SPM English Practice.

If you're happy and you know it,
Clap your hands.
*clap**clap*

That's it right there - the anthem of dictatorship.

The domineering (and usually older) men and women trying to assert their elevated positions over little, innocent, ignorant kids.

Forcing them to be happy, or lie trying.

Think of it, what if li'l Ted didn't feel happy that day?

Not clapping his hands would mean stares from the other kids (peer pressure). His 'loving' teacher would then 'encourage' him to clap his hands because and simply because it's an action song.

But no, Ted is not happy. If he claps, he'd be lying.

Ted is not happy. If he claps, his right of being unhappy would be wrenched away from him.

If. There is a choice in the song: to be happy and to clap, or to do the opposite. But no, the all-powerful teacher-dictator refuses to acknowledge that fact. The teacher says,"Clap." Clap no matter what.

Everyone has a right to be unhappy. Doesn't Ted?

If you're happy and you know it,
And you really want to show it,
If you're happy and you know it,
Clap your hands.

a complaint.

before:


after:


..want that grainy effect? try facebook. xP

"Ku tetap cinta Yesus selamanya"

What's it mean to love God?
Like really, truly.

Times like this when you don't dare to sing and it has nothing to do with being out of tune.

...

ON ANOTHER NOTE, triangles are your friends. =D

one day, i will..

..go to Florence and visit the buildings i got Ezio to climb up.


(most people who would read this won't get it.)

greenandyellow

I just realised that the title has 'andy' in it. wooooooo.

Food-wise, Raya rocks.

1. bazar ramadhan. need i say more?

2. THE CANTEEN'S SO EMPTY =O

3. oh and a good good friend comes bearing gifts:

cookies! (just in case you're wondering, the black mass at the background is good chocolate stuff)

4. and lastly, TWO open houses tmr. double the joy :D:D rendang here i come.

a little bit of tmi..

My fart smells especially stinky tonight.

hmm. i wonder why...

xP

For all is vanity and chasing after the wind.

Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is man's all.

the ideal cowboy film.

If I were to produce one of those Wildx2 West cowboy films, it would..

..be set in Wyoming.

..have a boy riding a cow as the lead. I mean why call a scruffy horse-riding man a cowboy? More like 'horseman' or something. Anyways, a brown cow, so I could fit in a line that goes "How now, brown cow?". And yes, stirrups, bridle, saddle and all.

..oh, yes, spurs. Big, round, spiky, flashy.

..have NO FUR CHAPS.

..definitely not forget a red bandana round the neck.

..not have any guns. Bows and arrows are much cooler. (Look, the interpretation of 'cowboy' is already unorthodox..) Lassos are fine though.

..sport good ol' hats.

..have Orlando Bloom in it. Okay, maybe a picture/poster of him. Hanging on a wall.

..have a tumbleweed as the cowboy's sidekick. (Because I think tumbleweeds have been so degraded by their ultra-mediocre, unfascinating roles as heralds of idleness.)

..not have a good storyline. (Unless I hire a professional scriptwriter.)


Tickets, anyone?

comrades over medals.

win or otherwise, it will be an honour to play with y'all, BJ Bahaya. for the last time.

sixdayssixdayssixdayssixdays

What's beauty but a word? And you cut flesh for a word? Cut the dictionary instead.


i'll get twitter only when i'm famous. provided it's still relevant then.

CYW

THANK GOD.

chuching, great job handling everything and dealing with all that stress=)

eric, thanks for getting all the stuff we needed.

every single one of you, thanks for coming.

fits make you fit. well kinda, in a twisted way..

For Those Who Wait - Fireflight is gooooooood. (the song AND the album)
I dreamt once that they came to penang.

Assassin's Creed 2 is waiting for me, and it will be great, i can feel it. (the PC version btw, not some lame handphone one. hahaha.)

Lord of the Rings: Return of the King is my favourite movie ever..

Mighty Minds. this is one longgggg week.

Secret Recipe's white dark chocolate cheesecake is.. freaking nice. you can buy a slice for me if you want.

