badminton – yaiy!

by squido

today, i found myself awake at 06:00.

did so much maths this morning D: i’ve used up about 11 loose-leafs and i’m still only three-quarters of the way through… that mrs briggs…

i went to badminton at 15:02 8D at the north ryde “russell” club, as mum likes to call it [for those that can’t tell, she meant to say “RSL”]

badminton, despite what i had previously believed, is a very, VERY aggressive sport.

it also turns out to be very bad for previously-operated-on knees.

to emphasise my former point: the girls play like boys, the boys play like men, and the men play like monsters.

the women tend to be craftier, and sorer when they miss.

the rules are pretty whacky; this is what i learned so far:

1. play until 21. if the score is 20-20, play until 22, and so forth.

2. to start the game, someone says “kai shi/begin” and hits the shuttlecock randomly so that the head points to the starting team. if that hasn’t happened yet, you’re in practice mode. so pay attention.

3. the score is vital to determining to serves and from where. if your team [doubles] is on an even score, the player in the right half serves. to serve, stand as close to the net so that the moment of service is within the boundary line before the net, then proceed to hit upwards. the first serve must land in the vertically opposite portion of the opponents’ court – the boundaries are the entire width, the cropped length [minus the end and the bit closest to the net]. so pay attention.

4. during the game [after the serve], all of the court is in.

5. a loss is when the receiving team misses and it lands in their court, when they fail to hit the shuttlecock over the net, the shuttlecock fails to land in the court. also, a loss is when the serving team fails to serve correctly. when a loss occurs, possession changes and the score determines who serves and from where. so pay attention.

6. do not talk or ask questions when serving. pay attention.

7. when the serving team wins consecutive rounds, the person serving remains the same, but the two players on that side switch halves every consecutive serve. if you weren’t paying attention, follow the more-experienced player. if that’s you, look like you know what you’re doing even if you don’t.

8. hit as hard and far as you can. reflexes are very HANDY.

9. “hao qiu/good ball” is often said after a good serve/return.

10. bring a change of clothes if a shower is available. and a towel. and heaps of water.

yeah i just thought 10 would look better than 9. but you sweat A LOT. so do NOT wear jeans. [i didn’t wear jeans. i’m just saying.]

more maths to do…

toodle-doo!

On discussion

by cloudier

The recent discussion on feminism, much of which has been neatly summarised in Kerrie’s post, has been very fun. It also makes me feel like I’m very shit at discussing things clearly and convincingly but I suppose the only solution to that is to discuss more.

As far as I can tell, discussion involves:

1. Comprehending the other person properly and understanding how their view of the subject is different from yours and why.
2. Writing a response that conveys your ideas to another person in a convincing manner – not in a succinct and English-essay-esque manner, where the responder already knows what you’re going to say and how you’re going to say it.

Also, I don’t intend to offend people and dislike offending people, so tell me if I do.

All this discussion reminds me of Michael Su’s dead grade forum, as well as how inefficient forums are – it was difficult to tell who was replying to who. WordPress comments are better than forums: wordpress comments have a basic form of threading. (However, unlike blogger, you can’t edit the CSS for free.) I reckon reddit’s comment system trumps forums and wordpress comments for discussions but I doubt that we could get enough people and activity on a private subreddit for people to overcome the (small) learning curve and then continue to return. Haha and there’s no ego OHH MORE BLOGVIEWS factor, but I’m still going to put that out there and hope that enough people are interested. (:

Irrelevantly I don’t think I understand belonging and I think I shouldn’t have stayed at home if only for English.

…and the biggest バカ of 2010 award goes to…

by squido

…you!

*a cricket chirps*

just kidding. it’s me, of course.

*the crowd goes wild*

thank you, thank you. let it be known that today, something unimaginably, ineffably and undeniably idiotic happened to me. by me.

