Late for Class.

I heard the school bell ring. Chemistry's over. Time for Moral.

No time to lose, then.

From the Chemistry lab back to the classroom, it's three minutes' walk, or half a minute's mad dash.

I won't be late for class.

Last Monday, after Chemistry, I returned to the class for Moral at a casual pace. When I got to the class, only a few other classmates were already back. Most of the students were still in the lab, asking Chemistry questions, or goofing off. When our Moral Teacher got to class, she was really upset.

Our Moral Teacher is a very dedicated and experienced teacher. She genuinely cares for the class, and treats the 25 students as a sort of family. She always puts in a lot of effort to teach us Moral, by photocopying exercises for us, giving us tips, and everything. But when so many students are late for class like that, it seems to her as if they're not interested in Moral, and that Chemistry is more interesting. It makes her feel like no one appreciates her hard work.

I appreciate you, Teacher. I won't be late for class.

From the Chemistry lab back to the classroom, it's three minutes' walk, or half a minute's mad dash.

I won't be late for class. I mustn't be late for class. I can't be late for class. Nothing can make me late for class now.

Wrong.

As I head up the stairs, I hear someone call my name. I stop. I turn around. It's the drama teacher. Since I'm the one who wrote the script the drama team will be using, she has to talk to me before she decides to make any changes. Without a doubt, I thought, that's exactly what she wants now.

Do I really have time for that? I mustn't be late for class.

But our school is well-known for their drama team, if nothing else. Our school puts all their stock in drama. Drama is important.

Does its importance justify being late for class?

I don't know.

But I can't ignore the drama teacher now. I've got no choice but to at least listen to what she has to say.

"Jonathan, what subject do you have on now? Do you have time to talk?"
"Now is Moral, Teacher." ... a slight pause... "Yes, Teacher, I have a bit of time."

I'm sorry, Teacher, but drama is important. I still won't be late for class...

Ten minutes later, I walk out of the staff room after acknowledging a few changes made to the drama script. I look at my watch. Ten minutes! I'm really late!

Sprint across the badminton court. Run up the stairs, two steps at a time. Skid at the top, turn around the corner, run. Turn again, and up another flight of stairs. Classroom is just around the corner. Running out of breath. At the top of the stairs, I run into another student from my class, just returning from the lab. I realise that I just overtook several of my other classmates returning from the lab. Ten minutes late, and they're only now returning to class. They aren't even concerned about being late. Teacher...

Run to class, stop to knock on the door, walk quickly past Teacher, mutter a quick good-morning and apology, take my seat.

Late.

Teacher was very upset. She had gone through so much trouble for us during the weekend. She went to the library, did some research. Wrote everything down on a sheet of paper, photocopied it for us. She paid for the photocopying. She wasn't expecting to ask us to pay for it. She was very upset when she came to class, prepared to give us all the studying material, and found that only five students were in class on time. Everyone else was late. Late. Late for class.

Only five students were in class on time. And I wasn't one of them.

Teacher was very upset.

I'm sorry, Teacher. I won't be late for class again. Next week, I'll be in the class on time. Next week, I won't be late for class.

I promise.

***

I don't feel like saying anything today. Sorry. See you on Saturday, if time allows it.
  

Sandwiches and everything.

Just a quick blog interface update log. As some of you may have noticed, I've been tinkering around with the blog for a while now. Some of the more noteworthy changes are a) I've changed the profile pic from a stolen comic drawing to an actual picture of myself, which is actually the one I used for the school magazine during my sordid days in the Editorial Board, and b) I've changed the name of the blog from "My official blog since to hours ago" to "My official everything blog", which still has the same essence, but its shorter.

I've also removed the Gallery page, since I couldn't think of anything to put in it, and replaced it with a Sandwich page! Mmm, yummy sammiches! Well, I think they are anyway. Basically, we have too much bread in the house, and bread-and-butter gets mundane after a few years or so, so in short, I've found a new outlet for my creativity!

Yeah... as if.

The newest addition to the sandwich page as of today is a Durian Sandwich! Put a lot of durian in between two slices of bread, and wollah! Of course, you open up the durian and peel the flesh of the seed first. My Malaysian blog does not really live up to its name, but I've made up for that now. Nothing says Malaysia like durians!
  

Unexpected Poetry - The Value of an Ant's Life

A mosquito landed on my arm,
and I did what I had always done.
I raised a hand and struck it down
without blinking.
I shook its crippled, lifeless form off my arm
and let it fall to the ground
without a second glance.
All of a sudden, it occured to me
to think about what I had just commited.

