"Pompeii"

From far, you look like an empty city, with no noises, no movements, no vitality. For a moment I wonder whether you are Pompeii.

The ruined and partially buired Roman town-city can never relive its horror of the catastrophic eruption of the legendary volcano--Mount Vesuvius. However, the ashes did not last for long before a new generation began to reconstruct that trace of land into their Eden. With the Harvard red, aquamarine blue and snow white, you look motionless, graceful and solemn. Every time I peep down from 15 metres platform or gaze from 20 metres afar, I doubt the existence of life within you.

A brand-new week, with flocks of students sworming through the narrow gate, into your body, into your self, I know that you are relived. It is everybody's genuine grievance to see the green grass on you being pulled out, bulldozer tramping upon your body, scratching off your skin and exposing your wounds to the pouring rain. You look vulnerable in their hands, unable even to protest.

You fall into silent meditation, as you always do.

The downpour blurred our vision, only leaving you to scrutinise your wounds, torn out and sprayed with dirty water.

Someone away from you for hundreds of kilometres once asked," Hey! What happened to the land, what are you gonna do with it?"

"Oh, the land, the land..."

The land, is diminishing. It is gradually walking out of our memory, it is going to become something in the past.

I remember once when I walked up inside you I saw a woman walking her dog on the land. The dog was loistering around on the lawn. Was the dog aware that soon the land would be replaced by a HDB flat? To house people?

That reminds me of Pompeii again. It had not been rediscovered until 1700 years after its collapse. Now let's hope you can rediscover youself again, on the ruins, on the loss, on the changes.

I walk inside you and know that you are still vibrantly alive...

If...

Only If...

If time can intoxicate my stress, let me seek salvage in it...

If I can run fast enough, let me escape your beleaguer...

If, there is no "if" in this world...

We should create a "then" by ourselves...

Destress

Exams are on the corner, but the "world climate" these days seems to help people destress in every way...

It begins with the food. It is very fortunate of us to have a chance enjoying a decent breakfast and dinner now, owing to the relentless campaign of our boarding catering master. Now, it is not unusual for us to occasionally sit for steak, eggplant with meating fillings, spaghetti, and even chicken soup. Several packs of Milo are quotaed to each cluster, inpatiently waiting to dissolve in water and provide us with sufficient energy to burn midnight oil, a bad habit which I have abondoned for now because of Mrs Sabar's admonition.

Secondly, I discovered computer lab as the idealest place to study, provided that you are not an inverterate on-line lover and can resist the temptation all the time. It has large desks for you to stow everything neatly and vast space for you to STRETCH when you bite your fingernail for a geometrical question or rack your head for organic chemistry...Furthermore, it is always filled with people with the same mission----preparing for the End Of Year, but it does not strike the same stress as the gruesome study room does, where you can even hear a pin on the floor due to the threatening silence, and everybody is buried in the sea of books and exercises, competing with time...

Thirdly, the change of my sitting place contributes tremendously in my destress. Due to some reasons I was placed beside Vincent Tan last Wednesday. He is a not-bad deskmate, courteous and helpful, which is very important because I always forget to bring my textbooks, worksheets, etc. and I help him in schoolwork in return. Rong Yao and Wei Song also serve as very professional joke-crackers. Sometimes they can be very noisy and come into "fight" over very minute issues. But these had little distracting effect because I used to sit among gangsters in primary school. Thus adapting well in this "noisy ecosystem" might not be difficult. In addition, it dispels all the stressful feelings and helps alleviate your anxiety, doesn't it?

With all these "external elements" catering to the exam purpose, it is a better time to hone my own skills and upgrade my "internal capability" as well.

Sometimes, it is not a bad idea to step into the study room and sit for one hour or so to get the feel of exams----the cold silence, the ticking of the clock, and the menacing atmosphere. And once you step into the classroom again, everything is just so relaxing, joyous, and pleasant.

And it is time for exams...

Loss Of Sanity...

Exams are coming, we are insane, sane, insane, sane, insane, sane, insane, sane, insane, sane......



