autofac

2006-01-10T22:52:00.000+08:00

MOVED

http://www.livejournal.com/users/reiterating

All my bags are packed, i'm ready to go
I'm standin' here outside your door
I hate to wake you up to say goodbye
But the dawn is breakin' its early morn
The taxi's waitin' he's blowin' his horn
Already I'm so lonesome I could die

2006-01-07T23:15:00.001+08:00

ORIENTATION CAMP '06

was incredible.

What can I say? The campcomm are great people. Only a pity that I was in my depressed, antisocial mood. Even so, unforgettable.

Things I will remember:

Tying waterbombs at 2am in the morning with ngiam, zhizhi, longzhao, nelson, zuoming, , yuheng, going to sleep to see the lightsticks glowing all around, waking up at 6 again to do the same thing. A hundred man-hours of work (2000 waterbombs), all gone in a great 30 mins.

Shedding my mood and going manic-insane, tripping secones at the knees into the mud as they rushed for our bucket, but everyone was laughing anyway.

Drinking kopi with bernard at 9am at macritchie reservoir, silently watching the kayaks go back and forth.

Anwaar's mangled cheers. have you got the speeeeeeeerit?

Ngiam's teaching people about doors

Ngiam dressed as Kong rushing down to rescue a fair maiden

Aaron chee being pumped by paul lim for taking gay pictures, and remaining, bloody unrepentant =D

8 minute speech at cca trail, floundering for the first 4 mins but then something broke within me and I gave my most passionate speech ever.

The sublime moment was at the finale, when we cheered, danced, sang together with the secones, when kingkong revived to dance again. Incredible pride, accomplishment, you name it. Definitely far better than ours, anyway.

So I'm here thinking: the kind of mindless punishment we've grown used to doesn't work. I had one particular guy try to smart-aleck me in the toilet, was ready to throw "NO PUMPING" to the wind and knock him down 80, then I controlled myself and just well... talked to him. Told him how I felt, why he shouldn't have done what he did, and I think he was changed. Somehow I feel he won't forget that anytime soon.

I think a lot of the PSLs (self included) started out wanting to do to them what ours did to us, and along the way that changed into genuinely wanting to teach them.

To the sec ones: 1. see you in band, no i won't be what the band says I'll be 2. keep up whatever you've shown these past three days.

Stone-stupid, incredibly cute, but these are my brothers

To the campcomm: awesome working with such great people, all of you. Hope we stay together, for uh. forever!

2006-01-01T20:52:00.000+08:00

WARNING. Great big lump of words below. Do not read if you have the attention span of a penguin

2005 is dead and gone, and I can confidently say I've never changed more. Comparing myself now, to the same last year, I can scarcely recognise how I was. It's been a mixed year mostly, though I come out of it grateful for the fact that it happened, and for all the people that made it happen.

HIGHS:
SYF - Gold with honours, didn't expect to make it but since they give it hell we're taking it
NCO camp - for the first time, meeting people like myself with whom i really click. We're going to stick together, I feel it in my bones.
CHANGE - elaborated below

LOWS:
Love - or the falling out thereof. Disappointing, but it doesn't sting as much as I expected. I guess I haven't found what I'm looking for (i guess i'll be buying somebody lunch)
Appointments - or the lack thereof.

What I am truly grateful for is the band. For my batch, for my section, for everybody down to the bloody sec ones, for just being who they are - my refuge. If all else fails, I know the band will always be there, ready and welcoming. Particular gratitude paid to jeremy, brian, justin, best wishes for whatever they throw at us next.

And especial thanks, to habibah, for those evenings =D
To gk, for those calls and the support
To ja, metty, for all those lung-bursting moments
To the 2P people, especially geoff and zach, for making this school tolerable.

CHANGE:

I was really into my school the year before, the typical rafflesian mugger(shh cannot say that word). Meeting those people woke me up, taught me that well, I wasn't happy leading my academically-focused life. I realised I needed to get a life, and so I tried, not very hard admittedly. I've tried to open up to people, make more friends, and the results have been mostly happy.

And that, really, is what I want to do next year. Be good to my friends, make good ones, and keep those I already have. I want to pay less attention to myself, more to the people around me. Because what I fear most now is that I'll leave next year with stellar results but ultimately miserable for the lack of friendship.

What will I do? Become more extroverted, certainly - though not to royce's extent, with his mercurial temperament (feel that I can really become his friend). Develop my own style, because I don't want to trip from one form of enslavement to another. Smile more, laugh freely, speak easily, ultimately be happy.

So, here's to 2006. We take our bows and say, thank you. Get someone good into bed while you're at it too.

2005-12-29T17:20:00.000+08:00

So, how now? Franz Ferdinand is also coming to town, exactly one week before Oasis.

Just back from PSL camp five hours ago, will be leaving for the prefects' one in one hour's time, will be back (just in time for school!) on new year's day. While it hasn't exactly been all that memorable so far, there's been plenty of food for thought - how the hell do i fire up twenty secones, or at the very least, keep them?

Solutions and pictures (if i can think of any =/), when i get back

In a way I'm glad to see school start. I'm tired of talking to a computer screen and calling it communication. Of course I will regret this when the alarm clock rings at six again (which i will ignore, inevitably), but let's think deep, optimistic thoughts for the moment.

like how i haven't finished my homework yet.

2005-12-27T23:52:00.000+08:00

I'd never expected to just call an old friend and resume a conversation after an interruption of 13 months. But it was good talking to someone familiar again, almost a throwback to how I was at this time the previous year. Things have certainly changed, haven't they?

2005-12-25T21:30:00.000+08:00

1.
I GOT OASIS TICKETS

Yesterday had indian food with a Hot Date (come on, imagine! =D), even though I swore not to touch it (indian food, not the other one)for another six months (probably because of the company i was with) CHEAP, GOOD, but somehow the conversation lacked that spark to get it going. A good meal always compensates for everything, but this is the black hole speaking.

Today I slept, I woke up, I slept again, I played a bit of Myst V, then I practiced, then, I ate then, I marvelled at my christmas cards (then I slept again).

Tomorrow I go and destroy someone's house =D

I'm actually doing a day-by-day account! Which through its extreme distress reveals hidden undercurrents of fear and anxiety that for all purposes, my holidays end TOMORROW. which is really sad, because for all purposes (the same ones, in fact), they've only just began.

2005-12-24T22:53:00.000+08:00

EDIT: After some thinking I decided not to be modest/thrifty
Well its christmas. Kinda sad, isn't it. It is appropriate, then, to wish for things:

1. Happiness: not in the peaceful, tranquil sense, but rather for raging, fiery passions.
2. GPA = 4. after all these years
3. No pimples. They're getting very embarassing
4. Smooth talk.
5. SNYTO
6. Good band. very, very good band

A: Sunglasses
B: New instrument
C: Hairgel that works (if you put less than 500g)
D: Black long-sleeved shirt (particularly, that one i saw not too long ago)
E: Five pairs of jeans
F: COMFORTABLE leather shoes
G: Nike air max rival
H: Very, very big laptop which screams POWER
I: sub nine-minutes
J: That bag (sorry I'm terrible at recognising things)
K: oh heck just (a lot of) money.

See santa? i'm low-maintenance

2005-12-23T20:58:00.000+08:00

My sister got johari for a maths teacher! =D She got into Deyi, and will probably join band. And if I read the stars correctly, play the trombone. Time to get cracking, then.

Anyway, ali's friend was pretty. hot. So would ngiam have been, if he had worn longer pants.

I've realised something about myself - I tend to trail sentences off, rather than end them firmly. It's as if I'm expecting them to draw huge inferences from those cryptic remarks; most of the time there is only puzzlement and great Confusion. SO! a new year's resolution, to speak better by Finishing My Sentences.

2005-12-22T01:19:00.000+08:00

I'VE BEEN THINKING

And I've thought: If I were to die, bury me in New Zealand please.
Beautiful landscapes, the stuff of Lord of the Rings movies. Mountains, valleys, hills, lakes, i like that place even if its damn ulu. Even the bloody sheep field oozes grandeur of the gandalf-ish variety, when you stand on top of a hillock looking down, the wind blowing in your face, rolling green as far as the eye can see dotted with white specks.

The kind of place which spawns LOTR soundtracks, yes. Nature tamed but not oppressed.

2005-12-21T23:40:00.000+08:00

OASIS IS COMING TO TOWN

February 23rd, Indoor Stadium. One night only. dareka ga boku to ishoni mi ni ikitai?
Okay this is a dream come true. If only... U2, then i'd have died and gone somewhere high up.

Well I went up north for 4 days, penang/sungei petani. Accomodation: grandmother's house, with mosquitoes (oooh fresh blood) and very generous cousins =D. We watched King Kong! Only to find the dvd in the shop next to the cinema later (the owner of the shop, incidentally, is my cousin's friend =D). Didn't get to ride his motorbike though. No the main highlight, as usual, was the FOOD. Penang food! I waded through a sea of assam laksa, char koay teow (with COCKLES), lok lok, hokkien mee, my grandmother's cooking and much, much more. Quite a disappointment to come back. (in a bloody bus whose driver had delusions of being michael schumacher)

Speaking of FOOD

Dinner with ngiam, chian fern and yong han. I think, these will be the greatest makan buddies ever. No questions asked! Lub all the food you can! Now its real fun going out with the band-gang (my extended family), but the food we eat is sadly. lacking. Steamboat from seah street, then hop over to purvis st for beef noodles, now that is real pleasure =D

Then we wanted to go to the national library, but that is a different story altogether.

psst, the indian photos are all up; yes, the third and fourth albums too

2005-12-15T18:17:00.000+08:00

Hotaru no haka is heartbreaking. to the uttermost extent, cathartic, soul-wrenchingly beautiful. (wahlau amanda why ask me to buy this kind of movie...)

Anyway i'll be disappearing for a few days, email me if things get bad. =)

2005-12-13T23:32:00.000+08:00

The first band wasn't worth mr oura, really (--> then what about US?) If not for lester all might have been lost. As amanda said, it's really sad to see a conductor all fired up in front of a dead band. Of course the standard went up as we went along to nearly-godlike, again under mr oura.

Which makes me wonder, if he can make a band like that, why can't we be like that? Why is it that, after three years of teaching, we haven't achieved greatness of that order?

2005-12-11T23:34:00.000+08:00

BOMBAY = BOLLYWOOD
= AMITABH BACHCHAN = GOD

Four albums, click on each photo to access.

Rest of New Delhi + Red Fort

Old Delhi

Bombay (Mumbai) + Islands

Dadar Wholesale Market (no, gaylord is actually a darn good restaurant) uploading

Oh oh oh india is a wonderful place
The land of tents and palaces, temples and beggars. The first thing you notice when you get in is the smell. You get used to it but it never goes away (try jogging in it, you finish coughing up blood black from all the pollution inhaled). The men jog in long pants, leather shoes, longsleeved shirts. The women, in Punjabi suits/sarees. Besides that there is the

FOOD

The main highlight of the trip. For no more than a hundred rupees you can get a meal big enough to spill off a table, to feed eight people. four bucks, guys. Absolutely stuffed by everything they have there, and yes we ate indian for every meal. Typical meal goes like this

Kabab (chunks of meat, vegetable, cheese, grilled in tandoor)
Rice (briyani, or pullao, or plain), with chunks of stuff
Bread (naan, kulcha, roti), served with dal
3 curries (mutton/fish/chicken/vegetable. no beef or pork here)

MASSIVE, vomit-inducing quantities. And every day too, every meal. Gained 4kg =(
But cheap, good, value for money. just don't drink the water or ask for ice in your drink

BOLLYWOOD

We watched bollywood, and you realise why they don't export them. It blends

Cliche (after cliche after cliche after cliche)
Non-stop sound effects and loud music
No plot
Dancing =D even in fight scenes
Immaculately dressed, gorgeous actors/actresses/. ALWAYS. drenched in blood, fighting to the death, getting blown up/screwed, always properly dressed
"You have a bomb in your backside"

Heck for 200 rupees its value for money just abandon all judgement and enjoy and laugh and laugh and laugh.

