It's so tiring.

I really hope I can still hang in there. I'm way too tired. My hectic schedule is killing me. Unlike most of my friends, I'm in the performing arts. With the upcoming Golden Jubilee concert and 'O' levels, I'm really trying to keep up with the pace.

Here's my schedule after school..

Monday- Choir Sectionals, Private remedial and Social Studies remedial.
Tuesday- Elective History remedial.
Wednesday- English remedial.
Thursday- E Maths remedial.
Friday- Chinese test, Design & Technology remedial+ practical.


It's both mentally and physically tiring. There may be people whose schedule are even tighter than mine, but let me let me grumble for once okay? Hopefully, these will pay off; Get CCA points to get to better Polytechnics or Junior Colleges.


It's really tough being James, really......

Going to Wild Wild Wet for the first time!

It's the first time I've been to Wild Wild Wet! At first I was reluctant to go because of my size. In the end I decided to make a coin bet with Jia Yi and the group, saying that if it is tails, I will go no matter what. The probability was 50:50, and in the end I still lost.


I just paid $4 for the entrance fee while some others got free. That's because there isn't enough for everyone, and nevertheless, $4 is already very cheap.

We went inside and were greeted with lots of people..





Sunny day! Perfect for fun-filled activities!





Another part of Wild Wild Wet.






Many people at the playground.



When I played in the pool, especially the Shiok Pool, I always think of it as the now-defunct Fantasy Island which was located at Sentosa.



The shiok pool.



Wild Wild Wet is quite a fun place, and I regretted for not taking pictures. The reason why I didn't brought my camera because it wasn't water-proof, and that the lockers cost $2 each time. Which means that if you take out something and you want to lock it again, you need to pay another $2.


I played at the Tsunami, where it is a pool which has artificial waves. Pretty fun. It's a pity I didn't get to take the SkyRide and the Samsung Slide.


I loved to play at the playground. And this was the most anticipated activity.




"It's just a normal Yakult structure, nothing new."




But no, it's gushing water! Who will it hit?





The people waiting to be hit, of course!







Now everyone is happy!




And I'm very happy too! *Smiles*

Baby photos.

Just now, I was browsing over my photo album, and I had a great laugh though I don't know what's so funny about it.


Which in turn makes me ponder about how magnificent life can be, and how time flies.

And since I decided photos can be a great blogging material, I present you, mini me.




I looked so interested in that cd casing.





Oh yeah?







Hmmm..






It's silly to think that I was so interested in that toy when I was young.





Just in case you were wondering, that's my brother.





My first pornography photo. (Padedophiles please don't lust.)





I had a smoothing and relaxed feeling after browsing my photo album. Try looking at your own album. It's really a nice feeling.

Continue blogging or not.

Many things had happened recently and I was intimidated. (Not going to elaborate.) And I asked myself.


"Should I continue blogging?"


I excogitated and thought about there are other bloggers who are worse than me. Just because of this setback, I shouldn't contemplate about stop blogging. I enjoy blogging, though there are some limitations to it.


Take Xiaxue for example. She made controversial issues that made headlines. But she wasn't deterred to stop it. If she continued, why shouldn't I?


And you got it, the answer is yes.

Title-less

I just bought The ChoirBoys CD, boy, I didn't regret. If you likes classical, chorister voices and soothing music, and this CD's for you! I fell in love with the song, Tears in Heaven, once I heard it in a TV commerical. It was very very nice. The other songs that I felt was nice were: Let There Be Peace on Earth, and The Lord Bless You and Keep You. The songs in the album were probably some Christian music I suppose. A very good album. The ChoirBoys, rock on!


There are some bad news. Sin Wee and Justin is in a tiff, and I got a feeling it's a serious one. I'd hope they'll bury the hatchet and move on. I won't elaborate the details.

As for me, I'm affected by a groundless accusation from a good friend. The accusation will be a secret, and I won't let the cat out of the bag. And the friend, if you're reading this, don't be mistaken, I'm not blaming you. Luckily, this misunderstanding has been cleared.


Let there be peace and harmony..

Taking of my pictures

I know that some people take my pictures from my blog. Be it for personal purposes or others, I hope that people who take my pictures WILL give me credit. Because I always think that pictures would be great blogging material.

And I hope that for those who takes my pictures, either ask me for permission, inform me that you took them or type that it is from my blog. I hope you will give me at least some respect.



On a irrevelant note, I was browsing Joel's blog and I was pretty touched by his latest post. He talks about valuing friendship between SeeMun and himself. Gee, one of the better blogs I've ever seen.

Bird flu: Inevitable.