INSANE...



Revel in insanity...

"Maybe, we are all the Prisoners of Time..."

I don't know why, but I felt a sudden rush to take out "the book" out of the drawer...

Perhaps my hands act of their own volition, but I don't know.

I read my own words, the words I wrote two years ago...how time flies...I mean, how time flashes.

I used to write an italic character, and I used to love my pen; I used to lock myself up in the words, in the thoughts, in the feelings, and I used to listen to my heart palpitating...

I used to capture the touch in my life in a simple way; I used to caress every page of my work, and smell the fragrance of the blue ink...

The cover with a four-leaf clover once brought me luck, and once let the happiness slip away from my hands.

The caring words of Mohan once intilled in me great strength, and once ebbed out of my memory without trace.

I saw the cat in the dark night, the princess with the scarlet scarf; and I saw the wilting of the Michaelmas daisy, the death of the golden turnip.

I saw the African music-player who retrieved all the love from a little girl and tramped upon her trust, and I saw a "Seraph" trying to console the excruciating pain of her, but ended up willowing in the unrequited love.

I sensed the harshness of my words, and the tender touch accompanied with them.

They sluiced down my memory two years ago, taking away with them all the joy and pain a spirit could have felt.

And they were all locked up in "the book", the book without seeing the sunshine for two years.

Now I open it again, to sense the touch, and to smell the ink~

"Maybe, we are all the Prisoners of Time.."

We stand under the gibbets of time day and night,

Waiting for the moment of execution,

While our lives are drifting away from us

In the tickling of the clock,

And,

So do our memories...

O My Houses

Today is 16th September, 2008, one year after I moved out of Gold Ammu garden into 90 WenHua Road, Jinshui District, 14-01 room, which was my fifth house, the biggest one till now.
The "migrating" genes are encoded in our family. It seems that we are always on mobile.
Getting used to change our resting places, we spent our carefree childhood at 23 WenHua Road, primary schools life in the so-called "No.7 Block", and, after my middle school life began, there was another drastic change in our lodgings.
In order not to live in the school dormitory, our whole family moved to the West Zone, Gas Company Residence Centre, 53, LongHai Road, right opposite my school, Zhengzhou Foreign language Middle School.
However, the peaceful life did not last for long. One and a half years later, our school moved to Hanghai Road since there was a need for reconstruction in our school buildings. Therefore, to "faithfully follow the footprints of our school", we moved onto Hanghai Road, a western and suburban area in our city.
Then finally came the time for us to settle down...


Here comes the "No.10 Block"!
16th September, 2007, we moved out of our rent house in Gold Ammu Garden and started a cool and steady life in the so-called "No.10 Block". Tears and blood were mingled in the construction of this legendary "No.10 Block", it was like a marathon battle which led the young me to first truly confront the complexity of mankind. Against all odds, the building was set up, erecting there, firmly and stoutly like a giant. I, fortunately, witnessed the growth of this building from sand and stone to brick and concrete.
I was gratitude to live in that 163-square-metre house. Even it was merely for 1.5 months.


An untidy corner in my living room

Rabbit on the television(It was real rabbit!)
That was a real period of "anarchy": no school, no tuition, no worries. Yet I could not bear that kind of life: no drive, no activity, no twists...only the big and grand house, and three figures I could not be more familiar with.

Tea table(heating tubes were behind)
It is now I begin to miss that "anarchy". However, I never want to regain that state of life.
O my houses, everytime I left any one of you, I used my pen and paper to commerate our accompany. Every one of you was so unique, so touching, and so unforgettable. You are living things to me, can talk, can listen, and can feel. That is why I want to remeber every one of you. You are all my treasures in life.
Now I share a small "pigeon hole" with three other 'pigeons' and we live a regular life. We will fly away one day, most likely one year and more later, into different directions. That is when we begin to shed tears on this land and meanwhile, welcome my 7th house.

Matrix

Do not try and bend the spoon,

that's impossible.

Instead, only try to realize the truth:

There is no spoon.

