Blogdrive is eating my posts. By the time this comes up, it'll be considered LATE. And LiveJournal isn't even loading.

Anyway, this would probably BE THE LAST POST OF 2008. HAHAHA.

As promised, it's time for New Year's Resolutions!

- Lose weight. Just a couple of kilo's. Then maintain it. Because I've put on a little through this month of holidays, so I need to lose it. Hahaha. S'L talking about weight. Something new, eh?
- Redistribute the fats. They're all going down to the thighs and bum. It's genetic. LOL.
- Get >95.0 TER for SAM. Anything that will get me into Columbia/Melbourne/Queensland/Wisconsin-Madison (If I want to do Biomed)/Princeton (Because they accept SAM)
- Write more, and write BETTER fanfic. I've never been so involved in a fandom. It helps with writing practice.
- Rock at Bio and Chem. Oh, and Econs.
- Make sure I practice Maths every. single. day.
- Draw more. Try realism. Get a tablet.
- Get my driver's license.
- Do ALL my coursework/homework/whatever.
- Find time/arrange to play squash with buddies/alone weekly.
- Exercise.
- Write awesome application essays that will get me into the American uni I want.
- Save money

Happy New Year, everyone. I love 2008, but as my cousin told me on Facebook; we have to move on!

My new companion for when I am bored.




Yes, I just HAD to, didn't I? Anyway - its screen, as tiny as it is, IS A WHOLE LOT CLEARER THAN MY COMPUTER'S SCREEN. SERIOUSLY. The pictures are so... CLEAR. I mean, not when I take a picture of a picture from my iPod, but when you LOOK at it...

Forget it. You'll know what I mean when you see a picture in an iPod Nano. LOL.

ALSO, I saw that jacket. The one that the gymnasts are wearing in the picture on my iPod. I saw it in Studio R, in Pyramid. But it's not blue and white, it's white and green. BUT STILL. But it costs RM199. And it doesn't have a hood. I need a hoodie. I've asked my sis to get me one when there's a sale in Perth. Yay!

So I decided to write my Year In Review! Of whatever I remember happening, that is. LOL.

2008 has been a year of ups and downs. Olympics year (Oh, gosh, I inappropriately love Olympic and Commonwealth Games years. BOTH Winter AND Summer for Olympics. I blame Athens and Torino and Melbourne. In good ways), my LAST year in high/secondary school, Justine coming into 2008 with 10 freaking titles under her belt, Justine retiring halfway through 2008, my maid going back to the Phillipines for good (She hasn't called back yet. I have her number. Maybe I should call her to wish her a happy new year...), the whole politics crap in school, Obama winning Presidency, I finally get to watch Commander in Chief, I fall in love with Damages.

In other things, my years as a Prefect was coming to an end. I thought that perhaps, after 5 years of hard work and enduring crap, I'd at least tear, or something, during Installation. But I didn't. I still don't know why. Hahaha.

January
- I realized how many friends' birthdays are in January. In a stretch of the 2 weeks. It's like, 9, 10, 11... 19, 20, 21, 22, 22, 23, 24 (I repeated 22 because I know TWO people whose birthdays are on the 22nd)
- The beginning of 2008 : New goals for prefects, new system, change!
- I fell sick, like, in the 2nd week of school. It was my first bout of tonsillitis, EVER. AND I ACTUALLY SELF-DIAGNOSED. HAHAHAHA. (NO. I am not planning to do Medicine. Unless I am offered so when I end up doing Biomed)
- I have already heard about Barack Obama, and have been watching videos of Kal Penn and Olivia Wilde battle through Iowan winters to campaign for him. Oh, and reading about Hill Harper campaign for Obama, too. (Hill Harper's from Iowa. And he studied in Brown. LOL. That's 2 gymnasts there. Shawn Johnson and Alicia Sacramone. Hahaha) (I couldn't resist bringing them in this early)
- US Elections grab my attention. Interesting stuff.
- Add Maths does not get any better.
- Pn Maimah ditched our class. We get Pn Sakinah.
- We get Pn Leong for Sejarah
- We get our 4th Chemistry and class teacher. She takes 3 weeks to arrive from Sarawak (Or was it Sabah?)
- We get Asmahan as Prefect teacher-advisor and as my Biology teacher.
- I think Asmahan is insane.
- John McCain may not have enough money, and may pull out of the race.
- Marching practice starts. The juniors suck.
- We got Min Shen an acoustic. <3