And ogle at aishwarya rai =D

ROADS

have no markings or crossings, rarely working traffic lights. To cross you must run and dodge the cows and tuk-tuks. (so we ran halfway, got stuck, ran back, had everybody laugh at us -.-) Coming back here, you realise how safe, quiet, sane we get it =/

GRANDEUR

India's got it in truckloads. Tens of omgwtf monuments from which you feel the vestiges of past greatness emanating. Like Humayun's tomb, the Taj, temples, Red Fort, the mosque we went to, it seems to have seeped into the stones. Too bad they've been left alone, and you get them graffiti-laced, dirty, decaying. Still you get this sense of awe when confronted with their vastness, their beauty, their grandeur, and you sense the vision of those that built them. Easy to plop together stones with a crane and bulldozer, but with only hands, feet and time?

WRETCHEDNESS

Outside the gates of these monuments a crowd of beggars gathers to beg from the tourists who come. They latch onto you, follow you around and don't give up until you give in. Heck they'd even run across their famously safe streets to stay on your trail. And the sad thing is, they're mostly infant-carrying women, and Bangladeshi to boot. Or maybe lepers, drug addicts, even little children for god's sake. Heartwrenching at first, but you get immune to it soon after the millionth little boy raps on your window at a traffic light for a few rupees.

SO the universal cry
"what is the government doing?"

CHAOS

Chaos is perfected here, becoming a zen-like tranquility. I mean, what more can you expect the government apparatus stays locked up behind their high gates and kalashnikov-toting guards (we drove past tens of these palaces), leaving the people to fend for themselves. Things get done one way or another, so nobody actually gets angry or impatient. Like

Traffic jams (so what? drive on opposite side [oncoming traffic])
Bureaucracy {bribe the darn officer)

Old delhi is the capital of chaos. I think the pictures are better haha.

MARKETS

They sell everything. Wanted to buy saxophone but half the keys were gone so (and it was black)... Cheap for 150 bucks though... And that's without haggling, down to at least 50%

CONTRAST

That's what it is, really. Invert singapore and you get india =D

2005-12-11T02:11:00.000+08:00

DISAPPOINTMENT

yeah i'm back, but more on that very, very soon (with tons of pictures, i promise)

Anyway, due to my recent... infractions, i have been granted a maximum of TWO nights out for the rest of the month. Now yy is very happy because she has all those stuff on this week, but i have to CHOOSE two nights, very.painfully.

=(

2005-12-05T20:51:00.000+08:00

Honey, we aren't in singapore anymore (v.g.)

HELLO AM STILL ALIVE AND KICKING. Only halfway through but here's a little snapshot of my progress.

I have braved:

DELHI TRAFFIC JAMS

OH this is the stuff of legends. As our driver (Davinder Singh, v.g.) says, the very essentials are
1. Good horn
2. Good brakes
3. Good luck

Emphasis on the first and last, because the roads are crammed full of of camels, horses, beggars, lepers, book-sellers, tuk-tuk-cum-taxis, vegetable carts (and the people on the buses just reach right out and snick them), tractors, COWS, and the cars.

DELHI POLLUTION

Hard to get photos of it, but the first thing that hits you when you leave the airport is the smell. That, and the yellow halo around lights. And the fact that nobody wears white.

DELHI PEDDLERS/BEGGARS/STREETSIDE PERFORMERS

(coming soon)

Whatever you do, DON'T STOP MOVING. Moment you do, hordes of lepers/beggars converge on anybody with less-dark skin (i.e. me, my family, the cows), and mutter desperate pleas for money to buy chapati. Heartwrenching, so give money lorh. Problem is you give one and ten million come, like that day in the market. Kinda like the pied piper =/

SLIPPERY STEPS ON A KILOMETRE-HIGH MINARET

No photos of that because I forgot to bring my camera. =( But you can just imagine how mind-numbingly scary that was. Plus when you emerge at the top you pop out ABOVE the pollution, thus getting the only clean air in Delhi. No wonder those imams live so long (+ the exercise you get from climbing up ten km of steps)

INDIRA GANDHI

She's pretty, no? I think I got a crush on her like I did lookalike Anne Frank. Too Bad they're both dead =( one of tetanus at a nazi concentration camp, the other gunned down by her bodyguards

Superman has his cape, I have my jacket, camera and Bridget Jones' Diary
Farewell for now

2005-11-30T20:22:00.000+08:00

JALAN-JALAN
(o my various gods!)

To india! The land of dirt and poetry, barbarians and magicians, where the skies are blue the food hot the women hotter the water brown the people numerous the cholera virus more numerous.

Where Gandhis rub shoulders with the likes of Tamurlane Aurangzeb Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam

Home of the Taj Mahal, enduring monument to ~~the sheer excesses of obsessive~~ love

Kashmir! where mountain flowers grown on barbed wire fences landmines lurk beneath green green hills

I'll be gone from the second to the tenth, and i think it's going to be great. I need a change, a shock, a shift of environment, and this is probably one of the few chances I'll get. I promise

1. to change for the better
2. to take many many photos
3. to find the things i've been looking for

when i return i'll have to go off again, to my grandfather's grave. sungei petani kedah malaysia.

AND WHEN I COME BACK

1. 1 on 1 with zach
2. pigout with ngiam
3. kayaking
4. nco chalet
5. nco outing (jether! michelle! T8! pei jun! felicia! val! +whoever else lah)
6. Apassionata IX
8. JC band fest
9. other metty things =D

さようなら！

2005-11-28T22:31:00.000+08:00

Band. (three albums, click on each picture to access a different one)

All by your friendly photographer,

[NOTE: the photos of our tuff bm are extremely flattering and nowhere near an accurate representation of his appearance. view with caution and an open mind]

2005-11-27T01:35:00.000+08:00

2005-11-26T00:34:00.000+08:00

Better write this down before it all leaks out of my head.

Went for the elds play with bib, it was money well spent. These lines keep repeating in my head:

"The past is dead!"

"i was just a trophy... (blah blah) show off to your friends", as in having a girl/boyfriend just to parade in front of your friends.

Everybody has a story to tell, but we ferret them away in dark corners of our minds. Once you get past that it's impossible to hate a person if you understand him, for you find yourself wondering how you could have done otherwise in his position.

Sadly, we reduce their lives to one or two words, simplify a melange of thoughts desires passions reasoning dreams fears hopes into bite-sized easy-to-comprehend crumbs, then flick them away as you would an annoying insect.

And death does clear your mind wonderfully.

Ohh how depressing; i can feel my heartrate slowing my pulse slackening my mind shutting down. Pretty soon i'll be dead, comatose or asleep.

2005-11-22T21:47:00.000+08:00

HAPPINESS is:

Protection, Massive Attack
Final Straw, Snow Patrol
Familiar to millions, Oasis
Best of Everything But The Girl
Best of Guns and Roses

The Temple of Dawn, Yukio Mishima
The Decay of the Angel, Yukio Mishima
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, John le Carre
Lord's Foul Bane, Stephen Donaldson
Dune Messiah, Frank Herbert
The Simarillion, Tolkien

HMV + Library raid is love, yea; now the only thing left is to slowly, slowly shave those precious seconds off.

2005-11-21T22:29:00.000+08:00

A kind of closure to the year, having postponed collecting my report card for as long as endurable. (by the teacher, not me)

[BEFORE THAT LOOK AT THESE. MMMM FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD]

Done well? [THEY FREAKING LEFT OUT 11 CCA POINTS, which would have brought me. near. to. ronald chan] Reasonable I guess, if not for the chinese. But enough about that already.

Band's going pretty well, a lot of last year's garbage cleaned up already, standards are rising. Yes, I can sense momentum picking up as we inch towards whatever elusive goal. I think that's the point, really. We need a concrete goal, a model to um. model ourselves upon, not drift aimlessly.

Above all, we need PRACTICE, the real, serious, focused practice one hour of which is worth five of what we do now. Then, committment, then if we're good, enthusiasm.

There's still this year's garbage, like some members of my batch who really. disappoint. everybody. They're a bloody joke, the way their names are listed but their shoes never at the band room door. I can bet a certain few haven't touched their mouthpieces since... SYF probably. Raphael has been tossed down the trash heap but it doesn't make any difference, really. The same people don't come, the same instruments remain untouched, the same people slack their asses off.

If only, if only, if only, so many things to do, so little time.

Beyond band, if there's anything i hate about holidays, its the sheer purposelessness. Granted there's a lot of stuff to occupy them with, but honestly, how many of it is stuff I genuinely enjoy, that I find purpose in. Band, for one, going out with friends [yytimtimem], nco camp and that's about it. Honestly, if there weren't consequences of not attending these millions of... 'meetings', i'd be the last to show up.

I'd like to find a purpose, these holidays, something that lets me meet people, do good, if you can throw a girl in there somewhere yea that'd be nice.

2005-11-20T22:07:00.000+08:00

THE CHRISTMAS CARD DONATION SERVICE

Yea, because it is better to receive than to give, here's a proposition for you. Email me your address, pipohpoh@gmail.com, and you'll get a christmas card. Doesn't matter if i've known you for sixteen years or for sixteen minutes, because we're all very nice people =D

2005-11-20T00:04:00.000+08:00

Good advice:

"Lying is bad for your health michael".

2005-11-18T23:33:00.000+08:00

AS TAGGED by zach and remus!

Five Things:

1. I absolutely insist on bringing my instrument home after practices. Now you imagine rush-hour traffic, buses packed like million cans of kiap chye, then in comes IDIOT RI BOY WITH COMPANION, who knocks over half the people getting up the bus. Then the inevitable squash into the middle of the aisle, where i have to grip really tight 'cause my weight's been doubled. WHEN GETTING OFF, repeat and kill the other half of the bus. I swear the drivers of 156, 88, 854, 70, 103 all recognise me and time their trips to avoid seven pee em.

URGH URGH REMUS WITH CHAUFFEUR. His instrument big but he got big car.

Justin told story of idiot tuba boy who strapped his instrument to his back, then got on the train and crushed people by looking behind him. Kinda emabrassing to imagine me doing the same.

NOW why do i bring home? Obvious answer is PRACTICE but really... most of the time i procrastinate/fall asleep/play dota (no larh), so real practice is quite limited to an hour each time. Its the nice feeling of bringing her home that's like psychological reassurance, like HEY AT LEAST I BRING HER HOME HOKAY i might not practice but you agree THE POTENTIAL IS THERE.

Moral of the story: don't take 156/88 at rush hour. seriously.

2. One of my most played cds is rachmaninoff's second symphony. Second, What's the story (morning glory) by oasis. Third, The Joshua Tree by U2. The rach cd came from my father (who incidentally, never listened to it), and its got this very loud trombone part so i listen... and learn. Russian trombonist have big lungs, blow hard, sound louder. Fourth? the bee gees, unfortunately. This is what you call... taste in music, no?

I'd like to think myself a rock fan, 'cause i have lots of songs of people/guitars screaming. Of course what you never see is the stacks of mushy teen agnst/emo pop that i secretly put on when i think nobody's listening (actually nobody ever listens so...). Things like U2's With Or Without You which is a wonderful song that says... just about nothing really. My favourite part is when bono goes

oooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

So if you want hip, cool music, you know where to look.

QED.

3. Talking about procrastination, there isn't anything I wouldn't do if it would keep me from doing something i didn't want to do (did you get that :/ me=desperate procrastinator). Even if there's an OMGBLARDYBIG project due let's say... in three hours time, things always crop up y'know, and i usually end up doing in the last five mins, if at all. Things like

maggi mee
sleeping
thinking of practicing
OMG PRINCESS NORI'S GETTING MARRIED
dota.

It's a sad life, really. But that's what they have groupwork for, anyway. One day, one day (very soom i hope not) i'd probably have to drag my sorry ass off the bed and get down to work, and the world will be very much the better for it, but in the meantime there is NOTHING you can do lalala.

Same goes for training, actually. MUST get up at six and train straight off before my brain boots up, or else the procrastination centres here, here and here kick in and conspire to keep my feet off the ground/fingers off the keyboard/pen off the paper.

I THINK I NEED HELP, HERE

SEE ALSO: COFFEE DEPRIVATION

4. Coffee addict yeah. Dolphins need fish, sea anemones need water, pandas need eucalyptus, I and my kin we need coffee. Now that seems rather weird on hindsight since the effects on caffeine on myself are similar to that if you deprive some people of it (dolphin no fish, sea anemone no water, panda no eucalyptus). Chills, shaking, hallucinations, sleepiness (no, really), and I start to lose things like common sense, memory, vital signs.

Aaron chee once bought me coffee in return for giving him tution. I told the aunty (at some cafe in amk library) to give me the "strongest you have". Chee passed his maths, which testifies to its effectiveness, yea. See, now chee's even beaten me flat in maths. Of course i couldn't walk straight after that but hell, charity is always good even if it involves suffering.

