right, so investiture's over, and i'm damn relieved.
it was by no means perfect and neither was the year smooth at all.
but im just happy to pass out with my batchmates.
keywords: contentment, relief, fondness

i'll miss the sjimb, but i need my break. one and a half years (yes minus 3 months) is damn tiring.

needless to say, company mess wasn't that enjoyable.
i can't stand politicking.
i blew my top at one person, which i shall not name.
i really think my batch deserved better, we did put in effort after all to have things as organised as possible.
learnt more about OBS (old boy syndrome), which i shall be sure to take preventive measures from contracting the damned affliction.

so no more red sash, dm sash, or mace to hold, just plain old me. no more ian chai the dm, just ian. i think people have come to associate me more with drum major than ian chai the person, if you get what i mean. not very healthy for a teenager whos supposed to be undergoing an identity crisis eh? haha.

oh well, time to move on to other things. i reckon i'll be giving a go at amce throwing sometime in the future though. tried my hand at bagpiping with bro jason, which i'm beginning to like! melvin says i look natural with a pipe, hoho.

it's bloody nerve-wracking. heritage play is in less than a week, and holy shit. singing in front of people from the region. eh hello! i've never been in a stage production before ! (the sheep in the nativity scene in primary 2 does not count). so yesterday paolo took me through the actions and songs, kann through the character, and yes, for a week ian chai shall be a celibate, skullcap wearing, father jm beurel. except im brown, but nevermind that. carpe diem i say! which jp actually taught me - bloody steeple chase. grr.

uhh well, i realise i don't blog much in this blog, just some thoughts i think others would like to read. sometimes i blog when i want to send a message out, but i don't really blog about myself per se. well you could infer what sort of person i am from what i blog, but you'll never be able to decipher me. except my mom.

this blog barely scratches the surface, i'd think if i'd write down the thoughts i really think sometimes, i'd have lost quite a few friends or stunned quite a few people. i don't write down anything about my outings with other people, relationships (except for one or two posts on friendship), etcetera, etcetera, simply because i think the experience, the memory of it is kept quite vividly and its entirety in my mind, and i can't really capture it in words? i only capture in words those times i really feel strongly about and feel inspired about.

that doesn't mean to say i don't treasure the outings, the people who have come and go in my life, they just deserve a better place in memory than just some place where i rant all the time.

there's one thing i want to keep here in case i ever forget:
i tried and i got burnt
tried again and got burnt.
twice bitten, i'm still not shy.
i'll wait, and i'll try.
because that's the only way i know how to go on.

i go through the same questions every now and then only to find no answers. i don't know why shoulders turn cold sometimes, or why i even bother. maybe i do know the answer to the latter, but nothing else has a definite answer.

sometimes a countenance, utterance, or persona holds more weight and meaning than the most inspiring figures or principles you hold dear in your life. that's when you know you need to hold on for a while longer.

not a rant but in a place for rants, but i don't have anywhere else to keep this. i'm rather disorganised with papers. and i don't pen down most of my thoughts, keeps them fresh and ever coming, keeps me from dwelling too much on stuff. i don't usually give things here a second look, so they're probably what i feel at a place and moment in time, no matter how much i cringe when i look back at it in the future. oh well.

night.
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my batch passes out today.
been a long time coming.
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there are some times i'll take a step back and take a look at my life as a whole, and ask myself if it is a sham. why? i don't want it to be ruled by achievement, i don't want it to be ruled by prestige, i don't want it to be ruled by ambition. these things can consume you.

there are also those ideals and values you strive so hard for, and when forced to look at it from a different perspective, you only feel a certain dread and revulsion.
take communism, it was excellent in theory, but a disaster in practice.

charity has always been a value humanity promotes, but at the end of the day, it comes down to commercial charity, people are paid to run a charity organisation, true altruism or a blend of altruism and pragmatism?

autonomy: is there really true autonomy when there is a senior-junior, teacher-student, authority-citizen relationship? i think not.

so i take a long hard look sometimes. am i a leader for the glory, or truly to serve?
what are others in the whole student leader thing for?
in my head, i know there's a constant reminder that i've been taught to serve to lead, and it isn't always easy to be one. like someone i knew said, it's not human nature to bring oneself down once you soar. at the same time you have to preserve a balance, you're not a servant leader to the extent you become a servant.

am i the one to stand up and soak up all the attention and applause when leaders are asked to stand an be recognised? or the one that must be cajoled even into standing?

am i the one to carry out the work unseen so that all goes smoothly, or am i the one to do the flashy, more obvious tasks, filling up with all the glory and attention like a sponge?

i would rather be the one to be cajoled, i would rather be the unseen one. at the end of the day i know i have adhered to my principles, and i know i have done something. it need not be seen, only felt.

then again it's an ideal isn't it? doesn't always happen.

servant leadership is an ideal but not yet a reality. a reality for some but not for all.

to be frank, i find my belief in the whole ideal has been shaken, because recognition is more often than not not given to those who really believe in it. again politics come into the picture, and i will not elaborate further. least to say however, the ones who embody the ideal most, are not the ones whoe wear a green tie, not those who wear a symbol of office, not those with titles. i might be making a hasty and harsh generalization, but hey, it has some truth.