*dramatic pause*

i ran my bike’s rear wheel over my left foot. somehow while still seated on the bicycle seat with most of my weight.

today, i went swimming. i calculated that out of the total 5.5 hours i was at hurstville aquatic leisure centre, 4.5 was spent in the water. out of the 4.5 hours spent in the water, 4 was spent getting in, out, standing around, avoiding old people (especially hairy old men and saggy old ladies. i saw an old plump lady bouncing up and down bobbing in water up to boob-level. it was disturbing enough as it was, but on top of that she needed a new swimsuit. it was so grotesque i think i stared for an entire minute.), huffing and puffing, considering whether i should do another lap or not, telling myself doitdoitdoit, saying nonofine, and doing maths calculations in order to work out how much time i had wasted not-swimming in the pool. and so forth.

that leaves approximately half an hour of doing actual laps. and boy did i do laps!

i’m so proud of this figure… wait for it…
*fanfare randomly plays*
50!!!
at least!! *hugs self*

tally:
freestyle – 18+
breaststroke – 20+
backstroke – 18
squidstroke – 4<
get-to-the-other-end-stroke – 6<

i had done most of the above in the fast lane (no breaststroke allowed). this really good-looking guy entered the lane and swam really fast. i was really impressed. (by the way, i say good looking because it was unexpected and most of what i had seen up to that point had disgusted me… including forlorn bandaids and gum in the water). so when it was just us two at one end, i asked how old he was. i was curious and wondering how long it would take me to get that good, honest! he said he was nineteen and i complimented his swimming skills. that was all we said. he stayed in the same lane until the pool closed. i bet he thinks i'm a weirdo admirer/fangirl now. cool.

i walked to mum's place in a t-shirt and bike shorts because i had to retrieve my bike (she dropped me off at dad's and i forgot i had left my bike at her place). at least 3 men at least twice my age gave me up-down looks. i hate that. it's like they rake you thoroughly with their eyes. and the unfairest part is, i can't get them back by doing the same. it just doesn't work that way :(

i'm so tired :)

did i mention i invented a new stroke? :P squidstroke is fundamentally breaststroke on your back. it's very relaxing.
oh yes and those laps. the pool is 25m long xD

city trip and låt den rätte komma in

by cloudier

Today I watched a preview screening of Let Me In (2010), a vampire horror movie. It seemed familiar from the first scene – the grid-thing in the courtyard and the layout of the apartments in that scene is the same as the corresponding scene from Låt den rätte komma in (2008), a movie I watched after somehow finding it in links from The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo on Wikipedia. Eventually I realised it was basically a translated version of the Swedish movie – some of the scenes seemed exactly the same, for example, spoilers the courtyard between the apartments, parts of the forest and lake where the vampire’s older companion hid bodies, the attempted drowning and the way the vampire’s rescue is portrayed. I feel that I can’t really give an opinion since I had virtually already seen the movie.

below: summary of city trip

three days’ madness

by bezzle

TUESDAY:

I got up at BEFORE the crack of dawn to get to school.  Had to catch the bus to UWS.  Originally, we were all hardcore studying on the bus (which was quite empty), but I think we began to give up, mostly just due to sheer laziness.  Well, that was what I was doing.

Got to Granville station, picked up people and continued off on the journey to Campbelltown.  

Victor had gotten out his portable speakers, and was playing his music, when he went to the front of the bus to go talk to Richard.  Matt and Ben hijacked the speakers, with Victor still oblivious to the fact that Glee and Baby were playing at a rather loud volume…

The brain bee was held in the school of medicine on the UWS campus, and when we got there all of us really stood out – all the other schools had about three or four students, and there was this mass of about twenty people signing in and collecting free t-shirts :)

Went into the lecture theatre, and everyone did round one of the individual quiz – the questions were on a powerpoint, and it was over really quickly – about 20 minutes!  Forwarded out for morning tea with random tarts and fruit and sandwiches.  The bread is SOOO soft and tasty there.  And the tart had some sort of clear jelly on top that tasted like jam. 

Got some talks from a professor making bionic eyes and some honor/masters students about the joy of science, and then came the team challenge, where Richard, Beryl, Rachel and Vaish were in.  They came third, after the winners Baulko and the runner-up Presbyterian. 

Lunch!  The last third of the line (including me!) got vegetarian lunch boxes, but they were really nice!  The bread (and some Turkish bread too?) was really soft again…ahhh… and quiche!  I love quiche!  And some sort of caramel slice.   :D

Activity after lunch – shocking nerves.  Went into some computer lab, with massive HP touchscreen desktop computers.  Claudia fiddled with the tablet for a bit.  Ben volunteered to be the victim who got their nerve shocked with a current ranging from 8-20mA.  The transformer was connected to the computer, and all the data was automatically entered too.  Was cool.

