A Neverwhere Muse

new shift.

2008-03-15T20:31:00.002+08:00

aight everyone! livejournal wasn't too good! so i've shifted back to blogspot, but to a new url.

http://eizanendoso.blogspot.com

relink pls(:

new home.

2008-03-15T13:15:00.001+08:00

hey all! i've shifted to http://eizanendoso.livejournal.com

do relink me! (:

closed.

2008-03-04T20:25:00.000+08:00

hi everyone. blog's closed. bye for now.

hurts like a bitch.

2008-02-27T02:27:00.002+08:00

here's me up at another one of my unearthly hours.
it's been a while since i felt the thrill of creating a story, or a poem,
something that makes me feel that for once my vocabulary and mind is enough to convey the array of emotions i feel or want people to feel.

it's been a while. sjii's been a wonderful place, bloody stimulating for the mind, and very conducive for learning. not to mention then great company (:

it's been a while since i could convey much in less.

and it's sad, because there's so many things i want to convey. how friendship can be, failings, insecurities, time, love, there's so many things but so little time. there's the homework form the 6 subjects (7 if you count tok), debate, choir, jazz band, rock climbing, jogging. couple that with time management that's lacking.

my brain's pretty darn tired. i'm not as sharp, not as witty as i was at the start of the term. i start off a poem, i start off a story, but i can't complete the chain. i cannot verbalise the train of thought.

on my guitar, i start a riff, but that's all there ever is. just that riff.

i can't wait for krabi. hopefully i'll get some time at night to write. imagine being fully immersed in a literature course(think love in the time of cholera, a passage to india, siddharta, this earth of mankind, selected poetry of blake, woodsworth and keats), and not having the time to write your own stuff.

i wrote this a while back. i'm not sure if my writing is anywhere as good now. it's certainly different now though.

A relic's sketch.
There are several forks in the road old people are forced down in this day and age. Let me tell you two paths they take.

***

The old woman sits up on her bed, plastic sheets acting as a panoply, clean and sanitised. Her hair is gray, and the edges of her pupils are blurred and likewise, there is an omnipresent cataract. Her stare is blank, focussing on nothing in particular outside the window. City landscapes, skyscrapers, concrete hulks, they do not mean much to her.

Life is a B-grade silent movie. Her interactions with people are minimal, mainly composed of muted affirmatives or absent nods. Her own health is no longer her own influence, lovingly taken care of by the champions of Hippocrates. But they too have grown all but numb to their patients' silent suffering.

Her meals come thrice a day, served by a hospital worker accustomed to blocking out the horrors of life's end, a regular reminder of her infirmity.

The food is mashed - she no longer has teeth to masticate.The food is bland - she has lost her once voracious appetite.She is fed - her hands are no longer hers, they are beings of their own right.

Relatives are ethereal, sons and daughters merely a memory. Her prothalamion is a distant non-event now, her husband is long dead. She still wears her wedding band, testament to the pitiable fact that she is a survivor.

She is a somnolent; she does not recall entertainment's form or ways. She only pays attention to one thing now.

Every night, when the dark of the vesper seizes all vibrancy, ceases all activity, the Reaper comes. Resplendent in morbid black, clutching his ever anti-nascent scythe, he hovers over to the old woman's bedside, whispering,

"Come now, come now.
This cruel joke life plays
can all end now.
Those persistent monsters that gnaw on your joints
can all go away now.
That pining for care,
its absence an underscore to your sad excuse of life,
can all end now.

I'm not mocking you, I'm only helping you.

Why wait?
I'll take you in your sleep, whisk you into nothingness.
No more pain,
no more drips,
no more infirmity,
no more wasting away.
You will be nothing.
Wouldn't you love that, my dear?"

With that, he concludes with a gentle, spindly caress on her gaunt cheeks.

Her eyes sockets are naught but shadows, her emaciated face screams negligence. This could all end, she thinks. She contemplates accepting Death's offer.

No.

Her children might still come, she might recover, there is hope for a better day.

Death is thwarted. He is amused. He fades, warning her,

"It's only a matter of when,you poor, foolish thing.
You already know the how."

Every night, Death makes his offer.
Every night, she refuses.
It is hope that sustains her, no longer life, or life itself.
She has no will to live, and life has all but left her body.
"What will tomorrow bring?", she asks, as slumber takes her to the land of dreams, her nightly fantastical escape.

Take me away, o' Mr Sandman.

pleasance.

2008-02-24T21:10:00.004+08:00

wow, back blogging again. been so busy.

just to clear things up, part time is matthew koh. love all you guys yeah!

well, i actually have a lot in mind i want to say.
for one, my grandma passed away on Tuesday.
was at the wake every evening after school.
funeral yesterday.

i didn't cry much. just once.
the tears just didn't come you know.
it's been the first time experiencing death, but yeah it's only now that it's setting in, that i won't hear my popo's jovial laugh any more, talk to her in that broken mandarin and dialect of mine.
you know how people say you can only be as close to a person as much as you can speak to them?
well i thought so too. but now i realise, she might not have known my secrets, the daily going-ons in my life.
but she loved us, and cared for us, and that, that's beautiful. to have that unconditional love simply because we are family. if we talk about being people for others, we don't have to look further than the people in our home. my grandma was evidence to that.

every time i think of her i'll miss her, i'll tell myself that she's somewhere safe.
and yes, at risk of sounding cliché and trite. she lives on.
if anything, my paternal side just being alive and together is a testament to that.
and there's no doubt at all she's in heaven. no rationalising, no thinking about it, just faith.

in the 6 months she was in and out of hospital, she was baptised.
even underwent teochew cathechism lessons.
this was the song as went sent of the hearse, which really just struck me at the moment.

My Jesus, my Savior, Lord, there is none like You;
All of my days I want to praise the wonders of Your mighty love.
My comfort, my shelter, tower of refuge and strength;
Let ev'ry breath, all that I am, never cease to worship You.

Chorus
Shout to the Lord, all the earth, let us sing
Power and Majesty, praise to the King;
Mountains bow down and the seas will roar
At the sound of Your name.
I sing for joy at the work of your hands,
Forever I'll love You, forever I'll stand
Nothing compares to the promise I have in You.

now, my father's side aren't exactly regular church-going catholics, but celebrating a catholic funeral mass was something, sort of like catechism, because of the amount of non-catholics present. the father had to keep explaining the going-ons of the mass. but yeah, there was a beautiful passage just before she was commited to the flames at mandai.

