Gee, Officer Krupke

This is going to be a short post since exam period restricts me from spending my time on long posts.

Yesterday I went to watch West Side Story musical with PeiShe, Aaron and Nic.
It was awesome.
It was enjoyable.
It was funny (MALE STRIPPER LOOKALIKE!)
and it was...sweet. :)

Man you guys are good companions to watch musicals. :)
Cheers.

Glitter In My Hair

I know it's a bit late for a Sports Day 2010 post, but I just had to record the experience down before all gets lost in the midst of the exam-frenzy and um, other stuff.

It was a great experience, being able to take part in something as exciting as the preparation for Sports Day. All the painting (non-removable paint, and I've got stains of it all over at least 4 of my school PE shirt & school pinafore) and the burning of egg trays to chase away the mosquitoes, the chatting, gossiping, laughing and who could forget the paper mache-ing? :)
Then, when all is done, you step back, take a look at your masterpiece and sigh in satisfaction. :)

And of course, staying overnight on the eve of Sports Day in preparation of costumes and khemah decoration. I'm not sure I did much during the night before Sports Day besides running around delivering stuff and trying to write/memorize a script to explain to the judges about the theme of Red House (The Night Before Christmas) on Sports Day.
But it was an experience, being able to sleep on the floor of the Sports Centre, trying to avoid the shiny bright spotlights above from blinding your eyes while you try to drift off into a dreamless sleep. My sleeping bag and fold-able pillow was taken away from me, so I curled up on the hard wooden floor and drifted off to sleep, only to be awaken one hour later at 4am by the talking of voices.

Sports Day was nothing but awesome. I dirtied my last & new red shirt, sprinkled glitter in my hair, painted my hand, put on a red hair band and tied a red ribbon, clapped, cheered, screamed, laughed, cried, hugged, sat in the sun without bothering to put sunblock and got both my arms sunburned. And the result of all that was that Merah came in first for both marching/formation & khemah decoration.


The marching has been recorded down and protected in my camera (LEGENDARY!) and our decoration items have their place of glory in the Foyer A for one week. :D
GO MERAH!

Worldwide April Fools' Day Pranks

Since I didn't get to prank anyone on April Fools' Day and no one pranked me back (except for a very failed attempt by my dear sister), I decided it would be interesting to blog a list of really cool April Fools' Day Pranks. :D

1. Spaghetti Trees:
In 1957, this BBC television program called Panaroma ran a documentary of Italians harvesting spaghetti from trees. They claimed that this despised pest, called the spaghetti weevil had be eradicated. After the documentary finished, a large number of people called BBC wanting to know how to plant their own spaghetti trees. To this BBC replied "place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best."

2. Gmail Vowel Outage:
April Fools' Day 2010, Gmail Engineering Director Sam Schillace decided to remove the usage of vowels from Gmail. Gmail received numerous reports of this issue via help forums and Google. It was later revealed that this was nothing more than a silly April Fools' Day prank. :)

3. Jovian-Plutonian Gravitational Effect:
In 1976, British astronomer Sir Patrick Moore told listeners of BBC Radio 2 that this unique alignment of the planets Jupiter and Pluto would result in an upward gravitational pull at precisely 9.47am, making people lighter. He invited all his listeners to jump in the air and experience the strange floating sensation. Many of the listeners phoned in to say that they felt the floating sensation. One woman even phoned in to say that she and her eleven friends had risen from their chairs.

4. Flying Penguins:
In 2008, BBC announced that camera crews were filming near the Antarctic had captured a miraculous footage of penguins flying. They even offered a video footage of these flying penguins. Presenter Terry Jones even explained that instead of huddling together for the winter, these penguins are flying towards the rainforests of South America to bask in the tropical sun.

5. The 26-Day Marathon:
In 1981, a Japanese long-distance runner, Kimo Nakajimi, entered the London Marathon. On mistranslation, he thought he had to run for 26 days instead of 26 miles. Various people spotted him running, determined to finish the race and tried to flag him down but failed.

