Curse of the deserted Movie Review

Hi World! Today I have decided to do another review of a movie I have recently watched (regretfully). This movie is Curse of the Deserted, and as you have probably guessed from the cheesy disturbing poster, it is supposed to be a horror/thriller movie, which also makes the worse horror movie I've ever watched, or just the worse movie I've ever watched, period.

I think I should explain why I even ended up watching such a crappy movie anyway. So I was with a couple of friends celebrating a friend's birthday, and one event on the agenda was to watch a movie. Because we were at Cathay Cineplex, we had a much narrower choice of movies, and ended up buying tickets for PCK The Movie. HOWEVER, there was some miscommunication between the ppl buying the tickets and the counter staff, and we ended up with 8 tickets to Curse of the Deserted. Thinking that it was something decently scary at least, we decided to go for it anyway. BIG MISTAKE as it turned out to be.

Right, plot summary.Young writer Guo wrote about a titular curse in his book, "The Deserted Village". It began 500 years ago in the Ming Dynasty, when one of the villagers died of terminal illness. The widow Yanzi vowed to stay with her husband forever but when the man suddenly returned to life, the horrified neighbours believed that he was a monster. They burned him to death and torched his mansion. The devastated Yanzi upheld her vow and threw herself into the fire. Since then, the village was cursed and the mansion subsequent inhabitant dies mysteriously. Some say only couples who share true love can survive in that village. Those who are unfaithful will come to their demise. To the world, the book was pure fiction. Only Guo and his ex-girlfriend Zhi had lived through the horror to know its existence. When four college students decided to explore the village themselves, the trip led them to an ancient well in Yanzi's mansion, where the curse was unleashed once again.

The summary is a heck a lot more exciting than the actual movie. To me, the movie was just about the 4 college students going to the village, and slowly dying one by one, with romance and some witty dialogue randomly inserted in between.

I don't even know how to begin assessing this movie. Maybe the reasons why I don't think it is good would be good. Right, so for me ,movies should stick strictly to their genres. Meaning, if the movie is a horror movie, no matter how crappy the plot is or how crappy the acting is, as long as its scary enough, its a good movie. I personally felt this movie was way too adventurous, trying to dabble into too many areas at the same time. The movie attempted to blend romance with horror, which left the movie hanging in limbo, fitting neither requirements for both genres, leading to well, a crappy movie.

The movie wasn't particularly scary, and the visual effects were completely sloppy. There were only brief moments where the director used suspense music to compensate for the atmosphere. Romance was also not particularly evident, only in the random flashbacks that constantly appeared near the end of the movie. Speaking of the ending, ARGH, the ending was really the thing that completely killed the movie. In the end, the entire episode just turned out to be a plot of a book the main character, and that in real life her boyfriend had been involved in a car accident, which inspired her to write. What the heck, that really destroyed any scrape of liking I had had to the movie until that point.

In conclusion, Curse of the Deserted is really a substandard movie which I don't recommend, but if you've been watching too many good movies like Inception and Avatar lately, then maybe you can watch it to be reminded how sucky a movie can get, and maybe get a good laugh out of it.

Rating : 1.5/5 stars - at least there was a decent amount of blood. Watch it if you're seriously bored.

~Kevan

Inception Movie Review!

Hello World! Today I have decided to try something new, which would be a movie review of Inception which I have very recently watched. This is also my first time doing a movie review, so please forgive me if I epically screw-up. Right, fingers-crossed let the reviewing begin!

First, I would like to say that Inception is one of the greatest films I have ever seen in a while, and would have been definitely been the best movie I've seen if not for Avatar, but hey, Avatar's in a league of its own. With breathtaking special effects to rival the Matrix, unthinkable plot twists, extremely awesome acting , a smattering of comedy and a bold ambiguous ending boldly thrown in Inception is definitely a movie people will remember for a long, long time.

