Tsunamis

Life has to go on despite hearing bad news of tsunamis ravaging and creating havoc on coastal areas near India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Thailand. The earth will continue to rotate from east to west. I express my deepest condolences to those people who have lost their kin or relatives. Indeed, Singapore is a safe place to live in and I suddenly feel very fortunate to live here. I don't have to fear that natural disasters will occur here. This Asia killer waves that was occurred in Dec 26 2004 had a very great impact on me compared to other natural disasters as newspaper reports had indicated that luckily for Singapore, Sumatra had helped to block the tsunamis from ravaging Singapore. I can't imagine if tsunamis sweep away the houses and buildings in Singapore.
Some things really cannot be underestimated. Water may seem harmless but this time, it had killed about 81k people.
Lastly, hope that everyone can remain jovial and jubilant despite the occurrance of tsunamis.

Off to Clarke Quay

I had chem peer tutoring programme for the past few days on the 27th and the 28th of Dec 2004 although I didn't know that I didn't need to come on the 27th of Dec 2004. It was quite bored as the tutees keep on sharing their experiences about hairstyles, handphones and so on. Some of them utilised the chem peer tutoring programme to do the chem holiday assignment.

27 Dec 2004 - After the chem peer tutoring, Diana, Chin Kai, Hsueh Yu and me went to revise some work at a Mac on the ground level of a HDB block. Wow. That is one place that I have not been there before so next time if I want to find a quiet place to study, that is it. At about 2pm, Diana and Hsueh Yu went home while Chin Kai and I went to AMK popular to search for some notes and CDs. Sigh!!! The maths textbooks are all wrapped up. I couldn't even browse through them. What a disappointment. Later, I went to Chin Kai's house to get some maths notes and homework. Boarding bus 86 from AMK to Sengkang to me was a long trip as I slept on the bus. After that, Chin Kai and me went to Hougnag Mall to photocopy the notes for me and to go shopping. One shop in Hougang while we are on our way to the bus stop going home sells interesting stuffs. The shop sells sodium bicarbonate powder, ammonia powder and other compounds that I have learnt in Chemistry. It sells the compounds that are available in chem laboratory. What an interesting shop.

28 Dec 2004- After the chem peer tutoring programme, Diana nad Chin Kai and me took bus 851 to town. Chin Kai was going to Bugis Junction while Diana and me went to North Bridge Road. Firstly, we visited the Indian restaurant again to taste Indian food. This time, I was much adapted to the taste of the Indian curry and other delicacies there. The foods taste more delicious to me now although my tongue still feel as if it was burning. After that, we went to Suntec City for shopping. Diana sure is a pro at shopping. She can walk long distances and shop for long hours. We look at some winter coats, hats and so on. After about 3 hours of shopping, we went to Milliena Square foodcourt to revise our work. The foodcourt looks deserted to me. While we were revising our work, water droplets drop from the sky and it started to rain cat and dogs. We had intended to go Clarke Quay for sightseeing so we waited until the rain had abated. At 6pm, we went to Clarke Quay and the things there could really burn holes in many of our wallets. We strolled around that area seeing the "wonderful and magnificient" Singapore River and the small riverboats in that area. By the way, one boat ride costs 60 dollars flat. That was very expensive. I can take public buses to tour the whole Singapore with this 60 dollars. At around 7pm, we went to eat satay there. One middle aged man apparently the boss there approaches us and asked us about the reasons why we are staying out in the night while taking our orders. Oh, we are going to view Clarke Quay magnificent night scenary. lol. While he was taking our oders, he said to us that don't look at the prices, just order. After eating the satay, we went for a stroll again. The place there seemed deserted although there were some tourists patronising some bars there. Diana took some photos of the magnificent scenary in Clarke Quay. Finally, at around 8pm, we were done with our sightseeing and we went home.

