Time flies...

This week is crazy.. Time passed by so quickly, leaving me no chance to do anything.. I have not been playing my facebook games for the past 4 days, I have not touched my PSP since Monday, I have not done copying the lectures (before the mid-sem break) I skipped, and I have not started on my practical reports. Sigh.. So where did my time go???

Pharm anal report is such a sucker. I saw the questions and they were deceivingly simple. According to my friends who had started, the graph plotting is shit. Bleah.. I was damn emo because there is no program on this earth which can plot a graph, its first and second derivatives from merely the data in a table. Sucks.. Hearing how my friends describing the agony to plot the graph using Excel, I can only curse and curse and curse. What fucking module is this? Are we supposed to learn how the bloody Excel works or are we supposed to learn about electrochem? Sigh.. Damn pissed la.. Made me even lazy to even start tabulating my readings -_-

Anyway my work on this Wed was much more successful than last week's. I guess I learnt a lot from last week's failure. I was told that I can graduate soon and hence get a pay rise. Lol.. I guess I need another 3-4 more events and if I can do them smoothly, that's it ^^ I will work tomorrow. Haiz.. A bit lazy.. cos I feel like just lazing around.. But oh well, I will do nothing productive so might as well go work tomorrow. I already feel like spending my income for one figurine whose head can be personalised, meaning if I send my photo, the shop will use my photo to generate the head! Lol.. Isn't it cool? But very ex le.. I thnk $98 sumthing just for the head. Sigh.. Not much difference from the stall in the mall across my home at Indo.. I don't know whether I should make it there or here la. Lol.. Anyway I wanted to go PS this morning to see but oh well, computer just wasted my time.. That's another reason on why I should just work when I have free time.. I would otherwise end up wasting my time.

In the afternoon, I went to vivo for a haircut. Kind of wasting the transport cost.. could have gone to PS too :( I was surprised this time because the hairstylist spoke to me in English!! Wow.. Haha.. Too bad his cutting rather sucky.. I don't really like my hair since the top part is still quite long. Not worth my money..

CCA point computations are more or less done. Haiz.. I have passed my target of 40. I hope I can secure a place for next sem.. If I don't get.. haiz.. I have nothing to say.. I am practically dead and there is no way I can earn higher than that. Lol.. Even this 40+ points are earned after complaining for redistribution of the points to community service points. LOL.. And there is one wrong entry.. I was saikang but I was put as President for one of the sports club event. Haha.. I hope the mistake will be unrectified :p

I just cooked the free instant noodle from a school event. Haiz.. It tasted like shit.. There is no better instant noodle than Indomie (I miss home!!). Bleah.. the seasoning was hardened.. and the dark brown colour just reminded me of shit. Had to scrape it from the packet yuks.. Bleah.. Anyway this was my very first time cooking instant noodle in Singapore. Yeah.. that's ONCE in like SEVEN years. Haha.. previously I always buy and cook those in cup. So just put hot water and done.. Definitely they are better ^^

The End.. of break.. T_T

It is (near) the end of the break and I absolutely did NOTHING related to school work. I only managed to copy 1 set of lecture notes (out of the so many that I skipped), I only read a few chapters for CA when I was on bus trips, and I did not touch my lab work at all (ironically, I intended on finishing EVERYTHING during this break). Haiz.. I guess I have no choice but to start rotting in library from tomorrow.

Sometimes I don't know whether I am too tired, or whether I am too lazy, or it is my low blood pressure. Haiz.. Anyway I intended on going to UHWC and it still did not happen after 2 days. On Tue night, I was super scared because I had pins and needles which did not resolve for up to 2 hours!! Haiz.. I don't know it is due to my posture (too much com), or my stones constricting my blood circulation when I sleep, or it is some disease or I have insufficient vit B intake. That's why I want to see doctor whether I should take vit B. If I have such attack again, I will go UHWC ba.. and I will ask about my hypotension too.

On Tue night, I could not sleep well also. I think I only slept for about 2 hours. Had to wake up early for Ash Wednesday mass. There was no bus so early in the morning so it was quite a miracle that I only missed the opening hymn when I arrived. Lol. I watched Percy Jackson & The Lighting Thief. Haha.. I will rate the movie as "so-so". I hate it because the storyline was weak and dumb (I wonder why the book was made into movie in the first place).. and my thirst for hot action and animation was not fulfilled. On the other hand, I think it is good because it is entertaining and it is lame. Uma Thurman (as Medusa) is totally a big joke! Lol.. Then the entrance of hell is at Hollywood while the entrance of Mt. Olympus is the Empire State Building. How lame -__-.. But the best quote that I love is when Hades was being impatient and angry towards Persephone. She shouted "Or what? I am in hell already!". So I think it's just a "comedy" instead of a "fantasy-action" movie. And I am not so happy because I wanted to watch thinking it to be a fantasy-action movie.