In Inception, Leonardo DiCapario plays Cobb, an extractor who steals ideas from other people's minds through their dreams. Cobb is hired to extract an idea from a wealthy businessman, Saito, who turns the tables back and instead offers Cobb the supposedly never-before-done job of performing inception - the act of implanting an idea into a subject's mind. Cobb accepts the job on Saito's promise that he would use his influence to make a murder charge against Cobb disappear, allowing Cobb to return to the United States to be reunited with his family.

Cobb then goes on to recruit a group of specialised individuals, and together the team sets off to deep into Robert Fischer Jr.'s mind, heir to Saito's greatest rival energy company, to implant an idea that will cause Fischer to ultimately want to dissolve the company. After many plot twists the team manages to successfully finish the job, Saito honours his promise and Cobb is reunited with his family.

What I really like about the plot is that the film does not make the common mistake of revealing the mechanisms of the dream world and Cobb's plight in long monologues, but uses a careful injection of flashbacks and the interaction between the characters to reveal the plot. This not only keeps the audience glued onto the screen for the full 148 minutes of the movie, but also makes the audience pay close attention to every small little detail in the movie, which would be essential to fully understand the plot.

The special effects are also jaw-droppingly good, using the dream world as a cover to create impossible worlds beyond the wildest dreams. One classic scene I would remember for a long time would be the anti-gravity fight in Fischer's dream. While many movies have fight scenes where the characters manipulate gravity, in this scene there is NO gravity at all, and the entire hotel lobby also moves occasionally due to external factors, tossing the characters around and making that fight scene just so much more epic.

In conclusion , with scenes that make your heart miss a beat, scenes that leave your jaw hanging , scenes that make you secretly tear up and scenes that make you laugh out loud, Inception is definitely a movie worthy of watching and re-watching again and again.

Rating: 5/5 stars - Must Watch!

~Kevan

E-Learning Assignment Task 2

The following is my E-Learning Assignment Task 2, a much closer analysis on the poem Rainbow Death by Hubert Wilson based on a template Ms Soh gave us.

Just for reference’s sake, here is the poem, again.

America did not foresee
Green, pink, purple and other colors death potpourri!
Expecting others to pay a high price.
Now thinking twice?
Toll on the innocent and unborn.

Omnipotent and disregarding who will mourn.
Reflective about all the illness, birth defects and prematurely dead.
All the deceit continues to spread.
Nefariously America led astray -
Generations untold WILL pay -
Execrable effects of agent orange spray!

1. Point of View

From how the poem very clearly reflects the “execrable effects of agent orange spray”, I do believe that this poem is written from the first-person perspective of someone who has a first-hand account of the devastating results of the use of Agent Orange. By being able to describe the effects of Agent Orange with accuracy and also being able to know that “America did not foresee” the harmful after-effects Agent Orange brought, we can assume that the poet, who is the speaker in the poem, is a war-veteran who was involved in the Vietnam war, and had personally at least seen the effects of Agent Orange.

2. Situation and Setting.

Very obviously, the poem is set after the use of Agent Orange, probably a couple of years later, for the poet does not just describe the immediate effects of Agent Orange on the people, but also its implications on future generations of Vietnamese children, like “birth defects “ and even being “prematurely dead”. The poet even goes on to say that the “deceit continues to spread”, telling us that the U.S government probably tried to continue hiding the truth about the effects of Agent Orange from the public, and was still doing so when this poem was written.

3. Language/diction

I found the title of the poem puzzling and ironical, for the two words “rainbow” and “death” are not commonly associated with each other. Rainbows are symbol of magical bridges between life and heaven, or at the least something vibrant and colourful, in contrast to the bleak reality of death. I do believe that the poet chose this oxymoronic title as a direct reference to the “rainbow herbicides” (details in the previous post), and showing how the name of this group of harmful chemicals, responsible for so many deaths in the Vietnam War, is ironical.

