MIND SHARDS

2008-03-31T22:54:00.002+08:00

saw a video clip in LTB class today. wah it was super long.. like 80 mins plus. a lot of ppl were falling asleep haha.

personally though, it was such an inspiring speech i dunno how anyone can sleep, but that's just me. it was a speech by Professor Randy Pausch from Carnegie-Mellon U. it was part of a "Last Lecture" series where the theme was kinda like if you had one last lecture to give, what would you say.

it was kinda like those wow-moments that Prof Estad talks about, except that the WHOLE speech was a wow-moment.

i had several key takeaways from the speech.

1. Brick walls are there to show you how badly you want things - they're meant for keeping the REST out!
2. Always have fun. In fact, try not to know how not to have fun!
3. Give people time. The good in them will shine through eventually.

now for number 1, it really struck a chord. everybody's had moments where they don't know whether to give up. it goes somewhat like this: you find a cause worth time and effort. you put in what you've got. hell you put in more than that, you put in things you didnt even know you had or could do. there's some progress and then it stagnates. and you're left wondering whether you missed something. it's times like that when you wonder whether you're still doing the right thing. and i was at such a cross-roads. so to hear that message about break walls really meant a lot to me. i thought to myself, how badly do i want it? and of course to answer that question, you first have to ask yourself, is it worth it? when broken down into such simple terms, it became really easy to see. cause it's definitely worth it. and i'm not giving up that easily.

number 2 was something good to hear too! i mean i'm all about having fun haha. reminds me of a little rant during one of my LTB meetings last week. i guess i reacted slightly strongly to the suggestion that we could be more focused. i said "i really don't think that's the case. and if it were up to me, i wouldnt change a thing. why? because we're effective. we manage to accomplish everything that we set out to do. and we have fun along the way, which is a great thing. i mean sure we can be more efficient by having less fun. but then where do you draw the line? the best efficiency is achieved when you have zero fun. is that what we want?" on hindsight, it seems quite eloquent haha. ok /shameless. but i dunno if i came across too strongly.

for number 3, i dont really have much to say, except that it's a good lesson to bear in mind. because that's something that i lack.

ahh, it's the last week of classes. i know i'm gonna miss some of my friends, especially my LTB team mates. i'll be the first to admit, for quite awhile i was thinking "this looks like it's gonna be a strict working-relationship." and to some extent, it was. we met for meetings and disappeared after that. even lunch was a rarity. but the whole hospitalisation incident really changed my outlook of my team. we put work aside and went to visit meaghan in hospital. the atmosphere was unbelievable. care and concern really filled the room. and we, or at least i, felt her determination to participate. also, i felt her pride at being part of the team when we showed her our presentation. then after that when we all went for supper, that was like our first bonding session haha. and from then on, i really felt that this team could go far beyond any working-relationship. we were officially "friends". now i use friends in a strict sense of the word. by friend i dont mean random person who adds you on facebook, i mean someone whom you could hang out with and just talk. in a fast moving world, just chilling and talking is so important, yet always so underrated.

miss the smilers :D

2008-01-04T18:07:00.000+08:00

last few days of holidays before school starts. well dont really have an aversion to school starting, just resignation that life is gonna be busy busy busy again. the past month of holidays has been pretty eventful. well actually compared to others, it's not that eventful per se; but i'm happy with what i've done during these holidays.

-attended andy's, joses', ashley's and esther's birthdays
-went on a kickass HK trip with leandra and krisa, thereby getting to know ayron and kelvin in the process
-hung out with amie a couple of times
-met up with the sec sch peeps, zh, alex, SA, bangballs, sam chan, peter, teng chek, teng howe
-had dinner with the csp ppl
-had reunion with the sbones on NYE

well it's been smashing and ideally i'd catch up with a few more ppl like taiwei, zhengyang, j, and perhaps some bgs classmates, but hey i'm not complaining haha. it's been more than satisfactory already :D

2007-12-26T01:16:00.000+08:00

still not sure if it was the right thing to do, but if i never got around to doing it, im sure it wouldve been a huge regret. ah well, at least things arent as bad as i thought, and there still seems to be some light at the end of this winding tunnel.

go go go.

2007-12-21T23:49:00.000+08:00

did i do the right thing?

shattered.

2007-12-16T23:44:00.000+08:00

spent an awesomeness-filled week in HK with leandra, krisa and ayron in HK last week. i always felt that the people you're with is way more important than the location you're going to in terms of importance in making a holiday enjoyable. so being fairly close to the 2 girls already, i was kinda optimistic that the trip would be fun. leandra actually only introduced ayron to krisa and myself on the first day of the trip at the airport. but having said that, you can't spend 7 days holidaying with someone (and in my case, even the same room) and not get to know the person. so now i prob know more abt ayron than many other ppl whom i've known longer heh.

i could blog at length abt the various sights that we saw in HK, but hey we have leandra's fantastic photos to remember them with. so instead i'll just list some highlights here:

- exploring the "Far East-like" malls with small retailers
- finally venturing to try fermented beancurd
- being super impressed by the efficient public transport system
- the enthralling view and wind on top of Victoria Peak
- ayron's aunt, leandra's ku ma, louis, kelvin
- krisa and ayron's constant sniping at each other
- camwhoring EVERYWHERE
- noticing that it's brighter at 11pm than at 5pm
- the kickass science museum
- ocean park!
- the droolworthy milk dessert and milk tarts
[b]- and most importantly, my dear friends with whom i spent 7 unforgettable days with[/b]

i guess im sentimental like that haha. like i come back from vacation and the most precious thing to me is how my relationships with certain friends have been significantly strengthened. i remember saying that leandra, krisa and myself were getting more and more alike because we were influencing each other. i was making the two of them lamer, leandra was making krisa and myself more perverse while krisa was making leandra and myself more bimbotic hahaha. also really grateful to ayron for being patient and showing us around HK. and louis as well for introducing some places to us. not forgetting kelvin as well, in whom i seem to have found a rather nice person to befriend heh.

rawr, can't wait for the next one.

2007-11-19T19:32:00.000+08:00

been close to a month since i last updated. it's not that nothing's been happening, but rather that so many things have happened at a whirlwind pace. also i guess in general, things had been going fairly well so i didnt have any stimulus to rant or rave about anything in particular.

that changed this morning. when i woke up at 830, i realised that i'd received an sms at 5+ in the morning from grace. in a nutshell, the report wasn't completed and she needed my help. except that i had to get to school and attend a class of my own within 90mins. sick realisation set in as i realised that finally, the shortcomings of my group were about to be cruelly exposed on report submission day.

it's not that i didn't realise it before. but it's easy to play the big-hearted person and say "oh everyone has limitations and everybody did their best" when things went well. it's when you fall short of the mark that you sit up and lament the cruel hand that fate has dealt you. i'd hate to go into specifics and pinpoint exactly where each person didnt come through, for that easily translates into a personal attack, and we dont need more of these things in daily life. but when you've tried so damn hard yourself, and you're certain that the end result is lacking due to a lack of effort and not ability, that option is tempting.

of course it's always dangerous when you're convinced that it's not your fault, least of all because in part it could be, but because there's a certain hubris about it which overcomes rationality and sentiment altogether.
- you start to compare the individual time spent on a supposed group effort
- you start to think if everybody has really value-added to the group
- worst of all, you start questioning if everybody really wants to do as well as you do

certainly those comparisons are greatly unfair, for everybody has different abilities and limitations. but in such a present state of mind, you don't care about relativity, you only bother about absolutes. you start feeling indignant and think "What's that? Everybody contributes in their own way? Yeah i guess that's fair, if you're friggin Marxist. It's a results-driven world and nobody cares about your little behind-the-scenes if your end products don't show for it."

this is arrogant, this is wrong and this is unwarranted. but if you ask me whether i can look at some people in the eye and say "I do not blame you", then i'm sorry, i can't do it. maybe when my sense of reasoning returns, but again, sorry, not today.

2007-10-21T17:24:00.000+08:00

yay celebrated 21st (evil laugh) bday yesterday at starbucks. invited friends from uni, jc, sec and hell even PY! by coincidence or otherwise, 21 ppl showed up haha, whoa! had a fantastic time catching up with everybody and lemme express my thanks to everybody who made a special effort to slot me into their busy schedules to attend this event:

zh
alex
ks
chung
teng chek
teng howe } great to see that everyone's still tight man

leandra
esther
paul
hon boon
vanessa
lulu } fellow csp ppl! the very first ppl i met in uni. rox. much. ya.

joses
louisa
jason
weiyuan } sbonesssss. thanks for coming! haha our class is really dwindling, all overseas liao.

xinyi
amie
zhengyang
tai wei
yee heng } thank you all for coming even though yall didnt know many (or any!) other ppl there! really meant alot!

and also a shoutout to other ppl who were so kind as to send me birthday greetings!

christine
andy
cat
j
caryn
krisa
alan
andy
nick
ephraim
jo-jo joel
ash
derek
teng chi
debbie
zhiyang
grace
adeline
shawn
jem
john
edward
alvin
sung ann
joel

HUGE thanks to everyone really, for a sincere gesture, no matter how small, goes a loooooong way!

oh yes not forgetting the presents! thanks everyone!

2007-10-14T14:26:00.001+08:00

oh yeah on a side note, there was this article or rather, a photo caption that i saw in TNP yesterday. the photo depicted a metal security gate at HDB lift landings to keep out non-residents. it was implied that only residents with their key-card could unlock the gate.

so the caption went somewhere along the lines of "residents unhappy with new security system because they find it inconvenient, especially if they forget their cards". when i read this, i was flabbergasted. what kind of a world do we live in where it is socially acceptable to blame others for your own shortcomings?! the security gate there weeds out undesirable characters from loitering around blocks for whatever sinister purposes and the best thing you can say is "oh this sucks, what if i forget my card"? come on people! it's nobody's fault if you dont have the basic discipline to bring along proper "security measures" as it were. what next? do we rant at the airport for refusing us entry if we forget our passport or boarding pass? hey you know while we're at it, let's blame the traffic police for hauling us back to the station if we drive without our driving license!

seriously such over-dependency really hits a nerve with me. how do we expect society to become more enlightened and progress when we have people who cannot see the bigger picture and blame others for their own incompetence?

i put it to everyone that there is no relevant difference between the above examples i've mentioned and this security gate issue. if the government is even considering the residents' complaints to be a legitimate issue, then i am sorely disappointed. if this were the case, why should the mollycoddling stop here? in fact, if people find security measure a hindrance, then remove ALL form of it why don't you?!

come on! take some ownership over your own lives. seriously.

2007-10-14T14:21:00.001+08:00

hmm saw this posted by chewie.

SUPPOSEDLY if you've seen over 85 of these movies, you have no life. Mark the ones you've seen. There are 239 movies on this list. Copy this list mail, go to your own facebook account, paste this as a note. Then, put x's next to the movies you've seen, add them up, change the header adding your number, and click post at the bottom. Have fun!

() Rocky Horror Picture Show
() Grease
(x) Pirates of the Caribbean
(x) Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest
() Boondock Saints
() Fight Club
(x) Starsky and Hutch
() Neverending Story
() Blazing Saddles
() Airplane
Total: 3

() The Princess Bride
() AnchorMan
() Napoleon Dynamite
() Labyrinth (BOWIE!)
() Saw
() Saw II
() White Noise
() White Oleander
() Anger Management
(x)50 First Dates
(x) The Princess Diaries
() The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement
Total so far: 5

() Scream
() Scream 2
() Scream 3
(x) Scary Movie
(x) Scary Movie 2
() Scary Movie 3
() Scary Movie 4
() American Pie
(x) American Pie 2
(x) American Wedding
(x) American Pie Band Camp
Total so far: 10

(x) Harry Potter 1
(x) Harry Potter 2
(x) Harry Potter 3
(x) Harry Potter 4
() Resident Evil 1
() Resident Evil 2
() The Wedding Singer
() Little Black Book
() The Village
() Lilo & Stitch
Total so far: 14

(x) Finding Nemo
() Finding Neverland
() Signs
(x) The Grinch
() Texas Chainsaw Massacre
() Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning
(x) White Chicks
() Butterfly Effect
(x) 13 Going on 30
() I, Robot
() Robots
Total so far: 18

() Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
(x) Universal Soldier
() Lemony Snickt: A Series Of Unfortunate Events
() Along Came Polly
(x) Deep Impact
() KingPin
() Never Been Kissed
(x) Meet The Parents
(x) Meet the Fockers
() Eight Crazy Nights
() Joe Dirt
(x) KING KONG
Total so far: 23

() A Cinderella Story
() The Terminal
(x) The Lizzie McGuire Movie
() Passport to Paris
(x) Dumb & Dumber
(x) Dumber & Dumberer
() Final Destination
() Final Destination 2
() Final Destination 3
() Halloween
() The Ring
() The Ring 2
() Surviving X-MAS
(x) Flubber
Total so far: 27

(x) Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle
() Practical Magic
()Chicago
()Ghost Ship
() From Hell
(x) Hellboy
() Secret Window
() I Am Sam
() The Whole Nine Yards
(x) The Whole Ten Yards
Total so far: 30

() The Day After Tomorrow
() Child's Play
() Seed of Chucky
() Bride of Chucky
(x) Ten Things I Hate About You
() Just Married
() Gothika
() Nightmare on Elm Street
() Sixteen Candles
(x) Remember the Titans
(x) Coach Carter
() The Grudge
() The Grudge 2
(x) The Mask
(x) Son Of The Mask
Total so far: 35

(x) Bad Boys
() Bad Boys 2
() Joy Ride
() Lucky Number Sleven
(x) Ocean's Eleven
(x) Ocean's Twelve
(x) Bourne Identity
(x) Bourne Supremacy
() Lone Star
(x) Bedazzled
(x) Predator I
(x) Predator II
() The Fog
(x) Ice Age
(x) Ice Age 2: The Meltdown
() Curious George
Total so far: 45

(x) Independence Day
() Cujo
() A Bronx Tale
() Darkness Falls
() Christine
(x) ET
() Children of the Corn
(x) My Bosses Daughter
() Maid in Manhattan
() War of the Worlds
(x) Rush Hour
(x) Rush Hour 2
Total so far: 50

() Best Bet
(x) How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
() She's All That
() Calendar Girls
() Sideways
(x)Mars Attacks
(x) Event Horizon
() Ever After
() Wizard of Oz
(x) Forrest Gump
() Big Trouble in Little China
(x) The Terminator
(x) The Terminator 2
(x) The Terminator 3
Total so far: 57

(x) X-Men
(x) X2
(x) X-3
(x) Spider-Man
(x) Spider-Man 2
(x) Sky High
() Jeepers Creepers
() Jeepers Creepers 2
(x) Catch Me If You Can
(x) The Little Mermaid
() Freaky Friday
() Reign of Fire
() The Skulls
(x) Cruel Intentions
() Cruel Intentions 2
(x) The Hot Chick
(x) Shrek
(x) Shrek 2
Total so far: 69

() Swimfan
() Miracle on 34th street
() Old School
() The Notebook
() K-Pax
() Krippendorf's Tribe
() A Walk to Remember
() Ice Castles
() Boogeyman
(x) The 40-year-old-virgin
Total so far: 70

(x) Lord of the Rings Fellowship of the Ring
(x) Lord of the Rings The Two Towers
(x) Lord of the Rings Return Of the King
(x) Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
(x) Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
(x) Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Total so far: 76

() Baseketball
() Hostel
() Waiting for Guffman
() House of 1000 Corpses
() Devils Rejects
() Elf
() Highlander
() Mothman Prophecies
() American History X
() Three
Total so far: 75

() The Jacket
(x) Kung Fu Hustle
(x) Shaolin Soccer
() Night Watch
(x) Monsters Inc.
(x) Titanic
(x) Monty Python and the Holy Grail
() Shaun Of the Dead
() Willard
Total so far: 80

() High Tension
() Club Dread
(x) Hulk
() Dawn Of the Dead
() Hook
()Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
() 28 days later
() Orgazmo
() Phantasm
()Waterworld
Total so far: 81

() Kill Bill vol 1
() Kill Bill vol 2
(x) MORTAL KOMBAT
() Wolf Creek
() Kingdom of Heaven
() the Hills Have Eyes
() I Spit on Your Grave aka the Day of the Woman
() The Last House on the Left
() Re-Animator
() Army of Darkness I SLEPT TOO LONG
Total so far: 82

(x) Star Wars Ep. I The Phantom Menace
(x) Star Wars Ep. II Attack of the Clones
(x) Star Wars Ep. III Revenge of the Sith
(x) Star Wars Ep. IV A New Hope
(x) Star Wars Ep. V The Empire Strikes Back
(x) Star Wars Ep. VI Return of the Jedi
() Ewoks Caravan Of Courage
() Ewoks The Battle For Endor
Total so far: 88

(x) The Matrix
(x) The Matrix Reloaded
(x) The Matrix Revolutions
(x) Animatrix
() Evil Dead
() Evil Dead 2
() Team America: World Police
() Red Dragon
() Silence of the Lambs
() Hannibal
Total so far: 92!

oops, guess we know what this means haha.

