A Box Of Memories

Back Again

2011-12-20T05:08:00.001-08:00

Surprised? I know I sure am. Never really expected to find myself back here in the Blogosphere, but here I am. Plus, I did a nice little makeover for my blog too. In case you're wondering, the header which I put together is a compilation of most of my favourite Photoshop works. Many of them were for my club and school projects, as advertisements, and flyers for our various events and functions. Others were created on a whim of an idea I had, or even as presents for friends.

On the sides, you will see photos, (none of which were taken by me, as you might've guessed upon seeing my face in every one of them, so credits go to the various photographers whose Facebook accounts I have stolen from) which show some of my favorite moments- not ALL, mind- and some of my best friends- once again, not all- of recent times, that being 2010/11'.

In any case, I will now explain the purpose of my blog. It will no longer be so much of a day-to-day account of my life, nor is it a place for stories of my many ventures and tribulations. Instead, this is more of just an outlet for occasional thoughts, ideas and even public announcements for whatever which I would like the world to know about. As always, feedback is appreciated (As soon as I get my Cbox back), and I will do my best to keep any readers entertained with various projects and ideas which I am embarking on.

Without further ado, I now present you,

A Box Of Memories.

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

Bottle

2011-06-07T00:11:00.000-07:00

Oh. My. God.

You need to watch this fantastic stop-motion short film. Nuff said.

Bottle from Kirsten Lepore on Vimeo.

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

Inspirations and Aspirations

2011-06-06T21:15:00.000-07:00

I'm becoming very restless.

Maybe it has something to do with the change of location of my computer, and thus a change of workspace. I used to keep my laptop in my room, or in the study room upstairs. However, my entire set-up has been shifted down here, right to the middle of my living room. Why? Because I had planned to get some music done this holidays. By music, I mean finishing an EP, doing collaborations with other people and even music videos. And it's not too late, actually. I have slightly less than a week left. It's still possible.

Yet, with this new place, I find that I can't seem to concentrate on anything. Not enough to write a new song, figure out the arrangement for a mashup, or do anything at all. Maybe it's the heat, too.

Yesterday, I started out my day on the com as usual. I finally finished the IU Day report which I'd been trying to pen since the start of the holidays. Which reminds me, do I still owe you all a post about IU Day? I don't feel up to writing out the whole thing, so maybe I'll just post some pictures here.

However, the day was not over yet. The finale - which until then was kept a secret to the guests - was finally revealed as a five-man band from the St. John’s Alumni Pipe Band burst through the back doors of the hall and marched down the center to the front of the stage, complete with drums and bagpipes. They played several short Celtic tunes, true to the spirit of Scotland. Upon the chorus of the last tune, our school’s Interactors appeared once more, parading through the hall from the back before assembling on the stage where we stood tall and proud. As the grand sound of the pipe band’s final tune came to a close, the Interactors all bowed together for the last time, before throwing our fists in the air as we cheered:

“WE ‘SCOT THE POWER!”

- excerpt from IU Day Report

It was a massive success, just so you know. The entire event ran smoothly, and I could see that everyone was entertained throughout. We had a good crowd, anyway.

The feedback was tremendous. So many people came to me, full of praise for our club and what a good job we had done. Interactors from other schools, people I had never even seen before, were coming up to me, all smiles and compliments.

Yet, the best part came after I got home. My phone beeped, and I opened the message to see that it was from our beloved Interact teacher advisor, Madam Norhayati.

"Conrats 4 de best IU so far."

In terms of spelling, it was far from flawless. But the message it delivered, was perfect.

* * *

After doing one report, I still had other work to do on the com, but noooo. I was restless. I moved on, to the Playstation.

Yes, the Playstation, if you would believe it. And why is that so hard to believe? Because I don't like playing video games. Or rather, don't like it anymore. I used to be fine with sitting down for long hours in front of that interactive idiot box, but guess what? Prior to yesterday, nobody has touched the Playstation or our Xbox 360 for over a month, since my brother left for the US. And me, I can't even remember the last time I used it. Anyhow, there I was, trying to sit myself down and occupy myself with something, anything, by playing an old favourite, Disgaea. I was there for half an hour, then I ditched the game.

Moved on upstairs to watch TV, and caught the ending of a Criminal Minds episode. Restlessness set in again, and I turned it off as soon as the themesong cued.

I went to my room, picked up a new book Mum had bought me from a booksale. Anne Fine, so yes it should be quite an alright book to read. Not 30 pages into the book, and I closed it.

I went downstairs to fetch my guitar, came back up, and was ready to write a song. Not ten minutes later, I decided that the only past time for me was falling asleep.

And sleep I did, for the whole afternoon.

After dinner, for the first time, I decided that I should not let the heat torment me any further. I turned up the air-conditioning. You should note that the fan here in the living room is useless for any circulation that does not involve the air directly below it. Meaning, the only cool spot in this large 20 by 20? square foot room is a little circle barely the size of a hula hoop, directly underneath the fan. Which counts for even less when you take into consideration that there are no chairs underneath the fan, and my computer table is too far away for me to sit within that measly circle of wind.

So, like I said. The air-conditioning was on, and I felt much better. I did a little bit of artwork for my band, so that we could use it for covers and such. I started on the report for our External Prefects' Camp, which, by the way, was fantastic and incredibly meaningful. But no, I don't feel like doing a post on that, sorry. You won't be able to relate, anyway. These kinds of stories have to be felt, not heard.

ANYWAYS. To the point. The whole reason I'm here today, is because of what I stumbled upon yesterday. Stumbled upon, as in Stumble Upon-ed. If you've not heard of it, I do recommend you try it. It's a really neat little web app, which lets you really surf the web for interesting articles, pictures, videos etc. It was introduced to me by a dear friend Mr Kok Hao Zhe, and it has become a steady pastime of mine ever since.

Anyhow, last night I found something truly moving. Take a look at this amazing project.

Follow the link and read through the page before you continue here. If you're interested you can go to the proper website for that project. There, you have the chance to actually write on the wall. Although it may not be the same as actually going out and writing on the wall in chalk, it does still mean the same thing. It's the closest thing we have, at least until someone goes ahead and starts the project here in Malaysia.

I posted on the website. What I want to do before I die. I'm not going to say it here; if you're really curious then you may go to the website and scroll until you find mine. I did write my name as Jun Shern, so it's not impossible to find. Though just one night after posting it, I've found that my post has already been buried pretty deep, so it might not be worth all that scrolling.

Still, I encourage you to write your own dream on the wall. It certainly gets you thinking. What is my ultimate goal in life?

The many hopes and dreams of the nameless people on the wall have inspired me. Many of them do have worthy dreams. Noble dreams, personal vendettas, and selfless wishes. If you take the time to think about some of the things that people are wishing for, you already have glimpsed into the life of someone whom you have never met. Never met, yet you can understand them through that one simple sentence.

I'm starting a new column in my sidebar. As I go about my everyday life, it will grow. Being at such an impressionable young age, there are so many things that I want to do. My ultimate goal, which I posted on the website, will not be posted here. That leaves space for some intriguing thoughts, no?

Before I die, I want to...

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

This Is It

2011-03-16T05:47:00.000-07:00

Yep. It's me, blogging again. Surprise, surprise.

IU is at the end of the month, and honestly? I'm petrified. There are still so many things to do. I'm looking forward to it, of course. It's MY day. I've been dreaming of this for months, and now I'm worried something might go wrong that day, or it might not live up to my expectations, etc etc. Anyhow, I've already spent the whole day fretting and planning it, so I actually came here to give myself a break. So give myself a break I shall.

Right after I do some promoting, I mean. Haha! Yes yes yes. You've come to the IU Director's blog. You can't expect to get away without a sales pitch about IU Day. So here I go:

IU Day? I'm taking this year's IU Day personally. Very personally. This is the first thing that I have total freedom and control over. So, it being a testament to my own ability to direct, choreograph, coordinate, plan, innovate and make awesome, I am determined to put on the most amazing show that is possible with our given resources and manpower. Which is a very wealthy source of manpower, I might add.

Some of the greatest talents in the entire school are in the club. We have actors, dancers, singers, designers, techies, creatives, leaders, workers, and basically everything that a show requires. Yes, I am burying myself here, what with the overselling and whatnot. But the thing is, I have absolutely no excuse to let this event slide as just another "meh".We have the potential to deliver, and I owe it to everybody to make full use of that potential.

Bear in mind, though, that this will not just be a showcase of talent, nor is it a concert of any sort. At the core, IU Day's true objective is to promote international understanding. (Don't you dare say "No shit, Sherlock", I'm not done yet!) This means that IU Day should actually be an exhibition for a certain country. Which sadly, many of my fellow IU Directors from other schools have forgotten. The dazzle and the want for fame has turned many IU Day's into nothing more than a concert, which is certainly not what IU is about. No offence meant, but this true.

I aim to hold true to that meaning of IU Day. If you come for IU, I promise that you will understand new things about Scotland, but don't despair, for everything will be presented remarkably and you will certainly not be bored. To sum it up nicely, we will strike a perfect balance between entertainment and information, merged together so seamlessly that hopefully you won't be able to tell the difference.

At least, that's my plan. Some of it is working out very nicely, while others are still in early stages, so I am still trying very hard to make that plan a reality. There is much more to be done, but we have a month. We will do our best.

So what can you expect this year? To be frank, Scotland wasn't exactly on my list of top five Best-IU-able-Countries, but the club chose it through a vote, and I was stuck with Scotland. Perhaps it's for the best, that I didn't get the original country that I'd wanted.

Imagine the first day, when the club decided. Honestly, I was terrified. I knew NOTHING about Scotland. I couldn't even tell you where it was on the map. However, I had to work with it. So, I went online. Read through pages and pages of articles on the country. I even bought a large hardcover book about the culture of Scotland, and guess what? By now, I've grown to love it.

And this is exactly what IU is about. Learning new things about other countries. For the record, Scotland is an amazing country, which I simply never got the chance to get to know about. It actually does have a great number of fun and exciting things, which you will come to realize when you come for IU Day.

One of Scotland's many awesomes.

Anyhow, I shan't say anymore for now. Here are the details, right off my Facebook event page:

Our Theme: We ‘Scot The Power!
Because yes. We has got the power, if you would excuse our lapse in grammatical correctness.

When? Friday, the 29th of April 2011, 3:00pm – 6:00pm.
Do note that while registration begins at 3:00pm, the event is due to begin at 3:40pm with no delays. The main event ends at 6:00pm, after which all guests are invited to the canteen for a taste of some scrumptious Scottish cuisine.

Where? School Hall of Wesley Methodist School, Sentul, Kuala Lumpur.
Our school is also easily accessible via public transport. Simply take the LRT to the Sentul station right next to the school, and there will be ushers to escort you into the school from there.

Ticket Prices?
RM8 – Formal wear: School Uniforms, Interact Attire
RM10 – Other: Smart casual. (Shorts and skimpy outfits are STRICTLY PROHIBITED)

For further enquiries, do not hesitate to contact:
Int. Chan Jun Shern (IU Director) @ 016-9077282
Int. Brenda Yew (Asst. IU Director) @ 017-6083826

Wish me luck, guys. I'm scared of my own expectations. But hey, I'm not alone. I've got Brenda, and the greatest team of Interactors to help me make this work.

I actually only meant for the promo to take up a short section of this post, but I guess I got carried away. And now I'm tired of typing. Figures.

Anyhow, I still owe y'all a real post. This doesn't quite count, does it? Maybe I'll do one tomorrow; I'm having a surprisingly free weekend.

More here. http://wms-interactclub.blogspot.com/ :)

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

Little Wonders

2011-02-05T09:16:00.000-08:00

It's a giving season, that's what Chinese New Year is. This doesn't really mean much, though.

What it usually means is that it is a season where people are obliged to give away money as tradition dictates, but this does not necessarily mean that people give willingly, or that the gesture is from their hearts.

However, I'd like to digress the general perception, being that humans are selfish by nature. We aren't, not always. Humans are cautious, and tend to look out for their own well-being above others'. This is survival instincts, not selfishness.

To prove this point, I'd like to share with you all a story of a small miracle. Perhaps it's not what you might think to be impossible, or that it's undeserving to be named as a miracle. But that's why I call it a small miracle, or rather, a little wonder. This really touched me, and so, it drove me to publish this story immediately after it happened.

This story took place about an hour ago.

My family and I had just had our big CNY dinner, this year at the Grand Imperial of Hartamas Shopping Mall. Once again, I had forgotten to bring out my Cross Country donation card, which I had meant to do at all my previous family gatherings. Thus, it was still sitting upstairs in my bag, empty but for my name written on the top.

It seemed that my aunts and uncles had not finished their chatting and catching up, so after dinner, we headed back to my place, where they sat happily in the living room, laughing it up. I was next door, doing my Add Maths homework on the dining table.

Anyways, I was getting tired of quadratic equations when suddenly, I remembered my donation card. I realized that this would probably be my last chance to bring it out and collect donations, so I thought I might as well give it a shot, instead of coming back to school empty-handed. And so, I fetched it, and soon found myself standing in the middle of my living room, smiling sheepishly.

"Err. Hi, everyone. Um, as we're all here tonight, I'd like to talk to some of you about something."

And so I did. I launched into a short speech about what the Cross Country is, our goals, and which charity organizations we are aiming to help. I also gave a little explanation about Children's Wish Society, and how they helped to grant terminally ill children their final wishes.

"So, if you guys would like to help out, that would be really great. I have a donation card here, and any sum would be most welcome. Just give from your hearts."

I laughed lightly, hoping they didn't get the wrong idea and assume I was a conman. I passed the card to my closest aunt, and she smiled as she wrote the first entry in my donation card. RM20. Then it was passed along. RM50. RM20. RM50.

I was taken aback. I had not expected this. I had hoped that each family would give perhaps RM5 or RM10, and maybe then I would be able to scrape the minimum donation of RM55 for Interactors. I quickly stood back while they made their donations, hoping my standing too close was not pressuring them to donate more than they wanted to.

Suddenly,

"Shern, who do I address this to?"

I looked up, and saw my uncle holding up his cheque book. I laughed, thinking he was kidding; the jovial uncle he is. He wasn't. My mum asked him to address the cheque to her, and she would cash in the money for me. Eventually, the donation card had come full circle, and I opened the card. I gaped at the large sums which I found inside. I was utterly dumbfounded and tongue-tied, so I faced them and bowed. "Thank you so much."

*the total donated sum will be withheld for privacy reasons.

And I bowed again. And again. And again.

Tonight, I have learned something. People are willing to give. They want to help. It's just hard to do it sometimes, cos most of the time you don't actually know whether or not to trust that your money will be put to good use. People want to go to bed, knowing that they have helped others, and that somewhere, they have made a difference in a person's life. Who doesn't want that?

I'm just really glad that my relatives had trusted me enough to donate in the way they did. They were all really nice about it, and spoke to me about how all the money would be handled, wanting to be sure that it would reach the people they were hoping to help.

It was a beautiful experience. I had never expected this much to come from such a small group of people. They were giving to strangers; cutting out parts of their own well-being to contribute to that of people they had never met. This is charity, I guess. And I'm really glad to have seen it happen first-hand. It may not seem like that big a deal to some people, but maybe it has to happen to you for you to actually feel it.

Anyways, thanks, relatives. I won't forget this.

Why do fish mongers charge so much for fish?

'Cos they sel-fish ma.

Happy Chinese New Year, everyone.

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

I Believe In Awesome

2011-01-22T07:32:00.001-08:00

Picking up from the start of last year's year-end holidays. Almost half a year ago? I can ask for nothing more from life. I have had the most amazing past year that I never imagined possible. Thanks, everyone.

I believe in awesome because:

19th of November, 2011 (Last Day of School)
-Initial Sound's performance @ Endgame Concert was the bomb.
-We did our first real, unplanned encore of our signature song mashup Yellow/Fix You at Endgame.
-I had the cool title of Stage Manager at Endgame. Though I didn't do that much.

22nd of November, 2011
-Interact Club's PBS Workshop was blast. Spending time with young, innocent kids FTW.

24th of November, 2011
-Megamind @ Midvalley with Prefects + +
-Megamind is a fantastic movie. I hadn't laughed so much at any movies in a long time.
-I love this group of people.

25th of November to 2nd of November, 2011
-OSAKA, JAPAN STUDENT EXCHANGE PROGRAM! Unforgettable, unregrettable, indescribable.
-Choreographed Indian Dance for showcase @ Omi Brotherhood School, Osaka was well-received.
-Whoa! at Japanese families. I never imagined that anyone of our same species could be so nice.
-Played guitar for my astounded and excitable host-family in Japan.
-Universal Studios Japan was where I realized how much brilliance a person can really feel, such that the only way to keep from bursting is by singing and screaming out in joy.
-Flight home from Japan was delayed, allowing us one last epic day in Japan.

3rd of December to 5th of December, 2011
-The huge Interact District Conference @ Royale Bintang Seremban, a gathering of over 800 Interactors from across the country
-Meet, greet, feed our highly-praised namecards to everybody
-Epic hotel room. For decency's sake, I will not reveal the disturbing story of my hotel room on this blog. Ask me in person.
-Largest Dance Battle I had ever been in, to an audience of the entire body of 800 + Interactors. Did I win? I'm not so sure, myself. Everyone was just having fun.
-I super love my WMS Interactors.

11th of December to 13th of December, 2011
-Pulau Pangkor with the mum's side cousins, including the special guests from the Land Down Under.
-Time spent with the cousins are always amazing. This was no exception.
-Surprise birthday party, excessive song-singing before finally being allowed to cut the cake. Thanks, family.

17th of December to 20th of December, 2011
-Mind-blowing experience at Club Med, Cherating with father's side cousins.
-Birthday well-spent.
-Landed my first proper front flip during acrobatics course; aid of mini-trampoline.
-I would like to say that the nightly musical performances and shows at Club Med are some of the best shows I have ever seen in my life.
-Dance battle! Jun Ian, Jun Kit and I had a chance to battle the others present. My brother easily owned everyone else.
-received my beautiful Internet Radio from an uncle.

23rd of December, 2011
-Christmas party @ Loong's with extended family
-parents dress-theme: 70's fashion.
-Cousin's Prom Night; joined us after his Prom.
-Epic serenade session: 10 cousins and a guitar piled illegally into one car, headed to cousin's prom date's home to sing her "Just The Way You Are" on a spontaneous whim.
-Mamak after serenading.
-Slept at Tan's just before 6am.

25th of December, 2011
-received a professional Studio Condenser Microphone as a shared present from 26 AWESOME friends.
-recorded a Medley as thanks to the Awesomes.

26th of December, 2011
-Christmas party/Reunion dinner @ home with ex-neighbours from Damansara Heights.
-Reunion after more than 7 years.
-There's a reason why we were all best friends when we were young: The two families whom we used to live in-between are awesome people.

30th of December, 2011
-Orientation Day and Leadership Camp preparations in school.
-Kelly's birthday party at her house.
-Epic-ly random and hilarious story-telling session by Eric and I. In Chinese.

31st of December, 2011
-New Year Countdown @ DPC Waterfront with Jamin, Juinn and Joo Ann
-Picnic in a secluded, open field beneath the fireworks.
-At Tan's, played Zuma Blitz on Facebook uncontrollably.

3rd of January, 2011
-School reopens.

7th of January to 8th of January, 2011
-Internal Prefects' Camp in school.
-Debut release of my best shirt design yet, the Prefects' T-Shirt. I'm really proud of this one.
-Unforgettable and ROTFL-worthy simulations of Clearing, Assembly Control, and Screening.
-MUCH more fun than I'd expected. It was amazing.

14th of January, 2011
-chosen as new President of Social Studies Club, completely no idea what to do with the club.
-Pre-Chinese New Year dinner @ home with the Cousins.
-Auditions for performances for the Yee Wei/Huei Jean Wedding in February.
-First time hearing Joo Ann sing. She auditioned for a solo piano/vocals performance of Only Hope, and we were completely blown away and amazed.
-Performing Lucky by Jason Mraz & Colbie Caillat, duet with Tan Wei Yi.

