So, let me see… I remember it was fun… and there was food. And friends. And fun. Oh, and at least 2 movies. And popcorn. And Skyrim. Lots of Skyrim.

Ok, well, first their was a friend’s belated birthday ‘party’, where several of us met up at Castle Towers to watch Puss in Boots (3D!), and then a rather enjoyable dinner at an Indian restaurant afterwards. Besides all the laughs, the conversations, and meeting new people, or eating a lot of food as I seemed to do, it was great to be with friends again!! Even if I had been with them just a few days before… You can never be with friends too often, right? Darn, this widescreen is messing up with my ability to judge how long this post is… Time for a blog redesign, I say! I just wish someone would do the visual designing for me, I’m awful at creating designs (I just find something I like on the internet, and make my own version of it).

I remember that there were some rather funny presents given to the friend (I remember saying that I would avoid naming people on my blog, because of the way the stalkerish internet works, so I’ll just name the friend Kau***. Those that know him should know who I’m talking about, right? NTS: go back over old posts and edit the names), who is a fan of Cricket (the sport invented by the English, and dominated by their colonies =P  That’s what they deserve, for never actually giving us the real ashes!)… Well, they gave him a box of crickets among other delicious gifts. Can’t quite remember how amused he was, but everyone else watching laughed our heads off, as he knelt on the ground, treating the box like a live bomb. And that was before he opened it.

Amongst all the outings with friends was video gaming, such as Half-Life 2, Counter Strike: Source, Skyrim, Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, Counter Strike: Source, Skyrim, Counter Strike: Source, Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, Skyrim, Counter Strike: Source, Skyrim… you get the picture =P   Scarily (blasphemicly… that is now a word) I have not felt urge to play Portal 2. I think I need another HSC for me to play it late into the night and far into the early morning, trying to beat my friends best times on the different levels…  And maybe there was some Minecraft, Dead Space and F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin, and some other games, in there as well. I don’t remember too well.

Regardless, I have my new PC now. It’s all mine! And I let my brother use it as well sometimes… Anyhows, It’s powerful, fresh, and heavy. I can certainly do all my work on it for several years to come. Sure, it’ll probably slowdown with all the bloat I put on it over the years, and with newer technology coming out to make it look slow. But still, it’ll be great for years to come! That’s the way I like choosing computers, a little extra oomph now to make it worth the 5 – 8 years you use it for (or sometimes longer).

And by heavy, the case alone is 11.3Kg, and I’ve no idea how heavy the components inside it are (1 DVD drive, 1 3.5″ HDD, 1 mobo, 1 CPU + stock heatsink, 1 PSU, 2x 4GB RAM, 2x GTX 560 GPU). But it’s definitely a strong case. And it’s got enough fans built in to be well ventilated (and also a dust sucker, but that just means I have to be bothered to clean it more often).

What else have I done over the last month or so? I remember a movie marathon at Sat***’s house, were Oreos, chips and drinks were consumed, until we went for pizza and microwave popcorn. We enlightened (read: forced to watch) BMCB about Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, and also watched the first Matrix movie (for those that had not seen it yet, which is a surprisingly large number of 3 amongst the group of friends who were there that day). It was a highly enjoyable experience that I/we hope to experience again many times this year, and for many years after =P  Especially considering the list of movies/TV shows we thought would be great to watch, we may need a few years to reach the end of the list. And by then there’d be some new movies we’d like to watch as well XD

There was also the small matter of us receiving our HSC results and consequently our ATAR. Speaking of that, I’m still not entirely sure as to which university I’d like to go to, or which would offer me the best education/opportunity in the course(s) I’m interested in. I must continue to consult my friends who are all giving me different advice! And of course asking the universities themselves would be a little silly, as they’d try to sell themselves as the best.