February
- I DON'T think Asmahan is insane. I actually like her. HAHAHA. That's when I think I am insane. But then again, I always was. XD
- SUUUPER TUESDAY HAPPENED. DURING CHINESE NEW YEAR. MY GOSH WAS IT FUN SITTING IN FRONT OF THE TV WATCHING OBAMA WINWINWIN BIG STATES WHILE HILLARY WINWINWINS AS WELL.
- JOHN MCCAIN GRABS THE REPUBLICAN NOMINATION, AND NOW HAS LOTS OF CAMPAIGN CASH
- I found out my cousin was supporting Obama as well.
- We had fun sitting in front of the TV watching CNN while having dinner with the family. Grandmother was wondering WHAT ON EARTH WERE WE DOING.
- I grab my biggest Blackjack pot yet. S$21. HAHAHA. HEY. THAT'S A LOT, OKAY? I STARTED OFF THE NIGHT WITH S$2. I am a compulsive Chinese New Year gambler. Kidding.
- Prefects <3 The juniors still suck, though. Although I get to know the Tuesday group better. :)
- The major part of planning for Camp! We'd started planning since December '07, but it was time to finalize everything.
- Add Maths still sucks.

March
- First rounds of tests. I fail my New Year's resolution of NOT FAILING ADD MATHS. But I aced Sejarah. Thank goodness. I still do not know how I FAILED Sejarah in my Form 4 finals.
- Out of Asmahan's 4 classes, only 5 people pass. 3 of whom are from my class. HAHAHA. Super funny.
- More marching practices. Juniors are getting better.
- Juniors' duties still suck, though.
- Camp was postponed due to ELECTIONS.
- I could tell you how the US Elections were going, but there was no way you could talk to me about our own. What I know is that our country's politics are stupid. Really stupid. Cue Parliament members debating about leaking roofs, acting like monkeys, insulting each other, and generally, acting like 5 year olds fighting over candy.
- Camp rocked hard. But I left on Saturday morning for SINGAPORE!
- Me being more dead than my cousin was a first. And it was amusing.
- (Was it March?) Amber dies. Remy's dying. Mac gets kidnapped again.

April
- Sports Day. I actually ran in the 4x400m for Lekiu. I actually overtook Lekir, LOL. But the other 3 Lekiu runners didn't make it. Hahaha.
- Marching was a disappointment. We could've won the effing thing.
- Nominations BEGIN! Juniors suck. Hard.
- Add Maths still sucks, but I'm working on it.

May
- Asmahan retires
- Justine. OH MY LORD. 19 MAY 2008. JUSTINE RETIRES. I thought I'd cry or something. I didn't. Or rather, I don't remember crying. Thank goodness. That means I'm not THAT emotionally attached. But then again, it just means I'm emotionally DEtached from the world. Oh, man.
- The French Open goes by without Justine. And I actually barely watch it. I barely watched the final. The time spent watching it was actually looking at that red patch in the stands, on top of my TV screen.
- Midterms. I WIN. HAHAHA.
- I turn 17. Gosh. My friends, the best people you will ever find, got me a handphone. G'oh. I love you guys.

June
- Nothing really interesting. Or rather, nothing that I remember that's interesting

July
- Blah, blah, blah. This was just to fill in empty spaces.
- OH, I retire.