We are humans, the peak of evolution
and the apex predator of every food chain.
They are mosquitoes, which reproduce by hundreds
and leech the blood of others to stay alive.
And yet, small and insignificant as they are,
do they not have life of their own?
Do they not have a level of conciousness
where pain and suffering exists?

What is the value of an ant's life?
That tiny speck with six legs
which carries food to its nest.
Why do we end its life
when we see it walk across a table?
It is bringing food to its queen
for the benefit of the clonoy.
Are they not unakin
to our own brave soldiers?


The flies we see in our kitchen
are only trying to survive.
They have life, and they love it
and wish to sustain it with food.
How unfortunate, then, for the fly
who perishes by the swatter!
Its life ended so abruptly
in the cycle of life.
As its conciousness fades,
it drops to the ground and dies.
Meanwhile, the giant with the swatter
sweeps it awat, with no remorse.

Therefore, little mosquito, flitting about my room,
please forgive me for the demise of your brother.
Iwas young and foolish,
and did not appreciate life.
However, I'm afraid you must now leave,
for with you in my face, I will get no sleep.
But perhaps some other time,
I will willingly let you feed off me,
for I'm sure you only appreciate life
as I have learned to value it.

***

I was really sleepy when I wrote this poem, so don't take it seriously. Just the ramblings of a dozey teenager. However, even in my stupor I think I struck home at a few points. How often have you squished an ant with your pencil while doing your homework just because it walked in front of you and you needed a distraction, and felt good about it? My point exactly. These things are alive too. As nature goes, living things should only kill other living things for 1. food, 2. self-defense, and 3. mating rights. Of course, only the first two should ever apply to humans. Then why would you kill a harmless ant walking across your desk? Think about it.

I wrote this about a week before Valentine's - I was feeling strangely creative at the time - and I wondered whether or not I should have written a love poem. However, I decided not, for two reasons: a. No girlfriend, i.e. no one to write it to, i.e. no inspiration. b. The newspapers were publishing stories on the latest Valentine's controversies, like how Valentine's is supposed to be immoral, but others disagree, and they have all their debates and opinions, and lets say it really put me off.

I have only killed one mosquito since writing the poem. I have also noticed an increase in mosquitoes, and subsequently spiders, around and about the house. But that's okay because the population of tiny home lizards has increased as well, to balance things out. I even found one in my bathroom. As you can see, nature takes its course fine when humans don't intervene. I just hope none of them defecate on me in my sleep.
  

Unrealistic Logic Epilogue

Read yesterday's post first, or I can guarantee you will not undestand today's post.

"Off with her head!" the Queen shouted at the top of her voice. Nobody moved.

"Who cares for you?" said Alice, (she had grown to her full size by this time.) "You're nothing but a pack of cards!"

At this the whole pack rose up into the air, and came flying down upon her: she gave a little scream, half of fright and half of anger, and tried to beat them off, and found herself lying on the bank, with her head in the lap of her sister, who was gently brushing away some dead leaves that had fluttered down from the trees upon her face.

"Wake up, Alice dear!" said her sister; "Why, what a long sleep you've had!"

"Oh, I've had such a curious dream!" said Alice, and she told her sister, as well as she could remember them, all these strange Adventures of hers...
Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

I received a wake up call today. It turns out that after yesterdays ordeal, once I had left the class after delivering a quote which I will never become famous for, the argument had continued until somehow, in some way, one of the students was finally able to get his message across to teacher, and she then realised what everyone had been shouting about all along.

In actuality, it turns out that, yes, teacher had in fact made the mistake. It was just as they said it should have been - Abu and Ali just got mixed up. Teacher initially thought that our argument was about something else. Something to do with the structure of the question. But once the whole class stood up and started arguing with her, full of so much arrogance, well, who wouldn't become more than slightly haughty? Once she was upset, it was that much harder to make her see sense. Thus the predicament described in the last post. The dialogue has now been fixed to:

Abu: Where are you going?
Ali: I'm just going for a walk. Why do you ask? Do you want to follow?
Abu: No, I was just asking out of curiosity.

Meaning that I was on exactly the wrong track all along.

Teacher wasn't trying to test our understanding, she had just made a careless mistake. Abu and Ali weren't mad, although I probably am. Everything has been fixed and the logic is just as it should be.

So much for my statement. Fortunately, no one really took me seriously, so everything settled down and no one will think of it again. Unfortunately, my compulsion to recount everything that happens into my blog means there will be a permanent addendum of this episode of my life written in pixel. Well, we live and learn - for instance, I've learned that teachers aren't ever that unconventional anyway, and that I should never blog about an issue until its been resolved. Or at least until everyone's forgotten about it anyway.

