Unchartered Zone

This is it...

2010-12-13T14:32:00.005+08:00

I let out a small listless breath, and then I made a resolve. This time I'm not going to back off nor turn back. It has to be done.

I finally did it, I blocked him and dropped him off my Facebook contacts. At the rate things were going, it's just deadlocked or degenerating into an uncontrollable mess. I popped into Friendster for some nostalgia visiting, and I saw the comments he left from back then...

And as opposed to today, in 2010...

One liners, serious/hostile and vague sentences. What has he turned into? I don't know this person anymore. There is a big fat world of difference between being ignorant, subtle or just being plain rude. From the looks of it, it seems he could fit all three categories. I think it's more than I can handle, I've seen your true colours.

It might be fear, unacceptability, the lack of empathy...but still, this isn't the way to do things.

Have a nice life, because right now, you have already been ejected out of mine. (RIP 2006-2010)

Implosion

2010-12-12T04:18:00.002+08:00

The human mind is strong, it's intelligence is seemingly endless, yet unlike the human heart, emotions may supply a morale boost or implode itself. The more I think I can handle, the truth is I can't. Every time I try to put one step forward, reality pushes me back two spaces, killing every single strand of hope and effort that was painstakingly put into it.

I'm really tried of G, yet stubbornly, my heart refuses to back off just like that. I am being hurt, but it seems...I am unsatisfied. I tie myself down with unnecessary burden, it's too much to bear. A direct confrontation was also fruitless, generating the same response from G. Whatever G's true intentions began with, it seems obvious where it's tilting to. There seem to be subtle hints, but I still refuse to convince myself so. Does it have to come to a day where the friendship becomes strained to the point of no return?

I have no answer, and no courage to attest to that.

And trouble brews at the office, sleep offers the body rest but it could also be generating another mental stress. The odds don't bode well for me. I got roughly another 7 months or so to go, but my situation doesn't allow me to drag on that long. There has to be an immediate solution, I'm left with zero choices. I could select a suicidal path, but it doesn't help.

A clone of me would help out as a listening ear, I want someone to listen to me seriously and earnestly. I can't take it anymore, I could just drop off everything and run away.

Jerk

2010-11-20T18:55:00.001+08:00

I could have elaborately done it like this...

...but I wouldn't want to stoop to his level. People can be such jerks.

Changed

2010-11-19T18:37:00.002+08:00

Change in life is inevitable, wholesome good changes are always welcomed, but what if it was for a 360 degree turn that becomes unrecognizable? I am concerned about a friend, whose phase of his life and mentality has changed all the way, although this is through my point of view, in which any case may be attributed to something I had told him some months back.

I thought we had talked it out amicably but today when I was browsing through Facebook, I clicked his profile through linking and realized his wall and comments were sealed and missing. It was definitely a case of restriction as confirmed by him. As usual, replies (ever since then) were short and crisp and he went 'afk'. Further probing only led him to log out of MSN.

I am very insecure and frightened whenever this kind of things happen, for little or no reason at all, we can lose our friends. The big question - "Why?" lingers eternally through the mind but constantly being denied an answer. Right now, I'm trying to ask another mutual friend if they're facing the same problem too.

If yes, I really hope whatever he's going through - all the best in recovery, both physical and mental.

If no, well, if possible not no. I really don't know what to do, looking back, before that series of truth, lots of lasting memories were forged but they could all crumble to dust and be blown away in the wind. And like a storm, it comes and goes, with no meaning, reason nor purpose.

I hope not.

Sundays

2010-10-10T14:19:00.002+08:00

There's just an imprint that leaves you to distinguish certain days. Even if you aren't exactly keep track, the feeling retained allows you to feel the day. Sundays, glorious Sundays, there's just an air of carefree bliss to it. Especially Sunday afternoons, the perfect Sunday would be just lying around with some ballads, smooth music on.

I can't think of any other way than to enjoy life than to enjoy it on a Sunday, with no worries at all. At least that's how the world should learn to be.

In The End

2010-10-07T19:10:00.002+08:00

It's not like I didn't expect it, but it was just a door stopper. In the end, the revelation came.

It just wasn't me, I felt a strange rush of sadness and yet happiness, for the both of us. There was no green-eyed monster because after all, I did him wrong in the first place, there's nothing much I could, or should say.

Maybe it was just a silly crush, there's a reason why they're called crushes. We weren't entirely sure of ourselves, but at least, we went for it and tried it out. But the thing is still I was unfaithful and totally killed his love.

Now moving on...heh, I wish him all the best with his next guy, he deserves better.

Falling Hope

2010-10-07T05:57:00.003+08:00

Hope is a form of pacifier, and yet also a reality check for most of us. We wish it isn't so, but the outcome may go against what we hoped very hard for.

I sternly regretted my actions, but yet I have no idea right now where does those feelings of his stand on. Hate? Love? Neutrality? I don't understand, I'm too afraid to ask and I just don't want to keep waiting. His schedule is packed for the whole month, meeting up just isn't possible yet. As advanced as technology goes, you can never package sincerity and stream them in one piece to the other party on the other side of the screen.

Technology however, is useful for keeping tabs. His facebook/twitter/msn have both implanted messages of falling in love, but on who this message is directed at, I have no idea. Which brings us back to the starting point of hoping.

I never asked for much in this life because I'm kinda content and comfortable with my life. But I hope he chose who I think he did. And I will affirm with myself never to commit the same mistake twice, ever.

Oh Shit

2010-09-11T11:57:00.002+08:00

I just stood someone up by accident, I feel like an utter fool.

Returns

2010-09-02T06:28:00.003+08:00

I haven't slept a wink last night, god help me tide over today without getting my sorry self in trouble with my superiors. My continuous state of random sleeping is almost notorious but this is probably an all new high record.
Sleep starved for a whole night on a working day, that's intended suicide.
I watched Grown Ups with friends the night before, it's been a while since I saw a light hearted comedy buddy themed movie. All along it has been blood lust, mad cap action thrillers and horrors. I can't imagine why, but at least this movie brought about the simplicity of everlasting childhood reminders, anecdotes of life and just an overdose of unforeseen laughter; something I currently lack heavily in my life so far.

I did a Dark Poeta instance in Aion when I got home, I was super shagged but somehow I was raring to go. Instincts proved right for once as by the end of the run I got rewarded with...

I was dazed, and probably crapping in my pants when I saw the drop. Being the only Sorcerer in the group, I got it naturally without a struggle over rolling dices. It was a great last night, but today is probably going to seek returns for yesterday's fun harvest.

Life works in dues and debts if you ask me.

Hatred

2010-08-14T00:03:00.002+08:00

To learn to love, you must first learn to hate. Or is it the other way around? But why would people want to learn to hate anyway? For some, people hate because of the irreparable damage that has been brought towards them by others, and yet for some - I don't know, probably a cowardly attempt to use, whine and ditch. Have you been hated by others? And what's worst is that they don't reveal the reason for it, and this horrible chain of hatred just continues.

Sure, 6 billion people in the world, it's just one more. But it's only worst that if this one influences the rest to join the hate fest which jeopardizes your chances of a decent first impression. It laments that it has enemies as much as many friends - but why? Something wrong with you? You have to hate anything that doesn't work out? If your friendship can degrade, instead of holding on hope to it you simply toss it all away because it's troublesome. I find this kind of mentality sub-par and annoying, clashes and conflict are bound to happen at some point in your life, are friends your toys? So you get bored, use them (if they provided any use to your advantage) and once it gets sticky, you move on?

Bullshit.

I can't stand it even more that these people act like god damn angelic hypocrites and advocate against the same kind of behaviour they really act like. And sadly, their friends who have yet to fall into such a despicable trap take to their side without another second's thought.

Hatred is a powerful emotion, either you control it or it controls you. I have been brought to it's command ever since it happened, I try to move on but great dissatisfaction remains. There is to a point, an even darker sense of reality collapses, which is evolving into murder intentions. I don't want to go there, but as long it remains alive each day and blissfully enjoying undeserving happiness, I still bear a great grudge against it.

I hate this person, but why? This person hates me too, and why? Going back straight to the source, nothingness swells around me, the only things that can probably calm my mind is to forgive, or make sure it's dead.

People exists to kill others only because of a reason, hatred, grudges, envy, jealousy, vengeance. The list is exhaustive - I only know right now, I have to make a choice.

Angst

2010-08-10T23:06:00.002+08:00

Getting consumed by hate is a very scary experience, eventually you just lost yourself forever - in fact I doubt you'll even recognized yourself in that agonized state. I have been perpetually stuck in a hate fest for a certain someone since June and the hate didn't blossomed just overnight. Somehow, immense dissatisfaction was planted as a seed and fuelled by intense dark thoughts, it now is maturing as a hate flora.

I was told to let it go, to forget. Easy on paper, hard on feelings at the point of the time. It has been roughly two months yet I still haven't let it go. Everyday I cursed and lament on miseries and bad luck befalling on that person. Karma will get me hard, but somehow I just felt I didn't care. There's a price to pay for everything, I clearly understood that.

But I'm also tired, I've been trying to suppress this vulgar emotion, forgiveness and letting go doesn't seem to be the way out. I have to resolve and clear this barrier, a mutual friend acts as a temporary salvation but my suggested solution probably wouldn't work out. It plans to talk it out with the offender to sort and clear up things properly once and for all, I'm a weird person but I needed loose ends to be tied up before I can move on.

Hence I really hate people who ditch you without giving a valid and logical reason, I felt used. I want to trash things out prim and proper, I know it's going to haunt me for the rest of my life if left unchecked. Worst still, this emotion might be unknowingly nurtured into the extreme ending scenario - the thought to kill.

Human beings are odd creatures as we are clearly shaped and defined by knowing to love.

And to hate.

I wish I knew what to do.

The Long Road

2010-08-08T15:12:00.004+08:00

Lyrics in a song capture the intense feelings and thoughts of the lyricist and transforms them into a message in the form of music to let the world listen and understand. Such is that of the NDP theme songs that has since birthed from 1998 onwards. It has ever since, become a tradition that every year's celebration must come with a theme song that focuses and captures accordingly to the theme for the parade that year, alongside a subtle message for everyone to ponder over.

1) 1998 - Home

"Establishing and never forgetting your roots..."

2) 1999 - Together

"Because unity is one."

3) 2000 - Shine on me

"Always shining no matter where."

4) 2001 - Where I belong

"I know and I remember."

5) 2002 - We will get there

"It's a long way, but we will..."

6) 2003 - One united people/ A place in my heart

"Steady and stabilized."

7) 2004 - Home (remake)

8) 2005 - Reach out for the skies

"Catch your dreams and follow it..."

9) 2006 - My Island Home

"Glorify."

10) 2007 - There's no place I'd rather be/ Will you?

"There's no other you."

11) 2008 - Shine for Singapore

"I know and I remember."

12) 2009 - What do you see?

"We question the future, which needs to be secured by the present."

13) 2010 - Song for Singapore

"Be thankful."

Corrine May did a fantastic job with introducing sentimentality and remembrance for this year's theme song. It definitely matches the theme for this year.

Tease

2010-08-03T22:01:00.002+08:00

The people at my office are a fun bunch, I just wish though; that they stop messing around with me ugh.

Free Trip

2010-07-28T22:40:00.003+08:00

I'm going on another guilt trip again, I take too many of these trips more than I ever need.

Over

2010-07-10T20:39:00.002+08:00

She has made her final stand, albeit through her representative. I can give up now, though sadly, bit by bit, hatred has seeped in, oozing all over the image I once held over her. My friend, the one I knew from back then, is dead and never coming back. The current her I do not recognize, as she does of me too.

I have to accept this irreplaceable truth and bear it in mind. He called again and I wasn't expecting it, everytime I hear him ramble; I lose it. I only forced myself to hear some vague parts like leaving his beloved friends alone, and other stuff not worth mentioning. Basically for the rest of the one sided conversation, the phone was at an arm's length away from my ear.

Once again, I got shot into the heart, deep and head on. It's definitely over, there were other friendly warnings but I didn't want to listen further as I had no interest in any of them. I don't understand what went wrong, bad luck? Misunderstanding?

I probably could never have any answer, just like how we have no answer why there's life and death. It just continues it's cycle, slowly, surely and never ending.

Resolute

2010-07-10T02:05:00.002+08:00

Everytime I try to back away, somehow something within stirs me and I end up crawling back to it again. Lack of self discipline and awareness, truly pathetic but I just got a soft spot - for hurting myself. I sought the advice of many and from the results, I am really in denial and a stubborn old goat. I just don't want it to end, I never felt so hurt and dissatisfied my whole life, maybe this how people contemplating suicide felt moments before they went for it.

But I don't want to be like them, I'm still holding on. It's not worth in the end to give up everything for something so far away on the moon, and probably never coming back. The saying could never be more apt:

"In prosperity, our friends know us. In adversity, we know our friends."

I was really touched and amazed by the fact, I could really see the truth out of my 183 friends on facebook. I wasn't expecting much replies nor attention, I couldn't say I felt worse, but i definitely got spurred up a bit more.

My friend's getting hitched tomorrow, but at the same time, my source of agony stems from questioning out friendship. As a mutual friend speaks, if it's truly over, let it be. I can't gratify myself any further with delusions or false hopes, I can only wait or possibly move on. I already lost one in a moment of folly, now I lost another in carelessness.

I need to be strong, the sky cries with me tonight.

FF XVI

2010-07-07T22:50:00.003+08:00

Talking about the online games market, frankly, it's been a while since we saw a good one. The better ones are still slated for release while the best ones are still in hatching process. Luckily, another game that I have been eyeing a while is definitely guaranteed not to disappoint is on the verge of hatching. Square Enix is on the move to launch Final Fantasy XIV this fall (Septemeber) 2010.