There were carols nights (which I had mostly avoided because I didn’t feel Christmassy this year, except for one at my church, because my mum wanted me to give a gift from a family to both Pastors, simply because she didn’t feel like going herself and giving it to them). There were Christmas nights. Wait, only one Christmas night. And one Christmas day. There was a movie night with friends from church (PotC4! 2nd half of Robin Hood: Men in Tights!), and BMCB visited to see how nice Skyrim was on my PC. There were BBQ lunches at some point, and warm days, humid days, and cold days. Oh, and my mum decided it was a nice time to repaint the house. I managed to get out of doing a lot of work for that by being out with friends. Like at Dam***’s party/gathering/get-together in the city! Sadly I could not stay for dinner with them, but I did have a wonderful lunch at a noodle bar (I have totally got to try more foods so that I don’t stand there, looking at the menu and think to myself “Will I like that, or will it taste it and be like ‘…ehh… not eating that’?”) with the twins (why did they leave for James Ruse?! Also, I think I remember which one is And*** and Pet*** now). And then there was the Secret Room Cafe (Pictionary: 99.95 ATARs vs everyone else, with Dam*** hosting. We (everyone else) won =P  Actually, I don’t remember who won, but I remember it being close). Afterwards was internet cafe, and then they went to dinner at Blackbird (some restaurant of some type I guess? I wasn’t there at that point). Has*** asking for a fork at the noodle bar was highly amusing. Just putting that down so I don’t ever forget it.

I’m sure that there were more things that happened during December, but I’m at a loss as to what they were. Oh, wait, there was the annual Band Christmas party at Mar***’s house this year! Sadly it was a bit of a rainy day, but there was Pictionary, brawl, piano playing, poker, darts, food… friends, fun… any more alliterations I can use? Regardless, it was fun to be with friends yet again, be they from The Stoop, Backstoop, (umm… Matthew Wong group?), Band, or any number of the many groups of friends I have/know/hang-out with. Ahh… I would enjoy being in a band again, but I’m a little too shy to bother joining another one, and too lazy to really practise my flute playing. I remember on the night of the Band ‘Christmas Concert’ I finally admitted, in front of an audience which included the band committee, that I had not had a flute tutor since Year 8, despite the band member agreement stating that I should have one. Not that I think they cared. But it was still funny to see (or hear) some people’s reactions to it. And I was also an MC that night with Mag*** C. (haha MC with MC). Now, I don’t enjoy public speaking. I’m usually quite fine with handing it off to someone else. Be that debating, speeches, presentations, or in this case, ‘running’ a concert. In Yr 9, I was selected by Ms. Swe*** to be on the class debating team (funny story, because she knew I liked video games, she put me on the affirmative team for “Video games are bad for your health”. We won the debate), but I declined, because I was semi-morbidly afraid of having to debate in the next round of the inter-class competition (against Mr VL’s Yr 9 class, which our class lost? I cannot remember), because it would’ve been in front of more people, and required me to be ready to debate. I’ve never enjoyed being on a debating team. I like to have freedom with my debates (that is, I like to able to go on for hours, or just rant. As the year book says I do. Who wrote that anyway?). Funnily enough, since I’m continually told to lessen the amount of time I spend gaming, I knew plenty of arguments to use in the class debate…

Anyhows, this post is now really long. Looking at the word count, it has gone pass the 1550 word mark. Or 1570 work mark by now (the word ‘now’ just there is word 1571). I should stop that, it’s just making it longer. I remember an awesome Doctor Who Christmas Special (on boxing day for us Aussies, because the BBC cannot possibly let it air anywhere in the world before it airs in the UK……………….. WHY?! We’re your best customers outside of the UK! The Australian ABC has bought every single one of your episodes since you’ve been making them, and we’ve been doing reruns longer and more often than you have!). I also remember seeing a trailer for the new Hobbit movie, starring Martin Freeman (who until recently, I’ve only seen in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and the BBC’s The Office (the original show, I might add. The US ripped it off with their own version)), who is Watson in ‘Sherlock’, which I am still yet to watch.

