2006

2011-11-29T22:09:00.002+08:00

uni sem 1 out of 8 down! and as a form of remembrance of my virgin sem, andreference for anyone who bothers to drop by here, here's a review of the modules i took this sem. im a life science major if that's news to anyone.

cm1401 - chemistry for life sciences - core
the first and probably the most fucked up module i think i'll encounter in nus. they should just rename it to h2 chemistry in 13 weeks. beware of major mind fucking and a serious lack of practice questions. probably favourable to those who still can remember their chemistry from jc (ie girls), for anyone whose gone thru ns, glhf. workload is fairly light (because you're kinda expected to know most stuff), relevance to life sciences is almost non existent. 2 x 20% CAs (1 physical, 1 organic) and a 60% end-sem (combined).

lsm1103 - biodiversity - core
easily the most fun course this sem with 3 outfields - kent ridge, changi beach, and the zoo. awesome practicals but mind numbing lectures. watch out for siva and hobow, they're a representation of heaven and hell respectively. final grade dependent on many small quizzes and essays. a rough recount: 1 lab report (5%); 3 essays (2.5%, 2.5%, 10%), 2 mini quizzes (2 x 2.5%), 1 ca (10%), 1 animal prac test (15%), 1 open book end-sem (50%). agar only. forgot the actual percentages. the most stressful (and probably the only time you'll study) event is the animal diversity prac where you can have a single a4 cheatsheet which you'll spend long hours making, and the final essay (10% one) which you have to complete in about 30 hours. but overall one of the more exciting modules. exam questions shouldn't pose a problem with course material, campbell & reese, and a little common sense.

lsm1104 - general physiology - core
definitely not the most fun, but definitely made interesting by prof ip. plant physio and animal physio. lab practicals are ungraded so it's pretty fun coz you have the freedom to do whatever you want. ca1 (plant - 6 short ans qns), ca2 (animal - 50mcq, 35 mins) and end-sem (100mcq, 2 hrs) which is pretty mindfucking but quite a breeze if you really do understand the concepts. this is the science module with the least memorization and most understanding needed. exam questions are carefully thought out and arranged such that your mind will be so fucked when you finish question 100 that you just wanna get outta e exam hall. i'd give this module a 10/10 just for the prof's teaching and examining style. plant prof isn't as great but still quite a bar above the rest.

sc1101e - introduction to sociology
the most fun module to me. workload practically zero if you 'get' the concepts from the start, which is the probably the most important. 11 lectures on 11 social phenomena which they will teach you to argue based on emile durkheim, carl marx, and max weber's points of view. memorize examples and learn how to use them effectively to support arguemnts and you'll do well. grades based on class participation, a short assignment, ca (1 essay qns, 1.5 hours), and end-sems (2 essay qns, 2 hours). interesting lectures (prof tan ern ser and ivan)

pc1327 - science of music
(probably) the most slack module in nus short of not taking a module. requires social connections to get you the A as past year papers very seldom vary (even the answers stay the same) and past year papers are only attainable thru some people. physics o levels will more than suffice for the technical aspects, and a grade 3 in piano will probably cover every musical aspect there is. the rest is just pure trickery on the part of the prof, who can be described as a classic antique. zero memorization as both 25 qns mcqs are open book (both 25%). graded also on midi (20%), a concert review (20%), and tutorial attendance (10%). easily attainable a with the past year papers and a knack for physics. the hardest part of this course is learning how to build a midi from scratch. 10/10 for ease of passing.

to summarise...
cm1401 - avoid unless truly interested
easiest part: non-existent
hardest part: physical chem

lsm1103 - (:
easiest part: extremely fun pracs
hardest part: hobow's section and 24-hour essay

lsm1104 - (:
easiest part: no memorization and ungraded practicals
hardest part: deep level of understanding

sc1101e - (:
easist part: no memorization, fortnightly tutorial
hardest part: readings and readings and readings (not compulsory tho)

pc1327 - (: (: (:
easiest part: pc1327
hardest part: midi, and successfully bidding for this module

chao! holidays lohhh.

2011-09-28T02:52:00.001+08:00

Why do we hurt each other with the things we say, the things we do. Knowingly. So accustomed to the ideal we forget the real. That people aren't perfect. No one will ever fit our ideal, so that's why we build rapport, memories and positive experiences, to fill in the gap of this perceived imperfection. So that one day when things get so bad, perhaps these experiences will pull us thru and be more accepting of the other. Much like how when one string in a rope snaps, the strength of the others will hold it together while the snapped string is mended. Hopefully you'll see things this way- perhaps you won't even see this, for when was the last time I blogged...

After a morning run...

2011-09-27T08:24:00.001+08:00

The leg feels awesome but the heart does not.

A blur (sic) Moon

2011-09-15T08:58:00.001+08:00

Here I am on the bus to school. Its like, finally blogging on the move. Such is the power of technology. Anw this blogger app I'm blogging from just got released like last week and it's pretty old school still I must say. But iLike.

Just passed by island creamery. Kun time. Haha. Chao-

2011-09-01T01:47:00.003+08:00

a whim, a slate, harbinger, take five;
a religion without a doctrine.
these thin red velvet sheets;
holy symbols of harmony and peace,
arranged in sweet disarray,
patterns of the last disposition.
displaced honours, a broken gem,
have in me a little faith,
let me in, into this hidden place.
a sacred butterfly, a planet far away,
indispensible secrets of yonder,
disposable emotions from within,
did you think forever was for real?
a sweet facade, a bitter fate,
one in union, two in reality,
three's a crowd, and for all of time,
concepts long forgotten,
a tradition with no reason.

2011-08-26T00:36:00.002+08:00

hello there. it's been awhile. here i am once again, finding myself talking to someone that never replies me. but that's enough for now. to speak my mind to something. a reply unrequired. a one-sided conversation.

year 1, sem 1, week 3, is ending. so far so good, everythings going according to plan. studying relatively hard (for week 3, im completing all my tutorials before the tutorial lesson which if you knew me longer than army you'd know was unheard of or even unimaginable). but well, uni stuff is much more fun than jc stuff. somehow. like sociology. or biodiversity. even chem seems interesting now. and i sound like a nerd. but anyway, that's my point of being in nus ain't it.

starting to run again after my initial teething period of the past 2 weeks where i totally lost motivation. feels quite good to feel like i have everything in my life in order, without worry. but guess that's also a "for-now" kinda thing.

rainbows succeed thunderstorms, but rainbows don't last forever.

2011-08-15T00:33:00.002+08:00

feeling so callous and jaded somehow. like nothing interests me anymore. feels like i'm just living for the sake of living. hopefully this is just a passing phase caused by a void (not even lack, but total void lest one) of a social life in uni.

feel so unlike all of them there. all of them in uni. but like always, i never relished the prospect of being part of anything that can be stereotyped. like you know the 'uni kid' with characteristics that goes along the lines of loves orientations, sociable, eager to learn, polite, bubbly, etc etc. fuck the status quo man.

and perhaps it's an added pressure on myself of doing well but yet not knowing exactly how the uni system works or how the exams will be like etc etc. uncertainty breeds anxiety. and the best part: there's nothing i can do about it instantanously that will alleviate the situation.

guess i just gotta work hard and work with common sense. and i need a social life on campus, regardless of how pathetic it is. lol.

if you're just passing by this blog and are judging me based on what i just typed, no i'm not an emokid, fuck you. i just have a major problem with establishment and the status quo that is manifesting itself in an internal psychological warfare between me and myself (and possibly i).

chao.

2011-08-13T13:56:00.002+08:00

everyone's inevitably the same. all that most men want is power (which in today's society equates to money and social standing), and sex. and all that most woman want is security and a place to call home. it's the things that are hardwired into us that is the basis for our destiny.

when a male isn't ambitious, we call him unmanly, likewise when a female has ambitions, we call her a great woman. to detract abit, sexism is then ultimately a fundamental of our society, it is genetics empowered by tradition - it's like a stereotype that is hardwired into us. fuck what the woman rights groups say. in my opinion, woman rights group are the manisfestation of sexism itself and it is fighting for a cause under the fundamentals of what they are fighting against. feminists desire to see woman in power which results in them (possibly subconciously) comparing them to... man. and they think woman should be given the same social standing as... you guessed it again. man.

but then again. women want to be treated well by men. they want doors to be held open for them, they want their men to give in to them, they expect men to pay for their dates. if women really wanted to be men's equal, why would they want men to do all these for them? why can't it be the opposite way round. and then people go complaining when a woman drives a man around, or when the woman opens doors for her man instead. or when a woman is the breadwinner. that the guy has no spine, has no backbone, is a wimp, etc etc. how unfair is this? i have half a mind to actually set up a man's rights group - who says women can't rape men? by playing with a man's animalistic desires (instincts), she can arouse him when he is determined not to be aroused. isn't that a 'forced' sex. just because it doesn't involve strength and physical manipulation doesn't mean it's not rape. if women (as feminist groups paint their picture) want power, they gotta accept the responsibility that comes with it. and how many women want that? most women want peace, security, a sense of belonging, a home. women's rights groups are then just a facade for a small minority of women with abnormally heightened testerone levels who are selfish enough to imagine all women think like them.

but of course this doesn't apply to all women's rights groups. i wouldn't call a female rights groups in extremly male dominated places like iraq and afganisthan useless. in places where women are subjected to men's instinctual actions and chauvinism, that's where they are fighting for a cause. not in developed countries where social interactions are integral in people's lives! in any ways, aren't women more social than men? women are thriving in today's developed nations. what's there to protest about?

but that's completely missing the point of what i intended to write.

there was an article yesterday on yahoo news - married men in china beginning to stray. citing increase in wealth and power among china's entrepreneurs, many are beginning to become unfaithful. it may just be an article but it clearly shows how unfaithfulness first came about. we do not have the privilege of observing this in many countries because we never saw the social transition of a nation from it's undeveloped state to it's developed.

and here, is china. on it's way from a third world country to a first world (well, eventually it will be). it's people - uneducated to begin with, but like any developing country, oppurtunistic and ambitious with the possibilities that lie ahead of them if they dare to venture. and you can see from general statistics - as men grow rich, they become more powerful, more confident, but another side would be the opening up of previously locked doors that lead to fulfilment of their instincts. basically reproduction and a desire for power.

and in my opinion the reason why men in china get caught but others around the world do not (or rather, is not reported) is their education and social level. in more developed countries that have been going through this, the men have learnt how to cover up (they are more intellectual and hence, cunning). so wouldn't you say china would be great example of the basic instincts of men affected by power and money?

so to all the girls wanting rich and powerful men to be theirs - you'll never find one that is a faithful partner in today's generation. it just doesn't comply to the equation of men + power = organised anarchy.

i think im ranting. just a random post from my thoughts when i saw that article about china's men. or perhaps my thinking is just because i'm just a cynic. about human behaviour and instincts. chao.

2011-08-12T00:44:00.001+08:00

To run is my greatest wish. In every perspective of what I just said. I wanna run away some place far away, (away from reality).

2011-08-08T01:39:00.003+08:00

the more you think, the worse things get. moral of the story: don't think, just do.

but then again. sigh.

2011-08-02T23:42:00.001+08:00

A very touching article that I somehow felt was more appropirate for a more serious blog like this one.

http://sg.yahoo.matchmove.com/news/article/a-fathers-message-from-beyond-the-grave

A FATHER'S RULES FOR FINDING FULFILLMENT

Be courteous, be punctual, always say please and thank you, and be sure to hold your knife and fork properly. Others take their cue on how to treat you from your manners.

Be kind, considerate and compassionate when others are in trouble, even if you have problems of your own. Others will admire your selflessness and will help you in due course.

Show moral courage. Do what is right, even if that makes you unpopular. I always thought it important to be able to look at myself in the shaving mirror every morning and not feel guilt or remorse. I depart this world with a pretty clear conscience.

Show humility. Stand your ground but pause to reflect on what the other side are saying, and back off when you know you are wrong. Never worry about losing face. That only happens when you are pig-headed.
Learn from your mistakes. You will make plenty so use them as a learning tool. If you keep making the same mistake or run into a problem, you’re doing something wrong.

Avoid disparaging someone to a third party; it is only you who will look bad. If you have a problem with someone, tell them face to face.

Hold fire! If someone crosses you, don’t react immediately. Once you say something it can never be taken back, and most people deserve a second chance.

Have fun. If this involves taking risks, so be it. If you get caught, hold your hands up.

Give to charity and help those who are less fortunate than yourselves: it’s easy and so rewarding.

Always look on the upside! The glass is half full, never half empty. Every adversity has a silver lining if you seek it out.

Make it your instinct always to say ‘yes’. Look for reasons to do something, not reasons to say no. Your friends will cherish you for that.

Be canny: you will get more of what you want if you can give someone more of what they desire. Compromise can be king.

Always accept a party invitation. You may not want to go, but they want you there. Show them courtesy and respect.

Never ever let a friend down. I would bury bodies for my friends, if they asked me to . . . which is why I have chosen them carefully.

Always tip for good service. It shows respect. But never reward poor service. Poor service is insulting.

Always treat those you meet as your social equal, whether they are above or below your station in life. For those above you, show due deference, but don’t be a sycophant.

Always respect age, as age equals wisdom.

Be prepared to put the interests of your sibling first.

Be proud of who you are and where you come from, but open your mind to other cultures and languages. When you begin to travel (as I hope you will), you’ll learn that your place in the world is both vital and insignificant. Don’t get too big for your breeches.

Be ambitious, but not nakedly so. Be prepared to back your assertions with craftsmanship and hard work.

Live every day to its full: do something that makes you smile or laugh, and avoid procrastination.

Give of your best at school. Some teachers forget that pupils need incentives. So if your teacher doesn’t give you one, devise your own.

Always pay the most you can afford. Never skimp on hotels, clothing, shoes, make-up or jewellery. But always look for a deal. You get what you pay for.

Never give up! My two little soldiers have no dad, but you are brave, big-hearted, fit and strong. You are also loved by an immensely kind and supportive team of family and friends. You make your own good fortune, my children, so battle on.

Never feel sorry for yourself, or at least don’t do it for long. Crying doesn’t make things better.

Look after your body and it will look after you.

Learn a language, or at least try. Never engage a person abroad in conversation without first greeting them in their own language; by all means ask if they speak English!

And finally, cherish your mother, and take very good care of her

2011-07-23T00:19:00.001+08:00

i wanna att c from life. for awhile. runaway to some distant land. as far as my feet will take me. i need an inner peace which the world around me cannot offer.

2011-07-16T13:02:00.003+08:00

this is the song that's playing right now. i love this band, gaslight anthem. senang yet with a driving beat.

work got cancelled today. zzz. could've gone for a 10k run with lucas and sam but ah well. so bored at home right now. and here's another great song by them - this one's acoustic though, but it's almost as great as the original.

2011-07-14T16:32:00.002+08:00

it's been awhile since i've posted here coz of my newer, more convenient blog. but since there's a self-declared blue moon in the sky today, here's some of the things currently going thru my life. since i doubt anyone still reads this anymore, guess i will be my own audience. but it's okay, sometimes it's good to talk to yourself.

-

this song is a song i haven't heard in a long time, and it's been playing in my head for the past few weeks. i love the lyrics (i love how you kiss, i love all your sounds, and baby the way you make my world go round). for my dearest bestfriend, girlfriend, ex-lepak-buddy, soulmate, well you get the idea - rachel chang ya hui.

and this song is probably one of the songs that i could sing from start to end but could barely play when i started learning it (in sec 2), and like e first, i haven't heard it in a long while till it played on the radio today on some random channel while i was scrolling thru my brand new Phillips iPod dock. heh. and this is dedicated to my best friend, m (as she prefers to be known), for introducing me to this band through this song, and for the dunno how many years she was there for me.

it's been awhile since i last blogged, not much has happened, not much has changed. still bumming around my last few weeks of complete (and honestly, complete) freedom. in my opinion, this period has somehow been quite enriching (in a non-academic, non-financial way) despite almost everyone in my life saying that i'm wasting my life away. unlike everyone else, to me, not earning money does not equate to wasting my life away. since i have the luxury of a lil financial support from my parents (trust me, very little, but you learn to get by on very little when you only have very little), why not just take some time off from life, from every single thing that could possibly bother me, and appreciate what is left - basically, life - my family (esp my mum who's been diagnosed w stage 4 cancer but thanks to God's grace is still alive and very well, e cancer has not spread much anymore), my dearest girlfriend, my group of close friends that i believe we'll see each other through life with, music, and the passion i love to hate - running.

an update on my musical journeys - i've been doing quite a few sequencing mixes but it's getting boring and monotonous without my guitar in it, so i've given up sequencing samples and all that shit. my band has been resurrected with a new vocalist, jonathan lim, and he's quite fucking awesome i must say. ask me for videos of our jamming sessions. gonna play for smu's ftv run 3, assoc day, and possibly starry night in november (smu as well). i guess i've rekindled the flame with music that died out when i entered army. i've now got plans to take over the live music society of nus, but let's see what the future holds (ie check back here in a few years).

as for running, i guess i've found back my drive to run. been doing at least 2km everyday, 5km on feeling-slightly-better days, 10km and above on feel-like-running-life-fuck days. signed up for yellow ribbon run (september 18), and stanchart 42.195 (december 4). should be doing singapore bay run 21km with sam tong too without e race bib. shall see how i'm feeling that morning.

and lastly, i came up with a list of things i'd ideally live by and after a few weeks of contemplation i think it's final...