15th of January, 2011
-Interact Club's Community Service Trip to Soup Kitchen.
-Another unforgettable new experience. Washed heaps of cutlery, cleaned countless tables, wiped unsurmountable squared units of surfaces.
-Helping to serve free food to the poor FTW!

16th of January, 2011
-attended Loong's music school concert @ Bentley's Music auditorium.

20th of January, 2011
-Thaipusam holiday! Hindu's FTW!
-Went for a Pre-Run of Interact's Cross Country event @ Taman Tasik Titiwangsa.
-Taught Victor to ride a bicycle.

21st of January to 22nd of January, 2011
-Managed to work out a brilliant scheme of work for Social Studies. Wait and see, Social Studies is the next big up-and-coming club of the school.
-The long-prepared and much-awaited In-House Leadership Camp 2011!
-Our In-House Leadership Camp 2011 was the bomb.
-All my long, mind-wrenching hours of planning the camp's Mystery Game was worth it. IT WAS EPIC!
-Xin Jie and I were the facilitators of the winning team (Group 12 MOJO JOJO!). I love my group. They were awesome sports.
-Honestly, I don't think I have ever felt better than I did when the entire camp was over. It was an immense success, and the thunderous applause that ended it was thoroughly felt.

I love this life. Or rather, I do some times, and hate it at other times. Well, I don't hate it. It's just that I have way too many things to do all the time. I barely do my homework or study , and yet I am sleeping past 1am every night, preparing for all these activities.

For the past week, I was running extremely low on fuel. I was tired to the bone, and I often fell asleep on the computer or on my homework late at night. During the daytime, I felt like crap, though I tried not to show it. It was really too much for me.

I believe it's worth it, though. All my late nights of preparation, pondering, planning, brainstorming, typing, and editing my plans for Mystery Game paid off when the game ended. I had seen all the participants having a great time trying to solve my mystery, and whenever anyone thanked or congratulated me, I felt the strength coming back. And finally, when Mr Naresh thanked me for my work on the game, everyone applauded. This is what makes hard work worth it. When people appreciate what you've put bucket loads of effort into, the feeling is so relieving, so satisfying that you forgive yourself for putting yourself through all that work, and you want to do it again.

Problem is, I see no end to it. How many more times this year can I go through this sort intense hard work? After this, we have our Cross-Country coming up on the 19th of February. There is still a lot of work to be put in into Social Studies if I really want to turn it into an active club. And there's the issue of the school Newsletter that we're about to start. Our first issue is due in February, and there's so much more to be done.

Of course, most important to me is my IU Day. Brenda and I are getting worried about it already, though we've only planned it to be in May. There's much to plan and practice, and we need to begin early, because I have promised myself this: This year's IU Day, of the year 2011, will be the best IU Day the school has ever seen. Mark my words, and attend IU Day in May to judge if I have succeeded.

After that, there'll be the school Concert. I get the feeling I'll be doing the programme booklet for concert, and I do actually want to do it. Problem: Mdm Sarah Tan has already asked me to take charge of a dance under her, and I agreed, because she mentioned that I would have complete creative freedom in choreography, and that's rare as far as school concert goes. So I'll be pretty busy around that time. And that's dangerously close to SPM.

It's not as if school work is a piece of cake, either. I'm in Form Five now, and the workload is raining down hard on all of us. SPM is coming, and I want at least 8A+'s out of my 10 subjects. Ambitious much? Well, no harm in trying.

At least now that the Leadership Camp is over, I have a short grace period before the next big project. And there's the CNY holidays coming up, too. At least I can use this time to catch up, then get ahead in my studies so at least I don't have to worry about that portion of life for the next few months.

Wish me luck. I'll try my best not to kill myself or work myself to death. Dad says, "Delegate your work! You musn't keep taking everything into your own hands!" I agree. Thanks, Dad. I'm trying to do exactly that. But it might be a little more complicated than it seems now.

You might be wondering, though, why I do all this? I've asked myself the same question. "Why do I keep trying to do all these things?"

Well, now I know. Because I believe in awesome. I'll get there one day.

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

What Rope Always Makes U-Turns?

2010-10-13T11:54:00.000-07:00

*Throughout the post, you will notice asterisks(*) being plotted in front of certain words or phrases. This means, for further elaboration, refer to the notes in small text underneath the paragraph where the asterisk was found. These short comments or explanations are not vital to the understanding of the main plot, but it is advisable to read, as the writer has made a great effort to be insightful and thoughtful in his notes.

Just in case you missed my title, which is something you really don't want to miss(rather, I don't want you to miss):

What rope always makes U-turns?

U-rope. Which is exactly. Where I went to for my holidays.

* * *

I realized something(actually, many things, but this is the only thing worth mentioning right now) while in Europe:

I love Malaysia.

Don't get me wrong, London and Paris are nice places. It's just that while being away from for so long, you will tend to miss some things about your home country. You miss your car. The comfort of your house. The familiarity of your favourite shopping mall. The assurance which comes from knowing exactly where you are, and where you can go to do exactly what you want. I've always appreciated Malaysia, and I'm never afraid to admit that I love it. However, being away for ten days(it's not even a very long time), although not in a completely undesirable or depressing place, has reminded me many times that I truly do.

I left KLIA via Emirates on Wednesday night, or Thursday morning (9th of September), whichever you like to consider it. Basically, I was at KLIA on Wednesday night, preparing for a midnight flight. Settling in the regular discomfort of economy class *airplane/aeroplane seats, I busied myself throughout the journeys there and back with the wide selection of movies, among which I chose to watch Hercules, Valentine's Day, The A-Team, **Diary Of A Wimpy Kid, Clash of The Titans and others I can't recall.

*It depends. In America, say airplane. In Britain, say aeroplane. In Malaysia, say plane.
Examples:
1. Can we pretend that airplanes, in the night sky, are like shooting stars? - American, Hayley Williams
2. I'm taking an aeroplane, across the world, to follow my heart! -Icelandic, Björk Guðmundsdóttir (not British, but c'mon. It's Iceland; they're practically the same thing, I mean. The two country names even LOOK the same.)
3. MADAM! THEY DIDN'T SPECIFY THAT THE PLANE IS PERPENDICULAR TO THE LINE PQ! - Malaysian, Yeoh Kai Yuan

**Does anyone else think that the "wimpy kid" in this movie looks EXACTLY like the main actor from I Love You, Man?

Interesting fact: The Airbus 380(above pic), which I took from my transit in Dubai to Heathrow, London, is apparently the best passenger plane there is. It's double-deckered, man.

Interesting fact 2: Dubai International Airport is something of the largest duty free *airport in the world, but there really isn't anything exciting to buy there, except frozen yoghurt.

*Hmm. Hands up who knows why it isn't called an aeroport in Britain?

Arriving in London, we boarded the Tube and headed straight to our hotel to check-in. I hate London and Paris' versions of the LRT. The Tube and Metro, as they are called in London and Paris respectively, are stuffy, dirty, crowded with the *great unwashed, and tiringly difficult to navigate. You get used to finding your way even with the hundreds(exaggeration) of different lines, switches and stops, but frankly, a person who has been traveling and has walked an entire city in a day does NOT want to have to travel long tunnels with long flights of stairs but no escalators on his way back to his hotel.

*Meaning people, as the term can be applied to the general population of Europe.

Having gotten the flaming of the overseas public transport behind us, we now look to the best qualities of London and Paris. The best description to their buildings, architecture, and scenery is:

Picturesque.

No other word to describe it, so I won't. See for yourself. I took about 2,000 pictures there, so it was no simple task choosing a few to post up here. While falling in love with my pictures, keep in mind that I am not a photographer, so while I do not have any photography skills whatsoever, I am not above editing photos to enhance and encourage the growth of the seeds of dramatic lighting. Because it's amazing what a little Photoshop can do to your pictures.

In no particular order, here they are.

Yes, that is a statue of a naked man atop a building in Oxford.

EPIC WATERMILL.

I love this pig-ture. Yes, those are pigs.
Nah, just kidding. They're sheep.

* * *

The funny thing about Paris, however, is that while it IS a picturesque city, it isn't a real-life-esque city, or whatever it is you people want to call it. What I mean to say is, Paris looks good in pictures and videos, but it isn't such a great place in the flesh.

"What's Paris called again? City of lights, is it?"

"No, that's Deepavali or something."

"NO. Deepavali's the FESTIVAL of lights!"

So anyways, despite being deemed the ultimate romantic spot or City of Lights or whatever, it won't live up to your expectations. It's a coarse, dirty, place. Further dragging it down on the list of my ideal places to visit, a crazy first impression shook up my entire perception of Paris.

I crossed over from London to Paris on a ferry, and arrived early in the morning, at about 5:30am, if I remember correctly. We got off the ferry and found ourselves in the Metro, the Paris underground rail system.

Groggy and uncomfortable from the all-nighter journey in which we didn't get much sleep, we weren't very happy about being lost in large underground tunnels and no one who seemed to be friendly enough to speak English. And then there was the smell. The unpleasant odour of the place, which stank of what we *assumed to be dogs' pee, was an extremely disgruntling welcome to Paris.

*It is widely believed that the strange odour of Paris is that of dogs' leavings, because Paris is full of dog-lovers. However, after having searched large parts of the city in vain for toilets in places other than our own hotel, my brother and I came to a second conclusion. Think about it.

Implication 1: Paris lacks toilets.
Implication 2: The streets of Paris smell disturbingly like toilet.
Conclusion: The dogs can't be the only ones who are unable to resist the call of nature.

Leaving the others to try and figure out the course to the hotel on the map, my dad and I traveled down a long, dimly lit tunnel, and found ourselves at the ticketing office, finally with people who were able to help. The man behind the counter spoke English, and we were asking about the tickets and their version of our "Touch N' Go", when suddenly the man switched to French, and fiercely let loose what seemed to be a long stream of profanities from his mouth.

Startled at his sudden anger, I turned to see what he was shouting at. Behind me, I saw a witch. I swear, she looked exactly like the worst kind of witch, those whose names would be something like Urgraicsky the Magical Ogre. Armed with a mane of unkept grey hair and heavily swathed in dull scarves and filthy clothes, she lifted the cigarette from her mouth and screeched, yes, SCREECHED, at the man behind the ticketing counter. They proceeded with a French shouting match, which by my observation, the yellow-toothed witch was winning. She had the much louder voice, and the French words she spat at the ticketing officer seemed to be so much scarier than what the latter could produce.

At one point of the shouting match, the witch angrily stepped forward and pushed my father and I aside, so that she could attack the ticketing officer directly but for the glass of the ticketing booth that separated them. I watched as the man grew more and more agitated at her, until he finally stepped out of the booth and shouted right in her face. He jabbed his finger accusingly at her, and said something with some finality in his voice. The woman gave a loud cry, shoved his hand aside, and took her leave, wailing and screaming her way down a tunnel, clearly unsatisfied with how the match had ended.

The man took a great sigh. Then, as if nothing had happened,

"Tickets for how many?"

* * *

One thing you should know about the French? They have a terribly small variety of food, and yet they spend all day just sitting at the cafe's, crowd-watching. Walking past a cafe, you will see a long row of chairs and tables(occasionally no tables) stretched out far beyond the rental space of the cafe. These chairs will all be facing one direction: Out. The French spend hours sitting there, eating their ham and cheese croissants, sipping their coffees, looking out at the people passing by.

And throughout the city, you will see seemingly identical and recurring foods. A Frenchman's diet consists of: Butter croissants and coffee for breakfast, a ham and cheese croissant sandwich with coffee for lunch, and for dinner, either more croissant sandwiches, or they could opt for something more classy, but a simple chicken chop or western dish worth RM20 in Malaysia will cost them 20 euros. And one euro = approximately RM4.

The one thing I won't complain about France, though, is their desserts. Of course, no French restaurant would be complete without macaroons. Macaroons are EPIC. I've had them once in Malaysia, but that wasn't quite as religious an experience as my macaroon one in Paris.

The other dessert that is worthy of replacing my wedding cake in the future is creme brulee. Yes, delumptiously sugartastic.

Remember, if you're ever looking for a good lunch in London, keep an eye out for them kebab stores.

Countryside restaurants serve killer mushroom soups capable of making you want to quit your job at Google and go find a job as a mushroom picker near the Cliffs of Dover.

Finally, my favorite. The ULTIMATE. Meringues.

* * *

Let's take a look at the places worth visiting if you ever go to London/Paris.

1. Arc Du Triomphe, Paris

Yes, this is where my Facebook DP was taken. Heheh.

2. Montmartre Artists' Square, Paris

3. Big Ben, London

4. Camden Town's Camden Lock Market, Greater London

This place is an awesome place to visit. There are LOTS of things to see, and more importantly, they have...

*Piña coladas!

*You know the pina colada song? I've just downloaded it, it's awesome. It's called Escape, by Rupert Holmes. I daresay you'd have heard it before.

If you like Pina Coladas, and getting caught in the rain.
If you're not into yoga, if you have half-a-brain.
If you like making love at midnight, in the dunes of the cape.
I'm the love that you've looked for, write to me, and escape.

5. Eiffel Tower, Paris

Where I spent four hours with my brother helping him get his epic Eiffel tower picture. In the end, the best one we took was taken after we'd given up. It's his Facebook DP now.

6. Portebello Market, London

The place is huge, overcrowded, and there's nothing there. But it's still interesting to take a look at, and there are tonnes of *buskers here.

*Street performers. Busking has always been an ambition of mine. One day, I'm gonna grab my hat and go out into Pasar Seni, lay it down in front of me, and play my guitar.

7. Roman Public Baths in Bath, England

8. The River Thames, London

9. Trafalgar Square, London

* * *

I don't really feel like saying much more, but there are still some pictures I'd like you guys to see, so I'll just post them up.

Buskers.

Our dance epics. Not all, cos most of them are of my brother, and I'd better not use all his pictures here. Just his best, and mine.

Myself @ Arc Du Triomphe

Ian @ Tower of London

Myself @ Eiffel Tower

Ian @ Eiffel Tower

Everything else, because I'm lazy to sort.

Segway tour of Paris, man. I should've gone.

Taken through a hole in a fence.

Buckingham Palace. This was an extremely lucky shot. I lifted the camera straight up on an outstretched arm so as not to be blocked by the huge crowd in front of me, and randomly took a shot, which framed perfectly all the guards and even their leading police escort far ahead.

Looking in from the side, I thought: Hmm. What's so special about this car?

Moving around to the front, I thought: Oh.

Watched Les Miserables, but it wasn't as good as...

The Lion King. AWESOME.

(Before the show)

"Look! That thick mane of gold! It's the lion king!"

At the train ticketing office. My fair lady, geddit?

Step Up 3, France-style.

I didn't copy and paste them or anything, I swear!

If I were a duck, this would so be my DP on Facebook, MSN, and everywhere else.

Phew. Perhaps my longest post ever? I've never taken so much time on one post. This one particularly because of all the photo editing, and it takes forever to upload all the pictures, with the annoying five at-a-time uploading scheme.

Let's wrap this up, shall we?

Thank god it's over. That was one overlong post that I hope never to have to repeat.

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

Clearing Up

2010-09-20T10:24:00.000-07:00

Okay, before my Europe post, (which will be coming hopefully soon) I think I owe some explanation to some people. If you have known me pretty well recently, you will have realized that I have an annoying habit of correcting people whenever they say something like "Our team consisted of me, Tom, Dick, and Harry" to "Our team consisted of Tom, Dick, Harry and I".

Understand?

Well, I was just thinking about it just now, and I decided to Google the subject to confirm that I was doing the right thing. (I wasn't even sure that whole time I had the habit, Jia En's the one who taught me)

And well, here are the results of my search:

Consider the following sentence: You and I should have lunch.

Is the correct form of this sentence You and I ... or You and me ...? This is a common source of confusion in English.

Fortunately, there's an easy way to decide whether to use I or me in such sentences. All you have to do is drop the word you then try the sentence with I and me one at a time. For example:

I should have lunch.
Me should have lunch.

Clearly the preferred form in this case is I; thus, the original sentence was correct to use you and I.

Here's another example: He'll blame you and I. Drop the word you then try the sentence with Ime one at a time, like so: and

He'll blame I.
He'll blame me.

You can see that the second of these is correct. This means that the original sentence should have been: He'll blame you and me.

Easy.

On a related note, when using phrases such as you and me, you and I or them and us, it has traditionally been considered courteous to place the reference to yourself last. For example, we prefer:

He'll ask you and me later.

over:

He'll ask me and you later.

So there you have it. I would like to sincerely apologize for all the times I'd wrongly corrected your grammar. In that sense, I actually wronged your grammar. Not in all the cases, of course, but perhaps half of the time. Heheh.

In the future, I shall make an effort to consider your sentences before voicing my corrections.

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

We've Lost Another One That We'd Sent With A Gun

2010-09-04T03:21:00.000-07:00

Jimmy's mother went to Capitol Hill
So she could fill her heart up with joy
Maybe shake a few hands while she's there
And tell him, thank you sir for taking my boy

-Two Weeks From Twenty, Yellowcard

The holidays are here, thank the gods. I know, I enjoy school and all that, but honestly, another week or two of it would just kill me off.

I realize that I haven't got enough time to study. Going to Europe from the 9th to the 19th this month isn't exactly a decision made in the best interest of my studies, but yeah. It's well worth sacrificing a few passes to visit a strange and foreign land.

But seriously, my studies are in a mess. If my current schooling standards show up in the final terms, my whole life will be thrown into jeopardy. Don't you roll your eyes at me, I'm serious. If you ask me what is the percentage of the things I understand(rather, have been sufficiently awake enough to listen to) out of the things the teachers have taught us this term, it will (when rounded off to 1 significant figure) be zero. Absolute zero. Sub zero. Ground zero. Zero, Jack Skellington's dog from The Nightmare Before Christmas.

That's Zero.

But anyways, I promise to type out a nice long post about Europe when I get back. Perhaps not immediately, cos I'll be getting back at around 12 midnight, the night before school starts, and I still have to go to school, but eventually I will.

It'll be nice, long, and full of pictures.

Until then, let me show you something I dreamed up while studying chemistry.

Presenting...

The CoMical Flask!

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

Pour Your Mind Out, Write Your Heart Out, Take Your Dog Out. (For A Walk)

2010-08-21T04:53:00.000-07:00

Note:
You don't have to read this. This isn't a life-changing essay of reflection, nor is it a written letter of love/hatred/apology to anyone, nor an all-out exploration into the deepest parts of my soul. I write, simply because I want to. Sometimes when my fingers feel twitchy, but are still sore from the blisters of my fretboard and guitar strings, I look for somewhere else for my fingers to move in rapid succession, and also in harmony with the creative processes in my brain. In many ways, blogging is like improvisation in music. You let your fingers run, you unlock that part of your brain that doesn't care what comes out as long as it sounds good. It may not always make sense, nor does it have a tangible objective, but it plays its part in giving you something to do instead of just listening to the boring backing track of repetitive chords.

Hi, my name is Jun Shern. Shern for short. Or Jun. Or JS. Some prefer Chan. It doesn't matter so much, really. Even saying "Oi!" would suffice when calling me. As long as the voice sounds like it's headed in my direction, I would turn.

Most of the time, I would turn even if it doesn't sound like it's headed in my direction. Partly, it's because I like to think that people are always calling for me and that I am very much needed by everyone. I also like to think that it would make a difference in everyone's lives, should I suddenly pass. Perhaps that's why I try so hard. Which I do.

I try my utmost best in things that can make people turn their heads. I firmly believe that if something is done, it should be done to the extent that people will actually notice that it ever was. That's why I appreciate it whenever somebody does something that can hold my attention. I hate things that are done shabbily. That's not perfectionist, mind you. I dare not call myself a perfectionist, for perfectionists actually strive for absolution in every single endeavor of theirs. That's the whole point of perfection, of course. To be perfect. However, I think that the whole concept of perfection is bullshit. The word exists merely for the sake of you having something nicer to tell your girlfriend than "You're very good at many things". I mean, that sentence hardly sounds like a compliment. It sounds like something you would tell your friend when he/she has just failed an exam that meant very much to him/her.