Sign language reunion dinner

I just had my dinner just now in Tampines Street 82 at Kampung Senang. The sign language team had a reunion there and the whole team performed on stage to some of the cancer patients there. One of the memorable experience there is that I am sort of forced to eat a blade of grass there. Hmmm. tastes funny. Maybe I am still not adapted to its taste. That is the first time that I have ever seen people eating grass. One of the volunteers said that eating this type of grass nourishes the body as it contains many vitmains and minerals that help to keep the body strong and healthy. Besides, the dinner was all organic veggies planted by the volunteers of Kampung Senang. Of course, the dinner tastes funny with blades of grasses and other raw veggies. It is some sort of a salad.
Nevertheless, good exp for me. :)

Changi Airport

Today is Christmas. For my family, we treat Christmas as another normal day. We seldom celebrate it. For today, my family and I went to Changi Airport for a visit rather than a tour to other countries. My aunt had decided to meet us in the airport staff canteen. When we reached there, we searched high and low of the correct route to go to the airport staff canteen. We climbed the stairs, took the escalator, walked about 800 metres to and fro to the other side in Terminal 2. In addition, we asked direction from the cleaners in the airport and finally, after about an hour, we finally found the place. That was a great adventure for me.

Today is also the day when I saw an aeroplane taking off in the runway with my naked eye. It was a very fascinating sight for me.

Relieved

I am relieved that my dad is fine. His eyes are recovering from that "incident". The pain had abated. Phew!!! I really hope that my dad is fine. For the past few days, I often went out with my friends.

On 22 of December 2004, I went out with Diana and Hsueh Yu at Bras Basah Complex to study and revise our holiday assignments. For maths and chem and physics, I had completed the holiday assignments with numerous questions left unanswered. I just went there to explain my concepts of some questions and to clarify their doubts of those questions that they felt puzzled about.After that, we went to Saint Andrew Cathedral for a visit. Diana became the "tour guide" and showed Hy and me about the architecture of this church. Besides, she also explained the differences of Catholic churches and Protestant churches and also Anglican Churches. She is very wise and knowledgable and she could keep talking about it. Then, I realised that actually one has to learn more about different aspects in life. Life is not about studying in schools and score good grades. Life seems to be more interesting to me now. After visiting, we went to Esplanade for a stroll and also to watch the Merlion, the projectile motion displayed by water spraying out of the Merlion's mouth. We just talked there for about an hour. Next, we went to an Indian restaurant to taste the Indian foods there. For me, I really spice. When I ate the Indian foods there, initially it was very delicious but later, spice dominated the tastebuds in my tongue. Sigh!!! I had to drink lots of water.

On 23rd of December 2004, I went out with my old friends to watch the movie "kungfu" in Plaza Singapura. Spent about $7.50 buying the movie ticket. In the beginning of the movie, it was quite humourous and I laughed quite a lot but at the ending part of the movie, fighting dominated the whole movie as Stephen Chew fought with another sort of a very skilled pugilist who was an old man.

On 24th of December 2004, I went out swimming with my old friends. I swam about 10 rounds in the swimming pool and now, I am feeling very exchausted and fatigue. So, zzzzzzzz.

Guilty

I really hate myself for being so careless. Just now, I was playing the computer while my little brother was applying the oil onto my father's back to abate the pain. After that, when my little brother started to apply the oil, some of the oil was accidentally poured out of the bottle and dripped onto the floor. Then, my father said to him "Be careful! You can put the oil on the table before applying oil on my back." As I am engrossed in playing the computer, I did not listen to this words. After that, my father wanted me to help to rub his back using that bottle of oil. When I started to rub his back after applying the oil on my hands, suddenly, my father shouted pain in his eyes and then to my horror, oil was dripping from his head onto the floor. Oh no!!! That was a grave mistake that I had made. I sincerely hope that everything is all right and nothing has gone wrong. It was my carelessness that had caused this thing to happen. And also, it was my poor organisation that has caused this because my table was filled with bulky files and many books. Of course, I was scolded by my mum for being so dumb and careless. I should have sealed the hole using my thumb. Sigh!!!! It was really my fault today but I have learnt a good lesson.

Hope that nothing goes wrong and everything is well. Hope that my dad can recover.

History of myself (1987-1995)

Since I have nothing to do now, I shall sort of write a blog about the history of myself.

After I was born out of my mother's womb in November 15 1987, I saw the first beam of light shining to my eyes. I was born in KK Hospitial at that time. My mum and dad was very happy that they have a male child. That day was really a good and happy day for everyone.