1. love and protect those i consider dear to me.
2. conciously appreciate this same group of people.
3. accept help but do not ask for it, and help even when not asked of.
4. help others to the most of my non-financial capabilities.
5. give financially, but not till i'm in need myself.
6. earn enough to survive comfortably and let that be enough.

hopefully i can live up to it, and maybe whoever stumbles across this aged blog which contains my innermost thoughts might find inspiration from it in whatever way he/she perceives it.

alright, gonna sign off. watching harry potter tonight at 11.40pm! quite excited. hahaha. the inner kid in me is jumping about.

chao.

2011-05-27T13:00:00.002+08:00

the internet has caught up with me and i find myself back at this blog, to post my innermost thoughts. because no one reads this, it's just for myself and a few dear others. those worthy of this enclave will know it, because only they read it, and those who aren't will never find this.

-

it hurt so much yesterday. and it just seems so easy to just give it all away, throw away these 7 months that saw me at the happiest i've ever been. nothing more left of it. back to my normal hedonistic life. so tempting yet so vicious. because perhaps we rushed into it. because perhaps i rushed into it. i was selfish. i didn't want to let any other guy have you. because i don't trust guys, i only trusted myself with you, not to hurt you. but i forced you into a corner yesterday, i hurt you; hurtful things were said, but i don't blame you. how can i when it was me who wanted you all along? you played my game, now if you wanna quit, i can do nothing.

they say love is like a butterfly, give it too much freedom and it'll never be yours again, hold it too tightly, and it'll die, never to be free again. i hope i haven't held you too tightly. i guess it's time i learn to let you go, it's your choice if you wanna stay. it's time you made a decision on me, because i've always made the decision on you; and it won't be fair if i continued to do so. both to myself and to you.

it's so easy to just quit this game of eros love. such a volatile phenomenon that always ends up hurting people, and the worst part of it is that it promises a bed of roses; but first you have to brave the thorns. the rewards are beyond the imagination, but the pain can be nothing the imagination is capable of. heart-wrenching, torture at it's pinnacle. and solace will be nowhere to be found except in the one you so desire; the contradiction being the feeling is unrequited.

can the heart ever stop beating? i wish it could. perhaps i'm just a wastrel. i never intended to live beyond retirement age. what's the point? all the problems start coming in, cancer, aches, high blood pressure, diabetes, boredom, being snubbed at by kids, being old-fashioned. is it considered living anymore? might as well die. i'd always rather burn out then fade away... and then you came into my life. you gave me meaning in growing old - with you. you gave me something to look forward to in the future. and perhaps it's unfortunate that i'm so stuck in my old ways i'm unable to give up certain things for you. but i'll try. for you. and you alone. failure is as plausible as success, but patience will never succeed tolerance. it's just a matter of time.

-

chao.

2011-05-26T00:57:00.001+08:00

i apologise...

2011-05-16T15:10:00.002+08:00

dearest blogger. i am sad to say that i have found an alternative to you and have been/will be/will probably be doing so for more than just awhile, using this new medium. i respesct you, my blogger, as something i've always gone to and i will continue to post more wordy/personal/intellectual stuff here, but the majority of my posts (entertainment/nonsense/ranting) will go to my new blog. i will link you from there, but not the other way round, for the reasons two lines below.

to my fans, as i do not wish to not know my readers (like with this blog), do ask me for the new address so i know exactly who does read that blog. tyvm.

it's monday once again. approximately 10 weeks before i start my final and most critical stage of formal education - at nus. though i am seriously not looking forward to it, doesn't really look like i have a fucking choice do i? going genting in 4 days time with my church people. looking forward to it, but not at the same time. but it'll be crazy i hope.

alrights, chao. will blog again soon hopefully.

2011-05-12T01:00:00.004+08:00

an amazing time-lapse series by this guy called phillip bloom. he probably already is famous in his field and has enough articles about him so i shan't elaborate more. really excellent photography plus videography. the way the music blends in with the graphics is just awe-inspiring. take a look through it, you'll be amazed.

2011-05-10T13:36:00.002+08:00

and so here i am once again. it's a tuesday. just a random thought but it feels very weird being under the pap after so many years of having pride in being part of the small estate that sticks it to the government. it's like, potong pasir lost a value. but that's not to say i really mind being under the pap that much, just saying that it's weird to be. i guess residents of potong pasir and aljunied will feel the same way. the pap feels like the opposition to potong pasir.

because honestly, i dont find anything wrong with potong pasir. it's not a slum as imagined by most people. and contrary to popular belief, it is not ulu (it's in the middle of kallang, toa payoh, bishan and aljunied, how is that ulu?!). chiam see tong has actually upkept this estate quite well and i daresay compared to low thia khiang, chiam would make a better mp. after all, he's the only minister who dared to sue pap members (and who won), the only minister with 5 o levels (and btw he's a lawyer with those qualifications), and the only true opposition force to be reckoned with in my opinion (albeit past his time). his proposed policies all make sense and i must say he has the people's intentions in mind whenever he speaks in parliament. the only sad thing to say is that he has been oppressed time and time again.

but as much as i respect and love chiam see tong, you have to admit he's past his time; and lina chiam? i doubt she can do the job as well as him. perhaps as his spokesman, but i doubt she has the mind of the great opposition leader - in a way, all of the opposition asides from the wp are fruits of his labour. he founded and was part of the SDP till an argument with chee soon juan made him decide to leave SDP; when he tried to merge the opposition into one in 2010 (a very smart move considering how fragmented the opposition is, and thus disabled in forming a credible opposition), he was rejected by his own council, and voted out by them subsequently.

so if you think about it, if you love chiam see tong, woudln't you simply hate the ingrates that the rest of the young singaporeans revere as the opposition? the only other established opposition minister who can say he wasn't at any point in time in cahoots with chiam, is low thia khiang. but that aside, he is definitely not as capable as chiam see tong, although he certainly is more aggressive in his approach (think brute strength vs intelligence).

and here i am rambling about politics again. i should stand for election in potong pasir (: 15k a month doesn't sound too bad for maintaining an estate, attending a few parliament meetings a month, meeting the residents weekly. if you calculate it, you'd probably have about 3 days off a week, more than the usual saturday and sunday most office zombies get.

2011-05-06T16:02:00.003+08:00

hello qwertyjoe.blogspot.com. i am sorry for neglecting you for so long. incase you haven't been actively browsing the net by yourself, it is 'cooling-off' day now and i finally rest my case on the issue of politics because everything i wanted to say, i've said, and the opposition supporters are still as stubborn as ever. so here i am talking to you once again.

it's been a very interesting week+ of rallies but sad to say they are all just emotional talks, with no real substance of potential change. but eh, just an idea (forgot if i've already posted it up on this blog some time ago), but, i strongly suspect if a team of youths in their late 20s or early 30s headed by a few older people in perhaps their 50s from the law, finance and healthcare sector come together to contest, give realistic arguments for the people and plausible solutions to problems that the pap and the current opposition has/had/are creat(ed/ing), and promoting themselves not as 'an opposition' but a team that barely questions the status quo and wants answers from the government, they will experience a landslide victory. just a really random thought, but prime minister doesn't sound like a bad occupation. hahahaha. can be as rich a fuck as i want. maybe once i've amassed enough wealth i'll just handover my duties to a subordinate and apply for political asylum in america. shiok bodoh.

rofl. maybe that's why i'll never be a prime minister. my records will be checked up upon and the people will defeinitely find this blog post dated 6th may 2011 and everyone will go 'or horrr' and my reputation will be fucked.

alrights, chao- i promise to start my life-story once more (even if no one else but me reads it).

2011-04-29T13:39:00.002+08:00

a note from the mind of joseph matthias goh. on the upcoming general elections, the opposition, it's arguments, the government, and it's existing policies. disclaimer: this note is purely of the opinion of a 21 year old and who's knowledge of the elections is based on the media and broadcasts of rallies. i am not a journalist, and i have no obligation to hide my distress that singapore is actually thinking of voting the opposition into parliament.

as the media hooks onto the upcoming general elections, i think it's best we start viewing our own thoughts and emotions when we read their articles, as a third-party. because every article has been written by someone else with emotions, and being journalists, they have the authority (well used or misused) to structure articles in a way that invokes the emotions within us in the way they themselves feel. in fact, i daresay that the way online journalists have presented themselves to us through their articles is fairly unprofessional. a good journalist would never allow his/her emotions to be so easily read through an article. it's all just very amateurish.

many people are so easily fooled into wanting to support the opposition when the pap have given us whatever we have today. you can argue that the younger pap candidates are inexperienced and in no way comparable to the first generation (lky, george yeo, balakirshnan), but still, when lky started out, he was as inexperienced as them, and see where it got us today. as opposed to the opposition, look how old and experienced (with regards to elections and politics) they are, and you surely must begin to wonder with such age, where has their wisdom gone to? still bargaining for lower food and housing prices, subsidised transport costs, etc etc.

surely you are not of the opinion that tin pei ling and nicole seah are expounding their own theories and beliefs? being young and inexperienced, the only source of their political foundation would be from those above them. in both cases, i suspect they're just there to put up a youth that other youths (fresh-grads) a person they relate with and rally around (kaki nang mah). nothing wrong with that, but look at it from a larger picture: the pap obviously is using her as a bait to younger people, and the nsp is obviously copying the pap's tatic (who came up with the idea first?). doesn't this prove the pap is still one step ahead of the opposition with regards to intellect and strategy? for the sake of a short article, i shall base my arguments on the youngest candidates' theories (because being young, they would be the most easily influenced by their superiors by choice, or without, and thus their words are an accurate representation of what their political party believes in).

in nicole seah's star article @ http://sg.news.yahoo.com/blogs/singaporescene/felt-stephanie-sun-came-stage-180444041.html, she talked about

1. gst (our 7%, compared to 15% in new zealand, 10% in australia, 5% in canada and hong kong, 4% in malaysia. average it out, ours is arguably low) eating away at the middle class income. but at the same time, doesn't it make the rich not get away with so much of their money? and think about it, where will the budget (of 1k or more to lower income families - 1k to them is alot btw) come from if not for gst? at 24, she should have a basic idea of economics, enough to understand that this is a rebalancing of income (take from the rich, give to the poor), and the reason why we cannot tax the rich more heavily and give the poor no tax is because then what incentive does the rich have to continue bringing in business for singapore? singapore inc would suffer a huge blow if the opposition were allowed to take over and take out gst from our system.

2. high cost of public housing. it is true that costs are high, but it is only because of the land limitations we have. how will you effectively house 5 million people in 704 km square of land? that's apprx 7000 people in a 1 km square area, or apprx 7 persons in a 1m by 1m square. economics again, heightened demand equals heightened prices. moreover, this cost is payable by installment, and if you're still on the gst and the effects on low-income families, the government offers a 60k grant for housing purchase to couples whose total montly income is below 1.5k. for a two room flat that averages $250,000, the couple only has to pay $190,000, with a home loan of 20 years assuming no upfront payment, it's only 800 per year. assuming the couple's income doesn't increase (which is highly impossible seeing that even a basic office admin job pays about 1.2k a month), they still have $700 to survive on a month. less utilities bills (for a 2-room flat), thats about $600 for food alone. let's not account children into the picture since the nsp already has a problem with housing costs (that has transpired from a large population).

3. over-population of foreigners. let me ask you, where would mbs, rws, all the hdbs you live in, the ongoing project at marina bay, traffics lights, street lamps etc be if not for banglas and prcs? would locals take up a 800 dollar job just to work a day-in day-out physically demanding job. if nicole seah is complaining about foreigners, the only foreigners people complain about are foreign workers, and high level arrogant expats (not a possbility because nicole seah talks about taking the train, highly paid expats would definitely not be on trains and buses). so, would you want to take up such a job? if you don't, what makes you think other people will? when an office admin job would already give you over a thousand montly? and if you want to argue against mbs, rws etc, where would singapore's revenue come from if not for the development of such business and entertainment infrastructure? and if you don't want such people to go out, what are you going to do about it? enprison them for their off-work time?

4. "PM Lee, whose money are you using for upgrading? Whose money is used to pay your salary?". the peoples. firstly, if someone made homes for you to stay, made sure your country has investors, indirectly giving you and your loved one's a job, modelled an education system for your children such that they would be able to compete globally in any possible field, how much would you pay him? or them? such a thing cannot be measured in money, like how you (i'm assuming you are an educated, sensible person) would think an education is a priceless investment. it's the same concept (if you are less educated, here's a more layman story) as "giving a man a fish would only make him return the next day asking for another, but teaching a man how to fish would ensure his survival without your provision.". so how can you put a price on upgrading? upgrading benefits the elderly, makes things easier for people. when you are 80 and in a wheelchair, you WOULD be thankful for lifts on every level. the pure intention and effort to upgrade every hdb with lifts on every floor then becomes priceless to the people. so even if the payment to the government is compulsory, why would you not want to? change citizenship la, if you're so unhappy.

5. "Of course the NSP team feels that it is not masak-masak lah, that's why the NSP never change its Tampines team at the last minute." why then did they field nicole seah in the same grc as tin pei ling? the nsp is just making a fool of themselves but making it seem like the pap is at fault. this just shows how vengeful the nsp can be, when pap did not even comment on why the nsp fielded an equally young female candidate in marine parade. why marine parade when there's so many grcs? obviously the nsp has even a slightest intention of mirroring pap's image. they are just picking at pap's small let-ups to make it seem like pap is incompetent. as most of us are well aware, nobody is perfect, including the pap, but shouldn't we at least vote for the party which is the least petty, the most professional, and makes the least mistakes? compared to the oppositions, the pap has definitely made the least mistakes, even though they have. everyone yearns perfection, but if perfection is not available, don't tell me you'd just go for the least perfect?

and from Nicole Seah's colleague, gilbert goh: "Are you having a better life compared to five years ago? Is your salary right now higher than five years ago? Do you think you have a better Singapore compared to five years ago?". in response, what can you do to make my salary higher in five years time than now? what can you do to make Singapore better compared to five years ago?

asides from all these comparatively small arguments, the opposition's most major flaw would be, they criticise, but they do not have any way out either. in a way, they're like the stompers on stomp.sg.

since in my honest opinion, lina chiam and sitoh yih pin has equally much substance, i'll vote for the party, not for the individual, thus i'll vote pap. even if it is that bloody sitoh yih pin. why? because the party he represents has substance.

2011-04-29T02:07:00.002+08:00

an extremely epic show. the brutal honesty with which thor does things when he's mortal, and the director's idea of how things should go is just epic. *spoiler from this asterisk* - first was when he kena langah by jane's car just when he got banished by odin. second was when he said "this drink is awesome, i want another one", and smashed the cup onto the floor. third was when he went into a pets shop and said "i want a horse". fourth was when he and the guardian of odin's treasure were walking towards each other - it was a dead serious scene (a showdown), but the music playing was a gentle, romantic theme. and not to mention the giant guardian was walking so gently. plus thor's boyband image. gosh, could just imagine westlife's my love playing. hahaha. was laughing throughout the show, but sad to say not many singaporeans got the jokes in the show. only my group and the angmohs next to us was laughing at some points in time. dry, dry singaporeans.

elections draw near, and even though my general-elections-hymen won't be broken this elections, it seems exciting enough for me to follow. honestly, what i think singapore needs now, is an exceptionally bright group of fresh-graduates with extremely good academics headed by a slightly more senior (perhaps 30+ year old man) leader to get into politics. it's gonna be just like the 50s when lky was young. because honestly, in my honest opinion, the elections (esp for potong pasir) has come to a point where the population just doesnt wish to vote for anyone. the opposition has no substance, and the pap is not exactly doing their job on an on-the-ground level anymore.

take potong pasir for instance, our choices are lina chiam: some elderly political newb whose expertise and credentials in politics come from accompanying her husband (spp chief chiam see tong), and sitoh yih pin: some 30 over year old guy who hasn't been mp anywhere before, and whom residents accuse of abandoning potong pasir after he lost the last elections (he, his posters and all his events he usually hed mysteriously dissapeared for about 4 years). so honestly, who the fuck do we vote for? both also cmi. wth man. lucky im not voting. i'll just vote for both and write in fine-print below: i don't believe either should be in parliament.

come to think of it, if i can meet the right people in university, and i can form a group of elite, multi-lingual people, i might actually go into politics. being prime minister doesn't sound very difficult. perhaps only when i visit the turban-wearing nation, then i'll facebook-pinch all my friends. hahahaha. okay, but jokes aside, if i really can form a party of elite, sensible young people, i would go into politics. because i believe singapore needs a new party with new ideas, to make singapore progress. nothing like the opposition, i wont advocate cheaper food nor ask to make hdb flat prices transparent. but i will advocate for a better education system that inspires culture and an interest to learn (10 years thru-train education to o level, 5 year diploma/degree course, all guys go into ns after their o levels and i want a levels out of the system), environmental friendliness (same laws but heightened enforcement), a replacement of foreign talent at the lower level jobs (if a local and foreigner are fighting for a job worth less than 2k/month, the local gets it by default) etc etc. these are the things i believe would truly benefit a country like singapore which is 'developing' and brinking on 'developed'.

alright im ranting. chao.