Phillippians 3:20

"But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ."

i felt it was apt, and now she's someplace better

i'll miss you popo.
i know you're up there with Him.
i love you popo. (:
your turn to say nai zhon oh.

content.

2008-02-08T02:09:00.000+08:00

berns asked me not to blog abt my thoughts for once.

sooooo, i won't.
listening to the light & the glass by coheed and cambria now.
nice song.

life's good.
in no way at a status quo.
still getting used to things, struggling here and there.
but im content.

school's good, it isn't all that boring.
i absolutely love my second half of the week.
literature, chemistry, and economics only.
thinking of asking to take up a fourth higher level.

i especially like break times and lunch. (:
yeah.
company's great.
teachers rock.
i've got an entirely different outlook on things.

so things are going well in short.
ash wednesday sort of reminded what sacrifice is about, since i really like to have my food.

gonna make this lent worthwhile.

and yeah, i just really love the people at sjii! really, fun, loving group of people.
you feel a sort of closeness yknow?

yeahhh, really homey, cosy sort of feeling.

well, in short, i'm content.
content with how my life is, and what i have to do.
there might be struggles yeah, just throw them my way.
but in Him, i can do all things.

night(:
P.S. berns i did try not to blog about my thoughts! but one cant blog without thinking eh?

hey mr sandman, why?

2008-01-20T20:38:00.000+08:00

every sunday afternoon, you'll find me at tampines central hanging out with the churchies after mass and church commitments in the morning, for lunch.

today i spent the walk home from central, trying to contain my anger. so again this blog has found a use, as an outlet for my anger.

why am i trying to push a project through when it wasn't even my idea in the first place?
why am i sacrificing my time and perhaps opportunity to go out party, and have fun, for an idea that wasn't even my own.
where are those who proposed it? came up with the idea?
why can't they even offer me a reasonable explanation why they can't commit.
sorry, i meant no explanation at all.

can you imagine how daunting it is? to actually be alone, when people claim to be your 'friends', when other people birthed the idea, and yet i'm the one having to ask whether they are coming down, having to push it through.

sheer irresponsibiliy.it is the curse of many of my batchmates: great minds but lazy bodies, as how someone close to me put it.

all the talk about living the dream, walking the talk, even singing the damn songs. at this point in time i'm inclined to think most people don't mean it. other than the core group of people who are actually willing to live the mission, i think a lot of the rest are just bags of hot air. leaders, yeah right. 4 years in sji and you dare call yourself a leader in the sji tradition, if you're self-serving, narrow-minded, and facile. the very people you criticised these past years are the very people who actually commit their time.

so tell me, who lives the dream.
so who actually walks away from those camps, living the mission, instead of just criticising how useless and irrelevant the 7 habits are, and how the camp is too long-drawn?

only a rare few. only the intransigent rare few, with the doggedness to continue living the dream.

when it comes down to the very foundation of things, to be selfless, are you there?
or have you taken flight already?

strike!

2008-01-15T01:19:00.000+08:00

A Neverwhere Muse will be discontinued until further notice.
Ian has gone on his own writer's strike. (damn shit i wanna watch heroes season 3)

actually the blog's just on hiatus until there's a use for it again.
and i'm getting really busy.

and just so you guys out there now, i'm having a great time at sjii. (:
i'm just taking things naturally, and letting the will of the One above take course.
and it's been working out i guess.
and of course it doesn't hurt to take a step back and take stock a few times a week..

say hi to my second home for the next two years !

caffeine makes the world go round!

2008-01-06T02:04:00.000+08:00

ah. beautiful night!
the aroma from the brazil cerrado sean lui got for me for christmas is wafting through the room. (thanks sean!)
i've got my music (currently you wanna make a memory by bon jovi), a good book, and my comfy bed.

now, i only need orange lights to comeplete the perfect picture in my head!

whew. smell, sound, touch, taste, sight. SHIOK! i must learn to recharge during the new school year! :D

ah morning mass tmr. wander how the churchies will react to the dare eugene put me up to.

ah, night!

good morning.

2008-01-05T04:28:00.000+08:00

right, so here i am, on one of those morning, lucid, blogging, and painfully awake.
week has an interesting one.
received my gold lla cert.
rotted at home while everyone started getting into orientation for jcs.
got my laptop for the next few years. it's for taking notes, playing games, chatting, music etc (i'm a heavy user)(yes, i want better graphics for my games, and not have to wait an eternity for word to load)(i dont want to come home to face a desktop that BSODs (blue screen of death) on average five times a day)(had enough running computer maintenance programs)(and yes i like that shiny new vista interface :D)(and SHIOK WoW graphics!)(and yes hdd memory which i have a serious dearth of).
went to sjii for orientation, got to know a few people, teachers, and my subject combination.
gonna take higher level english, econs, and chem, and standard level bio, maths and chinese.
CHINESE! getting b3 was a BLOODY waste of time.
had a placement test for chinese on thursday, where i had to choose from 3 topics and write a a shorter than normal essay for it. so i decided hey, i'm not gonna pretend i have excellent command of chinese, i'm just gonna write what i think, irregardless of the bad grammar and all.
and waddya know!
i have to take chinese b standard level.
so in the IB, you have the chinese a2 higher level and standard level, and chinese b higher level and standard level.
the a2 course is more demanding and would assume that you're taking chinese as a second fluent language ie. you are effectively bilingual and able to read and write proficiently in both, whereas the b course is just to help you communicate proficiently in chinese. i can't take the b higher level, because i already have 3 higher levels.
so although i know my standard of chinese isnt fantastic, i'm feeling quite shortchanged right now, i mean i put in so much damn effort for chinese during the last stretch! i know i'll communicate more fluently with mainland chinese since im focussing more on communicating effectively, but still 10 years of chinese only to be told you cant study study chinese lietrature is a bit of a letdown. and i don't get to complete a bilingual diploma, which carries a certain amount of prestige.

oh well. so school starts on monday. i personally cant wait to have a theory of knowledge lesson, it's like a beginner's course in philosophy. reading sophie's world right now. it's a novel about a girl who receives a course in philosophy from a dodgy philosopher via post, while at the same time giving the reader a brief history of philosophy. sophists, rationalists, empiricists, pantheists, monotheists, existentialists, materialists, spiritualists, you name it, it's explained briefly. what's cool however is that it covers metafiction! (check wiki and think the matrix)

so lots of free time + book on philosophy = disastrous time thinking too much about things

which sucks really. i know im having a weird train of thought, linking this to that and all. (i've just realised my train of thought isnt coherent at all to others sometimes) so yeah. my blog. my train of thought. shush.