Today I just went for a CNY celebration at a friend's house. I had great time playing Wii! Lol.. I guess I am only good with joystick. I suck in playing with the Wii equipments. Lol.. But it was super duper fun. I swung the thing for tennis until my shoulder was painful. But still, I could not execute a service ace.. I just suck! Lol.. Haiz makes me wanna buy and play because it is a great exercise.. But oh well, it is not so fun to play it alone rite? I don't think anyone in my house is that enthu enough to accompany me play it so often. And I think my sisters will lose out to me. And if I keep winning, slowly we all will lose our interest.I want an equal sparring partners. Lol.. Though I guess my dad will love it.

Time to get back to reality now.. The break is over.. Time to hit the library and mug again :(

Dissidia: Final Fantasy

Cosmos, the goddess of harmony.
Chaos, the god of discord.
Reigning from distant realms, the two gods had gathered warriors from all lands to lead them in savage war.
Cosmos and Chaos were of equal strength.
It was believed that the conflict would last forever.
But----
(Dissidia: Final Fantasy Prologue)

Graphics
The most important feature for me to be interested in a game. Hoho.. I was impressed by the opening movie and though I am a bit disappointed by the lack of CG events in the game, the graphic (even during the fighting scenes) is just impressive. The person looks like a person, no pixels seen whatsoever. A treat for the eyes. Hoho..

A cutscene in the game (but this is not the CG event that I like).
My favourite female character in the game :p

See the details even during battle.
Squall still looks cool as ever.

I actually love the effect of broken/smashed stones/pillars in the battle stages. Hehe.. Unfortunately, the stage can 'heal' itself. Bleah.. It will be my ideal game if the stage keeps the damages. It will be cool to see the damages done after a long battle.

Gameplay
It is not easy as it is not a typical fighting game where you just hit the enemy until he/she dies. Here, you have to amass enough brave points before you can do damage to the HP (hit points of the enemy). At the beginning, I thought it is very hard. But after playing, this feature actually 'balances' the power. Hoho.. It is not always the 'stronger' or 'better' player will win. Add the summons and it makes the results of the battles more unguessable. Players must play carefully and strategically since spamming cheap skills repeatedly will not work. The battle can go on forever as the fighters keep transferring their brave points.

Airborne fight.. Yihaa...

Most fighting games pride themselves as "3D". I will call this "4D". The fourth D refers to the aerial battle. It adds more fun and more rooms for manouvers and dodging. It also adds the complexity since opponent has more directions to evade our attacks. I would say that most of the battle is done air-borne and that makes a different with other fighting game.

The difficulty of the game is quite tough. I do not expect much from a fighting game (usually fighting game becomes too boring after you read the AI patterns etc). This is not the case for Dissidia. The AI is too smart (sometimes, I feel that they can read what I do even before I do the attack), the AI behaves like human players (if I play too defensively, the computer can spam their long distance magic), and the computers are too overpowered. Lol.. The leveling (ala RPG) system does not really help since it is the level of the equipment is what really matters. And at the start when players have unlocked few equipments, it just makes the game harder to beat. But after you get nice equipments, things are more even. But just as we think that "hmm i have all the ultimate weapons", the game offer crazy things with enemies with level up to 130. The max level players can have is 100. And somehow, even with the same level 100 equipments, the 30 level difference is significant, only if it is the computer who is 30 levels higher! If player is 30 levels higher than the computer, it makes little difference. This "unfairness" sometimes make the game very irritating! Lol.. Though on the other side, it never gives player the feeling of "completely beaten the game".

While the characters are well-balanced (read below), the summons are not so. Some summons are just too good (eg: Magic Pot is everyone's favourite) while some are just useless (eg: Mog's random effect, I hardly use Iron Giant, Ultima Weapon's is too slow to be activated, etc). However, when I see the AI uses the various summons, every summon is actually pretty good. But some are just good when AI uses them.. when players use them, they are just not so playable. Lol.

Ifrit x1.5 to brave points.
My friend likes him but I hardly use him. Personal preference perhaps.

The different battlegrounds also play a significant role in a match. Some places are good for some characters while some are not. This adds another complexity in a game. For example, Mateus seems to be very weak as his attacks are 'useless' and his strongest magic takes forever to charge. But in his own castle (with many walls and partitions), he can easily glide and hide in between the walls while casting his magic. And once succesful, poof, the enemy cannot evade his big giant meteor. The narrow alleys also provide little space to evade and this helps his trap attacks to thrive. The stage also can be boon or bane like there are suddenly giant thorns appear from the ground or the stage changes shape.



