Post-hsc

The Mysterious Stranger hath returned to blogosphere!

Well, I decided to give up for now on that 'fabled' post hahaha. Yay for procrastination. Besides, it would probably entail the same things you would have heard/read on other blogs. Anyway, in the time period of the post-hsc, here are some things I discovered (I'm making this out to be grander than it actually is haha).



^The MOST hilarious video I came across. Perhaps many of you would have seen it, perhaps not...



Opening from 2001: A Space Odyssey, as you may have discerned from the title. One of the grandest openings, a prelude to one of the best movies ever made (in my opinion at least). I highly recommend you all watch the movie, it is most excellent.

Oh well that's all from me for now. Take care!

And so it begins...

And so it begins, the great battle of our time (exaggerating slightly there hahas). This will be the final test of our skills etc etc. haha

Best wishes and I'll see you all on the other side!

(by the way this isnt the fabled post. That will occur in due time e.g. after Nov 2 haha)

Post coming up soon

Hi

Yeah this is another short post. As you may understand I have been lately occupied with studies and the composings of writings i.e. English. Hence the lack of activity recently.

But don't worry!! This famous post that has been alluded/hinted about will eventually materialise in cyberspace soon enough.

Ha ha ha

Best wishes in studies for HSC, etc. etc.

Short post

Greetings all once again

Happy Birthday Belinda. Hope you had a great day to-day.

Haha I have some new items on the side. The fish! Haha you hover you mouse cursor over it and they kinda swarm over, click to drop foodstuffs in. ha ha ha hours of entertainment. If you can't find it, keep scrolling till you do.

On other things, I can't believe school is going to be over in less than two weeks. All these years I have been thinking "there's always next year", but this time there is no next year at school, only uni/gap year, etc. Sorta like driving off a cliff - you assume there's more road, but...not really.

Yeah short post today. Will post something more substantial in due time.

The end of an era

Behold I have overcome "writers block" and I am back.

The end hath come for cadets. As some people say we fainted - i.e. we passed out. In the five years there it has had its ups and downs.

I liken the cadet experience to a hike - its at its best at the end HAHA. Still they were fun times.

Yeah so in following tradition we had a parade. This time due to ginormous numbers we had THREE platoons rather than the usual two. But whatever still all good.

I got to use my extremely rusty cane drill skillz which hopefully weren't too crap (other people pls confirm hahas). BUT (testipop) for some reason this parade felt waaayyy more fulfilling than the other times. The drum guys were awesome - kept us in time, so we actually looked pretty good.

Hey cadetters did you notice this weird pause just before I called open order march or something like that. That was because I was desperately trying not to laugh at some weirdo stuff up some cadet(s) did or something like that. haha.

AND to V. Tran(sit of Venus) I bet you're reading this:

AAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!! Heres my shout out to you.

Randomness aside I shall continue on this recount like the recounts we did in primary school. Except I wont go "and then blah blah. And then I did this. It was fun. And then I did that." haha

So the highlight was when we entered the hall. As I passed the year 12s I heard some guy go "Xanaduuuuuuuu" HAHAA hi-larious. And then stuff happened like in assemblies, as well as a tremendously out of time inward turn HAHA.

Well Mr. Morris' speech was really relevant to us. The hand of cards metaphor (oh no too much English ho ho ho) was really true.

Anyway the time came for the HTL and me speech of reminiscing. We were up till one in the morning doing this and it wasnt until around 10 minutes before the parade started that we finally finished it. But apparently people liked it so oh well. But I don't think people got all of our jokes/puns like HTL's marching on course - understanding rank thing or like the ANPRC 77 (tonnes) one. bah who cares.

Some things we left out: Major moustache. Some major at AFX 07 who had this humungous handlebar moustache and he talked in this hilarious way. I remember having tears in my eyes cause I was laughing so hard, and also with the effort of holding it in.

FLAGS peoples didnt really get to see you in action in the hall, nice work though. At least there werent any major screwups so all good.

Some small stuffups understandable - after all no one is perfect. I think all yr 12 peoples made at least one mistake.

OK certificate presentation thingy. Haha APPARENTLY some yr 12s were going to yell out "Xanaduuuuuuuu!!!" as I was going up. DAMN they should have =.= It would have been even more memorable (no sarcasm there XD). The cadets decided to clap in time!!! We tell them jokingly to do it, not expecting them to, and then of all times they do it now!! Actually it was pretty funny. XDD

Yeah the parade ended and it was all good. Too bad we had to be dismissed abbreviated style, otherwise I would've had some CSM-y last laugh. Especially to certain cadets.

