My 16th Birthday!

Well, the title says it all.
Today's my 16th birthday!
And so, I am now officially 16 years old! [ smiles ]

Right, uhhh, I went to school today...
Immediately after I finished carrying out my canteen duty, I made my way to the Prefect's Room. Apparently, there was a Prefect's meeting regarding the annual Prefect's Dinner ( which is going to be held tomorrow, FYI ).
The meeting lasted almost two whole periods, which means that I skipped double periods of Physics.

I'm supposed to have PJ class after Physics class. So, after we Prefects were dismissed from the Prefect's meeting, I immediately went to the school field for PJ. After I changed into my PJ attire, I rendezvoused with Hazwan, Hari, Sehran, Ashman, Jannah, Jas, Lynn, Evo, and the new German exchange student at my school, Tim.
We planned to play football. But in the end, Hazwan was too lazy to play, whereas Ashman, Hari, Sehran, Tim and I were forced by teacher to play football with the "other" boys ( The "professional" ones ). So, unfortunately, we couldn't play with the girls... Oh well...

Well, I still had quite a lot of fun playing with the "pro" football players. Hari, Sehran, Nafis, Acap, Syamim, Afrizal and I were on one team, while Ashman, Tim, Lee King, Farhan, Kuok Fung, and a few other boys whose names escape me were on the other. My team lost, 6-3, But I don't really mind. I still had a heck of an awesome time!
In that game, I rammed into Farhan dozens of times ( Sehran's orders! [ smiles ] ), and I actually accidentally slammed Tim's face with my forearm while trying to steal the ball from him!
It was great, and I had lots of fun! I'm looking forward to playing football again next week given the chance... Farhan actually declared during recess: "Andrew, I will have my revenge on you, next week!" Haha!

Right, after PJ, I cooled myself down in the Open Hall. Then, I made my way upstairs for Add Maths class. But the Add Maths teacher was absent. Several of my classmates wished me "happy birthday". Then, somehow, the whole class started singing the "Happy Birthday" song! All I could do was just smile away!
After that, I helped Jannah to, uhhh, "cut bottles" or something like that...
The Add Maths teacher was also absent after recess, so I took the time to do the English Comprehension homework. When I was done with that, I chatted with Jannah and Nani for a while, before I had to go to the Prefect's Room again for ANOTHER Prefect's meeting. Hence, I had to skip English class! Which means that today, I skipped both Physics and English! [ smiles ]

Uhhh, honestly, the second Prefect's meeting was kinda boring.
Basically, throughout the meeting, Theeban talked about how the Prefect's Dinner will be carried out tomorrow. The Form 4 Prefects had to come early ( around 4pm ) to help out with the preparations, decorations, PA, et cetera...
The Dinner is supposed to start at around 7pm, and ends at 11.30pm. ( Therefore, I will be sleeping over at Hazwan's house after it's over... )

So, yeah, after the meeting, I hung out with my friends near the school gate until 1pm. Then, my mum came to fetch my brother and I from school. We went to Setia Alam to choose my birthday cake. And finally, we went back home...
Well, that concludes my explanation of the stuff that happened at school today...

Bottom line is...
It's my 16th birthday today, and I'm officially 16 years old now! [ smiles ]
Oh, and forgive me for the long post! I know I ought to just notify you guys that it's my 16th birthday today, but, knowing me, I just love to blog about every single detail, and the temptation of blogging about what happened at school today was just way too hard to resist! Haha!

And finally, to those of you who wished me "happy birthday" today ( whether on Facebook or in real life ), thanks yeah? You guys are awesome!
FYI: Almost 40 people wished me "happy birthday" on Facebook!

May the Force be with you...

SMKBJ "Open Day" 2010

Alright, I just came back from my school's "Open Day", where the students' parents are invited to come to school to collect the students' exam result slips, as well as discuss with the teachers about the students' progress, behaviour, etc...
Being a Prefect, I had to be at school by 7.05am, and I'm required to wear my blazer as well ( Obviously to impress the parents who are coming to the school! [ smiles ] )

Alright, when I arrived at school, our new Head Prefect, Arief Izzuddin, instructed the new Prefects to greet the parents when they arrive and help them get to their child's class.
Now, being an "usher" for the parents during Open Day is one of the toughest duties a Prefect has to perform, according to Theeban. An usher has to be friendly, good with people, and most importantly, memorise the specific location of each and every classroom! Tough, huh?
And guess what? Since I'm considered a new Prefect, I had to become an "usher"!

