Don't Watch That Coffin!

Before I say anything, I want to warn you guys --

Don't watch "The Coffin"! It's not a horror movie!

I felt like I kena scam today. The trailer made it look like some horror movie but it's actually some kind of an abstract movie. You won't enjoy it unless you take time to appreciate the cinematography of the movie (which means the filming angles, the beautiful sets. Technical stuff).

Today was a rather eventful day for me. I can say that I've been out the whole day. There was OP rehearsal in the morning (which made me panic because I realized there's still tons of stuff to be done). After OP, some of the people of my class wanted to catch a movie. The girls wanted to watch a movie directly after the OP rehearsal, while the guys want to watch in the evening. Actually, I really wanted to follow the guys but if I followed them then I wouldn't be able to go for Ryan's class at night (and I already promsed Hui Hua to meet him earlier). Urgh. >.<>sexy cool actually. He filmed the choreo today, so I'll post the video here once he uploads it.

Anyway, had dinner with Hui Hua after that. We had a very interesting conversation. Got to know him better too. I realized Hui Hua is a very humble and interesting person. Anyway, I think Ryan's class interested him enough to male him come again next week. I think. Okay, fine, I wish. It's nice to have a friend to accompany you for a class, especially for such an advanced class. Relieves some of the tension and pressure. Anyway, I think today was a small step in building a healthy friendship with HH. Maybe I'll ask him to choreo something with me. Heh.

Anyway, getting kinda late. I still have PW meeting tomorrow. Sigh. Got to go.

Last Day Of School

Things to do/look forward to during the holidays:

1. Class outing @ East Coast Park
   
2. OG outing!!!
3. Comlete holiday assignments >.<
4. Study for SAT
5. Dance, dance, dance!
6. Exercise more
7. Mix music
8. Choreo something with someone (probably Nic. Tay but I'm still open to others =))
9. Hanging out with friends
10. Do something crazy (like jumping off a building getting drunk, overnight but not sleeping etc.)
11. Do something for the seniors
    
12. Play games
    
13. OSchool Recital (Can't wait)
    
14. Last but not least -- Go home

Wow, actually I have more to add, but I can't think of them for the moment. Looks like my holidays will be quite packed, which is good. Sometimes when I have too much time during the holdays, I'll be sssssssssooooooooo freaking bored that I'll drop dead and die. Okay, not die, but just lie there and grow fat. Seriously.

Today was the last day of school -- supposedly. Ironically, most people still need to go to school in the next few days for OP rehersals. And I don't really feel like there's the holiday mood.

I still couldn't really believe that my JC1 school year is almost ending. Once the OP is over, then we would be considered to be J2s already. A senior. Time sure flies when you're having fun. I really like the JC life that I lead now. For once, I don't dread going to school. There are so many things going on in the school, be it gossips, scandals, activities, or lessons, that I think one year of JC life totally pawns my whole Sec1-Sec4 life. I have alot of fond memories in JC while not many of them in high school.

So much have happened within one year, and sometimes I got to remind myself that it has only been a year. Perhaps its because of the fast pace that we haven't felt like the end of JC1 is approaching. Like a runner whos running too fast that he only realizes the finish line was crossed moments later. It will take time for ppl to realize that the honeymoon year is over. Like Andre said today, the message has not yet "sunk in".

Uncertain of what the future holds, I can only look forward to next year with a mixture of pleasure and worry.

Anyway, tomorrow is Thursday, so that means there's Ryan's Lyrical Hip Hop class. Managed to persuade Hui Hua to go. Looking forward to it too.

It's getting late. So I think I shall stop here for now

Scream'08!

Yesterday night was definitely one of the funnest nights I have in Hwa Chong! To think I would have almost miss it!

Hanging Out @ Marina Square
Anyway, yesterday I had a PW meeting with my groupmates to do the Oral Presntation slides. Left around 2pm to meet up with Tse Young at Marina Square (it turns out we were on the same bus anyway). Although technically I do go out often, but usually I go out either to dance or to do PW. Haven't really went out and hang out with my buddies for quite long, that's why I'm glad to be hanging out with Tse Young.

