Back to Good

things to be sold!

2008-04-14T00:31:00.002-04:00

Hi!

These are some things I will be selling before my graduation. =) Vivian has taken almost all of my stuff, but here are some things I insisted on selling (to get some cash to spend on her....).

1. Mazda Millenia
Click here to see my ad on autotrader.com.

2. Household items
Here are some items that are still of good condition:

1. Mini Fridge: $50 (good working condition. ice-cold, great for beer and wine)
2. 4.1 speakers: $70 (strong bass, the 4 speakers provide good surround sound. great for house parties!)
3. Vacuum cleaner: $20
4. Hot-Pot: Free if you purchase 2 or more products
5. Table: $20 (Table with foldable legs, suitable for study use)
6. Microwave Oven: $20

My email is jiayong@umich.edu, and cell is 734.846.8117. Do email or call me if you're interested in any of the products; delivery is negotiable!

Thanks for browsing! =)

"Night", and other thoughts

2006-05-20T22:24:00.000-04:00

apologies for keeping my blog private for the past week. had some shit i needed to sort out; offended certain people with what i wrote. anyway, it's back online: sorry brother peh, you sounded so angry in your email.

i'm so affected by Elie Wiesel's "Night" that i'm trying to convince all my friends to read it. the human mind is capable of so much: the dark and wholly evil that must reside in the brains that motivates the execution of millions of Jews, and the strength that triumphs that evil. Go read.

the weather finally turned sunny after 2 weeks of gloom. hopefully everything else takes a turn for the better too!

2006-05-10T16:18:00.000-04:00

spend all your time waiting, for a second chance. for a break that'll make it ok. there's always some reason, to not feel good enough and it's ahrd at the end of the day. i need some distraction, oh beautiful release; memory slips from my veins. let me be empty, oh weightless and maybe i'll find some peace tonight. in the arms of the angel, fly away from here. from the star-cooled hotel room, and the endlessness you feel. you are pulled from the wreckage, of your silent reverie; in the arms of the angel, may you find some comfort here.

end of winter, start of spring

2006-04-27T02:00:00.000-04:00

. it's official: winter semester has ended for me. finished my last exam today: a few more days for me to recuperate from the exertions of this semester, before i dive headfirst into the new spring semester.

i think this past semester has been one of my most fruitful periods of academic endeavors. setting myself with the goal of achieving 4 As in my pretty heavy clutch of 400 level courses, i think i was so much more conscientious and consistent with my studying than almost any other period of my life. you can almost say that i found joy in becoming a "nerd". owell, funny thing is, i didn't think that i missed out that much on other things because of this. i still played a lot of soccer, still hung out alot with my friends, and generally still did alot of random and miscellaneous stuff. wow, the benefits of better time-management. reaping them at a ripe old age of 23 is rather incredulous.

i think this last exam symbolized closure on a lot of levels. academically and emotionally. time to pack up feelings and move on. may the dawn of spring portend better things to come.

another batch of friends will be graduating at the end of this week. some will still be here during spring, but for most, this week will probably be the last time i'll see them in a long, long while. it seems such a pity that i've gotta a lot closer with some of them only this semester; however, i really hope that our friendships extend beyond Ann Arbor, and i shall write here things that i never had the courage/opportunity to say to you in person.

Eunice and Jiaying (with Kenneth holding the extra key): My fellow darkroom bandits!! That name stuck, even though we really only hung out in the darkroom ONCE. you've been two strong pillars of emotional support to me in my times of need and confusion, and for that i'm grateful. i will always miss bubble island sessions; Eunice, you're right when you wrote in your blog that good conversations are hard to find. fortunately, i've found plenty with you and Jiaying. remember, you're always my joint Number 1s!

Joanne: there are many, many more things that need to be said than the words that can fit on this page. however, do know that in you i've found a friend whom i can share my thoughts, dreams, and deficiencies. to a person who is almost never really open about his inner thoughts, this may be the highest compliment yet.

Chuntat: i really, really enjoyed the time in Singapore while we were working on Orientation/Supper Hunt. being colleagues on the SSA committee really gave me insight into a person whom i've never had the opportunity of knowing before. i've learnt so much from you, and it will always be my regret that our friendship did not develop further in the months after last summer. despite all that teasing recently, you should know that i've very high regard for you as an individual, and hopefully our paths will cross again sometime in the future.

Kenneth: my primary 6 Mavis tuition center buddy! even though we've known each other for so long, i think i really discovered the depths of you this year: through foosball sessions at your place, or conversations at other opportunities. you've helped me discover a lot about myself (given that you think we're pretty similar in some ways), and for this i'm grateful.

Charles, Lianmeng: my housemates next year. at certain points in this past year i've had moments of extreme clarity when conversing with you guys about any random topic on offer. let's hope that the additional year together will strengthen these bonds.

There are many more people in this graduating batch who deserve mention here; people who have in one way or another touched my life, and my ann arbor experience. it is, however, 2:40am, and my eyes are failing me, hence my humble apologies to those who weren't mentioned. good night all.

every morning there's a halo hanging from the corner...

2006-04-21T08:03:00.000-04:00

It's surreal to be walking around at 7am in the morning here at the U of M. The streets are empty; Starbucks has probably just opened, so walking in and getting a cup of freshly brewed coffee is the best pick-me-up there is around. trotting on to the Ugli, you'd find early birds like you enjoying the relative warmth of spring, walking their dogs et al. And plonking myself down here at the fourth floor of the Ugli to write a paper that's going to be due later at 4pm is kinda awesome: playing my music in this sound-proof study room, with a superb view of the Diag to boot, procrastinating my writing by blogging. Wat a beginning to a weekend.

so i find myself waking up today especially relieved: 1 more exam left before Winter semester draws to a close. ok, there's the slight hindrance of a final polsci paper to write, but even that has become somewhat enjoyable. and yes i probably have to study for the final stats exam from sunday to wednesday, but that leaves me with the wonderful opportunity of playing my friday (watever's left of it after this) and saturday away. things aren't really that shabby now.

had a phone interview with the human capital management department of goldman sachs yesterday morning. ok, i was a little pissed that i had to do that interview 3 hours before my econ 402 exam (which, in a nutshell... CHUI! that's pronounced chu-way). but it was pretty fun, i think i fared pretty well; not enough to get the internship, but enough to not be a source of embarassment i guess. it would be fun to do that internship though; however, i shall not pin my hopes up too high and focus instead on the wonders that spring and summer terms here at the U of M will bring me.

i have been slacking on my marathon training. i haven't ran in the past, 2 weeks? a combination of the coming of spring (hence the opportunity to do a lot more other things outside), exams, and lack of resolve. i will definitely resume training when spring term starts though: the thought of my aunt laughing in my face when she said last year, " wah you put on weigh ah! 1 year in america, eat a lot of good food!" geez this year, when i return in august, i will be lean, mean, marathon fit....

ok i shall stop dreaming. i shall start writing my paper. update again later.

4, four, fourths

2006-04-08T09:41:00.000-04:00

woke up from a nice dream (where i was playing a soccer game and scored a very nice free kick... i'll kindly go into details with anyone who's remotely interested) to read jiaying's very persuasive comment on my blog to update it. hah. see i've been pretty slack with my blog for the past two weeks... my last meaningful post was probably two weeks ago? ok think i gotta write about the very eventful past week.

first of all, was anyone outside yesterday when it was positively pouring cats and dogs? my gosh it was raining so heavily. i was walking along the Diag (getting soaked to the skin in the process) and vio la! the worms came out to play!!! there were shitloads of worms on the pavements everywhere... the rain kinda flushed all of them out from the soil... i think there were probably drowning in there? i was, of coz, very easily amused by this highly bemusing sight, and tried my very best not to trot on the slimy ones. i wondered if they'd stay out for a sun tan when the rain passes over.

so, back to the highlights of the past week. and what else can be more important than the successful conclusion of the Midwest Games? hah... my dream came through... albeit with a lot lesser number of participants than i thought. it seemed so bleaked in the months and weeks running up to the event, with logistical problems and all, but miracle after miracle seemed to happen in the two weeks leading up to the MWG, and i did get my icing on the cake after all. to all my committee members, well done!

so what else happened this week? well i skipped shitloads of classes. to anyone who's anyone in my circle of friends, you'd know that i kinda made a resolution not to skip classes this year after the debacle that is the last semester. i skipped so many classes then that i think i probably needed to pay only half of what i actually paid in tuition fees. anyhow, so i was actually doing just fine with my resolution until the sun decided to show up and ruin my damned plans. let's see: i skipped class on tuesday to play soccer, skipped class on wednesday to watch the champions' league game between asernal and juventus, skipped class on thursday because the sun was out so i went for a stroll instead. what the bejesus is wrong with me? i hope this doesn't last... not a good time to be skipping classes when the end of the semester is in sight.

i must say wednesday morning was pretty interesting for me. the darkroom bandits (me, eunice and jiaying; by virtue of the fact that we hang out in the darkroom watching eunice develop her photos) decided to convene at 1:23am on April 5th, 2006. to anyone who did not get the significance of that, owell, you're obviously not the romantic type. (very cynical too, i must add). we celebrated the once-in-a-lifetime 123456 event. well, to those who're interested, we're doing this again on the 4th of may. as cantona says, "watch this space".

anyhow, so hung out in bubble island until they closed at 2, then hung out further at eunice's place until 4am, by which time i was hung out to dry and had to go home to catch some ZZZzzz instead (thus contributing to be skipping class on thursday morning, as fore-mentioned). wow we talked so much... about friends, gossips, more gossip, more gossip, family, life experiences, blah blah. i must say, i thoroughly enjoyed myself, and i'm not writing this just because i know some people would actually read this. hah.

attended the Overseas Singaporeans Unit dinner mingling session on thursday night. well, i must say that its a good initiative, even though i did not actually get to talk to anyone from the office, due to:
1) me giving advice on polsci courses to gena
2) me giving advice to esther, who was dillusional about being abele to complete her organizational studies degree
3) me eating the pretty good food on offer. (what's not to like? food from evergreen... yummy)
4) me hanging out with the guys and girls who decided to degenerate their conversation to talking about who the next couple will be. (honestly, if the next singaporean girl gets attached to the next singaporean guy, i think i will go kill myself in shame)
i did, however, notice the cute ladies who attended the dinner: the lady from OSU, as well as a couple of singaporean graduates that i've never, ever seen before. Springtime in Ann Arbor is turning out to be pretty good afterall. hiaks.

speaking of cute ladies, received a totally unexpected email from miss ellyn tan this week. apparently she was online at 5am in the morning and ran out of things to do, hence the email. but anyhow, it was nice to hear from her, and i replied with relish. which probably means that she won't be emailing me anytime soon. but whatever.

so what's going to happen this super nice and sunny weekend? well, first i'm just kinda looking forward to soccer later in the afternoon. i hope the sun holds up and not play peek-a-boo behind the clouds. then there's seniors' day, and i still have not found what i want to cook for the potluck! probably serve up some of my very popular "samosas". heh.

IF WE GO TO STUDIO 4 TONIGHT IT WOULD BE MY FOURTH WEEK IN A ROW, AND THIS SILLY CLUBBING THING GOT TO STOP! it's funny... i don't drink anyways (since i'm DD), and i don't go do funny things with strangers (since i'm not drunk), nor do i want to do any dirty dancing with people i know (imagine the repercussions the morning after). so what the hell am i doing going for four weeks in a row? well, i think i just like to have some fun... nice music, nice dancing, nice mingling. hah. i hope that sounds convincing.

congratulations to joanne for doing well on your interview! seriously, i think i deserve a treat when u eventually get the job. hah.

have i exceeded the thousand word limit? haa i think i spend more time writing this post than i ever do working on my 1000-word essays... seriously, i need to work a little harder on my PS 300 papers. hiakz.

ok, there goes my whole week in review. nothing else to add. and before the sun sets, off i go!

back to good

2006-03-30T09:19:00.000-05:00

here, my friends, is my all time favorite song. no questions. i know its a re-post, but hey, who cares?

it's nothing, its so normal. you just stand there,
i could say so much. i don't go there coz i dun want to.
i was thinking if you were lonely
maybe we could leave here and no one knows
at least not to the point where we would think so

everyone here knows everyone here is thinking about somebody else
well its best if we all keep this under our heads
i couldn't tell if anyone here was feeling the way i do
but i'm lonely now and i dunno how to get it
back to good

this don't mean that you own me well
this ain't no good, in fact its phoney as hell
but things worked out just like you wanted too
if you see me out you don't know me
try to turn your hea try to give me some room
i'll figure out just want i'm gonna do

everyone here hates everyone here for doing just like they do
and its best if we all keep this quiet instead
i couldn't tell why everyone here was doing me like they do
well i'm sorry now and i don't know how to get it
back to good

everyone here was wondering what its like to be with somebody else
well everyone here's to blame
and everyone here is caught up in the pleasure or the pain
well everyone here hides shades of shame
looking inside we're all the same, we're all the same
we're all grown now, but we don't know how to get it
back to good

everyone here knows everyone here is thinking about somebody else
well its best if we all keep this under our heads
i couldn't tell now if anyone here was feeling the way i do
it's over now and i dunno how
guess it's over now
there's no getting back to good

Impact of Global Warming

2006-03-26T17:39:00.000-05:00

Everyone should just go read CNN's special report on global warming, and realise the dire consequences, and find out what we can do to prevent further damage.

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2005/changing.earth/

2006-03-24T09:33:00.000-05:00

hullo... its all over! finally!

my last ever mid-term ended on wed. this leaves me (relatively) free to tidy up all the mess around me before i can settle down to study for the finals. things like masters applications, summer vacation attachments, courses for next semester, courses for spring term, wow there's just so many things to juggle now. and yet i still volunteered to be the host for sea culture night happening this saturday.

I CAN'T ACT FOR NUTS! not for a million bucks... ever. and yet this is exactly what i'm supposed to do for the emcee-ing part tomorrow... the two of us are supposed to act as umich students visiting SEA for the first time... so half the time we'll be going "oh that's so cool! that's awesome! wow!" ahhh.... i think i'll degenerate from the 23 yr old guy that i am to a person half my age. sigh.

2006-03-22T00:56:00.000-05:00

what joy is joy when wrapped under silence?
what love is love when burned on a single end?
what folly is folly when committed without regret?
what song is a song that loops without end?
what bliss is bliss that is gone too soon?

2006-03-15T07:29:00.000-05:00

CAPM model. APT. Semi-strong efficiency. beta is the stocks sensitivity to the market. market wide risk factors. market index measures market timing risk. i am sick of Financial Economics already.

find myself again awake at this early hour in an effort to finish studying for my ECON 435 midterm later. Honestly, what was, at the beginning of the semester, positively my most interesting class has degenerated into an absurd waste of time. Nothing much can be attributed to the course material, just the professor's insistence on making me blur and confused every lecture. The fact that i did pretty badly for the first mid-term does NOT, i say again, DOES NOT, contribute to that at all. Hiakz.

so many things to re-evaluate, so many things to reflect these few days/weeks. at the core of this pandemonia is the crucial question: who are you jiayong? what are you? you are so many different things to so many different ppl, its hard to find out what the inner-most layer of the onion is. sometimes you are the cheerful, happy go lucky type (as evidenced by your crazy antics at Pearl's surprise party). other times find you sad and depressed, about many things in life, some deserving attention, others being just a figment of your imagination. Many more times reveal your side that listens attentively to a cherished person tell you all about her dilemma of accepting some other guy or not, a side that wants the best for the person, but at the same time bashing yourself up inside because the dilemma is not, after all, you. You want to do all the things in the world for this person, but at the same time you find yourself thinking "fuck why am i doign this to myself? i always put myself in a position to hurt myself." Other instances find you screwing around with other people's relationships, and destroying friendships along the way. At times you dream, of wanting to effect change in this world, of learning about politics and wanting to solve all problems, of joining the Peace Corps someday, of being an humanitarian aid worker somewhere for the rest of your life. other times you want to go back to the SAF and work your way to the top, to prove that farmers like yourself can be successful too. fuck the SAFOS and SMSs, you are also cream of the crop. Other times you want to break free from all these, and indulge in the fantasies of your b-sch friends, dreaming of making tons and tons of money, partly to help your parents, but mainly to satisfy your deep-lying greed for the good things in life.

an onion scarcely has this many layers. so many dreams, so many sentiments, so many thoughts. you really do come across as a deeply confused, or as Heng puts it, very angstly. sometimes you wish to crawl into a hole and not have a care in the world, not have anything to do with anyone, but the other side of you, the side that craves human company, that craves emotional connections, wrecks you inside like a disease eating a man hollow.

"you'll be strong, you'll be rich in love, you'll carry on, but no, you won't be mine."

Two-s-day

2006-03-14T07:38:00.000-05:00

ahh... found myself in a habit of sleeping earlier and waking up earlier nowadays. a semester ago, you'd be betting on fool's gold to see me alive at this time. now i'm up, and ready to complete the trememdous amount of work that lays ahead today.

i think i've been sort of irrational of late. certain things you just don't have control over; like my dad's illness, or people and friends, or work. in these instances it would be foolish to worry incessantly over events i have no influence with. sure, i can dedicate portions of my time to worry and make sure things turn out for the best, but ultimately i should just make peace with the final outcome. as Eunice mentioned the other day, there is a plan, and i should learn to learn lessons from it, and not question the wisdom or logic of the plan.

most of the people in my batch found ourselves in Pearl's apartment at midnight this morning. we were throwing a surprise party for her 21st birthday. not much of a surprise actually, but hey at least everyone who should be there was there. it's nice to get together like that once in a while. i mean, these are the people whom i've known the most in my time here in ann arbor. i hope there would be more opportunities like these to come together again.

Mr Peh: hey thanks for asking about the weird dream, i'm fine i guess. it's just really funny because like i said before, i have not visited those people for so long, yet still manage to dream of them; i even had to seek their forgiveness for something in which they obviously are in the wrong. it was as if the subconscious is asking me to forgive and forget.

symbolic dream

2006-03-13T09:11:00.000-05:00

i just woke up from an awful, awful dream.

in the dream, i was running away. for some reason that i cannot remember, i was going AWOL (absent without official leave) from the army. i remember feeling very indignant about the situation, and was running away. in a flash my awol companion (whom i cannot remember as well) and i found ourselves rushing into this HSB flat to hide from the military police. and guess what? it's the flat where my paternal grandparents and my paternal uncle's family is staying.

i've stopped visiting these people a long, long time ago. somehow, tiffs with members of the extended family became a norm for my own family of four. Ever since i was about 16, i've not kept in contact with the above-mentioned folks, as well as some members of my maternal family. All these quarrels, broken down to the last common denominator, represent feuds over money and personal vendettas. Shall not go in detail here to avoid washing dirty linen in public.

anyhow, they were shocked to see me in the least. dressed in camoflage uniform, i was dishevelled and unkempt. i remember simply asking " can we hide here for a while?" and my uncle just nodded his head. my grandmother came out immediately after, and was fuming that i actually showed up at their place, demanding refuge when i have not visited them for almost 6 years now. She simply said, " you're are not our eldest grandson anymore". I felt a little indignant, and responded with " i don't think i ever really cared about being that. I just hate that family has been broken apart because of your disrespect for my family members."

the military police coudn't have chosen a better time to arrive. i remember feeling my heart sink when i heard them come through the door. tears welled up within me, and i managed a muffled "goodbye". my uncle came forward and offered me a handshake to bid goodbye. i hugged him instead. and hugged everyone else in the room as well. somehow that made me feel a lot better. and like all the lousy compositions we used to write when we were young, this was when i woke up from my sleep half an hour ago.

2006-03-09T12:11:00.000-05:00

i watched "invisible children" with jiaying last night, and i think we came away both humbled at our miniscular efforts compared to the people involved in that project, as well as deeply affected by the number of things that deserve our attention and dedication in the world, yet feeling so small because we can only do so much.

i think contrary to popular belief, the young people are generally pretty much aware about such issues. take a look at the massive responses to Katrina, to 9-11, to the tsunami, and HIV in Africa. I personally was moved by the mission of the Nature Conservancy after the ASB trip. Looking around the auditorium after the movie ended yesterday, i was in no doubt that everyone in the room was touched by the plight of the children in uganda, and wanted to help in some way or another. The problem, however, is maintaining these emotions and commitment beyond the initial shock phase. Generally, the amount of help needed by the victims usually long outlast the public uproar. new issues constantly come up; the public is often overwhelmed by what the media throws at them, and more often than not, anything beyond two weeks old is not newsworthy anymore.

so what can we actually do? i think instead of flirting from one issue to another, one tragedy to the next, we should really dedicate ourselves to one particular incident, and focus all our attention on it. never mind that the issue you are working on is not the "hottest topic" around; after all, we's to judge what is more important than the other? we can only hope that are other people around who are similarly dedicated to other issues; only then will the aggregate level of youth commitment across all issues will be substantial to effect some sort of change.

on a different note, i just want to share this song with you. "you won't be mine" by matchbox twenty (again...). of course, if you've never heard it before, you can always ask me for this or any other M20 songs.