Oh, and I went and got some new soundtracks and albums during this time. And I’m going end the post here, as I’m off to Church right now, and, well, this post is really long. I’ll start a 2nd one when I come back from Church =]

So to start with, we have my HSC completed. That was simultaneously the most stressful and oddest set of exams I’ve ever done. They were odd in the sense that I treated them like my school exams, and spent way too much time procrastinating. But I simply could not bring myself to work anymore. School was over, this last hoorah was killing me. And I think when I get my results back, it will kill me. I dread the day they hand out our marks.

After the HSC, a period during which many people I know had a birthday (well, as my HSC took a whole month, I guess that isn’t too hard), requiring several parties (I sadly could only attend one for my friend, and one for my mum), I have exercised my laziness to it’s higher levels. I sometimes get a sense of guilt, thinking that I should be studying instead of playing games or going out, but then I remember I’ve been working towards this for 13 years now (although I may not have realised that when I was younger). It shouldn’t be surprising me, and yet it does.

I will be going on ‘schoolies’ with some friends on Friday, 5 nights up at the Entrance, which is presenting us with some interesting organisational challenges. Sometimes I wonder if the leadership stuff mentioned in my resume and principal’s reference is really applicable to me. I’ve never felt like I have shown remarkable leadership, whether it be in Band, Flute ensemble, Peer Support, group projects, Soul Purpose or DoE. But I suppose the idea of a resume and its references is to make you sound good, and that’s what the word ‘remarkable’ does!

Last night was the Year 12 formal, and what an awesome night it was. All the girls/ladies dressed up, their hair, faces and gowns looking wonderful. It may still confuse me as a guy why they would spend so much time and effort too look so wonderful, but I must admit that the end result is amazing. Not that any of them really need to go through all that effort to look wonderful, but women don’t seem to believe that on formal evenings. Or maybe it’s some preconception that society has created. Whatever. They looked beautiful, and that’s what counts, I guess.

They guys, all of us comparatively lazy and less stressed than the ladies, wearing our suits. I reckon the guys looked awesome. Nice and fine. I was never much of a suit person, but I think it may be growing on me. Well, the formal(ish) dress style is, at least. E.g. Collared shirt and tie on Band Tour (Se** and I said to ourselves “Why not?”) for the last day.

The evening was highly enjoyable. Mrs Pigram’s choice of Oatland’s house was highly beneficial (I do not wish to imagine where the committee would have chosen if not for Mrs Pigram’s experience of past formals, making her choose the place over any objections from some certain members of the grade), with the lovely scenery of the garden and sunset providing rather wonderful photos. The food was nice, and the time with friends was great. I still don’t understand the modern youth’s idea of dancing. Whilst bouncing up and down is easy to do, it isn’t that much of a dance, so when any of you did anything differently, it was nice to see. But whatever you did, I enjoyed watching you guys looking silly as you ‘danced’ while I myself was happy to not make myself look embarrassingly silly (in my opinion at least). I spent a large portion of my time standing around outside, speaking with people. And trying to not fall asleep. Towards the end of the night, I felt strangely tired. Don’t know why. The music was, as to be expected, loud and not of the nest taste. Knew barely any of the songs, and only the pulsing beat of the bass was interesting (must be some psychological thing, like why they use bass drums to excite soldiers in ancient society).

Hopefully I will be having my braces removed soon, probably early next year my orthodontist says. As I’m not entirely sure how much more my teeth need to move or be aligned, I’m going to leave that to his capable judgement. I must say that having braces is an interesting experience. I can now personally relate to other people who have had braces instead of just trying to imagine what it must be like (in retrospect, my imaginings of the experiences of wearing braces were woefully short of the mark, as to be expected). It has been painful at times, other time just plain annoying. Throughout it all, I have felt rather self-conscious about them, and I wonder how I’ll feel afterwards. In case you were wondering what the back-story of my braces was, long story short I had to have some teeth removed, and pull the ones behind them down my jaw to fill the gaps. If you want the longer version, ask in person. It’s a little quicker that way.

