From, For, Form, Four.

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.

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

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.

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!

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

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?

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*