It's a step up from it's counterpart XI, and the graphics are stellar and reminiscence of it's previous predecessors. In fact, it suddenly makes Aion look less than impressive, brutally kicking it aside to the curb. The preview soundtracks of the in-game music is faithfully blended towards the typical Final Fantasy style, any game that maxes out it's graphical and musical attraction is definitely a priority on my list.
Possibly the only other unreleased title that could be on par with FFXIV at the moment would be Blade & Soul. But otherwise, both are long awaited titles with the excellent previews and sneak peek, it makes NCsoft and Blizzard become half-ass worry warts.

The game also centrals around some races, apparently with the most human looking of races, the Hyur as their poster boy. Interestingly, he's also what you would see on the standard edition of the CD set. The other races are very fantasy themed, revolving around demon hybrids, midget elves, bipedal animal hybrids and giants for inspiration. Those who have played Asmodians in Aion would find the Elezen strangely familiar; without the red glowing eyes and furbacks.

Subscription fees wise, it seems there's talk they maybe reusing the same rates as they did for Final Fantasy XI. Doing some math, it's definitely cheaper than what I have been paying NCsoft for my Aion subscription. Looks like it's time to jump ship, and my friend's already miles ahead by pre-ordering the Collector's Edition, which has some juicy bonuses the Standard Edition will be missing out. One of which would be starting the game 8 days earlier than the rest.

I'm already wet with anticipation just thinking about the game. Square Enix never disappoints!

Torment

2010-07-07T00:08:00.002+08:00

I really have to take a break soon, I can't stay pent up with all this nuclear stress in me. In fact it's been ages since I took a decent leave, and today, I just broke the record among the guys for knocking off work the latest - the record, 11.40pm.

Absolutely shitty. Needless to say, I had to do duty since I was the only NSF left.

Physical stress aside, I'm also dealing with mental stress. It's not enough to warrant a suicide, but I just really want to blow it all away and move on. Unfortunately it's hard, it's true, we only come to self-realization of our actions after the storm blows over; but the losses are immense.

An ex-friend's friend died on Monday, cause of death - suicide. He didn't know, he didn't know me anymore. In retrospect, I could just forget about it and let him discover it on his own. Deep down, something "bit" me, I couldn't stand it. In the end, I told a mutual friend to relay the news of death, right thing to do? I don't know, I probably saw it as a proper favour for one last time since I was brushed away abruptly from his life. And I was debating with this mutual friend about moving on, but in the end; it's not easy and you can't talk unless you have personally been through an experience.

As everything else goes, it seems I haven't moved on. I may be still alive, but the direction my heart is dragging me, I may be as good as dead.

I Found You

2010-06-30T07:40:00.002+08:00

I don't have the "settle for second best" mentality but while I'm usually searching for the desired "item", I somehow am led to something of a comparable status as well.

While searching for Yellow, I found Drop instead also composed by kz (livetunes). I'm so going to Japan today.

Vision

2010-06-29T07:32:00.003+08:00

I am totally suckered in, I must have this song! It was totally love at first sight, I grow insane without finding the lyrics or the song itself online.

I have enlisted the help of a Miku fan to help me scour the Internet for it, but if even he cannot find it, I'm pretty sure it's probably left to be elusive forever. Oh well, you can't always have everything you want.

*Though there is the option of buying* /wrist

Tune Travel

2010-06-28T21:32:00.002+08:00

With my music, I travel the world everyday.

Well where I go depends on my tracks and my vivid imagination (which I'm greatly thankful for). Yesterday I was in Korea, today I was in Japan, few hours ago, I was in Japan somewhere; you get it. Well it seems like most of my tunes are majority Japan tuned so I can't really blame them.

My tracks are Japan synthesized really know how to sync with the environment and atmosphere, it's mystical I tell you. YUI's Laugh Away is an endless celebration of Spring, even without seeing the PV, you can simply imagine the bloom and burst of flowers, particularly Sakura petals fluttering endlessly in the air.

Somehow, my iPod's very organized for the time of the day as well. I start off the morning with somewhat a border between gloom, self encouragement of deep thought of my Chinese tracks. I can choose to stir it up with upbeat Korean tracks. The midday starts to get energized with the English and Japan/Korean tracks. Time to go home, the evening is enjoyed by slower tracks which can be a mix of Chinese and Japanese. Some of them even seem to glorify the sunset (if there's one that day that is).

Travelling everywhere in a day can really sap your energy, it's time to hit the sack. I really wonder where do I plan to traverse to next tomorrow.

Psycho Stuck

2010-06-26T03:49:00.004+08:00

Major stumped.

The brain couldn't have thought of a better moment to freeze up whenever I need to pen down thoughts for the day, the week, the month - well, you get the point. It's 3.51am and I'm finally jotting down something worthwhile.

I often worry about what to write about, I don't want to treat this as a venting site although as a blog, your blog, your rules. But I want to look back some day and not remind myself how sad and a downhill life. Unworthy issues aside, I have often labelled my future with a big fat question mark of uncertainty. The bridge truly comes only when you cross it, lately, two most unlikely futures have crossed my mind - Psychology and Cooking.

Maybe it's my anti-social nature, but I do recognize that I have a knack of just observing everything around me. Stuff like watching and eventually stalking an ant in motion is just enough to keep me occupied. The intricate cogwheels of decision making spinning day and night, something as simple as a non-living object; I can explore it for hours. Well, at least before I move on to the next that is.

I have stalker tendencies, but I try to brush it off more as an observer in action. What people wear, do, the manner of their speech; almost anything, is enough to give tell-tale signs of their personalities and backgrounds. It's like a new puzzle per person, the possibilities are almost endless. Of course, things aren't always what they seem, which makes this even more challenging. Mannerisms of each human being may be exclusive to a few or be as abundant as the same leaves in a tree.

And then again, here I am, stuck. Psh, I may need a better brain, or I need to boot the memory function in autopilot.

The Fear

2010-06-22T21:44:00.002+08:00

Unable to set aside my inhibitions, I went in straight for the kil..er confrontation. I had to strategize my move with psychology. That way, I'll be careful not to lead this whole play into the worst ending possible. After making the check mate, I just went into the sharing of views; it was like expected.

I really understood his fears but I assured him there was totally nothing to be frightened of as essentially before or after, I'm still the same person with an element that's slightly different. It was awkward but I'm glad it went well in the end. I'm surprised at his concern as a friend even after all that, guess I was really over-reacting.

Like I said, I can never trust these damn instincts of mine. Now to deal with the second fear on another issue.

Sunny Fear

2010-06-21T19:31:00.002+08:00

The sky was so serene and the weather was awesome today, damn, it just means the rest of my day is just going to go downhill. Not even an hour's worth of the day, and I'm being threatened for impending doom already.

I get vivid nightmares that relate to my present reality every now and then, and frankly, I'm not sure which one's scarier.

Man Down

2010-06-20T23:17:00.002+08:00

It's too distressing to be passed on around in a chain of distrust and stigma. I may have been reading things too much but sometimes I feel, he has already distanced himself away. I should never have told him, my trust was blindly displaced.

Then again, I always had bad instincts. I could never depend on them to save my life. But otherwise it was depressing, I've always been a close-in, this guy managed to made me re-think my decision otherwise. Ironically, the friendship blossomed from his first step, I was added to his messenger one fine day. He asked me to guess who he was, and I thought it was just another typical messenger based prankster who wanted to feed his boredom. Then after some bout between the comedy and gravity of things, his identity was then revealed. And the rest was history.

And it was probably stayed history forever the day I revealed something to myself about me. I thought I could trust him, he was the first person I told to among anybody. To me it was a privilege, to him apparently, it changed his world and became a burden. It's amazing how the binds of friendship can be almost instantaneously decimated into nothingness when people have a difference in ideals and background. 7 years of friendship, all for naught - he hasn't said it yet, but I can sense his unwillingness to talk to me day by day. He has to live by his principles and ideals taught to him by his forthright parents, I don't blame him for knowing those - I just blame him for applying to them in every real situation.

It's very heart wrenching, but I don't think I could ever talk to him again. He now remains only as a friend in name, but deeper beneath that surface; we don't know one another anymore.

Gradually

2010-03-24T21:47:00.002+08:00

Life in my unit has it's perks and it's dooms. We'll get to all of that someday, but something I noticed in myself is the change of learning to be shameless. We all can't eat humble pie in life, be the quiet obedient wallflower, it doesn't change the fact that you'll probably end up nowhere.

Reminiscing the past when I was nine, I was rebellious, I did whatever I felt like. It sends me chills if I met age nine as age twenty; I'll probably learn more from him than he would from me. Where did "I" disappear to as I grew up.

I feel like a wuss growing up, always choosing the path of least resistance, it unsettled me greatly whenever I have to make choices, I became indecisive. I let myself pushed over, being the 'noble' one to suffer in silence when secretly, I wished that someone would take a good look at me. Sometimes it would work, sometimes it didn't. Even I couldn't wager a proper guess to what I may be thinking sometimes.

To be unafraid of this wild and foreign world, one has to be bold, be shameless, grab the opportunity - if you have it, flaunt it. But still, that little voice in me constantly reminds me to be righteous in whatever you do to attain any goals, be considerate. You would still want to keep your friends, stand by with those principles and morals that one has been instilled since birth.

I ask myself a lot of questions, I hope I can find those answers gradually.

Death

2010-03-21T00:22:00.002+08:00

The family hamster, Hammy passed away in it's sleep apparently. Someone discovered the lifeless, limp and cold body in foetal position at the corner of the cage. In my family, we hardly ever had an experience of a pet dying on us. It was almost hard to relate totally to it, life and death of a human family member was agonizing, but little did we expect to bite the bullet upon an animal's death.

It only goes to show how attached we are to it when it was still alive.

Still, I'd say that the biggest impact Hammy gave was to my mom. My mom always had an abnormal fear of animals, even fishes (but strangely not afraid when they're on her chopping board). As a result, she never reared a pet all her life, and not surprisingly, forbade any of me or my siblings to own one. Hammy was an exception, she was sent away to live with my sister's cousin and friend, respectively, for some reason, none of it worked out well. And by the time it moved to her friend's house, she was actually going through depression and refused to eat. Worried, her friend decided to ask my sister to take it back before Hammy dies of obvious causes.

When we did finally fetch her back, you can tell she was totally elated. Practically did backflips and started eating it's way to good health soon after. The good days then went by, with all of us basically involved in different ways of her antics and cute-ness. We were warned however, consistently, by my sister that Hammy is considered an old hamster for her age, and probably wouldn't live past next year.

And boy was she ever correct.

On the day of itself, while I was turning, I accidentally hit my laptop table leg, and the laptop collapsed off it. Call me superstitious, but that felt like a sign to me considering I have never dropped my laptop on the floor before. Afternoon, my family returned, someone announced the dreaded words - "Hammy's dead".

If anything, a lot of us learned from the experience death that left a stale aftertaste in the mouth. My mom mentioned we are not to rear pets again, but not for the reason of her fear - but rather, the fear of losing it to the death god eventually.

My Path

2010-03-13T23:13:00.002+08:00

I actually have something roughly planned out for my life, to travel to Japan and study there. Unfortunately there is the issue of funds, learning the language and what am I bent on studying there. Regardless, I have never been that proud of myself as far as I have remembered other than clearing 'wastelands' at my house, particularly my room.

I have a goal, a resolve, something to actually look forward to whilst I cross the hurdle of NS. :)

I want to be unique, discover myself and craft my own journey. I'm tired of always being downtrodden when I obsessively compare myself to other people's life. I am me, just who I want to be or should be. Let me make my own forge, and surprise people in a 360 degrees.

I can't wait to get there soon!

Facebook-ing

2010-02-28T00:18:00.002+08:00

Facebook has since begun a more tremendous impact in my life, it's actually better than blogging. Since you allow everyone to be in the know about the short or long snippets about anything posted up. You just have to write what you feel, short, but the impression is forever lasting, at least until you decide to delete the comment you made.

I decided to relinquish to the domineering blogging, so at least I don't have to stress myself even post work hours.

Things I Do

2010-02-18T21:53:00.002+08:00

I seem to be on a roll call of doing something silly at least once a year in addition to my forgetfulness syndromes. I dropped by Facebook to actually clear the dust around, replying and posting on people's boards. Curious, I decided to actually try to "add friend" of a certain someone whom I heard so much of.

Then suddenly, the request was accepted at god speed. But unfortunately, so did a phone call.

My friend questioned me if I even know who that person is, and said I shocked him by adding him as a friend out of the blue. Mega oops, I ran off to the delete function, but alas, I actually have no idea how to delete a contact off Facebook.

Google helped and everything was resolved. The amusing 10 second moments of my life caused by an odd decision process.

The final leap

2010-01-12T21:28:00.002+08:00

Tomorrow is the big day, my upperstudy is finally leaving the "jail" behind to pursue his future, to be frank, this was the day I have been preparing for all the while. I am equally nervous and challenged to take on his role.

My only fear is unable to live up to his reputation when he was still in charge of it all, the bystander may think it looks easy but it's in fact - the mental job from Hell. It's like PR only with more bitching involved. You gotta deal with people who might know too little or a bit too much, negotiation, pointing out errors, chasing people for deadlines.

My personality is too fragile for this job, but if I managed to breeze past these two years it will definitely make me a better person than I was. Plus then there's a sleep issue which I've trying to curb...

Last day, gotta set everything straight because after tomorrow I'll be all alone.