Closing off the long post, I’ll make a mention about my job hunting. Last night Mr Van Loon told me that most places have got their Christmas staff already lined up, or are conducting the interviews, making it much harder to find and land a job right now unless you plan to work for the longer term (e.g. throughout Uni), which would be hard when I’ll try to do full time study next year. Anyways, I have no idea where I’d find a job, what field it will be (probably as a cashier or similar) and if I feel like doing it. I’m actually afraid of getting a job. Not only does the idea of doing an interview make me nervous, I don’t like change, and getting a job is a change from my school life. But I suppose there are plenty of people like me, and most of them get used to the change, as shall I eventually.

Well, I feel like ending this post. There was probably a lot more I wished to talk about at some point, but it’s lost now. And besides, this post is getting long enough as it is. I’d just like to say a huge thanks to all my friends for the most wonderful 6 years of high school, and the immensely enjoyable night last night. I don’t know where I’d be without any of you.

TTFN!! Ta Ta For Now!

During the assembly, I felt mixed emotions. The songs were touching, the slide-show was great and nostalgic, watching my friends and I go up on that stage to receive our portfolios, after watching the years before us do it… I don’t think I can describe it now. The aftermath, the photos, signings, hugs, tears, laughter, well-wishes and snacks… It was memorable. It cheered me up (smiling supposedly releases endorphins, which makes you happy) smiling for all the cameras. It was nice to see the entire grade milling about, taking photos. Stuff.

Hanging out with my friends afterwards was great. We watched Johnny English Reborn, wonderfully funny movie, another great work from Rowan Atkinson (is that how his name is spelt?). I miss my friends already. Afternoon tea afterwards, for me consisting of a KFC Ultimate Burger Meal, followed by the group aimlessly wandering around Castle Towers, for an enjoyable day out, despite it being a school day =P

I honestly cannot thank my friends and grade, their parents and the support of the rest of the school (including teachers, students and administrative staff such as Mrs. Brown in reception) through the last 6 years. It has been a great time through thick and thin, and I can not, nor will not, imagine it with anyone else, any other way. The memories that you have imparted on me will last for a long time (or so I hope. I do wish to not forget any of you), and will serve to continue to shape me even beyond the life changing experience that is Baulko XI. I know that many of you won’t read this, and that is fine by me. I’ll still think of you dearly whether you see this or not =] Except you K. Z.. Not you K. C. Y. Z., the other one. Yes, you, the one who hit me in the back with a water-bomb yesterday. You. Are. Going. Down! Just as soon as I work out a suitable comeback.

As I sit here typing this, I see that on Facebook you are all crazily uploading your photos, with people tagging away like journalists trying to make the deadline (speaking of tagging, someone mentioned that they wished for our grade to attempt to crash Facebook with our uploading and tagging. Sadly, that hasn’t yet happened, and is very unlikely to happen), commenting, liking, and all the while, I’ve propped my iPod up beside me as I type on my mum’s laptop, waiting for Facebook to finish receiving my photos from the memory-card reader. So as I type, I hear the notification noise go off continuously, the screen lighting up telling me what has happened. And you guys are scaring me with the number of times that is happening. Is like half the grade on Facebook right now??

Anyways, back to what I was talking about. The relationships I have formed between my friends will probably not be replicated for many a year (because I won’t be seeing people for over 6 hours a day, 5 days a week anymore. I’ll be stuck with “free-roaming” at uni), and I will sorely miss seeing almost each and every one of you on a regular basis. And yes, I’m implying that I won’t miss some of you as much as the others, but that’s understandable, right? If not, too bad. I’m being honest. They say that you won’t really understand how much something means to you until it’s gone. I never realised just how much school meant to me until time itself wrenched it from my life (although I suppose having so far had an existence dominated by school, that is to be expected), leaving me with a feeling of “Oh my! What do I do now?!”.

