For Great Justice!

It's finished. It's over. It rocked, as Serena would say. The year 12 concert is something of a tradition that looked easy, until we actually did it. Then you have to think about the timing, sound and lighting, technical difficulties and organisation. So let's go through this in a chronological fashion.

Firstly, my skit died. It's performance was good, but it was long and in hindsight, didn't fit the concert mould very well. Yes it was funny, but it wasn't fast. It was a three-course meal in a tray of quick snacks. It died an honourable death, and while I'm a bit disappointed, it was for the best.

Then Jack rings out of the blue and asks me to be the MC. To be honest, it was something that I desired and dreaded. I'm not much of a funny improviser. I tend to improvise good lies better than funny comments. So I rushed a quick script. It was quick, bite-sized humour that would let the stagehands do their thing. Did it work?

The concert itself ran very well. The Sound/Lighting crew had wired the stage. Jack and Alex set up a wireless link from the front to the back so that Kathy could see what was next and how we were going for time. We even had a comm link straight to Alex, so she could yell stuff direct to the sound department. Also, congrats out to Sabrina and Corrina. They made sure that the acts were prepared and onstage and confirmed which act was next.

I don't know how the jokes ran with the crowd. From the general impression, it went down quite well with most of the school. There were mixups though. Apologies to Helen, when I introduced her fashion show as Hiba's Dance. And much thanks to Phuong for doing some wonderful script work and improv. I couldn't ask for a better partner MC.

The acts? Grease was groovy. Sway was sexy. Kirteeka was cool. Rae-li's dance was all razzle. Anderson was awesome. The Fashion show was fabulous. Hiba's dance was hi-five. Kung Wow was the pow! Phat crew was phowerful. Land's song was lovely, despite hitches. and the Kylie Minogue act killed. Literally. It was that good. With 15 guys in skirts, it was the best act and I think it'll be hard pressed to be beaten.

Time was against us due to technical difficulties with Land's song, so the intro was skipped. But here it is, for you to see:
P: Tomorrow, it's the end of year 12, and we're free, while you're still stuck here! Ha!
S: Yep, and that means we'll be driving, while everyone else to take the bus to school.
P: I betcha I'm a more hardcore driver than you.
S: No you're not. I'm hardcore.
P: Yeah?
S: Yeah.
P: Do you swerve to avoid kangaroos?
S: Never. Do you?
P No.
S: Koalas?
P: No!
S: No?
(Silence)
P: ... Children?
S: I do, I do... Children, yeah. I have swerved to avoid children.
P: You see, you see, you're too soft for this game.
S: ...Dammit.

It was great, dammit. For moments I thought that our concert would be mediocre compared to the previous ones, but we pushed the envelope and did it. We fucking did it! The Kylie Minogue act was some guys acting, er, questionably and Petersen was lurking near the stage in disapproval. Who cares? Not us!

I also have to say here that we got, hands down, the best present ever! It was seriously that good. We got a SuperSoaker Triple Agressor for Mr Armitage. You have the main gun, a small pistol, and a water grenade (read: a fabric ball that absorbed water). We managed to trick Ms Pham into taking over our class temporarily. Go Land doing the lying. So she's in the class and we say "Mr Armitage said to duck" and Pham was like "what?". That's when Armitage burst through the door and sprayed her with water. Awesome.

Hope everyone else had fun during the concert.

Note to self: Buy concert DVD of Gough ASAP.

I'm not a superhero. I kill superheroes.

Just finished applying for my UAC application and preferences. I need to submit a copy of my STAT results, which have disappeared. Well, at least I have the weekends to try and find it before I have to ask for another copy.

UMAT results are back and I did...I don't know...crap?...average?...one of those words.

Section I - Logical Reasoning and Problem Solving - 49
Section II - Understanding People - 49
Section III - Non-verbal Reasoning - 47

Considering I did better than 49% of most entrants that I must be average at least.

I bet a whole ton of people got better than me though.

OMGWTFLOLROFLBRBBBQ!

Have you ever caught yourself using a net acronym in a real life conversation? While this requires the assumption that the reader does participate in real life conversations, it is actually kind of sad that this is occuring. Someone says something funny and instead of laughing really loud and saying "that's so funny!", you laugh and "lol, dude". I'm also reading Jack's blog and for him it's more like these acronyms have lost their meaning. Maybe, but the day they enter common speech is when they definitely lose their meanings.

