So I haven't updated for 3 days. Did you think I was dead?
After my mom read the little conversation extract I wrote in the last post, she won't accept "Fine" for an answer when she asks me "How was school today?" Looks like my big mouth finally got me in trouble.
But you mustn't listen to me complain. I would like to say that I have a perfectly reasonable excuse for not updating for 3 days when I was planning to do so every day for the first week of school. But the truth is, I have no excuses. I had perfectly enough time to update every day of the weekend, but I didn't. It was the first weekend of the school year, man! You've got to relax and appreciate it! So I played video games all day and barely got my homework done.
Anyway, during the weekend, I did a bit of snooping around the internet, and found rather a number of cool blogs to read. This is the first time, since I became a blogger, I have ever intentionally looked for blogs to read. Unfortunately, since I knew of no other blogs at the time, finding some was a bit of a difficulty. So I used the Next Blog button at the top of my own blog, and it took me around and showed me a number of interesting blogs. Mind you, the system has its flaws - at one point, by pressing the Next Blog button I was introduced to some dozen blogs that talked about nothing but knitting, quilts, and craft, all in a row. The Next Blog button on each of those blogs just lead to another blog about the same thing.
Eventually, I did find one or two actually good blogs with the Next Blog button, but after a while I switched over to Google to find me blogs. I couldn't risk another knitting marathon again. Anyway, it was a productive weekend, in a way, and I was able to pick up a lot about blogs.
But you know something? What do you think would be your idea for an ideal blog? Everyone has their own opinions, but apparently Blogger has something to say about good blogs too. Here is an extract from the Blogger helpfiles, found under Promoting Your Blog:
Keep your posts and paragraphs short. Strive for succinct posts that pump pertinent new information into the blogosphere and move on. Keep it short and sweet so visitors can pop in, read up, and click on.
I read this, and thought to myself "Oh... really? Is that how its supposed to be? Whoops." Because while I enjoy writing, the only part about my English exam that I truly fear is Summary Writing. In other words, I enjoy being long-winded about things I talk about. Some of my posts have been really, really looong. Apparently Blogger says that's not the right way to go about things. No wonder I only have 7 followers.
*****************************
Due to school-related nonsense, I feel I should add at this point that lapses in blog updates will begin happening more often. However, I'll try to last out this first week of school with frequent blog updates. I wonder why?
Monday, January 9, 2012
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Day Two - Of School and Scandal
"So how was school today, kiddo?"
"Oh, Teacher ranted a bit about that letter last year, and blamed the whole class for it. Also, we've got even more Additional Mathematics homework on top of yesterday's and we need to pass it up tomorrow. We have the same Physics teacher as last year, and his modus operandi hasn't changed a bit, which might mean a repeat in history, if you know what I mean. And speaking of History, we've got our same old teacher again, so he's started intensive teaching from day one. We also had to write an essay on our New Year's Resolution with absolutely no warning and to be passed up before the end of class. Basically we just got a lot going on."
"Yeah, I wasn't really interested. Just say 'fine' next time, will you, kiddo?"
*********************************
Everything mentioned by the boy in the above passage really did happen to me in school today.
We'll start with the rant.
I hope everyone remembers the Classroom Scandal episodes. They're in my handily-accesible archive, and the main core of the story is based on what really did happen at school last year. Some kid in Class 4Sc1 got in over his head and wrote an anonymous letter to the principal with complaints of the teachers' performance. The teachers concerned were Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Accounts.
That's the recap. I don't know how many of the students in the class even remember the whole affair, but one thing's for sure, the teachers don't. Except one of them. But we'll get to that later.
The first thing I noticed concerning the teachers was that surprisingly few of them were the same ones we had last year. I thought most of our teachers would be the same ones who thought us last year, but that isn't so. Out of nine subjects, only four of them are being taught by the teachers we had last year. These subjects are Additional Mathematics, Physics, History, and, I presume, Moral.
This... is slightly frightening. Why aren't our old teachers teaching us anymore? One possibility is that the anonymous letter that arrived to the principal, written by "4Sc1", scared them off. I can imagine the teachers, having heard about what happened to the four teachers who were scandalized in the letter, and subsequently avoided having to go near that year of students again. It makes me feel kind of bad. But, Suspect01, as I wrote of him, isn't in 5Sc1 this year, so if it really was him, at least we've got him off our backs.
