Inspiration

Greetings (from Mars), fellow readers.

The author of this blog has been Missing In Action for many days due to several distractions.

Distractions being "unfinished" homework. Sigh, the school is all out to ruin little kids' holidays (anyone under 18 is considered a kid, whether you like it or not =P). The teachers are conspiring against us students!! I mean, seriously, we have to wait for our exam results. How can we have peaceful holidays?!

You know what's the worst thing about holidays? They make you feel so small. I just realised I have less time during the holidays than during schooling days. I sleep off the hours.

Okay, so I have been feeling down during the holidays. Really, I don't want to contaminate my blog with all the moodiness or "emo-ness" in case it's contagious.

Right, the pictures below are for inspiration.









































For more pictures, please click here. [link]

Read More...

Summary only...

Just Kidding

TEACHER : Maria, go to the map and find North America.
MARIA : Here it is!
TEACHER : Correct. Now class, who discovered America ?
CLASS : Maria!

TEACHER : Why are you late, Frank?
FRANK : Because of the sign.
TEACHER : What sign?
FRANK : The one that says, "School Ahead, Go Slow."

TEACHER : John, why are you doing your math multiplication on the floor?
JOHN : You told me to do it without using tables!

TEACHER : Glenn, how do you spell "crocodile"?
GLENN : K-R-O-K-O-D- A-I-L"
TEACHER : No, that's wrong.
GLENN : Maybe it s wrong, but you asked me how I spell it!

TEACHER : Donald, what is the chemical formula for water?
DONALD : H I J K L M N O!!
TEACHER : What are you talking about?
DONALD : Yesterday you said it's H to O!

TEACHER : Winnie, name one important thing we have today that we
didn't have ten years ago.
WINNIE : Me!

TEACHER : Millie, give me a sentence starting with "I."
MILLIE : I is...
TEACHER : No, Millie..... Always say, "I am."
MILLIE : Alright... "I am the ninth letter of the alphabet."

TEACHER : Can anybody give an example of COINCIDENCE?
TINO : Sir, my Mother and Father got married on the same day, same time."

TEACHER : George Washington not only chopped down his father's cherry
tree, but also admitted doing it. Now, Louis, do you know why his father didn't punish him?
LOUIS : Because George still had the axe in his hand.

TEACHER : Clyde , your composition on "My Dog" is exactly the same
as your brother's. Did you copy his?
CLYDE : No, teacher, it's the same dog!

TEACHER : Harold, what do you call a person who keeps on talking
when people are no longer interested?
HAROLD : A teacher. (Like our happy form teacher!)

Read More...

Summary only...

Birthday Gifts

The 6th of March might seem like a pretty insignificant day for most people. DJians, on the other hand, will remember that day as the last day of the first term exam. For me, it marks the day I become a year older. And what better way to start it than 2 favourite subjects, namely Maths and Science.

Okay, admittedly, I'm really afraid I'd screw up my first term, as I've been spending a great block of time (3-4 hours a day), well, playing. As in, playing the piano. Actually, that doesn't sound like a very smart thing to do, since I didn't even think I was good enough for the finals. Let's get this straight : 160 people from the whole country took part in the heats/audition. Only 24 humans got into the finals alive. Only 5 humans got to the finals in my category and I'm sure they're all very "geng" (slang for "extremely good"). That is, except me. So, yeah, be afraid. Be very very afraid.

The 7th of March 2009, Saturday, was nicknamed the "Music Marathon" day. Why? We were at the the Plenary Theatre, Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre for the whole day. If you must know, it is also a significant day for Sarah Brightman, who held her concert 2 floors below us at the Plenary Hall. At precisely 8.30 pm (provided the VIPs turn up early), our competition's gala, Sarah Brightman's world tour concert and Kitaro's performance would start kicking. Wait, if my story starts at 8.30, I won't have anything else to say. Ahem. Rewind!!!!

It is 9.00 in the morning. We miraculously reach KLCC. After dropping my mum and I off, my father went to play golf, but not before he wished me good luck. After we got off, we asked for directions. We made our way up to the 3rd floor, and on the way, we saw how hectic everyone was on the first floor, scrambling around like mice trying to prepare for Sarah Brightman's arrival.

The 3rd floor...

Was pretty empty.

Except for the Roland Piano Festival signs polluting the place. Time to register myself and start panicking.

