aight. another sleepless night, tried for two hours to get into that blissful state of nothingness. no dreams, no fears, no worries, just pure sleep!

NOTHING!

bloody hell.
well, i'm trying to sleep a lot earlier considering i'm ice skating (brown blur, i know) tomorrow and going for sam's party.

but considering i've been sleeping at 6am and waking up at 2pm, i guess it's not quite possible in a day huh.

anyway, i first tried listening to led zeppelin. not exactly lullaby material but a good listen anyway.

didn't work, go too mesmerised by page's scale runs and bends. you don't know how he does it so damn smooothly, and with so much feeling as well. plant's voice is just unique. bonham's drumming is tight. the whole band sounds really good and tight, complementing each other and all. AND PAGE'S GUITAR! SHIT! SOUNDS SOOOOOOOOO BLOODY NICE! and he used a friggin junk Supro amplifier on Stairway. Of course he had his 12 string. This is the part where i start swearing coz im perpetually out of money to buy new guitars or effects. grr.

so after deciding it was more headbanging fare then rockabyebaby-lullaby sort of thing, i switched to my FAVOURITE! QUEEN!

i got the queen live in montreal dvd the other day, and after watching it, i'm a queen fan renewed, freddie sings studio quality LIVE. shit singers nowadays lipsynch, and freddie was freaking improvising! he was that damn good! he goes from really rich soulful lows to really soaring, smooth, and blazing highs. one helluva singer. despite all his renown i still think hes underrated by people today. and yeah i don't really care if he's bisexual, i really like his music.

so started of with the usual bohemian rhapsody. envying the guitar solo, still can't nail it. brian may has a very unique way and rhythm when he's doing the scale run up somewhere in the middle of the song. his sound is impossible to replicate. really like that thick and sweet sound that comes out from his guitar, and not forgetting that really symphonic bendy thingy he does,i still have no idea how he does that. probably multitracking, but then again he did it live,probably a phaser or effect of some sort.

and something really struck me, not everyone in queen plays all the time, they all stop and start at specific points in the song. whereas if you compare that to modern day songs, where the guitars are mostly one stream of sound,or relaly chugging power chords along, there's a lot of melodic riffing in queen at certain parts. the drum is probably always there. the rest take a break sometimes, which is really amazing, because to develop such timing and sixth sense to tell when your band mate's gonna break the tension is really something. and the band excluding john deacon (who makes it up with his memorable basslines, think another one bites the dust) are really talented singers as well, that's why the queen only vocal harmonies.

john deacon is probably the most criminally underrated bassist ever. probably the first ever bassist with prominent bass guitar runs. his riffs are so bloody and catchy and funky! brought that bit of motown colour to queen!

roger taylor is sick. just goes wild on the drums and delivers every beat with precise timing and ample volume. really gets the tension going in some songs. and how he plays in perfect timing with the walloping on the guitar i have NO idea at all.

brian may is my guitar idol. 'nuff said. i really want his sense of melody! and killer tone! (note to self: stop slacking)

freddie mercury is ONE of a kind. most popular lead singers todya shouldb probbaly kowtow to freddie methinks. the way he works a crowd and belts out songs at studio quality without ever going out of pitch is amazing. maybe not studio quality, but enough to sound BRILLIANT live! gerard way would probably sound mediocre if he sang next to freddie live. IMO anyway. OH OH OH and how the hell he come up with almost EIGHTY chord changes for bohemian rhapsody is mind boggling! your usual pop song nowadays has tops 6 chords. bohemian rhap is a killer to remember. i'm thinking any guitarist trying that song out will probably finish the song sounding like the local chord encyclopedia. you don't need to have that many chords to make a song sound good and flowing, and bohemian rhapsody is probably musical excess and extravaganza, but nonetheless it's a bloody rocking song!

and i think i'll sign off to attempt to sleep again with the lyrics and mv of a really touching song of theirs. the lyrics somehow appear in context to a myriad of situations, so i find it really touching. ignore the 70s camp and costumes, i think it sucks too. and excuse freddie's flamboyance, i took sometime to get used to that too. ;)



Queen - Save Me

It started off so well
They said we made a perfect pair
I clothed myself in your glory and your love
How I loved you,
How I cried...The years of care and loyalty
Were nothing but a sham it seems
The years belie we lived a lie
I love you 'til I die
Save me, save me, save me
I can't face this life alone
Save me, save me, save me...I'm naked and I'm far from home