Not to say that I am not perfect. I am perfect, in my own eyes. Everything that I want to do, I do. Every standard that I set for myself, I achieve. I am entirely and wholly contented with who I am, and I believe that that's about as perfect as a person can get. Of course, there are still many critics out there, who believe that to be perfect, I should stress more on this, do a little more of that. But that's unnecessary. I do the things that I want to do, to the heights that I believe I should reach.

Did I mention? I'm an unreined narcissist. That is, to say, "a person who loves him or herself without boundaries". I appreciate myself more than I appreciate anyone else. I trust myself to do things in a way that I would never trust anyone else to. Not to say that I dislike others. I do trust my friends. I love, and I admire. However, how else can it be? The only person whom I have known all my life, who has been everywhere I go, who knows exactly what I want to do, is myself. Is it wrong to be so self-satisfied?

I read the blogs of others, I hear their stories, I watch their tears, their tantrums. All the emotion that everyone goes through as their lives go on. I cannot help but wonder, what is so different about me? How is it that I go to sleep every day feeling the same? I wake up feeling stoned, slowly stir from my stupor, then as I meet people, absorb the smiles that others direct at me only to amplify and project that very smile back to them. I hear a joke, and I laugh my guts out to show them that I appreciate and understand that they come to me with all good intentions. As the day progresses, bad things happen. I fill with worry, I cloud my mind with solutions, plans, and hopes to overcome the problem. Sometimes it doesn't go away so easily. Sometimes it turns into something bigger, but eventually, like a balloon that swells with no mind for the consequences, it pops. It bursts.

Whether or not that balloon is empty but for the exception of air, or it is filled with dirty water from the kitchen sink, it make no difference. If it is just air, it means the problem is gone. If it is dirty water, then the water falls down upon the unfortunate head of the unfortunate person whose unfortunate maid would have to clean up the floor afterwards. This means that the problem is not yet over. It has come out full-force, and I feel the shame and disgust of the water soaking through my clothes and into my skin. But it does not matter. All it takes is a few steps to the bathroom, where I can peel off the wet, dirty, layers that envelope my body, and step into a set of fresh new clothes, feeling better than ever.

What I mean to say is, all things, good or bad, come to an end. The moments exist, and they are real to you when they are occuring. But at the end of the day, all in the past have passed, all that is gone is gone, and all you have to do is wait for the next train to come.

Just so you know, there is no lesson within this post. No deep, meaningful advice based on personal experiences. This is just something I'm doing to fill the void of the in-between Add Math marathon breaks.

I'm not ranting, though. I hate ranting. I hate the concept of it. Ranting is for crazy people. I'm not crazy. Quite the contrary, if you ask me. I like to think that the privilege of being named as a genius is not such an difficult thing to achieve. I also like to think that I am a genius. In other words,

I like to think.

And so, I THINK that this is the end of the post. And you should, too.

Cos there really isn't anything else to it.

Heheh. Made you highlight it, didn't I?

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

Exploding Would Just Create More Paperwork

2010-08-04T06:07:00.000-07:00

Hey guys. I'm back, after a super long time. So many things have happened, so so many. My life has sort of changed completely. Here's the gist of the changes:

I am the new IU Director of Interact.

Today, I have just learned that I am one of the 9 candidates of the new Prefectorial Board.

I stay back in school almost every single day for various things.

Every moment that I am not working on something important, I spend catching up on sleep.

I spend every precious second of my life in the most productive way possible. (this excluded, haha)

I have not touched any homework at home for a very long time. (oh, wipe that look off your face. I still get it done somehow, during school hours)

Yet, I have been staying up past 12.00am about 90% of my days doing extra-curricular things.

I have stayed up working straight until 3.00am for the first time. (WORKING. Not anything else. That's what makes it amazing.)

As shit as it sounds, I love my life.

Tonight is gonna be another long night. I've just gotten back from Interact Farewell, and I have to finish preparing everything for one of our final Prefects' Farewell dance practices that we will have tomorrow. Anything more I say will be too much. The farewell is a secretive event, for those who don't know.

All I can say for now is: It will be awesome. Or you can kill my dead body. (the first kill would already have been carried out by me.)

Oh, and I have to do my English oral tomorrow. Any suggestions for good topics?

Go ahead with your own lives. I'm doing good with mine.

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

Expectations

2010-07-02T06:06:00.001-07:00

My hard work ends tomorrow. I hope it'll pay off.

Worried? Undeniably.

Excited? You betcha.

Pray it doesn't rain.

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

Just In Case You Were Wondering

2010-06-18T10:10:00.000-07:00

You know what. I've been getting these questions ALOT lately. I don't know why. It just happened.

So anyways, just to be clear.

I'm not gay.

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

Updates

2010-06-09T23:11:00.000-07:00

Hey, guys. I think I owe some updates. Cos I haven't explained at all my long periods of absence.

So yeah. My greatest time consumers nowadays? Interact and Prefect.

For Interact, I've been put in charge of organizing our annual Kids' Carnival, and yeah. Obviously, that would already take up about 50% of my time and thought space. These events don't run on hopes and dreams.

Also, I'm doing the Interact school magazine advertisement, which according to Esther, will be featured in full color on the first page of the magazine(first page, not cover, duh) So this is my time to shine.

Next, the form fives have shortlisted 18 of us Interactors as future board members, and to prove our worth, they've set us a terribly quick-deadlined project to decorate and make the Interact Room something usable. Which, in its current condition, it is not.

As for Prefect, I'm treasurer for the Prefects' Farewell, coming up quickly in August. And this is a huge project. Hotels, budgets, transportation, catering, games, performances, you name it.

I've also volunteered to play in the band for the upcoming Prefects' Gathering. This one isn't that much stress, but yeah. I still have to put aside some time to do it.

One more thing that's really nagging me at the back of my mind, and I haven't really had time to work on: The school concert. My lion dance has taken off quite nicely, I guess. Everyone seemed really happy when we appeared with a real lion head for rehearsal a couple of weeks ago.

Unfortunately, costumes can only take you so far. If I really want to do something amazing like what my brother did during HIS form 4 year (his much discussed Grease performance in the school concert), I'll have to really spice up the choreography of the lion.

The problem is: How far can I push the lion before turning it into an insult to the entire Chinese race? Would it really be so wrong if I made the lion drink some Chinese liquor and become a drunken haze of brilliance?

It may seem really boastful of me to talk about all these things I'm doing, but yeah. What's the point of doing things if people don't know you're doing it, right?

Also, as you most probably already know, I'm a shameless narcissist.

Let's talk about the holidays. On Friday, the Prefects left school early for our camp. We went to a FELDA resort thing in Jerantut, Pahang. How was camp? Camp was... GREAT.

I mean, it had to be great, with roommates like Jia En, Eric and Victor. By far, the best parts were when the four of us were together. Like at night- Okay, maybe I shouldn't do a post on it. It might create undesirable speculations about my sexuality. For the record, I am straight.

Though that might not hold true for two of my other room mates:

Hey, can you turn on the light?

Sure. *turns on light*

This is so much better.

Yep, I like bright things.

Like stars. Like stars.

*both stare awkwardly into each other's eyes*

Roommate 1
Roommate 2

Apart from the tenants of Chalet Number 37(mine, duh), my group for the camp was also great.

SO great, in fact, that we have a war cry SO catchy that it has caught on to even non-Prefects(i.e. Salim). It is sung to the tune of Britney Spears' song "Three":

1, 2, 3, we are group 3.
It's not about me, but about the "We".
Nine divide three, equals to three.
Six minus three, also equals three.

And so on...

We got back to school from camp on Sunday at 4:20pm-ish, and I was already running late for Initial Sound's band practice for Evelyn's party the next day. So I went straight from school to the studio and practiced with fellow bandmates Dylan, Justin and Jeremy. Got back, slept at 9pm that night. Cos I barely got any sleep during the previous nights.

Monday morning, overslept. Woke up just in time to be picked up by Dylan to go to Jeremy's house for practice(Studio is closed on Mondays, and we needed to practice more, because we hadn't practiced at all before Sunday).

From Jeremy's house, we went straight to Evelyn's place for her Sweet Sixteen, themed "HAT BONANZA"!

Umm. This post really has too many words, and people like Ashwin will complain, so I'll just rip a few images from Facebook to colour the post.

Us: Initial Sound

Frontman Singer/Guitarist: Dylan Tan

Bassist: Justin Kong

Drummer: Jeremy Sze

Guitarist: Chan Jun Shern

I like this picture. Rockstars.

Everybody!

No point me putting all the pictures up here, cos you can view them on Facebook. So these are just of my band and one or two others.

Evelyn's party was GREAT FUN. That's all I have to say. I'm getting lazier now.

On Tuesday, I had band practice at Wangsa Walk for the Prefects' Gathering with fellow bandmates Eric Soo, Low Zhi-Yang, Brendan Ooi, Chai Jia En, Chin Seow Wei and Ong Kai Sin.

After the practice, Brendan and I ran into Chen Yang. Had lunch there with him, then went back.

And Wednesday?

3W reunion, though not that many turned up. At least I had Jia En, JPJ, and Victor with me. Somehow we separated from the main group and ended up going for bowling and...

Happy Go Lucky. Victor wanted it. Go figure. Haha!

And finally, today. I'm sitting at home, making important phone calls to Wedding Specialists of Hotels and other people, and emailing different people for different reasons.

You know what has really changed about me since starting all this?

I actually check my email nowadays.

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

ACHIEVEMENT!

2010-06-09T08:42:00.000-07:00

You know, I've always hoped to do great things.

(And well, to be fair, I always have.)

HOWEVER.

Nothing.

And I mean, NOTHING.

NOTHING I have ever done.

Has even come CLOSE to what I have just accomplished.

Ladies.

And gentlemen.

Boys.

And girls.

Without further ado, allow me to introduce to you:

THE.

ULTIMATE.

HIGH-RES.

Click to enlarge. Click to en-VERY-LARGE INDEED.

Yes, yes. Monumental, I know.

I'll allow you a moment for it to sink in.

Do you believe your eyes?

You should. Cos. You know, seeing IS believing.

Allow me to break it down for you.

Yes, it is the school logo.

Yes, it is an approximately 2500 x 2500 pixel high quality vector image of 1200 dpi resolution, good enough for making a desktop background, huge poster, any number of large-sized printout projects.

No, you CANNOT find it anywhere else on the web, or obtain it from some school official(don't tell me it's on all the school shirts and exercise books, those are tiny. And, nobody knows who has the images.)

Yes, it's existence was only ever a myth. Until now.

Yes, it is a foetus formed in MY very own WOMB through painstaking hard work.

Yes, I have succeeded where all previous active school editing team or self-proclaimed school designers(i.e. my brother and sister) have failed.

To future Wesleyans who need this image to be used in their school work:
1) Yes, you are allowed to rip the image from my blog.
2) Please do drop me a note in my cbox to show your infinite gratitude to me.

To those of you who do not understand how hard it was to create such a thing:
1) Firstly, I have already explained that the image is not available anywhere else on the web.
2) You should understand that the only WMS logo online is the colored one with absolutely unworkable quality. I mean. Imagine putting THAT on a shirt you want to print and distribute to a thousand students.
3) It took me hours to make this. Yes, I am pathetic. But I needed it for the 30 Hour Famine shirt. Which, by the way, isn't my design. It's a good design, but not mine. I was merely helping Shi Khai add some stuff he missed out.

To those of you who DO have an inkling of how to make it and do not think it would be so hard:
1) Then why DIDN'T you do it?

I'm not saying it was an impossible task. I mean, I'm only a beginner at using Photoshop. Of course there are others who could do it.

The point is, I DID do it. Whether or not others CAN, I DID.

Thank you for your time.

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

Post It

2010-06-03T02:51:00.000-07:00

You know, I've put a lot of time into this blog. Many hours. And it's snowballed into quite a nice long story of my life. And I'd like to keep it that way. It would suck to let it all just go to waste after I've written so many stories of my life here. Therefore, I'm gonna keep writing. I wouldn't mention it, only that I've been wondering whether I should stop blogging. Especially since I'm getting busier every day. But heck, I enjoy this. Talking to myself. And knowing that people will read whatever I say to myself. Besides, it'll come in handy one day. Eventually, I'm gonna be telling my (bored) grandchildren all about my awesome life. And probably, after revisiting my first 7 years of life with them, I'll run out of saliva, break into a coughing fit, and perhaps lose my voice forever. When that time comes, at least I'll still be able to convey my life story to them. How, you ask? Through this blog, of course. Perhaps I'll make us a bowl of popcorn and sit them down in the living room, while I scroll down post after post about my life for the children to read. And maybe(depending on how sentimental an old man I'll be), I'll whip out the (then) old-fashioned MP3 of mine, and make them listen to the songs that were on the radio on the present day of post that we are visiting. AND, maybe- Maybe I should shut up. You guys aren't my grandchildren. Sorry about that.

SO ANYWAYS. Back to the 16-year-old Jun Shern.

I've been meaning to post updates and stuff, but I've just finished my exams, and prior to that I was pretty busy and all, so now, I won't delay it any longer.

Like the famous quote from Alexander Nike: Just Do It.

Or rather, Just Post-It. The idea is to just post something even if there is nothing to post. OR, to just post something even if there are many things to post, but one does not feel like posting it.

So, Just Post-It.

You may have noticed, or maybe not. That I have lost. The. Will. to. type. or even punctuate and make proper sentencesssanymorethusishallstophereandwellJUSTPOSTIT.

Enjoy. Post-It art by Marc Johns. Bless him, whoever he is.

Some are plain random, but yeah. It's all good, Mr John.

Prefect camp tomorrow. Maybe I'll be able to write a decent post when I get back.

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

Blown Away

2010-05-07T08:53:00.000-07:00

*Note: The video sizes don't seem to fit into the post body, so it is advisable to go to the original links of the videos on Youtube for maximum viewing pleasure.

The last video I posted was Jason Yang playing the electric violin. And THAT was amazing, so you should trust my taste from now on.

Have you guys heard of Kurt Hugo Schneider? He's a musician/director/producer on Youtube. Basically, he works with other artists, helps with arrangements and stuff like that, AND IT IS FREAKING MIND BLOWING.

I mean, it's not something you've never seen before, but the videos and songs are really well made, such that it becomes something new and different. Basically, it's a step-up from normal good Youtube covers. These people are really talented, and they deserve to be watched. Anyhow, I'd rather not say too much, instead you should just go check out his channel.

All the artists he works with are AMAZING. Most of them are independent artists with their own brilliant channels, except for Sam Tsui, who's sort of working directly with Kurt on all his songs. The other artists, like Jake Bruene, AHMIR, and Christina Grimmie, all have their own channels which you should check out too. Actually, I was already a fan of Christina Grimmie before this, and that's how I found this guy's channel.

Anyway, I'm talking too much. Should just let you see some stuff. Here are some of my favourites(for the lazy people who can't gather the strength to click on his channel link):

Nothin' On You/Hey, Soul Sister mashup by Sam Tsui and AHMIR.

Fireflies cover by Sam Tsui 1, Sam Tsui 2, Sam Tsui 3, Sam Tsui 4 and...

Yeap, you guessed it: Sam Tsui 5.

And finally, the fun, less serious(but still mind-blowing) video duel.

You should really click for Jake's video response. And all the following responses that make up this video battle.

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

Oldest Of Three, Ruler Of The Seven Seas.

2010-04-16T05:43:00.000-07:00

I have been incredibly busy. Except for those of you who are living in a cave, or have just gotten out of prison, you might be able to guess that that's because of IU Day(loosely quoted from Glee, but most of you wouldn't have seen that episode yet). But heck, I had such a good time preparing for it. I hope those of you who attended it enjoyed yourselves, too.

Thanks to the sketch people who made it super fun. Jia En, Jen, Dylan, Gareth, Li Yang, Shi Khai, Wee Cherng, Kim, Brenda, Sarah, as well as Xiao Yi and Ivan(too bad you guys didn't get to perform, seriously). Our board members Dhivya and Jon, too.

Kim: Zeus is so gonna win!

Brenda: Please! Look at him!

Sarah: He looks so blur.

Jen: *undignified backside scratching*

Mdm Moses, cutting in: Excuse me! I don't like that at all. Do you really have to scratch your backside?

Jen: Erm. Maybe I'll just scratch my thigh, then.

Mdm Moses: That's alright. Just make sure you don't scratch any further behind that point.

Jen: But not too far in front either, right, madam?

HAHA.

I must say, the event was quite a success. Woot.

To those who went, what did you think of the programme booklets? It sucks that we can't afford coloured versions for everyone, but still. I'm quite proud of them; these booklets are some of my better photoshop works. Here's the real version in colour.

Sorry about the Madness watermark, but I thought it's probably best, to prevent theft and avoid potential nuisances. I meant to put this up earlier to promote IU, but I didn't get around to doing it. It's just the cover, though. No point putting up the whole booklet. Also, look at this!

In spirit of IU Day's Greece Lightning theme, I did a drawing of Hades, one for the ladies, lord of the underworldly. Haha! I actually did this some weeks ago, when I didn't yet know I was gonna be Poseidon, otherwise I'd have done him.

Hmm. Thought: Is it grammatically correct to use the term "I'd've"? As far I know, there isn't really anything wrong with it, and I always say it, but in type, it looks really wrong. And I've never seen anyone else using it, or I'd've started using it a long time ago. See? Really useful.

Anyway, moving on. Concert practice is starting again. Always my favourite time of the year, I hope this year will be no different. But the theme is getting weirder and weirder every year, I swear. What on EARTH is a "Flower Drum Song"?

Originally, I'd auditioned for cast, but the audition didn't really go too well for me(it's a long story which is relatively embarrassing such that I would rather not declare it to the public). It did for Jia En, though. You might have heard: Jia En is Wang Ta, the main character of our concert. How awesome is that!

Scene from the original "Flower Drum Song" musical. Club Chop Suey. How intriguing.

Anyways, maybe it's for the best, because now, I'm in charge of the Lion dance. Which WOULD be pretty cool, if Mr. Balan hadn't kicked out three-quarters of my original troupe. Let's just hope they come back. In the meantime, I'll be out looking for lion heads and bodies.

If any of you guys have any good contacts with a lion dance troupe or Chinese temple which might, please do drop me a note. As you can probably tell, it's important. Thanks.

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

Put The Donkey At The Back

2010-03-18T06:01:00.000-07:00

I would say something like "Oh, it's been a long time since I've blogged." and whatever not, but seeing as it's ALWAYS a long time before I start a new blog post, I guess it would be really overused if I were to say that every time the situation arised. So, nope. I won't mention about having been gone for a long time. Except that I already have. Okay, nevermind. Let's skip this part, shall we? It's quite a retarded intro. And introes- is that even a word, or should it be intros or intro's? - should be really good, since that's the part where you have to captivate the attention of the readers and such. I guess I'm doing a really bad job of it. ANYWAYS!

The week has been hectic. Yes, it surpasses the hecticism(no, that's not really a word) of even a normal homework-ridden week of school, or even that of the exam week before this.

Let's cut to the chase. Cheese. Let's cut to the cheese. Let's cut a slice of cheese. Let's cut a slice of cheesecake. Let's have a slice of cheesecake. Mmm. Cheese.

Okay, people. Take a moment to indulge in the suffering of this poor man being hit by a slice of cheese.
Oh, shucks. Blogger doesn't do GIF images. I guess you'll have to make do with him smiling cheesily away. Otherwise you'd have to go to the trouble of clicking on this link right here to see it happen. Which you obviously don't want to do, because it's really troublesome and hard to click your mice. I love using reverse psychology.

I mean, why waste your mouse's time clicking on links when it could be doing something awesome like this?

Now, tell me that isn't the most awesome thing you've ever seen. I mean. COME ON! This picture reeks of awesomeness. It's a MOUSE. Pulling off a Mission Impossible that even Ethan Hunt would be proud of.

MOVING ON.
I should really stop getting sidetracked. Oh, by the way, from now on you can have alot more fun, because you get to keep an eye out for invisible texts like these!

The holiday began with. Erm. Nothing. Nothing happened on Friday, I think. Not that I remember, anyway.