2011-04-28T00:16:00.002+08:00

i borrowed a book today, titled Extreme Running. the introduction expresses long distance running in harsh terrain in a way i've always felt about it (with regards to pure distance running), but never could find the right words to describe it with. the author put it in a fluent and elegant way that will bring out all the right emotions in long-d runners. here it is, with respect to extreme running (running in harsh terrain and conditions):

As our day to day lives become more pressured and intense, it comes to no surprise that races such as these are proliferating. According to Sir Roger Bannister: "The more restricted our society and work becomes, the more necessary it will be to find some outlet for this craving for freedom."

People often ask what leads one to run 200km through a desert, over frozen glaciers and lakes or through remote humid tropical jungles. There are really two answers:

One is the almost spiritual nature of this type of quest. Extreme running forces a separation between mind and body. The ability to reach a level of meditation that permits a runner mentally to overcome extreme environmental factors and crippling physical exertion is key. The greater and more extreme the physical challenge, the more transcendental the experience. With this, can come a true sense of peace and escape from the everyday pressures of life.

The second answer is more base: it is the desire to succeed, to conquer, to overcome a seemingly impossible physical and mental challenge. The thrill of taking on such a mission, of believing in oneself to the necessary extent to succeed, is tantalizing. The self-confidence that many extreme runners possess is a necessary prerequisite to success. Without it, failure is almost inevitable. This is because these extremely difficuly physical and psychological feats serve to highlight the frailty of the human condition. Fear of failure in itself is a difficult thing to face and to beat. Yet, when self-belief is mirrored in success, the intangible rewards that result from having faced and conquered unexplorer areas of physical and mental consciousness, and having probed the limits of muscular endurance, are great.

incredible insight into the world of running, extreme or not.

anyway, been running regularly, propelled by my fear of dying at 10km during my sundown marathon, and my desire to attain a body i can be proud of, but currently more of the former. hopefully my motivation sustains itself through this one month. it's gonna take a hell lot of intense running to actually be ready for a marathon at the end of this. but i'm gonna do it.

quite looking forward to tomorrow. having buffet lunch at mbs with my darl's parents, followed by thor w her and 2 of my closest friends. kinda weird to be enjoying so much on a thursday. and i'm gonna ah-bengify my hair a few days from now! blond hair. hahahaha wonder how i'll look. wish me luck.

good night world.

2011-04-27T02:27:00.003+08:00

something i find disturbing... girl-oriented pictures of a fairytale romance, with a guy that's manly, yet sensitive, tough, yet sincere, a guy that can take any bullshit the girl gives, who will be there for her no matter how badly she treats him, a guy thats oh-so-sweet, who will never even glance at another girl for the rest of his life just because he's with them. and also girl-oriented graphics (textual and pictorial) that make being a bitch sound cool. it's not man, it's really not. and to think such girls accuse guys of objectifying them, they're guilty of the very same crime. somehow these pictures impress upon me, a girl with a face, but a guy without. like the girls are real, but the guy is just this faceless guy that's "perfect".

it's nice to believe such a guy exists girls, but sad to say, they don't. guys are still humans. we need love as much as you do. we need reassurance from you as much as you do from us. we may not need that much security, but it helps to know that you'll fight for us like we would for you. and if you want a sensitive and sincere male, he definitely won't be the big-sized dominant alpha male you're attracted to, and if you want such an alpha male, he definitely won't be as sensitive or sincere as that geek who can't flex his muscles even if he tried. these two-in-one guys exist only in romance flicks.

alright, chao, good night.

2011-04-27T00:57:00.002+08:00

an article on the birds, the bees, and the non-existent flowers.

just a sudden inspiration on emotional insurance in a relationship and why for girls it's marriage and for guys its sex. and it's based on the idea that for girls, sex is probably something they'll do only with a guy that they're really commited to.

thus, marrying a guy before having sex with him insures her love life, because if he decides to leave after sex, he has to give up half his fortune to her. so she feels more secure after marriage. because money means alot to a guy. it's his power in today's society.

and alternatively, having sex with a girl insures his love life, because if she decides to leave after sex, she'd had given up her body to him. so he feels more secure after sex. because her body and self-worth means alot to a girl. it's her pride in today's society.

not that marriage or sex will keep a couple together if they were never meant to be, but i think it's seriously how some people might think. there's really not much point in abstinence before marriage if ultimately the guy is going to dump the girl after sex. there's such a thing called divorce. (so in that way, perhaps it might be better to copulate before marriage? to make sure neither will dump the other after that moment of passion? at least a breakup before marriage won't cause as much trouble as a divorce.) and likewise, sex before marriage does not mean that the girl won't leave you if you're a bastard to her. (her body means alot to her, but so does the quality of the remainder of her life with you.)

so in summary, just live your life without evil/selfish schemes, trust the one you love wholeheartedly, love her till you can't love her no more, and then if you decide to make love, do it with passion, do it not because of the derived pleasure, but because you love each other so much that making love is the only way you could express your love for each other, do it such that neither of you will regret that moment. and after that, commit yourselves to each other, for you know what she has given up for you, and likewise. (hey, just because sex means alot to you girls doesn't mean it can't for us. don't stereotype all guys just because of a group of bastards whose life revolves around sex and who have made it seem like sex isnt a big deal for guys.)

alright, gonna try get some sleep. i miss my rachel chang ya hui ): but i'm gonna see her tomorrow (: but still, it's tomorrow. sigh.

2011-04-25T16:32:00.006+08:00

this is not meant to be an angsty post, just images of a sudden inspiration of the magical word, fuck. everyone knows it, everyone has said it before some time in their life. but wonder why, why is it still such a forbidden word in society. social norms? social conditioning? why? why can't it be just a normal word? why can't it be accepted as a norm after such a long time? but before i begin my much awaited search results:

and with that... here goes.

some of the most inspiring pictures labelled fuck on deviantART.

it's monday and im unemployed. and i never thought i'd say this, but i'm already missing office life. somehow getting used to it, then i have to go. and i must say, im becoming a jack of all trades but a master of none. i know something about everything, but not everything about something. is that a good or a bad thing? you decide.

weekends seemed interminable at a few points in time. but im glad to say we got through it. perhaps stronger, perhaps weaker. but i'm quite sure to some extent it's the former. and yesterday, i set free the inertia of my physical inactivity, now its to keep the physical activity going. at least till may when my ippt will probably come in, and not to forget my sundown marathon (zomg). my life seems boring for now. and because of her school, i'm missing my baby so damn much. sometimes feels like i'm suffering from withdrawal symptoms when i leave her. hahaha. ah well, 4 more years to go. it's a long time compared to the 6 months of rapport i've built with her. but we'll make it. i hope.

ranting at my blog seems fun. even though nobody reads it. blogging more out of habit than of an actual need. kills time anyway, and i still stand by my reason for blogging, which is, an unanalysed life is a life gone to waste. i take blogging about my life as a part-analysis of it. and it's actually pretty cool to look back the years to see how you thought in the past. i wonder if 10 years from now this blog will still be alive. it's after all, half a decade old if you see the archives. some chronicles of joseph. perhaps i'll be glorified with all my eccentric philosophies that i've blogged throughout the years. but i think that'll only be after my death - if blogger survives that long.

chao.

2011-04-24T23:36:00.002+08:00

i feel like going to thieves market. some place i've always passed by as a kid, and some place i've always wanted to go as an adolescent. but never did. and i will make it a point to go there by end of this year latest.

relationships. yet another close friend is going through a relationship crisis. soon (but hopefully not) i'll be the only attached left standing among my group of friends i call close. and hopefully it'll stay that way. because i'm in love with this absolutely amazing girl (was amazing 6 months ago, and is more than amazing 6 months on [:) and though its early to say, i dont think i ever wanna be single again.

alrights, its sunday once more. i'm gonna go into budget mode after this week. trying to survive on whatever cash i've accumulated since i ord + the growth dividends from now till august. which i think is hardly possible, but worth a try.

chao...

2011-04-22T01:16:00.001+08:00

how nice it would be to just shout FUCK IT. SCREW LIFE.

2011-04-19T21:56:00.002+08:00

saw an artwork outside singapore arts musuem today. it has a concept that i feel so much about but never found the means to express it, and there it was today, made out of planks of wood. it is about how empty we all are despite our material assets. the interesting thing about artworks like these is that, nothing is there by accident. everything little detail represents something that the artist is trying to portray, whether you interpret it correctly or wrongly. stuff like these amaze me, how artists express themselves so well through different mediums.

i wanna be at artist. but again, my parents will say no. honestly, lucky are those whose parents let them have free reign over their lives and support them in whatever they want to do. it'll be difficult when they first encounter the outside world, but it's only thru this fight that they realise what the world really is. unlike the rest of us (the more traditional parents) who urge their kids to have an education, just because everyone else says its important, who dictate what kinda jobs their children should get into, just because those jobs can provide for their children's future. but what parents of these kind have missed out on, is life itself. life is more than just work and money. without passion, what is life? what is life if you sit at the same desk every morning, doing your routine chores? what is life if you have to force yourself to wake up so early in the morning just to earn your wages? exactly what is life then? taking things to a more macro level, you wouldn't drink fruit juice all the time just because people say it's good for health would you?

in my opinion, i only know one such man that i work for who can truly say he's living life. that's richard kang - he's a photographer, and despite his busy schedules, he loves his job. he's passionate about his job, and even when he doesn't have inspiration, his skills alone without creativity are good enough for most people who hire him for photoshoots. imagine in the 1970s, when photography was still a relatively obscure thing, he told his parents he loved photography. his parents got him a secondhand slr camera with 3 interchangeable lenses. at that time, imagine how much that would cost. and from there, he never left his home without a camera. he eventually made this passion for photography into his life's career. he's good at what he does, he loves what he does, and he gets paid for what he does. that's what i truly aim to be. but sadly, my parents don't have such a view.

pragmatically, such people hardly exist, and neither will we have many chances to meet them. they're the lucky few who came into existence when a new phenomenon was blooming, and they found they have the interest in that obscure phenomenon. the unwanted pioneers in a way, but who cares? they're well-off, they're enjoying life. i wish i had more open parents. because no matter whether you'd admit it or not, parents still have a major influence on our lives.

im ranting... chao. im falling sick. time to sleeeeeep.

2011-04-18T22:45:00.006+08:00

Here's an awesome video for the below-mentioned song.
And here's a credible documentation for the song!

it's an amazing song honestly. to me, it's about the 'fire' in all of us that keeps the human race doing crazy things, celebrating great occasions, making new discoveries, fighting impossible fights, composing phenomenal music etc. it's the innate will to be great/be remembered deep inside us that has manisfested in individuals and phenomenons named in the song, and which is also put down by many, many laypeople. just like how when a kid says he wants to be president and his parents tell him not to be silly and politics are for sophisticated people. this song feels like it's for all these people. this 'fire' could also mean the fire of life, like something all of us share, all of us possess, that keeps the world the way it is - full of crazy things. i don't know if you can imagine what i am, but if you can, isn't it such an amazing song? it's inspirational despite it's beat and social status.

honestly, the song created a kind of concept, about this world's 'fire'. check out the videos for different time periods and the lyrics. after this song was born, it inspired people to think about the great events and happenings of different time periods. really wondered what inspired billy joel to write such a song. and lastly, did you know the song is banned in Singapore. because of references to certain people or events (of which i am not exactly sure). if you go youtube and search for this song, all original recordings of the song are muted out. only live shows are available. such is the extent of this song. go research on it, it's too phenomenal to be described in words.

Billy Joel - We Didn't Start The Fire
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio
Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe
Rosenbergs, H-bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom
Brando, "The King and I" and "The Catcher in the Rye"
Eisenhower, vaccine, England's got a new queen
Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye

Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser aand Prokofiev
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc
Roy hn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, dacron
Dien Bien Phu falls, "Rock Around the Clock"
Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland
Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Krushchev
Princess Grace, "Peyton Place", trouble in the Suez

Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, "Bridge on the River Kwai"
Lebanon, Charlse de Gaulle, California baseball
Starkweather, homicide, children of thalidomide
Buddy Holly, "Ben Hur", space monkey, Mafia
Hula hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go
U-2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy
Chubby Checker, "Psycho", Belgians in the Congo

Hemingway, Eichmann, "Stranger in a Strange Land"
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion
"Lawrence of Arabia", British Beatlemania
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson
Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British politician sex
JFK, blown away, what else do I have to say

Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, terror on the airline
Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan
"Wheel of Fortune", Sally Ride, heavy metal, suicide
Foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz
Hypodermics on the shores, China's under martial law
Rock and roller cola wars, I can't take it anymore

We didn't start the fire
But when we are gone
Will it still burn on, and on, and on, and on...

it will.

2011-04-18T16:00:00.004+08:00

death.

sometimes i really wonder what's it like (but i do not wish to be there), to be lying helpless on a hospital bed, knowing you're not going to survive for more than a week. imagine the thoughts that might run thru your head. i think no matter how fully you've lived your life, you'll have regrets. if you're the kind who'd do anything, you'd regret doing some things, if you're the reserved kind, you'd regret not doing some other things. regret is inevitable if you ponder upon it for awhile.

perhaps it's then that you 'see' God as most religions put it. in this aspect, Buddhism would probably be the closest to The Truth. because nirvana, a state of zen according to buddhist teachings, is probably something you'll experience when you have accepted your death (for most of us, only on our deathbeds), which most of us would in the end unless we were murdered. and suddenly life gives way, you 'die', but that is really actually when your soul accepts that it's physical counterpart is just a fragile manisfestation of itself and it is ready to let go to move on to a different paradigm. like how you'd yearn not to die tomorrow, so does your soul, hence you continue to live. and as long as one has enough energy in them to support itself, the one will never give up on the other.

it seems to complex to put into words, but i've tried my best. it's a sudden idea i got while contemplating what do people think about on their deathbed. perhaps we really do have souls, and thats what keeps our heart beating, and it's only when we force the soul to accept the fact that the body is going to die, and soul and body are at peace with the other, only then will your soul leave your body and you experience physical death.

what then lies ahead for the soul? perhaps there's things we cannot see, cannot touch, cannot taste, cannot hear, cannot smell. it's like how in 2D, the 3rd dimension would seem constant (or infinite), and in 3d (still matter), time does not seem to exist and the matter exists indefinitely (the 4th dimension tends to infite). thus, when we take time into account (4d), the fifth dimension (something else) must remain constant. but the paradox of it all, is 2d can exist in the fourth dimension without requiring the 3rd, but 3d cannot exist without 2d. so perhaps the 5th and 6th dimensions are already in our world. what then is that constant? what then are the 5th and 6th dimensions? something even more complex than time itself. but that's for another post another day.

chao. if philosophers could still make money out of their inceptions and be glorified when an inception is proven right, i think i'd apply to be one.

2011-04-16T11:53:00.003+08:00

personally, i think the iPhone is no longer just a phone. like the mac before it, it has become a culture. and it's a phenomenon that has outlived the initial big-bang of smart phones. blackberry has lost much of it's popularity since it first came out for some reason or another and nokia has fallen behind on it's operating system. the remaining rivals left standing, samsung and htc, only appeal in asia.

honestly, no other phone company is massive enough to provide the kind of support apple does. because they simply don't have the public appeal. apple has sold itself to software developers as well as the general market equally well, such that developers want to create software for the iphone because they think it'll make a profit, and consumers want to buy the iphone because they see the availability of software on that platform. its a 'reversed' cycle of poverty. and as compared to the other app stores, apples appstore is by far the largest and most extensive. not to mention, one of the cheapest (apps on the marketplace, windows os can go up to 20 usd for an app).

a reason might probably because of the strong and unbreakable anti-piracy measures taken by apple, and the lack of programming knowledge among current hackers about the mac. because just 5 years ago, nobody had seen an iphone, but 30 years ago, we were all using windows. if you wanted your virus to become viral, you'd have learned to program for windows, not apple, which at the time was not as established as it is today. but in 20 years time, i doubt the same anti-piracy and anti-viral properties could be attributed to apple products. an example of how unbreakable apple's anti-piracy measures is, take a look at jailbreak and how many people actually install it just to play pirated (homebrew) games? the appstore is so extensive that most people find no use of jailbreak. coupled with the threat of a warranty void by apple, jailbreak is a no-no for most people. apple is the only platform that can boast that it has been hacked with a free hacked firmware circulating and yet not many of it's consumers are not bothering with the hacked version. look at the sony psp and you'll get what i mean. who still buys umd disks anymore?!

moreover, the iphone doesnt just appeal to the normal working adult who needs a pda and a phone, and wants to look stylish as well. it's simplicity appeals to the older generation, and it's convenience appeals to the younger generation. imagine being connected to your home computer anywhere you go, or having a map with you as long as you're not deep underground, or having a book at hand with you all the time without lugging along a 500g object, or knowing where your grandkids are with just a touch, or vice versa, or knowing that if your phone suddenly crashed, you could just visit an apple store and get a working phone of the same model immediately, no questions asked.

and just look at (probably, imo) the key factor that drives people to buy the iphone: it's just, the iphone. not htc desire, not htc desire hd, not nokia e7/8/9/10/11, not blackberry bold 5567 or blackberry italics 2230 or blackberry underlined 2456 etc. it kills off any indecisiveness (which the modern generation is full of) over the model of the phone. you just say, i want an iphone, version what. and it's universal. no iphone 4a, or iphone 4c, or iphone desire. it's just, the iphone, THE iphone. it elimanates the need for comparison among the brand, which most people do in order not to 'make a stupid choice' and get looked down on by his peers in the know. whereas with the iphone, a reaction to a new one is always along the lines of, 'whoa, you got an iphone'. and more often that not, comparison within a brand usually breeds comparison among the OTHER brands. so, if you want a newer model, it's iphone 4, an older one, iphone 3gs. how simple can life be. here's an idea.... to htc.