6. April Fool Bomb:
In 1915, in the midst of World War One, a French aviator flew over a German camp and dropped what appeared to be a large bomb. German soldiers scattered for cover but no explosion happened. When the soldiers were brave enough to come out and explore the bomb, they realized it was nothing but a large football with a note tied to it that read "April Fool!"

The crazy, silly things people do for a good laugh.
Thumbs up to April The First. ;D

Earth Hour

Earth Hour.

27th March 2010.

8.30pm-9.30pm.

During Earth Hour, I took a break from the computer and the designing and retreated to the candlelit terrace to finish my Chemistry Project. It was a total success. Not only did I save electricity, but I managed to finish the contents of my project. I even had the honor of being bitten by mosquitoes. Meh to that but yay to Earth Hour. :)

Unfortunately, my house was one of the few houses in my neighborhood which was in support of Earth Hour. Everybody else still had their lights on and were still watching TV. It's really sad that my neighbors don't acknowledge Earth Hour. Either that or they have no clue whatsoever about E.H.
Next year I shall paint a big banner about Earth Hour and hang it in the middle of the playground for everyone to see. Or I could go to Tenanga Nasional and ask them to switch off all electricity in the neighborhood and tell all the neighbors that it was a blackout.
Ahaha.

Earth Hour FTW. :)

Tik Tok, On The Clock

Today felt like a shorter day compared to yesterday, but none less busy. It's good to take a little time out to blog even if you are busy, I think it helps relax the mind and body a little.

So anyway, today was a pretty productive day: I managed to complete a quarter of my Chemistry Folio in school with Nic (Nic, you didn't even use all the reference books I brought to school whatonearth) and I had a nice, enjoyable time laughing my stomach empty listening to all the jokes Aaron L and Sean were cracking. However, there was this slight moment where for some reason I felt a little faint, but I managed to get a sandwich courtesy of Nic's one dollar. Thanks, Nic.
OH and today I made a new friend. It was a pretty unusual way of making friends, but yeah. Random.

On the other hand, work is still piling up and I still lack sleep. I haven't been sleeping well lately and I absolutely have no idea why. Hmm, I'm not stressed out about school work or anything, and I don't have any distressing thoughts before I go to bed.
Maybe it's my guilty conscience torturing me about my horrible exam results. I mean, I have been studying hard, but this term my brain seems to filter all that I've studied. Lucky my sister, who kept complaining that she didn't study at all but can magically produce superb results. I on the other hand am so hare-brained that I can only remember certain information that are actually of no use to my academic syllabus, and needs to have Physics concepts nailed to my inner brain to actually understand it.
Oh well, if there's one thing my sister can't beat me at it's card games. Yahoo! Haha.

Alright, now back to work. I'm planning to have everything, and I mean everything cleared off by this weekend. :)

The Little Prince

I feel happy today. :)
Didn't really do anything productive, like homework or MoralProject or anything, but I still feel happy. :)

And you, you know why.
Haha! :D

Mom It's Your Birthday

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM! :)

Thank you for always being there when I need you and for being completely calm and understanding when I told you about that thing. Haha! 

So for mom's birthday we picked up two boxes of +Wondermilk's CuppaCakes for tasting. It isn't as nice as I thought it would be, but it's still pretty yummy all the same. What I've found out from +Wondermilk is that you can order custom-made cupcakes for special celebrations, friends & family's birthday etc. 

Which I guess is nothing special for people who can bake!, but still. :)

At night we went off to OneUtama's Delicious for a birthday treat, 

YES to smoked-salmon pasta!

and right after that late dinner we decided to catch the movie NINE at 11.30pm.

Went home at about 2am and slept for 9 hours and I still feel sleepy but who cares because it's the holidays right now, Ilovemymom and I'm going to go book WestSideStory tickets YAY!

Something's Coming

OHMYGOSH. :D
I just found out...that West Side Story is coming to Malaysia!
12 May to 24 May.

