Tuesday, March 1

XPAN - Common Jasmine Orange

XPAN - Common Jasmine Orange



I've been terribly muddle-headed in recent weeks. However, owing a startling personal discovery, I've decided to once again - change this blog template to better accomodate even larger squares as well as some wider expanse of photographs. For some strange reason, after learning about and reading up the reviews about a very unique camera - The Hasselblad XPAN, I went around randomly cropping my pictures in Photoshop. Just having plain fun with different crop ratios.

I hope that I do not get too technical. At the same time, basically when I play around with my cropping ratios under a little bit of inspiration from the Hasselblad XPANs 3:1 ratio. I landed with a figure of 7:3 and realised that even as I went on to crop pictures that I had taken months ago. Somehow, a great deal of the key elements in a random particular picture happened to "just" fall within the cropping area. Take for example, the photographs that I shot at the ACJC Orientation 2005 earlier this year. I just took out a picture from my archives that gave me a little fancy and applied a 7:3 crop ratio to it:



And for some mysterious reason. I can almost get all the interesting and key elements in the picture all in that crop. So strange. So I went on the experiment with a few other pictures from the orientation. Some of them that have never been published before because I felt that they were plain lousy. Even for those that I have posted up in my blog post in January about the orientation. I took some of the pictures that were originally cropped as squares and went about to crop them with a 7:3 ratio. And then:





The most part where the action was taking place fell nicely within the crop! So ever since a few days ago, I have been having fun cropping all sorts of pictures with a 7:3 ratio and the results look quite satisfactory to me. Not every picture can be cropped. Some are really better of as squares else in their original rectangular shapes. At the same time, this is very interesting. it has opened up a little door, a crack of light in the place as I continually search for my vision in photography. Its amusingly fun, all thanks to a unique camera. Just to continually illustrate this post, I have a good deal of pictures from the orientation to give whoever that reads this a perhaps better idea of what I am referring to.

The only problem is that I have plenty of square images that have yet to be published on this blog. And given my new blog layout which caters to this "strange cropped pictures", I think it is ridiculous to resize them to 900 by 900 pixels - in my opinion, just too large. So as I blog with this new layout in future, I'll still use the old images which are 700 by 700 pixels in length and in width. The cropped pictures are 930 by 340 pixels, partly owing to the framing borders around them. So sorry to those whose monitor resolutions are 800 by 600. Please do consider upgrading to a resolution of at least 1024 by 768 pixels, as this new blog template is optimised for.



One interesting thing I discovered while uploading a couple of new profile pictures onto my friendster account was that the friendster image servers automatically scale down your pictures on the longest side to 600 pixels in length (or width). Its much better than in the past where it would just be 400 pixels on the longest end. Given that the friendster server resizes one's pictures based on the longest side to just 600 pixels. It also means that if one uploads SQUARE pictures onto the server. The picture will still be an acceptable 600 by 600 pixels in size. Compare this to a measely 600 by 400 (like it is for most people) and one realises that you are getting a boost of 50% increase in image space. All with the use of a square picture. 6 by 6 format really lives on... =)

All I can say now is that, I guess all the square pictures will look pretty awkward as well as a little out of place in a blog template designed to cater to an even wider expanse of graphics, than previously thought. I don't know how long I can actually upkeep a 7:3 crop ratio. Yet, as long as it is part of a journey to continually discover exactly what ticks my eye into the images that it sees and decides to photograph. It will be well worth it. Its been quite fun putting up so many pictures on this blog thus far. A little bit taxing when doing the blogging process... at the same time, much better than using the blogger picture service - tiny, unsightly pictures aren't really what I seek out.



I am reminded that while it is Founder's Day today. And that ACS celebrates its 119th Year since Bishop Oldham founded The Anglo-Chinese School in 1886, there is always a surge of thankfulness as well as plain amazement to read back in history as well as into the archives and to really understand what conditions were like in those days. I guess that if a Methodist missionary didn't really bother, none of this would ever exist. There wouldn't be a strong and powerful rival to the schoolchildren in white in many aspects of civil society. And its good that something like the Most Nonsense College In The Country actually exists, although I digress.