2007-10-10T00:37:00.000+08:00

hmm past 2 days of so-called "break" and both days i've been to school. that in itself is not too bad. except going to school is the best alternative i have haha, and THAT is sad. staying at home is .. boring, there's just four walls and nobody to talk to.

went to sch yesterday for econs project. we got quite a lot done whee. finished ahead of schedule in fact. had a quick lunch in school, saw both peter and louisa there. then went to look for tai wei and esther for AS consultation. hmm suffice to say i emerged from consultation with more doubts than when i entered haha. but well at least i know what im supposed to do, just not how to do it.

met zh in school today. we did some work for about 3 hours then went for lunch. oh yeah also ran into jeremy who gave me rather depressing news rofl. sighs. why do i bother sometimes. anyway chilled at starbucks awhile with zh, trying to get out of the funk that the news brought on. after that pretty much no mood to continue studying so he came over and we attempted to play dota haha. but he kept getting d/c zz. so in the end challenged winning eleven head-to-head haha. played random countries, so fun! oh yeah also PWNED him at table soccer earlier hah~!

2007-10-02T21:42:00.000+08:00

well done! i've been thoroughly OWNED by Stats 102. the battle was somewhat as follows:

You've spent some time practising Stats.
Stats mastery is now [average]
You've spent some time practising Stats.
You've spent some time practising Stats.
You've spent some time practising Stats.
Stats mastery is now [decent]
Prof Ghosh summons Stats 102 Mid-term Exam!
Stats 102 Mid-term Exam casts Haste! Time seems to elapse faster.
You attempt a question.
You attempt a question..
You attempt a question...
Stats 102 Mid-term Exam casts Mental Block! Zomg, you're screwed!
Stats 102 Mid-term Exam **pwned** you!

hmm yeah. so no more A for sure. would be very satisfied if i scraped a B. man, im so bummed by stats it completely takes the euphoria out of me regarding yesterday's econs paper. what a 180. just yesterday i was absolutely thrilled to find that i'd gotten 100.0 for econs. when i first saw it i was like "oh ok, its upon 100.0, so whats my score". was a really fantastic moment, prob havent gotten 100 for anything since pri sch.

siiiiiiigh

2007-09-27T18:40:00.000+08:00

been having a real busy week. and coughing like crazy to boot. feel as if during some of the major bouts of cough, that my lungs could well pop out of my mouth.

anyway, had latin ballroom class again on monday. cant believe how technical it can get. i mean sure, it's important to get the technique right, but practising the same forward glide movement from the lock step for 40mins? then practising the lock in the lock step for the next 20? yeesh, yet well i mean if that's the way it's gonna be then bring it on! must must must do well for auditions tmr.

have also been working my ass off for the political sci presentation, which is finally over! hopefully did well enough haha. shame that i made two dumb mistakes during today's quiz though, the questions weren't THAT hard. argh, and so that second ace continues to elude me grr. oh and got back both my essays today and was pleasantly surprised to note that i received A- on both! yay, like i havent seen anything remotely like an A since secondary school?

haha that reminds me of the conversation i had with paul when we received our stats homework back. we both got 90+ which was pretty much the average and/or median i suppose. any how, we were saying how great it felt to get a 90+ haha, hadnt gotten those since pri sch.

so yesterday whilst doing my project i received an sms regarding supper. after a brief exchange, i realised that the sender was nat, who was back in singapore. apparently i didnt get her earlier msg haha. so tai wei and i wrapped up the project and went for dinner. then after that i went down to newton to meet up with the other sbones. i was one of the last to arrive haha, nat debbie angela keith mark weiyuan and zhiyang were already there, which was a tad surprising since i was "only" 25mins late. what was less surprising however, is that joses and jason both came after me haha. had a nice time catching up with all of them, and wished zhiyang all the best since he's flying for london tonight. oh and i heard nat had a job offer as well! she mentioned she was prob gonna take it up too. its mindboggling to find that as i start my first year, my friends already have job offers and graduate as early as mid next year. feels slightly old haha.

2007-09-22T00:18:00.000+08:00

looooong day - and ironically on a day when my "school day" was technically the shortest. went to school in the morning for 90mins of lesson haha. had lunch with tweif, and met zh during lunch also. went to look for leandra after that where we then headed over to orchard. wah havent actually gone to town since i've been so busy with school. anyhow, we went to meet up with krisa after that. it's unbelievable how telepathic the two of them are. sure enough as leandra said, she probably arrived early and went shopping first. uncanny.

anyway went with them to pick up some gift for their friend, then went with krisa to the latin ballroom tryouts at *scape. zomg, in that one session, more was covered than in the two lessons i've gone for so far. but then! at least finally a chance to practise "old" moves rather than always playing catchup each week.

i thought the lesson was productive. did 16 bars worth of stuff. 4x forward/backward basics, 4x new york, 4x something turn and 4x lock step. and also some hand movements. fwah, need to work on that. but really, with the hand movements i feel it's so much more latin-ish. ok hopefully can do well for the auditions next week.

after that went to (omg) jurong east. with my little printed map, i managed to topo my way to IBP haha. zhiyang organised a buffet dinner thingy. in the end though, only weiyuan, debbie, angela, mark and myself counted among the guests. the food was pretty good. sooooo overate though. jason joined us later at some coffeeshop where we were having some drinks to wash it all down. mm once zhiyang flies off on thurs, there'll be even fewer sbones around. sighs. but then, it's brilliant that even 3 years after JC, we're still meeting up and stuff. testament to the relatively strong bonds as a class.

whee!

2007-09-14T22:55:00.000+08:00

today's latin tryouts were postponed! gah so had lunch with andy and cat, then accompanied andy to virtuoso. also met cliffton there. had nth to do after that so trooped off home. gah it sucks having nothing to do and going home so early. like going home too late is the other extreme, and not good as well. but man going home at like 2? ugh. gonna need to find stuff to do next time.

>>原来爱情这么伤

2007-09-12T19:57:00.000+08:00

whew it's a good thing i dont go to school on wednesdays. there's time to catch up on sleep, catch up on work, and catch up on some fun to boot. a mid-week break is my favourite kind, sure as hell beats a long weekend ANYDAY. nothing against weekends but i mean having 2 days straight of rest is sufficient, what the heck am i gonna do with 3! did some pol sci readings, some AS hw and some stats hw. feeling pretty good about myself now haha. also felt sufficiently accomplished to allow myself to watch blades of glory in the afternoon. it's pretty funny haha.

feels great to get the bgs proposal out of the way. admittedly though, following through will be a different challenge entirely. also a tad more confident that i know what's going on as i trudge through the econs and stats hw. but what's this?! enough of school for now.

had a trial hiphop class last friday. quite enjoyed it. in fact i would sign up for the classes. but then it bloody clashes with my latin ballroom tryouts argggh. also had first latin ballroom lesson on monday. did the cha-cha: forward and backward basics for moving side to side and front/back. still not very good at it heh, but well hopefully can improve soon.

mm thursday tmr. close to the end of the week. but will it be a good day? unsure as of now haha. out.

2007-09-06T19:03:00.000+08:00

it's been a busy week. well then again, every week is. projects, readings, assignments: a veritable conveyor belt of academic goodies waiting to be pounced on. it just really never ends, and that kinda plays on the mind a little.

really, the only consistently high point for me is meeting friends during classes, in between classes, during lunch and so forth. all of them have enriched my experience in school thus far, though admittedly, said experience is still in its infancy.

had a presentation this week. didnt really do as well as i'd have liked. hopefully the next one will be better. you're only as good as your weakest member after all, and if ppl dont chip in with intellectual capital, then i guess it's a case of waiting for the guillotine to drop.

also suddenly remember the following quote:
"Never make someone a priority in your life, when you are only an option in theirs"

it's pretty depressing. on the other hand, it's also pretty true. why then do i persist.

-sinks into contemplative state of mind-

2007-08-31T19:13:00.000+08:00

so the SMU freshman bash was held yesterday at MOS. met up with cat and j for dinner. ate at carl's junior amid a rather hilarious conversation involving thai desserts and uhh, i cant recall what else at this point. we headed over to clarke quay and of all things, j was denied entry cos he didnt have any photo id with him. i suppose it's a natural mistake for someone unfamiliar with the singapore club rules. so went in with cat then we were watching the pageant haha, apparently it was already underway! since ashley was the only person i knew, was kinda rooting for him. thought he was lagging behind the popularity polls, so was pleasantly surprised when he won that segment. cat was rooting for her friend alicia, who in my opinion, was the clear favourite to win the girls portion of the event. and true enough she swept both photogenic and eventual ms smu titles. the area wasnt that big, so if you were to walk around, you'd probably meet everybody at least once. also went to hang out with krisa and leandra for a bit. tried hitting the dance floor, but it was freaking packed so we ended up going back to the retro room and just chilling there. oh yeah! met keith and mark there also haha. stayed there until abt 1+, then shared cab back with cat. so fantastic to find ppl staying in the east for once haha.

2007-08-25T10:17:00.000+08:00

it occurred to me that i totally forgot to blog about yesterday's little gathering at yp's! the guest list was pretty impressive, luke, samj, grodn, josh, teng check, teng howe, sims, ks and even eu-vin, sung-vin and wei-vin! we chatted and caught up on stuff, made a facebook acct for ks (and were pretty tempted to randomly poke ppl i might add haha). played some saboteur etc. really just chilled with wei-vin in particular seeing as i hadnt seen him since sec4! zomgggg.

2007-08-25T00:58:00.000+08:00

had a really eventful first week of school! lessons-wise, i know at least one person in each class, which makes things a whole lot more bearable. it really sucks when i dunno anybody at all, and basically just have to listen to the prof go on and on. the best best best part of everything though, is being able to hang out with all my different groups of friends!

my lovely CSP group ppl, whom i've known the "longest". my ftb group ppl with whom i've grown really close to. a couple of my socsc campmates with whom i can banter with. my primary sch friends. as well as my army friends!

so CCA day was on today. walked around with leandra, krisa and her friend, umm kinda forgot her name now, but suffice to say, it was monosyllabic in nature. we were just in time to catch caderas at the t-junction! and their performances were so so so much better than at convo, made me wanna join again haha. also caught indancity, and the song they performed to reminded me of so you think you can dance! wah lau then after that kenna sabo by the girls to take part in some balloon stuffing competition. haha think i pulled a muscle trying. oh well. signed up for membership with caderas, and so did krisa. hope we can get the same intro to latin ballroom class, then at least have a familiar face. chilled at frujch awhile with the 3 of them and ben as well.

went to meet up with andy, caryn and j after that. oh yeah met tristan along the way! haha unbelievable man. so saw kenneth, and another kenneth, zhengyang, brandon, leon and even yee heng! so anyway was walking around with the 3 of them, then caryn, j and myself signed up for eurhythmix's intro to hiphop classes haha. that shd be fun too.

can hardly wait to try my hand at those intro lessons. let's go!

2007-08-20T22:14:00.000+08:00

ahh nice song by sam lee, my new fave song for now haha. somehow song taste seems to change with mood

你那么爱她为什么不把她留下
为什么不说心里话
你深爱她这是每个人都知道啊

-melancholic sigh-

2007-08-19T21:28:00.000+08:00

went for convo yesterday. things got off to a disastrous start i must say. well picture this, i was on a bus, then all of a sudden it starts raining. heavily. like rain-to-signal-end-of-life-as-we-know-it-heavy. and i had to dash like 60m in the open, resulting in my white shirt becoming practically see-through doh.

met up with caryn at the mrt station since j played us out (and also inadvertently made me get soaked zz) headed to suntec to meet up with my other ftb groupies at starbucks. while waiting there saw wei ting haha. then teased her abit abt her attire. hmm yeah note to self, she owes me a photo!

so the convo item itself was ok, the usual motivational speeches and whatnots. they also had some performances, and i must confess myself disappointed by both emix and caderas. i'dve thought that they were better. oh well i guess that prob means they won't be overly picky on who to admit heh. they also had the finalists for chubby bunny and the cheers. heh chubby bunny must be the funniest game ever! this time though they had to say "SMU rocks my socks". i nearly fell over laughing when the mc was like "what? SMU wets your socks? ok, can la, pass" the cheering though was really anti-climactic. probably due to the cavernous nature of the convention hall, every cheer seemed far too soft. hoho also saw leandra on the screen but she was shrieking! so i really couldnt tell if it was her until i checked with krisa after that :P oh yes during the photo collage also managed to spot one photo of myself. but it wasnt very flattering haha, sweaty and concentrating v hard.

after convo caryn j andy cat and myself went ktv! pfft huiqi and cassandra were supposed to go also but then both play us out ARGHZ. haha quite fun, but as always if more ppl sure more fun! more memorable songs were my duet with Andy (qian li zhi wai) cos his fei yu qing accent was super hilarious, and also my uhh tri-et with both Cat and Andy for jin tian ni yao jia gei wo. she did the girl part and he did the rap lol!

okok rather nervous about sch starting. feel as if im totally unprepared suddenly. gah!