So now we go to Saturday. At night, there was Nav's sweet sixteen. Which yes, was pretty awesome, seeing as she got a band and a DJ and the better half of the upper floor of Souled Out for us.

Plus, I had my very first dance battle. The result? Let's just say that it's alot harder to show-up a real breakdancer than to do what I've been doing in all the class parties previously. Haha!

Also, Jia En's Yes Man infatuation that night was really something. All the singing, tabasco sauce sniffing, gay-kissing, and... Did I miss out anything? I think that's it. You can watch him singing My Sacrifice on Facebook, by the way. With Jon Gui on guitar.

That's about it for Saturday.

On Sunday, dance practice began. Two weeks before the exam, Chi Yean asked me if I could get together a crew to perform at her party on the 17th. Naturally, I liked the idea, so I went and collected Jia En, Jia Wen, Bryan and Dylan for my crew. Having found a crew, I spent the better part of the next week and weekend choreographing the dance.

Let's just hope it doesn't affect my exam results too badly. Maybe the overall bad results of everyone will cover up and excuse me from my own exceptionally bad ones.

Of course, practice was scarce. You see, the exams ended on Friday. The party was on Wednesday the week after. Jia Wen was at band camp from Saturday till Monday. Bryan would be on holiday from Monday till Wednesday. And everyone had various events and functions to be attending, so the only thing we could work out in the end was:

Sunday
-Dylan & Bryan come over for practice in the morning, leave at night.

Monday
-Jia En arrives in the morning, leaves in the evening.
-Jia Wen arrives in the evening, sleeps over.

Tuesday
-Jia En, Dylan & I have an Interact meeting starting in the morning to attend, Jia Wen stays my house and practices by himself.
-In the evening, Dylan and I come back to the house to practice with Jia Wen. Dylan leaves at night, Jia Wen stays another night.

Wednesday
-Jia En, Dylan, Jia Wen are all her for practice in the morning.
-Bryan is nowhere to be seen until he returns from his holiday at 3pm.
-The party is scheduled to start at 5pm. We arrive fashionably late.

And there you have it. The first time we'd all practiced together was barely 3 hours before the performance itself. Considering that, I think we did pretty well. Well, you be the judge. If you weren't there, I'm uploading the video on Facebook, so visit my profile. It'll probably be up soon.

And yeah. Today is Thursday, and we'd had another Interact meeting. Tomorrow will be Mariko's party. Saturday and Sunday will probably be taken by band practice.

Where, oh where, will I ever find time to finish my scrapbooks, compos and any amount of other miscellaneous pieces of homework?

By the way, this invisible ink thing applies to all my posts from now on, cos it's really quite a handy way to insert short Author's Notes and excerpts of my thoughts and opinions.

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

THE ULTIMATE ELECTRIC GUITA- Wait. He's a violinist!

2010-02-18T02:32:00.001-08:00

I have NEVER. In HELL. Seen ANYTHING like it.

I have a new respect for violinists. He plays in the style of some of the best guitarists I've ever and never seen, AND I daresay he harnesses the guitar-based RC-2 Loop Station and ME-50 Multieffects better than I've seen anyone do.

Call me ignorant, but I had no idea that violins were capable of sounding so damn hardcore.

Next item on my wishlist:

Looper Pedal. So I can attempt(and probably fail) to be like him.

Goddamnit, I feel small again. Damn you talented people.

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

Wouldn't You Love To Tell Your Friends That You Had The Guts To Do It?

2010-02-17T05:42:00.000-08:00

BSC. Bangsar Shopping Centre.

"There's nothing to do there!" my brother had argued, when it was announced we'd be having dinner with our relatives there.

It wasn't exactly the kind of place where anyone would go to for adventures. The most exciting thing about it that we knew then was that Jun Ian's friend's mum had a restaurant there which sold fried mars bars and many other insanely fattening foods. Li Sha's mum's restaurant. It's aptly named Stuff Your Face. It's actually pretty popular. You can Google it, and you'll see many good reviews.

Anyways, I'm sure you all know that, as kids, we don't really have much of a say about where the CNY reunion dinners are usually held. Many of us would rather have a simple dinner at McDonald's, or a good western at Chillies, rather than sit through hours of 8-course meals at some boring old Chinese restaurant.

So, obviously, our places were already booked at the Grand Imperial, or the Garden Imperial, whatever the place is called. We met up with the father's side of the family at the restaurant(I ran into Justin, too, who was going to the same restaurant for his own reunion dinner), and ate our dinner without much incident.

Well, there were several funny incidents during dinner, but that's not what today's story is about. Therefore, we shall pick up the storyline starting from...

After dinner, the kids above 12 years of age decided we'd had had enough of sitting around listening to the kids below 12's many vocally challenged renditions of Bad Romance.

So, me, Jamin, Jun Ian, Jun Kit and Nicole went out to explore the newly(maybe not that new, but we'd never been ever since it was) renovated BSC.

"Hey, isn't there a skating-rink or something here?"

"Oh, yeah, I think it's on the highest floor. Let's go check that out."

We went up the escalators to the highest floor, but we found that the place was relatively dark and secluded, because the whole area was off-duty for CNY.

The area was shaped more or less like a square, and in the center was a large glass-walled box where people could rollerskate. A couple of small cafes and shops surrounded the rink, but all were closed. There was not a soul in sight.

On the far side of the room from the escalators where we'd come up, there was the Jungle Gym. You know, the kind of place like Twinkies, or Kids' Sports, or Battleship Galactica in 1 Utama. It was a marvelous place to have all to ourselves, even in the dark.

"Whoa, the whole place is OURS!"

"Yesss! This is so awesome!"

"I'm surprised that they don't have shutters installed to keep people from coming in, though. Anyone could just come in and steal that."

There was a computer and a set of gadgets sitting on the registration counter of the skating rink.

"Oh well. It's our duty to make full use of this place, then."

"Amen. Let's go over to the Jungle Gym!"

"Wait, guys. I'm not so sure about this. This is exactly how a typical horror movie would begin."

"True, so we should put on a good show for our viewers."

We ran over to the other side of the room, where it was much darker, such that we couldn't see the full course of the Jungle Gym. A fence ran along the side of the Jungle Gym, to prevent people from entering without permission. Stuffed wild animals and fake plants were placed all along the fence, and inside the course.

Just so you know, in the dark, knowing that the animals aren't real isn't good enough. Your heart can pound pretty darn fast if you suddenly notice the glinting eyes of a stuffed lion staring at you through the darkness.

It doesn't help that we were all trying to scare each other, too.

All the while we were exploring the place, we kept up the Scary Movie commentary, visualizing and talking about what would happen if we WERE actually in a horror movie. We never actually dared to climb over the fencing to go in, because, well, in the light of the events, it would be more than a little reckless to try entering a pitch-black adventure course.

I was peering into the course over the wooden fence, when I suddenly saw something which would not be out of place in a horror film.

"Whoa! Look at that hanging boxing bag. It's still swinging from side to side."

"Shitt. About this time in the movie, we'd all be staring at the bag when suddenly something hidden in the shadows runs across the course."

"Yeah. Then we would be scared shitless."

Actually, we were. Perhaps not scared shitless, but there was more than enough excitement going on for us to feel a little more than just nervous.

"We should SO climb over the fence and run the full course."

"It would be an amazing story to tell our friends."

"No way! Don't even think about it. The place is totally dark. Don't. And, there are probably CCTV's that would catch us on video."

"Alright, alright. It looks pretty nasty from here, anyway."

And so, we left the Jungle Gym area, and started examining the rollerskating-rink. Beside it, there was a counter where people could rent roller skates to wear into the rink.

We pushed past the hinged gate and went to the inside of the counter.

"These people should really lock this place up. Look at that beautiful monitor. And CPU."

"Hey, these cupboards aren't even locked! We can just take the rollerskates and go."

"Or, we could simply borrow the skates, and go for a ride inside the skating-rink."

"But the rink is locked, isn't it?"

"Hmm. Is it?"

It wasn't. We lifted the lock on the door, and pushed it open.

"NO. WAY. It's a sign! We HAVE to get in there and skate a little."

"It WOULD be really fun. But."

My sister pointed at the ceiling. Our hearts sank. There, in perfect view of all of us, was a black, hemisphere-shaped CCTV.

"Damn. We'd better go, in case the guards are coming."

"I still find it really weird that nobody bothered to lock up this place."

We turned back, and started to go down the escalator.

"Erm, guys. Look inside that shop."

We peered in through the glass walls of the clothes shop beside the escalator. Seated with their backs facing us and holding hands, there were two people on a bench inside. One was a woman, and the other was a man, dressed in a guard's uniform.

"OH MY GOD! HAHAHHAHAAHAHA!"

"So that's why there's no one guarding the place!"

"Ahahahahha! The guard on duty is busy in there with his date!"

"That really explains things! Haha!"

We were already on our way down the escalator, so we didn't mind that we were making a whole lot of noise. The guard probably wouldn't mind, seeing as he was so busy.

* * *

We walked around downstairs for a bit, but...

"Damn. I wish we'd entered the Jungle Gym."

"And that we'd skated in the skating-rink."

"That would be the kind of thing that epic stories are made of."

"Yeah. Now, what can we tell our friends? 'Oh, it was so cool. The entire place was ours, but we didn't have the guts to try anything.' "

"This sucks. 20 years from now, we'll be looking back at our lives, wishing that we'd had the guts to do this."

We stopped walking, suddenly. Without realizing, we'd walked an entire circle of the mall, and we were back at the escalators leading up to the skating-rink. Then, we knew what we had to do.

We sprinted up the escalators two stairs at a time, determined to make the night as epic as we could. We were so full of confidence, that-

"There's a guard there."

"Whaat?"

And so there was. At the top of the escalators, there was a guard sitting by the information counter. We walked right up to the guard, nodding politely in his direction. However, we didn't stop, and he didn't seem to mind.

We walked right on past the guard, in the direction of the Jungle Gym.

"AARGH. Now what?"

"Damnn. I really wanted to do this thing. I've GOT to be able to tell my grandchildren that I had the guts to do this."

"Erm. Riight."

We stood around for a while,occasionally stealing glances at the guard to make sure he wasn't going to arrest us. We started talking about things like How I Met Your Mother and Neil Patrick Harris, then took our seats by the reception counter of the Jungle Gym. Suddenly,

"Hey. The guard's gone!"

"Are you serious?"

We got up and looked towards the information counter. He was really gone. What luck.

"That's it. No more hesitating."

My brother promptly ran towards the registration counter which guarded the entrance to the Jungle Gym. We watched, as he vaulted over the counter with ease and ran straight into the adventure course.

"Ah, to hell with this."

"Agreed."

Jun Kit ran first. He jumped over the counter and went in after my brother, with me following close behind.

Inside the adventure course-thingy, it was really dark. There was just enough light for us to avoid banging into the walls on the side. We ran on the soft floors of the Jungle Gym, pushing past boxing-bags and climbing up padded platforms and scaffoldings. We ran on pure adrenaline.

We were actually having fun in there. I've always loved climbing around places like these when I was younger, and now, it was the same. However, we eventually reached a part where it was pitch black, and we couldn't see a single thing.

"Shit shit shit."

"Wait."

Jun Kit brought out his handphone, and pressed a few buttons. A small light came on. It wasn't much, but it was just enough for us to keep going.

When we'd run the full course of the Jungle Gym, we made our way back to the entrance. We vaulted over the counter again, and stood there panting, then we all broke out in laughter. Both the girls hadn't gone, but they seemed happy for us. We'd triumphed, and the rush of adrenaline was still pumping in our bodies. The excitement felt really good.

Not done yet, though. We moved out of the Jungle Gym area, and pushed past the hinged gates of the skating-rink registration counter again. Kit pulled out a pair of skates from inside the cupboard.

"Pooh! These stink real bad."

It was true. The skates smelled as if they were drenched in too much of the "class after sports practice" fragrance perfume.

Nonetheless, he pulled them on and pushed open the glass doors to the skating-rink. CLICK. The doors opened, and he whooped in delight as he skated a full circle of the rink.

"Yes, yes, yes, yes! This feels good!"

"Yeah! Kit, pass me the skates."

He took them off and handed them to me. I pulled on the rollerblades, and clambered over the bump at the door of the skating-rink. I nearly fell. It has been many, many years, since I'd last rollerskated. I made it around the whole rink without falling, though. Then I passed the skates to my brother.

He quickly put them on and pushed-off into the skating-rink. We all felt so reckless, and happily cheered him on, until

"Erm, Ian? I think you'd better get out quickly."

"What? Why?"

"There's a janitor over there."

Whump. In his haste to turn back, my brother fell and landed hard on his butt.

"Ouch!"

"You know what, Ian? Don't worry about it."

"Why?"

"The janitor turned and went down another passage."

"Great."

He came back after a while, and we all chattered excitedly. We rarely ever felt such a rush of excitement.

"Eww. My hands smell from those skates."

*sniff sniff*

"EACK! Mine too."

"And mine!"

"Let's go wash our hands."

We strutted over to the bathroom, and washed our hands, making a lot of noise about how awesome we felt.
The doors of three cubicles in the bathroom were closed. For some reason, Kit had a strange urge to check under the doors. And so he did.

"Oh crap. Pssst! Come on!"

He quickly beckoned us out of the bathroom.

"What?"

"There's someone inside that cubicle!"

"WHAT!?"

"Go on, check! Look under the door!"

My brother and I went back into the bathroom, and we squatted down to look under the door. Sure enough, there were two shiny black pairs of leather shoes inside, connected to a pair of black formal pants.

"Oh, shit, it's the guard."

We bolted out the door, where Kit and the girls were waiting for us.

"I think we'd better run."

"Good idea."

And so we ran. Down the escalator, around the corner, down the corridor, into the lift. Then of course, we had to get stuck in the lift.

It was one heck of a great night. Seriously.

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

Crazy Coconuts, Dangerous Durians, and Vicious Vegetables make up one hell of a Sexy Salad

2010-02-10T02:22:00.000-08:00

Maybe, you've been feeling as if the world has no more joy.

Maybe, you think that there's nothing else to live for.

Maybe, you feel so down-in-the-dumps that you can bear listening to no music other than Barry Manilow.

Maybe, you've told your best friends off for asking you why you've been so distant and sad lately.

Or maybe, you've been wondering, "Where has our beloved Jun Shern gone?"

If you have nodded your head in agreement to any of the above suggestions, because, AND ONLY BECAUSE, I have not been updating my blog as frequently as I used to, then you may read on, dear

extraordinarily
handsome/pretty,
smart,
charming,
wonderful,
inexpendable,
"everything good I can think of",
awesome,
indescribable,
marvelous,
honorable,

guest of Madness.

Otherwise, you need to immediately see a psychologist, because you are obviously suffering from the curious case of IMJSDS.

IMJSDS, not Benjamin Button.

Because I know that you DO actually miss me(you're just afraid to admit it).

In case you don't know what IMJSDS means, it's actually an acronym for the "I Miss Jun Shern" Denial Syndrome.

Here's an extract from the famous everything-psychology-encyclopedia.com. I kid you not.

"I Miss Jun Shern" Denial Syndrome(IMJSDS) is a neurobehavioral developmental disorder. IMJSDS is primarily characterized by "the disability to come to terms with oneself that he/she/it is actually missing the esteemed Sir Jun Shern greatly."

While symptoms may appear to be innocent and merely annoying nuisances to observers, "if left untreated, the persistent and pervasive effects of IMJSDS symptoms can insidiously and severely interfere with one's ability to get the most out the esteemed Sir Jun Shern's blog, and he/she/it has a higher chance of failing at life in general."

Article by Lee Jun Liew

There you have it. And yes, I hate myself too. Haha!

I sincerely apologize for that unholy bout of narcissism. I'm just feeling really good, and totally contented, such that I felt like making a point. A very strong point. In other words, me.

ANYWAY.

I've had a really good day. Because I have no homework. I mean, the morning started out pretty fine, with me finally not having to worry about losing in Sports' Day again, because although I promised y'all last year that I would definitely train and win a medal this year, I didn't train. As a result of not training at all since last year, I didn't make the athletics team.

So yeah. I joined March Past today, which is a significantly less worrying event to be involved in.

Then, the day proceeded to be full of fun and laughter. Because I have no homework. Especially when Sarah and I convinced Kai Yuan that Interactors were supposed to have prepared a Interact Pledge for today's meeting. That was just hilarious.

And, I had a marvelous time during English. Because I have no homework. Madam Sheela didn't come, so we collapsed set with Set 2, and I ended up sitting with JPJ, and we spent the whole period laughing about our own sexist remarks.

I guess that requires some clarification.

Yesterday, during lunch, I was walking with JPJ to the canteen. The lower sec students were going back up to their classes, and we suddenly heard a boy exclaim: "Hey, you know, just now Christopher pierced my ass!"

We both laughed, and I shook my head and said: "Sigh, lower secs."

Then, Jon was like: "Hmm. I assume you're talking about girls."

Haha. If you don't find that funny, you're either a girl, or you need to be there to get the humour.

Anyway, the day went on with a whole lotsa laughter and jokes, and Interact meeting was also pretty darn hilarious, but I think I'm not allowed to talk about what we discuss in the meetings, so too bad for y'all.

What's more, the CNY holidays are beginning in two days' time! How awesome. Because I have no homework. Also, Percy Jackson and The Lightning Thief is coming out tomorrow!

I first heard about the book on Hao Zhe's blog, where he was saying what a great book it was. Eventually, I heard that a movie was coming out based on the series, so last weekend, I went out and bought the first two books for tasters. And yeah, it's a great series.

Thus, I asked my mum to buy the rest, and yesterday she came back with the third book. And I've just finished that. Because I have no homework. And now I can't wait to get the other two books.

So if you're looking for something to occupy your time during the holidays, don't waste your time on your textbooks. They're the lowest form of books. Instead, go out and get Percy Jackson and The Olympians. There are 5 books in total.

You may notice that I've lost my hyperactive mood. Thus, I think I should stop here.

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

Post 170-something

2010-01-15T05:06:00.000-08:00

School life is picking up momentum. Slowly, but surely. The lessons are starting, I'm getting used to my class and my teachers, and this week has been a great improvement from the first week.

Also, today I had a... well, interesting time teaching the kids at Pusat Bantuan Sentul(at the request of the Interact Club). It was definitely something new. It was pretty satisfying, actually, teaching and helping these small kids do their homework. They never stop smiling, these kids. Pure innocence.

Plus, all my kids actually remembered my names after the class! I thought that they'd all forgotten it, since they were all calling me Uncle, even though I told them my name at the start of class and told them to address me as so.

I'm glad we(Jia En, Li Yang, Zhi Pei, me) volunteered to take the job, anyway. I'll be glad to go again next week. It's something to look forward to in these early weeks.

Moving on.

I'm gonna pick up rock-climbing, I do believe. It's always quite an awesome experience.

I first went in December 2008 as my birthday celebration, with my best primary school friends. That was just a taster session at Camp 5, and I enjoyed it, but for some reason I never really pursued the sport afterwards.

My second time was in OBS, climbing real rock, but that was just a short wall, about ten metres or less, so that doesn't count as much. So, again, I didn't pursue it.

Then, quite recently, on the Monday of the last week of these past school holidays, my cousin Jun Kit invited me to come with him and his friend Justin. They were both pretty experienced climbers, and they go weekly to Camp 5. Unfortunately, that day I didn't have a guardian with me, so I couldn't go in as there was no one to sign my membership forms.

If you don't already know, Camp 5 is the big rock climbing facility on top of 1U. As the brochure proudly states, it is Asia's largest indoor climbing gym. It looks something like this.

Therefore, when Jeremy(Sze) told me that he was looking for some new activity to pick up, I suggested that we go rock-climbing. And go we did. Just earlier today. We took the beginner's course(it's called the basic wall course), so yeah. We got our rock education, and our certificates, so we're feeling pretty good about going more often. Considering, of course, our schoolwork permits us the time.

We'll see.

Anyhow, guess what's happening on January the 20th(Wednesday, after American Idol)?

I've mentioned it before. Advertised, some might even say. But now that it's happening right here in Malaysia, I would like to remind all of you, WATCH GLEE!