Take your head around the world
See what you get
From your mind
Write your soul down word for word
See who’s your friend
Who is kind
It’s almost like a diseaseI
know soon you will be

Over the lies, you’ll be strong
You’ll be rich in love and you will carry on
But no - oh no
No you won’t be mine

Take your straight line for a curve
Make it stretch, the same old line
Try to find if it was worth what you spent
Why you’re guilty for the way
You’re feeling now
It’s almost like being freeA
nd I know soon you will be

Over the lies, you’ll be strong
You’ll be rich in love and you will carry on
But no - oh no
No you won’t be mine

Take yourself out to the curb
Sit and wait
A fool for life
It’s almost like a disease
I know soon you will be

Over the lies, you’ll be strong
You’ll be rich in love and you will carry on
But no - oh no
No you won’t be mine

2006-03-08T23:46:00.000-05:00

all is well in the end. stones are stones after all. a load has been lifted. reminds me of "cannonball"...

stones taught me to fly
love taught me to lie
life taught me to die
so its not hard to fall
when you float like a cannonball

do you know of the song "3 am"? rob thomas wrote it; it's about the time when he was only 12-13 yrs old, and his mum got cancer. i love the piano version of the song. feel sort of a fond affinity with it somehow.

She say it's cold outside and she hands me my raincoat
She's always worried about things like that
She says it's all gonna end and it might as well be my fault
And she only sleeps when it's raining
And she screams and her voice is straining
[chorus]She says baby It's 3 am I must be lonely
When she says baby
Well I can't help but be scared of it all sometimes
Says the rain's gonna wash away I believe it

She's got a little bit of something, God it's better than nothing
And in her color portrait world she believes that she's got it all
She swears the moon don't hang quite as high as it used to
And she only sleeps when it's raining
And she screams and her voice is straining

[chorus]

She believes that life is made up of all that you're used to
And the clock on the wall has been stuck at three for days, and days
She thinks that happiness is a mat that sits on her doorway
But outside it's stopped raining

[chorus]

2006-03-08T12:30:00.000-05:00

hence begins the silent countdown to the end of my dad's operation. pray with me won't you? i know things will turn out well.

ASB trip to Wildcat Mountain

2006-03-07T06:36:00.000-05:00

you know, i was going to do a write up about the trip to wildcat mountain, and our work there in building a hiking trail from scratch. but i discovered that Valerie did an excellent write up already, with photos and all, and so i shall just direct everyone to her blog... please go read her March 5th post on "alternative spring break".

http://spinningaway.blogspot.com/

yup... couldn't have described the trip better myself. i hope you like it.

crazy

2006-03-06T02:14:00.000-05:00

crazy is the title of the song in my previous post. and crazy is how i feel now.

the end of spring break signifies so much for me, and portends so many more events to come.

spending one week building the trail at wildcard mountain is simply one of the best decisions i've made in a long, long time. i enjoyed myself thoroughly: the company, the scenery, and the mission of our trip. I think the hard work that we put in really bonded the ten of us; i can only hope that these friendships can carry on for a really long time. the mission of the nature conservancy, which is the organization which we dug the trail for, sounds really meaningful, am i'm just glad to have done my part for their efforts in preserving the environment.

but this joy was diluted with a piece of really bad news i received on thursday night. mi dear dad has stones in his pancrea, and will be going for an operation on tues. those of you whom are close to me will know that this sounds terribly similar to what my mum went thru before. she was diagnoised with stones in her pancrea when i was in sec 1, and only during the operation did the doctors find out that its actually cancer instead.

this was what led me to take a drive today after trying to study at starbucks in the afternoon. i drove to ypsilanti, then decided to end up at gallup park. funny, after having ran in the park so many times, i've never actually drove there b4. so i did, parked at the restaurant area, in the hope of finding out whether they open on sat mornings for breakfast. but i guess its closed for winter then. anyhow, i just sat down by the rive to watch the sunset. somehow, listening to the geese flying in and out, the tear ducts broke. for the first time in a really long time, perhaps since when my mum was ill and i went to the novena church in singapore to pray for her health, i prayed. i dunno who i was praying to, just praying that someone somewhere can ascertain that my dad won't suffer from this cruel twist of fate. pls do not let cancer and financial problems ruin the life of this strong, honest, hardworking man. i've made up my mind: if he's sick, i will end my studies early to return home to support my family. i won't let him work again, not after the life he has slogged, not when he was so cruely cheated.

so after sunset in gallup park, i drove to this indoor soccer place. i joined this team of latin americans in this competitive league, and played with them for the first time today. and i ate such a huge piece of humble pie today. i was positively the lousiest player on the pitch. somehow all skill deserted me. i think along the years some of the praise got to my head, but today i really felt so, so small. time to eat the humble pie and brush up ur soccer, jiayong.

went to watch some chinese serials with lianmeng, jiaying and eunice just now. well i dun think i was really interested in the show before going, but i just craved the company i can get with these friends. home can seem so forbidding sometimes. and i'm really glad i went. spent 3 hours jus staring at the tv. took my mind off so many things then.

so here i am, back home, typing this. i hate this melodrama persona that i seem to portray with my posts, but i guess its really just how i feel about things. like i said before, only ppl who are truly concerned will read this, and i guess i dun have to hide things from ppl who are truly concerned then.

good night all. maybe tomorrow we'll all find our way home.

2006-02-24T12:31:00.000-05:00

You know you drive me up the wall
The way you make good for all the nasty tricks you pull
Seems like we're makin' up more than we're makin' love
And it always seems you've got something on your mind
Other than me
Girl, you gotta change your crazy ways - you hear me
Say you're leavin' on the seven thirty train
And that you're heading out to Hollywood
Girl, you've been givin' me that line so many times
It kinda gets that feelin' bad looks good

That kinda lovin' turns a man to a slave
That kinda lovin' sends a man right to his grave

I go crazy, crazy, baby, I go crazy
You turn it on then you're gone
Yeah you drive me crazy, crazy, crazy for you baby
What can I do, honey I feel like the color blue
You're packin' up your stuff and tryin' to tell me
That it's time to go
But I know you ain't wearin' nothin' underneath that overcoat and that it's all a show
That kinda lovin' makes me wanna pull down the shade, yeah
That kinda lovin' yeah, now I'm never gonna be the same
I go crazy, crazy, baby, I go crazy
You turn it on then you're gone
Yeah you drive me crazy, crazy, crazy for you baby
What can I do, honey I feel like the color blue
I'm losing my mind
Girl, 'cause I'm goin' crazy
I need your love, honey, yeah I need your love

I go crazy, crazy, baby, I go crazy
You turn it on then you're gone
Yeah you drive me crazy, crazy, crazy for you baby
What can I do, honey I feel like the color blue...

one long week

2006-02-24T00:31:00.000-05:00

peh chongmeng, u finally responded to my comment on ur blog!! very glad to hear from u man =)

i am looking forward to spending one whole week in the woods... going to Virginia to do some community service. Digging a new hiking trail in the nature reserve. 1 week of detachment from everything else. Going to live life for one week just like how my fave quote says. See you all in a week's time.

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, to discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and to be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.” - Thoreau

2006-02-21T04:29:00.000-05:00

i pretend that i'm glad you went away
these four walls closing more everyday
and i'm dying inside,
and nobody knows it but me
like a clown i put on a show
the pain is real, even though nobody knows
and i'm crying inside
but nobody knows it but me
why didn't i say the things i needed to say
how could i let my angel get away
now my world is just tumbling down
i can say it so clearly but you're nowhere around
nights are lonely days are so sad

2006-02-20T01:04:00.000-05:00

apologies for the very depressing post... i'm feeling much better now!

rantings in starbucks

2006-02-19T17:21:00.000-05:00

Have you ever wondered who will be the ones crying when you die? Whose lives have you significantly impacted such that they will come to see you for the last time?

I think I’m a very morbid person. I will think of these things in my idle time, or times when I just feel so fucked up that I just want to bury myself in a hole and never have to come out of it. Or lock myself in a room and never talk to anyone ever again. I wonder why I’m studying in Starbucks since I’m feeling this way now. Perhaps being in a crowded place yet not have anyone to talk to, nobody that I know, heightens the magnitude of the awful feeling of an impersonal world. Sometimes you just crave to be heard, yet do not want to burden another person with your ill-feelings. So you hide away and hope that, maybe, maybe tomorrow will be a better day.

“I’ve been down and I’m wondering why, these little black clouds keep on walking around with me….”
– Maybe Tomorrow, Stereophonics

So this is how I visualize my own funeral. I’m dead, maybe at the age of fifty? I died alone, perhaps out of circumstances that are beyond my control, or perhaps from a self-imposed exile from the world that I know of. I’ve spent the last 20 years of my life traveling the world, seeing all the beauty that exists in the world yet do not seem to find its way into my life. It is a sort of a desperate, yet fruitless attempt, to inject a hope in me that, maybe, just maybe, the miracles that made the great wonders of the world possible will somehow remake my life.

I died in peace, at peace with the world. I’d like to think that I’ve no regrets whatsoever over all the decisions that I’ve made in life. All the people I’ve hurt, and the people I’ve been hurt by, all the crossroads of my life at which I’ve made the worst possible decisions. I’d like to think that I’d learnt lessons from them all, that they’ve made me the person that I am. Regret is such a hard thing to comprehend; it occurs at the moment of realization that you’ve done something you shouldn’t have, yet that feeling did not seem to exist during the moments before the decision, when you thought that the thing you will be doing is the right-est thing you will possibly do. Regret is the thing that pushes us to constantly make the best of the worst possible things we have done. Regret makes us pay the price of wrongdoings we’ve done for eternity. I did not have any regrets when I died. I have made the most of my life, seen all that I wanted to see, and learnt all that I wanted to learn.

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, to discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and to be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.”
- Thoreau

I’d like to think that I lived my life according to what Thoreau had preached.

It’s so cold here. I went to the washroom to run my hands under scalding water. Yet I felt no pain. Perhaps a tinge of pleasure? Experiencing pain is probably the one indication of a connection with reality. When you cease to feel pain, you cease to be alive, and endure life as though it is a muted black and white opera, full of angst and fury, yet not knowing anything about it because all the sounds and colors of life have been drained away.

"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."
--Macbeth (V, v, 19), William Shakespeare

The enthusiasm for living slips out of the self like sand slipping out of the hand; at the first grasp, the handful of sand is so incomprehensible, so fascinating. Yet it immediately breaks free from your grasp, slowly but steadily, and in time nothing’s left, and one is left only with a disconnect for what had been the pleasure of holding on to the sand.

Maybe I’d have regrets, despite my intentions against that happening. Maybe I’d regret being such an unfilial son when I was younger. In the days of my mum’s illness, I was rebellious and disobedient. I can never forgive myself for fighting with my dad, for thinking that because I’m physically stronger (due to his flailing strength) that I could finally break free of his strict hold over me. The invincibility I felt then came at the expense of my parents’ overwhelming love for me, so much so that they accept me for who I was. I’d always regret having been a social butterfly, for not investing much in any of the relationships that I had with people, yet sought to derive the most pleasure from it. That made me the untrustworthy person I am. I look in the mirror when I’m fifty, and I see a flawed person. Like a cracked mirror, the beauty of perfection is never again found in existence. I’d be like the rotten apple that craved to have someone take a bite from me again, and indulge me despite the worms that have made me hollow and shallow.

I died because I chose to die. No, I did not die from any illness, or from any accident. The decision of ending my life at the age of fifty is perhaps the one thing that I still had autonomy over, the one thing that I knew I would not regret. Yes, it is a sin to take one’s life, but it is a sin I’d gladly commit to end my own suffering.

I see my own funeral being held in a church. Yes, I’d not been a person that subscribed to a formal religion. Part of that stems from my promise to a desperate plea from my dear mum that I would not accept another religion before she passes away, so that she will be able to receive the “offerings” I’d offer her at her funeral. Maybe that’s just superstition, yet this is the one duty of being her son that I will never forsake.

“You gave me life, gave me your heart,
Your shoulder when I needed to cry
You gave me hope, when all my hope is gone
Wings so my dreams can fly

And I, haven’t told you enough, haven’t been good enough, making you see

My love for you, will live in my heart;
Until eternal is through
I see your smile, in the eyes of my child,
I am who I am, mama thanks to you”
– Thanks to You, Richard Marx

When I think of my mum, I think back to the days when I was really young. Days when our family was not well to do. I remember our humble home in Ang Mo Kio, how she always brought me to the playground after kindergarten school so that I can have my fun before dinner. I remember the times I hated her when i got beaten, and hearing her sobbing in the middle of the night after sending me to my room, me breaking her heart with the professions of my hatred. I remember her being so proud of me each time I came home with good results. I remember the day she was wheeled out of the operation room, when we found out about her cancer. I remember seeing my dad slump to the floor, never having seen such a brave and strong man cry before. I remember her making a video of her last words to me so that I can have something to remember her by when she’s gone.

“I think I’ve already lost you, I think you’re already gone
I think I’m finally scared now, you think I’m weak, I think you’re wrong
I think you’re already leaving, feels like your hand is on the door
I thought this place was an empire, now I’m relaxed, I can’t be sure

If you’re gone, maybe its time to come home
There’s an awful lot of breathing room and I can hardly move
If you’re gone, baby you need to come home
There’s a little bit of something in me, and everything in you.”
- If You’re Gone, Matchbox Twenty

I remember the nights she couldn’t fall asleep because the pain was so unbearable, her throwing up in the living room all night as I struggled to fall asleep. I remember accompanying her to the doctor’s, and seeing the joy that it brought her simply because I was “having a date” with her. I remember her bout of depression due to my dad’s duel with bankruptcy, and my departure for Ann Arbor.

I am finding it so hard not to tear in the middle of Starbucks as I type this. Perhaps I should stop for a while.

Fuck. I just hid in the toilet cubicle and cried my eyes out. I hope no one notices.

For all those misgivings that I have done to my mum, I will not go back on my word on the one thing that I have promised her. She will be able to receive my offerings when she goes on to a better life. Heaven is filled with angels like her.

However, I’d always maintained that I do believe in the existence of a God. I have not explored the depths of Christianity, yet I do want to believe, to be part of this faith. Just not right now, not when I have a promise to keep.

Hence my wish to have my funeral held in a church. It would reconcile me with my faith.

There’d people there, I hope. I do not know who they will be. Perhaps friends that I’ve enjoyed the companionship of, friends that I’ve shared precious moments of my life with. People that I’ve wanted to be close with, to share eternity with, but pushed away because of my stubbornness and my insincerity. No, my parents would not be there. I hope they will not see the sorry state that their son ended his life in. In their minds I hope to always leave the impression of as a strong, free spirited being that they have educated well, a bright young man whom they had invested their lives in. My sister would be there. The one person in my family that I do not know at all. And its all my fault. I do not deserve her tears.

There’d probably only be around twenty people at my funeral. The twenty people who still cared about me even after the unforgivable treatment I gave them. The rest of the world had already given up hope on me. And that’s ok Looking down (or in my case looking up) at them I’d feel extreme joy at their presence. I feel heartened that I have had some sort of influence on their lives. Maybe no one would show up; that’s perfectly acceptable too. I do not deserve such kindness. I hope no one cries. That would break my heart even more, knowing the possibility of having had a deeper relationship with them.

So I lie in my coffin, waiting to be buried (or cremated, my preference actually, since I do not want posterity to have to deal with the remnants of my existence.) The songs “Maybe Tomorrow” and “Back to Good” keep playing on repeat, just as they are right now as I write this. How ironical. They exemplify my wish for a better tomorrow, a return to a better past, yet condemns the present for what its worth.

“Everyone here, knows everyone here is thinking about somebody else
And its best if we all keep things quiet instead
I couldn’t tell, if anyone here was feeling the way I do
But it’s over now, and I don’t know how, to get it back to good.”
– Back to Good, Matchbox Twenty

The father presiding over my funeral reads the quote by Thoreau, and says that yes, this man has lived his life by his maxim, lived his life to the fullest. Everyone in the crowd (all twenty of them) nod their heads in apparent agreement, yet each of them know for certain the futility of these words, words which do not mend the imperfections of the life I had. My epithet reads “here lies a man, whose only wish was to be loved”. At the age of fifty, perhaps that is the one thing that will be the biggest regret of all.

Maybe Tomorrow

2006-02-17T23:26:00.000-05:00

I've been down and I'm wondering why These little black clouds Keep walking around With me With me
It wastes time And I'd rather be high Think I'll walk me outside And buy a rainbow smile But be free They're all free

So maybe tomorrow I'll find my way home So maybe tomorrow I'll find my way home

I look around at a beautiful life Been the upperside of down Been the inside of out But we breathe We breathe
I wanna breeze and an open mind I wanna swim in the ocean Wanna take my time for me All me

So maybe tomorrow I'll find my way home So maybe tomorrow I'll find my way home

Midwest Games Disappointment

2006-02-17T23:06:00.000-05:00

as the days past, it seems increasingly unlikely that Umich will be able to host the midwest games this year.

for those not in the know, the Midwest Games is an annual affair that brings Singaporean students in the Mid-west area together for friendly competition in sports, seeking to enhance interaction and cohesion among these groups.

i think when all this is over and done, i will always look back with regret: did i do enough to make sure things happened? did we start our planning too late? there are so many ifs, so many what-nots, that i think to engage in the blame game is useless. it does not negate the fact, however, that i really wanted to bring the midwest games to ann arbor; everything seems just so logically, given that we are the epicenter of the singaporean student population in the region, and the excellent sports facilities we have. however, to all means and ends, i think chances of it happening in ann arbor this year are bleak, and all i can say is that it is a major disappointment for me personally.

2006-02-15T01:44:00.000-05:00

will there be snow flakes tomorrow? or will it all melt and fade away into memory?

response to the human book

2006-02-12T17:40:00.000-05:00

ok i don't really know how the comment by "human book" relates to my previous post... but it definitely is useful information. useful, but not entirely accurate though. esitmated figures aren't very good justification. as a responsible Singaporean and member of the Southeast Asian community, it would be imprudent to comment on the internal politics and policies of a neighbour. All i can say, however, is that should such discimination actually exist, is it really all that unexpected? can an individual really expect to receive racial and religious equality in a country that is founded fundamentals of Islamic belief, and not secularism?
This is not a judgement biased against an Islamic country, but a generalised statement referring to all "religious" states. Racial and religious equality/autonomy cannot happen unless the political and judicial actors abide by a constitution steeped in secularism and unbiased in its treatment of the citizens, regardless of color or faith. and how many states can actually lay claim to that? after all, most nations we see today were founded on religious fundamentals. The first citizens of modern USA were a migrant group of Protestants, while the nations of Euope decended from kingdoms where church and state were symbian entities. Other examples abound. I do not think we will ever witness a state where there will be COMPLETE EQUALITY, but we can certainly work towards the closest approximation of it. And that involves people standing up and fighting for their rights, fighitng for INCREASED TOLERANCE.

its nights like this

2006-02-08T01:03:00.000-05:00

Its nights like this that make me feel blessed...

after feeling pretty sick from studying in the undergrad library, i decided to end my night early (at 1am, but who's counting?) and head home to continue studying for my exam. Stepping out into the cold winds that seem ever so prevalent here in Ann Arbor, I was pleasantly surprised to find it snowing again. Not that I should be, of course, given that it snowed the past two nights, but tonight seemed additionally special. Maybe it’s the enormous snow flakes that seem to dance in the air forever, unwilling to end their gracefulness with the greeting of the cold, paved ground. Maybe it’s the way the sky looked tonight; walking back, I was staring up in space like an idiot would, gazing adoringly at the infinitely immense dark night sky that seemed to burst with the millions of snow flakes floating down onto earth, their movements illuminated by the street lamps that knew better than to steal their limelight.

Overwhelmed by these sights, and perhaps spurred by the knowledge that there isn’t anyone else around to witness the act, I simply lay down in the snow outside Dennison building, and lost myself in the star/snow gazing. Its really nights like this that make me feel blessed to simply be existing in this world. It’s a strange feeling, to have a myriad of thoughts and emotions fill the absolutely minute space in my head, yet feel extremely at ease and invincible from the trials that I would face (i.e. my midterm! And other things of course…). I remember again things that I really ought to bear in mind all the time, but somehow forget amid the grind and abrasion of mundane existence. I remember that I should cherish the beautiful things that occupy only a tiny flash of existence in my life, and not seek to make it mine. Just like how the snow flakes are; their grace and beauty cease to exist the minute I lose myself to temptation and reach out to touch them, melting away, never again to assume the aesthetic beauty that occupied their existence as they floated effortlessly from the heavens. I remember that I should enjoy the moment as it is, and not seek to gain possession of it. “Just lose myself in the moment, and hopefully, the moment will never end.” Hence I should be contented that these snow flakes visit once in a while, that I am privileged to occupy the same plane of existence as they are, no matter how fleeting the moment can be. I must resist contaminating this beautiful, beautiful scenario that I find myself in and seek only to engrave it so deeply in my memory that to lose this image would be to lose the very reason why I deserve to exist. I can only be glad that I can be with these snowflakes once in a while; really, isn’t that all that I can ask for?

Silent Night (Broken Night)

2006-02-05T01:09:00.000-05:00

i just discovered this great hidden track on the end of the "Eskimo" track of Damien Rice's "O". do go listen to it if you have it.