Having my initial suspicions as to the disappearance of our teachers, I expected that our new teachers would have something to say about it. I was expecting something like "It's because of that letter! No one wants to teach your class anymore!" But it never came. All of them just came in, and went about their business as any teacher would at the beginning of a new school year. No accusations were thrown at our class, no one resurrected the horrible incident of last year, thought to be dead and buried.
Until late this morning. One of our teachers entered the class, and for a time she was telling us about what we would have to do later in the year. Projects and things like that. To be honest, it got quite dull, and I wasn't really paying attention to what she was saying. Then suddenly she was shouting. After listening for a while, I gathered that she must be talking about the indecent letter of yesteryear. A short inquiry with my friend confirmed this. She was ranting. She was going on about how teachers can accept criticism, and if you have any complaints you should speak them to their faces, instead of writing an anonymous letter like some inbred weasel (not really, I added then weasel bit myself). After I had confirmed what she was talking about, I lost interest all over again. But she really was mad. Indignant, I might even go so far to say. I guess she wasn't very well-informed about the incident, because a few of her words which I caught seemed to suggest that she thought the entire class had chipped in towards writing that letter to the principal. Well, nothing to be done about that.
Nothing else that happened today is worth mentioning, except possibly the essay. Our teacher made us write an essay titled "My New Year's Resolution". As you have probably gathered from reading my blog, I'm not the most concise of writers, and that's exactly how I wrote my essay. A load of drivel, so it was.
I think our teacher is trying to assess and analyze our abilities first. We all simply wrote a short essay in limited time on a simple subject. She was also going on about how we should use our own unique ideas in writing. I wonder what she'll think of me once she reads my essay.
I didn't have any tuition today, which is kind of a bummer.
I'm also too bushed to write anything interesting. If you scrolled to the bottom of this post and only read this line, I'm glad you did.
"Oh, Teacher ranted a bit about that letter last year, and blamed the whole class for it. Also, we've got even more Additional Mathematics homework on top of yesterday's and we need to pass it up tomorrow. We have the same Physics teacher as last year, and his modus operandi hasn't changed a bit, which might mean a repeat in history, if you know what I mean. And speaking of History, we've got our same old teacher again, so he's started intensive teaching from day one. We also had to write an essay on our New Year's Resolution with absolutely no warning and to be passed up before the end of class. Basically we just got a lot going on."
"Yeah, I wasn't really interested. Just say 'fine' next time, will you, kiddo?"
*********************************
Everything mentioned by the boy in the above passage really did happen to me in school today.
We'll start with the rant.
I hope everyone remembers the Classroom Scandal episodes. They're in my handily-accesible archive, and the main core of the story is based on what really did happen at school last year. Some kid in Class 4Sc1 got in over his head and wrote an anonymous letter to the principal with complaints of the teachers' performance. The teachers concerned were Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Accounts.
That's the recap. I don't know how many of the students in the class even remember the whole affair, but one thing's for sure, the teachers don't. Except one of them. But we'll get to that later.
The first thing I noticed concerning the teachers was that surprisingly few of them were the same ones we had last year. I thought most of our teachers would be the same ones who thought us last year, but that isn't so. Out of nine subjects, only four of them are being taught by the teachers we had last year. These subjects are Additional Mathematics, Physics, History, and, I presume, Moral.
This... is slightly frightening. Why aren't our old teachers teaching us anymore? One possibility is that the anonymous letter that arrived to the principal, written by "4Sc1", scared them off. I can imagine the teachers, having heard about what happened to the four teachers who were scandalized in the letter, and subsequently avoided having to go near that year of students again. It makes me feel kind of bad. But, Suspect01, as I wrote of him, isn't in 5Sc1 this year, so if it really was him, at least we've got him off our backs.
Having my initial suspicions as to the disappearance of our teachers, I expected that our new teachers would have something to say about it. I was expecting something like "It's because of that letter! No one wants to teach your class anymore!" But it never came. All of them just came in, and went about their business as any teacher would at the beginning of a new school year. No accusations were thrown at our class, no one resurrected the horrible incident of last year, thought to be dead and buried.