August
- My sister turns mothereffing TWENTY-ONE. Not that we really celebrated. LOL. UNLIKE SOME GYMNASTS WHO GO TO VEGAS. HAHAHA.
- HOMG OLYMPICS.
- THE OPENING CEREMONY. WAS EPIC.
- Installation was wedged in the middle. LOL.
- BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELGIUM! ILJO KEISSE! TIA HELLEBAUT! KIM GEVAERT! AAAAAAAAAGH! LEE CHONG WEI GETTING HIS ASS KICKED IN THE FINALS! OUR DOUBLES PAIR TANNING FAILING! ME WATCHING ARCHERY! A LOT OF RANDOM STUFF. HOMGEQUESTRIAN. ERIC LAMAZE WAS L'AMAZING. JOS LANSINK HAD PRETTY CUMANO (I was watching Eurosports the other day; they were showing a London showjumping comp. Lansink was riding a mare, Silvana. Same colour as Cumano. Good gosh, those horses are pretty). THE US SPRINTERS FAILING AT 4x100m. I LOL'ED SO HARD. (I was still in the 'I LOL at US athletes who fail' bit. I'm just mean to them in general)
- I SAW SHAWN JOHNSON TAPE HER FOOT. THE MOST COMPELLING TELEVISION EVER. ARTISTIC GYMNASTICS DID NOT INTEREST ME THEN. I TURNED THE TV OFF.
- I SAW THE VAULT FINALS. BUT I DID NOT SEE ALICIA SACRAMONE. I DID, HOWEVER, SEE A 33 YEAR OLD WOMAN WIN SILVER ON VAULT. GOOD GOD, I DID NOT KNOW HOW EPIC OKSANA CHUSOVITINA WAS UNTIL THEN. I DID NOT KNOW WHO CHENG FEI WAS EITHER. IN FACT, I TOTALLY MISSED ASAC AND CHENG FEI'S VAULTS. I TURNED OFF THE TV AFTER THAT, BECAUSE MY MUM WAS NOT INTERESTED IN WATCHING WITH ME. (I usually watch Gymnastics with Mum. But she wasn't watching, so I didn't watch either. LOL) THAT WAS ALL THE GYMNASTICS I WATCHED FOR BEIJING. SERIOUSLY. Now that I check the schedule, it was because WE WERE IN SCHOOL when gymnastics was happening. SHEESH.
- I MANAGE TO CATCH YELENA ISINBAYEVA MAKE HER EPIC WORLD-RECORD POLE VAULT. THAT'S, LIKE, WHAT? HER 22ND RECORD? THAT IS ONE EPIC RUSSIAN.
- TENNIS IS BORING. I HAVE NOT SEEN KUZNETSOVA FAIL SO HARD BEFORE. I VAGUELY ROOT FOR DINARA SAFINA FOR GOLD. I MOURN JUSTINE'S RETIREMENT.
- JUSTINE IS UP FOR THE ATHLETES' REP POST IN THE IOC. SHE COULDN'T BE BOTHERED WITH THE POLITICS. OH, WELL.
- MY PARENTS GO ON A HOLIDAY TO NEW YORK CITY. WITHOUT ME. THEY COME BACK WITH LOTS OF PICTURES, A BOOK WHICH I ASKED FOR, AND LOTS OF STORIES FOR ME TO BE INCREDIBLY ENVIOUS OF THEM. HAHAHAA. THEY DID NOT, HOWEVER, COME BACK WITH THE I <3 NY SHIRT I WAS ASKING FOR. MUM SAID IT LOOKED TOO PASAR-MALAM-ISH. SHE ASKED HER FRIEND TO GET ME A UN SHIRT INSTEAD. I CANNOT WAIT FOR IT TO COME DURING CNY.

After the Olympics:
- I DISCOVER GYMNASTICS. ACTUALLY, SHAWN JOHNSON. ON TELEVISION WITHOUT PITY, OF ALL PLACES.
- I START BY DOWNLOADING THE BEAM FINALS, BECAUSE I READ SHAWN WON THERE. I DID NOT KNOW OF HER AMAZING DEBUT SENIOR YEAR AND THINGS LIKE THAT UNTIL, WHAT, SEPTEMBER?
- YIH SHAN IS CRAZY-OBSESSED OVER SHAWN. I FELT THAT IT WAS WEIRD, BECAUSE SHAWN'S YOUNGER THAN ME. IT'S LIKE BEING OBSESSED OVER... JOANNA, OR SOMETHING. HAHAHA.
- I DISCOVER THE AWESOME THAT IS ALICIA SACRAMONE. NASTIA TOOK A VERY, VERY, VERY LONG TIME TO GROW ON ME. IN FACT, I'M STILL NOT A TOTAL NASTIA FAN.
- THE US OPEN WAS MAJOR FAIL. IN FACT, THE ENTIRE WTA TOUR IS MAJOR FAIL. SERIOUSLY. HOW COME NO ONE CAN BEAT THE WILLIAMS SISTER ANYMORE? FAIL, PEOPLE. FAIL. DINARA - I AM BANKING ON YOU TO BEAT THEM IN 2009. FAKE RUSSIANS CANNOT CUT IT WHEN THEY'RE TOO BUSY GOING TO FASHION WEEK IN NEW YORK WITH GYMNASTS 11 INCHES SHORTER.
- ANA IVANOVIC IS MERELY A PRETTY FACE
- DAMN YOU, JELENA JANKOVIC. WIN A GRAND SLAM ALREADY. STOP CHOKING. THE NEXT THING I KNOW, JUSTINE WATCHES ONE OF YOUR MATCHES AND YOU LOSE BECAUSE SHE'S THERE IN THE STANDS. YOU'RE WORKING WITH PAT ETCHBERRY NOW. DO SOMETHING!
- Our last Squash sessions. :(

Not sports related:
- US ELECTIONS HEAAAAAAAAATING UP! OUR COUNTRY'S BUDGET REVIEW IS NOTHING NEXT TO THIS EPIC FIGHT.
- I get picked for NS. EW.