Many telecommunications operators have been eager to sell the iPhone, hoping that the feature-jammed device will help boost data network use and increase revenue. -http://sg.news.yahoo.com/apple-suppliers-begin-production-white-iphone-sources-20110413-195842-780.html

The App Store is the ultimate source for mobile apps — 350,000 and counting in practically every category. Many are even free. - http://www.apple.com/iphone/apps-for-iphone/

this is why i want to get an iphone. and anyone who wants to get one can use this argument free of charge (courtesy of me) to anyone else who wants to put down the iphone in favour of another phone.

2011-04-15T01:03:00.003+08:00

what the fuck is wrong with singaporeans? they keep going on and on and on about nsfs having fun. when you're a soldier bearing arms, you are there to kill, not look good. so what if soldier's are respectful of their behaviour, cultured, courteous and nice people? those traits are definitely not going to help when you are fucking looking through your sar21's scope and see your enemy looking back at you through his. say what? excuse me? pardon my indiscretion while staring? no! you just shoot the fucker before he shoots you.

to me, there is no problem with our nsfs, only problems with the non-nsfs, and seeing how many people go into the admin/instructional side and never have to touch a sar-21 after their bmt days, it's no wonder they see combat-fit soldiers as rowdy, disrespectful etc etc. trying living a day in our lives man. not being proud or arrogant, but you'll fucking die. imagine having to chiong for the whole 2 years of your ns life without the fun of things such as pointing your rifle to your friend or holding a rifle in each hand pretending to be rambo? to kill someone before he kills you, you need a certain degree of insanity, quick thinking and impulses. soldiers aren't there to be polite, they're bred to kill. so why pick on their attire, their demeanour and things like that. when you're really on the battlefield, you're gonna hope the person fighting for you is a fucked-up soldier who kills every enemy in sight.

look at the u.s. army. they smoke while on duty, yet they still get their duty done, and they get it done well. i've watched documentaries on their training, and it's insane. but on the plus side, they're given a certain liberty that our locals don't. and look how proud it's people are of them. to gain, you have to risk. and trust. trust that you have good men under you, and if you're a man, trust you have a good commander. it's all a matter of how people feel for soldiers in the end. no ordinary female will understand, and no non-combatant will either. this insanity is a world which i only tasted e iceberg of in my nsf days, and the pressure even of a peacetime training with the timings to meet, (and if you take it seriously enough) the possibility of a test-set death, honestly will drive you crazy if you still have to bother about your manners. fuck singaporeans who look down on their combat soldiers. lifeless fucktarded keyboard warriors.

2011-04-13T22:17:00.002+08:00

it's a secret fetish, and i shall share it with my faithful blog readers (whom i suspect has dwindled from double to single digits), and it's that i like to check out random people's facebook profile. it's just cool going thru e entire list of people that facebook suggests you know till there's no more people. it's therepeutic in a certain way.

work's getting better nowadays. a major client was met today, which meant i was free most of today, but not before an initial rush to chuck in another transaction (which meant about 30 minutes of intense preperation for the case). hopefully no more major clients come my way in the remaining 7 days left there. i got a feeling i'm gonna miss working there. just when i'm starting to get used to the terms, policies, types of forms in use, it's time for me to go. it feels just like army. just when you become used to it, it's over. i think everything in life is like that. i can just hope my life itself won't be like that.

feeling strangely zen. it's like as if i've figured out whatever's on my mind. but the thing is, i haven't. and life goes on...

2011-04-12T23:48:00.002+08:00

i enlisted 2 years, 2 days ago. it was a saturday. time really flies man. so quickly, in the blink of an eye, army is over - the nightmare every fit singaporean guy has to go through is over for me. even though i hated it while i was going through it, it's still 2 years that i'll never forget.

bmt - 4201. it was the first number i ever got in army. orion company, platoon 4, section 2, bed 1. that's what it meant. enlistment day was probably the most memorable of all, probably because of how fucked up it was. the duffel bag, the field pack. all that was going through my mind was fuck. i still remember it so clearly. bed 1: me, bed 2: douglas, bed 3: christopher, bed 4: samuel, bed 5: rui jie, bed 6: kai jie, bed 7: il ham, bed 8: jason ng, bed 9: lek wei, bed 10: nicholas, bed 11: yong sheng, bed 12: some fucked up guy (only guy i forgot), bed 13: glen. first was the pts, 30-60, agr, morning 5bx. most of the memories were of skipping 5bx and agrs with il ham, cameron, thomas and kaijie, then the 5bx's were spent in our bunks hiding and hoping no one came up. field camp. the longest ever in army even though i went to recce after that. then the 24k route march, which i chose to chaokeng and slacked my day away with yong sheng. memories.

sispec - dam surprised to get posted to command school after how screwed up i was in bmt. i remember pulling my duffel bag through the gates of plc. got posted to a bmt orion bunk, then got shifted to raven coz my cousin was in charge of my platoon and apparently that's e reason for the shift. i remember feeling so left out. but goh keng huang from orion platoon 4, section 1 was with me. bed 1: simeon, bed 2: yoda, bed 3: jonathan lim, bed 4: me, bed 5: some weird guy, bed 6: forgot, bed 7: keng huang, bed 8: marcus, bed 9: james, bed 10 onwards i have no clue already. after that was lesson after lesson after lesson. thought it'd have been pt, outfield, pt, outfield, but no, it was lesson, canteen break, lesson, etc etc till it got to grand slam. remember just slacking at some supposed shellscrape site with my platoon coz the in-charges couldn't find us and couldn't be bothered too either (they were all old enciks), for most of the 3 or 4 days. got sol too at some outfield. 5 days. i remember it was over the army half marathon weekend. passed out that week.

3sir - then came the nightmare of my nightmare. 3sir scout platoon. under this fucked up guy called chen wei ming who we only found out a month before ord that he was the uncle of a fellow specialist. the memories in selarang camp are too long to be documented, it is far from fucked up (in a negative way), but at the same time it is far from memorable (in a positive way) and to document it in this blog would probably bore the fuck out of you. not that i care, just that i'm lazy. justino guo, vincent wong, heng kwan wu, govind yap, chan peng xiang, benjamin tan, cephas chan, quek jian liang, andre lim, lau kian zuo. my 11 fellow specs. and i probably can name all my men as well, but i wont for space's sake. i'll probably never see some of them again, and it sucks coz two of the three specs that are close to me will probably be overseas for majority of their lives. 3sir in a summary of non-sequitors: icct, jeep course, csb, rcc, kiwiwalk, osp, atec-1, yog, 7 extras, atec-2, dragonball, ord. memories etched in my mind forever.

sigh. for some reason, i do not wish to be in the present. in perspective, i'm honestly running away from so many things i do not want to address. and knowing that, i'm still indifferent. because i can't find a solution, and even if i can, it'll be a self-destruct solution. i'm working for a financial advisory firm, but what i really need right now is a life advisory firm. and to be a client, not an assistant.

2011-04-11T00:12:00.003+08:00

a very useful thing to have on you (if you know what you really want with it), is a card holder. no elaborations, but it's bloody useful. go ponder.

100411.

these 6 months with you are quite possibly the 6 best months of my life. rachel chang ya hui, you have no idea how much you mean to me, and neither can i imagine life without you now, nor how i managed to get past almost 20 years of my life without you so intimately in my life. well, they say you never know what you can get till you've got it. or maybe it's you never know what you got till it's gone, but you get the idea, because i definitely do not need to lose you to realise how much you mean to me. i love my girlfriend. alot. even alot is an understatement. i love you all the way to the outskirts of the universe and back, rachel chang ya hui (:

tomorrows a monday once again. 2 weeks left in my office job. time flies man. anyway, really looking forward to my events and photographer assistant job. in this case, it's a you never know what you got till it's gone situation. and yesss i had to lose 3 weeks of my life to being an office zombie to realise how much i love an outdoor job. but this past week hasn't been fruitless i must say. learnt alot from my direct boss. kinda getting quite interested in financial advisory after all e admin work im doing. seeing how different people plan their insurances and investments, makes me realise how impt financial planning is, and equipped with whatever knowledge of it i have after these 3 weeks, i'll start planning my own already. starting young is the best i realise, after going thru all e past cases.

alright chao!

2011-04-09T02:03:00.002+08:00

disclaimer: this are my own thoughts, it is not meant to confuse you but it probably will, because i took about three days just thinking about this to put it in words. it is an interesting read in my opinion but i honestly did not put in any effort in organising my thoughts, and it is presented here just as a lump of text for my future reference. i will of course entertain any queries about my theory of existence (:

i think perception is a very interesting and complex phenomenon. possbilities are endless, and how we present an idea can take on different meanings through different perceptions, and inceptions are certainly possible by manipulating perceptions.

a simple example would be the "early bird gets the worm". sounds morally upright? that's because your perception of the phrase (as taught to you), is that you are the bird. well, the early worm gets eaten by the bird. other more complex examples would involve moments caught in time, how something feels, looks, smells, tastes, or sounds like. lesser details open up more potential, and the right presentation with little details can make an innocent situation look possibly very serious. for example, if i just brushed past (skin to skin contact) a female in say marina bay sands, it could be perceived simply as, i bumpted into her, or, if you wanted someone to perceive it differently, you might say (very matter of factly, but truthfully as well), at around 7pm today, x and y were BOTH at marina bay sands, and at exactly 7:45pm, they were having skin contact with each other. get what i mean?

or perhaps you might have told your other half you love him/her, and someone was standing as close to you as him/her. you might say, "he was telling his girlfriend he loved her", or, "xx and yy were standing in very close proximity to each other, xx said those three words, i love you." by intentionally leaving out chosen details or intentionally putting in certain others, we create a room for possibility that can result in this phenomenon called inception - planting an idea in another's mind. photographs and audio files, both capture different entities in motion within a certain time period, which allows for great perception manipulation.

a photo captures a single moment of the reflection of light into the camera's viewer and puts it on film. if someone was holding hands, you'd assume they're a couple, but you left out the details like what function was this, what's their actual relationship, you only perceive the image, and not the emotions, sounds etc. a smiling person captured on film would always seem happy, even if he just smiled for a split second that the camera captured. we hence perceive him as happy, but a split-second ago/after, he could be screaming in pain. we never know. whereas compared to a video, at least we know then that he was smiling for more than just a split second.

thus a relation could be formed between the "correct perception of the factual truth" (x), and the "duration of perceived occasion" (y). as y tends to infinite, x tends to infinite too, infinite for x being the "factual truth", and y being "from the absolute start of occasion to absolute end". a third axis (z) would be "intensity of senses involved" and all 3 axis would form a positive co-relation with each other. intensity meaning if it's sight, how clear the picture is, or if in sound, how clear the quality of audio is, or rather how much we can take in accurately.

for the intellectually uncultivated, perception usually lacks reason, and they tend to perceive things how their mind subconciously wants to. for the more intellectually sound, a dangerous thing about perception is that we very often assume what we perceive from a single sense to be true, and an even more dangerous thing would be that we form impressions and think logically based on perception by that single sense. the more you can fight this tendency to do so, the further you'll go.

but if one were really to bring this theory to the limit, do we really know what we know in that case? a picture may not be a picture will it? we just think it's a picture because, it's there, we can touch it, we can smell the ink on it, we might be able to taste the ink on it, we can see it being there, we can hear that it blocks out sound if we press it close to our ears, and well, it's there indefinitely. so for the x-axis, "the correct perception of the factual truth", would be very high, as the y, "duration of perceived occasion", and z, "intensity of senses involved" tend to inifite. so all we are doing is really assuming based on a unreasonably high level of doubt-elimination that things are really in existence, and nothing is really what it really is unless we sit there and watch it from the entity's conception to the entity's destruction. then again, only our perception of the destruction of it's perception has happened. what truly exists then?

deep questinos, no answers. more of a philosophical post rather than a post that i am truly looking for an answer. if anyone knew the answer, i'd call him God, because that might probably be the only person in existence that knows an answer.

chao-

2011-04-06T01:32:00.004+08:00

yahoo news link

haha that loser admitted it was him! zomg. i can just imagine what happened one fine day on the sunny island getaway called pulau tekong...

sergeant x: "alright, kanina the whole lot of you, so who the fuck was it in the pictures all over singapore with his bloody maid carrying his fucking field pack?!"
recruits: *silence*
sergeant x: "dunno, how to reply isit? let me tell you, whoever it is, better own up, do you know it's chargeable offence to disgrace the saf in public?! you can get charged, go db, your uni can forget about it, or maybe oc lenient give you sol, you can forget about COMMAND SCHOOL"
stupid recruits wanting to go ocs: *gasp*
every other mother's son: *silent 'orh'*
sergeant x: "nevermind, you all dont want to own up right, do you know the saf has a special platoon of people sitting in a room investigating cases like these? if none of you own up and we find out it's you, you will fucking get it from us."
stupid recruit (from the pictures): "sergeant ah, it's me..."

which btw if you read the article, was paraphrased to:

The full-time national serviceman (NSF) who was photographed with his maid carrying his backpack identified himself to his commander and has been counselled, said Singapore's Ministry of Defence on Monday.

and we can all imagine what the "counselling" was like:

sergeant x: "ah, so it's you, you fucking ccb. kanina, ask how many times you dunno how to answer isit?!? you really want to go db isit?! nevermind, you knock it down first while i talk to you...... do you know what you have done to the saf? you have spoilt it's fucking image you know? you make the whole fucking lot of us look like guniang you know? do you have any idea what will happen to you, you fucking kublai?! blablabla... *similar content ensues for a further one hour*"
sergeant x to captain y: "okay, oc sir, i have counselled him and i am sure he will not do it again."
captain y: "okay, well done sergeant x, i will inform school sergeant major and mindef."

if you've ever been to bmt, you'll know how much bullshit the sergeants and occifers there tell you, and you'll find out how much bullshit the recruits there are willing to believe.

alright, second day in office over. third day in a few hours. argh. watched carmen in 3d just now, slept the whole of after the intermission. felt so bad to my darling yahui ): haha. aku tak appreciate opera siol. kk getting crappy. gonna chao. byeee blog.

2011-04-04T21:17:00.002+08:00

oh gosh, i really will not take up an office job in future. it's just too classroom like. it's not boring, but there's too much politics and socialisation going on. and the fact that you're stuck in one place for a WHOLE DAYYY, and knowing the next day you'll be.... wait for it.... BACK THERE AGAIN! kinda glad im in science. even thought to some people that may not be much better, but at least it's something that interests me more than endowment funds, life insurance, and idl (idk?!). haha.

chao.