2007-08-17T23:02:00.000+08:00

went for the floorball clinic in sch today. met quite a number of familiar faces there really. of course theres zh and josh since we signed up together. then met wilson, whom i got to know thru the jc dunno wat thing. also jianwei whom i never really spoke to in AC. and there's joses. big shot! and not forgetting jim, someone i got to know from csp.

they taught us the basics of controlling the ball, passing, shooting etc. damn floorball is really the most tiring game i've ever played. it really is non-stop shuttle runs as jim mentioned. playing a full 5min game is super tiring. i always played deep, in fact i dont think i had a shot on goal ever haha.

went to marina square for lunch after tt with zh and josh, then shot some pool.

the dampener on my day was to be the transport. after i left i waited bloody 30mins for the bus. gave up in the end and took a cab. BLAH!

2007-08-17T00:33:00.000+08:00

so i was watching ch8 just now and then i heard the following quote: "love isn't possessive, love sets free. you love not only a person's present and future, but the past as well"

okay! so now im actually responding to advice from a drama serial. right, that totally makes so much sense, not. aiya i dunno what im doing also haha. but it just struck a chord.

reminds me of bits and pieces of the lyrics from an jing. too lazy to copy and paste tho heh.

2007-08-16T00:18:00.000+08:00

went out for dinner with some of the csp ppl. what was supposed to be a bigass outing in the end turned into a 6 person thingy, which well isnt too shabby still i guess. met leandra at dhoby ghaut mrt (like we're the only 2 ppl with punctuality in our vocab?!) followed by paul and edward. ephraim and vanessa joined us at cartel after.

had some ribs there, and im daaaaaamn full even now! after dinner we headed over to starbucks. coincidentally, met zh and his friend there haha, small world. well uhh nothing much to blog about really, we just chatted and stuff. although suffice to say, i think i should find some direction regarding my uni life.

2007-08-14T18:08:00.000+08:00

went iceskating yesterday! haha on my way there i realised i forgot to bring my phone! omg omg. luckily i met leandra at jurong east mrt, otherwise i wouldnt know how to contact them haha. so by the time we both arrived, krisa and hon boon were already at mac's. sneaky sneaky :P anyway we went in as a group of 4! not bad sia, <$15 for unlimited hours.

it's been like 3 or 4 years since the last time i iceskated, making this a grand total of the second time i've tried it. it took me awhile to get back into the rhythm of things and mumbleunfortunatelyitookafallmumble. leandra started off a little shaky but soon she was really getting the hang of it, think she has a rollerblading background. hon boon was confident enough, but krisa was phenomenal. think she's been iceskating for many years. abt midway through, lesley came to join us. having absolutely no background in either iceskating or rollerblading, she was understandably apprehensive. but towards the end she was able to glide around, albeit taking gingerly steps heh.

krisa left early and then lesley left after that for some other og outing. so hon boon, leandra and myself went for dinner, then went to watch Simpsons! Doh! haha it was quite a funny show, but admittedly it was like a lengthier version of the tv show.

2007-08-11T18:21:00.000+08:00

ugh sleepy sleepy. haha im so lousy. after having not played soccer in months, then i went for SMU's handball clinic just now and am now tirrrrrrrrrrred. i was surprised by the turn-out: there were some 10+ guys and 6 girls i believe.

handball as a sport isnt bad, you gotta keep running up and down like street soccer. but the thing is when dribbling (basketball style) is allowed, you see much less of the ball in each play. or maybe that's just at our novice level. i mean in soccer you're bound to be involved in almost every play cos well it's just damn hard to solo all the way. so you kinda end up making many runs to draw players away which is fairly tiring.

i started out on the flanks (haha still in street soccer mode, playing winger) but inadvertently established myself at goalie cos it seemed like 1) the others were fitter to run up and down 2) nobody else was doing a proper job of keeping the goal! well considering im not too shabby a street soccer goalie, i gave it a go. as it turned out, it wasnt too different! haha so it was quite fun playing as goalie for me.

oh yes apart from josh, also met kamil and joshua leong there. and they're both going to floorball next week as well, but too bad on diff days.

2007-08-09T10:47:00.000+08:00

was supposed to meet up with caryn, j and andy at clarke quay last night for some drinks. haha then like 2hours before the scheduled meeting time, j was like "eh im out and i dont wanna go home, so let's meet earlier". haha so i headed down to meet him then just hung out and chatted for an hour before going to meet the rest.

we wandered around for a lil while before going to brewerkz. wah lau i feel damn suaku in my own country haha. i mean i don't remember ever going clarke quay, or at most once or twice lar. we ordered a jug of indian pale ale (or something liddat, cant remb the name) which had a nice malt-y aftertaste. so four of us chatted and basically just opened up abit. of cos there was SOMEONE who was feeling a bit depressed since SOMEONE ELSE couldnt make it haha. but yeah anyway im a damn lousy drinker, just 1/4 of a jug of beer and i was feeling the effects already. so in our inebriated state, we decided to go ktv. yes at all of 12 at night. i'll be right damned if that isnt the craziest thing i've ever done!

haha it was ex, but it was fun la. andy's voice is super power. i mean his range and tone is just unbelievable. could just almost sing A*Mei's Ting Hai haha, just to put it in perspective. he had his difficult songs, i had my depressing love songs, caryn had her english songs and j had his boybands and thai songs haha. zomg, i dunno how we managed to sing for like three and a half hours with 4 ppl! and no sore throat!

okok that was warm up for the 18th :P

2007-08-08T01:14:00.000+08:00

woot had a nice outing with my ftb grp 62 The Fire Flintstones! i recall mentioning during my goal setting that i hope the friendships forged will be real and lasting, and not those that you just add on friendster and ignore thereafter. well im happy to say that the latter is not true, cos now we're using facebook haha. well in all seriousness, i think everybody strengthened their relationships with each other during the outing.

i was running a bit late, and by the time i'd arrived, jay, caryn, clarence, nick, matt, keavy, cat and sohail were all there. andy arrived shortly after me and huiqi made a late appearance haha. we played taboo with the team of andy, sohail, jay, cat and myself beating the team of keavy, matt, nick, clarence and caryn. hmm speaking of which, THEY OWE US ICE CREAM! yeah then other games we played include Apple & Apple, Say What and Citadels. strangely citadels wasnt as much fun this time around. we ended off with the Mad magazine game haha.

after Minds, clarence, jay, andy, cat, caryn, huiqi and myself heading over to school to check out Ice Cold B's. played a game of pool and had some drinks there. personally i wouldnt have minded staying out longer, but then some ppl wanted to catch the last train so we left after that. went back with cat and caryn. too bad i cant cast mirror image and split myself so i can send them both back heh. only managed to accompany cat back in the end. anyway it was late lar, dangerous.

sleeeeeeeeeeeeeepy now.

2007-08-07T09:37:00.001+08:00

having received my peer appraisals/evaluations for ftb a few days ago, i was absolutely delighted to find that i left a good impression on most people. i suppose it can be argued that for this kind of thing, maybe ppl opt to be polite, and neglect to mention my shortcomings. but hey, i guess we're all entitled to a pat on the back on in awhile, so here goes:

From team 62 to Daryl:

- Participates quite a lot and easy to get a long with

- Good organizer

- Funny and intelligent, intuitive

- Cute

- Spontaneous

- Speaks really well, a good leader

- Very vocal & articulate in giving instructions and suggestions

- Enthusiastic

- A good team mate and enthusiastic

- Everything is OK! But I think he can do more to the group

- Trustworthy

- Jovial and good company

From your wonderful faci:

Very participative and helpful in your efforts and ideas in the team! A FORCE to be reckoned with! Try to involve more in future teams with your planner side of character as u have great ideas and leadership potential! Well Done and keep it up for your upcoming school term! Make sure u keep in contact with the rest k!

i guess its funny in a way. i mean i never envisioned myself to be a leader in that sense. i mean i do contribute ideas from time to time, but during situations where you're unsure what to do, thats like quite bad to show signs of vulnerability right? as in like if im leader and i dont stay strong all the time, what of the team then? but at ftb, it was really a case of nobody stepping up, so unwilling to see the team shuffle along aimlessly, i put aside my own misgivings and tried to lead as best as i could. there were times i was drained, exhausted and out of ideas, but thankfully still pulled through.

well enough of the ramblings, its Minds tonight!

2007-08-05T18:28:00.000+08:00

when i saw the following headline on teamtalk, i was absolutely delighted!

Reds didn't want me enough - Flo

just goes to show the kind of person Malouda is. when Robben snubbed Man Utd for Chelski some 3 years ago, i have to admit, i was gutted. but he favoured a move to the Blues because of the cash, and now it's all coming full circle. it's with great irony and amusement when i read the reports everyday indicating that Robben is closer and closer to moving to Real Madrid because Chelski didnt offer him a good enough contract. hey you reap what you sow right? you hijacked a deal with money and so now you're gonna lose the same player cos someone else is playing show-me-the-money.

now with Malouda: it delights me no end to find that he, like his good friend, Drogba, have nary a shred of loyalty whatsoever. drogba was nothing for 2 seasons, and when he suddenly came into prominence last season, suddenly he's talking about how Chelski need to match his ambitions yadda yadda. so now since Malouda seems only to be willing to play for a club which will allow him to waltz on the red carpet into the first team, one cant help but wonder how he will react in times of adversity. say, losing the favour of the manager, or losing his place to an in-form teammate.

with Malouda, Chelski have definitely signed a player big on talent, with an equally big mouth and ego to boot. one wonders how the gargantuan egos can all fit into the dressing room. will the gaffer's make everyone else's look miniscule? or will it all reach breaking point? let's watch EPL 07/08 to find out!

2007-08-03T00:21:00.000+08:00

woohoo, having just came back from a fun-filled minds cafe outing with csp ppl (marcus, hon boon, esther, krisa, leandra, ben, brian and ashley) am still feeling v jovial, but a tad tired from ftb still. i thought arriving 15mins late would give ppl ample grace time to make it on time, but apparently i was wrong: i was the first to arrive can?!

yeah so anyway let's see what games we played: jenga, blokus, citadels, saboteur and taboo! hon boon won the blokus game, not sure due to luck or skill haha, ok la let's say both. during citadels, sadly esther had to leave early (AGAIN!) but ashley came in time to take over haha. and i won this time keke. oh yeah there was one round in which ben was killed, robbed, card-swapped and had a building destroyed rofl. for saboteur, marcus, brian and i turned out to be the saboteurs and we won far too easily. which leads me to believe that we may have had too many saboteurs haha. after this round, krisa and ben left. then we started on taboo!

zomg taboo is soooo fun haha. some special points of interest:

log (ashley) - eh in army, your S, your S, your S what ah? your S, your S
change (leandra) - you what your clothes ALL: take off!
willow (myself) - during CNY, you buy this. pussy what? pussy what?

ok ive managed to stay awake long enough to blog this, and i shall go sleep now!

2007-08-01T22:01:00.001+08:00

just got back frm ftb at east coast, was a 3d2n event at OBS. the gender mix was 6guys and 7girls, probably the best combination i could ask for really, i mean both in terms of challenges as well as social interaction. interestingly, almost half the team were made up of international students: 2 prc guys, 1 prc girl, 1 indian guy, 1 indo girl and 1 thai guy.

lemme try to recap, for day one, we did tunneling, airlock and some night games. day two consisted of rafting, geometry, spiderweb, marble and campfire. and day three was of course, the final challenge.

personally, tunneling was a complete disaster for me. our team lost the crayon after awhile, and to make things worse, the lightstick went out zz. for airlock i felt we really came together after awhile and there was a great sense of achievement. haha on a side note, damn proud of the me-xinyi crossing leg. it was damn zai! for rafting i think cat really saved us all with her knots haha. pretty handy having a sailor around! it was a real gamble making a raft with only 2 barrels instead of 4! but at least we were the first to go out and come back, even if our raft became more of a semi-submersible haha. for geometry i was super pleased with how well we startied! until we halfway kenna "sabotaged" cos some other group girl inadvertently came and grabbed our rope lolx. spiderweb was a good effort as well, pretty pleased with our achievement. the marble thing was a personal milestone for me cos for once i managed to formulate most of the plan. after the campfire there was like an hour plus of mambo. was dancing with andy, caryn, rafidah and jay. think all of them are going for the bash also wooo.

for the final challenge, it was really physically demanding. and seriously, some of the activities really reminded me of survivor! but i think we breezed through the brainteasers, which is ironic since we're more of a doing and less thinking group.

anyhow cheers to group62 of the cavemen. and a special shoutout to these ppl;
andy- my main partner in crime, with all those jokes and all, i think we really carried the team as best as we could
caryn- haha fellow jacker. dunno how many times we jacked each other. hope we can both be in emix k.
rafidah- socsc! another girl with whom we can really chat abt all sorts of stuff, like totally right?
cat- hehe small in build, but outstanding in contributions. still owe you a dirty group hug haha.
jay- damn enthu! really appreciate ur effort in the spiderweb, musta been tiring as hell man.
xinyi- you definitely have the makings of a natural leader! and peeling AND eating that lemon? respect girl, respect.
huiqi- haha you were a little quiet, but when we spoke, we always had a good laugh.

tireddd.. oh yeah which reminds me. i ended up sharing a tent with 2 of my bmt section mates! how cool is that, cheers jeremy and dong. and ok enough of the gay jokes haha.

2007-07-25T23:16:00.000+08:00

just came back from social science camp! it was a 2day 1night thingy in sch and the theme was the Mafia. as the name suggests, we were split into 5 different cliques: the japanese yakuza, the italian mob, the ghetto gangstas, the hong kong triads and the columbian drug lords. i must give 100% props to the organisers for really playing up the theme throughout every single activity! there was simulation of movie piracy, drug running, extortion, illegal gambling and so forth. we got points at each station and all this culminated in an uprising against the administration to aid the godfather (read giant water bomb fight in takeshi-castle-style)

today the storyline continued such that it was the godfather himself who sold the gangs out, so the gangs had to prove themselves over a series of tasks to see who the successor would be (read amazing race style) now the stations were pretty cool: the first one was a ghetto-style fight, ie. a dance off. so each team sent 10 dancers and a series of 1v1s would take place to determine the winning team. i had a real blast, but my adrenalin was pumping so hard that i cant remember what song i danced to now haha. the girl i was up against was pretty sporting and not the shy type, as in really trying to outdance me haha. so i really had to dance as aggressively as possible around her to limit her space and movements. actually now that i think abt it, it may have been let's get loud. someone claimed that it looked like i was grinding her haha, but im sure thats gross misrepresentation! i mean i dont remb dancing THAT close lar. haha the last song for the 10th 1v1 was sexyback. and recalling the final 4 of last season's so you think you can dance, i think i wouldve loved to do that one haha. im writing at length abt this one cos i really loved it: the concept, the music and all that.

for the other stations, we passed through kino at taka, tanjong pagar, esplanade and then headed back to school. we came in like dead last haha, but hey we had a lot of fun. the after-camp celebration at frujch was pretty good. there were some songs performed, and also several videos shown.

i think the concept for the camp was brilliant, but the exection was abit lacking in some instances. well i enjoyed it enough to know that i'd prob volunteer to be a faci myself next year :)

2007-07-23T00:44:00.001+08:00

just got back from meeting up with some prospective soc sci camp ppl! haha went to nydc at heeren. well in fact i not only got to know my group members, but members from some of the other groups as well. for some reason, everyone was having their pre-camp familiarisation thingy at heeren's nydc or vilage.

went to chill at starbucks after and got to talk more with the various peeps. mm camp next week (or rather this week since its after midnight) should be a blast!