Moral of this story: Kids, don't do drugs, it isn't worth it.

5: I like foreign languages.　外国語が大好き!　Chinese is probably my favourite, followed by japanese, followed by

Malay
German
Portugese
Spanish
Viet
Arabic

Of this list i know precisely... ten words total if you take viet and malay out. Working on it lah, interest mostly generated through (potential of) being able to flirt in eight languages (simultaeneously! =O) Of course i'd only be able to attract tuberculosis patients ('cause that's what I sound like, usually), but its a start. Actually my real reason is to understand physics problems, ever since an encounter in the portugese science centre (lixo, ruina, estrago, vai fora d'aqui, nao tens direito estar em minha casa!)

That, and also so that I get what i order in restraunts, i.e.

NOT whale meat in some hokkaido yakitori-ya, food was wonderful, ambience was a lot of beer posters + inebriated business men, but whale meat is against my principles sorry. Trust my family to trust me to order =/

Byebyefornow. I go to india to find my miss gandhi, and get my 8.31 running time.

OHYES the tag. I tag yuhyiing, roycelee, hanxin, ngiam, and because its funny, brian.

2005-11-16T20:15:00.000+08:00

Just back from class chalet (a joke right from the beginning, check in at 3pm out at 10am?) Disappointing lah, 'cause ALL of the time we were doing something computer-related. Two computers, one PS2, one xbox, and that pretty much ties everybody up one way or another. Even those not playing, their eyes still somehow stick to the nearest screen at hand (self included). Can't even get off and EAT, for goodness sake.

Not to malign anyone, really. Just really frustrated at how we wasted one entire day on something that almost everybody can do AT HOME. I mean, you don't bloody go to a chalet to bloody PLAY COMPUTER GAMES. We fry our brains on chinese/geog in class, then go to chalet and fry except on a different griddle.

The food was wonderful, but aiyar.

And something tells me i shouldn't have expected better, really. Somehow we aren't really cut out to be a class. I wanted to go swimming, wanted to go to the beach, wanted to watch the sunrise, wanted to go cycling/rollerblading but uhm. thwarted by the irresistable PS.

Before this gets too whiny: if you want to laugh until you bleed, play RISK with YIXIANG! Divine Duo of Gengiz Kan and Protector of Peace, The, The, wiped off the map by yip hei's invisible armies. I said "god is on my side", and promptly rolled 3 sixes (QED). We were creamed in turns but lalala WHO CARES. We got the divine assistance, 'man.

2005-11-13T20:43:00.000+08:00

Now I'm sitting on a Paris train molten ash falls like rain
Fire burns the trees it's a beautiful fatality
Love the way you stand your ground sea moves as mercury
To break its perfect skin to dare to dive within

Sometimes, sometimes I see much more than is good for me
The first thing that's on my mind the last place I'd look each time
Sometimes, I slip inside the imagery and
The last thing that's on my mind's
The first thing I'll do each time

- Paris Train, on the album Daybreaker by Beth Orton

Pretty sky! Not my picture but still it has to be shared. Credit to http://www.livejournal.com/users/badhandwriting/12404.html#cutid1 for linking.

2005-11-12T22:05:00.000+08:00

Here's more!

Amira's Angels

The Cult of Amira

Jeremy has a problem

Then again, we all do

Okay I HAVE to put this up. its my long-lost sister. elder one summore. queen of tai tais right?

There are millions more thanks to yy and emily, but i look bad in all of them so anywayyyyyy

2005-11-12T19:40:00.000+08:00

And five five we were five.

Well I don't really want to say much, its too much to put here. A bit overwhelmed, perhaps?

Anyway, I'll always have my memories, of

Emily
Yuhyiing
Tim the clar
Tim the flute
Jezer
Michelle
T8, also known as John
Valerie
Aisyah
Cindy
Shau Jun
Lychee, also known as Lye Ee
Loyang
Clement
Pei Jun
Felicia
Vanessa
Aaron
Edwin
Desmond
Syabrina
Aisyah

AND MUST NOT FORGET
Amanda
Amanda
Jeremy
Mr Siao
Miss Ang

When you execute the final turn (over syabrina's head) blow the last note (a B at ffffffffff vietnamese hat), stamp down the last time, it hits you shockingly: its over its over. Elation, yes, but always the sadness at leaving so soon.

Apologies to aisyah for hitting your head so often, I just HAD to imitate the bowen girl (to less effect, she had no complaints), and for my leaky water key.
Apologies to Jezer and T8 for the lack of prata =D
Apologies to amanda for the sand and dents
Love and thanks to the trombones

Till... next week, its C7, signing off

2005-11-08T20:02:00.000+08:00

PREMATURE I KNOW

but an update on nco camp!

One thing they never tell you about is the sunburn, BAD SUNBURN. i.e. put sunblock as if your life depended on it, which it probably does. Red as a badly-cooked lobster dipped in ketchup, and the peeling will start... soon.

Routine of drills, formation, concert, etc. etc, we don't get barbequed as badly as the DMs 'cause of the air-con time. But what really makes this a nice thing (and better than the ccal camp har har) are the people there. My section's pretty nice, except for a few who are i dunno? a bit stand-offish? They think i'm weird i guess haha (then again so does everyone else). Jezer's a pretty slick guy, plays well, i have to learn his... earnestness.

He's the life of our section!

Have to get closer to the rest i guess; no worries, only 3 days left.

Andandandbeforeiforget

BAND NCO CAMP PASSING-OUT PARADE
FRIDAY, 8TH NOVEMBER
7.00pm
CCAB

be there!

2005-11-04T23:44:00.000+08:00

A Checklist

1. The holy grail of all trombonists, TONE. Just came back from bernard's house, he had put on a lindbergh CD and BAM! that, my friend, is TONE. Air support, proper embochure, everything put together gives you a tone like molten gold.

Now, jeremy says it's pretty good, but that's only for moderate volumes, moderate ranges. Too low and i can't hit it anyway, or it ends up weak and... airy. Too high and it breaks down after a few counts. But this is the sort of thing that needs constant PRACTICE, and PRACTICE

2. Stamina. It's back to basics here, should be able to hold at least 16 at ff, constant volume, constant, golden tone, proper start and end. Currently, only about 8 with preparation, and usually I can't repeat it immediately. Embarassing leh =/ Again, practice.

3. Range. Oura's pieces generally don't need the lower notes (past low F), but should work on at least until low low bflat, pitch correctly and sustain. Upper should go to at least high high bflat, again done correctly. Of course this need stamina, to sustain the air for lower notes, and for embochure strength in the higher ones.

4. Slide technique. Must transition cleanly and smoothly, no unwanted gliss, no mispitching (QUAN HUI I WANT THAT SILICONE), LEARN HOW TO PLAY LEGATO.

5. Agility/Accuracy. Jump here and there. Enough liao. Too bad I don't have an ear for music.

2005-11-03T21:34:00.000+08:00

BUSY BUSY

will update after nco camp if i'm still alive

p.s. we're going to india in december!

2005-10-30T20:26:00.000+08:00

Mistake wearing rjcsb shirt to stadium. SRJC basketballer vs band, 2.4km. OWNAGE (i leave you to decide who owned who =p)

Anyway, nco camp-thingy on Friday.

Timothy no. 1 the flautist
Timothy no. 2 the clarinettist
Emilyyyyyyy the clarinettist
Yuhyiing the clarinettist
Amanda the clarinettist
Jeremy the sax
Priscilla the perc
And yours truly

I can't wait any longer for it. Pass faster, one week! I've memorised only 3/9 of my pieces i mati liao.

Going to little india on thursday, feel the urge to spend money on nice-looking/yummy stuff. Want to come along, tell me please xD it'd be nice to have company. Actually I figured I needed to go somewhere else, away from four walls, rock-pop and sub-zero air conditioning. I want somewhere exotic, somewhere relatively unscathed by hordes of my kin, so tada! little india! And its cheaper, too.

EDIT: YOU IDIOT DEEPAVALI IS ON TUESDAY ALL THE SHOPS WILL BE CLOSED. tomorrow, then

2005-10-27T20:21:00.000+08:00

Haikus:

Argh argh argh argh argh
Argh argh argh argh argh argh argh
Argh argh argh argh argh

くらねこは
ほんとうだいすきだよ
いただきます

These are end times. Heh as you know its raining like no tomorrow outside, a symphony of lightning and water and rolling thunder, and hell its frightening. Normally not so, but then i don't normally play warcraft 3 =D. The Burning Legion turns the skies bloody red, sends endless storms, casts meteors of flaming rock golems to harry the desperate mortal effort at turning the tide. Then BOOM and RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR for 10 seconds as the Real Thing happens and scars you crapless.

Exam results so far have been... satisfactory with a few exceptions. I wasn't the obsessed freak of last year, but seriously my chinese grades are starting to SCARE. I guess these holidays won't be all fun and games. (since when is it ever.)

People, kayak! some time in the next two months, just do it eh.

I am going to eat roti prata tomorrow! can we do some pok thing after the briefing too?

2005-10-24T23:17:00.000+08:00

Four Thoughts

I tink mother, that i am a different species. Sometimes, sometimes i have absolutely no idea what's going on with people, even though deep down i'm supposed to be the same.

I tink also mother, that I cannot hate. Somehow (unless the guy is real idiot/bastard), its impossible to hate someone for something they did if you know why they did it. If you think a bit, you'd find the same machine inside you eh.

I tink mother, that life is unfair. Royce can beat me swimming breaststroke while i do the crawl, and he doesn't even train. (of course, he might be lying, the nasty dogh he is =D)

Finally i tink that while those with prettiness/chioness number in the tens of millions, those with beauty, true beauty, are few and far between. Maybe it is the rarity that makes it so desirable no? But we are mortals, and we must get used to disappointments.

And somehow i do get feeling that in the end i'd settle for stability and happiness, rather than non-stop excitement. And to do that i have to stop playing around.

But then i become stupid, slow and dead, so how?

Soccer tournament today. I got meself a save! it was beautiful (and painful). But I really have to thank geoff for all his bicycle kicks though, otherwise the score'd be 17-0 against us. Otherwise, stocking up on reading/listening material, preparations for all the people i'm gonna see.

And the bendemeer stalker tomorrow.

I hope that sounded coherent.

2005-10-23T20:24:00.000+08:00

Guys, guys

Typical end-of-CTs post

Finished liao. lit expected. go home and sleep. borray i went to koay's house to lan for FREE.

End of end of CTs post

So I guess its back the daily grind (with a few. notable exceptions). A useless three weeks to find out how badly we've done, then they pack us off for what-they-call-a-holiday.

Meanwhile, as i said, i'm gonna set my grand schemes in action =D

2005-10-18T22:54:00.000+08:00

Koay will pass his physics, that's for sure. 2 hour crash course, and I guarantee you will learn everything you ever need to know, or your money back. Who's next? BRING IT ON.

There's always this group of people who will stay behind after papers to argue over their answers, then before you know it there'll be shouting, stabbing, tables thrown about. Paper over, I FORGET liao, at least until the day they return it (which gives me one week to live). Some people, talk talk talk talk, then even RUN after the teacher, prostrate, beg, talk talk talk, in the end their livers come out through their nostrils.

xiao za bo. i go and eat lunch already still take calculator and hammer lester's head.

Bah!

Going to learn cooking after CTs! If you think the stuff I cooked in OBS was good, you ain't tasted anything yet. If (like myself) you'd rather eat milo powder, HAH WAIT UNTIL I GET MY MICHELIN STAR. It's become my civic duty ever since they closed down the canteen, anyway. I'll probably ask my mother to teach, and hopefully she'll willingly (key word) to pass her skills on to an uh. protege ('cause my sister is HOPELESS).

Come to think of it, I've hardly done anything with my mother, these fifteen years (insert vague feeling of discomfort). Should get to know her better. (and hopefully push back my curfew. and increase my allowance. and get screamed at less. ok i exaggerate. ohshutupalready.)

threeQ! we must go lanning, thursday afternoon after daniel's cep paper! bring your home clothes. So far we've got

Linky
Daniel
Me
Marcsee
Benedict
Youkai
... and so on.

Geoff's hardcore mother forces him to go for 3rd lang, so he can't join us. (then again, i wouldn't mind watching sekaichu for the uh. fifth time)

besides that SOMEBODY still owes me a ton of ice cream (:

2005-10-17T17:49:00.000+08:00

BLOODY HELL

they closed the registration for the marathon. today.