Yeah after that was the afternoon tea thing. Lotsa foods, not much eaten. I think I only ate like two things and that was it. I was more preoccupied with photoing and also putting the v-finger things (what are they called? xD) in others' shots.

Haha mishmashmosh I think that was my fingers in your photo LOL sorry :P.

AND THEN it was all over. No more cadets. Time flies dammit.

Hey all yr 12 cadets. Lets all give our stuff in at the same time so we flood the Q guys. Its like a initiation test for Q-ies, since we had to go through that last year. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA.

Enough from me for now.

P.S. No one write tl;dr......or else!!!! jk xD

Midway

Hello once again I have decided to use the title 'midway' as it is very appropriate.

Exams. Exams Exams. Have just crashed through 4 of them. Have got 3 to go. Well, I should have posted in the middle of Bio just to make it REALLY Midway HAHAHAHAHAA.

Speaking of Bio. It was alright, as in it was not as gay as I had anticipated. Those who saw me this morning would know I was practically shatting myself because of the sheer amount of crap we had to know and recall. I think I spent more time in a frenzied whirlwind saying, "Oh crap, blah blah blah" than actually looking at the stuff. But anyway in the end it was tolerable.

Going back to MAths. It was hard, period. I was flipping through the pages just to see if there were any easy pickup mark questions to do (there were hardly any). But what was fun was how we were playing scissors paper rock while they were collecting the papers. Haha.

And then there was English before that. Paper 1 was alright, I suppose. Then came Paper 2. Questions were reasonable...until I mental blanked throughout the exam. Such was the case that Module A's essay needed a bit of...abridging. But then again that was P and P. I like Citizen Kane more, but thats just me.

And something else that is also as konstant as k (that is the k you meets in maths, chem, etc. that just means any arbitrary constant), is of course people dwelling. As some of you would know I would zoom out of the hall like there's no tomorrow, and for good reason too.

Enough for today! Good luck everyone for (the rest of) your exams.

Pre-trial notions

Okay a pre-trial blog, following tradition,

So... good luck everyone. But remember there's life afterwards. OK I think I am being cheesy now, just like my belonging short story as people in my English class can attest to.

One day I was trawling through the SMH, and man this character in SMH letters signifies the epitome of idiocy. If you would care to read below:

Slow drivers the limit

Correspondents in the eternal debate about speeding (Letters, July 30) have referred in reverential tones to the speed-compliant driver, the little law-abiding ninny who never does a kilometre over the speed limit.

Enough. It is this very person who causes difficulties. Speed limits are set at the lowest common denominator. They are not set to accommodate good, or even average, drivers. They are designed for people who can barely drive in a straight line or notice other cars, let alone anticipate or perform complex traffic movements. Law-abiders do 50 km/h because they are incapable of doing 51.

Anyone lacking the confidence to safely drive at 10km/h over any given speed limit makes a strong case that they should not be on the road. Rather than such incompetents being further encouraged to slow down the majority of road users, they should be asked to keep up with traffic.

If this fellow is serious, which is probably the case, then he is rather deluded or suffers from extreme ignorance or arrogance. "they are incapable of doing 51 km/h" What?? It takes little skill to step on the accelerator. People who speed and crash generally aren't out of control. Quite the contrary. They think they can manage the freedom of deliberately ignoring the speed limit.

I'd like to see this guy try and pull that crap when he's rounding those bends that have a strict limit otherwise your car will zoom off the road.


Anyway on other things Bohemian Rhapsody was pretty good today. I thought, we should have made the scaramouche bit more dramatic, something like this:

Scara-MOUCHE!!!

I did that during one of our last practices and because I was one of the few who did I looked pretty dumb haha.



Ah, now it occurs to me, English short stories. It seems that there are only four outcomes in a short story:

• Subtle - if marker likes story.
• Obscure - if marker hates.
• Overt/clear link - if marker like.
• In your face/ham-fisted/simplistic blah blah blah - if marker hates.

So yeah if you try and make it too deep and meaningful it gets lost anyway.

And another thing, those of you who do chem, are you going to call your chemist guy "Luke (not his real name)"? I am giving serious considerations to doing that in this upcoming exam.

Goodbye for now.



Bee tee double-yew if you read this post before 21/8/2009 then clearly you are procrastinating XD

The (hobbit) Shire

Guten tag my friends,

As our last school term commences, it is timely for...

REMINISCING HAHA yeah going back to the past to make sense of the present or whatever that pile of BS it was when we did Heaney in 3U.

So if you don't have time and/or you don't want to be regaled with tales from the MS's past, then skip the next several paragraphs.

