Treppenwitz again....

I have a 2-week old post that was in the making about the Orientation that we had at school. However, as I said in a previous post, I have a tendency to think of these things for so long that they become outdated before I can write anything thereabout (L'esprit de l'escalier or Treppenwitz). I keep forgetting about this blog. I am so sad.

I arrived home at 9pm on the 17th of February and watched Warriors on History Channel. This raises the question about why I arrived home so late. Every Wednesday and Friday, I have German classes. They are frustrating me to a large extent because they fall on my shortest of school days.

This is my first post about Junior College life so hold your breath and prepare to be yourself because today is a good day to die.

Everything started off with the January Induction Program(me). We students stayed in our Secondary Four classes and were lectured on the various subjects, most of which I am currently studying. There was not much of a difference between Raffles Institution and Raffles Institution, being in the Raffles Program(me).

However, things changed when we went on to the Orientation (Program[me]). We were mixed around into groups based on our School Houses, Bayley-Waddle, Buckley-Buckle, Moor-Tarbet, Morrison-Richardson and Hadley-Hullet. I am in Bayley-Waddle. I ended up in the same Orientation Group as one of my old classmates, Charles Yong, people I had heard of for quite a while, Alan Aw and Murali Adith, some unfamiliar faces, David and Edene, two people from Catholic High, Mitchell and Ivan, one person from Anderson Secondary School, Vincent, and some girls whom I had never seen before. The Orientation really forced us to group with the girls a lot, the most memorable of these being the Batch Dance.

The Batch Dance was a dance one had to do with a partner of the opposite sex. It was a dance that embodied a lot of stereotypes, boys being the cool dudes, and girls being the kawaii bimbos. Honestly, it felt like a guy choreographed it. It was fun learning the dance moves and screaming my lungs out whenever I could.

A lot of people got injured during one really sexist game. It was called "Strip me if you can". It was the Womens' Charter at its peak, with women allowed to utterly traumatize those who would traumatize them if they did not put a strong front on. One person's shoulder was dislocated, my knees got abrasions, people were pinned down by not-so-chivalrous dames and men went against younger men, armed to the hands with rolled-up newspaper. It required males to die at female hands in horrible human sacrifices. Actually people did not die, they were left in a state worse than death. They were scarred for life.

There was also a Total-War-esque game, wherein we sandwiched, reinforced, flanked and outmaneuvered our enemies (from other houses) to gain prisoners-of-war who would later be returned for a price... two minutes. Anyway, it was fun since my group destroyed YiFan's group by pinning it to a wall. The game involved each Orientation Group linking hands to create giant schiltroms, with the spears being our hands, and holes being opened up when we attacked. Alright they were more like giant circles with socks sticking out. As you know, socks make very bad spears for a schiltrom (check wikipedia if you have no idea what I am talking about). There was a lot of sweat and Adith shouting Total War terms after our many discussions about that game.

The Orientation also had a storyline which was aptly named Story___. It was funny. I do not have much else to say thereabout (sorry I love these pronominal adverbs).

Our Orientation only lasted for four days though. Most other schools' Orientation periods lasted for around a week. My father said that his Orientation lasted two weeks.

Near the end of our Orientation, we got to know even more people, our classmates. Only one person whom I personally knew ended up in my class, Daryl. I had met some of my other classmates during the DMP (Differentiated Module Program(you)) period and one was my roommate during the trip to Malaysia in Secondary Two, Wei Lun. The class turned out to be full of pretty interesting people who are willing to study and have fun together. I guess that is a good thing because I will be with them for the next two years.

We had some outings and ate lunch together for almost every day as an Orientation Group. We watched the movie "Toothfairy" with the Rock in it. The Rock acted really well but the script was terrible. The humor was bad. However, the movie grows on you near the end and it actually made me feel a bit sad for the characters. I give the Rock 8/10 and the movie 5/10.

Some of my Orientation Group members and I also went to watch "Little Big Soldier", the new Jackie Chan movie. It was really funny and the humor was clever and the movie still made sense in the end (although the suicide was weird).

On a side note, I was accepted into archery despite doing no pull-ups at all and doing average for the 2.4 km run (12 minutes+) and collapsing on my final (60th) wide-arm push-up (My ribcage felt like ripping for the next two days and I think it almost did when Pei Yi asked me to do a normal push-up).

On Friday, today, the German class was planning to do a singing performance (Denglisch which I had posted on my blog before). So right now I am wishing for the best.

Now I feel like training my General Paper skills. I shall be answering some of the questions in the Introductory Package now.

Can anything worthwhile be gained from continued research into historical events?

I have found from historical anecdotes of mine that long essays any longer than two sentences do not always gain very high marks. Therefore, I conclude that this shall be my entire essay and that it has been very worthwhile.

"Patriotism has no place in an international society." Discuss.

Of course patriotism has no place in an international society. If there were patriotism in and for an international society, that would mean people supported the international society and it would hold together. As the world will never become an international society due to human nature and power-hungriness, there is no need for patriotism in an international society.

"The truth should always be told, whatever the cost."

Truth be told, I have no idea.

"The secret of a happy life is moderation in all things."

Actually I find the only thing that needs moderation is my marks. It is my secret to happiness.

"The most worthwhile jobs are usually those with the least financial gain."

Nope.

Consider the importance of Drama in your country. You may refer to live theatre, television and radio plays or any combination of these.

