented at my tagboard that she saw a "noiser" side of me at the outing. Was I really that quiet? lol, maybe and I should apologise if I was so. hey, perhaps it's that lectures started, that I realised that I will miss orientation and Zev'Feior. So, the outing started with a wonderful "chem experiment" at macs where orlanda and vanessa got their hands dirty(literally). The chem experiment involved an apparent exothermic reaction between ketchup and chilli sauce with curry sauce as catylst...lol.. After lunch ,we split into 2 grps for movie and pool. I was supposed to join my class for a movie so that I dun dao them for 2 times in 2 days, but well....they were already in the cinema when I got there. So, I joined the other half of the OG with Wenxian to watch "Meet the Fockers". Well...was an okay movie, sexual humour was the main theme and the baby was reeeeal cute:) After the movie, Huiling and Wenxian had to leave and we met up with the pool ppl and Shireen to go to Nicole's house. Played bridge and talked there. Then, we went to Tim's house to talk again, after which we went to PS KFC to have dinner and talk once again. hmm...i shall try to list down the topics we went through... homosexuality in school(more inclined towards male/male), GEP VS Express, ghost stories, RI grad night VS RG prom, education, RIPB, com stuff, etc... Went home at around 9.45p.m. took the train with Mark, Joshua and Xueying. Before I close my entry, lets congratualate ourselves for the success of the first Zev'feior outing. Long live Zev'Feior!

4.35

record beaten! yay....

okay now i shall talk abt what happened yesterday!
i'm from the group of people who played pool lor, so i wun noe what happened for the movie goers, so movie goers, blog okay?

the pool people went to cine k pool. got two tables, first i played with gautam, tim, and another guy. (always forget his name) then at the other table we had mark, mabel and xueying, 2 on 1.

Gautam was pro. He is king. Say he dunnoe how to play, den woah, blasted us with his pro cutting skills. hahaz, but really, he managed very difficult shots lor. Talent, talent.
Mark was also really good at pool, his stick follow through one, not like mine, always jerk back >.< hahaz. the girls are alright la, more practice i'm sure u all can play much better one. Lyk Tim lidat, got his skills from experience.
After pool, went back to J8 to meet the movie goers, then took 13 to nicole's house.
i think u all know what it is like, big. =x
yah, so after spending some time, we went to yam's house, talk a bit, said some ghost stories, den went to PS for dinner! KFC. spent time toking and toking until arnd 10 i think, we left for home.
It was a fun day, maybe we dun have much time in the future to do this kinda things, but i do hope we can have as much fun in the future. yay.

Me again!

Hahahahahaha it's me again. :) Ey people must blog leh...

Anyway hmmm the OHP thing reminds me of some of the Bio teachers who'll just write on the OHP itself with whiteboard markers sometimes. :P

Pool is quite fun I think just that I'm BAD at it. Sigh last time I played pool I kept hitting the white ball too hard and it kept going into the holes together with the coloured balls! And I still have no idea about the rules of pool since I just keep playing free for all (haha i.e. anyhow shoot also can one). But it's fun anyway I think. :D

Yay first week of lessons are almost over! Except that I'm still way behind in work. Especially tutorials! And of course there's the wonderful wonderful dreaded SPA practices to do! (Haha if you haven't already heard about SPA...)

Good

Yay goood, there are 4 people blogging now.
Today had F maths lecture where the lecturer was really funny n cute.
The lecturer has a voice something like vanessa's, den she wrote on the OHP, as in, really write on the projector cos she overshot the transparency, then the whole LT boo, then she turned around and squeaked, "Nothing wrong what, can rub away.."
The way she teach is like... we're small kids lidat, but i guess it's better for her to start slow.
Btw, Hazwan was there too! and he was answering the questions with zest. The loudest yes and nos came from him! :P

Ok ok, so that's one of the funny stuff today. people, blog leh, otherwise this blog is quite.. *ahem* dead

Third postpostpost!

Hey how come no one else besides Kiat and me are blogging leh. Or even tagging! Everyone blog more! (So speaketh the person who is perpetually online. :P)

Anyway sigh lessons are starting tomorrow. Kind of depressing since it means I have quite a bit to catch up on (my friend called me today and gave me one whole long list of work and what has been going on in the past week) and not forgetting that there's still harmoc practice tomorrow! Oh well...

yay!

i'm second i'm second!
add a tag board! and link us up! =D

Heyheyhey! :)

Hey people of Zev'feior! As you can see before your very eyes... We now have a nice happy Zev'feior blog! :) As a nice happy alternative to our k'lam (or rather as a nice happy add-on to our k'lam). :D

So yes everyone must blog here okay? (That includes you, Wenxian. :D) Say hey say Zev'feior say let's talk about everything under the sun! ("Hey, Zev'feior, let's talk about everything under the sun!" :P) Say all sorts of stuff like how you looked everywhere for your wallet only to find it hanging on your camera pouch which you were carrying (real story by the way... oops ;)), groan about lectures and tutorials and tests and tutors and PW, say stuff like "I love you so-and-so", share your LAME GAMEs if anyone has any more (errrrr...) and generally just talktalktalktalktalk!

And for those who weren't online just now (from about 9.30pm 8 Jan to 1am 9 Jan) there was a nice long mass convo. And don't worry if you weren't online then cause I'm very very sure that we'll have many many many more nice long mass convos to go and there's this blog! And of course we'll all be seeing each other every morning before assembly, right?

Orientation's been a really really really great time for me, and I hope all of you guys had a great time too! (Post orientation blues setting in...) But remember: orientation's only the beginning of Zev'feior! :)

You guys rock! Love you all!
Shireen (currently hugging the Snoopy. :))