2011-04-03T23:38:00.003+08:00

EDIT (about 15 minutes later): zomg. im gonna learn how to play this. this is even more amazing then the below video. omg omg.

amazing shit.

anyway, it's been a cool but extremely short weekend. no idea why it flew by so fast too. starting work at pias tmr for three weeks. short, but a change from my usual life, which is what i wanted, but somehow i'm getting worried i won't know what to do. kinda like my first official office admin job. yes guys, despite how much i hate office jobs, i'm in one. for the pay at least.

saw the pap and the opposition having a debate on channel news asia. sure seems like singapore opposition have a long way to go before any of them can measure up to even the lowliest of the fielded pap candidates. firstly, they don't talk as confidently or as clearly as the pap. secondly, they don't seem to have a very clear idea of what they're gonna do if they become the government. thirdly, they don't seem very united despite all of them being in the singapore democratic alliance. and lastly, the way they put forward their arguments and 'plans' for singapore makes them sound either like a small boy persuading his mum to let him have that one more cookie, or, an exceptionally hot woman offering free sex to a group of fat-face-fucked adolescents. it's either a no-go or a too-good-to-be-true situation.

the way they put it sounds like their ideas are just there for the sake of opposition. and, if their ideas were to be realised, alot of singapore's reserve funds would be used. an example would be a small snippet which caught my attention, which went something like 'essentials like housing, food, transport should all be provided by the government at cost price, with no profit'. to any educated person, they're just making fools of themselves to quite a large extent, but perhaps to the elderly and underage, they might seem attractive to vote for, i mean, who wouldn't want cheaper food, property and transport?! but think about it, how else will the government get their money to invest in singapore if they don't make any profit from such sales. it's this money that generates further capital for singapore.

if i could speak mandarin to any extent and could give more of a damn about the welfare of old folks and young kids, i would probably start my own opposition party and show them how its done. i'd start one geared towards enviromental friendliness. because pap has already perfected singapore to quite a large extent (with respect to the economy/law/ethics etc), there's simply no point going against them in those aspects, what should be done is to work with them but differ from them in small ways such as the more cultured side of life (which the private sector is heading towards now, without much support from the government), then when you're almost level with them, backstab the pap and take over the fucking country. that's how you get to play golf in the istana.

alrights, first day at work tomorrow. chaos-

2011-04-02T00:41:00.005+08:00

interesting friday. accompanied my darling for her health checkup for entry into nyp in e morning. went down to sentosa rws after that to check out some maritime experiantial museum volunteers thingy.

they're too much i swear, they ask you to pay 50 bucks, attend 3 hour lessons, one time a week, for 4 weeks. then after that they require you to work 4 hours a month minimum. wait did i say work, nooooo, i meant, VOLUNTEER your services. and it's a commercial thing. what the fuck are they thinking!?! not to mention that the speaker was quite misinformed that there hasnt been any maritime museums in singapore (there used to be one at the old world trade center which is where vivocity is now at). they should at the very least pay some money to the presenters of their information. and there they go on and on and on about how volunteering is good, and in my mind (shhh) im thinking, if volunteering is so good, why not you tell your boss you dont wanna be paid for doing what you are because i'm quite bloody sure you're currently doing what you are for your monthly income. fucking hypocrites.

went down to catch natalie in 3d after that. wasn't a fantastic show imho (though the filmography (lightings in particular) impressed me), but in singapore where we are taught the traditional values of being discreet when it comes to sex, sex sells man, it definitely does... hall 7 of the cathay was sold out that night.

and it makes you wonder, why is everyone so hushed and uptight about sex (especially parents), when it's everywhere around you. if you can't beat it, embrace it. not that i'm advocating making love casually, but wouldn't things be better and so much less feelings be repressed if people were actually more open about it? like instead of telling your children not to do it, give them reasons, teach them the consequences and emotions involved thoroughly. don't you find that as you grow up, you are so eager to do things you never could as a kid? well it's the same with sex, so the more you wanna keep it hush, the more your kids are gonna want to do it once they get legal, and it won't be because they love their partner, it's e act, not e person. but if we're more open about it to our kids, they are more likely to have it only with the one they love and are willing to take responsibility for. that's in my honesst opinion. but saying is one thing, doing is another, so let's just see when i do become a dad.

amazing filmography (ie lightings, angles, focus), but cliched, predictable storyline and (i must stress, way too much) repetitive sex positions. unimaginative, but i'll give it a 3/5 for the way the movie is filmed.

soooo ker-yuttteeeeee >.< things that make you cant wait to be a dad. or mum.

alrights. guess thats it for todays post. weekends are here. going for an interview with p.i.a.s. tomorrow for a temp admin position. much thanks to justina maria sng hui ying (isit? lol) for the lobang.

chaozx.

i think i wanna marry you. (no, no, no, no, no... just say, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah....) [=

2011-03-31T00:17:00.002+08:00

unrelated; but, would you fight for something you want? contemplate. if you won't fight for that something, do you really want it that badly then?

2011-03-30T15:53:00.004+08:00

so many things i'd say if i was only sure i won't regret saying them. but since i think i will, i guess i'll practise some discretion. like you said we should. it's e kind of things we say but when it gets done we feel bad even saying it at all. and l4d is a good way to waste a day away. and im getting fat. fuck, i'm rotting my life away. honestly. feel so unmotivated to do anything. what's my life coming to man...

someone save me.

2011-03-29T00:27:00.001+08:00

this guy's got style man! gosh.

simply awesome guitar playing, and an awesome dressing style to match.

2011-03-28T15:48:00.002+08:00

its monday, monday, everybody's getting down by monday, the weekends, just passed. working and working and noooo, working and working and nooo, everybody's getting down on a monday.

rainy day. nice weather to sleep. but seems like for once ive slept too much. had an awesome weekend with chang ya hui, though i can't blog about it (only you'll know why [:). anyway, dequadin lozenges is good. leaves a nice aftertaste in your mouth. haha. e pastilles at least. haven't tried shouting and blowing down people (if you've seen the advert), but it's good!

gonna l4d till i fall sleep. chao-

2011-03-27T00:33:00.003+08:00

UPDATE @ 0130: this video just made my day. night. ok, early morning. whatever. this just got me into an awesome mood. hahaha.

two hopes.

somehow im feeling extremely indifferent to everything around me. maybe the flu is getting me down. im beginning to wonder, am i still the commitment-phobe i used to think i was? the reason for my being full-time part-time. why wont i want to take up a contract job? even for 3 months. commitments like these were never my cup of tea. but to you, its just different. i don't feel commitment-phobic when it comes to you. why.

people talking about relationships. seems every relationship has its troubles. no two people ever have it smooth do they? long distance relationships creating doubts, idealistic expectations of the other half, pride, whatnot. love is just so complicated. and i dont know why so many of us still choose to do it. its suicide. you love someone, till death do you part. by loving someone, you're inflicting hurt on the person and on yourself depending on who goes first. if you're lucky, both of you might die in a plane crash. if you're really that unlucky, one of you will be alive after the plane crash. love makes death worthwhile, yet love makes death so much more painful. and the same can be said of life. in fact, love is the only variable that can directly affect life and death, the two most important events in our lives. maybe thats why we love.

gonna go sleep. chao-

waking up next to you is just awesome - and i honestly hope i can feel that way for the rest of my life.

2011-03-25T02:24:00.002+08:00

six more days left of march. then comes april. month after month is just slipping by. the pragmatic tell me to work more. the other kind (whatever they're called), tell me to take it easy and relax. i'd like to believe the latter, but i'm tending towards the life of the former. it's simply difficult to just not do anything after one has been thru army as a combatant. while you're at it, you'd wish you never had anything to do, but once you're over it, you realise you can't not do anything anymore. it just feels... weird.

if everything goes well, i'll be starting on a 3 week long admin stint with p.i.a.s. which will bring my bank account to a decent 4 figures (hopefully i do get it). shall see hows tomorrow.

it's 2+ in the morning, 'but i can't get no sleep, there's nothing on the tv, nothing on the radio that means so much to me... all my life, living in singapore...' makes you wonder why singaporeans have so little pride and sense of belonging to singapore. true that our country's name isnt the kind of stuff you might sing about, but still, you hear songs and quotes like "impossible is not french", "born in the u.s.a.", "one night in bangkok, makes a hard man humble!", "big in japan!". but it's just plain weird to say "impossible is not singaporean", or "born in the u.s.a.", neither would "one night in singapore make a hard man humble!". singapore's just this characterless, history-less country with hardly any culture compared to almost the rest of the world. but still, its young. oh well.

earthquake hits myanmar. possibly coz of the supermoon? i have this theory that no matter how geographically gifted singapore is, it will not be immune to an earthquake in the next 50 years. and i honestly think i will experience a natural disaster while staying in this country. is the world really ending in 2012? symptoms seem to be showing. who do you want to be with when the earth beneath your feat crumbles and sucks you into the giant sphere of magma spinning beneath the earth's surface?

getting vertigo right now. it's a nice but scary feeling. think its a lack of sleep.

good night.

2011-03-24T01:26:00.002+08:00

searched wikipedia for matrimony, and it came up with some interesting and full of bullshit (in some way) stuff.

Rights and Obligations

A Ketubah in Hebrew, a Jewish marriage-contract outlining the duties of each partner.A marriage bestows rights and obligations on the married parties, and sometimes on relatives as well, being the sole mechanism for the creation of affinal ties (in-laws). These may include:

Giving a husband/wife or his/her family control over a spouse's sexual services, labor, and property.Giving a husband/wife responsibility for a spouse's debts.
Giving a husband/wife visitation rights when his/her spouse is incarcerated or hospitalized.
Giving a husband/wife control over his/her spouse's affairs when the spouse is incapacitated.
Establishing the second legal guardian of a parent's child.
Establishing a joint fund of property for the benefit of children.
Establishing a relationship between the families of the spouses.

These rights and obligations vary considerably between societies, and between groups within society.

i LOL-ed at the first pointer. wtf man. what happened to sex being a consensual thing that is a physical manisfestation of love, whoever gave permission for control over who must do what sexual favours to who? so now requesting sex becomes an obligation. haha imagine a husband wanting to have sex but the wife is not in the mood.

h: 'darl, lets have sex'
w: 'no, no mood'
h: 'okay fine... i can sue you you know?"
w: 'oh. fine.'
bleah.

-

i went johorr today with yahui (: spent e whole day there from around 10 till 6. realised i havent been to holiday plaza for easily 7 years. food in malaysia is really quite cheap, but sad to say their fashion has begun to suck really badly. bought mostly food with a shirt that was going for 20 bucks. quite good cutting. happy with my purchase. haha. my darls got herself (and mum) some black dress that her mum said wasnt nice, so she has it for herself. 30 if i rmb correctly.

alrights, damn tired. gonna go sleep. chao!

2011-03-23T00:39:00.002+08:00

half wishing you'd call me back of your own accord. but you never did.

2011-03-21T00:42:00.002+08:00

been hearing so much about relationships gone bad recently. my girlfriend's close friend after a proposal, a very close friend with her (as of current) ex coz of maturity problems, a colleague whose 6 year relationship ended in a two-time, and another colleague who's 10 month relationship ended and brought her life down with it. scary being in love isn't it. but i guess, as the phrase goes, ships weren't built to stay in the harbour their whole lives.

went for this talk by appeles poh (anyone here heard of him before?) on saturday. was quite interesting. he mentioned 5 questions that we should ask ourselves when things go wrong, all of which i have heard before, but never really bothered to summarise. here they are,

1. what could have been worse?
2. what would this problem be in 1 year/5 years from now?
3. what good has come out of this?
4. what lessons can i learn from this?
5. what can i do to make this better the next time?

anyway, realised im totally free this week. kinda sucks to not have anything on your schdule. if you read this and wanna jio me go somewhere, just do it, i will confirm agree unless any one of my 3 employers suddenly calls me up for a last minute job. bleah.

alrights, gonna chao- and this is not an afterthought, but rather it'd be weird to put it at e top, so here it is, for you: i'm so thankful for having my dearest rachel chang ya hui in my life (: love you much dear...

2011-03-17T00:24:00.003+08:00

after much contemplation and reflection, i hereby declare myself a full-time part-timer. which is very true if you understand what i'm doing right now. 3 jobs, all part-time, all of which together take up all my time effectively. not that i'm complaining; but honestly, i have to say im having the time of my life right now.

today, my profession brought me to the corporate world of kpmg which is a company of tax-collectors, accountants and auditors. and i have to say it's a very sad place. if you're working in such a firm, you won't realise it, but everyone feels so dead. dead to life. they seem to have no dreams, no humour, no drive in life except to satisfy their unsatiable desire for money. they walk in with eye-bags, unkempt hair, a neat and strict look that gives you the impression they've got it all - but on conversation and interaction you realise they're just as empty as the cleaner without an education (perhaps even the cleaning aunty today had more life in her than the office workers).

kinda strengthens my convictions never to fall into that trap no matter how much i love seeing my bank account grow. and which is why i'll try my best to never be part of the 9 to 5 world. think my current planned journey into research and healthcare fits me just right. it's a job that incorporates passion - and not a passion for money. but a passion to discover, and ultimately to help people.

i sound so noble. go fuck yourself if you're thinking the same thing but sacarstically (:

anyway, to the future me who at some point in time will go through his blog archives, yes, you were really enjoying your life at this point in time - adequate work, (aka) adequate cash, working with my closest friends, being able to spend time with my dearest yahui for more than half the week, having free time to jam now and then, and still have my late nights. hows shiok-

chaoz-

missing my yahui much ):

2011-03-15T20:25:00.004+08:00

EDIT: just an afterthought about e crisis japan... imagine if we were in their shoes. what if the person you loved and treasured the most was uncontactable? what if he/she was reported found swept up upon east coast park beach? dead? disfigured? the fragility of life, love, and everything in between is based on death. ironic. live each day like your last- but who actually would? who'd work on their last day on earth? who wouldnt want to spend it with the person they love the most? but we always end up working, spending time with friends instead of our loved ones, doing things that can be done every other day. how many people want to try skydiving, bungee jumping? what about that cheeseburger from wendy's? wouldnt you wanna know what it tastes like before the world ends. funny how we take life for granted, yet are not able to, pragmatically.

-

something random, but a guy at 21 years old i realise has most if not all of these in his wallet, and he will display them proudly with the top of the card sticking out of the card pocket: 11b with svc status as nsman, pink ic, driving license and some form of credit/debit card. how true is this? true at least for all the guys at eka training. haha.

anyway been thinking quite abit about online/nonpersonal facades and how socialising has changed with the event of facebook/instant messaging etc etc. here's presenting my newest idea, and it shall be named zomglolbuttruettm for now. here's the first in this series...

the art of online happiness
"haha. fuck life. lol."

been a really busy day. rushing around everywhere and everything seemed to be pissing me off. finally decided to take time off from life and chill at a coffeeshop near my house, eating my favourite prata. sometimes, listening to your favourite songs, having your typical 'happy/sinful' meal, all alone, is therapeutic. it's like a system reset for your mind.

anyway, coached with eka training at chij our lady of good counsel today. p5 girls can be the realisation of both angels and demons. they're little monsters that can be so cute and sweet at moments, and downright fucked up at others. haha, but it's really cool coaching them none-the-less.

alrights, chao-

a random p.s.:

p.p.s. i fucking hate him.

2011-03-15T00:17:00.001+08:00

the test has come. will you pass?

2011-03-14T14:55:00.002+08:00

it's monday once again. this week seems busy. gonna be working tonight 6-10pm, tomorrow 7.30am-1.30pm, wed and thur full day. income's steady for now. but i hate having to worry about the week after a normal income week. still determined to get a job at a guitar shop to cover any emergencies that may arise.

the weekend was eventful. nua-ed saturday away with a pre-purchase recce of the i.t. fair. sunday went to e zoo to work for training vision at some old folks learning tour. an aunty asked me, are you a volunteer or a worker? lol if you get the irony. went down to nus open house after that at around 4. feel quite undecided on whether to go to university even though so many kinda want my place there. it sucks coz you cant exactly complain to anyone that you don't feel like going to university anymore. after the whole ns stint, i feel like i'm better at the arts and at managing people than whatever im gonna be doing at nus. besides, i hate the university stereotype. just like how i hated the jc stereotype. and im in both. what the fuck. but then again, maybe im just hating it for it's reputation and compliance to the status quo, because jc was beneficial to me in some ways. anyway, went down to the i.t. fair after that which was damn crowded (think shoulder to shoulder).

got my laptop, a samsung rf411 and which i am using now to type out this post. shall take a few pics of it and upload it when i have e time. not a bad deal considering i got all the freebies that e salesmen were allowed to give (thanks to my unforgiving girlfriend who kept bargaining with the salesguy, lol). she got a laptop for her cousin too. been playing with this monster since then. monster because it's a fucking intel i7 with an 8gig ram, latest nvidia graphics card with 2gig dedicated ram, 500gig hd at 7200rpm (a 30gig copy took less than 10 minutes), 1.3mp webcam with microphone and a 6 hour+ battery life (while on continous usage). quite a good buy, now all that matters is, how durable is this monster. only time will tell.

alright, time's showing 4:40. chaos-

are we asking for too much? or do we just want the best of both worlds? are these issues even justifiable? who's to blame? who's to say who's to blame? till we can really speak to an even higher being, maybe the ceiling will suffice.

2011-03-12T12:03:00.002+08:00

The King of Pop

it's something i thought i would never say, but after doing up his countless songs on my itunes that i've heard before but never knew was by him, i have to admit: he's a legend. from his glittery white gloves, to his hair, to his sunglasses, to his dancing, to his voice, to his suits. he's a legend, because of the headlines he's made (infamously or famously), because of the instant recognition of his stage persona (ie his stage attire, stage antics, his dance moves etc), because of his continous reign over mtv for over a decade, because almost every single one of his many songs have it's own page on wikipedia, because his songs were not just songs with extremely catchy melodies but songs who's lyrics inspired and motivated - songs with true meaning... the reasons are almost endless, but it all bores down to one phrase that he has universally been associated with, and with which he has etched his name into the history of the music industry forever: the king of pop.

-

it's a saturday today. slept for 12 hours, almost straight. and damn, it feels good. missing her like crazy tho. alright chaos- going for gweneal's 21st.

2011-03-11T16:36:00.002+08:00

(Re: Love?) - because i just read it.

Love.

"Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more."