Under my mother and my father's care, I grew up. Of course, my grandparents and my uncles also doted me a lot. My family often went to Bendemeer Road to visit my grandparents once a week. My mum hired a nanny to take care of me because my dad and my mum are both working people. I just ran around my nanny's house since young and I seldom watched television unlike my little brother. My mother also told me that when I was in the past, I didn't like pacifier out of unknown reason. So, when I cried, my mum and my nanny had a hard time thinking of ways to pacify me. My uncles also liked to play with me. It was a very good time.

When I was in K2, my mother signed me up for the abacus class. I started to have an interest for abacus and maths. Ya, I was very appalled about how the abacus could be used to calculate things quickly. Soon, I picked up the skill of "playing" with abacus. Besides that, when I was in K2, and when I was in my grandparents' house, I would run to one corner to watch the stretch of busy road, not to watch the array of cars travelling at the busy Bendemeer Road, but to watch the buses passing by. I liked to watch public buses especially.

In Pri 1, I was in a school called Serangoon Garden South School in 1994. I felt very uneasy when I first stepped into the school. I learnt many things there like English, Maths and Chinese and Science. I boarded school bus to go to the school and to go back home from the school. I often talked to the driver and the auntie in the school bus about school. As usual, the auntie always told me to work very hard and so on. Besides, in Pri 1, I started to read Translink Guides when I found them in one of the cupboards in my grandparents' house. I started to read with interest. I soon learnt the routes of many bus numbers. By the way, in Pri 1, I went to have a checkup in IOH (now HPB). I was certified that I have colour blindness. Sigh!!! Thus, with colour blindness, one could not apply for these jobs related to electronics, chemist and so on.

In pri 2, I didn't remember much in this year just that, that was the year where I had completed the abacus course and I had a certificate.

Food Exhibition then BBQ

Wow, three days have passed in the blinking of an eye. Today is the 19th of December 2004 and I, Tan Jun Jian, is writing my blog again for today. For the past two days, I am slacking at home doing homework and playing games. The days at home are becoming sian for me today. However, I continue to train my rs character for fun. :) Finally, after some knocking and cracking of my brain and trying very hard to energise my brain cells, I have completed my maths and my chemistry. For today, wow, it is a very good day for me. Today is the 19th of December 2004. Not a bad day. Maybe I should buy the number 1219 or 1912 in 4D. Lol. I actually hate 4D because it tests on probability.

Nvm. In the morning, or rather late morning at around 11 am, my family including me of course, went to Suntec City to watch the food exhibition in exhibition hall 404. When we reached the place Suntec City, we couldn't find the exhibition halls. At that time, we were in tower 4. Sigh!! We had to walk around the place before we could find the exhibition hall 404.

The foods there are very difficult to describe in words but there are only three words that can best describe the foods there, "Unique and Delicious". I ate many foods that I had not eaten before like for example, hot dog wafer and some pastries and also shark fin soup which costs only a buck and so on. I kept on eating there and I also drank a cup of coffee which costs only 20 cents. Wow, that is the cheapest coffee that I have ever known.
After trying out the foods in exhibition hall 404, we went to Carrefour to play some X-Box games. Normally, it was my cousins who played those games as my littlebrother and I had absolutely no experience in playing those games using joysticks. My eldest cousin called Yan Hao, played Mario. The game is about a character called Mario who sprays water everywhere to clean the sludge in the city which are sprayed by "evil" plants. In order to win, Mario has to complete numerous quests and so on and of course obliterate some plants to clean off the filthy sludge. We stayed there for about one hour. Sigh!! Yan Hao just missed a step in completing the third level of the game that he was playing. But nvm, failure is a stepping stone to success. He could play this game again next time. Hope that he could complete the third level.
After that, we visited the library to read some books as usual. I read some books for a couple of minutes and I started to lose my concentration in reading some books.
Next, it was about time to go at around half past three in the afternoon. My dad fetched me to Toa Payoh MRT Station for BBQ in the evening. I arrived there at around 4 plus. So, I went to Popular to read some books again. At 5pm, I saw some of the 28 people and Diana, me and Joanne went to buy some drinks and wire gauze and fire starter and ice for the BBQ. Can't find the wire guaze and the fire starter anywhere in the Fairprice supermarket. I went to the 1st storey and then up to the second storey and next back to the 1st storey to find wire gauze and fire starter. Seek Fong, the pro auntie, scanned through the supermarket and found those two items. After that, about half of the 28 people walked to Diana's house. It was a very big house, about twice as large as mine, with a rooftop to see the magnificent scenery. Our class had our BBQ and
most of the foods were sort of blackened by some unknown substance created by Nature. I guess I have to drink lots of water after that.
However, today is a very sort of unlucky day for Alvin who is "forced" to take a bath. The girls were shouting with awe and seemed attracted to him lol. Luckily for me, I was not the victim today.
Wow, today is surely a tired day for me. I reached home at about 11pm.
That's all folks!!!

