patrick's musings

-- //restart.

2012-02-03T20:33:00.002+11:00

It's been quite awhile since I've done this, so bear with me.

High school is over.

HSC is done with.

University and the rest of my life is ahead.

It's really funny looking back at how much every Year 12er was freaking out about HSC over a 12-month period and that failing it would be the end of the world. It could be said this is an exaggeration, but I remember feeling emotions akin to those words in the week before waiting for results.

Ironically, those results don't matter anymore. Now I'm taking it easy and doing what I want (mostly). I'm getting on with the rest of my life. I only keep in contact with a handful of people from school, which saddens me - I know there are many good people I won't see again for a long time.

But in the mean time, I've accustomed myself to become more introverted, if not slightly reclusive, keeping to my own devices on some days. Learning to cook this and that has been a frightful challenge - frying has its payoffs but potentially painful at the same time. Gaming (especially with Sebastian) has taken up the customary third of a day most days, whether playing fighting games or going through an adventure/RPG together.

Funnily however, something that monopolises a great part of my time and energy has been songwriting; putting out feelings in a "poetic" way, if it can be called poetic. I guess it's a kind of journal-keeping, though I'm lucky enough to have a family that doesn't snoop around for personal information of that kind. The privacy that comes every morning when they leave for work allows me the freedom to explore composition in a way I don't dare in front of other people. It's becoming a hobby, albeit a vexing one. Of the various songs I have written, I'm only happy with two or three of them.

Life after high school (or at least the months immediately following) has been very...educational, from a personal sense. I feel I know more of myself, spent more time alone and away from others everyday. Not to say that I don't go out - mum complains I go out too much - simply the fact that I have 'me-time'.

Will this blog continue? Of course - if not sporadically. We'll see how this goes.

//end.

2010-10-28T18:36:00.003+11:00

Just came back from prefect camp which was a really great experience. Personally, I find it a lot harder to compare to the other camps because it was a completely different kind of camp than the others. There was a fair bit of work on leadership and brainstorming about what we'd do as prefects, so it wasn't as activity-intensive as I thought it would be like Yr 9/10 camp, but the discussions on leadership in my opinion were alright. I'll admit that I may have had a yawn every now and then, but honestly it was an interesting seminar to have during the camp. The food was REALLY good. I think the fact that the kitchen was catering to 35-odd people rather than over 150 would have played a huge factor in the food quality.

The last two days we had leadership meetings basically discussing and doing activities on how to be an effective leader; all the activities occurred in the afternoon. The first day was different though since we arrived at around 10-10:30. The whole day was really centred around getting used to working together and being with each other, so the activities basically consisted of Icebreakers and Initiatives. I HATE helium sticks. Spiderwebs are alright though.

That night we had a prefect brainstorm on school issues; probably one of the most inspiring times I've experienced, and definitely from a place I didn't expect. I never really thought until then that you could become so passionate about something. To paraphrase, we want to bring back school spirit and the Hurlstone Family. That night my cabin (Rutherford, Kelvin and Zul) all went to sleep pretty early by comparison, but I couldn't get to sleep until 12:45. There was no real reason for it since I had coffee in the midday, which should have been fine...hmmm....

Next day was more leadership in the morning, lunch, and then canoeing, raft building and archery. Triangles work in rafting. Some people cheat by batting away cannonballs when they're not meant to. Oh, and look out for Charlie's Angels with bows.

That night we had the Prefect Head elections; everyone running had to give a speech. I'm not gonna recount the speeches; too many to recall. A lot were quite emotional; I cried behind a tree afterward considering the day it was and the speeches. I'll treasure that night forever. My biggest thanks to all of you who were there for me and gave your support. Also, I didn't know about your situation [bread]. It was really good to talk with you that night; thank you for entrusting that part of yourself to me. Oh, and to [bread] and [cup], a very big thanks for all that you did for me today...it means a lot to know that you went out of your way to help me. For [flowers] and [surprise], thank you as well for being so supportive. To [flame], thanks for holding on that night.

Today we had some more leadership discussion before a few initiative-style activities and lunch. We left afterward (obviously), arriving at school a little earlier than expected and Cried our lungs out, though I don't think it was advisable at that time. Just to add, there were too many good memories of the games room to mention, so maybe you might add some [pong]? But then again I don't think you read this...

Going onto another subject really quickly because I need to eat dinner...

This post is labelled '//end.' because I'm going to stop blogging at least until then end of Year 12 and HSC. I don't really have the time for this anymore, but I figured that I should leave a definitive 'final' post. I might pick this up in again a year or two, but I can't say. Thanks to everyone who have followed, commented, read or stalked because they really had nothing better to do. You guys were the reason that I actually kept posting after the first few months; it was nice to know that there were others interested in my life (or have no lives). In the beginning, I started this so that I could have a documentation of my life in high school, but I've found that life is too dense and too complicated to try and describe in 30 minutes of sudden-blog-inspiration. After about a year this began to talk about feelings and my angsty-self. Again, thank you for reading; I really do appreciate it *beats heart with fist in a manly way that men do*.

So, for a year at the very least, I bid you all adieu.

reprieve.

2010-09-28T09:36:00.004+10:00

I am currently enjoying my second day of laziness and am wondering what the coming year of school will hold. I mean, how much work will we get during the summer holidays? That's my biggest concern so far - I bet they'll give us an entire unit to do, like Cosmic Engine. Erk. But anywho, I'm not focusing on my worries and am just having fun doing whatever I feel like I guess. The change in weather from the everyday cold to the sunny but cool days has been a nice change. I like winter because of the food, but I miss ice-cream and some sun has definitely changed my summer-winter perspective. Spring hasn't been so bad in terms of allergies at least, seeing as how I beat the pollen to the punch by getting a nasal spray. That stuff is a godsend :D

The last day of school was pretty odd, but fun. As far as I remember, there were 14 people there, though half turned up later in the day: at first it was 6 or 7 people. Did we have classes? Yes, for English and Maths. Did they try to make us do some work? Yes, they did. Did it work? No. We played Wiki-races instead of reading those booklets in English. For Maths, Morrison gave us a question to prove the maximum value of a triangle in a circle. We didn't really bother, so we just talked. The rest of the day was just hanging out in the donut quad (with Yatesy XD), library and art quad. Sadly, when I went to get some Goulburn Valley from the canteen, they were all sold out. Ice-cream as well. It was fairly warm that day, and no ice-cream = DID NOT LIKE.

The last two periods everyone just stayed in the art quad. I got to return my money to Lana since she had turned up during lunch and we stole Dan's phone, played games with the bamboo sticks and also SOS with Li-Ching. At the bell Larry, Justin, Dan and I ran to catch the train and...well, that's about it. It was all alot of fun I guess, but there wasn't much to be done. Honestly, I just went to see what it would be like and to return my money to Lana.

Here's to the holidays!

nonsensicals.

2010-09-09T17:49:00.004+10:00

When I thought I could move past everything that I had hoped for, you appear in my dreams and lie. You came up to me and said you loved me. I asked you if this was a dream, and you lied to me. You said, "I'm pretty sure this isn't a dream," and you held me tight. I could feel my heart beating so hard in my chest, I felt like I was going to explode. I hugged you back and buried my face in your neck; it felt so real. We talked nonsense as we walked and hugged and held hands. I felt like I was flying higher than I had ever felt. You told me that it was real, and I believed you. Your voice was real, your face was real, you were real.

And yet, as I marveled at the fortitude of our encounter, as I listened to your voice that seemed even more special to me, I felt my eyes. I could feel my eyes in some other world, closed, even though I was able to see everything, the sun, the sky, the trees, the concrete, you. And so I opened my eyes and fell back into darkness, where I was unable to accept what had happened. It was all so real. I had dreamt up a situation of utter happiness, only to wake at 3am and stay awake for half an hour in shock. You mean so much to me, and yet I have no plans to confront anything. I am scared that you have a secret pull on me that I will not be free of for a long time. I can only hope that somehow, things will work themselves out, somehow.

tinted windows

2010-08-14T19:39:00.007+10:00

I was sitting on the bus from Livo to Prestons and I saw Kelvin, Richard and Tieu waiting for a bus (presumably), and I wanted to say hello, but they couldn't see me because of the windows. The bus was pretty packed as well so I couldn't get up to the other side of the bus and bash the window trying to get their attention looking like a spastic teenager, so I just stared at them, trying to make eye contact through tinted windows. There were other people getting on the bus at the time so we were stopped for a good minute or two, and after about twenty seconds of trying to catch their attention, I felt really stupid just staring at them. This is why I hate one-way tinted windows; you can always see outside but the people outside can't see you (at least not very well).

This has been the first weekend so far into the term that I don't have an assessment to study for or prepare for the upcoming week, which is relieving. My American cousins the Grahams have also left today, ending their two week visit. I'm very sad that they've left; the house is SO quiet without them. Watching Harold and Kumar with Mandy was hilarious!! Can't wait to meet you in Japan! Not so thankfully, Tita (aunt) Siony has successfully converted my family into watching Korean Dramas. =\

We all had a family game night last night crossing over into the morning consisting of bingo ($5 prize games), Dirty Minds and Taboo. If you don't know the game, wiki it or something; can't be bothered explaining right now.

Good luck to anyone who has assessments on this week, I'm hoping everyone did well for their speeches (loved Dan's one; watch it on facebook if you haven't already)!

Peace out~ XD

a little too slow.

2010-06-27T19:36:00.003+10:00

I'm so sorry I didn't give you the summary that I promised before the exam, I only finished it an hour ago, and I've given up on the other summary for trig. I hope that you've forgotten about me giving the stuff to you and that you studied successfully on your own. I can't send it to you because it was hand written and I can't find the scanner, and I'm guessing it's a bit late to be sending it to you now...I'm also sorry for not coming today, I really wish I could've...I'm such an ass-face. I hope I can make it up to you sometime.

Good luck to everyone for tomorrow, we're all stressed enough to need it; let's make our Asian parents proud!

41.

2010-06-06T21:43:00.003+10:00

We ready for English assessment?! Gyahaha, I know I'm not 100% ready. You know, I've used the 'you can't study for English' excuse so many times, that this time around I've done some writing. Not essay planing, but just paragraphing thoughts on the AOS. It's not really much, but it calms the nerves. I'm just afraid that the preparations I've done won't be enough, or what we're listening to has no visuals, so I can't relate two of my points to my related text. *sigh* I hope I got well. As far as I can remember, I've only ever gotten A's in English two or three times, and none of them were in these pop-essay assessments.

Yesterday we held the 40th Day Novena at our house, and needless to say a good hundred people came. We hired a marquee which helped and the weather was beautiful that day as well, so warm and sunny. After eating a smorgasboard of food, we released 40 silver and white balloons into the air (Ryan let go of his blue one as well, cute little thing) for Dad. Wonder if he got them... It looked very nice watching them swim up into the sky, though Kuya Ray had an inappropriate comment about it. One of the family friends brought over their Wii remotes as well, so we had 4-way Mario Kart, Wii Sports and Grand Slam Tennis. So fun, we played Rainbow Road 3 times XD.

To Mr.E - Sorry if I come off a bit weird, I'm just like that sometimes.

I'll end it here, not much else to say and I wanna catch some Z's as well. Good luck for tomorrow everyone~

"but that's your choice"

2010-05-30T20:49:00.003+10:00

What else is there to say about camp? It was a tonne and a half of fun. Sure, last year's camp was better because it was longer and the activities were better, but this camp was pretty good as well. Recount? Nah, can't be bothered. Can't be staying on the computer for too long. Maybe just an overview. Group 6 = awesomeness. Too bad that we missed out on high ropes, damned rain D:< . It was a shame that the weather was so crappy. If it wasn't so cold, I think the camp would be up there with last year's. The games night and improvisation night were a nice personal touch to the camp. I LOVED Tansy's impersonation of Keegan LMFAO she is a phenomenal actress.

The disco was a lot of fun too, just a shame we couldn't go back to our cabins and change =\. We tried to request some Lady Gaga before, but it wasn't played, as most would've noticed a lot of the songs were dance-remix and RMB. Hoping for a more eclectic DJ next time, gosh! XD The playlist was okay I guess. I guess it's just cause I'm going a bit alternative is all.

Still trying to think of a related visual text for English and planning on doing more of Chemistry research over the week. Dunno what sport selection to do. I wanna do a sport with friends. Love to do it with handball group, but then half of the guys go do Grade, and I'm not that hot with most sports. Hanging out with just girls in ice skating for ages gets a bit plain after a while. Don't get me wrong, it's fun, but a change would be nice.

It's been a month now, and it's hard to believe that much time has passed. I'm hoping Mr.E will be at the Novena. I had a really good time with him last time he was here; throwing cards like a ninja at 16 is great! Looking forward to the prospect of cooking in Jap tomorrow (or next time we're in the cooking room), methinks it'll be okonomiyaki, the fried pizza thing. Love it!

Thanks for reading my gaggle of random readers, it is an honour for me to know that people have an interest in my affairs. Ta~

my hero can make magic water

2010-05-06T11:49:00.004+10:00

It's been a good while since the last time I've made a post...a lot has happened. Someone very close to me passed away nine days ago on the 27th. I'm coping. I wish I had more time with him, more time to learn more about him and make more memories to recall in the future, but I guess it wasn't meant to be. My deepest thanks to all those who supported me yesterday. The 40th day Novena will be on the 5th of June yet. I'm just typing up random bits and pieces really. I can't wait to get back to everyone next week, or maybe even tomorrow if things are okay.

Good night.

Sweet dreams.

Have a good night's rest.

Don't forget to say your prayers.

And I'll see you tomorrow.

yes, I recognise you from school. no, you're not my friend.

2010-03-07T20:58:00.003+11:00

I don't wanna sound rude, but that's the way I feel about people adding me on facebook lately. There've been people who add me who go to Hurlstone, and I recognise their dps. But why add people that you don't talk to? Some of them I haven't even talked to. How can you be friends with someone that you haven't introduced youself to? Just a little rant, I guess...

Balancing homework and housework and leisure time is getting harder. Not insanely hard, just harder. I've been having to allocate a lot less time to leisure, which is a bummer, but expected. I hate ironing when it's hot. Adds 5~10 extra degrees, I swear.

My mum is a bit of a pill sometimes. She doesn't ask me to do things, she tells me to. She doesn't always say please and thank you either. She also yells from the other side of the house and expects me to understand what she's saying when I'm doing my own thing. I love my mum, she's just overbearing sometimes, but I guess all mums are like that.

I find that blogging's fun to do because as you go along in life, you get to read what you wrote in the past. It's like saving your memories, I guess. That last sentence was just me trying to ass more to this post, because I can't think of anything else to type about...

Just to end, if any of you find a small black and white smiggle pencil case that's covered in Japanese manga lying around school, it's probably mine. I've lost it or someone stole it. Now I've got a pen, a pencil, a rubber and a highlighter left took take to school tomorrow. Yay! Economics presentation for my group tomorrow, Australia trumps America's health care system!!

Ciao.

have I been ... snobbed?!

2010-02-20T15:23:00.003+11:00

I've found it takes me a lot of time to think about blogging before actually doing it. I've probably thought of about over ten topics to blog about over the last couple of weeks but haven't gotten around to them. The only reason, actually, that I'm doing this right now is because I don't have anything better to do, no offence Rosa :D

To the person that has inadvertently snobbed me...could you invite me so I can view your blog? Please? The first time I actually tried to view it was during the holidays and since I've been denied access, I've had no choice but ask the person to let me in, seeing as how we're good friends and all. But I keep forgetting to bring it up at school, so I'm posting about, hoping they will see this and the rest tells itself.

GARAGE SALE!!

But seriously, we're having one right now, but we just closed it half an hour ago. It'll be open again tomorrow from 9 to 3 at 8 Greenwell Rd Prestons. Drop by if you wanna take a look or just waste time, a lot of the stuff left are clothes, but there's also some CDs and tapes, an old music player, a computer monitor, bags and other accessories, some toys for any little cousins/siblings you may have...I know this is propaganda, but we wanna get rid of as much of the stuff on sale as possible. We'll donate/throw away anything that doesn't sell I think. So...stop by!