Erica Jong
1942 - present, an American author

-

just spent an awesome 3 day 2 night camp with regent secondary doing logistics for the whole event. somehow a logistics role is fulfilling in it's own way even though it seemed damn boring at first. the look of appreciation on the kids faces when you mend their wounds, give them food/drinks, or when you help them fix their broken/leaking/collapsed tent so they can sleep, and even the look on their faces when you shout at them to get things done, is priceless. anyway, it was an adventure camp for e secondary 2 students and its at that age where they still retain a certain level of innocence and yet have adequate mental and social capabilities to resemble young adults. so it was somehow very fun.

the camp was kinda of an eye-opener into the world of a co-ed secondary school life. and coz i'm from an all-boys school, it was pretty interesting to see guys and girls interact at that age. and a surprising thing about it all was that it's actually alot more fun to take a group with malays in it than chinese. most of the chinese kids are just plain reserved/boring/quiet/guniang/chaokeng etc etc, the malay and indian kids despite being much more playful, were the kids actually doing most of the stuff, motivating the group. for example, the indian chief of the top class at regent sec was this malay girl who can be an angel or a devil and she can influence the class to do anything she wants. and the chinese kids are irritating in a way that they keep complaining about everything, from small leakages in tents to being sticky and wanting to shower. the malays in contrast don't really care about such stuff and just have fun. kinda makes you wonder why some adult malays become so screwed up eventually. or perhaps its just this next generation of kids.

alright, chao- time to crash and burn and catch up on the sleep i owe myself since last week. been having insomnia but i suspect this camp has successfully reset my body clock.

and perhaps the best part about it all was i got to do the camp with someone i love so much- it wouldn't have been the same if you hadn't gone along. your kids are damn adorable i swear. haha (:

2011-03-08T00:38:00.002+08:00

imagine a jamming studio cum recording studio cum music-video production studio. like e walls are all black (so that you can choose different background and scenery for your music video) with certain portions being tinted glass panels concealing numerous video cameras that can zoom in/out of the users in the room. the vocals, guitar/bass amps & keyboards are all lined into the mixer, and the drum is mic-ed and lined to the mixer too. the mixer is then lined to monitors and a device that can link up with a computer to input the music as separate tracks. so in other words you can jam, record and produce your own music video all at once. wonder how much a room like that's gonna cost. but if i do manage to create one, it's gonna be legendary and revolutionary in e way musicians do their thang. imagine a one-stop music production studio. amazing.

and this will serve as my patent if anyone comes up with such an idea. the date today is 8th of march 2011 at 12:44am where my brain suddenly decides to become active after being seh the whole day. zzz.

2011-03-08T00:18:00.000+08:00

if it isn't because...

we both read yahoo news extensively and then think we're adequately up-to-date with the latest news; we both love the high pitched 'guetta' sounds in club music; we both don't really club that much but like to think of ourselves as chiongsters; we're both the last minute kind; we're the only two people left in our respective social circles using blogspot; we're both manual drivers amidst countless auto drivers; we have the same eyes; we both believe in the same faith; we both attend the same devotion on a particular day of the weekend religiously; we both wanna travel so much; we both wanna catch a gig overseas because we both think singapore gigs are lame;

... ♥

2011-03-07T21:00:00.001+08:00

2011-03-05T00:03:00.003+08:00

currently in a very annoyed, pissed off, dissapointed, 'told you so', indignant, confused state. there should be a word for that. and a walkthrough of life that tells you how to stop feeling this way.

to run now would feel great, but that's simply not possible at 12am on a saturday.

2011-03-04T00:11:00.002+08:00

cool shit. i ♥ deviantart.

2011-03-03T22:55:00.002+08:00

just some random thoughts on life after university. jobs i have considered doing for a career so far - my most probable eca (estimated course of action): life science researcher, and if i have the financial means, eventually an entrepreneur dealing with import/production of band merchandise, brand/model specific imports of musical instruments/stage equipment catered to outdoor and indoor live music performances, and event management specialising in setting up of venues for live performances - and maybe hopefully set up a venue that includes a jamming and recording studio, mini cafe and a shop section, which would be a hangout/home for live music performers/enthusists. perhaps one day in the distant but not so distant future. anyway, other not as probable careers i have considerd - software programmer, session musician, guitar teacher, music production, photographer, journalism, police (special-ops cmd/ssb), army (intel/sotf).

my most probable eca is a big dream, wonder if i will eventually reach it... before somebody else who has the means reaches it before me. talk about the poverty cycle.

2011-03-03T18:24:00.002+08:00

You know, a person that is motivated 24/7 is a myth. It doesn’t exist. Motivation is a spark that gives us a powerful explosion of will in a given moment to do something, but goes out very quickly. In order to in achieve the results you have set in your fitness/workouts or any other project in your life you cannot rely just on your motivation. When motivation fades, you gotta have have a few tricks in your sleeve to keep you “running” towards your goal. Here are a few tips you might find useful:

1. Acknowledge the rule of least resistance.
By default, your subconscious-mind, the ruler of your body, is a lazy entity. It follows a simple universal rule that is found in chemistry, physics and other natural phenomena: the path of least resistance. That is, your sub-mind will seek the path of least energy. If it can avoid doing something, you bet it will. It won’t get off its ass in the morning to go jogging. No. It has to be trained over a very long period of time (to build an habit), but until then you must make it do what you will.

2. Ignore your inner dialogue.
Now this one is very important. We all had those inner dialogues when you know you have to do something like to go running in the morning and start looking for excuses: “It’s cold outside you’ll get sick”, “You look awful when running, what will the people say”, “I am too tired today, I went to sleep very late last night. If I go now, I’ll be very tired all day.”, etc., etc., etc. In most cases (like 99%) these statements are false excuses. Even if your inner self was right 1% and you DO get cold after running: the positive build-up of your will is far more valauble than having cold for a day or two.

I have found a solution that works for me like a charm: I just ignore these dialogues. You cannot stop them: at least, in the beginning (when you build an habit they will disappear gradually. But YOU CAN ignore them). Just listen to your inner whining while starting what you have set to do. Mostly, the dialogue will disappear within the first 5 minutes as your sub-conscious realizes that you are un-bribable and cannot be talked out of your goal. This is really amazing. Who would have thought that you are NOT in control of your own body, by default. You have to take the control by power. Power of will by ignoring excuses.

3. Set goals and make them public.
The Runner’s Magazine suggests signing up for a competition regularly and making it public (among your family and friends). It doesn’t matter whether it’s a small or big one. This will kill two rabbits with one stone: First, you will be more motivated to go out and train since you have a definite goal and date to train for. Secondly, your submind will be more cooperative because it does care whothers will say should you flunk the competition after promising (publicly) to participate.

Don’t let anyone, incluiding your inner self, to talk you out of your goals!
- http://www.bodytweaking.com/2009/07/16/running-motivation/

2011-03-03T01:54:00.002+08:00

this blog post was left blank intentionally.

2011-03-01T00:57:00.002+08:00

it's funny how so many successful people always tell you they failed their examinations in their younger days and then persued their passion, and that was how they got to where they are today; and yet here you are trying your best to excel in your own examinations (which most of the time you have no interest in, and see no use of it in your future career). and for those who have the privilege of not doing well academically, why do they yearn to do so or why do they look down upon themselves? when studies is not your cup of tea, surely something greater must be within you. God is fair. always. it is something i have believed in, still do, and will continue to do so. good looking people always have their personality flaws. and ugly people always have special talents that are unique to them. even the most talented, charismatic, good looking person i know, has his deep dark vices. God is fair.

my life looks good at least till end of this week. income incoming, hopefully it'll last. but i still want a job at a guitar shop. then i can truly say for once, i'm living my passions.

this woman, whom i got to know through my professional capacity, commented on my enrolment in life sciences, nus, 'doing these kinda stuff, seeing your interests, you sure you wanna study science? shouldn't you be in some multimedia or arts side course?'. makes me wonder what the fuck i got myself into too. but well, it is better money than my passions, which for starters, is one of the reasons why i'm still in it. secondly, i do have a slight passion for life science - which is i daresay, the lesser (but taking over fast) developed of the three major sciences, and thus allows for the most creativity on the job. it may get me stuck in a 9 to 5 job in an office, BUT it may also get me driving from 8 to 9 and 5 to 6, to and from my dream home, in my dream car (:

it's march already. 3rd month, 1st day. school starts 8th month, 2nd day. i officially have 5 months and a day of freedom left to fuck around with life, before i continue to do my time in statu pupillari, afterwhich i shall be forced to join the ranks of working adults and the rest as they say, shall be history. so watch this space for fucked up and/or cool happenings in my life, via graphics and text.

gonna go sleep, but before this, i have to say, 6km after a few months of inactivity is a pretty humbling but fulfilling experience. heh.

chaoz-

thanks for the surprise today my dearest rcyh (:

2011-02-27T23:37:00.002+08:00

we are the culmination of our thoughts and actions.

2011-02-24T23:40:00.004+08:00

what's on my mind.

.1.

"Singapore’s “Seven Deadly Sins” of Commuting:
1. Bad/dangerous drivers
2. Delays and service interruptions
3. Other commuters’ body odour or bad breath or smelly food
4. People talking too loudly on their mobile phones
5. Rude behaviour from other passengers
6. Road rage
7. Lack of information from service providers, such as information on routes, schedules and delays"
- yahoo's fittopost news

.2.

Timeo Danaos... (et dona ferentis):
(Latin - Vergil's Aeneid [II, 49]); "Fear the Greeks, even when they bring gifts.", in reference to the Trojan Horse fable; in other words, be weary of seemingly good intetions from strangers or enemies.

.3.

The Dream Car:In-Car video of the Subaru Impreza WRX STI 2011

.4.

A Passion (that will probably never be realised):i like working with my current boss. not just because he pays alot but because he inspires creativtiy in me. i've never met someone who is this good at his job, with this good connections and contacts, yet is down to earth in the way he operates. if i continue working with him longer i might really be actually tempted to give up research and start my own photography business.

.5.

A random thought about the middle class adult:
the magical ages between 5 to 35: a transformation from a child, to a reasonable adult, back to a child.

5 to 15 - you want everything for yourself. your life is mostly hedonistic, with no plans, no need to wonder where your next meal may come from, no other half, just wants, gets, happy feelings. you hardly care about the feelings of others, maybe here and there when you make your classmate cry, but that's about it.

15 to 25 - you start to realise life isn't all about wanting, getting and feeling happy about it. you start to think ahead, develop interests, have some plans, a general idea of life, and because you're immature in age and experience in any field, you don't have a big plan, but rather a general one, based on your interests. you get to see the way most adults communicate, with their superiors, between themselves, and to their subordiantes. you see their selfish nature, their cunning ways - they have the cheek to call it being pragmatic - and you swear to yourself you'll never be like them when you grow up, and you live your conviction (for now); after all, you're most probably still schooling, you can afford to be unpragmatic in small ways (that is good for your human nature) - you actually do appreciate life during this age, and it's here you actually LIVE, because you're still yourself, with your own mindset, own values, formed through how superiors treat you. after all, you don't judge a man by how he treats his contemporaries, but by how he treats his subordinates.

25 to 35 - your ambitions in life after graduating from university are high, but it is soon ebbed away by the realities of politics, backstabbing and extreme competition. you realise (or rather, are influenced to think) that being pragmatic is the only way to survive, either forced upon you by your working environment or insecurities by your other half, thus you become selfish once again, perhaps not for yourself alone, but for your loved ones, those who have placed their alleigance in you, and you in them. you forget everything you used to think of adults, because you're in it, because the emotions are real now, because you actually have an other half to support now, because a family relies on you now, and you get so caught up in your myriad of events that you forget who you used to swear you will never become; and everything converts back to wants, gets, (with a brand new step: if don't get, beg, steal, borrow, kill, to achieve) - then feel happy about it. in a way you transform back into the child you once was, except that now you have an aresnal of skills including a carefully tutored and conditioned manipulative behaviour, and a penchant for success that exceeds itself via the infinite desire for possession of this sad (but 'pragmatic') conception called money. sad to say, but it's a truth of life.

if you feel the same way, post the same on your blog, with your own thoughts, and urge other readers to do the same. hopefully we may one day change the way the world works - if even if it starts out from a small and lowly blog like the one you're patronizing. good night world.

alrights, mind's blank. slept at 5 yesterday. perhaps i should get more sleeeeepp. sleep is good. pass time. escape from reality. that's the most important. i wanna run away. to a place far far away. where no one can find me. and let that be enough.

127 hours - inspiring despite the opinions of many.

2011-02-24T00:11:00.002+08:00

heh, from yahoo news once again...

http://sg.yfittopostblog.com/2011/02/21/are-singaporean-women-marriage-material/

interesting article about how the grass is always greener on the other side. as for me, found my singaporean woman, and yes, she is marriage material, but we're both a little too young and immature in the relationship to say anything's confirmed.

and tomorrow (or rather later today), it's back to my old job. shioks man. anw applied for a job at yamaha. thinking of applying at swee lee now too. gonna try davis when i'm free. would honestly prefer to work at a place where the real pros go (davis & swee lee) instead of a shop where young kids drag their parents to and scream 'i want a guitar coz billie joe armstrong looks so cool with one', and after that their weary parents who are probably suffering from mid-life crisis (bills, blackmails, risk of being fired anytime) would come to me and ask, 'yes, i'm looking for a guitar for my son, do you have any to recommend for beginners?', where i would love to say 'do any of these fucking guitars look like they're made specially for someone who doesn't know how to play?', but to which i'll most probably go (under my manager's orders) to a middle-to-high-priced guitar, pick it out and say, "yes, we do have this yamaha fx-blabla that has a cleaner sound than the others and which is ergonomically designed to fit younger people, especially beginners" (a whole lot of bullshit), and politely ask if he would like his son to try it out. oh gosh.

2011-02-22T18:24:00.003+08:00

the more you love someone, the worse it hurts when that someone breaks your heart. is it worth it loving someone so much just to let yourself get hurt so bad.

the sound of emotion: asd23

2011-02-22T16:17:00.006+08:00

with reference to a few posts ago, in direct contrast/comparison to positions in each list...

white swan: quit, uni, research, get married, have kids, bmw 700 series, nobel prize?, around-the-world holiday, first-class, luxurious life.

black swan: don't quit, hard rock/metal band, play in pubs/clubs, get married, have kids, subaru impreza wrx, mtv top local hit?, world tour with band and family, budget, life on thrills.

the ideal is the fine line somewhere in between. wonder where i'll eventually get to. boring day. sigh. it's been so eventless i've mastered ac/dc's back in black solo, joe satriani's always with me, always with you, and metallica's master of puppets. what next? i'm so fucking bored. lucky work has come knocking at last. chaos-

- i wanna - drive, till the fuel runs out; run, till i have to crawl; love, till you love me no more; party, till i knock out on the dancefloor; gig, till the crowds go home; shred, till my fingers bleed; live, till i breathe my last...

2011-02-21T14:13:00.003+08:00

here's an interesting video.

in response, i believe all guys will randomly check out girls' asses, but not to the extent at ogling at it like in the video. i mean, personally if i checked out a girl and saw some camera-lens-like thingy in the middle of her jeans i'd stare longer to see what it was. so i believe the guys in the video did that too. this is a bad experiment that has biased results showing all guys do when girls walk in front/past them is ogle. what the fuck man!

2011-02-20T00:39:00.006+08:00

19.02.11 - tiring day, but fun nevertheless (: quite tired, so here's e pics for today, and that shall be it.

-

us beneath this giant man-made waterfall

my darling in her cute pink cap she randomly felt like wearing today.

THE classic photo of all tourists visiting the bird-park according to rachel chang ya hui (:

two of my personal best shots (luck + skill-of-course, heh.) to date. perfect focus on a dynamic entitiy using my trusty 4 year old sony point-n-shoot camera (cybershot dsc-w55). love this shots coz i think it shows those 'oh-i-love-dslrs' guys that it's not the tool but (bhb abit) your skill that matters. like showing them what they can do with their multi-thousand dollar equipment, i can do with a 200 buck camera. the underdog feeling. lol.

é restaurant outside bird-park...

... that had pretty cool chairs which got my yahui excited xD

é only two things we ordered that was worth consuming

chicken sausage pasta: totally not worth it. it's a menu-friendly;tastes-otherwise kinda dish.

ended é day with the st. andrews alumni band concert at republic poly. music was good but we were both too sleepy to enjoy it fully. lol.

-

blogging with pictures. sounds cool... now that i can bring my camera wherever i want, this blog's gonna start becoming colourful. perhaps i should get a tumblr. looks cool from the sites i've seen there so far.

it's 1 am, my stipulated sleeping time. shall leave you all with this video i saw on yahoo news. quite cool, and imho, if recorded properly, it might actually sound better than the orginal.

"The cover version earned praise from none other Lady Gaga herself, who reposted a link to Aragon’s video on her Twitter page and tweeted, “Can’t stop crying watching this. This is why I make music. She is the future.” - The little Maria said she liked the Lady Gaga song because of the message of self-confidence and appreciating one’s uniqueness. - “She doesn’t bother about hearing what everybody else thinks. She just does what she does and she’s successful with it,” said Maria of the fashion icon." - yahoo news

chaos-

can never seem to get enough of you... (why!?)