Silent night, broken night
All is fallen when you take your flight
I found some hate for you
Just for show
You found some love for me
Thinking I'd go
Don't keep me from crying to sleep
Sleep in heavenly peace

Silent night, moonlit night
Nothing's changed
Nothing is right
I should be stronger than weeping alone
You should be weaker than sending me home
I can't stop you fighting to sleep
Sleep in heavenly peace

insensitivities

2006-02-03T19:56:00.000-05:00

just when the rest of the world is coming to terms with the significant yet minute difference between the "war on terror" and the "war on islam" (for the benefit for those not in the know, yes we are conducting a war on terror, and no, its not a "war on islam"), along comes the western world's ideal of "freedom of speech" to throw away all the good work achieved. sensationalism and the willingness of the media to push delicate boundaries have prevailed again, at the expense of religious tolerance and sensitivity. what is wrong with the european media companies? as if we don't already have a hard enough time trying to convince moderate muslims that hey, this war on terror only targets "radical islam fundamentalists" who seek destruction to accomplish their goals of "jihad"; the incessant republications of the ridiculous caricatures of the Prophet serve only to stir more hatred among these moderates, often pushing them to the extremes. i agree that everyone deserves their right to freedom of speech, but this right is not to be used irresponsibly and unethically. just as everyone has the freedom to do what they want, doesn't mean they can do it at the expense of another's benefit. i share the same sentiments with Bill Clinton, fearing that "anti-semitism is turning into anti-islam beliefs".

what a year it has been

2006-01-29T13:43:00.000-05:00

happy chinese new year! sitting here on my couch the morning after. CNY has got to be my fave day in this academic year here... the warm feeling of seeing a hundred over people coming together for dinner, the photo taking sessions after, and the crooners performing their best renditions during the ktv session. but much more than that, i'm just always impressed by the enthusiasm that the freshmen show when it comes to putting on an excellent show for the rest of the singaporeans. that was the same with the previous CNY, where the people from my batch stepped up and did an excellent CNY. Ditto for this year, which is all the more surprising, considering most of us did not really think that they would exhibit such enthusiasm. i am glad to say that i'm wrong, and i hope that this work ethic would not wane in the months to come.

liheng has been calling me "angst-ridden" recently. i wonder what made him feel that way. do i really come across as this? i am only writing my true feelings here, nothing more. i guess it's just a lot easier to write your emotions here than to wear them on your face; i mean, only people who really care would read of these things here, while everyone around would see my emotions should i choose to display that liberally. perhaps i really am angst-ridden, and should really thank heng for pointing that out to me.

i'm really glad that i did my individual toasts with the people who are special to me yesterday. that includes the new and old SSA Committee members, as well as the CNY planning committee, who i've had so much pleasure working together with. i just wanted to show them how much i really appreciated working and learning from them.

though not the last SSA event that i would be involved in planning in (that would be the mid-western games), CNY has always been held a special place in my heart, mainly because it was the first event that i had done (together with Karl, from whom i learnt so much). it was my first time feeling really glad that i had contributed to the community here. some ppl say that's very juvenile, this whole organizing event thingy that SSA does; others even dismiss it with nonchalance and want no part at all; me? i'll just miss this, giving back to a community that i am really glad to be in. as long as the people around me are happy, as long as the Singaporean community is tight and harmonious, i'd gladly ignore all critics. they just don't understand the feeling one gets when one is surrounded by friends they appreciate.

on a side note, i think the late nights are taking their toil on me... not feeling especially chirpy this morning, and my throat positively hurts. guess i'll take the day to recuperate.

ole!

2006-01-15T00:28:00.000-05:00

ok ... my legs are officially numb. left ankle's been twisted 5 times this week. hamstrings are tight. thighs are sore. and all these for what? for the obscene amount of soccer and running this week. i'm really glad i embarked on this marshall plan thing actually. if i never registered for the marathon, and the shame of finishing it after everyone is gone, i would never have had the motivation to train up my running. (BTW, Chunyang if you happen to read this, i know you want to run the chicago marathon too, so sign up!! and we can be running mates) However, i've had so many offers to play soccer this week that i've been playing every night for one whole week. sch work hasn't really picked up yet, but it will soon, and this insane amount of playing has got to stop. can't risk injuring myself and hence not be able to train up.

my textbooks have not arrived yet!! jeezz.... just when you think that the postal system here in the states is pretty advanced, along come the late arrival of THREE of my textbooks to utterly shatterly my confidence in it. The textbooks have been late for TWELVE days! geez, with that amount of time, Israel could have won TWO wars, W. Bush could have made five speeches, a girl could have lost a guy (in ten days nonetheless), and i'd have received my pay for mindef ( theoretically, if today is the first). sigh. i'm desperate now; i need two of the textbooks to complete my homeworks due on fri. not a very good time to be without them. guess i'd buy them tomm from the bookstores, and return them when i am done. sigh wat luck...

chopped off my beloved long hair today. (all the ladies out there, let me hear you say 'aaawwwwwwwwww') k kidding. its all an accident actually. i made a 10 am appointment at aveda this morning, and i guess my instructions weren't very clear, because even though they did try to leave my hair long, and just trim the sides, i walked out of the saloon looking very much like a china doll with a $12 haircut. naturally, i cried my heart out in the school washroom, wore a cap for the whole day, and proceeded back to aveda after my classes to request for a retouch (they were pretty kind about it actually, and did it for free). hence this back to army, short and spiky look. (yo brother koh, you should be very happy now, i've failed in my F4 odyssey.)

i've decided to not apply for the washington program (with a huge amount of regret of course). aside from the pretty expensive accomodation costs involved, i realised that i need to take some programming classes and finance classes in order to qualify for either the M.S. IOE or M.S. FE program here at the U of M. and they seem infinitely more appealing than the applied economics program that i've been eyeing all these while. of course, if my g.p.a stays at it is now, i will barely qualify for ANY masters program at all. i need a 3.7 to qualify for a magma cum laude, and i'm desperately working towards it now.

ok, i may seem like i've a lot of time on my hand for the past few weeks, but i've told myself that this week is the start of the intensive amount of studying i need to do for this semester in order to score a higher gpa. and i'm pretty fortunate to be taking 4 very interesting classes. i really took my results from the first semester for granted, and haven't really been working as hard as i should have for the past two semesters. what could have been As resulted in A-s, and A-s into B+s, simply because i haven't been as dilligent in attending lectures and completing homework. so i guess this semester its all back to keeping my head on the grinestone, if you know what i mean. no other distractions, although the shadow of the midwestern games loom luminously ahead.

i've been burying my head in the book "in the time of cholera" for the past few days, trying to finish it before i have no more time to read it. i first came across this book in, yes, the movie 'serendipity', in which kate beckingsale writes her phone number in the book and john cusack has to search through new york's second hand bookstores in order to find it. its really a facinating book actually, with the love between the male and female protagonists very much similar to the one in 'brokeback mountain', another one of my fave movies. some people scoff at this sort of love; can love really be sustained without physical closeness, without the assurance of seeing each other often? can this sort of love really endure the torments of time, and the cruelty of age? how can it avoid the pitfalls of succumb to the convenience of marrying someone just to last through old age? can we really have such a perfect vision of the loved one that we cannot bear to be even within the vicinity of the presence of the individual, for fear of dispelling the myth of the beauty, or the beauty of the myth? i have not completed the book, but with what i've read thus far, i can only envy florentino ariza and femina daz, because i fear this sort of love is beyond me.

how many of us are actually in relationship of conveniences? be it boyfriend and girlfriend, man and wife, or just an innocuous friendship? man wakes up beside the wife with no love in his heart, but does not say a thing for fear of losing the sole caretaker of his children and home. girlfriend goes out for a date with her man, with no love in her heart, but does not mention anything resembling the notion of breaking up, because its convenient for the girl to have the guy around, and that no other viable options seem within reach. friends are friends only because they share an unwanted proximity day-to-day, and making friends seem certainly a better option than making enemies? when is it a lie, and when do we admit to ourselves that its only a lie? strive toward being florentino, i say, however the decades he has wasted in a unrequited love, than become femina, who substituted true love for convenience, only to realise her folly in old age. strive toward jack, who carried on seeking his true love, than annis del mar, who compromised his beliefs for social norms and prejudice.

Day 1 of Winter Term

2006-01-05T22:38:00.000-05:00

ahh... any illusions of a nice long winter break vanished into thin air when i had to wake up this morning feeling an absolute dread of having to attend lessons once again. when will the administration ever realise that our winter break is indeed too short!! two weeks... well at least i had an enjoyable winter break, visiting adeline down in st. louis, as well as chill in the apartment all by myself as everyone else seems to take their time returning home. solitude really is enjoyable sometimes.

received some really bad news today: remember me having to send in my external hard drive for repairs a couple of days back? well, computer medic called today, and they said something about a spindle breaking, and note this, the repairs, should i choose to make them, would cost $2500 dollars. TWO THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS!!! to repair something that cost only $100! insane!! well the technician did say that it'll be worth it if i valued the data in the disk as much, but i was thinking, "no way would i pay so much to repay that thing! i can buy TWO round trip tickets home for that price!!"

so there... now for bad news number two. i finally got down to buying my textbooks for my classes this term; and to my horror of horrors, i can't seem to be able to find two of my textbooks online, and would have to buy them from the university bookstores. these two books alone cost a combined total of USD$280!! insane! and considering my perchant for NOT reading my textbooks, this would be an utterly unnecessary investment in my mind. i guess i would have to rely on the copies in the library come exam time.

day four of the marshall plan: i'm pleasantly surprised that i'm sticking religiously to the routine i've planned to train for the chicago marathon. i guess i never had this kind of motivation; i think the huge bucks i paid to register for the race, and the potential embarassment of not completing the run come october are good enough reasons to train.

there's one song that's been ringing in my head for the past few days. i found out about this band when i was very intrigued by their song "struggle", which was used in the pontiac commercial. now i've hooked onto "tired of being sorry" , which has a pretty catchy guitar rift i think (i'm saying this as though i know what a rift is, but truth is i've no idea, and i'm only saying this because i've heard kenneth mention this when he's explaining stuff).

one very bad side-effect from the marshall plan, however, has been my absolutely massive craving for junk food. like lay's bbq flavored chips, thai green curry, duck rice at saigon garden, pizza, and jalepeno chicken from tk wu. sigh. my taste buds must really hate me... salads and cereals aren't very appetizing really. i mean, i still eat some of the foods above once in a while, like probably a bag of the chips a week, but the times when i'm eating the healthy stuff makes me want to scrap out all my taste buds. haa dieting is really hard eh?

my head is aching so badly right now... i think my very odd sleeping hours are taking a toil on me. the short hours at night, followed by the need to nap in the day because of lethargy from the lack of sleep is screwing up my body clock big time. i guess i should really try to sleep tonight, and sleep a right amount so as not to have to nap tomorrow.

have a good one.

"just close your eyes and try to sleep"

2006-01-03T06:23:00.000-05:00

Listening to “this year’s love” now. You’d be familiar with this song if you’d watched “Wimbeldon” or “the Girl next Door”. Lovely song. David Gray’s voice is just so haunting, especially when you’re sitting in your living room all by yourself, with not a soul awake at the unearthly hour of 6:30 am, with all the lights off and the television screening soccer matches on mute.

Woke up early to pick up Chun Tat and Chengyi from the airport at 5:30 am just now. Just as I was dropping Chengyi off at his place, and ready to drive home, Sarah Mclachlan’s “Angel” started playing on my car stereo. “Angel” of the movie “City of Angels” fame. Ahh… Heather (name of my car). I think she knows me inside and out; how else would she play the song that mirrored the exact emotions running within at that very moment? A huge lump developed somewhere down my throat as I fought back a potentially embarrassing moment. Composure prevailed.

Can’t fall back to sleep, even though I probably slept a grand 2 hours just now. Weird, considering I was so excited about the new pillow that I treated myself to for the new year earlier yesterday. I really should be sleeping now; only in my sleep will dreams ensue, and only in my dreams will I stop thinking so much and actually be living out the fantasies in my mind.

Not all dreams belong to the happy, blissful type; there are the ones that involve such dire scenarios that I would wake up with tears in my eyes, sobbing away without the slightest clue why I’m crying at all, with the only thing that I know being that the sadness residing in my mind is so overwhelming, so torrid is the current of ill-feeling that the tears, the sobbing upon wakening seem the most natural thing to be doing. I hate that I can never remember any of the dreams, or nightmares, that I have had. I never had a clue about why I would wake up crying. I wish I can remember those dreams; it would be a tangible way of dealing with repressed emotions that I never exhibit during the daytime. Perhaps I live through these emotions in my sub-conscious in my dreams, in order to avoid dealing with the pain should I live experience them consciously. Well, if that is the mechanism with which I deal with hurt, then why am I not sleeping now? If sleep could take the possibility of feeling so hurt now, and allow me to deal with these feelings only in the comfort of my dreams, and the tears upon awakening being the antidote to all ill-feeling, then I really hope the powers-that-be let me sleep right now. Let me sleep a peaceful, deep sleep now and deal with these feelings solely in my dreams, for I don’t ever want to face them again.

addictions

2006-01-02T01:10:00.000-05:00

Addiction: the quality or state of being addicted; compulsive need for and use of a habit forming substance characterized by tolerance and by well-defined physiological symptoms upon withdrawal.

How do you get rid of an addiction?

1. Do you attempt to rid yourself of that habit by simply not thinking about it? Perhaps the thought of not thinking about it is so painful, that not thinking about it will make your addiction go away. Pain drives all things away.

2. Maybe you try to get as much of it as possible. Maybe being overloaded with the sensation that the addiction causes is so overwhelming that you get desensitized, so much so that the sensation is no more.

3. Addictions can arise when there is a short-term deprivation of the senses, or in times of extreme duress or bliss, such as the holidays. Perhaps when that period of heightened sensation is over, the addiction ceases to be. Waiting it out is perhaps the cure for the addiction.

4. Deprivation of the substance that causes the addiction usually works. That’s the cold turkey treatment, and in some ways similar to the first method. As the body adjusts to the unbearable pain of not receiving the daily dosage of the substance, time heals all wounds and before long, the body no longer needs the substance to carry on it’s menial existence.

What if, after attempting all the above methods, the body still finds that the substance is absolutely essential in its daily operation? What if, deprived of the substance, the body finds all colors relegated to shades of black and white, all taste bland, and all words and sounds meaningless? What if the body is forever decapitated because of the lack of the substance? That is when one realizes that the body and substance are fused into a symbiotic entity, when the body cannot survive without the substance. That is when one realizes that the addiction is an addiction no more, but has evolved into a need, a necessity, an almost desperate clinging on to the substance for fear of the consequences of its absence. That is when an addiction becomes a love.

thoughts on the first day of the last year of my life

2006-01-01T17:23:00.000-05:00

happy new year everyone! hmm i was just kidding about the title. got your attention din i? but seriously, i feel now that i should treat every year, or every day for that matter, as the last in order to not waste my life away. like i did today. you see, i'm back in an arbor, in my own apartment now, and everywhere and everything is closed on new year's day! so frustrating. i mean, places like starbucks are still open i guess, but i really wanted to grab lunch from the mexican food place down the street, but yea it was closed. and i wanted to go run in the gym but non of the indoor facilities are open. i guess i can go run in the freezing cold in the arboretum (ann arbor's closest thing to a nature park), but i aint willing to risk my ears dropping off or being gangraped in the silence of the arboretum by horny bastards feeling lonely in the festive season in order to fulfill my marshall plan.

oh have i mentioned my marshall plan before? yea my very funny pun on the term "marshall plan" (for those of you who dunno what the real marshall plan is about, shame on you. go google it u nincomputt!) includes two parts:

1. to train up for the chicago marathon in october 2006, and run under 3 hrs and 10 mins for the race, in order to qualify for the boston marathon in april 2007. ok hitting that timing is going to be really hard, so i shall not set the success of my marshall plan contingent on the timing. truth is anything under 4 and a half hours is fine by me. hahh.

2. to regain my abs as part of my training regime. well not exactly regain, because how can you regain something u never really had? haah. well the only time i had well defined abs was back in jc when i was training 4 times a week in the soccer team; that's a really long time ago huh?

you see, the origin of the marshall plan stems from the loss of man pride from unwelcomed prodding of my tummy (hereafter mentioned as "the tummy", or "the ugly piece of s***"), as well as the general degradation of my physical condition, and last but not least, a friendly bet that will result in the loss of the long mane that i'm trying to cultivate. specifically the fringe. the result which not only i will still be fat (having lost the bet), i will look like the a complete idiot with long hair everywhere but the one-inch long fringe in front. seeing the catastrophic consequences of my failure to win this bet, it is absolutely crucial, no, not just crucial, it's almost of life-or-death importance.

i have a major complaint: my external hard disk broke down on me. damned irresponsible electronic devices! i swear they have a mind of their own. just like my car, Heather, whose battery broke down just as the holidays came around. this time around, my external hard disk has decided not to respond to my continuous plugging in and out of the usb connection, or the constant switching on and off of the power supply. i'm absolutely stumped. sigh. gone is the access to all the important documents, photos, movies and music. the irk i feel almost makes me want to throw it across the living room.

just finished reading grace chow's "a pain in the neck". i was particularly enamoured with the part of her book where she says that every movie, and every life, needs a soundtrack. music defines a particular emotion, a particular period of everyone's existence. relating this phenomenon to watching a wong kar wai film ("in the mood for love" anyone?), which is filmed without a script but only a particular piece of music in mind, miss chow claims that we will always be influenced by songs that we identify with at specific moments in our lives. hence, having taken inspiration from her, i have taken on the task of compiling the soundtrack of MY life thus far, and i will definitely share it here with all my friends when the project is complete.

afro time!

2005-12-31T16:30:00.000-05:00

Yes, that's exactly how i would look like if i ever were to have an afro. laugh all you want, i think i look great!

a load off my sholders, really

2005-12-31T00:03:00.000-05:00

i'm really glad that i've exorcised this five year old ghost in my past. well, i dun really know whether its for the better, but at least i've come clean. i'm disappointed that i did not have the guts to approach this problem before, but i guess this is a situation where being late is better than never. i just hope that i will not lose forever the one that knows me best, the one person that i need, because of my past folly.

thoughts about Brokeback Mountain

2005-12-28T02:03:00.000-05:00

I love Brokeback Mountain.

I know there are probably a lot of people like me out there right now, proclaiming their immense love for the movie, or how they absolutely loved it. If ever there was one thing where I would unabashedly join in the masses of people in doing, this would be it. If not for the fact that Adeline was around, I would probably have teared as I left the cinema. And it’s not hard to see why at all.

I love movies with sad endings. Like Closer, where the people realize they really cannot be with the ones they love because love is just too selfish, and it is better to receive love than to give it. Like In the mood for Love, where love goes unrequited because of guilt and societal norms. Brokeback Mountain fits the bill perfectly in that sense. I really don’t understand how some people can bash this film with such vengeance, when all I really experienced was really just a love story between two human beings. I saw portrayed in the movie a relationship that was doomed from the start because of societal norms and the characters’ repression of the true love because of the guilt and need to be seen as normal. Brokeback Mountain was really just a metaphor for the safe haven that we all wish we could hide in sometimes, where external judgment and social constrains cease to exist. I admire the love that the two men have, because I feel I might never ever find someone and love to that degree of intensity and passion as the love shared by them. A love so strong and so powerful as to render me powerless, a love so intense that I would be afraid to succumb totally to it.

I’m feeling terribly melancholic now. Listening to Damien Rice’s “Blower’s Daughter”, which just about worsens the melancholy. Perhaps this phase will pass. But sometimes I feel that I’m stuck in a downward spiral where there’s really no escape. I felt really sad when I recounted my past history to Adeline over dinner last night. I think somehow or another most people get stuck in a relationship of convenience; the thinking that having a partner is better than having no partner at all. I think sometimes that convenience stems from the fact that we really don’t want to be alone, than another is better than nothing at all. And we all grow accustomed to that convenience. Years may go by without another realizing the hollowness of the relationship. I think I’ve just become very cynical about this kind out things. Sometimes I look at my dad and mom, and think: do they really still love each other as much? What happened to that wild passion that is supposed to exist in every relationship? or does convenience prevail? Maybe the husband wakes up in the morning and feels absolutely nothing for the woman sleeping by his side, but nevertheless continues in his life because of the convenience of having the wife around to look after the kids, of having an outlet for his sexual needs so readily available? Maybe the man just thinks that he needs to do his minimal in order to have someone by his side when he is old and cannot easily attract female companionship anymore. Maybe we’ll never end up with someone we truly love, because love takes effort and receiving unconditional love, even from someone you might not like, is better than having to put in so much effort every day of the relationship. I don’t know. I recall the times when I was with this girl, but couldn’t stop thinking of this other girl, and I couldn’t bear to break things up with the girlfriend because of the convenience of the relationship, because of the immense effort to stop one relationship and start another one again, even though I probably loved the other girl more. I recall choosing one girl over the girl I really liked because of a stupid one night incident, because one relationship seemed to require a lot less effort than the other one. That’s why I admire the courage that Ennis and Jack has I guess, because they were willing to take the path of most resistance to hold on to the love they had.

thoughts about Katrina

2005-12-11T23:21:00.000-05:00

I hope that when disaster strikes Singapore, things will be much better managed than the atrocities of Katrina. I hope that when shit hits the fan, we have capable leaders able to address pressing concerns and needs.

I was studying today when I (finally) decided to explore some of the free podcast subscriptions available on the apple website. And one of them is the free online video podcast, Democracy Now!, an independent political current affairs program. As I watched the latest episode, I was so disturbed and stirred by the events related that I felt I had to write something here, to get my emotions out of the system, in the hope that I can help to promote the issues that concern the victims.