Well, there were quite a lot of Prefects that had to become ushers as well. Apart from the new Prefects, Hazeeq also told a few of the Form 3 Prefects to become ushers as well...
We ushers had to station ourselves at the front part of the school. Whenever parents arrive, we had to greet them, and then one of us had to escort the parents to their child's classroom.

We started "usher" duty at around 8am, I think. It was quite okay, and I soon got used to the heat generated by the warm air trapped within my blazer. Miraculously, I wasn't sweating that much either. Thank goodness!
Plus, I also managed to roughly memorise the positions of the classrooms by remembering the first letters of the class names.
For Form 3, "LEDOGZBS" ( Top floor: Lambda, Epsilon. Second floor: Delta, Omega, Gamma. First floor: Zeta, Beta, Sigma. )
For Form 4, "QBEOLDGZ" ( Top floor: Quartz, Beta, Epsilon, Omega. Second floor: Lambda, Delta, Gamma, Zeta. )
For Form 5, "BEZOGSL" ( Top floor: Beta, Epsilon. Second floor: Zeta, Omega, Gamma. First floor: Sigma, Lambda. )
Honestly, I was quite nervous at first. I was particularly worried about misleading the parents to the wrong classroom, or escorting them around the school in circles without ever reaching the correct classroom. Fortunately, everything went on smoothly...

At around 10am, I decided to take a short 5-minute break. I went to drink some water. Then, I met Jannah and Nani somewhere near the school canteen. We chatted for a short while, then I needed to return to the front part of the school to resume usher duty.
I continued usher duty. In the morning, I estimate that around 13-15 Prefects were on usher duty. At 10, there were only around 7-8 Prefects left. At 11am, only 4 or 5 Prefects remained, including me! Unbelievable!
My legs were seriously tired after escorting the parents up and down the stairs. Finally, at around 11.30am, I bumped into my mother on the top floor, after I had just finished escorting a parent to 5 Epsilon...

We made our way to 4 Beta ( my class ) to meet with my class teacher. Along the way, I met up with Hazwan, Sehran, Matthew, and Kent. After discussing some stuff with Pn. Salasiah ( class teacher ) and Pn. Hamirizan ( Biology teacher, who was sitting next to Pn. Salasiah... ), my mother and I proceeded downstairs. While we were on our way to the front gate, my mum and I met Lee King. We talked about "tuition","why many people didn't do well in their Add Maths exam", and some other stuff that I don't remember...
After that, my mum and I went to Giant for a while, and at 12 noon, we went to SKBJ to pick up my brother. Then, we were on our way home...

Well, yeah, that's it about Open Day...

May the Force be with you...

216th Update...

Alright, guys, I'm finally here, updating my blog again, after a period of inactivity of almost 11 days...
Uhhh, let me see... What have you guys been missing?

Okay, I went to school today. All the Muslim students had to go to the Dewan Sime Darby for some sort of "Preview ABJZ", whereas the non-Muslim students were required to assemble at the school's Open Hall...

Well, the teachers in charge of the non-Muslim students had prepared some activities for us...

Okay, let's begin, shall we?
The first activity of the day revolved around an environmentally-themed song called "Hijau" ( I forgot who the artist was ). All of us were each given a paper, which had the lyrics of the song written on it, but the lyrics were incomplete. Therefore, it was our task to try and complete the lyrics. To accomplish this, the teachers would play the song via the school's PA system. Quite easy, if you factor out the muffled sound quality, of course! I couldn't make heads of tails of what the singer was singing throughout most parts of the song! Ugh!