I hope that many of you saw the cover page of Friday's Star Two newspaper. It was Glee. And opening it up, there it is again. A two-page spread of Glee. Right now, I might sound like some geek(or Gleek, as they called it in the article) or TV addict or something undesirable like that, but honestly, Glee isn't just a TV series(and, you should believe that, because I don't usually watch TV).

Why do I say that? Because it isn't. You know what's great about the show? The music. The best part of Glee is the musical numbers that you can download, then listen to again and again after each episode. And in all the 12 episodes I've seen, not a single performance from McKinley High's Glee Club has disappointed me.

It doesn't matter if you're (insert name of your school principal), (insert name of the weirdest kid in your neighborhood), or (insert name of your best friend). Whoever you are, you will enjoy it. If you don't, you don't qualify as a person.

Satisfaction guaranteed, or money back.

*P.S. I hope you all don't mind reading posts without different colours, sizes, and Italics, because nowadays I'm just too lazy to bother.

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

From, For, Form, Four.

2010-01-08T23:02:00.000-08:00

Fee-fi-fo-fum. A phrase made famous by the great giant in a famous story called Jack and The Beanstalk. You can't not have heard of it. But then again, many people nowadays have not heard of many things.
I have a young cousin about 7 years old who hasn't heard of Little Red Riding Hood, and his little brother doesn't know there used to be a show called "Teletubbies".

So anyways, fee-fi-fo-fum. It's actually part of a poem, which goes:

Fee-fi-fo-fum,
I smell the blood of an Englishman,
Be he alive, or be he dead
I'll have his bones to grind my bread.

This doesn't really matter, by the way. I just thought that I'd add in some extra-curricular information before I go into all the intra-curricular subjects I'm about to talk about.

Namely, school. Which is completely different this year. As you may recall, school last year ended on a exuberantly high note, so much that last Sunday, I was really looking forward to coming back to school.

Unfortunately, they've shuffled us so thoroughly into new classes, every waking hour in school is spent in boredom. Thus the term "waking hour". I spend most of my free time in school sleeping, seeing as class is so quiet and I've got no one to really talk to.

It's not that the people in class are all bores, actually. They're all pretty nice people, whom I do know, and I did speak to them even last year when we were all in different classes, but I'm not close to them enough to have any conversations not concerning teachers and schoolwork.

And there isn't anyone present to fool around with.

Last year, in W, whenever I was bored(which didn't happen so often, sitting next to Li Yang), I could easily find my way to the back of class where Tzer Chyuan, Jia En, JPJ, and Victor would be guffawing loudly while doing stupid but hilarious things, and I would join them and enjoy being an idiot.

Okay, enough. I don't like to vent in my blog, really. I mean. Nobody likes to read about the life of an emo, self-pitying freak who's always whining about how the grass on the other side is greener. Well, there's no such thing.

The only thing close to the truth with similar meaning is "the glass on the other side is cleaner". It's the lala version of the proverb. With all the r's and l's interchanged. Haha! I mean no offence, by the way. However, this version has exactly the same meaning as the first, so I don't know what I mean when I say that's it's closer to the truth.

I'm just typing, you know. Letting my fingers do the job. Typing freely and without care. Just like a bird. A computer-bird. With no brain. A bird-brain. A computer-bird with a bird-brain. I eat like a bird. I remember something about eating like a bird coming out in our English exam some time ago. At the time, I was confused about whether eating like a bird meant that a person eats very little, or whether it meant that the person is a very picky eater.

Hmm. Even now I don't know the answer. Wait, I'll go find out.

eat like a bird

Fig. to eat only small amounts of food; to peck at one's food. Jane is very slim because she eats like a bird. Bill is trying to lose weight by eating like a bird.

There you go. So yeah. I'll leave you now to enjoy the rest of your day, while I go do my homework. Sigh.

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

Surprised? You Betcha.

2009-12-27T17:04:00.000-08:00

It all started last week. Wednesday, the 23rd of Dec. I remember, because it was Dad's birthday. Mum got a call from someone. My sister and I were sitting next to her, making presents for Dad. My brother was in the next room, having breakfast. Listening to Mum's conversation, we began to suspect something.

"What time will you be coming? How much time do you need? Okay, sure, I'll get him out of the house."

It became obvious. A surprise party was being planned. For Dad? Probably. We bombarded her with questions as soon as she put down the phone, but she seemed reluctant to talk. This was odd, because Dad wasn't home. Eventually, she took up a piece of paper and wrote on it:

Koko's friends are having a surprise party for him this Sunday.

Koko is my bro, just in case you don't get it. Chinese words are, sometimes, non-transferable. So anyways, we started planning for my brother's surprise party. A few questions crossed my mind. Why on Earth would they be throwing him a surprise party now? His birthday is way the heck over in April. Meh. I guess they've all come back from overseas and want to surprise him.

So that's how it went. On Sunday, we all went out. We went for lunch, then I went with Jamin and my bro to watch Princess and The Frog(it was alright). Mum and Dad had already gone back home.

By the time the movie had ended, it was still only five. We couldn't go back yet, becuase Jun Ian's friends said to only let him in at 7 pm. Luckily, my dad had overseen that problem. When my brother called him to pick us up, Dad told him that he was busy, so he'll be coming in an hour's time. So we waited at Borders. (phew, safe)

So, at six or so, Dad picked us up, and said that he had to go talk to his brother for a while. So there we went. We went in, and my uncle wasn't even home. I was worried that my brother would suspect something, because Dad was just sitting around doing nothing. Even when my uncle came back, they didn't seem to have anything much to talk about. Luckily, though, my brother didn't seem to notice anything odd. And if he did, he didn't mention it.

* * *

We pulled into the driveway, and my dad "accidentally" pressed on the car horn. BOOOOooon. Damn, I thought. How inconspicuous can you get?

I waited for my brother to go in first, making a big fuss about taking off my shoes. I didn't want to stumble upon his friends and have them "SURPRISE" the wrong person.

However, no one seemed to be around, except...

"Whaat? Justin? What're you doing here??"

"Huh? We're going for band practice tonight. Your mum said it was alright. I told Jeremy to message you. Didn't he?"

I smelled a rat. A rat that smelled awfully like... CONFETTI!

The whole bunch of my school friends burst in my front door, and with Jia En at the lead, they proceeded to spray me from head to toe. I covered my face with my arms, and stood in shock for almost a minute as a never ending spray of confetti, streamers, and fake snow came down upon me.

You know the part at the end of American Idol when the streamers come down onto the winners? Well, I felt like they felt, but so much more hardcore.

Eahh, those gases from the party spray cans are toxic.

I brushed sticky bits of coloured snow out of my face and stared round at everyone.

"I'll be right back. I need to take a shower."

* * *

When I got down, I found that they'd brought food. Lotsa food. I don't know who exactly brought what, but there was pizza, cream puffs, cupcakes, several assorted cakes, potato chips, and many bottles of drink. Then, I managed to take a good look at everyone who was here.

That is, everyone being Jeremy, Ashwin, Victor, Jia En, Li Yang, Juan, Bryan, Rachel, Pei Yii, Sze May, Deniece, Naveena, Clarissa, Samantha and Justin.

Here they are, in their mentioned order from the left.

And here I am, blowing the candles from Jia En's cake out. Those crazy little things never seem to go out, you know? They're like some magical candles. They sparkle, and no matter how many times we blew on them, they would just keep coming back on.

So.. Yeah. Afterwards, we went around the house, then we played Indian Poker and and Signs.

All in all, I had a great time. Best birthday party? Of course.

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

Christmas

2009-12-24T23:37:00.000-08:00

I give up. Let's leave the past in the past. It's really too much of a hassle to post everything that happened in the last few weeks, especially since I can't remember any details.

So we'll just update a little bit. Yesterday:

1. Results collection day for PMR students.

2. Christmas Eve.

3. Justin's birthday.

So there you have it. I collected my PMR results yesterday. And DAMN, our form was pretty darn awesome. Almost everyone I spoke to got 6, 7 or 8 A's(by almost everyone, I mean 90%, no kid).

I mean, I know that some of you guys may not have done so well, and I'm sorry if I'm making you feel worse, but honestly, looking at the overall results, I think we're better than any of the other forms, ever.

So great job, form 3's of 2009!

Yes, I'm super happy with my results too.

Moving on, today is Christmas. Which makes yesterday...

Christmas Eve!

You know, Christmas Eve always holds more excitement for me than Christmas itself. It's probably because my family celebrates Christmas Eve rather than Christmas, so after opening all our presents and when all our friends and relatives have gone home, there isn't much to Christmas Day itself.

So what does my family do during Christmas Eve? On my mum's side of the family, you would probably guess how we celebrate our Christmases. We get together and do stupid things all day and act like immature little kids, while having the time of our lives. Nothing new there.

On my dad's side of the family, we have a hyperactive group of little kids(some with too much testosterone and others with too little), a couple of dancers(three, so to speak), and the dancers' sisters.

Being so, we spent last night namely playing Guitar Hero, watching the newest season of So You Think You Can Dance, opening presents and parading around in them, and when everyone had finished eating, we cleared out the tables and opened up the dance floor to everyone present.

Next on the list, a birthday greeting to Justin.

Happy Birthday, Justin!

And the 23rd was Dad's birthday, so...

Happy Birthday, Dad!

And, tomorrow is Li Yang's.

Happy Birthday, Li Yang!

One last thing. This is the most Cawesome thing ever. What is Cawesome? Frankly, it's cute and awesome. Watch it, or I hate you. Along with a few hundred other proud Ukranians who do.

Cawesome. Tell your friends.

Are we done? I think so.

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

Sry, gotta AFK 4 awhile. BRB.

2009-12-19T04:36:00.000-08:00

I'm not dead or anything, don't worry.

I've been too lazy to update, not to mention that I've been away for my ten day stay at Outward Bound School, so that's my reason for being, er, as people say, AFK(though we in OBS have changed the original meaning of away from keyboard to suit our situation, making it away from kayak).

So anyways, I actually wanted to do a nice long post on everything that has happened, like OBS, the family's early Christmas party, my own birthday, and all the other post-worthy things that have been happening to me since the start of the holiday, but it just so happens that I have to leave for Singapore early tomorrow morning, and I have not started to pack my bag, so... You get the idea.

No post until I get back. And even then, it'll depend on my mood. But worry not! I will be sure to have posted at least one enjoyable post by the end of this holiday!

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

1, 2, 3, W!

2009-11-20T17:58:00.000-08:00

Firstly, I would like to thank the people whose Facebook accounts I have stolen pictures from. Namely Amber, Looi Ling, and Naveena. But mostly Naveena.

I would just like to say: We wock. Wock with a capital W.

It's been the best year. Surely. If not throughout the whole year, at least these past few weeks of post-ex have really brought us closer. Case in point, our killer klass party.

At the beginning, we were fearful it might not be half the class party last year's was. The reason:

No one had brought a radio.

So a couple of us went around the staff rooms to check if any of the teachers had a radio we could borrow. When suddenly, our monitor, the ever-prepared Tan Lay Yin, mentions that "Oh, one of the teachers are keeping my radio for me."

This is Tan Lay Yin from the back. Trust me, you don't want to see the front. Haha! Just kidding. Sort of. And yes, I drew that toothless picture of her saying "I'm Lay Yin!".

If you're wondering why everyone is leaving nice messages on her shirt(Lee Jia Wen excluded, he wrote the "Kick me"), it's because she's leaving school next year to go learn somewhere in FRIM(don't ask me, that's just what I heard).

So anyway, back to the story. We retrieved Lay Yin's radio from the staff room, then went back to class, only to find that it was way too soft to supply music for a dance party.

The radio dilemma. Hmm. That sounds like it could be a great movie! Let's see...

YES! It's amazing!

Anyway, because The Radio Dilemma, we had to come up with a new plan. Our resourceful Mr. Jonathan Patrick James came up with the solution.

"We need to find another radio."

It's not exactly the best plan, but I was kidding when I said "resourceful". No offence, Jon. So we went again.

We thought for a while. Who would have a radio? Then, we happened to see Mdm Vicky standing in her staff room looking bored. Ding ding! She might have a radio.

But even if she did, what if she didn't want to lend it to us? We needed someone to persuade her. Someone good at sucking up. Someone like...

Alistair Bow!

That was proof of his suck-up prowess. Standing hand-in-hand with our principal, Mrs Matthews, preparing to waltz.

We ran to find Alistair, and found him talking and joking with Mdm Shabnam. See what I mean? Suck. Up. So, we told him we needed him to work on Vicky, but Shabnam, overhearing our plan, told us that there was a radio in staff room 8 belonging to Kok Hao Zhe which was not in use.

* * *

And so, the party begins.

It so happened that the day of the class party was also Chai Jia En's birthday. Here we see him trying to fly.

And so, being in charge of bringing a cake for the class party, I decided to make it Jia En's birthday cake. You're welcome, Jia En. Haha!

See? Look at it! I baked that, believe it or not.

But damn. That day was also possibly Jia En's last day in school. He went for an interview to get into a military school the very next day. I don't mean to curse him or anything, but I think I speak for many when I say I hope that he doesn't get in.

So anyway, we started dancing, and slowly, people from other classes started coming in. All the teachers were coming, too. How nice.

Now, if you look at this series of pictures taken by Naveena, you will see that it would actually make a very good flipbook/.GIF image. Haha!

Jon and I begin to dance.

Jia En punches in.

"Hey, Jun Shern, let's squash him!"

"Okay, now!"

No narration required.

The End.

Hilarious. And we have more pictures!

It's close to midnight,
and something evil's lurking in the dark.

'Cause this is thriller, thriller night And no one's gonna save you from the beast about strike

DANCE BATTLE!
This is my favorite pic, personally. The angle is so dramatic.

This is me. I think I'm doing baby swipes. It's hard to tell. Doesn't look like anything in particular.

Again, me. I think I'm coming down from a handstand.

Wheelbarrow race!

Jun Shern + Bryan = Breakdance

Let's not forget all the great food, yeah? Which everyone contributed to. Woot!

And.. yeah. Run, Jon, run!

That's pretty much it.

Damn, I'm gonna miss all of you guys who'll be leaving.

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

The Cold Front

2009-11-16T17:55:00.000-08:00

It's getting colder. Or rather, these last two days, my area has been really cold. It's as if the air-con is on 24/7.

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

Who's The King Of The World?

2009-11-06T18:12:00.000-08:00

I've really missed out on a lot of posts. Many things have been happening, really. What with all the post-ex activities(which from now on will be referred to as PEA), and absolutely no work involved in my life, I've been having a great time.

I can't remember everything, though. The main stuff was like the AAR concert,

which, predictably, was super-awesome. At the start, we kept trying to get to the front, with me leading the pack holding my handphone, pretending that I was trying to get to my "friend" who was far in front. However, nobody cared. We managed to get quite deep in, then found ourselves stuck tight in the middle of a dense sea of bodies.

It became kinda crazy during the local bands' opening acts before AAR came, but it was all in good spirit. You know, sort of a mosh, but not so serious. Just people pushing us all around. And, I happened to get hit on the head by a flying plastic bottle from behind.

I didn't mind any of that, except for an annoying little malay boy with a large bag pack on. He was seriously getting on my nerves, constantly half-crouching and covering his head then using his backpack to crash into everyone around him.

When Pop Shuvit came on with Mara Bahaya and everyone went crazy, I really lost it with that kid. Whenever he came close to me, I would push him as hard as I could, but he just kept coming back. Always a pacifist, I retreated behind the other audiences. And found that the older malay crowd standing behind was far more hostile.

Eventually, we got tired of waiting for AAR to come on, then went further back to get some drinks. Then, we learnt that it was much more comfortable to watch alongside the more relaxed crowd at the back. So it was there where we spent the rest of the night, shouting along to AAR's best.

So let's talk about yesterday's Melaka trip. There isn't much to say, because without pictures this kind of post would be terribly boring. The most interesting things would be that we ate chicken rice balls and cendol for lunch, Jia Wen stole us some snake skin from inside the snake's cage in the zoo, and the bus ride back was a platform for the movie "Don't Shoot Me!", which you can watch on here on Facebook.

What's been going on in school? Well, there was my powerpoint presentation, which would honestly been ten times better if the hall's sound system was working properly. Meaning that I wouldn't have embarrassed myself if all the sound clips I'd inserted weren't on mute.

And then there was the patriotic song competition. Basically, the idea was to have each class perform a song which upheld the morals of patriotism. It was fun while it lasted. It gave us musicians an excuse to bring our instruments to school and jam. However, I've come to realize that jamming isn't a good idea. For instance, on the last day after our song performances, I'd invited the P class people over to jam. What resulted was many musicians in the same room, each playing their own thing and trying to be heard. That kinda thing just gives people headaches.

The real fun in music is performing. Like the few times when I'd played guitar in class and had people singing along to the songs I was playing. That's what music is about.

On the note of music(pun intended), I've decided to stop learning piano. Surely, learning piano for possibly almost 10 years and having nothing to show for it is a sign that piano just isn't for me. As a result, I have space to learn a new instrument.

However, I don't know which to learn. I can play gutar, piano, and a little bit of drums already. So those are out. Remaining choices are:

violin, trumpet, saxophone, cello, flute, harp

Elimination time.

1. Violin- Plenty of people play this. Besides, the violin is known to be a strictly classical instrument, and very hard to tackle if you plan to take exams.
Genre: Classical, otherwise limited to Yellowcard, Vanessa Mae and VSQ songs.
Verdict: Maybe not.

2. Trumpet- At first, I liked the idea of learning the trumpet. So I went to Youtube to check it out. Unfortunately, the trumpet has a pretty ugly sound.
Genre: Classical and marching band music.
Verdict: Nah.

3. Saxophone- This is my favourite. The sound is absolutely amazing, and it's portable, and very few people I know can play it. The only problem is, one of the very few people I know who can play it is my brother, so there might be a problem there.
Genre: Blues, soul, and pop songs aren't too far out of reach, either.
Verdict: Leaning yes.

4. Cello- A pretty cool instrument, definitely more ideal than the violin, for me. However, my sister wants to learn the cello, so she has banned me from doing so.
Genre: Classical, but good for accompaniment in pop songs.
Verdict: A forced no.

5. Clarinet- Jia Wen plays this. And it's also a cool instrument, and supremely portable. But I'm not so sure that the sound is very usable in modern music.
Genre: Classical, unless I learn to be like that beatboxing flute player on Youtube.
Verdict: Either way.

6. Harp- This would be really cool if I were a mermaid. Unfortunately, the harp is a rather sexist instrument, having been protrayed by the media as a woman's otherwise an angel's instrument.
Genre: No idea what genre this falls into.
Verdict: Probably not.

So there you have it. I think I'll go for saxophone, if my brother doesn't mind. It's a really sax-y instrument.

"The best thing about learning to play the trumpet is that I'll be called a trumpeteer. How cool is that?"

"So why don't you go learn to play the pion?"

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

Sigh.

2009-10-24T07:08:00.000-07:00

Damn. Didn't get into Overdose. Oh well. I knew it anyway.

Post-UPSR Post

2009-10-24T05:40:00.000-07:00

Phew. I've had enough taste of life after UPSR to talk about it now. And yeah, it's hectic.

It's been really crazy, actually. Let's see. How will I do this post? I'm not interested in talking about and elaborating on everywhere I went, and you aren't interested in reading it, either, so I'll just make a list:

Thursday the 15th:
Band practice after school.
Sleepover Dylan's house.

Friday the 16th:
Audition for The Guitar Store's annual concert.
Return to Dylan's house to stay the night.

Saturday the 17th:
Naveena's party in the afternoon.
Mun Keat's party at night.

Sunday the 18th:
Band coaching session in Cheras' The Guitar Store for the concert.

Monday the 19th:
Ashwin's house, sleepover.

Tuesday the 20th:
Rachel's house.

Thursday the 22nd:
1U with primary school friends.

Friday the 23rd:
Band practice.

Saturday the 24th:
Double auditions-
Overdose auditions in the afternoon,
then back to the Cheras guitar store for final auditions.