Replayability/Features

20 'main' characters


Gabranth and Shantoto are 'secret' characters

This is my second most important factor to love a game. The fact that I played this for a continuous 120+ days (4 months!!) says it all. Haha.. The game boasts 22 playable characters with distinct fighting styles. Something I didn't expect because in RPG, all characters seem to have same/similar sets of skills rite? Haha.. Unlike other fighting games where a few characters are made very strong and another few are made very weak, each character here has his/her own strong and bad points. Hence, I can play endlessly to try every character, each with different skills and playstyle. Example: I love Squall. He can spam strings of brave attacks but unfortunately he has NO brave -> hp attacks combo. To make things worse, his hp attacks are directional. So the opponents have advantage with more rooms to evade. Thus I can easily collect brave points with Squall, but it is hard for me to hit a hp attack (to kill opponent). In contrast, Terra and Ultimecia are magic users and hence people will think they are quite lousy in this game. They are not weak! It is just their style is defensive attacks. Thus it takes lots of patience to use magic users. But winning is possible. And their attack animations (magic) are much cooler than physical attacks lol..

Squall's brave attacks are brutal.. So many hits in one skill!

It is very cool to play the antagonists too. And it is great that SquareEnix does not neglect them. They get same number of attacks with the protagonists. In fact, some of the antagonists are nicer to play than the good guys. Lol.. I especially love Ultimecia and Cloud of Darkness. It's the skills and not the clothes okay! Though clothes do make a little benefit here LOL. And all characters are given alternate clothes. Too bad that most of it is just different 'colour scheme' instead of a brand new clothes. Tidus, Gabranth, and Shantoto's costumes colour difference is almost unnoticable -__-"

Cloud of Darkness (left) and Ultimecia (right)

The attacks for each characters are different and stay true to their original games. Example: Firion can use 12 kinds of weapons since in FF2, players can customise the characters in any way they like: can equip any magic and any weapon. That's why Firion is mentioned as "master of 12 kinds of weapons". Even more great for the antagonist since in the original games, they don't have that many attacks. For this, specially named skills are made for them!. Ultimecia has a "Time Crush" skill to freeze the enemy. That suits her as she is a time sorceress in FF8. Hoho..

In addition, each character is given a limit break (EX mode in the context of this game). Prior to FF, there is no limit break, so new creations were done. I guess the limit breaks for characters who previously had none is only so-so. The limit breaks of the antagonists 'mirror' those of the protagonist. Perhaps it is to reduce new ideas but it makes the gameplay to execute the limits more identical, which is good in my opinion.

Ultimecia's Limit Break. Similar to Squall's. Just that she had 13 "bullets" at much faster rate. Much harder to execute!
O instead of R1 as the trigger.


Ultimecia vs Squall in EX mode

Thus, each character has their own strengths and weaknesses. Players have to adapt to the different characters and that does not bore me out. However, my main disappointment is with Bartz (FF5). He is assigned to no specific job in the original game and he can do all the jobs available there. Hence in Dissidia, he is a given a "Mime" job. His skills are merely copycats of the rest -___-, albeit with his own flavour. To me, miming is just a sign of "no more ideas". Lol.. Thought his limit shows him wielding the various swords of the other characters! Haha..

Bartz is seen with Squall's Gunblade and Cloud's Buster Sword

Dissidia also has endless features for player to keep on playing: lists of accomplishments to do, lists of items to collect, etc. I complete 100% of item collection but only 96% for accomplishements. I still need to block another 5000 attacks and evade few more hundreds. -__- Kinda tough.. But that will still keep me playing again to complete all the accomplishments and thus getting all the icons. Lol.

Online PVP is a useless feature to me. It is good to play versus with a friend. But the artifact system is just lousy and pointless. This brings me to the equipments. Various equipment sets can have special effects. However, just like summon, some are too good (eg: Diamond set for AP+100%, Snowpetal and Adamant Set for end-game users) while some are too lousy for players to bother to use them (eg: Gold set for more money and money is not so much used in the game). I guess more variety will be better. To make matters worse, while initially each character can only wear specific equipment types, there will be items to learn skills which enable each character to wear their non-default equipment types. These make everyone just wears the same set. Another weakness to me.

Storyline
The story is just bad... poor... pathetic.... A big disappointment for FF series which have always been renowned for impeccable storylines. Dissidia is just a fighting game. And a fighting game never has solid story lines. Lol.. It is just a good vs evil. The good's objective is clear: to defeat the badasses and save the world. But the evil's objective is weird. Each antagonist follows their purpose in their original games (eg: Cloud of Darkness and Ex-Death want to send the world to the Void, Ultimecia wants a time compression, Mateus aims for world dominion, Jecht and Golbez seem to have no purpose and are just there so that at least FF10 and FF4 have representatives) and when they are discussing their plans, it just does not make sense. How can one wants to rule the world while another one who wants to destroy the world work together? If the world is already destroyed, is there a world to be ruled? Lame.. The protagonists' plot is equally bad. What is the point of collecting crystals? And what is the purpose of Cosmos to die and in the secret ending, she is shown to be alive? I am confused. Lol..

