The Joys of Attending to a Blackboard

Every Monday, it's my turn to clean the blackboard. I've been cleaning blackboards ever since the primary school days all the way up to Form 5 now, all because of my height.

The frigging chalk dust lands on my head, glasses, arms, shoulders and face each and everyime the teacher says "please clean the board!!!" I hate it when it gets into my eyes and stings it. I hate the rough feeling of it in my fingers. I hate having dusting my hands off my trousers and leaving behind these white streaks. There's also this lingering suspicion that my life span might be shorter from inhaling all of these chalk dust.

But anyways, there are good sides to having this duty too I guess. It's the only duty that decreases my chance of getting yelled at by the teachers, since it's usually clean at the end of every period. If the blackboard was a pet, I was scraping up its poop every Monday morning.

Hello??? The year is currently 2005, whiteboards should be in widespread use by now. Though if it were cleaning whiteboards, I might be complaining of the toxic fumes from those markers. Ahhh, nothing's ever perfect.


So, I'm down again with a cold (or flu, I dunno either), and I'm supposed to clean the blackboard again today. I blame it again on my classmate who's usually sick but he seems healthy today. My nose is leaking and dripping frequently and I've watery eyes.

And stumbling upon this article doesn't help the situation at all.

School Concert...

All I can say about last night's school concert was that it was it was very very very interesting, though it could've been better.

Though the tickets said it starts at 7pm, we arrived at 7:20pm (darn taxi) and got into it about 10 minutes later. Good part was that me and my mom got the RM20 seat with RM10 tickets since we were almost late and that Dewan Sri Pinang was crowded and packed like sardines. Talk about a full house. o.O

Right at the beginning, I heard two of Maksim's songs, "Flight of the Bumblebee" and "Exodus", and Gregorian's "So Sad" came in after that. I've the latter song and I'd definitely am gonna get Maksim's CD. "Exodus" is really sweet.

The brass band and Chinese orchestra played quite well, the former playing pieces of "La Bamba", "How High the Moon", "The Stars and Stripes Forever" and "Pirates of the Carribean" while the Chinese orchestra had a fantastic "erhu" and "yang qin" duet, and a full orchestral performance near the end of the concert. The dance troupe did well but they could've practised more with their coordination. Good job nontheless. :)

The drama club's performance impressed most of the audience with their acting and eye-catching props and stage backgroud. They surely live up to their recent acheivements of winning 10 awards in an inter-school competition for the whole Nothern Malaysia. The smoothly and wittily done "Xiang Sheng" act from the duo on stage almost left everyone in stiches. :)

They even had a magician (who was also a fellow student) who preformed tricks in between, while the groups were setting up equipment, chairs and bla bla bla behind the curtains. The whole thing ended before 11pm and me and my mom felt that it was a concert worth watching.

Snapped around 12 or so pics with the camera, but the lighting and suitation wasn't suitable for moblogging. :\ Anyway, I think that a VCD copy of the event should be available after a month.

Haze in Penang?

Is it just me, or has a shroud of haze descended on Penang island?

It was there the morning (or rather close to afternoon) when I woke up. Visibility is only like what, 1 or 2 km only? And it's rather stuffy at the moment.

If the haze is really that serious, I hope school's cancelled for the upcoming week... :P

[Edit]: Here's how it looks like at the moment:

School Concert...

My tickets for tonight's school concert at Dewan Sri Pinang! :P

Stay tuned to this space as I'll be blogging about it soon...

Which Malaysian Blogger Are You?

Congratulations WittySquirrel, you are...

Kenny Sia of kennysia.com

You have it all, or so you think. Big balls, big bird, big everything. Also a big heart and ever-ready big hug to give out to everybody who needs one. But you didn't know this. You're the one who need a hug the most. So hugs to you!

Which Malaysian Blogger Are You?

My comments:
I credit this blog post to teh supreme blogger, Kenny himself... :P

Me? National Service?

Almost everyone in class wanted to know if they were chosen for the third season (gee, that sounds like being in a reality show) of National Service.

Here's how it goes: Your freedom as a teenager gets suspended by the government for three months, and you get random goodies and RM300 (after you serve NS) and the chance to live life the tough way. There's also a proposal for the particpants to receive training for handling M-16 rifles. It's a cool idea for teens who had their dose of first-person shooter (FPS) games, but not a good idea unless Malaysia's actually preparing for war sometime in the future. *Touch wood*

And guess what? Yours truly was... NOT CHOSEN!!! WOO HOO! :D

Excuse the celebration, but I know the pros and cons of NS, I just don't think it's worth it.

Although the list is only expected to be finalised tomorrow, me and most of my classmates found out that they weren't chosen for NS. That's good of course, since accepting the huge number of teenagers born in 1988 might make the government bankrupt. :P

Now to think of it, making a reality TV show about NS trainees does sound like a better idea than having them handle M-16 rifles. It's definitely dangerous if they decide to own one for themselves after having some experiences with it. And as the basic laws of economics says that if there's demand, there's always supply.

Plus, have you seen that friggin thing??? You could poke an eye out with that barrel! xD Just kidding there.

Hmmm... What I wrote in the first sentence of this blog post made me thinking. I really don't mind the TV reality show idea:

- Cameras tag the progress of 10 or 20 trainees in one three-month season, each season located in a different state.
- Elimination from the show, not from NS, can be based on their performance in the show
- Special judges from the Royal Malaysian Army (RMA), Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) or Royal Malaysian Navy (RMN).
- And the winner winning a car or a cash prize around RM10,000 or something like that.