Another oxymoron in the poem would be death potpourri. Potpourri is actually either a mixture of dried petals and leaves from various plants that gives off a pleasant smell, or just an interesting mixture of things, both rather positive. However, it is once again associated with death, something bleak and negative, making it ironical. Right before this the colours green, pink and purple are listed, which can be assumed as reflecting the Agents Green, Pink and Purple, other herbicides part of the “rainbow herbicides”. Perhaps the poet is trying to say that the U.S Military had not considered the possible implications before using those biological threats.

4. Personal Response

After reading about the effects of Agent Orange and how “untold generations WILL pay” as described in the poem, it left me feeling rather disturbed and uncomfortable. The poet started with an ominous tone, how “America did not foresee”, before ending with an equally ominous one. Throughout the poem the poet fills my thoughts with images of death and suffering, and shows that the Agent Orange spray is the one responsible for all of it, thoroughly convincing me that the use of Agent Orange is inhumane, serving the poem’s purpose.

~Kevan

E-Learning Assignment Task 1

The following is my E-learning assignment Task 1, an analysis on the poem Rainbow Death by Hubert Wilson.

America did not foresee
Green, pink, purple and other colors death potpourri!
Expecting others to pay a high price.
Now thinking twice?
Toll on the innocent and unborn.

Omnipotent and disregarding who will mourn.
Reflective about all the illness, birth defects and prematurely dead.
All the deceit continues to spread.
Nefariously America led astray -
Generations untold WILL pay -
Execrable effects of agent orange spray!

What I’m supposed to do is write a report about the conflict which is represented in this poem, of course after carrying out extensive research.

So basically after surfing around the net, I realised that this poem is actually talking about the use of “Rainbow Herbicides” by the U.S Military in the Vietnam war, in particular the use of the infamous Agent Orange.

Rainbow Herbicides, a direct reflection of the name of this poem, is a group of chemicals which the U.S Military used during the Vietnam War. Their main purpose was to destroy plants to expose Vietnamese soldiers hiding among the forests. Other Rainbow Herbicides besides Agent Orange were Agent Green, Pink and Purple, which are shown in the first line of the poem.

From 1961-1971, Agent Orange was widely used by the U.S Military, and apart from destroying large areas of vegetation, Agent Orange caused 400,000 deaths and 500,000 children born with defects. This devastation is repeatedly reflected in the poem, like how the agent tolls on the “innocent and unborn”, and the “illness, birth defects and prematurely dead” as a result of the use of Agent Orange.

As of now this is my research on the use of the Rainbow Herbicides shown in the poem, and the next pose will be about close analysis of the poem.

Cool Stuff! None Like It Hot!

So hi all you people of this world. Today I want to announce the start of a new segment of my blog, called "Cool Stuff!", which would primarily consist of interesting and well "cool" stuff I find on the internet from all around the world, as an attempt to make my blog less boring.

Anyway today I want to share with you guys a video from the creators of Futurama and the Simpsons about the fundamentals of Global Warming. Enjoy!

~Kevan

Is it right? -Life sentence for 88 year old nazi?

Greetings fellow earthlings! Your loyal geek Kevan here again. So anyway guys I have decided that besides just having rants about my very boring life in this blog, I'm going to add in a new segment called "is it right?", which will discuss controversial topics from all over the world. This is the first time i'm doing something like this, so please leave your comments and suggestions!

So, before you read on please check out this article here, which my post will be revolving around.

Just a summary of this article for those of you who got bored after reading the first sentence: Germany has recently convicted a 88-year old ex-nazi for war crimes, including murdering 3 Dutch Civillians as a SS Assassin. He will be spending the rest of his life in jail.

So what do you guys think? Should we convict this man- who claims he was following direct orders from Hitler himself, and even implies that he was brainwashed when he committed murder? Should we even still convict WWII soldiers for war-crimes- men who are about to die from old age and other natural causes anyway? This is what I will be discussing in this blog post.