Until late this morning. One of our teachers entered the class, and for a time she was telling us about what we would have to do later in the year. Projects and things like that. To be honest, it got quite dull, and I wasn't really paying attention to what she was saying. Then suddenly she was shouting. After listening for a while, I gathered that she must be talking about the indecent letter of yesteryear. A short inquiry with my friend confirmed this. She was ranting. She was going on about how teachers can accept criticism, and if you have any complaints you should speak them to their faces, instead of writing an anonymous letter like some inbred weasel (not really, I added then weasel bit myself). After I had confirmed what she was talking about, I lost interest all over again. But she really was mad. Indignant, I might even go so far to say. I guess she wasn't very well-informed about the incident, because a few of her words which I caught seemed to suggest that she thought the entire class had chipped in towards writing that letter to the principal. Well, nothing to be done about that.
Nothing else that happened today is worth mentioning, except possibly the essay. Our teacher made us write an essay titled "My New Year's Resolution". As you have probably gathered from reading my blog, I'm not the most concise of writers, and that's exactly how I wrote my essay. A load of drivel, so it was.
I think our teacher is trying to assess and analyze our abilities first. We all simply wrote a short essay in limited time on a simple subject. She was also going on about how we should use our own unique ideas in writing. I wonder what she'll think of me once she reads my essay.
I didn't have any tuition today, which is kind of a bummer.
I'm also too bushed to write anything interesting. If you scrolled to the bottom of this post and only read this line, I'm glad you did.
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Day One - Concerning Tuition
Ahem! Humm...
Begin your morning with a light cup of coffee;
For this morning, has ended your lifestyle so carefree;
Back to school we must go, for yet another year;
But it's a year for excitement! shed I not a tear.
Do not despair, my friend, to the sharpness of pre-dawn;
Nor the weight of your burden, do not once you scorn;
Don't worry, be happy, for the sun, she arrives;
Today is the first day for the rest of our lives.
*****************************
I don't know what came over me either, so there's no point in asking.
This came to me when I was having trouble sleeping last night. I don't know, the night before the first day of school, and I have trouble sleeping. Well, lying there all peaceful and quiet like that, a lot of things occured to me, all of which are not worth repeating. But somehow, in some way, the first line entered my head - probably because I thought I was going to drink coffee the next morning - and the rest of the poem, if you can call it that, just followed nice and smooth.
I might have done more than a second stanza, but I decided that if I spend all my time stringing fancy words together, I'll never get down to sleeping, so I dropped it right there.
All that aside, today was the first school day of the year! How did it go? Whenever someone asks me how school was, the primary answer is "Fine." I wonder why?
An uncle of mine once commented that the sun rises an hour late in Malaysia. Read up on it yourself. Only the first paragraph is important. Anyway, I don't have much to say about what actually happened in school itself, except for two things: One, I got all my text books for the rest of the year, and Two, I got homework on the first day. Additional Mathematics, so it was. Not cool. Fortunately, I'm an Add Maths average, and I'm already about halfway through with it at this time of night. I'll finish it by tomorrow, no probs!
Of course, upon receiving the text books, every year I assign one piece of homework to myself which preludes all the rest and always gets finished before the sun even sets.
Every year, once we get our text books, the first one I even begin to read is the literature study for the year. Yes, I'm a compulsive reader. Everyone tells me so, especially my cousins, but that's only because I read the instructions manual before I play any new board game. Anyway, its only literature study. In Malaysia, its not at all as bad as it sounds. Forget don Quixote and Alice in Wonderland and Moby Dick and Hamlet and Shakespear. The only real classic I've studied in school is Robinson Crusoe, and that version was too simplified. I can't really explain. Anyway, this year's literature is a book called Catch us if you Can, written by Catherine MacPhail, who can't be blamed; no one can choose their ancestors. Its about a boy, Rory, who lives with his Granda, and they would do anything to keep themselves from being separated. So when Granda starts getting old, and his friend's mom starts talking about "homes", things get difficult. When I say "difficult", I know what I mean.
But I'm rambling. On to the rest of my day. The first day of school was also, happily, the first day of tuition class. Today is Wednesday, which means Chemistry. Chemistry tuition was... very interesting in its own way. I will not hide that I was actually looking forward to it.
Right now, I'm speculating how much I should betray to you people, but I've decided that this is the internet and no one is supposed to take anything seriously.
There are... a couple of girls at the tuition who enjoy... disturbing me, in their girlish fashion. I was only mildly surprised when the first words spoken to me upon entering the class was by one of these girls, who greeted me in a way that made me stop for a while and wonder whether she was being nice or whether she had something nasty up her sleeve planned for me. I cautiosly returned the greeting, and threw in a free Happy New Year, which was received by an unsettling giggle from, it seemed, the entirety of the girls' table.
