Kite Running.

The problem of flying a kite using up three entire rolls of string?

Getting it back.

Through the heavy rain, the grassy field, across two streets and two trees, we trailed after the runaway kite.

Lovin' the Style.

I've finished the entire four seasons of Samurai Jack - you know, that animated series about that samurai lost in time?

Let me break it down for you:

"Long ago in a distant land, Aku, the shape-shifting master of darkness, unleashed an unspeakable evil! But a foolish samurai warrior wielding a magic sword, stepped forth to oppose him. Before the final blow was struck, Aku tore open a portal in time and flung him in to the future, where his evil was law. Now, the samurai seeks to return to the past and undo the future that is Aku.

*cue the Samurai Jack theme*

This is a series that that is truly cinematic in scope and that incorporates action, humor and intricate artistry. "It is noted for its highly detailed, outline-free, masking-based animation, as well as for its cinematic style and pacing", as Wikipedia puts it. And I simply can't get enough of it.

Unfortunately, the series was never finished - with Season Four being the last one aired.

Though one can always hope; and hope I shall.


















_{Some slimy, toothy goat took your brain!}

Eclipse.

Happens on rare occasion - the shielding of the sun by the moon. Some go their whole lives without seeing it, some claim to have seen it and some use the internet; cheeky fiends.

Sometimes, they even watch Heroes or Avatar just to catch a glimpse of it - you didn't hear it from me.

Josh & I have officially joined the ranks of those who have stood under the shadow of the moon.

It's pretty slick.














_{It's a doozy!}

The Reunion.

We traveled across the globe when we were kids. We haven't seen each other in about three years.

Tonight, we met again; and caught up with all that we've missed.














_{And how my heart's about to burst into a thousand pieces - so it must be true.}

Chinese New Year '09

For Momoko's photos
Click: here

For Syazana's snapshots
Click: here













_{If you cut me open, you'll find a stash of fortune cookies - and one fortune.}

Crunch.

Ecstatic Beyond All Measure.

My dad has just returned from the UK; huzzah! Before he left, I asked him to go and look for a book for me.

It's a sketchbook by Alan Lee - the one that contains all his conceptual drawings used in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.

Now here's the catch: this book is almost sold-out the world over. It's almost impossible to find. Exceedingly rare, if you will.

I was hoping I would pose a chance of acquiring the book from London - I mean London's all about books, right?

My mum told me my dad went from huge bookstores such as Foyles to small, dusty antique libraries.

When he got back, sitting in his huge luggage bag, was the book lying among his shirts. He got me a shirt too, a long-sleeved blue striped one. I thought it was to be meant for business involving work, but he insisted I wear it to outings and parties and the such. Thanks, dad. (:

Well anyway. Apparently, this is the only copy in the whole of London - whole, mind you.

As soon as I flipped open the hard cover, I immediately fell in love with the book. Alan Lee's artwork has a certain beauty and lyricism about it. His art has definitely captured and evoked the feeling I think J.R.R Tolkien had hoped to capture with his books.

If you remember watching the credits of The Return of King, you can see some of his art. His drawings of each of the actors were displayed as their names flashed across the screen. Some of his conceptual ones were shown as well.

















_{It's for you.}

Shift.

The Fray is my new Theory of a Deadman.

It's the First Time.

I walked across the bridge to the library. A long line of kids were coming across as well. One bumped into my elbow and said:

"Eyer, your bum bum so smelly."
All I could think about then, was that why was he commenting on my arse when it was my elbow that hit him? Joshua was walking almost right next to me at the time so I turned and gave him a good sardonic stare - with a little grin nudged in between. 'Nuff said.

---

Thursday. The day Ellya has her ballroom dancing classes. It just so happens that I had no transport home - my dad's in the UK right now. Ergo, I had to follow my mum and sister there and wait for two freaking hours for her to finish.

Didn't turn out to be as boring and uneventful as I had initially thought. I mean, two hours, come on. You would've thought it too.

First, we (meaning my mum & I) followed Ellya to the studio to see her off. We walked to as far as the stairs leading up to the place.

After that my mum brought me to this old coffee outlet - though I was kind of hoping for some Starbucks at the moment. We both ordered a Milo Ice each and three plates of this kaya/butter/orange-thing/toasted bread thing. It wasn't too bad.

I knew we were going to be lazing around the place for quite some time, so I brought my Biology Textbook to accompany me. It wasn't much of a read but after awhile, it started to get interesting.