i really looking forward to starting school and all, i mean i spent the past two years maybe just forgetting myself, and losing myself somewhat to get out of my comfort zone and to try new things, connect with new kinds of people. but i'm not sure it's the ian i recognise. i mean in my mind i have a very clear sense of what i like myself to be. principled, hardworking, caring, inquiring, responsible. but in a lot of ways i find myself lacking in these departments. i mean i might actually just be more lacking in this than when i was in sec 2? absurd? i think not. a lot more priorities come into play at sec 3 and sec 4, and keeping yourself grounded, and not losing sight of whats so dear and important: that is a challenge. on the other hand i can say i came out of the past two years with a more acute feeling of who i am and what i do, and perhaps a more stringent yardstick to measure myself by. i really want to make the next two years work for me.

on ther other hand, there are things i've been trying to forget, but funny you think, these animals i like to call memories are evading release. can you believe it? animals evading release? and why would i liken memories to animals? the fact that they're so volatile so unpredictable is why. how they can be so hard to recall during an exam. how they can be so unwilling to just be buried or erased. or how somehow they become sketchy. im trying to let this particular memory go. why? for one, it's only making me pissed. two, i think the unpleasantness of the memory far outweighs the pleasant. three, i'm sick and tired of being the nice one. four, i'm just tired. this particular memory has too many unfulfilled things, too many broken promises, too many old hurts to be worth keeping. still, that faint glimmer of optimism and hope keeps me hanging on to the memory. i might be excessively sentimental or reflective sometimes, but it's nothing to be apologetic about, it's part of me. so, maybe, just maybe, i'll merge necessity with sentimentality, and maybe bring an end to the memory and not just leave it hanging like an abrupt pseudo-end that doesn't quite bring finality to the history of the memory. how it's gonna take form, i have no idea.

night.

Hasta la vista!

2008-01-01T03:48:00.000+08:00

What really seperates a new year from the old?
A second?
A millisecond?
A nanosecond?

That barrier between 2007 and 2008,
you never quite know the exact and discrete value for when it changes into 2008 if you want to think about it.
all those television countdowns never quite nail it.

i find it quite magical really.
in the blink of an eye you're given a chance to start everything anew.

2007 was excellent. for me the amount of emotions, self-discovery, and things that really left a deep imprint on me would take a whole book to do it justice. it was just so eventful.

there are a lot of things i regret, but hey, life's colourful that way innit? one big kaleidoscope that effs you up sometimes.

well, enough said about the year, really thankful to God the way 2007 did happen.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

you never know if you don't go (and try)

music and lyrics.

2007-12-27T03:46:00.000+08:00

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?

next stop.

2007-12-26T23:39:00.000+08:00

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.

christmas.

2007-12-26T02:49:00.000+08:00

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 (:

The Road Not Taken

2007-12-22T04:47:00.000+08:00

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.

2007-12-19T00:57:00.000+08:00

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

disconnected.

2007-12-16T20:35:00.000+08:00

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.

life in brief.

2007-12-14T06:19:00.000+08:00

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.

APLYC 8!

2007-12-04T18:46:00.000+08:00

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.

sine.

2007-12-01T02:00:00.000+08:00

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.

not quite me.

2007-11-29T02:42:00.000+08:00

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.

time's up!

2007-11-24T06:47:00.000+08:00

my batch passes out today.
been a long time coming.

hey mommy, does santa exist?

2007-11-20T03:11:00.000+08:00

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.

who/what?

2007-11-13T22:29:00.000+08:00

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.

amo unus occasio.

2007-11-11T23:51:00.000+08:00

end's almost here. bonfire time soon. woot!

damn.

2007-11-09T20:42:00.000+08:00

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.

tear.

2007-11-09T03:30:00.000+08:00

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!

unconditional.

2007-11-07T20:06:00.000+08:00

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.

pride.

2007-11-05T04:05:00.000+08:00

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.]

O RLY?

2007-11-05T01:39:00.000+08:00

conventional wisdom = conventional stupidity.

good example.
i'm bored, ignore me.

pedals galore!

2007-11-02T22:41:00.000+08:00

thinking of getting some pedals right after the o levels.

vox wah

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.

2007-11-02T01:00:00.000+08:00

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.

dejavu, si?

2007-10-29T23:59:00.000+08:00

jorge luis borges believed that human experience is essentially a perpetual cycle.
there is a pre-defined set of experiences that all humans go through with variations,
what you go through today, might have been similar to what someone went through a millenia ago.

if that's true, why do we never learn?
looking into our past, only to commit the very same mistakes we'd thought we realised before.

they say looking back is like being at a bus-stop.
you can't move forward on a bus without looking backward to see if it has come.

somehow i get the feeling of dejavu a lot during the exam, not that it is acutely similar but just that faint feeling of similarity.

i wonder what's different. the fact that i got my concepts right this time, and bothered practising, whether i am less careless, or just have a different attitude. i just can't be bothered if i have put in my best while sitting for a paper. no point fretting about the amount of time and effort put in now. just sit for it, curse and swear for a bit, get over it.

few people in class suggested the notion that majority of boys just cannot score at the o levels. most boys being boys, just have different priorities. i found myself this year a totally different person from the person i was in secondary two. i could easily have been fretting about a paper, despite doing x number of geog, maths, science and lit papers, where x is a particularly large number. and yes, i found myself photocopying many past year exam papers in the library, while going through the same chapters over and over again, while studying with jp.

i think exams matter a lot, but they shouldn't possess my life. Giving up a whole year or two just to prepare for an exam is absurd considering the amount of things you can learn provided you pay more attention to them. this is something i risked this year. i didn't study hard at all, rather i preferred to study smart. just going through concepts and questions i didn't understand. i admit i could have been quite the sloth, but in the leadup to the prelimnaries and o levels, i did study what i needed to. and yeah, i think it's more or less confirmed, i should have delayed sleep phase syndrome, that's why i fall asleep in class so frequently. after three examinations, i still find myself alert 8 hours on at 12.30am.

studying really hard is like throwing a boulder on a domestic cat when you can just use an injection. a crude analogy but relevant still.

i don't know if the risk was worth it, but i hope it tells in my results. at least i learnt a lot more outside the textbook.

and this isn't the only dejavu i get nowadays.
anyway, after the Emaths paper later today its just three papers left excluding the Science P1s. frankly, i'm partially looking forward to it, and partially wanting to remain in this limbo of an examination period. all you have to do is study, once in a lifetime thing for students. studying for the o levels, and nothing else, except yeah maybe the spot of fun here or there.

