Last night, I went to watch Ratatouille with SL, Joyce and Gloria. This film has gotten a five-star rating by The Straits Times, the second movie this year to get that.

This movie certainly deserves its 5-stars. Seriously. It is funny, but at the same time, it tells of a heart-warming story. The pace was excellent, and the audience was hooked every minute. The animations were so real, every single detail were there, and let me tell you, the food look simply mouth-watering! A must-watch movie for this year. :D

Today, I went back to PJC with Kelvin and Gek Ling to visit our teachers for Teachers' Day. We went there around 10+, when the school was having a concert.

We talked to Mr Tham, our CT-cum-Maths tutor, first. LOL! He's as lively as ever, and we had quite a lot of laughs talking to him. He didn't remember who is CQ though. He keeps thinking it's "the AVA guy", JQ. See la CQ. So quiet. Even Mr Tham forgotten you liao. :P

Then, we went to find Mdm Goh, our chem teacher. LOL! She's so hip and cool, with all that orange hair (actually a side effect from the medicine she's taking, but it makes her look very young :D). She was chatting very amicably with us, and she even told me something quite embarrassing.

Apparently, she has noticed that I slept quite a bit in class. She was quite concerned, so she went to ask Mr Tham about it. He told her that I was a hard-working student, who studies till late at night, and that's why I was sleeping. And then I went absolutely embarrassed, because, well... I didn't expect Mr Tham to "save" me. Wow.... And then, she continued on saying that after knowing that, whenever she saw me sleeping, she didn't wake me up because she knows I "have been staying up late to study", and that she knew I am a good in Chem, so she was not worried. After hearing that, I felt so paiseh la. OMG! She actually let me sleep leh. Wa! And that she remembered this even after 2 years wor. I feel kinda special. :P

Actually, it's fun talking to teachers when coming back as an alumni. You lose that "student-teacher" feeling, and it's able to be so much more at ease with the teachers now. We can talk a lot more too. I have so much fun talking to Mr Tham and Mdm Goh. :D

After that, the three of us walked around school, and then decided to have lunch at the canteen. Let me tell you. PJ's chicken rice absolutely rocks! The auntie saw us, and was quite pleased that we went back to her stall. LOL. It was good reliving all those memories. Especially during J2 when it was the three of us, plus CQ, always eating together during our breaks. And then after eating, Kelvin would be sleeping, and the three of us would be doing our tutorials.... The memories. :D

Well, I certainly didn't regret waking up at 7.30am today, that's for sure. :D I finally watched Jay Chou's 不能说的秘密 (Secret) today! :D I watched it with SL, who similarly, hasn't watched the show at all.

It is the best Chinese movie that I have watched in the recent years. Seriously. The storyline was excellent, and I love the build-up of the movie. The climax rocks, and trust me, I was very very emotional (almost to the point of tears, I swear) at the VERY CLIMAX when Jay was playing the piano to.... (no spoilers wor! :P) However, the ending can be improved on. Seriously. There are some loose ends that needs to be tied up, and the ending, if you do some deep thinking, doesn't really connect.... Oh yes. I want to comment on Jay's excellent piano-playing skills (Now, I think that it is Jay really playing the piano. His skills are excellent, I've heard). I really love his skills and playing style, especially during the piano battle. :D

Watching Jay playing the piano so well reminds me of my childhood dream. Like wanting to learn French, wanting to learn to play the piano is another dream of mine. But too bad, I can't really learn it now. Nobody will teach an adult (something about fingers being too stiff), and I don't have money for lessons anyway. Thanks to choir, however, I do know how to play simple notes and tunes. Mainly to find the pitch (finding it is one thing, pitching to the note accurately is another... :P) though. Ha.

Anyway, back to topic. I am rating the movie a 4.5/5. -0.5 for the ending. :P A highly recommended movie from me. :D

Okay. Now comes the juicy news. (Not that kinda juicy, CQ. :P)

Apparently, arsonists are running rampant in Woodlands Circle. They torched ablaze 20+ bikes in my area during the wee hours of the morning, and 14 of them were parked in the carpark opposite my block.

Also, apparently, EVERYBODY in my block knew. Except me. Because I was sleeping.

My brother said he couldn't wake me up because I was "sleeping like a pig". He didn't even try to shake me lor. -.-" See la. I miss out of the action la. Think of all the gossiping I could have done. :P

But, amidst all my frivolities, my sympathies extend to all the 24 bike owners out there. I do hope that the arsonists will be captured as soon as possible, and may justice be served. I believe in karma. :D Well, I just watched the Campus Superstar finale, and I felt like blogging, so hence, this post.

I am glad that Shawn won. I am really happy for him. It's no small feat for someone his age, and I applaud him for that. This also marks my first time a contestant I have supported since the beginning actually won. Haha! So proud of myself for "having the talent" to pick contestants. :P But I don't like his finale song leh. Firstly, it's not really a good song to wow the audience with. Secondly, his vocals aren't really suited for that song. Seriously. However, he did sing that song better after he won. Seems like after winning, all the stress evaporated and his joy lets him enjoy that song more. Ha.

Keely is, of course, the female champion. Her voice is powerful and good, although you can see that her energy is waning as she progress through all her songs. Her finale song is a good 压场 song, but then, her vocals were quite tired, and she was unable to fully bring out the song. If she did it well, her score would have skyrocketed like when she sang 平常心 two weeks ago.

Actually, based on talent and skills alone, I would have Keely to win the overall championship. But I knew Shawn will win, due to his popularity.