This latest edition focused on the victims of Hurricane Katrina. I’m sure everyone knows a little bit about the tragedy, and the implications on the environment and how inept the federal government has been in responding to the victims’ aid. But all the white noise about America’s use of torture, about the extraction of American troops from Iraq, about President W. Bush’s visit to China and its implications, and so many other news have drowned out the cry for help for many of the victims of the hurricane still suffering from the effects of Katrina. The episode highlighted a congressional hearing by the House of Representatives on the issue of the influence of class and race in Hurricane Katrina Relief; how the black victims were left behind in the area while white Americans and tourists were picked out from the crowds for extraction first; how the lack of water and food in the days immediately after the hurricane struck brought on partly by the late aid provided by FEMA resulted in the deaths of hundreds; how the military was given the “shoot to kill” order in an area where the history of blacks being ruthlessly persecuted has been very prominent; how soldiers took photos of the victims (almost all black, since anyone of any other color has been evacuated) while they did nothing to help them; how the people left behind are mostly poor, black people as the rich ones have already gotten aid; and many more. In this day and age, of course I am wise enough not to be swayed by one-sided stories. So many publications, so much of the media has been tainted with allegiance with political bias that the term trustworthiness doesn’t really apply to most of the members of the media anymore (the New York Times anyone?) that doesn’t, however, negate the relevance and honesty of the personal experiences related at the congressional hearing I’ve seen. Given the track record of this administration’s need to cover up past mistakes and proven false evidence when needed, pardon me if I bear a certain bias into thinking that the administration has indeed committed grievous errors here.

I really don’t know how Americans can continue to be proud that they are from the “land of the free and the home of the brave” when day in and day out, they are being lied to by their leaders, people of their same nationality are suffering due to negligence from the government, and how racism is so deeply ingrained in their lives even though everyone seems to be very good at covering it up now. I just hope that being a Singaporean doesn’t bring on these similar connotations at any point in my living existence.

Ironic Enviromentalist

2005-11-18T17:09:00.000-05:00

first of all, I have to apologize for leaving out some names in the previous post. in the heated moment at the time of writing, obviously i wasn't thinking very clearly, and left out some friends who have certainly given me some flak for it. well i just gotta say, if you're my good friend, sure you'd forgive me for leaving you out?

was sitting in my Chinese politics class last night when an obvious irony struck me. The professor was talking about nationalism then, and how in times of crisis, political leaders often resort to fanning the flames of nationalism to distract the public from domestic issues, as well as garner political support in a short period of time, something crucial in most democratic regimes, where policies are mostly self-serving and aimed at maintaining office than the long term welfare of the state. As my American classmates snigger at the examples raised, such as China, Taiwan and Japan, I wonder whether they actually notice that they are laughing at themselves too; the call to arms "for democracy" by President George W. Bush has stirred feelings of nationalism not seen in this land since the days of the American Revolution, masking other obvious domestic problems such as the management of the welfare system, to rising medical costs, to the lack of control of greenhouse gas emissions, to the shady internal workings of the current Administration, as well as the low standards of public education. Many other important issues loom on the horizon, yet time and again the war on terror dominates front pages, banishing other issues close to the hearts of the Americans to oblivion.

Attending Former Vice-President, Mr. Al Gore’s presentation on campus around 3 weeks ago has got to be one of the most definitive things I’ve done in a long while. His presentation is nothing but a plea to the civil consciousness of the American public, to educate them about the undeniable fact that carbon dioxide emissions are one of the world’s leading contributors to global warming, a fact taught to us Singaporeans in Secondary School, but apparently deemed by the American Congress as “unscientific”. The stunning visuals and facts presented whetted my appetite for more. For the past few weeks I’ve devoted a fair share of time and effort into researching this problem, and the more I discover, the more guilt I feel about not knowing more about the extent of the damage we have inflicted onto the environment before. It really is time we take action. If you’re reading this, I urge you to find out more about this issue, and how we all can take necessary actions to prevent further damage from occurring.

a nationalistic, tree hugging me?

2005-11-18T15:10:00.000-05:00

just wanted to say that in the heat of the moment of writing the previous post, i left out some ppl in the list of close friends. esp need to mention Tze Xiang, who offered to help so much when my family had financial problems. of course i got some flak from them. but yea if u're my gd friend then u'd pardon my errors right? my apologies.... =)

was in my Chinese politics class yesterday night when something that the professor mentioned occured to me to be extremely ironical. She was discussing the issue of Nationalism, and how the Tianamen Square incident and subsequent incidents stirred feelings of Nationalism in China. Leaders will resort to evoking such sentiments during times of crisis to gain public support, often masking severe domestic problems in the process. As my American classmates giggled at the examples of Taiwan, China, Malaysia and others, it struck me as deeply ironic that they did not realise that their own President resorted to such political tactics during 9-11. The "us-against-them" mentality had never been this prevalent and pervasive in the American society since the American Revolution. Read an article recently about how exactly this mentality has given many a legitimate excuse to stir racial discrimination all over again. Americans are once again cast into different stereotypes: White Americans, Hispanic Americans (who, by offering to work before minimal wage, is stirring anti-Mexican sentiments along the American border), Muslim (or as it's pronounced here, Muss-lim) Americans, and more. The irony comes a full circle finally, with the land of the free suffering racial tensions within while embarking on a mission to democratize the world. And such nationalism arising within America allows many policy deficiencies to

I was, and still am, deeply struck by the presentation given by former Vice-President Al Gore about three weeks ago. His was a plea to the average citizen to conserve the enviroment, and an initiative to educate the public about the undeniable fact that carbon dioxide emissions are the main cause of global warming. A fact taught to those of us in Singapore at the secondary school level, but one that which is deemed to be "unscientific" in Congress. Mr. Gore has stirred a certain "tree hugging syndrome" in me, and I have delved (in whatever spare time i have) into this issue to learn more. And the more i learn, the more guilt i feel about buying a car that has a 2.3 litre capacity, although of course the mitigation factor is that it's a Honda and therefore will take me a longer distance than, say, a certain white Dodge tin-can? If' you're reading this, I urge you too to investigate this issue on your own, and the startling (often shocking) discoveries along the way should kick you into some form of reaction.

back to good, really

2005-11-01T10:21:00.000-05:00

hello blog, it's been eons since i last updated here. maybe i haven't had the time, nor the energy, to write here; maybe nothing interesting happened that is woth writing here about. the story of you has been the story of every one of my friends so far.

i kind of had an epiphany last night. i call it a jerry mcguire moment. it's a moment when you realise that the cosy cocoon that you surround yourself in is really nothing. like the egg shell that is insubstantial and cracks at the merest instance of pressure. jerry broke down, grew a conscience, and wrote a memo. i'm not that great; i'm just going to confide my feelings in you.

confiding my feelings in someone; that's the greatest oxymoron in my life, if there ever is one. i guess i kind of knew it subconsciously all along, but it took these words from my friend through our conversation last night to really start me thinking:

you're a guy people like around, but they would never want you as a good friend or good boyfriend even, because you always seem so aloof, and never really seem like you want to commit into any friendships/relationships. you want ppl to like you, and they do, but you end up alienating the close friends you had because of your need to be nice to everyone else.

ouch, you say. strong words, but i value these words because i think they are really true. that's why i say that your story has been the story of all my friends; at first you're novel, and i put in a lot of effort in you. i write a lot of funny stories and anecdotes because i want you, and everyone else, to think that i'm funny, and thus like me. i got bored of you after a while, when i thought nothing interesting could happen again, and chucked you to rot in cyberspace. i never made the effort to come back to see how you were, and caused your flooble chatterbox to expire. and now i come crying back to you, expecting you to take me back when i finally realise that i've done you wrong, but you've moved on in your life and i realise i've lost forever a close friend that i once had.

yes, i have an intense need to be liked by everyone. i guess it stemmed from how i was brought up; i was the top boy in my pri school for 6 whole years. teachers and classmates liked me; it seemed i could do no wrong. throughout secondary school and junior college i'm the one person in class who would straddle the two factions in the class, out of my need to be liked by people from both sides and not antagonise anyone, and i end up not being close friends with anyone from any side because of my bipartisan behavior. back home, i guess i was pampered more by my parents than my sister because i've done better in my studies and life thus far. i hate to hear when anyone has anything against me; there's this pristine image that i have to upkeep of myself. in crowds i must be the funny guy, the guy everyone says hi to, but no one knows anything that's going on in his mind because his imperfections cannot be revealed.

i've had people whom i was close to in my life before; eddie, kangming, wilson and boon hooi during my secondary school days. ray, kenneth and zongbo as well. chun hao, murli, devan and kenneth from the nj soccer team. adeline, leo yun and emily from first 3 months in njc. kian yong and jason from 99s14. chongmeng and chun kiat and the gcb bunch. dexter. my brother alvin koh. even peilan, shujun and weiqiang from pri sch days. amelia from our 2 yr relationship. ellyn, who is someone i can always talk to. my buddy xi qian, and louis from ocs. and here in michigan, i'm glad to say that i've a brother in tommy. and a good friend in hongye and jiaying. these are people that i've shared good memories with, and at times been confident enough to reveal some of my vulnerabilities. i considered them very good friends, but somehow along the way, through no fault of theirs, we always drifted apart. it has always been my fault; everything i move to a new environment, like from secondary sch to jc, or from singapore to michigan, i've always been too engrossed in the new ppl and the new things that i've neglected the people whom i've been close with before. before long, it's too late to recover anything from the friendship. close friends drifting apart to mere platonic friends. that's something that you can never click "undo" and return to old ways. like adeline told me last night, i can always go on like that, and maybe have a lot of "surface" friends in the future, or get down and dirty and really do something about the people i care about. i never commit in a friendship or relationship. it's just like how i broke up with amelia because the last one and a half years of our relationship was a torture to her because i simply took her for granted. or the other girls that i've dated since then who eventually saw through who i really am, this person who's so defensive about his image that he reveals nothing about himself, that they decided on the better option of not being with me.

i am really thankful for all that adeline told me last night. the 1 1/2 hour conversation really tore me apart because a close friend really bothered to tell me what's wrong with me. some ppl go through their whole lives without anyone bothering to tell them their mistakes/flaws. at the age of 23, i guess it's really not too late to do anything about this. all i really want is to get things back to good, and for good this time.

enlargement operation?

2005-08-18T00:05:00.000-04:00

ok here's a funny joke we thought about while having our ocore meeting yesterday. i mean, it just means we weren't very productive right? anyhow, i've left out the first 2 lines of this joke, and placed them after the joke ends. you'd see why.

J: ok i figured this is the best way to get the hot girls. afterall, they are really attracted to guys who can swing it with confidence.

T: ok whatever you say J. the most important thing, contrary to popular belief, when it comes to this sort of thing, is the grip. gotta be long, firm and good. not too thick, or it's hard to grasp; not too thin, or you can't grab anything.

J: will this do? (shows a big O).

T: perfect! next, you gotta decide if you want a really big head. if the head's too big, its awkward, it looks funny, and you might even scare a few people. if it's too small, you might as well not hit (on) anything at all.

J: ok i think i'll get the one with the really big head, as well as some balls to go along. i mean, who plays without the balls?

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J: hey T, i need some help buying a tennis racket.

T: why?
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2 weeks and 2 days left

2005-08-15T13:09:00.000-04:00

2 weeks and 2 days left before i head back to ann arbor, this time for more than a year i think. don't think i will be returning next year; gonna do spring term, and hopefully try to do an internship somewhere. somehow, the thought of leaving this time is not as gut wrenching as it was the other time. this time last year, i was busy seeking to close up things/relationships with ppl here b4 i leave; as paulo coelho out it, i was seeking "closures" to things here before i move on to new beginnings in ann arbor. this time wrong, the need to 'close' things isn't as great. maybe i din not really open up new things when i came back; or rather, i chose to believe that things will always remain the same over here. friends will always remain friends, family will be just as i left them the previous year, and so on. call me naive, but this allows the heart to be more at peace with itself.

p.s. go read 'the zahir' if you haven't. it's pretty decent, but pales much in comparison with his other previous works.

Supper Hunt and what nots...

2005-08-15T09:59:00.000-04:00

ok, it may sound really egoistic that i am talking about an event that i organised; i beg to differ however. jus wanted to express some thoughts of mine.

i think supper hunt is the best UMSSA event that i've attended thus far. and it's not because i was the one who organised it; rather, i believe events become great because of the ppl who participate in it, and fortunately i had a bunch of very enthusiastic ppl turn up on sat.

we went from east coast park to lau pa sat, then on to foong seng for prata and nasi lemak. went hit holland villlage and takashimaya, where we enjoyed a ride through orchard in the wee hours of the day. then we moved to selegie, where we wanted to have some of the fabled tau huey, but couldn't becuase they were closed. then we headed to the kopitiam by bras besah, but couldn't cos they had a blackout (what a coincidence!!) we then headed to newton, where i think everyone had quite good chicken wings and stingrays and other stuff. after newton, we decided enough was enough, we're going to head back to ECP. and we stopped at bedok jetty, where the sun rose but chose to deprive us of his beauty. and at bedok jetty we ended out quest for supper and fed our fetish to cycle the night through.

the only regret i have is that only two freshies turn up. well, maybe it's too harsh to call it a regret, because i'm sure they had better things to do. but it's kinda disheartening to put so much effort into something and not see some rewards. just as the sentosa thing we had on thurs, which was totally awesome btw. i think its a transitional phase that we'll get by. at least i hope.

i just wanna thank the following ppl for making supper hunt possible: chun tat and charles for covering safety in their vehicles; tommy and chee chian for making sure everyone got through in one piece; liangjing, vera, nansi, jorney, leslie, kai ping, lester, huanxi, winston, eric, jaron, stephanie, ted, kaizhen, qunya, lemuel, kenneth, joanne and mingcheng for turning up, and not complaining about the distance and the choice of supper places. reallu hope to pull this off next year, and for years on end after that. cheers everyone, and thanks again!

four scores and seven years ago

2005-07-29T21:34:00.000-04:00

that's how long it has been since i last updated this page. while i blogged regularly back in ann arbor, i seem to be distracted by so many other things back here in sg. perhaps i'll resume my blogging habits when i return to AA.

i really don't understand what is this fuss about blogs. no, i do not agree that they are simply "online diaries"; i see it as another avenue for ppl to express themselves, and of course make the occasional big buck off them. i read in marvel at the bloggers' forum held a couple of weeks back; ppl have become instant celebrities because of the things they wish to say/expose online (full pun intended of course). well, i always thought that only intellectual thought is valued; these days it seems whatever rubbish ppl post online is read as closely as the Bible. not to say that i've anything against bloggers, since i fully appreciate the fact that i am one myself. but perhaps the cult status we accord them leans slightly on the side of ridicule.

i think this phenomenon ties in with how people value trash-talk, gossip and scandals in general. talk to the average guy on the street, and he may not know who Joseph Stiglitz is, or Alan Greenspan for that matter; he is, however, able to regurgitate the latest tabloid headlines for you. how ironic that given the supposed increase in knowledge capital created by the advert of the internet, we find that the only tangible gain for the lay person is the wider access to global gossip. so now we don't only read about singaporean trash in the papers, we sit at the computer and read about someone else's trash from halfway around the globe.

everyone is a blogger nowadays. and how popular your blog is depends on how juicy, or in the rare cases, how intellectual ppl value what you have to say. perhaps its a reflection of the persona one wishes to project; some ppl might be of a certain social status and occupation, and thus cannot air his dirty linen in public, or be too outspoken on sensitive issues. after all, no one wants to become the next "a*star", if you know what i mean. others possess a truly devil may care attitude, embracing the notoriety and infamy that comes along with each depressing expose about oneself.

me? i choose to err on the side of caution. perhaps i see myself belonging to the former. or perhaps i will be more daring come sept, when i return, and i don't really have to face the ppl i write about here in sg. who knows? i could be the next "online bitch", haa i.e. bark with nothing substantial to say. hoo hoo

sat, 11th june 2005, 07:00pm

2005-06-11T06:58:00.000-04:00

phew! just finished about 4 hours of work on the project. project that i'm doing pertains, of course, to my work in G1-army. what did i do today? well i tried to fill my my income tax form at revenue house at novena, but failed, because i was 5 min too late. darn. bought some books from the MPH at novena square, and visited the adidas warehouse sale. that has got to be the skankiest hellhole of a factory outlet. absolutely nothing at all, peanuts compared to birch run back in AA. anyhow, proceeded to army mkt at beach road to buy my no.3 name tag, which of course i lost at queensway shopping centre while accompanying amelia on her shoe shopping trip. w0nder whether she bought the pair of pink gola shoes that she eyed but did not buy because of the lack of smaller sizes.

came to the scotts coffee bean (yes ocore guys, i m here again, this has got to be my fave haunt now) to work on my project. arse has rotten from sitting here. interestingly, this is a very good 'people-watching' place. my spot is fabulous, right in one corner of the joint, but with a great view of everyone here. its very intriguing to observe ppl's coffee drinking habits. i've divided them into a few categories:

1. 'in-n-out!' - coffee bean must love these ppl. basically, they come in, buy their drinks, gulp it down in like 5 minutes, and they're gone. they don't even last the whole duration of 'don't mess with my man' (which i'm listening to on my ipod). somehow i wonder whether they've somewhere more important to go to. ahh the typical singaporean isn't it? always in a bloody rush, that's what we are?

2. 'bloody misers' - these are the exact opposite of the fore mentioned category. and i admit (unabashedly) that i am one of them too. they come in, buy one cheap-ass drink, and sit their ass down for the next god-knows how many hours. haa, at least i'm not that cheap; i got myself the newest belgian chocolate drink, which is of course pretty good, but has given my the runs for the last 2 hours. had to ask the various couples sitting beside me (both couples are 'in-n-out' types) to 'jaga' my computer for me as i proceeded to flush my system downstairs. lucky they're 'in-n-out' types, or else ppl will start to wonder at the alarmingly high rate at which i visit the gents.

3. 'the extravagant' - these ppl have the monies and they don't hesitate to flaunt it. this couple in front of me must have bought a slice of every available version of cheesecake they have on offer. 2 people, 10 slices of cheesecake, u do the math. wondered for a while if they would donate one slice to the poor soul sitting beside them who's sipping from the drink he bought 3 hours ago. of course they din. finished every scrap of cake, those gluttons. darn.

4. 'the father-son or mother-daughter' - these people are the most interesting. somehow they must have been on a family trip, and abandoned by the family members from the other gender (can't be help, GSS is still on). dad and son sit there in complete silence, while the mother-daughter will yak away about their fabulous bargain-buys, as well as plan their route-of-advance. note the militant-like terminology. these ladies are vultures; they plan with more detail than i've seen brigade commanders have. they leave no corner of orchard unturned, and calculate (with alarming percision) the time they need to spend in each outlet. i almost kow-towed to them (sitting beside me) had i not stopped myself in time.

5. 'the couple' - ahhh, for these ppl, staring into each other's eyes is definitely more important and the drinks in front of them. whispering sweet nothings to each other is a norm of course. a variant of this is the silent couple, whom i sense hate each other's guts (why did you have to take so long at that shop? you know i'm tired yet still continue to shop!) but somehow find it palatable to sit opposite each other at the small-ass tables they have in coffee bean. which of course i would know because my laptop, notes, as well as stationery, can hardly fit on the puny table top.

ok, gotta go for my dinner appointment with the s14 people. bet they're all late. let me see what i can get from the adidas sale. ciao.

p.s. incidentally, i think the usage of 'ciao' is very passe, but unless someone finds a better alternative for me in english, i am unbashedly passe then.

sun, 5th of june, 11:50pm

2005-06-04T04:50:00.000-04:00

feel like i accomplished a lot this week. at work, i became the excel sheet expert. pivot tables, formulae, pie charts, auto-filters, everything and anything to do with numbers and categories, i'm the man! also taking over this huge project from my superior, who is going on a 3 week holiday to vegas. taking over when its the first phase of implementation. hell of a lot of work ahead, but hey its good learning man! at home, i set up this new workout corner in my room, with my own pull up bar and mat. for school, had meetings this week with ssa and orientation comittees. good progress on all grounds. things are good.

at the same time, i've prob spent the worse saturday of my life yesterday. met alvin after my o core meeting at bishan. he was awfully late, so i hacked away at my computer at the delifrance for half an hour. anyway, when he arrived, he told me one thing: "jiayong, hey let's go to your place to watch some tv tonight at 8pm". i was shocked! man, how can he expect me to stay home on a sat night? anyway, he clarified "it's to watch pu wei zi ye (econ mini mart show)". i din know at the time whether to laugh my ass off or be shocked at his chee-na-ness. anyhow, it turns out that some of his friends are competiting in this shaolin-wu tang clan-wu lin da hui thing. haaaa. hip hop dancers dancing on a chinese variety show that caters to an audience who don't appreciate hip hop dancing at all. muaahaahaaa. on top of that, they had a couple of really unqualified judges. first up, ramesh, this indian dude whom they din not even present his credentials for. up next, huang biren, whose knowledge of hip hop dancing is a source of great wonder for me. last, they had one of the twelve girl band ladies as judge. haaa. talk about unqualified judges. anyhow, so we watched the really horrible show, played some winning eleven (alvin took my disc and my controoler of course), then had supper with tze xiang, whom i've never really had the chance to meet since coming back. definitely one of my more boring saturdays since coming back. but laughing our asses off while reminiscing about cat high days was a blast. enough said.

thur, 2th june, 8:17pm

2005-06-02T08:17:00.000-04:00

am i tired or what!?? spent the whole day crunching numbers... that means staring at the excel worksheet, figuring out what formulae goes where, what numbers to input, and what charts and tables to create. learnt a new thing today. pivot tables: yea! that's like the most amazing thing ever. well i cant really say what i'm working on now, but its safe to say that it'll influence the army in the years to come. now that's what i call important work! :)

attended jonathan's (alvin's friend) birthday bash at cocco latte with alvin ten and lucas. man, it was back to the good ol' jc days. i mean, its pretty rare for ppl my age to throw birthday bashes anymore. anyways, so we were there at 10:30pm, because someone thought that entrance before 11pm was $10. well, it is, and for good reason: the place was half-empty when we entered. now now that's not to say that cocco latte is a lousy place though; its pretty awesome, with a bloody cosy dancefloor, mega-loud music and a cute toilet downstairs to boot. anyhow, the three of us felt like fools for turning up in the first place.

we thought things would turn for the better when they opened the dancefloor upstairs. no, it seems like someone was playing an awfully cruel joke when the whole place was filled with GUYS. as alvin correctly put it, its almost a 'sausage fest'. haa! disappointed, lucas and myself got a couple of drinks to make the most of what we thought was a wasted night. met a few friends, but nothing much to shout about.

things really got going at 12 though. unnoticed to all of us, the dance floor filled up. must have been the great hip hop that they were playing the whole night. pretty soon we got in the mood too. but alas, i gotta get to work early today, so we decided to leave at 1. went back downstairs, and played a very stupid round of big two with alvin's friend. i promptly lost and had to pay a forfeit, which was to ask some girl for some number. i did, but was totally embarassed when alvin's friend exposed me by saying that i was paying a forfeit. she just couldn't be cool, could she!?? irritated, we decided to leave. ruefully. haa.

incidentally, i'm actually home early today!! gonna go run later, maybe finish some fixing up my room like i've always wanted to do. gtg. laters.

sun, 29th may, 10:29am

2005-05-29T10:28:00.000-04:00

in a car ride home, my superior recently asked me about how i felt about prime minister koizumi's statement about his visit to the Yasukuni Shrine. here's how i feel:

1. show of power: the fact that japan is currently seeking support to gain a permanent seat on the UN security council, yet still show that they can afford to alienate chinese support, says a lot about its (perceived) foreign policy superiority.