I shall first present my stand on the issue. Personally I do believe that the old man should not be convicted. I don't even think that ex-soldiers should even be convicted for war crimes. The country that is convicted for war -crimes is the country that loses the war, like in this case Germany. However, in war, EVERYONE IS A MURDERER. If the loser country is convicted, shouldn't the victor be too, since it was probably responsible for more deaths then the loser country.

Also, the "murderer" in question, the ex-nazi, like many of his fellow nazis, had been subject to brainwash since young, which means that his actions during the war have been greatly influenced by external factors. Since his orders came directly from Hitler, not following them would have led to the murdering of him and his family. Considering all these factors my heart goes out to the old ex-nazi, who is, as he says himself, already "waiting for death".

Since I found this topic of enough substance, I decided to use it for my current affairs interview with Mr. Eddie Lau, our form teacher. While Justin, my partner for the interview, has the same views as me, Mr Lau feels that the the ex-nazi should still be held accountable for the murders he was responsible, no matter under what circumstances. He even gave us some vague modern-day example of some student leader having done something which frankly speaking I did not really think was relevant to the topic, but I still really appreciate Mr. Lau's effort in pushing his point forward.

So where do you guys stand? Do you, like me and Justin, pity the old ex-Nazi and think he should be allowed the rest of his life, or do you, like Mr Lau, believe that he should still be convicted anyway and held accountable to all the relatives of the murdered? Please your interesting and thought-worthy comments below! I eagerly reply your comments.

Signing off

~Kevan

Will you take the money?

If you found a wallet lying on the floor, right in front of you, and you pick it up, to find $200 and some important documents like NRIC, Cashcard etc. Now ask yourself, will you, hand the wallet over to the lost and found counter/ police/ the owner himself?

Ok I can probably predict your reply. With an angelic beam and innocent eyes you're gonna say : "Of course I'll return the wallet- I'm such a nice person and I love this whole world.

No seriously.

After years in the Singaporean education system any rounds of civic-moral education many of us are already programmed to answer this way- to behave like the pure-hearted beings we're supposed to be.

However, I want you to really look deep into your heart, and question your fundamental moral values: If you really had $200 in your hands, would you SERIOUSLY return it to the owner/authorities, or would you give in to temptation and keep the money?

So anyway you guys are probably wondering why I'm blogging about this. Well, just a couple of days ago my family and I decided to celebrate my younger brother's birthday at Downtown East resorts. Since we had checked into the resort in the afternoon and the party we had organized was not till late evening, we decided to burn some time at the arcade.

It was the classic tragic " i- left-it-there-and-it-went-poof" story. Since I was wearing shorts with no pockets in them, I was holding my valuables - wallet and phone, in my hand until my brother wanted to challenge me to mario kart. Being the muddle head I am, I had left my valuables on the chair next to me, and promptly forgot about me upon leaving the game. 5 minutes later upon hurriedly returning to find it, it was long gone.

It was largely my fault anyway. I could have left my valuables with my parents who were close by before rushing off to trash my brother at table soccer, but I had carelessly left them somewhere accessible to any random passer-by to pocket.

Since I was surrounded by teenagers at that time, the possibility that it had been a teenager like myself who took my valuables is the highest. Being the love-filled person I am, I'm simply going to ASSUME that the teenager who took my wallet had not eaten for 3 days, was starving, and desperately needed the money to buy food. And he had to take my phone to call the church and thank the lord or something like that.

So anyway, back to the topic. Before this episode I was, like many others, unsure whether or not I would keep $200 I found on the floor. In fact I would probably be more inclined to keep the cash. But now, after experiencing the fluster and desperation of looking for a lost wallet, I am absolutely sure that from now on, I will definitely return all lost possessions to their rightful owners.

I'm sure that many of you guys reading this have experienced losing prized possessions before-with the high theft rates in our class last year. To those lucky souls who as of now have not lost their possessions before, and everyone in general, may I urge all of you to follow your conscience, and return the poor soul his lost wallet.