We saw the Duet category rehearsal and soon after, it was our briefing (Junior and Open categories). My category (Junior) consisted of Jonathan Long, Joshua Ng, Samuel Tee, Woon Wu Chyi and I. (Wu Chyi is from Alexandria's school). Jonathan is my age, Samuel and Wu Chyi are one year my junior and Joshua is a happy 11-year old. The first 4 got to ballot and I was left with number 3. The most amusing thing was that Jonathan, who picked first, was the first player. Joshua, who balloted second got the 2nd player. Samuel was 4th and Wu Chyi was 5th. Which left me as 3rd. Well, I spoilt the sequence which could have otherwise been in alphabetical order. We went back to the theatre and continued watching the others rehearse until our turn.

I knew my rehearsal was robotic. I didn't move. At all. No expressions. Nothing. I just sat there and played suu-perrrr slooooow. Every other contestant breezed through their pieces, but nooo, I didn't want to tense up. 10 minutes of rehearsing was up after I took roughly 5 minutes to run through the piece and "clean up" some bits. My piece actually lasts for 2-3 minutes only, which, by the way, is the shortest piece in the whole competition. Which adds up to my thinking that I have no chance. By the way, every other person alive who heard me play were probably wondering how I got into the competition in the first place.

Come 1.30pm, we would gather in the Green Room for standby. The only talkative people then were Joshua, Samuel and his church friend, Paul. Paul was a finalist from the Jazz category and, just like the typical "jazzer", he was chilling out.
"Hey, why don't we go up there and greet the judges like this: "Yo, wazzup!......""
There was a lot more nonsense in there, actually, with one "experiment" sounding so cool it was informal.
After a while, I joined in and we all got to know Joshua the most, since he was the youngest, being only 11 this year, and he was the most talkative. It seems that he only took grade 3, 5 and 8 and was taking ATCL diploma this year. Samuel was grade 8 and was under Ms Phang, which explains why he looked familiar. Jonathan wasn't there yet and only came in about 2.20pm. Wu Chyi only laughed at how silly all of us were.

Anyway, we were all separated at 2.25, 35 minutes before our competition. Or rather, I was separated. There was the Male and Female room and it was very obvious that we couldn't intrude into the other room. So, I went into the Female room and luckily found someone there. We talked a bit and I got to know that she was from the Open category. After a while, I realised I couldn't take the cold in the room anymore. Both of us went out (it was very warm outside) and that means no one was in the room. The door was electronic and that would also mean that we couldn't enter the room anymore. I found Joshua opening and closing the Male room door, clearly enjoying himself. Samuel just came back from a sneak practice from outside and was talking to Paul.
"I think you're going to win later. Everyone says you're so good."
"Of course that's what everyone says. Nobody's going to come up and say "Hey, you know you sucked just now?""

Anyway, after 5 minutes, our whole category was outside and we all looked like rebels. Samuel and Paul were sitting on the floor, Joshua and the other 2 guys were busy destroying the electric door. When they finally got bored of it, they decide to bang open the Females' room door. When that didn't help, they banged the card sensor. When Cherry found us, she was shocked to see us looking like beggars there. Of course, by then, Jonathan and Joshua had to go backstage to prepare. A few minutes later, I was called there. I only saw Jonathan's grand ending and Joshua's performance was well done. I was so cold there that one fellow in charge had to bring a towel to wrap around me. Yay.

The next few minutes were blurry. No, I didn't faint on the spot, thank goodness. I was just so absorbed in what I was doing I couldn't remember what I did. Ironic, but true. I don't even remember how my piece went except that I played F as E somewhere. I don't even remember. I just remembered enjoying my music. FINALLY. Mission accomplished. Joshua had already vanished somewhere but Jonathan and I insisted we watched Samuel's and Wu Chyi's performance. Only 2 people were allowed backstage at any one time and so we were forced to act like burglars hiding in some secret room to hear their performances.

There, Jonathan said that Chong Lim was the one who chose the finalists for this year's competition. Or rather, that was the information his teacher, Ms Lai, gave him. Yes, Ms Lai, the freaky musician producer. She was Chong Lim's teacher herself. Okay, well, then maybe Chong Lim has a funny taste for picking me into the finals. That sounds very odd. Ng Chong Lim?? Plucked me out from that bunch of piano geeks into the finals? Pro.