So that's it so far. It's Saturday night now. I'm kinda worried about the auditions. The Guitar Store one went pretty well, I think, but Overdose not so.

It was mainly my fault, though. My guitar was kinda softer than the other instruments, so the all-so-important riff from Stars(Switchfoot) was lost amidst the Jeremy's drumming. Plus, for some reason, my effects weren't on the right settings, and I only realized that halfway through, since I couldn't hear myself playing. Sigh. We were so much better during yesterday's practice.

Can't wait for the results. Oh, and by the way? Guess who else is playing in The Guitar Store's concert? Our old friends, Kip Chean and Phoebe. Well, I wasn't really close to them while they were in WMS, but yeah. What a coincidence.

I'll give a better post next time. I'm dead tired now.

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

We're finally back.

2009-10-14T02:28:00.000-07:00

Honestly, these are some of the best days of my life. And the holiday hasn't even begun. I mean, we still have two more of our form 4 entrance exams tomorrow. And yeah, today's exams were extremely easy. Especially maths. (note tone of voice which is really dripping with warm, delicious sarcasm)

But hey, what do the entrance exams matter? According to school history, nobody has ever been kicked out of form 3 for having terrible entrance results. So all that we have to worry about is the streaming. And honestly, I'm fine with either one, although my family expects me to go for Science.

While we're on the topics of streaming, there were actually several jokes about that...

Mano, while briefing us about streams:

"You should choose your streams according to what you want to be. Tzer Chyuan, what do you want to be when you grow up?"

"I want to be a rich man."

"He can go to the money stream, then. Sungei Wang!"

And earlier today:

"Hey, Justin. What stream are you joining next year?"

"Hmm. Probably main."

Mainstream, see?

So as I was saying, no point worrying about the entrance exams so much. The way I see things, we're screwed even if we study or not. So now, I officially declare the stad of holidays.

And, I also declare that English, Maths, BM, Geo, KH, Science and History are:
And yes, I'd purposely left History as the last to be named. Just to have the privilege of saying History is History. I'm rather proud of all my new ambigrams. I think they're pretty easy to read, compared to those I've made before.

See this next one.
Heart, as you can see.

And this one, which is my favourite:

HeArTS on one side, SPaDe on the other. Amazing. But the colour doesn't look so good on here, does it? The Heart one worked better. But I swear, this one looked great in photoshop. Sigh.

I made all these during my geo exam. Except the History one, of course. No prizes for guessing which exam I did it during, though.

By the way, watch Glee.

It's just about the best thing ever. I started watching right before the PMR, and have not missed an episode since. That's how good it is. And watch Community, too. Which is from the director of ARReSTeD DeVeLOPMeNt. If you haven't seen Arrested Development, you should go check that out too. These are among the best TV shows of our time.

But seriously. Glee kicks butt. Here's a trailer.

No, just because it's a show about music doesn't make it a new High School Musical. I'm not one of those who hate High School Musical, but seriously, Glee is uncomparable to High School Musical. It would be like comparing a pronticle to a hirten. And THAT is impossible, because those two things don't exist. Haha!

By the way, I haven't seen the trailer myself, on account of my Youtube not working, but I am confident that it's a good trailer, because all they have do is take any 2 minutes from the series, and it will surely be good. That's how great Glee is. If you happen to run into the soundtrack of the series while at Youtube, don't. Those are the best parts of Glee, and it wouldn't do to spoil it.

If you can't find it anywhere online, and have trouble torrenting the episodes, I'd be happy to lend you a thumbdrive full of glee.

So anyway, I'm just about done here. Let's wrap up with a nice joke. A KH joke? Awesome.

What do you call a kuprum with a pet?

Kuprum berenamel. Beranimal, get it? If you don't know what kuprum berenamel is, go study your Form 1 KH.

Looks like we've reached the end of the post. Look below, try to understand the joke.
If you don't get it, try looking back to the stad of the post. Ah, now you see light.

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

GO, TURTLE!

2009-09-12T05:32:00.000-07:00

Or tortoise. Turtle? Tortoise? Ah, tomayto tomahto. (Go turn on your TV and go watch channel W. You know: W-TV. Wha. Te. Ver.)

If anyone DOES know what's the difference between a tortoise and a turtle, please tell me, cos I feel like this is something one should know, more importantly than learning about Orang Tua(s) in Sabah and Tuai Rumah(s) in Sarawak. Directed to the form 3's reading this: If this question appears in our PMR, you should all be taking turns paying for my Nasi Lemak Wedges every lunchtime.

Anyway, I think I'll go check out what the difference is myself. Okay... Lemme see. You gotta appreciate the efficiency of Google at times like this. Aha! Here we are!

Our answer lies here. Or here. The latter is shorter, but the first one gives a lot more info, for the hardworking.

To cut a long story short, turtles usually live in water, and tortoises usually live on ground near water.

So based on what we've learned today, this guy right here is a tortoise.

So next time some one asks you: "You know what's the difference between a tortoise and a turtle?", you'll answer them, gain some rep, and thank me later by buying me a syrup in school.

So why all the turtle-talk? Well. Have you guys heard of Lonely George? The last Pinta island tortoise to grace the Galapagos Islands. And yes, that's the place were all the iguanas live. Apparently they have tortoise-eating goats, too. *shudder*

But anyways, some few years ago I read about him, he who was the last-surviving Pinta tortoise of the Geochelone elephantophus abingdoni species in the world. Here he is.

A star in his own right after being dubbed "the most endangered species in the world", he was, unfortunately, believed to be impotent. Even after all these scientists stuck him up to watching turtle porn and took him to Tortoise's Chow Kit, he was still unable to successfully produce offspring. Why?

As the article I was reading says: "Perhaps the tortoise is too old, or pehaps too disinterested, or perhaps decided that the world was going to the dogs anyway so why bring in more of his kind if their fate was to be turned into souvenirs for spanish housewives? Or maybe he doesn't even like kids."

Well, let's wrap this one up, since I should be getting back to my studies soon. All this I was reading about many years ago. But I suddenly remembered him earlier today, so I decided to check if he has finally kicked the bucket. Or bought a farm. Bit the dust, conked, cashed in his chips, croaked, expired, went belly up, went to the wall, went west, met his maker, gave up the ghost, went way of all flesh.

Whichever euphemism you want to use. Feel free. I personally went to check up on those so as to avoid you feeling uncomfortable of a certain one.

So anyways, I typed "lonely george" into Google. And WOOHOO! Read the article! Here.

So what do ya know. Next time we take a picture of the Galapagos Islands, it could turn out like this one.

(imagine all iguanas to be replaced with identicals of not-so-Lonely George, woot!)

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

Back To White (Back, Not Black)

2009-09-11T01:53:00.000-07:00

Woohoo, I've fixed the brown background. There were some coding problems, but that's now the past. So we shall look to the future!

And the present.

You know what? Mr. Balan would make a great tightrope-walker. All he'd have to do is change into a punjabi. Cos then, he'd be...

BALANSINGH!

Get. It? Balancing.

If you don't get it, then you're terrible with jokes. As Li Yang is. You know I'd wasted a completely powerful joke on him? Here's how it went.

For some reason or another, our friend Mr. Lam was talking about punjabies(plural, anyone?) to Madam Mano. So anyways, he pronounced the word as "poonjabi". Fussy as she always is, Mano immediately corrected him.

"It's pun-jabi, Li Yang. Pun, not poon."

I suddenly laughed and said to Li Yang: "Yeah, no pun intended."

If you don't get it, I'd advise you to go and jump off a bridge. I hear it's really fun. With a cord around your waist, of course. I'd really love a chance to do it. Bungee jumping.

It's actually been a pretty lame week. What was that other joke? Ah, the one about our pra-PMR papers. I've told this one to Shabnam:

"Madam, what do you call the model PMR test papers that all the form 3's are doing this month?"

"Em, tak tahu. Kertas soalan PMR?"

"No, KERTAS RAMADAN PMR!"

Kertas ramalan PMR, you know? I hope you DO know. There's no point thinking of all these jokes if there's no one around to hear it. Especially if the few who are around don't understand it.

I think I'll close with a final joke. Hmm.. Which one? Ah, the one Alistair told me. Well, I've got just one thing to say:

"The angkasawan meninggal dunia."

HAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHA!

Think about it for a while, and you ought to get it. Haha! Until next time.

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

New Stuffs

2009-09-06T01:00:00.000-07:00

I haven't been blogging much at all. But look. I have a good excuse: I have exams coming up. The big three letters: P, M, and R.

Admittedly, that isn't why I'm doing nothing. I haven't been studying that much either. I'm just lazy and uninspired.

*picture fat, balding old man whining about his remote control being too far away*

Anyway, I decided to just come up and post SOMETHING, or else y'all will think I've died or something.

So here you go. My newest artworks. First one's supposed to be me. Though it doesn't really look like me. I guess that looks like mine just can't be put down on paper, yeah?

And this one's my hand drawing my hand, drawing my hand, drawing my hand, drawing my hand... And I've lost count. But you get the picture. Literally, I mean.

Eww. I need a better copyright. Seriously. The little "Madness" box at the bottom of my pictures are spoiling it. I should just write my name at the bottom in grey or something. Sigh. Maybe next time.

Oh, and by the way. Are any of you experiencing problems with the background colour of my blog? Cos I haven't seen my usual white background in.. forever. The background that comes up on my computer is brown. At first I assumed it's just my internet with loading problems, but I thought I'd better check. Let me know in the Cbox, yeah?

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

The Calm Before/After The Storm

2009-08-15T00:29:00.000-07:00

The trials are over, and now all I'm doing is playing with the Big Red Button on Gwen's blog. It's not as if I've never played it before. I've even had one up here on my blog a couple of years ago. One or two, that is. But the point is, I'm bored. And the creator of the Big Red Button must've been SERIOUSLY bored. At least I'm going out soon. Miriam's coming back again. Wait. Wasn't my last post about Miriam? Whoa, and she's already back. Has it been that long? Seriously? One month, exactly. Hmm. Okay, then. I'm going out. Occupy yourself with the Button. At the bottom of the page. Scroll all the way down. And have fun. After that, go watch Digimon or something. Youtube has every episode, and even the movies. There. Congratulations, you are now equipped with enough useless entertainment to last you the rest of the weekend. Notice the lack of paragraphs? That's thanks to having a broken "enter" key. Jeremy ate it. Did he really? Nah, just kidding. My "enter" key isn't even broken. I just don't feel like making paragraphs and spaces. Makes it more fun. Yeah, well. That's all. Jun Shern out. *Static*

The Green Laser Pointer and Other Short Stories

2009-07-17T01:38:00.000-07:00

It has been a real busy week. Let's begin on Tuesday, shall we? Tuesday was the day my 19-year-old cousin Miriam, born and raised in Australia, came to visit. To introduce her to some Malaysianity, we, the Chans, the Tans, and the Dragons(The Loongs. If you still don't get it, nevermind. You don't have to.) took her to the hawker place in... Where was it again? Next to a futsal and sports center. Taman Megah, maybe.

Anyways, when we started going off to pick our dinners, Yee Hao gave me an offer I couldn't refuse.

"Come here, little Chan. I'll buy you a super-spicy sausage. If you can finish it, I'll pay you RM10. Okay?"

Ten bucks to eat a sausage. Pretty good deal, wasn't it? I mean, how bad could it be? That's what went through my head at the time. So I went with him over to the stall with the sign TAIWANESE SAUSAGES hanging overhead.

I looked at the menu. Among the many different flavors of sausages, three caught my eye. There was the Normal, Original-Spicy, and Super-Spicy.

"Can I have one Super-Spicy, please?"

Yee Hao turned to me.

"Last time I came here, I got my friend to try one. He bit into it and died-"

At this moment, the sausage-man tapped him on the shoulder.

"Here's your Super-Spicy sausage. Please enjoy."

So we went back to the table. When everyone got back to the table, and my Ice-Blended Mango arrived, the dare began. I took the sausage out of the wrapper, and looked at it apprehensively. It seemed alright. Slowly, I took a bite.

The result was instantaneous. When my brain touched the sausage, it burned straight away. My eyes were screaming, my tongue was immediately welled with tears, and I vaguely noticed Yee Juinn taking out his camera phone and pointing it at me.

One bite over. Five more to go.

I finished the sausage, but the pain wasn't over. My tongue was still on the verge of tears. It hurt like hell. It took one Ice-Blended Mango, two Iced Milo's and more than twenty minutes before I managed to resume eating my nasi lemak.

Afterwards, Yee Hao slid a ten-ringgit note across the table. "Congratulations, Shern. You have just experienced baptism by fire."

* * *

Wednesday was Petaling Street Night. Reasons for venture:

1. Good food around the corner from Petaling Street and
2. Buy the marvelous green laser as seen previously in possesion of cousin Jun Kit and the telescope man from Coco Night and
3. Introduce Miriam to the Malaysian black market. Well, not so much black market as fake market. But still...

Anyways, we went to eat the good food around the corner first. Yes, it was good. But that's not really anything to talk about. So we skip to the laser quest.

The first stall we met the laser in was owned by a stingy old man who wouldn't sell it below a hundred. Thankfully, I knew someone who had got his for RM70 in Melaka, so I wouldn't settle for anything too far from that.

We quickly learned that all the laser sellers there sold the lasers with a starting price of around RM170. So we met one guy, who seemed a little more reasonable, and we decided that we would take 3 for RM235. So it would be 2 for RM80 and 1 for RM75. Whoa. Expensive, but worth it. Seriously. Just look.

More pictures will be coming later in the post. Hold your horses.

* * *

Thursday night was Harry Potter night. We(Mum, Dad, Jamin, Miriam, Me. Others were busy) took the Hogwarts Express to Tropicana City, and caught the movie with nice seats. Opening night, too. Not bad, eh?

The movie itself wasn't really bad, but I wouldn't really go around shouting about it. It wasn't that good, either, so yeah. Nothing much to say. But the Ron and Lavender bits were pretty funny.

* * *

Friday? Concert night. And laser party night. Mum and I went to TGI's at the Curve after school for lunch, met up with Juinn, Miriam and Jamin(who skipped school). I also ran into Shanice, Sarah and Yi Wei there, in Metrojaya.

Nothing much happened at the Curve, except that we realized that Petaling without the I is Petal Ng. Let's move on to the concert.

I guess I won't say much about Friday's concert, cos it wasn't as fun as Saturday's concert, and nothing much happened. I don't have the pictures, either. So you guys'll have to look into Chen Yang's blog for that. At the moment, he hasn't posted them yet. So I don't know. Maybe they'll appear on Facebook. I wouldn't know, my Facebook doesn't work.

Hey, I've just realized that I haven't posted anything about concert practice. At all. Okay, here's the quick brief-through:

I'm in Tinta Dewa. Yes, the dance with the best music, best costume and best dancers. So yeah, it's hard to be modest when we're THAT good. Haha! Just kidding. During practice, we play alot of Hutan, we excessively sing songs like Viva La Vida, Lao Shu Ai Da Mi, No Boundaries, and we do stupid things. We enjoy dancing the girls' part more than the guys' part, and... Yeah, that's about it.

Ugh, this is a long post. I'm tired. Okay, let's talk about AFTER the concert.

I left school at about 10pm, got home at about 10:30pm. Then I got ready to go to Yee Juinn's house. For our promised farewell party to Miriam, who'll leave on Saturday afternoon.

Upon arrival, we each took out our lasers. There were four of us, but only 3 lasers. Jamin didn't buy one. However, that worked fine, because somebody had to work the camera. So work it Juinn did, while the other three of us shined pretty green lights all over the room.

Me holding two green lasers, pointing single beams at the ceiling. The extra lines all over the place are result of slow shutter speeds and the reflections of the beams all over the room.

Same effect, but with three of us holding the lasers.

Here's to a real crystal glass and once again, slow shutter speeds.

The magical crystal glass, complete with star-maker settings on the laser.

I call it: The Explo-Shern. Explosion. Jun Shern. Get it? HAHAHA. Yeah, I love this one. I was lying down behind the crystal glass, so that the glass would seemingly explode on me.

The green lights shot straight at a cup of guava juice. Makes for a beautiful rainbow effect.

The Pianist.

More pictures of Jamin's hand, illuminated by the Glazor.

My personal favorite. The cup of guava juice, from a different angle. Looks like a sunset.

At about 12:30 am, Yee Hou got home. He had spent the day at his Colleague's house. You know, the female one. Anyways, by this time our lasers were running out of power, so we asked him to drive us out to the nearby 7/11 to get new batteries. He agreed.

After paying for the batteries, Yee Hou decided to take us out for a joy ride around Desa Parkcity. He said: "Let's go kacau some people with those green lasers." So we all got back into the car and drove about the neighbourhood, shining our lasers out the windows, trying to hit all the apartment buildings that existed high in the sky.

Soon, we reached the lake of the residential area. Being his usual retarded self, Yee Hou parked his car right on the sidewalk, and we got down. We flashed our lasers all over the place, hitting the Waterfront building across the lake. Suddenly, we heard a whistle and a shout:

"Pweeeeett! Hoi! Hoi! Oi! Kamu!"

Shit, it was a guard. We weren't sure what to do. He was on the other side of the lake, but we couldn't see him properly. We stood there, like school children waiting to be punished by their teacher. Unfortunately for the guard, we were rebellious school children. We rushed back to the car under Yee Hou's instructions, and he shouted quickly to Juinn in Cantonese. Something about a flashlight.

I watched in amazement as Juinn pulled out a big floodlight looking device from the glove compartment. He plugged the light's cable into the cigarrette lighter-thing. CLICK. He turned on the light, and he shined it powerfully across the lake. It was... POWERFUL. We could immediately see the building on the other side, and we scanned for any sign of the guard. Then Yee Hou said: "Now let's see if we can find our friend and shine his eyes with both green lasers and white blinding lights."

Unfortunately, we couldn't find him anywhere about. So we took off, heading to the other part of Desa Parkcity. The houses up on the hill. We drove up there in a luminous green car, lighting the path wherever we went. Finally, we reached a nice spot where we could laser point at the entire city of Kuala Lumpur in peace. We got out of the car, but before we could start glazoring(green-laser-ing) the whole place, the unmistakeable sound of motorbikes drove up, complete with the unmistakeable sight of trouble.

It was more guards. Two of them. They came up and spoke to us about us not being able to "makan apa-apa angin di sini", so Yee Hou argued that it was public property, and seeing as we weren't committing any written crimes, they had no right to send us off. And even if it WAS closed to public, we were residents and bought the right to these ventures along with the house. But they said that it was by order of the Management, so they had to get us away no matter what. Sigh.

So we up and left the place, not wanting to give them such a hard time. I mean, they were doing their jobs, so it's not them that we should have a problem with. Afterwards, we rode home with windows wide open, blasting slow, opera-styled music at the neighbours.

At home, Juinn was like "Hey, guys! We haven't eaten any of the chips we bought! We haven't earned the right to sleep yet."

And so it was that we finished an entire bag of new Wang-Wang biscuits. What time did we sleep? Oh, some time around 3:30 am.

It was a pretty good night.

* * *

Saturday morning began at 8 am, when we went to see if the Desa Parkcity Clubhouse was ready for entry. We walked there, as Yee Hou was still sleeping and nobody else could drive us there.

It wasn't. So we walked to the Waterfront building which our friend the guard was the previous night. We walked towards the Kluang Station, deciding to get some breakfast.

"Hold on, guys. How much money do we have? We don't want to over order and end up not having enough to pay for it."

"I have RM6 only. What about you, Shern?"

"I have RM23. You two?"

The girls didn't bring their wallets. So with my RM23 plus Juinn's RM6, we had exactly RM29. That seemed more than enough.

So we ordered. Three roti canai's, one nasi lemak, one iced Milo and one Coffee float. Total: RM28.90. We had RM30. Seemed perfect. Enough to pay, and we could tip the waiter 10 cents.

So we ate happily. Then, I went over to pay at the counter. The man said:

"Okay, that'll be RM31.80."

I choked. "Sorry?"

"Thirty-one ringgit eighty cents."

"I'm sorry, there must be something wrong. Can we see the bill, please?"