2011-02-18T23:31:00.013+08:00

- still high on you, girl; -

.

found this new band today, every avenue. relatively new band (2007 first release) that plays good ol' school pop punk that still has some of the punk in it. like new found glory/sum 41/mxpx/nofx/alkaline trio/ataris/eve 6, along those genres. it's the kind of pop punk that doesn't disgust like click 5 and the likes of them that overruled mainstream music awhile back. addicted to all 3 of their albums. feel-good songs. lol.

it's 2340, gotta wake up at 0500 tomorrow. gosh. should i have accepted this job? haha. could have been happily back in my photography job by now. monday's my interview with the events company i used to work for that i wanna get back in. pay isn't all that great for the working hours, but it's still quite high nonetheless, perhaps it's the love for doing events that's inclining me towards the job. wondering if i'm making a right choice. bali and dubai here i come!

been sick the past 2 days, haven't been this sick in awhile. more than 2 years in fact. i never had a fever during the army. funny how the conditions in camp are so bad yet i never had a true need to take status, but now that i'm living in my own home, i'm falling sick. wtf. perhaps it's too clean for my body. i'm falling sick because of the lack of germs.

some pictures i just got from my dearest rachel (:

(: same colours

the flower girl amidst her own '-)
my darling's first time at mambo
natoon's birthday - t30ians
solo shot #1

solo shot #2

solo shot #3

happy valentine's dear (:

potato skinzz
seafood aglio!
some very nice lasagne
DARK DEVOTION - the climax of tcc's desserts
<3
xoxo, rachel & joe~

alrights- chao! got work tomorrow. argh, never thought i'd say that so fast after ord.

2011-02-17T17:12:00.002+08:00

a conceptual insight into the movie Black Swan.

i watched black swan yesterday. at first watch, it's just a darkside movie that depicts a form of 'high art' (ballet) in a very psychological manner, showing you the life of a girl with high ambitions, put under immense pressure, and attaining near obssessive status. the way the movie is directed tends to fade the fine line between reality and the character's mental state, which makes it kind of abstract because you never really know what is actually happening to her in the real world, you only get the whole picture of what she's experiencing. which perhaps is the point of the show.

but the movie is interesting in the way that the main characters/acts very closely resemble certain key psychological entities that affect us everyday; namely our convictions, our reservations, our concious self, and our inner self. i don't know if it's meant to be, but after some thought it really seems like it. these four entities (i don't know how else to refer to them as), are portrayed as (in the order which i introduced them), the director of the dance 'swan lake' (thomas leroy), the mother of nina sayers (erica sayers), nina's 'white swan' dance, and nina's 'black swan' dance.

if you've watched the movie, thomas leroy is the person behind all the pressure of nina, the one person that causes nina to become so obsessed with the dance she eventually hallucinates, much like our convictions that we will follow till our death. erica sayers in the film is the person holding nina back, telling her that she's going too far too fast for her own good, which is something most of us would feel when we're on a success streak.

the 'white swan' dance represents our concious selves - the persona within us who takes things seriously, who studies for examinations, practices till we perfect something. in other words, it symbolises the part of us that we have control over, of which constant practice will make perfect. while the 'black swan' dance represents our inner, basic instincts; it is who we are when we stop trying to try and instead just do. it is the violent persona inside everyone of us that manifests itself in small ways, like when we find fun in killing as many ants as possible, or when we disturb animals just to see them flee. it is also the passionate persona inside us that most of us show only to other half when we make love to them. it is the psychological state where we don't think and yet know what to do.

the show culminates with the debut performance of 'swan lake', which can be likened to life itself because it was only then that nina fully mastered all the parts of her dance; in a way, perfection in life, is only attained through the mastering of both 'white swan' and 'black swan' dances (both our inner-self and our concious-self) - to perfect the parts of our lives that require perfection while losing ourselves during the moments when we should. and like how the dance ends, perfection in life ends with death (spoiler ahead, but nina was seriously wounded just before the credits roll), which highlights the short-lived nature of life itself, which is precisely why it is so beautiful (the last scene where nina bleeds also features loud applauses from the audience).

it's quite an interesting movie from a conceptual viewpoint, rather than a storyline one. the storyline is in fact quite shallow and most of the movie's high points comes from the hallucinations and thoughts of the main character. it's certainly a film worth watching if you're into slightly more abstract and conceptual stuff.

-

hate feeling sick. argh. but anyway, i passed my driving test yesterday! (: first attempt. total 12 demerit points, 6 for speeding past an amber light, the other 6 was circuit faults. alright, chaos-

for you, rcyh, just something random from the kid to adult in me:
you're like my pro-yo in pri 1, my digimon in pri 2, my nokia 3310 in pri 3, my pokemon blue version in pri 4, my pokemon cards in pri 5, my tamiya cars in pri 6, my final fantasy ix in sec 1, my gunbound in sec 2, my dota in sec 3, my band in sec 4, my ibanez in j1, my a level notes in j2, and i might but i won't say my rifle in army, because as much as they say it's our wives, i hate it; and incase you don't get what i'm trying to say: you're everything i can't do without at every point in my life (:

2011-02-15T01:27:00.009+08:00

this post is dedicated to my dearest rachel chang ya hui.

just had the most awesome valentine's day ever. and this time, its truly all because of you - your company, your 'small gift', the amazing time we had just before we left each other (heh.) - you said it's something small from you to me, but from how i see it, it's definitely not, in fact it's honestly one of the best things i've gotten from you. i don't know why but handmade stuff really gets to me, and you definitely know your way around my heart. to show my appreciation because i really do mean it, here it is, up on my blog. and you should know i won't post anything i don't mean on here. it's my personal space, and knowing how little people read it, there's no reason to post anything i don't mean here. love you so much dear...

front of card and the starbucks card my <3 made and got for me (respectively)

back of card - definitely made w love; the card's perfect dear, and like i said it's one of a kind (:

so wrong, yet so right: i love the way you turn me on so badly- the way your body moves when you're on top of me, the way you kiss me, the way your hair falls in my face, the sounds you make that tell me we're headed in the same direction.
-
and i swear nobody knows or has ever known their way around me so well-

there need not be anymore said need there? good night world- it's getting late...

2011-02-14T11:46:00.006+08:00

interesting article on yahoo news today. seems to resonate with my post a few days back. i wonder if yang su-yin reads this blog... guess i think too highly of my lowly blog. here goes.

How To Maintain Healthy Relationships
by Ms Yang Su-Yin

TTSH – February 1st, 2011 Email Facebook Twitter Print

How many of us have allowed ourselves to be caught up in the whirlwind of a romance, only to be disappointed when the “honeymoon” period is over and reality sets in? Often, our partner is blamed for not putting in the effort to make the relationship work. In every relationship, be it intimate relations, friendship or kinship, it always takes a minimal of two people to work at it. A fact that everyone is aware of but rarely practices.

How then can we maintain strong, healthy and self-fulfilling relationships with a partner, parent or friend?

Communication – “Two monologues do not make a dialogue ~ Jeff Daly”

Deep, frequent, heart-to-heart conversations are essential in maintaining any relationship. Relationships fail when individuals hold the belief that: if he/she loves me, he/she should know what to do or what to say. I don’t have to tell him/her what I’m feeling or thinking.

We have to keep in mind that we are meant to interact, and are not mind readers. If you have difficulty communicating deep issues face-to-face, start off by sharing about your day and build up the confidence gradually by sharing issues closer to your heart. The person on the receiving end of your sharing will usually be appreciative of your trust and honesty.

Make Time For Each Other

Set specific times during the week to do something both of you (or in a group setting) enjoy doing. Make it a point to celebrate special occasions and if finances permit, why not spend a weekend away from the stressors in life? Recognise that it is equally important to make time for your family.

Recalling The Good Times

Remember why you fell in love the first place. There are always wonderful memories etched in our brains. Reminisce on the fun times you had together with your friends and children. Tapping on such memories will also allow you to be more appreciative of one another.

Do Something Nice For Your Loved Ones

Know your partner’s, friends’ and family’s love language and do something they can appreciate. Love languages are expressed by – buying gifts, words of affirmation, acts of service, physical touch, and quality time. Understand how your partner showers you with affection and allow your partner to understand how you shower him/her with affection.

Appreciate The Present

It’s too late for regrets when a love one passes on. There’s no point in grieving when the person has passed on or has decided to be out of your life. Learn to appreciate the present. Life is too short to dwell on the insignificant.

Celebrate And Enjoy

Celebrate the relationships you have made and maintained over the years. Enjoy the fruit of each journey you walked with that individual. Thank the person for being your partner, friend or family. Be grateful that they are still by you this day.

-

it's valentine's day. but it feels so normal. the sun is still shining, the clouds still there, people still going to work like any other day. i'm at home reading yahoo news. i've ord-ed. it's like a very killjoy kinda feeling. we look forward so much to ord. and then the monday after, it's a feeling of "what next?", anti-climax. you're so used to be around people that now when you're alone it feels weird. no one to kick you awake in the morning because you're late for some stupid parade or outfield, no need to change out of your sleeping attire the moment you're up, no need to put on slippers everywhere outside your bedframe. seems so funny that i'll never have to do these stuff again. perhaps ict, but that's just max a few weeks. and no, incase you're thinking of asking me to sign on, fuck off (: i've got so much more i intend to do with my life than wear green and chiong sua.

finding things to do... anyone got any idea? here's some pictures of the last week or so to end this v-day post-

090211 - ord parade (my family actually came for SOMETHING at last)

same event, my sweetest yahui came down all alone to see me, but my parents joined her in the end (:

the original failure-four of 3sir scout platoon command group (from left to right: quek, benjamin, cephas, and me)

the last picture in selarang camp as 3sir scout platoon nsfs. ord loh!

100211 - scout platoon minor at ord function

ord function performance (from left to right: me, yin wei, shawn wee. not in picture to the left: ivan yeow)

just yesterday (: - and yes i did wash the tee in between the ord function and yesterday incase you were wondering.

-

alrights, guess i shall end off here. going for lunch- chao.

2011-02-13T23:40:00.002+08:00

one more word from you and i will fucking go crazy. who gives you the right to have control over my life and tell me what to do? i do what i fucking want to do, and i'll live my own life how i fucking want to. you really think i want to stay in this place. it's called choiceless. if i had one, anywhere else would be better. if you thought i'd be the small kid you think i am, so fucking sorry, i'm 21 this year. and i'm sick of it all - always having random thoughts of what if i was alone, no family obligations, living life on the streets. the worst part of it all is somehow it always appeals. it's so wrong, yet so right.

i hate being dependent on people. or things. anything. including you. because it gives those things a certain amount of control over you.

2011-02-13T13:51:00.002+08:00

top 5 places to propose

gosh, they're so cliched. if i was a woman, i'd almost expect any ordinary guy to bring me to these places. yahoo's fit to post is a failure man, it's bringing down the standard of the yahoo news that used to be.

joe's valentine's day article

2011-02-13T01:59:00.004+08:00

ord loh!

ord loh (:

first 6 compact discs i ever bought.

my dear yahui.

-

sigh.

what's love? is it finding that one "right" person? the one most compatible to you, the one who fits your requirements, thinks the way you do, does things the way you like it, such that you will have no arguments, live blissfully and happily ever after? or finding that one person that drives you crazy about them, makes you feel so good about yourself, while at the same time not seeming to be compatible to you, fitting half or perhaps less of your requirements, thinking differenty from you, doing things the way you don't like but in a way you don't mind, such that you have arguments now and then, fight, contemplate, apologise, kiss, make love, make up, and cycle repeats, living a life on passion, faith and compromise, and live like how no one does in the movies?

i guess, the one reason for higher divorce rates compared to the past, is because couples in the past got together and fought hard to make things work out, whilst couples nowadays get together because things have already worked out. the difference surfaces when the inevitable disagreements and arguments arrive after the honeymoon period is over; the couple of the past are ready to settle things like these because they're fighting hard to mkes things work out, whilst the couple of the present are shattered and heartbroken because they thought things used to work out, so why doesn't it now? perhaps we're just too used to the easy way out of things.

like how jean danker (i think it was her), said in some valentines day newspaper article today, "if things aren't working out well, move on while it's still early, to avoid getting hurt more later in the relationship". why can't people just stick with each other once they've commited themselves to each other? why quit when things aren't going well. the reasons that you commited yourself to him/her will never change, what changes is our perception of it. like how stepping into the sunlight from a darkroom makes the sunlight blinding, but if you were in a brightly litted room, there wouldn't be such a drastic effect.

damn tired. think i'm talking nonsense. gonna sleep. chao.

please don't give up, because i won't either. we'll make it, but it won't be easy.

2011-02-05T02:26:00.002+08:00

i feel like i've just had the most awesome chinese new year ever.

and it's all because of you.

2011-02-02T22:09:00.004+08:00

from 2 days ago- (i posted it but bloody blogspot processed it as a draft -.-)

as ord beckons...

i realise how much of myself i had lost. since then. so happy, so carefree. but the plus side is, i seem to be getting it back. my creativity, the zest in life; ambition, an actual desire to want to do something instead of finding somewhere to do nothing. i realise all that got extricated from my soul when i enlisted, and now as i ord, it's all coming back. whether it's a good or bad thing. it feels like responsibility just dissapeared. i'm no longer accountable to anyone, nor will i be held accountable for anyone's stupid mistakes. it's like a double-edged sword. on a separate note, i'm growing fat too. waking up later, sleeping later. almost total lack of physical activity. and i realise it's time for me to quit. for her. for myself. to remove the desire completely. it'll be hard, but i promised. and i won't break a promise. at least not to her. she's far too important to me.

chinese new year tomorrow. did i mention i fucking hate chinese new year songs? irritating mother fucking songs that incessantly play EVERYWHERE you go. the local mall, the mall in town, the coffeeshop below your block, out of the old uncle living next door, in office buildings, in your friends car, at home (becase the teevee is on), etc etc... what the fuck is wrong with these people man, not that i'm not proud to be chinese, but c'mon, you don't hear christmas songs playing every single minute in every single place you go to do you? and i hate tradition, even if i've been doing it since forever. i hate visiting people, paying my respects to the elderly, smiling in front of them just to make them think i want their ang baos because i know it makes them feel good to feel like they're wanted by the younger generation. i should just try not giving a shit one year. sometimes a big extended family is not really a very nice thing to have. i count myself lucky to have no patriach or matriach come to think of it. imagine the respect i'd have to act like i have when i visit him/her. gosh, i'd fake an illness i swear. it's equivalent to outfield to me.

cny has been good so far i guess. this long break just reassured me that i'm gonna be loving ord-ed life. 2 years just passed. so fast, yet so long, so memorable, yet so unbelievably mind-fucking. guess that's what the 2 years is for. an experience of a lifetime. keyword, "an", its singular. i'd never want to go through it again. i swear if i wake up on 11th febuary 2011 and the clock shows 11th april 2009, i dont know what i'll do to potong pasir.

anyway, i wrote this song just awhile ago, and my dear asked me to post up the lyrics for her to read, so here it is, this is dedicated to every single guy who's serving time now and who has a girlfriend longing for his presence from monday to friday (monday to sunday for some units), to dedicated to his missus. but ultimately, you know it's you who inspired this song. love you tonnes, rcyh- this is for you.

Yours Truly, The Soldier by Joseph Matthias Goh
hey you, were you listening to me,
as i poured my thoughts out to you?
hey you, did you mean it when you whispered,
that you missed me so?
hey you, were you thinking about me,
when i was gone for the week?
coz i was, you know you're everything to me,
and then some more.

look back, say thanks,
for the time you set aside for me,
i know, you know,
that i'll be yours when everything is through.

so won't you sing with me,
this song that's all for you,
this song that's for all the girls
who've loved a soldier.
coz i'll be your soldier,
when it's all over,
all i ask is that you wait these two years,
for me.

hey you, it's a week to my release,
will you be there waiting?
hey you, it's been awhile since i've spent a week,
all alone with you.
hey you, let's go, no worries, at last,
i'll be, your man, i'm no longer a boy,
coz i'm through and we made it,
let's go grab a couple of drinks.

look back, say thanks,
for the time you set aside for me,
i know, you know,
that i'll be yours when everything is through.

so won't you sing with me,
this song that's all for you,
this song that's for all the girls
who've loved a soldier.
coz i'll be your soldier,
when it's all over,
all i ask is that you wait these two years,
for me.

-

adios amigos.

p.s. you can listen to the song here (: it's streaming though.

2011-01-26T18:52:00.001+08:00

15 days more to ord and I just got back drenched from a mini outfield. Fml.

2011-01-25T01:57:00.003+08:00

the sacred time has come where i can be considered an ord-personnel. and i will buy the tee with the above design if i see it. and wear it on 090211. but even as close as i am to ord, my unit still has a certain way of fucking things up. like how i'm being called to go back tomorrow at 12.30pm just to do some ord e-prep thingy. zzz.

the soundtrack's awesome. just got it.

alright, chao- it's damn late.

missing you so much it hurts-

2011-01-24T19:02:00.002+08:00

so wrong, but this is for you

Enrique Iglesias - Tonight (I'm Fucking You)
I know you want me,
I made it obvious that I want you too.
So put it on me,
let’s remove the space between me and you.
Now rock your body,
damn I like the way that you move.
So give it to me,
cause' I already know what you wanna do.