The slate will soon be clean
I'll erase the memories
To start again with somebody new
Was it all wasted,
All that love?
I hang my head and I advertise
A soul for sale or rent
I have no heart I'm cold inside
I have no real intent

Save me, save me, save me
I can't face this life alone
Save me, save me, ooooohhhhh...I'm naked and I'm far from home
Each night I cry I still believe the lie
I'll love you, 'till I die
Save me, save me, oh, save me
Don't let me face my life alone
Save me, save me, ooh...I'm naked and I'm far from home

don't just narrow your perspective to a bgr thingy coz you see "i'll love you".
open your perspective and see what it can apply to.
i see a directionless, lost man who feels like he's been abandoned by God, or bterayed by ideals or causes or even a country he swears by. what do you see?
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there are four different ways humans forget things.

first one:
there are missing stimuli or cues that were present when memories were encoded.

second one:
forgetting through physical damage or detioration.

third one:
you forget what something is partially, because its recall interferes with the recall of other memories. eg. memorising two different history essays on the same era like history of the CCP.

fourth one:
this one is called 'decay theory'. "Decay theory states that when something new is learned, a neurochemical, phyisical "memory trace" is formed in the brain and over time this trace tends to disintegrate, unless it is occasionally used." (quoted from wikipedia)

there's something else people sometimes call forgetting mistakenly. it's called repressing memories. a lot of memories aren't consciously repressed. your brain does it subconsciously to hide all the darkest, most traumatic memories in the deep depths of the unconscious, unavailable for conscious recalll. you'd be really disturbed or go insane if you manage to call up these memories, which sometimes people go under hypnosis to recover them.

i have a lot of unpleasant memories, and i can call them up anytime yknow? half of me wishes for them to be repressed just so i won't have to remember something so uncomfortable again (this is an understatement here), and part of me doesn't want to coz what doesn't kill you can only make you stronger.

it really sucks if cues for memories were festivals? because you'd recall it everytime the same festival comes around. and some memories just aren't worth keeping.

not worth keeping at all.
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merry christmas everyone! 2 hours late, sorry.
as usual i felt a bit off-colour during christmas.
it's one of those occasions that remind me my life isn't quite as normal as others, so yeah.
really wanna thank eugene, alice, and aaron for being around this christmas morning, even if it was at 3am at sinpang bedok, crap session really cheered me up!
rest of christmas was quiet, spent mostly with my mom and gramps at home, visited my dad's side for a bit. yep.
one of those days you wish you had a complete family y'know? or at least big parties to go to, even if it's not the reason for christmas? just to dull everything i feel down a bit... yeah

merry christmas anyway (:
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Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

by Robert Frost

seeing how one small step is all it takes to start a journey, i think we've just started.

anyone willing to spend time for the next two years mentoring at-risk primary 5 pupils in CBS schools, do let me know. there is no guarantee of CIP hours, no guarantee of CCA points for it, no guarantee that the programme will ever take off or be successful. the only guarantee you'll have is that you will be making a positive impact on someone else's life.

i'm planning along with a few other alumni to set up a mentoring programme in sji junior because of its central location. you'll be a tutor cum mentor to the kids entrusted to you if the programme ever takes off. the aim is to help them do better or even excel in their studies, while being a role model for them to make the right choices. it's going to be for two years, and we'll be the guinea pigs to get a structure in place to make the programme sustainable. nothing's concrete yet, but we're looking for people interested in it. if you are, let me know.

on the other hand! if you're looking to bring some festive cheer to the less fortunate: this sunday, the people helping the old folks at the toa payoh one room flats need a CLOWN. let me know if you're interested as well.

night.
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aight im walking like a duck now!
my feet point outwards like a v when i walk.

so basically i got a pair of no-brand loafers from beach road. loafers are supposed to be close fitting, but i think my pair was too tight.
wore it the same evening, and i have at least 3 blisters at the most strategic points of the foot.

so no shoes for me.
although i couldn't resist wearing my new pair of converses today. (:
might have aggravated the blisters though.

got a good bargain, like two pairs of converses for 78? yeahhh.
i think im gonna go to queensway to get proper loafers.
and a new pair of shoes like onitsuka tiger or something, i'm still using the same adidas kick 2 from sec 2.