Grip

2010-01-11T20:36:00.001+08:00

I'm riding the bull by it's horns, and I'm still getting a steady grip. Hold on!

Eve

2009-12-24T11:35:00.002+08:00

I have a drastically poor memory, so hence I was busy wishing all my closest friends with Christmas greetings however there was a catch - I shortened the greeting into an acronym. So instead everyone saw MCAAHNY on their Facebook wall.

The endless "???" was priceless and worth remembering. Who says you can't have some decent fun on Christmas?

My unit organized a Chirstmas Eve breakfast at White Rose Cafe which was in York Hotel this morning. As usual, my poor sense of direction misguided me and I alighted somewhere off course. I had to walk in the drizzle, looped around Paragon before I realized where York Hotel was situated. That's what happens when one does not drop by Orchard too much, I'm ashamed to even say I'm a local.

I never had an International Breakfast buffet style before, so this was definitely an eye-opener to me. The choices were literally endless and I was so glad I only drank a cup of Milo before coming here. Other than the basic rolls, bacon, ham, fruits and yogurt, there were also odd fare you would never see on an Asian breakfast list - mashed potatoes.

I was asked (or rather bugged) persistently to try the omelette. The omelette station was real interesting, there will be a chef waiting there to cook it on the spot along with choices of other ingredients and then serve to you on a plate. The chef looks Japanese, he probably couldn't speak English well because he was gesturing to me which ingredient I wanted. I selected mushrooms and it only took about a minute or two before he served it too me. Even though he was silent, but his expressions speak volumes about his service.

And for the first time in my life - I actually got to experience Blue Cheese. The whiff of it was extremely overpowering, and I thought Cheddar was strong enough. It's actually too sour to eat it alone, but it goes surprisingly well with almost a bit of everything. Following Remy the Rat (from Ratatouille), I sampled the cheese with basically fruit slices, bread and an assortment of choices. That's when the sweet factor started to kick in, it was like magic; a blend of sweet, sour and salty taste mingling with one another.

As I got bolder, I even tried to cheekily whip myself a cocktail of Grapefruit, Orange and Apple juice. Even though it wasn't alcohol, but it gave a high in the heavens sensation.

I thank my superiors for organizing this, and afterwards it was homebound for me. Orchard Road was surprisingly serene in the morning, plus the drizzle provided an excellent atmosphere for that Christmas Eve touch. I would have likened the weather to snow, since snow is pretty much a packed and frozen version of rain. I sat a bus home and enjoyed the sights and sounds (of my iPod), satiating the final "course" of the meal.

Christmas may not be traditional in Singapore, but it was definitely a moment to remember for life.

Christmas Trees and among

2009-12-23T22:06:00.002+08:00

Ever wondered what it's like one day when Christmas trees become nothing but a plain old myth one day? Year after year, Christmas is attaining a killjoy holiday status. Gifts are getting more expensive, disasters are happening especially more often on a holiday that's supposedly blessed, and then there's the bitching on Global Warming.

But I digress, I have something to be happy about for the end of this year.

1) I redecorated my room excessively, ditched single beds for double-decker beds. Have a new CPU to be proud of, I swear it's like having your own kid. Overall, my irritable small room looks like it has grown in empty spaces by a couple of sizes.

2) I'm getting the hang of my vocation, I can blissfully function at 100% without my upperstudy's presence. Of course, there's still the sleeping issue which I'm working on. Everyone's there a melting pot of personalities, already known who to avoid and what their habits are stuff like that. It's like a classroom but everyone else is an adult and there are responsibilities given out instead of homework.

3) I'm actually having some aspirations now, it's extremely unexpected of someone of my caliber.

Above all, I am extremely annoyed with the current keyboard I have. The freaking "Ctrl" button is so small, it's one finger sized. MCAHNY - hey that was an interesting word.

Revolutions & Resolutions

2009-12-19T01:23:00.003+08:00

Year after year, every festive season seems to lack more luster, what's wrong with it, or rather what's wrong with me? I used to enjoy them with such gusto but now they just feel like another day; or a day off if you will for the working population.

Christmas is coming, and within a blink of an eye, another year's coming to an end. Unfortunately, the years ahead looks bleak.

Terrorism.

Global Warming.

Pollution.

Politics.

Need I go on? The tide isn't receding, it's just waiting for that very moment to strike us down totally into irreparable chaos. And then there's that 2012 issue, even if it's the end of the world - are we ready to tell ourselves we lived a good life, and satisfied with a simple demise? Note the fact that nothing's confirmed, but the human being's delusional point of view is stronger than logic and reality.

We all want to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die to get there. In other news, a resolution is at hand. In dire need, to be deadly emphasized...

Stuff I hate about myself:

1) Too honest
2) Easily bothered by guilt
3) Easily "persuaded"
4) Letting others have the best of me

I missed my primary school persona where I was bold and dangerous, I fall and I get up, that is all. My younger self would mocked at me without a care just about now, and naturally my present self would be too embarrassed to retaliate. I wish there was another way to do things without resorting to an extreme contrast of choices and opinions.

After all, that was what shaped the present world now.

Mortifying

2009-12-12T00:50:00.002+08:00

It has been one heck of a ride, and right now I feel I'm moving towards the sky again.

It's illogical all the time to believe that our story and our path has been set and written since birth. Everything is beyond our control, and then there's luck. It's so hard to believe that a decision made would set the cogs of time setting into an inexplicable cycle of no return. Yet for some, we may gain as much as we lose along the way.

Settling into the shoes of my upperstudy so far isn't a walk in the park, he really wasn't joking when he recalled the detestable feelings that settled with him when he started the job. Suddenly, it's almost effortless that it's so scary. Of course, that's not without picking up himself after falling each time. It was an arduous journey but hey, he made it. While he's at the finish line, he looks back, and then it was soon my turn to craft out my own journey.

My roller coaster has crash landed each time, but I also thank luck and second chances each time that I still managed to pull through. I don't normally believe in topics like Horoscopes too, but I'm guessing enduring is a superior trait that all Taurus has, so pretty much, I'll endure it all the way.

No matter what happens.

No matter how bleak the future it may be.

I'll still carry on and keep tryin', until my body is exhausted of it's life. However, in the meanwhile, willpower energizes me. It's so mortifying , it's hard to believe something almost in-existent empowers the human mind beyond it's limits.

I'll live.

Squashed

2009-11-28T20:52:00.001+08:00

Some people have it all easy when it comes to friendships, but I tend to take either seriously though nobody's perfect so we may often commit somewhat sensitive and thoughtless acts out of impulse.

At the end of the day, it gets worst when all of these are combined by immersing yourself within the backlash and conflicts of two people. Left and right are both your hands, you trust both but it's just that each of them have a story against one another.

It's very easy to choose either and give up the other or give up both altogether. However, it takes guts, will and a miracle to still hang on to both together. But I digress, I still want to give a benefit of doubt to no matter who's right or wrong.

At least now I got a new CPU to keep my mind off things, it's all finally coming together. And meanwhile, my work issues are going to a disaster area...

Smart no?

2009-11-25T21:21:00.002+08:00

I have the uncanny talent of making people annoyed and fed-up at me.

And yesterday, I found my sight again because I located my glasses. But then again, having glasses doesn't mean that you'll gain wisdom as well.

Rebirth and awkward shopping

2009-11-24T02:12:00.002+08:00

I abruptly brought my bank account to a near broke status because I splurged on a new CPU which my house desperately needs. My home desktop gave up on us as of last week, that only goes to show to my dad that you can't be a cheapskate when it comes to electronic goods. I went down to Funan today to went parts shopping with a friend who knows his game. I'm glad to settle on a good deal, the lady boss just gave out discounts like vouchers which eventually brought the final price to $920, which is really worth it.

Now I just lack a decent monitor and a keyboard, can't wait to get rid that has-been desktop out of the house. Plus I realized I needed a new scanner to boot, quality's important and plus it's old - heck it's survived the years from 1998!

And then it comes to awkward shopping, how do ladies actually buy their undergarments without dying of embarrassment? I went to buy underwear, something long overdue on my necessity list. I walked about the aisle for what seems an eternity, grabbed a box and tried to avoid crowds as much as possible as I fidgeted towards the counter. I paid with my ATM card and suddenly my heart skipped a beat when the cashier said "Sir..."

I let out a huge sigh of relief when she pointed out only purchases $10 and above are eligible for ATM card payment. Well at least I won't have to relieve this experience until let's say...a decade or so.

Talk about awkward.

The Way Out

2009-11-12T20:18:00.002+08:00

It's really a sad day on Earth if my senior has to lecture me, I don't blame him. Even I can't stand myself, the irate me I have to put up with - sleeping, sloppy work attitude, unable to prioritize, blur...

My job scope is busy, and requires daily attention but yet here I am slacking away in the midst of panic. I have just remembered once again my limit is up till 15th December, if I still don't improve then I'll have to be let go like some pathetic employee.

Between my Ma'am's stern and straightforward reasoning and my senior's desperate and disappointed words, I have no idea whether guilt or acknowledgement is worst. Anything that happens from here down the road is all up to me. I can stick to my way and eventually get off-track, or I follow a stable and safe way till the end of my two years.

It's just like secondary school all over again.

Time of My Life

2009-11-10T21:37:00.003+08:00

I am pratically the essence of procrastination, throw in sloth and bad luck, and you basically have a blog lying in the dust. I often complained about lack of juicy stuff to blog about, but even as much as I deny, my life is actually getting a little bit more interesting than it used to be.

Aion's has obtained a place in my heart despite the fact it's just another grind game...but with irresistible game mechanics and elements, plus the intense graphics (which my laptop is unable to process fully enough to appreciate) and soundtrack. I'm so hooked to it, it creates problems in my lives which soon leads to another matter.

My sleeping problem at work.

My Ma'am dropped the bombshell about my work attitude and sleeping issue few weeks back. It's either I brush up or I get out, so far I still managed to accidentally succumbed to the sleep demons but otherwise I'm making up for greater work effort. However, my lousy memory and priorities still grinds her beans sometimes. I am truly the biggest stumbling block should I ever be someone's reliance. I really have to work on it fast because I'm going to hold the fort alone once my senior ORDs in January next year.

NS really changes your lives, although I discover another fact that people can't pronounce my name - my surname specifically correctly to be exact. I'm being called "Tan" instead of "Tay" by people who tried to call me the first time.

1) I have a name tag that clearly says - Tay
2) Neither do I see people of Tay(s) and Tan(s) being mistaken for vice versa

I'm definitely bewildered why I'm the special case out of the lot being christened as "Tan". Not that I want to offend any "Tan"(s) out there, but sheesh, at least get someone's name right. It's not that such a big difference...I think.

My Internet died for the whole of last week, I then was hit with a realization that if a disaster was to occur, I would probably be too busy grieving for life without the Internet rather than concentrate on the bare necessities. Turns out my dad actually forgot to pay the bill, though I must say the ISP was gracious enough to actually provide two months worth of free cable TV and broadband before they cut the line. So there you go, the reason as to why I disappeared from the net.

I took Internet therapy the moment it came back, stressing my body beyond it's limits for two days. Hey, I am an addict.

And suddenly, those are the things I can probably recall for now.

Sensitivity

2009-10-27T21:38:00.002+08:00

This word seems to revolve around my whole, and not in a general universal time; but more of a personal level. It seems wherever I go, this is the one restriction that encloses me within a confined space. It's so hard to break free without breaking anything else, you want to but then you don't want to.

I often wonder what role does this play in our world, some say sensitivity is a way of protecting yourself. Being sensitive, you're more likely to be on guard when the need arises, be prepared to take lesser pain even if exposed to it. But how this apply to real life and not the natural world? Humans are sensitive to "this and that", would it be hypothetically possible for us to make it through this world without being sensitive.

Indirectly, this post is a rant. Yes, I go in big deep circles to write it all off and to try to understand from a different perspective. Some would say, "why bother?" but I guess like anything out there - I'm just sensitive to something.

Accelerate

2009-10-22T20:15:00.003+08:00

I'm starting to feel the heat from my job, from an increased workload to more 'less-newbie' treatments, of course, it's only natural eventually this stage progresses because once my senior ORDs - I'm going to fly solo. Right now the only thing that's stopping me from going to full throttle is my OA access card, it has an acronym which unfortunately I'm unable to spell out. What's worst is that my daily nodding off has caught my ma'am's attention to the point that I'm finally given a final warning today.

Anymore would call for an an unavoidable punishment, she's gracious enough to give me so many chances yet I kept blowing it each time. I'm beginning to think Karma really exists, because right after her warning, hours later it happened again but she wasn't around because she took a half day leave. Unfortunately, Karma wasn't going to let me off like that, suddenly out of the blue I was requested to do marshaling duty tomorrow at 5.30am! TGIF tomorrow, and since the whole thing ends about 9 in the morning, that certainly takes some work hours off.

I really have to brush up my act, this aion addiction is spiralling out of control. The only saving grace is when the server goes down for maintenance, like today, where I finally pulled myself to write a decent entry for once.

I'm just a sucker for games with breathtaking graphics, something that Aion seems to overflow with among all the games I have immersed myself in so far. Of course, as an MMORPG, grinding is never far, but this game spices it up with a lot of interesting concepts and mechanics; though some may prove to be a bit annoying. I'm currently playing a Sorcerer class, and the glass cannon concept is pretty well balanced. In exchange for nukes, we don't survive against status effects and melees very well, even with the best of gear.

I'm actually trying my hand at PVP seriously, though I doubt my laptop can handle Aion's intense graphics so I'm switching to a DIY computer soon, still got a few hundred dollars more to reach that goal. It's irony how that my goals are all short-term and deemed as pointless to many, yet my life seems to be whizzing by as I accomplish them one by one.