I . WANT . TO . GO . AND . I . WILL . GO.

 :D

Just in case you were wondering what West Side Story is, it's a really famous musical from Broadway.
It's a story set in New York City in the 1950's, exploring the rivalry between two street gangs called the Sharks and the Jets. The story is loosely based on Romeo and Juliet, about forbidden love and everything.
Well, you know, a classic. Haha.

Oh and yes, I do have this thing for musicals. Yay musicals. :)

So anyway, between a choice of going to Singapore to catch Chicago The Musical, which was initially my plan and spending RM200 buying a ticket (it's the cheapest ticket! WSS is coming all the way from Broadway New York, so of course the tickets are a bit expensive) and driving about 40 minutes to go watch West Side Story- I'll take West Side Story. :)
Sorry Chicago, HELLO West Side Story!

And now I'm off to study BM komsas and Chemistry.
I cannot wait for the exams to end.
Then again, no one can.
Unless you're some really crazy person who absolutely LOVES exams.
Hmm.

BOOM! Crackers

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR!

Get lots of angpows, people!
Cast aside all unhappy thoughts and just have fun. :)

As for me, I'm off to Singapore early tomorrow morning.
Whee! :D

Drinking Honey

Okay so Chelsea didn't freak as I thought she would. But she sounded excited all the same. :)
Went to the concert after my guitar lesson at about 9. Met Carmen, Rachel and JesCee there, together with some of JesCee's church friends. Stood there waiting for Boys Like Girls to come on stage; Carmen and JesCee told me that the local artists performing earlier were very boring, and that I didn't miss much.
Well, that's good. Haha. :)

The Boys Like Girls concert was fun. I actually forgot to bring my camera so no pictures from the concert. :(
There were very little people at the concert, like, very very little. If you compare it to the All American Rejects concert- there would be no comparison at all. The good part about it is that everyone can stand very near to the stage, and at the same time standing with a bit of space around you. It's not at all packed and squishy, and the crowd wasn't violent like the one during AAR; I didn't even sweat at all.
However, the small number didn't bring the atmosphere down. The crowd was still very lively and noisy, just like how a crowd should be during a concert. :)

Boys Like Girls are AWESOME live. Even though I didn't know all the songs that they sang, but I still swayed and jumped along. Until I found out that I kept accidentally stepping the foot of the guy standing behind me, then I stopped dancing and just bounced up and down. Whoops. :/
I think the coolest part of the concert was when Martin Johnson (the lead singer) did a stage dive into the crowd and they crowd was carrying him around. The girl in front of me was screaming her head off when she saw him sitting on the crowd. Haha.

Well, I'm definitely downloading all of Boys Like Girls songs now. :)
And right, my voice sounds so hoarse from all the attempted cheering last night; The reason I say attempted cheering, was because actually couldn't really scream properly last night, because I had a sore throat. So I just clapped my hands and squealed a bit. And when I woke up this morning, I sounded like I ate a sandpaper the night before or something.
So yeah.
And now I'm drinking this honey drink to soothe my throat.

I wouldn't say it was the best concert ever, but it was still great. :)

Being Spontaneous!

Boys Like Girls

I cannot believe that my mum actually agreed to fetch me to catch Boys Like Girls LIVE (and for free) at the Bukit Kiara Equestrian Arena Indoor Stadium.
Today.
After my guitar lesson. :)
OMG MY MUM IS LIKE, THE BEST. :D

I'm actually not a big fan of Boys Like Girls, but since it's a free concert- WHY NOT?
My sister, on the hand, is different. She is going to freak. For all I know, she adores Boys Like Girls.
Haha I wonder how her reaction is going be like when I tell her that she gets to go to a last-minute planned concert. Whee! :)

Okay that's pretty much all I have to blog right now.
I'll be sure to bring a camera there. :)
Mwah.