Then you'll see it is not the spoon that bends,

It is only yourself.

别试着折弯汤匙，

那是不可能的。

你要试着看清真象：

汤匙不存在。

改变的不是汤匙，

而是你自己。

----Matrix I

After finishing the Chinese Literature project on Matrix, I fell in love with these lines. They reveal a truth that you always know, yet there are no words more succinct than those to explain this truth.

The situation in which humans begin to doubt their existence is no longer restricted in religious practice. They put their doubts in movies. And instead of only holding a dubious attitude towards human themselves, people begin to doubt the existence of "the real world". To our grievance, after living in this world for almost 17 years, we have to accept the fact that there lies a possibility that the world we are in is not "real". It sounds ridiculous, but that is where MatrixI, II, III bring us to: a pursuit to the "real world" and a doubt to the "real self".

The theme of "searching for the 'real self' " is not put into literary text for the first time. As early as in 1963, Danish writer Anne Holm encoded this theme in her fiction novel "I am David" and illustrated it well. The boy who worshipped the God of "The Green Pastures and the Still Waters" finally realised what a "real self" meant after experiencing a never-ending list of adventures. However, speak of which, it has never been easy for Neo to realise his real identity, even after much more agonizing adventures.

Why is it so hard to differentiate your true identity from what you display to others? Because a person is ever changing, since he is ever growing. Growing up is a mysterious thing: you find yourself stopped doing lots of things you used to do all the time--playing with toys, watching cartoons, kicking a ball on the mowed lawn--but you never remember deciding to stop. Childhood is thus like a habit you gradually grew out of, unknown to yourself, a bit at a time.

When you are eventually moulded into who you are today, who knows what you were, and without that, how could you expect them to judge you holistically? In the first place, how will you discover you "real self"? It lies in the past, or it stays with you now?

We mundane creatures face such difficulties, so does Neo--The One is disguise. He was inside the Matrix controlled by the Architect, but he refused to be just a programme. He possessed the ability to love which was a "code" absent in the programme, that was how he began to betray and then--upgrade the whole programme, and eventually, got out of the programme while destroying it.

"Everything with a beginning has an end." another of my favourite lines in the movie. With that, I shall end this unfathomable philosophical chunk of words.

Today is Mid-Autumn, a sweet festival in this chill season. There, firecrackers will light up the night when we begin to make well wishes for the rest of the year. It is coming to an end, or it is just a beginning.

Mid-Autumn Funfair

Today is a very happy day. Though I stayed up very late till this morning (burnt midnight oil), I felt very energetic the whole day. To begin with, we had a fun P.E. lesson playing ball games, followed by a confusing but amusing A-math lesson consolidating our function graph skills. Mrs Sabar then lightened up our day with an equally amusing lesson dealing with Source-Based Questions. As for the long-awaited English lesson, we had the honour to have Mr Arther Kok as our "relief Teacher". He made us write an essay within 40 mins. I was proud that I finished it, though it had a quite abrupt ending. However, the real highlights for today came after lunch and dinner.

After school, we reluctantly shuffled towards AVA1 to have the video conference lesson on Chinese Literature with a HongKong school. The topic for today was surprisingly one of my favourate topics:射雕英雄传(hoho:) I spent the whole session reading the addictive novel without paying attention to anything around me until at around five, Mr Cai told us that there were some technical problems about the computer programme that the vedio conference was cancelled. I was supposed to be disappointed, but not in the slightest. I was eager to go home and download other chapters.

There was Mid-Autumn Festival performance tonight which contributed to the second hignlight of today's activities. To do the council duty, I had to hurry out of the computer lab at around six. With my brains filled with 郭靖, 黄蓉, 欧阳锋, 杨康 and those complex relations between them, I came to school and had an expected shock: various stalls were about to attract customers! I was excited to meet Mr Cai again in his casual clothes and we discussed a bit about射雕英雄传. His class was to sell ice creams=P

We strolled around and refused to dodge at a mask stall. Because we had long been knowing that there would be a masquerade on 18th Oct in our hostel's gallery hall, we found this a great chance to attemp some new things. Unfortunately, the masks were not appaling enough that almost everyone could spot out who was behind the mask, so I did not buy it. Masquerade has always been an eerie form of entertainment to me under the influence of two novels: Edgar Alan Poe's short story on the Red Death Ghost and The Phantom of the Opera, in which the masquerade became an excellent occasion for some mysterious and scary thing to happen.