After everyone was done, we joined our families and I saw Rachel, my choir's Chairperson. She said I played well, but looking back at what Paul said, it might not be true. My mum and I would spend the rest of the day up 'til 6 watching the long-winded performance of those with bigger works. The duets were real interesting to watch, especially the group of friends who chose their songs from the same composer, Astor Piazzolla.

Alex came at 6.30 and met her outside the theatre. There, we talked nonsense and caught up on my irritating form teacher. At 6.45, I had to go to the Green Room (waiting room for participants) to stand by. After that, we went for a briefing by Charles in the theatre. Kong Su Mei, my violin accompanist, was the emcee for the night. Su Mei was going to announce the winner of each category and the winner had to play their winning piece.
"Ok, then I'll say the winner for this category is bla-bla-bla and will be playing bla-bla-bla."
Joshua: No-lah! The winner for this category is *TOOT*!
*Everyone bursts out laughing*
Samuel: Yeah! The winner is *TOOT* and will be playing *TOOT* by *TOOT*.
Man, it sounds so wrong. The worst thing was that Joshua was on my left and Samuel was on my right. And apparently, I transfer the ideas from both of them to each other. The good news is that Samuel said it softly, so that only the 5 of us could hear it. And we all snickered from that point onwards.

Then, Charles taught us how to line up to get our prizes and how to line up for our group photo. After that, he dismissed us.
"Now, all of you can wait in the Females' and Males' rooms. Girls, don't enter the guys room and guys, don't go inside the girls room. Or, if you're unsure whether you're a boy or a girl, just wait in the Green Room."
Apparently, everyone was unsure of their gender.

In the GR, our category had started engaging in an endless conversation of hard-core nonsense. Samuel kept disturbing Stephanie over the phone and before she could say anything, he would put down the phone. And he mentioned that Ms Phang wanted Stephanie to re-sit her violin exam until she got a distinction.

Joshua took over when he demonstrated his thumb to us. It was so cool when we found out that his left thumb's bone could dislodge. All we had to do was push his thumb backwards and you could feel it dislodging itself. Amazingly, he could control it to go back to the normal position. Cool finger.

Other stupid things included turning off the toilet lights when Joshua was in the toilet. And drinking a lot of water. And throwing sugar packets. Joshua reminded us that the competition was just a few hours ago, as we all expressed feelings of disbelief that it all happened today. It felt like a year ago, really.

Then, we started disturbing everyone in the room, especially Samuel, who kept disturbing Martin from the Open Classical category.
"Do you know how to play Don Giovanni?"
To which Martin replied: Are you crazy?? If I could play Don Giovanni, I wouldn't be entering competitions anymore, I'd be out there making money!!!

And we found out from Martin that Wu Chyi has been playing his piece, Fantasie Impromptu, for 3 years already. Haha, wow. We all joked that maybe he plays the same thing for every competition he enters until he completely perfected it.

Suddenly, Cherry called our category out. The moment of truth. *Scary music*

Su Mei called us out one by one and we each received a fake certificate.

"..........and the runner up for this category is .....me(?!)."

HAH?!?!!? Seriously???!!!

I walked up to Mr Dennis Tan to receive my trophy. The only thoughts running through my head that time was that the trophy was so cool and that the judges have lost their minds. That includes Chong Lim as well.

The winner was pretty obvious. Wu Chyi. Come on, seriously. THREE years of practice. My piece is like 5 months old! But it surprised me why Joshua didn't get a position. Poor thing. He entered last year too and was hoping for something this year.

(Oh, I got a free birthday present!!!)





But anyway, the letdown for the other 3 didn't stop us from doing crazy things. We were all fighting with our trophies like out of a Star Wars scene. Joshua really lost it when he said, "Let's hit each other's trophies and souvenirs and see which one doesn't break. That's the true winner."
Before we started the "battles", we were called to view the winners' performances. The winners were (according to category):
Pop: Teoh Cherylyn (What's Love Got To Do With It by Graham Lyle & Terry Britten)
Jazz: Paul Khoo (Fly Me to the Moon by Bart Howard)
Junior Classical: Woon Wu Chyi (Fantasia Impromptu by Chopin)
Open Classical: Tan Hsien Chih (Ballade No.4, Op 52 by Chopin)[Man, he was good]
Duet Classical: Low Chyh Shen + Winstons (Adios Nonino by Astor Piazzolla)[very interesting piece]
Piano Concerto: Grace Alexander (Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin)[very nice but tooooooo long-winded]

During Chyh Shen and Winstons's performance, Jonathan, Joshua, Samuel and I were debating on what type of music their piece was. Maybe you could listen to it and identify it in your own way. The piece was Adios Nonino by Astor Piazzolla, if you didn't grasp it on top. (And Samuel referred to Winstons as "The Guy Who Looks Like A Korean".)