Floorball in the rain, and at night!

This is a quality-over-quantity post. xP

Joe McNally is totally... wow. I'MAFAN. http://www.joemcnally.com/blog

⁴ “ They do not direct their deeds
Toward turning to their God,
For the spirit of harlotry is in their midst,
And they do not know the LORD.
⁵ The pride of Israel testifies to his face;
Therefore Israel and Ephraim stumble in their iniquity;
Judah also stumbles with them.
⁶ “ With their flocks and herds
They shall go to seek the LORD,
But they will not find Him;
He has withdrawn Himself from them.
(Hosea 5:4-6, New King James Version)

Harlotry = spiritual adultery.

His wrath at that moment was so severe that even when they seek Him, they will not find Him.
That He would even withdraw Himself from them.
He left them.

Not committing harlotry would mean that the ONLY focus in our lives is Him.

Well yes, God's mercy is abundant and He IS love.
But remember: God works based on His terms, not ours.

And when you think about it.. thank God He's the One setting the terms and conditions.

What they tell you:

Janissari ialah kumpulan tentera infantri elit dalam sistem ketenteraan kerajaan Uthmaniyah. Kumpulan kanak-kanak yang diambil melalui sistem devshirme tidak semua akan menjadi pentadbir. Sebahagian daripada kumpulan tersebut akan diserapkan ke dalam sistem ketenteraan Uthmaniyah. Sebelum diserapkan ke dalam kumpulan Janissari, kanak-kanak tersebut akan diberi latihan fizikal dan ketenteraan terutamanya selok-belok dan taktik serta teknik peperangan.

- KBSM Sejarah Tingkatan 4, Buku Teks

What they do not tell you:

Devshirme was the practice by which the Ottoman Empire (kerajaan Uthmaniyah to you and me) conscripted (compelled to military service) boys from Christian families, who were taken from their families by force, converted to Islam, trained and enrolled in one of four imperial institutions: the Palace, the Scribes, the Religious and the Military. The devshirme system humiliated non-Muslim societies controlled by the Ottomans and was resisted.

- Wikipedia

no more stay-up-till-4a.m. marathons =/


BUT BUT BUT now there's:

thisssssss!
to be started after next week:)

ujian kemajuan 2 = goneee.
it's just UK2 right?

house of hope kids are awesome.

ennui

The Yellow Pages used to carry an entry under Boring, "See civil engineers", but this was changed in 1996 to "See sites exploration".

haha.

I'm wondering why the phrase is called bored stiff.

Why stiff of all words? Not like bored ppl very stiff also.

Boredom makes you restless lah.

But.. ahhhh.. stiff??

Oh, look at me, i'm bored, and i'm sitting like a statue: stiff.

Boredom does not have paralytic properties!

It agitates. It makes you want to do something.

It doesn't make you stiff.


yes i'm bored (but not stiff!)

the World Cup to me..

..is about how FOUR YEARS have already passed! =O

It's like a measure of time, and you imagine, wow, during the next World Cup, I'll be __ years' old; wonder what I'd be doing then.......


about football? no not really. haha.

I have found..

..that i like writing untitled posts.

Because it's just so discriminatory that a bunch of words should be more highly accentuated and highlighted than the rest of the words.

Because the rest of the words is what holds up the pretentious clump of upsized words in the first place.

Because i'm in a writing mood but i've got nothing to write about.

Bill Watterson is a genius. really really.

he's still alive btw.

and Calvin and Hobbes was born in (of all years) 1985. hahah.

Brilliant stuff.

stained glass masquerade

Is there anyone who's been there
are there any hands to raise?
Am I the only one who's traded
the altar for a stage?

The performance is convincing
and we know every line by heart.
Only when no one is watching
can we really fall apart.

Are we happy plastic people
under shiny plastic steeples?
With walls to hide our weakness
and smiles to hide our pain.
But if the invitation's open
to every heart that has been broken,
maybe then we close the curtain
on our stained glass masquerade.

