Magazine of The Gods 4 IN 1

The other 4 books of the series are as follows.

The Sea of Monsters

The Titan's Curse
The Battle of The Labyrinth
And
The Last Olympian

In The Sea of Monsters, Percy Jackson wakes up finding his dreams disturbing. He dreamt of his satyr friend, Grover being chased by a one-eyed gargantuan. He pushed this thought out of his mind as he thought it was unimportant. But little did he know, It was all that mattered.

In due course, Percy learned that his best "mortal" friend Tyson, had not been in fact a mortal at all. Tyson was actually his half-brother cyclops. The mist prevents humans and some unattentional half-bloods not see the true identity of a creature.

Tyson was actually a production of the Sea God Poseidon with a nature nymph or dryad, creating an abomination. Percy did not think Tyson as a monster but most of his demigod friends shied away from Tyson.

Percy soon learned that Half-Blood camp was in danger and the pine tree, Thalia had been poisoned, causing the magical barriers of the camp to falter. Soon after, Annabeth, friend to Percy and daughter to the goddes of wisdom Athena, set out on a Quest to find missing Gorver and the Golden Fleece to save Half-Blood camp.

On the way, they met obstacles including the Sirens, the Sorceress and the cyclops Polyphemus. They travelled across The Sea of Monsters, took the Golden Fleece, saved Grover and saved Half-Blood Camp.

After several weeks, the campers notice that the Golden Fleece worked its magic too well. Thalia, daughter of Zeus The Lightning God that was trapped in the pine tree got freed because of the Golden Fleece. Now, Thalia joins Percy, Annabeth and Grover in their most daring adventures.

Magazine of the Gods - I

Percy Jackson is a very interesting character that we call him a Half God, Half Boy, All Hero. The first time I came across this book was in the school library. The title was The Lightning Thief. I instantly had a liking to the book.

The book talks about Greek Gods that live in a mountain called Mount Olympus. It is actually situated on the 600th floor of the Empire State Building!.

I got really interested in the book so I asked my mum to buy the entire series. These are the books in order. The Lightning Thief, The Sea of Monsters, The Titan's Curse, The Battle of The Labyrinth and The Last Olympian.

The Lightning Thief is a very interesting book and I reccomend you to read it. The story revolves around Percy Jackson, the son of Poseidon, the Sea God. The truth is, Zeus, Poseidon and Hades vowed to never have children with mortal women. Zeus broke the vow by having Thalia, a Half-God Girl. In the end she was turned into a pine tree.

When Poseidon also broke the vow, Hades was furious in his underworld. In the meantime, Hades's Helm of Darkness and Zeus's Master Bolt were stolen. Percy set out on a quest to retreive these two items while confronting the three furies that hindered his journey.

Percy was acompanied by Annabeth, a daughter of Athena, and Grover, a Satyr. Together, they traveled to the underworld following a prophecy. There, they learned that Hades didn't take the two items but discovered that Ares, the God of War had taken them.

Then the amazing conclusion is that Percy survives and returns the things to their rightful owners. But little did Percy know, more darkness were to await him in the journey ahead.

To be continued ...

Seven Minutes to NOON

Seven Minutes To Noon is a new book I discovered and is written by Kate Pepper. The story revolves around a 6-month pregnant woman Alice, with two children.

One day, Alice's friend Lauren, pregnant for 8 and a half months, failed to show up at their normal meeting place. A few hours later, Alice and her friend Maggy found out that Lauren was murdered and had her baby Ivy, took from her.

After much investigating and questioning by detectives Francesca Viola and Giometti, all the clues led to Sylvie, a so-called babysitter. Sylvie was actually an image from Christina Devraux, whose friend was acting as her. Confusing isn't it? Well, the so-called "Sylvie" fell in love with Tim, Lauren's husband.

Sylvie tried to murder anyone and everyone that got in her way. That brought her in an attempted murder of Pam Short, the person who found out Sylvie's real indentity. After months of futile searching, there was no doubt that Sylvie and Tim together with Tim and Lauren's boy, Austin had already left the country.