Hum hum hum, year 11 has been alright so far. More work definitely, but this year I'm gonna try to get more involved, seeing as how Justin keeps saying 'GOLD' every other day to remind me to do extra-curricular. GO INTERACT LOL. As a senior, I have to be a good role model, and the first step is to enforce my power as senior to push out any juniors in the Hall of Honour. I can't WAIT to do that! :D

Thinking of switching Chem and Phys lines because...well, let's say the learning environment isn't top notch in Phys. My fellow physicists will understand to some degree at the very least. Other Chem line is still Jackson I think, so the transition should be okay. SHOULD. If I do it. Hrgm...

I'm going to finish here now because my sister has left her facebook account logged on...kekekeke.

%#$@ you, Westfield's.

2010-02-02T17:40:00.003+11:00

I was trying to think of a title for this post, when lo and behold, I came across an e-mail from Westfield's. Turn's out that "all I want for christmas is a gift card" was won by someone in Victoria. URGH. Dunno if it's a territorial thing, but I would have been happier if someone from NSW won it. Anyway, just posting cause I can't be bothered right now to do math, but I will. I've been doing my homework lately, so fingers crossed that I'll hold up the HW streak for the rest of the year.

I miss talking to you.
I miss making fun of other people with you.
I miss what we had.

It's only been the third day of school, but that's how I feel. If 'you' can figure out who you are, I can't believe that you'd read this =\. I'm not too good with writing long poems (if you can call that one), especially when I'm half-distracted making sure I won't get caught using the computer when I haven't done my homework.

Sport selections tomorrow, go rec sport!! My table is being temporarily overrun with my sister's knick-knacks, so I'm gonna have to shovel it all off without breaking them, so I'll be leaving for the moment. Ciao~

"i see you", "oh cuss!" and belated season's greetings / happy new year

2010-01-06T17:14:00.008+11:00

Sorry I haven't done much blogging, not that many would care, including me, I've just fallen out of the blog-scene I guess. It's been a month or two since I've read anyone else's and well, as much as I'd love to learn more about you, I'm too lazy. Expect posts to be sparse from now on for the rest of the holidays, seeing as how I won't be posting something unless I really feel like it. Heck, I missed out on just quickly posting a merry christmas/happy new year post on here, but no. I was too lazy :D

I've had a lot of fun over the holidays so far. After camp, that was when the holidays started, I guess. I would've gone on the last day when Amy said to on the 10O picnic board, but I didn't check it that day, so...I didn't go :S

My sister Margaret (who seems to have been reading by blog of late and commented on the previous post) and Dad have their birthdays within two weeks of each other, and so when we go out to celebrate, we combine their birthdays into the same night (cheaper that way, but twice as special). On the night we went out, we went to Koby Jones, a popular Japanese-fusion restaurant in the city by the harbour. Describing their food as beautiful and delicious wouldn't be enough considering the calibre of the food they served. Quite rich in flavour and filling (but still healthy for you because it's Japanese XD), the food was exquisite.

We celebrated Christmas over at 'the little family's new house' where we played Guitar Hero and watched Anaconda 4 (honestly, the horror factor from that movie is non-existent as most of the deaths are unrealistic and are obviously computer generated). During said movie, Raymark and I played super Mario on wireless. Silly boy kept destroying my stars D:

Speaking of better, MUCH better movies, I watched Avatar with my sisters in the city. AWESOME movie. If you haven't watched it yet, go. Simple enough storyline, but sometimes less is more, and the creativity of the minds behind Avatar is shoen through the world of Pandora, the place where Avatar is set. Again, watch it if you haven't yet, it is a good movie.

Our family spent New Year's Eve at the Figuroa's house (except for Dite, she went to Rach's). After a very diverse dinner, the adults stayed downstairs and did their thing while Ate and I played Guitar Hero 5 and Metallica on XBOX360 (thanks Noy!) Lucky for Cookie, we got her about $1000+ in Metallica XD. Personally, the fireworks were a little bit of a let down this year. They said it'd be the biggest yet, but they weren't...if they didn't say anything in the first place, I bet people would have appreciated them more.

The following day, we called people in the past of 2009! Haha, I'm sure it might seem really silly to you, but it was really funny calling Tita Siony's in America while it was 2009 there and we were in 2010. That kind of 'time travel' was one I had never considered before; it was a hoot.

Yesterday I went out with my group plus Sebastian to Westfield's Livo for some shopping, and a movie. We shopped a little first (I gots new clothes :D) and then around 11:15 we went up to the movie theatres to get our tickets before the massive midday line-up. After five minutes debating, we decided to watch Fantastic Mr. Fox. We went back down to the food court for lunch a little Timezone before heading back up to watch the movie at 12:45. Let me just say that now I am very wary of blueberries now. Very wary. Watch the movie and you'll get it.

Well, hope you guys are all have a swell time, I'll see you all on the other side of this month!

why we are all "under-achieving"

2009-11-06T15:46:00.003+11:00

It's been a while since I've been actually bothered to do some typing up. Seeing as how it's Friday and I won't be doing any work and am currently laid back, why not blog? Anyway, I was talking to Melvin, Mango and Revathy after school while we were waiting for our parents. Being the usual intrusive Hurlstonians we were, we asked each other what marks we had gotten for various exams. Then, the topic that often follows: how all of our parents are not very appreciative of our marks for exams throughout our time here at Hurlstone. I don't know about you, because it could be different, but the four of us found that our parents weren't ever HUGELY thrilleed about our results. I recall once telling my mum 'Hey, I got 97 for my math exam!!" In response, she replied with something along the lines of, "Good. Keep it up for next time." ...

It's moments like these that, as Hurlstonians, we feel we do as best as we can in our exams which are more often than not quite hard, and our parents do not seem to appreciate that an under-90 mark is actually a quite good one. It's quite a travesty.

Case in point, actually. I told my dad I got 88 for my English + History trials both, and he just tells me to aim for 95. Seriously, he doesn't even say 'that's really good!' or the like. It doesn't seem to register to him that what I got was a really good mark, which I'm sure all of us have experienced many times.

I mean, you see those teenagers on TV (even though it's fiction) who have parents that are like, "If you get passing grades, I'll get you a computer for Christmas." ... It's reward inequalities like that that makes the under-appreciation of our parents stand out so much. It makes you wonder if you need to fail a grade before your parents actually appreciate the work you do and try to reward you to get better marks from your previous fail.

But then again, as the four of us furthered argued, our parents 'want what's best for us' and it's all just a case of tough love. Be that as it may, I still feel that our parents should give us little rewards at the very least. I'm not expecting a PS3 or XBOX-360 reward, unlike some families do, but just something that let's me know that they are giving me some sort of reward, you know? Nothing ironic or satirical; I wouldn't like that. More like a slap in the face.

'I am...Corason.'

2009-10-04T18:35:00.004+11:00

Just spoofing of Beyonce's album title. Thing is, while I was at Work Expereience (hereby referred to as w/e), so many times after being introduced, people kept saying, "oh, you're Cora's son aren't you?", and so on. But then, because half of them had accents or spoke fast, it sounded like 'corason', so...yeah. Just inspired me to do the title.

To surmise, w/e was one of the best experiences I've had. Sorry guys, but it was a tonne and a half better than attending the last week of school. Before I lose any more memory, I'd just like to mention all the people (staff) who made me feel so welcome at w/e (which was at Livo Hosp in the Anatomical Laboratories). Big big thanks to Paul, Alana, Hoda, Jason, Lan, Sam, Samantha, Moses, Jasmina, Fanar, Michael, Ana, Anne, Anna, Manasi, Dr. Kassim and Chau, Sandra, Tash, Virgini, Nasan, Bruce, Mehira, Shelandra, Huong and Alex. Might've forgotten someone, so sorry to them if I did. Also a huge thanks to Shantay, the senior adviser for the labs, for letting me have the w/e there at the labs.

Okay, I'm not gonna have a total 5 day run down, but I will type up the things that I got to...*ahem* observe. The most I got to do in the way of work was probably the more menial tasks like signing in specimens onto the computer database, setting up specimen blocks and so on. The process in the labs are as follows. Anatomical Pathology deals with diagnosing tissues and such when they are sent to the labs so that the doctors and patients upstairs can get a result (I say upstairs because the labs are in the basement level so there's nowhere to go but up). Anyway, tissue specimens are sent in jars ranging in size depending on the specimen. They could be tiny lymph nodes or whole sections of bowels and intestines. It all depends on the patient's case.

Anyway, when the specimens arrive, they go to reception (which is just a desk with computers on it, nothing pretty looking) and are given a number to be ID-ed while in the labs. They then are taken to the cut-up rooms, where the registrars (in-training pathologists) literally cut up the specimens and examine them. Small specimens are usually all placed in one block (a little tray with holes at the bottom. They need to be printed with the patient's name and number), but slightl larger ones like appendixes and galls bladders need to be cut up into several pieces and sometimes several blocks. Just to note, these blocks are what will eventually stain the slides. I will explain later. Larger specimens like bowels and ovaries, would be cut up into smaller sections of importance (eg. tumour, surface lesions, etc.) and placed on many slides. Oh, just to say, while someone is doing something in the labs, they must wear a lab coat and surgical gloves.

The specimens are then left in a machine where they are dehydrated overnight by total exposure to xylene and pure alcohols. The next day, specimens are then placed in a square metal container where they are filled with hot wax and then set on a cold plate. Once set, the blocks are sent to microtomy and are slowly cut (like peeling). It's hard to explain. The machine operated slowly cuts the slide at 3microns ~ .5 microns depending on the specimen and those parts cut off are then left to float on water for a moment or two.

The specimens are cut so that the whole face of the specimen is showing, where, if there are three pieces of tissue but two pieces are hidden in the wax, they are cut down until all three pieces are showing, which is the whole face. The whole wax block isn't cut away, so after the required amount of slide slivers are floated and put on slides, they are filed away according to their number in case doctors want more cuts. The skimmed parts that are floated on water are then picked up onto slides and are 'baked' in a hot environ and then dehydrated through xylene and alcohol and stained. Once the process is complete, they are mechanically covered with a cover slip and filed away as stained slides. Certain slides that are special that come from the liver, bone marrow or a biopsy (I forget which organ) are sent to special stains where they are dehydrated, stained according to what they are and then hydrated again.

I got to watch all of that get done and it was quite interesting. Manasi let me do a special stain on one of the slides as well! It wasn't a patient slide, though, but a control slide. Still, it was fun to do and look under the microscope what they looked like. I spent the bulk of my time, however, in the cut-up areas where I got to see a lot of things I don't think I'll see again any time soon.

I was with Jasmina when I went electron microscopy. Watching her do the microtomy for EM looked really hard. While it had the same principle of the larger microtomy machines, you had to have steady hands to cut the blocks properly because the specimen had to be cut just so or else the entire face would be missed. Looking at the EM was the fun part. The instruments of the EM were very sensitive, Jasmina had told me that where the specimen was being placed, you had to use tweezers because placing it in with your hands would mess up the vision of the EM because of the oils on our hands. The EM also operated on a vacuum in the viewing area, so before viewing, the EM rejected all the air inside. The view of the EM was black and white, but it was really interesting to see the individual cells and even the mitchondria and nuclei.

On Thursday, I went into my mother's department, the typing area, where they do all the mailing, filing and keeping up to date on what slides are being borrowed from other hospitals and such. My mum's main job is to type the reports that the registrars dictate while performing cut-up. While the registrar is cutting up, they use a foot pedal that turns a microphone on/off and describe what the specimen is like, as well as identifying the patient and their number. After trying some dictation typing, I've had to give my mum a LOT more credit to what she does as some of the registrars have very strong accents and are hard to understans, even more so when they are not facing the mic (I've seen them dictate facing away from the mic a few times in cut-up).

On my last day I spent the morning in Cytology. They are similar to Histo, except that they deal with fluids rather than tissues, and so alot of their work is done under the microscope and therefore do not have cut-up or microtomy. Shelandra, the head of Cyto, gave me a brief introduction on Cytology and Fanar showed me the reception in Cyto. I have to say, it's alot slower than the one in Histo. Another cytologist, Alex, showed me a couple Cyto-slides on the conference microscopes and even took me to see him do what he does in action. The two of us went up to where a doctor was extracting some fluids from a patient and, when handed the syringe, Alex would spray out the contents onto a slide, dehydrate, stain and cover slip the specimen and then have a quick look under a microscope to see if the slide was satisfactory.

I also looked at some cases with one of the registrars, Michael. Some of them were skin lesions, ulcers, lymph node extracts and the like. The first couple were real patient slides and lucky for me, I got to look at them on the conference microscopes. The rest were just 'practice slides', where Michael had to figure out what the case of the slide was, which, after almost an hour of analysis on all of the slides, was very hard, considering all of the detailing that he had to pick up on to infer what he did.

It was a good experience. If you haven't done w/e yet, you really should do it. It teaches you how different work is from school and how, no matter how much we study in school, it will never completely prepare us for the real world of work.

it's a trick of the light, that's all.

2009-09-25T23:29:00.003+10:00

I've been looking at our school photos every now and again (especially the individual ones AHAHAHAHA some people have the FUNNIEST photos), and I have come to a conclusion. It seems that, for whatever reason, those photographers must be conspiring to make bad photos of us, I mean SERIOUSLY! Well, don't mean to be so dramatic, but you get what I'm talking about. It just seems that, on a special-occasion day most of the year has less-than desirable photos; everyone's complaining "eww, what happened to my smile?!" or "I have so many pimples!" and the like. And I'd have to agree with some of them. It just seems that, in our school photos, we seem to look what we're not.

Anyway, I have technically just finished Term 3 for year 10 as I have Work Experience (hereby referred to as WE) this coming week, so HA! I'm so happy that I get to space out (kind of) and relax as I don't have any immediate work due and can just leave it for later. I know VERY well that it is this that makes me stressed and get all irritable, but I do it anyway because I don't have enough foresight and common sense - no, I'm just not bothered to do the work until I really have to actually. Answering today's geography question was dodgy to say the least, the 'random' part of which question would be asked ought be investigated, but I couldn't care less really, I'm just happy it's over. Seems that every teacher just happened to pick Q2, so, yeah. You know, that just sets off my bullshit alarm, but I'll let that dog lie, because it's been done and bringing it up isn't gonna get me more marks. They'll probably say, "if you're concerned, how about you do it again on another random draw?" or something. Yeah.

I'm currently staying up later than I should. In fact, I'm waiting for my mum to come out of her bedroom and tell me to get off the computer. But anyway, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. I love staying up doing what I want and not work for school or something. Whenever I stay up for school work, I'm always so tired after it's all done and just flop out on my bed (once I forgot to brush my teeth because I way so tired =\).

I'd like to think of myself as a considerate person. I'm not especially bright or quick or an artistic prodigy of any sort, but I'd like to say that I make up for it by being a nice person in general. I know that that isn't true. When I mention this to some people, they're like, "What? No you're not!" but in a total retrospect of everything I've done, I know I could've picked better choices. Like the highroad than the lowroad. But you know, every now and again, something tips the scales and stuff happens. I don't like it when people are short-sighted, but in a way that, if you say something, it'll sound like an attack against them or something like that. How, you wanna say "You're being mean about something" but then there's a large chance it might get interpreted as an insult or something. It's like being in a checkmate position. It's hard to explain.

I don't really know where I was going with this post, but I figured I should post one since I haven't done so in a week or two...night all.

doors closing. please stand clear.

2009-09-09T18:08:00.004+10:00

To those that understand the title, 'yes, it was a pretty close call.' Thing is, since it's Wednesday, me, Justin, Maylyn, Oishi and Nancy catch the train to Leumeah for pool. It's lots of fun. Thing is, today it seemed, we were very lethargic in general. As the trained stopped for Leumeah, I thought, 'Okay, better start moving now'. No one moved. When the doors opened, everyone began to get up and move, but at dawdling pace and I was saying, "come on guys, before the doors close!" Oishi dropped her glasses box. Everyone stopped. She picked them up and we kept going at snailpace.

Then lo and behold, the automated voice, 'doors closing. please stand clear' sounded and Justin was at the front just at the top of the stairs (we were sitting in the bottom compartment mind you) and I was leading up the rear. As soon as we heard it, I yelled "come on! gogogogo!" or something like that and we ran. Everyone made it out, and lucky for me, so did I by the skin of my teeth. I basically dived for the closing doors; very Indiana Jones-esk. I don't mean to sound all pompous or anything, but it was a lot of fun, as harrowing the consequences could have been. Of course, it turned out that I didn't need to dive for the exit. The doors reopened again, and we all laughed. Ian was there as well getting off from another carriage (well before us) and saw the whole thing. We then started making jokes, like, "It'd be funny if you made it through but the doors closed on your bag, then it'd be byebye Patrick!" :D. It was a good day today.