Many years ago I lived in the Shire haha. Not the Lord of the Rings Shire. I am referring to the Sutherland Shire. This is in the far south of Sydney. (Z-hang should know).

If you thought places like Bankstown and Hurstville were far south then you're WRONG (quote Iverach). The Shire by far beats it. (NB unlike LOTR where that Shire is actually towards the north of Middle earth - if I remember correctly)

Anyway, I was looking up where I used to live in (Miranda) on Wiki. Here is what I found:


















See the beige-y light coloured apartments on the left hand side of the photo. Believe it or not I used to live there when I came to Australia long long ago haha.

So, the Shire. The things I remember most are few and far between. Amongst them was that they changed the colour scheme of the council logo from Captain Cook on white background to Captain Cook on yellow background.

And, after talking to Z-hang and others, the INFAMOUS FIVE WAYS XD

OK this is famous - for the wrong reasons. Or should I say was famous.

This was a horrendously humungous roundabout (yeah the one that cars go on xD) where all five roads going in had at least 4 lanes (so two either way). Just think five Pennant Hills Roads going into the same roundabout. It was so big that it needed these really special traffic lights that had signs that changed depending on whether it was red or green light. Actually there was no green light, just a space where its meant to be, because I think no light implies green light in that case. And it was big enough for the island in the middle to have a tiny forest's worth of trees.

Anyway eventually they razed the forest to the ground, dug up the island and turned it into a five-ways intersection. Apparently accident levels dropped off to almost nothing.

Onto other things...

UMAT was on Wednesday. Was not too good, was not too bad. With things like this, it seems like you could always have done it better. Maybe thats just me.

But do you know what's ridiculous? The fact that some people CONTINUALLY dwell on the exam. Stuff like "What did you put for this question? Oh no I got it wrong." blah blah blah etcetera etcetera etcetera. It's over. There's nothing you can do to change what has happened. Unless you have a time machine or something which you don't.

Yes it is high-stakes. But once its over its over. You'll probably do yourself more harm by moping over it.

It's no use crying over spilt milk.

OK, some people when they see this may think: Why don't you mind your own business? That is, the dweller's dwelling is their own business. BUT the problem is, their "discussions" are actually pretty loud so you can't really hide.

If you notice me in exams, the moment we get dismissed I zoom out of the room like there's no tomorrow. Reason: to escape the dwellers who will make everyone around them feel as crap as they do. Try it some day. Haha now I am just rambling.

Speaking of exams, Good Luck everyone in their trial studying. Don't overstudy! xD Because that blew up in my face so spectacularly for Ag. E.g. of overstudy: Staring at notes the moment before you enter the room of doom (aka the exam room), having already looked at them almost continually for the past week. At the same time don't not study haha yes it is tempting.

That's enough from me for now. And now I leave you with this:





The opening to Casino Royale ( James Bond). Personally one of my more favourite Bond movies. This opening is pretty awesome. Sort of reminds me of "The Shot" the Ted Hughes poem, due to the bullet motif etc.

Manners

Hey!

Before I begin.

Man what this guy/girl says (on Bored of Studies) is MUSIC to my ears!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"I am in dire need of some understanding of ANYTHING of these poems in relation to this bullshit topic."

Thread title was Navigating the Global Heaney Poetry.

Why music? Because he/she couldn't have summarised my thoughts on Heaney poetry (with regard to NTG) at this point in time any better.

It hits the spot. It cuts it (unlike DG's K is for K-Alan is Gay comment - see chatbox for details). It strikes a chord.

Speaking of striking a chord, Darth Gaylords comment in the previous post struck a chord, regarding to manners.

I don't know if it's some teenage thing, but some youngsters of teen ages seem to act as though they are so right and so infallible so that when they are wrong and someone points it out to them, they act all sulky (meen hak in canto - face darkens) and have an extremely crappy attitude to others.

Simple example is how some people bitch about teachers, etc. "picking" on them when they are simply being corrected.

Or how if you helpfully correct someone and they don't appreciate your help.

And sometimes it is ridiculous that some people when caught in their tracks doing something stupid, like taking a zillion hash browns for themselves in the school canteen, don't tactfully apologise and clear the scene. Instead they act as though they have been wronged and they should be apologised to.

Some people have such an inch attitude (sorry, direct canto translation, should have said arrogant) that our school environment, being sheltered, sometimes cultures. Probably if they go out thinking they're so important they'll get a rude awakening!

Sorry I don't think that made much sense.

So that's what I think anyway.

Goodbye for now.