Hence, just enjoy the game for the fighting. Don't bother about the story okay! Haha.. Though I wish that they make a story mode for the antagonists too. That would be pretty cool eh?

Music
Not my main concern. I am too consumed with the fights and do not really pay attention to the music. Lol.. 2 songs from each game are featured here. One noticable song is the ending song: a medley of all the theme songs. Cool!

Overall
My biggest complaint is: WHY IS THE ENDING SCENE SO SHORT?? I did nothing at the start of the game and I was treated by almost 6 minutes of action-packed movie. After spending hours and days and weeks of playing, why is the ending only about 2 minutes movie? I wish for something more satisfying for my hardwork to beat the game leh! And the ending is kinda anti-climatic. It is quite sad because everyone has to say goodbye to return to their own worlds. There should be a better ending!!

Overall, I think Dissidia is the best fighting game I have played so far. It is also the best PSP game I have played so far. Lol. I don't even think I played FF8 (my favourite game ever and that explains why I deliberately pick lots of Squall pictures here) as long as Dissidia. This game is the reason why I bought PSP and it justifies the money that I paid for it!

Tidus' Ending Scene


Squall's Ending Scene


Terra's Ending Scene


Cecil's Ending Scene


Final Ending Scene.. Back to Cornelia Castle. The city where Final Fantasy begins ^^

Smile - Seiya no Kiseki

Synopsis:

A former tap-dancer had to forgo his dream due to his leg injury. So he went back to Japan to woo her figure skating girlfriend. His proposal was rejected by the girl's father unless he could coach a school ice-hockey team to win a tournament. The team had zero history of winning and the coach had zero knowledge about ice-hockey. Is he able to lead the team to victory and to get approval from his father-in-law-to-be?

My opinion:
I always expected this to be a sports-genre movie. Thus I was quite surprised when I saw (at the website where I got the movie) that it is listed as family-genre. After watching, I guess the more appropriate genre will be: drama/romance. Haha..

Another wrong perception is that I expected this to be some cliche-sports movies where the coach will use his "tap-dancing" skills and somehow make the kids incorporate this to their sports and make them win.. Again, this is wrong! Lol..

Anyway, the movie has a pretty nice plot. It is kinda genius I think. The main protagonist seems to be the coach but the movie opened in year 2007 with a guy going back to his school to see a lady was ice-skating. This brought back his memories 20 years ago. He turned out to be one of the hockey players for the school. And this leads to the events described in the synopsis.

The team is actually not lousy. They are pretty good, it is just that they have no team work. With the child-psychology that the coach has, he managed to revamp the team to have more self-confidence and team work. Then poof: the team became a champion.

However, sports is not the focus. It is more of the drama.. The guy (who reminisced his past) has a crush on a pretty girl who ice-skates (at the school, the ice-hockey and the ice-skating shared an ice ring). Too bad this boy is just too passive. It is the girl who makes the first move and asks him out for a date! Lol.. Unfortunately and suddenly (normal cliche..), the girl is diagnosed with acute lymphoid leukimia and she is dying. She is giving up.. Thus the ice-hockey cheers her up. They promise to try their best to make a miracle (to win the tournament) and the girl must promise that she will try her best to survive the disease. While the guys make it, the girl does not T_T

Afterthoughts:
I love the match scenes. Haha.. They are intense and fast-paced. Wow.. Really exciting. I am surprised that ice-hockey is quite a rough sports. The players can bump each other into the wall and it is not counted as fault. Lol.. The punishment is even more cute. The players are sent to a small room for a set period of time. They can only watch the match behind a glass window and express their stress there. Lol.. The change of players is also fast and does not disrupt the match. And the best is, they can use any body parts to hit or catch the ball/the disc (whatever the thing is termed in ice hockey). Perhaps, it is good that sports is not the 'focus' of the movie. There is not magical shots being featured. How the team actually wins is due to team work instead of inhumane skills etc lol.. And nope, there is no tap-dancing skills incorporated to the gameplay. In fact, the last winning shot is more due to pure luck, instead of some supernatural shot. Thumbs up.

The change of position of the team members is also too good to be true. Lol. The coached as the goalie to be a forward because "he knows which position goalie hates". He lets the geek to be a goalie and lets a small-sized person to play so that the whole team will protect "these weaklings" and hence play a better team work in defense. I don't know whether it is true in real life sports haha..