I'll be starting work experience next week and I need to pick up a package from Ms Ejsak so remind me if you read this Wednesday night XD. If not, then don't worry. I'll be doing Anatomical Pathology (diagnostics and the like) during that time which will be very interesting. Hope you guys tell me if anything major turns its ugly head up during the time I'm away, okay? Not much else to say I guess...buuh-bye.

EDIT [12/9]: Looks like I'll be doing W.E. in Wk 10 cause there's no one to take care of me Wk 8 so I guess I'll see you guys up till Wk 9!

slaving away at the monitor.

2009-09-04T19:43:00.006+10:00

For the past week, I've been rushing to finish my website which was due today for IST. Luckily, I finished it late last night and everything worked out in the end. *sigh*. Funnily enough, if I didn't show my sister, it wouldn't have turned out as good as it has. Without her blunt criticism of my choice of background colours and layouts, it wouldn't have been as good as I said before. Though she probably won't read this, I commend her greatly for her advice. Don't tell her I said that though.

Quote:
"Pat, why don't you just use a black background with white text? It's easier to read and a lot better in general."
"I was thinking about doing that, but I thought it'd be too repetitive."
"It's not repeptitive, it's consistent."

Thinking back to that, she had a good point. Looking at the website again, it turned out a lot better than I'd hoped. Really. If I could, I'd post it somewhere so readers could see it, but I think people would get capped before exploring the whole site (too many pictures and videos). Tidying up the website photos, links and writing up the information for each Final Fantasy were probably the hardest parts. While designing the FFVIII page, it took me an hour and a half to figure out why the images weren't projecting properly. The frame on the side moved all my images to the right, so I had to move each image to the right so that it didn't overlap with the text and didn't fall too far away from the text. I think that the nicest parts of the website is the music that plays on each history page, especially FFX (Summoned is really nice =D).

Grid Iron was fun. Can't say I was too good, seeing as how we didn't score, but it was still fun. I wish we could've played class vs. class, but oh well. At least we didn't have to go to that history seminar last period. My condolences to those that found it a harrowing experience XD.

My dad is leaving for the Phils again on Sunday, so we're gonna have an early Father's Day lunch tomorrow. Hm, not much else to say that I can think of at the moment...I guess that'll do for now.

umpteenth rambling

2009-08-28T20:38:00.003+10:00

TGIF, yes? I can't wait for Country Fair tomorrow, yay! It's gonna be lots of fun so come and support the school! For those of you coming by train, remember that some of the train lines have track maintenance on tomorrow so they will be substituted by buses, sorry guys. I'll be on the 12~2pm shift for parking, so maybe I'll tell you where to park :D. No jelly stall this year! D: Courtney said it required a lot of organisation to just run it so I guess it wouldn't have been easy running it each year. Maybe if I remember, I can run the jelly stall next year or something; my mum taught me how to make a mean jelly dish that 'melts in your mouth' xD. That's beside the point though, which is to ramble.

You know how we always get stressed about the work and assignments that we get from school and always complain about it? Well honestly, I kinda live for those moments. I mean, I don't love assignments or anything, but, I like the rush that comes with it. The super-concentrated mood that I get into and the relief when the assessment/assignment/exam is over. I can't imagine my life without those points in my schooling life. I find that on not so busy weekends I find myself wanting to do some sort of work, that I SHOULD be doing something rather than fluffing around. I'd like to think that in the future, looking back on my time in Hurlstone, I will think of the rush-rush hustle and bustle of school life and that, though not as stressful as real life, was still an arduous time (arduous is a bit OTT isn't it?). You might think I'm crazy for having some sort of indirect liking toward the work we do at school, and you know, you could be right. I believe that everyone is a little crazy in their own little way. Just that some are more crazy than others.

As I discussed with someone the other day (or was it today? school days meld together), I find it a bit daunting that we, as high school students, stress so much about papers and assessments, cramming to the last minute and freaking out before and afterward finding out the questions we got wrong by confirming answers with our friends, when we're only in high school. I mean, the real world out there, where you can get a stellar job, is a LOT more demanding than we can think of. As smart as we are, I feel that we haved lived out most of our lives so far in a shoebox in a house on a street in a suburb far away from the big city. Yes, I feel that we have yet to experience the true horrors of the world and that there is nothing we can do to prepare for those experiences. After all, life is a crapshoot.

Hm. I think I'll tax something from someone else's blog. Thanks for reading!

more than just a deodorant...

2009-08-24T18:35:00.005+10:00

Yesterday I had my birthday party for a few people. If you weren't invited and feel offended, I'm sorry, but I could only invite 10 or so people, and only 6 people showed up and it was still pretty crazy; I don't think 10 people would have fit in my room XD. But yes, I'm sorry again, but when you think about it, none of YOU invite me to your parties do you?! THAT'S RIGHT!! lol, honestly though, don't take it to heart, I really just invited my group and a few other people who I thought would mix well with my out-of-school friends. Going further, the people that went to the party will undoubtedly understand the title (except Rhoda, she left early).

The whole day was a laugh riot, if only I could recount it all I would, but as I have said many times, the human memory is imperfect and subject to change from time or even stress. But anyway....it began at 12pm and, being the punctual guest he was, Rutherford (thanks for the card, nice message XD) was the first to arrive at my house at 12:01--freaky yeah?! After a short tour of the house, Justin arrived 5 or 10 minutes afterward. We all went to the backyard, ate some chips and shot the hoops (quite badly I might add). Justin and Rutherford played a little chess when we went back inside and I was like, "the party has just begun and you're playing chess; IS IT THAT BORING?!" Rhoda and Maylyn arrived a while later close to 1pm. Another tour of the house was made for everyone again and, at 1, we went to the backyard for lunch of pizza, pies, and barbecue skewers (which you people BARELY TOUCHED!! D<). Afterward, Guitar Hero was set up and everyone played a little. Sebastian and Chau arrived a while after. After some chatting, the Pocky was taken out while Seb and Chau ate lunch.

SingStar followed the proceedings where we all sang for a good while. Suffice to say, Sebastian was by far a lot better at singing than all of us. Everyone had a chance to sing and we all had a lot of fun. Around 4, Rhoda had to leave early. And then there were 5 (guests). A break played out in-between and we ate some ice-cream with banana fritters (and some nice topping I might add) Later, we went upstairs to play Truth or Dare. I will not disclose the occurrences; the guests all know what happened. Honestly, nothing scandalous happened, and the whole thing was a lot of fun. By 6:40, Rutherford's parents had arrived and so he left. Close to 7 we all went back downstairs and ate some more food and relaxed and played some piano as well. Maylyn and Justin left within a few minutes of each other around 7. Chau and Sebastian briefly left to go to Seb's house to do some chores. In that space of time, mum was able to swoop in and put her foot down; the party was over D: I was initially upset because Seb and Chau were coming back, but mum really was tired and wanted some quiet. I understand now why she did it. When they came back, I felt a bit defeated and told them to leave; but not without a smile and laugh before saying goodbye. The party aftermath was quickly taken care of with the help of Dite. A little vacuuming, wiping down the couches and using the window cleaner on the glass table set things straight. A shower and leftover party food for dinner. It was a good day, which is an understatement.

Thanks to everyone who could come and having such a good time.
Sorry to all the people who couldn't make it; I wish you could have been there with all the fun idiocy and laughter.

~Fin.

labelling ie. tags - the 11th hour.

2009-08-21T19:05:00.004+10:00

I don't really see the point in adding labels or tags for my blog. I mean really, I don't have so many posts that I need to search engine them to find the one I want to read. I mean, I don't even READ my old posts again unless I'm really bored and in need of soemthing better to do. I know that some people use the tags as a way of being witty by just putting words in there that aren't necessarily related to the article but its still funny anyway. I'd love to do that, but I'm not with enough intiative to actually add tags to EACH post and then the whole thing seems a bit untidy, unkempt.

Anyway, to the couple in the music room today...don't worry about what happened. I guess I'm just...I don't know, getting angry for no valid reason. There are things that I think you should have considered, but then again, you didn't really know any better, did you? I don't know myself. I just needed a much-needed walk for some alone time (disregard the possibility for...well, you know what I mean if you get this). So, don't worry about it. I'm fine. Just a mood swing...hope I'm not ending up menopausal like that guy on House a few weeks ago. That was freaky.

Translating Japanese straight from manga is hard. Even with my memory of basic Japanese phrases, it's not an easy task. I get so frustrated when the word I'm looking for doesn't show up and then upset at myself when I find it in a different section later on. It makes me feel dumb. But it's not that bad, the feeling. I'm sure others are having trouble...right? XD, we'll see next month I guess.

Some reminders:
- Science skills test this coming Thurs.
- Justin and Kelvin, shouldn't we start history assignment?
- National history exam to be studied for.
- PE article collection (forgot about that until today)
- Is there still a jelly stall for Country Fair?
-Why the hell am I hearing that there are people that aren't going to camp?!

I'm going to start learning Silence and Motion from the FFVIII Piano Collections after I master Eyes On Me. SaM is hard, but hopefully, with time, I'll learn it...if you want to have a listen, the link's below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgGtxsx_5as

11 hours down, 29 to go.

none the wiser.

2009-08-17T19:00:00.003+10:00

I'm 16 now, but I haven't become smarter, any stronger, any wiser. I thought I was a mature person, but thinking back I've done things that a mature person wouldn't do. They say people change with time, and I feel that I am changing and not changing at the same time. I'm not changing because I still do a lot of stupid things and yet I am changing because even till now, I don't completely understand myself, because my views, attitudes, many aspects of me change. It's weird. I don't know why you elicit such emotions in me. I don't understand, and it isn't fair. I know it's not on purpose, but still. It is NOT FAIR. bleargh. I wish I had the ability to understand people and emotions, like a superpower, but that's just wishful thinking.

Thanks to everyone that wished me a happy birthday! To all that haven't, SHAME!! LOL, naw it's okay. I probably wouldn't remember all of your birthdays anyway, so it's okay. One year older, legal, but still not any smarter, not any stronger, not any wiser...but I'm still changing when I'm not changing. At least I haven't gotten weaker, more short-sighted or dumber, I guess, I don't think at least. Not much else to say, I guess...

P.S. I never knew soft music could soothe so well the nerves that wreck my mind due to the current technological handicap I currently face. Hopefully things will turn out better tomorrow. Hopefully.

Formal Blog!!

2009-08-16T19:01:00.004+10:00

If you have something to say to us about the formal because you can't be bothered saying it to our faces or just have too much time to surf the net, check out the new formal site for our school. Have fun guys!

P.S.: Don't forget to let everyone know about the formal blog so that we can have as much people as possible giving us their feedback.

http://hurlstoneformal09.blogspot.com/

inconsiderance.

2009-08-15T21:00:00.003+10:00

I was originally going to title this post with a quote, but I've forgotten it so I'll just stick with this. The subject matter is for once dependent on the title, so instead of talking about something that I thought of as interesting at the time of its conception, I'm going to complain instead (as the quote reminded me what the subject was...since I've forgotten both, well, yeah). This is directed at a few persons whose names I will not mention. They might know who they are. But yeah...this has been on my mind for a while and I really wanna vent. If you figure out who these people are, then good for you, I won't confirm your answer because this is just a vent; in a few days I probably won't feel as angry as sound in this following rant:

"I hate how things are the way they are. I don't understand why you can't be a little more restrained. I know it's not my place to say as I have never been in that situation, but still, no matter what you say, I know that I would be more discreet. Definitely. I know me. I would not compromise the discreet part of me; I'm easily embarrassed (referring to over-paranoia). It makes me mad. As much as I'd like to, I most likely won't get used to it, just like how you wouldn't get used to it if you were wearing my shoes. I hate the insensitivity and incosiderance of the whole situation, I wish I could be the bigger person and just tolerate it, but thinking about it...I can't. Sebastian says I'm the 'epitomy of abstinence', and you know what? MAYBE I AM!! That's just who I am! So don't tell me to deal with it, because I have TRIED. YOU deal with it. GOD."

woo. Ironically, 'Paper Planes - MIA' started when I finished that. Those who know that song would understand the irony. ANYWAY, if the persons mentioned know who they are and have read the above paragraph, I'd like to say I'm sorry, but I'm not going to. At least, not yet. I'm still a bit riled up. *sigh*. This will probably have repercussions, but hey, I'm allowed to complain; I am human after all.

In other news...I paragon-ed my English speech, which is AWESOME! =D So happy! Math exam is over, and I felt that I went well, so hopefully I DID go well. Ag presentation coming up; it seems that everyone so far has just read off their ppt, and I readied a speech, which sucks 'cause now mine will probably seem really long and stuffy compared to everyone else's, but the speech works in CONJUNCTION with the ppt...GRAGH. I hate social pressure. Whatever. Tomorrow's another day. Not much homework this week, which is good. It's a nice break after all of the work rush, but I feel like I should be doing more work (must be the effect of work excess to want do some form of school work). I'm off guys.

horrible gushing. skip ahead to the bottom paragraph, please.

2009-08-11T17:16:00.003+10:00

I'm only doing this 'cause this is also an output for feelings, as shown by the blogs of others that I won't mention *cough cough". XD honestly though, I won't. Anyway...

Holding hands, hugging, whatever. Being with someone you find very important to you causes emotions to stir that you wouldn't usually feel with other people of a different nature of importance. Longing and heartache are a few of the emotions you feel when you are unable to be with that person, when you can't express yourself, when you think they reciprocate your feelings but are afraid that you are just over-analysing. I cannot say from experience what kinds of feelings you would or could feel when you are with your special someone, holding hands, hugging, whatever. All I know is that I wish I could be with a special person. I do not know what love is. I love my family, my relatives, my host family, my friends, just not in that way. I don't know if what I feel is something real or just a momentary attraction. I don't want to jump to those conclusions about myself, that I've given my heart to someone unknowingly to them. I know about the love I have for a close person, I'm just not sure if I know what love in its most combustible form is like, if I've ever experienced it. There are times when I scream inside, wondering why I'm in the situation I'm in and why I'm not strong enough to turn the tables. I just wanna be with my special person...but what do I know? I'm just a teenager. If I do end up with my speical person in mind, for all I know, this feeling I've got inside me could just be a fake of what real, combustible love is like.

--END GUSH--

Gee, I've never really put that out in writing of any form before. Dunno if it sound's depressing. Missed out on United States of Tara so I could catch up on math HW on Monday. BOO. Last couple weeks have been fine, no major tragedies. Did my English speech, got notification for History assessment and finished Ag assignment in a day, I just did not present. Although I want to, I probably won't be posting the CC BBQ photos on fb anytime soon. Hm. Not much else to talk about, I'm kinda hungry though...I'll wait for dinner. GOD. Reading back on the gush part, it sounds like I'm going to commit suicide or something XD! Well, whatever, just something I needed to get out I guess. See you all later!

bottled water.

2009-08-04T16:23:00.003+10:00

You know how there has been a lot of speculation in the bottled water industry? How it is the biggest scam ever because the industry is basically selling us something we can get from our own taps? Well, I'd have to agree with those who find the sellers of bottled water a bunch of cheap (yet socially smart) people, but considering its ease in portability, smooth physique and "refreshingly pure spring water", most cannot help but be enthralled by the pretty packaging. It's a shame.

However, when you take the water bottle scene outside of Australia, the debate on bottled water scamability sshifts dramatically. Thinking back to my trip in the Philippines, I was not allowed under any cirumstances to consume ANY form of water while I was there; apparently tourists who drink the local water, even if it was filtered, would fall ill. This included ice and ice-drinks so those were a big no-no as well. I took their word for it: after all, I didn't want to end up as a pale shaking mess for half the time I was there.

So during my stay, I was literally put on a ration of 10 or so bottles of Mount Franklin water that my dad had taken with him on the flight to the Phils. Unfortunately, the water was not enough. By the second week, I only had 3 or 4 bottles of water left and I had to start substituting my constant urges to drink water with, say, soft drinks instead. It was an odd experience having to keep subbing in soft drinks for water rationing..it was very odd. Because of the major heat over there, though, I did end up finishing my water before the last day, so we had to go get bottled water from one of the outlet stores. We bought 'Absolute' water, but they called it 'distilled', not spring water. Lucky for me, it really was the best around as I did not end up sick and shivery.