2. antithetical position to china: china is a rising super power. the us views china as a 'a strategic competitior'. japan is a strategic ally of the states. it is probably the only country in asia now capable of maintaining an antithetical position to china. the UN is largely controlled by the US. thus, japan's standing up to china may actually aid it's cause for securing (pardon the pun) a position on the security council.

3. strong leader: mr koizumi cannot afford to risk his political career and go down in infamy as the japanese leader that abandoned 'japanese imperialism' and bow to external demands.

more comments on the matter, pls.

sat, 28th may, 12:27am

2005-05-27T12:26:00.000-04:00

ok i gotta remove all the music i have on my personal umich space because i got some complains from the sch... haaa.... no more music on my blog.... :(

wed, 25th may, 9pm

2005-05-25T10:48:00.000-04:00

sitting at changi terminal two right now. parents coming back from their trip to china. 1 week. i wonder where they could've possibly visited? funny guy sitting beside me, hacking away at his sundae. keeps peering over to see what i'm typing. maybe he's hoping to get lucky and see some porn??! i hope he reads this and chokes on his stoopit sundae...

awwwww man, clubbing tonight is cancelled! stoopit tommy cant make it. sigh, shall resign myself to researching about grad school courses at home instead. yea, checking up 3 courses: masters in public policy, masters of arts in applied economics, and masters of science in industrial operations engineering. hah. greedy, ain't i?

supposed to help my boss do some research about the australian defence force, as well as find out as much as possible what 'balanced scorecard' is all about. yea, somehow i think after that first presentation i did about matrix organization, he now regards me as his 'internet' expert. muahaahaaa. trust an arts student to know the most efficient way to find stuff on the internet to put in his paper. we are the masters of illicit plagarisation (as if there is any other kind).

meeting kaizhen and qunya to discuss the venues for orientation tomm. funny thing is that i will be going in my uniform! ahhh... now that's taboo... wearing your uniform to town... its social suicide. the amount of stares and shuffling away from you is embarassing to say the least. what am i going to do??!!!

where are my parents? i have been hackign away at my laptop for the last half an hour and they are still not here yet. hah bet they'll be totally surprised that i'm actually here. they'd prob think that i'll be out clubbing today (seeing that it's wed). hey, i'm filial ok!!! haaa... if only they knew the truth...

shucks... forgot to ask me dad to get moi a bottle of the finest tequila DFS can offer... now now what am i supposed to give to chongmeng for his birthday? geez... how forgetful of me.
alrighty, there's a hot girl sitting opposite me... shall go talk to her... wish me luck!!

Monday, 23rd May, 3:50pm

2005-05-23T03:49:00.000-04:00

just got home from soccer with the cat high guys this morning. once again the weekend draws to a close. and what a long weekend it is. time to take a break from the seemingly endless mundane office work that completely occupies the weekdays. although i like what i am doing now, in mindef, part of me cant seem to break away from the counting down syndrome. 2 weeks down. 12 more weeks to go before i am done with work, and fly back to ann arbor. isn't it ironical that i want my vacation attachment to end, but i dun want to go back to AA just yet? sigh... one of life's numerous paradoxes...

sunburnt!!! 3 consecutive days of basking in the glorious sun... with no rain at all! that's the summer i'm talking about... rain just brings so much gloom that it's hard to be optimistic about anything.

now ladies ladies... pls come forth and educate this dumb ignorant fool. forgive me when i am wrong, but when u look at us and smile, isn't that a "passport" for us guys to come talk to you? haaa i guess singaporean girls are indeed strange... ok maybe exotic would be a better word. but after all the eye contact and what-nots, the things you do to put us off/push us away is funny and indeed food for thought. case in point:

guy dancing without a care. girl and friend (partner?) brush their way through the crowd and plonk themselves beside guy. constantly bumps into guy. looks and smiles at guy. guy says hi. girl pulls out a tissue paper from her purse and dabbles herself furiously. guy, amused, takes it as a sign of non-ccompliance and leaves.

ok, if u thought the guy is case is me, well you're wrong. it happened to my pal tommy recently. we had a good laugh about it. tissue paper??? maybe she was afraid that her sweat would ruin her makeup. but what a way to blow a guy off (by blowing her nose??). i mean, if u don't want to talk to the guy, just say u're not interested. we're not obnoxious enough to labour the point. ladies don't understand the huge amount of courage we need to muster to walk across the bar to make conversation. haa so don't make it more painful than it already is!

had an awesome dinner with some of the s14 fellows. no matter how long is has been since we last met, there's always something to talk about, some joke to laugh at (usually at my expense of course), some fond memory to recall. but the 4 yrs' seem too short and burstling with new experiences to be fully appreciated. maybe its only because i feel old. but everyone is embarking on different adventures now. wilson is starting sch in nus this august. zhuyi is still struggling to make the grade against the chinese scholars in ntu. yaojin is with me in umich. kok seng is exploring his sexuality (by attending a "male bonding session" with 3 other guys... hah). huiying is going to japan to try become a commerical artist. jiayi is a few months into her marketing job. leoyun has unexplanable relations with her boss at work. ade is still doing her phd. emily is in full-time prayer now. i wonder how what we'll become when we're 30.

shall stop here. gotta go catch some ZZzzzss....

Thurs, 12th May, 4:25am

2005-05-18T16:25:00.000-04:00

just reached home. tonight, i was reminded of why i hated mambo night so much. phuture was all-right, but it was simply too crowded!!! and mambo night was just... horrible... hate the synchronised dancing, hate the smug look on the faces of the people who think they with it because they know the hand signals (are they all deaf or something??). and clubbing here is just so different from back in ann arbor. ladies come surrounded by their guy friends, who cast positively daggers of hatred at every guy who happens to be somewhere near the area that is in the proximity of the lady they accompanied. pardon me my friend, but if you're not up to it, at least dun hate me for having it.

posting an entry now because i don't want to fall asleep and end up oversleeping. have to leave the house at 6:15am if i wish to get to work on time. this wed-sat night thing shall be routine from now on. it relieves the boredom of working 5 days straight, and keeps the weeks really short. mondays and tuesdays are spent waiting for wed to come, and thurs and fri waiting for sat to come. hah. sunday is basically spent recuperating from watever physical activity i undertook within the week.

my parents are leaving for china later today for a week-long trip. have the house all to myself! isn't it awesome?? needless to say, i am already planning wat to do for the weekend. shall keep these plans to myself though, lest they fall thru and i'd be accused of making empty statements here. hah. but grandeur plans they are, rest assured.

embarking on a trip to genting and kl with gcb late june. although it wasn't the hiking/backpacking trip i envisioned it to be, it's good; i get to be with my friends for four whole days. not to mention take a break from my vacation attachment.

have you ever heard the word pedagogical? honestly, laugh at me if u want, i've only heard the word recently. from my boss. apparently its a SAF word. well, my boss is a SAFOS, but still, everyone of my colleagues have heard it before. damned. it's a SAF word, just like concur. yes, alvin , my level 503 friend, told us last year that 'concur' is a SAF word. well, i dunno how the people are like in ammo base, but i certainly know what it was before i enlisted. enough said. maybe different people from different camps speak differently. i shall embark on a study to find out more.

i've wasted only 20 mins. damned. 40 more minutes before i have to 'wake up' and go to work. it will be a long, long day. wish me luck.

sun, 15th of may, 7:39am

2005-05-14T19:39:00.000-04:00

man, i forgot how good the clubbing scene is over here. china black last night was furr-inneeeee. if we suffered from a lack of pretty asian girls back in michigan, yesterday we had an overdose. enough said. heng and tommy: same time, same place, next week?

p.s. it always seems to rain when i want to go outdoors for soccer. idiot.

sat, 14th of may, 6:30pm

2005-05-14T06:26:00.000-04:00

typing an entry on my blog in the middle of my bus trip home. from the orientation meeting. this is how packed my days are. don't really have time to sit down at home to do anything properly. weekdays are spent working, and commuting, to and fro from mindef. after reaching home at 9, i hardly and capable of dragging myself out of the house to do anything. and i fall asleep at 11 because of sheer exhuastion and the dreaded anticipation of waking up at 5 30 the next morning. i was so glad that fri finally came. finally managed to drag myself down to town to have dinner with alvin. visited him at his workplace: the grammaphone at OUB plaza. damned, i forgot how hot the office ladies are. i lament everyday that i will never be able to work with these fine ladies ( the DXOs don't count!!)

accomplished a few things today: shifted the furniture in my room around to create a small working out place; had a pretty fruitful orientation commitee meeting; as well as bought some computing stuff for the home network that, if i don't get down to doing, no one else in the house would be bothered to tinker with. and that sux because everything is breaking down, and i'm a total klutz when it comes to this sort of thing. i guess the only plus out of today is that i'll be having dinner with gcb guys later in town. and going to chinablack later. ironically, after complaining for 8 months about the poor state of the clubs in ann arbor, i haven't visited any clubs ever since touching down. can't wait for later.

got into a pretty interesting discussion at work with another colleague. we are working on a project about human resource management. a particular topic cropped up: what is the motivation and attractiveness of engaging in a military career? current circumstances and trends will probably result in a decrease in the number of talented individuals interested in joining the military. my colleague made a comment that the only reason why people join the organization is because they are unable to get better offers and opportunities elsewhere. aside from safos and sms, which are designed to be more attractive than the other scholarshipws around on offer to the graudating 'a' level graduates, it seems, to him, that talent recruited from other avenues are, to put it crudely, 'second grade'.

how am i to refute this? as a member of this organization, i cannot deny the fact that some of my colleagues in the organization are here because they got rejected elsewhere. and that some of them are here perhaps to take advantage of the superior financial benefits of this job compared to others in the civil service. but i want to believe that there are other talented and motivated individuals out there who truly want to play an important role here, whether as a proxy to something better elsewhere, or to eventually play an influential role in policies and doctrine development in the latter stages of their military careers. i find it frustrating how people are often skeptical, even cynical at times, about the military. true, i cannot deny that this organization has its deficiencies. the fact that we are a conscript army only serves to provide avenues to air our dirty laundry to the public. more often that not, the average joe on the street has misgivings about his nsf experience, because of a under-performing superior on the job, or the inefficiencies of training and work planning. working where i am now, i am beginning to see the bigger picture. i am in an organization, that because of the size we need to maintain and the limitations posed by the small population, has to at times prefer quantity over quality. but rest assured; the organization is not 'screwed up'. i take heart at the fact that the people at the top, the policy-makers, are constantly looking forward to ways and means to improve the organization. if an organization is judged based on its management, then i can safely say that ours is an execellent one. the general negative public view of the organization is attributed to the fact they most of them are not involved in work at the higher levels, thus they are

a) unable to see the holistic perspective,
b) working with regulars stuck at the bottom of the chain due to the lack of sufficient capability.

what can be changed? the situation is bleak, but not unmanageable. the only way we can improve is to continue recruiting the top talent, while at the same time streamlining our functions and structure so that there is no need to hire for the sake of filling positions. and this can be achieved. i believe some day the image of the organization will improve. and it needs to improve, for the defence of our nation rests solely upon its capability and deterrence.

tues, 10th of may, 9:55am

2005-05-10T09:55:00.000-04:00

i am damn busy. damn, damn, damn busy. work is tiring. and boring. and taxing. wearing uniform to work everyday sucks. having no transport of my own sucks. working overtime sucks. having to wake up at 5:30am everyday sucks. i think i shall update properly on sat. meanwhile, i shall go ZZzzzzz.......

Sun, 8th of May, 2:48am

2005-05-07T14:48:00.000-04:00

regained consciousness about 10 minutes ago. weird. felt extremely tired today. must be the culmulation of many days of odd-hour sleeping from the jet lag. i don't think i've gotten over it though; finding myself awake at such an odd hour is evidence indeed.

let me introduce to you guys Dexter. yes, if you haven't noticed, i usually forgo all my caps for my letters, but Dexter's name has to be spelt properly you know. k kidding. He's a good friend of mine back from the shooting contingent days. he's so smart that he's going to cambridge to study geography this year. damned. you know, here i am, ego-inflated from 8 months of college studying, and along comes Dexter who deflates it totally. hah. i fall short of his expectations every time! sometimes i feel like if i want to meet up with him i should invest a few days beforehand to do extra "readings" so that i can keep up an intellectual conversation with him; he's just so well read! we were at kinokuniya yesterday, and there he was asking "have you read this book? how about this one? or that one?" and i was a sobbing wreck, because i replied with a muted "no" every single time. you should see the look on his face. a mixture of contempt and embarassment. sigh. i've been weighed, measured, and tested, and i have been found wanting.

caught an extremely funny show the other day. it's a german movie called "summer storm". basically, its about two bavarian boys who are very good friends. one likes.................. blah blah blah. who am i kidding. if you want to know what the show's about, go google it. all i'm interested in saying about the show is that aside from how it explores sexuality in a non-oppressive way (again, who am i kidding? go read a review if u're interested in a show), the highlight of the show has got to be this character called Anke. now, i don't know who the actress is because i ain't interested enough to go google her name (unlike a certain alvin koh), but wow. a true, genuine, heave-a-sigh-of-content wow. she's absolutely gorgeous, and her love for this other male lead went unrequited because he was gay. damned. how cruel. i felt so sorry for her. she got rejected simply because the guy couldn't stop "choking the chicken" at the thought of other guys. geez.

it's funny how, for 8 months, i've been longing for singaporean food, but it really doesn't turn out to be that good after all. case in point. i've been absolutely dreaming to eat prata, but when i sat down to eat it at fong seng the other day, it was that fantastic! the prata wasn't crispy enough, the curry sauce wasn't sweet and hot at the same time, the nasi lemak lacked that extra ooomph, the milo-dyno tasted a little too sweet for my liking. murphy's law at work. but anyhow, eating such "crappy food" is a lot better than the american junk. hah. (yes soofen, u'd have to bear with me for a while as i talk about singaporean food)

i simply forgot how hot it really is over here. what is up with the weather anyway? i want to play some soccer, and it pours like no tomorrow. i go out, and it's so hot that i am soaking wet simply from standing at amk mrt station waiting for the train to arrive. i am almost embarassed to get onto the train because i don't want to be "that guy". you know, the guy you stand 10-metres away from on the mrt because you think he stinks. yes, that guy. no i don't ever want to be him.

it really doesn't help that i've to wear my uniform to work every single day. plus i have to climb the irritating slope up to mindef every morning. i hate my work already. =(

you guys should go read chongmeng's blog if you are free. he's my buddy from nj. private peter peh is actually a shortened version of a nickname he had back when he was in medic school: private peter pussy peh. derived entirely due to his dying need ( at that time) to be cool and have 4 Ps to his name. haa. go read.

the song you're listening to now is matchbox twenty's live version of "if you're gone". stunning, isn't it?

thur, 5th of may, 5:23am

2005-05-04T17:22:00.000-04:00

i can't believe it!!

i got a A- for my southeast asian politics class.. and i thought i'd surely get a B in it! damn... those mugging days in east hall really paid off!

Wed, 4th of May, 2:09am

2005-05-03T13:56:00.000-04:00

the longest day in a long while. the 3rd of may. yes, its been a long time since i've felt like time toiled on for eternity as the clock hands labour on their slow crawl pass each other. sitting in my room now reflecting on the many things i did in the last 24 hours.

it started with the flight home from detroit. i left detroit at 3:30am, 2nd of may (singapore time), on a 12 hour flight to narita airport, tokyo. jonathan, weiyin and myself sat together. tried to watch "sin city" but my laptop battery gave out on us. watched "all because of winn-drixie" on the big screen. it wasn't that bad. the little kid's quite cute. a very weird guy sat in front of us. he sat at the window seat, but insists on climbing his way out onto the aisle instead of walking out properly. he'd stand on the arm rests and climb out. not to mention his ugly goatee. i woke up one time only to find that i drooled on the pillow and that the flight attendant was watching me, well, intently. not a very smart move, jy, not when she's so hot. hah. the personal lights on the flight were blown; i could not read a single thing on the whole damn 12 hr flight. looks like nwa just lost a customer.

narita was alright. bought a bottle of perfume for my sis. we went to the nwa lounge, was told in no certain terms that only gold members and business class flyers can use the lounge, and sat down anyway. we helped ourselves to the snacks and drinks, and left before they had a clue to what's going on. sweet.

the narita-sg flight was 7 hrs long, and i totally enjoyed myself. watched "coach carter" and half of "hotel rwanda" (half because i fell asleep halfway and woke up only because i had cramps in my legs and had to hobble to the toilets pretending to be using the loo when in fact i was doing stretching exercises in the loo...). the three of us were playing a totally ridiculous game of taking turns to ask dumb questions and giving dumb responses. totally fun.

touched down in sg only to find that my damn luggages were missing. stoopit mwa left them in detroit when the plane took off. geez. what ever happened to good service? as i speak, the luggages are on the way here. hopefully they din steal anything from my bags. well, maybe they stole all the presents i bought. (guys, if you're reading this, know that i DID buy you something, but it got stolen)

did i mention that i touched down at 2 am, and had to report to my unit at 0800hrs? yep... did jus that. the experience of wearing my no.4 army uniform at 7 am in the morning, taking the mrt to mindef is strangely liberating. i felt almost as if i haven't left the country at all. the early morning market buzz, the crowded buses and trains ( i died when i took the train... all those people going to city hall and raffles place... man do they look good in their suits! i was visibly impressed, but felt like hiding in a hole since i was in my uniform. they probably thought that i'm some stinky recruit booking into camp. gee...)

my boss took pity on me. and promptly asked me to take some leave to go rest at home. so i did. now i only have to report to work on monday. i can't wait to start though. the girls there are hot! muahaahaaa....

had lunch with my mum. visited my uncle with her after that. poor thing, my uncle. he has some sort of brain cancer and is now half the man he was. its a cruel joke to play on someone who used to be so strong. i feel as if life always seek to put these oxymorons in our lives.

had dinner with chongmeng, yok wee, zhikai and chunkiat at tiong bahru market just now. awesome. ate my fave beef kway teow, stingray, fried oysters and sugarcane drinks. yummy. it was really fun to meet up with them again. we'll be having dinner again this friday, since philandering alvin din turn up because of a hot date. damned.

and so it is. here and now. me typing away on the computer in anticipating on the champions' league game later. can't wait. in my first 24 hours here in sg i feel as if i've regained all that i lost in the 8 months that i was gone. love it. reminds me of the kit chan song. this indeed is home, truly.

Sat, 30th April, 2:22pm

2005-04-30T14:21:00.000-04:00

what a rush yesterday was!

rushing around to settle my administrative stuff before i fly off, transporting things to the storage area, buying presents for people back home. finally able to settle down for a breather. flying home tomorrow. finally. this past 8 months postively flew by. can't wait for fall term to start though. and it doesn't help that i've to report to my unit 7 hours after i touch down in singapore. where is the love?

been thinking hard about what i want to achieve for my education here in the states. well, all these thinking started basically with the realization that i can never hit a 3.8 gpa. and that sucks because the public policy masters program that i wanted to apply to has a 3.8 minimum. and they accept 4 students a year. i don't really feel optimistic about my chances there, hence i started thinking about what to do. and arrived at the conclusion that i shall pursue a double major in poltical science and economics, but a masters' degree in either economics or industrial engineering. kelvin gave me this advice while we had lunch at arby's yesterday. if the payscale is dependent on the masters' degree, and the payscale determines (partly) your success in the organization, then it's only wise to pursue the masters' instead of trying for something that i really like but impossible to attain. i guess that's it then. that's the plan for me now. have to do more research on the respective grad programs though.

ok, have to head to borders now.