I've just received the diving photos from FishermenScuba, and I must say that it was extremely disappointing to see that the other groups besides Sin Wee's group did not get to took pictures while underwater. I was pretty sad, but was comforted that the pictures were pretty good.



And I have something serious to discuss about; my opinion of the bird flu. I believe that a bird flu pandemic is inevitable. The H5N1 is extremely dangerous. It has the ability to mutate and may pass the virus to humans. And it will be a person to person transmission.


What was more startling is the fact that a similar virus took an estimated of 30-40 million lives in 1918!!! That's one-tenth of Singapore's population! Last year, an UN official even warned that the bird flu could snuff out the lives of 150 million people.

Nowadays, we have vaccines and drugs to curb the virus. Wait a minute. The only effective anti-viral drug is Tamiflu. Mark my words. There is only one. What if the virus starts to build resistance to it? Could it be the end of the world?

The virus is not just reported in Asia, but in certain parts of Europe as well. I believe that the recent reports of the bird flu over the past few years are an indication/warning that a bird flu pandemic is going to happen. And mind you, I am not alone with this belief.

"World Health Organisation (WHO) also thinks that the world is closer to a flu pandemic than at anytime since the 1968, when the last 20th century's three pandemics occured." -BBC NEWS


Now if that happens, the question is "How many people are going to die?"

Celebrating Justin aka Zi Cai's birthday!

It's Zi Cai's birthday today!


Feng Wei, Zi Cai, LiangZhi, Wei Chong, Jeremy, Chu Xiang, Kok Wei and I met up in Compass Point at 2pm. We later proceeded Plaza Singapura to meet up with Samantha by MRT.






Only Wei Chong is smiling towards the camera..




We ate in the food court and went to play the arcade. They will playing video games and I was watching people catching plushies. And I went to play, and caught 2.. Hehe..





After that we went to Seoul Garden in Takashimaya to fill our stomaches up for dinner. We went there, and realise that we hadn't enough money; thanks to the 5% GST and 10% (I think) service charge. And we embarassedly walked out. I then suggested eating at Yuki Yaki, which was located at Cineleisure.


And yes, we had enough money!


And we had our dinner..





Haha, trying to fill up our stomaches up..




No matter how the food is oily, it's still delicious and appetizing to a man!


We ate quite alot.. and Zi Cai and I decided to take pictures!



Zi Cai was lame enough to use a cooking pot cover. But still, this picture was very well taken!





Acting cool!





After eating and eating and eating, we got our butts out of Yuki Yaki and went outside Cineleisure to cut Zi Cai's slice of cake. It may be just a slice of cake, but it's the thought that counts right?





Singing a birthday song for him! (He loves the plushie that I caught so much that he kept holding on for a long time.)






Cutting the cake.. A gracious smile from him isn't it?



And we took some pictures.. A few wasn't well-taken because the position of the camera..




Smile! Oops the picture isn't quite right, but still very nice!





Another one..





Trying to beat up the birthday boy..



Geez, I had such a great time today..


and last but not least, before the clock strikes midnight...



I would like to wish Zi Cai..



A very HAPPY 17TH BIRTHDAY!!!



We hope you like what we had for you today and hope you like the present Sin Wee and I gave you...


Hope you like it, for a 17th birthday comes only once in a lifetime!

Singapore Secondary Schools Debate Championships 2006.

Mr Malvin Lim approached me yesterday, asking me to be a chairman of a debate. I told him I had no idea how to do it, and he said not to worry.


I grabbed this opportunity to try to practise English Oral.


There were lots of schools participating, and North Vista Sec was the host. There were prestigious schools such as Raffles Institution and Nanyang Girls School. If my mind serves me right, there are 72 schools participating.


Well anyway, lets talk about my experience. I had to be the chairperson for these 2 debates.






And these are the debate topics...






For the 7.15pm debate, I flunked it all. It was Bendemeer Secondary School vs Jurong West Secondary School. I was the chairperson and at the start when I read, I read the wrong division for the debate. I then read out.. My heart was thumping fast and I experienced wobbly legs. Luckily, I didn't stammer. But the later part, when I was suppose to introduce the opposition team Reply Speech. I spoke the wrong name 2 TIMES! The debaters were like "Huh?" I made a fool out of myself and apologised to the audience.

In the whole debate, it was pretty exciting, but personally, I felt that Jurong West had a great tactic. One of their friends timed once they start speaking, same as the timekeeper. Their friend then used hand signals to describe 3 minutes, or 3 and a half minutes. I was impressed. Both sides did very well in the debate, but in the end, the Jurong West Sec won.



Since the flunk, I promised myself to better in the 8.15pm debate. And yeah, I did well and everything went smoothly.