We used to go out and catch movies (along with the other Malaysian Scholars), buy stuff, play Magic: the Gathering (yes, we both played, and we still do) or just hang out. Anyway, we went to Marina Square to walk around and buy stuff.

We were searching for earphones (since he lost his and mine went haywire). I'm quite satisfied with my new Sony In-Ear Earphones. It's my first in-ear earphones and I like how it cancels out all the surrounding noises. Just you and the music. And you can hear the bass and beats clearly, perfect for any dancer. Afterthat, we had KFC before heading back to school.

Scream'08!
Actually, I didn't want to go back to school. I was having quite a bad flu so I just wanted to get back to the boarding school and hit the sacks. But when the bus reached the JC bus stop, I have this feeling that I should go down with Tse Young. Ironically, both of us didn't want to go for Scream, at first. We head to the PE studio to test out the new cable that TY bought (the old one in the studio was faulty). Initially, only Wilson and Tack Kian was there, but more and more of the Bboys came to the studio.

Then Si Quan suggested that we go and watch the movies that were being shown at the central plaza. So everyone, save for TY, head to the central plaza to watch "The Eye". Scream'08 is definitely a couple's event. Since none of us have a girlfriend, we just sat in a row and huddled together.

It was quite funny to watch ppl's reaction to the movie, especially girls. If one girl screams, it will trigger a chain reaction where all the girls will scream. It was damn funny. Some of the ppl fake a scream just to make all the girls scream. And I'm quite surprised to see some of the Bboys scared out of their wits. Heh. xD

Since none of us have tickets for the Haunted Trail, we decided to go for the Haunted Maze instead. Let me tell you that many of the dancers' reputation went down the drain after we went for the maze. The pairings were as follows:

Hui Hua - Jon Neo
Shen Hong - Jia Han
Me - Wilson
Tse Young - Tack Kian
Si Quan - Pao Pao

There were many anecdotes about the whole experience. The scariest part about the maze must be the first "obstacle". When you walk into the maze, the first thing you see is this girl in white robe with long hair along the staricase, in other words, the traditional female ghost in Ju-On (which is acted by Sherry this time). The door behind you is closed and the only way to go is forward. It's the shittiest feeling in the world because you know that the "ghost" is a person but you can't help feeling worried. To make things worse, you can only go forward. Like Wilson said, it was totally "mind-fuck".

"Mind-fuck: The process whereby something (an event or a happening) that attempts to screw up your brain and fuck your brains out"

My partner was Wilson, and he was totally terrified by the scares and he was trembling. I will admit that I was quite scared too, but I could do nothing else but go forward. After I got out of the maze, the bunch of bboys ran past Wilson and came to hug me. I was going "Huh?", then Jia Han read out an SMS from John Quek, which says "J2 Wilson hugging Wilfred along the maze" (something like that, can't really remember). I went "WTF". He must have gotten a good laugh.

But the funniest must have been Pao Pao and Si Quan. Let me remind you that Si Quan and Pao Pao are quite afraid of scary stuff. Pao Pao was hugging onto Si Quan along the whole way too. It was damn funny.

After scary the living daylights out of ourselves, we went back to the central plaza to watch "The Shutter". I think the Shutter is possibly the scariest movie I have ever watched. Some of the bboys totally turned their backs during the scary parts. Hui Hua was going: "I tell you ah, don't touch me ah!" I was laughing like shit from that one.

Overall, I think the 35th Students Council have done a great job for Scream'08! Attendance wise, it wasn't that succesful; quality-wise, it was well-done. Props to the 35th! The make-up, the costumes, the setting; everything was great. They even off-ed the central plaza lights so the whole school seems spooky.

I really had lots of fun last night. I think the ppl you hang out with really matters alot in influencing the "fun-ness" that you would have. I'm glad that the dancers were there. They are always a fun and crazy bunch to hang out with.

I think that'sall for tonight. Today's recital practice was quite pathetic, since very few ppl came (and Daniel went overseas). Don't wanna talk about it.

So till then -- may you scream and be "mind-fucked".