I glanced at Juinn. "Oh, shit."

Juinn turned to the man at the counter. "Tunggu sekejap, yea? Saya lari balik ke rumah ambil duit."

* * *

I'm not going to post about the concert. For one thing, I've been typing for so long. Next, I don't really have much to say about it, and without pictures it would be a boring post. So I'll do that next week. Maybe. If I do get the pictures.

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

Life Of A .doc

2009-07-07T05:23:00.000-07:00

Hello, Document 1. Your entire existence as you know it is about to change. It's time for you to become a Kaedah Kajian.

I don't really have anything more to say. Just felt like saying that. Hmm. Okay, I'll put up a picture. For no reason whatsoever.

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

4614454591458502933 (No, It Is Not A Random Number)

2009-07-03T19:54:00.000-07:00

Whoosh. With a swirl of cape and an air of mystery, the masked murderer makes his appearance once again, having laid low for almost a month. Who will be his next victim?

Who has watched Transformers? In the cinema. I'm not actually eager to talk about the movie, since it's new and I don't want to spoiler anything for anyone.

I mentioned in the cinema, because instead of talking about the movie itself, I'd like to mention the delightful Heineken advertisement that I saw before the movie. It's absolutely hilarious.

And, it comes with a sequel:

Haha! I love it. There are, in fact, an abundance of hilarious commercials on Youtube, if you ever bother to look. Anyway, next topic.

Tan-ta-da-da!

Welcoming the newest edition to the Chan family!

Cost me a whopping RM600, but who's to say it isn't worth it? I'm still learning to use it, though. I suppose it takes time. And the program it comes with is even more complicated.

Recording software. The instruction manual for this is well over 200 pages, and it's bliddy hard to understand. A whole new world altogether. It's like learning Photoshop all over again.

Alright, I'm going to tackle my "whole new world". OH WAIT! Watch this. Disney's A Whole New World cover, by a guy who sings both Aladdin and Jasmine's parts splendidly.

Okay, done.

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

Newest Updates

2009-06-18T23:25:00.000-07:00

Don't expect any. Not soon. I'm too lazy.

However, I suppose you deserve something after typing the whole url or clicking on my link or whatever.

Thus, here's some space to imagine your own post! It's ultra-fun and makes me feel less guilty!

Note: Posts that you imagine yourself are not Madness approved and I will not be held responsible for anything said there.

Magnificient

2009-06-06T19:19:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the Fight For A Reason gig, and although it began kinda headache-y, what with all the metal performances and booming extremities of volume, every once in a while we had a band that stood out above the crowd. Marinate amazing showmanship with great musicianship, then fry it in a crowd with good response, and you get... Well, an awesome performance.

I arrived on scene with Dylan at about 4:30, and met Jon Gui, Eric Soo and the self-proclaimed "Birthday Boy"(no idea what his name is, Jon told me to call him Malay, but I don't think it's suitable to be used up here) right at the entrance. We stood around considering the ballet class for a while(the only requirement was to be aged 3+), and eventually went in.

We entered the room to find about 20 unrecognisable faces inside, with the exclusion of the organisers and a small handful others from school. We set down our instruments and took our seats on the carpeted floor, after paying for our tickets. Half an hour later, everyone had arrived and the sound check began. One by one, all the bands plugged in their instruments and tested the amplifiers and adjusted the settings.

Funnily enough, my whole band had left to go to the bathroom when suddenly:

"Initial Sound, it's your turn for the sound check now."

So I grabbed my guitar and went over to the corner with the amps, and several minutes later saw Dylan, Jeremy and Justin return from nature's call. They stood around asking "Where's Jun Shern?" for a while, and I thought that I would let them search a while, seeing as they had ditched me for a bathroom. It would have worked out, but Alison suddenly said:

"Oh, Jun Shern's over there. You can tell it's him because his shirt is so-"

It was at this exact moment that my amplifier decided to blare out loudly and prevented me from hearing exactly what my shirt was. I got the gist of it though, but talking about distinguishable clothing, I don't believe that she's one to talk, what with the luminous yellow jacket she wore yesterday. Haha!

Anyways, we finished checking our amplifiers and guitars, then at around 6:30 the emcees(Alison and Kim) walked up and announced that the show was about to begin.

Thus began the incredible lineup of heart-pounding loud music. I'm not saying that it wasn't good, but it was loud. And although some of the bands played songs that were too metal for my taste(I'm not saying which bands. Partly because it's rude, and partly because I don't know the names of the bands), some of them were absolutely awesome and great fun.

I won't go into detail about the performances. Instead, I'll put up some pictures. However, if you want more pics and videos, you can go to the FFAR blog to check it out. I daresay there'll be many more pictures there, seeing as I've just spent my whole morning uploading a whopping 114 pictures up there for Naveena. And also because of that, most of the pics you see here will also be there.

Some time during the band above's performance, I'd gotten tired of the loud music, and went out to check out the cafe outside. I had a drink there with Justin, Dylan, Jeremy, Tzer Chyuan, Ashwin, Mark and Jon. The peace of the outside world and the coolness of the 100 Plus was reviving.

Apparently, while we were outside sipping our drinks, the crowd broke out in mosh-pit fever. I wouldn't have known, but I found evidence within the camera that Naveena was taking pictures with. Ta-da.

This picture apparently shows someone kicking another person in the behind, and the victim obliging to position himself for the kick.

So anyway, I decided that we'd better go back in case we missed our turn. And in we went.

About this time, we were all feeling dead tired, and I wasn't inspired to play anymore. But the time came when we had to get ready to play, so we went backstage and tuned up our instruments.

Then came the announcement: "The next band is Initial Sound."

We trotted up to the stage and got everything ready. Dylan introduced us and made his birthday greetings to "all of you birthday people".

We started off with When You Were Young, as made famous by The Killers, and received surprisingly good response from the crowd. I never expected people to really cheer for us, because it was our first performance, and well... I didn't expect much. At all.

Afterwards we did Shattered(by OAR) and finally, Yellow. With a twist of Fix You at the end. The Fix You ending was the most amazing part. The build up was unbelievable. Everyone was clapping along, and when we started the final chorus, everyone within my sight was singing along. Thank you so much to everyone in the crowd last night. It was absolutely... Magnificient. I will never forget that moment.

So afterwards, we had Ashwin's rendition of Jason Mraz's I'm Yours. It wasn't that bad, I mean. He got everyone singing along with him. Though his song dedication was a bit of a lost cause, as his dedicatee was not there at the moment. Sad.

Towards the end, the bands seemed much better. My favourite performance afterwards was Blink 182's All The Small Things. I'm not sure which band did it, but you gotta admit. They could've rocked up hell if they'd wanted to.

Other performances worth mentioning were Holiday, performed by Kheng Yew's band,

Kim's take on Mad World and Pokerface(I never knew Kim could sing. And yes, she's good),

the solo performance of When You Say Nothing At All,

and Shadow Of the Day(Linkin Park), which was the last song I witnessed before I went home.

Okay, enough said. Remember, the videos and pictures are here.

Oh yeah! One more thing. Nav says we've collected RM1614 in total! Not bad, eh? That's about... 20 dogs? AWESOME!

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

Yellow and Black Stripes

2009-06-02T05:03:00.000-07:00

It presented the much required stress relief to me during the exams. Now I share it with the rest of the world. Watch, and feel in awe of

the master of self-defence,

the black belt of ridicule,

the Chuck Norris of India,

the Indian Tony Jaa,

the one and only: RANJINI KHANTH!

And part two:

L is for the way you look at me O is for the only one I see V is very, very extraordinary E is even more than anyone that you adore

L-O-V-E, by Mister Nat King Cole, everyone! *clapclapclapclapclapclap* Ah, the brilliance of the oldies. It's one helluva lot better than the Ashlee Simpson L-O-V-E(even if you do happen to hear me singing it in school, it doesn't mean it beats the oldies), and it should be recognized as so. Especially with the awesome trumpet solo in the middle, which was almost definitely done by a black guy. You see, white guys just don't have the soul to play the trumpet like that.

Anyways, today I was in Yellow Cab with Jeremy, Dylan, and Justin, enjoying our brilliant 18-inch pizza, when suddenly I heard another old favourite. Let's see how many of you know it. It goes:

I'm a-walking in the rain
tears are falling, and I feel the pain
wishing you were here by me
to end this misery
and I wonder wa-wa-wa-wa-wonder why
wa-wa-wa-wa-why she ran away
and I wonder where she will stay
my little runaway

The song is "Runaway" by Atticus. The other day, at Tzi's house, we were singing another pretty old one. Guess:

I wonder how
I wonder why
Yesterday you told me 'bout the blue blue sky
And all that I can see is just a yellow lemon tree

Yeap, it's "Lemon Tree", as made famous by Fool's Garden. I think it isn't as old as the others, but still. And this one, which'll be the last one I mention here, you may have heard me or Alistair singing in class if you're in W or P.

When I was young Id listened to the radio,
waitin for my favorite songs.
When they played I'd sing along,
it made me smile.

Ta-da. It's Yesterday Once More, by The Carpenters. Alright. That's done, I guess. It's way too hot for me to comfortably continue sitting here and typing. Even with the air-con on. Which doesn't seem to be working.

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

Updates

2009-05-29T18:58:00.000-07:00

Exams? Over. Holidays? Beginning.

Well, they've already begun, with the teacher's day celebrations and Tzi Hua's surprise party. And yes, it was a pretty awesome party, as it was last year and the year before (though I did spend more time playing football/basketball with Eric and a little boy who I'm guessing is about half our age).

I don't really have so much to say about this partae, especially since I don't have any of our turban pictures with PAS and UMNO and Parti Negara. We'll just let someone else do the post. Someone like Tzi.

Hmm. Okay, let's see. What else has been going on? Oh, of course. I never DID actually get around to advertising our new online shop. Topsyy Turvvy. By our, I mean me, Isaac, Gwen, and well, god knows who else. I haven't really been a very active member of the community, what with the exams and all.

Anyways, online shopping is the new era. So do visit the site and see if anything there interests you. If you want anything sold, too, you can trust us to help you sell it. There're tonnes of things you get buy there for dirt-cheap-prices.

(Except for what I really need. Ugh)

Haha! Scratch that last sentence. I've been trying really hard to get this thing cheap. Online, secondhand, anywhere, anyhow. As long as it works and is cheap. Though even cheap for this won't be cheap. So anyways, I've spent the last few days of my life painstakingly digging through the internet for this item.

Just on Thursday, I'd found it. A BOSS ME-70 for the price of RM600! Retail price of the thing is actually RM1200, so that is seriously an awesome bargain. Or rather, it was. It was on Ebay, and it was open to bidding, until yesterday night. So yesterday night, I went on to check on it again and to do some last minute bidding.

Lo and behold, my heart shattered. It broke. It exploded. Terletup. The price was about RM900 suddenly, and including the shipping fees from the US, it would cost about a thousand. So yeah. I was pretty cut up.

So anyway, I abandoned dreams of such amazing prices for such a new product, which only came out only a few months ago. So I turned to the older model. The ME-50. Which is still considered a pretty good competitor of value to the ME-70. So moving on, I went on another search. I immediately found a No-Bidding, Buy-It-Now price of RM600 for a brand-new ME-50.

So I immediately ran a background check on the seller. It was a shop in USA, which had achieved the status of POWER SELLER. I quote Ebay on the subject: "They are exemplary members who are held to the highest standards of professionalism, having achieved and maintained a 98% positive feedback rating and excellent customer service as reflected by high detailed seller rating scores". Now THAT's impressive. Haha!

So without further ado, I emailed my cousin, who was coming back from the US in just a couple of days' time, and pleaded her to bring back the ME-50 with her. A while later, I went to check my inbox to see if she'd replied. She hadn't, but somebody else had.

On thursday, I had also asked around on a Malaysian music-oriented forum, to see if anyone was selling their ME-50's or ME-70's. Yesterday, someone replied. He said that he was looking to sell his ME-50 for about RM600-700, and it was in tip-top condition. So, thinking that I could save my cousin alot of trouble for my cousin on the online ordering and stuff, I decided to support local trading.

Right now, I'm just waiting for him to reply my email, and give me his phone number so that we can do some bargainning and come to some sort of arrangement. The wait is killing me. Ugh. I just hope he replies quickly. Really quickly.

Well, that's the story. If you've put up with my nonsense for this far, here's the final stretch. Meet my soon-to-be-erm. Fiancee? Nah, it's just an item. An extremely awesome, dreamy item. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present you: The BOSS ME-50!

I like the colour more than the ME-70. Haha!

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

Fight For A Reason

2009-05-08T02:25:00.000-07:00

So here's the story. There's this dog pound in Setapak. The goverment are paying them to round up all the stray dogs and kill them brutally. People have tried to stop them, but the only way is by buying each dog a ticket out of there. The price to release the dogs is RM70 per dog.

Are you ready? Here's the plan:

We are going to buy as many dogs out of there as we can, and send them to the SPCA(unless any of you want to adopt a dog). Of course, the SPCA doesn't have unlimited space, so we're donating partially to the SPCA for them to widen their facilities.

"That's all fine and dandy, but how are we going to do that? Where do we get the money?"

You've asked the right question. I did mention buying tickets, didn't I? So here. This right here is the dogs' tickets out of hell.

This ticket has obviously been Sampelized, so don't try anything funny.

Anyway, it's a gig which Naveena is organizing(yes, so that means the idea and credit is all hers, and I am merely an employed designer and performer). A charity gig, at that. For the uneducated, a gig is a concert. Only more laid back and not neccessarily professional. I'm not really going to say much here. There's a website for a reason. Oh, you didn't know?

Here. Fight For A Reason. And obey the title, if you want to hear Initial Sound perform live for the very first time! (go for the gig and save some animals in the meantime, if you don't know who I'm talking about)

The flyers will be passed around soon enough, but here it is beforehand, just in case it doesn't get to you in real-life.

And about the bands performing, we are still searching for people to perform, so if you have a band, please do join. Let us know if you're interested. And as for those without, if you know anyone who do, tell them about it. Also, you can show your support by being there.

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

Is There A Ninja In Your Pants? Cos Your Ass Is Kicking!

2009-05-01T01:33:00.001-07:00

Show: Prom- The Musical

Rating: 10/10

Whoa, my brother sings. And it's not bad, either. I mean, whenever I hear him singing in the bathroom(pretty often, too, since his bathroom is right next to my room) or practicing for his performance, it's horrible. I was kinda dreading his solo part in his KLPAC musical.

This one.

Anyway, he didn't sound anything like himself yesterday night, in the musical. So, yeah. It was good. The dancing was great, the singing was great, the jokes were great, and the gay was BRILLIANT. That sounded a little wrong, but it's the truth. The guy who acted as a gay was so.. darn.. FUNNY!

And I'm going again on Sunday. I went last night with the relatives on my mum's side plus Jeremy and Lin Rui, so this Sunday I'll be going with my father's side of the family.

And look! I made a poster. Can you tell which one is my brother? The one next to the gay. I'm sure you can tell which one is the gay.

Sigh. Damn exams and projects. Suddenly I feel so... Dull. As in the opposite of shiny. How ironic.

WHOAH! DID YOU GET THAT JOKE?

I was talking about dull and shiny, which are usually used to describe metals, and what's a common type of metal? IRON! So I said "How ironic."!

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

Finding Emo

2009-04-29T08:35:00.000-07:00

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATCH!

Jon Schmidt is awesome. I want to be a musician of some sort. Either guitar or piano, I'm not fussy. I never really enjoyed piano, but now, after heaps of Five For Fighting, Ben Folds and the likes of Jon Schmidt, I've begun playing songs other than exam pieces required to pass my exams.

Well, what's been going on? Alot of things, actually. But I'm not supposed to talk about it, not until a certain milestone in our... Nevermind.

Hey! Why's it already twelve? Hmph. Sleep time. Bye.

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

An Interruption

2009-04-19T06:14:00.000-07:00

There I was, doing my KGT, minding my own business, when suddenly, BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM. There was an ogre. Or a troll. Well, an Alistair. What's the difference?

Anyway, "HO-HUM" said the troll/ogre/Alistair. Then opened his mouth and spoke in an Earthly language.

♠Alistair♠| says:
junshern
♠Alistair♠| says:
i dont care
♠Alistair♠| says:
u have to blog about me
♠Alistair♠| says:
in ur blog
♠Alistair♠| says:
i dotn care
♠Alistair♠| says:
its an order

I'm actually doing it, for some reason. This and the other one hundred and seventeen things I've ever done for him. If you're in 3W, just prick your ears up for a second and you will hear the troll/ogre/Alistair's voice booming across the classroom.

"JUN SHERN! LEND ME YOUR RINGKASAN!"

Well, it's an excuse to get away from the dreary project, so there. Then again, I wouldn't even have to do the project if not for him. I wouldn't bother. But now, especially since there's money involved...

♠Alistair♠| says:
eh
♠Alistair♠| says:
dooodeee

Jobbing On The Sleep says:
??

♠Alistair♠| says:
u really doing kgt ah

Jobbing On The Sleep says:
yeah
Jobbing On The Sleep says:
gonna do la
Jobbing On The Sleep says:
belum start

♠Alistair♠| says:
good job
♠Alistair♠| says:
then u can send to me
♠Alistair♠| says:
when u finish

Jobbing On The Sleep says:
..
Jobbing On The Sleep says:
i go offline then you tahu

♠Alistair♠| says:
since i already owe u one cent
♠Alistair♠| says:
in my future earnings
♠Alistair♠| says:
might as well make full use of it

Jobbing On The Sleep says:
one cent my foot

♠Alistair♠| says:
make that two

Jobbing On The Sleep says:
if im helping you so that I get a thousand in the future, then i'll do it

Jobbing On The Sleep says:
but nothing under that

♠Alistair♠| says:
ok
♠Alistair♠| says:
deal
♠Alistair♠| says:
^_^
♠Alistair♠| says:
LOL

Jobbing On The Sleep says:
YES!!
Jobbing On The Sleep says:
i'm going to save this conversation

♠Alistair♠| says:
HAHAA

Jobbing On The Sleep says:
next time economy crisis
Jobbing On The Sleep says:
i can call up a few old favors

♠Alistair♠| says:
hmm
♠Alistair♠| says:
sure sure
♠Alistair♠| says:
as long as it helps me in my kgt
♠Alistair♠| says:
teeheee

See? Phew. It's bloody hot. No, not because of Alistair. It's the weather. Global warming is really becoming noticeable. And it's night time, for god's sake! HAHAHA! Just remembered the racist joke. Something to do with night time. I'll start it off, and you can sambungkan the rest for yourself. I don't want to say the whole thing, it might instill some dis-supporters in the crowd.

"What do you call a lot of Indians jumping off a cliff?"

Think. What's black, falls, and has something to do with night time?

Where were we? Oh, right. Alistair. Hmm. Maybe I should tell you something about him, for the uneducated. Ah, a picture would come in handy now. Unfortunately, I have none. Oh wait! I have a video! The Adventures of Sergeant Bow! Ah. Perfect. Our computer project.

Okay, here goes. You know what they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. So what about a thousand pictures spread over the course of a ten-minute long video?

♠Alistair♠| says:
so u have to blog about me
♠Alistair♠| says:
U GOT THAT?
♠Alistair♠| says:
say yes sir

Jobbing On The Sleep says:
yes sir

♠Alistair♠| says:
clever boy
♠Alistair♠| says:
i expect to see it by tomorrow

Jobbing On The Sleep says:
right away, sir
Jobbing On The Sleep says:
i shall get on the job
Jobbing On The Sleep says:
that will be another RM100, sir

Jobbing On The Sleep says:
sorry?
Jobbing On The Sleep says:
didn't hear that

♠Alistair♠| says:
shh
♠Alistair♠| says:
no questions

Jobbing On The Sleep says:
you're speaking too soft

♠Alistair♠| says:
do i have to repeat myself here?

Jobbing On The Sleep says:
yes

Jobbing On The Sleep says:
nope
Jobbing On The Sleep says:
not really

♠Alistair♠| says:
..
♠Alistair♠| says:
omg dont make me gek sam la
♠Alistair♠| says:
ill pay u 100 to shut up

This should be enough to earn me that extra hundred ringgit, don't you think?

