o_O

-gone to Beijing-

Oooh. Party!

-update in progress-

In the meantime, check out the photo gallery here.

Oh. My. Gawd. What are they doing?!


The birthday boy!


Cake. Cake. CAKE.

Birthday girl! Sweet Sixteen, CYong!

Erm.. another birthday girl? xD

Line up... and mug shots, everyone!

Why is he standing there carrying a little kid? o_O

 

Guess who this is!

DEAD SPACE

My obsession with Dead Space continues to a fever pitch. Behold my drawing of the Dead Space game cover using Pastels, Colour Pencils and Sandpaper!

I've even recorded myself playing Dead Space. A lovely example can be seen on the right or here. It would have been HD if Youtube was using Flash 8 software. Oh well.

In the meantime, I've updated my Youtube Channel page with more videos.

Game On!

Now that we are approaching the end of the year, many blockbuster games are making their way to the stores, both original and pirated. Some of the game of the year contenders are:

• C&C: Red Alert 3
• Far Cry 2
• Dead Space
• Quantum of Solace
• Call of Duty 5: World at War
• Fallout 3
• Crysis Warhead
• Spore
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky
• Left for Dead

Out of these 10 games, I have not yet played Far Cry 2, Call of Duty 5: World at War and Left for Dead. For the other 7 games however, I personally recommend all of them except for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky, which is really a dreadful game.

From Downloads

For those who remember and liked C&C: Red Alert 2 and Yuri's Revenge, Red Alert 3 will definitely be a fine choice. For the record, I think that this game is both stupid yet awesome at the same time, which is what made Red Alert 2 such a perfect RTS (Real Time Strategy) game. A must play, this is.

From Downloads

Dead Space, on the other hand, is definitely not for the weak of heart. It is a survival-horror-on-a-space-ship game, way more fun than the Resident Evil series and one of my favourite games. The interface and gameplay is just plain gorgeous.

Must play games. Go get them!

Quantum of Solace

The examinations have almost come to an end, and I believe most of us have already plans of their own. Some of the first few things to do, of course, is to enjoy the new James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace.

Pure Bond.

Due to my parents' restrictions, however, I can only sate my wants with the Mythbusters Bond Special showing on Discovery Channel tonight at 10pm. I dislike watching television shows, with a few exceptions, one of them being Mythbusters. Knowledge and explosions, all in one series! Awesome.

A Tide of Change

The election of Barrack Obama as the first black president represents one of the many changes to come not only for the citizens of the United States of America, but also for the people of the whole world. Whether this may be better or for the worse, that remains to be seen.

This can be reflected by the change in the examination schedule of Chung Ling High School. Due to technical errors occuring before and during the Chinese Paper 2, we Form 4 students have to retake the paper on the 7th of November 2008, which is just the day after tommorow. 

By 'technical error', I meant the leaking of the paper and cheating, of course. It seems that most of the Form 4 students have some how laid their hands on exact copies of the comprehension articles in the Ancient Chinese Literature section. How these copies emerged I do not know, but it shows just how resourceful or desperate we are. As a result, that particular section of the paper has proven to be a breeze for most of us. Only those hardcore role students do not care about these leaks as they are truly well prepared. As such, everybody is happy.

Woefully, according to some anonymous sources, the stupid actions of a particular class of students have resulted in the decision for us to retake the test. To the aforementioned people, I'd like to say, "Screw you all."

On a side note, I would like to refer to this particular post:

Moral Integrity vs Harsh Reality

Think about this for a moment. Would you rather have a clean conscience but end up being cast aside to the bottom of the food chain? Or would you accomplish your goals no matter what the moral cost is?

This is one of the side effects of the implementation of a harsh system where only achievements are counted.

This is a dilemma I have only faced recently. That is, since Form 4. Before Form 4, I was pretty much a follow-the-rules student, where morality was always a first for me. Nowadays the current state of the school and even society and country has led me to think more regarding this matter.

As always, I regard morality as one of the few things that makes us human. Religions especially encourage us to do everything morally. I may be an agnostic, due to personal reasons, but I believe in morality. Therefore I try not to cheat in order to gain an advantage over others. This is actually something I can implement in real life especially exams due to the fact that I am already doing well in my exams. I have felt disappointed, because most of my friends had in fact cheated. They do not study as hard as I do, but their results are not far from mine. This is why I enjoy subjects such as Mathematics and Additional Mathematics, where cheating will not be much of a help. However, for this examination, the standard of the Additional Mathematics Paper is ridiculously easy and quickly finished, thus allowing some students to use this to their advantage by cheating.

Remember kids, cheating is never good. You may do well in a short term, but on the long run, you yourself will be the one left behind.

Graduation Ceremony

Yesterday was the combined Graduation Ceremony of the Form 5 and Upper 6 students of Chung Ling High School and Chung Ling Private High School. Suprisingly, I had to participate in it too, and ended up being the only non-graduate student participating in the hall. Technical staff are not counted, hah!

Everyone had to gather in the hall at 8:30am, but the VIP guests just stroll in at around 10! Arghh. I bloody hate those people. Then came the speeches, which was somewhat annoying. The CLPHS spoke right after our headmaster I felt that the CLPHS headmaster was trying to show off his school's achievements even though they pale in comparison with our school's achievements. His speech was more than 20 minutes long, just imagine the sheer horror of it. Gah!

All in all, I had to endure roughly 4 hours of grueling boredom just to get a stupid pen in recognition of my getting the PMR Excellent Candidate Award end of last year (I have to admit, the pen is quite nice though XD).  And congratulations to Hobart Lim for getting the Best Graduate Award! 

In the end, Mr. Lye and Mr. Yeap actually praised everyone for performing so well doing the entire ceremony. Now that is suprising.