GE13

General Election 13.

Also known as PRU13, Pilihan Raya Umum 13.

Today is the 5th of May, and citizens of Malaysia rise up to have a say in their choice of government. Millions flock to their respective polling stations to mark an X on their choice, having blue ink stained on their fingers as a symbol of 'I Voted'.

*The ink comes off really easy btw. Why!?

I woke up at 8 today finding my house empty. My dad had gone to vote, and my brother had to drive my mom to her polling station.

Ubah!

I was home alone for an hour plus. I watched one and a half episodes of The Voice. Never have I watched so much of this American singing competition. Hm.

At about 9:45, my family came home. They held their fingers up proudly, showing off their blue fingertips (except for my brother, of course. He's not of age to vote yet. He was just there showing me his clean finger lololol)

Since the time they came home till now, *12:39pm* they've been watching the news. Election election election. Banglas getting caught. People smiling as they show their fingers. Aunties telling us how easy the ink comes off. Reporters saying that queues at polling stations are of unbelievable lengths.

But all in all, I'm so glad that the number of voters in Malaysia has increased so much this time. Many of us want an 'ubah', a change, and we're doing all we can. Waking up extremely early to go vote is just one of them.

I've never seen this much unity among Malaysians. Tonight, I guarantee, there'll be many more eyes glued to TV screens across Malaysia compared to when our champion badminton player Datuk Lee Chong Wei fights his no. 1 rival, China's Lin Dan.

Ubah!

And to those under 21 Malaysian citizens who are itching to tell the nation what the youths of Malaysia are thinking, head on over to under21malaysian.com to cast an anonymous vote for the party you support. Although it doesn't affect the results tonight, it will at least make an impact on Malaysians to see the young people making a choice for their future.

Ini kalilah!

Ubah!

Confession: I actually like school.

School is so fun.

Seriously.

I really like school, y'know.

Anyway, some highlights of school this week:

Balloon Armchair Competition - Critical Thinking Skills class

So Ms Stella, our CTS teacher, came into class that day telling us that today's work was building an armchair out of balloons. A legit armchair needs to have a seat, two armrests (THAT CAN ACTUALLY FIT YOUR ARMS) and a backrest that you can lean on.

She gave us thirty balloons and a roll of tape.

Here we go!

my group starting on our seat.
 

the guys' group's progress.
not looking like a chair of any sort yet. LOLOLOL.

the other girls' group with theirs.
double layers for their seat. hm.

After forty-five minutes, our chairs were starting to look like actual chairs. Some measuring of buttcheeks and test sitting was done and we were almost finished.

We then decided to have Sha-Mayne, the lightest in our class, to be the first chair-tester. After her would be Carmen. 

our finished products!

 

my group's armchair. ;)
it even has a headrest with our group name on it.
hohoho.

the boy's.
doesn't even look like an armchair, I know.
pathetic.
(just kidding!)

the other girls'.
looks like the most legit armchair ever.

and then we were asked to line them up at the back of the class.
left to right:
other girls', ours, the boys'.

 And so we started our competition.

Sha-Mayne went first.

All passed.

Then Carmen was next.

After they tried all three chairs, we were all celebrating because all the chairs could tahan their weight.

So we tried having Keenan to sit on the chairs.

All passed.

Then we had David.


All passed.

And we were all like WOOOOOO.

Class was over, so Ms Stella prepared to leave the class.

Just as we thought we had a tie, Melissa decided to become some unofficial tiebreaker and insisted on sitting on them.
So she did.

My group's armchair; one of the balloons popped! D:

And the other girls' armchair broke apart.

So the guys were just there rubbing it in our faces that they've won ALL the balloon competitions we've ever had. Which is true, by the way.

But we had so much fun so that's good, right? :D

Reproduction In Plants - Biology class

On the same day, during Biology class, we studied Reproduction in Plants.