- AUGUST WAS MAJOR CAPSLOCK MONTH.

September
- TRIALS. I tan in a lot of subjects. :(
- My A's were all A1's, though. But THERE WAS NOT ENOUGH.
- I didn't fail anything. Thank goodness. I thought I'd fail Chem or something.
- Suhana failed at marking my Bio paper.
- STUDY TIME!
- 13 MAKES OUT WITH A GIRL. ON TV. I WONDER HOW MUCH OF THAT MALAYSIAN TV IS GOING TO CENSOR. MAYBE THEY WON'T EVEN SHOW THE EPISODE.
- My cousin gets married. His wife is such an awesome person.

October
- Another cousin gets married. Her husband? I do not know so well.
- A whole load of studying.

November
- SCHOOL ENDS.
- OBAMA WINS THE PRESIDENCY. I HAD SPENT THE MORNING WITH YIH SHAN ATTEMPTING TO STUDY, WHILE WATCHING CNN.
- ANOTHER cousin gets married. Her husband is very LULZ. At the end of the month, during my grandmother's birthday dinner, (the cousins sit at one table, IF we fit) I can't remember how, we were talking about random things like Politics, and then it was Malaysian politics. He was like, "Malaysia? Bah, no politics lah" LOL. My cousin was like, "DUDE. THE PERSON YOU'RE TALKING TO *Points at me* IS MALAYSIAN". "SERIOUSLY? HOMG. I'M SO SORRY". LOL. I reassured him that it was okay. Since I think I was the one who brought up the topic of our local politics, anyway. Hahaha.
- SPM
- Grandmother's birthday dinner! It was good to see my relatives again.

December
- MOAR GYMNASTICS!
- Outings with friends!
- Starting the process towards getting my driver's license!
- Is going to end! Oh no!

In the end:
- Justine's retired :(
- I didn't fail Add Maths ever again, after March.
- 11 years of government school ends. Wow.
- I'm obsessed with gymnastics.
- August was epic.
- 3 cousins get married. I get money for attending their weddings.

What's happening after this:
- Obligatory NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION post!

SO, I think it's time I stopped procrastinating and start blogging about my Christmas presents... Hahaha.

So, I got
- The Book of the Dead, by Patricia Cornwell
  From: Yenn Ling and Li Za (Well, more of YL got it, but LZ contributed. Hahaha)
- Crabtree & Evelyn handcream
  (I don't really use handcreams, but ah... I guess I'll use it?)

If you recall from several posts ago, I asked my parents for an iPod Nano. You need to realize the gravity of this. I generally am anti-Apple. I'm biased. Hahaha. I don't know why. I just like being stupid sometimes, I guess. LOL.

Anyway, I got it. Yay! When we were waiting at Epicentre (Pavillion. We went to that one because Mum works in Wisma Genting and so she eats lunch at Pavillion almost everyday and went to check the Nano out there), I checked out the Wacom tablets that they had in store. SIGH. I guess I'll blow off S$200 for it in Singapore. Meh. There goes 4 years of savings/not buying clothes eventhough demanded to by grandmother.

Min Shen spazzed when I told her the colour of my Nano (WHICH I HAVE YET TO NAME. HRM.)

Anyway, I'm going to Pyramid with my sister after this; I have an RM15 MPH voucher. I think I should get myself the Obama book(s) I've been wanting. I do not have enough books.

College starting in a week. I hope I don't go all British Council on the people there.

S'L 'going British Council' is a way of saying that she'll be the quiet one in class except when it comes to class participation/gets to know someone. Even when she gets to know someone, the friends don't get drilled on tennis/Justine or gymnastics/Alicia Sacramone, Chellsie Memmel, Shawn Johnson, etc. etc.

S'L now thinks that it happened because the people in her BC classes generally were older than her. Hahaha.

Oh, God, no.

Also, an A4-sized Wacom Intuos 3 tablet costs RM18xx (I can't really remember now). Woe. T_T

I need to adjust the CSS of this page. And my LJ. I want to put a header up. A Justine moodtheme is not nearly enough, LOL.

I will also add The Reasons As To Why I Currently Am Loving 'The Book of the Dead' by Patricia Cornwell after I'm done with some stuff.