2007-07-20T10:38:00.000+08:00

woohoo last night was super fun! it didnt seem like it was gonna be that way when i arrived at the meeting place at 5.45 though: cos there was nobody! i was thinking wtf? did i get the timing wrong and everyone's left? well anyway it turned out that i was the earliest -.-' by around 6.15, there was only hon boon and myself so we figured we might as well just head over to the hostel la. met vanessa and cassandra en route, and also paul and fish. made a drink run to cold storage, but i think i mightve been swinging the root beer a tad vigorously because when esther opened it, it fizzed everywhere! luckily she didnt get too stained by it haha, otherwise my bad o.O

was quite fun setting up the stuff la:
- what with esther and lesley breaking the corn into thirds (suitable for boiling soup) rather than halves (for bbq-ing!)
- finding out that marcus' idea of bbqing mushrooms was to use button(!) mushrooms haha
- krisa eating the corn raw and insisting that it tasted nice
- ben not being able to tell the diff between the reflective and matte finishes of aluminium foil

oh ya! then after eating right, ephraim, his sis (cant remb her real name, he claimed her name was Eureka lol), leandra, krisa, jim, marcus and myself were playing heart attack. most memorably, when marcus went outside to take a call, ephraim rigged his cards haha. we gave him 3 queens and a random card; the kicker of course, was that there was no fourth queen. so during that round everyone was just laughing like mad at how enthu marcus was because he looked like he was gonna win alrdy hahaha. devious ploy from a fellow AC mind keke. anyway having kenna whacked three times, i kenna forfeit. had to go in front of some ppl watching tv and act like tarzan in front of them haha. ok la, i've done worse. anyway it seemed real tame compared to what ephraim had to do later: he had to go smooch his fingers and then plant the "kiss" on ibrahim's thigh (he was playing xbox at the time). then we were all watching it and ibrahim was like "eh, eeeeeeeeeee!" hahahaha the reaction was priceless man.

zomg i laughed so hard and shouted so much my sore throat became a cough. but still it was one of the more memorable nights ever! hopefully we'll get to see the photos soon. hope this wont be the last time we all meet up though, would be a pity. some great chemistry going on and everybody is just fun haha!

well imma go soothe my throat.

2007-07-16T12:39:00.000+08:00

haha teamtalk does it again! now this comment in a response to the fact that Mido may be sold to Boro. where do these ppl get their material?! rofl rofl

ZeroZero (Tottenham Hotspur fan)

"Wonder if Southgate thought; "Hmmmm, we're a bit short of lumbering immobile sulky oveweight burger munching strikers, now that we've sold Viduka... Bingo! Let's get in Mido, his considerable girth will be a great replacement!" - Thanks Boro for taking him off our hands."

2007-07-15T20:10:00.000+08:00

so today was the last day of CIP :( yep you saw that right, thats a sad face and NOT a smiley face. strange you say? hardly! i truly found it all meaningful (not easy for a cynical me haha) and of course, best of all, as i mentioned in my prev post, the great ppl!

went down to toa payoh stadium today for the Around the World in 100,000 Laps event. managed the requisite 50 laps to receive a medal haha, superficial eh :P well anyway ended up doing like 58 laps la. cos i did 6 extra laps at the end along with everyone else to help ephraim finish his 50. i would like to think i ran most of the time, but i honestly dont know. walking was involved of course, i mean 21+km is like by far the farthest i've ever run/walked/moved. the next entry on that list is the mere 10km i did during the last AHM.

of course, the 50+ laps wouldve been really boring without chatting with these ppl whom i ran with at one time or another! marcus, hon boon, wei ting, leandra, krisa, esther. cheers!

also kudos to the ppl who managed to finish the 50, esp to krisa! wooo haha one girl among the guys, grats grats!

2007-07-14T23:48:00.000+08:00

been really busy the past few days having signed up for cip which started on tuesday. so i arrived that day slightly hesitant, wondering if i'd be able to click with the ppl there. as it turned out, those worries were unfounded because 1: the ppl arent difficult to talk to, well bar a few and 2: 5 other AC guys signed up, of which i knew jace, kamil and ashley beforehand. heck even my bmt platoon mate ibrahim was there. haha it was cool finding that ppl i knew were going for this cip. also resulted in this project having an overwhelming majority of ac ppl :P

so yeah the racial harmony day thingy wrapped up today and it was a blast for me. i mean sure there were tiring times and all but i really enjoyed being a part of this project because of the ppl factor. made some new friends whom, ideally, i'd love to keep touch with throughout our time in SMU, but may be tough cos of diff courses.

and here's a shoutout to all you people:
- yusri, for being the first new friend i made in SMU, and for your dedication to the project
- leandra and krisa, for being my main chit-chat buddies
- weiting and esther, for being my other chit-chat buddies
- ephraim, paul, lyn, ben, brian and vanessa, with whom i've had meaningful conversations with
- the other freshies for making this experience enjoyable
and for the organisers:
- marcus, the ever approachable and jovial 2IC, whom im sure i would have a blast with if we were in the same year :| remb the stuff that transpired during supper? haha
- hon boon, haha cant even begin to list all the jokes we shared man, cheers
- jane, for spearheading this entire project
- the other yr 2's for helping to organise and babysit all of us.

ok that's that. see you all tmr for the last day of the CIP!

2007-07-09T23:38:00.001+08:00

went to hospital today expecting to accompany my grandma for a routine endoscopy. the events that transpired however, were far from routine to say the least. not long after arriving, the news the doctor greeted us with was not what anybody wanted to hear: that a growth in the colon that was hindering bowel movement, was cancerous.

im not sure how my dad and uncle took the news, but i was shocked. fortunately though, further tests showed that it hadnt spread to any other organs and the cancerous cells were basically confined to that area of the intestine. this basically meant that after its removal, the main troubles were over, provided the cancerous cells hadnt affected the lymph nodes.

the operation went well i think. went to visit her again just now but she looked in pain. how much i wanted to let her know we were there for her, and to hang in there strong. but yet i felt she ought to sleep in order not to think about the pain. we'll only know whether the lymph nodes were affected when the biopsy results are out, prob tmr or the day after. now though, the operation went through without any complications, and i just hope that none will arise esp during these first 48 hrs.

i love you.

2007-07-08T11:03:00.000+08:00

haha and teamtalk does it once again: now this comment in response to an article saying Darren Bent scores his first Spurs' goal against Stevenage Borough.

Liamo-rulz (Arsenal fan)

"Well if Spurs can beat Stevenage Borough then I guess they could beat just about anyone. Why do people think Spurs are gonna get 4th? they have the leauge wrapped up!!!"

2007-07-06T10:12:00.000+08:00

haha was just browsing the teamtalk forums regarding carlos tevez's supposed 20m offer by man utd, and saw the following comment which just made me laugh out loud.

this comment was in response to another comment by a user saying that his goal ratio over the 38 games last season wasnt good enough:

akakhtar (Manchester United fan)

"Bunnyjouni do you even know what your talking about. No wonder you support chelski. Tevez scored 7 goals in '29' games. Did he play the extra 7 games in your back yard."

2007-07-05T19:06:00.000+08:00

so i went down to SMU to matriculate today. checked, double-checked and triple-checked to make sure i had all the necessary documents and identification. met up with zh so we had some company at least. and just outside the MRT station, who do i see but zhengyang haha. i had no idea he was going to SMU as well! and he's in biz! argharghargh haha. oh well, my own fault la. so anyway had a great time catching up with him and all that. and also eventually ran into alywin, jeremy, joses and jason.

went around to the various stations to register and then headed downstairs where all the CIP booths were. wah the moment you step inside you get besieged by zealous ppl trying to entice you to their stalls heh. well it was fun i guess, tiring though. havent quite decided which CIP and all that to sign up for though.

2007-07-04T13:06:00.000+08:00

went to watch transformers yesterday at cine. oh but before i get to that, lemme describe something that never fails to baffle me: why do ppl like to sit on the aisle seats on buses and then try to ignore anybody who wishes to get to the inner seat? and if you're someone like me, who's persistent enough such that they cant feign ignorance, they'll grudgingly pivot themselves outwards so you can slide right in. now i don't really have a problem with that, though i suspect on more than i couple of occasions, my bag mightve given their faces a deep-pore cleansing scrub. like what's hard about standing up so the other fella can go in geez.

yeah ok so onto the movie. there was like non-stop action, and in my view, a real guy-show since it was chock-full of cars and transforming sequences. so enough about the calafaires already :P what really blew me away was megan fox. she seemed perfect for the role. kind of a girl whose pretty face hides her inadequacies and talents. strong yet fragile at the same time. i tell you shia leboeuf is one lucky fella. well perhaps second only to some dude whom she's engaged to.

case in point:

havent been that blown away since some four and a half years ago :P

2007-06-27T19:12:00.000+08:00

wooo my new baby just arrived! busy transferring stuff over. wheee!

2007-06-25T23:45:00.000+08:00

hmm was watching campus superstar recently. thing i like about the program is that the contestants pick popular, melodious songs, whereas on the project superstar/ singapore idol/ american idol versions, contestants tend to avoid picking popular songs (because of the obvious comparison) and instead pick atas songs that sound like crap but can show off their vocals. i mean geez, i dunno about others but i watch the show for the entertainment: and last i checked, ktv-friendly songs are good entertainment, whereas vocal-indulgent songs are a real snore. in fact i thought season 1's winner was really good. possibly better than the winners of ANY other reality singing show in singapore thus far.

so when i went into the webbie to see who got the boot this week (results werent updated), i stumbled upon the message boards. now i can understand there being a need for "web-speak" as it were. after all, sometimes it doesnt make sense to type in Queen's English when the medium is obviously colloquial (sp?) in fact, im rather fond of the abbreviations myself, with notable examples being gtg, lmk, brb just to name a few. but i, being an avid net user myself, fail to see why people who post on the message boards have to type as if they were on a mission to mangle the english language. allow me to list a few examples (N.B. these are not the actual comments, just what's been permanently seared into my eyes during those fateful few seconds of exposure to such horrible language)

-duN w0rRy! Jia y0uZ! (am i to take it that we're supposed to emphasize the letters in upper case?)
-dunz gib upzz! okaeeezzz? (if i didnt know better, i wouldnt even have thought this was english)
-we wil alwaezz supp0rt you de! (getting real sick of all those z's, is someone sleepy?)

and probably more if i tried to recollect. alternatively i could go back and copy/paste some actual examples. but that would mean exposins my eyes to more garbage. heavens no!

or should i say "cannotzz de! okaeez?"

2007-06-21T00:28:00.000+08:00

just came back from LAN! haha hadnt done that in a long time. well, i was shooting to get 10 ppl for this, but ended with 9! well good enough i reckon. alex zh ks choong josh and the tengs answered my LAN call and thus we headed to paradiz :P old times indeed!

we started off with a game of dota in -spdmar haha woo! never get to play such modes online. split into josh zh brandon tengchek and myself against ks alex tengchi and tenghowe. probably not the fairest of shuffles, but we got owned 0-10 at one point. eventually though, we managed to turn the tide around right about when zh got omniknight. we won eventually and played iceworld for abit. then heard that odyssey was closing. -stunned- got lan shop close so early one ah haha.

we were in the mood for more cs and dota so we headed upstairs for poolday! then played spdmar again. shuffled zh tengchek tengchi and myself against josh alex brandon and tenghowe. we eventually won, though the battle for supremacy was more or less settled about midway through the game. well i had heck of a good time, and i think the others did as well.

kk shall go about organising the next one soon :P

2007-06-19T23:56:00.000+08:00

just came back from vivocity after yet another highly populated class gathering haha. let's see now: andrew tengchi yp nat zhiyang mark weiyuan jason keith kenneth debbie! thats 12 including me haha. heck of a lot if you ask me. so we went to eat at carl's jr, and basically chatted and chatted all the way until closing time.

hmm and in a couple months time, with more ppl going overseas to study, it'll prob be hard getting this many ppl again :|

2007-06-12T22:04:00.000+08:00

whee singapore sale is fun. been giving my wardrobe a mild facelift :P have gotten a couple of tees, a polo, a pair of berms, a pair of shorts, 2 pairs of jeans and a pair of pants! all on sale too woop! haha nowadays simply refuse to buy something that isnt on sale cos well, everything else is :D

also read something hilarious on teamtalk:

Anelka feels 'Le Sulk' tag is unfair

The 28-year-old said: "I meet United fans and they ask me why I haven't signed for them.

"The truth is some of the big clubs won't come in for me. It's not because I am not effective on the pitch but because of my supposed character."

Comments

realkidvicious (Manchester United fan)

"Sounds like he's complaining that he's got a reputation for complaining. I don't see how this "unfair" tag has cost him a move to big clubs. He's played for Arsenal and Real Madrid and his attitude got him shipped out to Turkey until Bolton took a chance on him. Not sure which United fans he's been talking to but every United fan I know doesn't want him anywhere near Old Trafford unless he's in an away shirt."

2007-06-10T00:56:00.000+08:00

went to play soccer with a slightly different bunch of ppl today heh. including andrew, jace, sunil, shawn etc. played at barker, hadnt been there in awhile indeed. well at any rate since luke wasnt organising it was an opportunity for me to both get some exercise, as well as to test out my new shoes haha.

i was hesitant at first, after all i barely knew anybody in the group apart from my 2 classmates. but i figured what the hell, football is more unifying than any language. and it paid off too, had a good run out (tho somewhat shorter than usual) and bagged a hat-trick wahahaha. now that's something i hadnt done in awhile too. 2 volleys from crosses sandwiched a Manuel Fernandes-esque goal (vs Man Utd). unfortunately the result was never in doubt though, we prob conceded twice and many goals as we scored haha. but hey its just a friendly.

just need to figure out how to make my shoes for comfortable now.