The twist is good too. I thought the girl survived (because I thought the girl at the start of the movie is the same girl with disease). Actually they are different girl. Haha.. At the ending, the movie returned to 2007 and the girl told the guy to smile. Haha.. Then suddenly, the guy remembered the movie he watched during his date with his childhood girlfriend. The movie was titled "Smile". And he recalled the line mentioned by the girl in this movie (movie in a movie??! Lol): "I will come back to you someday. And when that time comes, you will know because I will call you with your nickname 'smile'. A nickname I give to a boy whom never smiles". In the flashback, only the first sentence was shown. The rest was 'swallowed' as the girl told the boy about the disease. I thought it was cool that the movie that they watched actually corresponds to the boy's life. Haha.. Great plot.. but I am sure I will miss it if I never rewind (or if I watch it in cinema). And the movie ends happilly with the guy and the girl laughing lol.

Anyway, the movie opened with Jackson's 5 "Little Drummer Boy". I was a bit stunned because I didn't know the movie was set during Xmas time. So I thought "Did I download the correct movie?". Haha.. The song was featured again when the team received a letter from the girl (at that time, she already passed away.. it seems that she wrote the letter much earlier because she believed the guys would win lol) when they were behind the opponent. After that, in their sadness, they started singing the song in the locker room.. Magically, it could be heard by the spectators and they all sang the song. o_0 One of the parents is an aspiring opera singer and I always find it weird to see an Asian sing opera. Lol..

Overall, I enjoy the movie ^o^ I love the good plot twist.. I like the non-cliche storylines (though of course, protagonist's never loses). Great great great.. The gags scenes are also good. One memorable scene was when a girl punched a guy who rejected him, this guy was thrown into the air, out of the ice ring, with his nose bleeding and the blood dripped grossfully in a slow-mo. Lol. Just so lame. Haha.. I am glad I picked a correct movie to watch during my emo CNY :)

I woke up at 6am yesterday because I wanted to run. Hehe.. I was really glad that I succesfully woke up early woohooo... But of course, I never exercised in the end mwahaha... I did not eat properly the day before so I was hungry and a bit giddy. So better don't take risk. Lol.. That aside, I feel that my whole body was too stiff. I tried to do stretching but I could not even bend my body. So give up! Lol.. Surprisingly, I managed to run at night! Haha.. I was lazy because I had a late dinner so tummy was a bit full. But after doing nothing until 10pm, I thought I better run! Lol.. I will never run anymore! Haiz, I rather playing sports. I felt awful. It felt as if my trachea was being sliced open by air. Bah.. I could not even last a distance of 2 bus stops -_- I walked more than I jogged. Haiz.. now I wonder how come last time in sec school and jc I could jog for 3-4 rounds before I started to rest and walk a bit..

Ideally, I should be preparing for my CA, doing my lab reports, and doing another school related activities this holiday. Haiz.. But I am just too lazy.. I am too busy playing my crisis core. Sigh..i Most likely I will only start to procrastinate on Friday onwards.. Sigh..

And anyway tomorrow is Ash Wednesday.. It marks the start of the Lent season.. I guess my penance for this year will be the same as last year.. Maximum 1 hour per day for gaming/being online doing nothing/any other similar thing. Haiz.. Last year, I failed to do that after (cannot remember how many) days.. I hope I can do a full 40 days this time. Sigh.. So do not be alarmed if you don't see me online very often.. at least until Easter haha..

Have a ROARING year ahead!!

I wish you Happy Lunar New Year.
I cannot find a Tiger picture.. so let this cat be a 'tiger' lol..

I am somehow not very excited for this year's Chinese New Year. Firstly, it because my uni 'cheated' me of my holidays by combining the holidays with mid-sem break.. That's like 2 slack days gone.. Secondly, I wanted to go home :( I only had 1 CA.. but oh well, I did not buy tickets from loong time ago. I heard some people could get $50+ which is very cheap.. My food costs for a week surely is more than that so I rather go back.. But oh well, it's too late.

As usual, I went to my aunt's place on the Eve. It is another steamboat.. Boring.. I wanted to have my haircut in the morning but I could not. So many parents brought their kids for haircut. Bleah.. I have no idea what is behind the superstition that should not cut hair during CNY. Anyway I plucked my facial hair.. Plucking is worse than cutting so I guess it's okay to cut on Wednesday. Lol. The only interesting thing about this new year was: my aunt asked me whether I wanted to drink rum.. I felt cheated that she put the rum with coke.. I could only taste the coke.. Bleah.. I thought it was just coke.. so I got a bit tipsy.. Haiz.. got tipsy for nothing..