Keeping up with this speed is really tiring though, I'm amazed how some people can actually extend their reach to long term goals with heavy commitments.

Stupified

2009-10-14T21:58:00.004+08:00

Facebook is growing on me, or I'm becoming lazier. Because all my posts seems to be at Facebook length standards, I'm also finding hard to post a decent or insightly post for almost the same reasons.

Well anyway, growing up, I refused to believe how small Singapore is but after two incidents only then I'm convinced by all the hearsay. I thought I saw a secondary school mate on my bus ride home from work yesterday. He looked really different and sported a different pair of glasses so it's really hard to discern, however he always has this distinct look on his face I could never forget. I checked his Facebook account for recent photos to confirm - and bingo, turns out it was him.

Second case, I'm working on documents at my unit, and then I happened to come across a familiar name. What are the odds, that it would be the very same person from my secondary school days as well? To my disbelief, it indeed was him...Singapore seems to be shrinking in my viewpoint as I get older.

It's either I'm knowing it too well, or it's time for me to expand beyond the horizons of this country.

Addiction

2009-10-13T18:09:00.002+08:00

I'm crazy over MMORPGs, I don't deny it can sometimes drive me to the brink of madness. Here comes my other love of my life, Aion.

My character which I was totally bummed out after minutes of customization, a special feature of the game that can already get you hooked. And you haven't even begun the gameplay yet!

Parity

2009-10-04T16:44:00.002+08:00

I am really sickened by the fact, that the good and innocent always seem to die young. Where's the rationale?!

The recent spate of disasters fueled partly by man no doubt has taken the lives of many throughout the Asia Pacific region. And then somewhere in Korea, I just found out one of my favorite illustrators has passed away due to illness. This isn't all justified, especially when it's usually true how they portrayed in movies where the bad either gets away scot free or lives to a ripe old age. It is definitely a myth however, that the justice filled main character usually lives beyond the storyline.

All this started a chain of thoughts within my head, if I were to die one day - would I die with regrets? After all, at my age, I have yet to see and do many things, let alone talk about accomplishments and fulfillment. The only problem I have with this goal setting is that I still don't know what I want, just crossing the bridge only when I've reached it.

What's it going to be? Live a happy life or get busy with accomplishments and goals? And then if we have chosen the latter, does it justify if we passed away suddenly out of the blue? But ironically, dying without a purpose fulfilled in life is also an unfair way to go.

And while people debate what to do with their lives, Mother Nature's is already set in motion to the end. We're ignoring the biggest threat to our existence - Global Warming. Life is always unfair, but we just have to pay attention to everything around. Live life to it's fullest everyday, enjoy it because it happened.

For me, I just want to do something that will make both people around me proud. And of course, protect this world.

Farce

2009-10-01T18:50:00.002+08:00

Singaporean celebrities Christopher Lee and Fann Wong finally held their wedding with a bang, but that's not really the major news here. More importantly, Singapore has increased it's electricity bill by 12.5% starting 1 October 2009 onwards!

This is obviously a big fat blow to middle class and poor folks, and to all the gamers as well. Not to mention other industries and people alike who consume electricity on an everyday basis. There are however perks to this, for once we could actually take the issue of conserving electricity seriously now.

I'll quote my ma'am who has made a very interesting observation based on the increase:

"It's ridiculous and companies like Starhub are actually promoting more cable TV channels, how are supposed to comply to watching more TV now?"

Sadly but true, in fact I'm not even thrilled about leaving my laptop overnight now for gaming purposes. Air-cons in my house are being cut down to the minimum, my mum and sister actually slept in the living room yesterday night. It's cooler than being cooped up in a fan blown room, according to them.

I secretly believe the recent F1 event caused the surge, not only is it due to fuel price increases as they mentioned. Singapore has indeed a high standard of living, but everything no doubt comes at a price. Throw in Global Warming and the recent spate of events happening all over the world, it makes you wonder can any price buy a comfort living these days.

Reminder

2009-09-28T20:42:00.002+08:00

I'm finally assigned tasks, oh goodbye pure boredom. The things that perturbs me the most is that my biggest challenge assigned so far is answering and diverting phone calls. I'm never good at public relations and I stumble and stutter a lot, which is unnerving.

My senior came back today and announced he was going for a $3200 wisdom tooth operation soon, I'm suddenly reminded of my impending erupted wisdom teeth (all 3 of them) as well.

Wonder what's going to hurt more, the toothache or the bill?

End Of The Week

2009-09-25T18:23:00.000+08:00

TGIF, nothing else.

Sleep triumphs all, haha.

Rookie

2009-09-23T19:25:00.002+08:00

This was why the stress endurance question was asked repeatedly and emphasized heavily yesterday, it turns out I'm already feeling the heat of the job on my first day. There are indeed much arduous days ahead, and I really have to tread my path carefully to avoid unnecessary troubles and problems. But overall, my boss and colleagues are really nice people - in fact, I feel less relaxed when people whom I know for the first time are really relaxed.

My dad enjoys showing me off though, he's really proud introducing me as his son to his friends. We happened to work in the same building now and interestingly, people are also intrigued that my father is working in the same place as well.

Being in the office the entire day is surprisingly tired, sitting down in the cold air-con room is unexpectedly torturous as opposed to the BMT days. At least now I see the source of my dad's sleeping obsession.

All Over Again

2009-09-23T05:08:00.004+08:00

I have to restart being in a whole new environment again, turns out yesterday wasn't a one shot process. There were interviews we had to go through to determine whether if we're suitable for the units and posts. Out of 7 people, in the end a guy and I were chosen to be booted out for Bukit Gombak camp - but not that I'm complaining because it's only a 5 to 10 minutes journey from my home!

The best part is, my dad works there so i can hitch a free ride. The person in charge sounds quite friendly over the phone so I guess I have nothing much to worry about. But adjusting to office life can be a tedious process, because there's no idea what's in store for you in the day's ahead. We were asked to help out around a little yesterday and it was basically shredding papers and more sitting around until 5.30pm when it was time to leave.

Luck is shining on me unknowingly, the other guy who was with me - turns out he was from the same company albeit different platoon and also, he was from the same secondary school as me.

The next two years of my life will be no less interesting after all.

P.S - Kanye West wins the bastard for life award, look at what "heinous" crimes he commited recently.

Already There

2009-09-21T22:22:00.002+08:00

Tomorrow is coming already, guess you can't avoid forever from what's coming. I'm reporting to my new unit tomorrow and apparently, it's a desk job. I have mixed feelings about this though judging from the reactions and replies I'm getting; it's probably one helluva awesome job many would traded body parts for. The few things I managed to find out I like about my new unit:

1) It's a 8-5
2) Air-Con all the way, actually no - I dread air conditioning, I can't tolerate cold temeperatures
3) It's in the west area, no doubt still quite a distance

Managed to finish my friend's blogpost for his contest entry, though I'm definitely won't be doing this for a long while again. It's exhausting and I always would have to travel to his home area for discussion which is a ridiculous hour plus worth of journey from my place. At least I finally learned how to bargain with people, and made him pay for my game when we hit town later at night.

Left 4 Dead never fails to complete my day, it was sad a certain friend couldn't been with us though. :(

What It Takes

2009-09-18T01:42:00.002+08:00

It's been a while since I felt a great sense of burden, challenge and responsibility on my shoulders. I only recalled feeling that way in my schooling days, but this time round, I'm doing it for a friend and a contest.

It's one of those new fangled blogging contests which screams of blatant advertisement purposes. And the idea is to come up with a blogpost and a follow up video (if you want to win the prize) depicting the tagline by Pringles; the participating sponsor. 5000 SGD sounds attractive no doubt, but I am hardly motivated by money; it's my friend however who's swooned over by this contest and roped me in to help. Apparently, my last editor job for one of his blogpost was unknowingly a contest entry which actually won. To be specific, it was tied for 50 winning spots among thousands of entries.

I could feel my jaw drop when my friend revealed that little tidbit to me, was I really that good?

No doubt I'm getting a share of the prize if it does win, but I really have to throw in a lot of creativity and that winning touch of writing skills. I have read a lot of good blogs and I fear I may not live up to the challenge. I'm more preoccupied with the thought about my new vocation which will be made known in exactly 6 hours more.

It weighs a ton, but the sense of achievement is great if I'm able to uphold it all.

Gaining

2009-09-15T06:18:00.003+08:00

"Never in my life will I want to start another one of them social networking nonsense,"

I could still remember that "vow" I made when Facebook was first released. I can say it almost worked until one day out of the blue, I was looking through my emails and saw the Facebook request via my friends who already had these accounts. No matter how long I spent deleting, they would still find their way into my inbox eventually. Curiosity finally got the better of me as I stepped into a world I thought I would hate...

And fast forward today, suddenly it's become a part of me. I often unconsciously find myself tagging this button on Facebook. Even with people I have only interacted with once or twice, I would just shamelessly add them, striving to expand my ever growing friend list.

One part of me was also curious, how are these people getting on with their lives now? For better or for worst? At the same time I would worry if they had cleanly forgotten about me, and thus rejecting my friend request.

As a friend quotes - seeing me that "addicted" to Facebook was the last thing she'd ever expect in her life from me.

So I lost a vow, but I gained a big stride in my life.

That's called change.

Sometimes...

2009-09-13T03:23:00.002+08:00

As I grow up, I find myself immersed and exposed to all kinds of personalities and people out there. It's an odd world out there, those experiences can be fun, puzzling, a challenge or sometimes complicating.

It only takes a mere breeze to trigger a conflict, that's what I don't understand - or do I have to understand why such a breeze has the power to enable such a thing to happen. Personally, similar to working a result, it's not the beginning nor the end that matters - but handling the process in between.

I'm beginning to realize some insensitiveness that I sometimes exhibit. Can I help it? Or can I hide it? Right or wrong, when do we know when to or not to? Dealing with the aftermath isn't exactly a walk in the park, showing too much nonchalance may drive at meanings you don't exactly want either. It's such that relationships are often fragile, because of all the neverending and surprising imposed thought processes of each individual fighting for a standstill.

I never wish for bad things to happen, I just want to get to the other side of the bridge. Nothing else matters as long as it doesn't collapse, whatever happens, it still stays strong and we still move on. Such is the way human nature is to be, and of course, repenting for the fault helps to a certain degree sometimes.

I'm a blunt person, probably took that from my father's side. But I try to make things right, I just wonder sometimes if it's helping or not.

The Pen

2009-09-11T17:51:00.003+08:00

I often have a writer's block when I really feel a need to pen down something, but I could spill a pageful of words when I'm not, or when I'm simply daydreaming. There really may be a need for the time where we start to mix blogging with science; such that one day we just spend the day thinking stuff and this machine will just extract that block of output from our brains.

It's essentially a human printer, without the paper that is.

I've been asked by a friend to be a editor for his blog, it's really an odd job but it perks my interest because I'm able to experiment with all the vocabulary, grammar and what-it-is accordingly. Frankly, nothing riles me up more than writing, maybe there's an opening for me in the future?

I don't know, considering I'm not the type who can easily be held down by something. My wanderlust personality really gets on me sometimes. Meanwhile, I'm still rotting at home while waiting for my new vocation results to arrive. Suddenly returning to Tekong doesn't sound half as bad...

Blink Blink

2009-09-07T23:19:00.003+08:00

It's over, it's all over. I can hardly justify for the rate of time passing by, but my BMT is finally over!

Everyone's a little regretful to leave but yet at the same time to get the fuck out of the hellhole known as Tekong. We may have left but we brought back "outstanding" memories, experiences and not to mention luggage. There was a last "everything" craze and even a madcap night of tricks on the last night. I found my hand completely smeared with green camouflage cream for no reason at all, but seeing the state of some others...I don't think I deserve to complain.

The passing out ceremony was so simple, it felt more like a primary school assembly. In and out, and that was it; unlike my friend who's going to get a grand scale passing out parade tomorrow, there's really some form of envy when you see them marching around with pride in front of families and friends.

Leaving the bunk, I took one last look at the Raven company block, it'll be probably 11 more years before I set foot on Tekong again when it's my brother's turn to enlist. As once mentioned by someone, it's not the beginning nor the end that's memorable, but the process in between where we face our ups and downs. And that would be the 7 weeks in all for my BMT.

Raven 03/09; Pes C9 L2 - Soaring above all! :D

Almost Over

2009-09-05T12:01:00.002+08:00

My last book in and book out will be this week, it's almost hard to believe these 7 weeks are almost over. When I first enlisted, it's like I dreaded the coming days and wished it passed by faster but now I take my words back.

On one of the last few days of the week before we had Games Day and it's unbelievable that Raven COY actually snagged the first place title in the challenge trophy. There was a lot of celebration going on that day and the cheering was almost unstoppable and overzealous. I managed to catch a glimpse of one of my friends in Ulysses COY but didn't approach him because I was worried how awkward it would be if it was the wrong person. I was however, extremely lucky to find his buddy, which I then managed to confirm it really was him.

Before the week was over, I had to get a fever. I was feeling like crap but I was forced to still continue the 10km route march. I was pretty much half dead by the time it ended, I don't know my body's limits but I'm amazed that I never collapsed all this while, yet. Initially I was told to drop out but I need to tell my duty instructor first. But his response irked me...

"37.5 degrees? Nah, it's alright, fall back in."

I had temperatures soaring to 37.9 degrees that day, lucky it was already book out day so I just hung on for as long as I could.

Pretty soon I'm going to be posted into a my new vocation, it's another restart of new environment, people and challenges again. I wonder if I can breeze through it with ease, I'll miss my old section but they won't be gone since I managed to get their contacts before today.