!!! this makes me angry enough to study bio. goodbye for now !!!

2005-10-15T14:59:00.000+08:00

EEEEE how can anybody be so CUTE! xD

2005-10-15T13:35:00.000+08:00

A Dreamer

I realise that this is in complete defiance of the HIATUS written down there, but I DON'T CARE. Chinese, y'know, is like, right up to here in my list of priorities.

I dunno if you've ever felt this before, this nagging feeling of being trapped, in this microscopic world we call singapore. No, not in the angsty teenagery sense, but this vague discomfort at how small-minded we can be.

I mean, this is a red dot on a blue dot in a vast cosmos of black, and yet we spend our entire lives obsessing over the most minute, most inconsequential of ideas. Out there, kashmiris are dying from criminal humanitarian incompetence, iraqis are voting in the greatest election in their history, H5N1 is slowly spreading westwards and mutating into the worst pandemic in a century, global warming is threatening to bake this planet dry, while we plug our ears with ipods and block the world out with walls of familiar noise.

I crave some solid sense of satisfaction at having completed something worthwhile, leaving a mark on humanity. Even more so, there's this longing for a sense of vastness, open expanses, the kind associated with rolling mountains, the gulfs of the cosmos, the moons of jupiter, the galaxy of electrons in a sodium atom, blankets of forests teeming with life, an open sky stretching from horizon to horizon.

Instead all we care about is getting that 4.0

Maybe that's why I love science. It has that sense of scale, and of profound beauty. Yes, you heard it, beauty. From the seething mess of violent energy at the 10^-33 scale (that's what heisenburg says, anyway), to the majestic spin of our galaxy about its axis, to the structure of the haemoglobin molecule, repeat tens of trillions of times on this earth alone, to the stark simplicity of the calvin cycle, the simple miracle that makes life possible.

A whole galaxy of worlds out there, and we have not yet mastered even one.

Almost makes you religious, ne? I guess humans close their minds 'cause we would go mad with zibeiness when thinking of nature's elegant perfection. Or maybe they create their own art, in a futile effort to equal it.

Like bilbo baggins, I'm going off to the mountains!

oh WHATEVER. knew I couldn't persuade you, anyway =D

EDIT - oh man i just realised how naive i sound. nevermind i stand by it =p

2005-10-13T00:17:00.000+08:00

The CTs are coming, and strangely I feel nothing about them (which explains my chem, my maths, and above all my chinese marks >.<) But its true, innit? Coming home at the ungodly hour of four pee em, when I can actually see my house in daylight, it kinda screws up the clock up there. Usually what I do is fall right asleep for half an hour before starting, but this time I fall asleep and don't wake up, which leaves me with EXACTLY THE SAME AMOUNT OF TIME TO MUG AS BEFORE.

Oh wait I can feel it coming... higher, higher, more, MORE

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARCCCCCCCCCCCCCKPANICPANICPANICPANIC

ok finished. it'll be over in eight bloody days anyway, and we can finally start our grand schemes

also went swimming today!

1. I don't have to worry about looking bad 'cause there are always at least six middleaged men who look FAR worse, which begs the question
1.5. OHCRAP am I going to look like THAT when I become middle aged >>><<<
2. The water tastes funny. Too many little kids peeing into it or something, but whatever it is you don't want to drink too much of it. (or else you vomit, and it uh. goes right back into the pool again. oh okay I understand now)
3. No swimsuit models where I go, unfortunately (DAMM YOU GEOFF)
4. The pool is a lot shallower at the ends, so I donated quite some blood when I jumped in (ok you REALLY don't want to drink the water)

I seem to be rediscovering the joys of my childhood. Swimming was one of the few things I did, until I stopped in p2 and inflated.

It gives you a lot of time to think, so I made a few decisions.

I guess this year has fallen short of expectations, especially since I told myself in January that things were gonna change. They haven't, not as much as I wish they could. Then again I said the same thing in 2004, 2003, so it doesn't come as a surprise, really.

I've really been (ok I'm going to use the word here) slacking these past few months. ok guys you're probably going to kill me over this but really, there's so much I could have done and ended up not doing, like a rocking SMP, like becoming BM (i'll be honest haha), like winning Eureka, like falling in love.

And its really bitter now that you look back on it, 'cause you've wasted all that time, and in the end its all your fault. Its only human to procrastinate, only human to slack, only human to feel complacent, but HELL 'man if that's human I don't wanna be human.

But now the air is heavy with the scent of OPPORTUNITY, and there's no way I'm going to miss it.

1. BAND
Always my biggest committment, and always will be. Its a hell of a task, and some people are going to get hurt real bad, but in the end its my band, its our band, and we're going to make good what those people screwed up. Disillusionment if it goes awry? I haven't considered that, really, but I'm hoping it doesn't happen =p

Hey I gave up LDP for it so it'd better be good.

I'm thinking of getting a private tutor, 'cause I have absolutely no idea how good I am right now. Alternatives? =D

2. Same old, same old. Become a more likeable person, master the fine arts of witty engaging conversation, STOP stammering, know e^x, where x is beeg number, more people, really DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

3. Watched National Science Challenge today (a duty, yes), was covered in profound shame. TAKE THAT TITLE AND KEEP IT, along with uh.

CHAOS
EUREKA
VJC
CB PAUL MEMORIAL
NUS PHYSICS OPEN HOUSE
... and other unimportant ones that nevertheless have nice prizes

Hah actually I gave up LDP in the hopes that biopolis would forget the incident with the keycards and centrifuges and let me work there =D

4. LEARN

Just learning really. I'm getting more interested in the creative arts and such, especially MUSIC and writing. Heh really regret not learning earlier (hence the embarassing THEORY: NIL line on syo application), but there's always time. Plus the guitar would be nice, and the drums, and the keyboard. Singing is probably a lost cause though >.<

And I'd like to learn to write. I've seen people laugh, cry because of a piece of paper, imagine the power.

->-> SYO MUST GET IN PIAH PIAH PIAH

And that's about it, really. At the end of next year, I DO NOT want to be remembered for nothing more than a 4.0 GPA, like half my class now (gragh bloody idiots wasting your life away). If michael could do any of those other things, michael would die happy, happier than mr-sixteen-point-seven (OW).

I leave you with a face to remember me by:

Carpe Jugulum.

2005-10-12T01:08:00.000+08:00

It was one of those perfect moments.

Nine-thirty, walking down that road. I'd done it a thousand times before, but somehow this time was unique.

It was quiet, the sort of silence that occurs in the stretches between traffic lights, where you can hear the gentle fading hum of the wave that came before. That, and the familiar warm glow of neon streetlamps, casting soft-edged shadows.

As you walk you can hear the crunch of dead leaves underfoot, and I think that contributed to the wonderful smell: the one you get just before a rainstorm, when the air pressure's higher and all the woody odours come out. The only sounds you hear are the thuk-thuk of leather shoes slapping pavement.

And somehow there's this intense feeling of solitude, the kind accompanied by serenity and complete peace. Its just you and the pavement and the streetlamps and the cars that rush by, but somehow this seems more real than anything our world-weary lives can offer.

Its the kind of silence that makes you think.

And then, just then, all I wanted to be was in love.

2005-10-10T21:19:00.000+08:00

Imagine the kitchen of Viknesh the roti prata man. He has a hotplate, a bowl of dissolved lard, small lump of dough.

He spreads each lump, hammers it flat, folds it in again, dribbles lard, hammers it flat, then sets it aside with a small sigh of satisfaction for a job well done. Add tamil curse for the chinese boy who wants the whole lot in 2 hours, repeat sixty-nine times.

What, class party =p

I like people who like what they do, rather than those who drift around and... that's about it really. I absolutely detest floating bodies, especially those who just can't be bothered to care or put in effort in anything they do.

It's NOT cool to do NOTHING, you retards.

Those that enjoy what they do, whatever they may do, it says something about them... a certain level of reason I guess. Whatever it is, I find myself naturally attracted to them.

ESPECIALLY MUSICIANS

Another thing, its those who have that natural air of self-assuredness and confidence about them, those who set their own path. I think you know the kind of people I'm talking about; most of them are 'popular', but it also applies to those that remain quietly, confidently in the sidelines.

Its called being true to yourself I guess.

Call it diffusion down a concentration gradient =D

2005-10-09T20:18:00.000+08:00

Heh trust me to speak my mind at 2.30 am, but I was really pissed at the immaturity, the plastic cut-out martyrdom, the cellophane fires that burn hotter and hotter in the minds of... OUR people. they're out to get us, they're out to get us

and then one person has just proven it again. QED

I guess I could take it like bing and just leave it alone; I could do nothing and nothing would happen.

gragh ENOUGH.

2005-10-09T02:02:00.000+08:00

Just back from ushering at the ORA dinner thingy, and it was very disturbing.

1. Chee and auyong are officially a couple. What was once the Human Resource department has now become the uh. homo... something department

DRAGGGGGGG it DRAGGED FOR TWO HOURS MORE THAN OLD PEOPLE CAN BE EXPECTED TO DRAG

and i kept getting called up like some serving boy ("michael!!!!!!1111oneoneone"), to take their photograph. okay I'm supposed to SELL photographs of them, but when they're so enthusiastic i can't help but let things slip.

the ritz carlton is a veh. expensive place with veh. expensive people, and veh. expensive (bad) food. so expensive that if you choose to walk there, YOU'RE NOT WELCOME.

2. I feel like an idiot for buying albums that bing already has. (franz ferdinand, kind of blue) sure there's something nice about owning an album, but there's something bad about spending THIRTY BUCKS (the money, incidentally, that ORA paid us to usher =D) when you shouldn't have.

I go to the gym tomorrow to start on my Five-Year Plan, meanwhile I just sit and wait for the CTs to end so I can finally start living

meanwhile visit this for weird talk about underwear.

2005-10-06T23:44:00.000+08:00

oh damn.

zhi you should meet my jie

2005-10-06T01:04:00.000+08:00

Ah I need a new bag. This one used to be blue but now its brown. (QED) (hmm the crumplers look rather nice but they're so... mainstream)

I wonder when I became this trivial, this immature. I used to get really hyped up over the big things, the stuff that really mattered (politics, government, world issues), now its slowly being drained out of me. Overexposure? (well there is a relentless barrage of crap being poured onto the world) Or merely being forced to conform?

Ultimate teenager question: to conform and lose your life, or heckcare and give 'em hell

The second option is more admirable: those who know what they're doing and stick to their guns (unlike certain. individuals.), and I'd be happier with it.

settled, decided, QED. no more existentialist crises at 2am

2005-10-05T19:48:00.000+08:00

Practice is going relatively well, 'cause its amazingly quiet after three (the whole school has gone to mug/DOTA). Tone is improving but tonguing and stamina are still absymal >.< Nevermind must push on!

So if you hear loud crap, you know who it is. Stop by the third floor atrium before you dota to listen in stunned awe and offer (hopefully constructive) advice, opinions, well-wishes. Otherwise you could throw dining hall food at him.

Crap, still can't forget that STUNNING girl I saw in rj yesterday. As in not chio or anything in dialect, but really beautiful. Tall like... sugar cane, complexion like charsiewpau (the outside larh), figure like a something, cross between baguette and cucumber, absolutely enthralling. Then there were these idiots next to me:

Idiot no. 1: eh michael what you staring at?
Idiot no. 2: STOP staring
Idiot no. 3: she's FAT michael

Too thin also very ugly what.

MOVING ON now...

I'm going to be on TV! Channel U crew, about blogging. UNFORTUNATELY it was in chinese so you can imagine. Picture me stammering, face growing red as charsiewpau (inside larh), the cameraman fiddling with the W and T buttons to focus on that, interviewer leaning in and GRINNING, getting wider by the second.

It was a very long two minutes.

2005-10-02T22:11:00.000+08:00

We have a new band member:

SEOW

enjoy (:

2005-10-02T20:14:00.000+08:00

The ban mian crusade has well and truly begun, because we will not stand by and watch the good name of Raffles fall to the kind of food they serve in our dining hall (you know, the kind that moves if you wait long enough, the kind that changes colour depending on temperature.) YUCK

A paradox is that if you eat THAT food long enough, you grow obese and die of malnutrition. Eat it for extended periods, you lose hair, teeth, nails, (and if long enough) consciousness and vital signs.