I guess I'm just thankful that we live in a country where you won't die if you drink water straight from the tap. The bottled water idea popped into my head while I was leaving Casula Mall as well, so...yeah! Something I wanted to talk about. Good luck for tomorrow guys!

getting hot & bothered.

2009-08-01T20:39:00.002+10:00

not really, I'm just titling this post that way because I just took a really nice shower, nice and hot, and so I feel all warm now in my jammies. I did get a little bothered in the shower though, if you get my drift ;D. SORRY if you guys had to poke out your mind's eye XD. Just came back from Pho 67 in Green Valley, haven't been to that branch in ages. It was really nice to go out again after church, which was packed because of First Communion. The choir that sang did very nice harmonies. The only downside to tonight is that my clothes stink of Chinese food so they're all in the wash now.

Saturday already down, I REALLY hope I can get all of my work done by the time they're due (speech, summaries for math and ag pres). I've started doing them all and I'm making some headway but I'm afraid I'm gonna just fluff out near the end and do a half'ass job, which I do not like doing to my work because I know I'm capable of doing some good work, I just don't devote enough time to do the actual work.

If you guys want to see something really funny, type it 'top 60 ghetto names' onto YouTube, it's REALLY funny and if you haven't watched it yet, go watch it now, it's only a minute and a bit. If you're looking for some belly busting laughs and you're open to laugh at semi-controversial stuff, YT Margaret Cho. She's an awesome comedian who often jokes about sexuality, government, visual image and Asian-ethnicity, to name a few topics. If you like action or just some awesome fighting, go find Dead Fantasy, a series of fan animation videos done as a collab of the Dead Or Alive and Final Fantasy games with each universe battling it out to see who comes out as the victor. DF 1~5 is out now, so watch it if you're into that kinda stuff.

Wow, looking at that paragraph makes me sound like some kind of promoter XD, didn't realise. I just wanted to share what I find entertaining with other people I guess. I find that unlike myself, other bloggers go on about more interesting topics than I do. I don't know if it's just the fact they're ideas aren't mine and they're new and refreshing, but it could just be that they think of cooler stuff to talk about than I do. Just an observation.

Just to end, I don't think that phils '09 memorabilia will ever be posted, I haven't even updated it like I promised I would SO many months ago. Well guys, PINCH & PUNCH!!

a metaphorical effigy to my sub-standard reading skills.

2009-07-25T10:25:00.003+10:00

Lately I have been a little confused about what was going on about the Ag presentations. You see, where it said 'date of issue', I thought that meant 'date to issue your assignment to the teacher' and the presentations to the class woudl start in week 3. For my last few weeks of ignorance, it struck me as very odd that we'd need to hand in our assignments two weeks before presentations began. I'd been turning this over in my head, wondering why this is, when about a couple minutes ago I re-read the notification for the tenth time, this time noting the 'term 1' next to the week 3. My HORRIBLE reading skills have tricked me into thinking that the date of issue was week 1, term 3, and presentation was W3 T3. I feel really shameful of myself, I mean, I bet there's a really smart kid out there who would want to go to Hurlstone, and one of the spots in the school has been taken up by an idiot like me. I wouoold like to think I have good common sense, but I really do the stupidest things sometimes. It's so humiliating! Especially when my sisters are around to see me blunder, they're always like, "Are you SURE you got into Hurlstone?" and "What do they teach you at that school?", sometimes even "You must be soaking up the asianerd effect from your friends." I don't blame them for saying those things though. As pointed as they are, I know I'd make fun of myself were I in their position.

A day and a half left of freedom before going back to the dilapidated cage that is our school XD. The holidays really have been a blur for me. I SWEAR they'd last longer. I can still clearly remember PE last period and thinking, "it's gonna be a long time before I see everyone again," and now here we are. Well, sleep in tomorrow guys, we're not gonna be able to do it extensively for more than 2 months after! I'll see you all there...right?

"Time is what prevents everything happening at once." - John Archibald Wheeler

control yourself! take only what you need from it...

2009-07-23T17:30:00.002+10:00

wow guys, thursday night and holidays are almost over! wow. just, wow. well, not wow, more like "OMFG WHAT DID I DO FOR THE PAST WEEK AND A HALF?!" i promised myself id start doing work, which i have, but a very minimal amount: i know i could do alot more. Like math for instance. I'm meant to be studying for that study T3 exam in second week, but lately I've been very loathing toward math. Not to any particular subject, just math in general. On the upside, I went to Livo library today and snagged some garden books. That's right, I'm doing potatoes! For all you know, I'm going to make reference to the science book a year or two ago that noted the potato that exploded when it came into contact with a virus! I might use that actually! I forgot about that until I started typing today's entry. WOW!

Boy, re-reading my first paragraph makes me sound real chipper huh? Well, I don't FEEL too chipper. I'm a bit tired, sad that I haven't gotten more out of my holidays. I imagine this is how a drug addict feels when they have a moment of lucidity and go into epiphany mode, just a thousand times worse seeing as how they would be in a much worse situation than I currently am. By the time I realised that I hadn't started to read Unseen Companion (class novel) again for the second time for analysis, the holidays were nearly half run through and I thought, "Hell, if it took me so long to read it the first time, how am I gonna finish it in a week?" Rationally, if I spent more time reading and less time goofing off, I probably would have read a good part of it. Now I'm just analysing key parts.

Well, enough about work, let's discuss some random stuff. remember that paper last year or so where there was an excerpt of an email from a teenager talking about body clocks? WELL, mine seems to be following the course of her predictions. I remember when 10pm was late and I was ready to fall dead asleep. Nowadays, even during school days, I tend to sleep close to midnight, and not always by choice; sometimes I just roll around in bed and wait for sleep to take me. But other times, I just don't tire so easily and when I look at the clock I think, "already?" kinda thing. I've slowly regressed from waking up at 7 in the morning for school to 7.30. The change was such a gradual process that it took me a while to realise that I was waking up later everyday, no matter what I tried to do. It's a bit sad when you think about it. I lack the willpower to get up out of bed...

I SWEAR that I WILL finish one of the maths summaries and start the Ag powerpoint!! I MUST. [insert war cry here]...well anyhow, good luck with the work guys! I know most, if not all of us haven't been that bothered to do a good portion of work. Ciao!

i can fit into REALLY skinny jeans. jealous?

2009-07-22T18:34:00.003+10:00

Just about the title, me and some of my friend's friends went out to Livo Westfields today just to shop around, hang out and other from hijinks. While I was waiting for Sebastian and co. to try on clothes and chat with the shop assistant, I got fairly bored. At some point during that time in between, I thought to myself, "What's skinniest jeans I can fit into at this store (Just Jeans)?" Probably not the smartest idea of the day, but hey, I needed something to do. After trying some women's jeans (GOD they're hard to take off), I apparently can fit in to size 9. Let me remind you all that I had little to do except sit on the floor and have very bad conversation flow with one of Sebastian's friends whom I had never met before. This all happened before we went to lunch.

Rewinding back a little, me and Seb took the bus to Livo and headed straight to the ATMs in the food court. The time being around 10ish, it was practically empty, the 'busiest' shop being McDo at the time. As the two of us lined up to use the ATM, Tri seemed to pop out of nowhere and called out my name. He seemed to be heading to the movies with a friend. This REALLY surprised me. You see, it was still somewhat early for me, and unless its during school, I am not conditioned to think outside too far out of the square. I had not anticipated that I would bump into someone that I knew at the Westfields. Pretty stupid on my part.

After money withdrawals and meeting up with Chau, Joseph and Brad at the top level, we just went around the stores looking around at random stuff up till lunch. curry karma does good food, i suggest their mango chicken =D. after another walk around to digest the food (Joseph and Brad went to see HP6), the three of us ended up at JB, where Chau and I bought Seb an early BDAY pressie. Afterward, me and Seb went all out on the DDR machine at Timezone. Sadly, I was outperformed, seeing as how i still need to put extra pressure on freeze arrows (I don't weigh enough so that just stepping on the arrow and leaving my foot there isn't enough for the machine to recognise. I need to really press down, so it throws off my rhythm D<). That plus the fact that I decided to go suicide on some songs by doing them on Heavy when I shouldn't.

After some chatting (and a mango smoothie), it was time to go home. Very summarised, me and the other guys really goofed around, there were tonnes of jokes and laughing and I wish I could write them all down but I can't.

On the discussion side, did anyone notice that today was unusually warm for winter? I mean, really warm? It must have been mid 20s during the day! Then it rained in the afternoon O:...but that aside, an unusual day for weather, yes? I am currently addicted to Word Challenge, it's bad. While we were at Westfields, on several occasions I found words and played WC with them, its freaky. I challenge YOU to play! XD im not serious, but it is fun to get into. As my sister said, it makes one feel S-M-R-T.

I have been progressively been doing assigned work and maths study. VERY progressively. Livo Library tomorrow for potato books and Fri and Sat I will develop the Ag powerpoint and English speech...hopefully. UGH. I was gonna mention something really cool, but now I FORGOT. GRAAAGH. Damn my tenuous grasp of memory *RAGE*. gosh, i hate it when that happens! well...im not gonna remember at this rate. i will edit if i do. Word Challenge time!

EDIT - thats right! just as a footnote ive been playing tennis with my dad! makes me feel fit, even though i tire easily XD.

a formal complaint.

2009-07-18T20:00:00.002+10:00

Why is it that EVERY ONE has nice blogs? I mean, when I go to them cause I'm just surfing and stuff, they have all of these photos and really nice backgrounds and toolbars that follow you going up and down the page and lists on the side, music players...what do i have? a random poll, an outdate about me page with a very expressive version of my face next to it, external links and the blog itself. It's REALLY plain. Then again, you guys put some sort of time into your layouts. I just do this to blog! XD but anyhow, that's just me complaining that mine is so unoriginal.

Don't you hate when there's something you want to say or ask but if you do, you think, "Crap, if I do that and they take the wrong way, I'll die!"? It really ticks me off. Kinda ties in with what I posted before.
Usually when I wake up, I think of the most out-there kinda topics and then I hear a voice say, "that wouldn't be half bad to blog about" and I agree with that and make a mental note to blog about those topic(s). Of course, unlike post-it notes, my mental notes are very ephemeral (ooh, a long word!). Probably made out of rice paper and written on with stones I bet. That's why 9/10 of my mental notes fail to remind when I need reminding. One day, I'll blog about those random things, but until then, I guess I'm just stuck blogging about...well this. I guess it's not half-bad.

Came back a bit over an hour ago from the movies, watched HP6. It was great to watch, it has its funny moments, but overall I think is a very intense movie. Not as much action as I would have hoped, and I wished they'd snuck in a couple minutes of the students trying to Apparate and failing, which would have been funny to watch. Watching the movie has prompted my Dite to read the last book again to answer questions about certain things seeing as how we have forgotten many things that we swore to remember.

Just as a footnote, I would like to encourage you guys to watch True Beauty on 7, its funny to watch the 'beauties' to talk so up about themselves and really conceited. Kinda. Ooh, my english is getting kinda bad now XD so i'll leave it at that.

over-paranoia, among other things.

2009-07-16T17:17:00.005+10:00

just to start off, I would like to say to all my readers, "WHY THE HELL HAVEN'T YOU GUYS BEEN COMMENTING?!" but I won't because that's being over-paranoid. I'm sure you're all not bothered to comment anymore or not reading full stop. I don't mind, since this is meant to be for memory preservation. In a few years time, I'll probably look back on this and think, "This is REALLY gaaay."
Anyway, I'd like to broach the fact that in today's society, many of us are over-paranoid. I am one example of a person being over-paranoid. People like me often think through the actions they will make and debate silently to themselves about whether or not to do it, what the consequences could be and, if they were to occur, how detrimental the consequences would be to the over-paranoid person. They would also think about the actions that they HAD taken and think how those actions could have been misinterpreted and think that they have been taken to the most offensive extreme possible by people around them...yes. That's something I don't like about myself. One could say that it is just being tactful, but hey, I don't interact too much around people I don't know that well or am uncomfortable to be around.

Then again, that's probably just me. Anyway, in other news, I haven't done any work yet during these holidays. None. At all. Really bad. If this keeps going, I'm gonna end up in Wednesday next week with no work done thinking, 'crap, I have to prepare English speech and Ag assignment and study for Math exam.' so I'm in a bind. I NEED to knuckle down tomorrow...yeah, I really shouldn't be blogging. I just have no idea where the day goes. to that effect, dont expect me to blog that often.

to finish, im going to write a sentence of thanks about people who are important me (other than family), that i care about especially. Some will be harder to figure out who is, so yeah!

- Thanks for saying that I was charismatic
- Thanks for being a total geek with me for so many years
- Thank you for being a good ear and dirty joke/profanity machine
- Thanks for putting up with all the crap I put you through, even today
- Thank you for being my very last friend at the end of so many school days
- Thank you for sticking with me even though I left you at this year's ccamp
- Thanks for sharing your iPod with me so many times
- Thanks for not inviting me to your house alone
- Thanks for introducing me to a bunch of new people last summer
- Thank you for talking with me after school even though you could have just said, "I'm gonna go library."
- Thanks for being my friend for over 10 years
- Thank you for the Christmas wrapping-card
- Thanks to all the people who have made an effort to catch the bus even though they didn't necessarily have to
- Thank you for singing random songs with me

I'll add to this when I can think of more people. Can you figure out who's who? Or can I after so many years? by the by, i'll see you all later (goes off and stalks other people's blogs).

Shkool and Yu En Es DaBulYu

2009-06-28T18:51:00.005+10:00

I've realised now that you cannot blog about every moment in life (unless its really important). I mean, one can if they blogged every day, but I don't. All that typing is too much for me. Even when I do my weekly (or so) blog posts, I tend to rush the end cause I really can't be bothered to finish the rest off properly. Right now, from a good student POV, I should be doing my History speech and Unseen Companion essay, but I'm not. Ms. Young is gonna be so mad at everyone when she comes back to find out none of us did the SMH light-trigger story XD. I can wait for Term 3.

I went over my history notes from various videos this year. I realise that, unless I remember writing about it, the facts on those pages are left there to metaphorically rot. I don't read them since I tend to textbook study (unless the info isn't there), which leaves me to ponder why I write so many notes during class when others write 5 lines. I guess it's cause I sit next to Kelvin for history. You see, this is how it tends to work. He's often writing notes and, when I find that I haven't written anything in the last 30 seconds or so, I think to myself, "Hey, I better write something cause he is." It's a weird process. It's happened with various people in hindsight, but recently, since notetaking has only been in history lately, I find that that is the most recent case.

Science is pretty fun for me. Again, in hindsight, Science is my most consistent subject (excluding Japanese). Most times, I understand what I'm supposed to be learning. I find, however, if I sit next to Vineet, John K, Charles and/or Chris, my concentration falls A LOT. They are very distracting.
Math? Not too hot. Lately it's been a drag getting through them. They aren't horrendous, but I don't like the idea of going to math. But hey, it's time for me to pick up my game in math. I 'm gonna need it.
Ag is same old same old. Fun in prac, just memorising and learning in theory. Looking back, Ag has been one of the most fun subjects I've had (and I was afraid I was gonna be wrangling animals like a 'farmer' in Year 7), like pulling out the cauliflower out of the garden patch. I grazed the inside of my knees (the other side) and it hurt, and the flies kept going at the wound even after I doused myself with water. I couldn't walk that well for a few days and my mum was really upset that that kind of thing happened at Hurlstone and that Ms Blake let me do that kind of thing and that it was dangerous. At the time, I might have agreed with my mum 'cause I was hurting, but now, I'm happy it happened: it's another memory for me to look back on. It's scary that time has past by so fast. We're almost halfway through Year 10 and soon we'll be seniors. And by the time we get there, we'll be thinking, "what the hell, I thought I was still in Year 10!".

*Tuesday addition* (this post began on Sunday, but because Dite was on the laptop next to me, I was too embaressed to continue as she started to stare at my musings).

