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.

Monday Morning Slugfest

Seattle mowed the White Sox flat while the math test murdered me.

I was playing well into the game with 2 shutout questions when the differentiation question blasted a grand slam into the far right of the stadium. Then the slugfest began. I think I conceded more than 20 marks out of a possible 30. What a nightmare. At least its over though, but there still is a long day to go...

Been trying to stay relatively cheerful all these times, and thankfully I had no single opportunity to force it the least bit. I had multitudes of reasons to be all cheerful and I snagged each one of them with insatiable hunger for elation, which made a pretty good weekend even though I spent the large part of it solving math problems and going for tuition.

Somewhere just marginally shy of 40 days before the promos, I am already feeling a tad worried for my promotional status. Small daily class tests (and of course lecture tests) have so kindly composed a score that reveals almost holistically my throngs of academic inadequacies, and I am afraid that the score I am composing for myself has an identical tune. Wisdom and prudence calls for a personal review of these scores to pick out the flaws, and to transform them failures into shards of stark brilliance.

I have to do it all in less than 40 days.

So many things can be done within the span of 40 days, maybe even tasks of brobdingnagian proportions, but why am I not confident of devouring the entire J1 syllabus within these 40 days? I wonder.

Time permits that I ace my promos. So why am I not embracing the gift that has been so generously bestowed upon me?

I have to reorganise... Time is accomodating my pleas for help, and it is only I that obstruct the progress towards success...

CAPTAIN PLANET.

HEY ALL YOU PEOPLE OUT THERE!

GLOBAL WARMING IS GOING TO KILL US REAL SOON IF YOU HAVEN'T NOTICED!

• The rate of warming is increasing. The 20th century's last two decades were the hottest in 400 years and possibly the warmest for several millennia, according to a number of climate studies. And the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports that 11 of the past 12 years are among the dozen warmest since 1850.

• Arctic ice is rapidly disappearing, and the region may have its first completely ice-free summer by year 2040 or earlier. Polar bears and indigenious cultures already suffering from the sea-ice loss.

We don't need to wait for governments to solve this problem: each one of us can bring an important help adopting a more responsible lifestyle: starting from little, everyday things. It's the only reasonable way to save our planet, before it is too late.

Here are some green tips to help save our Earth!

Do not leave appliances on standby
Use the "on/off" function on the machine itself. A TV set that's switched on for 3 hours a day (the average time Europeans spend watching TV) and in standby mode during the remaining 21 hours uses about 40% of its energy in standby mode.

Move your fridge and freezer
Placing them next to the cooker or boiler consumes much more energy than if they were standing on their own. For example, if you put them in a hot cellar room where the room temperature is 30-35ºC, energy use is almost double and causes an extra 160kg of CO2 emissions for fridges per year and 320kg for freezers.

Use the washing machine only when it is full
If you need to use it when it is half full, then use the half-load or economy setting. There is also no need to set the temperatures high. Nowadays detergents are so efficient that they get your clothes clean at low temperatures.

Take a shower instead of a bath
A shower takes up to four times less energy than a bath. To maximise the energy saving, avoid power showers and use low-flow showerheads, which are cheap and provide the same comfort.

Use less hot water
It takes a lot of energy to heat water. You can use less hot water by installing a low flow showerhead (350 pounds of carbon dioxide saved per year) and washing your clothes in cold or warm water (500 pounds saved per year) instead of hot.

Be sure you’re recycling at home
You can save 2,400 pounds of carbon dioxide a year by recycling half of the waste your household generates.

Choose products that come with little packaging and buy refills when you can
You will also cut down on waste production and energy use! As well, buy recycled paper products: it takes less 70 to 90% less energy to make recycled paper and it prevents the loss of forests worldwide.

Reduce waste
Most products we buy cause greenhouse gas emissions in one or another way, e.g. during production and distribution. By taking your lunch in a reusable lunch box instead of a disposable one, you save the energy needed to produce new lunch boxes.

Buy fresh foods instead of frozen and eat less meat
Frozen food uses 10 times more energy to produce than fresh foods. By the way, did you know that the energy used to produce 1kg of meat is enough to let you drive a car for 3 hours? Methane is the second most significant greenhouse gas and cows are one of the greatest methane emitters. Their grassy diet and multiple stomachs cause them to produce methane, which they exhale with every breath.

BE A CAPTAIN PLANET TODAY! :)

SAVE THE EARTH!!!

http://www.avaaz.org/blog/en/w/ben/2007/08/bushs_awful_climate_plan.php

Oh. My. Gosh.

If I can get proof that everything written inside is true, I am so going to skip my lunches everyday to donate.

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I have to say that the ability to write is one of the nicest gifts God has given me (other than some of Mum's home-cooked coolness of course). I can pour out anything that's going on in my mind without any restrictions. Unlike blogging, it allows me to really express certain feelings I cannot share with the world, and it really is a huge blessing. Of course I can always pray about it, but somehow it just feels really different when I'm putting it down black on white.

I just reread some of my previous diary entries from months and years ago, and blimey, it felt like retracing the path I walked and walking through it one more time. I "watched" myself grow up again, since the first time I wrote into the diary. I was really childish then :) I guess I'll look back a few years later and find myself a really stupid guy now. Whatever! It feels great!

Post again soon...

Sick!

Gosh don't sicknesses take loads out of you. Whatever you say, it took lots out of me.

Praying...