Still on the topic of environmentalism, you see the posters on our walls? Tearthemdownripthemoffusethemasfirestarterwhateverijustdontwanttoseekevinmarkleeeveragain.
Its like some kind of metastatic cancer, they're bloody taking it too far. *little grumble of discontent*

And I realised I missed the chem practical on Wednesday. Life isn't going too good now moangroangripe.

NOW people you realise that CTs are in a few weeks, so this is your reminder to turn off your computers and START MUGGING, all you model students you. I don't want to be alone 'kay.

2005-09-30T21:00:00.000+08:00

Fellows, the japanese exams are over. That means no more surviving on very small cups of watered-down vending machine coffee for the next... 3 months, hopefully (HAH you know the construction site you walk past on the way to MOELC? You see the pipes with all the foamy water gushing out? THAT's the stuff I drink.)

I gulp two down before the exam and still fall asleep during the sakubun. Then later at home they finally kick in SIX HOURS afterwards, and I'm now bouncing off the walls. Great job michael, you're not only an addict, you're a n00b addict.

The poor canteen shuts down today, so no more briyani. Oil crisis and whatnot, this one really hits where it hurts most. So now options are restricted to the hellhole dining hall, and rj. One less reason to come to school I guess.

2005-09-29T10:23:00.000+08:00

Just had my blood test, and it was very blah. Not like how I had imagined it (which would be a platoon of Gurkhas to hold me down while the doctor stabs repeatedly with a 12-gauge needle. and he grins while saying "hold still now, this won't hurt a bit")

Instead its just *stab* *squish* *sccchrpt* *stab* *squish* *sccchrpt*. What kind of medical procedure sounds like that?

Now we wait on tenterhooks for the results =D

EDIT: NEGATIVE. phew.

2005-09-28T22:58:00.000+08:00

Been cooped up in this room for the past fifteen hours staring at the stack of japanese notes hoping that they'll somehow spontaeneously jump up and stuff themselves into my head. No such luck of course, hence the fifteen hours.

Come on guys, don't you think that I'm rather miserable to have to go through all this mental deionisation AT HOME? If I'd were whole I'd go happily to school and do EXACTLY THE SAME THING (except for a smaller desk, which makes all the difference. Its got that little tray thingy where all my chinese work goes.). There I have grumpy teachers, (some) porcine classmates, forklifts of undone work in german and extended five-minute lunchbreaks. Here I have... a free flow of soft drinks. And freedom to sms anytime I want. Hah do I hear any whimpers of sympathy...i thought not. Pigfuckers!

Well all bad things must come to an end, so I'll be back tomorrow. I expect ticker-tape parades and exclamations of profound relief, or if not just insult me a little. Karma, you understand.

Meanwhile feast your eyes upon our future prime minister

2005-09-27T01:12:00.000+08:00

My brain is fried from japanese and trypanosomes so:

OH MY GOD.

ONE

I absolutely adore japanese. Now you can't really tell that from the previous sentence but most of the time in class I step in feeling totally refreshed and full of energy, ready like a sponge to soak up all the wonderful goodness that suzuki sensei gives off in prodigious amounts. I mean, it practically sucks it all up like a vaccum cleaner, so you see the people around asphyxiating and cyanising, and its really not my fault. Now we're just human, so in no more than five minutes and fifty-five seconds my head is so totally soaked with sonkeigo and kihontai and katana and kanji and sakubun and bloody crap that it simply gets too heavy, and it falls towards the nearest surface i.e. the table. Now picture michael falling face first towards a table covered with enough metallic pointy things to hold an immigration line at the penang (my god a first world country) airport up for fifteen minutes while they look for my calculator battery. OBVIOUSLY you have to close your eyes right? I mean, the only thing that can hold my head up now is probably a set of gallows for trolls. Then with no sensory input my brain shuts off to protect itself from uh. maozedong's legions of legendary qin warriors, and then i fall asleep. I've learned all that I should learn, all that I want to learn, but NOOOO suzuki doesn't understand that, she rattles off a maikeru! maikeru! every fifteen minutes and tries to whack me with whatever is in her hand.

Look at this way:

Bingwen does exactly the same thing and gets away with it
Hweeleong doesn't do it and doesn't get away with it
Juanhe doesn't do it and gets away with it every time
Hey madam geisha, can we have some kind of consistency around here?

Its not my fault. honest.

2005-09-26T20:50:00.000+08:00

ow ow i hope its not dengue

i really don't want to die, not for another eighty years.

2005-09-25T21:59:00.000+08:00

もう本当に耐えそうにありません。僕はいつも両親に抑制させて、自分の場合を全部わからなそうです。宿題がたくさんある時、遅い寝なくてはいけない。この時、父はいつも「寝られなさい」と言って、本当に失望だと思っていますね。僕は両親の意味がいいかわかりますが、でも時々怒っています。正常になりたくないよ。

今まで、まだ何も達成していません。ほんとうに試みていますね。嫌いなことをしたくないけど、まだしなくてはいけない。

2005-09-25T20:19:00.000+08:00

bleargh i'm sick. chronic defect, opportunistic infection like an aids case. ok enough depressing stuff already. Wanted to go running but was floored by a headache the size of Madras.

Things to do when the exams end

1. Sleep and sleep and sleep and sleep (probably won't happen anyway)
2. Go to library and borrow thick stack of books and vegetate
3. Throw my computer out of the window
4. Get a sub- 9.30 2.4
5. Get a tan
6. Swim like siao
7. Buy all the studio ghibli anime and watch them non-stop (hmm... rimb movie marathon?)
8. Practice like siao and get into syo
9. Go forth and mindlessly buy stuff

I probably won't be able to do all this alone ;)

2005-09-23T01:10:00.000+08:00

I have a plan!

Was buried under a pile of japanese (its a long hard slog from 22.5/40 to a nice shiny A baby - that's payback for 96 free hours of sleep), and of course I fell asleep. Then I came up with this:

NANONANONANO

S$438

Assuming I save 10 bucks a week (fat hope), i'll need 44 weeks to save the money. If I assume a hongbao haul of... $50 (i get it all in ringgit *flops*), it shaves off 5 weeks to slightly under 40 - a complete school year. So if all goes well, I'll have the nano by this time next year xD

This plan is doomed to failure because

1. I wanna new case $100
2. I haven't paid off all my debts (all those drinks after PE, they really add up after... 3 years =/)
3. I didn't add the "realism factor" of k, where 10 < k < 20 and real time t in weeks = kD, where D is daydreaming.

Of course by then apple will release another lame thing and I'll have to start all over, but for now

its not so hard to dream

2005-09-21T20:41:00.000+08:00

the heart is a bloom, it shoots up from the stony ground

MINE!

bleah. a lot of people getting very angsty over (boy-girl) relationships; its that time of the month again. go and eat a hammer larh. As said, laugh a bit can anot? donneed to sit around and mope and hope people see and become jealous.

walk on, you've got to leave it behind

Was looking through old programme booklets from concerts and stuff, and the nostalgia really hits you hard. Most of all the names of people you used to know but have forgotten in the meantime, and you remember them only to realise that they've moved on to better things. Names for which you harbour secret desires that have never been realised. Names of people you love; they could have loved you in return, but you will never know.

*sniffs into imaginary hanky* Seka-chu mitaina koi ga shitai!

Heh i'm here dreaming that my wife will have a voice like Diana Krall, then the chicken rice aunty scolds me for coughing over her chopsticks.

hey now hey now don't dream it's over

I like swimming for PE! Sure I have to take off my shirt which reveals a hole in my chest, which is embarassingly... white, and spotted with acne scars anyway (i've had a traumatic childhood). But it builds (among other things) pectoral muscles, leg muscles, lung capacity, and a tan. ahh, running and swimming.

2005-09-20T00:08:00.000+08:00

Imagine what's it like to be a riot policeman. You got your fibreglass helmet (only they bought from the lowest bidder and left out the glass), a plastic riot shield, and most of the time, a lightstick (only at night), and... and... well that's it really. Two similarly well-equipped people on either side, and you're praying oh fuck don't go for me go for them bash their brains out not mine please please.

then you get posted in front of the presidential palace of some corrupt egotistical dictator, while ten million angry peasants come at you with dirty pitchforks. so what do you do?

2005-09-19T18:55:00.000+08:00

In the end we left him two chests, of gold and silver. Stuffed into the cracks was the clothing of a gentleman fifty years ago. He had (or will have) a shirt, pants, black shoes, and a top hat. We gave him also a mug, a toothbrush and comb, along with a few tons of gold. Then we burned the whole pyre in front of the grave and you could see the smoke for miles. The priest chanted the words and we left.

goodbye gong gong

Shall try hweeleongish today haha

ONE: PB

phew. Charles didn't get through to the last stage. Otherwise we'd have one more bloody prefect. I can honestly say that I don't feel anything for the ripb anymore, 'cause of what we call 'other committments'. Plus the fact that its really... useless. It creates roles to fulfill, like a japanese plastic manufacturer, like a 3G service provider. At the end of the day, do we really need it? After all most of the people end up becoming useless. You can feel it, really; the people at the top are burnt-out, tired, and they don't really care much more than I do really. They do it because they have to.

which leads me to

TWO: BAND

TWO-ONE: OUR bm is gay. we'd better run far far away.

TWO-TWO: inching up. i love band because the people in it are so wonderfully honest. There's much less of that crappy politik that goes on and ruins other ccas. At least we don't form cliques to whack opponents, before and after positions are announced. (like a lot of other ccas *cough*) and the people in it love it, mostly. somewhat. we're working on it ;) You can't say the same of any uniformed group (except BB *pokes zach and geoff [and lamzy]) or musical group (except strings *pokes remus*)

At the end of the day what we'll be is what we want to be. Of course it might end in lixo, ruina, estrago, vai fora d'aqui, nao tens direito estar em minha casa (eek i want to learn portugese too. in addition to german japanese spanish afrikaans vietnamese hindi and cantonese xD)

THREE: politik

Actually politik is fun, just that it ruins the cca it infests. Its funny to see ~~pap wannabes little boys~~ guys taking the competition so seriously. I mean in the end you're still in the same cca/house/whatever. I don't think power does not come from a teacher's mandate, it comes from well... doing stuff. teachers count for nothing.

This place is too well-oiled. The tracks are too well marked. We're going to tie beautiful maidens onto the sleepers, throw wrenches into the machines. People here need to laugh more ;)

and eat better
and sleep more
and enjoy life

2005-09-14T23:06:00.000+08:00

I guess we can't change what's already past, 'cause the past is dead.

Heh sorry for the long hiatus, was going through a rough bit, glad to say its over now though.

Well the postings are out finally, 3rd-in-command (fourstripe xD) for band, vice-chair for sc. Would have been happier with DBM, but brian's a better choice. Now we slowly, inch by inch, reclaim what was lost (it is a 6-year cca after all haha). Gonna throw my support behind the two frontmen (beremy and jrian), and we are going to remake the world, band by band.

ripb has gone to the dogs. gotten into a lot of trouble over small things lately (ask paul lim, or alternatively any prefect) xD

And I'm starting to love my instrument! my third wife, after all... I have this urge to quit japanese and join snyo if not for my application form which looks like

INSTRUMENT: TROMBONE
THEORY: NIL
PRACTICAL: NIL
OTHER INSTRUMENT: NIL
MUSIC TEACHER(S): NIL

We'll see haha. If all else fails there's always the twopee rock band to fall back upon (harh. koay zach linky royce and of course me the killer drummer (:(: )

Will be away for the next four days. Don't expect anything until then

2005-09-14T21:35:00.000+08:00

OK my handphone has returned to me, so as promised, an entry.

My grandfather just passed away. Metastatic papillary thyroid cancer, plus two strokes, and a host of other pains. It must have been a release for him. We're going to his funeral on Sunday.

I cried, but it somehow doesn't seem enough. I never knew him that well (he spoke only teowchew, which i am totally clueless at), yet the fact remains that he was my grandfather, that he loved me. And I can't forgive myself for not getting to know him better. I don't even know his name, for god's sake.

I can't say that I've been floored by pain and despair, which makes it worse. I should be crying now, remembering all the things that we did together, but I can't remember anything. The closest memory was three days ago, when my father and I went up north to see him; there he could still talk and walk like... a normal person.

I expected, no I wanted him to live to his next birthday, but in the end that was not my decision.