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

My Best Wasn't Good Enough

2009-04-18T04:03:00.000-07:00

"I screwed up bad."

"You did good enough. At least you didn't get last."

"Haha! Yeah. True, second last isn't last."

The race didn't go so well, obviously. Seventh place out of eight. Guess who I beat. Yeap, the one with the injured leg. It's nothing to be proud about. Sigh. But just you wait. I am making a promise. I want EVERYONE here to remember this promise. I WILL take part again next year. I don't in what event, but I WILL get a medal. Gold, silver, or bronze. Whatever. But I will have that medallion of pride dangling around my neck next year. Remember!

Congratulations to Qalif, whom as I predicted, won first place. But even with his efforts, our house got last. I didn't see the final score and stuff, because Jeremy, Justin and I had to leave early to go for Gregory's play, which was goooood. Stage Therapy, it's called.

Anyway, although I didn't see the final score, I do remember seeing the scoreboard some time through the middle of the "Athletics Meet".

"HOLY SH*T! Blue house is a hundred and seven points ahead of us!"

Whoomph. Whoop-De-Doo to you too. I don't even want to imagine how far apart our final scores were.

Well, I have nothing more to say. Till the next time. And remember my promise.

*Static*

Jun Shern out.

Let's Give It Our Best

2009-04-14T05:44:00.000-07:00

"So, what're you running for sports day?"

"750."

"What? You mean 800?"

"Nope, I don't think I'll actually be running the whole way."

I guess it's much better to be running on rehearsal day, rather than the real sports day, because rehearsal will have less people watching, and less chance of humiliating myself in front of the whole school if I get last place. And I probably will.

I've never ran in any school sports event before, much less an 800 meter event against people like Max, Gareth, Joshua, Eugene(form 2 guy, not sure who he is, but he supposedly runs faster than Josh), Zhi Pei and... Who's the other red house guy again? Oops, I've forgotten. Oh well, it doesn't matter. Zhi Pei is enough to help red house beat me flat. Although...

Read the highlighted PM. It's Zhi Pei's. Hahahaha! I AM feeling a little better now. But my leg hurts a little too, though. The little bit of last minute training was never meant to be the most over-exerting part of my training, but it's too late now, I suppose. Hope it gets better by tomorrow.

Thank goodness we have Qalif. He's going to get gold. Or at least a medal. Impossible not to. I think.

Sigh. Just gotta do my best. Besides, if one has enough mind-power, his leg-power does not matter so much, when it comes to long-distance running.

Wish me luck! Though I don't suppose any of you will be reading this post before tomorrow's race. Oh well.

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

You Are Invited To A Costume Party. Come Dressed As Your Favorite Harry Potter Character!

2009-04-09T19:00:00.000-07:00

Wish you could step back from that ledge, my friend.

Yes Man. I just watched it last night. I know, I'm pretty slow, but I don't go to the movies so often, so I've gotta wait for the DVD to come out in good quality.

Anyways, it was worth the wait. The movie was brilliant. And the suicide part(youtube won't let me embed the video here, so if you want, follow the link. But I suggest you watch the movie first before watching the video. It might spoil the movie) was absolutely breathtaking and awe-inspiring.

Personally, I think Jim Carrey did Jumper better than Third Eye Blind. As a whole, the movie was... Well, a drink of water when you're feeling dehydrated, or a breath of fresh air after finishing first in a Hold-Your-Breath-Underwater-Longest competition.

If you haven't seen it, then what are you waiting for? Especially if you feel like committing suicide. Watch it, it'll make you feel tonnes better. And about the Yes commitment, I wouldn't mind trying. Haha!

Hello World.

2009-04-04T00:05:00.000-07:00

It's been... A long time. I've missed so many potential posts already. I mean, I missed the whole holiday, which was jam-packed full of activity, all of which could've been posts. Especially the Port Dickson trip, and last week's treasure hunt. I guess it's not too late to do them now, but it's always best to post only when the events are still fresh in your mind. But I have to mention some stuff, before moving on to the focus of the post.

The most awesome part of PD(which was the first ever extended family holiday on my father's side) was our hole. It was the most awesome hole. As KC would put it: The hole was gangster. From about 2 pm when I arrived at the beach, we(me, Kit, KC, and the little 'uns) dug a hole in the beach until about 9 pm.

This is when we started.

If you've read the book Holes, you would know that Stanley Yelnats can dig a hole that is five feet deep and five feet wide all by himself, without taking half as long as we did. But seriously, that's just fiction. In reality, it takes three people and several kids about 7 hours to dig a hole in the beach that's... Well, estimatively similar to the size of Stanley Yelnats' one.

This is about... Halfway through?

It was meant to be a jacuzzi. We wanted to make a stream from the ocean flowing into the hole that was pretty far up the beach, but we quickly realized that water doesn't flow upriver. So we went on digging the hole. Finally, when we reached a depth of about five feet, we found water at the bottom of the hole. Ecstatic, we dug, and we dug, and we dug, hoping to be able to dig it deep enough for us to be standing in the underground water. We didn't succeed in that, of course. That would be ridiculous. We settled for a depth that we could sit in, with our legs submerged in the underground water.

Here's the furthest along picture of the hole. This was before we reached the final level of our hole, but here you can see that we actually DID dig a pretty large hole. Now I only wish that we had taken a picture of the completed hole.

Anyway, MCKL deserves at least a small write-up. It was pretty darn awesome. That said, I don't really have much to say about it except that a certain blind man's lunch got cold because of us. If you're reading this: "Maaf, encik." (Oh wait. I mean, if someone is reading this to you.)

I sat down thinking that I'd write about the amazing Amazing Race, which I've just gotten back from. And I also wanted to talk about the super "Super Heroes" themed International Relationships Day that I attended yesterday. Unfortunately, I'm getting tired of typing.

So about the Amazing Race, I'll just say that although we came in last(we weren't slow, we just thought that the race was already over, so we dily-daly-ed), I had more fun than I did at MCKL.

Besides, I don't really have to tell the whole story of the Amazing Race. The name says it all.

Ashwin bought Coke (Diet) efficiently for Gandhi's horse in Jonker's Klub.

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

It's A Celebration

2009-03-16T03:40:00.000-07:00

Do you W/P's set 1 English's remember in that form 1, we joined the choir for a medley of patriotic songs? (did K/L join us too? I can't recall)

There were songs like Tanggal 31 and One Golden Celebration, which went something like:

Come and spread your wings, there's so much to see,
there's a million colours right before your eyes.
(then come something something something)
It's one golden celebration!

Ah, nevermind. Can't remember the lyrics. Anyway, who can guess why we're celebrating?

It's a number of reasons, actually. The first, most obvious reason is:

Yes, we creamed Manchester United. 4-1, baby! Though I don't usually watch football, this is one game that I really took the time to sit down and watch the whole game. And I was greatly rewarded by the marvelous thrashing we gave.

Actually, the picture is quite misleading. We haven't even won the league or anything like that. Realistically speaking, Man U is still on top of the table, three points ahead, with a game in hand. But I don't mind. Liverpool did us proud.

And I might add that I've seen so many people wearing Liverpool jerseys these few days. And my father always smiled widely and spoke to all his fellows. It was such a funny sight, seeing my dad chatting merrily to the cashier wearing a Liverpool jersey under his uniform at Borders. And then another guy queuing up behind my dad also revealed that he was a Liverpool fan, and they struck up a friendship then and there.

The second reason, which is also a widely celebrated reason, is that my theory exam is over. Along with hundreds of other people who took the ABRSM exam on Monday.

Stupid allegro striptoso and pauken. I wanted to put kettle drum, but for some reason I had to go and over think the situation and put bass drum. Sigh.

What's the third reason? Dunno. I've just gotten back from a jam session with Isaac, Jayson and Li Vern. It was awesome, so that might've been the third reason. Oh! I know. Because I found some Ray Ban glasses at McDonald's! Isaac wanted to sell them, but I decided it would be better as a keepsake.

See? They might be fake, but whatever, they look real enough.

What do you get when you cross a Mat Rempit with a bug of some sort?

The name's Ban. Ray Ban. Hahahaha!

Jun Shern out.

*static*

Friday the 13th ain't so bad after all!

2009-03-13T19:03:00.000-07:00

The story begins in a sunny Friday morning, where three little girls are on their way to school, skipping gaily as they went. Suddenly, one of them looked up and said: "Hey, Lizzie! What did you have for lunch?" Lizzie grimaced. "You don't want to know." The other one then piped up: "Sure we do! Tell us! Tell us!" Lizzie gave each of them a grim look, and said: "See for yourself." So they all went to the bathroom.

That was weird. Totally random. But I kind of like the way I fabricated the story. And in less than two minutes, too. Anyway, I'll get back to the story which involves my opening line.

The story begins in a sunny Friday morning, when all the Children of Wesley trot along the corridors, in single-file, moving towards what is predicted to be a long, leg-cramping, 3 hour sit in the hall. Aptly put, we were going to watch a movie about sweaty people who try too hard.

But I don't actually want to talk about the movie. So we'll skip the stories in school, and move on to life after school.

We took the LRT about most of the way to Ashwin's house, switching from one train to another, until we reached the Bangsar station. We still had a pretty long way to walk before we reached Ashwin's house. Anywho, along the way, Isaac(Miranda, not Mendez. And about Mendez, Heroes Season Four is awesome) was trying to call Hitz.fm to get a clue on the Hitz.fm fugitive.

He dialed the number. The anticipation was killing us.

Anticipation is a quick non-harmony note which is used to prepare for the next note. For example, if the chord used is a dominant seventh in C major, meaning a GBDF chord, and you wanted to modulate to, hmm, maybe a tonic triad in C major, you would have to put a semiquaver of either a C, E, or G within that same bar, before the bar-line depending on which note will be your first note for the next chord. The two notes have to be the same note.

*dialing tone* Hello? Hitz.fm? This is Isaac. Ahh. Yes, you still owe that metallica album that I won. Uhuh. Yeah. I'm not actually calling you about that. I want to ask you about the Hitz.fm fugitive in Klang Valley. Uh, uhuh, yeah. In Sungei Wang? That's awesome. Thank you so much! Bye!

Guys! You heard that! We've got to go to Sungei Wang, quickly, before he goes somewhere else!

For those, like me, who do not listen to Hitz.fm, and do not know about the Hitz.fm fugitive, here's some explanation. The fugitive is Hitz' way of advertising their station. They have planted a person to walk around KL(possibly other areas too) as the Hitz.fm fugitive, and if anyone finds him, they win 15 thousand ringgit. Of course, it's not that simple. The guy won't be wearing a hat that says "I'm the Hitz.fm Fugitive!" of course, so here's the deal. To find him, we have to ask everybody in the area a specific question: Are you the Hitz.fm fugitive? If we ask the right person, we get the 15k.

We changed course immediately. We ran back to the LRT station and quickly bought tickets to go to Sungei Wang. Moving as quickly as we can, we reach Sungei Wang in about half an hour.

At first it was pretty embarrassing to ask all the people on the streets "Are you the Hitz.fm Fugitive?", and many of us didn't want to ask anyone. But Ashwin started first, and the guy wasn't, but was really nice about it, so we followed suit and asked all the other people.

For me, I asked about 20 plus people. I got two people who answered yes, but when they saw I was getting my hopes up, they quickly said they were kidding. Idiots. However, like an hour later, Jeremy was like: "Guys, come on over."

I saw him standing there talking to this guy. Tall, Malay guy with a tattoo on his left forearm. He was smiling and shaking Jeremy's hand. Jeremy looked to us and said: "Ask him the question." I was excited. Extremely so. Heart beating like a rabbit's, I asked:

"Are you the Hitz.fm fugitive?"

"Yes."

HOLY MOLEY HOLY COWLEY HO LI SHENG!

Shit, I'd never been happier in my life. We'd just found a man who was worth 15 thousand dollars! We were all laughing and smiling and talking non-stop, and the guy (who said his name was Shafiq) looked sincerely happy for us. So after a while, the guy was like:

"Don't you want your money?"

"WELL, DUH!"

So he gave us a check, and we wrote Jeremy's name on it. Fifteen thousand ringgit only, it read. ONLY! ONLY that amount was ours to claim! We were to split it among 6 people, so each of us got 2.5 thousand ringgit. Anyway, we called our parents and told them about the money.

"Mum? We just won a competition, with the prize money of 15 thousand ringgit."

That whole story was utter bullshit. Go read Ashwin's blog if you actually wanna know what happened on Friday. And there, you can read about Jeremy getting hit by a sandwich. A tuna sandwich. A tuna sandwich that nearly killed Jeremy. The true story.

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

AWESOME POSSUM

2009-03-12T01:43:00.000-07:00

Possums play dead. Thus, they enjoy playing in graveyards. And they dig up graves of famous people such as Michael Jackson-Oh wait. He isn't dead yet. Hmm. So if he isn't dead, why is he selling of all his precious possessions in the Star newspaper?

Possessions.

Possumpossessions.

Ah. I have created a new word:

Possumsion
(verb) To kill a person in order to get his belongings. Used in a sentence:
1. Watch out! He's going to possumsion you!
2. Help! He's possumsioning me!

See? There's a mix between three words there. Possum. Possessions. Poison. Pretty awesome, isn't it?

Hey, the exams are over! Super happy. Going to Ashwin's tomorrow. After watching whatever Olympic movie Matthews has in store for us.

Hey, look at my awesome new one-liner for when you buy someone perfume:

"Perfume starts with a P and ends with you and me."

It's so awesome. Although it probably wouldn't work on anyone, it's still awesome.

I've got a new bloglist thingy. Shows updates and date of last post. Gaya betul.

And I also have a new Calameity section where I shall insert all the lame things people say.

I am going to have an awesome holiday. I am sure of it. Join me, Chan Jun Shern, on my quest to have an awesome holiday. Anyways, I've got to add them new sidebar features. Later.

Let's Eat Guitar Picks

2009-02-21T00:25:00.000-08:00

Have you ever noticed that some guitar picks look like a nice piece of rock jelly?

*cricket noises(you know, kree kree or something like that)*

Okay, so maybe they don't.

But I was just staring at my guitar pick, trying to convince myself to start studying(it was a losing battle, my lazy brain is much better a debater than my hardworking one), when my stomach growled. The two probably have nothing in common, but think, what if they did?

It could help the world's starvation problems if we could eat everything. I mean, a goat can eat everything and anything. So why can't we?

It's not that guitar picks taste so bad, anyway. Many of us guitarists have put our picks into our mouths at one time or the other(Don't get me wrong. I mean when we don't have hands free to hold the pick, so we hold in with our mouth).

Back to the point. If goats can eat everything, why can't we? If these fine men can eat a bicycle, why can't we??

Kenan And Kel, Everybody! Back from the late 90's! (I think. It was super long ago when I last watched the show)

Check check check ch-check ch-check it out! Kenan and Kel!

Sigh. I'm so speechless nowadays. I don't do many posts, and even when I do, they're boring.

I miss the times on my old blog. When I could just type and type and type and type for HOURS. I would have about 3 posts a day, all completely stupid but I really enjoyed making them. I still remember that I made a post about socks being happy. Why can't I do that anymore?

I'd like to read my old blog, but I can't remember what the URL was. Oh well.

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

Valentine's Day

2009-02-14T02:18:00.000-08:00

Valentine is actually a person. I can't remember where I read it, or what the whole story is, but I think that Valentine's Day is based on his love life or something.

And today is that day. Valentine's Day. This is the day where all of us should tell our loved ones that we love them.

Loved one, I love you.

See? I did. Hahaha. Now you go do it.

Look at this. It's so cool. I love the fact that it's done by hand, and not in the computer.

And look at what I made. I find that it's usually true. And the fact that the heart is similar to an upside down spade is surely no coincidence.

So anyways, I'd like to wish all of us, a very, very-

-Day.

Jun Shern out.

*Static*

Jogging A Ton Across The Country

2009-02-13T23:26:00.000-08:00

I was sleepy. Oh so very sleepy. I had to wake up at 5:30 today, because being an Interactor, my sister had to be at the Lake Gardens by 6:30am. The Wesley Methodist Cross Country Run.

Haha! This wasn't this year's cross country. It's too early to go 2009 Cross Country picture hunting, so I found this instead. I needed some pictures, don't blame me. It's last year's picture.

Upon reaching the Gardens, I saw Wen Shen and Qalif there, among the small group of people already gathered in the tents. We stood there, around the boxes of Black Fury(which Ashwin claims are his anger hormones compressed into liquid form), talking about last year's run until the event began.

My Jogacloth. Li Yang was just saying how nice it would be to have a C3PO cloth, when Dylan walked up with his P03. Threepio.

They gave us the marathon-styled cloth to pin on our shirts as identification, and then the speeches began. Nothing to say about the speeches, because the only things worth talking about which happened during school speeches are these, which I think I'd have talked about before:

1. Matthews speaking during assembly, when suddenly, her fake teeth fell out. 2. When the Form 1 guy fainted, and Matthews went: "OOoooOOOoooOOOooooH!" It was hilarious! I'll certainly remember that one for many years to come.

Oh, I also had ALOT of fun playing around with Mrs. Moey Yoke Lai's AEIOU of leadership speech during the joined installation of Prefects and Librarians. As I recall: A stands for Attitude, E stands for Excellence, I stands for Integrity, O stands for Optimism, and U, predictably, stands for...

YOOOOUU! Den, den, den. Soulja(Solja? Forgive me for not paying attention to the annoying song's name) Boy oh whammy HO! And so on and so forth.

Anyways, back to the running. After the speeches, the emcees started the morning exercise. It was weird. We The King's Check Yes Juliet started playing, and they made us do stretches to the beat. And everytime it reached the chorus(RUN, BABY RUN!), Yen June(emcee) would shout RUN! and we would start jogging on the spot.

Finally, they sent us to gather at the starting line. I ran to the front of the crowd, so as to have a head start. I brought Ashwin along with me, that I could drink Black Fury along the way.

Grace: One, Two, Three, GO!

We didn't need to be told twice. We ran, many sprinted, as far as we could. Ashwin ran out of stamina quickly, so I left Ashwin behind after the first 10 minutes or so. I didn't see any sign of Jeremy, Dylan, Justin, or any of my little band of friends. I tried to keep pace with Jia Wen, Qalif and Gareth. I didn't see that many people ahead. That was a good sign.

So at approximately 8:45 am, after 11km/7km/14km(due to the many different answers I got from the different sources, I'm not sure how long it was) of torturous running, I stumbled to the finish line.

They couldn't tell me my placing, as they only jotted down the 1st-4th places, but I know I wasn't too bad.

For one thing, I beat Tzer Chyuan, possibly. I say this because I did not see him amongst the crowd when I finished, so that's not neccesarily true(and it's pretty hard to believe). I like to think it is, though. But anyway, that was only possible because the station masters sent him sprinting off in the wrong direction. Same thing happened to Jia Wen, who was running alongside me most off the time, until when we were near the end he left me behind, and went down the wrong path. Tough luck, you guys.

Anyways, I got some sort of a consolation prize,

What the...?

And accidentally took home a souvenir.

Mmm. That's goood Black Fury.

Jun Shern out.

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Post-Its

2009-02-06T01:50:00.000-08:00

So, how's the rheumatism coming along?

Oh, very good, thank you. How's your back?

It's become much better since you gave me that ointment.

Oh, I'm glad to hear that.

Yes, that was plain random. Any of you guys still remember the psychologists' group from Form 1? I made a comic to go with it, back then. It was jotted down on my rough book, and passed around several members of the group. I decided to digitalize the comic, and redo it with better drawings. Anyways, I did.

All ex-psychologists(though I think that very few of them read my blog) and non-psychologists are invited to read. Here's the comic website. And the official psychology website, which has not been touched for ages.

So, how's life? I've got so much work to do over this weekend. Shucks. The PJK project is due on the 19th, and it looks like such a lot of work. I wouldn't know, because I have no idea how to do it.

What do I have to post about? Well, nothing, really. So why am I here?

Good question.

Jun Shern out.

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