It'll surely help boost the image of NS in lieu of the Malaysian Idol fever, remove the veils covering what's going on in the daily life of an NS trainee, bring more awareness of the activities of NS to the TV-and-reality-show-hungry public, and heck, it could even decrease the cases of problems within trainers, trainees or between trainers and trainees, because of the presence of the cameras there. Win-win idea, am I right?

On the other hand, it's also probably an insane idea, but it's not impossible that it'll really come true one day. :P

LA Times Wiki Shut Down

Oh great.

While I was glancing around Wikinews, an article about the recently launched wiki section of the LA Times was there, I glanced it through but apparently I forgot to check out the wiki. I went there again just now and it turns out that it was shut down for the time being because of some disruptive contrbutors. I friggin never got to see how it looked like, dammit.

Whatever it is, I'm glad that although there were such inappropriate contributions to Wikipedia, at least it usually gets reverted or content removed within the shortest possible time (especially if it's in my watchlist). Free information for the masses, from the masses, and patrolled by the masses.

Ramblings related to the above:
Is it just human behaviour to automagically switch to disruptive mode as a default whenever it's possible? Or are they just lacking in maturity and common sense? Everywhere I see, there are numerous examples of childish, disruptive and destructive behaviour occuring. A few months ago on the National Geographic magazine, an ancient piece of cave art was defaced and vandalised by stupid idiots. All for what? All for what???

It's sure as heck to say that to destroy is a thousand times more easier than creation. Anything and everything good, useful or informative takes effort and blood and sweat in some instances (barring lucky flukes). But then, why is the urge to disrupt and destroy so powerful in these people?

Lust, greed, apathy, sloth, gluttony, vanity, envy, wrath, and these kind of traits are understandable for me (because I was afflicted with it at one time, but that's another story) but I just do not understand the virtues of being destructive when in short, you're just another tiny grain in the universe. A Malay proverb goes something like this "Harimau mati meninggalkan belang, manusia mati meninggalkan nama", it means that when a tiger dies, it leaves behind its stripes in the form of its fur, but when a person dies, he/she only leaves behind his/her name in the form of the person's reputation and acheivements in life. One could spend a lifetime building that reputation and acheivement, but all it takes is a moment to shatter all of it and flush it down the toilet bowl.

Malaysian Bloggers in The Star!

And the Malaysian blogosphere continues to expand its presence after another article on Malaysian bloggers made its way to the front page of The Star's Section Two section.

It's great to see PPS and Peter, Suanie, Kenny and Minishorts having gigantic pics of themselves and their blogs in the article. xD Best article I've seen in a long time! Kudos!

Read all about it at The Star Online. :)

Lethargic...

I can't help but feel lethargic in a weekend where there's school for five straight consecutive days. I'm looking and feeling like a zombie currently, and guess what, I bet I'll even be in a worse shape if I was working six days a week. Perhaps that's one of the reasons I keep finding myself skipping school every once in a while.

From now on, that's no reason not to blog. Thoughts tied up in knots? That's not a reason either (and I can untie real knots relative well). Whatever the reason, I'm not who am I am if I don't blog. I don't have a direction in life if I don't blog. I simply don't function well if I don't even blog.

Now that I think about it, it just takes around 30 minutes to an hour to type a decent blog post. But most of the stuff that I usually do depends on the mood that I have at that moment. And that also means I'm very prone to procrastination, unfinished work and in the end, damage control. It's sorta like do it quick, do it now or it'll never get done unless you're deperate. I don't think I'm a very reliable person, though I'll try my best if I've promised my word to someone. I just simply can't keep honours to myself.

I need to restrategise myself and rearrange my priorities, probably cutting off and sacrificing some things in order to improve myself and my reputation. That's one of the down points of having most of the same classmates as the previous year - almost everyone know how you are already, and it's definitely harder to change other people's impression than it is to change your impression on others. If things really get that bad sometimes, I'd really really really wish to start all over again on a brand new page, but usually it makes no difference in the long run because of what I've done. Besides, how many chances do one gets in a lifetime? Use it all up at once and you're doomed when you're old?

I'm not sure if I just dug my own grave by saying that. Heck, if you don't understand what I'm saying, don't fret, it's understandable. I'm not known to be clear when I don't even have a clear mind. I'll try anyway. :)

InWeDay meetup in Penang

Just a heads up to any other bloggers in Penang who are reading this blog, there is a meetup planned for tomorrow in conjunction with the InWeDay (or International Webloggers Day), at Prangin Mall. So, if you have the time and are able to make it, please attend the meetup. =)

Date: June 14, 2005
Time: 6:30pm
Place: 5th floor food court at Prangin Mall, Penang

Last year I remembered that InWeDay was on June the 6th, and if it was the same date again, it would've been at the school holidays too. So, it's a weekday, and you'll have to do without me, guys. =)

Aik, and that really reminds me, I didn't really blog about the last two meetups a few months ago. Ah nevermind, at least I think I'll just upload a few pics from there.

Link to Lucia's post.

4'33"

In front of an audience, a pianist opens the lid of a piano, a little later without playing any notes, he closes the lid.

The same pianist opens the lid again, sits calmly and looking at his wristwatch, and closes the lid without playing.

And he does it again, for the third time in a row. What is the world is this piece of music called?

4'33"

Apparently, it's a real piece of music, and someone has been sued before for crediting John Cage with his music in a minute of silence.

Absurd? Obviously.

And even weirder, you can listen to 4'33" here.