Commmmmmmmonsense

Hello,

Continuing in my series of contemplations regarding the issues I have encountered in the course of my travels is....

Common sense.

Or the lack thereof.

Very simple concept yet if you look in the right places, you find a surprising lack of.

Since I believe (or more correctly the Agriculture Dept believes) that it is a good idea to illustrate this with an example, here it is:

Suppose you are cramming onto a crowded bus (for example the Epping 775 school bus). You would try to move to the back right (if all seats have already been taken).

Sadly the commonsenseless person stands next to the third row and blocks everyone, even when there is a multitude of space behind him/her, like so:


















I mean, is it too much to not homie with your friend and move to the back for a half hour bus ride? Presumably yes. And sometimes it is because of that one person that the bus driver shuts the door, and the poor mortals outside need to wait for the next one.

I think sometimes at our school, being sheltered, common sense tends to atrophy. Which is unfortunate.

That is all for now,

Good bye

P.S. Everyone enjoy HP6 tommorrow. I am sorry I cannot be there. See you all soon.

Tactlessness

Today I wish to touch upon tactlessness. Ironically I may need to be rather tactless in the course of this post.

What do I mean? Tactlessness is defined, interestingly enough as showing a lack of tact, or sensitivity that befits a certain situation (btw I did not spew out a dictionary just then). Here is an example:

Say we had an assessment task, make it a speech yes a speech. Many people get full marks, apparently without breaking a sweat at all. The following exchange may take place:

Random: How was it?

Full marker: Oh I got full marks. It wasn't hard to get full marks. (OR) Everyone got full marks (OR) whatever.

Random (who happened not to get full marks): ...

Yeah this is hypothetical and may be exaggerated but it can happen.

It comes as an annoyance that people can do that. Though they clearly do not mean it, the impression that they are getting across is "it was a pushover and you would have had to have an IQ of zero to not ace it".

And what's worse is that they proclaim their ill-timed and formed generalisations to the world. That is, they say it loud enough for people nearby to clearly hear. People nearby who did not score fantastically well might I add.

At school, being a marks-orientated environment, the person on the receiving end will feel rather inadequate and shatty in the light of these comments, needless to say.

That's all I have to say about that. For now.

I am sorry if any of what I have said offends you. As I said, I may have had to be tactless myself.

Hope everyone enjoys their holidays. Don't study too hard! =D

Goodbye for now.

BRRRR!

Hey check this out:






I LOVE this ad. So funny, one of those ads which you don't mind if it comes up a million times during an ad break.

Anyway: more childhood misconceptions

• That driving was quite easy. Not saying easy as 123, but that it a skill that can be mastered without too much hassle.
  

I found out that was not really the case.

Don't know how those kids in America who get busted for driving unlicenced can say that they learnt it off some racing game. For me at least, racing games like Need for Speed or whatever do not really give an accurate feel. But maybe that's just me.

Haha anyway methinks the mere sight of L's on a car automatically makes other cars around either avoid it or stop to let it pass.

Speaking of cars...

In light of the recent OZCAR thing, this cartoon says it all. For those not in the know about this, it's just that Turnbull claimed that Rudd and the Treasurer gave overly preferential treatment in terms of loans and stuff to some car dealer who happened to be a homie of the PM, and that he had an email to prove it. Turns out the email was fake. (Correct me if I am wrong)




















The pistol says "email" and the dead cat "My brilliant hubris". Mr. Turnbull, if you were going to try to get Rudd at least make sure your evidence is accurate instead of letting it blow up in your face in your haste to topple your opponent.

That's enough from me today.

Oh, and another thing, do you people reckon this blog is boring or irrelevant? Because if so, then I can keep my mumblings to myself and post some other stuff that is perhaps more relevant to us young adults. Haha

As the world turns

Some questions occur repeatedly as we go about our lives. Some of them are:

• Why is your queue always the one that takes the longest?
• Why does technology malfunction when you need it most?
• When you search valiantly and in vain for something, why does it pop up as soon as you give up looking for it?
• Why, when you do assignments, work, etc. , does it seem like that anything BUT the task at hand is interesting?

The last point is particularly relevant. Say something is due tommorrow (or the day after). You strive to finish, but ALAS, like all homework plans they are destined to fail! Many other things capture your attention, things that if you had time you wouldn't have the remotest intention of doing, like surfing the net for pictures of comb binders or whatever. Ironically, by doing this it probably means there is no time after finishing work to muck around.

That is enough from me today.