Life goes on.

Alive And Kickin'

2009-08-29T11:39:00.004+08:00

It has been a long week and yes - it did rain like fuck during field camp.

I consider it a miracle that I could survive all four days, wearing and sleeping in soggy clothes, shoes, socks and underwear is truly not fun. Washing it isn't either though I passed all the washing to my mother. I really owe her big time for this due to the intense smell, mud, dirt and soil debris from the items. Field camp is indeed the biggest exam for BMT because it tests your sanity, endurance and strength. Not surprisingly, loads of people reported sick on the first day.

The worst part was the food and digging of shellscrapes. Rations are hard to eat especially during such damp weather. Digging was crap too because of the soil structure, position and once again - weather. Mud is basically the constituent for everything in the jungle, though technically we're using an old rubber tree plantation for the field camp site.

We also had to really take good care of our equipment lest it gets 'stolen'. Some of the sergeants were really hyped in stealing our rifles, my buddy got target not only once but twice; thus resulting in guard duty (which I had to do as well because I'm his buddy). Overall, as my PC puts it, it's a very good experience. You bring back a lot of stories, experiences along with mud, rashes and extreme grueling forms of non-sanitary living conditions.

I'm so tired, I'm not even bothered to check if I left out anything. The good thing is that only about one week plus till Passing Out Parade...

Soggy

2009-08-23T02:22:00.007+08:00

I'm pretty sure the weather is messing with me badly.

You have got to be pulling my leg, continuous jackpot of rain through the field camp monotony? It was never this generous when I actually wanted rain at Tekong. I love the rain...

...in the urban life, but not when I have to brave the elements. Nothing's more unpleasant than living in the rain with wet clothes, eating soggy meals and sleeping in the rain.

Is it too hard to ask what we want? Ironically in the weeks before, Tekong had pretty wonderful weather though the rain only comes 1/5 of the time and it's usually pretty light showers. But otherwise the weather was so brilliant that it's a sunbather's dream (but a torture for us in uniform).

It's only August for crying out loud, more sun over the rain. Why are things always finally on track when you don't want them to be for once? Another one of life's laments through nature, jeez...

Ston

2009-08-21T21:12:00.003+08:00

The title, sounds odd but it has never occurred to me that someone would suggest reversing my nickname to the last part of name instead of the first half. Someone from my bunk said it might actually sound cooler and more original. I'm still wondering how much of a hit it might turn out to be.

"Hi, my name is Ston."

Might need some getting used to though.

I finally felt the need to purchase a MP3 player and became a proud owner of a 8GB iPod Nano.

I'm just using pictures to elaborate my point that it's awesome and considering I'm not an apple fan - it's already a hit with me. I'm using the 4th generation iPod Nano so it doesn't exactly look like that but it is still flat. At least now I can chug out tunes while being trapped on Tekong.

Speaking of which, I'm absolutely dreading the next week - it's finally field camp season. Literally, we're going to be braving the jungle for 4D/3N; it also means:

Praying that it doesn't rain
Making sure that bowel movements are kept minimum to none
No wild boar encounters
No encounters of the third kind

Not being able to bathe will be the worry for many since everyone sweats like buckets, and we have to lug along some dead weight and be permanently on camouflage creme until the field camp is over. Apparently, I'm told the powder SAF issued is supposed to keep your body dry - hence we have powder baths.

I haven't tried it personally but someone who experimented feedbacked it doesn't work as well as it claims...

Army life has been fun and somewhat rewarding, I'm actually thankful for some changes I see in myself and more importantly I hope it stays because I really want it that way. Although there are strict rules but they are there for a reason although some of them makes me rather paranoid.

In a nutshell, it's the image one has to uphold while wearing the smart No. 4 uniform. We're not supposed to "misbehave" while wearing that since it's supposed to be smart and we're representing the army's image as well. Sometimes I let it go to my head I simply become a rampant mess of worry.

An example would be losing count the number of people I tried to avoid bumping into while just hanging around my nearby mall. More or less I can say I almost got a heart attack and I'm thankful for my good reflexes.

Blog Improvement

2009-08-16T14:41:00.002+08:00

It just hit me that trying to establish a unique blog with the proper blogskins and tabs is no less hectic as compared to home improvement and house hunting. All in all, it's horribly hectic and if you did a shabby job; just as you probably don't want to write in the blog, you wouldn't want to live in a half-assed renovated house either.

I just gone through phase one of my blog improvement, at least I managed to settle down with a blogskin I'm caught dead to. But everything else remains a problems and while slapping the blog with a new face, I forgot to save my links which effectively wiped out all my links to my other friends' blogs.

That's another into the list of the stupid things we do.

So for a while, just ignore the incomplete stuff, they're still in the works though it really irks me. It's like seeing those paint buckets, new furniture, belongings and stuff jammed all over your new home. But it should be worth it in due time, I would be compelled at least to want to update more often.

Life After

2009-08-15T16:01:00.003+08:00

It's already been three weeks, BMT is passing through faster than I thought but the biggest problem is the hectic time and schedule I have planned for myself whenever I book out of Tekong.

Unpacking and packing, slacking, eating, sleeping (insert personal activities and etc here), the list is horrendously disgustingly long. BMT has been harsh but still enjoyable although the food sucks. field camp is coming soon, and everyone's worst nightmare is being in full battle order and braving the days in the jungle. I also have to worry about slip-ups that can land me in confinements or etc penalties. In fact, I think I'm due for a confinement because my number has just been taken when my sergant spotted remnants of my camouflage creme on my face due to not washing my helmet clearly.

Sucks, I have to bring extra clothing and such I guess to spend the extra day or two.

Another interesting thing is that I finally made a Facebook account, I suddenly got compelled to create an account after seeing my friends' email on Facebook for the upteenth time. I also decided to get rash and posted this blog's URL up there which means this secret blog isn't exactly serious anymore.

I got to be really discreet in what I write now, so much for being out of the box. I'm in a mess now, trying to do things here and there, I'll be lucky to even get another entry done soon before fatigue kills me. At least that's another check off my list...

Fragile

2009-08-09T01:06:00.002+08:00

Humans being can be demonstrate great acts and series of determined and probably once thought impossible feats but yet at the same time, the human life is as fragile as a slip of paper. Once torn it can never be put back as the same as it was before.

It's really sad that I chanced upon this in the news today - Link

The mildly surprising thing was the male victim is actually a close friend of my cousin. For what reasons did they decide to do what they did which led to their demise I am unsure, but I'm sure it hurt a lot of their loved ones.

Life is certainly unpredictable, well today and possibly gone tomorrow. This brings to mind of a song, September, by Daughtry:

"Yeah we knew we had to lose this time
But we never knew when, and we never knew how
We would end up where we are
Yeah we knew we had to leave this town
But we never knew when, and we never knew how
Never knew anything"

We don't know what lies ahead, whether it's another tomorrow or an end - but the important lesson here is to treasure and appreciate what you have instead of thinking of what you lack. Otherwise when things happen, it becomes past tense and there's no going back.

My sincere condolences to the victims and their families and friends out there.

Been there and back

2009-08-08T06:10:00.002+08:00

The first day and the last day is always the longest.

Two weeks really blazed through like it was nothing, I'm finally back home again after spending some time in Tekong serving my National Service. Of course, I'm required to go back again this coming Sunday which is why I'm saving sleep for later because there's always time for those. Army changed me a bit, I won't say it gave me a 360 degree turnover but it has changed some aspect of things of me. The discipline, the responsibility, following rules and knowing the reasons for their existence somethings like that. If going to a Polytechnic meant you had to grow up fast, going to NS probably meant you had to grow up immediately.

It's a brand new environment and experience for me as guys like me have to deal with strict rules and training, albeit reasonable. My section is a fun bunch and I have pretty much gotten used to all except my buddy, which is ironic. One side of me wished to know him more while the other just dreaded it. He looks and acts serious, and strongly takes his buddy role seriously. He's not exactly a conversation starter either, in fact - I could say I know little or nothing about him and vice versa.

Awkward I know, but eventually I want this weird relationship to restart and get on with it. The ice between is still hard and I can't seem to break through.

And then there's the hardships, the physical fatigues, the "horrible" food, having to pick up new and vital lessons fast. This is especially another barrier of mine considering I'm a slow learner. I would still get there, just slower, but I can't afford to stop just yet. I really hope I can quicken my pace too, and I think I have at least shared this issue with my Platoon Commander.

Speaking of superiors, as long you don't cross the line or step on their tails, they can be pretty cool and funny people. Respect is also the main lesson I had to remember here, there can be actually a myriad of ways where you can unknowingly show disrespect to someone, something I found out during my stay there.

But despite the minor setbacks here and there, I'm pretty confident that I can breeze through this seven weeks, after all two weeks have already flown by. Booking out is an odd experience too, when you haven't seen home for a while, familiar sights seem totally out of place. I took an MRT home bewildered at my sights, it was pretty amusing for me.

This Sunday my section has to do guard duty, I'm actually looking forward to it. I'm a night owl anyway and it'll be pretty cool to stay up the night walking around of course, I can't totally slack.

After all - this is the army.

Insight

2009-07-23T13:50:00.003+08:00

I really should start jotting down what I pick up over reading webcomics nowadays, the morals learned seemed to not make sense but yet it does in the right moment.

1) Maturity is knowing that you were an idiot in the past
2) Wisdom is knowing that you'll be an idiot in the future
3) Common sense is knowing that you should try not to be an idiot now

My contribution - we're probably being idiotic at sometime in our life then.

Restart

2009-07-22T07:38:00.002+08:00

A series of incidents finally came and passed like a storm, I'll spare the details but everything's back the way it should have been. I'm suddenly so nostalgic about my time left as a free man because I'm about to sell two years of my life to the country as I'll be serving National Service on this Friday onwards. The weeks before has been nothing but outings, in fact more than I could ever count since the start of this year.

I've been hanging out with close friends, making new friends and spending money - hey nobody said going out was cheap. Well, the price was taking my social circle to the next level which I'm glad to say at least that it's not regrettable. It really does my heart good that people will be missing me at least while I complete seven weeks of BMT on the island offshore. Although I personally think my mom is over exaggerating about how much she would miss me for not seeing me for a whole two weeks (we're not allowed to go home in the first two weeks). She's always saying how I'm not really independent yet she clearly doesn't want to let go of her apron strings, it's a real irony but that's a mother's love.

Tekong, the name of the island, is going to be a brand new start in my life once again. Feels like starting on the first day of primary school all over again; totally no idea what's in store ahead, the people you'll meet, the challenges ahead. Heck, the island's infamous for a lot of hauntings, that's another hefty worry that will scare the pants out of any light hearted souls. And what's worst is that my seven week BMT coincides with the Hungry Ghost Festival, so I also hope everything goes bodes well for me. When it comes to the supernatural, the only two survival advice comes to mind:

1) Respect others - Ghosts are still considered an individual, have respect for them and they are not likely to bother you
2) Don't find unnecessary trouble - With regards to the previous point plus, if there's an unclean area, be cautious and not let the overly adventurous spirit take over
3) Carry a strong heart - As long you are pure of heart, there's really nothing to fear about

When people said Polytechnic was the place where you had to grow up fast, in comparison, NS was like the place it prepares you to live your own fast. After two years of this, I expect probably an overhaul to basically everything about me. I'm always wishing if it's ever possible to meet up with your older self in advance to find out if everything's going alright for one.

I'm actually feeling a little bit excited for once again in my life.

It's no surprise

2009-07-13T04:15:00.002+08:00

After waiting for seemingly an eternity, I rose to bait by replying to the SMS. Maybe that wasn't such a good idea after all, even though I tried as possible to make a sincere apology and an even-headed message warranting for peace between both parties. I had a churn in the gut and couldn't sleep well the same night.

Not surprising, I never received any replies since and it's been a few days. B should be still on his top.

I never felt so empty in my entire whole existence, I must have blown it pretty big because I'm finally being hated and expressed it by someone close. I was never in the shoes of being hated seeing how I could use the word "I hate..." easily and was even in a feud with my very own sibiling for a few years, to the point I haven't spoken to ever since. Though the tension has died, but a few years of absence has driven communication to a sizzle, it's like I'm already no longer familiar to her despite living in the same house.

Would that be the ultimate future between me and B?

Seeking for advice and solace, I seeked for A and another friend whom we're close to which I'll name, C. The thing is also, A and C also had a couple of rough days with B recent of the late. But both has already emerged unscathed today except for me. It seems like time could heal all wounds, but can it heal all scars? For one bad comparison is that my severity is not on the same level as theirs. And also seeing A's situation, it doesn't seem B would give him up after all. That was something I'm thankfully relieved for.

It wasn't before long when I figured out B's next course of action - I got blocked on MSN. After not seemingly being able to see him online over a course of a few days, I asked A out of curiosity whether is B online. Not surprisingly, A told me in that B's status is online but doesn't reply when he speaks to him. My heart sunk a bit deeper but at least I was able to confirm one fact again.

Time and time again, I was given hope and then seemed to be snatched from it again. If this was a form of punishment too, I'll gladly think it's enough because it's really heart wrenching. Today he uploaded a recent blogpost and after reading it initially I was crumbled but then I realized he was referring to another person. The scary coincidence here is about the sensitive trigger as well so I can't confirm he's not talking about me either. I know I may be scaring myself too much, but I really cannot bear the thought of it that it might come to this way. I'm currently drowning my mood into music therapy, with a couple of strangely aptly named mp3 in my list....