It was impposible to track them down so the police gave up search. All in all, it was a very good story and I recommend you to read even though it has been out for quite some time now. Well, at least this book is new to me and maybe to you as well.

ICAS UNSW Computer Skills Exam Results

Finally the much awaited results of my ICAS Computer Skills test is officialy out. To me and my mum's surprise, I actually scored a High Distinction (HD)! I was very happy and overjoyed at this piece of news.

In addition, my Science results are coming fast in conjunction with the MOE ASEAN Scholarships results. I hope I pass with flying colours. The Statistics of the ICAS results are as shown below:

High Distinction: (Top 1% of entrants in each year level in Malaysia)

Distinction: (Next 10% of entrants in each year level in Malaysia)

Credit: (Next 20% of entrants in each year level in Malaysia)

Participation: (to all students who did not qualify for one of the above certificates)

As you can see, I am one of the top 1% of entrants in each year level in Malaysia that has High Distinction results. As I know, one of my friends is having the same HD as me, the rest are having Distinction or Credit as their signatures. Now that I know my results for the Computer Skills paper, I am more confident in all my other tests like Science, English and Mathematics.

I hope that you would wish me good luck and comment on my post. (I will be sitting for the English paper come this Tuesday, and Mathematics on 4th August). Thanks for taking the time to read my blog.

Report Cards

First of all I would like to say sorry for my inactiveness on my blog. I have been busy these few weeks and thus unable to conceive information to all of you through this blog. A thousand apologies to those who are interested in my blog but have slowly drifted away due to me not updating it. Rest assured if something comes up, I will tell in advance that i won't be active for a set number of days.

Now, to the main thing. Today, I got back my Mid-term exam results and was delighted that i passed with flying colors. Well, not so flying but at least improved colors. I was No.1 again in class. Well that ain't so bad ain't it?

My mum was very proud of me and my dad had the same optimistic opinion. I was glad to hear that they were proud of my fabulous results and we went out for a luxurious Thai dinner at Yum Yum.

Holidays are Over and Studying has Come

The holidays are over and I am going back to school once again. I had a wonderful holiday and I also celebrated my mum's birthday with my family at Sakura in KL.

I enjoyed myself thoroughly and also finished all my project, assignments and homework for the holidays. It's too bad that Singapore schools have 2 weeks more than us. HaHa.

I made some new friends and so you can add me in Facebook with the message "saw you at http://gatestan.blogspot.com" It would be nice to have some new friends.

I am anxious to get back to school to find out my exam result. I hope that i would get good results. Wish me good luck and leave a comment!

"Playday"

Exams are over and the holidays are here again! I feel so good like a flower that just bloomed or an exquisite painting just reviewed and praised by the grreatest artist of the world! 

I am eager to train my fingers on the computer keyboard and my reflexes are going to get sharper and sharper everyday. My eyes would be filled with everlasting "gamelust" but I think it'll only last for 2hours at an interval (my mum doesn't let me play too long).

I have so many things to do in such a short time. I was shortlisted for the ASEAN Scholarships and will be sitting for Selection test in General Ability, mathematics and English not far from now! My heart is beating like the orcs who play on their war drums (forgive the warcraft analogy) and rangers eager for their first mission. 

I will be sitting a 3 and a half hour test in each paper in a freezing, chilling, air-conditioned room so much so that I have to be wearing a jacket made out of canine fur. I hope the test wouldn't be so hard as it is to shoot an opponent in Call of Duty 4 but........... Sorry, I got caught off.

So say good luck to me and I will do my best! Bye! (for now......)

Happy Mother's Day MoM!

Today is mother's day and i wish a very happy MD (Mother's Day) to all you mothers out there. 

