What is it with year 2005? I stayed at home all day during Christmas finishing up my 36-Hour Action Plan and didn’t even get a single view of the beautiful decorations i’ve been seeing in weblogs and newspapers.

Now i don’t even get to go out for the New Year countdown, like i always do every year with mum and dad. Been at several countdowns at different years. I remember once in Pangkor, once at KLCC, a few times at Bukit Bintang/Bintang Walk, once at my 5th aunt’s house, where you can get a view of both fireworks at Bukit Bintang and KLCC from far.

Since i am not going outdoor for countdown this year, i decided to make it up by watching movies and surfing net. Just watched The Lord of the Rings – The Fellowship of the Ring on TV2 just now. If i was going out at night, i would’ve spent my afternoon reading textbooks.

Sis and her boyfriend are probably having fun in KL right now.

By the way, we’re not going out because mum’s sick. So i shouldn’t fuss about it anyway. What’s more important than mum’s health, right?

Yay! Sue Shin sent me this pic via MSN this afternoon. She looks soooo cute! Girls, please don’t cut and paste her face for your personal use like on Match.com. And guys, please protect her innocent young face by not photoshopping her face onto a naked female body.

Oh, that’s me on the right. Crappy resolution = invisible pimples. Ha!

Met Sue Shin at the Adam Khoo IAGSAY camp. This pretty girl is my team-mate. She’s 16 by the way if anyone wants her number.

This photo of us was shot using Sue Shin’s handphone while having breakfast or lunch? I forgot. Anyway, it was shot at the restaurant, a Selera Coffee House.

Right now i’m writing this post because i’m feeling motivationally challenged. And i’m completing this post because * looks at bedroom poster * “Do it Now Do it Right Do it Fast” Arghh…

Well, erm, 10 days is kinda long for me.

I really wanted to write all about the 4 days 3 nights experience. Okay let’s see what excuses i’m going to make. Right after the Adam Khoo Camp which ended on Thursday, i went to Malacca to a relative’s house. Came back home at Christmas’ Eve ( Actually was going to stay longer but i had to do a 36-Hour Action Plan thing. Yes. I’m actually taking it seriously because of the RM3000k dad spent on it.)

So the first day there. The first time ever i went into the training room and see this stuffed toy on the stage, i was like, this is going to be fun. Turns out, i was quite right. And by the way, that stuffed toy is actually called CuckooBird. And for some reason it belongs to our trainer Adam, thus we call it Adam’s CuckooBird. LOL

Around 5 o’clock we went to the field. It was drizzling and some of us thought the outdoor activities would be cancelled or rescheduled. Nope. Adam made us shout “Every raindrop makes me healthy!” and we continued with our activities, which is actually balancing on a swinging log. Now, just plain balancing sounds easy and it is easy. But this one, we had to focus on a red dot on a paper dart board (our outcome), answer questions the cocroacoaches shouted at us like “Study or play!” “Family or friends!” “When life gets shaky what must you do!” “Shopping or Shopping!” “Father or Mother!”, and the coaches will kick at the log while we’re balancing on it. Believe it or not, i saw with my own eyes one of the coaches didn’t just kick the log, but used his hands to twist the log. Scary.

And then the first night we slept very early… in the morning at like 1.30 a.m.. Second day was around 2.00 a.m. and the third day, ha! 5.00 a.m. Luckily they let us sleep until a bit later on the third day, we’re not expected in the training room until 9.30 a.m. unlike the first two days which was 7.30 a.m.

Other than learning mind-mapping, super memory techniques and stuff, we also need to do lots of push-ups, sit-ups, up-downs, chiwawas < – This one is damn cute! A lot of us have this bad habit of saying the word ‘try’, which is a banned word in the camp. So everytime we said that, we’re given punishments, most commonly 5 push-ups.

I was put into Group 14 along with Ting Hui (Sam)-> http://samanthaonline.blogspot.com, Sue Shin, Joey, Azri and Samuel, who was my buddy for the camp. Our coaches were 17-year-old Hana and 16-year-old Jia Ren. We came up with the group name Ohana which means ‘family’ from the Lilo and Stitch movie. We were like warming up on the first day, and by the second day we’re already chatting away like long time friends, sitting always in a group at in the Selera CoffeeHouse for breakfast, lunch and dinner and also in the training room.

And you know what, Samuel (18-year-old of Indian-Chinese parentage, STPM next year) actually told me i was inspiring. OMG. That word ‘inspiring’, it’s a very strong word for me. To think that someone (older than me by 3 years) actually told me that i’m inspiring. I’m overwhelmed.

I need to put up the posters asap. Don’t wanna start procrastinating again. Oh by the way, i managed to break a piece of wood on my first attempt at the Graduation Ceremony of the Adam Khoo ‘I Am Gifted, So Are You’ Camp. I did it the first time! You know, that sort of karate thing where they break a piece of wooden board with their bare hands. I probably got one of those softer wood ones, but who cares. I did it!

Adam, Stuart and Amin-ah are all great trainers. Wanted to write more wbout them, about Adam and his light-saber but alas, i need to focus on my outcome Have a busy schedule ahead. Will do my best not to leave this blog too dusty.

Notice that i haven’t been posting on my blog for the past few days. I’m leaving early Monday morning for the ‘I Am Gifted So Are You’ Camp, the Adam Khoo one. So i’m going to have to finish up his book Master Your Mind Design Your Destiny before i go.

Dad wants me to finish the book, so if i have any questions, i can ask him personally at the camp. Me being a last-minute person, is currently busy reading because well, i’m only halfway through the book at page 178 of the total 348 pages.

