Exciting days ahead...

I just founded out that the school's annual essay writing competition is going to be held next Tuesday, which is on 20th April...

Wish me luck... :)

After some ranting, life seems to be brighter after I scored a 37 out of 50 in the English oral exams, and my accountings teacher had smiled at me when I walked up to her and passed up my homework... God, I think this is the first time a teacher who I hadn't know well had smiled at me! Wow...

Even better news now, I passed by the school's chess club's notice board and saw that they had a new list of committee members for the year 2004 even before I knew about it! I also noticed that I was promoted from assistant secreatary to assistant chairman... w00t! Despite all of that power, I dread the responsibilities attatched... I mean, after all of that touble I had to go to when I was just an assistant secretary, assistant chairman is going to get even worse... *gulps*

Ding Dong, the bitch is dead...

Well, not exactly dead... just left the chess club...

I just couldn't stand her telling me to arrive at this time and that time sharp... It's one of my pet peeves, people forcing me to do what I dislike... What I prefer is to let myself decide on things and if it doesn't come out right, I'll just blame myself. Sounds fair, right?

Another thing which I hate is the inability to be flexible... Dude, if you make the rule, you can break the rule. There's no disadvantage in being flexible, unless you have a strict routine and can be expected to go nuts at the first sign of disorder... And she does a sloppy work marking our exercise book, I bet she did it with both eyes closed... I mean, my graph was in an "n" shape but it should've been a "u" shape but I was not given time to correct it since she said that once she leaves the door, the book would be counted as being passed late and one mark out of the twenty available in our kerja kursus (coursework) marks are deducted... Take your strict routine and stuff it, asshole.

Wondering...

...if I should create a week by week internet journal...

What the heck, I'll do it!

Things heat up... Phew... Is it hot in here or is it just me?

Things have gone wrong for some of the people in the communities, one being Bookcrossing and the other being the Lofty-Bearing one... Damn it, can't we just get along? Suspicions were being aroused about the motives of the free book being offered by the Bookcrossing site, which is Wild Animus... Honestly, I don't see anything wrong with it... the only people who stirred up the controversy were just 3 particularly loud people, with them being unable to leave it aside and bashing the book and the author and even the publisher! I just don't understand... And this suggestion about "bookburning" and "virtual bookburning"??? When I saw the thread, I keep noticing that the ones on the anti-book side missing the pro-book side and vice-versa... WTF? Good thing there was Ron (screenname Reno), who was the founder of the site, stepped in to cool down the heated atmosphere... He said he was disappointed with the people there, I can understand him...

People are hard to understand... :|

See Black-Panther's blog for the other issue...

Tribute to a dedicated and wonderful teacher...

I had tried to type this out a few days ago but it stalled and I was unable to finish it... So here is it again...

(Please forgive me if there's anything that doesn't seem right... my memory's currently a bit rusty...)

Some of you may have read from some of the local dalies about a teacher from Penang who was murdered recently... He was Mr. Pong and I certainly can say that he's one heck of a teacher and I'll never forget him...



I first met Mr. Pong when I was studying in class Form 2A (during 2002), which was the only Form 2 class in the morning session at that time... He usually wore branded clothes and because of that had an air of elegance around him... The most noticably was the smell of his cologne... He had that same cologne for the whole year... Everytime I caught a whiff of it reminded me that he was somewhere near me and possibly looking over my shoulder...

He would always tell us to bring a dictionary to class during each and every session of his English class... I tried bending the rules and brought a tiny thesaurus instead... hehe... And when someone forgot to do it, he'd order the student to copy "I must bring my dictionary to school every day" 100 times on a piece of paper... He'd then jot down the name of the student and the class that the student studies in a Reader's Digest organiser... It was the same routine for almost every punishment, whether it was forgetting to bring homework or not completing a homework, it was always 100 lines... He'd always counted the number of words and tried to make the sentence longer for the punishment...

Despite him being strict, he also encouraged us to strive ahead in learning English... He said that English wasn't a hard subject and if we'd put some effort in learning it, we couldn't fail... Every lesson was a fun for the class, well, actually it depends on his mood, which is usually good... hehe... He broke away from the normal teaching technique and implemented some of his own original ideas just so brighten up the class and make English easier to learn...

During some of our chats, I talked to him about Reader's Digest and books... Sadly, I never asked him about his cologne and I'm not so sure if I got another chance to get a whiff of it again... Some of my friends who have been in his class have said that his cologne is waaaay too "heavy"... I don't think so... it's another good way to keep some of the drowsy-during-morning students in class alert with some strong scents I say... He said that he bought a stack of novels for the school holidays but was unable to finish it... He aslo asked me about some of the author's books that I read, but I don't remember asking him about his choice... or was it just me...?