So our teacher Ms Joyce brought loads of plants:

our group is kinda retarded. we were asked to cut open these fruits, and identify what the parts were.
but, with these shapes...
who can resist making this face? 

and this is the fruit of the water lily, that DISPERSES BY WATER ho ho ho i pay attention in class.
some of my friends find this ultimately... gross.
i don't know. O:

 Till next time! :)

Who's Got Talent? PRISCA!

So on Saturday, 27 April, my family together with the Kaan sisters (Sophia, Serena, Samantha) decided to support our friend Prisca at her talent competition. It was the finale round. Prisca was going to play the piano.

We reached First Baptist Church, Subang, a few minutes late, but we hadn't missed any acts yet. They were playing the video for wildcard picks. I voted for two dance acts and an instrumentalist but none of them were picked. So no one agreed with me? :(

Anyway, when they announced for all the acts to come onstage, we screamed like crazy when they said 'Prisca Leong'. We were seriously the best cheerleading section ever.

Prisca was the third or fourth one to perform, (I forgot because I was too jittery) I think, and when she came up, we were once again screaming and clapping like mad. My brother was shutting his ears and cringing because we were so...uh, embarrassing. *cough*

When she came up and introduced herself and what she was going to play, I was hanging on to her every word. She was like a star!

I remember the previous week; she asked me advice on what to play for the finale. She asked if she should play an original, but I told her she shouldn't because it was too risky and no one would be able to relate to it.

When she announced that she was going to play an original, my heart dropped. THAT LITTLE REBEL (it's ok Pris I still love you :P).

But my heart was fine after that, and beating fast with adrenaline and pride, because Prisca was amazing! Her original piece was filled with nice dynamics and cool modulations and it even had hand-crossing (I kind of forgot hand-crossing even existed). I was super duper impressed. She also is a natural performer. You could see that passion on her face and her hand movements when she played. And her songwriting skills, man... *hides my face in shame because Prisca is so talented*

After her performance, she stood up to hear the judges' comments. THEY LOVED IT. One said that it was her favorite so far. And she also said that the keyboard she was using was 'too lousy for her'. I, for one, agree. SHE WOULD HAVE BEEN EVEN MORE IMPRESSIVE ON A GRAND. *ha ha ha*

Act after act went by, some good, some not-so-good, some totally AMAZING. I have to applaud Avalanche (a team of three girls who used a book as their percussion. And btw, their harmony is PERFECT) and Rejuvenate (a six-member hip-hop team who is full of energy and creativity. Managed to entertain us all and keep us awake even though they were the last act).

While the judges discussed the results, there were performances by various people. One of the judges, the one and only Juwita Suwito, performed with another judge, a violinist. It was super nice.

And we were all just there, in suspense, waiting...

AND THE RESULTS FINALLY CAME.

*I already had in mind who were to get first, second and third, and I was right ;) *

The champions were Rejuvenate, as expected. They were simply impressive.

The second was Avalanche, and they deserve every bit of that.

AND THE THIRD WAS OUR VERY OWN PRISCA LEONG, THE TALENTED SONGWRITER/MUSICIAN.

Jajajajaja.

She got RM300, which is more than any individual in the competition. Rejuvenate and Avalanche had to split up their prize money so... MWAHAHAHA. *if Rejuvenate or Avalanche reads this, PLEASE DON'T KILL ME*

So again, congratulations Prisca! YOU DESERVE IT! :D

<3

Photos;

1. Prisca and us cheerleaders ;)

2. All the finalists

3. The talent and I!

4. The judges and Prisca

jumpshots, water guns and burgers

Yesterday was filled with fun!

20th of April, 2013 - Saturday

POOL PARTY

At about 1pm, I was already feeling excited. Zhen Yi came to fetch me from Capen to Kathy's house, where we waited for Melissa and Jynwaye. Then we headed to our party venue! ;)

the pool place.

of course, every pool party needs jumpshots. 

girls.

two-thirds of Strictly For Girls.
me, kathy, jynwaye, zhen yi, melissa and keenan (who refused to jump)

and then there's the jump-into-the-pool shot.