Sat, April 30th, 12:56 am

2005-04-30T00:55:00.000-04:00

i will not be blackmailed!

sometimes people who know your darkest secrets will return to haunt you. you know, embarassing moments that you'd never want to be exposed? yes, somehow, your friends will know of them, and it turns up as a conversation topic at the worst possible times. i feel that at times friends are your worst enemies; i think they genuinely derive pleasure from your agony of embarassment, telling the whole world what you'd really want to be buried ten feet into the ground.

remember my crap in the pants incident i posted the last time? yea, i'm really glad none of my friends knew it then. or i might not be the guy i am now. i might have just ended up in woodbridge wrecked by the shame of, well, crapping my pants in school. no kidding.

which brings me to the point proper: no, i will not be blackmailed. i will not be forced to do something against my wishes just because u know something that i think shouldn't be told to the world. i think its better to tell the world myself then to face such uninvited agony. haa so here goes:

yes, i was a childhood michael jackson fan. yes, laugh all u want, you ignorant fools. i thought (and still think) his early music is pretty great, but the man/woman that he is now is sickly. anywayz, yes i've admitted to the one thing that has been a source of embarassment. let the world know now, and perhaps i shall cease to be teased.

it was the december holidays in 1995. i was in sec 1 then. (to all you then-pri 4 kids, boo hooo!) i remember that we had a pri-6 class outing. if you guys knew me back when i was in pri sch, i gotta tell you, i was HOT. ha. girls loved me (ok i don't what happened, so don't ask me for explanation for my current boohoo state). so there i was, young, pimply and innocent, trying all out to impressed my former classmates after a year in catholic high (best green shorts around town). cracking jokes, flirting with the girls, man was i on form. but then the tragic happened. the ego-deflator. the libido killer. the shame factor. i was running around like a madman and promptly crashed into a lamp post. yes, a lamp post. i was too busy trying to look suave after the crash and failed to notice the blood trickling down my forehead. when someone finally told me, i flipped out. became a sobbing, crying wreck. had to go get stiches on the head. all 4 of them. you can probably see the scar on my head now if u noticed. i was taught a good lesson not to act cool in front of girls. doesn't pay at all (hey mark u listening?). hah.

when i was in sec 3, i was in class 3s5 of catholic high. i had a bunch of madmen for classmates. in fact, i had madmen for classmates in 2s3, 3s5 and 4s5. seemed almost like someone up there was playing a cruel trick on me. because here's what they do for fun: they'll do something awful to me. like lock me up in the cupboard. pinch my nipples blue black ('whistle' anyone?). chase me around the school. give me a big fat wedgie. 3 times. a day. drag my ass around the classroom, turning my white shirt black. hey hey guys if you're reading this, i forgive you. i know i was nice and popular and you showed your affection in a really strange way, but hah its ok. its my dark hidden past that none of my jc mates knew.

i've got so many more embarassing stuff to confess to, but since i predict i'd take forever to type it out, i shall talk about the latest two that happened to me, just in case gena, samuel or esther blackmaisl me again.

first up, my unfortunate accident with esther. we were all in south quad happily eating lunch. the sun was up, you know. pretty good weather. sunny. everyone was in the sun dresses and all. flip flops. the works. i was sitting opposite esther. then qionghui commented to esther, "hey nice skirt." and i began to bend down to look. but before i actually did, esther screamed and i immediately realised i just landed in a really embarassing situation. if you don't get why this is embarassing, then it's probably good that you don't.

next accident just happened to me a while ago. was getting out of the car along north university ave. kianleong just sent samuel, gena and myself back from the storage place. was talking to them when i crashed into a sign board along the road. it was appropriate too: "road works ahead". i'm so glad no one saw what happened (at least i think so), but it was awfully embarassing.

ok, shall post more in the future. gotta ZZzzz.

Thurs, 28th April, 8:10am

2005-04-28T08:11:00.000-04:00

shiok!

that is what gena has been trying to get kevin (my south quad friend from chicago) to say. kevin and i were studying for our philosophy exam, and it was the last exam for the both of us. gena was trying to teach kevin how to say shiok to release all the pented-up pressure of the finals. and yes, it's all over now!

"i'm free! free falling..."

din quite manage to fulfill my promise to update right after my exams yesterday. was simply too busy. too busy packing the ssa stuff, too busy running around doing admin, too busy sleeping.

yes, sleeping.

btw, i have a really good friend now. his name is red bull. we have a very good mutual-beneficiary relationship. i help to promote his unbashed capitalist-minded self-worth (too expensive), while he keeps me wide awake at 4 am in the morning.

the past week flashed by in a, well, flash. i'm so amazed with myself. i haven't studied this hard since the day before my econ a levels exam. hah. i was at east hall everyday from 11 am to 3-4am everyday? trying to mug for my southeast asian politics, comparative politics, and philosophy classes. never been so stressed about exams before.

but its all over now.

life after exams isn't as cozy as i would've expected. i find myself at a loss of what to do. and its not because there's nothign to do. on the contrary, the list of items on my "to do" list is mounting with every single minute and there's not enough motivation to get started. besides, almost every singaporean has left this place, and all the american friends i know are already home.

made some changes to the stuff i have online. first up is the song you're hearing. its from a new album by rob thomas. those who know me know that like i like matchbox twenty alot. this song hasn't been released yet, but its pretty good, so listen to it for a while.

posted some very funny clips online. hilarious videos about the 5 of us (chee chian, nansi, samuel, kianleong and myself) playing the 'rollarcoaster' at MIT. about chongmeng and his amazing extending hand. about me shaving my own head last december. and a clip of mitch heberg doing a stand-up routine. hilarious. go see.

ok, brain-dead as i am, i shall go do watever i have to do. will update again soon.

Thur, 2:43am, April 21

2005-04-21T02:43:00.000-04:00

having trouble falling asleep lately. would find myself staying up till 5 am before the bed starts to look really inviting. what's wrong with me? i don't think its the stress. i've suffered from worse yet still be able to sleep soundly everynight.

this insomnia is good for me, though; i can see the ann arbor sunrise, which occurs at the ridiculous time of 6 am. i can see how the streets look like at 4 am in the morning, as i traverse from east hall to my room. i can finish studying for my philosophy exam (just did that). i can look at my roommate sleeping in a ridiculous position (he lies back and props his leg up on the other one; he looks more comfortable in an armchair than on a bed). i can hear all his dream-time mutterings; unfortunately its all in korean so i cant understand shit. i can see the look on the italian mama shop owner's face as i enter his shop at 5 in the bloody morning to buy some 3 musketeers (for all you ignorant fools, that is chocolate bar heaven). i get to chat to the poor police lady patrolling the dorms by the smoking area (which is basically anywhere outdoors). i can walk by the undergrad lib and see it still full at 4 am in the bloody morning (its finals week). i get to watch all the movies i downloaded because my brain stops functioning at 3 (so i cant study) but my eyes wont close till it's 5 (so i have 2 hours to watch anything i want).

i think 3 am is a very magically time. in fact, it brings about so many miracles. suddenly i see twice the number of people here at east hall. i can count 1 to 20 with my hands only (in multiples of 2 though... strange). everytime i walk to the toilet i'm amazed at the morphing tiles they have installed here. people ask me a question and i answer way too loudly because it seems i have to convince myself, and them, that i am awake. depth perception is gone too; i relieve myself and my feet feels wet. every snigger coming from the ladies from the next table sound like lucifer mocking me. when did legal pads come with criss-crossed lines? i forget that there are people around me and burp way too loudly. wait, actually i thought i suppressed it pretty well until people from the other end of the hall laughed. might be laughing at my unkempt hair instead of the burp. no one knows. still. i don't see very well because they're half-closed half the time because i'm yawning ( the other half is spent wiping the residual tears away... don't you jus hate that?)

the light at the end of the tunnel comes from an oncoming train.

wow, that is, by the way, my favorite pessimistic, scared shitless perspective of the world.

anyway, i dunno whether you've watched kevin james' stand up routine, "sweat the small stuff" (i will be putting in on my webspace soon), but its bloody, bloody excruciatingly funny. highly recommend that you watch it. anyway, here's a list of things that i "sweat" about too....

1. that i may just fart in my sleep without me knowing, and that my roommate may just happen to have filmed it all and post it on the internet
2. saying hi to someone and realising you really shouldn't have said hi in the first place because there's absolutely nothing to talk about after 'hi'
3. same as scenario 2, only that it happens in a bloody lift going to the 50th floor.
4. when someone says "come again" after i say something. it might perhaps be due to the fact that the guy did not clear his bloody ears and can't hear shit, but i'd always be conscious on my un-american way of speaking and end up changing the subject altogether.

ok, i have more to say, but everyone else is going home, so i shall follow suit. continue later.

Wednesday, 1:30am, April 20

2005-04-20T01:29:00.000-04:00

remember the pysch exam that i mentioned in the other post? i totally blew it!! #$%^&^%^&^%$%^ so no more A for me i guess..... =(

incidentally, have a funny story to tell. was entering the south quad dinning hall today, and hongye was telling me about how awful her exam went. so i said "well, its not like you'd fail the exam or something." and she said "i know i won't fail, but no A means failing the course mah". you should have seen the look on the counter girl's face when hongye said that. it was a very interesting mix of anger, increduility, shock and amusement. i could sense the aura of death, otherwise known as 杀气, in the air, and scurried away as soon as possible. what was hongye doing, trying to get us all killed??? she should know that such pertulance and arrogance is simply not permitted here. tsktsk...

was asking pearl and esther just now whether i should shave my head again before returning to singapore. just like what i did for the winter break.

(photo was removed because of unsavory comments... heh)

Well, they were like, "since when do you care for female comments on how you look? are you trying to be like hum-sup (a.k.a. mark lim)??" well i was like, i don't really care for how i see myself, but rather how others see me, because more people take on the latter perspective than my own perspective, and you should always go with the flow right? see i am so applying the stuff i'm learning from my philosophy class right now!

had a sense of deja-vous just a few minutes ago. re-lived the experience of having a girl that i was dating a while ago tell me that she's attached to another guy. (yes GCB ppl, G***ie is the other one). hmmm feeling pretty... ambivalent about it? i mean, yea i once had the hots for the girl, but after not dating for a while and saying that you'd be friends and all, i do feel a bit strange that she's with another friend already. not that i did not expect it of course. it's just something that i've constantly tried to ignore while we dated.o well, all the best to you two!!

hmmm... i dunno if you know, but mingcheng recently took a photo of him kssing me. in my defence, i was unconscious, taking a nap after reading the boring boring southeast asian politics readings. i mean, not that i'm not grateful or anything, seeing that i attract the opposite sex and all, but hey, like jack nicholson said in "as good as it gets", i'll be the luckiest guy in the world if that did it for me. which of course doesn't do it for me. (see i gotta make myself clear on that joke because many people suffer from selective reading, not to mention selective hearing)

been receiving a lot of consolation prizes lately. you know how it is that they give out consolation prizes at competitions? like the ocs sword of participation, the 4-D consolation prizes, etc? i wonder, what are people really thinking of when they give out consolation prizes? what did the first person in the world who gave out the first consolation prize think? what was going on in his head? did he go like "hey, i only have one prize, but there's so many fucking idiots out there who want this, but they all cannot make it, so i gotta invent such prizes to give to these bloody losers?" or was it "hey i appreciate good efforts shown anytime, so i'd encourage these bloody fucking losers by giving them some incentives to improve themselves?" well, for the good of humanity, i sure hope its not the latter. cos it encourages people to think that they really aren't all that bad themselves, that if they try a little more they might actually make it, that there's a place for them in this world even though they din win the big prize. boo-fucking-whoo. if you're a loser, and cannot make it, then don't even try to attempt to get near the vicinity of winning the top prize. cos it ain't going to happen! now i wish somebody had the decency to tell me these before.

gotta go continue studying... and hopefully not get consolation prize anymore. adios!

Monday, 3:54am, April 18

2005-04-18T03:54:00.000-04:00

just came back from studying for the psychology final tomorrow, or rather, later today. haven't really studied so much in a long, long time. hmm maybe the fact that i've to score full marks on this final to get an A plays a big motivational role. incidentally that is what i am studying, actually; stress and social psych and motivation and all.

i was studying the chapter on emotions, and one of the topics was guilt; ahh, guilt, something which i am feeling now. yes, feeling guilty right now because i read my friend's blog even though it was specifically told to me that i should not read it. it's supposed to be private. i plead leniency, though; i stumbled upon the url and discovered it for myself. after that, i guess curiosity took over. confessing to it is not such a smart move, says pearl and esther, after i consulted them on my way home just now. what's done cannot be undone, and ignorance (or the facade of it) can perhaps tide the situation through. maybe i'm a fool to ignore their advice, but i think it's only right that i'm being honest. so once again, i'm sorry.

there's a chapter on human personality, with a portion dedicated to how humans seek relationships with other people. did you know that although people always say that familiarity breeds contempt, and that opposites attract, it has been proven that we often seek to be with those who are similar to us, in areas such as educational level, political views, social status, etc. i guess it's true. what you cannot agree with, you cannot possibly like. agree?

likewise, the book says that proximity and familiarity are the two most important factors in building a strong relationship. proximity here talks about how two people, if in constant i.e. daily contact with each other, has a higher chance of developing a relationship than two people who have to surmount a considerable physical distance. familiarity applies itself likewise. hmm this totally substantiates my argument that long-distance relationships tend to fail, i.e. because of the lack of proximity and familiarity because they do not see each other often. however, hongye, chuntat and some of the other people i know seem to defy such logic. i can only ponder, and hope that they are the rule rather than the exception to the rule. =)

was watching jerry maguire yesterday. yes, i watched it again. those who know me will know that it ranks as one of my favorite movies, alongside good will hunting, american history x, and shawshank redemption. anyways, something from the movie popped out and totally grabbed my attention: how jerry is supposedly incapable of being alone, and how he is great at friendships but lousy at intimacy. i guess that really applies to me too.

sometimes i think to myself: why do people make such grandeur plans about their futures, such lofty ambitions, yet fail to see the futility of it all? take me for example. here in am, in ann arbor, studying political science, hoping to do well enough so that when i return to serve the armed forces, i'll be given the opportunities that those deemed qualified (i.e. the scholars) will be provided. and maybe i do. maybe i'll serve till i am 45, and i retire with a great military career behind me. and maybe i enter politics, which is what i've wanted to do for some time now. at the end of the day, so what? so what if i've done all that? i've done nothing except to achieve my personal gains. to serve my own selfish motives. some of my friends enter the business school because that's "where the money is". likewise for engineering students. well, i'll like to see the day come where money buys anything other than more greed, more selfishness, more jealousy, and injustice in this world.

what about the things that truly matter? i look at my dad, and for all his accomplishments and failures, i think the only thing that he truly cares, and appreciates right now, is the fact that he has a happy family and a loving wife. that's all he can ask for, really. ditto my mother. and you know what? i'd give anything to be able to have what my dad has right now. i think that the only thing that really matters is to be able to find one person whom you'd want to dedicate your time, energy and efforts to. and i shall continue searching, i guess.

woke up yesterday morning to the chatterings of my floormates outside, along the corridor. guess what? they were talking about the orgy they had the night before. i was really surprised to find that there were girls joining in the conversation too. i was totally disgusted. first of all, how shameless do you have to be to broadcast your sex acts to everyone along the corridor? second, the girls sounded really proud that they did it with "three guys at the same time". wow, i never knew shame knew no bounds. it discovered a whole new meaning yesterday. just when i thought you couldn't go any lower. but hey, who am i to judge?

just some ramblings before i go to sleep. and yes, i should really rest now, considering its 4:41am already. ciao....

first things first

2005-04-14T23:29:00.000-04:00

"ladies and gentlemen, thank you for flying with northwestern airlines. have a safe trip ahead."

the door opens. the first blast of humidity knocks me off my feet. bright sunshine filters through the cabin windows. i fall in line in a desperate struggle to alight from the plane. ppl squeezing for breathing space, children wailing, all participating in the mad rush to the immigration counters. i want to take my time though. haven't seen nor felt these in a while. shall savour every minute of it.

i push through the immigration counters fairly easily. after all, the singapore passport gets you places, especially in your homeland. scanning the luggage belts, i feel dizzy and strangely euphoric. picking up my two (very heavy) luggages, i exit the arrival hall. tears flow down my cheeks as i hug my parents and my sis. at home at long last!!!

i spend the first night in singapore in my own room, facing a huge dilemma. my stomach's really bloated though. had to finish the numerous dishes my mum whipped up in anticipation of my return. how am i supposed to pass the ippt?? i really dunno what to do the next day. so many plans, so many people to meet, so many places to visit, so many things to eat. i fall asleep in a pool of my own sweat (yes, the humidity can almost make you NOT want to return home).

i wake up early on the 4th of may. taking bus 74, then 151, i go to nus, following my most familiar route to soccer. yes, court soccer in nus. it doesn't get better than that. i meet my brother koh and the rest of the harold's heroes for a game of football (no, not soccer, those american whimps!). yes, the alvin koh that i "go way back with". of course, alvin hasn't improved to level 1000 like he said he would, but he's getting pretty darn close. to level 100 that is. i am still miles ahead of him (kekekeke). its good to see the rest of harold's heroes too: captain guoyong (the oc), edward (the company ippt spec), alec (the sect comd), harold (foot soldier), jinping (csm), ian kok (company medic), and the others. of course we trashed the opposition, given that the company clerk (myself) has had a year of american training. hahh.

we go to orchard rd. what's soccer without the usual chicken rice from far east plaza? its good to hang out again. we trade the latest gossip and rumors and trash talk. and we make fun of ian kok, while edward boosts about his latest achievement (scoring 2 own goals? or 3?). things are good.

i meet the 4s5ers for dinner. yes, boon hooi (monitor), yuansheng (swordsman-cum-monk), eddie (alien working for slimming centre), kangming (smu bastard), zhekai (yio chu kang hunk), weilun (former nuclear scientist, now studying in FASS in nus), chee keong (runner-cum-commando-cum-skirt chaser), junjie (swimmer hunk), ray shaw jui (I broke his finger in sec 3), kenneth lee (stoopit goatee), zongbo (OZB aka black shit), and wilson (yandao of njc) and whoever else that comes. Ahhh, the sweet memories of cat high, of green shorts, or daily stripping sessions, of miss hannan tan, of chasing each other around the school building.

It’s the 5th of May. My third day in Singapore. I resolve to spend the whole day with the GCB gang. Yes, chongmeng (lusty ass), roger (mr malay boy), chunkiat (THE setter), Alvin (seep seep gia), Yok (the marksman), and Zhikai (collector of saga seeds). We go for lunch, play CS (against my will of course), share the latest jokes, and generally make fun of yok. Its always fun to hang out with my buddies of the last 4 years.

I tell myself that over the next few days, or weeks, I shall meet up with the s14 ppl (Adeline, leo yun, Emily, Wilson, huiyin, jiaying and zhuyi), Ellyn, Amelia, NJC soccer guys, and my friends from Michigan! Have to squeeze all these in between my 12 week long attachment to god-knows-which unit. Plus orientation work. And cscope stuff. Its going to be a hell of a summer.

p.s. these things haven’t actually happened, of course. I’m just daydreaming; but when has day dreaming ever hurt anyone?

Raindrops keep falling on my head

2005-04-13T00:27:00.000-04:00

hey hey... ok 2 things to cheer about.

First, I am no longer flying back on the 3rd of may! some angel in heaven must have taken pity on me and granted me a seat on the flight heading back on the first of may instead.

Second, i am not going to R.O.C. anymore!! there were rumors that i might have been posted there for 6 weeks during the vacation, but now i dun have to go anymore! which means 4 months in singapore! woohooo!

ok... playing this song because it represents exactly how i feel now. yes, i was a little grumpy for the past 2 days, and yes for those who know there's the little incident... but hey, i'm feeling so much happier now! i've thought my way through everything. there's plenty of time during my vacation to right the wrongs i've done! plus plus, now i simply cant wait for my bloody exams to end because next semester's going to be great! got all the courses that i wanted this time... plus plus there's so much to look forward to in summer, i.e. orientation, supper hunt, diving trips, airborne(?) courses, and what-nots. will be doing my attachment until the 3rd of august... after that i've 3 weeks all to myself! shall travel, play, do watever i want to do before i return on the 1st of september. d

jus wanna apologise to anyone who's had to see my bloody black face today... okok shall stop here. enjoy the song!

那一段日子

2005-04-12T00:15:00.000-04:00

this song is dedicated to everyone who's feeling melancholic...