Then we began to participate in the funfair. We stopped at the PSG stall to learn the handcrafting skills. I really appreciated the patience of those parents, having to handle with so many "students" yet being so helpful all the time! I made a ring chain in three colours: yellow, red and white. Mary said my chain was very Chinese. Indeed! Though it was quite outdated from the trendy point of view, the colour combination was pretty meaningful. Red and yellow, the royal colours in ancient China; and white, the symbol of purity as well as the colour of our school uniform;) I also made a bottle of solidified wax with colourful sand and seashells. I love it.

After that, we found some friends with lanterns loistering around happily so we hurried to get one for ourselves. Those lanterns fit the jubilant and romantic atmosphere very well. In the far back of my memory, I could see the eight-year-old me holding an electronic lantern that could "sing". It was a lovely rabbit with a drum:) My sister's was a cartoon duck, it was cute, too. However, her lantern made everybody laugh as they passed by because the "song" that the duck playing was too weird(hah hah)

I also went to guess the lantern "myths"(??!) I was not good at it at all! Perhaps my brain cells were all sealed up or they agglutinated together that I could not get a single one correct! My sister was a super pro and in great contrast, she got three correct within 5mins(*applause*)

Later on, we went to support our senior's Xiang Sheng.(Hmm... not bad) There was not enough laughter I think, perhaps people in Nan Hua got too used to it. Actually, both performers are not very comical people. They should get more amusing characters like Zhao Stone and William Jr. Brown alike, I surmise:)

At the moment of departure, Guoshuai daunted all of us with his crazy phototaking. Quite qualified for a papparazzi, he was able to catch all the strange human shapes from incredible angles. He indeed brought excitement to us all, though it was time to calm down I think.

Now it is quite late, and I still want to finish my 射雕英雄传. Good night everybody, and happy Mid-Autumn.

I wish you all are happy there, too.

Buzz...

EOY is coming...

It is just the first week of Term 4, but I can feel that the pressure is piling up. Almost all teachers come will remind us of something connected with EOY. Indeed, next Friday we will welcome our first battle, English and Chinese Paper One. By now for English, I still have quite a lot to prepare. In addition, the day before the test will be the O Level Chemistry Spa. Beforehand, I did not really fear those experimental issues. In middle school, I almost helped our chemistry teacher demonstrate everything.However, a mock Physics Spa changed me view on this practical task drastically.

For the Physics Spa on the refraction of light , in which we were supposed to find out the refractive index of a glass block, I almost made every mistake that a student could have made. Firstly, I did not keep my incident angles increase consistently. Secondly, I did not stick to one point of incidence. Thirdly, after I realised my mistake, I kept carrying out the wrong experiment until the Spa teacher told me to redo the whole experiment. However, this was not bad enough. After I changed into a blank piece of drawing paper and started afresh, I got so anxious that in the "plotting graph" part, I inverted X and Y axis:( Finding out that my graph was more than eerie, I started to plot a new graph again. Of course, I ran out of time in this crucial experiment. Since then, I really began to take Spa seriously. Next Thursday will be our first Spa Assessment, I hope everything goes smoothly, safely and correctly.

In this week, everyone was working so hard that I felt pressurised... It seems that I should work harder to catch up. I shall continue to concentrate on my poor English, while keeping every other subject up to standard. It is hard! Based on my experience in these 9 years, once you get to a high level, you are supposed to remain there. Defending is always more challenging than attacking, according to some ancient warfare doctrines~

It is time for work now, let's get started. Those who have already started, continue your good work. Since it is our responsibility to learn, let's perform our responsibility well.