After we listened to the song, we were then tasked to create a song of our own, using lyrics based on the environment. This was considered our second activity of the day. So, Jas wrote down some lyrics, and in the end, my group ( Hari, Jas, Lynn and Evo ) had to "rap" out the song on stage! Jas, Evo, and Lynn recited the lyrics, whereas Hari and I had to shout "yeah, yeah!" everytime there was a pause in the lyrics. Technically, the performance was a disaster! But oh well, I agree with the teachers: "It's just for the fun of it!"

After that, we were all dismissed to the canteen, and we had to return to the Open Hall at 10.30am. The best part was that free food was provided - Fried rice with fried egg. Not bad, in my opinion. My group decided to eat in the Nature Lovers Society room. We also decided to play "Truth Or Dare", a game where a person, based on specific conditions, must either tell the absolute truth or perform a dare.
I chose to perform a dare, and Lynn suggested a crazy idea. According to her, she was halfway eating her fried rice when she randomly dared me to climb through a broken window at the back of the NLS room, go around the building, and come back into the room through the front door...

She didn't expect me to actually go and do it! They were busy chatting about something else, so I quietly went to the window. I saw a chair with a plastic bag on it. I removed the plastic bag, climbed onto the chair, and prepared to go through the window! Then and only then did the others realise that I was actually willing to perform the dare! Of course, I managed to climb through with little effort, made my way around the building, and came back into the room through the front door!
Well, to be honest, this little feat was nothing compared to what I had to go through during the second Prefect's Camp 2 weeks ago...

After that, we had to go back to the Open Hall. For our third and final activity, we had to build a tower using old newspapers and sellotape. The teachers told us that we had to be creative when designing our tower. Furthermore, we had to build the tower as high as we possibly can, while ensuring the tower's stability and structural support, so that it won't collapse or topple over.

So, we started rolling up sheets of newspaper to make "newspaper cylinders", which would act as our staple building material. We constructed the base first, first using the common square-based configuration, and later incorporating my triangular-based design, to decrease the amount of cylinders used. After we had a sturdy base, we decided to drastically increase the tower's height by using the paper cylinders as "pillars". When we realised that the pillars were swaying around, we added "support beams" to strengthen them. We also added support beams to the base of the tower to further increase its stability.
We continued adding more and more pillars and support beams, until the point where our tower was actually taller than Jas! [ smiles ] Then, Hari insisted that we should construct the tower even taller! And so we continued to add more pillars and support beams! Finally, we connected the four upper-most beams together, and as a finishing touch, Lynn actually prepared a flag to place on the top of the tower! The finished construction: A looming structure that towered over me, Hari, and even Theeban himself!

Well, yeah, that's practically much everything interesting that happened today...

In other news, today represents my last day of being a mere Trial Prefect. On Monday, I will officially be a real, genuine, bona fide, School Prefect! Wahoo!
Blue shirt, red neck-tie, black shoes and swanky blazer, here I come! [ smiles ]
Oh, and speaking of neck-ties, the Koperasi Sekolah was closed today, so I couldn't buy my own Prefect's neck-tie yet. So I had to borrow Hari's spare tie for now. I'll have to purchase my own tie on Monday...

And now, about my progress in Ninja Saga! ( For those playing Ninja Saga on Facebook, do read on... )
I am now a Level 44 Pure Fire Jounin. And my current arsenal: Explosive Kunai Formation, Raising Fire Explosion, Raising Fire Combo, Fire Wave, Starfire Explosion, Dual Fire Wave, Fat Woman Transformation, and Refresh Rank 5. I'm currently training my character to Level 48, when I can learn the newly released Lvl 48 Jounin Fire Jutsu, Fire Bird Rider.
Plus, I actually defeat the Hunting House World Bosses, Ginkotsu and Shikigami Yanki, on a daily basis! I can take on Ginkotsu solo, but unfortunately, I can only defeat Shikigami Yanki with the help of my friends...

So, uhhh, yeah, that's pretty much it for now.

May the Force be with you...

Eco-Hero!

Alright, guys, I'm here...
Sorry I haven't been updating my blog. I've been extremely busy lately...