Plus, my blog readers got two choice snippets from Alice in Wonderland, so everyone's happy.
  

Unrealistic Logic

"In THAT direction," the Cat said, waving its right paw round, "lives a Hatter: and in THAT direction," waving the other paw, "lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they're both mad."

"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.

"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."

"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.

"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."

Alice didn't think that proved it at all; however, she went on...
~Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll.

School today was relatively uneventful, except for the last bit. The final two periods of school every Tuesday is Bahasa Melayu - Malay Language. Today we did a bit of grammar, or 'tatabahasa', and we were taught something that would otherwise have been simple enough. We were to convert sentences from 'conversation structure' to ordinary text. After giving a few pointers to keep in mind, teacher gave us a short exercise. It went like this, only in BM:

Abu: Where are you going?
Ali: I'm just going for a walk.
Abu: Why do you ask? Do you want to follow?
Ali: No, I was just asking out of curiosity.

Now, we have to convert them into ordinary, narrative text form. For instance, the first sentence would be changed to "Abu asked Ali about his destination", or something like that.

However, upon reading the dialogue again, something jumps out as really not quite right. Abu was the one who asked Ali where he was going. So why does Ali say he was the one asking the question?

Of course, we addressed the question to our teacher. She explained, slowly, that she had not made a literary mistake, but that she wanted to test how completely we understood the concept, by giving an illogical situation. She told us not to question the logic of the conversation, but to just convert it like we were supposed to. After all, she said, this is a conversation between humans. They can say anything they want, and even if it doesn't make sense, no one can say it wasn't a legitimate conversation.

This made perfect sense to me. Unfortuantely, it didn't do it for any of the other 24 students in class. From that point in time, until the school bell rang for the end of school, plus some dozen minutes after, none of the students would give our teacher any peace of mind until she satisfactorily explained why Abu and Ali weren't making any sense, or until she changed the dialogue. In the meantime, I sat at my seat and promptly finished that fairly simple assignment. By the time I put my pen down and looked up, and saw them still arguing over something that made such simple sense, I was like "Is this what Malaysia is made of?"

As I was leaving the class with my backpack over my shoulder, I had to pass by the whiteboard where Teacher had written the question, and about a dozen of the more persistent students were pointing at the board and arguing with Teacher loudly. There is no logic in the conversation, the argued. Abu is speaking Ali's lines, they argued. It does not make any sense, they argued. I stopped there for a while and looked on with pity for both the students and Teacher, and finally decided to intervene.

Standing a small way outside the group, I called their attention to myself. Then I spoke the following words: "Look here, look here, if you're still having trouble understanding it, then look at it this way: Abu and Ali are nuts. That sufficiently explains everything."

Having delivered that nugget of wisdom, and having done my part, I left the class and came home.



Links

 

Sparks!

Physics? Its okay to visit, but I wouldn't want to live with it.

On Fridays, we have an hour to conduct experiments at the Physics lab at school. Today, our teacher gave us an experiment to start us of on the next chapter in our syllabus: Electricity. Inevitably, whenever electricity is involved anywhere in Physics, the first thing that every student thinks of is the Van de Graaff Generator, or, more commonly, the electric machine from Mr. Bean.

I don't know how many volts these things usually have, but my teacher's hair started standing just as he looked at it. There was also some part of the demonstration when he took this glass rod with a ball on the end, and touched the dome with it.
He got shocked.

Of course, all this meant was that all the students became more excited. Several of them tried to touch the dome with their whole hands. They described the feeling as "the best massage ever". I tried to touch it with one finger - on the left hand, just in case anything permanent happened - and that was enough for me. It felt like the very marrow of my finger was being vibrated from the inside outwards. I hastily retracted my hand, and my concious was cleared. None could say that I had chickened out, that I didn't know what it felt like.

So what was the big deal with everyone else? After placing both their hands on the dome, being unsatisfied with the lack of hair-raising (probably because of all that gel), they became bolder and started getting up to all sorts of nonsense. What if two people linked hands and touched the dome together with the remaining hands? What if we created a chain of people, with one end touching the generator and the other end touching the ends of a voltmeter? At the end of the day, one of them was touching the generator with his tongue, for decency's sake!

What's more, one of the students was somehow able to generate static power from the generator. Most of the other students just placed their hands on the round dome, and got nothing. This student did something else. He sort of tapped the dome with his fingers, tap tap tap. But although his fingernail didn't connect with the metal very loudly, there was a lot of crackling, something which didn't happen with the others. Then, by chance, one of his friends touched him, and that's when he got what we know as static shock. I got to know of this when he came past my seat, doubled over with his finger between his knees.