I don’t believe that I’m very good at writing down what I’m feeling. Perhaps there is the partial fact that some of what I’m feeling is so deeply personal that I don’t really want to have the world hear it. Especially as anyone on the internet can read this. Hmm… should change something in this post then. There, done. Anyhows, I’m going to give up now, since I simply cannot express how I’m feeling, nor am I awfully good at writing sentimental, nostalgic and thoughtful messages (look at the message I wrote on Facebook for an example).

So I’ll say this to those from my grade who are reading this: Good luck in your HSC! Good luck in the times ahead! May you enjoy life to the full, have success in your life, and (at this point I would raise my hand in a Vulcan hand salute, which is easy by the way… I can’t understand how people cannot do it, probably because I can do it…) Live Long and Prosper. I look forward to seeing you at the formal (if you are not on holidays by then), especially my closer friends. I miss you all very much already.

TTFN!! Ta Ta For Now!

It was an enjoyable day, with Ben and his MacBook and a school laptop, Sean with his desktop plugged into the TV, and me borrowing my mum’s laptop. Ben certainly had the most resources =]  And when it came to deciding what we would have for lunch (Sean’s mum gave us a choice), since we were running short of dice, Ben even wrote up a script to randomly choose what we would eat for lunch!!

Friday was the more hectic and busy day, at least for me. Starting off, it was Paintball with some Stoop, Back Stoop, and what I like to call ‘anime-group’, or ‘A-block group’. I don’t actually know what they call themselves, but the group included Li, Miho, Steph, Vivian, Ben and Lenny, so I guess you know which group that was.

When we arrived, we were waiting outside for a while, awaiting the arrival of people. After everyone had arrived, we finally went inside, watched the safety videos and signed indemnity forms (which basically said, if we got hurt, it’s not their fault, so we couldn’t sue them…) After kitting up, we played our first game, and had our first taste of the painful nature of being hit by a paintball from a marker. We were divided into two teams of 14, and one team was green (with a green card attached to the front of their marker), the other ‘black’ (because the markers are black). Throughout the day, green team were notoriously ‘campers’. They wouldn’t move up from their base much. I mean, some of them would, but the majority of them wouldn’t.

The first game was a game of plain warfare. 4 minutes of respawn, then you’re-hit-you’re-out. At first it was going fine, paintballs were flying, people were getting hit, and black team (the team I was on), was getting hit the most (good or bad, you decide later after the story). When respawn time was over, then it got less hectic, as people were less inclined to expose themselves. Here was when the green team showed their stuff. Camping back at their end of the field, they held us black team off. Due to the limited range of the markers we were using, we had to move up to actually hit them, causing us to be hit in return. Were we slowly picked off, with only a few of us left. After 13 minutes, the ref decided to call the game over, and out emerged all the players.

Next was a capture the flag (or as you Halo fans might know it, 2-flag CTF). Immediately as the game started (also with a 4 minute respawn), Bryan (black team) ran to to retrieve the flag… and then immediately went diving for cover as paintballs went flying in his direction (fun to watch =]  ). Hiding next to him, I searched for people to target, but alas, once again, Green team was mostly camping at their base, making it hard to get a shot at them or getting the flag to the goal (in case you were wondering, as I know many of you CTF people are, there was a variation to this game. To make it harder, the flags were placed in the middle of the field, and we had to ‘return’ them to the enemy’s base. Yeah, hard). Eventually, Kai, Jeffery and I attempted to move forward, except that we never made it, because Jeffery & I were eventually hit by paintballs raining in through the tree cover, and because seemingly all of the green team was on that side. On another note, green team never even got their flag, so we beat them there =] (either because we were too good at stopping their more aggressive players, or none of them tried, or both).

The next game (as I remember it) was a zombie game. We humans lasted pretty long. But after 13 minutes, we were basically all dead. The zombies finally overran us. Apparently, the ref once saw a team of humans out last the zombies, so after a long while, she made the zombies non-respawnable, and then the humans won. She said she wanted that team on her side if there was ever a zombie apocalypse.