After an hour of reading and drinking and eating, we set off to burn the other hour at the studio.

So I went up and to my surprise, everyone already knew my name - I feel it must have been my mum or Ellya's doing. They took awhile to pronounce it right (benard being one of the examples), but I'd hardly blame 'em.

What follows after is me making a few new friends and being swept off onto the dance floor.

I learnt and danced a part of the waltz; albeit rather lousily - and I'll definitely be coming back for more.

---

I have never heard a mathematical term used as an insult --

-- until Jin Hern called Joey an x-axis and that he had no gradient. Have you met Joey? I'm making him reprise his role as Santa Claus this year. He wants me to be his "dwarf" - though I think I'm a little above the height requirement.

Guess he's not particularly interested in elves.



















_{I would stand in line for this. There's always room in life for this.}

Need I Say It Again?

SELADANG!

Say whuut?

We take it to the top!
















_{Theory of a Deadman. Have you listened to any of their songs? I'm simply hooked.}

Singular.

That one word took the entire Additional Mathematics class from Matrices into a whole new direction.

First, Mr. Kulpa asked us what came to mind when you hear the word "singular" - singular where the matrix has a zero determinant meaning that its inverse does not exist.

I won't share with you our foolish thoughts, but Mr. Kulpa said the word brought to his mind the term "singularity".

See, Mr. Kulpa is a man of both complex math and complex science - a truly impressive combination, if you ask me. Heck, when he writes words on the board his writing seems to be a mixture of mathematical symbols, upper-class letters and alphabets.

So anyway, for the rest of the period we discussed quantum mechanics, string theory, wormholes, black holes, the time-space continuum, the bending of light and the current standing of science in the world today.

He claims Astronomy to be the King of Science as it utilises all the known sciences, whereas Mathematics is the Queen.

As he spoke, he began to draw diagrams and theories all over the board from atomic structures to how light is trapped in a black hole. His knowledge on the subject was truly astounding.

I'll never look at Mr. Edward Kulpa in the same way again.*

_{*not a bad thing.}

Another Year Goes By --

-- and I have yet another pair of splintered Chinese Drumsticks. At least my current pair is still intact.




The other pair of western drumsticks seem almost brand new, with just a few scratches here and there.

Only one Chinese Drumstick seems to have made it through the year still in the same condition as how I had initially bought it in.




I still bought a new pair anyway; and it's unlike any of the other drumsticks I've owned before. These drumsticks are strangely an albino pair and is noticeably heavier than it's predecessors. They're longer and thicker too - but that's gonna change after I'm through with them. Oh, and they smell like Ikea for some reason.




Wishing Cempaka Beat another thunderous and upbeat year! Cheers.

Let's Step On Through, Shall We?

Found this while exploring the ranch grounds.

- 437, Stumpy Gully Road, Balnarring, Melbourne.

Whiter Than White.

Joshua proved my Mac could be cleaned.

I had nothing important to do, so what the heck. I resorted to grabbing a pair of scissors and a piece of tissue paper before spending the afternoon scraping off the grime.


Though, I couldn't get rid off all the black smudges without slicing off the outer layer of the Macbook - some parts were burnt; don't ask.

It's Your Third Year.

After going through the hectic but equally memorable 2008 nearly unscathed, Bernard Sam has thus entered his third year at Cempaka Schools; namely Cempaka International School. We spoke with Bernard about his future at Cempaka Schools and how he made it through the day.

---

Most of us do know you wake up at 5:00 for the school transport everyday. It's usually a very routine task taking the van to school, we must say. How was the journey to school and were there any surprises along the way?
Before I begin I must point out that prior to this morning, I was the one who woke up the earliest for the van. That wasn't the case today. As I slid the door of the van to the side, inside was this kid sitting down on one of the seats. After sitting down and traveling across the Kesas Highway for about ten minutes, I tapped him on the shoulder and asked, "Hey, what time did you wake up today? Glad to know I'm not the only crazy one around waking up this early." "4:40," he answered quietly with a slight chinese accent. I later found out he was in Form 1 and was starting out his secondary schooling here at Cempaka. My next surprise came in the form of another new passenger on the van. Kevin Saw, was his name. He had told me a couple of days before that he was starting to use a school transport to get to school but I would have never thought it would've been my crummy old van. I called his name out a few times and tried to talk to him out of excitement. Unfortunately, he did not share my enthusiasm that morning. Must've been the Monday Blues or it was just too early for him. Of course, there were more surprises popping up that day. The rest of the ride was quite regular - sweat, reckless driving, the long road and nothing but the sound of Indian music being played on the radio.