I got very naughty this time that I did not wish my family happy cny. Haiz.. I am just too lazy. Usually the first thing I do in the morning of the first day is to call my parents and my grandma. This year, I slept at 4am so I woke up at like 11+ on the first day of CNY. Lol.. I tried to call my grandma in the afternoon but nobody picked up the phone. I only managed to call this morning but my grandma was not awake yet. End up talking to my aunt for 45 mins (my IDD!!!! T_T). Lol.. Only later on I managed to speak to her. Haiz.. I feel damn sad cos she told me that suddenly her legs became very painful for her to change positions: eg from lying down to standing or from sitting to standing.. Haiz.. For me, it is like it's her time to go soon.. Haiz.. what to do.. she is already very old.. 90+ close to 100. I guess even doctors cannot do anything, just give analgesic injection to the knees. Haiz.. I hope I can still see her in the coming holidays.. I really got the feel that it will be my last time.. Or perhaps I had no chance of seeing her anymore.. I remembered last time before my grandpa passed away, I somehow had the feeling of it. I hope my intuition would not be right this time.

Anyway I am still pissed with my home over my lost dolls :( I gave no sms or phone calls to them. I even ignore my sister's facebook message. That is also the reason I am appearing offline lately. Haiz.. I just had nothing to say and I am not in the mood to fake that I am happy bla bla bla.. I get angpau or never oso makes no diff because I never see the money. And even if I use the money, the next time I am home, the items I bought previously would be thrown away alr. Bleah..

Talking about angpau, I read in Saturday's newspaper about angpau rate in Singapore, China, and Hongkong. It is shocking that Singaporeans are the most stingy.. $8 on average OMG!! And how much people here earn?? About 2000+ per month. Oh gosh.. Even more shocking to hear that a friend got $4 from her aunt omg omg omg. It is so freaking ridiculous to give a uni student $4! Gosh. At home, I get at least $20 from people one generation older than me (my parents' generation). If it is from married cousins, then it is about $8. But we all earned much less in Indo. Arrrgh.. this place is crazy.. But on the bright side, when I stay here in the future, I don't need to fork so much for CNY hehe.. Oh well, money is not everything. It's the goodwish that counts.. But giving $4 is as good as not giving lor.. Spoil relationship for wat. Haha..

That's all for now. I will post more on how meaningfully I waste my holiday time tomorrow hahaha...

I am pretty saved for pharmacotherapy CA. Hehe.. That does not mean I did well. I say so just because there was no case review question for the essay part. Lol.. Unfortunately, my strings of good luck just ended there. My gem CA results were released and I just got a pathetic 13 marks.. I think (rather, I hope) the total mark for the paper was 25.. I hope it was not 30 T_T.. I counted that there were 21 people lower than me and 19 people with the same marks. So I guess, I still can get an S for it haiiz...

I had another blood donation on Wednesday. The more I have donation, the lousier I feel during the donation. I don't know why I always feel tired, sleepy, giddy even before the donation. Sigh.. it was the 3rd time in the row that the doctor told me that my bp is on the lower side. Thank God I did not have any giddiness. But I downed too much water that I felt very bloated and sick after the donation.. Grr.. I checked with my father and he told me that it is already a familiar trait of having low bp -___- that means last time what the person said when I had my aura photography was right..

Anyway now the Hb test was much cooler. They no longer used the blue solution. Now they used machine. Haha.. unfortunately, the lancet really sucks. It was really painful.. much more than what it used to be. I checked with my friends and they all felt that it was super painful. Ah anyway, during the anaesthetic injection, it somehow felt more painful than usual too. Bah... Perhaps I should take a break of donating blood...

Labs were pretty good this week. For PA, I did a great job hahaha.. My colour separation was damn nice.. Perhaps because I just drew the arcs in one stroke.. That's why when the colours were separated, they came out nicely. This week the suppositories were to be submitted and I am glad that I managed to make 5. Bleah.. the one I expected to fail turned out to be nice while the one I thought gonna be nice turned out to be chipped when I opened the mould. I hope suppository will not come out for test haiz.. I still have not reached to proper "pourable" state though ironically, I reached the "overheated" state already -___-. The data fitting lab on Thursday was quite hilarious. My group's data had 0.999 correlation!! Lol.. For that set, we didn't fake.. The other experiment where we faked did not turn out to be nice! Haha.. I guess that's justify that by being fast, we did not compromise our accuracy ^o^.. The slowpokes just suck.. alr did very slowly yet still get lousy results LOL

I guess that's all for today.. The next time, I will write a CNY-related post hehe...