I've got a hunger
Twisting my stomach into knots
That my tongue was tied off

My brain's repeating
"if you've got an impulse let it out"
But they never make it past my mouth.

HOLA!

2007-10-27T00:01:00.000+08:00

can you smell that waft of freedom!
i sure can! WOOOOOT!

2007-10-25T01:06:00.001+08:00

THE WORST IS OVER!
WOOOT!

now it's me, a ten foot pole and history!

no more looking at essays while eating, while in the toilet, while i'm walking around in wow.
no more dreaming of what part of essays i left out when i sleep.
NO MORE!

wake up and smell the ashes.

2007-10-20T07:32:00.000+08:00

post title is a quote from half-life 2. (said by G-man)
one of the best games ever methinks.
intriguing plot, good graphics, reasonably intelligent ai, excellent gameplay.

the halo series still wins hands down though. :D
gonna try getting a second hand xbox360 during the hols just to play halo3.

i'm up early for once, thoroughly sick and tired of amaths,
anything to do with world organisations and politics.

slept at 11pm, woke up at 3am.
circadian rhythm's going all awry.
sigh. on monday, the rush starts.
after the whole slew of exams, i'm free.

no posts till then anyway.
before i go, here's something for all the romantics.
was quoted in the movie patch adams.
i think i posted it before but not in its entirety.

I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don't know any other way of loving
but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your
hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your
eyes that close.

i have no idea what paragraph two is about, but it sounds pretty uhm, weird, to me. the rest though is really good.

anyway, bye for now.
and i'm not signing off with night for once. what a change.

seeya.

complacency strikes.

2007-10-17T18:45:00.000+08:00

i'll be frank. i'm finding it more and more difficult to prevent complacency from setting in.

not because i think the o levels are bloody easy, but because i'm assured a place for my next 2 years already.

i think getting 8a1s on my cert now would be something purely aesthetic.

some of you might argue an o level cert does matter when applying for a job in future. thing is, if you have pre-u qualifications, or even uni (which i am intent on getting a scholarship abroad), employers won't look at your o level qualifications.

so i'm trying to psycho myself (read: changing perspective) into thinking this is a battle of will. haha sounds unecessarily grand.

so i'm trying to use this as a gauge of where my determination and discipline has gone.

and i sort of used something i learnt during rme retreat to help me.

enter battle meditation (aka centering prayer) !

with the context that the o level is a war, you need something to counteract the opponent (read: laziness/complacency/wanting to play WoW or jam or just slack)!

so this is what i did that i found out was pretty useful whenever i felt lazy or wanted to procrastinate:
use the centering prayer, which is a catholic form of meditation.

s4 catholics would know what to do. for those that might wanna try, simply sit down, make sure you're in a comfortable position and posture, everything should be relaxed and you shouldn't fidget.

clear your mind, have a single word mantra (i use maranatha, an aramaic phrase).

this could be:
"a1!"
"study!"
"concentrate"

or any other phrase, as long as you're not as cheesy as me.

repeat it, if you find that distracting thoughts enter your mind, use the mantra to repel those thoughts, and center all your consciousness on that single phrase again. you should not be thinking of any bodily sensation, any sounds, or anything from your environment.

do this for a while until you really cannot stand it.
but always have an alarm clock or someone to alert you when your set time is up ie. 5-15mins, because you might just enter into a really deep trance.
after that, you should be able to start studying already.

i think (:

if you're interested about the centering prayer go to Wikipedia.

kill bill.

2007-10-14T02:24:00.000+08:00

this scene is priceless.

not for the gore, but the way lucy liu scares the shit out of people twice her size and age, and with a smile. muaha.

fanboy!

2007-10-13T23:17:00.000+08:00

i'm a new fan of quentin tarantino!
and experimental rock!
go listen to the animal collective! not for those who prefer to stay safe. musically. (:
Animal Collective Myspace

i'm still finding it hard to be a fan of any of the dictators, deng, or any treaties.
basically, i'm not going to ever touch history after the o levels.
but im still gonna get my a1.

night!

can't go on hiatus, too bored.

2007-10-12T23:35:00.000+08:00

this is not happening.
i am not a lian magnet.
oh please, nononononononononono.

basically im going delirious with mugging for history.
and i came up with titles for history essays.
yes, that's the degree of my delirium.

Pacific War: Opening Phase - Bang Bang in the Pacific! Part 1
I didn't give any name to the second phase in light of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which wa the most horrific IMO.

Pre 1949 China: 1920-1935
Luding Bridge is falling down...

Pre 49 China: 1936-1949
Chiang tried a 300 with a million men... and still failed. (Battle of Hwai-hai)

Japanese Aggression in China:
CHINA IZZ OWARS! [in japanese accent]

The Treaty of Versailles - was really stupid.
This is I think because the Treaty was neither here nor there. In terms of self-determination, maybe it gave it to quite a lot of people, but for the people for did not get it, they were significantly disadvantaged. With such punitive terms for Germany, it only paved the way for Hitler, so really quite dumb. They got more money in loans then they paid for reparations anyway.

I came across a wikipedia article today. The other day Jeremy Tan (the tall one) was talking about how in his church the pastor preaches that dinosaur bones and other evidence for the earth being millions of years old was put there by God to test our faith, and whether we believe he created everything or not.

This is a real hypothesis, going by the name of the Omphalos Hypothesis.
Check it out here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omphalos_hypothesis

Basically it is an extremely skeptical philisophical argument. In brief:

The omphalos hypothesis was named after the title of an 1857 book, Creation
(Omphalos) by Philip Henry Gosse, in which Gosse argued that in order for the
world to be "functional", God must have created the Earth with mountains and
canyons, trees with growth rings, Adam and Eve with hair, fingernails, and
navels ("omphalos is Greek for "navel"), and that therefore no evidence that we
can see of the presumed age of the earth and universe can be taken as reliable.

That basically means you could have been born 5 minutes ago with all your memories with all your memories posited in you, and not realise it.