After that was a ‘drug-runner’ game. FBI vs Drug-runners. The FBI were confined to their smaller side of the field, and had to stop the ‘drug-lord’, who could only be hit in the chest and head, from reaching the goal: a container in the middle of the field. The drug-runners had to support their lord, and had 3 minutes respawn. The FBI, the good guys, couldn’t arrest people outside of the border, and had 4 minutes respawn (but they could still shoot at people on the other side of the border =]  ). First up, black team was the FBI, and Anthony Liang was the drug-lord. He, funnily enough, ended up cowering behind some barrels near the back of the field (where they started). The green team failed to make enough ground in the match, and we had them pinned down. After 13 minutes, the ref called off the match and said that Black team won (because the drug-lord never made it to his destination).

Learning from their mistakes, the teams were swapped and Black team was now the drug-runners, with Li being the drug-lord. Our battle plan: gain as much ground as possible, as quickly as possible, and suppress the FBI. Li sprinted up to about 8m from the goal, and the rest of us took up positions around or with him. At first we though we would wait for the respawn to be over before working on getting Li the rest of the way, but then, Lenny (who had the best vantage point looking into and through the container, stopping any advance into it) had to reload, and Li saw his chance. Without telling any of us, he ran for it. And made it!! The rest of the team, meanwhile, was busy blasting people, trying to stop them from attacking Li. He made it, in 2min 47sec. Afterwards, the ref told us the fastest time was 7 seconds. Apparently the first team had done it in 20 seconds, and so, not wanting to be bested, the 2nd team sprinted, screaming, markers blazing and made it in 7 seconds. Yeah, fast (considering they had to run about 40-50m from the actual start point, around obstacles. I think the guy might’ve jumped, or started further forward.)

Afterwards, we moved onto a game called Blackhawk. Originally, the idea was to have to pilots, and get them to the cockpit of the barrel & wood mockup Blackhawk, but then the ref decided to change that before we had even started. New mission: get 4 people inside the helo, without being hit, for 1 minute, non-accumulative. HARD! While Black team did have the better side of the field, Lenny especially from the green team was extremely good at stopping people making it to the helo. However, of all the people that made it, only Black people ever got inside. I was in there!! For about 2 seconds before I was hit. Eventually I made to the cockpit, before I thought I was out because a paintball splattered and got in my hair (I discovered later that I was still in really, but I called myself hit thinking I had been, as I couldn’t actually see my hair, and Owen said I had paint in my hair, but never told me how much.) Unfortunately, the cockpit didn’t count, so I was pinned down there.

The next game we played was a game of attrition. One team assaults a fort, the other defends. First up, black were defending while Green assaulted. Yeah, funny, one of the few maps where camping was a dedicated idea, and Green weren’t first up =]  While we courageously fought from our fort (=] nice eh?), cowering behind the barrels that made it up as some people watched our flanks, we occasionally made pot shots, before ducking very quickly. Tim made a very observant statement halfway through the round: “I got off one shot and got five in return!” Needless to say, it came to a stale mate, as many of us remained behind the fort, while some were like Bryan and moving out to root out the remaining Greens (although I think a few of them were still stuck nearer to the back, we had scared them good!)

After discussing our options about what to do to use up our last ammo, we swapped games, and then decided to play until we ran out. Unlimited ‘respawns’. So, we fought tough and hard. Eventually the Green team ran out of ammo, whilst many members of the Black team tried to fight their way up to the fort, or just try and hit the guys as they poked their head out. I foolishly tried running up their flank, before being peppered by two markers several times. Shirley has good aim…

Grouped up with groups 10 & 11, group 12 had a fun time cycling through all the activities we Yr 11s had organised. When it was my turn to run an activity, I was with Thai, and our group had decided Capture The Flag would be an awesome game to play. As we got to the Bicentennial park, however, Thai and I, who were chosen to first run the activity, discovered just how small the area we were using was (and that it was sloped downhill towards the lake). Along with that, we discovered that we needed to create new rules for the CTF game, else it was gonna get boring quickly. So, we decided to add a modified version of Stuck In The Mud to it! And boy did the kids enjoy it =]