So 4 weeks to the HSC and now it's time to ditch light study in favour of heavier studying. Still it's a bit hard to believe that there is only 4 weeks left to the HSC and that our compulsory education started 13 years ago ends in 2 weeks. I mean, wow!

Everyone else's blogs seem to be on a extended hiatus, so procrastinating is less fun now. As far as I can tell, out of my pathetic list, only Jack and Sophia are posting new things, and Corrina too I guess. Everyone else is more or like "meh...i'll do it in a week.....wait I said that a week ago! Stuff it!" So yeah, Jack and Sophia, keep posting.

Probably about time to arrange a rehearsal session. I'm thinking of a Wednesday or Thursday as a preliminary and maybe a final one on the last week or something. Give me several hours to mull on that.

Lost my Physics textbook several weeks ago, but a few minutes spent moaning about it produced a miracle. Lesley was in Physics and managed to find my textbook. You legend, Lesley! Now I can do those shitloads of physics questions Fearnside gave us.

Now I have to finish these questions and maybe sneak and hour of DoTA. Too much and I'll be failing my HSC.

Game on, people.

Work, Work, Work...

Five weeks until the HSC. Five weeks. Read it and weep, because now all my energies have to be directed towards this milestone. After beating my way through the trials, I know what I need to learn and what I need to do. This blog will probably be on semi-hiatus. I'll probably post once a week or less, just to show that I'm still alive and kicking.

Finally got our jerseys today. They are all right, but to be honest, they kinda suck with no names on them. Even if it was just our first name printed the jersey would be a whole lot better. Still, it's kinda cool in its own way.

Pretty much finalised UAC course preferences. I'll probably submit on Tuesday. Get it over and done with. And references too. Damn it, I hate school paperwork. Might as well gather all my textbooks so they are in one place as well.

Don't know about anyone else, but I'm setting up a study timetable. When I actually followed the table, I did better in the Trials, especially for Maths 2U and Biology, unlike the 1-mark below average I usually pump out.

Hate the way we are learning in Biology. Here's this booklet. Go learn. Damn it, I need to write things down, drawn diagrams and paste sheets. Not memorise the entire booklet. Well, it's probably a good time to update my notes.

Damn rain. So much rain. I hate walking in rain. At least the dams will get some water.

Higher School Certificate Examination
20th of October to 10th of November (2006)
Target UAI:
95
Target University:
University of Sydney
Target Course:
Bachelor of Applied Science (Medical Radiation Science)
Diagnostic Radiography

I heard this from a friend of a friend of a friend....

Girl #1: My tits feel weird.
Girl #2: What do you mean?
Girl #1: I did Party Tits at the share this weekend.
Girl #2: What??
Girl #1: Party Tits. You get saline injected into them, and they get really big. It wears off in a few days. The guys love it.

--Subway platform, Fulton St, New York City

What the hell? I think some verification is in order. It's not on Wikipedia, so I'd say be cautious about this.

Rest in peace, Steve Irwin. Killed by a stingray. This next little story may be considered bad taste to some viewers. So we're in Biology and I'm sitting in between Albert and Charles. We're doing work on the option topic communications out of a booklet and we need to draw this graph. Charles wants to copy off Albert, who doesn't want Charles to copy. I pass the graph to Charles and he starts complaining about the scale and line of best fit. I tell him to stop complaining and he argues he's telling the facts. He asks me, and I say that I think the scale and lines are perfectly alright, so Charles is at a loss on what to counter with. So I start poking his chest, where his heart is and said "Stingrayed!". Then we broke into gales of laughter. *ahem* So anyway, RIP Steven Irwin 1962-2006.

Euro hand ball comp against a team called Nameless. Anybody remember the Chinese movie Hero with Jet Li? And he was called Nameless (according to subs anyway...) and he was really good? So our team name is WBNBBBY8A or We Better Not Be Beaten By Year 8s Again.

Avatar: The Last Airbender rocks. Everyone must watch it along with Dragonball Z and the first few seasons of Pokemon. Every young child must be exposed to it.

Naruto is nearing end of fillers, I hope. Bleach fillers are meh, but still good. Waiting for House and Doctor Who season 3.

And, Battlefield 2 rocks.