"Told You So"

Today was a big relief, I must say. My teacher mentor (the one in-charge of scholars) helped me calculate my scores and told me that I most likely be able to keep my scholarship. Though she said that it's not confirmed at this point in time, but most likely I'll pass the criteria. Apparently, GP plays a large role too. Poor PRCs but it's not like I'm crying for them . She said that if I were to be put on probation or have my scholarship removed, I would be receiving a call within these few days. Let's hope the call doesn't come.

Naturally, I feel damn happy to hear the news, so I head over to the PE Studio and danced like there's no tomorrow. PE studio was totally crowded today. The MAD Hip Hop division was having self prac in the studio, while the bboys were playing cards in the middle of the studio before heading over to Esplanade. Today was the first time I saw the Hip Hop division having self prac in the PE studio. Quite surprising, I must say. And I get to see some of Shah's (the Hip Hop instructor of MAD) choreo put in action. Personally, I think his choreo are not hard to catch and they looked quite nice.

Had lots of fun dancing with the Hip Hoppers. They can be quite a crazy bunch at times. I especially liked one of Shah's choreo to "Oh Timbaland", which he fused tutting elements into Hip Hop, and Vanessa kindly taught me the choreo. In return, I taught her Ryan's Lyrical Hip Hop choreo that I've learnt yesterday. I needed the revision anyway. She can catch Ryan's choreo quite fast, which impressed me alot. I know my steps aren't that "clean" and "sharp" yet, so I hope I didn't teach her too much of my "sloppiness", so to say. And I totally addicted to Ryan's choreo.

I did try persuading Hui Hua and Samuel to go for Ryan's open class next week. Hope they can join me. I'm quite curious to know how fast and clean can they catch Ryan's choreo. I think they will surely like his choreo.

Had dinner with some of the Hip Hoppers at Coronation Plaza before heading back to the boarding school. I'm feeling damn tired now. I think I'm going to sleep soon, but I haven't finished my part for the OP. Shit. I guess I just got to do tomorrow morning before meeting up with my groupmates. And I think that means I won't be able to go to OSchool tomorrow. T.T I really want to attend Ann Tan's Open Class.

That's all for today. Gotta go rest.

Ryan's Lyrical

Today, I went for Ryan's Lyrical Hip Hop open class for the first time. Since I haven't attended any open classes for close to 2 weeks, I decided to head over to OSchool and join Ryan's class in the spur of the moment. My body was itching to learn something new. But I actually got more than what I bargained for.

He used the song "Told You So" from Jesse McCartney's newest album for the open class. After warming up for 20 minutes (Ryan has a reputation of conducting very long warm ups. When he took over Daniel's class the other time, he spent 40 minutes on warm ups), he started teaching us the choreo.

Never in my life I learnt such a hard choreo. I attended Ann Tan's lyrical hip hop class before and I was barely able to follow her speedy choreo; but Ryan's choreo made Ann Tan's classes seem like a mass dance. Ryan likes to fill a beat interval with a lot of moves. The moves are often fast, subtle and hard to be "clean" when first learnt. And the choreo demands good control of the execution--you must be able to be hard when needed and soft at times, which is charateristic of lyrical hip hop.

Naturally, with such a hard choreo, I made myself looked like a sticking sore thumb in the class. I didn't have much trouble with the first few 8-beats, but everything started to crumble when nearing the 5th 8-beat. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that he thought the moves damn fast. He covered like 4 or 5 8-beats within 40 minutes. The best part is that the stretched the lesson to 1 and a half hours. I counted that he taught like 7 or 8 8-beats within 1 hour and 10 minutes. Totally crazy and tiring. It made Daniel's Recital practice looked like child's play.

I saw quite a few of my Recital mates in Ryan's class. Quite surprising. And also some familiar faces, like HR's Melvin. Joey and Miss Chen (which is my PE teacher). Hui Xian was there too because she attended the earlier Reggae course. Thanks for waiting for 1 and a half hours BTW!