UNSW! Very enjoyable, even though I was initially happy about the fact that I missed out on History speech and English essay (oh, what a shame...). For starters, the bus trip was basically the song game for 40 minutes or so. The actual campus at Randwick was stunning: very beautiful. You know how they say, "bla bla bla state-of-the-art" and you think, "I'm never gonna see that," or the like? Well, UNSW was STATE-OF-THE-FRIGGIN'-ART! I mean, their pathways were exactly straight, their buildings abstractly symetrical in their positioning and their lawns were imppecably trim and 'colour-coded' (Kassie: "hey, that building looks like Optimus Prime"). The sessions were pretty okay. The first for me was Arts and Senior Science. That was pretty fun, especially getting to play 'diversity bingo' and listening to graduates' stories. Session 2 was Careers choices. I wanted to swap with someone, but then I thought, why not? It wasn't a bad experience, if anything, it helped me think more about what I wanted to do in the future (ooh, deep...>_>). One of the workshop ladies had a REALLY fob asian accent, but her English was really good, so it was like having your asian mum talking to you with a fob accent but wasn't using bad grammar, in fact, she spoke very eloquently. It was a real "?!" for me. There was also an activity where we were meant to label celebrities as what kind of person they were. A picture of Angelina Jolie showed up and I said she was 'physical'. HOW was I supposed to leave THAT alone?

Lunch. They provided us with a sandwhich, mini Mars and water bottle and mandarin (enjoy Wendy!). Before the sessions started though, me and Elena went with Sandie to explore the campus. We nearly got lost, but apparently, Sandie's "logical sense of direction lead us back to where we were meant to be." I say we were lucky. Anyway, back on track, after lunch was the final session (spicy potato wedges). Mine was Law. As interesting as it was, I was dozing off by the end of it and Rutherford and Kassie kept poking me awake. The whole thing was very nice, the campus was really pro. Oh! I also saw Samantha there too. Her y11 group was there from Mac. Fields. Got to chat with her for a little bit during the day.

Then we went home. Dad picked me up because I couldn't be bothered catching the bus. Friend, I tried calling you and sent you a text, but you didn't reply to either, so I figured it'd be okay for me not to catch the bus, so ha!

On a final note, I'll be changing my blog's title. It doesn't look that nice with the caps and stuff, and the title IS pretty cheesy. Yeah...I figured this out after Dite said, " 'The Life and Times of Patrick'? Who would want to know about that?"

...yeah. I admit now in hindsight it was a good joke, so I'll laugh with you if you laugh at me at school about it. So...I have dinner now, my tummy's grumbling and...I can't be bothered to rhyme anymore. Bye!

Rad? No, Brad. Bread? No, BRAD. Yeah, who Brad?

2009-06-21T18:39:00.002+10:00

Don't worry if you don't get the title, joke from Maylyn's HBD party. Lot's of fun. Basically DDR, SingStar, Guitar Hero and fishing for tadpoles in her part garbage part lawn part murky, part newspaper pool. Obviously you wouldn't swim in as how we got tadpoles from it. The food was reminiscent of an Asian household version of MacDonald's or Jollibee (for all the Filos out there). All of my HY results have come out now, except IST. Haracic is taking his sweet time marking those exams. Apparently, they had to mark the year 7 and 9 HY DT exams first. COME ON. We got the same excuse years ago, just the other way around, 'we had to mark the year 10 exams first'. Geez louise, I SWEAR! GOD. Well anyway, my average overall without IST is 77. Okay, I guess. Math pulled me down pretty badly and so did Ag. If I took those two out of the equation, my average would probably float around the mid 80s (thank God for Japanese XD).

Just as a paragraph of self-reflection, you can skip this one. Math? FAIL basically. Study and parctice is what I need. English? Writing skills. I need someone to help me write better. Same for Geography and History. Maybe someone to help me figure out how to manage time and writing in exam conditions (I'm in Y10 and I'm still not great at it. It's a sign!). Ag? Well, I failed in the fact that I thought it was AI, not Oestrus Sync, so that's where I lost most of my marks. My fault, my bad, so there's no one to blame but me for that. Jap I owned, so no problems there, just some particles i mixed up (i for got the 'mu' in the watashi kanji). I did well, I'd say, but not good. Not to my likely. I know how people say, "It's an okay mark," or "I got worse than you," is meant to make me feel better, but nowadays it doesn't. I have a bar I set for myself, and whenever I fall short, I know I could have done better and no amount of comforting is going to make me think that it wasn't my fault for doing not so well in exams.

Okay, enough depressment. Just quickly overviewing this week...Cheap Thrills was very good, even though it was just one guy. If anything, it increased the power of the whole act (well, hello! || I know, I know). Go AB and Lucy H. Science has been covering electricity, motors, etc. It's fun and stuff, I just need to concentrate when I'm learning the hardER stuff. We've started waves, and tuning forks are fun to put into water when struck: just don't touch the glass. We made the airpot intercom sound with the C chord and a higher C. PE was 4-way soccer. Our team lost the most seeing as how half of the team weren't bothering to play. We didn't have anyone pro on our team either. Jap...need to practice seeing as how at the rate we are going, I haven't learnt too much from U11. IST is the same, more Flash work, more stupid theory to do. I hate it. Geo and His are the usual. Skills sheets, historical videos, same old same old. Assignments due soon, I better get cracking on those. OMG LIGHT TRIGGER SMH S.STORY! Has anyone done that? I've completely forgotten! D:

Obviously I'm swamped with work now, Sunday night, Unseen Companion to finish and do table on...sigh. That's all for now folks.

"It's cold and there are wolves after me"

2009-06-05T14:43:00.003+10:00

End of exams, hurrah! Could have posted sooner, but I was spacing out on my bed last weekend. Lost a quarter of a mark yesterday in speaking exam cause I used the WRONG particle D<. Oh well, I'm not perfect. Getting back the results for my exams is probably the hardest part. I mean, hey, no one likes to think that they tried their hardest in an exam and they end up getting a lower than expected mark. I've already gotten History, Japanese and Math back. Can't say I'm happy about History and Math results. I KNOW I could have done better. People say that my marks are okay because I did better than they did, but that's beside the point. I went into the exam trying to get a solid 80+ mark, but fell short of my expectations on both counts. I can only hope that this experience has prepared me for the Yearlies and that I will more thoroughly prepare for them, and School Cert. Japanese I got...97% I think? Somewhere above 95% overall, so that's very good. I'm still aiming for that 100% overall mark, so I just have to keep going at it: it's not as easy as it was in 7&8 seeing as how there's a whole lot more that you NEED to remember. Athletics Carnival on the first day of winter. I went into 100m, high jump and long jump. I would've done javelin but I missed the opportunity, but I doubt I would have done well anyway. Stacked it in the first event for high jump caused it had rained a bit before and I was wearing flat-soled shoes. Not a good choice, so the event was postponed to later in the day when the ground dried up. I came 3rd (out of 4 people XD) in the 100m and got 297cm for long jump (which isn't very far considering a guy got 500cm+). All I can say is that although I pretty much suck when it comes to Athletics, I try the sport for the fun of it and team spirit. In between, I was basically playing cards, walked by myself and friends on separate occasions. SOMEONE got the idea to tell Courtney and Steven to stop fooling around over the PA. Brendan and Lizzie were told to stop messing around on the benches later on (payback perhaps?). Drizzly day relays at the end. There was more stuff done on the day (like picking at the synth track with Richard), but I can't remember it all...it was a fun day. I couldn't make it to bannofe party afterward because dad picked me up with groceries in the car that HAD to get home first, so I wouldn't have had time to properly enjoy myself there. It was the start of the school week too so I couldn't stay long either. Basically, it's been raining and fairly cold over the past couple of days. It's a short week since there was athletics on Monday and SDD on Friday, and that's why I'm blogging right now. I cleaned out my room with my dad and played a game or two. Subjection Selections were held last night. The DET speaker was very eloquent and fun to listen to, but then some people might beg to differ. I am now trying to figure out my last 2 units and reserves. Unless I have a HUGE parent intervention, my choices are:
EDIT - These are my definite subject selections unless I decide to drop in the first few weeks.
- Adv Math
- Adv English
- Economics
- Chemistry
- Physics
- Japanese Continuers (duh)
We'll see how it goes. I'll talk to you all later!

Eye of the Cyclone & BBQ Sauce

2009-05-21T21:33:00.004+10:00

Well guys, it's Thursday night and we don't have exams until next week Monday, so we've all got a nice break (or cram study sessions: whatever way you look at it). For starters, I know I could have done better on History, I didn't properly answer all of the extended responses. I put too much time into the first one and not enough into the other two, I didn't know what ASEAN was (I do now), and...yeah. I screwed up. Geography wasn't TOO bad, but the ext.resp. being half the exam will cost me: again, I didn't write too much, some of the info I gathered for the exam was irrelevant to the question, so I felt I wasted time. Japanese listening went fine for me. As far as I could tell, I understood everything and I THINK I translated properly. I hope.
Minor - IST. I did not bother studying for this subject: ironically, though, I knew a fair amount of the answers. But I'm not saying I did well: some of the questions I b#!!$#!^ed with pretty words in short answers. I have NO idea what a histogram in Photoshop is for or what one looks like. Lucky for me, though, I've worked with Flash before so hopefully that'll bump up my marks.
Major - Japanese. As rushed as I was to finish and check my exam, I feel that I did pretty well and I don't think I could have done better if I had an extra day to study: my brain was at full capacity. It occured to me this morning that I could have replaced the 'tou' in Kyoto with the 'east' kanji, so I know I didn't get 100%. I also think that maybe I got my sentence structure and some particles wrong, so that;s a good 2~5 marks off T_T. 100% in Japanese nowadays seems impossible...where's the bloody cheat code?!
Last for the week, English. 'The Secret Life of Walter Mitty' left me with a HUGE '?' above my head when I read the story and questions in the reading time. I was thinking, 'How the HELL am I going to figure an abstract story out, and then write an EXTENSION of it?!' Reading the story in relations to the questions in detail helped. Of course, being abstract, the answers are open to interpretation, so I can't say how well I went in that section. Same goes for the DIY Walter Mitty episode, I can't say how well I went, I'm no English teacher. All I can say is that it was fun writing the story from the overshoes section and the stimulus (I used aliens XD).

Thursday...a very disruptive yet productive science double theory lesson. Very loud, but we learnt what we needed to. I feel that Baxter deserves a different class...he needs a class that shuts up. Seriously. But that's my opinion. Geography was nothing special, computer rooms, some of the grils were studying for upcoming HYs, Justin tried the quizzes I made in Year 8 for Games Programming (god, they were horrible) and I pwned him in several games of Tetris.

"You guys better not play counterstrike, or else I'll counterstrike you back!" - Milner (or something along those lines...)

Math. I helped Jasmine with her coming Jap. speaking exam. I led her on a crash course. In all honesty, Jasmine could top the class, she just needs to practice her Jap even just 5 minutes every few days (man, I sound like such a teacher XD).

Lunch. Kelvin, sorry I forgot to ask Ms. Hewett straight away about the speaking thing. Played 'spin the rose'. We experienced bad coffee, that stuff is keeping me awake pretty well seeing as how I am not a coffee person and it was double shot and I guzzled a third of the can. Is that alot in general or alot for me? I dunno. Feedback welcome (now it sounds like a question forum).

IST. Worked on my chicken walk animation a little. Talked mainly though. Japanese. I spent pretty much all the lesson revising with Jasmine and Christine & Vii on the side. Jasmine passed the first part of her speaking exam, so I'm very proud of her. It's good to know that she isn't failing Jap: I feel responsible for her (for lack of a better phrase), because I've been doing my best to help her keep up in Japanese. Like a tutor. Or not. I dunno. Jazz, if you're reading this, I hope this doesn't offend you, I mean this in a good way (if this can be interpreted in a bad way).

Pork chop and rice for dinner. Japanese bbq sauce went with the pork chop. Reminds me of my time in Japan. I miss the culture, the people, the friends I made, the food of course...so many things. I wish that there was a device that could project your memories onto a TV like in 'Meet The Robinsons'. I hate how it all happened less than a year ago and yet I cannot rememberly everything perfectly. I can't expect it, but I have always wanted my memory to be sharper at the least.

Enough ramblings for tonight. Seems like that coffee has got my head buzzing. Guess I'll be up for a good while animating while watching 'Heroes'. Good night all.

What's going on up there

2009-05-13T22:31:00.003+10:00

Wow, I 'm on a roll tonight! Three posts in an hour. Reading Ebony's and AB's (I'll add yours later, I swear) latest blog entries had me thinking about my own 'voices', for lack of a less insane sounding word. And when I started thinking about it, it became something I REALLY wanted to do. That would be Compulsive. You see, in my head, I like to identify and LABEL the 'voices' in my head, because it's all me, I know that, just different sides of me. That was obviously Truth. As you can see (I hope), I like to split them apart and know what's what: it helps to calm myself when I'm upset. I admit this is all pretty goofy, but you know, it's me.

When I first set out to do this post, I was determined to get a good length out of this. Now I'm stuck. Impatience and Sloth want me to stop and go to sleep. Perseverance and Stubbornhead want me to keep going, and I agree with them. I was hoping Anger would pop his angry head in mine so I could add more, but he hasn't: there's nothing to be angry about. Panic is waiting for my mum to open the door and tell me off. Oblivious couldn't care less. Sloth is trying to tell Panic to not worry about it. Dictionary is trying to think of a better name for Stubbornhead, Pendantic thinks it isn't a nice enough name for a voiced feeling in my brain. And neither do I.

That was about five to ten minutes of me thinking, and I edited a few parts out, most of the cut out parts being me identifying which feeling voiced its opinion. Some are harder to name than others: after all, some feelings aren't too dissimilar from each other. Time for bed now, mum just told me to sleep. But one cares. Everyone just wants some shut eye. Night. (more posts below FYI).

New additions...

2009-05-13T22:15:00.001+10:00

Just as a quick post because I need more, I added more associates because I got bored the last couple of weekends and browsed more blogs, thus adding more blogs. I'll add more later when I'm bothered. In the mean time, read the post below if you haven't already, you may have missed it.

Another Reflection

2009-05-13T22:00:00.002+10:00

10pm right now, and I should be studying, but I'm not. I just finished FBing and youtube-ing. While I was on FB, I saw Jannice comment on our dance vid being up. Obviously, I wanted to watch. It's funny when I think about it. When I was watching everyone else's dances, I still thought in my head, 'our's was WAY better', but seeing ours through fresh eyes, I thought, 'wow, I'm really up myself!'. Watching us dance compared to actually doing the dance is a huge difference, something I have just realised.
While I was practicing and learning the dance and rehearsing with the music, I felt empowered and untouchable, that no one could top us and we would get perfect marks. But when I watched the video, I thought to myself, 'I felt so energetic and speedy (for lack of a better word) when I was dancing. I know I'm not there, but still.' The dance didn't have as much power and effect I thought it had. Of course, it was a good dance, just not as awesome as I thought it was. Kind of like lifting the curtain from behind my eyes. I feel a bit sad, a little let down. Not by my group, but myself, that I could have done more, made it more dynamic. I dunno. When we got the dance assessment, as terrified of it as I was, I also wanted to make if spectacular, meaningful and vivacious (excuse the fancy word, it just works really well...to me). I guess it just fell short for me. But hey, I'm no dancer, and I don't think any of us were professionally instructed in the past, so I can't complain. Just something I wanted to say before I would forget. Thanks for reading!

Jap culture, bestialities, the bird IS the word and Pocky games

2009-05-09T21:25:00.007+10:00

It seems that once again I have neglected to blog in recent days. I'm also no closer to finishing the Phils post. Pity. And with the HY's coming up, I'm not going to have time for this for a good few weeks. Just recapping, I did next to nothing during my holidays, since I was recovering from an operation for the bulk of the time which I would rather not discuss. The week coming back to school was pretty good, it was nice to see everyone again. Thing is, I'm not sure you could call it a week, per se. Rather, a few days of schools would be more approriate. Monday was a 'public holiday', Tuesday was a normal school day though. Double Ag for starters which is, for me, a really good way to start the term. *takes out diary to find help himself remember the rest of the day*.

This was followed by English and insights on Macbeth (did we start watching the movie?) and geography. Ended the day with math and IST. Wednesday was a cruise day too. Science, math and geo again, I can't recall too well what happened. Nothing of importance I guess. Lunch. Sport. If ever you have to go to no-sport, don't go. Other than Josh, Morgan and Lucy being there, no teachers. REALLY boring. So I ditched it and went back to the school sport group. I watched people get beaten by the computer on the SNAP! game. Lied down in the shade.