One of the reasons they enjoy tormenting me so is because, I think, for the whole of last year I had displayed nothing but shyness and embarassment at every one of their teases. They probably enjoy watching me squirm in my seat. But the holidays had changed me. With so much time on my hands, some careful meditation helped me to reason to myself that I was approaching the snake from the wrong side of its mouth. Of course, I reckon that my time in front-and-center as Christmas Carol Conductor helped too, but that's just a possibility.
To cut to the point, I spent the rest of the day countering all their assaults with a certain amount of boldness, and I even daresay sassiness, that surprised myself as much as it must have surpirsed them. Something tells me that today has completely driven them off me. I think they were more interested in the big-little boy who blushed whenever a word was spoken to him. They've probably lost fascination in me now.
Oh well, no love lost there.
I feel good about having gotten that off my chest.
P.S. To those happily english-illiterate fellow Malaysian followers of mine, I urge you to look up the word "sassy" if you do not fully understand it, lest you have any misgivings of me.
Also, due to the recently introduced burden of school, things are looking uncertain for the activity of my blog updates. We'll see how things go.
I've dicovered that I actually can comment on my own blog, which makes reader communication much easier. If you have any questions or comments, I can reply them now!
Begin your morning with a light cup of coffee;
For this morning, has ended your lifestyle so carefree;
Back to school we must go, for yet another year;
But it's a year for excitement! shed I not a tear.
Do not despair, my friend, to the sharpness of pre-dawn;
Nor the weight of your burden, do not once you scorn;
Don't worry, be happy, for the sun, she arrives;
Today is the first day for the rest of our lives.
*****************************
I don't know what came over me either, so there's no point in asking.
This came to me when I was having trouble sleeping last night. I don't know, the night before the first day of school, and I have trouble sleeping. Well, lying there all peaceful and quiet like that, a lot of things occured to me, all of which are not worth repeating. But somehow, in some way, the first line entered my head - probably because I thought I was going to drink coffee the next morning - and the rest of the poem, if you can call it that, just followed nice and smooth.
I might have done more than a second stanza, but I decided that if I spend all my time stringing fancy words together, I'll never get down to sleeping, so I dropped it right there.
All that aside, today was the first school day of the year! How did it go? Whenever someone asks me how school was, the primary answer is "Fine." I wonder why?
An uncle of mine once commented that the sun rises an hour late in Malaysia. Read up on it yourself. Only the first paragraph is important. Anyway, I don't have much to say about what actually happened in school itself, except for two things: One, I got all my text books for the rest of the year, and Two, I got homework on the first day. Additional Mathematics, so it was. Not cool. Fortunately, I'm an Add Maths average, and I'm already about halfway through with it at this time of night. I'll finish it by tomorrow, no probs!
Of course, upon receiving the text books, every year I assign one piece of homework to myself which preludes all the rest and always gets finished before the sun even sets.
Every year, once we get our text books, the first one I even begin to read is the literature study for the year. Yes, I'm a compulsive reader. Everyone tells me so, especially my cousins, but that's only because I read the instructions manual before I play any new board game. Anyway, its only literature study. In Malaysia, its not at all as bad as it sounds. Forget don Quixote and Alice in Wonderland and Moby Dick and Hamlet and Shakespear. The only real classic I've studied in school is Robinson Crusoe, and that version was too simplified. I can't really explain. Anyway, this year's literature is a book called Catch us if you Can, written by Catherine MacPhail, who can't be blamed; no one can choose their ancestors. Its about a boy, Rory, who lives with his Granda, and they would do anything to keep themselves from being separated. So when Granda starts getting old, and his friend's mom starts talking about "homes", things get difficult. When I say "difficult", I know what I mean.
But I'm rambling. On to the rest of my day. The first day of school was also, happily, the first day of tuition class. Today is Wednesday, which means Chemistry. Chemistry tuition was... very interesting in its own way. I will not hide that I was actually looking forward to it.
Right now, I'm speculating how much I should betray to you people, but I've decided that this is the internet and no one is supposed to take anything seriously.