I normally read books quite fast, but because this particular self-help sot of non-fiction book requires me to complete excercises, i spent thrice as much time with this book than others. I wrote down my answers in a textpad for every single question, at first. Then i got fed-up with the slow progress i’m making and skipped most of the excercises.

Need to get back to my reading.

I’ll be back on Friday. The camp’s 4 days 3 nights but dad’s booking an extra day on Friday at Allson Klana Resort Seremban. Ahh, no net for a week! I’m going to suffer…

By the way, i’m going to try out Gmail’s new Vacation Responder thingy.

I received a forwarded email containing a Powerpoint slide attachment. There’re just numbers and letters so i typed a copy of it here. Made some minimal edits.

Here is a small mathematical excercise, that will certainly give evryone a surprise!

1. Firstly, decide how many times per week you would like to visit a restaurant for dinner.
2. Multiply the number by 2
3. Add 5
4. Multiply by 50
5. If your birthday has passed for this year, add 1755; alternatively add 1754 if it has not yet passed
6. Substract the year you were born in (e.g. 1976, 1950 etc.)

Your total is now a 3 digit number.

The 1st of the 3 digits is the number of times per week you would like to go out for dinner.

The last two digits tells you your age.

2005 is the only year this calculation will work in. So tell it to your friends before the end of the year.

I spent the whole afternoon, other than watching movies, going to Bata, Carrefour, shoe shops… Looking for a pair of school shoes to buy. Now if you’re wondering, is it that hard? I can tell you yes.

You see, i’m very picky when it comes to certain things.

The first thing i look at when i come across a pile of white school shoes, i look whether they’re tied with shoe laces. There is no way i’m going to wear one of those stick on ones. After the shoe laces, i see whether the laces are made of cloth. I find those new plastic/not pure cloth shoe laces difficult to tie. And then only i look at the design of the shoe. The surface of the shoe not too empty, don’t have too complicated designs.

There’s a 1/100 chance i find the perfect shoe. Just like today at the Bata shop just outside Carrefour Subang Jaya. Thought i won’t be like last year again, getting a shoe the day before school re-opens.

No i didn’t get the pair of school shoes i wanted. Their smallest size for that shoe was 5, and they were out of stock. I usually wear a 4.

Okay the tagline totally sucks. I mean, come on, prepare for the fantastic? Can’t they think of anything better than that?

Let’s get to the movie part. First off, i’m not a big fan of Marvel’s Catwoman, or X-Men, not even Spiderman. These comic book adaptations, can’t they stay in the book?

I honestly didn’t think i would actually watch the movie. And before i watch it, i was like, okay, keep my expectations low so it won’t get too dissapointing. The trailers didn’t catch my attention, the storyline was kinda straightforward for me. As a geek, i was hoping they would explain more about the cosmic radiation thingy. They did not.

I’m also not too attracted to those superheroes kinda character. No offense, Mr. Incredible. Give me an anti-hero which is likable enough and i’ll worship him. What’s that guy’s name from Lord of War again?

Comic book adaptations. Why must the villain have names like Von Doom? And Ben, i thought he only knows how to do the walking. Then how did he suddenly know the thinking and operated the supposedly sophisticated machine all by himself?

I’m biased, that’s what i am. I’m no fan of comics.

The movie wasn’t great or anything like that. You know, the typical romance stories with a twist. That’s it.

I wanna say no more of this movie.

All right all right. I cried while watching the movie. You happy?

Starring: Jack and the Beanstalk. Haha, just kidding.

I think i heard somewhere that this movie was supposedly going to be on the big screens in Malaysia, but somehow got cancelled. I dunno. Anyway, i just watched the DVD-rip of this movie. Downloaded it off torrent of course.

I actually didn’t know The Brothers Grimm meant THE Grimm brothers, because all the while i have only heard that name in Chinese, which is 格林兄弟 ( Ge2 Lin2 xiong1 di4). Some background on the Grimm brothers from Wikipedia.

The Brothers Grimm (Gebrüder Grimm) are Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm and were well known for publishing collections of German fairy tales, as Kinder- und Hausmärchen (“Children’s and Household Tales”), in 1812, with a second volume in 1814 (“1815” on the title page), as well as many further editions during their lifetimes.

Right. Back to the movie.

This movie is well, weird. So one should always watch it with an open mind. Not the typical fairytale. We see Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel... I mean, in the movie, Gingerbread Man’s evil. It’s face and form of body was taken from a child, and runs off singing “I’m the Gingerbread Man! You cannot catch me!” when the villagers tried to capture it. The song fits perfectly, though.

And well, the characters evil ‘mirror mirror on the wall’ Queen from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Rapunzel is the same person, in this movie.

The woodcutter, from i dunno which fairytale, you know the one who lost a normal axe, and then a fairy of some sort emerged from a pool and ask whether the silver (and then golden) axe is his? Yeah, that woodcutter and the wolf from Little Red Riding Hood is the same man, in the movie.

I won’t blame you if you’re confused.

I’m not an expert at movies, so i’m not going to discuss about the acting. The storyline was so-so, although i kinda like the weird part, the way they connect some well-known folktale characters together in the movie.

Will Grimm: Trust the toad!

I found this cute snowman photo on stock.xchng. Thought i could make a blog header with a Christmas theme with it.

It was nearly 3 o’clock in the morning, my eyes were sore and heavy, which probably explains why the width of the header is smaller than it should be. Finished it in about 15 minutes. I’m very new at these editing images stuff, plus dad’s notebook has only a 256MB memory. Much better than Tom, but still pretty slow when i have to run scripts and stuff.

Ah, when dad buys me my notebook end of next year, i need as large memory as dad could afford. – Makes mental note –
Ah, whatever. It’ll be down after Christmas anyway. By mid-January maybe i should be making another with a Chinese New Year theme.