2005-04-09T12:32:00.000-04:00

hey hey mr peh... i know you can get your own lyrics online, but i just wanna share these songs with everyone. "gone too soon" just started playing in my mind as we were doing the seniors' day video for the graduating seniors. kinda felt appropriate cos sometimes it seems that the most precious things are often the most fleeting. like my one year (or rather, 8 months) here in michigan. hated it at the start; did not feel comfortable at all. but 8 months is gone now, and its time to look forward to going back to old lives, old places, familar faces, and old friends. so many happy memories here; of course i know i'll be back here, but the feeling is disconcertingly familiar.

by the way, if you guys haven't read the john donne poem that i posted, you really should. its so beautiful. came to know about it when i did literature in jc. and yes, i love the compass imagery. somehow, it seems so apt: two people madly in love with each other, one arching and aching for the other's return, and the other, who left to explore the world, lives a life centered on the loved one in the middle. so far apart, yet both know they'll come back to each other eventually.

ai qing kui lei, the eric moo song, was a favorite song of mine back in cat high. my council president, liu hanping, and myself hummed it all day long. i think the "wo zhen de hao lei" part was the most applicable to us. we slogged much for the council then, but even though rewards were little, we both loved the job too much to walk away from it. even though i've lost touch with him, i really treasured the bond we had, working for the same ideals together.

feeling so... tumultumous ( is that how u spell it??) these days. so many highs and lows experienced. did pretty alright for my philo mid-term (high), sun was out all week so i did not spend a single afternoon indoors (very high), and had lots of fun staying over at the dude last night helping out with seniors' day stuff (extremely high), but the lows are numerous too; found out that i may be going back only on the 3rd of may (low), feeling extremely jaded about college scope and umssa stuff (very low), and finding myself totally clueless about what other people think of me, and what i'm supposed to do (extremely low). like i said, good things often are gone too soon.

so that's how i'm going to end this post: on a low. hmm i know sometimes i crap alot and talk lots of nonsense. and yea i love making peopl crack up with my jokes. but maybe that isn't all that is about me. maybe i have feelings too? people always only what to read about what's funny, but it is too much a dose of reality to read about how other people really feel. yep so i shall stop right here and prevent too much reality from seeping into our lives.

Gone Too Soon?

2005-04-09T01:42:00.000-04:00

Like A Comet
Blazing 'Cross The Evening Sky
Gone Too Soon
Like A Rainbow
Fading In The Twinkling Of An Eye
Gone Too Soon

Shiny And Sparkly
And Splendidly Bright
Here One Day
Gone One Night

Like The Loss Of Sunlight
On A Cloudy Afternoon
Gone Too Soon
Like A Castle
Built Upon A Sandy Beach
Gone Too Soon
Like A Perfect Flower
That Is Just Beyond Your Reach
Gone Too Soon

Born To Amuse, To Inspire, To Delight
Here One Day
Gone One Night

Like A Sunset
Dying With The Rising Of The Moon
Gone Too Soon

Gone Too Soon

爱情傀儡

2005-04-06T23:57:00.000-04:00

my favorite eric moo song....

我真的好累
你要的我都学不会
为你伤悲
为你憔悴
你让我喝却不让我醉

我真的好累
却为你付出了一切
为你狂野
为你澄醉
做一个爱情的傀儡

John Donne; A Valediction:Forbidding Mourning

2005-04-05T08:40:00.000-04:00

As virtuous men passe mildly away,
And whisper to their soules, to goe,
Whilst some of their sad friends doe say,
The breath goes now, and some say, no:

So let us melt, and make no noise,
No teare-floods, nor sigh-tempests move,
T’were prophanation of our joyes
To tell the layetie our love.

Moving of th’earth 1 brings harmes and feares,
Men reckon what it did and meant,
But trepidation of the spheares 2,
Though greater farre, is innocent.

Dull sublunary 3 lovers love
(Whose soule is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.

But we by a love, so much refin’d,
That our selves to know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,
Care lesse, eyes, lips, and hands to misse.

Our two soules therefore, which are one,
Though I must goe, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to ayery thinnesse beate.

If they be two, they are two so
As stiffe twin compasses 4 are two,
Thy soule the fixt foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if the’other doe.

And though it in the center sit,
Yet, when the other far doth rome,
It leanes, and hearkens after it,
And growes erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to mee, who must
Like th’other foot, obliquely runne;
Thy firmnes makes my circle just,
And makes me end, where I begunne.

John Donne (1572-1631) P. 1633

staring at the sun

2005-04-04T23:26:00.000-04:00

yay! my tan is back! ok, don't mean to sound superficial here, but the lousy michigan winter has left me all white and positively pasty. lucky for me, the sun was out in full force today, and me and tommy spent the whole afternoon at the diag reading, napping and simply soaking up the precious sunlight! ahh... melanin... mine's finally back!

enjoyed myself lots the past weekend. went to uiuc with 32 other singaporeans from umich for the mid-western games. a few other colleges participated, namely northwestern, uiuc, chicago, purdue, michigan state, indiana, and wisconsin, competing in soccer, basketball, captains' ball and badminton. it was really an eye opener really. not just about the girls of course. long lost friends were found, new acquaintances were forged, and friendship was strengthened amid the the great sportsmanship displayed. was a little angry at the start, however, when an uiuc player wore this t-shirt that said "muck fichigan". our soccer team swore to defeat the illini. the guy later turned out to be quite friendly actually, and our anger soon subsided.

we won captain's ball and basketball in the end. our soccer team was third. all in all, even though we competed fiercely in all our games, i think friendship prevailed, and all of us truly enjoyed ourselves during the 2 days spent in illinois.

its a friday

2005-04-01T14:04:00.000-05:00

friday friday. weekend's here again and this weekend is going to be something special. going down to uiuc for the mid-western games, where singaporeans come together from 5 (or issit 6?) colleges to compete in soccer, basketball and captains' ball. pretty sweet actually. its nice to go out of ann arbor for the weekend, especially in this glorious weather.

latest news: the pope just passed away. shocking isn't it? i mean, maybe not, considering he has been ill for quite some time, but still. the world shall remember him fondly for his great humanitarian deeds.

latest news: i'm hooked onto jag (judge advocate's general) all over again. if you dunno, its an american tv series about military lawyers fighting controversial military cases or court martials. used to watch it a lot back in singapore, but lost touch with it since i came here. but, with the magic of a certain program, i can watch it all over again!

gcbs: hey guys, sorry for deleting your post on my tag board. sensitive, lah. amelia told you the wrong thing man; i think she misinterpreted what i said. yea. so whatever you're claiming has no truth and will probably get me into shitloads of trouble, so yea i practised a litlle 'censorship'. heh. anyway as singaporeans you should be used to it by now mah. hah forgive me =)

alright... gotta start the 5 hr drive now...

Happy Birthday Sis!!!

2005-03-31T20:09:00.000-05:00

Happy Birthday Sis!!!

ok... so no birthday present this time... and i'm late in wishing you... but hey, if its still the 31st over here in ann arbor, then it still counts right? hah... yep yep once again i have 3 wishes for you... here goes...
1) earn more money to buy me stuff,
2) get married as soon as possible,
3) give me nieces and nephews to play with (you know i wont get married in a longgggg time...)

yep. enjoy watever's left of your day! kekekekekeke

Fields Of Gold

2005-03-30T00:05:00.000-05:00

hope you like this song... Eva Cassidy first sang it... then Sting did an awesome version... but i like Emi Fujita's rendition just a little bit more... here goes...

You'll remember me when the west wind moves
Upon the fields of barley
You'll forget the sun in his jealous sky
as we walk in fields of gold

So she took her love
For to gaze awhile
Upon the fields of Barley
In his arms she fell as her hair came down
Among the fields of gold

Will you stay with me will you be my love
Among the fields of barley
We'll forget the sun in his jealous sky
As we lie in fields of gold

See the west wind move like a lover so
Upon the fields of Barley
Feel her body rise when you kiss her mouth
Among the fields of gold

I never made promises lightly
And there have been some that I've broken
But I swear in the days still left
We'll walk in fields of gold
We'll walk in fields of gold

Many years have passed since those summer days
Among the fields of barley
See the children run as the sun goes down
Among the fields of gold

You'll remember me when the west wind moves
Upon the fields of barley
You can tell the sun in his jealous sky
When we walked in fields of gold
When we walked in fields of gold
When we walked in fields of gold

goood morning ann arbor!

2005-03-28T14:48:00.000-05:00

anyone watched the show "good morning america"? it's about this army radio dee-jay who motivated the american troops when they were in saigon fighting the vietnam war. that's kind of what i am feeling right now. its a bright and sunny day and all i wanna do right now is to run around in the sun right now.

things are pretty good now i guess. my polsci 140 exam has been pushed back to next monday, my orientation commitee will be having our first meeting this week, going to UIUC (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champagne) for the Mid-western games this weekend... things are looking up in CollegeScope as well. Everything's pretty great now actually. i think its all due to me actually being able to see the sun again. 1 more month before i touch down in singapore. exams end on the 27th of april for me, so i guess i'll be leaving this place either on the 28th or 29th then. so much stuff to do before that though. never mind, taking each day as it comes =)

did a pretty funny psychology test just now. i was supposed to do a questionaire and filled test tubes with my saliva at the same time. hah. quite a sight actually. pretty embarassing too, especially when i actually missed a few times and ho ho soiled myself. hah. should have seen the look on the tester's face; i din know whether she was pink from laughter or disgust. pretty hard to discern actually, when i was busy trying my best to act normal, all the while wiping my pants frantically.

you know how it is when you get caught looking at someone? well i got caught today. hah. there's this girl in my class whom i think is pretty cute, and yes thus provides a source of motivation for attending the class. was talking to my friend in class and unknowingly cast a glance in her direction, and opps she turned around at the same time and i was caught red-handed. now now those of u who know me will realize that i blush like a bloody red packet, so my ears were red and all. how embarassing. wished i could dig a hole and hide. how i managed to get out of the class at the end, and preserved whatever's left of my dignity, well i never know...

since i'm on the topic of embarassing incidents, here's the one at the top of my list. this occured back in primary school, but it haunts me to this very day. here's a disclaimer: i never ever did such a thing again! this is what happened...

i was early for school. feeling a little hungry, i bought my favourite cha-shao bao from the dim sum stall for breakfast. this proved to be my downfall. pretty soon i was down with a very bad tummyache. you know, the ones that leaves you soaked in cold sweat and trembling from the weakness in your legs. this was how it was as i attended morning assembly. walking back to class, i could hold no further. let's just say that the gates of the nether world opened and all hell broke loose. how i could do this while walking, i never knew. it puzzles me to this very day.

anyway, i rushed to the toilet a.s.a.p.. sitting there on the toilet bowl, sobbing like a girl because i realized the futility of it (isn't it too late to visit the toilet AFTER you've crapped?), i proceeded to clean myself. hah. this meant using the toilet paper to wipe my shorts clean, if you know what i mean. how i never thought to simply throw away my underpants bewilders me till today. i think i wasn't comfortable with going 'commando' in my school shorts. hah. anyway, i went back to class thinking i could feign ignorance.

my friends picked up the smell immediately. i swore they all had a dog's sense of smell. they hounded me like dogs too, asking me where i thought the smell came from. at wits' end, i came up with a bloody lame excuse, that the person sitting in the chair before me crapped in the chair, thus it was the chair that stank. i remember taking exaggerated sniffs at the chair to prove my point, all the while shaking my head in disbelief at my pathetic attempts to hide the truth. if my friends could smell like dogs, they somehow weren't that bright too. they bought my story. and so it was, me enduring the whole day smelling like crap, and my classmates not questioning a word because they believed my 'crap in the chair' story.

how i endured wearing the soiled underpants for a whole day before going home and throwing them down the rubbish chute (i couldn't have thrown them into the laundry bin. my mum would have slaughtered me) is beyond me. i swore there and then never to eat cha-shao bao in the morning ever again. =)

impt lesson

2005-03-26T01:16:00.000-05:00

if u never expect, you won't be disappointed. =)

where is the sun?

2005-03-25T07:50:00.000-05:00

awww its such a gloomy friday morning!!

ok first of all, what am i doing up so early in the morning!? its 7:50am now for goodness' sake. going to birch run later with tommy and hongye at 9 later. coming back at 2. basically all that i am doing for the day.

a few songs ringing in my head right now...

爱情让人靠的太近，忘了留点余地
孩子气，起世我只是输不起
我们泠着大雨，不知何时才能放弃
坏天气，藏开了彼此语也不会听

ok, first of all you have got to realize that i took like 5 minutes to type all those chinese words out. and yes, i know this is an old song, but yea i just heard it so pardon me yah? lastly, no no i am not a stephanie sun fan (protest vehemently), but i particularly like these 4 lines. don't ask me why. kind of depressing, these words.

"so you sailed away, into a grey sky morning
now i'm here to stay, love can be so boring
nothing's quite the same now, i just say your name now
but its not so bad, you're only the best i ever had
you don't want me back,
you're just the best i ever had

so you stole my world, now i'm just a phoney
remembering the girl, leaves me down and lonely
send it in a letter, make yourself feel better
but it's not so bad, you're only the best i ever had
you don't need me back, you're just the best i ever had"

my my... isn't this like the best break up song ever? particularly reminiscent on this grey sky morning.

只怕我自己会爱上你
不敢让自己靠的太近
怕我没设么能够给你
爱你也许要很大的勇气
只怕我自己会爱上你
也许有天会情不自竟
想念只让自己苦了自己
爱上你使我情飞得意

yes yes i know! its a dman bloody old song! but hey hey u gotta admit its still pretty sweet yah? such bashfulness only makes you smile.

我知道
以往的
锤弱的
烦恼的
寂寞的
压抑的
感受谁都有
不知道是不是只有我
痛苦的
矛盾的
独自承受
明知道放弃了才想保留
明知道过去了才要补救
我知道
瞒据的
快乐的
完美的
依恋的
事情都难以长久
告诉我是不是每个人都看不透
谁能够？

yea this is an emil chau song. for those of you not acquainted with me (why would you be reading my blog then??), i love emil chau songs. not the recent trash. the oldies. now those are his best songs. this is one of them. nice words.

你爱我还是他？
是不是真的他有比我好
你为谁在争砸？
你爱我还是他？
就说出你想要的真心话
你到底要跟我还是他？

nice david tao song. eunice introduced it to me.

okok before you start to think that i am becoming a chinese song freak, i'm not! but yea i don't know why these songs are ringing in my head. maybe they will ring in yours too after you've heard them.

article on singlish

2005-03-24T14:44:00.000-05:00

omg... jaron posted this link via email eons ago, and i only checked it today. yea u shld too. pretty interesting.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,592-1519825,00.html

Note to Self

2005-03-24T09:52:00.000-05:00

woah just woke up... its 10 am now... a few things that i need to do:

1. brush my teeth to wash out all that horrible puke taste after Necto's last night
2. thank Tommy for sending me back (frankly, i'm surprised by 2 things: my ability to remember him sending me back, and that i only drank 4 cocktails yet fell asleep on the NYPD toilet floor... i'm getting really lousy at this... must be the prolonged absence of practice sessions)
3. apologise to my roommate for making such a racket before i slept last night
4. pray that the ChopChop-ers (SSA committee) like "Supper Hunt" and approve it
5. study for POLSCI 140 mid term
6. don't fall asleep while doing that
7. look forward to the day being over because tomorrow is friday, and many awesome things always happen on friday =)
8. look forward to birch run tomorrow
9. finish reading the soccer book... need to return it soon!
10. finish filming the spoof my friends and i are doing of the nike soccer commercials

ok... gtg...

~lol

i love ronaldinho!!!

2005-03-23T16:45:00.000-05:00

check this out!!!

http://www.fifastreetmovie.com/uk/content/index.htm

encounter in the fish bowl

2005-03-23T14:40:00.000-05:00

this will make a lot of people happy, especially the sea culture night guys...

i was in the fish bowl yesterday night, trying to scan some stuff. a caucasian interrupted me in the midst of my work, and told me that he was very impressed by the show we put up last saturday during our southeast asian culture night, especially the skit, which he thought protrayed the singaporean education system very well. he said that he was quite ignorant of the system before, and the skit helped him understand it so much better.

we then conversed about how the education system in singapore is a little rigid, and bemoaned the lack of a good liberal arts education system. i told him that such a situation is inevitable, given our small population size and the fragility of our economy, and the need for the government to optimize the education system to channel the best talents into what it deemed viable: this meant that the focus was on producing engineers in the 80s and 90s, biotechnological researchers and IT specialists in this decade. the inculcation of liberal arts, and the appreciation of it, took a back seat, and will continue to do so for some time to come. it is heartening, though, i told him, that the government is actively promoting singapore as the cultural and performing arts centre of S.E.A., although the methods of such promotion is skeptical at times.

i was really, really surprised and happy to hear what he said. this goes to show that the promotion of our culture is successful. the fact that he would come up to me out of the blue to congratulate me on a job well done says a lot about how he thought about the show, and singaporeans in particular. i can only hope that we will be able to reach out to more local americans, and help them understand who we are and what we represent.

it is a happy day for me =)

games

2005-03-22T00:58:00.000-05:00

just created links for my favorite online games... gridlock (beat my score... level 34!), text twist and bejeweled 2... enjoy!

Instructor Goh

2005-03-21T22:10:00.000-05:00

i feel very proud today.

You know how people are always telling you, that teaching is the greatest profession on earth, because you are able to see your students grow up into mature, thinking adults? because you know that you have been actively involved in the molding of your student's impeccable character?

*reminds you of the MOE commercials, doesn't it?*

owell... i may never be able to inculcate proper academic knowledge in a person (seriously, a person either can or cannot shoot a rifle; no amount of training will make him do otherwise). i, however, have done something great today: tommy passed his driving test today. i'd like to think i was part of something special. many years down the road, when i see tommy driving his mercedes/ferrari/BMW along orchard road, fetching his kids to school, i'd like to think that i have something to do with that. i have made a man a better man than he was. how many ppl can claim to be able to do that??

*if you beg to differ, and wish to say otherwise, don't. because even though you want the truth, you know i can't handle the truth*

owell... now i can only pin my hopes on samuel to do likewise. to be able to do me proud. they say the greatest joy in education is to be able to see your student stand and think on his own feet. well, for me, the greatest joy for me will come the day i can let samuel drive on his own without my hands on the emergency brake.

*kidding...*

right. did i mention that i just rubbished my take home mid-term for my southeast asian politics class? spent quite some time on it, but all efforts went to naught. dealt quite a blow actually. think i might actually get a b-/c for this class. now that's a horrific thought. sigh.

1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and BLOW!

*oh, btw, did u know that if you sigh, u kill an angel in the sky? wow ok i din expect that to rhyme. but anyway, thanks mother jiaying for teaching me that. that's why everytime i sigh, i gotta resuscitate the angel with CPR*

aight... think i'm vegetating soon... going to try to finish reading my soccer book tonight. will review it on this space soon.

*btw, did i mention that i JUST LEARNT what ~lol means!?? hah i used to think it was just something ppl type when they have nothing to say.*

~lol

what religion should u belong to?

2005-03-21T17:47:00.000-05:00

my score... and i always thought i was an agnostic.

"You scored as atheism.
You are... an atheist, though you probably already knew this. Also, you probably have several people praying daily for your soul. Instead of simply being 'nonreligious,' atheists strongly believe in the lack of existence of a higher being, or God."

atheism
71%
Islam
67%
Satanism
67%
agnosticism
67%
Judaism
63%
Buddhism
54%
Paganism
50%
Christianity
25%
Hinduism
25%

try the test yourself!
http://quizfarm.com/test.php?q_id=10907

tak gui (踢球）

2005-03-20T14:43:00.000-05:00

wow... i loved this film! a great film about the trials and tribulations of playing soccer in singapore. go watch!

http://www.wirelessed.net/takgiu/index.php

it was great while it lasted

2005-03-20T00:16:00.000-05:00

don't mind me, i'm in the middle of one of my adrenalin shock phases. this usually occurs after an emotional high, most often due to such things as an important soccer game, a big project, and in the days since i've been in michigan, an ssa event. in this instance, i am in a low after the high that is the southeast asian culture night that finished just a few hours ago.

if you know me, i'm always full of energy during the event proper, often going days without sleep simply because i'm too excited to sleep. then, the event draws to a close, and i can hardly keep myself awake because of the sheer tedium it seems to stay conscious.

let me just say it first: i will miss having rehearsals for our skit and the wedding ceremony presentation. i will miss poking fun at gena and samuel during their mother-son scenes, and hongye for her inability to twirl a pen and drop it at the precise location. i will miss teasing leslie for his "wah check her out" line that i will never forget. "do angels have names?" will forever remind me of the corniest line a guy can ever say to a girl. i will miss seeing gena dressed so 'maturely' as a mum, and hongye in her cheongsam (yah despite all that teasing, u know that we all think u did the cheongsam justice). will miss the monday night rehearsals arguing fervently with winston and jiaying about our 'creative differences'. will miss kicking the ball around, which was about the only thing that kept us sane during rehearsals. will miss leslie's tongue twisting "get-rich-quick plan", and kianleong's love for his school ("yea u know i think my new school looks pretty good"). will miss jonathan's total blank expression when he says he's the captain of the national soccer team. will miss the guys doing push-ups during the skit gamely, and will miss the hilarious profiles done by samuel late into friday night. will miss me teaching leslie how to act 'ser', and how he did it so brilliantly during the actual performance. will miss how we got together and did such a brilliant job just now.

thanks for those great memories guys. it was a great sea culture night experience.

how was your day?