No, what's most fucked up is the fact that I couldn't do anything. I knew what was happening, down to the name of the bloody disease, but i couldn't do a single bloody thing. Not a one, right up to the time he died. Its the helplessness that i hate most, that i fear most. Now I know why people become religious, its for the emotional safety blanket. Well I don't belive in Him, and for me gong gong is simply... gone.

I guess there's nothing to do but move on. Remember him, and do him proud, and make him happy, wherever he is now.

Strange that we honour the dead but forget the living.

It'll be our turn next, son of a malaysian kampung boy, grandson of a farmer from china

2005-08-20T10:16:00.000+08:00

Aaron chee has agreed to entertain us with a honorary post:

hi... go to sleep. stop reading ppls blogs k?

2005-08-17T21:48:00.000+08:00

no line-drawing for me.

i'm going to make everyone happy.

and besides, i've accumulated a 2 week backlog of exercise >.<>.), then dAng suddenly flashes the lyrics of u2's sunday bloody sunday. and instantly i wake up completely and started shouting 'yes, yes'. see the power of music, yes xD

but anyway, if you want it

and edit: i shouldn't try to sweettalk people too much

and edit edit. you know in shawshank redemption the lead guy gets posters on his walls? well i decided i want posters too, if only my parents would allow. for a start: brigette bardot and michelle wie (do they sell birgette bardot posters any more =S)

2005-08-16T21:01:00.000+08:00

I like this song (: For those who watched Shawshank Redemption, it's very appropriate. Match with mr brightside.

(read the lyrics)

You know he got the cure
You know he went astray
He used to stay awake
To drive the dreams he had away
He wanted to believe
In the hands of love

His head it felt heavy
As he cut across the land
A dog started crying
Like a broken hearted man
At the howling wind
At the howling wind

He went deeper into black
Deeper into white
He could see the stars shining
Like nails in the night
He felt the healing
Healing, healing
Healing hands of love
Like the stars shining from above

His hand in his pocket
His finger on the steel
The pistol weighed heavy
In his heart he could feel
It was beating, beating
Beating, beating oh my love
Oh my love, oh my love
Oh my love
My love

The hands that build
Can also pull down
Even the hands of love

(then insert some really awesome fade-out here)

2005-08-15T23:38:00.000+08:00

"So you think you can lub me and leave me to die?" That was what I first heard in bohemian rhapsody.

Well i have an idea!

You know ri boys right, what stuff do they eat?

kampung
wow wow west (it was painful to type that name =p)
wok of life (even painfuller)
oodles of noodles (whoa)
de-feathered corner (owww cramp cramp)

And on other days?

macdonalds
kfc
long john's
cup noodles at the moelc
food junction
rarely - cafe cartel

And some slightly enlightened people, what?

ban mian at the s-11
fishball noodles
bubble tea

i.e. crap food! We need to eat some slow, wholesome, smile-inducing food, food that we eat for the sake of eating alone. Not this semipreprocessed mush, not the swill they dole out in the canteen! Real, solid food that millions would die for.

Therefore, the RFC (raffles food club), also known as IKLBMSIWESRFC (i kena lub by mac's so i wanna eat some real food club). It will promote consumption of food fit for kings, a healthy lifestyle and wholesome mental stimulation, which we all know moulds future Thinker Leader Pioneer.

An example of a typical training session:

Breakfast at ~~tiffany's~~ jalan kayu, for roti prata and teh tarik, or the mushroom mee at ang mo kio
Lunch: mee rebus, upper serangoon, or beef noodles, hougang, or lor mee, old airport road, or if no money, ban mian >.<>ritz-carlton steamboat, or zhi cha, or erm. porridge
And of course, dessert is chendol near rosyth school

Thoughts?

2005-08-13T23:45:00.000+08:00

'i decided.
i shall go back t the happy self i was a few weeks ago.((:
i shall be happy,oh yes i shall be.
(hahahahaha im starting t sound like ive got a split personality.)
ive been too fuckin emo and i gotta stop it,haha.'

- 13th august 2005

i think people like to lie a lot on blogs. its not what i think, its what i want you to think how i think.

or rather, people like to become plasticky online. its not how they really are, its what they want to be.

besides, its real hard to tell how someone is from lines in an msn chat window.

sometimes i think of certain acquaintances i would have liked to be closer to, if not for this and that (moo). i suppose they've all got their little cliques and everything already, but in the end i guess it boils down to a lack of balls on my part.

sometimes i guess being too cliquey is harmful. sure you've got this group of really close friends, but that means there'll always be outcasts. people who don't fit in, and sometimes due to no fault of their own. and they must be really lonely.

just imagine the number of people you could have known better if the blinders weren't there; most of them are nice, really.

in the meantime smile a little wider, laugh a little less fake, stand a little straighter

2005-08-12T23:37:00.000+08:00

i'm too lazy to write, so i'll let pictures do the talking (:

It's a small world for high voices

Paul distressed by the fire alarm

I can't close my eyes and make it go away... (he's more delicate than paul)

All the distress is tiring! also note how he cheats in jap tests...

Zach and his new friend (:

Fahd and his nasi lemak

miyazakiiiiii! ryuta the trombonist. ryuta the coolio dude (and his omgwtfiwant liam gallagher glasses)

Sean and the milo can

i wants (i mean. u2 go home?)

bernard and his wife

...and my third. (thankew richard!)

2005-08-10T00:36:00.000+08:00

i'm very sorry, but i must do this =D

laugh

sorry, very preoccupied now... will blog about things uh. tomorrow (:

2005-08-07T20:34:00.000+08:00

I think sleep (lack of) is seriously getting to me. i.e. sleep more (fat hope), but anyway. do not try to change what cannot be changed, or you will just ending up tired, looking really silly, or both.

I thought I'd never see a friend break down because of popularity (perceived lack of). Girls I can understand, family problems I can understand, schoolwork problems I can understand, cca troubles I can understand, but popularity? (and in godforsaken RI?) Its almost as bad as crying because you got 36/40 and fell in the bottom half of the class (which has happened to uh. certain people before)

And what's worse is that he doesn't strike me as the person to be bothered by this sort of... frivolous stuff. And he's gone all plastic already, attracting more plastic people (the wrong people?)

Or maybe it goes deeper beyond that, to simple loneliness. We are all lonely in this place, with the exception of a few (bloody) lucky beings. Either 1. live with it, or 2. do something appropriate about it, not some desperate fling.

hard words but they express how frustrated (and disgusted) i am. you were much happier, more likeable then.

but as always, its your choice (: chin up anyway.

2005-08-06T00:35:00.000+08:00

you know you should so you might as well.

today is FRIDAY, which means that tomorrow will be SATURDAY

and we all know what goes on on saturdays right? =p

i hope i don't whack the soft case around and cause (x+n) more dents, where x is a big number and n is a bigger one still.

today i had to be dragged to ge branch to adopt a false personality; david was timothy, i was charmaine. (which meant i had to miss the o training)

"Good morning ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the eleventh Youth Science Conference"
"we would like to invite the guest of honour and other guests outside for a tea reception"
"as for all you other noobish student observers, we kindly request you to go home and die" (cool eh)

if we get it then we won't have to do poster, which is a real good thing because well. we have no poster (:

and then i picked up linky's guitar today.it felt... right in my hands, as if if filled a hole i didn't notice that was there all the time. cheers for many more happy days with linky's guitar. learned four chords and they sounded... rock-ish =p but then everything sounds nice with overdrive haha

we also got a physics pt (is this a bad thing.) i can feel pre-natal depression, and the post-natal euphoria already =S

come down to taka tomorrow (actually today) to support RIMB! sure you might not hear anything coherent, but What The Heck. give generously, 'cause we want a gold tap too.

Somebody owes me lunch (:
another owes me ice cream (:(:

i'm getting an attack of royce. i need a good friend.

2005-08-02T23:54:00.000+08:00

i guess by now you must know that most of the things i say here are false, and those that are true aren't completely true either.

i remember saying something about needing something more in life besides that i already lead.

after talking to my elder sister (=p), i've decided that i'm going to give everything for band. at the expense of most things. science club is fun and all with the questions, but frankly i don't feel the same for it as i ever did for band. the exhilaration of say, sweeping nus physics open house comes nowhere near that of clinching that gold with honours.

its about pride. in sec one there was zhong ye, and he showed me what a band was. yeah seniors do make a massive difference. then i saw rgs during their concert and it confirmed what he told me. now when i look at our band it seems like there's something missing, something fatally flawed. its like a few heat tiles fall off upon takeoff and before you know it the space shuttle's blown into smithereens.

i'm not going to stand by and let this happen to us, 'cause we must do something to stop it before we really die. and we let mr oura down.

it comes of three and a half years of rafflesian education, yeah. every little thing we did just served to prove that in the end it is not the paper you remember but how you got that paper and who you got the paper with.

let's be honest. we're not doing well, and its not just the sec ones' fault. its this malaise that has afflicted every single one of us, that saps energy and drains the will. we need to do something. i will do something

i know i haven't been really on these few months. now i've realised where my priorities stand, and i ask you to give me another chance. its quite probable that i won't be able to do anything at all but in the end i'll think back and remember that at least we tried.

to: zhi kai jeremy shuo tian huan bing raphael chester justin aaron bernard ziguang ling zhang wentao brian wen chong paul

let's bring rimb back to life again.

who's with me? (:

i know i'm horribly idealistic and naive but somehow i can feel that old energy returning to me. thank you lots my friend ((:

2005-08-02T21:09:00.000+08:00

The past few days have been incredibly draining.

Of course my parents never spot it. Everyday rain or shine I crawl in at 7.30 as per schedule and perform the daily grind of eatdrinkworksleep

Hmm let's see...

Friday was rehearsal followed by dramafeste. Rehearsal was quite... expected? I mean all that manual labour =p We didn't do anything though, besides watching the sec 4s play. And see how rg can shout louder than we can (imagine how unmanned we are haha). And we saw the japanese band, of course (short) [you can really see how i have nothing to say -.-]

Nothing much, rushed back to school to watch dramafeste, which blew me away. Buckley's one made me cry, the last scene with wangting the spastic idiot and the imaginary telephone, even if it is really cliched and angsty. I mean, g....g....g....ggg...or....g....g.....g....gg...or really reminds me of someone (a...a....aa...a...lan koh) [i cried in pity, and in shame, it was that convincing]

And zei got the most important lines in the play! yayy go zei! *waves polish flag* "IQ of less than forty-five"

Bayley's script was quite good though, but the acting wasn't, and the jokes definitely weren't. joseph sounded weird with that accent... yayy go joseph! *waves indonesian flag*. Hullett's one was really bad. Its my own house but they really were trying too hard with too little material. I mean, it seemed like Friday, without the plot (and without walter/azizul). haha if they had actually sang bohemian rhapsody (instead of lip-synching) I would be kissing their feet now though...

Went outside, hugged a few people (ow), then went to j8 with ngiam and other People.

Saturday was Big Concert.

1. the japanese band is pro. they have a thirteen-year-old saxophonist (ask jeremy about the thirteen-year-old saxophonist)

2. they have a thirteen-year-old xylophonist on which I have a big crush on. kizuna nakamura, with the hair and the glasses. (she looks butch but who cares =p)

3. vch is a small place, especially if you have 150+ people crammed backstage. one changing room for three sections, i.e. 20 people.

4. my japanese isn't that bad after all (great. second thoughts about quitting now)

5. rimb is best at manual labour. the roads were closed 'cause of ndp preview, meaning that the bus had to stop at the fullerton hotel. (imagine, with chimes, bass drum, timpani and assorted heavy stuff =p)

6. paul lost his clarinet >><<

7. we had fun singing chisa na sekai xD

8. rimb rocks

2005-08-02T20:49:00.000+08:00

1. Tagboard is unreliable so i switch. tag please (: (or maybe i should just go without those incredibly vain things.)

2. I didn't fall asleep during japanese today. that's a big achievement, considering how paul says "oh michael doesn't sleep much lar... only half the time"

3. Potassium permaganate (reagent Q) spilled onto my shirt, dying it (permanently?) intense purple. The Wonders of Science was revealed when ocj washed it in iron sulphate (reagent P) and the colour simply bled off, leaving spotless (whiter than white) white. (actually the prac was to titrate P with Q so i should have spotted that first instead of panicking and doing stupid things >.) (and some of it spilled onto my crotch area and ocj was actually going to wipe it off... [otherwise he's a really nice teacher though])

2005-07-28T20:39:00.000+08:00

ok my blog is slowly dying... >< all the plans i had for it!

ok i realised i didn't fall asleep in school AT ALL today, not even at 3rd lang (quitting that thing anyway). that's a first since.. february or so.

then we saw chee cutting 1500 latecoming forms (that's head prefect material for you), so we decided to be generous and help.

then we lost to acsi ):

ok i must not sleep tonight.