Childhood misconceptions

As the title suggests, I am sure that as little younglings, you may all have had some sort of childhood misconceptions. Here are some of mine:

• Thought that rendezvous was pronounced ren-dezz-vus instead of ron-day-vooo.
• That batteries were called 'bones'.
• That a car is a living thing that consumes petrol as food.
• That the word for country was 'world'. Allow me to illustrate. Once I went to this guy, and I wanted to know where he came from. "What world are you from?" spake I. And he replied with bewilderment "Uhh, Earth?"
• That plane toilets were extremely scary.
• That Sherlock Holmes actually existed.
• That misshapen was pronounced mish-happen.
• That seat belts were supposed to look like a police officer's sam browne (yes this misconception was formed in Hong Kong where the police used to have sam brownes as part of their uniform).
  

Yeah those are some. Perhaps I may add more when I recall them.

Feel free to share some of yours, if you wish to, of course.

Oh, and another thing. Why do some shops spell their shop name with shoppe

E.g. Ye olde shoppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppe Haha I knew you'd like that, or maybe not.

Endgame

HELLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I come to you at the endgame (of exams of course). That is to say, except for exceptions like Nihongo etc. etc.

Speaking of which good luck for any remaining exams (I understand some people may still have some?) No I am not being sarcastic for those who do Nihongo (Japanese).

NOW!!

Check out this:



Absolutely PUN-ishing HAHAHAHA!! From Batman and Robin, Mr. Freeze is Arnie.

That is all for today.

Midway

Alright I have decided to break my self-imposed exile from blogger-ism.

There is nothing to say about exams except that Bio and 3-poonit were both quite ridiculously ridiculous.

Which brings me to a point.

Why do some people dwell on exams gone by so much. e.g. straight after a bio exam people would go on and on about what they did or did not do.

Uhh, slight problem...it's already happened!! Maybe some remarks are alright. But when it starts messing with your mind's wellbeing (sorry I don't know the word right now, but in canto it's sum ching "heart (something)") then maybe its not alright.

OH NO!!! 3 poonit mathematics tomorrow. THAT means that afterwards half the grade is going to be super-dwelling on it and drawing in the air outside the exam room (to show their homies how they drew some graf or whatever). HAHAHA.

Sorry, sometimes I am so stupid.

Good luck everyone for your remaining exams. Don't get too stressed out (alright that might seem easier said than done). Because in the grande scheme of things there are much more important things.

GOODBYE

Sorry for the hard-to-understandness of this post. I did a sort of stream of consciousness thing, as Bal told us to do last year (those in my 3U last year can relate to this).

Comment pls!!

Upcoming exams

Hey!

Before I begin, might I wish everyone all the best for their upcoming exams. Remember not to get to stressed out (alright that might seem unrealistic)

NOW!!

Check the date NOW!

If the date on which you are reading this post is before 26 June 2009 and you are in year 12 at Ruse, close this window/tab NOW NOW NOW! You are clearly pro-crap-stinating xD. Seriously.

If not read on.

One of Stephen Chau/Chow's best movies. Fight back to school 2 (逃學威龍 2). Here's a bit below (for non-cantos the subtitles are just as good).




Pretty much what happens is that a police officer in the Hong Kong equivalent of SWAT, gets fully demoted to traffic duty and rage quits. But then he discovers a terrorist plot to blow up a school and he goes undercover with his homies from the previous movie to foil their plot.

Now hopefully I don't give too much away. I recommend you watch the movie. SO extremely funny!

Remember! No more procrastination during this period!!! xD


Good luck everyone.


AUF WIEDERSEHEN!

Homework plans

The title is self-explanatory. Have you ever had grand and fantastic plans about finishing all your homework, or at least a significant chunk of it one day...

Only to discover at day's end that you have barely touched anything?

Sometimes it is procrastination, no, usually it is procrastination, but in the other times it may be the extremely hard to conquer maths exercise or assignment. (Hard to conquer=it is very long and/or extremely hard).

That is all for today.

Comb binders

Hello again,

As I was trawling through the vast entity known as the WWW, I came across this image





















Yes, the binder spines they use in the Citizen Kane / Hamlet study guides things we get at school. Notice how in the top one the prong things are sticking out rather than tucked in behind the spine proper. That is the source of much merriment in and out of English.

Because the prongs-out mode looks absolutely ridiculous, you can annoy someone just by pulling them all out. Naturally, it isn't a good idea to (accidentally or otherwise) dismantle the book in the process. The faster and stealthier you do it, the better. Trust me it doesn't sound like much, but if you do it to the right person, the reaction will be like as if you nuggeted their bag. An easy way to get a bag of laughs, for want of a better phrase.