Cheers!

~Kevan

A page off Atticus' diary

Intrapersonal question: Write a diary entry for a major character of the novel.

For this really interesting question I chose Atticus Finch as the character's diary entry I wanted to write. This is set just after Tom Robinson's trial

Dear Diary,

I lost. Just like I had predicted the moment Judge Taylor gave me the case, I lost. Tom Robinson was convicted guilty of a crime he had not even dared to think about. All these months I’ve slogged to get evidence and link them all up into a flawless flow of events in front of the jury to at least give Tom that flicker of hope, God know I’ve tried. That wasn’t much I had to do, it was so obvious from the start. The shrivelled arm, wounds on the wrong places, not to mention the lousy lies Mayella presented the trial. The solid evidence was all there, but Gilmer and the jury treated them like they were transparent.

I have been so selfish for the past few months, sacrificing the happiness of my children, and the reputation of the Finches all for my personal principles. I pretend to be blind towards the suffering they endured, and will endure for the rest of their lives. Maycomb’s an old town, where generations of lies and prejudice have been circulating since the formation of this town. My act will only be added to the top of the list, a white man protecting a black man, never before seen in Maycomb. The children will have a tough time ahead of them, children of “nigger lovers” tend not to do so well in this unjust society. I can only hope, that my attempts on teaching them about true courage and the true meaning of the word “equal” were at least slightly successful., and pass on my teachings to their children and let there be at least one tribe in maycomb that is not racist.

But I will definitely not give up here. I will once again take up the task to return Tom his pride and freedom, and will appeal to the court. In the trial, the jury had taken much longer to convict a black man than usual. It’s not much of an improvement, but it’s still one. As long as I keep fighting, I know one day, maybe not in my lifetime, or not in my children’s’ lifetime, that the white man and the black man will be treated equally.

Stay strong Tom.

God Bless us all,

Atticus Finch

Interview with master lotus root soup

Interpersonal question: Conduct an interview with a friend(not from HCI) or a family member. Find out from their point of view about prejudice and discrimination. Either record the interview or write out the interview transcript.

Okay guys I KNOW in the previous post that I said I wanted to do the linguistic and intrapersonal questions, but very luckily my uncle managed to drop by at my grandma's house for dinner, and since it was only 1 block away I managed to conduct an interview with him, and decided to use that for the assignment instead, so I'm dropping the linguistic question since I felt that the interview was more interesting.

So I interviewed my uncle (who didn't want me disclosing his charming name). He is in his mid 30s and works at CASIO.

Me: So erm.. Good Evening uncle, and thank you for participating in this interview.

Uncle: Wah…so courteous ah. Anyway what is this about ah?

Me: Oh, its part of my English assignment, so may I ask what are your views about prejudice and discrimination?

Uncle: Well… prejudice is when someone is treating you very unfairly, and this affects their ability to make fair judgements in situations.

Me: Could you give me any examples on displays of prejudice?

Uncle: Of course, the more you see of life, the more prejudice you see. Recently my company is bringing in many foreign workers like Chinese or Philippines workers.

Me: And how does this lead to prejudice?

Uncle: Well I’ve seen and heard a lot of my colleagues making a lot of prejudiced comments about the foreign workers, like how all china workers speak poor English and are lazy. However I have seen the Chinese workers work and I find them very hardworking and courteous, and many have , on their own, went for outside English classes.

Me: Hmmm very interesting. Recently I’ve been seeing more and more foreign workers working at the shopping centre in my neighbourhood.

Uncle: Yeah lah, many of the foreign workers are more hardworking and courteous than our local workers, and they are also willing to accept lower pay, of course employers want to hire them lah.

Me: Yeah it does make sense, many Singaporeans have been criticised of poor work attitude. So anyway about discrimination, do you think that a lot of it exists in Singapore?