Uhhh, throughout the past week, I:
1. Went to the "Second Prefect's Camp" at Teratak Riverview, Ulu Bernam, Tanjung Malim, Perak for 3 days ( 2-4 July )... Tonnes and tonnes of interesting stuff happened there, but unfortunately, I simply don't have the time nor effort to blog about it all! Well, at least you guys know that I went for it! [ smiles ]
2. I've been quite preoccupied with "The Star NiE Mini-Magazine" competition thingy... Who knew making a simple 3-page mini magazine could be so stressing and frustrating?
3. And then there's the usual mountain of homework, graciously supplied by our loving teachers...

Okay, then...
I bet you're wondering why my post header is titled "Eco-Hero", correct?
Let me start from the very top...

Uhhh, Pn Azlina ( my class English teacher ) instructed my classmates to divide into groups of 5 people. Each group had to create and submit a 3-page mini-magazine relating to the theme "A Better Life".
However, Jannah, Evo and I already created a group before Pn Azlina instructed us to. The other two people in our group were Jas and Lynn, both from another class, 4 Epsilon...

Well, my group decided upon the sub-topic "Environment", since Jannah, Lynn, Evo, and Jas were all members of the school's Nature Lovers Society, so I assumed that they had loads of experience about stuff related to the environment...
Fortunately for us, Jannah already typed a main article about how to save the environment beforehand. So, obviously, the magazine's focus for this issue would be about what you can do to save the environment, hence the term "Eco-Hero".
But wait. That's still not the reason why this post is titled "Eco-Hero"...

In the "NiE Mini Magazine" competition, there's also a video clip category. Along with the mini-magazine, contestants can submit a video clip based on the theme of the magazine...
So, my group decided that we should also submit a video along with our magazine. And Lynn proposed the idea of incorporating my lightsaber rotoscoping skills into the video...

So, yeah, I made another lightsaber video... But again, just like "Force Lightning Rocks", I don't consider this as one of my serious lightsaber projects. Anyway, moving on...
On filming day, two of my friends decided to join in: Lee King and Ashman. They appear in the final video as well, even though they're not part of our group.
So, uhhh, the video, titled "Eco-Hero", stars:
- Myself, as the lightsaber-brandishing Eco-Hero.
- Ashman, as the "bad guy" who litters.
- Jaslyn, Lee King, Jannah, and Lynn, as the civilian onlookers.
- Evo, as the girl who litters at the end of the video.

Alright, I guess it's only right if I post the video here...
So, yeah here it is.
Oh, and a warning, at one point in the video, the video and audio quality will reduce DRASTICALLY! I'm not by any means exaggerating! Seriously! Our 14-Megapixel camera's battery went dead while we were halfway filming, so we had to resort to a 2-Megapixel handphone camera instead...
So yeah, I apologise. And please, I don't want to hear any comments about the horrible quality, kay? Seriously, make sure you tell me something I don't know!


Well, yeah, that's "Eco-Hero"...

Oh, and FYI, we started filming on Tuesday, but we didn't manage to finish filming, so we continued on Wednesday. I only received the video files on Thursday.
And the deadline to submit the NiE mini-magazine was Friday! And the worst part was that I had to stay back at school on Thursday until 5pm for extra-curricular activities! Unbelievable, right?

Normally, rotoscoping and editing a video usually takes around at least 2 to 3 days. But in this case, I had to finish both editing and rotoscoping the video by the next day!
So, I had to work late into the night. But I wasn't alone. Jannah and the others kept me company via Yahoo Messenger. I'd like to thank very much them for doing so...

I finished rotoscoping the video at roughly 1am, and I finished converting and applying the audio at around 2am. After adding the subtitles and publishing the completed video, it was almost 2.30am! My God, you wouldn't believe how sleepy I was at that time!
So yeah, I actually managed to rotoscope and edit a lightsaber video in a mere 8 hours! I never thought I could do it, but somehow I did... I really just wanted to abandon the whole thing and go to bed, but I was determined to finish what I started. So, I persevered, and in the end, I actually did it... I was so glad when I could finally shut down the computer, head to my bedroom and get some much needed shut-eye......
I'm just so glad that that ordeal is finally over!

Well, yeah, that's pretty much it for now.

May the Force be with you...