Or you could have been destroyed last Thursday or created again that same Thursday without you knowing, along with the rest of the human race. This is actually the basis of a real religion called Last Thursdayism. Americans.

Very matrix-like. How do you know you're not in the Matrix?

Very philosophical. Apparently Theory of Knowledge in IB will be covering philosophy. Oh and I thought of this.

Consider the following. Both facts, one by Tom, are true.
Fact 1: Tom is good at lying.
Fact 2: Tom is lying he is good.

Which means Tom is lying that he is good at lying. What would that make him? A good liar? Or a bad one, because people know he is lying? Which one is he lying in?

Lateral thinking:
Tom lied. He said both facts.
Tom was trying to be a prick so he could coming up with something confusing to mindf*** you.
Tom was a professor with too much time on his hands, or rather was paid to come up with unsolvable paradoxes.
Tom exists only in your mind, and is an imagination. Therefore by imagining both facts are wrong, or Tom never existed, and therefore the situation never existed, there is no paradox.

Still, there are paradoxes.
Like the grandfather paradox. If you went back in time, and fathered a child, that grew to father you. Wouldn't you then be your own grandfather?

And one inspirational sort-of paradox methinks, doesn't really qualify but nice nonetheless:

"I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts,
there can be no more
hurt, only more love."
- Mother Teresa

One thing is, a good deal of people, I think, will commit suicide if they ever reach such a stage of emotional hurt.

Oh, I came across one more term: The dark night of the soul.
It sounds like something straight out of some half-assed cliched fantasy/medieval/crap novel, but it's something spiritual.

That the most spiritual people on this Earth experience a time when prayer proves unrewarding and unbearable, and God seems non-existent, or even seems to have abandoned the person. Apparently, it is a severe test of faith.

Apparently Mother Teresa suffered it for most of her life, and one saint did so for 45 years. Same thing I heard from John Paul that Mr Ang said that God might just be most near when he seems farthest away.

Oh well, I'm gonna sleep. Can't stand anymore League of Nations.

hiatus

2007-10-06T22:23:00.000+08:00

extended hiatus until the 5th of november.
ta.

edit: i remembered an apparently hindu proverb that i saw on kevinn chung's msn personal message.

"There is nothing noble in being superior to some other person. True
nobility is being superior to your former self."
lesson learnt, lesson really learnt.

WYSIWYG.

2007-10-05T22:18:00.000+08:00

i'm really sick of laughing when i don't really find it funny.
sick of trying to be as optimistic as possible.

really sick of it.

except what you see is a mask.

rubik has his revenge.

2007-10-04T23:26:00.000+08:00

let me introduce you to my study companion.

he's complex, colourful, and promises something new everyday.
meet rubik's revenge!

basically, it's a 4x4 version of the rubik's cube, which is the current trend.
he's bloody difficult to solve. first, you have to solve the centers, which is difficult cause while solving when yo end up disturbing the obverse side, then you have to do pairing, and oslve it like a normal rubik's cube.

pretty fun actually. (:

day 1.

2007-10-03T05:44:00.000+08:00

day 1 of the routine.
damn tiring!

the next 13 weeks are really gonna discipline me.

d/dx.

2007-10-03T01:20:00.000+08:00

There are some common stereotypes in a typical Josephian class:
Slacker
Mugger
Emo
Rocker
Clown
Follower
Loner
Weirdo
etc etc

I kinda got struck by this - people more or less adopt traits from these stereotypes, either by choice or circumstance, because they want to integrate themselves into the class or differentiate themselves from the 'rest', or maybe they're just being themselves, so they make no effort to do either.

Yes, I know, lame. Bio's lamer. Got this question at today's Bio mock exam:

Fig 1.1 has a magnified image of the lower surface of a leaf cell, you can see epidermal cells and guard cells.

Now imagine it being viewed with a lower power microscope.
What will be observed?

Answer:
THE CELLS WILL BE SMALLER, AND LESS DETAILED.

WTF?!
HELLO?! O LEVEL BIOLOGY IS LIKE THIS?!(@&*#^*&^#&*^@&*#&*

So if you answered things like guard cells will not be seen, or thought it was a trick question, it wasn't.

STILL?! I didn't study Biology for 4 years to be tested on whether there are more cells to be seen under a low power microscope.

COME ON MAN, HOW OFTEN DO WE ACTUALLY DO NON-THEORY STUFF?!
and here you come testing our THEORY on something PRACTICAL!
EH HELLO! Blatantly simple, and tricky, complicated questions are two extremes of the spectrum. Should try reaching a compromise instead?

It's like asking what do people see a hawker centre as in this day and age?

First answer: A place to buy food, eat food, and say mai hum.

Second answer: A culinary melting pot, showcasing the diverse cultures present in Singapore, as well as representing a gathering place for families to savour local flavours to the tune of loud dialect banter in various languages.

So which answer is correct?

bloody hell.

bet to win. or at least try to.

2007-10-02T01:00:00.000+08:00

okay, i officially start today.

no more excuses, no more procrastinating.
i'm gonna win the bet i made with jeremy.

hwa xiong and aaron you can compete with me (:

hopefully there's something to showoff on 31st december.

back to bio.

Last Stretch.

2007-10-01T21:50:00.000+08:00

Okay, I'm mugging a lot more now than before prelims.
8A1s! 8A1s!

Anyway, pseudo-inspirational quote from Balls of Fury:

"It is better to die like a tiger, than to live like a pussy."

So study, and you won't have to whine!

Night.

regret by choice.

2007-09-29T02:26:00.000+08:00

there are things in life you'll look back on ten, twenty, years down the road, and regret you didn't do.

it might even happen tomorrow.

these choices present themselves like a diamond, you can see them through so many facets, but eventually only a few of the facets wil glint and catch your eye.

there are choices i make now, that i know i will look back and regret not doing. yet, my current frame of mind doesn't allow to do these sort of things. call it indecision, call it stupidity, or ignorance, i call it experience.

i distance myself from some people to prevent myself from getting hurt. i've been talking a lot with people close to me lately, and i realise a lot of the flaws, or out-of-the-blue things i do sometimes are really just imprints left behind by what happened to me when i was younger.

slowly, i'm beginning to realise which set of repeated incidents caused the flaws i sometimes see in myself. a number of these were a direct result of one person, and while there were only good intentions involved, i'd have to say there was a certain amount of pride and insecurity involved. which man wants to have his ego burst by a pinprick? which man doesn't a modicum of achievement to show off?

parents are humans too. sometimes they do things not because they love us, but sometimes really, we're bragging rights, but they're not perfect. and on that basis, neither are we, their so dearly beloved.

i make a choice to regret by not doing something now, but i'm also making a choice to safeguard my now, and to safeguard my future. do not blame me for this, just like no man wants his ego gone at the touch of a pinprick, no normal human revels in pain.

and i am only human.

absolutes.