Went to have Subway with Hui Xian after class. Actually, I kinda miss my dancemates since I haven't seen some of them for weeks already. Can't wait to have another gathering with them. Ie-Ching was sms-ing me and telling me how she missed them. Heh. >.< Hui Xian also said the same thing.

So I think I'm definitely going for Ryan's open class again next week and try not to make an ass of myself. I think I shall go to practise his choreo tomorrow.

Capricon

I was in a happy mood today, largely because my group has finally finished the whole Written Report! =) We spend countless hours fine-tuning our WR, from standardizing the format, to grammar checks, to adding in pictures, to reorganizing the appendices. Everytime we seemed to be done with the WR, there's bound to be something that was overlooked. Not this time (I hope). This would be the last time we'll be editing our WR, since we have perfected it as much as we could. I'm quite happy with the end result. Once again, I'm thankful for having great groupmates.Oh yeah, I finally gotten my hands on Jay Chou's new album "Capricon" (魔杰座). Borrowed it from a senior. I really enjoyed this album. Frankly speaking, this album is way better than "On The Run" (我很忙). When I listened the new album for the first time, I already fell in love with about 6 songs (給我一首歌的時間;花海;魔術先生;說好的幸福呢;蘭亭序; 稻香) out of the total 11. It's totally dope! I am glad that Jay Chou is finally reverting back to his usual style. Quite impressed by his new songs.

Since the album "七里香", I have been a fan of Jay Chou. His music is always fresh and experimental, but I like his emo songs the most. He was the first Chinese musician that I started listening too, and since then, I started listening to Chinese songs. Some ppl might find it surprising that I actually listen to Chinese songs, especially my parents when they first found out too.

I admire Jay Chou for his outstanding musicality. He can proficiently play many musical instruments, for which the piano is the one that Jay Chou is most famous for; he composes the melody and rhythm for his songs, except for the occasional outsourcing; he can fuse different genres of music into a style that is unique to him. For those reasons, I hold a great respect for him.

For my whole childhood, up till Primary 6, I would prefer to listen to English songs only. Occasionally some Malay (more surprising eh?) and Chinese songs, but these are not that often. Then when I came to Singapore, my roommates exposed me to Jay Chou's music, and I was instantly hooked. Slowly, I shifted my music preferrence to Chinese music. When I as in Sec 3 and 4, I would only listen to Chinese music. Once I started to learn hip-hop dance, I started listening to English music again. I realized that I missed out on alot of dope English songs when I was exploring Chinese music. As for now, my music preferrence is balanced between English and Chinese songs.

The future of both the Chinese and English music industry seems promising. Lin Jun Jie (affectionately known as JJ Lin) just released his album, Sixology. I heard from Tack Kian that it might be even better than Jay Chou's album. Can't wait to get my hands on JJ Lin's new songs too.

Anyway, Friday is the big day for all scholars. MOE is meeting us in school to brief us on our scholarship status. I heard from my friends that Jia Jun is put on probation by the MOE, and his results are almost like mine. So I guess that it's quite likely that I will get to keep my scholarship, but I might be put on probation too. Fuck MOE, man. This will be damn stressful, and I have the feeling that I will be under alot of stress from the MOE next year.

Unfortunately, I know that some of my friends will lose their scholarships as of this coming Friday. One of them have already found a place to rent in anticipation of the bad news. The other one is not doing anything much and I think he deserved it anyway, since he didn't put in much effort for Promos. As for some of the scholars who got quite a few As, they are feeling very relaxed now.

Actually, I do feel sorry for my friend whose scholarship will be revoked. He has put in a lot of effort as compared to his classmate, who goes on a "one-day-work-week" and is a member of the "famous" Wu Ge Ren band (I'm not saying who, because you know who you are), but his scholarship will still be withdrawn. My friend totally doesn't deserve this fate.

I am quite anxious myself. What if MOE went even more nuts and decided to not give any probation at all? What if they are fucked up and want to make this world a fucked up place? Then my scholarship will be gone. And I really, really, really hope it wouldn't come to that.

May the stars be our guide.