On the night before MD, I had a suprise for my Mom. I bought her a Diamond Air Purifier! It was under my name and my mom agreed to decduct from the amount of my weekly allowance for the RM590 that i paid. The salepeople over the counter were so amazed by what i did that they insisted to have my pic taken together with them and of course also the purifier. Who knows may be this will be an excellent sale promo for their next advert? 

Just this morning, I took my mom to McDonalds for a breakfast and she loved it. She thanked me for all I have done for her. I even massaged her for a solid 20 minutes! 

As always, every Mother's Day I would delicate a poem to my dearest MoM. This year is so special because I can now write this poem over the internet instead of on a piece of paper or over powerpoint which i did last year. Here it goes: 

Mom, always Mom,

Play the moment with a band of drums,

Into the warmth of the fire,

You gave me a life that I desire.

Crazy with work and jobs,

Crazy with the momento of life,

Always like a little mob,

And never goes into strife.

Happy Mother's Day MoM. I LOVE you!

Challenges Ahead ...

ICAS challenges:  1. Computer Skill (April 21st - done)

                           2. Science (May 12)

                           3. English (July 21)

                           4. Mathematics (August 4)

For immediate attention:

PS1. ICAS Science: May 12 

PS2. Mighty Minds: May 16 & 17

PS3. School Exam: May 21-29

As you can see, I'm in a very tight schedule here in May but i think i can compensate with this overwhelming amount of events. Well, It's a little strange when you have to pay RM25 to get in a competition. Catch my drift?

PS1: ICAS is International Competitions and Assesments for Schools from UNSW (University of New South Wales, Australia). The 1st one on Computer Skill was held at my computer school, RE2, while the others will be held at my school. I had no whatsoever training in school but i am preparing at home. Wish me luck!

PS2: Mighty Minds on the other hand is driving me crazy. We will be having our challenge at Ipoh Parade. 60 teams for Perak State will be participating for the F123 (Form 1, Form 2 and Form 3) category and another 60 teams for the F45 level. A team consists of 3 students.

According to those states (A few states have done their rounds and state champions get to participate in the national level which will be held in August) that have gone through their "Mighty Minds", we have to create a model out of something in the second round IF we get pass the fist round which we have to answer 20 qiuz questions on Science, Mathematics and General Knowledge. 

On a NOT so happy note, the teacher in charge has not gathered us for training, if ever there's any, and I don't even know who my team mates are. Everything seems to be on automatic gear. Every little info i got was from Star newspaper (as Star and RHB are the organisers/sponsor) and of course not forgetting my Mighty Mom! Well, what goes well ends well. I gotta study and study and study and study...........

PS3: Well, to be honest i don't think my school exams will be so much as a tiny little speck in the world of problems as a problem for a start. Don't get what I'm talking about? Get a life. Obviously competitions are much more harder than ordinary school exams but this time i will get a new phone hoo hoo hoo......... Obviously if I get good results obviously. If you think I use too much of the "O" word think again...... obviously.

Easter Day

It was a fine evening. Flowers bloomed, grass sprouted, clouds flying overhead but the most attractive one of all phenomenas was the hopping, jumping, smiling, two-pointy-eared, basket-full-to-the-brim-of-easter-eggs easter bunny. That's right, it is Easter!!!!!

But in the reality of Christians, Easter isn't all about "easter eggs", in fact it is a lot farther than that. It was the day Jesus was risen and brought back to life after he died on the cross to take away our sins. Now don't mistake me for a Christian because I think I am a mixture of Budahism-Christianist.

As God said, emptyness is promises. When we look at the cross now and see that it is empty, we have a newfound hope that God actually sacrificed his son for us to take away our sins and let us live in a better world. 

Easter is the third day after Jesus died on the cross where he was risen from his tomb. That is why we celebrate Easter until today.

数学天才

Sorry for the long wait everyone. This title of  "数学天才" has been sitting here since March 26. It's now April 05. Oh gosh, just realised how time flies ... Well,  i have been busy over the days because i had a lot of co-corriculum activities; besides i was also busy playing my DoTA, relaxing my mind after the dreadful exams. Please forgive me for my impunctuality of writing this blog and please continue to follow my blog.