This debate was very very exciting and interesting. Some of them were sarcastic, and both rained attacks and countered each other.

When the injuditory gave me the results, Jeanne and I took a peek at who won. And these debaters friends all looked at me, hoping that my face would give the results away. But it proved to be useless.

And Maris Stella got the win.


Coincidentally, both were opposition sides.


I really enjoyed these debate sessions. I had great deal of experience and would like to thank Mr Malvin Lim for it.


Geez, being a chairperson is really cool!

Jameslancer.blogspot.com will be going under major change.

I have plans to change my current blog template, its colours, fonts and its pattern. Unlike most friends whose templates usually uses animations, cartoons and other stuff, I decided to be the only one sticking out, using only my photos as template.


I've been asking around for comments, and found out that some of my pictures cannot be seen, and the font is too big, or the colours/template is boring or dull. I will take them into consideration, and no matter what, I must say that do not ask me to change my type of writing. I will and only write English.


Meanwhile, I'm trying to scourge for new ideas.



Be prepared for a new Jameslancer.blogspot.com, SOON.

The Scuba Diving Trip!

Whoa I'm back! And, it's blogging time!

It's going to be a long post, so take a sip of coffee and continue reading..


ON FRIDAY

I excitedly went to meet up with Guan Jie at Compass Point to go to school, but in the end, he gave me some wrong information and I waited stupidly for 30 minutes and he was in school!

We board the bus and headed to Woodlands and after we passed the customs, we were at Malaysia!


The bus ride took more than 3 hours to reach our hotel, which the time was around 12.30 when we reached there.




We finally reached Hotel Timotel!


Everyone was extremely tired when we reached there.. And all of us hurriedly took the keys to the room. And was greeted with this sight:




It was a very nice room..


Weichong, Clarence, Sheng Jun and me slept in this room.. Everyone was dead tired and we went to bathe before going to sleep. Clarence said that he wanted to sleep at the wooden sofa, leaving the king size bed all to myself. In the end, he regretted. He felt so cold even after I lent him my jacket. Serves him right!

Also, some people even made prank calls to each other, feigning as a ghost and some other weird stuff.

I wasn't there to listen, and I was knocked out immediately once I got into bed.

*Snores*


ON SATURDAY


We woke up very early, around 6am. And everyone was getting prepared to go to Pulau Tioman. But early in the morning we have..




Sin Wee and Daphne posing for the camera.


Apparently, they loved our room so much that they decided to take a picture.




We had breakfast at the hotel, and later proceeded to the jetty.




Selamat Datang!





Waiting for the other groups to come.





The view of the jetty port.



Finally, everyone reached the port...



And we started boarding the ship!




Some ships that we saw..



We board the ship at around 9.30am... And we reached Pulau Tioman at 3pm! It was nearly 6 hours of ride, and some people were having sea-sickness and Guan Jie even puked. During the ride, I realise that Sheng Jun a.k.a known as SJ, is REALLY NARCISISSTIC. Daphne and I was asked to help him take a shot of him.. But then again, isn't it good to love oneself? Perhaps if everyone were narcissistic, suicide cases would have plummet. Anyway, he was really a nice guy.. And a helpful one too..


So tired..




Finally, after nearly 6 hours on the water, we finally reached Pulau Tioman!


We were greeted with seemingly crystal clear water, with the sun rays shining on it as the water sparkles..


Seriously beautiful Tioman..










No wonder it was named as one of the top 10 best diving sites in the world.


Everyone was relieved to see Pulau Tioman after spending so many hours in the sea.




"Don't push, one at a time. If not you're landing on the sea!"



Everyone then proceeded to the diving centre.



Fishermen Dive Centre, Pulau Tioman Branch!


Immediately after that, we went to have our lunch. We're all hungry you know!


After eating, the Dive Masters gave us the keys to our resort.


I love the room that was located. It was brilliant.





What a perfect location! My 4 other schoolmates and me were sharing one room at the extreme left of the house.





The side view of the house..







The view that you will be greeted after you open the door.



Some humongous rocks were also present, and during low tide, we saw lots of fishes beside our room, what's more, we saw crabs and even 2 juvenile octopuses!




The room that we were living. The room condition was not very good, but it was still habitable.



At around 4-5 pm we went to dive. We put on our diving gears and were getting ready. I was carrying a 15kg air tank, together with a weight belt of 12 kg, and I was walking towards the beach. I put on my flippers at the ankle-depth water with the support of Aziz and Clarence. It was hard to balance thanks to the currents. Some of us fell. I was one of them, and I suffered cuts and bruises because of the dead corals.