at the end of the road, i wonder if servant leadership will end up like communism.
an ideal that never really blossomed in its entirety into reality.
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y'know at the end of 4 years, and finally getting to talk to more people since our classes are gone, and we don't have rigid timetables, i finally realise why i miss 209.

in 209, people don't view you the way you do things, that's secondary,
what background you come from, or whatever you are.

they view you for who you are. some argue that what you do is an extension and natural reflection of who you are, no doubt about it.

by that line of thought however, whatever you do might not be a translation of who you are. something you think you are doing might not translate well into actions.

would you treasure someone's values, or his talents? would you recognise sincerity or a glib tongue?

stripped down to the soul, without any mundane attachments, who are you? who are you to other souls? and more importantly who are you to the one above?

to view a person for who he is, how he interacts with people around, and to seperate it from everything he does and not judge him on it, that's priceless.

i'm not saying evaluating someone's abilities is wrong, but i think sometimes we forget to look at the person instead of his actions.

in short, people are not actions. people are people, view them for who the are, not what their actions are.

man, i really miss 209. funny what secondary 2 classmates can teach you about life.
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shit. ive already blown 390 bucks on my rig.
i'm broke before the hols have even started.

two pedals, and a PAF in the neck position, and one more acoustic simulator to go.
got it all at guitar connection, heard they get pricey but it seemed reasonable.


oh and a nice satch strap!

the daphon's built like a tank, no kidding, got it for $80.

MIJ boss od-2 - $160

reckon the incoming ac-2 will set me back by abt $100 more, plus somemore cash to get the guitar set up again, along with the pup installed.

sheesh, never knew guitar-ing even as an amateur was gonna be such an investment.

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i don't usually cry at a movie, the most i'll do is tear.

and the only movie in recent memory where i teared is click, coz of the way the father-son relationship was depicted.

the only other movie i have just watched that made me tear is children of men.

damn powerful movie, not well known here, but damn powerful.
wiki it!
and go watch!
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i just watched eternal sunshine of the spotless mind.
after watching it found out it's r -rated.
but not for implicit sexual content or anything, but rather the themes.

it basically revolves around memory and love.
the protagonist has his memory erased after his girlfriend gets her memory erased of him.
however during the memory-erasing procedure, he decides he wants to keep his memories of her, so he resists the procedure.

so the protagonist (Jim Carrey) and his girlfriend (Kate Winslet) have radically different personalities, but here's a snippet that basically sums up the whole movie.

"Joel: I can't see anything that I don't like about you.
Clementine: But you will! But you will. You know, you will think of things. And I'll get bored with you and feel trapped because that's what happens with me.
Joel: Okay.
Clementine: [pauses] Okay."

If you don't get it, that's unconditional love. Or at least an exmaple of it IMO.
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you've got gay pride, black pride, lion prides, bubble-prides (that burst with a prick of a needle), but i betcha you haven't heard of chai pride.

yes, pride for my chinese surname. (no matter how malay, indian, [insert racial minority here] i look). I think only 5 people in my life have ever identified me correctly as a eurasian.
(431 people shutup! i used to be yellow k)

hoho, i have links to people with surname Tsai (yes that includes Jolin Tsai even if i don't listen to Chinese pop), and chai.

i'm hakka on my paternal side, yes. i only know how to say 'open the door' and 'i'm going home' in hakka. not very hospitable eh?

hokien on my maternal side (long story), so i know a good measure of swear words, and an assortment of insults to denigrate you and your ability to reproduce (applicable for guys only).

so that's pride for my heritage.

but chai pride, specifically type i, is really... WOW.

exactly how many people in this world have the name *ian chai*.
there are a thousand jeremy tans, tan ah kows (haha see the family resemblance there), tans, lims, lees, kohs, poons, sims, wongs, ngs, sohs, kwas, honkie surnames (oh Lord) like leung, kwan, tsang, more tans, and more lims.

but chai? see it often? noooooooooooo.
ian chai? NOOOOOOOOOOO.

haha i'm so proud!
i share my name with only 5 people on facebook as i've been told by another ian chai in malaysia,
and ian ernst with some guy in america.

alright man, chai pride!
hah, you even got gong xi fa chai for chinese new year man.

for those are reading after the o levels are over, welcome to paradise :D
i guess this is humour after the storm,
freedom!

WOOT!

[post is clearly evidence of what studying government propaganda does to you.]
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good example.
i'm bored, ignore me.

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boss overdrive.

an acoustic simulator for experimenting

compression so my volume doesn't get all dodgy.

and i'm considering this classic instead of the boss overdrive. used by the likes of hendrix and santana yo! gotta try it out first though.

and im also considering getting a new amplifier, maybe two of these ac30s, then play them out of phase, but that's just a brian may fantasy. muaha.

2-3 pedals. 1 nice amp next year, and upgraded pickups. thinking of PAFs methinks.
then i've got gear good enough to last me through pre-u.

i think.

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in about 7 hours, i'll be one of probably more than 200 people sitting in a hall pointing their fingers and arms in weird positions, with finger guns that have an added barrell pointing in a totally different direction.

after that, a weekend of mugging, and i am free.
can't wait man, WoW battlechest i ordered should be coming on monday.
going jamming on monday, and probably gonna shop for effects on tuesday after more jamming.

can't wait.
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