Uncle: Of course. Humans fear the unknown and this leads to discrimination. Even though we’re a multi-racial community and there have not been racial riots in a long time, I’m sure you and I both know that racial discrimination still exists.

Me: Well…yes, I’ve seen some racist comments popping out in blogs and online forum.

Uncle: It’s impossible to have totally 0% discrimination and prejudice in society, but we should always try our best to be as unbiased and just as possible. Now erm.. could we leave the interview as this because your grandma made my favourite lotus root soup for dinner and talk about prejudice does work up an appetite.

Me: Of course, thank you very much for your participation, and enjoy your erm.. lotus root soup.

Uncle: Thank You.

Multiple Intelligence Test Results.....Drum roll please

TA-DA! Above are the results of the multiple intelligence test I took as part of the English e-learning exercise.

As you guys can probably see the results are rather vauge. Of course the Intrapersonal score dominates, but after that there appears to be some sort of a three-way tie between the Interpersonal, Linguistic and Kinaesthetic scores. So in the next few paragraphs I'm gonna TRY to explain what the heck happened that caused the test results to be as such.

So just to let you guys know I've actually previously taken a couple of multiple intelligence tests on my own, but for the purpose of standardization for the assignment I took it again. In the previous tests the linguistic and intrapersonal scores have always been dominant, interpersonal always around 2nd or 3rd.. but Kinaesthetic? This really came as a surprise to me as I kind of suck at any sport that requires the coordination of two or more limbs at any one time. Except swimming and cycling and other elementary sports like jogging.

Anyway I think multiple intelligence tests aren't very accurate, as this is actually the 2nd time I'm taking the test, and the results differed by quite a margin, with my logical score being relatively higher than this one. So that's about it and I'm going to do the linguistic and intrapersonal questions. Stay tuned.

You wanted something new.... AND HERE IT IS!

Greetings to all you loyal readers of my blog . This post is going to be rather different from the usual ones, for this post would not be a rant, but rather about the updates of my blog as of 28 February 2010.

1. Blog Skin (duh)

So as all of you should have realised by now, I have decided to change my blogskin to something more eye-catching and special as compared to my boring default blogger blogskin last year. So what I looked out for was something special, practical, and of course decent colour coordination. What do I mean by practical? Well the blog skin must be able to fit my widgets and posts, and the font must be easy to be read and all that. However no blogskin is perfect, and mine is no exception. I would prefer the font size to be bigger, but any bigger the font would look weird with the blogskin. When editing the layout the settings are not as flexible as the default blogger blogskins, so I'm still on the lookout for better blogskins. Any recommendations?

2.Sidebar

I have also cleared many of the useless widgets that flooded my sidebar last year, and only kept the most essential ones, like a short about myself paragraph and web counter. With the "animal widget" craze going on in many of our class's blogs, I have also decided to try one, which is the virtual hamster widget I suppose you would have noticed by now.

3.Content

So last year's content was really random, sometimes it was about current affairs, sometimes random interesting facts or sometimes bits of my life I wanted to share. This year I'm trying to keep it more inclined towards rants about my life thus the new blog title.

So that's all the major changes on my blog as of now... so if you want to see MORE and BETTER changes then keep supporting my blog... 20 followers and some HUGE CHANGES will come out. Also if you click the "follow this blog" button a penguin will slide across your screen. Seriously.

Signing Off,

Kevan

CNY taken over by PSPs?

What's the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the words" Chinese New Year". Red packets? Lots of junk food? Or is it a time to gather with your loved ones? For me, whenever I think of this festive season, a scene of my family happily having the yearly reunion dinner will flow into my mind. Anyway, I know this is kind of late, but HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR EVERYBODY! It's the 7th day of the chinese new year, the birthday of all of mankind, so happy birthday to all the humans reading this.