Bee-tee-double-yew Topher did you notice I did that to your book last Friday? Haha. Or should I say Darth Gaylord?


One day I was reminiscing of bygone years and this came to mind:

Once upon a time, in the year of 2003, a boy who in time would become the Mysterious Stranger, was about to leave his primary school. I happened to chance across one of the classroom computers for the last time, and I, with nothing better to do, browsed in to the My Documents.

To my genuine surprise, I found a file entitled "Alan Gno". No that was not a typo.

I was thinking ???? What on earth?

When I opened I realised it was a 'murder-in-the-classroom' detective puzzle activity a classmate started to make, and never finished. Just like homework plans.


Enough! Perhaps I bore you. I shall desist for now.

Probababababababababability

Greetings friends,

One day I was contemplating the issues of the world, and the word probability came to mind. It's quite ridiculous. Allow me to illustrate h-why.

Suppose something really bad has a chance, no matter how small, that it may happen to you (e.g. A terrorist hijacks a fighter jet then does a zillion loops over Sydney so everyone sees then drops a bomb so it precisely hits you and blows you up as you are reading this, with no one else harmed at all). OK that might be an exaggeration.

But seriously, something like you missing out on something that everyone else can achieve insanely easily, that relies partly on luck.

So someone tells you the chance of the crap thing happening is something like 0.000000000000000000001%. So you feel reassured right?



WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



And guess what happens next? The 99.999999999999999999999999999% magically escapes you and the infinitesimally small chance happens to you.

Yeah, even if it's so small an electron microscope will have trouble looking for it.

So really, maybe we should just ignore speculating too much unless it is for the good of all humanity.

Going off on a tangent (which isn't normal HAHA geddit?), it annoys me a bit how some people furiously speculate who will mark English exams. What's the point? In the actual HSC you won't know anyway.

Anyway

If you try reassuring yourself something isn't going to happen, guess what? IT WILL.

Allow me to illustrate:

Example:

SMH article about planets colliding

Read it, some small chance right? Bet it will happen.

I guess probability is useful. Work out something then think the opposite. Like reverse psychology.

Enough from me today

FAREWELL!!!!!!

K is for Konstant

Hello again,

Click on this link.

From Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, when Aragorn, Gimli and Lego-less (Legolas) chase the Uruk Hai. Around 30 seconds into the thing the music gets very iconically Lord of the Ring-sy. At least that's what I think.

So, the title of the post. K is for konstant. That's right, spelled with a k. Some of you may have heard me say that in and out of class. Very true XD especially for those who do chem. Hahas.

On Tuesday the astronaut guy came to visit. His presentation was really interesting and worthwhile listening to. But some people from Ruse asked really awkward questions (having said that, not all were).

Then yesterday was musical. Yes, long awaited and it was pretty decent. Most of the leads performed very well. But Act III was super short AND someone kept hitting their mike, making this really loud DOOF every now and then.

Anyway

One day I was doing nothing and some memories of the distant past crossed my mind.

SITUATION: The after-school care centre that primary schools have. It's those places that let you just play and muck around until your parents pick you up.

So I wanted to watch TV with another like-aged child. And I pick up "Dr. Doolittle".

Quoth I, the Mysterious Stranger: Hey let's watch this (or words to that effect).

Quoth the youngling: Let's not.

MS: H-why?

Kid: Because it's too hilarious.

And then I thought ????? Isn't hilarious a reason why you watch something?

When I became more familiar with words such as hilarious I thought the incident was very....HILARIOUS HAHAHAAA.

I don't know, but when you were a little kid did you have second thoughts about something you know is definitely true just because someone else thinks otherwise?

OK that just didn't make sense.

Enough from me now. Perhaps I will reminisce in a later post.

P.S. Hey Bubbles do you like your pencil pencil pencil pencil pencil pencil case disappearing every now and then HAAHAA.

Chem!!!

Hello all,

After numerous update requests, I have an update.


Today's Proceedings:

Bal was away from 3U so it really became a maths doing session for some, and a bludge for some others.

Chris Au and I were half canto-ing away about stuff like BBQ 1 in Eastwood (the place where you can get the HK-style BBQ etc. etc.) and our Chinese names.

And MR AU, my surname is not meant to sound like goose or 我 or whatever!!! HAHA

Then it was off to "hellooo" (our term for English, because our class is temporarily homie-ing with Aryan and Topher's class) i.e. more black cats and Hedwigs mysteriously disappearing...

Anyway I will skip to the highlight of the day...KEM!!!