Here’s the situation,
been to every nation,
nobody’s ever made me feel the way that you do.
You know my motivation,
given my reputation,
please excuse me, I don’t mean to be rude,

But tonight I’m fucking you.
Oh you know.
That tonight I’m fucking you.
Oh you know.
That tonight I’m fucking you.

You’re so damn pretty,
if I had a type than baby it’d be you.
I know your ready,
if I never lied, than baby you’d be the truth.

Tonight I’m gonna do,
Everything that I want with you.
Everythin that u need,
Everything that u want I wanna honey.
I wanna stunt with you,
from the window to the wall,
gonna give you my all.
Winter and summertime,
when I get you on the springs,
Imma make you fall.
You got that body,
that make me wanna get on the boat,
just to see you dance.
And I love the way you shake that ass,
turn around and let me see them pants.
You stuck with me,
I’m stuck with you,
lets find something to do.
Please excuse me, I don’t mean to be rude.

But tonight I’m fucking you.
Oh you know.
That tonight I’m fucking you.
Oh you know.
That tonight I’m fucking you.

-

amazing song that's stuck on my mind, just like how you are always.

2011-01-17T19:02:00.002+08:00

testimonial writing for yourself is definitely a feel-good process. hahaha. this is my national service testimonial so far, and i think its quite impressive.

3SG Joseph Goh Seow Meng, S90xxxxxD, enlisted on the 11th of April 2009 into Basic Military Training Center (BMTC), Orion Company. Showing excellent leadership and technical handling skills while preferring a vocation that allows him to command and fight with men under his charge in the front-lines, he chose to go to the School of Infantry Specialists (SISPEC) and was successful. He completed his Basic Section Leader Course there and was posted to 3rd Battalion Singapore Infantry Regiment (3SIR) as an Infantry Scout Specialist.

During his time at 3SIR, Joseph trained hard and managed to clinch many achievements. The first of which was his Class 3 Military Driving License which he successfully attained on his first attempt, followed by his Combat Skills Badge (CSB) which involves good shooting skills, a certain level of fitness to run 10km under an hour, and a 32km route march that pushes soldiers to their limits with weapon technical handling tests and a river-crossing obstacle along the way, all within a stipulated time limit. He was then put through the grueling 6 week Recce Commander’s Course (RCC), learning the skills of his trade, completing three timed fast marches of distances 6km, 9km and 12km followed by a 60km map distance navigation exercise which he completed in second place for his cohort at 29 hours, surviving a 3-day jungle survival course with very limited food and water; and culminating with a taxing 4-day exercise at Pulau Tekong comprising of the continuous undertaking of several recce missions and an overnight prisoner of war training that really tested the mental strength of those involved.

After passing out from the RCC, Joseph took over duties as a ground commander in 3SIR Scout Platoon. Shortly after, he partook in Exercise Kiwi Walk, which was a bilateral military training exercise between Singapore and New Zealand, exposing himself to a foreign military culture, further strengthening his military knowledge and thus his ability to lead his men effectively. Joseph then took his troopers through Exercise Starlight in Taiwan, successfully completing all assigned missions despite the mountainous terrains that was both physically and mentally taxing on everyone. After returning from Taiwan, he then lead his men in the undertaking of an operation involving the security of a sensitive military installation for over a month before they took on and made successful the first ever Youth Olympic Games held in Singapore, preparing the stage for the performers as well as coordinating their entrance and exit timings.

Joseph, along with his men, then underwent intensive training for their Army Technical Evaluation (ATEC) involving outfield trainings every week which resulted in his unit 3SIR achieving an exemplary overall Redcon Status of 2A.

As a commander, Joseph showed an undying determination to lead by example, undergoing his own personal training and pushing himself from an IPPT Pass in his BMT days to an IPPT Gold while he was in the Scout Platoon. In turn after achieving this feat, he personally trained and motivated the men under his charge, resulting in his entire team attaining IPPT Golds as well. His fitness was duly recognised and in 2010, he was selected to represent his unit in the inaugural Tekong Challenge which involves 16km of running, 4km of kayaking and cycling, and other soldiering skills (completing a Standard Obstacle Course with additional height-confidence obstacles, river-crossing, fire-making, navigation, marksmanship and casualty evacuation). He also managed to achieve a marksman status during a combat shoot conducted by his unit.

haha. anyway, it's been a good break from army. going back tomorrow night to do what im not even sure. oh wells. ord loh. 24 more days, and counting down.

2011-01-16T01:01:00.000+08:00

from some astrology website...

Scorpio and Scorpio
Well, considering this union is made up of two water signs this is very hot indeed! There is nothing mediocre about this couple, they will either love each other ferociously or they will be arch enemies, but when things do go wrong for them you can rest assured that the making up will be very rewarding for them both. It’s quite simple really, these two just ‘get’ each other, they understand where the other is coming from and they can slot into place easily with each other.

Scorpio people are not good at flings or short term relationships, I laugh while I write that in the knowledge that I have known several Scorpio women who enjoyed teasing men and having the occasional one night stand, then male Scorpios however, don’t appear to do this. The fact is though Scorpios really just want a happy ever after, someone they can relax their sting with and be calm without being on the offensive all the time and in each other they find something that will be rare for them to find with any other sign, understanding.

Everything a Scorpio does is done with intensity and passion, they are always accused of being overly possessive and jealous, they are, but they don’t do it for fun, these people really need to trust others and especially their loved ones and trying to keep the green eyed monster at bay when their other half is out is a lifelong work in progress. I have always felt that it must be quite hard to be a Scorpio, having Scorpio rising myself I am blessed with some of their attributes, ones which I have had to really work on. But also some that I would never be without, to be able to love with a burning intensity is an amazing feeling so to be part of a double Scorpio union must be not only a passionate experience but one which is as deep as you can get and full of intuition, these two don’t even need words, how special is that!

2011-01-15T00:21:00.003+08:00

are you just avoiding it? or are you really tired? sigh. i'm tired too. but thats asides the point. why are you even friends? it's such an intense hatred, something i've never felt before. worst of all, it's nothing to do with me, yet everything to do with me.

do you hate the intention, or hate the action? so what if the intention was good? if the action turned out bad, what the fuck man. would you convict someone who thought of murder? or the person who actually did it? which hurts more? murder - or the thought of it?

somehow the question that's killing me inside is a question that i can't be bothered asking because im sure i know the answer already. if i asked you to do it for me, just one thing alone, would you? am i important enough to be granted that wish - i doubt so somehow. but i don't doubt that you know what i'm gonna ask, and so im not going to. just give me the answer.

2011-01-06T01:24:00.000+08:00

To whom it may concern.

Loss is almost always painful. Who wants to lose things after all? But again, without the possibility and reality of loss, where would be the beauty of having something? If you knew someone or something would be there forever, what makes it so special? Whereas on the flipside, knowing that what you have now maybe gone tomorrow, makes you treasure it even more. But again, when we do lose things close to our hearts, it's always hurting. But once you've gotten over it, you realize after awhile that all things are replaceable, even if you thought it's something irreplaceable. Although not with the exact thing, everything can be replaced by something else. Memories from long can be replaced with newer ones which eventually become old memories, and friends will always eventually be replaced by newer ones. For better or for worse, loss is inevitable, but its because of loss that possession becomes more special, and important. So dont despair over loss, but embrace it, the hurt it brings, the opportunity it gives you to let go of a past, and the lesson it teaches you that nothing is permanent, so appreciate the present, before it is lost in (the) future.

P.S. How much does it take to earn another's trust?
P.S.S. Its a feeling of disappointment, rejection and helplessness, all at one go.

2011-01-03T01:49:00.001+08:00

Gosh, I'm missing you so damn much... ):

Re: your 020111 blogpost
You're welcome, glad it was as special for you as it was for me (:

2011-01-01T18:24:00.003+08:00

this is today. 3:47 PM. it's legendary how many miniature guitar things i have and which i didnt buy. almost all my close friends have given me something guitar related before. lets see, two miniature classical guitars (one with a music box attached), two electrics (green and blue, les paul and steve vai strat), five guitar magnets (from the same set, flat), three guitar magnets (the kind where there's lights when you tighten the battery behind), two keychains (one classical, one electric, electric one with a clock), and a see-through classical guitar made from clear plastic. wonder how many will i have at e end of e day. perhaps a storeroom full of it. woots. lol.

anyway, its 2011. first post of the year on the first day of the year on the first year of the decade. let's hope 2011 will be good... ord, driving license, overseas with my yahui, odac expedition (possibly), band advancements. sounds good so far. but for now, i'll be at tekong till 11th jan. and it's freaking a month to my ord. wtf is this man.

chaos!

-

"ord lohh~!!" - 3sir sct-plt @ 1700, 051210

2010-12-30T23:22:00.003+08:00

"I doubt, however, that I'll do much damage with my creed. The opposition is too strong. There are too many serious people trying to get everybody else to be too darned serious."

- 1 minute read: If I Had To Live My Life Over by Paulo Coelho

I love the last line. If you want the full passage, it's on my facebook wall. An interesting read to most people with any kinda life. Well at least for me it's exactly how I feel, and tho you may not feel it now, my bet is at some point in future, you will. So as such, to prevent myself from being a hypocrite, I swear I'll let my kids have e best childhood and adolescence anyone can have. Everything other than a command of e English language and virtues of being a good person can wait till they're older. That includes studying, achieving politically correct goals etc etc. I don't want them to brag about being first in class coz they studied hard. I want them to be able to say they've been to more places, tried more activities, eaten more exotic foods, than anyone else. Doing academically well would be a bonus to me, but not something Id want them to remember as e highlight of their youth. Most of all, I'd want them to proudly say that they have e best dad in e world. Egoistic, but face it all you fuckers who just when "narcissist" in their heads, who doesn't want their kids to be proud of them?

But as always, planning on what kinda parent you wanna be doesn't mean that you'd actually do it when that fucker of a kid is already screaming in your arms after coming out from your spouse's womb. And plans hardly ever work out, as the military has taught me. So let's just see my blogpost perhaps 10 years down the road.

Going off for duty now. Chao guys-

2010-12-28T02:15:00.002+08:00

War shows have a certain appeal for some reason. Perhaps it's e emotions involved; and being a soldier yourself really puts things in perspective: calling home when yr far away and missing yr loved ones, the possibility of death anytime, the chance of glory at another, the feeling of protecting and fighting for those you hold close to you. Even though Singapore maybe far away from war, the things operationally active armies do still resonate somewhere within every combat trained personnel. One positive aspect of being a combatant in an operationally ready unit I'll never regret getting myself into regardless of how much I hate pre-ord life.

Anyway, to you, I love you lots- missing you even as you sleep. I don't know if it's in e book, but wherever I am, when I look at e moon at night, it's comforting knowing we're seeing the same moon, and we're not that far apart. Christmas with you was simply awesome, I enjoyed every waking moment of it - and I definitely would not have felt e same with any other. It's our first ( you should know what I mean '-] ), and i don't know about you but I'm looking forward to many more spent with you-

It's nighttime, but I can't seem to adhere to the norm of sleeping at this time. Gotta readjust. Tekong here I come. Chaoz-

i just realised its that difficult to give a habit up completely, even if it's for someone you love so much. i'm sorry. i heard what you said earlier even if I pretended i didn't...

2010-12-26T10:33:00.002+08:00

Personalities once defined become just another statistic existing within the status quo - they die. So stay free: defy prediction, subject yourself to change - be alive.

2010-12-22T12:43:00.003+08:00

dedicated to my dearest rachel,

(:

Come What May by Ewan Mcgregor
Never knew i could feel like this,
like I've never seen the sky before
Want to vanish inside your kiss,
everyday i love you more and more.
Listen to my heart can you hear it sing?
Telling me to give you everything.
Seasons may change - winter to spring.
But i love you until the end of time.

Come what may,
Come what day.
I will love you until my dying day.

Suddenly the world seems such a perfect place;
Suddenly it moves with such a perfect grace;
Suddenly my life doesnt seem such a waste,
I know with arms around you.
And theres no mountain to high,
no river too wide,
sing out this song and i'll be there by your side.
Storm clouds may gather and stars may collide,
but i love you,
until the end of time.

2010-12-22T00:31:00.002+08:00

politically correctness aside, julius assange is currently the world's most influential person. think about it, whatever he posts up on wikileaks right now, can and will change the way countries see each other. in a single cable at this moment, he could make japan's prime minister guilty of terrorism by associating him with friendly cables with iraq, or malaysia go to war with singapore by claiming ministers here called the malays pigs or something like that. the credibility he has built up by releasing top secret government conversations, makes him an extremely dangerous person. if any one person so desired to see india go to war with china or thailand with malaysia, all he had to do was bribe assange into uploading fake cables to wikileaks claiming they said extremely rude things about each other. at this moment while he still maintains his credibility, he is definitely the world's most influential (and possibly dangerous) man.

had an awesome day today (211210). met up with yoke ming to go town to get stuff, visited peninsula plaza just like the old days then went climbing. had dinner at home then went to meet my dear for abit of food and shopping. seems normal, but it's these kinda non-military stuff that i've not had the privilege of enjoying for damn long that makes life seem so great after ord. it's 6 weeks more by the way. time will fly. i hope.

chao-

1010. heh.

2010-12-20T01:00:00.002+08:00

the top 10 movies of 2010 are out!
1. inception
2. the social network
3. iron man 2
4. harry potter 7 (part 1)
5. toy story 3
6. alice in wonderland
7. kick-ass
8. despicable me
9. how to train your dragon
10. ip man 2
(in bold are those i managed to catch)

feel quite accomplished in movie watching. but anyway, the judges of the best movies of 2010 clearly don't like romantic comedy and comedy. there were quite a few good ones this year tho i cant remember their names. perhaps it's because all such shows share the same old storyline of guy fucks up, girl leaves him, guy realises he's fucked up, guy chases back girl, guy gets girl. but hey, they're still movies, and the way each director visually interprets the plot is interesting to some extent. examples would be going the distance which brought in long distance relationships or valentine's day which brought in complex relationships. personally i thought sex and the city 2 and hello stranger should be in the top 10 even though one is a chic-flick and the other, a thai movie. looking forward to meet the parents: little fockers now. in 3 days time.

got shawn and justina's gifts already today. shawn, coz i know you're not gonna read this, i think yours was quite an achievement involving some coincidence to find. and i think yr gonna find it interesting.

anyway guard duty yesterday was creepy. really creepy. strange comms in the middle of the night with alot of distortion that none of us saw any of us gave that asked the prowlers to return to a certain area that is a known paranormal hotspot and hearing of knocking on a locked door when no one was supposed to be around. but the duty staff yesterday were quite cool. the 10pm to 12pm shift had 2 officers and 3 specialists accompanying the 2 men. lol.

went for 6pm mass at good shepherd followed by dinner with yahui and her friends at ichiban boshi. been eating there alot recently, their sashimi is one of the best to me somehow. esp their salmon handroll. imba shit.

alrights... gonna get my long due guard rest soon. nights world.

2010-12-17T14:15:00.002+08:00

one of my favourite songs of all time. even though it's from a game. if you've played this game you'll probably love e song as well. anw just a random thought, but the starting melody sounds abit like arrogant worms - i am cow.

i can't stand my life right now anyway. it's hovering btw ord and not ord. wanna get job also cannot, still im army. wanna go camp do things (not that i really want to), whole unit on leave also. lol. is my life good or bad? i feel like a dead person who hasn't been taken by God nor Satan yet.

found a two cool bands on torrent. diablo swing orchestra and Эпидемия (it's epidemia in english). the former is an eccentric mix of contemporary band music and heavy metal unlike anything you've heard before. it's not even close to bond or nightwish or evanescence. it's just eccentric. sounds good to some extent, perhaps because of the novel concept of their sound. epidemia's just an amazing metal band that i can't understand (lyrics are in russian).

jamming yesterday was pretty cool too. can't wait for sarah to get back from canada. somehow her bass is actually not bad. alrights, chao.

3 more hours to you!

2010-12-16T15:02:00.002+08:00

mission failed. hahaha... overslept by an hour and a half. fuck.

jamming later, but dont really feel like somehow. rather have you over at my place and just chill the night away. gonna go try out some of the songs now. chao.

2010-12-16T00:59:00.002+08:00

life seems so much on standby without army. somehow the thing i hated most had become a part of me. ironic isn't it?

met up for lunch with yahui today at her workplace. ate at some cheap thai restaurant where the tom yum and lime juice was quite fantastic. she had some thai beef noodle set. apparently it's the higher class place among the other food stalls. lol. but still, was relatively cheap and the food was naise.

i'm gonna run tomorrow. no more excuses of atec and outfields stopping me from training now. haha. lets see how much willpower i have when sleep inertia kicks in. 7am. 5km. i pray i can wake up even.

chao!

2010-12-14T23:41:00.003+08:00

does someone have to know you inside out before you think they're worthy of being loved by you? where's the fun of making mistakes then. just like watching a movie knowing the ending, playing a game for the fifth or sixth time in a row. anyway, who can know anyone to such extent? even your own parents don't about you after a certain age.

is it better to just not let anyone have your heart at their fingertips?

when you scream inside but no one hears you,

perhaps its better to sleep.

tomorrows another day.

hello, white pill.