2007-09-27T21:50:00.000+08:00

If God takes you to it, he will take you through it.
If you commit, you commit, no two ways about it.
If it's meant to be, you shouldn't fret about it.

I've been worrying too much about too little.

PSF farewell party for Mr Wong this saturday, something to look forward to!
This week has been so dreary.

Thinking about cycling to VJC actually brought up this song, Bertrand was singing it in class, haha.

Bicycle bicycle bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle bicycle bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride my bike
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride it where I like

You say black I say white
You say bark I say bite
You say shark I say hey man
Jaws was never my scene
And I don't like Star Wars
You say Rolls I say Royce
You say God give me a choice
You say Lord I say Christ
I don't believe in Peter Pan
Frankenstein or Superman
All I wanna do is

Bicycle bicycle bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle bicycle bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride my bike
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride my
Bicycle races are coming your way
So forget all your duties oh yeah!
Fat bottomed girls they'll be riding today
So look out for those beauties oh yeah
On your marks get set go
Bicycle race bicycle race bicycle race
Bicycle bicycle bicyI want to ride my bicycle
Bicycle bicycle bicycle
Bicycle race

You say coke I say caine
You say John I say Wayne
Hot dog I say cool it man
I don't wanna be the President of America
You say smile I say cheese
Cartier I say please
Income tax I say Jesus
I don't wanna be a candidate
For Vietnam or Watergate
Cos all I want to do is

Bicycle bicycle bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle bicycle bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride my bike
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride it where I like

Lyrics might seem nonsensical but they actually reflect the pop culture of the era.
I just checked it up on wikipedia, and interestingly:

Bicycle Race is a hit single for the English rock band Queen. It was released
on their 1978 album Jazz and written by
Queen's frontman Freddie Mercury.
To
release this song, Queen staged a bicycle race with 65 naked girls. A clip from
this race was used as the single cover. The video was originally banned, and the
video had to be re-edited with colour added to censor out any offensive imagery.
The song is famed for its 'bicycle bell solo', which fans would often replicate
live at Queen concerts with their own such bells.

Bertrand's gonna be shocked.
And that's how MTV was like in those days, funky eh?

night.

anguish of choice.

2007-09-27T00:32:00.000+08:00

Animated Inventor

I've always thought that I'm ready for change, I'm too bored of routine. Give me change, give me something drastically different, give me something tha totally destroys the status quo. Now that it's happening, I'm not sure at all if I like change. In fact, I find it terrifying.

I have so many choices in front of me, so many things to consider. My future, my own expectations, my mom's expectations, my friends' feelings, scholarships, university admissions, what I want to pursue as a career. At the end of all that, I'm still left with something I'm uncomfortable with, either because I'm not in the course I want, or somehwere where friends are a mile away.

At the beginning of the year, I said, 'Hey! CJ! Why not!' After all, it's not half bad as most make it out to be, and as a Lasallian I see it as a sort of obligaion if I can to help raise the standard, if i get a L1R5 that permits me to go to RJ but still go there. I gave my word to Hansel, even to Francis. Now when the time to make the decision draws near, I find that I cannot commit. And with more people I value going there, I feel I want to go, but other schools can offer more academically.

Then came SJII, I didn't apply for phase 1, a education where kids were chaffeured to school everyday, while I took public transport to school everyday, and study amidst people I've never been too comfortable with, was not my thing. Then, options turned up, phase 2 of the scholarships was open, so I applied. To my surprise, I actually got a scholarship. Sure, I get to go for an IB diploma and take a music course, but I'll be travelling down a route much less travelled, something that I cannot rely on past experience for guidance. I'm the sort who screws up at first, and only get better with experience. I'm not the sort to get everything right or even a modicum of achievement on the first try, when it comes to such gargantuan tasks. Furthermore, even with a 75% scholarship, it places, a big strain on my mom.

Then came VJ, with 8 points, I'm pretty much stuck in the middle, with that sort of score, I'm only guaranteed partial entry into VJC. I thought it's CCA was going to be good compared to SJII, which if I went to again, I'm frankly afraid of pioneering something. Then again, VJC isn't renowned for it's CCA. I get to cycle to VJC every morning for school though! And I did make a deal with Dong we'd go to VJC.

Today, Jeremy talked about RJC. With my prelimnary L1R5 I certainly do not qualify, but thinking about it, I might stand a good change appealing for one of the discretionary places in RJC. Jeremy, being the buddy he is, I just don't and won't ignore his opinion and where he's going. RJC is known for being the institution with the most number of graduates entering Ivy League universities.

I want a bright future, I want a university scholarship, I want a good grounding in morals and spirituality. Most importantly, no matter how people tell me good friends won't influence your choice of JC, I beg to differ. A good friend will not be indifferent to JC choices of his friend. He has to consider it.

So again, I bring up this quote:

Each individual suffers the anguish of indecision until he or she makes a leap
of faith and commits to a particular choice. Each person is faced with the
responsibility of knowing of his or her own free will and with the fact that a
choice, even a wrong choice, must be made in order to live authentically.

So where will I go? Where will I make the leap of faith to?
If you guys have got advice for me, do comment.
Thanks.
I'm literally sitting on the fence on this one. One of those gothic fences with sharp spearheads.

jc.

2007-09-25T22:30:00.000+08:00

vj it is.
unless i somehow secure a 100% scholarship for sjii.
it's 75% now and i can't afford it.

i should be burning more midnight oil nowadays.
more productive midnight oil, not time spent stoning.

night!

Graduation Day.