But it didn't end there. If I got a static shock like that, I would be sure to take measures that I didn't get it again under any circumstance. But what do the two pioneers of static do? The first one resumes tapping his finger on the dome, creating crackles, while the other one runs around telling other students to touch him ("Man, you totally got to try this!"), and when those other students receive the shock, what do they do? They come back for more shocks! What's the matter with them? People use electroteraphy to graft ideas into peoples heads, because its supposed to be so darned effective, yet here are a bunch of boys enjoying the sensation! I think something must be wrong with me.

Ever played Defense of the Ancients, or DotA before? Then you might be familiar with a spell known as "Chain Lightning". Some of the students were saying that out static friend there might be able to pull it off.
 

Laziness

Sometimes, as I'm about to leave the house for tuition, if I have any simple homework from school at the moment - for instance, Additional Mathematics - then I take it along to tuition. At the end of the tuition class, as I wait outside for my ride to come, that's when I take out my homework and perhaps find the answers for half of the questions on that day. And sometimes, a classmate will look over my shoulder, and see me doing homework while waiting for my ride to come. Their natural reaction is, of course, to say "Wow, you're so hardworking." Sometimes they're sarcastic too. But as for me, I'm like "What?"

People think I'm hardworking because it seems as though I'm trying to do as much work as I can while waiting around, as it may be, for the bus, or for my mother to pick me up after school. They are mistaken. The truth is, I do homework all the time because I'm lazy.

What defines laziness? Some think that laziness is the lack of motivation to do any sort of work. In my opinion, that is not laziness - that is merely slothfulness. Laziness is when a person actually puts in effort to avoid doing work. Technically, a hard-working person would do his homework all the time as well, but for the reason that he would be able to put in extra time studying before going to sleep at night. That would be hard-working. But that is not me. I do homework all the time so that at night, when everyone else is doing their homework, I'll be playing video games because I finished all my homework on the way home from school in the traffic jam. That is not hard-working.

Put it simply:  Hard-working is when a person does the work he needs to do, at a time when he does not need to do it, so that he will have time to do work that he does not need to do later on, and can go to sleep having accomplished more that day. Laziness is when a person does the work that he needs to do, at a time when he does not need to do it, so that he does not need to do it later and can spend that time slacking off.

The next time you see someone solving Algebra while waiting for the bus after school, think about what he will be doing later tonight when everyone else is doing their homework, before you strart calling him hard-working.
  

Movie Rating: The Chronicle

Today, I'm going to rate a movie! Today's movie is called The Chronicle. It is about a troubled teenager named Andrew Detmer who buys a video camera and begins filming his life. One night, he and some friends come accross a mysterious hole in the ground, which when they enter it, turns out to be a long cave. At the end of the cave, they find something that transforms them, and gives them unique powers...
My movie rating system will be based on an average score total from several different movie aspects.

Here we go!

Storyline - Perfect! (5*)
When it comes to a storyline, you can't just look at it on the surface. For instance, the storyline of a typical cliche romance would be "boy meets girl, girl meets boy, they break up, the make up, and live happily ever after." But the thing that makes a good storyline is the storyline behind the storyline. Did they break up for a good reason, and did they make up for an equally good one?
The storyline of The Chronicle is interesting throughout the whole movie. It does a good job of portraying the characters' personalities and builds up nicely for a dramatic finish. Well done, Chronicle!

Humour - Quite Good. (4*)
Being a story of a young teenage boy who gains mystical powers, this story is less heavy on the humour and more heavy on the deep, thoughtful moments. However, there are enough amounts of good clean humour to keep the audience happy, especially when the boys mess around with their new power, which, although certainly not back-breaking slapstick, provides enough entertainment. Unfortunately, there are no uncertain amount of the other kind of humour, if you like that sort of thing. But I don't, which brings the humour aspect of the movie down a step.

Morals - Perfect! (5*)
The morals in this movie might seem a little dark and therefore inapplicable, but they mostly center around the "with great power comes great responsibility" theme. However, since this movie does feature teenagers as main characters, there are a number of other little morals that are good too. There are also several morals themed around friendship, family, and the more deep and thoughtful morals of humanity.

Love scenes - Okay. (3*)
I don't know what your definition of love scenes is, but whatever it might be, it isn't in excess in this movie. There are one or two light romance scenes, and more than several hints towards the other kind of romance scenes, but there is nothing inappropriate or obscene.