RAAWRR!!! We essentially spent all double doing this titration to find the concentration of dissolved oxygen in dam water (Winkler method for those who do chem). It took so long, and half the time was spent trying to comprehend the procedure. AND one of the glass pipette thing's graduations markers were coming off, so I had this weird blue line on my hand for a while.

But it was rewarding in the end, because we managed to get what was required without fudging of results etc. Yeah the triumph against adversity thing (sounds ridiculous in this context xD).


After lunch, double maths! Haha SHM all double. Fun fun fun xD. Interesting how something going backwards and forwards over a fixed interval can be studied so much in depth.


And here endeth a normal school day in the life of the mysterious stranger.

And here endeth my ramblings for to-day.

SAY GOODBYE, JOHN!

The City of Glass

Greetings,



















As the title suggests, I would like to recommend an excellent book (or 'text'). For those of you who have read my profile (if not do so now!!! xD) you will find that under 'favorite books' (<- the spelling is deliberate) it says "City of Glass", part of the New York Trilogy.

Synopsis! A mysterious phone call (like myself HAHA) leads a writer of detective fiction to embark on a case more bizarre than any that he has thought of. (which is saying something because I suppose if you write detective/crime fiction you would have to be creative enough to dream up weird situations to begin with, right?)

Now, I didn't spoil the story. I simply paraphrased the blurb, so I just saved you some reading xD.

While ostensibly presented as some form of a detective fiction, once you peel away the surface you will find that it is an interesting exploration of identity and ambiguity, characteristic of postmodernism (PoMo). Naturally, this would be important for those who have an interest in PoMo. For those of us who have a somewhat forced interest (e.g. Ext 1 Eng doers) this is also relevant. I think that there are many different ways you can interpret this, and there's no 'wrong' way. A bit like Citizen Kane where the deep focus lets you pick what you want to see.



I have also reviewed my chatbox and Mysterious Stranger 02, you are such a hilarious character. I shall not quote his lines here, examine the chatbox and see for yourself! I almost literally laughed for all of that afternoon.



Oh, and for those who were wondering why I was laughing my head off in Jazz, it's because Mr. Chris Au was being the most hilarious person ever! Part of the reason was the super exaggerated facial expressions we exchanged xD

Enough for today!

Gut bye

FLEE! FLEE FOR YOUR LIVES!!!!!

Welcome back to the Mysterious Stranger's Enclave xD <- right that sounded really stupid.

Okay the title doesn't really suit the post. I simply got it off Lord of the Rings, when Denethor goes crazy when Minas Tirith is getting besieged.

Anyway enough digressing.

About to-day...

English free-U yes a 'whatever-it's-called-technique' of 3U. Hay Topher thanks for crashing our class, just like old times with Lost in Translation. "Mr. Harris...Herp prease" (replace r with l) Haha xD. Our 3U class is really just the same except with a slightly different set of who's who in the zoo, including how not much gets done haha.

Now: 2u eng: Prince Aryan where were you today? You were breathlessly awaited and then you didn't turn up!!

Anywho the highlight of the day was bio. Bialy showed us all these videos and stuff AND this dementia or alzheimer's thing.

Yeah there was this thing where you say "silk" five times and then the thing asks "hwat do cows drink?"

GRAAGH!! I said pretty loudly during the moment of silence "uhh MILK" I was such an idiot HAHA I bet you'll love that Krissybubbles after I counter-slapped you on the bus xD.

What a funderfully queer post to-day.

TO THE BRIDGE AT KHAZAD-DUM!!!

Netfight

Hello again my friends,

After a temporary lapse in posting, which can be attributed to things like kem (another on purpose for chem), I have returned.

Firstly Happy Mother's Day for the mums out there. Mums give up a lot for our sake and today is sort of like a token of appreciation or whatever that phrase is.

Anyway:

A thought that recently crossed my mind is, as the title suggests, the strange phenomenon known as netfighting (if that is not the correct term used to describe web-based arguments then I have just made one up xP).

What I mean, for example, is that if you Youtube some video and then happen to glance at the comments below, sometimes you might see some massive flame war happening.

Now I don't mean any sort of online rant is stupid. For example I am sure many of you bloggers like to let off some steam (Bennett) online. That is okay, better than bottling it up and imploding later on.

What I do mean however, is how some people inflate small issues into some huge flame- and swear-fest in forums and on youtube.

Allow me to illustrate hwat I mean:

Situation: Video about, for example, a scene in a war movie e.g. Apocalypse Now. Comments start civilised BUT then degenerate in an argument mainly between two people about, say, the strength of the US military, which needless to say is absolutely ridiculous because that is not the point of the video.