Sigh!!! My cousin is living in my home.

As the title, my cousin has come to my home this morning to play with my little sister. For me, I think that she is a bit rowdy and very hyperactive. She has been running in my home this afternoon. In the morning, I accompanied with my mother and my little sister and my little cousin to the park to play the playground. When I saw the swings, that reminisced the happy memories of my past. In the past, I liked to play the swings as I liked the motion of going up and coming down very rapidly. Now, I am a 17 years old boy and thus I am not suitable to sit on the swings. Hehe. After that, my home became chaotic, as my little cousin was...... I think I have to tolerate her for another day. Never mind, I can just do my maths to kill the time.

1000 AD

This morning, I played 1000 AD and I just conquered some land from others. Land is used for construction of buildings. However, the land that I had conquered this morning had been conquered by one of the online players just now. Besides that, I also received a new message from Golgothika (299). He or she (because I don't know the gender of this person) is one of the person or people that I had attacked and I also had annexed some of his or her lands. So, this guy Golgothika was probably very angry and he or she gave me this wonderful message.

"ok. so hope yall feel special not yall buch of dicks. And cunt (23). Imm giving all my shit to another alliance. Forfeiting the games because of ****ed up hypocrit sons (and Daughters) of ***** ass hoes such as your selves who cant even follow your own rulles. I wash my hands of this shit because sportsmanship is apparently not an issue with larger alliances of cowards such as yourselfs, who can hold theier own one on one, but feel compelled to attack empires who dont even have an alliance. I pity yellow bellies such as your selfs. NOTE: I broke only one "rule" and the consequences of my action are not even worth wasting my time on a "game" such as this If I have to play with cheater such as yourselves. Feel free to stel the rest of my shit like the pack of coward hyeinas you are. Thanks for ruining this for me. It was SUPPOSED to be a game, you know. Farewell."

When I had read this message, I had some mixed feelings. This message is quite long and full of sarcastic comments. I felt angry and insulted and so on and also disappointed that he liked to use this word in the message(Sugar Honey Ice Tea).
So I decided to reply him with my message.

"First, don’t be a racist and insult other races especially to the Chinese (yellow bellies) because that is totally not cool. Second, life is full of competition and it is normal for people like me the coward to act like that to achieve my aims. The strongest person will rule the world. Besides, as you have said, it is just a game only, wins and loses have nothing to do in reality life. Third, if you don’t want to play this game, you don’t have to tell me as I don’t care whether you want to play this game or not. Fourth, about sportsmanship, although I initially value sportsmanship and like peace, ever since I have gone out of protection, I don’t see any sportsmanship in this game anymore so I decide to just ignore sportsmanship. Better don’t use the word (Sugar Honey Ice Tea) too much unless you like to eat that."

Life is just full of competition. In that game 1000 AD, this has become more apparent. I like this game because the winners will be those that have tactics and strategies and also determination to withstand any problems such as attacks from stronger players.