Anyhows, as they were enthusiastically playing the game (while the leaders with them periodically joined in), I spent some time looking around. It’s wonderful to see so many people running around being happy in a park… Although it looks odd when they’re all wearing the same uniform, and are all around the same age and size… but that’s a school for ya =P

During recess, Niro pulled out some cupcakes/scone-like-things he had made and offered it to the group of yr 11s that were sitting around and chatting. For some strange reason, Erin called out that it was Niro’s birthday, and we all starting singing Happy Birthday to Niro. Of course, it wasn’t actually his birthday, but we didn’t care =] Some of the people who didn’t know though that it actually was his birthday, which just added to our fun. We all thanked him for his birthday cupcakes though! Once again at lunch we continued it when Yeli brought out a cake she had brought for her peer support group, we all broke into singing happy birthday for Niro again. It was fun!

As I’m writing this post after I have come back from youth group, I feel a bit too tired and way too lazy to type any more about my week and day, especially after having a bandage attached to my arm to protect a rather annoying graze on my elbow from getting an infection after I ran into some stairs in the dark whilst playing outdoor night games (We were playing CTF in the dark!! I just can’t be free of CTF today, can’t I?)

So, I’ll be finishing this now. The rest can be a story I can tell some other day.

Anyhows, today was a good day. After graduation, I went with my friends to Castle Towers, where shopping, browsing, general wandering, talking, eating, arguing and eventually watching a movie before going home was the activities of the day. I shan’t bother going into greater description of the day. I don’t look forward to the formal. Well, I do look forward to it, I’m sure it’ll be great. I just feel really nervous about it, I always feel nervous about social events like that.

Thanks to my friends for a great school year, btw!!

Not much that’s happened really.

My piano exam was last Tuesday (17th November). Didn’t do as well as I should’ve. Didn’t practise enough though, so that is my own fault. Not pleased with my result, but I’m happy I passed and that it’s done, finally.

Thursday saw the Band ‘Christmas’ Concert, with performances from all the bands in the school, plus a few other groups. It also, sadly, saw the farewell of our Band Conductor/Master for the last 11 years. Bye Mark!! We’ll miss you (well, some of us will at any rate)!

After my piano exam, I haven’t really been bothered doing work much. Playing games a lot, reading books, playing what-ever-I-feel-Like on the piano…… Friday arvo, I went over to Ben’s place to have a celebration of sorts. Also there was Don, Lok and Simon. Mostly all we did was play Halo 3. Once again, Ben and I dominated, unless they forced us to play solo while they teamed up. Then it was much harder. But Ben and I still got nice scores (even if neither of us won). For hours we played, stopping only for food, drink, monopoly, and for all the others except Lok and I (who didn’t feel tired at all) sleep. On that thought, I didn’t really feel tired till I had been awake for 36 hours straight………. Finally went to bed at 9:41 pm, which means I had been awake for over 40 hours. Tiring.

But, besides playing games all night/morning long, my brother has finally got a copy of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 for the Xbox 360, and so I’ve been playing through that (I really suck at it… maybe I’ll be better when I learn the levels), and watching my brother playing online multi-player games. Definitely looks, feels and sounds awesome, and is a step up from CoD4.

But now I gotta go to Church, so I’ll just end this post here and now. Besides, I don’t really have much more to say, except that having only 5 hours of sleep before being awake for over 36 hours makes me feel really tired (unless I get distracted, or have caffeine!!)