Thursday was Jap culture centre day. It was lots of fun going through the whole experience again. Just by participating and listening to the hosts, I knew I had to scratch up more on my lingo. For me, the whole day was lots of fun with the games (hit the bell with the hammer!) and activities (Christine and Jazz's avatar was AWESOME), especially the technology one. It was fun listening to everyone's self-introduction. Posing for the season group photos was fun too. I was the fan-goer with a 'deadly' katana XD! The bentou was really nice too (damn it Prad, she couldn't see the characters without her glasses for the quiz so I had to do it. Man, I had to eat on the move). Walking and train-ing to and from the tanken centre was fun too. I need to upload the photos on FB sometime soon ><.

Friday was another end of week, so it was just a good day because it was Friday. It was fun to use the 'we were on excursion for Jap' excuse. Hahaha, take THAT!

W/E...nothing special. I did nost of my HW. Played games. Yeah.

Monday. Circuit experiments. Migrants assignment due. I got that finished in time (yay) in Science. I half finished a question on Saturday and thought 'I'll do it tomorrow' but I forgot to finish the question. Sphere surface area and volume in math. Spheres kick trigonometry's ass! Director changes to banquet scene in Macbeth. Ugh.

Double science on Tuesday = experiments! Score. Geography sheets and math, IST and Jap. Hm. My memory sucks.

Wednesday was double Ag and English. Very, very, VERY good (unless you forgot to do director changes XD). Boer goats were toe clipped, Noha, Kim, Justin, Chris, Mei-Wei, Kelvin (more or less) and I talked about random things. Just as a note, the previous double we talked about bestiality and necrofilia and stuff. Yeah. Did you know that there are people that have sexual attaractions to inanimate objects (like bridges and towers)? I feel sorry for those people...anyway. English. I think we started watching the movie that day. Sport, I got to play this time. Well, actually, sport was walking the Cross Country route.
W.night: "Well, the bird, bird, bird is the word! A b-b-bird bird bird! B-bird's the word! Guy behind the counter, frightened little child, lady on the toilet, the bird is the word! don't you know about the word?!' "Sure! Everybody knows that the bird is the word!"
"...It was under my understanding that everyone had heard." 'What?' "BRIAN DON'T!!" "Bird! Bird! B-bird's the word!" *seizure* "bababa uma maumau, baba umau ma mau" XD

Moving on...

Thursday was the day. THE DAY. The day that Pocky ran wild! It was planned that we would play the Pocky game. Two people eat one end each of a stick of Pocky. FIrst person to turn away loses. Ebony said she would always win (we all agreed) so she didn't play, Mei-wei didn't want to, we lost Rhoda and Amy and Rutherford had previous plans. With only me, May-lyn and Justin, I wasn't gonna play like that. So instead, we introduced the game to some other people. BRedan and Shane kissed for a millisecond. But that's nothing. After some psyching up, Lizzie and Courtney WENT FOR IT. And boy, they went for it. You'd expect that right after getting to the end, you'd kissed and want to instantly break away. But they held in that kiss for a GOOD 5 seconds, which seemed like 20 minutes. My eyes may have as well popped out of their sockets. I spent the bulk of Ag asking Sandie if she knew about the word.

Friday. Cross Country. I didn't run. I'm still healing. That plus we would have PE after, and I'd be deadbeat tired after all of that. Jap was half full surprisingly, me and Donald being the only guys there. Christine offered some banana bread. English left me as the only guy (gah) and a few girls. Macbeth movie T_T.
Double PE (yes!), lots of fun OzTag. The only problem was I felt like I was a centre of physical distress for others that day. First off, when I was going for the ball, so was Kelvin. I think I took the ball before he could, but I don't remember; we both hit the ground trying to get the ball. But either way, it was out of both our hands within a couple seconds. Kelvin resulted in pulling something (his calf?), so I had to help him over to the strip of fake turf. Near the end of the game, I was chasing the ball (or I already had it) again with Lucy to my right. While we were both going for it, I bumped into her while either passing or kicking it. This caused her to twist her knee. This kinda signalled the end of the game. She was okay by the bell, but still needed some assistance getting to the station.

During these past couple weeks, Shane mistook me for Justin twice. I don't mind, it happens. If anything, I'd laugh if it were any other person than myself. I've been doing work this Saturday, I just need to do more tomorrow. It's 10:20pm right now, so I guess I'll be shuffling off now. Hope you enjoyed reading this.

Inner Reflection

2009-04-24T12:08:00.002+10:00

This will be short. Just something that's been floating around in my head for a good few days now. I might be doing more of these in future, so I might number them! By the way, I'm not reflecting on how I might do more reflections in the near future. No. Not the case...I'm rambling. Ok, on with in.

While I've been holed up inside home for a good while, I've noticed that, as Asian as it sounds, music, and piano in particular, has become a special part of me. This is more evident when I play. Usually, when I play the piano, I relax, my mind wanders and I get lost in the music (until I press the wrong key). Being able to play an instrument has opened up another world/dimension (or whatever you wanna call it) for me, and the holidays have helped me find this about myself. I even posed the question to myself, 'What would you give up? All your electronic games (and I mean ALL of them, just not including the electronic games played at parties and with friends on those fun occasions) or piano (the skills I've 'honed' and the instrument itself)?

In all honesty, I'd rather give up the games, because the piano gives me something that games can't. The feeling is hard to describe, I just feel empowered, yet calm at almost the same time. Feeling the music go through me, and its emotions too. I guess that's what I love about piano, the emotion of its pieces and conveying. Playing sad songs does leave me sad sometimes. Powerful pieces sometimes leaves me drained (not as dramatic as the word implies, but I still feel this), leaving me with peace of mind.

The emotion is a key reason to why I don't want to take lessons: I'm afraid that somehow I might lose the fire I have for playing the piano. That among the learning and exams and so on, I would lose the connection. That plus the fact that I can't be bothered to go and it costs money XD!

Whenever I play I song, especially one I'm attached to, I especially loathe when I have to stop midway. Not because of a mistake I make, no (...well, sometimes). That's my fault. It's when I'm required to do something that takes me away from the otherworld of music I fall into everytime I tinkle on the keys. I don't like disconnecting from the piece then have to reconnect with it. It doesn't feel complete in that sense. I would want to start from the beginning, but that takes time.

I'm very pedantic about this kind of thing aren't I? Well, I'm not sure how long this has been, I'll just post and see if this ended up neing long, I'm not bothered to preview this. I hope this gives you, the viewer, a small insight into my mindset, the awesome Patrick XD!

I don't follow, I BROWSE!

2009-04-20T12:26:00.003+10:00

That Phils memorabilia will probably be delayed, again, due to my procrastination. I'll get to it, I'm gonna start doing the draft again after this post, I promise ( but I never said I'll finish it now). Anyway, down to business. Let's start from Good Friday.

Kind of a blank say, I went to church twice for the Stations of the Cross and appreaction which was followed by confession. You know how it is, on GF, you're not meant to do anything FUN. You're meant to be sad and be grateful to Jesus for dying on the cross for us. At least, that's what my mum said was the attitude you had to have. As selfish as it sounds, until recently, I have disdained Good Fridays. They were always so slow for me, and I really, REALLY didn't like doing nothing around the house except eating and napping. After all, I was a kid that had lots of energy and nothing to do. This leads to restlessness, and I know that that made me CRANKY! D<.
This all came to an end one GF when we rented White Chicks to watch and laughed asses off at the quiche scene and many others. From about that time, Good Fridays haven't been so bad. Asking mum again about it, I found out that GF is a time of reverence to Jesus and quiet praise. I can understand why my mum didn't say that at first, seeing as how I probably wouldn't have understood it.

Back on track...
Saturday is a bit of blur, I can't really remember what we did, I think my mum told me off for not doing something constructive and was forced to clean my room. Also went to church that night. Sunday, we had the little family over and our neighbours Neil & Sash and their kids. We all had fun, enjoyed an outdoor lunch. Arjun, N&S' son, whooped my ass in chess, chekmating me in a few turns. Of course, he played 'slack' as he called it, and we kept playing. I got checkmated again, he went slack, then I got my queen BACK! HAHAHAHAA! But then we had to stop, a change of games happened. During that time, the game was interrupted by an Egg hunt for the kids, and Raymark and Arjun's sister played Payday. While the kids played hide and seek, I played the piano for our visitors. The PS2 was brought out later on, DDR was played. Kids have a very bad sense of beat and rhythm...*sigh*. Soon afterward, N&S family left, leaving the little family. Raymark played KHII for a while, played games, ate dinner, then they had to leave. And that was our Easter Sunday!

Monday. Meh. Lazed about. Thought about doing my homework. Eh. Meant to go out with some friends to the movies, but it was moved to Wednesday.
Tuesday was another lazy day, my mum and Dite went to Berry for shopping.
Wednesday, nothing really accomplished. I marked my IST feather assignment and had my braces tightened. We proceeded to spend some time with the little family, my Dad and I. Had fun playing Mario and watching Food Safari.
Thursday, Easter Show with Rayan and Justin. Lots of fun. Can't be bothered to recall everything. It was a memorable day, photos will be uploaded on my FB in the near future. It was nice going around and looking at the art, getting free food, buying the RIP OFF food (not so good) and just spending time with friends. Rollercoaster, True Blue story, woodchopping competition, Motorshow, fireworks and laser show and...archery? LOL. Games are very, VERY expensive, you cannot haggle with those people.
Friday. The fated day. Painful. VERY PAINFUL. I won't mention what happened, I'll just say that if you know what I'm talking about, then good. Please don't discuss too openly. Saturday and Sunday went by quickly, seeing as how I was unable to do work. Monday, had to go to the clinic again to have a cleaning. Ouch. I mean seriously, it F%@$ING HURT. That brings us to now time. After all that typing I probably won't add to my draft today: maybe another time.

Just as a footnote, I chose my title today because I was browsing people's blogs via links etc. If I followed people, then I'm afraid it would end up being like STALKING! Not that I'm pointing any finger (*cough cough* Rosa...) AHEM! What was that?! LOL, I'm just joking...or am I? See you all later!

Tardiness

2009-04-15T15:31:00.002+10:00

Just a quick post as an apology for not keeping up with my blog. Couldn't access this site in the Phils because it was blocked >_>. When I came back, I had little time to make the next post, seeing as how I did most of the work given, but my class excelled ahead and so I had extra work to do, damn you eggheads! On the upside I have started a draft! Again, I''m sorry about the delay, my Phils remembrance will come eventually. The post for the last couple of weeks will take most certainly even longer. Once I'm in the blog-zone again, you'll all wish I could just shut up. Anyway, thanks for your patience, I'll get backto you ASAP. *Goes and plays Mabinogi* XD!

Ce plane pour moi janai!!

2009-03-08T19:19:00.003+11:00

Missed blogging last week because I had no time. In all honesty, I was on Mabinogi (-_-") for a lot of the time...I'm trying to get over it all. Y7-11 watched the Invisible Children doco. It was about an ongoing war that is still happening in Uganda and its neighbouring countries. They are all in a very sad situation, and I hate to think what would happen if I were in their shoes. On Thursday, I missed out on preg-testing that week because of the 2nd period CC session. Because of the Invisible Children, CC was moved to Thursday, so that's why I couldn't preg-test. Tommorow I can though.
I said to many people, 'ce plane pour moi', as it was a topic raised on Spicks and Specks the night before. May-lyn says that she is the king of the divan...I am scared for the girl (XD). The Friday afterward was a closed weekend, so no assembly and an early 2pm finish. Noginoginoginogi...
I 'pinched&punched' my mum before she could get me, so that's 1 point to me: it's our thing.

Probably the biggest thing for me at the time would have to be studying for the History test. I continually revised it, while I ignored the Petrov article (which I later screwed up after leaving the criteria at school: I forgot the quotes and pictures...).
The first half of the school week was spent doing science experiments, working with number, going over film terminology, talking about what we will need at Windang and other things. Thursday, Japanese and Math were EMPTY. I mean it when I say EMPTY. In Math, we all fit on one park bench to 'study' and Jap opnly had about 10 people. Friday, Windang was pretty okay. We got to weed dangerous weeds, walk on the beach, draw pictures and use a compass and map. Personally, I thought it was all fairly rudimentary work, and I think that those who thought the excursion sucked were a bunch of wet towels. I had a pretty okay time.

Weekend...I spent it doing my small amount of homework and playing games (and Simpsons too). Today (sunday), we went to a Filipino mass. I could barely understand what they were saying. After the mass, we went home. After fluffing around, lunch (lumpya), English HW revision and more gaming, I then proceeded to blog. And that brings us to the present. Dite wants to use the computer (One Tree Hill) and I am about to get kicked off, so I'll see you all tomorrow (since the all the readers her are from school...I presume). Bye~.

I say, 'Level Up!!'

2009-02-22T19:35:00.003+11:00

This post is celebrating our family upgrade to a new computer with 2GB ram!! YES! I can now 'do my work' on the computer without worrying. Oh wait, I do. Sadly, when my dad got this computer, we got Windows Vista. I don't mean to be a prejudice prig, but I'm not: I know from experience that it isn't an ergonomic program. It just looks nice.

I can't play MapleStory (no...) since it isn't compatible to Vista, and after I tried everything I could to fix problems that the admins suggested, I gave up and converted to Mabinogi. I just, and thus I am a noob XD. But besides the fact that we got Vista instead of XP, it is a very good computer.

Recounting from last week, it has been a usual school week. For me, though, I've had a lot of internal brain scrambling thinking about certain things in my life that I will not reveal, though I might in future. Just to add, this post will be fairly short compared to others, since not much has gone on and I am pressed for time.

Tuesday was a highlight, where the week's CC session finally resulting in paper soldiers, and Edward even helped, if only for a moment. Wednesday was abysmally boring. Although it was fun seeing the cows in Dbl Ag, actual school sport was torture. 'Bring it on' is an okay movie, I just wish we did some actual sport instead of just watching a movie. By Thursday, the rain had taken a break, and sunshine was back again. Friday was a Mufti held for the Victorian Bushfire Appeal. Highlight of that day would be the choice of teams for Y10 dance and the exercises. Tri's group and their golf inspiration was very, very well done, I bet their creativity will take them places. That night, the little family visited, and we had lots of fun. I bit of Payday, Super Mario Wireless play on the DS and some improv piano and pizza.

Saturday, I got braces power-chained, and I'm still in a bit of discomfort. I helped my sister find out how to drive to Blacktown Station (damndable one way streets). We visited the little family again for a bit to drop off some stuff (we still have one of Ryan's toys). By the time we got home, it was 1-ish, and after lunch and some rest, it was 3 (I'm a slow eater). Strapped for time, I was unable to farewell my dad, for he left for the Phils on Sunday, the main problem being the load of HW I had received and needed to finish. Sunday came and went quickly, after most HW being finished and some time to myself was spent well on Mabinogi.
Monday was just another day at school, canteen was slow, I did no work in math, IST was fun (I made a feather!) for once, Japanese was started off with a funny anecdote of Mrs. Campbell's and Ag and Science ended the day with permanent room changes. Tomorrow is the 'invisible children' mufti day, so who knows what'll happen? Bye for now!

QUOTE FROM MATH (roomaji):
Tamare!
Hamaruji!
Juujujuju. Juju. Juju.
Tachuh nai!
Juujujuju. Juju. Juju.
Tachuh nai!
Juujujuju. Juju. Juju.
Shmai, shmai, shmai, shmai!

Mother nature chases away the summer!

2009-02-14T18:58:00.002+11:00

Just as a quick note, I've added more photos onto my facebook. Check it out if you want, but I won't post the link because I can't be bothered. The past week has been pretty gloomy. After a week (two weeks ago) of having the air-con on cold for extensive periods of time, the temperature suddenly drops, the sun decides to take a week off and leave the people of Sydney to freeze their ears off. Of course, the hugest tragedy recently would be the Victoria Bushfire. My heart goes out to them and I pray that the death toll stops going up soon, which has climbed almost to 200, if not further, as far as I've heard.

Anyway, the completely opposite weather up here in Sydney was, as I said before, very dreary: the rain brought the cold and kept it that way, the sun only coming out behind the clouds every now and then. The past week has been fast and slow at the same time for me. Monday, we had Ag, where we discussed calf pregnancies and like, fertility, and so on. The prac. session allowed for me to take photos. Adeeb made an insult at Justin when Justin asked Houweling, "How much do they make?", 'where he meant how much sperm did bulls make?', to which, Adeeb responded, "Not that you make much." This resulted in a fast quip from Houweling, "How would you know?" I leave it at that nad leave you to your laughter, if you are.
Last period of IST, Hundt landed us with a pop-quiz on what we've "learnt" in class from the pdf. The class hated him even more after that. I was able to see Eneyi and Sebastian at the bus stop, whom I haven't seen in a while.