2005-07-25T23:57:00.000+08:00

I've never felt so clear-headed before (it must be the jambu).

I actually wanted to say something about happiness.

The stuttering brought me back 4 years. I mean, the last time I had a real no-holds-barred vocal block was in p6, and strangely enough (not really) involved a nice girl i had a crush on at that time (the not-so-pleasant memory has been burned into my brain already haha)

Then it hit me. I am not happy. Heck i think few people are happy. People who call themselves 'hyper' (me included) aren't really happy, they're just drug-laden. Sort of the difference in effect between LSD/caffeine/crack and cookies and cream ice cream. If you poke hard enough the layers of encrusted caffeine will crumple, and what you have is basically anyone else.

It recalls the lit text we're doing. The achievement of the American Dream is but a lousy replacement for a deeper desire.

I don't feel happy when I get a gpa of 3.95, nor when i win another trophies/prize money/awards/whatever crap. Sure there's Pride, and Satisfaction, but there's no real happiness, no real achievement of what I really want.

The times I'm happy are when we're at the bus stop, waiting to go home after the competition/band/whatever else, eating dinner at S-11/long-john's talking utter nonsense and irritating everyone around. We're doing Nothing but Slacking, but its a chance to forget myself, even for a brief moment. Throw that ego to the ground and stamp it, then hastily put it back in when the teacher comes around again.

So nilhilistically buddhist... destroy and deny the self.

I am happy when I make people happy. When she smiled at me it was like walking in from the rain into a warm home. Your extremities tingle like a recent electrocution, and you walk around with this idiotic half-smile for the rest of the day. Oh how I long for yesterday.

I am happy when I make people happy. When people smile at me, when they say Words. Ohwait I can remember the second-last full-on vocal block, in a bus 88 outside seagate, two years ago, then this lady suddenly came up to me (she was smiling so i probably did something good) and asked

"what school you from arh boy?"

"...r....rr...r..r...rrr..rrr..ivervalley" (panic lor, so say the first school that comes into head)

figures.

I think you don't have to keep reminding people that you're happy if you're really happy. I've seen truly happy people, and they're like a lightbulb painted over. You can feel the aura from ten metres away =p

Now this sounds weird but

stay happy people!

I know I ain't perfect but I sure am trying as hell.

p.s. I'm blogging about myself too much. This will be the last of them, anyway.

2005-07-25T20:07:00.000+08:00

Today was really bad! ><

All of a sudden out of the blue my stuttering starts acting up again, like when I was making announcement on the podium.

"The team members are Tan Xue Yang of 4Q, Gabriel of 4P, a...a....aa.....a....aaa....lan of 3P..."

At least first time people think its mike problem (ohoh it is anyway =p)

Then,

"In addition, a...a....aa..aaa...a...a (then alan butts in and says the 'lan koh') of 3P..."

This is BAD! Then i heard whole day they were going around jacking alan about it.

2005-07-24T22:31:00.000+08:00

ok i went to the new national library yesterday.

and the thing is WHOA

from outside its like any other shopping centre,

then you go inside and go WHOA

then you go downstairs to the central library and its WHOA (every book you want, they have)

then you go upstairs to LKCRL, and its WHOA (6 floors of books, and a lot of old stuff. they even have SCHOOL MAGAZINES, like the yearbook from 1972)

its weird though, you have lobby on the first floor, main library in the basement, reference library from the 7th to 13th floor, then in the 6 in-between floors are bare, as in there's nothing there. supposed to have a drama centre, but didn't see it.

its a bit hard to say everything with WHOA here, but you really must go see it for yourself.

mmpf i want to go again, when i've paid all my fines.

2005-07-21T00:42:00.000+08:00

Lightning strikes twice!

You know there's this box out in the living room that's been perplexing me ever since it mysteriously appeared three months ago. Today i went to have a look and finally realised it's the starhub cable tv box.

No, I don't watch TV much. There's the usual cry of "i don't have timeeeeeeee", but its really beacause there's nothing to watch. Nothing. I mean sometimes i look behind me and watch the CSI my mother's watching, but its plain WRONG. WRONG as in not correct, as in LAUGHABLE. Well I'm cynical/elitist but so there.

Its this big tube/panel with blinking lights on it. If you're lucky they're in colour. And the only thing you have is the red button with the carnal symbol (the line-and-nearly-enclosed-circle), and occasionally a few other numbers. Using it is like paying for a few rounds with Muhammad Ali - really stupid, and bad for the head.

ohwait. doesn't the computer have those also =S

We're also paying more for public transport. Five cents more, and the seats I jam myself into prop my knees against my chin in this grotesque semi-foetal position. Then there's usually the bag, shoe bag, file, file, book, wallet, handphone, space suit, rubber duckie that I pile onto my lap that usually jostles about and falls on people's feet.

Occasionally when I'm pissed I'll sit on the aisle seat and take my time when the guy at the window wants to get out. (i.e. please don't do it if you're smaller than he/she is) Occasionally I sit at the window and this guy next to me moves so damn slowly and I miss my stop. Bloody bastard.

Made the mistake today of going for the rj relativity lecture. Walk in and all i see is white (hinthint - no [or very little] green). I'm not that desperate but still? Like a monastery in the middle of a red-light district (ahem. just a comparison), chanting sutras of ultimate pwnzage. The lecturer opens his mouth and boom! Mistake!!!! alarm goes off for a while before I fall asleep and drool on my notes (to the disgust of x, y and z)

"Betty says the pole will fit into the barn, because the pole is moving at 0.9 c and undergoes length contraction."
"Alan says the pole will not fit, as the pole is stationary while the rest of the universe (and the barn) moves towards the pole at 0.9c, and undergoes length contraction"

Then the answer to the paradox is "both also can lar (or some variant)."

Singapore is going to win its latest gold medal off a non-singaporean ha!

I want to go kayaking and build biceps! (and because kayaking is FUN, and a million other irrelevant reasons). Like with geoff or something...

2005-07-21T00:29:00.000+08:00

Wise people listen to older sisters' advice.

2005-07-19T00:16:00.000+08:00

my class is full of unpleasant people.

the guy in the back-right corner, who has the ego the size of two moons and a similar physique. noone likes him, so why is he so... cocky? so egotistical and eager to put people down. saw him go up to a guy doing his work after class and then proceed to point-by-point rebut everything on the paper, then throw the paper down and storm out in self-righteous rage. i mean. you could see the cruelly triumphant expression on his face, the contented sneer. disgusting.

and he has these two slaves on the left and right.

why are people like that?

why put people down, like we do some other people in class. what do we get? i know he's obnoxious, but do we have to reduce ourselves to his level?

why 3Q at all? its just four walls and twenty-nine of the walking dead.

2005-07-19T00:15:00.000+08:00

The thing we like to do is

talk.

yeah, talk (:

not deep philosophical discussion or anything, but just that. talk. open your mouth, express your opinions, listen to people, respond, and so on. surprising how so many people have trouble with it (like me =S). its the lifeblood of our erm... lives. its a requirement for healthy living, for soundness of mind and body (look what happens to people noone want to talk to ->3Q). we can't live without it, yet sometimes they force us to do exactly that. shut up, i mean.

its so simple, so elegant, so logical. just open your mouth, be polite and courteous, be intelligent, then talk. or just heck the first four and jump to the last. to anyone, about anything. i think we'd be surprised how people respond. note. i don't think we should use msn messenger or sms or anything that doesn't involve voice.

i can remember on the bus once, going home from band. this lady came up and plonked herself opposite me, and just started asking me questions (in chinese) and wham we just started talking. so simple haha.

there are people who speak for 5 hours on the phone with someone else about things. like talktalktalktalk whoa where has all the time gone? (of course 10 mins was spent on ilu ilu and stuff like that, but... 5 hours xD)

and it makes you happy, cleverer, wittier, and a million other good things

so just talk (:

(if i can just stop stuttering now ><)

2005-07-18T01:19:00.000+08:00

arh since when did i become so pessimissistic... so sour and morose.

sorry everyone.

i'll be happier tomorrow =p

2005-07-15T23:56:00.000+08:00

YES the end of season. time enough to slack and wait long long. I feel... invigorated. I have a feeling that falling asleep in chinese is no longer an option, either =p

bleahh my exercise schedule is seriously screwded. i week no run no pullup no stadium my arms turn to jelly my abdomen suddenly got spare tire. therefore double (triple! quadruple!) effort next week.

blahh i forgot to go to rgs guitar concert today. sorry >. i go tomorrow and... pay double? =p

the hk band came today but i missed half of it 'cause of IH debates. at least we won, and we won well. buckley, next week, then we can eat lunch again.

bleahh this is the season for breakups. throw a paperball into a crowd of teenagers and you're sure to hit someone who just parted with another fellow. so what do you lose? a constant stream of smses, someone to talk for hours on end, all the 'muakz muakz ilu ilu'. well.

actually there is another part to this, but i am just being immature and conveniently ignore it (:

ilu. its damn insincere; it takes 8 keypresses to send this. cannot spell, hor?

haha but there are couples who are really in love. you aren't in love just because you think you are. in fact, they are in love not because they really are, but merely want to be and just grab whatever loose string that ties them down and thrusts them into that category. these like to brag about it a lot. right, hor?

you know when the first thing your friends say upon seeing her is a 'she looks like crap'. bloody hell do you think we care? =p

blah. why force it? why grab any old crush/infatuation, and squeeze any vestigial feelings out of that just to gain entry into that oh-so-desirable club. blahh. only referring to certain people larh.

then why do we wonder why people break up? there was nothing happening in the first place.

this is a strange world when people declare their love through pressing plastic squares, and somehow feeling gratified by an equally plastic response. where people broadcast their innermost feelings through blogs (where msn messenger is a basic necessity. and where people just have to send 'talaq' three times by sms to do something really unpleasant.

haha i can still remember sending those smses =p

the barber went crazy again. "你认为怎样好看就做吧。" >.<

2005-07-13T21:02:00.000+08:00

i talked to ngiam last night.

about life, life and everything.

guess we're all the same in the end (:

2005-07-13T20:51:00.000+08:00

We lost eureka, and it wasn't just a loss, it was a thorough thrashing. 9 points vs 48 points is no joke, especially if raffles has won it for the past... 13 years. the seniors are going to kill us. richard was particularly disappointed

i guess they deliberately structured the quiz to block our strategy, that it was bloody difficult and the stage was swarming with chinapeople, but still,

losing sucks. but we move on (:

i've been neglecting my work. must concentrate, must CONCENTRATE, must not FALL ASLEEP IN CLASS (not too often lar), must not PISS OFF LALALIM too much, above all must not SLACK (and revert to pre p6 mode).

i like cucumbers (: damn i wish i could have gone for swimming finals

just read about the nkf and its 220 million treasury. that's the gdp of a small african country. its a bloody scandal, a NON-PROFIT CHARITY installing gold taps and buying 8 mercedes to ferry its CEOs around. its stealing for god's sake, taking charity money, sending people dressed like yellow kidneys down to primary schools and getting all the little children to donate, and spending on itself.

2005-07-13T20:34:00.000+08:00

2005-07-12T23:00:00.000+08:00

one of these days i'm gonna take all the money i won, and spend it like this

50% - donate
20% - books
20% - clothes
10% - lanning/computer upgrades

if you ask nicely... =p

2005-07-10T14:55:00.000+08:00

you know what the worst part is.

we try to conceal this beneath a plastic mask of what we call

'hyperness'

or

'gayness'.

fake canned happiness sold for fifty cents. do not accept if seal is broken. one teaspoon a day to become popular.

its not working.

2005-07-10T14:33:00.000+08:00

The System.

is bloody stupid.

You know what system I'm talking about here, the one that arrests you at six am in the morning, and forcibly detains you ISD-ish until about two the next day. It's gone beyond just busy, just tired, just drained; it's what we call draining. Like the vampire that latches on to your neck and sucks vital force out.