There are... a couple of girls at the tuition who enjoy... disturbing me, in their girlish fashion. I was only mildly surprised when the first words spoken to me upon entering the class was by one of these girls, who greeted me in a way that made me stop for a while and wonder whether she was being nice or whether she had something nasty up her sleeve planned for me. I cautiosly returned the greeting, and threw in a free Happy New Year, which was received by an unsettling giggle from, it seemed, the entirety of the girls' table.
One of the reasons they enjoy tormenting me so is because, I think, for the whole of last year I had displayed nothing but shyness and embarassment at every one of their teases. They probably enjoy watching me squirm in my seat. But the holidays had changed me. With so much time on my hands, some careful meditation helped me to reason to myself that I was approaching the snake from the wrong side of its mouth. Of course, I reckon that my time in front-and-center as Christmas Carol Conductor helped too, but that's just a possibility.
To cut to the point, I spent the rest of the day countering all their assaults with a certain amount of boldness, and I even daresay sassiness, that surprised myself as much as it must have surpirsed them. Something tells me that today has completely driven them off me. I think they were more interested in the big-little boy who blushed whenever a word was spoken to him. They've probably lost fascination in me now.
Oh well, no love lost there.
I feel good about having gotten that off my chest.
P.S. To those happily english-illiterate fellow Malaysian followers of mine, I urge you to look up the word "sassy" if you do not fully understand it, lest you have any misgivings of me.
Also, due to the recently introduced burden of school, things are looking uncertain for the activity of my blog updates. We'll see how things go.
I've dicovered that I actually can comment on my own blog, which makes reader communication much easier. If you have any questions or comments, I can reply them now!
Monday, January 2, 2012
I believe I mentioned, quite briefly, some gibberish about a vacation in Kuala Lumpur in my last post. I feel that it would be necessary to elaborate slightly on this point, for this was not exactly an ordinary vacation.
The bulk and purpose of this untimely vacation at New Year's was to bring my older sister to Port Dickson, where she would begin her six-week-long Christian training course at Jeremiah School.
Let's take things one at a time. First of all, I'll tell you about Jeremiah School.
Here in Malaysia, we have a kind of exam called Sijil Pelajaran Menengah, or SPM for short. Roughly translated, it means that its an exam for secondary school studies. Other countries might have SATs or Oh-Levels in its place, but around here we call it SPM. Any student who completes their SPM is said to be a "school-leaver". At this point they can choose to continue on to high-school, or go straight to college, or to stop studying right there and jump straight into the world of commerce and whatnot. However, before any of the first two options can be put into action, one generally has to get their SPM results first. The exam takes place around the beginning of December, and the results don't get announced until some 5 months time. During that interval, several smaller options are available for these students. One of them is called Jeremiah School.
Quite certainly for Christians only, Jeremiah School, as I understand it, is like a kind of boot camp for the soul. Rather than taking on part time jobs, or going into National Service to become a soldier, young school-leaving Christians can choose to enroll into Jeremiah School. I'm not well-informed on every instance of what they will be doing during their six weeks there, but its supposed to be very life-transforming.
This year, Jeremiah School is being held in Port Dickson. WE, on the other hand, live in Taiping. Open up Google maps and work out the distance. My older sister is enrolling in Jeremiah School this year, and my parents sort of decided, well, since we're travelling that distance, might as well stop here and there on the way and relax.
Today is Monday, the initiation day of Jeremiah School. On Saturday, we left our little town of Taiping and made straight for Kuala Lumpur, Pearl of Malaysia. That's what I call it at any rate. It was thanks to our little stop there that we were able to watch the fireworks show that I described in my last update. Next afternoon, we continued our journey to Port Dickson. Nothing much of interest happened there, except that upon arriving, my baby sister's diapers overflowed when I was carrying her, and she wet my shirt. It was not pleasant, and I did not take a picture of it.
We stayed at Port Dickson on Sunday night, and the next day we dropped of my older sister at the Methodist Centre campsite where Jeremiah School takes place.
Then we came home, and I wrote this blog.
I'm only saying all this to emphasise that, well, contrary to my whiny indications last post about how I go on too many vacations, this wasn't exactly a vacation. It was more of a family matter. This makes me feel better about what I'll have to say when people ask me why I wasn't at church on Sunday, although most likely no one really cares.