2007-09-24T04:07:00.000+08:00

I didn't manage to get take photos during Graduation Day, because of lots of running around, and my mom took the camera home, and I forgot to take it from her. *smacks head* this is the only good one i found on facebook.

so i've graduated, and it's bittersweet. 4 years of an emotional, spiritual, and physical rollercoaster, and it's all ending now.

i'm sad to leave SJI. it's not only been a second home these past four years, but a place that has taught me to be a man, and given me a place to make friends and learn ideals which I'm sure I'll keep for the rest of my life. and a place where the teachers not only teach, but care, inculcate, mentor, and in some cases might even game with you. shining examples of all those who choose teaching as their vocation, not solely a profession. shining examples of people who love. there's a lot i want to say about the people i've met, things i've learnt, and things sji has taught me to pass on, but a short entry won't do, so i'll write a proper one another day. in the meantime:

thank you sji. (:

once a josephian, always a josephian.

paranoia.

2007-09-22T01:33:00.000+08:00

On tuesday my slogan want like this,
"M! I! M! I! Wanna follow me to MI! (Millenia Institute)"

On Wednesday, I went,
"Maybe not."

On Thursday, Jeremy said,
"Cannot get in already lah you! IDIOT!"

Basically I'm hoping for my 9 points, VJ, or CJ.
Mind's pretty made up on SJII though.

Today was our last Fruity Friday in SJI.
Jeremy had to ask Ms Soh, "Ms Soh! Do you want a banana!"
Ms Soh: "Don't want. I have a lot at home."

[CUE INSTANTANEOUS LAUGHTER]

speech and graduation day is tomorrow, it's sad to leave sji's hallowed halls so soon.

night.

God/Essence/Existence

2007-09-19T18:39:00.000+08:00

Okay, so I checked up on what existentialism is on wikipedia, and it's a extremely broad topic.
I think existentialism regarding religion can be summarised briefly like that:

If I'm a theist; that is I believe in a deity, and in my case God, I find meaning in life through my relationship with God.

If I'm an existentialist, I believe in existence, and find meaning solely through embracing existence, and it's experiences.

On the other hand, if I'm a Christian existentialist, I might doubt God's existence, but in good faith, choose to believe that God exists. This belief is "a personal choice made on the basis of a passion, of faith, an observation, or experience."

Another thought of existentialism, is that existence precedes essence, that humans seek to define their lives and find purpose in it, after being 'thrust' into existence through no choice of their own, which is a stark contrast to Catholicism where the belief is that every being is God-created, with God-given talents and purposes.

As to whether I'm a theist, existentialist, christian existentialist, i think I'll define that when i'm older. But I'm sure for now, and for the rest of my life, I'm Catholic.

I also found a particular sentence in the wikipedia entry on Christian existentialism,

"Each individual suffers the anguish of indecision until he or she makes a
leap of faith and commits to a particular choice. Each person is faced with the
responsibility of knowing of his or her own free will and with the fact that a
choice, even a wrong choice, must be made in order to live authentically."

Damn true.

Ballad of the Existentialist

2007-09-19T18:22:00.000+08:00

I think this video is supposed to be a tongue in cheek song about existentialism.
I'm half sure, because I'm not really sure of the meaning of existentialism, but anyway

i got the sjii scholarship, but i'm not sure if i can get 9 points.
and there's a dilemma.
on one hand i've got a rigorous, challenging course, but with no real cca in sjii.
on the other i have mainstream education, with my close friends, and a variety of ccas to choose from, in vj or cj.

either way i'm stepping out of my boundaries, but i know i'll feel more uncomfortable being in very different company. i can't exactly reject the scholarship, now that i've got it. and another problem is getting 9 points, so yeah.

i hope i find an answer soon.

sleep!

2007-09-12T04:49:00.000+08:00

i still can't sleep.
and i start going wonky when i can't get sleep.

"BOSS NASS : Wesa no like da Naboo! Un dey no like uss-ens. Da Naboo tink
day so smarty den us-ens. Day tink day brains so beeee-EEG. "

priceless.
from star wars episode 1.

of halcyon days to come.

2007-09-09T16:18:00.000+08:00

halcyon days

The phrase Halcyon days is a literary commonplace in English language
and culture, signifying ideals of prosperity, bonhomie, joy, liberation, or
tranquillity

came across the perfect term to describe what's coming after the o levels. anyway i went cycling at about 5.30 on saturday morning, like one of those usual unusual things i do on my own, to gather my thoughts, and just chill.

the morning breeze is exhilirating, and having most of the roads to yourself with hardly any pedestrians or cars is just plain soothing. beats the hustle and bustle anytime man. the lights all seem so vivid. yeah, very relaxing! then when i get back to studying, everything's so easy to absorb.
anyway some pictures. pretty disappointed coz they came out blur, but they look quite good anyway.

and that was saturday evening, from my grandpa's window, which he wanted me to capture. i like tampines. bloody stupid name, but very serene at night and in the mornings. don't get me started on rush-hour.

metalmöuth.

2007-09-08T01:20:00.000+08:00

i got the brackets for my braces fitted on today, after delaying it for two years.
the brackets didnt hurt, the extraction did. two teeth were extracted today, and i took some painkillers. getting the wires and bindings done next week, so officially i'm a metalmouth now.
being at the dentist was pretty much a lot of waiting around, and just lying down like an idiot with my mouth being prised open. not my idea of a typical TGIF afternoon.

which means i can't eats as much. macdonalds was painful, and horfun was an endeavour.
yep porridge seems to be on the daily menu. how tantalising.

went cycling yesterday with the church peeps.
to east coast and back. i took them on a long detour through the park connector. sorry! went to the f&b side of east coast, cycled back, dorpped by eugene's house for a glass of water. yeah so all in all covered about 25 km, after which we studied at the poolside at denise's condo, at about 3 in the morning? pretty productive though. managed to cover rate of change and integration.

well, bye for now.

maintenance.

2007-09-05T23:22:00.000+08:00

everything around me seems to be falling apart, but this is not an emo post.
i went cycling with alastair.
my derailleur sucks compared to alice's.
for the first half of the ride i was so much more tired out than him.
so hey we thought, since he's a canoiest, and i'm in band it works out.
but during the second half of the ride from tampines to pasir ris park and back,
we switched bikes, and the difference was damn obvious!
apparently, the derailleur on my bike doesn't translate the energy as efficiently into motion.
so i need to send my bike to the shop tomorrow, change the derailleur, hopefully to shimano (mine's some lousy china shit now), and tighten everything.

second, my guitar intonation is screwed again, and from the 17th fret onwards, any of the bends i do die out before i can do a whole bend. i think guitar connection might have overcharged me.
sound sounds all screwy, so i'll have to get it worked out before grad night auditions.

third, my amplifier might be going all screwy. the clean channel changes between mono and stereo by itself. weird. oh, but sweep picking is comign along fine!

fourth, my computer's dying on me.
my trusty dell is dying.
gives the blue screen of death every single day i use it.
i dont know when the operating system will lose itself, start itself up, and say it misplaced the main windows file, thus needing a reformat.
it happened to my acer 8 times.

last, i've been to almost 10 bookshops, and not one stocked guitar grimoire.
the almight borders had the later two volumes but not the one i need.
and the two yamaha shops i visited don't have guitar straps, like wth!

so yes, in short, today, was screwed.
night.