2007-06-07T23:08:00.000+08:00

went out for dinner with alvin edward and daniel today. met up with them at AMK hub. in fact prior to today, i didnt even know what AMK hub was. i'd only heard of the HDB hub at Toa Payoh. so i was pleasantly surprised to note that AMK hub was a tasteful mall of sorts, and had people milling around even close to closing time at 10.

edward was working there, so at his recommendation, we ate at New York New York. the place had decent western food at not too expensive prices thankfully. but really enough of the food, the real kicker for the evening was being able to catch up with the three of them again. really had a nice time chatting and reminiscing abt the past. in my view, the only way it could've been better was if jon zk and joel were there as well heh. i cant stress this enough, but i really do feel that the 7 of us really had a special teamwork going on across the various branches in camp previously. it was a case of real chemistry between people, and a real unselfishness about the whole issue. like if anybody needed help from someone else, it was as good as done kinda thing.

sigh, all too rare in a dog eat dog world nowadays.

2007-06-06T23:22:00.001+08:00

organised a massive bowling outing today. i guess i do have some credibility since a staggering 13 people turned up haha. zh ks luke yp alex samj tengs josh gordon navin and myself. we met for dinner at marina square before heading for a couple rounds of bowling - something we hadnt done in a really long time.

we split into 3 teams of 4 each, ks abstaining since he was headed home. alex zh teng chek myself vs yp navin samj teng chi vs gordon luke josh teng howe. i started things off with the first roll-off and nailed a strike (wooot!) and zh picked up the pace mid game with a couple of strikes and spares. josh was having a slow start, firing blanks for 3 frames! as was luke, who needed time to get into the rhythm. one person who wasted no time at all, was samj, who nailed strikes and spares for like the first 4 frames. team 2 eventually surged ahead when yp got into the groove and navin started nailing a couple of strikes and spares too.

in game 2, it was a no brainer. from the get-go both teams 1 and 3 were playing catch up to the scintillating form of yp and samj. navin was stringing some great frames together and hell teng chi was chipping in with a damned strike! haha had a great time nonetheless, and the little extra "competition" just spiced things up.

ok, next shall be CS :D

2007-06-04T23:10:00.000+08:00

went with zh to adidas yesterday. apparently he had a friend working there who could get a substantial staff discount. i shan't disclose the exact figures but it was significant enough for me to want to buy a pair of street soccer shoes on the spot. the only problem was they didnt have it in my size! arrrrgh. so instead zh bought some stuff, and in truth i would've as well, but i was feeling abit bummed about not being able to reach the primary goal of getting the shoes :|

so the next day went to queensway and thankfully, i managed to find a pair in my size. well 2 pairs actually, after a lot of searching too! but both were display pairs -.-' and also cost more than it would've at adidas with the staff discount. sighs oh well, i wanted them badly enough so i bought it in the end.

whee haha.

2007-05-03T22:21:00.000+08:00

went to watch spiderman3 yesterday. i guess it's true that it couldve been better, what with there being so many main characters and not enough time. being an unashamedly biased spiderman fan, i still liked the movie. in fact i think my mind was made up about liking the movie from the time i realised that spiderman3 included the alien symbiote arc. black spidey and venom is my fave story-line! but by the time the movie ended, i missed the last bus. bugger, had to take a cab.

oh yeah also played soccer on labour day. we played against some other peeps who were already on court. also v pleased with myself for scoring a cracker of a goal. intercepted a goal kick and slammed a low shot into goal wheeee, havent done something like that in a long time. happy happy.

ah yes it just occurred to me. spiderman movies always seem to be filled with nuggets of information that wouldnt be out of place in a "the meaning of life" seminar. like in spidey1 we have the immortal "great power, great responsibility yadda etc" as well as a personal favourite "i missed the part where that's my problem". and that was of course a joke, so moving on- i cant remb the quotes in s2, so i'll just list some from s3.

Warning: If you consider quotes from the movies spoilers, then don't read on.

"everybody needs help sometimes.. even spiderman"
"revenge is like a poison, it'll slowly take you over"
and also the rather poignant "you want forgiveness? get a religion" :P

2007-04-15T22:36:00.000+08:00

to witness something happening right before your eyes, and not being able to do anything about it, is truly agonising.

imagine that, over and over and over again.

gah, shudder.

2007-04-09T10:44:00.000+08:00

so it's now been a week since i passed my driving test. on the first try too! was soooo happy to find out that i'd passed. otherwise it would've meant another 6-month wait and more money spent on lessons.

so changing from driving a vios to a cefiro isnt as straightforward as i'd thought. and also when that L plate isnt there any more, i guess i'm kinda expected to step it up. been driving the car for a couple of times so far, and suffice to say, it's a tad stressful. firstly there's the danger of knocking into things and damaging the car, or worse knocking into other people. and also the fact that you're responsible for the other lives in your vehicle just adds a heavier load on your mind.

oh well, at least it gets better with each additional time i drive. hopefully it wont be long before i can take the car out by myself :)

2007-03-31T13:16:00.000+08:00

whew just came back after yet another driving lesson. well let's hope it all pays off when my test comes around next week.

met up with nat for lunch yesterday. felt like hadnt really caught up with her much since.. well since ever. so over some thai food at bugis, was learning more from her about how life overseas was like. and also of the other european countries she's visited while over there. learnt about the different sights, some of which brought back fond memories of my own trip there, while others opened a gateway of possibility (hopefully for future visits). also learnt of how she's been studying every day, not having much time for other stuff. hang in there nat!

we strolled along Bugis Village where she was helping me pick out a slingbag. said slingbag is currently being aired and sunned.

also as my aunt is currently visiting and staying in the guest room. that means i cant use the com until late at night for a couple of days.

2007-03-25T14:47:00.000+08:00

had some pretty wild dreams lately. well by lately i mean last night and the nap i just had haha. i noticed though, all of them centered on ppl i regard as close to me. prob just a manifestation of the subconscious in the day.

the first one was pretty terrible. something that i really didnt want to occur, happened. i was so distraught i woke up instantly in the middle of the night, perspiring profusely. the second one was better. it was leading towards a much more pleasant conclusion than the first. the third one felt like pure despair. like when no matter what you do to bridge the distance, the person keeps distancing the gap between us.

dream dream dreams

2007-03-25T12:09:00.000+08:00

wow so much to blog about, don't know where to begin! so as always, i'll do it chronologically. here goes:

on friday, was supposed to meet up with zh for lunch and shoot some pool after, you know just to catch up and stuff. but the night before, i just found out that nat kenneth and mark were having a 21st bday celebration at The Oosh on friday night. oh yeah i found out via the invitation card, which came in the mail, nicely printed - personalised and all. so teng chi tagged along since we had to do some gift shopping for the birthday peeps. his bros came along for lunch, oh and i have to mention this: we met outside KFC, completed one round around PS and ended up eating back at KFC where we started -.-'

after that we went around the shops looking for suitable gifts. after we all added sufficient dashes of creative, pragmatic and whimsical flavours, we managed to come up with 3 gifts for them. oh i should also mention that later on, at teng's place, we exhibited more ingenuity to add aesthetic appeal to the presents using merely ribbons and cling wrap :P haha! anyway i digress.

having successfully conquered the gift conundrum, teng's brothers went back, while the 3 of us went to shoot some pool. having not played pool in quite awhile, i wasnt in the best of form heh. but well, luckily i still remembered how to pot balls. i can't recall the name of the place now, think it might've been Pool Junction? anyway the place wasn't bad, the facilities seemed fairly new, and the cues were nice. i think i only won once, when zh potted the cueball along with the 8-ball. that's out out of practice i was haha. we headed over to starbucks at The Cathay for drinks and chilled there for awhile, before heading towards the MRT station.

at the MRT station though, we noticed a LAN shop. instead of the usual counterstrike, warcraft etc, the people there were playing other games like MapleStory, Pangya, Audition SEA and more. and interestingly, a significant proportion of them were girls. beside the LAN shop, we spied a gaming arcade. now i hadnt stepped into one for the longest time so intrigued, i went in for a lookaround. times have changed indeed. several of the games were based on the Cards each person had. so it becomes a TCG video game of sorts, where gameplay is determined by how good or powerful your cards are. also saw some ppl playing the guitar and drum versions of beatmania. they were good too. next to them i'd probably appear to have 3 left feet and all thumbs.

so fast forward to the highlight of the night. teng chi and i arrived at about 8.30pm. understandably, apart from nat kenneth and mark, few others were there before us. chatted with nat for abit, got to know what was happening with her and all that. oh yes and the area that they booked was quite nice. a private bar and all. weiyuan complained that joses didnt tell him how atas the place was, and that he nearly came in slippers. we all enjoyed the joke of the night: weiyuan's "party hat".

it was fantastic how so many ppl came. got to catch up with nat, peter, weiyuan, joses, ashley, angela, kenneth goh, zhiyang, louisa, debbie, keith, jason etc. also saw michelle lee whom i havent seen in forever. i cant even begin to imagine the logistical problems of organising something of this scale. but all the same, im happy and honoured to be a part of it.

ok now what's next :)

2007-03-18T23:54:00.000+08:00

was having lunch in vivocity the other day and saw this rather pleasant (read: cute) waitress. she looked like she was still schooling though, well that or she just has a very youngish face. so anyway i was thinking, damn as if coping with studies isnt hard enough, you gotta worry about working during your spare time. and i realise that actually a lot of ppl work part time to finance their studies. and im really fortunate not to have to fall into that category. that being said, i do feel that life has been rather sheltered, and i know i have to make good use of this time before uni to learn stuff (read: get off my ass and work)

so anyway speaking of cute girls, they weren't exactly a dime a dozen in krabi. as i mentioned, like 99.9% of the ppl there are angmohs. of which a significant portion are middle-aged and up. doing the math, this comes out to only a small percentage of them being HYTs, as opposed to the more commonly used (and politically correct) PYTs. normally, this would be a good thing right, cos all of them are basically at the beach (read: wearing skimpy swimwear) all day. so perhaps rather surprisingly, the prettiest girl i saw there, was fully clothed, and at the airport to boot. mm she was either a finn or a swede, im not sure.

well feast for the eyes i guess, but not quite my thing.

ahh driving test in like 2 weeks. help

2007-03-14T23:36:00.000+08:00

Spent the last 4 days in Krabi, Thailand with some lovely people: parents, uncle & aunt, 2 dear dear cousins, and 2 close family friends. recalling one of Mr Perrin's GP lessons, one compre text said that the company with whom you spend a holiday with is far more important than the venue of the holiday itself, that is, in terms of determining the enjoyability factor. truly these people are all very dear to me, and i cant think of anyone else i'd rather holiday with. hmm ok fine, i can haha, but that's a different story altogether innit :P

we started the journey bright and early. well ok la, it was 6.15am at the Budget Terminal, so it wasn't that bright, just early. took Tiger Airways to Krabi Airport. stayed at Ao Nang Villa Resort, one of the few with a beachfront haha. well i could go into detail regarding each day's activities, but then they're basically the same, involving the pool, the beach etc.

so i think it should suffice if i summarise that basically all of us took turns to look after bryan and brenda. i guess i'm still quite harsh with bryan in terms of discipline. yet, being acutely aware of my own shortcomings, i wish he'd turn out a far better person than i am. nonetheless i think we had plenty of fun together anyway, at the pool, and so forth.

also not forgetting my darling baby cousin! such a good girl, rarely crying. and why should she, when all she does is give us that wide-eyed pitiful look and you cant help but feel compelled to pacify her haha. well it's been a nice holiday with lots of R&R, look forward to the next one whenever that may be.

am getting the vibe that as long as all my relationships are solid, nothing much else matters. plenty of love to all!

2007-03-09T23:43:00.000+08:00

so it's been about a month after ORD, and i've been mainly occupying myself with 2 things: doing my driving lessons more intensely, as well as adding to the country's unemployment statistic.

oops time to dota, be back to edit this post later

ok, adding more now. so yeah been driving at the circuit, where i guess i'm feeling increasingly confident. hopefully i'll be able to pass the first time around, so avoid wasting time and money. will prob have to wait like another 6 months to retake otherwise. have also registered with one of them temp agencies. shall see what offers they have to throw my way keke.

2007-03-09T23:32:00.000+08:00

hmm was i insane? but nat seems to have received her birthday gift, so i guess it's all good :)

yes it is

very, woooo rofl

2007-02-22T01:24:00.000+08:00

You're in my thoughts, during the day it seems.
At night as i sleep, you occupy my dreams.

if you only knew.

2007-02-21T00:11:00.000+08:00

just washed up after coming back from mel's place. haha had fun meeting up with the class again. also loved the fact that i had really nice friends willing to give me a lift there (tengchi) and back (jason), thereby saving me loads of travelling time.

keith arranged this apparently, partly cos it was CNY and also partly cos mel's flying off tmr (or rather today since im blogging past midnight). attendance was as follows: tengchi andrew keith jason joses kenneth debbie lou angela zhiyang. hmm hope i didnt leave anyone out haha. so yeah as usual played some of keith's chaoyang games. blackjack where loser drinks 500ml of water and no toilet breaks haha (lou conceded in the end though she only drank twice, while ppl like andrew drank 5x!) also played indian poker, "handiplast" etc. no need to go into much detail here, except that for handiplast, debbie was making enemies left right centre and on the receiving end of many a slap haha.

well it was nice meeting everyone again. and i think i should get some rest now if im gonna wake up to watch soccer later.

2007-02-19T00:00:00.000+08:00

first day of CNY already? whoa and it just seemed like the previous CNY was just a little way back wasnt it? not to sound like a broken record, but first, finishing my NS and now with CNY, time really has passed rather quickly. i used to get rather annoyed when relatives were like "wah so big already ah!". but ironically when i look at some of my cousins (or maybe nephews and nieces, or possibly uncles and aunts you never really know with age gaps), i too think, "wah so big already ah".

well something that deserves special mention is that i finally met a cousin who's path is very similar to mine. i mean ok firstly most of my cousins are like half my age? and those that aren't are reeeeally different from me, as in they mostly go poly and so forth. no disrespect intended of course, just that it's harder for me to identify with them.

ok! back to topic. so yeah heard that she was doing her A's this year, and i was like "finally! can find someone to talk to" haha. had a nice chat with her and surprise surprise, she's leaning towards going to SMU to further her studies next year. haha yay, uncanny. excellent! hopefully i'll meet lots of ppl i know during my time there. well gonna rest up for yet another busy day tmr.

and oh yeah, she was pretty cute too :) just HAD to add that in haha. wooo

2007-02-13T00:23:00.000+08:00

hmm Feb 14 is coming, am in a pensive mood again. what stronger sign from above than when you finally have the nerve to follow through with something, only to find that circumstances don't allow it. don't know whether to laugh or cry when something like that happens. second time already! gimme a break man. with all the constant grapples i have with myself, i can set up my own wrestling association :)

here are a few songs that really strike a chord with me.

Cascada's Everytime We Touch Candlelight Remix

I still hear your voice,
When you sleep next to me.
I still feel your touch,
in my dreams
Forgive me my weakness,
But I don't know why,
Without you it's hard to survive

(chorus)
'Cause every time we touch,
I get this feeling
And every time we kiss,
I swear I could fly
Can't you feel my heart beat fast,
I want this to last,
Need you by my side
'Cause every time we touch,
I feel the static,
And every time we kiss,
I reach for the sky,
Can't you hear my heart beat so
I can't let you go,
Want you in my life.