Enough of the apologizing and lets get to the main topic. After our first term exams, we waited anxiously for our results. And as you may very well know (or not) "数学天才" means "Maths Genius". Our teacher distributed our assesments according to numbers in decending order, starting from number 41 till 1. (Our class has 41 students in total, and each of us was assigned a number from 1 to 41 according to the alphabetical position of names in the class list. ) 

At number 31, teacher said he got 90 marks and everyone called him a 数学天才. I was thinking, while I was in primary school, the then teacher would say 90 marks is not enough. When it came to my turn, number 15, I myself was shocked to find out I scored a full 100 marks! 

By now, my classmates were shouting 数学天才 but i was trying to be modest. I told them its just a little improvement but they firmly said NO, you are a 数学天才! And now, after ALL 11 exam papers came back, I am the No. 1 boy of the class which is a little or not unusual for me.

Scout Camping Day

We had a Scouts Camping Day on the 20th-21st of March (Friday-Saturday). It was really exhausting. We had to build a bridge that took us 8 HOURS to build. We could not rest or drink water until it was finished.

OK, now let me tell you how I started this camp. At first i thought the camp would be a good experience, so i joined in. We had to get up at 5:30 in the morning to reach school before 6:30am. When we reached school we had to practice marching and did an activity called flag break (make a circle around the flag posts and do some rituals or something ...).

Then, we put our bags in the classrooms and we started to build a bridge, the Banana Bridge. The other 2 patrols wre building the Suspension Bridge and the Monkey Bridge. We started by building a tripod and binding it together with the tripod lashing. After that, we built the base of the tripods with four long peices of wood and tied them together with the square lashing.

We started pushing BOTH the tripod up until they turned until 90 degrees. Then we had to tie both of the ends of the tripods together with the share lashing. We built a figure of faith on the top and built the path across the bridge. We built a fence around and across the bridge to prevent us from falling. Then, it was finished. Think it is easy? Think again. We took 8 hours to finish the whole thing. There were 54 and i mean 54 square lashings in the whole bridge!!!

At night, we had an activity, The Treasure Hunt. We were competing to hunt for the treasure and finally, the 3rd patrol won (I am in the 2nd patrol). We slept on tables in the classrooms at 1:00 a.m. and got up at 5:00  a.m. My back was aching but we had to go out and do morning excersise. Then we had 3 forkfulls of maggie mee for breakfast ...

We brushed our teeth and got ready to take down our bridge - the Banana Bridge. We were sad when we had to take down our bridge because it took so much time and hard work to complete it. We took it down under 3 hours, a big difference from the 8 hours needed to build the bridge. By that time, my face was sunburned till it looked like a big, fat, plump, red THING ... At about 3 in the afternoon, the awards were presented to us. My patrol won 2 awards; The Best Spirit award and the Best Pioneering Camp bridge award.

By that time all of us were yearning to go back home. We did 1 last activity, the Flag Break then packed our bags and went back to home sweet home ... 

NOTE: My face is still sunbured badly sob sob ...

Exams Over and the Holidays Are Here!

The exams are over and now its time to relax, sit back down and .... play DotA!!!!! The exams were a little stressfull on me because it was the 1st time of exams in F1.  Anyhow I think i will get great results.

Now after my exams, I am going to play DotA on GG Garena. If you want to play with me, just add me. Now i can sit back and relax and enjoy my gaming. See you all later bye-bye!!!!

Life's Brief Candle

   To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, 

   Creeps in this petty pace from day to day 

   To the last syllable of recorded time, 

   And all our yesterdays have lighted fools 

   The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! 

   Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, 

   That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, 

   And then is heard no more;  it is a tale 

   Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, 

   Signifying nothing.