*********************************
I have now been reunited with my home and all the lovely technology it contains, and it is notat all likely I'll be leaving again any time soon. Within an hour of this post, I'll have all my holiday photos up and running in their respective blog posts! Although most likely no one really cares. After all, its practically cliched that your neighbours will bring all their vacation pictures over to your house and proceed to give a boring yet detailed acount of the whole week they were there. This has never actually happened to me or any I know, but it happens a lot in TV and stuff.
I know what you're thinking, or at least I think I know what you're thinking. I think you're thinking, This is the New Year, the first day for the rest of your life, the time for making resolutions and trying again. And yet, for me, the carefree blogger, nothing has changed. Am I not embracing the New Year with the proper New Year spirit? The answer is, I'm not a school leaver. I'm a lazy, rustic, school-bound teenager. My new year starts when school does, as in this case, school doesn't start until Wednesday. That gives me more time to put in my final twenty-four hours of lazing before I'm forced to go back to my daily routines of waking up before the sun does, and all that.
But you mustn't take my complaints seriously. I'm actually looking forward to this year. We'll see how things really are on Wednesday.
The bulk and purpose of this untimely vacation at New Year's was to bring my older sister to Port Dickson, where she would begin her six-week-long Christian training course at Jeremiah School.
Let's take things one at a time. First of all, I'll tell you about Jeremiah School.
Here in Malaysia, we have a kind of exam called Sijil Pelajaran Menengah, or SPM for short. Roughly translated, it means that its an exam for secondary school studies. Other countries might have SATs or Oh-Levels in its place, but around here we call it SPM. Any student who completes their SPM is said to be a "school-leaver". At this point they can choose to continue on to high-school, or go straight to college, or to stop studying right there and jump straight into the world of commerce and whatnot. However, before any of the first two options can be put into action, one generally has to get their SPM results first. The exam takes place around the beginning of December, and the results don't get announced until some 5 months time. During that interval, several smaller options are available for these students. One of them is called Jeremiah School.
Quite certainly for Christians only, Jeremiah School, as I understand it, is like a kind of boot camp for the soul. Rather than taking on part time jobs, or going into National Service to become a soldier, young school-leaving Christians can choose to enroll into Jeremiah School. I'm not well-informed on every instance of what they will be doing during their six weeks there, but its supposed to be very life-transforming.
This year, Jeremiah School is being held in Port Dickson. WE, on the other hand, live in Taiping. Open up Google maps and work out the distance. My older sister is enrolling in Jeremiah School this year, and my parents sort of decided, well, since we're travelling that distance, might as well stop here and there on the way and relax.
Today is Monday, the initiation day of Jeremiah School. On Saturday, we left our little town of Taiping and made straight for Kuala Lumpur, Pearl of Malaysia. That's what I call it at any rate. It was thanks to our little stop there that we were able to watch the fireworks show that I described in my last update. Next afternoon, we continued our journey to Port Dickson. Nothing much of interest happened there, except that upon arriving, my baby sister's diapers overflowed when I was carrying her, and she wet my shirt. It was not pleasant, and I did not take a picture of it.
We stayed at Port Dickson on Sunday night, and the next day we dropped of my older sister at the Methodist Centre campsite where Jeremiah School takes place.
Then we came home, and I wrote this blog.
I'm only saying all this to emphasise that, well, contrary to my whiny indications last post about how I go on too many vacations, this wasn't exactly a vacation. It was more of a family matter. This makes me feel better about what I'll have to say when people ask me why I wasn't at church on Sunday, although most likely no one really cares.
*********************************
I have now been reunited with my home and all the lovely technology it contains, and it is notat all likely I'll be leaving again any time soon. Within an hour of this post, I'll have all my holiday photos up and running in their respective blog posts! Although most likely no one really cares. After all, its practically cliched that your neighbours will bring all their vacation pictures over to your house and proceed to give a boring yet detailed acount of the whole week they were there. This has never actually happened to me or any I know, but it happens a lot in TV and stuff.
I know what you're thinking, or at least I think I know what you're thinking. I think you're thinking, This is the New Year, the first day for the rest of your life, the time for making resolutions and trying again. And yet, for me, the carefree blogger, nothing has changed. Am I not embracing the New Year with the proper New Year spirit? The answer is, I'm not a school leaver. I'm a lazy, rustic, school-bound teenager. My new year starts when school does, as in this case, school doesn't start until Wednesday. That gives me more time to put in my final twenty-four hours of lazing before I'm forced to go back to my daily routines of waking up before the sun does, and all that.