No Surprise - Daughtry
Over You - Daughtry
Over It - Katherine McPhee
Over - Lindsay Lohan
Fuck You - Lily Allen

I'm just going to take things in my stride now, and leave most of it to Fate and time. In time, even the scars would feel no more pain, just becoming a reminder it happened and we lived it through

Spiralling Down

2009-07-11T22:50:00.003+08:00

The title has never been more apt for today's entry. Indeed, my friendship, decisions and attitude is spiralling a relationship out of control to no return, in a bad way. I'll just name him 'B' and another friend of ours involved, 'A'.

B has been a close friend since a few years ago, so by know I already knew how his temperament is like already though I have no idea he knows about mine. Basically, he can be a good friend but at the same time, a nasty enemy too though if you don't bug him he won't bug you. That aside, he's a fun person to hang along, a very emotional and melodramatic person - to the point anger and depression can really wrack his nerves. Pretty much, it also means he's quick to anger/sadden though he doesn't hold grudges for long. He really brings sensitivity to the next level, very straightforward, so it's obvious that whatever you think and do, make sure one thinks it through yes?

A is a friend both of us knew, though he knew B first and they're literally close as brothers. Being older, naturally B really cares a lot about A. It's only recently that I got to knew A through B as well, but our friendship is no way comparable to the level of A and B itself. He's a very fun person to hang about, everything he does he really wants to make everyone happy. Though sometimes his incessant jokes might generally make people laugh or annoy a little. And whenever he gets hooked to a new pet phrase, he usually keeps speaking about it non-stop, like his current pet phrase - "Pork".

Well here goes the story...

Through the recent outing, I learned that A doesn't understand or speak Chinese or any dialects despite being a chinese and living in Singapore. I decided to teach him a bit of Hokkien out of interest for fun, and part of it allowing him to understand if he's being insulted or not - so hence, we begun with Hokkien vulgarities. Not surprisingly, he beguns to use a couple of them incessantly. And this soon travelled to B's ears so B rang me up about this issue. Apparently, I have no idea that A is also under B's responsibility, so if A's mother realized he has picked up something unhealthy and bad just by hanging out with B, B would be in for hell and who knows what kind of predicament. Not taking it seriously, I countered with some insensitive and irresponsible remarks that I have soon forgotten about, and I don't wish to remember either.

That was a really bad move.

I apologized in exasperation and after that we cut contact for a while. And after a day or two after the incident, I was in MSN video call with A. We're just talking about random topics and particularly discussing why there was a need for using a video call over a conversation that was easily accomplishable over MSN itself. My webcam/microphone on my laptop wasn't working anyway so it was one sided meaning I could see and hear A but he could not do otherwise. Out of the blue, his phone rang and it turned out to be B. I didn't mean to eavesdrop but then his microphone was still turned on and I was still faced with A talking to B in front of me. And it wasn't long before I realized where the conversation between A and B was going to - me.

Feeling a bit upset, disturbed, confused and refusing to hear further, I aplogized hastily for eavesdropping and disconnected the video call. A also realized this and had tried to go somewhere else to talk before I disconnected. After a while, A apologized to me that I had to hear that, I tried to ignore the conversation and assured I was fine. And all the while, B has no idea that his phone call had occurred in between our video call, and I wished things stayed that way. But trouble was far from over...

Today, after I came home from dinner, my sister passed me back my handphone stating about a serious SMS and phone call I had received earlier. She had brought out my phone for an occasion so I was unable to access my handphone for a few hours. I had a sick gut feeling about the message and guessed it was from B.

It was indeed.

Fear and tension wrapped all over me as I read it, in fact it sounded more like an ultimatum than just a message of explanation. Being the straightforward person he is, he had no problem conveying whatever he wished to speak of. Not surprisingly, my remarks from back then still irked him to the core, and it was so bad to the point - whenever A mentioned me in front of B, he can't help but be pissed off. It's implied he's also a bit jealous of me, I have no wish or whatsoever of replacing B's place in A's life and I certainly know A knew that B is irreplaceable as well. As of now - this is what I saw from the ultimatum...

"He can choose his friends and if feels u are way better, I will let him go."

I never had a spine chill for a while, and just reading this line sends horror all over me. I knew he was sensitive and I was rude and in the wrong for capitalizing on his responsibility but I was shocked at this. It's almost I'm forced to come to a simple decision:

That is to stop being friends with A.

I value both our friendships, both A and B and I definitely didn't want anything to go awry between A and B because of me. I'm extremely torn and confused between the two, what seemed just a sentence had a tremendous impact over me, exaggerating it might sound but this is truly how I felt. I have no one else to turn to, save for another friend who I wanted to be a listener and possibly give me some sound advice. And if I shared this with A or another friend we both knew, it seems like I'm to the verge of being pathetic to seek sympathy votes to change his mind. I really have no evil intentions here, but simply just for things to return to normal, but given the state of current affairs, it seems like it's extremely difficult to.

In a small way I'm glad my sister brought out by handphone so I didn't have access to his phone call because I would be frightenned at what he's going to voice out, or what I'm expected to respond. At this juncture, I have refrained from contact with him...I'm scared to, I don't want to face the conclusion.

What am I supposed to do?

Root canal survivor

2009-02-27T00:11:00.002+08:00

I'll be damned if I didn't blog about this, I had my first root canal today (not like there would be more next time but...) and I survived it! But I have to say even after all the beforehand research I did and even consulted a dentist friend, I was pretty nervous while being on the chair. The incessant shivering and shaking was apparent, even the dentist could see it. I tried to tell myself it was nothing, especially with the anaesthetic and all but my body said otherwise.

There was a lot going on during the entire process, even though I was numb to pain but the drilling sounds and sensation were enough to spook me. I tried not to look at the reflection of the glass or plastic from my surroundings that could let me have a clear vision of my mouth. Among all, I think the part where the dentist was cleaning the canal with a screw-like toothpick was the freakiest part.

Even now, the sound scares me. It's somewhere close to nails scrapping across chalkboard.

The entire process took about an hour, give or take and after that it was just the numbing aftertaste to deal with. I still gotta come back within 3 weeks or so to let them check how the tooth's doing. As of now, there's medicine inside the tooth, if my ears didn't fail me I thought I heard Calcium Hydroxide. And yes the bill was hefty - about 390+ dollars, god.

This is why you should always keep your teeth clean, even though the dentist herself said she had no idea how this tooth of mine became like that even with filling. Then there's the wisdom tooth issue but I don't really want to go there...

Tired of it all...

2009-02-11T21:12:00.002+08:00

Seems like a lot has happened since I last posted, I'm really very tired over every bits and pieces of things. Sometimes I just want to walk away from it all but I really can't either because it's just hard to escape from or it's shirking of responsibilities. I'm going to NS soon, wonder how life in the barracks will be like, call it a blessing or a curse but I managed to be graded a Pes C9L2, which is not exactly very good.

I need to push myself to blog out my thoughts, sometimes I think that my head does a better job of keeping track of such issues than blogging. But then again, I'm messed up.

No idea what I'm talking about again.

Yo Christmas!

2008-12-24T20:58:00.002+08:00

Must have been my inborn "Kiasu" streak, or maybe I'm fearful of my horrible habit of forgetting. So after I saw a Christmas greeting meant for my sister, I immediately went around MSN wishing some of my close friends.

It was hilarious since it's only Christmas Eve, but better be safe than sorry.

(early) Merry Christmas to everyone and peace to the world! xD

Stranded

2008-12-20T20:19:00.003+08:00

My family has officially left for Malaysia today, and I have received the necessities and instructions while they're gone. It feels unusually strange once again, this isn't the first time I'm alone in the house and to be precise, in Singapore once again. But this time is different considering most of my relatives went with them, so I really have no one to go look up. (aside from some other minor distant relatives)

1) I did all my chores within a day
2) There's nothing good on TV
3) My laptop is away for repairs so I'm pretty much left with nothing to do
4) I sleep too much to pass away time, that's not good
5) My home desktop is too slow to utilize any decent internet surfing
6) My gameboys (yes I still keep such things) are well...I'm bored because I'm playing with repeated cartridges that I have long completed

I don't even need to watch The Day The Earth Stood Still to realize how it feels to be technologically isolated, it's not a total isolation considering I'm still relying on certain electronics. But all in all, it has taken 90% of my activities.

I hope my family don't find me rotting in the house when they return.

My December

2008-12-09T09:56:00.004+08:00

I'm losing the drive to blog lately, I'm too preoccupied with gaming, my FYP and my ever so needed sleep. But since it's December already, I better get cracking. I don't know the reason why but whenever December comes, you get this intense feeling of serenity lingering all around.

Maybe it's because it's the school holiday period? The month of Christmas?

Who knows, it has always been that way for me at the very least. You just feel all warm, snugly and indefinitely lazy. But overall, you get it's very quiet but surprisingly at ease (not eerily quiet like a horror movie). My family's going for a short day holiday with the rest of my relatives to Genting soon but I'm the only one staying in Singapore, because I simply dread traveling abroad for multiple reasons I don't wish to talk about. So it's pretty much gonna be peaceful, literally.

In Singapore, we don't have Winter, it's just Summer all year round. I'll probably think of some way to recreate a snugly atmosphere, ha.

Death Massage

2008-11-16T20:24:00.002+08:00

My back demanded for it, so I was took to one. Then suddenly I wish I didn't

My chest, front and back and sideways were steamrolled literally with a torture device made of grooves and edges. Now I know how my mom felt when she gave birth, like 4 times. And guess what, I'm going back for 3 more times...

The indescribable pain. And I'm busy, lazy and procrastinating - so this blog will update anyhow and then. My back, ow...

Debts

2008-10-29T15:37:00.002+08:00

I was heading my way to school one day for my FYP project, and I realized I forgot to bring my Ez-Link card along as I had passed it to my mom to top it up the day before. But I managed to at least cough up enough change to arrive at the bus interchange. While waiting for my mom to bring the Ez-Link card to me, my attention was caught by a VCD fair at West Mall.

Somehow I wandered there, wanting to pass the time while waiting. There was a movie "Money Not Enough 2" being played, if you're not Singaporean never mind; I'll explain. This show was directed by Jack Neo, a rather famous individual, comedian turned director and like all his previous movies, always pinpoints about hot topics that is always happening in the country but is unconsciously ignored or not taken seriously.

The part of the show that was played was about the mother's laments of her three sons who treat her like excess baggage and wanting to dump her in a nursing home because they think she's senile, troublesome and is an eyesore at their respective homes. They thought their mother was not aware of what they're discussing all along, but the truth is, she has always been. Then comes the typical sad song playing about her scenario. It just suddenly brought me to mind:

"How many people have were we in their debt, and have we really truly appreciated them?"

I decided to compile a list before I forget,

- I owe Gladys a favour for "rescuing" me in a backstabbing incident
- I owe George MOS prawns for whatsoever reasons unknown (I just know I do)
- I owe Mei Yin for always being there at the right time and right moment, like inviting me along to her cycling trips
- I owe Winnie a treat for helping me with my FYP rework
- I owe my parents for giving birth to me and taking care of me
- I owe Holly an apology
- I owe Sandra an outing, had to last minute cancel one the last time, and I also owe her a birthday gift :(

Always thank and appreciate what all these people have done for you, I hope you people out there have drafted your own list.

And in case you were wondering, I thanked my mom for bringing me my Ez-Link card, just not sure if she heard it or not...

Court Hearing

2008-10-15T14:14:00.004+08:00

Thanks for the concern of an individual, but I don't really care if I get zero views here, this blog is for me and me alone. And of course, if you're interested to read just well...read.

Life is hectic for me, the rework of my FYP especially is a big fat load on my thin weak shoulders. Today was the dateline submission, and I think I lost a few years off my life trying to rush and submit it along with chaos on the way. It will be a miracle if I can even borderline pass this FYP because...

1) I have no idea what I'm doing
2) My supposedly 4 man team is now reduced to 2
3) If I thought I was bad, the other remaining member's worst, he's not good at database let alone talk about programming
4) I outsourced, from a friend and my previous semester's FYP
5) My court hearing is next Wednesday
6) I have to wear that dorky outfit (also known as formal/office wear) again
7) One of the trials of the hearing will include an edit-code-on-the-spot segment

Someone as weaksauce in programming like me getting through all this and can still pass? It'll take a miracle for such a miracle to happen. I'm so tired and what's worst that I found out my other sole remaining member is giving up and "preparing" to come back next year. While I may share the almost same sentiments, but the ending for this story doesn't seem to give much hope.

When you got it, you got it - but when you don't, you just don't. Fork out 1k+ SGD to come back to RP for another semester to redo G301?

There are things that are worst than death after all.

On the far side, I learned to make GIFs out of animes like these in my de-stressing moments:

I look like that nowadays.

Vroom

2008-10-04T20:25:00.002+08:00

Today I found myself at a place I would least expect to go - the Motorshow Exhibition at Suntec City. Matthew, a good friend of mine invited me along as he wanted to take pictures of cars, babes...and well babes on cars. So basically I went along, wanting to give myself in experience of travelling outside more often.

One reason I never liked such exhibitions is because of the excess of handouts you'll be getting and especially walking on an empty path, you're an open target to all. Had to avoid all the "ulu" areas but still found myself ambushed by persistent people. Matthew really was into this photography hobby, there were a lot enthusiasts like him - and not surprisingly, most of them are shooting the female models posing on/near/at/above (insert possible preposition here) cars.

Walked like what seems forever, blinding flashes, more cars and handouts...ugh. Then my back started to ache, bumped into people and wait a minute - Trucks! After ogling at those gigantic destruction of death on the road and a bit more picture taking...finally it's off to the late lunch. I really found out a lot of things about myself from Matthew. Apparently, most don't know what happened to me these days. I'm virtually "unknown" to most now, except that I'm always online on MSN and afk.