This is the first of the three poems that i have to read in Form 1. Well, to give a short explanation (i usually mean short as in long). This poem is written by no other than the great William Shakespear, the greatest dramatist in the world. It is taken from the play "Macbeth", William's greatest hit. 

What I understand from this poem is that this poem is related to a tragic moment. The subject of the poem is death. Life is short or brief; just like the candle, which can only burn for a short amount of time. The poem deals with death. Death is unpredictable and can come crashing down at you when you least expect it. No one lives forever. We have to accept that because all of us will come to a stage of life where we will have to leave our loved ones behind.

To conclude, the poem deals with death and shows that life is short and unpredictable. Therefore one should learn to use time wisely and to the fullest to ensure a successful life. The poem also teaches us that we must set goals in life and make life meaningful, so that we know what we want to do in life. 

Put simply, we must spend our lives wisely and meaningfully. Not just a candle that blows out in the slightest of winds or a candle that burns out fast because of the enormous flame that burns out the wax. Spend your life as you would because you will only have one life.

Exams......

Exams are coming fast and I barely have time to write my blog so excuse me if I didn't update it weekly. I study everyday and put all of my time into studying. There are some new subjects in high school like Geography, History and more.

Exams are a part of almost everybody's life. Exams are made to test your ability to study and do not think that the goverment made exams just to torture you to death (well, not litteraly).They make us study hard and aim for one goal - getting higher marks than your rival. You won't need to lie, you know you want it.

I've got beaten at exams by my best friend before and i was determined to beat him at the exams again and that was a pure non-drug booster.

Now do you think exams are important? If you don't you better think again ........

Books That I Have Read

I am sure everybody has read a book before, no matter what genre or language the book might be in. I have a passion for books especially for Harry Potter series and novels similar with it. Examples are, "Skulduggery Pleasant",  "Magyk",  "Artemis Fowl" and many more.  I am eagerly awaiting the coming of new series ...  

One of my problems is that i can't get enough of a book. I finish reading a book very fast and when i reach the end, i regret that i have finished reading it beacuse there would be no more books to read (Excuse me if I am too "blabbery"). Even if i read the book again, there would be no more suspense in it.

Secondly, I think I am starting to nag my Mum to buy books for me to read (obviously not reference books). Well, to make it simple, in one year my mum will spend lots of money for books on me. But on the bright side, she will get a "discount" on her income tax.

On the other hand, I read my books until late night when my Mum and Dad have already slept. I litterally feel my eyelids drooping and stooping and all of a sudden a yawn will charge at me with full speed and i will get tired but will be determined to finish reading my book. My Mum always says that if I have this kind of attitude in studying, she would be so happy (obviously no one has that kind of an attitude on studying. Well maybe THK my Ex-classmate has that attitude, a zombie attitude).

Our Yummy Dinner

Tom Yam Soup with Fuccilli

A great dish from Black Canyon which my mum ate just today. It was a little sour and spicy but that's what Tom Yam's all about!!!

Fish Steak

My Dad had this as his dinner with a free mushroom soup. It comes with chips and tartar sauce and buttered toast.

Fuccilli with Chicken Ham

The dish that I had was delicous. It had green pepper, chicken ham and peas with fuccilli.

Computer and Study room

My Study and Computer room. I love to play DoTA here. It is my place of luxury until my mum calls ... Gates !! .... then i will have to stop. Obviously i will stop reluctantly.

My Living Room

My Living Room. The place where i watch TV and movies with my mum and dad. I mostly have my dinner or lunch here. Well... i don't expect too much but this living room is just nice.

47th Sports Day (2009)

I just had a tiring day on Saturday, 28-Feb-2009. It was the 47th Sports Day and prefects needed to be on duty from 7-11A.M. We just stood there getting burned by the sun and instead of getting vitamin E,  we got a nausea.

My Anti-Mage ownage game

• This is a snapshot of my Double-Kill in DoTA using AM (Anti-Mage)
  

My First Blog

Hurray, at last I take the effort to try out something which I wanted to do long long ago ...