Sounds like quite a ride you had there. Now, we obviously believe you miss your friends terribly though the long holiday season. We've also come to know you have a friends coming over to Cempaka Cheras this year. School doesn't start until 8:00, leaving loads of time to catch up before that. Could you enlighten us on the first people you met before school actually started?
Okay, stick with me here. If you go to Cempaka Cheras, you would very well know that every time school begins after a holiday the whole hill is jammed up; and I mean really jammed up. So instead of taking the usual long route from one quarter up the hill, we took an alternate road which lead up all the way to the junction right outside school. And right there in front of us as we were entering the road on the hill was the Cempaka Schools bus. But it wasn't the bus that caught my attention, oh no. It was the people inside. As the bus crawled up the hill, I could see familiar faces at the windows smiling and waving at me. I of course waved back. It's moments like these where I really feel at home in Cempaka. Where everyone welcomes you with open arms and you know that you've always got someone at your back. I've never actually felt like this anywhere else, to tell you the truth. Soon, we joined the massive queue up to Cempaka Cheras. The wait wasn't too particularly long and we soon arrived at the bus stop. I walked down the slope toward the gate and saw even more friendly faces. A few hugs and shaking of hands, and I was off to the front of the hall. There was an assembly that morning and I was all too ready for it. So I lay my bag down in the back store and went off for my next task - student management. The hall wasn't exactly full but there were still quite a handful of people about. It was about 7:50 at the time.

You said your duty was in the hall, but you weren't in the hall even as the assembly began. Was it that you had received other last minute duties?
Ah, yes. The International Prefects, the Year 10 ones to be exact, were called upon to bring the new International students to their respective classes. You see, that assembly it turns out was just for the National students. I headed off to my next rendezvous point with the other prefects. As I was coming up to the Main Lobby, suddenly Julie burst out of nowhere and said, "Come on! We've got to bring these guys to class!" in her usual tone - which you can imagine is pretty melodious. Behind her were four new students, all in Year 10 Aqua if I remember correctly. The problem was we had no idea where the classes were. With the floating classes about, it was nearly impossible to track down every class. Eventually we did get them to their classes. We were all split up though, the prefects I mean. We each had to take a student at least, seeing as we were clearly outnumbered. Right after the first four students, I went back to the lobby to see if there were any more. There were two more, Ikmal and Melanee - both in Terra (2). After dropping them off at their classes, I went back to get my bag and then I made my way to English.

You haven't been in class for over two months. Was it tough getting back into the studying mode? Also, how did you feel being back in class?
Being in class feels great! Absolutely. I missed seeing those Terran 1's everyday - although the class does seem slightly smaller and less ecstatic. Getting back into the studying mode? Hah, I'm not even sure I'm anywhere in it yet. Being away from class for two months does that to you. Though the work-load has increased tremendously this year. It's all part of school, I suppose. Another nice bit was seeing the teachers again. They, not only being our instructors but our


Indicial Quadratic Equation - & I'm like what?

Oh, and were there any new students in your class this year?
Yeah! Well, just one. Her name's Elvina Khoo; she's from New Zealand. Get this: She knows my grandfather. No joke. Let me explain. See, you could count us as childhood friends who were never really exactly "friends". My granddad's a secretary at this temple in Malacca and her parents used to go there; as did my mum. Anyhoo, my grandpa's some big shot at the temple and I guessed he knows her parents too. I remembered seeing her during the Wesak Day festivals every time I was there, though I never really got to know her or talk to her. - it was no wonder why her face was so familiar. She's super friendly and great to talk to. Ellya feels she'll be a true friend as the year goes by.

What's your overall vision for yourself in the year 2009?
Call me insane if you want, but I really feel this year to be really bright. Seeing as it's sort of my last year here - with 2010 delivering my IGCSE papers, I'd be "cast off" from school approximately after Sports Day - I'm gonna make the most of it. There'll be changes before I leave. I'm going do all that I can do in school, as well; be it sports, commitments, societies or performances.

2 0 0 9

I opened the window and shouted, "Happy New Year!"









And someone shouted back.