When the things one thinks one needs doesn't meet one's needs.

That's why we need to get out of the four walls.


hello exam.

"It's not so much about us having tonnes of faith.. but I think it's more about how powerful God is." - Jon Micah Sumrall

Where do you find your security?


Friends, popularity, achievements, authority, money..


..God?

Did you know that..

..the Bible does not say anything about us having to be accountable to one another?

Accountable to God, yes.

But not to one another. Nothing about accountability partners or an accountability group.

Just about being accountable to Him.

Sometimes you kinda feel pitiful towards the guy who only got one talent. Seeing his co-workers get 10 and 5 respectively, must not have been easy. He would've been thinking of how low the master's trust in him is (whether that thought is valid or not idk but still), that he only received one measly talent.

Easy for the persons who got more to multiply their talents ma. It's like if you get 10 seeds compared to 1 seed, it's easier to grow plants and get fruit when you've got 10 seeds. So he figured, you know what, it's better if I don't lose the talent, why take the risk, what can I do with one single talent.. I mean compared to the guy with 10 talents, what can I do..

"compared to the guy with 10 talents"

Fact is, some people just get more talents (skill not monetary -- the English word 'talent' apparently came from that parable) than others. Born with talents, maybe?

Talent is everything. What one person can work up in 2 years, a talented one can build in 2 months. Everyone has got talents, though not the same amount probably. The problem comes when people start comparing. Then comes jealousy and "ahh i wish i could do that like he/she does.. so jealous, he/she can do it so well..".

But our God is a just God, however unjust giving 10 talents to one and 1 talent to another may seem like. We aren't God (thank goodness).

One talent counts. If only that person had said, "You know what, I'll use this one talent to the best I can." I think that the master couldn't have had only 3 workers, seeing how powerful he apparently was he obviously had like a whole big workforce but he only chose three to have talents. Maybe he who got one talent could've looked at the fact that he actually got a talent.

...it's not that there's nothing 'deep' to write here.

It's that the deep stuff is too deep to be written here.


i can bust your eardrums by chanelling a wave with your eardrum's natural frequency into your ear canal.
it would totally make your eardrum oscillate at its maximum amplitude and your eardrum will break.

Defamation.

Today, a serious charge has been brought to the court's attention.


Okay, when you think of cherries, most of us would think of these:

(i don't like the watermark either but the other pictures on google weren't as nice. plus you can totally see the lighting apparatus they used to take that photo: in the reflection on the cherries lol)

Anyhow after years and years of seeing/buying/eating birthday cakes with those cherries on top, what other image of 'cherries' could we possibly have?

Those are called glace/glazed cherries. Mostly red but you can get some green/yellow ones too.

They taste horribly sweet, almost disturbing to the helpless tastebuds who can't but cringe whenever the mixture of cherry, sweeteners, citric acid, flavourings, preservatives, colourings, and sulphur dioxide (doesn't that belong in acid rain? =/) land onto the tongue.

So today the word 'cherry' is synonymous with that kinda cherry, which is a big injustice to the real cherry:

The totally untainted, fresh cherry. Tastes a gazillion times nicer than the glazed version.

But the thing is, living in Malaysia you can't really get those kinda cherries and we're stuck with the yucky ultrared (not infrared xP) ones.

Glazed cherries have totally defamed the fruit itself.

So I no longer dislike cherries, I just don't like the poisoned-with-sweeteners ones.


i just had to post this after the glazed cherries left an unpleasant aftertaste in coffee bean's ice-blended black forest

that time

raspberry (or boysenberry, i forgot) + vanilla gelato, free internet, good weather, amazing scenery..
ahh.

i should start studying soon.. soon.. like now..

this thingy above is a screenshot of the line that blinks on-and-off when you're typing in italics using microsoft word

so i looked at it and i thought

hey that looks like a curve =D

like my stick's shaft.

..totally random

So i was waiting and praying for FIVE hours =/ really praying very hard. hahaha.