Situation #2: Gaming video. If thou art a gamer you must have had some bit where you got stuck, so you look up a video or guide to see how you do it, right? I remember I had to get a walkthrough for JKII to realise I had to crawl under some rock on Yavin (or maybe that's just me).

NOW: there are those elements on the WWW who take this to be their grand opportunity to show off their extreme gaming skillz, honed through playing the same level (e.g. COD4 plane level) a zillion times each day. They do this not by posting their own video but by saying stuff like "you suck" or something worse to other people's attempts. Yeah we know you (the hardcore gamer) reload after one bullet in a 30 bullet mag, we know you play 10 hours a day, but try to realise that just because someone else doesn't fit into your perception of skilled gamer, doesn't mean that they suck or whatever. You play for fun, not to show off like its some life-or-death situation.

Yes games are good, but not when it gets taken this far. D:

Tragically, common to both situations are how the attacks start to become personal. What's the point? The dramatis personae are probably on opposite sides of the globe, so they'll probably never meet.

And, my friends, you will discover the reasons are quite petty. It's like if someone accidentally shoves you on a crowded bus and then you have some huge hissy fit, as if he/she suddenly declared a personal vendetta against you.

I think these are cases of "chow hei geen see" (literally: "fry up the incident" in canto, metaphorically or whatever, it means inflate the small issue into a huge thing which it isn't). Yes, a canto translation thingo =D.

That is quite unnecessary. If you don't have something nice to say then don't say it. We should remember that we're all equal and there is no right whatsoever for one person to lord it over another, and we all have the same failings at some certain stage.

Soooo that's what I think anyway. I am sorry if any of the mentioned bits have offended.

Comments always welcome. Keep it civilised please.

Thankyou for taking your time to read this.

I have rambled enough! Auf wiedersehen xD.

Note this is not a rant, just a reflection :)

Hello!

Guten tag,


The News on the March sequence I was referring to. Legendary, just like Xanadu hahas.

Anyhow, onto other things.

S"k"ool today was usual, meaning nothing was extraordinary. (Yes I deliberately spelt it wrong, being the extremely mysterious stranger that I am xD.) Unlike Monday when I joined HTL and Tim's Eco class with the one and only Dunkerly.

He is absolutely funny, was funny in Year 8 (incidentally, when this blog came into existence) and is still. Like once when he made up a "game" called Slaves just so he could rope in some poor souls into getting some textbooks for him.

AND his Australia maps. See below:











Yeah my Paint skillz kinda suck (yes again deliberately wrong, so it's not an accident...it's an 'on-purpose' HO HO HO). Actually the term 'on-purpose' isn't a mysterious invention of mine, its actually from Judge Judy which I happened to channel-surf to once upon a time.

BUT...notice the lack of Tasmania, and this isn't an any accident, it's on purpose, because his comments give little room for anything otherwise. In fact said comments give little room for any other state but NSW.

And there was the cane toad video. Yes those who do Bio will know of such an item. For those who don't its as the title suggests...about cane toads! Of particular interest is this bit where this guy in a van that's probably as old as the dinosaurs running over cane toads on the road. He was actually swerving to hit them, and there's all these little 'pop's when he gets one.

Yeah, so that's why I couldn't stop laughing in Bio when we saw it again.

AANYWAY my reminiscing must be boring you all.

Perhaps I will reminisce some other time.

What will happen next, on the Mysterious Stranger's Enclave?...Find out after the break.

Note: Break may not actually refer to a 5 minute bunch of ads that are really just two or three repeated again and again and again...

Citizen Kane

Hellooooooooooooo!

I would recommend you all to view this most excellent film by Orson Welles. As the title strangely enough suggests, it is called Citizen Kane.

If you care to look it up before you view, you might (no actually, you will) discover that it was composed (a term used only by English teachers, others say "made") in 1941 or some year like that.

Do not let this put you off though, it's like an amazing film of this day except it's black and white. Personally my favourite bits are the "News on the March" sequence, which many people at school would attest to e.g. Mr. Z-hang.

Yeah, "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree --" xD


At first when I heard the name I thought it was some sci-fi/futuristic utopia/distopia movie (of the likes of 1984 or Judge Dredd or whatever), because typically those kinds of films have names like that.

I guess I was wrong haha.

Anyhow this film overflows with awesomeness. I'm sorry Hamlet-eers but look what you're missing out on...Jokes jokes. We know how much you like Shakespeare...

Anyway I digress! Until next time...

SAY GOODBYE!

Take 2

Yeah this is take two to this blog, which I doubt anyone would read hahas.

Anyhow

Auf wiedersehen