NOAH PUCKERMAN. :D

So I was sick yesterday.
It started off with a few sneezes and sniffing yesterday morning, but by the time it was evening it became sneezing and sniffing every few minutes. I could barely see where I was going or what I was doing. By dinner I was so uncomfortable; I was so groggy and my eyelids were so heavy I felt like I was dying. I think I might have had a slight fever or something.

I skipped tuition yesterday, popped a pill and went to bed at about 8.15pm. A nice 10 hours sleep was all I needed, because when I woke up this morning I felt much better, albeit a few sniffs.
But as of now I feel totally fine. :)
I decided not to stay back after school to run the 5km track; another run might just send me off to popping another pill and sleeping for 10 hours again.

And now, off to watch GLEE. I have 5 more episodes before I finish season one. :)

No Greater Love

This is my second post of the day. I'm getting my super-blogging mojo back. :)

So, late yesterday night I decided to watch The Notebook. And so I did. And it was GREAT.
I really loved the connection between Allie and Noah, I loved how they fell madly in love with each other when they were just teenagers and I absolutely loved how they spent their summer romance. She wasn't ashamed that he was just a Southern country boy and she was a city girl; he thought she was the most beautiful girl he had ever lay eyes on and his spontaneous activities with her just made them fall more crazily in love with one another.

And though they had to part suddenly after the summer was over, he wrote her 365 letters, one for each day of the year. She never received them, but she still waited for him for 7 years. He went crazy and frustrated when he didn't receive any replies for the letters he sent, and started working like mad to fix up the dream house he owned, and he fixed it up to be exactly like how she wanted her dream house to be. And so, when they finally met years later, they got back together, because the chemistry between them had always been there since they met as teenagers over the summer. He loved her for all his life and always thought about her and she yearned to be with him. And they stayed together for the rest of their lives.

This movie made me think about a lot of things, like whether true love can last as long as it is expected to, or whether these things just happen in movies and not in real life.
Anyway, The Notebook: :)

Somebody To Love

A few weeks ago, when the fever of Glee had just started spreading, people kept telling me how awesome the series were, how amazing and how spectacular and how jaw-dropping it would be. And they kept urging me to watch the series.

And on Wednesday night, I watched Glee for the first time on Star World. And to be honest, episode one was just a bit disappointing. After all the excited reactions from friends talking about Glee, I sort of expected Glee to be off the charts. And it wasn't until I continued watching episode two, three, four and so on did I realize that Glee REALLY was as amazing and wonderful as Gleeks say they are.
And for the record, I am totally in love with Glee. :)

Here are a few reasons why Glee is worth watching:
1. I have no idea how they do it, but they make every song sound nice. And I mean EVERY. I used to dislike the song Rehab and Mercy by Amy Winehouse and Duffy, but the remix that they sang on Glee just blew me away.
2. It is SO MUCH BETTER than High School Musical. After watching Glee, you won't even remember how Troy and Gabriella sound like.
3. Villains in the series are not typical slutty cheerleaders but evil, funny cheerleading coaches like Sue Sylvester.
4. Noah Puckerman is so darn HOT. And everyone loves Puck.
5. The show keeps getting better and better with every episode. Seriously.
6. The whole of William McKinley High School doesn't go beserk and lose their heads even after the two most popular kids in school are in the Glee Club (which is pretty much the bottom of the social level in high school).
7. They beat 30 Rock in the Golden Globes Award. 30 ROCK. So you see how good Glee is?

Okay that's pretty much all I can come up with. Just, go watch Glee. :D

Specifically,

This afternoon, I am proud to say, that even the blazing sun failed to destroy the will of Rachel Ho (that's me, just in case you didn't know that you dumbo), Lee Pei She, Michelle Anne Leong, Nicholas Lim and Leong Chi Han to jalk the cross-country track as practice for the real cross-country day run.

And even though we missed a turn (or was it a couple of turns), and we had to jalk the wrong way back to school, we still managed to finish our, um, challenge of jalking 5km. :)
So yes, even though we were all panting and trying to expand our lungs to let more oxygen flow through our brain so that we wouldn't just keel over suddenly or whatever, we still had fun. RIGHT?