Totally nothing to do there but watch ppl as they fail. hahaha.

waitwaitwaitwait..
3-4 more ppl until my turn and..
they go for lunch break
........

Bored like siao, sit and wait. felt like wanna pang sai d xP

okay so finally, at 1:30p.m. or so (i went there at 8:30a.m...) I GOT INTO THE CAR.

Really nervy at that point =/ praypraypray

So finally got the green light and went up the bukit, stopped at the line (or so). Angkat the handbrake and the card.

Then when it was time to go down d: release clutch, press oil.... CAR DIED =/

crapppppp. I thought the guy was gonna fail me d. Nvm, start engine, go down.. I kept looking back at the tester to see whether he would kandaskan me but he didn't do anything so went on..

I think he was in a good mood cuz he just ate. yay. or maybe cuz i didn't slide down much?

Parking was okay. Three-point turn was really really senget-ed but i somehow made it. hahaha.

whoots!

It's all God i tell you =D


i still don't know how to park in real life
i have never off-ed a car engine before

Jesus take the wheel

...as in literally take the wheel; and the clutch and the foot-brake and the hand-brake and the gearstick and the oil pedal xP hahaha.

RM65 is alot..

so i learnt that..

1. BJ's really fortunate to have such awesome floorball coaches:)

2. it's a good thing that we lost.

3. going around with sonia, joel, and clark kent is extremely fun[ny]

4. lame jokes make the world extra-happy.

5. i wish that the camera could do better in lowlight without having to fill-flash.

6. there's something in this world called 'electromotive force'.

7. mondays with no school are especially awesome.

8. Superman (or any other costumed superhero for that matter) should never work as a taxi driver. imagine needing to change to save the world while sending someone somewhere. =O

9. i should really start prepping for this saturday. =/

10. i want more calvin and hobbes books to read.

bounce back

[phrasal verb]
to start to be successful again after a difficult period, for example after experiencing failure, loss of confidence, illness or unhappiness

tomorrow

is cominggggg.

TOMORROW is the 10th of April 2010.

i should sleep..


why so tension?

so far yet so close

That's how the tyre felt. So far from the yellow line yet so close.

If only the tyre was maybe 1-2 inches less broad then it wouldn't have ended up on the yellow line. darnnnn.

Didn't even get to flunk my 3 point turn. haha.

Car was decent enough to pass the bukit though.

Julia nearly killed her tester. hahaha! xP if only we could switch, i do outside for you then you do inside for me, both sure can d right.

Oh well. retakeeeeeeee! miss school again lol

while on the phone with eunice..

So i called eunice oh.

When i was typing in her number i was wondering: eh why maxis one? i thought she uses digi.

Ok nvm, call.

She picked up.

Said, hello who is this?

I was wondering, eh why her voice so different wan? Phone can make ppl's voices so different ar?

Ok nvm, i still went on: hey it's tania, can you play for wave challenge?

She: eh how come your number different wan?

Me: oh because i'm using..

.........

OH CRAP. WRONG EUNICE.

=/

_________________

ok continuation. eunice oh didn't answer.

so, few minutes later, try again lor.

Me: Hello?

Her: Yeah tania?

Me: OH CRAP

Her: not again........! bye.

healthy snack. haha!

okay i'm not a health freak scouting the globe for tasty, nutritious snacks or anything but..

frozen grapes are totally a w e s o m e!

really la. haha. and it doesn't matter whether your grapes are sour, cuz they'll be so cold you won't be able to taste much xP

but make sure they're seedless (really really important!)

any colour also can.

1. Wash grapes.
2. Remove grapes from stem and put into plastic bag, tie up.
3. Put in freezer.
4. Wait at least for a few hours, overnight is more than enough but nothing wrong with extra-frozen =D

really very nice!

i'm not sure whether freezing the grapes affects the nutrients =/ but it's so nice so why bother. haha.

finally..

pls God, let everything go smoothly

let's go

They never gave up, for country.

Actions speak louder than words, and words include blog posts:)

all our hope is in You

=O

totally nothing to do with english, i tell you, nothingggggg.