Slacked days

Yesterday was a slacked day for me since I am now writing a blog after midnight. Ever since after the sign language performance has ended, I was staying at home and feeling very bored. At home, my little brother was hugging the computer for more than 10 hours daily. Time is very precious so for this 10 hours, I utilised it to do my homework. In the afternoon, I accompanied my mother and my little sister to go to Ang Mo Kio. We had some sight-seeing there to view the beautiful and magnificent scenary there. (construction sites) I play some couple of games for about 1 hour after my little brother was watching television. After that, just now, I was feeling very bored so I played online Othello with one of my online mates. I play three matches with him. I lost the first match but I won the second and the third match. I liked especially the third match as I had to make a very difficult decisions. For the third match, what happened was that my online mate and I started playing othello as usual. I was using the black counters and he was using the white counters. As usual, we played til a point that in the othello board, there were many white counters while there were only a few black counters.Most of the sides were occupied by the white counters. At that time, I had only 2 moves left. I pondered and stumped for a while and my heart started to work harder to pump more O2 to my brain. Suddenly, I saw one loophole and hehe, I had made a move. After that, he made a move that was totally unexpected and at this point in time, I also only had 2 moves left. The first move is quite safe as that move involved taking a corner. However, if I made this decision to annex that corner, he would do the same to me and I might lose. For the second move, I put a counter at the adjacent of the corner. That was a more risky move as if anything went wrong, game over. So, I pondered again. Suddenly, I remembered the Singapore Government urging more people to take risks, to taste what failure is like and to learn from their failures. So, I had decided to make the second move. Luckily for me, I won that match 53-11 for black counters to white counters. What an enriching day for me.

Swimming

Today is quite a tiring day. I slept on the bus in the afternoon while on my way home from Bishan. For today, I had swimming at 11 am with Kun Jian at Hougang Swimming Complex. I swam about 6 laps and my legs and my hands started to cramp. This is probably due to the fact that I had not swum for a long time. I think I have not stepped into a swimming pool to swim for about a couple of months.After swimming, Kun Jian and I went to Bishan Junction 8. We met Jun Ming at the bus stop near blk 101. The purpose of going there is to shop for bags and clothes. I was window shopping while Kun Jian and Jun Ming bought clothes and a bag. We almost roamed the whole shopping mall. That's all for today. I am tired to write blog now. Good night and have sweet dreams.

Today's blog

Sigh!! Time really can fly to the sky. Now, it is already the 11th of December 2004. Three more weeks and the sch will be reopened. The reopening of school signals that I cannot play anymore. Yesterday, I stayed at home all day, watching television and playing computer games all day. What a slacked day yesterday.

For the day before, I intended to go Ang Mo Kio to buy some stationeries but my mother and my little sister wanted to accompany me there for a stroll. When we were about to go there, my aunt called and asked us whether we wanted to go Orchard Road for shopping. I was the one that said go there lah since my aunt also intended to go there. We changed our mind to go Ang Mo Kio and go Orchard Road instead. As usual, we meet at the waterfall at Ngee Ann City. Later, we had lunch at a resturant. It costs about ninety nine dollars. My mum's wallet had a big hole now lol. After having lunch, we went to the library to browse the books. For this time, I did not fall asleep when I was reading the books because I was reading a book of about body language. The book was very interesting as it told me that when a person is talking to you, you can tell whether he is lying to you or not and the different body languges that he is displaying to you. For example, if one leans forward during lectures and sit up very straight, this shows that he is very interested in the lectures. If one uses his arms as a support for his head on the table, this shows that he feels bored. I am still trying to learn the body language displayed by man. It is really interesting.

Slacked!!!

Well, now it is already past midnight. I was slacked for this whole day. I did a little bit of holiday homework and finally finished the topic on reaction kinetics. For maths, I had not progressed much as compared to yesterday as I was stuck on a question. For physics, I had not done anything. Oh no. I think that I have to work on my physics. For gp, I had only done one newspaper article with mindmap. I had not started on my two essays yet. I also had not found research regarding the information required to write the two essays. Sigh!!! I still have a lot of homework. Time certainly flies and one day has passed. Now, this is already the second week of december. Two more weeks and the school will be reopened again to students and I will be mugging again. Sigh!!! My grandfather was hospitialised just now because he had a stomachache. We suspected that he ate yesterday's food and thus resulted to this stomachache. He is currently now at Tan Tock Seng Hospital. I am still feeling a bit worried for him.

1000 A.D. 

Cool pic by Johnson 

Going out the whole day.