Action / Violence - Quite Good. (4*)
There's nothing wrong about exciting, fast-paced action, but when an action scene goes to far as to become violent, it gets a low rating. In The Chronicle, there is quite a lot of what might be called "violence", but since its all supposed to be done with telekinesis, I consider them unharmful, and no one would find them excessively violent. A few scenes at the end might be a little bloody, but I consider it neccesary.

Language - A little bad (2*)
Alright, so as I have mentioned several times before, this story centers around teenagers, so you can't expect the cleanest of language, although some people might feel it gives the movie more "spice" and makes it seem more realistic. However, the language isn't too bad, which is why I didn't give it a Terrible (0*) rating. Most people would either be able to tough out the foul language and keep it from ruining their experience, or apply that much bad language themselves.

Any other pros / cons
+ Good acting!
+ Good special effects!
+ Interesting camera style!
+ Bright atmosphere and conversation most of the time!

Final verdict: This movie gets a rating of 4.3 / 5! Not too shabby! This movie is definitely a must-watch! The local newspapers actually gave it a 5 star rating, and I would have done so too, but my rating system isn't perfect.
  

Backflash

So my baby sister recently got started on watching old Barney episodes on DVD, and like any modern-day electronic-oriented teenage boy I get drawn to any running TV programme like moths to an ultraviolet bug zapper, which very much the same effect. Well, its not my fault! Sometimes things like that happen when you try to do homework on a sunny Saturday afternoon! Anyway, I've got to look after my baby sister and all right?

Rewatching Barney again from a more mature (i.e. cynical) point of view than I orignally did, I realised that there are several moments in Barney that would be extremely joke-worthy, which makes me realise not for the first time that if I had been gifted with a talent for sketching rather than writing, I would be able to own a webcomic instead of a blog. The sad thing is, the former would probably end up being just as popular as the latter.

In any case, all those episodes of ABCs really brought back a dollop or two of nostalgia from my days in primary school. In fact, there are exactly two things I remember relatively clearly about my first year in primary school. These are:

1. How to play Football.
During Physical Education time, the whole class of thirty-something screaming post-toddlers would be led out by their herder, I mean teacher, into the school field. Once we were there, two team captains would be assigned. These two captains would then go to the goals on the opposite ends of the field and serve as goal-keepers. The remaining 30 students would then chase the football, all at once, in a appreciable V formation, with one exceptionally fast kid leading with the ball in front. If he decided to dribble the ball to the right, the whole wave of students behind him would swerve together, and I'm sure the whole thing would have looked very nice from a bird's eye view. Occasionally one of the students under the vertex of the V would put in a sprint effort and nab the ball. I can't remember how any of them knew which goal to kick the ball at, but in any case I don't think anyone even tried to score.

2. The Alphabet
On the first day of school, I was the only one who knew how to sing the alphabet properly, believe it or not. Don't get me wrong, all the other students knew the alphabet perfectly. They just couldn't sing it right. And when you're 7 years old, the one is just as important as the other, since any teacher might ambush you with a song request. I still remember how the other 29 students sang the alphabet. Even now when I close my eyes, I can imagine the melody of their united voices raised in song...

A B C D E F G,
H I J K L M N *gasp*
O P!
Q R S, T U V,
W X, Y and Z etc. etc.

That's right. L, M, N, gasp, O, P. Meanwhile I would be standing alone on a deserted island surrounded by a sea of other kids singing exactly the same mistake. In unison. The problem was, instead of delivering LMNOP in a burst, they pronounced each letter slowly and carefully, retaining the beat of the last line, meaning their breath was pretty much exhausted from H to N. But I suppose it makes sense, because this way the letters are nicely spaced out. I'm sure there have been cases, somewhere out there in english-oriented countries, where students sang H I J K ellimeno P. Which do you suppose works out better for the student then?
 

Life Time

It's been a while since the last blog, hasn't it? You'll have life to thank for that; and for some reason I have the gnawing felling that you would be thankful...

Anyway, my life's become really busy in the past few days, and it looks like it will continue like this for a while, so my blogs won't come all that often. Other than the standard school and tuition parts of everyday life, I've got a ping pong tournament coming on Thursday, so there's practice after school everyday. That leaves me about an hour of free time when I get back before I have to leave again for tuition. That leaves me with little more than a night to do everything that needs doing before the next day begins, and because of prefect duty, I have to leave for school early. This means waking up early, and subsequently, sleeping early. The days are long and the nights are short.

On top of that, I'm the president of the InterSchool Christian Fellowship this year, as well as the piano player and treasurer of my church's Methodist Youth Fellowship. If I ever thought that Form 4 was a busy year, I take back everything.