THIS SUNDAY IS MID-AUTUMN FESTIVAL, I am looking forward to a full moon. Inside the moon, I am sure I will see more...hah

A Poem (1 Corinthine 13)

Love is patient;

love is kind;

love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.

It does not insist on its own way;

it is not irritable or resentful;

it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.

It bears all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends.

（《新约·哥林多前书》第1 3章)

Holiday...

Here comes the end of this holiday.

When life is so simple and normal, you tend to blame its monotony, yet when life is so full of changes, you begin to miss the old simple life.

This holiday is really hectic...

Grandpa is hospitalised again, the situation is quite serious that my mum has to send meals to him every day...

Every one is in a bad mood recently, telephone line is being mended, and mum is too worried to answer the phone. I feel guilty every time I dial the number, so familiar yet so distant, so cold.

The holiday begins with the Yellow Ribbon project. It was after the Teachers' Day celebration and I went to Orchard to sell yellow ribbons with Kheng Yee and Sherry. Many unfortunate things happened. First of all, I found it hard to get money out of people's pockets. I tried to target at couples because I think males might want to show their generousity in front of the females they like. This assumption was proved groundless because these days, males want to show females that they can manage their money carefully so they are unwilling to give away money in casual occasions. Then I targeted at students and got some profits. However, the times that I asked for money was still much more than the times they put money into my collecting tin.

Then came the real holiday.

30th Aug Morning.
I went to Singapore Polytechnic to attend the speech competition. Actually I went there to support Tan Yong Kian, a Kranji genius whose excellent public speaking skills and personal charisma never fail to attract people's attention. He can speak like a BBC broadcaster and he is exceedingly creative that he dazzled the whole audience with his speech "Kampung Spirit". Believe me, it was marvellous. Can you imagine that such a boring topic can be illustrated with a basket of vegetables, a little red shining ball, a drama skit and the famous cartoon character--Xiao Ding Dang? After his speech, we all cheered for him that the whole competition reached its clamax. To my great grievance(actually is to our great grievance), he was outshone by a RI boy in impromptu speech so he got second in the competition. But I am still happy for him because I believe that he could have been the winner.

30th Aug Night.
We went to Clementi CDC to celebrate the National Day, the food was ok and the performance was quite nice. However, everyone's attention was focused on the food that we barely paid attention to the performance. There was a lucky draw yet none of us won anything.

1st Sep.
Class outing day. We went to Mr Tan's house. It has a double-floor structure. Though it is not very big and the decorations are not very modern, I like its design a lot, especially the narrow passage to the kitchen. He has a large collection of music discs and novels. He loves Harry Potter and has every copy of the series! He is really a child at heart. We cooked chicken's wings with...coca cola:) It took several hours so we were late. Then we played cards till the end of the party. I won the most times in 5-10-K, hahhah.

4th Sep-5th Sep.
We went to Happy World Childcare Centre to do CIP. It is very far away from our hostel that it took us almost one hour to reach the place. We had to get to Bishan MRT first and then changed into bus and stopped at the 2nd stop. The Hwa Chong senior asked us to teach them plants. We finished the lesson quichly and then marrily engaged in the "catching" game. A naughty boy saw a big bug and no sooner than Guoshuai shouted out "Oh, NO!", the boy ran to the bug and trampled it with the sole of his shoe. A lot of liquid burst out that it was a terrible scene to watch. We were rendered speechless at the sight of the bug and a little girl even cried miserably. These children let me find my old self, and my old life, crazy&carefree.

The other day we went to the same place to teach them mass dance. It rained heavily so we were confined to the room. A senior asked them to do "leaf painting", so we separated into three groups. I really like the Philippine boy Samuel. He has long eyelashes and always wears a big smile. Charmaine, a 10-year-old is very neat, polite and quiet. Her "leaf painting" was the best, I dare say. At around 11;30, I left early for Chemistry remedial, but I was still late. We learned mainly about isomers and it was more complex than I expected. A highlight of the lesson was the toy model of chemical bonds, I am sure a lot of people had great fun playing with it.