Christian Bautista's The Way You Look at Me

If I could freeze a moment in my mind
It'll be the second that you touch your lips to mine
I'd like to stop the clock, make time stands still
'Cause, baby, this is just the way I always wanna feel

CHORUS
'Cause there's somethin' in the way you look at me
It's as if my heart knows you're the missing piece
You make me believe that there's nothing in this world I can't be
I never know what you see
But there's somethin' in the way you look at me

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

Will next year's (or even this year's :P) Feb 14 be any different from past years? We'll see.

<3

2007-02-08T00:44:00.000+08:00

ORD day has arrived. i felt a sense of fulfillment upon receiving that IC, not so much at the elation of not having to serve anymore (past that landmark since clearing leave heh), but rather it was an overwhelming sense of achievement at having successfully completed 22 months of national service. it has been a crazy ride, learning many things along the way, forging many friendships. and it is the friendships that shall be the subject matter of this post.

jon and i successfully organised a dinner for the "old guards", of which from today i am officially a member of :D i'd originally intended to ask zk alvin jon edward daniel and joel. in the end though, through word of mouth, got other joel, paul and kelvin too. and i must say it turned out for the best, well since we all know each other anyway heh.

as i was on my bus ride home, i thought to myself "what would you regret not saying if you never saw these people again". and suddenly i felt frightened, i was worried that i never told these people how much i appreciated their playing a part in my life. ok so now a shoutout to all the great people i've met up with tonight whom i've gotten to know in the time i served NS: (in alphabetical order)

Alvin - one person with whom i can talk to anything about, was really great knowing you man, similar background from sispec and what not. really hope we can continue to meetup in future cause it's not easy finding someone you're totally at ease with.

Daniel - daniel daniel daniel, after what 1 year and 2 months since you posted in, i wont be around to rib you anymore. but something i really want to tell you is that despite all those cracks, i really regard you as a friend, which is why i bother to disturb you in the first place. hang on there bro.

Edward - you, me and zk, the 3 pros in the branch haha. can handle anything no prob man. i really appreciate how we always had each other's backs, never saboing each other. a real friend, and you always try your best to help when asked, thank you. also learnt many things from you :D

Joel Chua - hey man, knew you for a shorter time than the rest and despite your easygoing, happy-go-lucky exterior, i think you value your friendships as well, judging by the fact that well you showed up just now :)

Joel Keh - Mr K! man wished you couldve turned up, but take care. another buddy with whom i can click really well with. you can seem stand-offish at times but hey, with the right people (like jon zk and myself) you can become quite the joker :) miss you correcting my english bro and i do lament that i didnt manage to catch ya for the last time in camp today, but hey opportunities abound!

Jon - arguably one of my best friends in camp, grew really close during that time alvin went on course (altho now for the life of me i cant remb why i didnt hang out with edward and zk) now is one person with whom i can literally talk about anything under the sun with. and for hours on end i might add. gonna miss horsing around with all those accents innit? perhaps we can catch up in a little willage in aussie :)

Kelvin - grew to know you better after tt time you came to zouk with us heh. realise you're also a very sincere person towards your friends and hopefully will see you around as well.

Paul - always ready with a funny anecdote, but more importantly your warmth and sincerity towards your friends doesnt go unnoticed. can literally feel that you accord all your friends with utmost respect, always interested in what they have to say. well i'll see you and joel in SMU when i enrol this year!

ZK - another talkcock buddy! man utd fan too! and not to forget, other half of the "invincible" tablesoccer team haha. man being in the same branch with you and edwawrd brought about many memorable experiences for me. dont even know when to begin. when we slogged together for exercise? when we helped out at changi for the dinner until like what 9+ or 10+? or when we went to SAFRA yishun together? see it's endless. suffice to say you were one of my best companions throughout the tough working days, the lunch times, the break times, everything. and for this i cannot thank you enough.

i really do feel that the 5 of us: alvin jon zk edward and myself, heralded a sort of golden era for our 3 branches. i doubt if they were any closer (nor will they be any closer) than during our time there. dont know how you all felt, but for me, this group of 5 was tight was can be. i would have trusted you all to have my back anytime. i believe there's a chinese saying that if you can find a really good friend in this lifetime, then your life has been worth living. well pretty much all i can say is within the 1 year plus in this camp with you all, i've found 4. we all clicked really well and basically i think it was there for all to see.

so thank you alvin jon edward zk. i could not have asked for more, and may our paths cross again and again and again.

am now 3SG(NS) :D

ORD OH!

2007-01-08T22:59:00.000+08:00

mmm hadnt posted in awhile again! went to nat's recently for a class gathering of sorts. played snap, speed big2 etc. and omg i could write in far greater detail but im just feeling sooooo emo at the moment.

cos today is the first day that i havent gone to camp since my self-declared ord-soon-not-going-back-to-camp anymore time.

and i feel like i havent done much today. well ok i went for dental consultation and what a surprise, met mel at paragon. she was there for some sports medicine thingy.

anyways yeah not really in the mood right now. need to find someone to talk to, argh!

2006-12-28T21:35:00.000+08:00

whoa woke up at 10+ today despite sleeping at just after midnight last night, didnt know i was that tired. prob that's what being sick does to ya. so earlier in the day nat msg'd me and said some of them were meeting up at 4, so yeah having taken my drowsy meds, i went to sleep. then at 3, my dentist calls me to get me to make an overdue appointment haha. after i hung up, then i realised that nat msg'd again at like 2+ saying the time changed to 3. cant figure why i didnt hear my phone go off, guess those drowsy meds pack quite the punch. so yeah i literally rushed out of the house and figured i'd better hustle down. and next dang if i knew that the expressways would be crowded at 3+ on a weekday afternoon -.-

despite everything thrown at me i still managed to reach lido at like before 4. angela and nat were in the isetan private sale so i was looking for an empty table anywhere. like literally anywhere cos it was kinda crowded, but eventually lucked out and found an empty table upstairs. so anyways was soon joined by nat and angela. sat there chilled for awhile before wirriam came and joined us. we were heading towards the MRT station when we ran into weiyuan, who taught us how to sneak into the private sale haha. so yeah the 4 of us + weiyuan, who incidentally was accompanied by shiwei and ter, just walked around the place. the girls both bought some stuff, and tho wirriam didnt find his tie, he did get some cufflinks, and as for me, i was looking at some t's in topman but they all had many skulls = tres blah. so anyways walked around ralph lauren and topshop (where angela was conflicted between 2 tops, and bought neither in the end haha), after which weiyuan and angela left. so just walked around with nat at mango for awhile before we all headed off. hah! thankfully i decided to take train home, otherwise get stuck in the traffic again zz.

2006-12-21T21:05:00.000+08:00

well it's certainly been an eventful week. on monday went to town to meet up with nat and joses at NYDC. nat was having dinner with her friends and said to meet at 9.15 well naturally expecting her to be late i arrived 20mins after she did -oops- anyway man the rain was pouring like crazy. thankfully the run from somerset station to orchard emerald and then to heeren wasnt too far, so i was only a tad drenched by the time i reached NYDC. apparently the help staff didnt think so, they offered me a stack of serviettes to dry myself. dang, i swore they were laughing at me thinking "where does this fella come from? doesn't he know people usually stay INDOORS when it rains like that?!" so noting the odd looks i was receiving, i was prompted to ask nat "eh do i look THAT wet?" i mean ok so my hair was kinda wet, but my clothes and all were pretty dry mah! mm k, anyway so we were there chatting for awhile, waiting for big shot joses (who has to arrive latest, otherwise not big shot enough) and in between, deciding what to order for dessert. apparently one of the waitresses there was the sister of someone whom joses knew and he shamelessly "flirted" with her haha. now i'm sure joses will give a different account of what happened, but nat'll agree with me haha. so yeah was nice chatting with both of them, kinda finding out how they've been etc etc. like for nat, how's year 2, staying outside of school etc and for joses how he's holding 2 (yes 2! respect man.) jobs at once. like it's so nice being able to have a good conversation as opposed to usual class outings with many many ppl (in which case it's a whole different kind of fun). now dont take this to mean that i dont like going out with the class in a big group, cos that's untrue. what im trying to say is that after all those times, it's definitely a refreshing change to be with a smaller group and just kinda interacting more in-depth so to speak. it was definitely fun and hopefully we can do it again sometime.

oh yes and for the rest of the week, i was on duty on tuesday. apparently i got caught in the rain abit and fell sick. woke up on wednesday in camp with a fever. 37.9deg! managed to get 2 days mc from the medical centre haha. so yeah im at home now and gotta go back tmr sigh. oh well. like i said, happening week man.

2006-12-07T14:23:00.000+08:00

heh went zouk yesterday with jon, alvin, edward, daniel, kelvin aaaaand zhikai! he finally consented to go haha. well i guess it's about time lar, what with him about to fly off, ORD-ing soon and all that. so as zk and myself were on our way there, jon msg'd and said he saw nigel heading to MOS instead cause zouk was daaaamn crowded. i was thinking "ah that's prob just phuture" but surprisingly the main zouk area was really crowded as well. in fact i was telling zk that it was "crowdeder" than when we went the same time last year.

the dance floor was really crowded, spilling out everywhere. pretty much impossible to move without bumping anyone (that is unless you sway right to left, left to right and dont move any limbs). haha kelvin and edward's reaction to a rather err "prosperous" girl dancing on the podium was hilarious. umm well to be fair her dancing was ok haha, but then she took up like half the podium keke. whoops that was mean haha.

anyways met quite a few ppl there, nickoh, mark teng, ashley, cheryl. oh yeah then also met sarah tan and kui jien on the way out. was funny, saw her and was thinking to myself "hmm this angmoh looking girl looks a lot like sarah tan" then immediately behind her was kui jien haha. yay i know my local celebs.

anyway i think zk got off lightly. previously all newbies sure kenna sabo by edward in the finger guessing game haha. ok la at least now he knows what it's like. pretty much exactly 1 year after me haha. time flies by as usual

2006-12-03T02:19:00.000+08:00

yay survivor rocks. gearing to be one of the better survivors i've seen! well partially because the people im rooting for are still in the game. been busy trading diablo2 stuff haha.

kk watching the man utd game now, figured i'd stay awake since i'm on duty tmr.

boo.

2006-11-26T18:06:00.000+08:00

mm havent been disciplined about blogging regularly heh. well first off let me start by saying that tv shows rock. Survivor is just getting better and better with each passing episode. So You Think You Can Dance is brilliant, can be exposed to more dance styles just by watching. Arrested Development is sooo funny. and umm yeah those are the 3 that im watching currently.

went to watch Tenacious D with sung ann the other day. zomg, was really surprised he called me when i was in camp. coincidentally, we were both on half day that day. so met up at PS and (erroneously) decided to watch Tenacious D. see some shows are stupid-funny (like Harold and Kumar, American Pie etc), but this show was just stupid-stupid (kinda like Date Movie). but still, i like comedies :D

also feeling rather upbeat nowadays, must be cause it's closerr and closerr to christmas season! yay yay yay. my absolute favouritist time o' the year.

oh yes, also made my first sale on ebay! haha quite psyched.

2006-11-13T19:54:00.000+08:00

mm havent blogged in a long time. well that's mainly due to the fact that i've been playing d2 again haha. yeah so getting closer and closer to ORD yay. but pretty much everyone else has already ORD'd doh haha.

on mc today mm.

2006-10-20T23:53:00.000+08:00

happy birthday to myself! yay. was gonna blog more, but just gonna curl up in bed with a good book and look forward to soccer tmr haha.

2006-10-16T22:01:00.000+08:00

some other random photos, one of Don's Pie (went with jon), and the zouk photos, fine so i took only 3.

2006-10-16T21:55:00.000+08:00

some waaaay overdue pics of Idol. of cos all have Gayle inside, silly, did you for a moment even consider otherwise?!

2006-10-13T19:40:00.000+08:00

wowee nice eventful week!

Wednesday
was supposed to go mambo with edward, alvin and jon. was pleasantly surprised to find out that kelvin, wai leong and daryl were joining us as well. woot, so many ppl haha. nothing especially worth mentioning though, as in the place was really crowded, though not as crowded as last nov (or dec, i cant remb which month it was) regrettably, the song choices were not as nice as the other times. it was the worst of the lot actually. on the bright side though, i saw this girl who looked like a cross between jasmine tye and jade seah. wooooo, but then cant believe the flashing lights and dim setting lar, screws up the eyes. reached home at 3.30 and still managed to wake up at 5.40 to go to camp the next day, yay me!

Thursday
jason organised some ktv thingy at orchard. woot, haha the prev time we went ktv it was damn fun also, so i was once again looking forward to a fun evening. in the end, jason, keith, tengchi, mark, zhiyang, debbie, weiyuan and myself made up the 8 ppl who were present. woot as usual sang all the nice songs, keith had his usual With or Without You and Ben Xiao Hai, zhiyang had a v impressive Lydia, Jian Dan Ai, Mei Li De Shen Hua, jason aced Huang Hun and did valiantly on Ye Qu and Feng, debbie and weiyuan did an excellent rendition of Xuan Zhe - old school man! tengchi had his Sweet Child O Mine and The Anthem. whereas for myself i'd like to think that i did justice to An Jing and Yue Ding haha. shiok, the slightly sore throat is definitely worth it haha. again!

2006-10-03T22:30:00.000+08:00

growl not been having a v good week. first it was the whole xbox fiasco and then just now i had to stay back until like 9 to finish sth at work. bleh. actually by all standards i've been having a really lousy day at work. but i feel much better about myself for some reason. shrug.

feeling slightly upbeat even, added 2 new ringtones haha. yay me

2006-10-02T22:53:00.000+08:00

ok so im cutting my hair and i receive an sms from edward saying that i've been arrowed to help TC with their dumbass IPPT tmr so i've to arrive at 6.45am hmm. let's see, ok to you useless regulars, u drive see? which also means it doesnt fucking matter what time you've to go to camp since u wake up goddamn late anyways. now to normal people who actually have to take public transport (i wouldnt presume yall know what it consists of so here goes: train, bus etc) we may actually have to wake up a tad earlier to be on time. how much earlier? oh shucks, no biggie, only 5am? oh wait, most of the rest of the freaking world isnt awake at that time!

i was livid when i realised the shit i was in. now though, that seems trivial compared to the fury i find myself dwelling in at this very moment. so here's the thing, everyone's asleep, finally freeing the tv so i can play some xbox. now what the hell happens? it's goddamn stuck and my XBMC doesnt load! yay! now normally that would be fun, except i spent like goddamn $300 to fucking mod it so i can play more games duh. i presume it was my dad who let my cousin fiddle around with it, which shouldnt be much problem really, young 'uns these days know their electronics. except this young one is particular is like 6yrs old la! no wonder there's a fool born every minute. i dunno what the hell they did to it, but now its not loading. im pissed off as hell, and it's not just because i cant play. it's because i have to spend fucking a million hours surfing the net on how to fix the problem.

i really do hate this world sometimes.