P.S. This post is the 256th post by me, Ant! BTW, 256 is 2^8

Probably the only thing that’s worth a real mention here in this post is the small outing some of us people of the ‘Back-stoop’ & others had on the 1st Tuesday of the hols. We met up in Parra for lunch (after Anthony and Michael Lee had a ‘study’ session, which included hardcore study of Tap Tap Revolution), before wandering towards the Cinemas to buy our tickets for our movie (Mao’s Last Dancer, very good movie, you should all go watch it if you haven’t already). As usual, the guys out-numbered the girls, but that didn’t stop us guys following the girls like a gaggle of geese around the shops, till we realised that they were shopping for formal dresses and such, and then strangely we felt like going off on our own.

Kapilan, strangely, felt like wandering around the shops on his own, till he decided he’d be lonely and immediately decided to drag me along with him. He said he was looking for aviators, I told him I’d have no idea where to find them. He dragged me to Myer, more accurately the cosmetics section, where he tried out various sample perfumes and colognes, apparently in an attempt to smell better, although I haddn’t realised he smelt bad to begin with…

Eventually, after a few phone calls from the others, we returned to the main group, who were waiting outside Woolworths while Jaz went and bought some snacks for the movie. Low and behold, of all of the people I saw and recognised at Parra that day (apart from the friends I was with, that means just about no one), I saw Jason Vorapatrakul. He was looking at me from the doorway of an optometrist’s shop. The moment he saw he looking at him, he immediately looked away and went inside, almost as if he was shy… (he’s not that shy normally!! Least, he doesn’t seem to be…). Anyways, after saying hi to him and talking with his sister for a few minutes (Areeya), we eventually continued our wanderings.

Some when along the way, the group stopped off at Easy Way, before continuing on with their shopping (or perhaps more accurately, window shopping). Kapilan had once again run off, but this time he had absconded with Martin, but at least this time he found some sun glasses (although they weren’t aviators).

Eventually we went back to the cinemas to watch the movie, and (after seemingly eating half the food during the ads) I must say, the movie was very well done. Remarkable acting and dancing, and the boy Li chose looks remarkably a lot like him. Must’ve been horrible to not be able to go back to China to check on his family though…

Sadly though, soon after we all had to go our own ways to get home. Personally, I find it surprising that it costed 40c more to get home than it did to get there on the same bus route…

And to finish up, I’d like to say this:

A wise person once said “Keep your enemies close. But keep your friends closer.”

Recently been taking some of those “How Well Do You Know” someone quizzes on Facebook, and I’ve come to this conclusion after 4 quizzes: I don’t know my own friends. With my highest score being around 50%, that’s not that good really… After making my own quiz (25 questions long… I would’ve made it longer, but I wasn’t allowed to…) and seeing some of the results of my own quiz, I realise that many of my friends are like me, they only know (or guessed) one half of me correct. I guess we could all do with a bit of learning about each other.

That’s not to say that many of you could’ve easily answer many of those questions in my quiz if you had happened to read some of my blog posts where I blabbed on about this and that, unwittingly telling you (and the world) much about my life and myself. But I guess we can overlook that.

Having a quick glance at my blog, I’m thinking that I should go and find some plugins to jazz up my blog. Maybe some fancy AJAX stuff like what Facebook uses…

But now, about life. Not that much has happened. Went to the Sydney Opera House for the Pulse concert again this year, only this time I went as part of the School band rather than as part of the Occasional Orchestra (the orchestra formed for the Pulse concert each year). We were going to play ‘Spain’ (a latin song), but due to some mix up, the program said we were going to play Hopetown Holiday, so, that’s what we played. All the better for us, we felt. Instead of a small 2 minute song, we played a longer, 5 minute song (or was it 6 minutes?). Still, any time there is worth it. I mean, how often do you get to perform in the Sydney Opera House? Unless you become a good actor/singer/musician, not that often.

We were the only group there to not have the PULSE t-shirt. This year’s colour was purple. Last year it was that almost ugly teal. The year before it was red. I wonder what next year’s will be…

Maths common test coming up this Friday. Need to study, and finish assignments. So, TTFN, Ta-Ta-For-Now! (you just gotta love Tigger’s sayings)