Project R.I.C.E - Grains of Love

Finally this looong project has come to an end :) I am glad and at the same time I am honestly feel proud of myself and I feel a great sense of fulfillment this time.. not just doing some CIP for some CCA points kind of feeling. Basically, we just collected rice from residents around Bukit Batok and Toh Guan areas and then we repacked them to 5kg packs and we sent them to some beneficiaries. I belong to Operations Sub-comm and my agony started looong time ago since I had to recee the place. I went at least 3 times to the place that I recceed until I got sick of it. Lol. The project itself consists of 2 parts: publicity day (last week) where we informed residents about the project and that we would be collecting the donation during the collection days (this weekend).

During the publicity day, there was a shortage of manpower. And it was super crap that the HR person sent some people to other areas. This is the first time that I heard things like "we have enough volunteers".. I was like wth.. where got such thing as enough volunteers for a voluntary project o_0 My subcomm 'excused' ourselves to check for the truck route for the collection days. Haha.. so I was spared from doing the things I hate: knock doors, talked and getting pissed by pissed Singaporeans. Lol.. That's why at the same time I am very impressed with the volunteers who had to do the above mentioned things.. However, due to the lack of manpower, after the event ended, there were still uncovered blocks.. and guess what: the subcomm had to do it. Omg.. Haha.. I ended up putting the flyers to the mailbox. I thought it was a quick and easy job and I was thoroughly wrong.. It was so mundane and when I saw more than 100 boxes from a block, I felt like fainting already. Lol.. But still, that was much better than going to every floor and putting the flyers at the doorstep. I cleared 3 blocks -___-

Yesterday was the collection day 1. I thought I did the right thing by choosing the slackest job ever: be the guy on the truck. I am extremely wrong. My expectation was: so few people would actually donate so I could just skip few collection points because there was nothing to collect. Reality check: I had to work full time all around the clock. Lol.. The collectors helped to bring the rice from collection point to the truck while I had to arrange them in the truck.. So it was like, if each of them carry 2 bags, I need to carry 2x how many people number of bags. LOL.. Had to make 3 rounds also.. It was crazy.. But oh well, the fact that I worked hard is maybe the reason why I thought this project was great. Haha.. It's precisely because I contributed.. At the end of the first day, we collected about 6000kg of rice.. Since there were 2 trucks doing the collection, I roughly can say that I carried about 3000kg load on that day. Fiuh..

Today was the collection day 2. We covered the smaller area and I was the overall I/C so I went around to check the progress. They ended quite early today and when I went around I didn't see so much rice was collected. I was so stunned when the truck came and the total for the day was ONE FULL TRUCK!! (By the way, in terms of amount, after final counting, we nearly collected the same amount.. though somehow I thought I saw less when I went around lol). I was too shagged after day 1 to help in loading and unloading. Thank goodness there was one very enthu girl and a few of very enthu and energetic guys to help. It was just mad.. By the time we had to distribute them, the truckmen of the day were already too tired. Because of limited number of guys, I had no choice but to do some muscle work again. There were 3 delivery to the last place and I had to do 2 rounds of unloading T_T. We ended damn late and I really pitied the guys who followed us. They should have been dismissed at 6.

Our day 1 collection.
No day 1 + day 2 collection since from this morning, we already distributed "few" packs to other beneficiaries.

As tired as I am, I am extremely impressed with the volunteers effort. Kudos to them for going to every unit, knocked their door, asked for donation, and helped to carry. That was just great, especially to the 11 guys who stayed late with us. Lol.. We were so tired and pissed because we could not go back yet and ended up talking rubbish.. They told me that "walawe" is a rude word o_0.. I wonder what it meant. Haha.. worse I said it when someone passed me the phone when their teacher was calling. Haha... I thought it was so cute about how often they said the F word.. but in front of the teachers, they suddenly became very quiet and be good boys. Lol.. No matter how bratty they can seem to be, they still have the innocent and cute kiddo sides haha..

In fact, I am so furious and disgusted with the 'adults'. The uni and few of the subcomm people behaved disgustingly.. Gosh.. I wonder how on earth they did not have any shame invoked when they saw the secondary school kids worked so hard (and so long) while they just slacked around, read notes, gave black face, and hundreds of other disgusting things that they did.. By the sheer size (and muscle development alone), they should have realised that these kids had to be more tired than us and needed helped. Blah.. apparently "forced volunteers" are even better than "voluntary volunteers cum cca point hunters" and it was really such a shame shown by supposedly well educated students from the top university in the nation..