Woot, I have not blogged for two days. For the day before, I took a nap after the end of the sign language course. The CIP hours given are 36 hours. Quite a lot. I do a couple of maths questions. Finished Trigo questions.
For yesterday, I had gone to my aunt's house to visit her and my cousins. At htere, I did my maths questions. I had finished area and trapezium rule and about to finish maclaurin series. Woot. There were still a couple of maths questions to go. In the afternoon, my cousins, myy little bro and I watched the movie "Van Helsing". This movie is about a person Van Helsing whose mission is to kill Dracula, the vampire. Dracula, a vampire born in 1422 lived for about 400 years and his powers were formidable. He had been trying to breed more vampires in the land by conducting experiments. Many experiments were failed due to some mishaps and nevertheless, he persisted in it. The vampires fed on human's blood and thus were a threat to humans. Van Helsing, a guy who wanted to know more about his past, embarked on a journey with his companions, Diana and another smart and intelligent guy. The vampires were immune to weapons and they disintegrate when they came into contact with holy things. Besides, they were also afraid of the sun. Later, in the movie, it became a battle between a werewolf and a vampire. The show was quite humorous and sometimes like to shock people at certain scenes with sound and visual effects. After watching the movie for about three hours, I went on to play gameboy, helping Germaine to train her pokemon monsters. I helped her to train her charmelon to lvl 33 learning slash attack. Then, I also helped her to win the gym in Cerculean City. Woot. Next, I had my dinner. The dinner tasted good and it was quite sumptuous. After that, we went home. Then after that, my computer kept having problems and lagging so my brother was very fed up and decided to let me write my blog. lol. :)

Group photo 

Jack and me :) 

Rising Waves  

Practising For the sign language performance 

End of sign language performance :(

Today marks the end of the sign language performance. Time just flies. Watching how the disabled perform on the stage, I really have a lot of thoughts running in my mind about how they manage to overcome the obstacles and how we normal people can be like them, resilient and hardworking. After all these things, it is now back to revising schoolwork for next year A levels examinations next year. Sigh!!! Studies again. I have to mug again at home for the next few days. However, in my mind, I have sweet memories of Service Learning Project and the Disabled Performance. By the way, the background music for the various dances performed by the disabled were very nice.

Sign Langauge Performance

Yesterday, I had gone for a sign language performance. That was the first time that I had entered the backstage in Kallang Theatre. Yesterday was also the day when I could see all the backstage works and lightings on the stage. That was very fascinating. Initially, I was very nervous when it was my turn to perform but when the curtain was pulled up, I could not see the audience as it was dark out there and besides, the many bright lights were shining at me from the side. I just concentrated on performing although there were a bit glitches here and there. After the performance, I felt so relieved. I think for today's performance, I will not feel nervous anymore.

Saturday's sign language performance

Phew!!! Yesterday, I did not sleep on the bus when I was taking bus 70 back home. For the day before yesterday, I slept on bus 70 while I was on my way home. Time flies when I slept on the bus and when I woke up, the bus had reached hougang area. The bus had already passed the bus stop which I had intended to alight. So, I had to walk back home. But luckily, I did not have to do that yesterday.
For yesterday's sign language performance, there were still a bit of glitches here and there but overall, for the sign language performance, the whole thing was quite good as commented by xiaofen liao shi. Phew!!!
I felt so relieved after hearing her good comments about the performance. Time really passes by in the blinking of an eye. Today is the last day of the sign language performance. Today marks the end of me working with ching an chun. I wished to express my gratitude to my dance teacher and my sign language teacher which had made a lot of efforts to prepare for the performance. I had also learnt some sign language for some sentences like mum and dad and so on. Besides, when I had attended this programme, I had witnessed with my naked eye, how the disabled seemed to perform as good as the normal and ordinary people. When they were up on the stage yesterday, they performed very well and nice. That really gave me the idea that disabled don't mean that they are unable.

Disabled Doesn't Mean Unable

Nervous

For the night, I had my sign language lesson. It ended at 10pm. For today, it was a bit special as there were many Chinese Nationals already at the venue to join the sign language team for the dinner. They also performed a sign language performance of a song Tong Yi Shou Ge. Besides, I also noticed that they communicated among themselves using sign language just like we speak a language to ourselves. They were all actually special in their own ways. I believe that nature is always fair to everyone.

Slacked Day

Yesterday was a slacked day for me. I stayed at home all day, playing computer and doing maths.
Today, in the morning, my mother, my little brother and I went to my little brother's secondary school to buy his secondary 2 books. The queue there was quite long and we had to wait for about half an hour there. These two days were quite slacked for me but I can use these two days as a break and enjoy my real holidays.