Tuesday, Creating Connections. Again, Edward continued to pester me and Amy, along with the other CC leaders. After a lengthy tower building session, to which everyone won Asian lollies, our group and a few other kids participated in a short lived game of Fruit Salad. English was a memorable occasion, where Lucy C. commented, "Things that I have in my hand go in my mouth" after Ms Young asked why she was biting on her pen lid.

Wednesday came and went fairly quickly, where the school day ended with a game of cricket (sorry Wendy). Thursday was, again, another day full of unrecallable memories...or was it?? No. Thursday was the day of the SWIMMING CARNIVAL!! I admit, not the most exciting of carnvials I've been to, since there was NO free swim, it rained, deterring people from racing in the events, and other things. Nonetheless, though, it was a fun day. In accordance with the Wentworth in Wonderland theme, I went as the Mad Hatter, wearing a large tophat, stripped T-shirt and 80s skinny tie, I also wore my short jeans backwards and mismatched shoes and socks. On the day, I greeted many a 'Happy un-Birthday', to which some had no idea what I was going on about.
The highlight of the day for me would have to be the cheering contest. I know it might sound weird, but during that time, I felt so powerful and alive with all of the cheering, which was moreover shouting. It was lots of fun. The other thing which was equally as fun was mosh-ing to Poker Face, Electric Feel and other songs. Once the day was out, people emptied out in the rain to the train station or to the front of the school.

Friday: I was obviously brain-dead when I woke up because I went to school prepared for a Day 6. When it was Day 5. *sigh*. Today, the school had an early celebration of Valentine's Day, where roses and singograms were being handed out and sung away, along with special Valentine foods sold at the donut quad. Most of my classes at least a third of people were missing since a lot of people of were "helping" with all the things going on. After assembly, recess was spent mainly in the music room with Corrine, Paige, Cameron, Eric, and for a brief time, Rayan and Andy. Most of the time there was spent listening to music whilst waving our hands in the air or swaying side to side.
Only 10 people were left at the end of Jap, where we learned that 'joy' said in a certain way is swearing in Cambo. During lunch, roses were floating around, both red and white. Going off on my own (since my friends were doing their own thing because it was Valentine's. I won't mention names) to the Valentine's stall, I was hungry for some themed food, only to discover they sold out. The bulk of lunch I spent in the room where they organized the roses and songs, sticking with Richard and Donald who were playing CIA (or rather stalking) Kelvin because apparently he was going to give a rose to someone.
Fifth period came, and in Ag, Jeffrey graced us with his prescence, to which Houweling was surprised to see his since he was always in China. After a video and some sheets, we moved on to last period, only to find out that the rooms were wrong and last period was being held in our fifth period room. During the class, Sex Bomb was sung to Baxter, Lauren got a lap dance from Kale and Shane, Amy got a dance from Diana and Kassy got a song, too (I don't remember them). We received our SF4 HW books, and sheets. And that was all.

Thus ends my recollection of this week. Reminders of events I missed are welcome. Just as a footnote, last night on Friday I went out with the family to a restaurant called Pancakes on the Rocks, they have very delish food. That's all I'll type for now. See you around.

DIAMONDS. She'll pretty much have to.

2009-02-05T18:31:00.003+11:00

First off, the title has nothing to do with what I'm going to recount this week, I just quoted that off Family Guy Season One (my Dite got me the DVD), and I swear, it's SO FUNNY! You have to find it. Anyway, on with my recount.

It's been a little longer since I last posted. Expect it. I started going back to school last week on Wednesday, which means I will have actual work to deal with. Although doing this blogging helps me in my composure of English (I think), I obviously won't have as much time when I was on holidays. Of course I will try, but yes, whatever.

As far as I can recall, my last days of 'summer freedom' were uneventful. It rained (it was actually cloudy and drizzling). I know that I could have easily gone to wherever, seeing as how my dad was home and had the car, or if I wanted to walk somewhere, I need only the companionship of an umbrella (again Ate, I'm sorry I broke the one you gave me after two uses, but what can you expect? You got it from a TWO DOLLAR STORE!) Because of my usual slothness, however, I neglected to see a friend on my last days, and thus I spent them lazing around the house, playing pieces on the piano at my leisure and eating dinner while watching Family Guy or Frasier.

Unlike previous years, the coming of Wednesday did not come with a HUGE feeling of dread. Just a small one. Fourth year of school didn't seem very bad anymore: I would be able to see my friends again, most of whom I did not see over the holidays, and catch up (seeing as how the '08 summer holidays seemed to draw a LOT of people away from MSN). The only big thing that I did not look forward to so much were the new Year 7 kids. I know now that they're a nice bunch, it's just that I kept picturing them as annoying, smart-alec little $%!^#, trying to undermine me and Amy's authority as Year 10 somewhat-seniors over them. However, the day went smoothly, the first hour spent going over what the Creating Connection groups would do for an hour.

After moving from the library to the Japanese room, the late leaders arrived, like Zoe D. and Victor (the asian one). Jasmine and Greek also crashed the meeting, seeing as how it was for CC leaders only. I could only remember them to the best of my recollection: if others came, please remind me so I can edit. Once the hour was up, we went down to the hall to meet our 'kids'. After a speech made by Mr Norris, Bella and Lana were introduced to tell the parents briefly about CC. After a slightly botched speech the two made, the new students were sorted into their groups, starting from 1 (obviously). Amy and I were group 13 (lucky), so we had to wait a while before we met with our charges. After a roll call, Ebony, Douglas, Amy, Judy and I moved to the Art Quad (Judy led us and Ebony & Douglas). We went through the motions of the activities, but were only able to finish the first two because we were out of time, and thus the Carousel exercise was abandoned...for me and Amy.

Discussing it with other leaders, many found that the boys and girls of the group were very reluctant to interact with each other. This was during lunch, which was served by the border cafeteria: the memories from three years past gave me a slight feeling of nostalgia. I remembered the same moment three years ago, when I myself was a Year 7 kid. to my recollection, Dad sat me with two other Filo kids, or just one and her brother who did not attend Hurlstone. I'm pretty sure it was Nina and Javery, if he was there. I can't remember.
Just as a note, I want to add that the first friend I made at school was Claudia. My dad and her mum were talking to each other and they introduced us. we aren't as close anymore, but she is still a friend of sorts to me.

This time aroung in 2009, though, I sat outside with my friends rather than with people I didn't, other than my dad, inside. Though it was for only a short time, I was able to talk with Rutherford, Courtney, a bit with Karen, Zul, Richard, and the others. Unlike past years, I was, and still am, determined to do my best this year to prevent any kind of akwardness between my old friends and such. I returned home with my dad by car afterward.

Lana, that (edit) Ken must think you're the stalker, not Rachel.

Moving forward and with summary, the past few school days have been fun, but fairly uneventful (Mr Parcasio's back, yay!....even though I don't have music). Classes are as normal, most of the teachers are pretty good, I HATE IST. Mr hundt is the IST equivalent of Mr Kearney: he can't teach without some form of textbook to teach for him.

This week has been extremely hot, coming around to Friday, weekend is supposedly 40 degrees plus. Having fun and striving to learn more: that's all I ask for this year (or is it?? XD). Anyway, I'll see you guys tomorrow I guess, HBD Jenny! Sorry I didn't eat cake, I forgot.

Minna, sayounara!

School: a teenager's ball and chain

2009-01-27T14:40:00.003+11:00

Here I am, typing away on my sister's laptop because the family computer died, reminiscing about how I've down about only half the things that I wanted to do over these summer holidays. First of all, I wanted to go out more with my friends both from school and other places of interest, but the problems were either that none of us were bothered to organize more outtings or I was just too unpopular to get invited out with everyone else *sob*. I also wanted to go to my favourite city haunts more often: Max Brenner's for their sinfully good chocolates, Sushi Rio for their awesome tempura and eel sushi and Kinokuniya (I'm not stalking you, Jana) so I could browse their collection of manga and slowly but surely buy my way through the Tsubasa series (currently at vol.4). But alas, time has slipped away from me while I lazed about at home, watching Avatar, clips of Family Guy from huluDotCom on youtube and Dead Fantasy I & II.

Though I'm sure that I wanted to do more during these holidays, I guess that going back to school this time around won't be so bad. Our grade is now past the halfway mark in the hierarchy of our school, where seniors rule all and new students and year 7-ers are tricked into where which room is. I have also found that these holidays, though it seemed quick, were fairly long for me: I haven't done that much in retrospect. Other than a few outings with my family to celebrate Christmas and New Year's, and more recently Australia Day, along with going out to a friend's house, 2009 summer was a tad lacklustre.

A plus for me at school this year, though, would be the teachers. Of course, I'm not happy that our iconic teachers Manyweathers, McCord, Sinclaire, Beek, Marsh and all the others have decided to all leave at the same time, but I AM happy with my 2009 teacher line up. As I recall, I do NOT have Kearney for Geo, thank God! We have Milner instead (yes!!). Baxter for science, Wilson Snr. for PE, Young for English, houweling for ag and Gee for maths. I forget who O have for history but anyways, to me that's a pretty good line up.

The only thing that I will probably dislike is IST ("Internet" Software Technology), because apparently, Mr. Hundt is a #^@$*, whatever that is. The other thing would have to be the Year 7 kids. I wouldn't mind being with them, I might even become friends with some of them. The only problem I have is my prejudist side saying they will mostly be outspoken, snot-nosed, foul mouthed little sh!ts and I have to deal with them. Of course, that can't be the case since that's my prejudist talking. I'm sure that most of the kids will be nice little children *cough cough* but I can't get over the feeling that me wanting to Create Connections with these kids will lead me to an early grave (exaggeration ends here).

Very long rant, I must say. Just quickly recounting, my family and I went to the Botanic Gardens yesterday for Australia Day, where we ate wraps for lunch that Dite and mum had made. Though most were "experiments" they turned out quite nice. The little family joined us a at around 2pm, and we all just sat under the shade of a large tree, eating, chatting and napping. The Streets ice cream vendor was a rip-off: 2.5o for an icy twist, 4.00 for a golden gaytime, 4.50 for cornettos and 5.00 for a magnum. DAMN! If it weren't so hot, we wouldn't have gotten them. Ee-gad. It was a nice day, though, we got to also see the 21 gunshot salute made by the cannons in the day and the flying planed in the afternoon. At around 5pm, we all left and made a detour through the Botanic Gardens' middle garden, where we saw hundreds of sleeping bats hanging from many trees. Yes, I have to say it was a good Australia day for us.

That's all for now!

Fun in the Sun + Global Warming = Not-So-Fun-Anymore

2009-01-21T18:40:00.002+11:00

Yesterday, me and my friend Sebastian went to his friends' houses: Chau and John (yes Lizzie, your Chau). After a train ride from Glenfield to East Hills, transfer from there to Panania (is that spelt right?), we began to make our way to Chau's since John wouldn't be home until the afternoon and we had already reached Panania Station at around 11am. After a long, and I mean LONG walk (I'm not exaggerating, it was a long walk) in the dazzling heat of a summer's day, we had finally reached Chau's house, 'It's the one with the sunroof thingy.' We get close to the house. 'Ahahahaha! I was lying, it's further down.' I then go and make a noise that would rival Dory's 'whale-talk'. When we actually DID get there, the three of us just fluffed around doing karaoke, computer, treadmill-ing and keyboard-ing.

After much entertainment, we left around 1:30pm to go to John's house which was nearby, not 'two suburbs across'. About five, ten minutes later, we had reached John's house (yay, air-con!) and relaxed, and after "exchanging plesantries", John was kind enough to make us some pizza and serve up some drinks for us. After some random banter between making, baking and eating, we cleaned up and sat down to a game of, umm, I don't know the name, but you win when you say 'kent'. Anyone know it? Well, after that, we played Mafia, a signature D class card game.

Quote: "Just to make sure, there's only one mafia." "Yeah." "Well, which colour's the mafia?" "Red. Why, what colours do you do?" "Just the other way around, with black as mafia." "...that would make more sense, since this game is mafia."

Red maintained to be the mafia colour though since it was just the four of us. After an hour or more (there wasn't a clock in the room) of cards, we finished up and got ready to get in the pool (stupid Spandex). After changing and sunscreening, we all got into the pool, where most of the dives in ended up as belly flops, so I did the smart thing and walked in. Swimming a couple laps, "water-bending", meditating underwater, and other water tricks you can do in the pool like flipping, run-ins and so on. That took a good amount of time, which was all very fun. (Strike a pose Chau, I'm gonna find a way to record my memories onto something somehow!!)

When we got out of the pool, it was already 5:30pm, and so I had to go. Sebastian, being the good friend he is, was nice enough to come back to Glenfield St. with me, even though he was going to sleep over at John's. All in all, I had a very good time, it was a day filled with much merriment (I NEVER say that word...) and joy, I had lots of fun.

Ciao, amigos! XD

My Re-epiphany of Last Year

2009-01-21T18:32:00.002+11:00

This post will have the random yet funny memories that I have temporarily forgotten and suddenly remember because, um, it does. Anyway, on with the re-epiphany.

- Shaffizle!!
- Where does a baby get a raygun?!
- May-lyn's play (evin and keric)

more to come, hopefully...

OMG! PHOTOS!!!

2009-01-15T15:12:00.002+11:00

After uploading photos on Facebook, I thought, why bother reuploading when I can just link it? So here it is, the link.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=14334&l=87987&id=1254
435280

Quoeth the Diary '08

2009-01-14T09:56:00.005+11:00

Today, I was planning on uploading random photos that were on my nice phone, especially the ones from camp. Sadly, the internet is not on my side again today so I've decided to just type up quotes that can be found in my diary, should it be neglected and thrown away or just forgotten.

Jannice (she has too many):
- -//>JanNICE is my Hero =)
like yesh!! like duh =)
- Hi my name is Bacon. I like to eat pork. I love pigs =)
- "squeezing is what I do best!" - prima juice box =)
- "JanNICE is my hero." - everyone
- "ecinnaj" - Jannice =)
- "bacon." - Patrick

Okay, the next set of diary quotes all began with Jasmine, ending with either Rosa or Kelvin. I don't remember. In any case, I'll put who REALLY wrote the quotes down in brackets next to the person who "wrote it".

"I think Jasmine's COOL." - Patrick Baquir (Jasmine)
"Lauren's awesome." - Lauren (Lauren...rolls eyes)
"I think Justin's funny" - Al Gore (Justin)
"I think Al Gore is old" - Justin Liu (Justin)
"I don't think Justin's funny anymore" - Al Gore (Justin...dear God.)
"I think Justin has multiple personality disorder." - Patrick B. (AKA. me)
---- I agree! >=] (Chris)
---- I know I do! =) (Kelvin)
"Banana na na na na na na na na na na na. na na Make those Body Sing" - Rosa (Rosa. I love your Engrish XD)

Now, the diary's inside.