14% poof like that =O

hahahaha.

the picture of Dorian Gray

is a REALLY REALLY good book.

One of those books that forces you to turn page after page. and kept me away from the Internet for the whole afternoon =O

It's got all the qualities of a classic without the tedium of Shakespearean lingo.

Plus it made me become such close friends with my dictionary. Never used it so much before xP well Mr Wilde kept using words like languid, tremulous, pathos.. gosh.

Storyline was sooo nice. yet tragic. Though some parts of the book are devoted to rants about [crooked] philosophy.

Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray is somewhat like Jane Austen's Fitzwilliam Darcy: incredible:)

Yesithinkyoushouldreadit.

finally something useful to do..

The worst part about making cake-like things, you've no idea whether it'd work judging from the batter xP

But it did!

Presenting..

[cakey] rich chocolate brownies! =D

before it was eaten hahah

But wait, there's more!

No they don't look unprofessional.. they look.. rustic. xP

Just chocolate, flour, butter, eggs and more chocolate. no sugar added!

Want some?

Come for cell group (ephraim) this friday. hahaha.

going in for the kill

THREE posts in one day.. this is like.. record! xP

lots of text.

So there you sit, reading that Sejarah book.

Most of your mind utterly refuses to read, and not only read, but memorise (how outrageous is that!) those occasionally biased, sometimes unreliable accounts of what happened way before you were born (and why you would want to know what happened before you, the most important person, lived, i don't know).

But there's a small minority (small minority.. so redundant.. i'll start again..)

But there's a minority of nerve cells which so undemocratically veto their way into forcing all their counterparts (other nerve cells, i mean) into studying.

They say it's for your own good. Also implying that you're not good enough to decide what's good for you. In other words, you're no good.

Now, meet the subversive rebels who want to overthrow the veto-ers. Rather sadly a revolution would never happen, they just don't have the numbers or the resources or the rightful arguments to satisfy the conscientious crowd.

So instead they mumble and grumble their way into spreading malicious thoughts (sedition! cry the veto-ers) that oh, how nice it would be if i could be watching tv or reading this book or going on the inet.. if not for studies.

Let's skip to the after-exams part.

The brain has now been overrun by nerve cells, jubilantly parading around in the streets, knowing that the work was now temporarily over and it's PAY DAY!

And you remember all those thoughts and grand plans you had of what to do once the exams were over.

But somehow they don't have that how-awesome-it-would-be-to-do-that feeling anymore.

Why's that?

I figure it's cuz while you were studying it was sooo horrible, that whatever felt remotely good was boosted up to really good, relatively.

Like for example, going on the inet when you're supposed to be studying feels very good and relaxing; but going on the inet when you've got nothing else to do.. feels normal.

We can call this inspiration-giving feeling 'boredom'.

Happy Pi Day!

It's a PI PIE! xP at Delft Uni for their Pi Day celebration.. haha.

Pi Day and Pi Approximation Day* are two holidays held to celebrate the mathematical constant π (pi) (in the mm/dd date notation: 3/14); since 3, 1 and 4 are the first three digits of π. March 14 is also the birthday of Albert Einstein and the two events are sometimes celebrated together.

*22/7 - July the 22nd

thank you wikipedia:)

101st post.

Oh remember the decomposing cat? *points down to the other post*
it kinda disappeared last week =/ sad right? but apparently there's another one outside my school, near the jejantas there, at the huge longkang.. but i don't walk out after school so i never get to see it.. oh well.

cellgroupwasreallyreallyawesomejustnow

totally.

ming yen, this is for you:

but i feel that 3 big rolls.. maybe still not enough. HAHA. xP

leanne is the awesomest harmoniser ever.

jin ji can act!

and shiauxian our top scorer xP

plus khaihern who is.. khaihern =D

syok. ephraim rocks:)

yes, even with the.. 'fat'-person-who-can't-sing.. there, it's okay, it still rocked xP jk

i also think.. the new sharing materials are really good.

and.. i know.. God's faithful (=

Okay, test over d.