So yeah. I don't care what you guys say, I'm pulling you for another round of jalking next week.
You guys are awesome. :D

I Brought Three Rubber Bands To School Today

Oh man, I am so tired now. Physically tired but mentally hanging on.
Does that even make sense? I think my grammar's all wrong, but whatever lah. :) Whee.

So, GERKO Day today was really fun. I got to skip classes (I doubt my teachers were really teaching anyway), got to witness the crowd of students pondering over which club they should join, got to sit down on the floor to finish my English essay, got to walk around taking random pictures, got to be awesome in my last year of GERKO Day enjoyment. I cannot believe I'm graduating this year. 

GERKO Day duty was just the least of it all. After school and after eating a lunch consisting of asam laksa + meehoon and french fries, I went to play frisbee. And although I was initially rather reluctant, it turned out to be pretty fun. So yeah. I wouldn't mind playing it again. :)

It's better than playing frisbee with my dog, because you see, dogs cannot throw the frisbee back at you.
Ahah, ahah. :)

Cool Things That I've Discovered :D

I have found the 8th Wonder of the World. :D
Okay well, I didn't actually find it, more like rediscovered it. :)
SKYPE.
Skype, is a programme designed for you to be able to have conversations on-line through the microphone (webcam or no webcam), designed for you to be able to have emergency midnight meetings with your fellow club members, designed to um, eavesdrop on the background voices of the people you are chatting with, etc. :)
I know MSN has the same thing as well, but no one voice-chats through MSN. Skype is so much cooler for voice-chatting. Don't ask me why, it just is. 

Okay I felt like I was crapping. But whatever. Just use Skype and you'll be able to see the power of it's um, coolness. :)

Okay, the second cool thing that I've discovered lately (through this TV series called Shark) is that there's this job called a hostage negotiator. By the name you can obviously guess that the job of this hostage negotiator is to well, negotiate hostages. Say for example, some people are being held hostage in this bank by a robber armed with a gun. Then a hostage negotiator will be called and will try to meet with the demands of the robber to get the hostages out safely while working with the police to find a way to corner the robber.
Awesome, right? How come we've never heard of these cool jobs in Malaysia?

And the third thing that I find really cool is forensic psychology. Seriously, this is a job that combines psychology with a bit of law. If I'm not wrong, forensic psychologists have to go to court to testify stuff sometimes, and also have to deal with prisoners and crime-doers to analyse them and figure out what-in-the-world is the matter with them. One of the very big risks of taking up this job is that you might get hit or injured while facing prisoners and/or you might accidentally get killed during a prison riot or something like that. But other than that, you're helping to do some justice in the world. Isn't that cool?

So, yeah. The cool things that I've discovered. I remember there's more on my list but that's what I have for now. :D

Facebook Shut Me Out of My Own Account

And the excuse that Facebook gave was that they were maintaining my site, and that it would take a few hours before I could log in again. Oh wait. Hey! They let me in again. :) Stupid facebook.


Oh yes. Harry Potter the kitten has been taken to the animal shelter to be cared for. The poor thing really needs a home to go to and someone to love and care for it. As I've blogged about in my last post, the kitten has a nose-sniffing problem and afterwards, I found out that it has a stomach-ache as well. Oh yes, it kind of also has a problem pooping, because I find that it cannot control it's pooping sensation properly. The poop just drips out of it's butt. And that's how I got poop-stains on both my t-shirts. :S

Well, apart from having kitty poop stains on my shirt, this week's been quite a good week. Friday (meaning today) was just awesome. :) Seriously, I love Fridays. I'm going to stay back every Friday if I can. :D

THIS IS OUR YEAR.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, DARLINGS. :D

I think so much happened in the year of 2009 that my head is bursting trying to think about all those wonderful memories. :) That and my head is throbbing with the fact that I haven't gotten much sleep this holiday. See Rachel's eyebags for proof. :S