2006-09-30T00:22:00.000+08:00

rather exhausting day today. firstly ran 5km at Bishan Park for external HLS. hmm i think it's the first time i've run 5km non-stop since SISPEC sia. feel good abt myself haha. after the run, went to eat prata at Casuarina Curry with zk, edward, joel, daniel and alvin. not bad sia, good prata. it was nice just hanging out with all the guys. after which, zk and i headed over to his place for a round of tennis. wah his house is freaking powerful. free-form olympic sized pool, beautiful gym, 4 tennis courts, 2 squash courts, 1 badminton court, 1 table tennis area blahblah. sweet. anw jon came soon after and so we played for abt 1hr+, towards the end i couldnt move my legs anymore haha, damn tired. headed over to starbucks at parkway parade for a drink. had my usual mocha frap with hazelnut syrup whee. also, at a table nearby were these 2 girls. one was facing us (in blue) while the other's (in white) back was to us. they were both pretty good looking, but the girl in blue, in particular, seemed to strike a chord within, not quite sure why hmm. shrug, no biggie, just slightly aggrieved that i didnt get to make the acquaintance. hah, like i wouldve anyway. there was a snowball's chance in hell that i wouldve done anything to be honest.

sleeeeeeeepy.

2006-09-26T00:08:00.000+08:00

it's only monday night, but i feel as though i've had such a long week already. firstly let's recount what i did today.

after camp, rushed with jon down to Singapore Indoor Stadium to catch the Singapore Idol finals RESULTS SHOW! the second Sg Idol was about to be crowned, but more importantly, the top 12 would be performing also! GO GAYLE! so anyways met up with weiming and all to get mosh pit tickets. was wearing white and carrying a VOTE JON flag, so my allegiance was pretty clear. boy was there a pre-show treat for the audience, firstly the other 4 guys performed a BSB number. and the 6 girls did Pussycat Dolls' Buttons! wah the temperature rose by several degrees man.

the very first item was each of the 10 ousted finalists singing a song each. erm ok i kinda forgot what norman sang because when he was singing, Gayle was getting ready at the area near us. so was screaming, waving, jumping and such, trying to get her attention. soon enough, it was her turn! turns out, she sang Rihanna's Unfaithful, right there and then, i died and went to Idol heaven. i've lost track of the number of times i've told ppl that she shouldve sung Unfaithful instead of Leave(Get Out). my wish finally came true, it was a fitting ending to Gayle's Idol participation, as least from my perspective. that performance will stay with me for a very long time, as will her cheerful disposition and bubbly personality. thanks for the journey - Gayle still rocks!

not to be outdone, Jay sang Shayne Ward's No Promises! another kick ass song omg. was having so much fun in the mosh pit. other notables include Joakim's Just the Girl, Mathilda's Ain't No Other Man. for Paul, Nurul and Rahimah, i wasnt familiar with their songs, but they were electrifying nonetheless. Emilee was also heating up the stage with her kinky outfits and her (se)X-factor. it was like having a concert man, and the atmosphere in the mosh pit was freaking unbelievable.

Rahimah Rahim (the original) also belted out Can't Take My Eyes Off You, where the top 12 appeared again! More Gayle! YAYAYAYAYAYAYAY! other performances include Electrico's Run Away, Tanya's Wake Me Up When September Ends and Energy. haha and to think i was mentioning to jon that it would be fitting to sing Wake Me Up When Sept Ends since it was really ending. omg omg omg, it's like i was prophetic today.

had a smashing time, with my only regret being that i dont think i caught Gayle's attention sigh. still it was brilliant being able to watch her performance live. hope this wont be the last time.

after idol, rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrushed down to Changi Airport to see Nat off. seeing as the show ended at 930 and she was intending to go in at 1030, she told me there was no need. i was adamant that i could though haha. and with help from jon and his dad, arrived dramatically just before 1030, although in the end she only entered more than 20 mins later. still i suppose it was the thought. whee proud of myself for accomplishing so much today haha.

okok still glowing with happiness, shall blog more in the coming days.

2006-09-24T12:33:00.000+08:00

met up with the class again on friday. guess it could be considered a farewell of sorts for nat since she's flying off tmr. time certainly flies, one moment she's back and messaged her new number (i remb this vividly becos i was in KL at that time haha) and next thing she's flying off tmr. not only that - in between, yp's come and gone, debbie's come and gone, and so forth.

was held at zhiyang's house, which was back in the west. so even though i was off on friday i still ended up in the west, go figure. i arrived at close to 9 and even then, only tengchi, debbie, nat and lou were there before i was haha. nice to know some things dont change :) chatted some, had dinner (of paste and pizza) and not long after, joses and jason arrived in, wait for it, mel's car! wah, havent seen her in a long time also. was quite a surprise. apparently zhiyang declined to go on some malaysia trip cos we were headed over that night haha. (ok everybody go "awwwww") and also apparently, joses came because there was food (now everybody go "uhhhhhhhh") somehow a photo taking frenzy started, playing with the frames function found in sony ericsson phones (of which debbie, nat, mark and myself had one) memorable moments include jason in the monkey frame, keith in the elvis frame, and of cos joses acting bigshot by refusing to pose properly in photos without mel inside [cue: wolfwhistles]

im not sure what happened next, but we suddenly all decided to go ktv. fwah, neat. went to partyworld at Clementi. it. was. damn. fun. surprisingly there was a fair number of chinese songs (mostly jay chou's, but still) and they actually knew most of the songs haha. i dunno, for me i felt that it was quite a quantum leap for them know that many chinese songs as it is haha. i would say joses, debbie, jason and zhiyang knew their stuff quite well. oh and keith's "ben xiao hai" was legendary haha, prob one of the best performances of the night. he said he learnt from the old Friday Weekly newspapers haha, u know, the ones we were always forced to buy each week for newspaper cuttings and what not. joses attempted Ye Qu, but it was impossible! jason also attempted Kiss Goodbye o.O they made me duet I Knew I Love You with nat but it was quite high ah, haha couldnt hit some notes in the chorus. much preferred An Jing and All Out of Love heh, at least they were more manageable.

basically it was a bucketload of fun. the girls sang some M2M, there was some BSB and hell, even tengchi sang some rock woot. it's amazing that we can still find stuff we havent done before after 4 years haha. <3 sb1 <3 sb1 <3 sb1

on a side note, will be going to the indoor stadium later :D

2006-09-15T22:01:00.000+08:00

hmm havent updated in quite awhile. well nothing much has happened really, just up to lesson 3 of driving and also recently modded my xbox and so have more games to play now yay. been reading up on ftp transfers to the xbox as well as how to make it into the ultimate home entertainment centre haha. learnt quite alot haha.

on a side note, oh no - jasmine's been kicked out. the rose among the thorns is gone. now the finale mirrors last season's, a soulful malay singer and a chinese rocker. sighs, miss gayle performing lolx. love it whenever they pan the audience and show her etc.

2006-09-03T21:59:00.000+08:00

yay saw gayle on tv again today when the SI top 12 performed Lean On Me for the President's Star Charity. it was essentially a reprisal of roles from the first result show but it was still enjoyable. it was nice seeing the top 12 again. esp gayle of course. slightly miffed at the fact that she, along with jasmine, had sucky solo parts. other ppl had nice lines, they had some crappy rap lines. bah. oh well, better than nth. haha also when they were asked to show the audience what number to call for a $20 donation everybody was like 1900 112 882.....2!!!!!!! while gayle was like 1...whooops..2...! haha so cute. mustve been quite embarrassing in front of national tv keke.

on a side note, belinda and jade seah looked v hot doing those dance numbers. lucky lucky vincent ng and alan tern. mondaaaaay tmr. boo.

PS. oh yeah forgot to mention, had my 2nd driving lesson and im not stalling the car anymore woot. yay me!

2006-08-27T19:17:00.000+08:00

hmm gayle had a performance yesterday. i was caught in two minds, undecided if i should go and support her. now i use the term support very loosely, after all, technically she doesnt need support per se. but rather i meant it in another way, after all she was helping to raise relief funds. in the end i didnt go. and now i feel slightly down because of that. apparently like close to 20 other ppl went and sad to say i wasnt one of them. just a while back i was saying "look at all these so called new gayle fans, where were they when she actually needed their support". snobbish? you betcha. i would think i have a right to feel slightly aggrieved after all the effort others, and myself, put in during SI, only to be, shall i say, upstaged, by some newbies. well the shoe's on the other foot now. where was i yesterday then. gosh im giving myself quite a guilt trip here. i deserve it though. i'd always been hoping that she'd stay in contact. well yesterday was a good chance. in a nutshell: i fucked up.

on a side note, ran in the AHM today. supposedly 10km but then it was more like 7km and walk the other 3. ran in the rain too doh. oh well, all the same im rather proud of myself for having the determination to go all the way. went bowling with alvin and jon after that, with zk watching. man the second game was prob my best game ever. 134 pinfalls! woot. had a sequence of X / / / / from frames 2 to 6 lol. best game ever haha. meanwhile it looks like i wont be able to take mc tmr. hmm postpone to tues!

2006-08-23T21:32:00.000+08:00

Asian Pop week huh. the english song choices were terribly disappointing. sighs, actually after last week's high from rock, this week was disappointing in general. my fave performance was Jasmine's rendition of Amei's song, which err regrettably, i've forgotten the title to. it was superb for me, like 9/10 but her Tata Young song was really rubbishy. i was thinking "what the heck is wrong with her pronounciation?!" she sounded like a Proj SS contestant singing an english song. very very sad indeed. "I believe, i believe she's gone.."

where art thou gayle. sorely missed.

on a side note, i'll be glad when AHM is over

2006-08-20T02:03:00.000+08:00

wah busy day today. firstly in the afternoon went over to uncle's place for cousin's baby shower. cousin brenda is now a month old! well she's still tiny. hope she's bootiful next time so bryan can beat up the ppl who like his sister lolx. seriously though, i think everyone else is prob pretty excited at finally having a girl in the family after one generation + me of turning out male. i dunno it's all the same to me at the moment since at a month old, male/female different doesnt really come into play yet. anyways the buffet was great. really glad they didnt order run-of-the-mill stuff. and more importantly, for not having shelled prawns! cos nobody ever bothers to eat shelled prawns. theyre just not worth the effort. anyways, hung around there for most of the afternoon then headed down to nat's place for the supposed "board game party" haha.

it's a pretty neat idea i guess. was rather looking forward to meeting up with them again. plus EPL season's kicking off again woot. so anyways arrived at slightly after 6.30 and saw tengchi at the gate, he drove! haha anyways i was on the phone with nat asking where her house was when i ran into.. tanglin! guest star no. 1 had arrived! man really miss catching up with that dude. havent seen him in like one and a half years man. was starting to think that he "condemned" us already haha. as usual he's loads of fun, albeit a tad subdued now. it was awesome that he was finally able to join us. so anyways we were the first to arrive. good timing too, apparently nat had just come home from her driving test (and passed on first try omg, i wonder if i will in future). she gave me an awesome tip: wear less clothing on the test itself. ok fine, she didnt really say that, but we jacked her abt it all the same mwahaha. so then teng came, followed by andrew and william and angela. we started to have dinner and i found out from nat's bro, chris that ACS(I)'s changed a fair bit! all except the top brass, it would seem. in exchange for that nugget of info, i taught him how to take photos like "an expert". eh, i am wat!! joses arrived halfway through dinner.

after dinner we started playing taboo again haha. joses is actually pretty good at it. his descripts are v good, angela is decent too. nat managed like 6 and 7 point rounds though, somehow.. haha sorry! i think i suck at that game haha. can guess but cant describe, weird huh. oh yes yp and guest star #2, weiyuan, came for taboo too. after that i learnt how to play settlers, and joses won both times! wtfbanana. fluke? or closet pro. tune in next episode to find out! apart from tanglin, joses, teng and myself, the rest of them were playing hotels. then keith, kenneth and mark came later. oh ya, before that zhiyang and jason came. after the board games it was like a mass jamming session. they played Bad Day together. i thought it was really good, should prob go record it or something: Nat and Joses on the piano, Mark on the drums, Yp and Andrew on the guitars and umm Zhiyang singing haha. was watching soccer for awhile then after that went to ask weiyuan and nat more abt driving since they'd both passed their tests very recently, last thurs and today respectively. well i guess im kinda looking forward to learning how to drive. ever since driving the buggy in bintan that is :D

well had a really great time. esp since the 2 guest stars whom i hadnt seen in a long time, actually made an appearance! wootzah. 2sb1, 4th yr and still going strong.

2006-08-11T23:58:00.000+08:00

ok today was 2 PDF Command's Anniversary at Yishun SAFRA. umm happy birthday? ok. so damn shiok, din need to go to the office. met jon and zk at city hall and headed to good old yishun, my home for 7 years. from the time i was like 6, and saw me through to the end of PSLE! so anyways i still remember the entire area! yay me!

anyways participated in the bowling competition. umm my score sucked haha! like 80+ but the second game started well enough X 9- 9/ whee haha. but unfortunately they asked us to stop like halfway through to go watch the MDC performance. oh yeah saw Wayne. unfortunately he seemed to be shunted to one side during the performances. whereas back in AC he was like the main deal ya know? oh well i suppose it was ok. i thot the dude who sang in chinese wasnt too bad though.

after the event ended, zk, jon, edward, joel and myself went to shoot some pool. not as rusty as before now heh. anyways we played for slightly less than an hour then we went to eat at some coffeeshop. after that jon, edward and myself roamed around Northpoint reminiscing the er "good old days". the part i found esp funny was when we walked into Popular. we scrutinized all the pens etc and talked abt wat pens we used to use in sch etc haha. very ummm heartwarming keke.

yeah fun day. also talked a lot of trash with joel haha. hes really quite funny now thats hes opened up. as opposed to when he first came lolx.

2006-08-10T19:31:00.000+08:00

ok now if yesterday wasnt like happening with a capital 'H' then i dunno what is. had fun last night, so here goes!

met tengchi at orchard to tapow dinner to bring to mark's place. almost bought from crystal jade heh, but wasnt v economical so bought KFC in the end hah. we then took a longass walk to mark's place, going past paragon and all. funny, seems farther than i remember. oh wells, had a $2 going on with teng. it was 6.10 then and i told him "ok $2 says at most 3 ppl will arrive before us, mark excluded". and as it turns out, only yp and andrew were there earlier heh. anyways so we proceeded with dinner and missed the starting part of NDP which i think was the Red Lions segment. tried to catch jason on tv, but the darn flag kept blocking his face haha. so with the military parade followed by gaudy albeit perfectly choreographed routines, it was basically the same old same old. my favourite part is when they start singing all the community songs and the theme song for that year. in this case, it was My Island Home, performed by Kaira Gong. at that instant i always feel super patriotic haha. to the extent that i was telling yp "ok man let's go invade some neighbouring country". however this brilliant idea was quickly shot down in flames by teng who remarked that it wasnt patriotism, but sheer idiocy. shucks, cant win them all i guess.

after that we played taboo for a bit. i was a newbie, but didnt perform all that badly i think. haha taboo is fun as hell. can see the different wavelengths that everyone is on. let's see now, lemme list down the best taboo moments.