"=(" - 1~2/3
"Amy's B'day" - 30/4
"B" - 3~4/4
"Keep the 'shi', KEEP THE DUMP!", "wtf are you going on about? i will strongly put down my dump to create wind to filp yours" "LOL" - 9/6
"To Zanarkand" "Patrick" - 17/7
"HAPPY 15th PATRICK!! ^^ From Jannice =D" (In roomaji) "Jyuugo tanjyoubi omedetou!!" "Doumou arigatou gozaimasu. Patorikku yori." - 16~17/8
"Happy Birthday Patrick!! <3>_>" - 1/10 (reference to Hughesy's student-teacher relatiosnhip)
2/10 and 6/10 ripped out of diary. I think Lauren took it. Or Rachel. Can't remember.
"NOOOO!!" - 20.10, Year 9-10 Yearly Exams
From 17/11 ~ 23/11, I wrote the name of colours in Japanese.
"Nihonno irono namae~" - 17/11
"You are being watched" - McCord, Ag teacher, stalker? - 24/11
"Animals area cog in the food chain, not pets like city people think" - McCord - 27/11
(Begin quote)
"Hiya Patrick!" - L
"Hi Lauren..." - P
"What do you call an indigenous Australian farmer?" - J
"An Ago!" - J
"...Justin, get lost." - P
(End quote) -1/12
"Kaze ga tsuyoi desune." "Mouikkai!" - 2/12
(Random Japanese) - 4/12
"The bunny that bears the brunt of it." - Hughesy - 5/12

(Long quote...)
"Can you go away?" - Hughesy (H)
"I'm just reading the jokes (Chuck Norris)." - P
"Yeah, but can you leave?" - H
"Why should I?" - P
"I don't need to give a reason to you. Just go!" - H
"Shouldn't you?" - P
"No, go!" - H
"Fine." - P
"Take your arrogance elsewhere." - H
(End quote) - 12/12

"last day of School for 2008. Year 10 next year!" - 19/12
"Natsuno yasumi" - 20~21/12
"Christmas Day '08" "Meri kurisumasu!!" - 25/12
"Boxing Day. ?ing day" 26/12
"If you talk, I will get rid of you" - Hughesy <------- "O_o wtf" - 29/12
"What the hell?!" - Chris - 30/12
"AWAY/YAWA" - 31/12
"Akemashite omedetou gozaimasu!" "Shinjimasu!" - 1/1/09
"SHINGLE DAY! =)" "Wth!" "wtf." - 3~4/1/09

And that concludes the quotes of my diary. I left out a couple because it was irrelevant, completely irrelevant, or was just random Japanese. See ya later guys!

Partying "hard" and popping wheelies

2009-01-09T21:09:00.003+11:00

Before I begin ranting and somewhat raving about my past few days, I have noticed that, although I speak next to no Tagalog (Filipino-speak) and understand very little, I still use it nearly everyday. So to clarify any words I might accidentally use that you may not understand...(say these phonetically, kinda like Jap.)

Ate (a-te, not ate) - Basically means big sister. This title doesn't have to be used for your ACTUAL sister. It is also used for older female cousins. While there are other titles after Ate, I won't mention them as they are seldom used.
Kuya - Same thing as Ate, but for guys. Same deal. Big brother/cousin.
Tito - Uncle
Tita - Aunt
Lola - Grandmother
Lolo - Grandmother
And just to add to your vocabulary of random words if you wish...
Salamat - Thank you
Pagkain (pag-ka-in) - Food

I don't use the words for mum and dad, I use English there, so I won't put those in. Anyway, on with 'recent news'.

This Wednesday, I went to Sopana's (is that spelt right?) party at his house. Lucky me, I was the first one there at about 10am. After helping set up, some more friends of Sopana's came: Pauline and Melissa. After a few very fast then very slow game of table tennis, we headed inside and played Monopoly (my first time. Sad, I know). After another while, more people came and Sopana got the Wii started with Super Mario Smash Bros. Brawl (gooo Zelda & Sheik!!). After an hour or more of Wii and Monopoly, lunch was ready. By now though, the weather's temperature decided to peak and the array of bbq'ed food seemed less appealing.

The worst part about the whole thing was that they (Sopana's family) decided to leave the drinks out. Outside of the house. On a table. In 30+ degree heat. And rising. I was thinking, "Why not just shake the bottles abnd make the drinks flat too?". The saving grace to that was the ice from the eski which housed a single Solo Lemon Lime bottle (it was the only one that fit with so much ice inside). More people arrived during lunch, keeping the guest list packing at over 20 people. And oddly enough, I didn't know any of them, save Sopana. But I got along with most of them. After lunch, a rousing game of Sing Star was played (I am an amateur), which was soon followed by another round SMSBB.

The real games began after, however, as Sopana organized teams and competitions of Big Brain Academy, SingStar, SMSBB and WiiFit. Teams 2 and 3 tied for first place (yeah!!!). After this, some pros flocked to the piano, some pieces including Flight of the Bumblebee, Ronda alla Turca and the good old Entertainer. There were more played, though I do not know their names. Others played SingStar a bit longer, followed by others who played the WiiFit. As more and more people began to leave, the last game I was to participate in before leaving was Cluedo (another first for me). Though I was only bale to have three turns, it was a fun game.

I was apprehensive (now there's a word I don't say often) of how the party would turn out, but it was all good, and very fun. I was able to make friends with a whole new set of people, and you, yooou, you know who you are, Sopana was VERY disappointed you didn't go.

After this very rousing day, not much else happened. Quite a boring week so far other than changing my profile a bit on Facebook with an internet connection that goes at different speeds (yes, I'm still talking about it).

Today was somewhat interesting, though. After driving with my dad to go to the Lurnea tennis courts, finding out you now had to book a session to use them and trying and failing to practice tennis in the grassy park nearby, we decided to retire home. Only to find after 20 seconds of driving that a screw had punctured a rear tyre and has caused it to go flat. Joy. As I helped my dad replace the flat tyre, he taught me the hows, whats and other questioning verbs used to know about changing tyres, etcetera. Once fixed and on the road home, we stopped by the nearby gas station to have the flat tyre re pumped (the screw wasn't taken out) and the other tyres pumped as well. The rest is bland history.

Since my mum seems to have set a computer-curfew on me, I must now bid you readers adieu.

First Week of Two Thousand and Nine

2009-01-05T13:09:00.003+11:00

From the 31th of Dec to the 2nd of Jan, the little family stayed over our house for New Year's. Recounting with as much summarisation I can, on the Eve we just fluffed around and did whatever, played games, whatever really. At around 7-ish, my family(excluding Ate -big sister- Corleen) and the little family drove to Campbelltown to see the the fireworks. When we got there, we could kind of see the fireworks. We weren't there where the action was, but we could still see them nonetheless.

After watching the display a block away from the park where we were supposed to watch it, we made our way down, staying to catch the midnight fireworks. Unfortunately, due to a lack of complete interest, tiredness and boredom after two hours of waiting, even after buy glowy stuff and buying a bucket fairy floss. We left around 10.30, very tired, my mum was upset because she prepared a lot of food for this and was expecting more, but no one was too enthusiastic. And I said, "Mum, if we were gonna do this, why did we eat dinner first?" She shrugged off the comment. After getting lost in the Cambelltown traffic, road blocks and detours, we found our way onto the M5 after half an hour. We all got home about half an hour before midnight, enough time to ready ourselves for the New Year. I showered (hey, you would too if you had spent and hour running around with a seven-year-old) and put on my PJs. Countdown on Channel Ten. Watched the fireworks on TV, sparklers and party poppers in the backyard. Glow sticks, spinning them around (accidentally threw mine on the roof. Sorry Dad) after that. Went inside after a time. Played DS with Raymark, my nephew. Went to sleep 2am.

The next day was more fun and games (Kung Fu Panda is AWESOME!!!), had to keep Ryan, the little one who is my other nephew, occupied for 3 hours because Ate Mica, his mum, went to see movie, he is a Momma's boy. More DS play before bed, but only till 11pm this time. Also opened late Christmas pressies.

After a lazy morning of playing Rubik's cube games and lunch, we did what I had been waiting for...MAH JONGG!!!!! Yay! Didn't win, but yay! Fun. Board games (Payday and Pokemon). Devil Dice. Rocks & Gems. The little family left that night.

((I will put more detail into these later, I'm just too tired to atm))

Justin's party the next day. Very fun. Ran away from Rayan. Talked as usual. Amy came. We all went to Justin's room and kinda snobbed the food his mum and dad set out (sorry!). Did whatever for a bit. Ate snacks. Went back to room. iPod-ed for a bit. Bloody Mary (Rayan, you have %^@# dares). Rayan left at 5 ish. Found out Justin had an XBOX. Set it up. Amy had to leave. Played DOA for a bit, "You are like a fly making an annoying sound". Then we found the awesome-est game ever, 'Family Guy'!! Played for a while. Peter: "You BASTARD!!" Ate dinner there, consisting of many good foods. Full. Played more Family Guy, ate Lindt balls, Michael left. At 9pm, we were served dessert and ate more, very full by now, then May lyn and I left. My mum raged me for not calling. "But Justin's house had bad reception!"

To me, it was a very good start to 2009.

Cyber Plagues & Growing Down

2008-12-30T10:27:00.005+11:00

If I were a smarter person not so self-obsessed about my own priorities on the computer, then I wouldn't be in the crap I'm in now. For a while now, our computer's antivirus system kept saying: 'Your computer's antivirus system is out of date: please update it!!!' and I would think, 'Yeah, I'll do it later' or 'My sisters will do it. They're the older ones.' Well, it looks like my laziness has come back to bite me in ass, hard.

Our computer is slowing down, the internet light is always blinking when no programs are running, meaning something's going on without us doing it, and ads pop up even if we aren't using the computer. To top it all off, the computer has been saying for the past couple of months, 'Your computer may be at risk'.

With these things in mind, I can only guess that we have a virus (maybe multiple) on the computer and I haven't been bothered to fix it. Now the internet is too slow and I'm still not bothered enough to fix it. All I can do is hope and pray that my prediction is wrong and that our internet has just been capped or the company we are with is just swamped with people using its services, thus slowing everyone down.
-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~
On a lighter note, I went to Lollipop's Playland on Sunday! Yaaay! Seriously though, I really did go there. My nephew had his birthday party there, and me being one of his bestest friends, my sisters and I were invited along to tag along. After wandering around the large complex of industrial buildings for about ten minutes in the summer heat, we finally found the air-conditioned playground. Mainly, we adults just sat around, watching the kids play in the maze-of-a-play-area, ordering some curly fries and drinks and eating our makeshift lunch.

After a while though, we saw the birthday celebrant's little brother want to go down the steep green slippery dip. All the other kids were going, but the toddler was too scared to go down it. In a rush of us taking off our footwear and climbing up to where the slide was, me and my 20+ y.o. sisters went down the slide (along with Ate Mica), one of them going with the little toddler. As juvenile as it sounded, it was very exhilirating and I felt myself want to say the line that parents will indefinitely hear from their children: "Let's go again!!" But we didn't.

Instead, we soon after made our way to the ball pit where the little boy decided to go next. The main aim was to throw the balls up into a sluice at the top that would lead the balls back down to the ground. After a minute of doing this, we found it too hard and decided to go for another kind activity: BALL WAAAAR!!!! In a flurry motion, the three of us were throwing the coloured balls at each other. But within seconds, my sisters had formed an aliegance and I was forced to fight the both! But in a sudden fit of laughter, I keeled over, unable to control my hysterical laughing and feebly tried to pelt balls back at them.

Once we were 'all tired out', the three of us exited the ball pit, leaving my nephew to continue playing in the pit, and we put our shoes back and watched for the remainder of the time. After singing happy birthday to the celebrant and sliced some cake, we soon departed home.

Just as a finishing note (since this blog is a way for me to preserve my memories), I would like to add this: my mum does Sight Training on the Nintendo DS when she can, and boy, does she get carried away! Whenever she got a few things wrong, my mum would break out in a fit of Tourette's Syndrome (not that she had it that is).

Christmas Time Woes

2008-12-26T15:07:00.003+11:00

First off, I would like to say Merry Christmas to my tens of dedicated readers (if I have that many), and a Happy Boxing Day. In all honesty, though, I have no idea what Boxing Day is for, so you can scratch that last comment. Please note that these next few paragraphs have me going on about my Christmas experience, skip if you wish, it sounds very whiny, even I admit it is.

I have learnt that during the Christmas period, the days leading up to and following Christmas Day are very, very hectic. Traffic seems to be a huge problem on our highways. According to what I heard on radio and struggling family relatives, there was a line of cars on the BRIDGE to the fish market. At 5AM in the morning. Traffic during Christmas was so bad that people were lining up to find a parking space, THEN actually go out and their seafood.At 5AM in the morning!! I must say, my heart goes out to the poor people who parked, got what they wanted and then forgot where they had parked in the first place.

However, I have learnt that there are worse things out there than terrible early morning traffic: internet traffic!! During the days leading up to Christmas, our internet connection was turning on and off like a faucet and my mum being the quick-to-judge person that she is, blames me for the connection completely cutting off on Christmas Eve and Day. It didn't really matter on the 24th though: the internet connection was so slow that our browser wouldn't even open onto Hotmail, Yahoo! or facebook.

On Christmas Day, it all started off nicely where we exchanged presents (my mum waiting till the next day to open her presents: it is her tradition to open her presents on Boxing Day) and ate last night's very nice European dinner. Unfortunately, the combination of no internet, warm weather and me having to do the lunch dishes when guests were over made me very, and I italicise, very, pissed off, I'm suprised I didn't start leaking blood out of a bodily exit way! My way of chucking a tantrum was to put on a sour face, hole myself up in my room and rage my sisters who were being very diplomatic. After cooling down and having a nap (which I first refused), I gorged on some ice-cream an hour before dinner and found the internet to be working again! Hurrah! And thus, after a few hours, I lazed about again, watched 'Ever After' on TV and my Christmas Day ended, the ice-cream becoming the equivalent of my dinner.

I have to admit, typing this up makes me feel like a very disturbed child, I must take anger management classes (hmm...).

Before I finish this, I just want to leave you guys with this: The World of Golden Eggs!! Google it, it's a Japanese series about the randomest things. I found it funny, you might too. Hayato's brother Tsubasa showed me this while I was in Japan, and I am very grateful to him for showing me this, I personally find it hilarious! And if you watch the one I first watched, I'm sure you will be asking the same question I was after watching it: "Who is Ando?!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Edit: Here is the website for the episode I mentioned:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1w8zx_the-world-of-golden-
eggs-episode24_shortfilms

Pilot - Thinking about the soon-to-be-yesteryear '08

2008-12-23T19:33:00.001+11:00

First post for a blog, ever. Just reflecting on some things about the last year, how it has been and the things about it that made it so great and memorable.

- Poles
- When a sheep jumped on my back as it ran out of the handling race, my only warning being Lucy C. screaming my name.
- PSP, PSR, etc.
- Poison stickers
- Justin's stack halfway through Movie Arvo
- Me stepping in Seargent's duck's crap...twice.
- Rhoda kicking Seargent's duck
- May-lyn retaliating against a sheep by kicking it, who later peed on her.
- Karaoke: the music room
- Finding out Justin likes Runescape and May-lyn's reaction (I think she nearly cried ._.) "Calistoferi sounds like a cafe kinda thing." "It was meant to be a name of an FF boss...I mispelt it."
- "Boo Radley!!" *BANG*
- The fact that May-lyn IS CUTE!
- Discussing godparent-age with Amy and making sure Rayan held no influence over the children.
- Quotes in my HAHS diary.
- Asking friends if we could "feel it", if "Mama's making Kan Tong", whether they knew about "Banana Boat: Fun Sun Protection" and if we wanted to "make those bodies sing!"
- Rutheford's hair straightening at camp.
- Rayan and him eating sausages. You figure the rest out.
- May-lyn Monroe (need I say more?)
- Using May-lyn's krytonite against her: "OMG, Pocky!!!"
- Justin's ongoing fights with Kassandra.
- Me, Justin and Lauren in the video in English!
- Opening my mouth to taste the coconut-smelling Aeroguard.
- Justin's interpretation of what an epilator was, and still is...
- May-lyn's luminescent skin, "OMG, it glows in the dark!"
- Accidentally saying that I wanted to kiss a boy (damn you Veronicas!!)
- Normal/TAB, Sissy, White Boy and Gay.
- Me and Justin's re-wording of Mariak Carey's 'Touch My Body' chorus.
- Brendan's David Attenborough impression.
- Walking to McDonald's for '08's trick-or-treat.
- Shingles!!!!
- Justin and Lauren finding out if Sharpies really DID write on everything, and so wrote on Justin's tongue.
- Mrs Manyweathers' assistant + Where's Wally.
- Me taking ages to finish my half pizza and drink "Its fast good: you're meant to eat it FAST!!" "I'm savouring it!" "Well savour it faster!"
- N:"Can I get some chocolate?" P:"Sure."... *Mala walks away with Nick* ML:"Mala's boob's are so HUUGE!" P&J:"where? where?
- Cartwheeling and piggyback-ing in double ag session where we were supposed to be driving tractors.
- May-lyn taking the plunge and singing lead at the camp sing-off, "Big Yellow Taxi".
- *awkward silence* Amy: "hehe, sex...." *everyone laughs*

I'm pretty sure that there are more out there to grab from our memories and put down on the internet, but I can't think of anymore. Please, if you remember one (which I have forgotten), tell me, so I can put it here, so we can laugh remember the "good old days", especially the embarassing ones.