And, for my usual attempt to blog about something- anything, I will make lists. Again. :)

The Best of 2009 (a list every blogger is making/made)
(Here I have to rack my brains because every time I sit down to make lists, the list contents just flew out of my brain and into...somewhere)
1. The Editorial Board. Just about everything/everyone in this board makes everyday fun and kooky!
2. MY CHINA WINTER CAMP. I loved that 12 days spent in China; and you have no idea how much I want to go out with my camp mates again. :)
3. Merah Marching. :D Go on Youtube and you'll be able to see why we won First Place.
4. The Love Gang. Yes, I was a little skeptical with the name at first but I've gotten used to it by now. :)
Our Star Wars marathon was a crazy one!
5. Sweet Sixteens. Young adults of 1993, we were sweet, young and innocent at the age of 16 last year; now we're moving on to fierce some 17!
6. Sunway Lagoon. I went on the Pirate Ship for the first, ever time in my life. AND IT WAS AWESOME.
7. My Best Holiday So Far. This November/December has been my best school holiday yet. And I wouldn't trade it for the world.
8. I am more environmental-friendly. It's true, people! I so hardly often use the air-cond last year, I think it might have gathered dust and welcomed spiders and their new home.
9. Making new friends. I feel more sociable!
10. AVATAR. OMGTHISISTHEBESTMOVIEIHAVEEVERWATCHEDILOVEJAMESCAMERONANDIWANTTOBEANA'AVI. :D


New Year Resolutions
1. GET MY DRIVING LICENSE.
2. Try to persuade mum to let me take driving lessons after my birthday and not after SPM.
3. Manage my finances.
4. I want to watch the musical NINE. It looks very promising. :)
5. Study my butt off for SPM.
6. Fulfill my promises.
7. Really climb a rock (and I mean it this time)
8. Find a way to make eggnog tastier.
9. Learn to cook 18749387 delicious recipes.
10. Reach my goal! (of what, I don't know yet. I'll think of something)
11. ROCK MY LAST YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL.

This is what I have so far. I took about half an hour to think THIS up.
So there you go. :)
Happy 2010!

Servantless American Cooks

WARNING: LONG, (PROBABLY BORING) POST AHEAD.

Just yesterday I watched the movie: Julie and Julia; I found it a wonderful story. :)
As you can see, the plot of the movie is based on two true stories; stories of two women: one named Julia Child, a famous cook and another named Julie Powell.
Basically, this story is focused on two different lives. Julia Child was an American who moved to Paris after marrying a French husband Paul. Julia, a housewife at that time, decided to register herself for a cooking class in order to fill in her spacious every day schedule. Soon, she became a professional and started working as a teacher to teach Americans in Paris how to cook French meals (because all the cookbooks in Paris were in French and the Americans didn't read French) together with her friends Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle. These three women then wrote a cook book together entitled Mastering The Art Of French Cooking.
Julie Powell however, was just a typical American who was stuck working in a cubicle day after day, receiving calls and stressfully dealing with the post-syndrome of the 9/11 attack. One day, realizing that she hadn't really achieved any of her goals in life, she decided to master all the recipes in Julia Child's Mastering The Art Of French Cooking cook book: all 524 recipes in 365 days. And so her quest starts, where in the midst of it she had a few breakdowns due to the pressure of her self-appointed cooking deadline and the challenge of cooking. She used blogging as a therapeutic reliever, In the end she conquered all of the French cooking recipes, and she even wrote a book about it.
Unfortunately, Julie and Julia never met. Julia considered Julie's project a stunt, and didn't think Julie a serious cook.

What I really like about the movie is Julia Child's optimism. I have no idea how she is in real life, but in the movie Meryl Streep portrayed Julia as a always cheerful and happy woman, loving life and enjoying life's little pleasures. Never once have you seen Julia (in the movie) argue with her husband or lose a temper. She laughs everything off and it's clear that she has believes in solutions to every problem.
It's a nice movie to watch for Christmas. :)