After came the team challenge final, and the individual final.  The team placings ended up the same as what they were before, and the individual one was won by a Baulko guy, with a Presbyterian girl coming second and Jim coming third (good job :D).  Note the order was the same ==

However, the prizes were pretty neat.  Teams who came second and third got 2gb ipod shuffles, winners nanos.  Individual division third got shuffle, second nano and first a touch.  They all got a brain textbook too.  The poor guy who came first has to study this massive textbook for the next stage (nationals?).  Ahh, the price for coming first…

Bus home…

WEDNESDAY:

Science and Engineering Day!  Got to Macquarie Uni quite early, waited till the thing actually started (our school was the only one there in the beginning…wondering if we were gonna end up going against ourselves…) and off to activities!

I was in a full day activity – mission to Mars.  Involved building a ‘buggy’ that would traverse an extremely bumpy surface – the highest bumps were 4cm tall O__O  So that took the whole day, and we didn’t do too bad (Tree, Sandra, Steven Phan and me).  OOOOH orange tree!  TEEHEE SORRY.

At the end of the day, bridge tests!  Just at the end, our school got usurped by Roseville College in points, so we came second and got a glass trophy and a framed award that had a picture of some students from last year ==

I think it was cool how all of us joined together in playing a game of sit-down volleyball – even the scorers joined it :D

Caught a bus to Epping with Sydo.  On the way, a large group of boys in school uniform got on.  And then Syd noticed Timothy O_____O  He’s a former classmate, who I hadn’t talked to/seen since the end of Year Six.  We shiftily watched as he boarded our bus and walked past out seat, ending up just a seat away across the aisle (but people were in standing in between because the bus was packed).

So we both loudly debated whether or not to say hi – Sydo on the affirmative, as she’d feel ‘guilty’.  I thought he wouldn’t recognise/remember us.  Soon, Tim says hi to Syd, who he does remember and they start a conversation. 

Soon we’re at Epping, and we all disembark.  Timothy begins to walk away, Syd rebukes me about how I should have said something.  I say that he won’t recognise me.  So Syd runs up and pushes me over, and asks Tim – “Do you know her?”.  To which he goes “Errrr….”, and I helpfully supply “Hi, I’m *insert name here*.”  His eyes widen and looks shocked.  ==”

Syd cracks up.

So far, this fits in with my previous meeting with a primary school classmate.  Beginning of the year, I said hello to Annie and she didn’t know who I was either.  “You look familiar… do I know you? Charmaine?!”  I introduce myself.  “OHHH…!”  [note: not the Charmaine from our school]

I conclude my face is much different from my Year Six days.

TODAY:

First day of school for the term!  Started off with a nice 1.6km run in nippy noodle weather.  Urgh.  I should have known several weeks of inactivity would take some sort of toll.  Did some more fitness testing.  Had a sub for English and breathed a sigh of relief – I hadn’t finished the assignment.  Recess was intense – had to find Julia/talk to the head of science about the speech in two periods time/write the speech/fix up commerce project/do maths enrichment.  So was also very glad when we didn’t have to present our comm today, so spent the time writing a very hasty speech.

During assembly, sat at the front with Johnny and Rachel, who were talking about brain bee, and Tree, who was doing the speech about science and engineering day with me.  He’s awesome.  Talking in front of the whole school is a bit weird.

Today was such a horrible day stress-wise, so when I found out today is 7/11 one dollar day (Kettle chips, flavoured milk, mother, Cornettos, donuts and other baked stuff all one dollar!) I decided to take the opportunity to *reward* myself.  My normal walk to the bus stop (on which 7/11 is en route) was joined by a mob of people eager to get bargains too xD

By some stroke of luck, the counter had NO QUEUE when I got my double choc Cornetto.  Except for three Cumbo guys, who kept buying packets of Kettle chips ==  They kept taking armfuls of packets, and running back for more.

Got home happy as I ate my icecream on the way.  Except it dripped on my shoe.

MAJOR NEWS

ONE MANGA IS SHUTTING DOWN AS OF NEXT WEEK.  WHATTTTTTTTTTTTT.  IT’S MY FAVOURITE MANGA SITE!  IT’S SHUTTING DOWN!!!  WHAT.  O_________________________________o WHERE AM I GONNA TAKE MY MANGA READING OBSESSION?  BUT THANK YOU, ONE MANGA.