Soon?

To the 28th! Freedom shall reign temporary, but temporary is better than the ordinary. That's where the fun shall begin, and '09 will be where the fun continues; and also where my grades make that darn cut.

A mere 11 days away! Till then, adieu. I shall hide in my turtle shell!

日本語、むずかし。

ぼくわジョです、年十七。

Whew. Learning Japanese isn't so easy. I can see why so many people quit after a while, it simply is too arduous to learn all the necessary kanji and words for proficiency in the language. The Japan Association estimates that it would take 900 hours of proper study for someone to be able to pass the JLPT level 1 test (which apparently is the highest proficiency and enough for living your whole lifetime in Japan), I am not even 1% there.

Promos first though... After that I can go and learn Swahili for all I care, I'd have about half a year to slack off a bit after promos.

Meanwhile... さよなら、きおつけて。

o.O 200 posts..

Woah, my post count has reached 200! That's probably enough material to start a mini-book. Like, Memoirs of Jo or something. I should find time to back all my posts up, really. If Blogger were to crash one day and all my posts were erased, (touchwood, flowers, bamboos, whatever) I would probably be utterly devastated. Many days of typing ending up in literally nothing! Hmm. Let me check my timetable, see when I can back 'em up...

Yeah, the Promo/Prelim/O-level/A-level fever is here and it looks like it's going to hang around for quite a while. I, for one, am not going to let the Promos take away whatever little life I have. Studying all day and all night is a total no-no for me. I have learnt a most valuable lesson from the impending promos, which is the fact that I have to enjoy myself in the process of securing myself a J2 status. I don't have to love studying, and I don't have to forgo my entertainment. I learn to balance the both of them.

Effective Study + Fun = Promotion + Happiness

Please pardon me if you have found the true secret before I have, or if you have done it without even having to put in any effort, and kindly please do not see me as a lagger (although many times I have been associated with the word "blur" and an animal living in a shell). We all have different learning curves, somehow mine's one with a really gentle gradient. I take time, but praise the Lord, I do learn eventually.

On average, I have finished revision for half of the total number of chapters in my J1 syllabus. How's that for a September holidays? Oh, and I managed to play quite a bit as well. Played computer for a while (I admit), watched Rata2e, rewrote my high score for bowling, and I'll be going for softball with the Towers tomorrow.

Japanese bento rocks, totally.

Mugger Hotel is really some 5-star lodging.

Holiday!! o.O

Jo was jumping around like a dumb kangaroo. Oh my wootsiness, the holidays are here! Every single step felt light as a feather, every breath inflated a balloon of elation within him. Like a goldfish muttering soundlessly in its bowl, his lips mouthed soundless words, for he was far too excited by the prospect of the holidays. Let's say, as excited as a child would be before his first trip to the zoo.

"One week of freedom! One week of fun! One week of enjoyment! One week of happiness! Woohoo!"

Having approximately the metabolism of a pig, really, Jo's jumping around creates enough pressure on the floor, causing it to give way beneath him. He falls as a rock would, and crashes heavily on an entirely adamantine surface. He is lucky to have no broken bones whatsoever. The impact left him slightly diconcerted, but he could make out a tall building standing before him. Two brightly tinted words struck him from a signboard nearby.

It read: MUGGER HOTEL.

Oh shit.

20+ days

Yeah. That's about all the time we have before the final battle (for the academic year of 2007, that is) and do our utmost best to save our own posteriors from the oh-so-hard kicks aimed at them.

Strictly speaking, we have about 5 days per subject? Something like that. Many a desperate student have started to cram their seemingly non-porous skulls with overdue information, while others resign themselves to the workings of Fate himself.

I, personally, find myself caught up in between these two extremes.

Some days I feel like I should devour my notes, while on other days I just feel like sitting down and not doing anything at all.

Some common mantras among students at this time of the year would be:

"Die lah."
"I'm screwed."
"Omgomgomg 20 plus days left only leh!"
"Retain liao lah."
"Walau careless mistake again, dumb lah."

Alright, I admit that the last one is a personal mantra I have taken to chanting during desperate math revision sessions. I personally find it really worrying, the fact that sometimes I seem not to be able to tell a positive sign from a negative sign at all.

With all that's been said (and not done), I have one message, and pardon the pun.

Go figure. (math is a very important subject)

When the past catches up with you..

Okay. So global warming may or may not be a natural phenomenon, because the always-shallow me has conveniently left out the possibility of the unprecedentedly high CO2 levels in the atmosphere. Combined with the loss of the Seattle Mariners against the Texas Rangers yesterday, (and a possible one today, Mariners are trailing 1-3 in the seventh inning) my mood really really has to plunge into the immeasurable depths of negativity.

Again, I wonder why I am still feeling relatively okay. Alright. My life does not just revolve around environmental problems and the M's.

Before I say anything else, though, I would like to quote that the large hole in the ozone layer has patched up, all in the span of a mere decade or so. Now who said the environment is beyond rescue?

People say my posts are long and dry and everything unhappy. I am not so sure about this. Many posts were written in much happiness and many smiles (although admittedly some posts were written with much frustration), and even though most of these are just the supposedly "intellectually-stimulating" writings which I have little or no capacity for, I take pride in what I write.

Jo <3 his writings. Jo <3 his writings. They give him an escape into the past, and they often show him the way to go. They show him what his growing up process is like.

If you are interested enough to find out more about me (which is an undertaking I seriously doubt anyone will be interested in, but just for the sake of justifying myself), surf through my older posts. See how the kid grows up. See how little Jo saw life, and see how he sees life now. See how he changes (for the worse or for the better, I do not know, but he did change). By reading, seeing, watching little Jo grow up, you can almost see the path which lay ahead of him.

Almost.

He fights and he wavers. He loves life one moment and hates it the next. He thinks too deeply, then he thinks too shallowly. He snags knowledge, and then he misses out on it. He is elated, and then he is down in the dumps. One day he is ignorant, and the next day he is a Captain Planet.

That is just how things are with me.

Writing about myself in third person is quite fun.

So where is Life taking me to now? Where is Life taking everybody?

I miss my relatives back in Indonesia. My grandmother came here on transit the other day, and when I saw her I suddenly realised just how much I loved and missed her. I have lost much time with her and my grandfather, and I feel really guilty for not having done my fullest part as a grandson.

When I met her, I saw how frail she had become; how time was wearing her out slowly but surely. I very nearly wept at the very sight of her. I was sorry. I was so sorry for something I had no say in, I was sorry for the inevitable. I was sorry that I was not there all these years, when I should have been if not for the riots. I was sorry for having left them for so long, for letting them attribute their love of me only to memories, and for not letting them see me when they miss me.

Somehow I know they are with me, thinking about me and missing me, and I hope the same applies to them.

I just hope everything will go fine...

true or false?

I read this article that global warming is just a theory.

The world goes on a hot-cold cycle ranging through millions of years, and we're just unfortunate enough to live in a time of the transition. True or false?

This hypothesis is just about as reliable as the Big Bang theory. Better be safe than sorry though.

SO KEEP REDUCING, REUSING, RECYCLING AND DOING THINGS TO SAVE THE EARTH.