While it was the release of the O-Level results last year yesterday. Sometimes if I can give my juniors advice. I would honestly tell them not to go to ACJC. Because it is just so easy to slack off and relax and enjoy the place there. Rather than to focus on one's studies - something which I do regret. ACJC probably provides the most conducive environment to slacking of all the JCs in the country. One has the VOID DECK, the NEW CANTEEN. the CAFE (across the field) and a Sports Complex to slack in. Not to mention the Library, with its abundant plethory of books with knowledge that is "out of the syllabus". Why sleep in the lecture theatre when you can draw on the table right? Its ok to get one guy to tick attendance that the whole class is present. While a large number actually skive and are found somewhere else. I really miss my days, not studying, in ACJC. But just having fun. Lazing around and slacking with the likes of T-Squared, L-Squared, Jaimes and Professor Wang. Advice to any young ACS(Barker) people who read this: Don't go to ACJC! But I know you'll put it as first choice anyway...So it doesn't really matter... =D

But it sucks to miss the orientation! 2nd intake orientation is usually nothing short of a disaster!



I remember that being one of the more blessed batches in ACJC. I would have the Fun-O-Rama during my JC2 year. Imagine if the Fun-O-Rama really fell on your JC1 year and you were a 2nd intake student. Chances are that you would never have the deep pleasure to enjoy the nonsensicality of a carnival disguised as a fund raising event that was so often held in the month of Febuary. I remember fondly about the whole series of days up towards the day of the Fun-O-Rama for my year. We were given plenty of time to do our food stall, our games stall. Many people stayed back after school till late at night (nine or ten plus for myself!) just to do this small thing, to cut some more wood. To paint the banner. To test the games and so on. I remember the very last day before the actual carnival - a Friday. It was plain crazy when the school requested "Two members from each class who are biologically male" to stay overnight in the campus to take care of everything till dawn. But that's really another story which I shall blog another time. For some strange reason, I am reminded of a

- girl. Oh no. Not again. I know I don't want to write about girls' on this nonsense blog of mine. But this one is a little bit special. Its a little bit more nonsense and it showed to me that in life - "connections are important". Just a minor event lost in the hoo-haa of the Fun-O-Rama preparations. I believe it was a wednesday or thursday on the week of the Fun-O-Rama (Falling on saturday that same week). After much discussion in our classroom on the first day, where we took the opportunity to rain water five storeys down onto the class of 2SC2 from the comfort of our airconditioned classroom, we decided to paint our banners in groups.



I still remember the banner names. The one for our games stall was called "Rug N Roll". Basically the game compromised of using a rugby ball to bowl down a couple of water bottles. The effect we were trying to achieve was something like cosmic bowling with a rugby ball. Our food stall was aptly called "EAT MI". With the letter "E" in the shape of Chomp-Chomp of windows 3.11 fame. We had bought spray cans from a hardware stall off Dover Road. Unfortunately, the more we used our spray cans on the banner cloth, basically, a large chunk of it seeped right through the cloth onto the newspaper underneath. And sometimes, even the ground. So in the end, we bought enamel paint at 14 bucks a bucket from a store with just three colors remaining - Brown, Green and Blue (So Sad Right?) and we started painting our banners. Quite fun. I got one paintbrush dab worth of blue enamel paint onto my AC pants. Argh. And plenty of paint onto our hands. We also bought copious amounts of turpentine and thinner. JC Kids become professional painters for a day. On The Job Experiences of The Apprentice Of A Construction Worker.

I was doing my nonsense - painting with red paint taken from another class and attempting to spray paint the wet enamel paint. Basically nothing happens except that you get strange puddles of color on the enamel. I was spray painting. And then! I saw her! A very beautiful JC1 girl! (This is so nonsense I know!)

"Oh Shit! Whose that girl?!"

And nicely at that time. One of my classmates (Let's not name him. But he's really good!) Just "happened" to saunter up to this particular girl (I'm not saying what school uniform! You all guess! Its quite obvious!) and had a loooong conversation with her. Ok. Long as in the terms of einsteinein relativistic motion and time warp shift due to the gravitational acceleration of the moon, stars and galaxies divided by a hithero unknown cosmological constant. Yep. So that was it. And someone on my class remarked. A quote which is etched firmly in my mind:

"Woah come from where one!"

So basically I couldn't spray paint anymore. I looked around and realised the rest of my class were basically doing their own thing. Save me and another classmate. Who ended up discussing about the ethos of FTB shorts. Professor Wang got wind of our conversation and later claimed that "All RJC girls wear FTB shorts". At this time, the O-level results had not been released. So I asked around with the well-connected in school for her L1R5 prelim grades.



"Brother, from what I asked, I found that that she has eight points. Which girl with eight points for prelims comes to ACJC right?"