Note that I didn't say they deserve to win. I can't really bring myself to say that. As good as they are at singing, they are simply not better than their Campus Superstar 1 seniors. In fact, you cannot even compare. Both batches are in totally different leagues altogether.

When 智阳 and Theresa came out to start off the show, their voices wowed me. And then, when they went on to duet with Keely and Shawn respectively, I got reminded of their awesome voices. I really miss watching 智阳 and Theresa singing on stage. Especially 智阳's. I got reminded by I chose him to win Season 1. His voice simply rocks!

Really really cannot compare lor. If 智阳 ever ever makes an album, I would buy it. That's how awesome his voice is. :D

Another segment of tonight's show which I would never forget is 燕姿's performance. I felt that she's a good learning point for all the contestants out there. The judges keep criticizing the contestants for not properly managing their emotions ("感情处理不够好"), and well, they can learn a lot from 燕姿. She really brings out the flavor of her songs. I can really feel what she is singing. I was really really touched by her 我怀念的. Really powerful song. I almost cried. Seriously. Powerful. (Khooty, you should watch a repeat of that show if you can. Really really good performance of that song.)

I would really like to see a female winner next time. Seriously. The guys have won both seasons of Project & Campus Superstars. It's time for the females to step up to the plate, yes? The female champions for the shows are really good. Really can fight with the male singers. But also cannot help it la. Singaporeans support males more. But for the record, I think that 迪雅 should have won PSS2. Really really. Her voice is so much more unique and powerful than Darren's.

Well, until next time, I suppose.... I really really hate seeing people eat in the buses.

Well, not because they leave a mess (I do hate those people, really), or that it is wrong (I don't care about that, really). It is because, the smell of the food makes me want to eat them too! And I can't!

Do you know how torturous it is to watch people eat good food while not having any yourself? Just today, this passenger was eating waffles from Causeway Point in front of me, and the most amazing scent wafted right into my nostrils. I can just die there, can? Wa.... I really want to make a roundtrip all the way back to Causeway just to buy waffles wor. But, I am not crazy, nor rich. So, I didn't. :P

And then, worse. I see another guy sitting diagonally across me eating snowskin mooncake! OMG I REALLY WANT TO DIE RIGHT THERE AND THEN CAN! MOONCAKES! ARGH!!!!!

All my favourite food, and I am not eating them! I can just, die. :P

So, yes. It is wrong when people eat on the bus. It makes me want to die. :P

But of course, if I do it, it is not wrong. :P

(I do clean up after myself, okay! I am a very considerate person who never leaves any rubbish behind. And I don't spill my food and drinks. Really.) The odds are overwhelmingly against my favour. I linked Meng Shi to my blog a while ago, and he commented that my French was very good.

LOL. It's very very VERY basic, self-taught French. But, that comment set me thinking. Maybe you people wouldn't know why I like the French language so much, or why I am dead set in at least taking the introductory French course in NTU next year.

Well, I believe it started with The Parents Trap (a classic and still a favourite movie of mine). In that movie, one of the characters were speaking in French over the phone. Even though it was only for a few seconds, that scene mesmerized me. It had me hooked on this beautiful-sounding language. I just love the way the words rolled out so smoothly. From then on, I aimed to master the language so I can speak it fluently.

It is a personal goal of mine for a very long time. I have even bought an Idiot's Guide to Learning French to teach myself the language (Those very basic French you read in this blog, I learned it from this book. :P). However, due to the lack of vocabulary and practice, this project fell short. I believe I am still stuck at Chapter 3, after the basic French pronunciation and grammar (I am still stuck on the pronoun "I" and its verbs.. haha!).

Then, I tried to go for French classes at Alliance Française, but their lessons were too expensive. So, I believe the next best thing would be to learn French in my university. I am determined to do so. In fact, I might just learn all the way into French 3 and take DELF (Diplôme d'études en langue française). Then, I would fulfill my lifelong dream, and also, have a major advantage when I want to migrate to Canada. Killing two birds with one stone. Sounds like a good plan, oui? :D Yesterday, I was walking back to my house with Glor and SL from Admiralty Place when I was stopped by a man.

Insurance agent? No. Flyer distributor? No. He was, or is (I don't know about that), a regular customer at 768 Woodlands Mart's Shop N Save.

He recognized me, this ex-cashier from Shop N Save, and stopped me to have some small talk.

I am very surprised that up till today, 1 year and 4 months after I quit my job to enter NS, there are still people out there who recognized this lousy cashier. I met another of my old customer on the bus back home several months ago too.

Well, I was lousy. I had very poor customer service; I wouldn't think twice to scold customers for being unruly. And yet, I have people saying hi to me on the streets now. And later on, as I continue walking back, I saw more people, and recognized them as Shop N Save customers. LOL! It's like, in this neighborhood, there's people that I know wherever I step. I can even tell you the regular patrons' character and personality, based on how they treat cashiers. Hee!

Well, if you asked me, would I be the same nasty little cashier boy, if I went back in time? Well, yes. Because of my snottiness, I was able to to grow from it. After being a cashier, I started observing other cashiers. And when I encountered bad ones, I felt so guilty, because they reminded me of myself. I would feel sorry for the customers who suffered under me. And from there on, I learned. I grew up. I changed. (I think...) :) I am so lucky, so 幸福, to have such great friends surrounding me.

I have said it, and I am saying it again: Thank you, my dear friends, for being there for me. 我感激不尽.