oh well, first peer mentoring programme meeting was today, and i think i'm stepping into unknown territory here, out of my comfort zone, so it's a start. yep.

played pool, caught the golden compass - which really sucked. i guess i expect more coz the book's really captured the imagination. but the characterisation and dialogue was kinda lame i felt, as if they were reading lines from their head? and i don't think they did iorek byrnison justice. like why the hell are you making a freaking bear talk like ian mckellen and make him say 'You want to ride me?' I know he's saying that to Lyra! But seriously, the humour behind it (mckellen is gay), really funny. other than that, wasn't too happy with the show. show looked so innocent compared to the book's anti-religion themes and all. and i felt the goodvsevil/blackvswhite theme wasn't so well put across. Lyra's trapped between two idealogically different parents whom she calls Mrs Coulter and Lord Asriel, for heaven's sake where's the pain?! Instead she cries only when Iorek nearly gets killed, and spends the rest of the movie like the typical smart ass kid with seriously wicked exploits. Seriously, not up to expectations. Then again, only Lord of the Rings has managed to live up to expectations as a novel adaptation, at least out of those shows I've watched. Lord of the Rings is mighty boring when hes doing the exposition, travelling parts and all.

and im still thinking of getting that job at the nearby subway.
oh well, but for two weeks? not worth it. gonna make sure i play all i want,
next year's gonna be hectic again.

and i still remember my motto for the year!
exspecto infinitas, amo unus occasio
to wait an eternity, to love an unparalled moment.

the moment being the one where i'm supposed to look back on the year.
i think i accomplished it. (:

here's the song marc/hansel sang during the heritage plays.

This is the moment; this is the day
When I send all my doubts and demons on their way.
Every endeavor I have made ever...
Is coming into play; is here and now today.

This is the moment, this is the time
When the momentum and the moment are in rhyme.
Give me this moment, this precious chance;
I'll gather up my past, and make some sense at last.

This is the moment when all I've done;
All of the dreaming, scheming and screaming become one.
This is the day see it sparkle and shine
When all I've lived for becomes mine.

For all these years Ive faced the world alone;
And now the time has come
to prove to them Ive made it on my own.

This is the moment, my final test; Destiny beckoned, I never reckoned second best.
I won't look down; I must not fall;
This is the moment, the sweetest moment of them all.

This is the moment, damn all the odds;
This day or never I sit forever with the gods.
When I look back I will always recall
Moment for moment,
This was the moment;
The greatest moment of them all.

just so happened the song struck a chord with how i chose to go through this year. except the scheming part, certainly did not do that.

night
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it always happens around this time of the year,
i start feeling really disconnected to people.

i don't know why, but yeah.

christmas is around the corner,
holiday spirit of cheer and giving has yet to hit me.

oh well, they say each christmas gets more and more commercialised,
but what the heck, to hell with all the bright lights, street decorations,
and dressed up shopping malls.

someone should sue the malls for quoting the bible.
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the past three weeks, least to say have seriously made me breathless.
band camp, heritage play rehearsals, asia-pacific lasallian youth congress.

i've already blogged about the first two, i'll blog about the latter now, and what happened after.

there might have ben several rehashed sessions like solidarity lasalliana from lltc, and somethings you expect. cliches like 'be the change you want to see' and many more. the beauty of it is, no matter how cliche they get, these phrases will probably have more meaning and relevance to what we can come upi with ourselves. cliches that are trite, heard far too many times, but they never lose their beauty.

first, there were the experiences from congress. meeting so many people from 12 different countries, united by one mission and one founder, that's a sight to behold in itself. making new friends, seeing the HAKA in person, seeing other cultural dances, seeing real bollywood stuff in person (aka pakistan!). once in a lifetime. i know how cliche and unoriginal i sound, but really, this past week, was a week to remember. each delegation had something special about them, the delegations that struck me the most were the filipinos, papua new guineas, and kiwis.

if there is any example to proactiveness i can look up to, it's the filipinos, the number of programmes they've set up: it's astounding. all the while juggling university work, i feel so small in comparison.

the papua new guineans: i've never met people who are so warm , so friendly, and pardon me for being corny, so full of love. i'm a total stranger to them, but the amount of warmth they showed, i was really touched. yeahh, unforgettable bunch of people!