I feel...

Depressed, happy, content, unaccomplished, bored, alone.

I do not know what I feel.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

While everyone's busy with presents and parties and all that jazz, never forget the actual reason for today - the birth of our Lord Jesus. Don't forget to give thanks and sing praise and burn brightly forevermore for the Lord, not just on Sundays when you're in church, or Fridays when you're in CF, or during church camps and whatnot!

Have fun, everyone!

My Christmas presents for this year:
- Another awesome year with my family and friends
- Getting SPM over and done with
- My L license, hahaha. My P License will be another... eventually. Then I'd want an IDP as well, but that's way far off
- The Olympics
- Gymnastics. LOL.

There was one that I didn't and will never get, though. Justine's Grand Slam/Wimbledon. OH WELL. My happiness does not depend on my favourite tennis player's material pursuits. Heeheehee.

Also, sorry for burning your retinas with those colours.

It is Christmas Eve!

I know I've been blogging a lot, but... *shrugs*

So, remember one of my previous posts about my Sharpies?


Aren't they pretty?


So colourful.

That is all.

So you know when I get into a sport, I seriously get into it? Well, uh, gymnastics is really interesting, because of the Code of Points and stuff. I am by no means an expert, however, as you need to remember that I only really got into this thing in September, LOL.

I'm sorry for boring my regular readers with this, but I haven't had anything serious to rant about in a while, so yeah.
---------------------------------------
Okay, so I was reading the new 2009 Code of Points for Women's Artistic Gymnastics...

To find out that they've reversed the new ruling of limiting root skills on bars? Like, what? It's already bad enough that bars tilts the All Around score, like, waaaaay to the advantage of a bars specialist. I thought the first revision of the CoP does a good job of at least trying to even out scores.

It was good that they've limited floor to 4 tumbling passes (Trust me, it's a pain for me as a viewer and for the gymnast as the person who executes the tumbling, to see a FX routine with seven tumbling passes), to even out the difficulty, but reversing the changes on bars? People like Nastia already basically has 1 1/2 routines of another gymnast, as there's no time limit on bars (Unlike FX and BB, where it's 1.5 mins), or number of skills/connections that would count (Unlike VT, which, well, you can only do 1 vault for AA anyway).

I mean, bars are already the highest scoring apparatus. Beth Tweddle has an A-score of 7.9 (Which basically means, if she hits a perfect routine, she can score to a maximum of 17.90. Which is freaking high), Nastia, He Kexin and Yang Yilin already have 7.7 A-scores (And I'm not too sure if Nastia's adding difficulty). Shawn's UB routine 'only' has a 6.4 A-score.

The highest A-score I've seen on the balance beam is Shawn Johnson's and Alicia Sacramone's 7.0

For Vault it's 6.5 (An Amanar is a 6.5, not too sure about the Cheng vault, as I'm not really checking the CoP right now, so I'm thinking it's a 6.3 or 6.5)

And for Floor, it's Shawn's and Cheng Fei's 6.6.

Now THAT is pretty confusing.

Anyway, I just like watching bars for He Kexin's release moves and Nastia's pirouettes, and I don't bother counting deductions and things like that when I watch gymnastics, so this rant was just... weird on its own, and I do not know what I have accomplished in this.

Except that... Damnit, there isn't going to be much (if any) changes with the bars.

OH, and that no one has come up with a sort of countback system* for vaults, to avoid getting people who fell on their vaults get onto the podium. (I still love Cheng Fei, okay? But really, I'd have given Sacramone, who stuck both her vaults, the bronze, rather than to Cheng Fei, who fell on her own Cheng. Poor bb)

*The countback system is used in pole vaulting/high jump, where the person who takes the least jumps to pass the highest gets the higher ranking, for example,

Name	1.99m	2.01m	2.03m
Blanka Vlasic	o	o	o
Tia Hellebaut	x o	x o	x o

At this point, Blanka is ranked first, as she took only 1 attempt to clear 2.03m.

Then...

Name	1.99m	2.01m	2.03m	2.05m
Blanka Vlasic	o	o	o	x o
Tia Hellebaut	x o	x o	x o	o

This is when Tia takes the first place, because she cleared 2.05 in less attempts than Blanka, despite the fact that she took more times to clear previous heights. They both go on to not clear 2.07m.

And then she won Belgium's first athletics gold in Beijing, but that's a different story.

Anyway, if they'd have something like that for Vaults, it'll be a lot more fair, yeah?