Today.
There was nothing much happened, except that Daniel came back at aroud 8p.m and shouted my name in front of my block which threatened an Indonesian girl studying there. I was doing my Chem mock paper and this shout interrupted my train of thought. To my great amusement, he brought back a cardbox of mineral water and several boxes of mooncakes...Ok, I have consumed them and shared them with others.

Now, I am proud to say that I have finished all my homework except Chinese. To do or not to do, that is the question. I will try my best, though.

Term4
Let's have the last fight before going to become graduation class..

Sec4
Ok, one more month...let the tempest strike stronger...

The Cross "+"

Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it. "

Matthew 7-13,14"

Mosque&Moon-cake Making:)

It is a really interesting afternoon, because our first outing with SKY people is a successful one. Setting off at 3:oo p.m sharp, we went to the Ar-Raudhah Mosque in Bukit Batok(just opposite the Regency Heights Condo:) On the way, we made a lot of friends. A large proportion of Sky people are 302ers, so the names of people from other classes are easy to remember. I get to know Karine, Jie Ling and Wan Ying from 301, and two guys: Benjamin and Timothy(Shi Jie if I am not wrong). Benji is a 93.3FM fan and he loves Fei Lun Hai, we talked a lot about pop stars.

They we went to the Mosque. We all removed our shoes before we went in. It is a big Mosque of five storeys with Library and IT lab(quite modern). We were invited into the Auditorium and the organiser made a briefing about Muslims' religious culture. We watched a video about Ramadhan, which is a fasting carried out by Muslims in the 9th month of Islamic Calendar(a month of Good Deeds&Charity, a month of Forgiveness and month of Worship) During the fasting period, disciples are not supposed to eat or drink or even smoke, or they will break the fast. However, this ritual is only applied to able-bodied men and women, those who are ill or old or on a long journey can be excused. So the customs is quite flexible.

Singapore carries out the Ramadhan by "mathematic calculation" while some Arabic countries by "moon sights". It is a mysterious and fascinating experience to learn about the "moon sights". I jotted down the eight phases of moon sights, which are New Moon, Waxing Crescent, First Quarter, Waxing Gibbous, Full Moon, Waning Gibbous, Third Quarter and Waning Crescent. They the guide let us to find the New Moon in the picture. It is marvellous! We have the chance to see the 30-min-old New Moon in California, 90-min-old New Moon in Iran and 24h-old New Moon in Kuala Lumpur, right between the Twin Tower!

I remember a book about Mosque, A Passage To India. It has certain allusion about Muslim culture, yet I think to really understand Muslim culture, I might have to find out the book, Come to Mecca. Indeed, pilgrimage is a nice scene to see, and we were so fortunate to have the chance to witness the prayer saying ceremony. Even when you are not a follower of Prophet Muhammad, you cannot help to marvel in this atmosphere of religious devinity. One curious thing to note is that males and females have to say the prayers separately to avoid "distraction". That is quite unusual!

After visiting the Mosque, we went to make moon-cake at Toa Li Food Products Company. There was a high demand for the food to be made in totally hygienic conditions, so every one of us was to wear a white blouse, a white cap, a white mouth-cover, a pair of white gloves and a pair of shoe-covers. Then we discovered that we look exactly like a heed of surgeons! Richard, Benjamin, Timothy, Yan Hui and I were to put processed dates into moon cake doughs(I don't know what is that!) But the whole process is super fun! Then we were asked to see the moon cakes being baked in the oven, and I tried to spray egg yolk syrup(what is that?) onto the moon cakes, and they were sent into the oven to bake again~

We played the name game on the way back home, but the game stop halfway when some people have to go off the bus. But overall, it is a nice outing and I am looking forward to the next outing with them on Sunday!

What will we do on Sunday? I have already known:) but I am going to keep this secret temporarily. I am sure we will be very happy together.

And And... in November(my month!), we will walk along the Singapore river... that will surely spice up our holiday!

Ok, stop here, and pray for a peaceful and wonderful September. Amen.