Then, during the last performance, we were called backstage. Being musicians, you would think we appreciate long performances lasting 20 minutes or so. Well, actually, we don't. We were all half dying backstage and everyone was praying for the concerto winner to end her song quickly. When they got to their last passage, Joshua was leaping around announcing happily to everyone that they're almost finished.

We took several group photos and dismissed into the Green Room. There, we were given our real certificates and went home after that.

We had supper with Alex and her family after that at the Hakka Restaurant.

What a long road it has been. Eventhough it was such a short period of time ago, memories of the competition feel far away, as if it never happened at all.

I will always look upon this day with tears of joy. Unrepeatable, spectacular, unexpected, once-in-a-lifetime and only in the living memory of my past.

Editor's note: By the way, Paul was the winner for the Jazz category. Apparently, he outshone the other contestants so much that the judges decided to give out only the first place (which went to him). That means the second place is not even up for grabs. He was seriously enjoying his music that he even tapped his feet and could be seen dancing with his own music. This proves that all genii/talented freak mutations are compulsive liars. =P

Read More...

Summary only...

Cross Country Surprise

What an amusing week this has been! The wonders started working on Monday during the BM interclass debate. We were up against 3 Angsana in the Mala debate finals. They were represented by Azmeera, Siti and Sarah Fong while 3 Batai was represented by Melissa, Jhia Yim and Ishwin. If you looked at the points, we were actually very prepared to lose. The motion itself was bias again : "Anti-drug Campaigns Are Not Effective". I mean, it's pretty obvious it's not helping much, what more effective? And furthermore, the Proposition (Angsana), was really confident in presenting their points. We totally lost hope after Sarah's speech since their points were so strong. Eventhough Ishwin's rebutts were really strong, it could not cover up all the other damages done by the Prop.

But wait!

What was this nonsense? One of the adjudicators signalled something to Gwen, the Proposition's reserve. Suddenly, Gwen went over to her team and started discussing fervently. Our class, stunned by her act, kept shouting at Wan Jyn, our reserve, to run up the stage to help our members (oh, he was busy talking with friends in the audience...). We thought it unfair and ridiculous for the Proposition to be able to have such a caring reserve while ours was, well, a little off the edge. During the Reply Speech, no one was paying attention at all as we all guessed Angsana was the winner.

So you could guess that we got quite a shock when "Usul hari ini ditolak", direct translation being "The motion today is rejected". Apparently, Angsana lost no thanks to their debate structure. Oh well, at least Batai made up for the other debate. (Actually, when the adjudicator signalled something to Gwen, she was actually asking Gwen to move the microphone, not join her teammates for their brain-numbing discussions).

The English debates were held on Thursday. Form 4 before the Form 3 one. After begging our Maths teacher, Madam Tan, to let us see the debate, she finally gave in. At first, only 5 people were supposed to see the debate, as Natasha had made a "special request". But then, Madam Tan was too kind for once, and asked who was interested to see the debate. One by one, hands sprouted from homeworks like little mushrooms until it was 3/4 interested. We ended the dilemma by forcing all those more interested in homeworks to go down and watch the finals. Poor them.

All we saw was the 2nd half of Josephine's speech up to Shu Wen's. We missed Ghee Ken, Jeremy and the Reply Speech. No offence, but there wasn't really much hope for the Opposition team, Cengal, consisting of Josephine, Elisha and Jeremy. Their (another) bias motion was "Teenage Romance Should be Prohibited". At the rate they're going, they can't defeat the motion. Seriously, blame teenagers parents Alfie Patten (13) and Chantelle Steadman (15) for giving birth to their child one week before the finals. They have become the superstars of the debate held. Let's have a round of applause here.