We later went to deeper depth, and began to deflate my Buoyancy Compensator so I can sink. The water was choppy, and I couldn't see the instructor. All I could see was his black gloves. After less than 15 minutes of diving, we returned back to shore. One of the instructors who were taking the other group said that the visibility was bad and it was high tide.


We waited for quite some time before going diving again.



5.30PM


We went diving again, but this time, the visibility was better, but still not very good. In the end, one instructor spotted corals and we went down to take a look. I saw many fishes and went near to them. Instead of going into hiding, these fishes crowd near me as if they were curious. I was extremely mindful not to hit the corals with my flippers, and I enjoyed much, although the colour of the corals and the fishes(some) were brown, contrary to what I watched on television, where it was so beautiful. It probably got alot to do with the choppy water I guess..


We went back to shore again and all of us washed our diving equipments and went to bathe.

We met at around 6.30 and we went to have our dinner at this place.

The food was pretty good, except that it was oily. I tried to eat fast so that I can shop for souvenirs.

I had to put souvenirs as top priority to my friends before I bought anything for myself. I managed to buy some nice keychains and other stuff for them, and I bought myself a luminous T-Shirt with beautiful Dolphin printing that was worth RM $20.

After that, we went to have our final exam. It was so boring and everyone was dead tired. And we were finally released at midnight. I was knocked out right after I head for my bed.

ON SUNDAY

We woke up extremely early, and we had curry puffs and sugar donuts for breakfast, and we went to pack our diving equipment immediately.

8.20am (Heading towards Marine Park.)

The ship arrives and everyone board the ship. While in the trip, some people were flabbergasted. I was wondering what was the commotion about and they said they saw dolphins. I was thinking where was it when I suddenly spotted 3-4 dolphins gliding! Wow! The instructors said that the dolphins were following us.

We went to Marine Park to dive first. I wore my equipment and did all the necessities and plunge into the water, and waited for my group members..

We went to the seabed around 48 feet. We used a long rope to help us go to the seabed. The long rope must be there for quite sometime as it was covered with corals, and there were even fishes there. I was experiencing pain. I went down to the seabed to fast, and my ears were hurting very much, thanks to the pressure. Luckily, I did the clearing technique of ears umpteen times to clear my ears.

Everyone reached the seabed. But I accidentally disturbed the sediments, and it became all choppy water. But after awhile, it settled down, and all of us began feeding the fishes. There were lots of silvery fishes and rabbit fishes crowding all around us for the bread. (By the way, the fishes are edible.) It was such a wonderful experience. After that, we did some exercises like finding the regulator etc.

We went to shallow water, which was crystal clear. We followed the Dive Master. There were many sea slugs, around us and some sea urchins. The instructor saw a sea sponge and carried it to let us see.

To be honest, I was pretty disappointed. Most of the corals were dead except some. I've been to Pulau Tioman in 2000, and the natives there told me that the corals were destroyed by tourists.

We went on to explore further and saw some wrasses and other fishes before heading back to shore.

Heading towards Monkey Bay.

We went there to dive and the corals there were better protected. The depth was shallower than the first location. We saw brain corals and some colourful fishes such as blue devils and lovely wrasses again. I only spotted one clownfish; it was enjoying itself on the sea anemone. We saw lots of sea urchins congregrating together. When some fishes saw us, they were hiding behind the sea urchins, using it was a protection.

But with a stroke of serendipity, we saw a medium-sized moray eel! Eureka! It was hiding behind some corals. According to our instructor Amin, it is extremely difficult to spot moray eels.

After diving, we went to swim in the sea for awhile..

Finally, it was time to go home. We took the ship way back to Mersing. However, something happened to the ship. The ship was stuck in the middle of the sea, thanks to low tide. The water was too shallow and the propeller was feared to be broken if the ship carries on moving. There was a high possibility that we would have to wait till 1am in the morning for high tide before we can move. Luckily, the ship was reversed and we managed to go back to the jetty on time.

To cut story short, we reached Singapore at around 11pm and reached school at around 11.30pm..

Anyway, I would like to thank ODAC for giving me this opportunity to let me get closer to my dreams. Yes, I have a qualification that would allow me to dive anywhere in the world, and it will be added to my resume.

Here are some pictures we took:

Guan Jie and I.

Sheng Jun and I.




Jeremy and I.

From left: Guan Jie, me, Gabriel and Jeremy.

Han Wen, me and Sheng Jun.

Chong Boon, Clarence, Sheng Jun and me!

A

Instructor Jason and I.

Thanks to those who helped me throughout the diving trip.

Last but not least, for those who sarcastically wished me well...

"I'm back in ONE WHOLE PIECE!!!"