"Five A1s and One B3 for prelims", added another. The BROTHERHOOD was excellent at certain times of the year with their massive contact tracing network. "B3 for English. A1 for Chinese. What the hell man..." Of course, the inevitable question eventually surfaced:

"So is she going to stay in AC?"

"I doubt so Brother. The boyfriend lives in the East. One year younger that her. ACSI boy. Secondary Four this year lah - my junior". Sometimes I really wonder how they managed to dig out such stuff. But yeah, its fun and so I thanked The BrotherHood for their invaluable information. Of course, this is not without any "repucussions". Later on, they referred to this particular girl as "your crush". "So how's your crush brother! Heard she's going out with a sec 4 boy! Hahahahahaha!". And I laughed with them. It reminds me of a song - "Unattainable Girl" by Vertical Rush. And I guess its more or less true when I realise the values of stopping down a camera lens, much more one's personal expectations.



Well. That was about it. She was very beautiful. But just someone to admire from a distance. Once in a while I'd past her by in the corridors of AC as I rushed from F-Maths class to Chinese class. And from skiving in the library back to Five Twelve. And as usual, as I have blogged before. She too, had a whole serious of "bodyguards" that made up her "security". Her security apparatus, as described by a friend later on in the year "was quite zai".

O-level results came out and once again, I consulted with The BrotherHood as to what her L1R5 was.

"Seven Brother, seven. Six A1s and One A2 for English."

"I doubt she's doing to stay in AC." was the conclusion of another.

And so I guess her days in AC were limited. Beautiful girl whom I only had the chance to pass by in the corridor a few other times. One must remember in the context that this was quite a small thing. Because we have not factored her and her into the mathematical analysis yet. Because their effects arrived into my life very much later in the year. And even as I was probably battling/struggling/coping with depression at this time. It was a welcome relief to take my mind off things, perhaps not to go around gawking and ogling at a girl. But rather, just to "appreicate her beauty". Like a flawless morning glory. That fades away into the blackness of darkness of night.



Founder's Day. 1 March 2002. ACJC. The Most Nonsense College In The Country under the instruction wife of the CPF guy demanded that ALL JC1s were to wear the full school uniform on the day itself. With tie I believe. This was the only time in my life in ACJC that I wore my tie (If I am not wrong). So I was slacking after coming in early to school on that particular day. I think that it was a wednesday. And I got bored so I walked out of the hall at about 7.26a.m even as a good number of people were streaming into the hall for school to start at 7.30. I wanted to go get a drink.

And so just nicely at the main door of the hall. Where everyone walks in all the time. I bumped into her. And she was wearing the AC Girls uniform. OH MY GOODNESS! She was so jaw-droppingly beautiful... I just turned my head even as I walked out. Some ACS Boy that went on to ACJC once gave me a theory about the AC Girls uniform, that I think its quite true:



"You see the any MG girl in the first three months and she's like... 'ya ok...anything' and then after the first three months when they get the AC girl's outfit and suddenly... its 'woah! come from where one!!!!!" - to this was much much laughter. And a good number of people in the Void Deck nodded laughingly in agreement. So I guess that is what struck me on that day itself. A very memorable Founder's Day indeed. Not to mention my last one in the Most Nonsense College In The Country, as well as for my 12 years.

"If she stays in AC, how ah?"
"I heard that alot of guys gave her presents on Valentine's Day..."
"I think I can put her in my own personal list of 'Top 10 ACJC girls'..."



So yes. It was interesting. Even as I now look back at those childish and superficial moments of my life and I laugh it off. She was posted out after the release of the JAE results. I'd better not mention where she was posted to. Lest half the world narrow down their criterion from what I have said her and guess with a lazer razor pin point accuracy who she really is. Its not nice I guess if she ever reads this - although some might consider it to be "complimentary". The last time I saw her? Police Academy.

Like I said. Life is Nonsense. Now now, Happy Birthday ACS and um, I hope everyone has understood about the 7:3 cropping ratio in my pictures...



Here we go
Here we go
Here we go
Again...

Hello!
Goodbye!

Light and Sparks Take Flight

Hello....
Goodbye...

Flowers Bloom Your New Life"


Vertical Rush - Hello Goodbye



Standing tall at 184
She looks real good on my bedroom door
Head to toe yeah, she’s so fine
Wishing everyday that she’d be mine

For this illusion cannot be
Living in this lurid fantasy
More thought love respect for her
I gotta change those dark desires

She is, unattainable girl
She is, unattainable girl


Vertical Rush - Unattainable Girl


Oh yes... I almost forgot - The Best Is Yet To Be!

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