Although there are many things to say against the motion, poor Opposition couldn't come up with those. It's probably possible to use what last year's national champion (Neal Tan, yay!) said, with a little twist : Just because teenagers have relationships doesn't mean they have to end up doing "it". It's as if you're determining their fate or something. Alfie and Chantelle are just archetypes of immature people. If all or most relationships end up like that, then shouldn't DJ be teeming with teenage mothers?
(I would appreciate corrections rebutts to what I have just said. Thanks.)

Balau won in the end. Congratulations to them. As a serious team, they deserve it.

Oh yeah.......that reminds me. It's Scrabble Season!!! Let's rejoice!!
(No, actually, that's not a good thing. It means all my days start at 3.30 now. Nuts.)

And....did I mention fellow scrabbler Ghee Ken got a secret love letter? Haha. Congratulations, buddy. (You hypocrite!! No wonder you underperformed during your speech as Proposition!!)--

Actually, it was a prank by Shu Wen and I. Happy April Fool's in advance.
After brainstorming with my joke book, I finally came up with a great April Fool's prank. At 12.30 in the morning, you start laughing like a maniac (in my case, Daffy-laughing). Either that, or you start singing a nursery rhyme with a baby voice. You'd be responsible for your country's record for mass evacuation.

Speaking of country's records, I went to 1U today and there was a yoyo competition going on. I'm now able to claim that I saw a guy break the Malaysian record of the Speed Challenge. It's a challenge whereby you're supposed to complete 10 tricks in the fastest time possible. The previous record was 13 point something seconds. This guy, Alif, completed it in 12.22 seconds. Pro.

----------------------------------------------------------

The paragraphs above the red and blue line were very random. Let's stick to something solid.

Throughout the whole week, we had little quizzes to "threaten" our intelligence. One of the funniest quizzes was the Geography quiz. Seeing that the quiz was about world geography, it really did threaten most of my classmates intelligence. After the quiz, we had to take one of our classmate's paper and mark it. Their answers really had something "magical" about them.

Man, some people just don't know that the Forbidden City is synonymous with China. To one guy, the Forbidden City existed in Greece. To another girl, it was in Brussels. There was this sad fellow who thought the Taj Mahal existed in Pakistan. To some others, Angkor Wat is in Vietnam. Someone thought the Grand Canyon was in Italy. Silk Road was "definitely not in China" for some.

Oh, before you make any conclusions, listen to the big bomb. I hope you know where Rome is. Ever heard of the Colosseum? If you have, give yourself a pat on the back. Want to know why?

My school claims that the Colosseum is located in Greece. Hallelujah.

Read More...

Summary only...

Seconds to Disaster

I caught the adjudicator, Pn Tan, saying those fateful words before our debate. She favoured the Proposition more, who defended the motion "Youths of Today Have Too Much Freedom".

"Actually, we don't even need to judge them. We already favour the Proposition. I also judged their class in the preliminary round. They were good.....I like them".

In case she hadn't noticed, adjudicators are not supposed to take sides. I'm not sure about the student adjudicator, Sophia, though. I really couldn't believe my ears. I know I wasn't the only one to hear her statement. My English teacher, in charge of the whole debate event, caught those words too. She of course told her to be fair and "give us a chance to speak". Now, what does that tell our Opposition side? Don't hope for too much.

It started off with their "Prime Minister", (first Proposition speaker), Josephine. Just as I had predicted, she mentioned about the "messy" statement. "......were given too much freedom until they got themselves involved in murder, rape.......", to which I promptly rebutted that the freedom given is not beyond the law and that their facts were wrong. I don't think the adjudicators got my point, though.

Pn Tan's handphone rang halfway through my speech and of course I couldn't stop. That'll be nuts. The worse thing was that I was pointing out about the paradox of freedom at that time. Crap, that point was meant to cancel out almost all the Proposition's points. It works something like "the freedom given that makes you "happy" actually traps you in your mind and you become hostage to the habits you cannot break". So, that pretty much sums up everything on our side. Whoever it was who had the guts to call her was really at the wrong place at the wrong time. It basically screwed up the debate.

Anyway, Natasha's brother who sat behind the adjudicators, said we did a good job as I got "really good comments and marks". Looks like signalling the "great" sign was such a good idea. Maybe it inflated our egos? Couldn't be (for my case, that is). I heard the judge said she wasn't on our side, so......yeah. Not sure if the rest heard, though.