In class, he always accused the snotty-looking Lee Way-Joe (who is another student good in English) in the same class of acting "L-C-L-Y" or "Lan See Lan Yong" which is in Cantonese for being an "act-shot"... (I've heard that this student had moved to the US) When he entered class, he said once that this student didn't stand up when greeting... He was pissed because he was a stickler for good manners... hehe... After one of his rantings at class one time, he said this: "I am what I am, and you cannot change me..." And we never tried to make him pissed off anymore... except for the same student at the back of the class...

After the school's annual English composition at the Secondary 2 levels competition results had announced, he took a look at my paper and said that I deserved to get the first place instead of the "L-C-L-Y" kid... He said he don't know why would the other judges think otherwise... You know, when I was in class for the whole year, I honestly can say that he had raised the bar for the whole class in English... When he instrusted us to write essays, it wasn't about some children's bedtime stories, but instead it was on topics on current issues, like about road safety and how we should minimise accidents and stuff like that... It was a refreshing change since I was free in writing anything under the sun,and because of it, he'd give me higher marks than the rest of the class... I was thrilled when he gave a good comment to the class since I know that you couldn't force him to do or say anything he doesn't want to do or say...

During the whole 2002 under his wings, my English language skills had improved tremendously... I had deeply regretted for not trying my best to enter the top 3 classes in Form 3 and couldn't get to be in his class for 2003... But nevertheless, I had attended his tuition classes to boost my English and it has certainly paid off well...

I last saw him a few weeks ago... I think it was the week after the exams had ended... He was tutoring English to a group of students and I waved and called our "Sir!". He smiled back.

On April 7th, one day after his passing away was announced in The Star, there was one minute of silence during assembly in his honour.

Rest in peace, Mr. Pong.

[Edit on 17 June 2004: Republished this post just to ping on PPS...]

Commercials!

This weeks theme is cars! I dredged up some of the more interesting ads from the advertorial site www.visit4info.com/. Enjoy! ^_^

Chevorlet
Ford Sportka
Honda
Fiat
Volkswagen (Now who wants a hug?)
Toyota Celica
Toyota Tacoma Double Cab
Renault Kangoo
Mercedes S Class
Pirelli tyres
Peugeot

Crappiest. Day. Ever.

Uhh... As I'm typing this post at about 11pm, The last 7 hours in this day sucked.

Sigh...

Earlier in tha day, my pet flowerhorn fish jumped out of the bucket while I was cleaning the tank... Due to him flapping around on the floor, he had bled some blood (he's about 6 inches long and pretty big for a pet fish)... Partly in shock, since it's the first time he ever leaped out of anything since the time I bought him from the pet shop, and in concern, I had to wait until he stopped flipping and then only I could place him back into the tub... He bled a bit more in the tub but eventually the bleeding stopped in a short while and he was back to his normal aggresive and bubbly self...

Later, I went out with my mom to hunt for this book: http://bookcrossing.com/hunt/30/361/31958/171990

Total failure. We got into a taxi and searched the street... whoa... Lebuh Chulia was a darn long street and the place seemed to have an invisible shield around it... We got down at the end of the street and since we didn't want to waste the taxi fare, we went to the Chinese temple there to pray for health and luck... It was 6pm when we reached there and it started to rain! WTF? We had to wait 25 minutes until the rain became lighter... At 7pm, we walked back to Lebuh Chulia in the rain and then it dawned on me, I had lost my house keys! Oh my God... T_T Just at that moment, a man driving a trishaw and my mom called out for him... we made a big circle just to retrieve my keys at the temple since my mom was terrified of my safety if I had gone off alone... The rain beated heavily on the canvas of the trishaw and the wind blew hard and cold... To my surprise, the keys wasn't there and we had decided to go to Komtar, where the bus and taxi terminal was located... The trishaw took us to a junction and he went "uh uh uh uuuh"... He... was... a... mute... -_-;; and he had no idea where we wanted to go... My mom signaled to pull the trishaw beside Lebuh Chulia and since she took pity on him, she paid him RM10 for him effort... I had no objections about her decision though... We scouted the whole street and we couldn't find it!!! Arngh!!! The sky soon turned dark and we rested in a coffee shop for a short while and headed to Komtar... You know, from Lebuh Chulia to Komtar, we had walked over 2 kilometres to get there! And in the rain! Sigh... I knew I shouldn't have gone out today...