Really had a fun day today, but I still don't get the love for race cars etc.

Ubin

2008-10-01T20:08:00.002+08:00

This week was holiday week, apart from the usual Wednesday day-off, there was also a Hari Raya holiday on Tuesday. I'm not going to talk about uneventful issues for once, went for a trip to Ubin today with Mei Yin and Wei Bao. Apparently, Mei Yin wanted to invite Angeline and Lucy too but Angeline was busy and Lucy already had something planned out for the day, but berated Mei Yin for not organizing such outings earlier because she seemed to want to come.

When we talk about price increases, even Pulau Ubin's not spared. Still trying to get used to the new price of $2.50 per boat trip (was $2), basically it was $5 to and fro. Bicycle rental was alright, still the same at $10 but this time we got bicycles with baskets which makes it less bothersome while riding because the bags will interferre. Didn't expect the public holiday today would make Pulau Ubin such a hotspot today, if anyone wanted to make a fortune on Ubin, well today's the day.

I told Mei Yin that we should avoid uneven rocky paths of doom that lead to nowhere, so today's destination was simply straight to Chek Jawa and back. It was totally hard to enjoy with so many people around Ubin in one day, it's just a strange feeling. I'm glad to say I managed to semi-conquer my fear of heights at the observation tower, and we got off almost immediately because it was over the limit of 20 people and it was actually shaking! (not violently, but mild)

After slacking at the platform for a little while, playing a little handphone music and soaking up the atmosphere it was back to the boats again. Surprisingly, it didn't rain despite the weather being cloudy. Then it was off to Tampines for lunch (late lunch somemore) before heading back home. The girls headed off to Orchard, wah still got so much energy.

As it was off the road and tiring, I declined and snoozed all the way back home.

Such a simplified entry because I'm expecting the two of them to give a more detailed one. /lazy

Unknown

2008-09-28T10:20:00.003+08:00

As mentioned, who reads this blog anyway? But hell I don't care, as long I have a source to vent out everything I dislike/like, it's good enough for me. The FYP rework is inching closer to it's dateline, after all we only got 4 weeks but I'm at a loss of what to do. Not knowing how to edit the codes on the spot could very well launch an immediate failure.

My other team mate is trying his best but he's not good at programming, and quite worse than my plight, he does not know the basis of database.

Sometimes I just want to chuck everything out of the window and just go away. When is NS coming...?

Monkeys?

2008-09-22T17:36:00.001+08:00

"We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true"

I just love this quote, bah I'm so tired...

Life's Good

2008-09-21T17:24:00.002+08:00

One week ago, I was only pouring out my agonies of my life and complaining of impending dooms around the corner. And yet as quick as they came, they left without a trace too. My first worry was about my first science UT and I was freaked totally - not because I did not study but rather on what to anticipate during the UT. I know for science, open-ended questions was the norm due to the preview of the quiz questions. Luckily, I seek a consultation of a good SAS friend and now at least, I'm at peace and know what to do.

Thank you Mei Yin!

Next up was my FYP rework crisis, as if the rework was not scary enough I had to worry what kind of supervisor I might get next. And I was in for a big surprise - the supervisor is so cool! He's ridiculously straightforward and friendly, able to settle what he and the group members want and the project details, all that with a good sense of security and easiness. While it's usually difficult for people of different age groups to click, I'll say this is the total opposite. A few members who were supposed to turn up well...did not turned up so Joshua (The supervisor's name) wanted to propose the suggestion to the head if it was possible for our scope to be reduced!

See that's so cool! Any boring supervisor probably think it was not their problem already.

The only ironic ending to this weekend is that, my brother caught Hand Foot Mouth Disease. Blame him for bringing back an item which was his friend's friend, who just so had contracted the same illness. And now my younger sister can't stop walking around the whole house with a bottle of Dettol.

My house has the scent of Dettol now as well, this is just odd. Everything's a blessing in disguise, even the disease.

Explosion

2008-09-17T17:00:00.004+08:00

Standing in the spot where ten nuclear explosions are set to collide won't even come close to explaining how I feel right now. I only been hit with three bombshells today and I'm already on the verge of shock and collapse.

Bombshell # 1 - Today was the start of the rework, and I got the it through mail today. But can you imagine how much I was hyperventilating when I read the meeting date.

"17 Sep, Wednesday 12pm - 1pm"

And what time did I read this mail?

"17 Sep, Wednesday 4pm"

Before I started screaming in my head, I realized there was an after-mail that the meeting was postponed to this Friday. Oh for the love of...

Bombshell # 2 - I met an old secondary school friend, well in fact we have been meeting all our lives almost every morning on the covered walkway which links the bus interchange to the MRT. But we would always meet while heading for different direction separated by a crowd of people. Today was no exception but it was in the afternoon, and I think he actually realized it was me (being botak and all), because all the while in the morning we met, I was told he's quite sleepy so he's not that conscious of his surroundings. Being the typical shy bastard I was, I just looked straight after my eyes saw him.

This is why I hate my personality, anyone I know whom I never come across for quite sometime and especially if there was a great deal of time we did not even have conversation, it would be even awkward for me. I wonder how people react to long time friends/classmates they have never seen or interacted with...

Bombshell #3 - It finally came, the NS medical checkup, actually this isn't a worry to me but I thought I should include it anyway. After all, it's just two years of non stop physical grinding - beats any day of doing coding ugh...

I need to de-stress, back to games.

Away From Me

2008-09-16T18:02:00.004+08:00

Already the second week of my elective science module, while I'm delighted with my progress and the knowledge of new biological concepts but the "enthusiasm" of my facilitator just makes the whole lesson die. It's not that he's that bad, but he is simply...well words fail me - even my IT modules, it's much lively in there even when I cannnot comprehend. I also worry about how to cram so much concepts into my head and remember them, I was warned that the UT questions are all open ended and often in loopholes.

I'm quite attached to this particular picture I found on the Internet, I'm not exactly sure why but I can relate to it. We all relate to a lot of things we just don't see a connection to at first touch, and obviously, I'm not the couple. And if you think I'm putting myself in the shoes of the soldier guys and you're wrong too, go interpret this picture according to you but I got my own.

Enough about me, me and me, we got to focus our attention on Mother Earth now! I watched an interesting documentary 'A Global Warning?' over the weekend, and it highlights a lot of things about the global warming issue we are encountering right now but are in denial - well at least to the people who want to avoid making a loss in profits for their economy. The folks really went way back to gather weather pattern data and such to try to make out what our future is going to be like and what are we exactly in for if our ignorance continues. Apparently, this was the summary:

The global temperature is rising and they're trying to find the main culprit, so check these suspects out.

1) The world has the bulk of the greenhouse gas, Methane, stored as Methane Hydrates under the ocean floor and due to the warming of the seas, they risk being broken down and escape to the atmosphere as gas. While not only do they trap heat, can you imagine if one day when a lightning storm occurs in an atmosphere stuffed full with Methane? We're talking at the scale of a nuclear explosion...

2) While volcanoes also spew out greenhouse gas (a lot actually), rarely do we have too many of the culprits - the supervolcanoes lying around. There is currently one situated at USA, the Yellowstone and it's told that it's 50 years overdue for an eruption.

3) Carbon dioxide, nothing beats the world's popular pollutant like they can. While this is a natural occurring gas in the atmosphere, providing plants as a source of material for making food, too much is actually a bane to everyone. Like methane, it traps heat but of course while Methane is more effective in trapping more heat but we have Carbon Dioxide at an uncontrollable amount in the atmosphere right now.

You can thank the countries that spew out this pollutant daily from cars, burning or fossil fuels and crazy energy demands.

4) Sunspots can cause much irregularities to our global temperature too, but currently the Sun is doing fine with it's sunspots so moving on...

5) Comets - when was the last time we were hit by one? This is one of the agents that can cause a sudden breakout in temperature and climate control but when was the last time such an event hit us? There was a theory somewhere in the timeline, this was supposedly responsible for a sudden eradication of 95% of life on Earth but they still lack proof to support this theory.

6) Our ice, which acts as a natural heat reflector is slowly disappearing and converting into water. Arctic, Greenland, Antarctica as long there's ice, you name it. Because oceans are dark in colour, exposing more of them means absorbing more heat rather than reflecting heat. Also there's the rise in water levels and endanger/extinction of particular animal life (polar bears). Permafrost at Alaska is also melting which dangers the fact of not only causing huge sinkholes, they also exposed dead plants beneath them which when bateria acts on them - causing more Methane as a byproduct to enter the atmosphere.

7) Of course, there's also not forgetting crazy climates - Hurricane Katrina, what more can we say?

It's not hard to tell that human activites are the cause for this impending disaster, but rather than pointing fingers now, it's better to try to think up a solution fast because we're running out of time. While "The Day After Tomorrow"'s weather effects sound a bit far-fetched, some of them are likely to come true. As the closing of the documentary asks...

"What will it take for us to finally wake up and realize it?"

Good Failure

2008-09-14T22:44:00.004+08:00

Grades.

At RP, it's always standard to issue grades with comments to the team and individual. For my science module at least, this facilitator has a habit of reviewing the class before giving the grades.

"It is my practice to give a brief review after I publish the grades the the problem.

This class has very good potential to do very well for this module. Considering many of you do not have a background in biology, the effort put into the work is commendable. After a few more weeks, with more familiarization, the grades will naturally improve if the consistency is there.

In general, good work. For the 3rd meeting, there was very good coverage of content, as well as the demonstration of the basic understanding. Keep up the motivation to do well and you all will gain alot from this module."

And this is only the comment for the entire class, considering that to the 95% of the class, this was their elective. It went to team comments next...

"Good tie back to the problem statement. The presentation was detailed and in depth, with good illustrations which is commendable. At the same time, the rotation of presenters is a little imbalanced. For the next problem, perhaps this team can try to even out the presentation so it does not seem too imbalanced. Other than that, an excellent work."

Before I even move on, please note the insatiable usage of the word "good". Either we were really that good, he was running out of vocabulary or this was just to make us feel better if we actually didn't do as "good" as it was supposed to be. Finally it came to individual comments...

"You're a bright student and with more effort and participation and contributions in all 3 meetings, you will do very well. You shine during the 3rd meeting, presenting pretty well and demonstrates your understanding. I look forward to seeing the development of milestones over the next few weeks. "

Sounds promising and inspiring isn't it? But guess what I got...

C+. (Actually, in the grades itself it was a C, but considering it shouldn't be possible to give grades with a +, he probably had to mention it externally)

Now someone please explain the rationale to me with the neverending usage of "good" and also how the fact that the comments are actually helpful in improving you. I don't mind if I had areas which I need to improve, but the action behind the comments is ironic.

Oh well, Mei Yin warned me about him...

The Fall of the Giant

2008-09-12T19:08:00.004+08:00

I can't believe why I actually forgot to blog about this yesterday, it was big news if you were an avid online gamer. Ever since August, MapleSEA has seen a rise in unexplained hackings of it's player's accounts, sometimes mesos or items go missing, worst cases would be both disappearing and your acash (if you had any left in your account) either spent as well, or on meaningless items. One player for example found a pig's head cash item in his account.

Well the point is anyway that Asiasoft kept mum on a lot of things and kept assuring the players everything was under control. When rumours surfaced that that were hacked and stuff, they only tried to do damage control and reminded it's players on cyber security. Some of the more popular reminders are...

1) Don't share your password or account information with anyone but yourself
2) Refrain from visiting websites that you are unsure of, they might contain trojans, keyloggers etc
3) Don't play at cybercafes and you may not be sure how up-to-date their anti-virus softwares are (or worst, they don't have one)

Unfortunately, majority of the victims are people who have followed about 100% of the rules, even the low profile players aren't spared from the hackings. Theories and finally a solid logical explanation were posted in the forum about the spate of hackings. One of the theories about using IGNs to hack due to a database leak proved it's truth when the ranking board at MapleSEA was taken down. Not much of an action was done, and the management was quiet other than highlighting their reminders incessantly. They even went as far as to disabling the create account/change password functions to prevent hackers from doing their work, but this also put the current players at risk because their data reminds the same and if the hacker could cracked their accounts, it's game over for them.

Finally the saving grace - http://www.todayonline.com/pdf_open.asp?id=1109HNR003

Unfortunately, the report wasn't exactly 100% accurate on whatever information the players provided. Yeah it's only due to a combined effort of players this was finally able to make it on the news, but bleh at the other big newspaper who refused to publish about it. This newspaper report proved a few things:

1) Asiasoft finally admitted they were under a hacker's attack, took a report to weed this out of them
2) The public knows about Asiasoft's reactions and actions taken to this crisis
3) Maplestory is Asiasoft's biggest pillar

I mean take a look at the previous once existent games Asiasoft was hosting, PangyaSEA and KongKongSEA. KongKongSEA was shut down because of a poor player base, I have not much to say but the decision was almost sudden. Then almost out of nowhere, PangyaSEA had to shut down too because of a poor player base reason as well. This I really have to vent it out, Pangya may have a low player base but it's certainly stable with players forking out money regularly on a-cash. It's a game that's relaxing because there is little grind factor, nice community, great potential in the game and most importantly - this game had rarely any lag/rollback/hacking issue which MapleSEA had the most!

Of course, it's obvious Asiasoft gives more shit about it's profits and Pangya went away too. Look at Japan's Pangya, it's obvious the game is thriving very well there. Now that Asiasoft's...actually Moneysoft is a better name, main pillar is collapsing, it's desperately trying to save it. I really want to almost mock that they think they're being hacked by China hackers. Whatever they claimed were based on the discussions and theories by the players in the forum, hell even some of the players managed to draw out the database leak theory earlier than they did.