the kiwis! simply coz i spent quite a bit of time with them. fun-loving bunch of people who do their part for lasalle in their own ways. and i respect that. a lot of people decide to just go to hell with the mission work, and carry own with what's important with their lives. the kiwis don't. and the haka is helluva cool!

if there's one more thing that really struck me this aplyc, is really, how small, really small each of us are. people only really come together and unite when they serve a common, greater purpose, and that i saw in aplyc. the amount of people who have decided to be self-sacrificing and instead touching other lives was really awesome. i've never seen so many lasalle brothers in one place! to give up ambition, this world's meaning of success (wealth, wealth, and more material wealth), all the 5cs, and a lot of other things to touch other lives is seriously something not easily done. to me these people have a whole different level of success that i think is really more spiritually, emotionally, and mentally fulfilling than a lot of things this world can offer.

Consider this: every Brother takes his vows at a certain point of time, to devote his entire life to his vocation. that is just the intermediate step in the journey can you imagine the lead-up? the people inspiring people to become brothers? or even incidents?

can you imagine thrusting your life into the hands of someone you cannot see, hear, or touch tangibly? can you imagine thrusting your life into the hands of someone who will take you far out of your comfort zone? it requires a gigantic leap of faith.

yeah sure, i can let ambition lead. let's say i want an ivy league scholarship, get a good degree, set up my own company, or climb the ranks of whatsoever organisation i wish to join. effort, luck, lots of hardwork and diligence will get me where i want, eventually.

or i can let God's hand lead. i might not even achieve a modicum of success by this world's standards. i might get a masters, but it's no guarantee. even bigger question mark if it's from a big university. i might land a place in a comfortable country. but what i can do is touch hearts by teaching those in the classroom.

there are those who say you can do both, but really, which guy ends up the better man at the end of the day? which guy ends up the one who is both spiritual, more satisfied, more content with life? which guy makes the day brighter for at least a few more people?

i can always choose to let ambition lead, and achieve what i want. but I can also let God's hand lead, and achieve what people need.

even better, it can be my ambition to let God's hand lead.

there's so much poverty in this wall. not only the physical poverty. you won't have to look far to find someone who's poor in some aspect of his life. evidently, a lot of singaporeans are emotionally poor i might say.

so what really have i decided after saying so much, and reflecting on it? i'm gonna work hard the next two years, get good grades. but i'm gonna start doing mission work, and i'm probably going to go into a service cca. and most probably overseas? i'm not enitrely ready to surrender myself totally to God's will the way the Brothers do. To commit my entire life to God and to teaching as a vocation, that's something I think i'm still far too young to decide.

there's still one mroe thing i want to blog about.

my grandma. she's in hospital. she's been caring for me since i was very young, there's a language barrier, but i know she loves me, and that's enough.

she's in hospital for the third time this year, and i've a faint feeling it might be her last. well, call me a bearer of bad omens or accuse me of saying inauspicious things, but i seriously do have a faint feeling. so i'm trying my best to visit her everyday. to get my lazy butt out of the house, to get my wandering mind away from all the fun, and to seriously concentrate on spending one good hour with her.

today was a start. the old lady's got congestive heart failure, kidney failure, intermediate dementia, but she's a fighter i tell you. she's been in icu few months back, and the doctors told everyone to be on standby. she fought on.

last saturday she fell, and apparently her tongue became white. but she still fought on. through it all, at the age of 91, she's still got a head of black hair. and seriously, you'll hardly believe she's 91.

today i noticed how frail she's become, how shrunken she is. today i noticed the liver spots, the tissue like quality to her skin. i can see her blood vessels beating against the skin. today i noticed how she sometimes doesn't speak coherently anymore. today i realised how much more i should have done. even if it was just paying her more attention.

but today i realised how bloody strong my grandma is. she's been caring for my uncle who's spastic and not able to care for himself, for more than 40 years? he passed away this year. se's still soldiering on. in spite of the IV drip slit into her hand, the need to breathe oxygen, the radioisotope tags all over her body, tags here and there, she can still bother to ask how is everyone in the family, and whether they've eaten. it might not seem much to us who have so many more worries, but really, if you're on a hospital bed with all those thigns tuck in you, would you bother to ask, or just be cranky?