Chain Of Memories

I took a long hiatus from blogging (1 week is kinda long for me, considering I used to update once per day) because I didn't really have the mood and time to blog. Although Promos are over, but there's still Project Work to deal with. Literally everyone (okay, fine, almost everyone. I could think of a couple of counter-examples) in my school is trying their best to complete PW, be it Written Report, Oral Presentation or I&R.

PW eats up your life. Everyday, I go to school to sleep, do PW or get my Promo papers back. If you read closely enough, you would notice the lack of dancing. Yup, that's right, I haven't really danced in a week, not even go to OSchool for classes, because of PW.

Furthermore, my overall results now stand at BDD. I haven't gotten back my Econs yet. I think I might be just able to save my scholarship, but that is still uncertain. Add this uncertainty up with the hectic rush to finish PW, then it's not exactly the mood you would want to dance with. Thankfully, my group have managed to finalize the WR, and started work on OP. After tomorrow, I'll know my complete results. Hopefully my mood would have lighten up enough to make me dance without worries.

Just came back from dinner with Casey, Tack Kian, and Wilson not long ago. We had a nice long discussion throughout the whole ordeal, and one of them was what I wanted to blog about. But before I get to that, I would like to admit something that I think not many people know--

I am closer to the J2 dancers than the J1s.

Even when I'm not in the mood for dancing, my legs would automatically walk me to the PE studio. I would just go there to rest (sometimes even to sleep) or fool around with the other dancers. When I get there, I often find the J2s there studying, dancing or resting too. In the hindsight, I realized that what Glenn said was true: to many dancers, the PE studio is like a second home. We eat, sleep, dance and play there. As for the J1s, not many J1s would go to the studio often (by often, I mean more than thrice per week). Over time, I got closer to the J2s than the J1s. But that's not to say I'm not close to the J1s, just that I am relatively closer to the J2s.

I know that their A-Levels are coming very soon, and frankly speaking, I am quite worried for some of the J2s. You know something is wrong if a J2 asks you to help him out with an Organic Chem question, and you could do it. I hope they would do well, and subsequently, I hope I will too. I know it would be a matter of time before we would part ways. They would move on to NS or universities; I would move on to J2 (hopefully, with my scholarship intact). There's not much time till then, so I intend to spend some time with them before farewell.

In all honesty, I think it's actually quite queer that I reluctant to let go of ppl from a club that I am not part of. Ironically, I do not feel anything for my senior class at all. I think the conversations and dancing with the MAD J2s are a big part of my J1 life, and I treasure them.

The dinners at KAP and BTP; the hanging out at PE studio; the late night conversations at Serene; it will end soon. Too soon for comfort, I might say.

And as for today's point of conversation, there was a large part about relationships. I would not go into the rumors and the petty details (to list them here on my blog is equivalent to painting a shooting target on myself), but I was intrigued by the notion of going into a relationship itself.

Some people thinks that they would not want to commit themseles into a relationship because they would rather spend their time upgrading themselves (like improving their skills or learn something) than "wasting time on something that might not work out in the end". That point has some validity in it, I admit, but this comes from a person who has never been in a relationship before. It became quite a heated debate actually.

What that person doesn't know is that, when one is in a relationship, one would feel like one is in a sea of happiness. One would feel like their floating. I know this, because I have been through this myself (surprising to some ppl, eh?) True, why spend time to chase after something that might not work in the end? "But the effort and time is worth it", to put it in Casey's words himself. A person must be in a relationship to understand what I mean.

I was reminded of my past experiences, and I looked back at my memories with a kind of bittersweet sentiment. But what that means was that I was reminded of you. I haven't thought about you in a very long time, so you could say I am over it. I know you won't be reading this, but I still want to say I have moved on. Ever since that night, I have heard of little news of you, and I am glad that you have moved on too. I was the one who suggested it, but don't think I was not hurt in asking for it. Remember that you're the one who forced my hands. I hope you've learn your mistake and not repeat it. And I hope you don't hate me for it. As for me, I think I rather remain single for now. Girls that I like are far and few between, and I think I want to keep it this way -- far. I don't fancy getting hurt again anytime soon.

Moments are not eternal, but the chain of memories is.