So anyway I'm going to be ranting about my chinese new year. When I was a little kid, maybe around 5 years old, I seem to remember reunion dinner as a hearty affair, where the men would joke with each other over some alcohol, the ladies would giggle over gossip and daily affairs, the children would chase each other round the restaurant and even the maids would have light conversation with one another. To be put short it was an occasion to look forward to , an occasion for family members to catch up with another.

Sadly, I can't really say the same thing for now.

Now that many of my cousins are around the same age as me, and with the advancement of technology it was not entirely shocking to see almost everyone sitting around the dining table silently, not eating but playing handphone games, PSP games etc. (you get what i mean). Even my 4 year old cousin was using her pudgy fingers to try to level up in tetris. Of course being the eldest of all the cousins I just awkwardly munched on peanuts. 15 minutes later, unable to stand the awkward silence, I pushed my siblings towards a bunch of my cousins sitting together, tried to introduce them to each other (which was ironic considering the fact that they had know each other for at least 7 years or so) , and made a quick trip to the toilet(too many peanuts).So after roughly 10 minutes, I returned, expecting to see some form of socilaizing between the cousins, but all I saw was the whole bunch of them peering into a DS some idiot from another table. So much for that.

Chinese New Year- what does it really mean in this day and age. Does it mean anything more than eating free goodies and getting cash from red packets? Does it mean anything more than having an additional companion to play the X-Box 360? Does human contact really have to be compromised with the advancement of technology. Let me know your thoughts in the comments section.

By the way guys I really need more comments so that I can have greater interactive with my readers, and also so that I can improve on my future posts, so PLEASE COMMENT ON THE POSTS. I'm so desperate I'm gonna try reverse psychology, so please also DO NOT COMMENT ON THE POSTS. Hope it works!

Signing off,

Kevan

Singaporeans- no self initative?

Hi, its Kevan again and in this post I will be ranting about a particular incident that happened last year, that is etched so deep , SO DEEP , in my heart that I feel morally obliged to share this in my blog, because that's what bloggers do.. Oh Yeah.

So, you look at the title of this post, and think: "No wat, I do my classroom cleanliness duty without anyone prompting me, and I also do a heck a lot of self initiated ACE projects.?" No, this is not the type of self initiative I am talking is being dragged out from your comfort zone, thrown into a real-life situation, then doing the right thing without anyone pushing you. That is the type of situation I experienced last year.

It was 7+ at night, and I was on my weekly trip home from Japanese class in Ghim Moh. Squashed against a pole dead centre of the MRT carriage, I'm exhausted, hungry, and definitely annoyed by the fact that no one in the carriage has a heart to let this poor, Secondary 1 student, with a tortoise shell of a bag just have even 1/10 of a MRT seat. Yeah right, as if reading The New Paper upside down is all that interesting. So I'm just standing there, holding up my eyelids to stay awake, when a woman in front of me faints and collapses to the ground.

Yeah I know what you're thinking : " Gee what a great way to shock yourself awake", but its really a lot less comical then you probably think. She was a middle-aged, Indian woman, who had looked perfectly fine, other than looking rather pale, just before that, when suddenly her eyes rolled towards the back of her head, her legs buckled below her and she crumbled towards the ground. You would have thought that since the carriage was so packed someone who try to support her or something, but rather ironically the passengers around her kind of cleared a space for her to faint and her head to land on the ground with a dull and rather loud thud. I WOULD have at least tried to hold her up, if it wasn't for the fact that I was shell-shocked and being pushed back by the other people trying to get out of the way.

So you guys can probably guess what most people around her started doing. THAT'S RIGHT, they started crowding around the fainted woman, staring at her like the newest attraction at the zoo, with the occasional "tsk tsk" and "aiyoh" being heard. Here's the catch: NO ONE WENT TO GET HELP. Yup, no one bothered to use the emergency call button thingy to get help. No one even tried clearing space around the fainted woman to let her have some air. So after getting over my initial state of shock I , being the heroic and civic-minded gentlemen I was (and still am), dumped my heavy bag to the ground (no regrets there) and rushed over to the emergency call button thingy to call for help. So after a brief conversation with the female SMRT staff about what had happened and the carriage number and all the other details.