Both second speakers Natasha and Jeremy kept their cool. No drama here, except that I think this was where things started to go very wrong for us. We 3 speakers agreed that no one got our rebuttal (I hope you did), so Natasha had to re-emphasise our point. I think this was one of the choices which might change the course of the debate. Natasha was slightly overtime. And apparently (I think NO one was paying attention to dear Opposition), this time, everyone had the "lost" look on their faces when Natasha reinforced our rebuttal. She paraphrased my sentences, so I think they were lost on the fact that they "couldn't find any relation whatsoever" between what we both said.

Both 3rd speakers had weak spots. Kelly spoke of irrelevant points whereby youths are "free to eat whatever they want to". I'm not sure how this relates to the bigger picture of freedom, but it's clearly got the thumbs up from the judges. Sha Lynn laughed in her speech, but I don't think that was such a bad thing. She also experienced a nervous breakdown but reactions were different this time.

She's well-known for her sense of humour and distinctive voice, so when she broke down, instead of banging our heads in frustration (Opposition's reactions) or staring smugly at each other (Proposition), we all nearly bursted laughing together with her. It would have been a good thing too, since she would have "touched the hearts of the audience". But screw everyone's half-half reaction. I was grinning and banging my head at the same time, not knowing what to do (What the heck was I doing???). Judges had amused expressions and the Proposition was laughing along with her, out of sarcasm or genuine joy, I do not know.

The major screw-up came during the Reply speech. Another bad decision was when all 3 of us Opposition speakers agreed on re-emphasising our rebuttal. I could say I was really shaking this time. Even the papers I was holding were quavering. I just couldn't control my hands. Suddenly, my mind went blank. Thoughts of "we're going to lose" raced through my mind. Everything went haywire and unorganised. I stated my rebuttal and put in one sentence which would eventually prove that these adjudicators were really not listening to us, maybe because of the psychological effects on "bias-ness". Our rebuttal would cancel off all the Proposition's points and they had to pay attention to what I was going to say. Well, FINALLY, they did.

When the judges commented about us, guess what they said? We lost out on being unorganized, having "abstract points", lacking statistical analysis and "adding a new point in our Reply Speech". I could have fainted on the spot. Being unorganised is something truthful and we know that. Our POINTS??? God, the only reason the points were abstract was so that they couldn't rebutt us easily. And they COULDN'T, that's the thing!!! Gosh, after a conversation with Timekeeper Darren, I realised that our points were simple, easy to understand but hard to rebutt. Hey, if Darren can get it, why can't our senior and a teacher get it? He could even understand our rebuttal! The statistical analysis thing was so fake and I couldn't sworn I'd kill myself because I found out about this global website which showed that only 18% of youths around the world think that they have too much freedom. Unfortunately, I made the stupid mistake of not incorporating it in our speeches.

Okay, support those comments all you want, but our NEW POINT in the Reply Speech??????? You've got to be kidding me!! It's not a new point, it was repeated THREE FREAKING TIMES. What does that come to show? Not paying attention!!!

----------------------------------------------------------

Overall, I think I screwed up the most eventhough my speech was considerably "good". Amazingly, we could've won and I might stand a chance as best speaker again if my Reply Speech wasn't a mess and the adjudicators could understand my simple, meaningful rebutt. Yes, 3 Cengal deserved to win. I won't deny that. I'm just denying my decision-making abilities. And that's the main reason I broke down after most debators left, not because Cengal won against us.

If only my Reply Speech wasn't a mess, if only I had inserted the statistical analysis in our speeches, if only I could break my words down into simpler English so that others can understand what I was trying to convey.

Now, I probably won't get a chance to debate next year since my father thinks I'm wasting my time debating and my mum thinks my head is shrinking. So......there might not even be a next year in my case. I live for debating and I just love rebutts, provided that people understand my foreign babbles.

Oh well, I love geese and ducks (excuse the random statement). They're a great example of my unpredictable character. Happy all the time and get all emotional suddenly. The great thing is that, after the emotional breakdown, we "flap our wings violently" and then "continue swimming" as if nothing happened.


Time for brain-cleaning now. (I don't "brainwash". It's implies using chemicals to clean your brain).

Read More...

Summary only...