Kathy and I.

and then Melissa and Jynwaye insisted on having a bimbo shot.
(y)

the dudes looking fabulous in Mel's pink sunglasses.

played with water guns, a tennis ball, a soccer ball and a frisbee.
The soccer ball and the frisbee kind of flew over to one of the neighbours' houses.
We managed to retrieve the soccer ball, but were too shy to ask the same neighbour for the frisbee on the second time. So Keenan willingly gave up his frisbee.

We stopped swimming at about five something, and went back to Kathy's house, where we had...

BURGERS!

our feast

crispy buns, bacon, patties, eggs, cheese, mayo and the lettuce that doesn't seem to exist in this burger.

So after that, I slept over at Kathy's house and we watched This Means War. I fell asleep at around 1 in the morning, the earliest of us all (Melissa, Jynwaye and Kathy), because I had to wake up early the next day. My parents were fetching me at 9am. 

I woke up super early this morning, and got ready. EVERYONE ELSE WAS STILL ASLEEP AND I FELT SO AWKWARD. 

So yeah. Since this post is already so darn long, I'll use the next post for today's (Sunday) events. 

Ciao.

P.S. kudos to Kathy for most of the photos here. 

P.P.S. kudos to God for giving us amazing weather yesterday.

Games!

I decided to reserve one post just for tomorrow's events: pool party & THX Awards!

So my week was, once again, quite uneventful.

But...

Bryan, one of my close friends, downloaded on his iPad this App Of The Day called 'Amazing Fingers'. Amount of players can go up to 4. It's kind of like Twister for your fingers, but the colors move. So your fingers need to follow the colors for a certain amount of time, then you pass the level.

Seriously, it is one of the most stressful games ever. At the end of this post is a photo of a mess of our hands playing Amazing Fingers. :D

Also, he downloaded Bumper Basher, which is a game that involves bumper cars. There are three different games in it, one of it being soccer. You have to use your car to bump the ball into the goal. Two players max on each team. It was pretty fun! Addictive, too. No photo for this though; I was too caught up in the game. :P

After these few weeks, I realized how these multiplayer games have brought us closer together. We started out in 2012 with basic games like Temple Run, Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride, when we just compared our high scores.

Then the guys introduced Modern Combat 2, which is a first-person shooter game. It can be played one player, and multiplayer as well, through online games or bluetooth. We even started a Whatsapp group chat just to decide when to come online to play MC2.

The guys, of course, had FIFA 12 & 13 throughout these two years.

We were obsessed with MC2 for a long time in 2012. Snipers, machine guns, rocket-propelled launchers.

Anyway, after we got over MC2 (which is this year), we started to play Worms: Armageddon 2. That's right. The ancient PlayStation and computer game. It was downloaded on Bryan's iPad though. Soon we all had it in our devices and we played single-player campaigns, comparing the levels we cleared.

While Worms was the constant addiction, we also played other games from foddy.net like QWOP, GIRP and Get On Top. There was also Magic Piano on the iPad. These were light, entertaining and hilarious games. Did not last very long.

Soon after that, we got fascinated with Hardest Game Ever 2. This app has four different stages with ten levels each. All these mini-games were ridiculous! Steps to reach the toilet bowl, slapping people, trying not to fall asleep in your food and running, jumping off a cliff. We were all hooked, trying to clear each stage.

Then came King Of Opera. This involves fat opera singers stealing the spotlight, bumping other players off the stage in the process.
The game's hilarity is added with loud, booming, opera voices. Comes with other game modes like Phantom and Fat Lady. (The Fat Lady is extremely annoying)

Amazing Fingers and Bumper Basher are the latest ones so far. I'm so glad to see that my friends enjoy time together with these games, and not in unhealthy ways. And it's good that we're not always too stressed out even during a major exam year.

So yeah! Tomorrow's the pool party and I'm so excited!