Nat - ANGEL - "our friend, not debbie! without the last letter!"
Zhiyang - QUILT - "scottish men wear what?" (haha)
Andrew - PRETZEL - "Auntie Anne sells this" [Mark]"Pringles!"
Teng - CAREER - "One of the 5C's!" (fainted)
Yp - TRENDY - "Joses fashion sense is what!"

hahahaha i can see why taboo is a great game to play in large groups, especially after a couple of drinks where everyone gets all hazy. haha so anyways after that, we headed over to zouk. spent most of the time at phuture. didnt like the music though. much prefer mambo anytime. but it was more about the ppl who were there la. debbie pham came back from the states to join us can! plus the starting drama featuring her and nat haha. i shan't elaborate about that here lest i get whacked by either (or both) of them haha. hahaha oh yes which reminds me, the moment the 2 of them starting dancing together, some guy wanted to dance with debbie pham haha. i was watching on half-amused. then nat said "i dunno whether to leave debbie pham with the guy!" haha. well we were there to have fun right, so i told her to "abandon" her haha. jason was dancing energetically at first. then i think he drank too much or wat he was damn sedated later on. andrew puked everything out, or so i heard. as for nat she was high, damn obvious, but somehow she was still very conscious. so anyways throughout the night i basically floated in and out of mambo periodically to check out the music. but it was damn crowded everywhere lar. cant do anything sigh.

oh well, shall go back again to enjoy a full mambo night haha. managed to obtain a few more songs whee.

2006-08-08T21:00:00.000+08:00

hrmm didnt go for the sleepover at andrew's the other day cos i wasnt feeling well doh. heard they had quite alot of fun. well we always do haha. anyways the next night went to watch yp and his bandmates play at the Blue Jaz. hmm i can safely say i still dont understand jazz haha buy hey at least i understand the concept of bands better now. alot of ppl were there to support yp. tengchie, shirley, marilyn, angela, louisa, keith, mark, zhiyang. anyways stayed there for their first 2 sets, then went to eat dou jiang you tiao with teng at geylang haha. shioooook. but then the place was like freaking crowded can? so we tapow'd and ate at my place then he zaod after that heh.

the next day my fren asked me to go to festival of praise. now ok i was slightly apprehensive about the whole religious overtone (or issit undertone hmm) of it. but being the broadminded *halo* person that i am i figured i'd go check it out. anyway it can be argued that its just another genre of music. i didnt really like the opening band, christian city church band or something. they were like irrepressible rock star wannabes haha. don moen on the other hand, i thought was superb. his voice is good and he played both the piano and the violin ooo. and anyways some of the old sch songs of praise that they played reminded me of school haha. or more precisely the chapel services in acsi and acjc. all in all i guess it was an enriching experience, even if i cant honestly call myself a believer of any religion.

hmm ok done blogging.. what to do now. grumble im bored.

2006-08-03T22:47:00.000+08:00

shucks jay got voted out. he was my pick of the lot among the guys. i mean his voice is really good, being able to sing daniel bedingfield is no joke man. sigh it was nice having a real singer around. oh well. oh yeah, also super happy that they featured Gayle again! trapezing this time. and evidently it's different from the video of her trapezing in club med since she did it differently this time haha. all in all it was just nice hearing from her again, well sorta anyway since it was via video. also nice to know what's happening for her via the blog.

go Gayle go!

2006-07-26T10:04:00.000+08:00

well! had a fun-filled 4 days in Bintan. so many happening things, where do i even start. man the prospect of blogging those 4 days in narrative style (as i always do) seems preeeetty daunting now, but hey, im on MC today so let's get on with it :D

first day, arrived at Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal and proceeded to head to Bintan Island. even before we left everyone was in a crazy mood already, as can be seen by ppl laughing at each other's passport photos. 2 whole boxes of food was packed to ensure that food costs could be kept to a minimum.

took a ferry to Bintan and connected via shuttle bus to Bintan Lagoon Resort. the villa there was great. 2 stories, 4 bedrooms, a nice hall, dining area, "al fresco" dining/tanning area, personal pool and of course a kickass buggy! woot as yp said, the buggy is a permanent source of amusement. at least for ppl like him, joses and myself who dont even have a driving license yet.

Day One

Played beach volleyball until my hands were quite painful after that doh. but it's pretty fun i think, although it wouldve been better if we were all more skilled at it. as it was the rallies were v short haha. swam in the pool a bit, then went to play beach soccer woot. hmm come to think of it the other team still owes us drinks lol, since everybody on our team, keith, yp, zhiyang and myself all scored a goal apiece. oh yeah and at night heard they played some drink or tell game which i totally missed out on since i conked out on the bed at 'round 11 or so haha.

Day Two

some of the other guys played beach volleyball against the staff and won 3 hours of free pool time heh. also played water polo, which was easily the most fun game cos everybody could participate and everybody seems to be pretty evenly skilled for the game. except nat haha, who was easily the overall top scorer. in a 1-on-1 situation with her, i was goalie and she kept faking so many times that i pulled my calf muscle a little bit due to excessive jumping - oops -.-" oh and she scored too :sweatdrop: at night went for Laser Quest which was super tiring, and my score sucked haha! oh yeah and went for KTV after Laser Quest. it was really fun. although towards the end everybody was belting out the songs regardless of whether they had the mic haha. sadly they didnt have the more recent songs though, otherwise it wouldve been even more kickass! oh yeah that was also the night in which the legendary buggy accident happened. masterminded by keith-chaoyang-oh, he took a really wide turn and the buggy wobbled on 2 wheels before turning over haha. he ended up with really bad abrasions and so did kenneth. amazingly debbie escaped unscathed thankfully. oh yeah still remember andrew, yp, martin, nat and myself were sitting on the deck chairs singing to the guitar playing when tengchi burst in as the bearer of the bad(?) news.

Day Three

played water polo again, as well as soccer. woot this time the soccer was really fun cos it's way easier to run on grass than sand. also netted a brace woot haha. think the rest of them couldnt be bothered to run haha. at night went to Pasar Oleh Oleh, a kinda nightmarket place for dinner. it was kinda small and slightly disappointing. i mean the food was fine. but the souvenir shops were blah. oh ho! but the real fun was when we got back. a campfire was setup on the beach and some of them played vodkaslap, which i swear is just to provide amusement to everyone because the game makes zero sense haha. also played 7-up, which i still suck at even when im sober. doh i said "up" at 13 what the heck. but waaaait a minute, if that was bad, how about nat who said 7 after jason "upped" on 49! haha random man! suffice to say, we both sucked at 7-up. which was prob why we were the first 2 acting abit stoned. after 2 shots of absolut citron i was staggering around. and to make it worse i recall falling flat on my back when i tried to walk. wah lau damn paiseh haha. played 4 kings back in the house after that. it was a show of strength and endurance when neither nat nor myself acted strangely even though we kenna the most at the start. rather, jason had to puke first, and of course tengchi was pretty much insane by the time the night was out. he was doing all the imaginary electric guitar impressions and apparently was trying to sing Bohemian Rhapsody or something. not to forget the "im sorry i didnt watch Pirates 2 with you guys" while doing all the mini ultraman handsigns haha.

Day Four

packed and chilled mainly. then headed down to the pool for a last game of polo, where this time some angmohs and another kid joined us. was pretty fun for a last hurrah of sorts. back in singapore we went to eat at East Coast Lagoon. laksa, chicken wings, stingray etc. yum. guess whatever weight i lost through exercise was regained in just one meal haha.

all in all i probably couldnt have wished for a better trip, although i must say that it wouldve been great if tanglin, weiyuan and siska could come along. im sure the fun factor wouldve gone up haha. thank you all for making this happen. and as i said in my "speech", much credit should go to andrew also.

DISCLAIMER: i only have very few pix because i din bring my camera, will add more once the compilation comes out.

2006-07-21T18:28:00.000+08:00

it didnt really sink in yesterday. i mean there was a snowball's chance in hell that i would be totally unaffected by Gayle's shock elimination. last night at caldecott, i was saddened and felt that it was a real pity that such a promising contestant got the boot. today however, it was a totally different scenario. it slowly began to sink in. i've nth to look forward to on wednesdays, thursdays and saturdays. there's a huge void suddenly. thanks for allowing me to accompany you on every step of this fantastic journey, i wouldnt have done otherwise. just to see your face light up at each roadshow and at yesterday's event was more than i could ask for. so now dear gayle, the next step may be a fresh journey, but your final destination at stardom shall never waver.

put up the Gayle #1 placard and the I <3 Gayle placard in my office cubicle today. it's my little tribute to a girlish girl who believed in her dreams and never once forgot her fans who undertook this wild ride with her. may her infectious smile be a permanent fixture on that delightful face.

~Memory of a Gayle-lite

2006-07-21T00:16:00.000+08:00

Memoirs of a Gayle-sha

:( :( :( :( :( :( :(

I'm wide awake and I can see the perfect sky is torn
We're a little late
You're already torn..

:( :( :( :( :( :( :(

If I could, then I would
I'll go wherever you will go
Way up high or down low
I'll go wherever you will go

:( :( :( :( :( :( :(

Gayle #1

2006-07-20T23:52:00.000+08:00

it was supposed to be a night of fun. a night of screaming, of fervent cheering and celebrations. i'd managed to get tix to sit with the Gayle-lites near the stage. i was with weiming, prob the most hardcore Gayle-lite of them all. i was also with jon, a potential hardcore Gayle-lite in the making, requiring just a few prods in the right direction. we had those placards Jon made.

how did it all go so wrong?

admittedly the song sounded pretty terrible (which in no way is an indicator of the standard of the rendition). but cmon, surely others fared worse? life is unfair sometimes, whether u look at singing power or personality, Gayle is nowhere near the bottom for either.

Gayle, don't let a slight setback hinder you. you're still gonna be a star. we'll try to get finals tix to watch you at the finals. it'll be worth it i'm sure. i'm gonna miss being able to talk and encourage you face to face at roadshows. do take care.

2006-07-17T23:23:00.000+08:00

wowowowowow eventful day sia! okok so had duty the whole day yesterday which basically involved sleeping, eating, sleeping, eating and watching mummy returns. naturally i was full of energy this morning. unfortunately since the whole camp network was down due to virus, ended up playing scrabble instead. and wow i must say i was extremely surprised by kam's scrabble skill. dun see him usually half past six english, he has a natural flair for scrabble man, put me to shame! so anyway took half day off becos i had to rush down to Mediacorp for the Gayle fan interview thingy. in the end i reached there at like 5.35pm but waited for the rest till like 6+ doh haha. so anyways did some silly stuff which yall can prob see on tv soon. got to know some other Gayle-lites: amiroooooool, weiming, sebastian etc.

went to meet tengchi afterward to go to orchard together to meet the rest of the class peeps. tapow'd dinner and ate at the fountain outside haha, very ambience-ish. anyways later chilled awhile at KFC. met de wei, BK, maung among others there. they all seem to have v vague memories of me, i suspect because i didnt go taiwan with them haha. cmon guys! i was still in the platoon for a whole like 2 months. moved over to starbucks after that and as per usual, had a talkcock session. was nice meeting up with everyone again: teng, andrew, nat, debbie, jace, keith, mark, kenneth, yp, zhiyang (hope i din miss anyone out heh). well ok officially looking forward to the bintan trip now. was still half-hesitant at first to be honest. shared cab home with keith and jason later like old times haha. woot.

oh yeah just checked my mail and realised i won tix to this wednesday's spectaculars also haha. wooo wooo.

2006-07-15T23:28:00.000+08:00

wooo went to Parkway Parade today to attend the Roadshow. arrived there at like 1.15pm and there were already so many people in the queue! in fact the queue snaked just outside the allocated barriers. thats why i quickly joined the queue in order to avoid disappointment with regard to the autograph signing session. but boy was i off base. disappointment would be the last word i'd associate with the whole experience. when the Idols came out from the side entrance, i was in the row nearest to them. waved frantically and i think Gayle prob should have noticed a nutcase waving like his life depended on it haha.

also took this nice photo of Gayle speaking on stage! woot luckily i had a good spot. that's not all! just before the autograph signing session JA asked the crowd a question which was "What's the theme for next week's Spectaculars?" and i was jumping around waving frantically to get noticed. imagine my surprise when he turned towards me and gestured "You sir! Come onstage!". wooo haha. still high. anyways answered correctly duh, and got a signed bag by Jon Leong as well as tix to the next Spectaculars' Results.

i wouldve traded it for the bag that Gayle signed in a heartbeat but hey, this is better than nothing! shook all their hands this time, and by the time i got to the end my hand was trembling haha. oh yes and when i gave Gayle another card (penned on the same signature grey cardboard material), she remembered who i was even without looking at the card haha. yes i have a trademark material heh. only prob is i seem to be running out of it haha. gotta get some.

GO GAYLE! see you next thursday!!

random photo of myself since im feeling happy. haha.

2006-07-13T23:41:00.000+08:00

alright! just got back from the Singapore Idol results show! man im so pumped i cant even give the usual narrative version of events (as i usually do when i blog). in fact i can only give point form of what happened so here goes:

- got tickets from Mediacorp staff
- went to Balcony seats
- managed to move downstairs because there was space
- watch Idol Extra
- entrance of Idols!
- all the impersonations are damn funny
- Gayle delivers the machine gun speed Flying Kisses
- Gayle slaps skin with the moshers ala WWE
- Fei Xiang sings Close to You by the Carpenters
- Top 12 sings Lean on Me
- Joakim's dancing is pure pwnage
- Gayle is safe!
- Norman is out

and those are the main points! whee. cant wait for this saturday's roadshow.

2006-07-08T23:01:00.000+08:00

whoa went down to Bugis today cos the Top 12 were gonna be there at 2pm for a meet-n-greet wooo. was there early actually, and was chilling at Starbucks while keeping one eye on the queue. i decided that if it was gonna get too long then i'd go join and wait for zk and jon in there. at about 1.30 or so i was wondering why everybody kept going towards the front so i had a look. i was abit stunned to see like easily 60-80 people already ahead of me in the queue so i figured i'd better start queueing otherwise i'd miss the chance to take photo with and get autograph from Gayle! unfortunately they only arrived at like 2.35 instead of the scheduled 2. so they didnt allow taking of photos with the Idols and pretty much just rushed through the autographing session. but still managed to get all their autographs! yay! also managed to pass Gayle a little card which, admittedly, i had to rush through. hope she was impressed with the contest winning entry i penned on the back haha. man it sure was cray-zay down there but it was well worth it.