Nonono we are not TIRED anymore, we are DEAD. we are walking automatons dedicated to a life of committee-report-planplanplan-drinkcoffee-heyweneedtomeettodiscussthisshit-weneedvolunteers.
Its not torturous or painful or anything as extreme as that. its this perpetual bureacracy that we service with sixteen hours of life each day.

life has blended into this endless mundane stream of uniformity, where we sleep on the same day we wake up in. there is no life here, just circuits and chemistry. there's just no distinction between this day and the next, this committee and the next, this piece of homework and the next, this school and the next. i mean, why bother in the first place if it's all GOING TO BE THE SAME?

i think i posted something earlier about normalcy. that was utterly wrong. WE ARE NOT NORMAL HERE. the worst part is, we take PRIDE in our abnormality, calling it 'ELITISM'. bloody hell. is it normal to fall asleep in half the classes?

WHY ARE WE SLEEPING FOUR HOURS EACH NIGHT?

WHY ARE WE SPENDING EIGHT HOURS A DAY IN THE SERVICE OF A SCHOOL POPULATION WHO DOESN'T GIVE HALF A DAMN ABOUT IT ANYWAY?

WHY ARE WE DOING THINGS JUST FOR THE SAKE OF DOING THEM?

WHY IS IT WHEN I GO TO SLEEP I LOOK OUT OF MY WINDOW AND MY ROOM IS THE ONLY ONE LIT IN THE ENTIRE NEIGHBOURHOOD?

or rather just tell me this.

why is it that nobody ever cares anymore. you know what i'm talking about.

2005-07-09T21:36:00.000+08:00

bleah i don't like people who try to be sluts.

anyway here's to the end of the second week. ohgod there're 8 of them left ><

its been one hell of a week, with erm... 8 competitions? but competitions = skip school, money, trophies, people to meet and know. they also = time, lost sleep, caffeine addiction and hell to schoolwork. its a bargain lar

then we are screwing up our supposed plan to promote our-their concert, so this is a last resort:

BUY TICKETS

on wednesday, thursday, vch 3pm 30th july saturday (:

ohoh i have a new friend from taiwan. she types in fantizi so its really hard to understand, so the thing to do is just guess what that weird word might be and hope you guessed it right, or else you're in for a tough time. really tough time.

this is the season for breakups. you can taste the angst if you just stick out your thumb. i mean tongue.

2005-07-06T21:17:00.000+08:00

ok i am tired so long story short.

WE

WON

CHAOS

(:

2005-07-05T22:44:00.000+08:00

LAST PERSON WHO

1. Slept in your bed
Me. (i wake up quite late)

2. Saw you cry
My mother. gosh this was in... p4?

3. Made you cry
OHOHOH it was LIULAOSHI in p4 xD

4. You shared a drink with
Geoff. koping counts

5. Went to the movies with
zach+koay, for ep3

6. Went to a mall with
Alone. popular larh, for all the crazy dialogue session stuff. j8 is getting boring

7. Yelled at you
Marcus =p

8. Sent you an email
paul lim (about some highres photos of me and people)

HAVE YOU EVER:

9. Said "I love you" and meant it
Yes =p

10. Gotten in a fight with your pet
you mean OUR pet, paulngkwokyang. yeswehave.

11. Drank Alcohol
lifesciencelab, 90% solution for flaming.

12. Been to Hawaii -
i don't want to get volcanoed/earthquaked/tsunamiied =p no larh

13. Been to Mexico
no. very close, though

14. Danced naked
i hope the answer is no

15. Dreamed something really crazy and then it happened the next day
i dreamt i fell of my bed, and i woke up on the floor =p

16. Wished you were the opposite sex
NEVER xD

17. Had an imaginary friend
what's imaginary?

18. Gotten beaten up
beat me up? >)

DO YOU:

19. Smoke
no

20. Curse
yes

21. Sing well
yes. i got a b+ okay...

22. Sing in the shower
NEVER

23. Talk to yourself
its that psyching-up routine i do before every competition

25. Think you're a health freak
no. i want to run but am too lazy to ><

26. Get along with your parents
most of the time. don't see them much though

27. Get along with your siblings?
better to get along than not =p

OTHER:

28. Worst feeling in the world
its the feeling of losing. anything, anywhere, anyone. i don't like to lose. the world contracts to a pinhead

30. Do you sleep with a stuffed animal?
used to. pohpoh my stuffed dolphin xDxD (wtf)

31. What's under your bed?
osama.

32. Favorite sport to watch
lanning. yeah.

33. Siblings
sibling, idiot.

34. Location
ntu. yeahhh

35. College Plans
study physik and get a nobel prize by 24, then build a fusion reactor/faster-than-light-spacecraft/perpetual motion machine, then climb everest and retire to a lakeside home by lake rotorua, NZ. ohwait that's the rest of my life.

36. Piercing/Tattoos
none.

37. Music Player
iPod, plus a bass trombone

38. DVD player or VCR
i have a flipbook with colour illustrations

39. Pocket
INHALER, handphone, wallet, booking slip xD, pen, earphone, fraglist

40. Laundry basket
the corner of my room between the door and the bookshelf

41. Mouth
teeth.

EXTRA STUFF:

42. Have you done drugs?
ventolin - cannot live (literally) without it
dhasedyl
paracetemol
chendol

43. Who was your first best friend?
gloria.

45. What clothes do you sleep in?
pe shirt + track pants. occasionally without

46. Where do you want to be married?
on the moon. then we'd have a party in zero-gee xD

47. Who do you really hate?
sengteck

48. Do you drive?
200 yards xD and golf carts, too

49. Do you have a job?
making people happy

50. Do you like being around people?
Yes.

STUFF:

51. Do you have a kind of person you always go after?
the female sort lorh. the smiling ones =p

52. Want something you don't have right now?
i want to win CHAOS, and HCJC quiz, and someone to love

53. Are you lonely right now?
remus is taking care of that.

54. Song that's stuck in your head a lot
with or without you - U2, wonderwall - Oasis

55. Do you want to be married?
Yes

56. Do you want kids?
Yes

FAVOURITE:

57. Band -
U2 and Oasis. cannot decide lar

58. Color
GREEN AND BLACK

59. Perfume or colonge
neither.

60. Month
March. i like marches *stumblefall*

IN THE LAST 48 HOURS, HAVE YOU:

61. Cried
No.

62. Bought something
lets see. 2 cans of aloe vera, 3 goreng pisang, 1 bowl of killer noodles from the ntu canteen, 2 bus rides.

63. Gotten Sick
NEVER

64. Sang
mari kita rakyat singapura sama sama menuju bahagia. duh. (eh hold on i shouldn't even be singing that)

65. Told someone you loved them!
nope. not yet.

66. Missed someone
I miss a lot of people

67. Hugged someone
I hugged a pillar, i was feeling so sad.

68. Kissed someone
i tell you later -.-

THIS WAS DONE IN THE BIOMECHANICS LAB, NIE-NTU, WHILE WAITING FOR THE BALL TO DROP.

2005-07-04T19:45:00.000+08:00

Today was strangely, a good day. I retract everything in the first paragraph of the lastlastlast post =p. Because they weren't just chinamen, they were also chinawomen.

Yeah koay they don't look all that nice. but guess what. i don't care haha. i'd rather have the bookshop aunty who can talk and laugh and have fun, than nicole kidman who has cotton candy for thoughts. ^^

i hope i don't regret saying that either =p

gah chaos is in less than 48 hours time. the panic builds. i will have that four hundred dollars.

right now i'm imagining myself performing in a rock band, a la spotlight or that school of rock thingy. we're playing oasis' live forever or don't look back in anger, or u2's beautiful day or with or without you, or radiohead's electioneering (even coldplay's yellow). three chords and the truth. the first few chords warm up and i can feel the tingle already, seeping into the base of my spine, diffusing until it practically oozes from my pores. all the fear, nervousness, uncertainty, it all melts away into nothingness as i launch into the first few lines. there is only the overwhelming feeling of now, sing/play it now, now or never; let the music, the beat master my soul and coax every passionate note out. a guitar solo, rippling rivers of molten gold. then the buildup, an escalating tension, a race between the frenzied drummer, the epileptic guitarist, and the electrocuting bassist. a tempest of noise. before you know it the last chords fade away and it ends, as abruptly as it started

dream on.

2005-07-03T20:29:00.000+08:00

Music Video Codes By VideoCodeZone

2005-07-03T15:19:00.000+08:00

a sad thing is losing a friend. the thing ends not with a bang but with a whimper. you stop talking for a while, then before you know it it the talking starts becoming more and more formal and... distant, and then you have one more name to scratch off. the worst thing is knowing that this wouldn't have happened if you had used your brains more and done something about it.

have fun (:

Live Forever
Oasis

Maybe I don't really want to know
How your garden grows
I just want to fly
Lately did you ever feel the pain
In the morning rain
As it soaks it to the bone

Maybe I just want to fly
I want to live I don't want to die
Maybe I just want to breath
Maybe I just don't believe
Maybe you're the same as me
We see things they'll never see
You and I are gonna live forever

Maybe I don't really want to know
How your garden grows
I just want to fly
Lately did you ever feel the pain
In the morning rain
As it soaks it to the bone

Maybe I will never be
All the things that I want to be
But now is not the time to cry
Now's the time to find out why
I think you're the same as me
We see things they'll never see
You and I are gonna live forever
We're gonna live forever
Gonna live forever
Live forever
Forever

its heartbreaking.

2005-07-03T14:48:00.000+08:00

THIS IS BAD

I HAVE TO GO TO SCHOOL TOMORROW. TOMORROW. TO TOUR SOME CHINAMEN (richard excluded) I HATE CHINAMEN I HATE SCHOOL I HATE RIPB I HATE HAVING TO GO TO SCHOOL ON A HOLIDAY.

after all, i really need to do chaos and a lot of homework...

ohwell. back after a short period of introspection, and really long nights. they don't make it subtle here: come to school on the first day first thing i hear is "MICHAELLL WE NEED TO MEET FOR bl4hbl4hbl4f CAN YOU MAKE IT bl4hbl4h", then before i know it i've given up 4 hours of my time.

maybe i should just have said no =p

debates were pretty good. wednesday's one was a loss, though by half a point only and hullett should have won if not for my screwy speech. friday's were better, and we won even if we didn't prep much, or well. THBT reality tv has gone far for both, and opp always wins, for all debates, all divisions, which is strange for such a prop-biased motion (or the prop just sucks). binggy got best speaker though (:

friday also happened to be mufti day. i.e. people wear rgs uniform to school. they didn't have balls to wear it OUTSIDE though, rather they came to school before CHANGING. cowards. i could say a lot but that'd just be repeating what a lot have already.

next week will be hell, and the week after that, and the week after that. maybe they should manufacture 'sleep-inna-pill', where you pop a pill and feel as if you've been knocked out for 8 hours, so that you can spend that time doing really meaningful and interesting things like physics and reading portfolio rather that wasting it sleeping.

but i actually want this sort of hectic schedule, where every second is taken up by something. its become an obssession already. help.

expect gross announcements on the podium on wednesday and thursday =p

then wednesday we have chaos. why not come down and support us? *smiles hopefully*

i realise that there are lots of sad people in school. i'm teetering on the edge. zach/koay kill me if i fall over 'kay?

2005-06-29T21:36:00.000+08:00

You know school has well and truly started when you get back at 9 pm or later.

I think we are all going to die. Of some gigantic haemorrage caused when you pack in things so tightly they start to leak out of ears.

i.e.

thu: prep, chaos
fri: IH debate vs. buckley
sat/sun/mon: chaos
wed: chaos

chaos better be good... and we better win =p

tootiredmustworkgoodnightwilltellofotherthingslater

2005-06-28T19:56:00.000+08:00

note alvin's name (the biggest one) and the arrows pointing to it
tamagawagakuen no minasan, arigatogozaimasu!

nakamise dori + jeffrey lee

something the americans left behind

credits to the photographer =p (note: THAT IS NOT ME)

2005-06-27T01:24:00.000+08:00

Good morning singapore
School starts in 4 and a half hours

Made a new friend today (: (actually, yesterday)

hanxin you were right. they do exist

she likes science, likes lit, likes politik, and wants to get me to go to nus high.

It really appeals to me. Modular courses, NO holiday homework, lots more science and interesting stuff, Japan trip (japan! xD), though no band

Actually what really appealed to me was the 'everyone here is enthu'. RI is dead, or dying, or already buried. Am I being a bloody traitor/turncoat, by abandoning my school?

But one should not make decisions at 1.40 am.