To my extreme relief, the Indian woman had already regained consciousness when I turned back to look at her. Except for her face looking rather pale and her rubbing the back of her head in pain (because she landed on it)she seemed perfectly fine. At the next station a SMRT staff in green promptly arrived to help her out of the train. At this juncture I would also like to commend SMRT'S efficiency in resolving the situation.

However, what I would NOT like to commend would be the lack of self initiative that was displayed on that day. What IF , the Indian woman's condition had been one which was potentially life threatening and required immediate medical attention. The consequences would have been unthinkable if everyone in the carriage was as unresponsive and irresponsible. It is also with greatest regret that I have to say that it is undeniable that such traits can be seen in 2o1 as well. The CNY decorations was just one of the many incidents where this has been seen. Though I myself have at times been irresponsible and just not bothered to help out, I really hope that there is just a little bit more self initiative coming from each and everyone of us. If each of us just puts our personal interest's aside once in a while, I'm sure that this world will certainly be a better place.

Signing off,

Kevan

Goodbye MSN!

SO lets face it, MSN's not gonna be all that popular 10 years down the road. So before the communication platform that dramatically increased my typing speed goes the way of friendster, I shall use this post to rant about the types of MSN users I'm sure we all have experienced before.

1.The Spammer

There's one in everyone of us. The dude that just keep's spamming your whole window with emoticons or "lol" and other stuff that don't make sense. Sound familiar?

2. The Slooooooowpoke

You are about to type a reply when you see the message :" xxx is typing". Out of pure courtesy you decide to wait for him/her to finish typing. 5 minutes go past and the other party types 3 words. And it certainly has nothing to do with slow typing.

3. Just Plain Random

You decided to use MSN to decide on details for the next gathering with a couple of friends. You ask: "So, where are we going for lunch" "Yayyyyyy club penguin rocks" At this juncture you ponder as to whether or not to refer your friend to the nearest mental institution, but nothing can cure randomness.

I'm BACK!!!!

Hi guys! It's been soooooo long since I last posted (approximately 6 months , 1 week, 3 days, 9 hours and 29 minutes, but who's counting?). So as to commemorate my return to the blogging world after such a long break this post is going be extra short.

Just Kidding.

So anyway, since this is the first post of the year 2010 ( do you pronounce it as twenty-ten, or two thousand and ten?), I will be blogging about the stuff that changed and the stuff that simply refuse to change.

Lets see.... I'm now in my second year in hwa chong, so there are finally, FINALLY some juniors to bully! yesssssss. Also, our class gotto use a much bigger and better classroom than last year's, it is much nearer to the canteen and the auditorium and other classrooms we have to visit.

There is also a very significant change in our studying methods this year. 2o1 is now a FUTURE CLASS, which means 20% of our lessons will require the use of a laptop. That also means more assignments will be posted on the internet and thus there will be more independant learning involved. Personally I find the new system more suitable for myself because I am a visual learner and thus videos and other interactive sources online really help me absorb information much more effectively.

Now for changes in my personal life. I've finally convinced my parents to let me get a new phone, because my old w910i was super glitchy and kept turning itself off. I know what you're thinking: wah! a phone that turns off without the user pressing the off switch! cool! Wrong. The phone switches itself off ALL THE TIME. Now that sucks doesn't it? I've also painstakingly started a regular exercise routine since a couple of weeks ago (unbelievable but true) So now I try to jog 4 times a week, sometimes after school. I'll probably try to post on my progress in the later posts.

There are still sooooo many changes I have experienced in this new year and it will melt your eyes if you try to read them all in one blog so I will reveal some of them in my other posts so keep checking back! What changes have YOU experienced? Tell me in the comments sections. Kevan signing off