Drama is very important because Chinese Dramas help people to learn bilingualism. Unfortunately, in my country, this Drama is terribly bland and repetitive. Hence, it destroys bilingualism. Therefore it is terribly unimportant and should be eliminated from Singaporean society or at least made much, much better.

I did not believe half of what I said. I believe that you have used some time. I say to you "Well done". Goodbye.

May my blog never die again...

It's Twenty-Ten!

Just now I received a Happy New Year SMS that also said "Try to update your blog". After another month of laziness, it shall be done.

The year is Twenty Ten. I always thought the maximum was Twenty Nine... That must mean that we have just gone into year 30. Which means we have 1982 more years to 2012 (ie. the end of the world). Hey that means we still have quite a while. Nobody should fret about 2012 since it will not be coming in another two millennial!

Okay so the year 29 has just ended and what have we learned?

-Houses can cause international crisis and until now these evil dwelling places have caused economic panic.

-Americans do not want universal health coverage and believe that everyone having health insurance is an encroachment into their personal freed

om.

-Some little children would claim to have been touched (in strange areas) to bank on the fame of one black man turned white.

-No one really knows who Farrah Fawcett is.

-People like giving really strange names to new planets they discover, this year's being

GJ 1214 b

-Other things of which I am not very sure...

Now on to random experiences that I have had over the past few days...

-I wore (Yong Sheng's) army boots to pass off as black boots for that choir presentation the other day...

-I watched Avatar (review will come later)

-I watched Alvin and the Chipmunks 2 (review will be further down)

-I played computer games a lot

-I just got Medieval 2 Total War (review will come later)

-Most of the days consisted of computer games and a 24-day Theological seminar

Now I must review these movies which I have watched...

AVATAR (The Last Airbreathers)

(Spoilers ahead!)

Okay I know everyone says this movie is awesome and all but I am going to give my honest opinion on this movie.

I saw the movie 2012 two months ago and I must say I was impressed by it's scale and well-thought-out script. Maybe it was Biblical heresy but it is just a movie and I liked it. I find that in terms of realism, 2012 looked much more convincing. In Avatar, everyone looks like they are from some video game. However, it is a science fiction film so what one thinks thereof is his opinion.

I thought the best aspect of the movie, however, was the diverse flora and fauna like those supermimosas (I just call them that because they pop in when touched) and superbulletproofrhinocerossodonphanthingies (big rhinos).

I thought the storyline was quite bad however. Everything seems to be introduced at the wrong time. The pacing also changed quite abruptly at times. The sex scene was weird... It had a significance unlike some other "fail-films" but that significance was made insignificant in just a little while.

The climax was exciting but really stupid, especially the cavalry charge. It made the Navi attack so pointless because of their god helping them out later when they had all already died. What a nice god the Navi have. Maybe they went to Navi heaven. The movie also became disturbingly violent in the end when the rest of the movie was so peaceful.

The movie reminded me of that movie I watched as a kid, Atlantis. There is a woman who can speak some random tongue and English as well, there is a stupid protagonist (one is funny and the other leads aliens to their deaths) and they love each other (one has a marriage and the other has a mating ritual). Last of all, the main antagonist has a violent death (in Atlantis, his sidekick dies. In Avatar, his partner-in-crime is completely forgotten).

Now I must talk about the movie's 3-D. In the beginning of the movie, there is a lot of stuff poking out of the screen and people who look like 2D cut outs and it really immerses you into the movie. However, afterwards all the 3-D glasses do is make the screen darker and unite two images into one.

Overall, the movie was a disappointment for me. Of course, its concept is great and it has a lot of potential. However, the movie failed in many areas (many other critics pan the movie for its originality as well) so I would give it a 5/10. It was not exciting enough and the story was not well thought-out (a woman becomes the best friend of the scientists after one conversation with the main protagonist, Jake Sully). It just passes in my books.

Alvin and the Chipmunks 2: The Squeakquel

This movie was funny and entertaining. That is all I have to say. Of course the movie was not very well thought-out and quite inconsistent and the characters did not seem to fit their own personalities (Simon, the smart one, is a jock...). The movie seemed like a spoof of the first movie in many parts so if you did not watch the first movie, you may not understand some of the jokes.

I never liked the Chipettes (female Chipmunks) from the cartoon. However, they were quite cute in this movie and their personalities were quite amusing.

There were many glaring filming errors, such as Dave raising his crutches up and those crutches being on the floor in the next second. However, the jokes were genuinely funny and the songs were quite catchy. This movie is actually not as epic as Avatar but it delivers what it promises. Watch out for a lot of current jokes (XBOX, Internet and Wii related).

Medieval 2: Total War (M2TW)

Well after playing Rome: Total War and Empire: Total War, I would say this game is very good compared to Empire: Total War, but compared to Rome: Total War, it is mostly different only in graphics, the time period and the inclusion of gunpowder that shakes the screen. Rome: Total War had longer unit descriptions which provided a very nice historical background to the game. However, M2TW provides enough to keep itself fresh. It is also more satisfying to kill people because of the blood levels (there is no blood in Empire and Rome). Just like Rome: Total War, I cannot join a single online game but the bulk of the game is in its Single Player Campaign anyway. I think I am going to need to restart my campaign soon though... I am getting destroyed since I did not open up my game very well (the game is a hybrid between real-time and turn-based strategy).

Metacritic gave this game an aggregate score of 88/100. I would give it around the same thing.