Haha, look at the drop in players they had based on the hits of their website. It's obvious that it's showing a decline in popularity. And it's also obvious that when all this hacking saga is over one day, there will never be compensation as the loss is overwhelming so they are going to make up with what - more free 2 hours 2x exp/drop rate events?

*Explodes into uncontrollable fits of laughter*

I'll just watch slowly how this giant who makes millions a day from selling Prepaid cards fall to bits and pieces, hell I'm so merciful I'm not going to even talk about their lousy customer services.

Vocaloid

2008-09-11T18:34:00.003+08:00

I'm probably gonna be a bit freaked out by air conditioners for a while, today's Network and Data Center Management saw a little field trip to Republic Polytechnic's own data center (2). We weren't allowed to go to data center 1 apparently because the LEO servers and the important servers are hosted there, one little tweak and you could bring down the whole school.

Apart from doing our interviews session with our facilitator regarding the data center, it was obvious to note that the climate in there was ridiculously cold. Those without long pants, jackets and shoes were really in for it of course, even with a thick jacket I could barely keep out the cold. You can literally hear the air conditioners roaring, and with the door swung opened (we were in the staging area before the data center), there was an invisible surge of freezing air. After the end of the cold trip, I felt a brain freeze effect even without the need of eating ice cream. Well enough about school, I'm quite psyched up today because a msn buddy of mine introduced me to Vocaloid! (To be precise, it's actually Vocaloid2)

Seen here is actually one of the characters from the Vocaloid2 Character Series, Kagamine Rin/Len (鏡音リン/レン). Vocaloid is actually a singing synthesizer application software developed by Yamaha Corporation that enables users to synthesize singing by just typing in lyrics and melody. They soon started Vocaloid2 and set up part of the character series with Japanese voices, which were obviously a bigger hit. I haven't seen any of the English voice characters yet or heard their voices yet so I won't say anything. The amazing thing about this is that the voices incorporate some elements from sample voices by real people and the rest is history, the developers are slowly moving away from imitating real voices to creating characteristic vocals though. So in short - most of the vocals you hear sound a bit like an idol singer from the future, but the truth is they don't exist.

Really reminds me a lot of Gorillaz and Daft Punk, they function almost in the same way except Vocaloid2 makes use of only a sample voice and from there onwards, it's all non-existence vocals. Kei's the awesome illustrator behind the creation of the twins and another character Hatsune Miku (初音ミク). Enough with the words, let your ears sample some awesome recommendations!

Hatsune Miku - Setsuna

Kagamine Rin/Len - ココロ・キセキ

I'm truly addicted and blown away by their voices, ココロ・キセキ has instantly become one of my favourites. The title translates to "Heart・Miracle", it has a really sad storyline with an awesome and equally touching PV to boot. According to the Vocaloid2 website, there's an upcoming new character, his name is Kamui Gakupo (神威がくぽ). They're still in the midst of designing his character though, but it's slated to come out this year.

To the one who introduced me to Vocaloid2, I thank you! :D

Biology not boring

2008-09-09T13:42:00.008+08:00

This is screwed up, there's obviously a lot of things being squashed at the bottom but ignore it for now because I'm still my best to fix it (technically speaking, trying my best to look for help). At least it has a tagboard now so yeah, better than nothing.

Nowadays I often come back home ending up shagged, I hardly can even go do a decent web surfing without drooping in front of the keyboard. Now with the FYP load coming in, it's becoming more intense now, so I'll definitely treasure my day-offs. Probably sleeping the day away and...just sleep more.

I just love my new elective module, Anatomy and Physiology but unfortunately, the facilitator isn't that as thrilling. While it's too early to pass any judgement, but the first impression is that he gives a very "sian" feeling and it's damn addictive. And because my class is mostly made up of people who aren't from SAS (which means for most of them, this is an elective too), it made him come up with a statement:

"Oh since most of this class are taking this as a elective means I can slack too,"

While this is taken in good fun, I seriously hope he doesn't mean it. I won't judge the book by it's cover, but I hope the contents of the book won't further compliment the book's cover.

My classroom, oh man...I miss the old school classrooms we had in Year 1 and 2. Always opened by the time you arrive at school, relatively warm temperature (unlike those damn accursed laboratory classrooms where the aircon really goes wild) and the best of all...soft snuggly spinning chairs! Makes a good choice for snoozing in class during breaks, the current chairs I'm experiencing in my other three modules are literally back-breaking. But the classroom which is situated at the E4 block is not only far from the entrance and the canteen, it's eerily quiet. We get plenty of sunlight here though so it's not that spooky, I supposed it's conducive to study too.

At SIT, a breakout can ensue chaos within it's corridors of the classroom.

Doing 10+ slides filled with words, diagrams and more words is just epic. You also have to elaborate to prove that you understood whatever you just rambled about. And oh, we had lab session today, but it's not really lab because all we did was to sit around and discuss about what we found out, and looked at some what is supposed to be cells from a rat's intestines. The lab was very very cool to hangout in, nice window view as well but too bad we're just gonna drop by in it for two more weeks. This module is very theory based after all.

Today's lesson is so interesting, we had to compare the human body to a house. /sacarsm

I also learned something random today - if you want to tell someone they're fat nicely, just say this:

"You have a lot of adipose tissues"

Just pray that they don't do biological sciences.

Addiction

2008-09-07T16:47:00.003+08:00

You claimed you quit, you swore you want nothing to be done with this again. You said it ruined your life and wasted your money. Sure, so you did stop craving it and doing it again - but what's this? You have returned to your old habit again.

Old habits die hard? Psh, takes only a wimp to back out from his promises.

Oh shit...Granado Espada is so addictive. Quitting this game seems hard especially since there aren't any good games around. The most I just promise I won't spend anymore money on it...

Yeah right bastard..

Second perspective blogging, what fun.

Backtrack

2008-09-06T08:30:00.006+08:00

I let my day go past unnoticed and forgotten too many times, this may the reason why I'm quite compelled to update this blog almost daily. It's not I don't have a life or anything but I want to get started before it's too late again. Looking back, my first blog looks quite childish, written in an embarrassing Mickey x Minnie design paperback. As a kid, I didn't find any use for a diary.

Diary's such an embarrassing name, really...

Tossed away into the depths and later converted into an autograph book. (Yes, those were the times!) I later seeked comfort in another book with some silly cartoonish design. Because I was quite a runt back then, I often had conflict with people back then and I believed that the book was like a source of venting of frustration and writing revengeful stuff about people I offended. We all do silly things when we're young, I have to admit that was one of mine.

Years past and my education upgraded to secondary school, that was when writing your thoughts alone became all the rage, otherwise known as blogging. Blogspot was considered almost an unknown to me; or at least, it was hard to code a layout. One of the things that constantly bug me about blogging is that...I can never blog in peace with a messed up layout, not sure how many may share that kind of sentiments but it's like asking you to jot down the personal details of your life in mud.

Wrong analogy maybe...but moving on.

One of my best friends (OMG best friends! Such a rarity in my life that'll forever be treasured~) Sandra, introduced to small group of us bloggers-to-be diaryland. I like how it appeals to first time users, as well as to users who played around with HTML/CSS for the first time but the name forever bothers me. My first blog was a memory, basically just describing my secondary school life in simplistic sentences and internet speak. (I reserve 'lol' and '1337' to msn nowadays)

Check it out - http://sinfilion.diaryland.com/ (6 Jan 2005~12 May 2007)

The skin's an interesting concept by a blogskin designer that old discarded blogs should also have a nice skin, either indicating the new blog link (well mostly this) or a blog is closed forever. This skin unfortunately cancels out majority of the links, as a result, even if you see an archive link, clicking it only allows you to see the title of entries and no more than that. I never wanted to see the entries again for some odd reason, but I suppose when I'm way older I might go back to take a look. This was still a hotbed of good memories though.

Afterwards I moved on to wordpress, more cleaner and organizer themes to impress. As you can see, there was a one month span in between the two blogs where I stopped blogging a while. But as the whole world was blogging around me, I can't stop either - peer pressure haha.

The second link - http://larg.wordpress.com/ (18 June 2007~7 Dec 2007)

I still think although the writing is more mature this time, it's still a collective base of junk entries which I also don't bother to read but with a different reason. In the end I moved up to game blogging which was a short lived success, well because I quitted the game I was blogging.

So it was pretty much a whirlwind of mind before I stop and came back to blogging once again. This time...well I have no idea actually. Just blog whatever comes to the head, that's the philosophy now. So what's your blogging philosophy? :)

A little song to tag with today's entry, subtle but fitting.

Mental note to self - need to setup a tagboard.

Minimal

2008-09-05T15:00:00.001+08:00

Mini foreword: This entire blog is still under construction, still got loads of stuff to configure, so don't mind if you see any weird stuff around the layout etc.

Would love to slap myself silly for today's performance, it's only the second day of school (yet the last day of the week, I'm blaming Friday for this) and I'm already dozing off in class. I blame too many things but hey, I have legal reasons too. It seems like I only had two members in my team (inclusive of me) and I virtually had nearly zero experiences with handling the practical process. The other guy in my team was from IT security, he told me Internet Server Technologies is actually his elective module.

Lots of familiar faces in my class today as well, but I supposed that's one of the impending barriers today. I really don't know how to communicate with people, and I suck more at trying to face/communicate with people I have met before. Lack of topic enables me to be able to keep mum even if people try to initiate conversation. The facilitator, Bernard is a very cool guy though, not really intimidating as a facilitator so getting adapted to this class was no sweat.

Another thing that was bothering me today (or at least forever) was my fyp; I thought the work my group had done for the initial introduction of research topics for G302 could ease some of my worry. 11.45am we met up, one of my members Winnie couldn't make it due to a last minute clinical appointment. 12pm, no sign of facilitator at all.

Sent an email, no reply.

Called up his RP staff number, unavailable for contact - "Please leave a message", frankly I never bothered with answering machines.

We got stood up in the end, by 12.30pm I dismissed everyone. Seriously shagged today, the third meeting was not at all fun as stated in the front of the post. Only have two more modules on Monday and Tuesday and I seriously hope everything goes well. RP made a tweak to the facilitators assigned, apparently for my elective, I was said to have gotten an extremely good facilitator who was quite dedicated to the class. But in the end it got changed, I asked around and was feedbacked that my new facilitator is kind of biased and gives really undesirable grades. there are only two possibilities to this:

1) due to the performance of the students

2) the facilitator has too high of expectations

Don't know which but there can't be smoke without fire.

First day went well, why can't the rest of the days? Oh by the way, it rained this morning. What a foreboding omen even though I enjoy rainy days.

EDIT: Turns out the supervisor didn't receive a confirmation email of the date he proposed so he thought we weren't free that day! o_o

First Day

2008-09-04T22:44:00.001+08:00

Oh who cares whether the layout is up yet, I think I had enough of my mundane yet exciting enough life passing me by and god knows if I can still remember any of them when I want to. School started today after a duration of three weeks, luckily for me it was not foreign because about half the class consisted of my year 2 classmates. No awkward moments or anything, my group was rowdy and I'm still getting to know people's names. The facilitator, Dale was briefed us on his rules and etc but he can be good fun too if we abide by them.

As usual, I have caught his attention by being a wee bit quiet during second meeting, running almost out of things to say.

"Cannot be quiet, I will target specifically the quiet people a lot!"

Really have get over this edge, this is one of the bane of my life, but otherwise the rest of the day went by quite smoothly, managed to give a lengthy elaboration during presentation. Still I think some of my classmates were hinting that I was boring the class, took some notes about that. My monotone voice doesn't exactly help my situation either but heck...all for the grades.

Midway during noon, had to scoot off to attend a fyp rework briefing because well...I failed my G301 module. Now after the briefing, it's just hell all over again, it's a bombshell of a nightmare .

1) You will be assigned a new project depending on which grade category you fall in, but there are only two grade categories which makes two projects.

2) Team members will be assigned, and how many in the team depends on the list of people who want to rework.

3) Code-on-the-spot is definitely going to part of the evaluation and the crux of the main project. If the individual fails to accomplish this during the evaluation, the evaluation is said to have no need to continue further.

4) D/D+ grade people have 2 weeks to complete their project along with 5 pages of documentation per member, while E/F grade people have 4 weeks to complete theirs with at least 15 pages of documentation. The entire project has a smaller scope but it is still a compressed version of 13 weeks.

5) D/D+ people can choose to rework based on their overall gpa, E/F people definitely have no option to not rework unless they want to spend another semester just to complete a G301 project (which will be 13 weeks this time round).

6) The maximum best grade you can get this time round is C.

7) For D/D+ people, you can actually try to be funny to try to do a rework but try to slack all the way to get a worser grade. But in the end, the your original grade will still be counted in assuming your new grade is lower. (If you do this, it only reflects on your asshole attitude :P)

In short, I'm screwed. Second chances but this is like sitting on a one way trip to doom. I'm pretty sure the D/D+ people who initially wanted to rework got put off of the idea after attending the briefing, at least I know one friend did. I'm never good at coding and I admire anyone who could even get through it alive.

"Can't call yourself a SIT student without even knowing the simple basics of programming" so they said, I'm still trying so hard to gain weight let alone to bother about my code issue. But I can't graduate without passing G301!

Someone help me.

Please.

P.S - Oh please tell your families, friends, girlfriends/boyfriends, godkids, pets whatever - if they decide to choose RP as their polytechnic of choice; they must be that desperate. (back then I was anyway...)