Compass Heading: New South

Let's make this clear. I have no intention of going to UNSW. This is of course assuming all goes to plan with the HSC and whatnot, but my aim is for USyd. Still it was interesting at the open day. I met Charles and Ray L at Central at 8:30am, and we journeyed to UNSW. Some freebies later, we journeyed to the Medicine lecture, which was quite packed. I have no intention of doing Medicine, but the stuff you learn is eye opening. A UAI of 99.4 is considered below average for Medicine at UNSW. Below average. Some guy did make it in with a UAI of 95, but that was a fluke in a sense. And it takes minimum of 10 years to finish all your training. Damn.

Since I didn't have any real timetable for UNSW I mainly hung around Charles and Ray attending their lectures, mainly on engineering. UNSW is pretty big and quite pleasing to look at compared to USyd. So lets see who I saw or thought I saw.

• Charles
• Ray L
• Ray D
• Kevin T
• Kevin N
• Land
• Phuong
• Julia
• Jimmy
• Yiling
• Yang
• David V
• Andrew
• Kathy
• Ann
• Jennifer
• Jack
• Lesley
• Angeline
• Gough
  

That's pretty much it. From anecdotal evidence, it seems a whole bunch more Seftoners came along, but I missed all of them. Anyway at 1:30pm, Charles and I left to meet Jack and Lesley at the Roundhouse. Our plan was to journey to Croydon, get Jack to drive us to Burwood and meet up with other Seftoners at City Hunter, a net cafe. Charles eventually left at Central, saying it was too late and Jack, Lesley and I made the trip. We joined up with a whole bunch of other Seftoners and started to play Battlefield 2. My team won the first game, but lost the second in a closely-contested match. In one instance, Jack and Lesley stormed a small island where the artillery cannons were located. Their intent was to knock them offline so their team wouldn't have to suffer the deadly barrages. Except I was sitting in between them, heard about it and got there first. I held them off for a while, but it was 2v1. They left and I just repaired the artillery. Jack and Lesley make a great team, especially when they both are driving tanks.

Initially I was going to play for an hour or so, but the second match took longer than expected and altogether I played 2 hours. I had told my parents that I was to be back at 4:30pm give or take 30mins. Since I finished at like 5pm, I called and made up a story that the train was delayed and whatnot. So I got home close to 5:45pm. They didn't seem to mind (Cityrail problems, yeah!). There was a BBQ on, but most of the guests had left. Some people remained and as I chomped on leftovers, washing it down with Pepsi, I regaled them to the stuff at UNSW, and the new facts in Medicine. Day over!

I'm quite sure that everyone else had a great day at UNSW, whether they plan to go or not. And I'd like to not that yesterday marked one year of blogging. As I read back, some things have changed quite a lot. And some haven't.

Skit is finished and now its about learning the lines and doing a quick dry run so we're ready for the rehearsals. Here I have to give some credit to Jack, for actually being one-step ahead, and thinking about rehersals and stuff. Kudos to you, Jack.

Shit. Now I actually to have to organise some stuff for skit. I hate doing things. I like deadlines though. I love the whoosing sound they make as the fly right by....

You live and learn. At any rate, you live.

Writing a skit has been an enlightening experience. Given the chance I would never do it again. Then again, I might change enough to do it again. Writing is tough. Making it funny to the majority of people is difficult. I've never been a fan of slapstick or crude jokes. Yes, they're funny but you can only laugh so much. I like more wordy jokes, jokes that rely on puns, irony or satire. Intelligent jokes if you will. But since those types of jokes actually require some thought, it's not ont everyone's wavelength.

Also, following the 2Unit skit, there was a bit of fear around. They were funny, because they were so lame. That's not to say they didn't try. They did try hard, and they deserve kudos for them, but it showed the problem of not really appealing to everyone. Reviews were mixed and most poeple could not say that it was definitively funny. But this fear should stop us. I have knowledge that Bill is working on a skit, it's rather random, but quite funny in its own right. I also know that my skit is pretty much done, with only practice and minor adjustments.

There seems to be a whole lot of dancing and music, which is the staple of a year 12 concert. Then occasionally you get some really good shit. Anyone remember that martials arts/game skit-thingy. That achieved a nice balance to physical action and comedy. Hell, they could have gone all serious and stuff, but they mixed it up with some funny stuff. Still, I'm quietly confident that this years Year 12 will maintain the bar of excellence.

UNSW C+C Day tomorrow and I'm attending due to some interesting lectures and courses. I know a whole bunch of people will be there, and just to let you know Charles and I will be trying to meet up at 9:30am at Central. If you want to join, you're definitely welcome. City Hunter afterwards.