today i saw her on the bed, lying down, heaving so many sighs, and speaking through her laboured breathing. this sort of boredom is different. can you imagine having nothing to do? just waiting for family members to visit you and just waiting for the clock to tick by? to put it bluntly, i find it quite bleak, it's like waiting for death to arrive. but still my grandma can laugh and smile even if the jokes we make aren't that funny at all. the sort of laugh that makes all the troubles of the young and so totally alive seem so insignificant. my old lady laughs and smiles while death lingers near.

so today, i started that one hour everyday, and i'm gonna try and keep it. today i passed her the rubik's cube i just bought on tuesday. she was happy. she's not gonna solve it anytime soon, but at least she's got something to fiddle with. and at least i made someone's day brighter.
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okay quick post coz im blogging from the congress!

briefly, heritage play was a success methinks! people really clapped and all, and i think we got the message across, i managed to act convincingly. (hah, one week!)

so yeah people even thought iwas a priest even at the trail today. one singaporean fella even asked me to do confession for him. heh

y'know it's kinda amazing, we lead such sheltered and comfortable lives, but other delegates from other countries that are not veyr much older than us, are toalking about social injustice, eradicating illiteracy, cooking and feeding the poor, building houses for disaster stricken victims?
yeah.

you know how the sun rises every morning?
he rises, brightens up life for as many people as he can, then faeds into another existence when dusk and death comes. de la salle lived like that.
so maybe, just maybe, i might become a brother, still considering, so i'll wait for a real call.

hokay, cultural night and bqq tonight!

till after aplyc!
sorry la pretty shallow post.
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fyi, i'll be gone for the next week until next sunday for aplyc, so you won't see anything enw here for a week or longer.

its 2am, and here i am (sheesh, pun), ranting.
don't get me wrong i'm tired. i just spent almost my whole day rehearsing.
i just wanna sleep, wake up tomorrow, and work on the country presentation,
bu i can't. i'm thinking too much again.

y'know frankly, i'm so sick and tired of not really saying what i want to say or really expressing what i feel. yes, i do feel emotions other than irritation, contentment, or sadness. i'm not that sanguine, or at least not anymore.

i really hate it how i always get my hopes up only to have it crashing down from the highest peak sometimes. i'm an adrenaline junkie no doubt, i like a challenge, i especially like roller-coasters, but when it comes to emotional roller-coasters, i'm seriously not a big fan of it. there are so many things left to chance, too many things left unsaid, and far too much left to politeness or correctness.

i just don't get you sometimes. sometimes you're so cold and distant, at times like some sort of university lecturer telling me about things i don't know (and i listen intently), and other times you are so amiable, even singaporean - speaking singlish, and just being well, you. i don't know which side is you. you don't ever let me get to know more, you don't ever give me that sense that i'm talking to someone, as if i'm talking to a wall. just radio silence, days on end. and that after a perfectly normal conversation. what am i to think or perceive?

i've been an idiot in the past, i admit. i didn't realise how much of bugger i was. on the other hand i've done things to show i care. a card, smses, affirmations among other things. but have you ever been there for me? when i was feeling so incredibly down, or just plain unsure of everything? i might not show it, or have a chance to, but i do have those moments. you retort my attempt at trying to relieve stress by poking fun at certain music tastes, and that really got me miffed. i couldn't have cared less after that.

so why am i here still ranting about something i should have moved on from? i think you know the answer. i still care.

i smiled when i received silly smses, or when you went all geeky on me. i heard about your surprise when you saw the card. i heard went on in school. i asked how you were doing, though i couldn't do anything. i heard when you were down, when you were stressed. i read your blog all the time. (i read everyone's blog all the time, i just don't tag) i was metaphorically on cloud 9 when you agreed to go out. maybe it just those few good moments i'm harping on. i don't sound like i know much, or bother to keep up much, but i do. but i don't think it's that appopriate for me to show i care in tangible ways, and i think you perfectly understand why i'm in that situation.

don't ask me why i care. that would be like asking the sun why he likes to rise in the morning. he does it because he does, and because the sunshine brightens up someone's day.

i tried but i don't know what to think or to feel. i don't even know what you're thinking.
i don't know where to go from here. and i know i'm rarely unsure of any course of action to take.
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