This Got Grabbed

St Thomas Grafitti

Anybody who's been in St Thomas would have seen this shiny banners plastered all over the place, proclaiming the school's vision and mission. Well, the one in my class was scribbled over with permanent marker, leaving some opinionated guy's conclusions beside the words. They read:

• Uphold and promote the inculcation of religious and spiritual values amongst our students and teachers; -Demerit

• Provide quality education through proper implementation of the national curriculum that develops and emphasizes the critical and creative thinking domain of our students; -Sex-ed

• Promote racial harmony and good health through total participation of our students in co-curriculum and sports activities; -WAJIB

• Provide adequate and modern educational infrastructure that gives our students a better chance to succeed; -Kutip Derma

• Cultivate a standard that promotes mutual respect and good manners amongst fellow students and teachers; -Sleepover

• Work towards enhancing job satisfaction amongst all staff thereby generating maximum commitment and productivity. -Free food, beer and teh tarik

I made up some of the English ones. But you gotta admit. The guy has nerve.

I Missed Another Darned Session

Let's see. As of today, i have missed roughly one and a half months worth of Judo.

I am desperately in need of an arm to break, and a body to throw.

Garrick attends more than me, embarassing me greatly since i pride myself in reliability.

And, owing to him showing off to another (unfortunately Taekwando, and good at it) student, i am itching even more.

Well, what happened was that Garr challenged the guy, and then (due to the fact that ego was in the air, or perhaps of the lack of that fact) he accepted. The next second i witness my first toned downed Taekwando kick - a spin and a sharp jab - something called the backthrust.

Garrick caught it with his hands.

I couldn't believe my eyes. Then realised that this was the Garrick that had joined scored of clubs, quit most of them, and then rejoined some, only to quit again. Two of those clubs were Taekwando and Wushu, before he hopped (quite happily, i must add) to Judo.

Garrick struggled to sweep kick. But within a few seconds (with me stupidly standing there, almost looking for a box of popcorn) we both realized that they (Garr and TKD boy) were on stones, and there was a big, solid, white slab of concrete just nearby. A sweep kick would be dangerous, either causing immense pain or instant death. If a lawyer was there he'd probably have already taken out a pen and pencil, waiting for the accident to happen.

Garrick let go of the leg. Smart boy. We laughed it off, and then the boy demonstrated some more TKD moves for me (as i've never been to a kicking demo before). But, thinking about it now and i remind myself the strange fact that the boy, who had so readily kicked, could not use any of his moves when Garrick entered the throw. Not surprised, me. Most of our throws are kissing distance - not very demonstratable.

And our pins and arm locks? They look like positions out of the Karma Sutra.

Euch.

PS: I'm missing another sparring session tonight, as i have to make over to my Granmother's house for dinner. I am very annoyed. Very.

PPS: Tang learned kamikata (the ability to off-balance an opponent without entering a specific throw) and Desmond got cut on every single one of his fingers during a match with an adult age yellow belter. And me? I'm jealous. Tsk, tsk.

A Few Frens Would Like This

Taken from Postsecret

Hilarious?

Kenny is damn funny. Perhaps the Nilam stress (passing up a reading list without writing anything, thus saying that he didn't read anything) just went weird with him. I turned from my homework to find him leaning on my table.

"Give me an author's name. Quick!"

I stared at him, then at the Nilam list on his table (just for the record, St Thom renamed it to The Reading Lamp) and then at his face. Then i realised he was creating a book that he read.

"Err." I said, brain suddenly filled with glue.

"C'mon!"

"Eli James!" I snapped, then realised the stupidity of it. Kenny knew as well as i did that Eli was my online alias. He stared at me, eyes narrowed. Then sighed, and wrote down:

Dr Eli James

The book was something on communication, what an aspiring lawyer needs to read. Wow. Now i'm an author.

Interesting things

I'm blogging about 4 particular events that happened over the past two days - Friday and Saturday. It is interesting that while they say life isn't a bed of roses, the few jolts of either shock or happiness (do you even call that jolts?) are what makes life a damned rollercoaster ride.

So, first thing was on Friday. Made it to school early, with both my blazer and on time (i had collected a total of 35 demerit earlier in the week), and after signing-in i made my way to class. Boring, normal. Homework was mostly completed, and i was surprised to find Kevin copying Kimia like mad.

I sat down opposite him, in full prefect attire. He looked up, and still copying the structure of alkanes, said:

"We were just joking around the other day - "

"Yes?"

"Are you and Sam together?"

Now, when you get slammed in the face by a truckload of bricks, you usually just freeze up and die. This was the conversation equivalent of the truckload of bricks, but, with one difference - i knew who started gossiping anyway. I told him that that guy was more interested in Sam then i was, and inside knew it was his way of probing to find out if Sam was single.

-_-"

At any rate, i left, feeling utterly bewildered, and cut through a student-made path at the back of the science labs, one that i had been using since the second week of form 1 to either escape prefects or to get a decent run. Now that i was a prefect and the place where my duty was - the boring store A - was nearby, it was not only fun - it was neccessary. I reached there, opened the door and waited. Only one class came everyday, U6S1, and they were usually not as early as i was.

Chin Kai came over and we did a run-through of all the cars in the carpark, checking to see which one didn't have any thomian parking stickers. We came over a brown Proton, one with windows completely drawn down.

"Hoi!" CK said, shaking his head. "How can you park a car like this? Not safe wor! I can just jump in, start the engine, drive off ..."

"You don't have the keys, how do you -"

"Just use the initiator wire beneath the steering wheel. Very easy i tell you, arr!"

