RInspire. Newsletter of Raffles Institution. August 2007.

HAHA.

 I think we need to include such gossips in ACJC’s yearbook.

Teacher’s Day celebrations were surprisingly good today. I lost faith in AC’s celebratory events since National Day. But I must admit, I did enjoy some of today’s performances by the various performing arts groups, videos and even the songs for the teachers. Because the songs made fun of the teachers. I like.

AHAHAHA.

Okay.

Then I had College Bowl, the intraschool bowling competition. As a school team bowler, I will have 50 pinfalls deducted from each game because I’m supposedly "not a beginner". But the others there are like… bowling in secondary school, but didn’t continue at JC level? Yeah so after moderation, my team couldn’t win anything.

3 games. For the sake of any beginners present, it was made to be 9-pin bowling. I didn’t do well for the first 2, about 150-ish, but managed a 210 for the 3rd.

Ah well, there’s nothing more I can say.

Here’s a little short story:

One day, a few weeks ago.

PDA Phone. Touch Screen cracked. Service centre. ‘Nuff said.

…and was told to pay $298 to replace the replace the screen.

Just a few days ago, the service centre was so sick of holding on to my phone (which my Dad refused to get it repaired, and never bothered to pick it up from them as well) that they called and offered $155 for the repair job.

Now, it’s back!

Patience is a virtue.

2002

My brother sparked an interest in astronomy in me. Nothing much to say.

2003

BP CCA Observation day, I knew Science Team was for me.

I was going to sign up for Robotics, but when James signed up for Micromouse (which wasn’t anything close to what I was interested in), Xin Jie came along and dragged me to Astro.

2004

I knew what I wanted to be in BP Astro, and I worked for it. My first competition brought a Gold, and I knew it was no stopping from there.

After I became vice-head, I clumsily stumbled upon an Olympiad team’s website and found out about the existence of the Astronomy Olympiad. BP was just starting its [now non-existent] winning streak, and the sound of International Astronomy Olympiad sounded sweet. So I told Rong’en and Mr Loh, who both quite liked the idea.

As much as we wanted to join, other factors involved such as the location of the competition, costs involved, administrative details and support from… people… in the end, we didn’t make it.

2005

A boring year, I might actually say. Just spending the time to get used to handling the afternoons of 30 students once every week… I’ve wasted lots of people’s time, I know…

Another attempt to plan a trip to IAO 2005, but discussions soon collapsed…

2006

Rong’en left me in such a horrible position: Continue the 5 Golds streak — without his help.

I struggled. Made it through, extremely marginally at times, got emotional along the way, made up for what I haven’t been doing with an implicit purpose, just doing what I should do… It turned out pretty fine.

Rong’en and Wei Lin were evidently trying really hard to come up with a working plan for IAO 2006. Really detailed, lots of hard work involved, but I couldn’t help much nor give any support due to O Levels approaching and my… not-so-desirable grades. Not that I spent the time studying, though.

2007

I’m in AC, with help from Astro. We started the society too late, ended up with miserable membership and organisation I would say.

AstroChallenge gave me (cos I’m not too sure about the rest) some confidence that things would work out… and it’s going pretty okay so far.

AstroFest 2007. Spending over $1000, with nearly $500 of sponsorship. Everything’s pretty rushed through, and with such small manpower… we’ll see. We’ll see. This event is such a big deal that I’ll blog about it another time.

Now, IOAA 2007. It’s basically IAO with a different name under different organisers. International Olympiad for Astronomy and Astrophysics I think.

If there’s a few things I like about myself, one of them goes like this: Sometimes, when I wanna get something done, I will get it done.

This, unfortunately enough, applies very strictly, so I can’t just ace my examinations like that. It happens when… I get a feeling… a feeling of confidence that it’s within my capability.

I know joining an International Olympiad is something. Something I can’t do in a few years. And going there is within my capability…

It’s been 3 years. Chang Mai, Thailand. It may cost over $300, but I’ll be there.

It will be done.

I’ve got many people stumbling upon this blog through Google for the weirdest reasons.

Many times before I’ve got people getting here by Googling out “Air gun designs”, “PVC pipes” and stuffs, and it’s getting weirder now.

2.5/10 hits on my blog, are people who are trying to find more about the recent Odex saga. I’m on the 2nd page of Google when you search “Odex anime“, “Odex sucks“, “Starhub odex“, “Odex case” and related keywords. And that’s bad.

1/20 hits on my blog are people who, funnily enough, want to find more about the boring ONE ACS National Day Celebrations.

This idiot got to my blog by googling “PSLE Prelim Paper 2006” and another, by googling “website with good PSLE essays“.

And I’ve totally no idea how one managed to even google out “HCI pee” and reach my blog.

Most incredible of all…

One. Stupid. Idiot. Googled. Me. Out. Using…

“Rich kids in anglo chinese”

Try it. I’m on second page. Of Google Singapore.

Now, seriously, what the f***???