But you mustn't take my complaints seriously. I'm actually looking forward to this year. We'll see how things really are on Wednesday.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Happy New Year!!!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
Mmm hmm. Yup. It's new year!
I would like to take this moment to wish a very sincere and personal Happy New Year to all my supportive readers. Thank you for dropping by my blog every-so-often since the creation of my blog two months and eighteen days ago. Thank you, and Happy New Year.
...And that's it. Happy new year hype usually lasts for half an hour for me and then dies out quick. But, today's New Year switch-over was rather unique, because... well, where to begin?
Tonight, I happen to be in Kuala Lumpur, the pearl of Malaysian cities. Do I go on too many vacations? Yes, definitely. Anyway, because of this happy coincidence, we were able to enjoy the grand new year fireworks show at the KLCC Park! It went like this...
********************************
There I was, in the throng of people gathered outside the famous KL twin towers. It was approaching midnight, but there was not a visible star in the sky - the glare of the light set up from the plaza canceled out the shine of the stars of space.
We were there, the five of us, together with my baby sister. It took a great effort to get anywhere near the grassy area of the park, for there were so many people. And it is a universal rule, in any universe, that 3 hours prior to New Year's at least, it is compulsary that where 10 or more people are gathered, one of them has something to make noise with. The newspaper, it would turn out the following day, said there were about 50,000 people there that night. Calculate the ratio of noisemakers yourself.
In short, yes, it was noisy. The fountains nearby were putting on a water show, slightly out of place at this time of night, but suitable with the occassion. I was watching this quietly, when all of a sudden the whole multitude, from end to end it seemed, gave rise to a united cheer. Looking around me, I noted that everyone was looking skyward.
I followed suit, but failed to see anything enlightening. Yes, there was the sky up there, which would at any moment be filled with the flash of a dozen-and-hundred fireworks, but for the time being it was relatively blank and unassuming. Looking up, there was also the famous KL Twin Towers, which were the highest in the world for some time long ago. For the first time in my sixteen-year existence, I realised how majestic the building looked at night.
And then something caught my eye. What's that on the top of that building there? Is it a clock?
Yes... Everyone was looking at the clock, cheering at each minute approaching New Year. The recent cheer, it appeared, marked the ticking of the clock into 11:59!
As is custom approaching the final seconds of New Year, some of the audience tried to assemble a shaggy countdown. But this wasn't the kind of clock that greeted second-by-second accuracy with a warm smile. In the end, the final seconds went something like: "Seven... six... five... four... threeWHOOOOHAPPYNEWYEAR!!!"
The clock was silent, but the ring of the figurative tower bell resonated in everyone's minds as we hit New Year's Day. And turning around, what should we see but a single stream of light sailing up into the heights of the sky, like the stalk of a rapidly sprouting plant, which bloomed beautifully when it reached the peak of its ascent. Punctuality is the courtesy of kings. Before long, the sky was filled with beautiful lights.
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| A standard, burst-type fireworks, to get the show started. |
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And look, an army of streamer fireworks, which leave long trails of light before silently winking out! These strangely remind me of missiles. |
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What's ironic is, the armageddon probably won't look a whole lot more different than this. I suppose that's a very glass-half-empty point of view, but it might be better than someone who looks at a nuclear explosion and is reminded of fireworks. |
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| There was also this kind of firework which rose high into the sky, then erupted into these streamers which fell lightly back down. It was quite unique, and got a cheer or two from the audience. |
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And, of course, image-type fireworks. It doesn't matter if it isn't even a particular image, as long as its an image-type firework. In this case, it looks like one of those planets, which one is it now, the one with the rings around it. |
Towards the end of the show, it occured to me that my handphone took videos too, and that a video of fireworks might work better than photos. I switched to video camera mode in time for the grand finale. My handphone can take about 12 seconds of video at a time, and this is that much of the grand finale.
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Through all the explosions and cheering, my baby sister slept like a lamb. I'm not sure why I had to take a picture of it. |
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| And look, the show lasted for nine minutes. I took a picture of the clock as we left, so that I would remember what the time was. Yes, I'm a bumpkin. |
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This post glitched up when I was adding the photos. Happy new year to you too, glitch.
The inconsistency of the capital letters in the words "New Year" in this post unsettles me, but its midnight (duh) so I can't be bothered to reread everything. What's new?
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