A few minutes later, after U6S1 came and started sweeping, CK returned with the driver and i, walked over to ask him why.

"You don't find it smelly meh?" He said.

"Nope." I told him.

"My dad vomited in the car. Got drunk and slept there last night."

Wow. That sure shut me up. I walked back to the store, realising most of us are lucky to have a stable family. It made me almost as melancholic as Kenny Voon.

*

The first thing i noticed the next day was the Borneo Post lying around in the living room. I was rushing to school, looking for my blazer and not wanting to be late again. Then my mom told me the Sarawak Tribune was suspended indefinetely, because of some daft cartoons that were published there, and resized so much the turbans were the size your pinky. Quartered.

It was super small, super blur, and super controversial. My eyes were probably glued to the top of my head, with all the eye rolling i had to do while reading articles on the hoo-hah about the entire fiasco. There were people overreacting, people defending the freedom of press (which i think is over-rated) and people killing just because of a few pen strokes. The quote that perhaps hits me as the most logical was Indonesia's president, saying, 'Your heart may be on fire, but keep you heads cool.'

Reached school, did tugas, ran errands, asked the Form 4s how their debate meeting was. They told me they were all pulverised and resting in pieces following Pn. Orlnda's arguments. Biasalah. She's so good the only person who could hold his own against her was Aaron. The rest of us just had an eye-opening experience. Can't wait for the Form 5 debate meeting.

At the end of the day, our form teacher gave us a runthrough of the awards we were supposed to be aiming for, since we were in Form 5 and all. Looked through it, wasn't impressed. Kenny and Aidan were probably the only serious candidates, but i just thought back to the quote for February that i'm going to put up now:

School is just a preliminary to the main event - what i do after college. -Donald Trump.

Think about that.

Enjoying Myself

No, that is not hedonistic.

Let me make myself clear. Form 4 was horrible. I played really hard, and in the end all those jokes and self deprecating comments left me cringing when i think back on it. My school work suffered and all those people out there in tuition or in social functions that say homework is a waste of time, shut the hell up.

Form 4 was a time of adjustment, a time of change and a crazy rollercoaster ride at that. Stupid teachers, stupid world, getting thrown and throwing was uber relaxing for me, which in itself is warped and does not make any sense.

Form 5 is better.

There are, however, a few scars to rub out. For one, i'm notorious as a lazy bugger who has the brains to do anything he wishes, but doesn't complete homework. My Physics tuition teacher picks on me as the 'stupidest' guy in class; my Bio teacher marks me as the one that never finishes his homework, and my Add Maths teacher was shocked to find that i had actually completed a 17 question exercise, for probably the first time in her class.

No way, you say. Me? The holy-on-the-outside judoka/geek/debater/boy? Uhhuh. What can i say? I once was the guy who went to the principal's office on a weekly basis in primary school. What's so hard to believe?

Form 5 is now something of a breather. I never realised UGS could end up strenghtening ties amongst people. I found out how much of a gaming guru Ling is. I met two very opinionated, intelligent and sharp girls - Wen Qi and Sam. I almost liked Tay as a person again. And Kenny? I can tell he almost can't believe this happened too.

But i better not talk too long. The distant siren call of the forum is haunting me, and since most of us would be busy with the SPM, here's to hoping that it wouldn't die out. Fizzle.

Cheers.

After a Long Time

I took a look at my own blog, and realized that after i changed the theme i hadn't been updating much. Even with Wandkey and Sam breathing down my back in the UndergroundSquare forums, I just couldn't find the time to update, and to give my blog a nice, shiny overhaul that would require me to edit images (BAH-boring!).

Okay, okay, i didn't find the time to do it. Not couldn't. Didn't. Does that make sense?

Anyway, its the Chinese New Year, and i'm doing it differently by not opening any of the angpows that come my way. I've visited a couple of houses (okay, understatement, but still a couple if you compare me with some of my friends ...) and the pile keeps growing and growing in my drawer. My sisters, however, rip the angpows apart once they get in the car.

Probably the most memorable house (for many, many reasons) would be Sam's. It was the 2nd UGS gathering, so of course, posterity wise it would definitely go down in memory. There was the PS2, lots of friends, pillow fights and bouncing.

Wow, backtrack there.

Pillow fights!?

Yep. I threw one at Sam, she threw it back. Then, i don't recall how, (or even if i actually started it) but Kenny started innocently lobbing pillows at me, Sam began a full blown fight with Tay, and Cheryl (i think i got that name rite - Sam's little sis) put neckrests on Lings head, making him look like some freaky, overgrown, headed-for-Australia baby.

Day 3

The gathering aside, (i won't bother to blog about the first one, since Wandkey, Sam and Kenny (who was in uber melancholy mode) already did) there was that visit to Kok Wee's house. It was crowded! A lot of old classmates from Chung Hwa No 1 were there, as were a few Kch High people i knew in passing. A whole damn lot of girls that refused to eat (diet, ke?) and i thought i spotted Kenny's ex-gf in another room with her friends, but was too engrossed in the Fort Minor Kok Wee had in his com to care.

After that, i went to Garrick's house, where we spent a couple of hours quietly playing various games, and me turning up the volume on my newly loaded Believe Me (Mike Shinoda, Fort Minor, courtesy of Kok Wee =D). And then, after being terrorized (read:flirted) by a girl that i had no interest in (ugh!), i went back.

Day 4
Today all i did was to visit in the morning, and then come back home to do homework. I probably don't have to tell you this, but i'm including day 4 because today is the day i upgrade Wordpress for the Thomian Online site. Historic? Hmmph. Probably just headache causing.

Eli out.