2005-03-15T22:18:00.000-05:00

oh yes my day was pretty fine, thank you very much. there's only ONE mid-term to study for this week, and yes that itself is a miracle! i also recently discovered that no, never will i ever have to go for my psychology 111 lectures again, because i got an A on the last mid-term without attending 3/4 of the lectures! woo hooo! talk about time conservation... now i've more time to:

a) watch soccer
b) play soccer
c) read soccer

hmmm, if you're wondering about the last part, allow me to explain myself. a friend of mine just loaned me this book entitled "How Soccer Explains The World: An Unlikely Theory for Globalization " by Franklin Foer. if you haven't read it before, and you love soccer, what are you waiting for? its damn bloody funny. it's about this american trying to understand how soccer has influenced so many facets of the world. check out the chapters: How soccer explains the gangster's paradise, the pornography of sects, the new oligarchs, etc. ok, i haven't really started reading it yet, but i'll do it tonight. no more sleeping tonight i guess =)

hmm feeling strangely euphoric yet upset now. that's because i have been measured, weighed, and found wanting. for some mysterious reason, a friend of mine somehow thinks it is appropriate that i should be constantly compared to other guys. and here are her observations:

1. no, i do not look as good in a shirt as mr tommy does
2. no, i am not as smart as the other singaporean guys here in umich
3. no, i am not as gentlemanly as mr chico (yes, winston, that's you)

now now, i agree that i'm dun look as good as tom(my) cruise, neither am i as intelligent as the other guys. but hey hey, i am pretty upset at being called 'ungentlemanly'. haaa. i always thought i was the yardstick for that! well well, guess i'm wrong then. i'm now accused of not opening doors for women 'properly' (as if there's a proper way!), amongst other ungentlemenly conduct. someone should give me a dummy's guide to being gentlemanly.

aye, now i'm confused. how can women expect me to be gentlemanly to them when they are all gung-ho, rah-rah about feminine rights? (realize that i did not use the f-word, that word that one associates with bra-burning, for fear of accusations of sexism.) so am i supposed to open doors for you, carry your shopping bags for you, yet not offer to walk you home, because you insist that you can take care of yourself and 'dun need a man's protection'? or am i supposed to buy you dinner, yet not be allowed to buy you coffee after the dinner because 'you make your own money too'? girl power. its sumthing i'll never understand. but hey, its not that i'm complaining. a man is more interested in what he cannot fathom. and i certainly cannot figure the female species out.

sometimes i wish i had the powers that mel gibson had in the film "what women want". if you did not watch the film, mel's character was temporarily blessed with the ability to know women's interior monologues. so, assuming i have those powers, i would be able to know what a woman is thinking when i catch her smiling at me out of the corner of my eye. i would be able to deduce what the smile means when i give her a present, whether its "my this is so disgusting. i hope i dun see him again" or"wow this is so cute! i am so seeing him another time!". i would know what my gsi is thinking of when i'm flirting with her to give me a better grade, whether its "haa this boy quite cute i shall give him an A!" or "irritating boy, i cant wait for him to leave!". as a character in the film commented, if a guy knows what a woman is thinking, he will rule the world. hmmm, questions, questions...

i've come to realize the one fact of life. since the dawn of time, men have dedicated their lives to finding out what women want, and women dedicating their lives to telling men what they DON'T want (no, they never do it the straightforward way and tell you what they want, because i think women are fascinated with confused, bewildered men). the ancient cavemen hunted for food, invented fire, fought among each other for domination because, hey, admit it, its the only way to attract the cave girls. medevial europe came about because men seeked power and wealth because, yes, it gave them access to the pretty girls then. hitler apparently started WWII because he had only one testicle and needed to show his male dominance to, yes you've guessed it, attract the hot german girls. many other examples can be easily quoted. i was going to quote examples for the women but decided against it, for fear of backlash. let's just say that it is a universal truth that women never say it straight. its always "let's just be friends" or "this is too fast" or "let's not eat here" or "i don't think this will work". frustrations, frustrations.

aye aye, shall stop rambling for now.

once more into the breach, dear friends

2005-03-13T20:12:00.000-05:00

artillery bombings all around. the smell of gunpowder pervades the air. all around me lay the wounded, my allies brain-washed and donning enemy uniforms instead. no help nor salvation lies on the horizon. it is a bleak day for everyone. hiding in my trench now, recuperating, planning my next move. my pepertrators twist facts with shabby alibi and false witnesses. i maintain my innocence. but how much worth is truthfulness valued these days? i ponder. waiting for day break, for the sun to rise. the truth shall be revealed in due course. i live to fight another day.

The Singapore Girl - a challenge to love?

2005-03-13T11:12:00.000-05:00

ho ho ho... guys,you have got to read this article!

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2005/2/13/focus/10150815&sec=focus

fava quote:

“The Singapore girl debates and argues impassionedly. She wants to win at all costs and treats her love conquests like those fought in the office arena. She may be pretty, yes, smart, yes, but, oh, so demanding.”

hmm... food for thought eh?

down memory lane

2005-03-11T20:07:00.000-05:00

i don't know about you, but sometimes i feel that i am forgetting the simple things and pleasures of each and everyday. don't know whether it is due to me being in a foreign place, or simply not having enough time. shall dedicate this post, then, to the re-capturing of those happy memories that seem so distant now:

- taking a bus (or mrt, but its too ex!) to nowhere, accompanied only by a good book and nice songs
- falling asleep in front of the tv (especially if its a late night soccer game)
- sitting at mac'donalds, sipping lemon tea and talking about the good ol' sch days with my friends
- knowing you'll do almost anything for that special someone, because you'd think that God put an angel on earth just for you, and you really badly want to be her angel too
- cycling at east coast park
- waking up to my mum's voice (or nagging)
- waking up early for breakfast and enjoying the company
- long walks to nowhere (from orchard rd to city hall to suntec to raffles place, stopping at one fullerton to look at the great view across the waters )
- enjoying a cup of coffee at coffee bean in serangoon gardens
- then popping over to chomp chomp for great fried oysters and hokkien mee
- suan-ing my mum about her height, and how i inherited my 'ugliness' from her
- walking hand in hand with a girl i like, oblivious to the rest of the world
- playing soccer every scorching sunday morning (Alvin, if you're reading this, we need to talk... hah)
- then going straight to far east plaza for the superb chicken rice
- lazing in my bed on a sunday afternoon, because its too damn hot to go out and because i'm too lazy to go anywhere after soccer
- the 20-min the car ride back into ocs every sunday night, when i always realize that my parents truly love me, because i'll be out the whole weekend with my friends, and that 20 mins will probably be the only time spent with my parents, yet they still shower love unconditionally
- going with my mum for her medical checkups, because she's probably the only person in the whole world who knows me inside out, and i haven't been as concerned about her health for the first 16 yrs of my life
- the day that i knew my mum has almost fully recovered from cancer
- when i got 2 As and a B for my 'A' levels and my parents thought i was the smartest guy around
- winning 'best debator' even though we lost the debate to rgs
- the day i got my ATA (O) and realized that i am truly independent henceforth
- throwing a surprise birthday celebration for a friend that is 4 days late
- leaving the airport for ann arbor and realizing that my sis had tears in her eyes, even though i really hadn't been as close to her as i should have
- happily digging my ear in my own room and flicking it all around (haa pls dun judge me after reading this... i dun do it now!)
- going for every single movie screening in one day because we were so bored
- sipping root beer float from californian lemon
- commissioning day
- the day njc lost the quarter-finals to rjc and all my friends came to hug me because i was sobbing on the ground
- training from 5pm to 8pm 3 times a week with my njc soccer team, and playing friendly matches every sat morning. hanging out at king albert park after that till the last 74 bus arrives.
- the day my clerk and other colleagues from an army camp told me that i was not only their officer, i was their friend
- sleeping on the bus ride home
- round island night cycling trips
- going to geylang for beef kway teow, then changi village for nasi lemak, then tiong bahru market for fried ice cream, then jalan kayu for prata, and finally sembawang for hokkien mee, all in one night
- lazing in the sun
- seeing a person whom i see every morning when i take the bus/mrt smile at me, and smiling back at them, even though i don't know him/her and will probably never will
- singing power station's "i will never try to break your heart, 我不愿这样,让爱情不由自,阻险入一场,两败邹伤的战" with my ocs buddy, xi qian, as we're navigating the hills of taiwan.
- getting into a car accident, and my dad not being angry at me for a single bit
- being dragged to play cs with my friends, though i hate the game, but love the company
- the day i bid farewell to my literature teacher in catholic high, and her telling me that i did a good job in council as vp, and that we should keep in contact even though she is going to australia to study (mrs heng, if you're reading this, yep that's you)
- my coach telling me that "elephants can turn faster than me" when he scolded for not marking my opposition properly, thus enshrining me forever in the team as the "guy who turns slower than an elephant"
- being given a chance to play for singapore cricket club in the national football division 1 league, but never pulling it off cos i am not good enough (thanks raymond)
- eating 2 half-boiled eggs with lots of dark soy sauce and pepper, and toast
- new year's day countdown in nyc
- spending 12 crazy days hopping across 5 states
- getting lost, when i was little, in the departmental store, and waiting for my parents to pick me up from the counter
- smiling to myself as i travel down memory lane again

*smiles*

No More Juice!

2005-03-10T16:58:00.000-05:00

it had to happen. I guess it was bound to come sooner or later. The signs were there all this while: visibly increased activity and heavy usage. Now its all gone. No more. Ta-bo-le. Ne pas. 没有. nicht mehr. What ever language it is said in, it sounds equally negative.

(by the way, if you think that this is a lament for impotency, it so is not!!!!)

What i mean is, i have a writer's block! No more brain juice can be squeezed out of this little brain of mine. You know what? I blame the Psychology and Philosophy exams I had to sit for in the past two days. Absolutely attributing all blame to these two torrid exams. Studying for these exams meant that I was stuck in the UGLI (undergrad library) all the time... by the way, that issuch a horrible acronym... what's next? STUPID (Students taking Undergraduate courses in Philosophical Issue Discussions)? MAD for Math (advanced) degree? Since we're on this topic, why not call ourselves SILLY (Supremely Intelligent but Lazy and Lethargic Youths)?

ok... i know there are many of you out there who will jump at this chance to say that i'm NO LONGER a youth... that youth stops at 21 and i'm already 2 years too old... that i should stop trying to 'pretend' that i'm not old... tsk tsk... trust yourselves to laugh at this insecure old man trying to get (finally) get his college education. As they always say (maybe its just me, but who cares? disagreeing with your elders is rude by the way), AGE is Wisdom.

ok.. Esther may beg to differ... i'm taking the same political science classes as her this semester, 140 and 354, and i tell you, she is absolutely trashing me in the subject. I have never seen a person sleep her way to As ( haaa all pun intended!!!), but yea, let's just say that when it comes to lectures, she's sleeping when i'm awake, she's sleeping when i'm sleeping, yet she still comes away with a bloody A while i hide shamefully in the corner begging SAF for forgiveness. Maybe that's why i stopped going to lectures altogether... the sight of her sleeping away gives me nightmares when i sleep... and how can that be peaceful rest in class then? =p

but hey hey... back to topic proper... age is wisdom ok? do not deny that fact... maybe when you guys reach my age and think that "i'm really not that wise after all", then, and only then, can you doubt this 'fact'... but even so, don't tell me your 'shocking discovery', because remember i'm always 1/2/3/4 years ahead in the age race!!

hmmm... many of you ladies have reflected that intelligence is a must-have for your would be guys... and if i can equate that with my AGE-WISDOM hypothesis, does it mean you ladies prefer older guys? Hmm if so... i think we have very similar preferences!!! (NO I DON'T MEAN PREFERENCE IN OLDER GUYS, U IDIOTS) I think guys also find older women attractive. (Hah, this may be very ego-deflating for all you younger girls out there, but yea i think since we should readily agree with each other that any form of attraction between us is impossible, there should be no hard feelings there! btw, if attraction is indeed possible, you should not hesitate to call my number right now! =p ) yep yep... the truth hurts... i know... now you feel how i feel when u call me old!!!

ok... i just realised i've rambled on for so long... you know what? i think all the (brain) juice is back! yay! can't say the same for Qingru though (Gimp stuck in his single room with his birthday present). hah, if you know what i mean...

America and the World: Strengthening or Undermining International Law (Part 2)

2005-03-10T16:06:00.000-05:00

yep yep i know... you must be asking why is it that the first thing i post after my exam (hence signalling the start of my long weekend) is a serious article... well first of all, i do want to finish typing it, and second since everyone thinks intelligence is a factor, here i am, funny AND intelligent! LOL! (you guys know i'm kidding right)

okok back to the topic proper, here's the second part of the talk:

Mr. Mahbubahni raised the point earlier about how the US strengthened the International Law constitution with the advert of the UN Charter. In the years after its formation, however, it seems that the US has realized that there can be "too much of a good thing"; in this case, a strong UN infringing on her own interests. Thus, it is an open secret that the US has purposefully kept the UN weak with the appointment of ineffective secretary-generals. Mr. Kofi Annan has proved to be an exception, but with the recent blight of scandals that he is now embroiled in, it is no wonder that strong secretary-generals are a rare breed indeed.

American behavior in the UN Security Council has also been abysmal; the purpose of the council is to act as a global "fire department", extinguishing fires around the world if need be. Recent events, however, have highlighted the capricious nature of the US-led council. Notable examples include the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda, as well as Bosnia, just to name a few. It seems that the behavior of the Security Council is strongly influenced by American interests. Such is the case for the IMF (International Monetary Fund) as well, with the slow aid provided to asian countries in the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis contrasting heavily with the swift influx of aid during the Peso crisis. Such behavior has undermined global influence in key international institutions, thus stifling the emergence of increased levels of global cooperation.

The US has often failed to live up to its leadership role expected of the sole true global superpower of the modern era. One key example is the Law of the Sea Treaty, of which leaders of many countries negotiated for lengthy periods of time. Despite the compromises offered by many of the participating countries, the US did not sign it eventually, stating that the principles of sea-bed mining entailed by the treaty did not suit US interests. Many leaders were left aghast at such rogue behavior unexpected of a global leader seeking greater international cooperation.

Another example of such renegade behavior can be found in the negotiations of Cambodia's peace plans in the early 1980's. Many asian countries had agreed that when Vietnam leaves Camobodia, the country should be allowed to hold free elections to install a new government representing Cambodian interests. The Chinese, however, held strong objections to such a view: they insisted that the Khmer Rouge, the previous governing body before the Vietnamese arrived in Cambodia, be allowed automatic control, stating prevalent international laws as justification. The US, when called upon to make a stand, failed to support the cause for human rights; they insisted that the chinese position is right, because China is an "ally of the US", and that the asian countries should withdraw their objections to such a plan.

Mr Mahbubahni, due to a lack of time, touched briefly on the following examples of negative US behavior:
1. Non-adherence to the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty, and how countries like Israel, Pakistan and India are not punished for possesive nuclear capabilities. This is a cause for concern, because other middle powers (i.e. Iran, Brazil) might be tempted to follow in their footsteps, given the lack of deterrence for such behavior.
2. US non-adherence to the Kyoto Protocol.
3. The US went to the Security Council to seek legitimization for invading Iraq (UN Charter, Article 51). When that failed, they proceeded anyway. What would the other countries think? What are the rules governing the game now?
4. The US has always been a strong advocate of Human Rights, but ever since the Guantanamo incident after Operation Iraqi Freedom, where it severely commited serious violations of human rights, the US is now in a postion where it has no moral high ground to comment on other countries, notably China.

In conclusion, Mr. Mahbubahni states that the US should seek to mend its dented image as a global leader, and actively seek to lead in the strengthening of the International Law. She must recognize that only the existence of a rules-based international order would benefit US interests in the long run.

America and the World: Strengthening or Undermining International Law (Part 1)

2005-03-08T13:08:00.000-05:00

ok ok i know i promised that i won't post until after thursday's exam... but yea this is something that i think is important and worth dedicating time to...

Attended a talk by Mr. Kishore Mahbubahni with Tommy yesterday. He is here in the States to promote his new book, Return to the Age of Innocence. Mr. Mahbubahni is the current Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore; he is also the former Singapore Ambassador to the U.N, as well as former President of the SecurityCouncil. Mr. Mahbubahni has also served as Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Singapore.

Mr. Mahbubahni talked about how the United States of America has strengthened, yet weakened at the same time, the institution of International Law. Touching on some of the contributions the US has made in the past, he raised the example of the post-WWII era as the most telling American investment in world order and peace. After achieving her status as a global super power, the US did not, unlike her European predecessors, set out to colonize the rest of the world; instead, it practiced de-colonization, preferring to believe in the "freedom, independence, and ability of self-determination" of the weaker countries. This practice, coupled with the US-backed initiative to form the UN Charter, created an international order that has been largely successful till present times.

Another significant contribution to the to international order, according to Mr. Mahbubahni, is the large amount of the US defence budget. At approximately US$500 bn, the American military represents the single deterrent factor against infringements of International Law. By largely playing by the rules, i.e. respecting the decisions of the WTO, the US has set itself as an example for the rest of the world to follow, even though it has the military and economic to do otherwise. Many may argue that this is done in "enlightened self-interest", but nevertheless, by larging adhering to decisions made by the global institutions, the US has strengthend the legitimacy of International Laws.

Before going on to speak about how the US has, in fact, undermined the practice of International Law, Mr. Mahbubahni offered the following premises:
1. In the domestic arena, Law trumps Power; The the international arena, however, Power trumps Law.
2. International Law cannot be effective without the support and endorsement of the majority of the 190 nation-state members of the United Nations.
He provides the analogy of a large, global tent that represents the structure of International Law, and how the US, through various actions and decisions, has created large holes in this tent, and the possibility that the middle power states (i.e. Brazil, Nigeria, South Africa) may exploit these gaping holes for their own gains is a frightening thought.

okok... ran out of time... will be posting the second half, mainly about how the US has undermined international law, in my next post!

swayed (maybe) by the ladies

2005-03-08T01:29:00.000-05:00

hey hey... first of all, thanks for the avid responses! hah this is truly a controversial topic, and you ladies have come out in force! (where are the guys!?? defend yourselves, ol' humorous ones!)

hmm, let me first clarify something about what Ye and WY has said: yes, i agree that you do need intelligence in order to be witty, but in my post i refer to a comparison between the extremely scholarly vs. the witty. Of course i know you girls need intelligent guys; first of all, your man can't be less educated than you, and second, it's potentially a 'face-loss' factor. (and can't you ladies just agree with me for once?? idiots...)

with regards to Esther's example of how a guy can be witty and not be attractive at all, well let's just say that this particular guy in view is an exception rather than the rule =)

Qiong raised the point of there being so many other important things. Hmm, i can only speculate what other factors might matter to her, i.e. the following:
1. bear the name of Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom or any that of the hollywood hunks, and
2. be able to sing any of her fave brit band songs (right Qiong? hah)

Well, all i can say is that, yes i agree that there are many other impt things, but when it boils down to the crunch, the one crucial factor, then humor is the one facet of the guy's personality that stands out.

Last but not least, none, and i say NONE, have heeded my advice of sparing the funny guys some slack! And none, absolutely none, have gone to talk to the guy whom you think has a funny blog. What am I, stir-fried carrot cake (good to look at, not good to eat)?? Hah just kidding...

Leave

2005-03-07T12:32:00.000-05:00

This is a song by Matchbox Twenty... it goes right along with the lines of 'Push'. I love the line "I just didn't think you'd ever get tired of me." Typical, isn't it? How can two people who were close together suddenly turn into strangers overnight, turning their faces "just like a wall"? From love and trust to animosity and aynonmity. It almost makes you think that relationships of any kind are perverse. True reflections of a cruel world? Think about the mother who loves her children so dearly, only to be sent to an old folks' home. Think about the couple who broke up and now cannot stand to be in the same room as each other. Are love and emotions really but intangible things, to be enjoyed one day but lost another? It almost makes you feel pessimistic about everything.

Leave

It's amazing
How you make your face just like a wall
How you take your heart and turn it off
How I turn my head and lose it all

It's unnerving
How just one move puts me by myself
There you go just trusting someone else
Now I know I put us both through hell

I'm not saying there wasn't nothing wrong
I just didn't think you'd ever get tired of me
I'm not saying we ever had the right to hold on
I just didn't wanna let it get away from me

But if that's how it's gonna leave
Straight out from underneath
Then we'll see who's sorry now
If that's how it's gonna stand, when
You know you've been depending on
The one you're leaving now
The one you're leaving out

It's aggravating
How you threw me on and you tore me out
How your good intentions turn to doubt
The way you needed time to sort it out
I'm not saying there wasn't nothing wrong
I just didn't think you'd ever get tired of me
I'm not saying we ever had the right to hold on
I just didn't wanna let it get away from me

But if that's how it's gonna leave
Straight out from underneath
Then we'll see who's sorry now
If that's how it's gonna stand,
whenYou know you've been depending on
The one you're leaving now
The one you're leaving out
The one you're leaving now
The one you're leaving out

I'm not saying there wasn't nothing wrong
I just didn't think you'd ever get tired of me
But if that's how it's gonna leave
Straight out from underneath
Then we'll see who's sorry now
If that's how it's gonna stand, when
You know you've been depending on
The one you're leaving now
The one you're leaving out

Tell me is that how it's going to end
When you know you've been depending on
The one you're leaving now
And the one you're leaving out
The one you're leaving now
The one you're leaving out

The Worm Song

2005-03-07T02:48:00.000-05:00

No one likes me,
everybody hates me,
think i'll go eat worms.
Short worms, long worms,
Fat worms, skinny worms,
watch them scream and squirm!

First you bite the heads off,
then you squish the guts out,
watch them wriggle and squirm,
those big FAT JUICY WORMS!

hah... i dun really remember the words... learnt this in primary sch... someone pls correct me if i'm wrong!