I am also surprised by the generosity of the residents. To be frank, I always think most people here are kiasu and stingy.. But through this project, I guess most Singaporeans are actually generous as long as they don't donate money. Haha.. funny.. it's so simple/convenient to just donate money but it is like hell doing flag day.. But this one: they actually don't mind to take the effort to go to supermarket to buy the rice, carry it back to their home or carry it to the collection point.. Isn't it more troublesome? Yet they rather do it.. perhaps it is more tangible to donate goods than money.. It is even more heartwarming that some people donated in abundance: someone donated 2 large sack @100kg each and another one sent 510kg or rice.. The amount is just OMG... Even better, there were some people whom after approached about this, told our volunteers to wait since they would buy from the nearest supermarket. There was even this person today, whom upon knowing about this project, went to NTUC to buy and she/he (I don't know) had troubles transporting that we had to send someone to pick the rice. I wonder how much that person gave.. These are really surprising in an individualistic environment here.

One thing that screwed the whole experience was a bitch slut cum teacher from the secondary school. OMG.. she scolded the subcomm because she was very sure that few of us climbed the fence with the students. She was proven to be wrong (it was one of the volunteers) so we felt strongly that instead of accusing us and scolding us, she should tell us nicely so that we could inform our volunteers. To aggravate her stupidity even more, she said idiotic things like "I am sure in you university you also have fences and you are not allowed to climb over". We were like "wtf.. this idiot confirm didn't graduate from our university because ours clearly has no fence whatsoever". Haha.. In the end, the "climb gate" thing became our joke and today, one of us was great! When we were done, another teacher told us "you got to leave now or I will have to lock you" then one of us said jokingly "then we climbed the gate lor". Haha.. The bitch face was so fugly while this teacher just laughed off the joke. She's such a bitch and I will psycho my PD to send the school complaint letter to this bitch lol..

Final count: 2200+ packs of 5kg rice.. That amount to more than 11 TONNES of rice omg.. I am honestly amazed that I managed to carry THOUSANDs of kg of things LOL.. so strong.. though at many point of times, I felt like I just wanted to faint and rest.. Hahaha...

It was another great experience for me :) I hope that is sufficient to redeem myself from skipping church today (simply no time..) and of failing pharmacotherapy on this tuesday.. AAAAAAAh.....

Week 四。。 Week 死。。

This is the toughest week so far.. I had 7 CCA days this week (meaning everyday!) and I had 2 CAs.. Haiz.. Thank God it's a Friday.. I have survived most of the things that happened this week..

On Tuesday, I had (and won) war of the words with the organisers of IFN. Gosh.. after wasting a freaking 4 hours to wait, they still dared to push every wrong things they did to my club. And since I was the one in charge on that night, I would not accept all their accusations. If it was recorded, I am sure that was one ugly fight. My friend told me to calm down but at the back of my mind, I felt like scolding him. How on earth he expected me to calm down when I was super pissed by the organisers incompetence and on top of that, they still dared to push blames to me. It is just not me to lose when I am in the right. I was saved by a phone call and he settled everything. And after so much bullshit, I was pissed furthermore by him. So much for the bullshit "cannot come late already bla bla" when it was him who would surely be late.. What the fuck..

On Wednesday, it was the performance day. It went well I guess, considering how the members this year are much lousier than the previous year. Hoho.. On that day, it was my fellow excos who pissed me off. Omg.. some of them were just very childish.. don't know definition of teamwork etc etc.. Blah.. I literally scolded a few members who still dared to approach me with their stupid questions and requests.. and I was just short of screaming at the few of the stupid excos.

On Thursday, it was another angklung day. It was great that nobody watched the performance as it would be very embarassing. More than half of the players on that day had only 1-2 practices for the songs. I expected lousiness but I certainly did not expect a complete silence at one of the parts.. By the way, it was my very first conducting experience. I got distracted and lost count in the middle of the second song. Haha.. Oh well, inexperienced mah.. I stopped moving (my body.. not my hands) when the second song started to deteriorate and the climax was when I wanted to point and screw them when they stopped playing. Oh gosh.. I stopped moving my hand in the hope that they would shake the note so that the audience thought that the song was getting slower.. but it was futile. Bah.. to make things worse, at the end of it, someone asked me to give feedback. I replied curtly that it was so shitty that they should already know it without asking. And OMG, he/she gave me blackface..

Bad things aside, I shall move to the better things.. like CAs.. LOL... how rare was that? Hahaha.. I was ill prepared for anal test.. But I didn't die too badly because this time the last 2 chapters that I had difficulty in memorising were not really tested. I don't think I would do well but I guess I would not die as badly as I initially thought.. Today's CA was also so-so.. not so hard and not so doable either.. I am just sad that I suddenly realise that I have become so stupid: I already forget the electrons and orbitals counting, I forget how to do A level physics and maths.. Haiz.. going backwards in terms of intelligence I guess..

My weekend will just be wasted for project RICE. I hope it would be a good one.. Sigh.. I don't know how I will be able to mug pharmacotherapy in just one night (Monday!)..

And the weather is just getting hotter and more irritating.. -___-