Hm, now what to say? So much time on my hands and..

..so much to waste.

I have no idea what to write here.

No inspiration for a ky-style 3rd-person wacky, interesting-for-strangers-from-all-over-the-world-to-read writeup. haha. No reason to either.


Youthwave has crappy timing that could be better =/

I think I will continue reading this:

the language is seriously nice. oscar wilde is brilliant..

Bill Watterson.. is a totally different type of brilliant, but since finding two Calvin & Hobbes books in the (of all places) school library..

..i like.

breather

because Sejarah Tingkatan 4 and Sejarah Tingkatan 5 can cause asphyxiation.

Why do certain poo float?

Burnt skin is a must.............. for roasted potatoes.

And since the mood right now's in definitions..

hope (n.): the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best

why?

...

okay, back to studying.

i have new best friends, sejarah textbooks (=

but i'm going to dump them in less than a week, shh.. don't tell them..

in between

I can see a dead cat from my class. My class is on the 3rd floor, the cat is at the longkang next to my block. From my place can get VIP view of the dead cat. So I am going to watch the cat decompose day by day. It makes school more interesting.

floorball flew over to the neighbour's garden =/

detik yang bersejarah

...


lengkung sudah tiba

kiwifood

i just woke up after falling asleep cuz of mod maths.

no, no dreams xP as far as i can remember?

So because i need something to get my brains running again (they're kinda still half-awake), i'll finish up this post la.

i seem like such an avid blogger.

So here goes. lotsandlotsandlotsofphotos

[captions below the photos. i'm not chewyan-y.]

One of the first food items i bought there from a Chinese supermarket xP such an important component of our daily diet

ooh the first-ever sit-down meal we had there with the rest of the tour group. THREE COURSE!
(at first it was really nice but you kinda get used to it, a lot of the meals they provided us were 3cs where you could choose from a limited number of options in the menu)

#1: cream of tomato and red bell pepper soup. (the bread roll was really nice)

#2: strip steak

#3: boysenberry cheesecake (that's whipped cream btw - at first i thought it was ice-cream)

a squashed and currently still lost in NZ Quasimodo/Don Quixote with a bag of honey lemon sweets

From one of the cafes, i think this was steak & kidney pie.

from the same cafe. That's a sour cream dip for the wedges, then a sourdough sandwich with.. uh.. ham? and the smoked salmon bagel.

Morning mocha on a rainy day.

Vegetable soup. Again, the bread roll was nice but the soup was kinda bland.

=O hugeeeeee bags of apples for NZ$10 (about RM24) at a stall next to a fruit orchard

in the Remarkable Sweet Shop

some really awesome, popular burger joint at Queenstown where you can get:

(among other choices) the Fergburger! it was reallyy reallyy gooood.

But sometimes you kinda miss all that rice. This costed i think more than the bag of apples (RM25+) and it wasn't that nice anyways, veges were kinda salty? But after idontknowhowmany days of NZ food you kinda get bored of it.

I have no idea what this fish was doing on the statue of Queen Victoria. serious.

Cookies & cream. and they considered this to be ONE scoop!

This was at some seaside stopover we were at for lunch.

And it had the awesomest mussel chowder everrr! with tonnes of mussels.


The dessert section at the buffet in Materiki (sth like that), Rotorua.


where they used that big.. oven thing. Hangi.

Which cooked up this (pumpkins and potatoes)

and thisss! Meat Mountain =D

of the wonderful things at that buffet, including, more mussels! (made a 2nd trip to take more =D)

One of the best meals we had there - Indian food =D after being deprived of rice for soo long. We requested extra-hot and yes, they delivered very well! That's lamb vindaloo btw (in the red gravy)

The RM 20-something nasi lemak with a copious amount of beef. And there's frozen coke from McD. Frozen coke is really nice.

And, again from McD, the Grand Angus. beef. whoaaa.

i'm sorry if you read this while you were hungry