2007-09-04T03:13:00.000+08:00

ian says (3:08 AM):
aaron's very attractive
ian says (3:08 AM):
you didn't know?
oily says(3:08am):
lol
ian says (3:08 AM):
i mean like he hogs the limelight la
ian says (3:08 AM):
literally
oily says (3:08 AM):
wads with the sucking up ian???
oily says (3:08 AM):
LOL
oily says (3:08 AM):
WTH
mat says (3:08 AM):
he's not sucking up man...
mat says (3:08 AM):
he's insulting u..
oily says (3:08 AM):
lol
ian says (3:09 AM):
AHAHA
oily says (3:09 AM):
i noe!!
mat says (3:09 AM):
haiz..
mat says (3:09 AM):
i guess u cant do anything abt it since its due to genes..
ian says (3:09 AM):
AHAHA OILY!
oily says (3:09 AM):
haha
oily says (3:09 AM):
i dunt mind the oil=)
oily says (3:10 AM):
its also the genes im hot...
oily says (3:10 AM):
hahahhahhahahaha
ian says (3:10 AM):
heh
ian says (3:10 AM):
im speechless
mat says (3:10 AM):
*bangs head on wall

oil reflects light. oil on face catches light.
face becomes very, very, very shiny.

2007-09-04T02:01:00.000+08:00

God might just have a very cruel and dry sense of humour.
Almost British i think.

forgotten but not gone.

2007-09-02T23:50:00.000+08:00

consider the following:

"The most deadly poison of our times is indifference."
st maximillian kolbe

i think it hits too close to home.
for those protesting the sec 4 grad night because its in school, and not a hotel, then the entire 4 years sji has spent inculcating lasallian ideals especially sensitivity to the poor, has sadly failed.

secondly, yes 50 dollars is steep for a dinner held in school, but i guess it's easier for the school and the rest of us to help those who can't afford it.

all i want to do at grad night, is have one last helluva time as josephians with the people ive grown with and come to love. (brotherly love ah!)

i think the location does not matter, as long as i have my friends, good food, and a helluva good time. ray charles couldn't have put it better:
"LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL!" (:

night.

pandora.

2007-09-02T23:14:00.000+08:00

difficult to anticipate.
difficult to interpolate.
difficult to contemplate.

you're such a mystery.

geek post - jimi hendrix!

2007-09-01T22:45:00.000+08:00

jimi hendrix was a genius.
i'm posting his rendition of the american national anthemm star spangled banner.
this improvisation is iconic of the 60s, and his rendition includes sounds of war, machine guns, explosions.
listen and you will know what i mean.

Star Spangled Banner - Jimi Hendrix

bittersweet.

2007-08-31T23:04:00.000+08:00

today was bad. i think i'm going to flunk history. i finished half an hour early with only thirteen sides.i was supposed ot have filled 18 sides methinks. 2-4 sides per part 1, and 1-2 sides per aprt 2. for half an hour i had to stone and bear with the people around me just writing on forever.
it was totally shit la.
my mind blanked, and none of my mugging in the morning helped.
huge chunks of stuff i just couldn't remember,
i could remember things describing them eg. rich cornfields given to Romania,
but i couldnt remember any of the names.
but, someone mentioned the first syllable after the exam, and it just popped into my head.

Banat and Transylvania.
gah.
and so many other things, i attempted China 1927-36, only to find nothing came to mind, did pac war in the end, and mangled all the details, i probably skipped a whole chunk of minor battles, and confused leyte gulf details. no specific dates. hitler was nothing fantastic, the only one i think i might score in is the u.n.o. essay, and maybe stalin's rise. horrible la

means i need to score in my a maths and physics.
oh man, no distinction in history at all, and that just sucks.

on the other hand visited st mikes, had a good laugh reminiscing, the meal afterwards at pizza hut was damn funny, recounting all the funny stuff that happened in st mikes.

NI GOU HUN DAN!
MEI YOU JIA JIAO!
a la mr goh!
hahah yeah, 6g people are damn funny!

and my grandma rocks!

sure, she tried oni (hokien yam paste), and now everyone in the family laughs when the word is mentioned, coz her oni was plain weird, so was her chng tng, it was thick and gooey instead of being watery.
but today was teh bomb! even my grandpa ate quite a bit for once, and it wasn't half a roti prata.

japanese rice balls!
ahah! stuffed with tuna, she says shes gonna try unagi next!

woot!
night!

2007-08-30T21:07:00.000+08:00

bio today was all about labelling.
alice labeled the amniotic cavity, embryotic fluid.
i labeled the thermoreceptor arterioles.
some idiot even labeled the feeding hypha, vegetative hyphae.
oh yeah, jp labeled the sporangium spore sac, then changed it to spore bag.
AHAHA

geography elect was not half bad i guess.
i should have studied more in depth for manufacturing and environmental management, less range.
but oh well.

okay so its history tmr, and my brain will probably dry up by tmr morning,
but i'm gonna take my chances, try for a distinction.
wish me luck!

night

2007-08-30T02:41:00.000+08:00

i think i need a miracle to get my 9 points.
geography elective and bio later on.
so much to remember!

AND, I DO NOT WANT TO SEE TOMORROW COME.
MODERN EFFING WORLD HISTORY 2138! !$#@%#!%@#
that means 8000 essays to remember, and write out.
actually just 8. but 1000 words each.
my hand's gonna drop off after the exam, and my brain's gonna grow fuzzy hairs, and become a new vegetable-animal-sludge hybrid thingy.

i'll get my a1 at 'o's, yes i will, prelims will just be practice yes? yes!

okay, i'm not lucid anymore. shit
night.

on the horizon.

2007-08-30T00:07:00.000+08:00

studying development for geog elect now.
human geog is bloody boring.
marianne chong just writes on and on in large chunks of text,
with numerous bullet points, and the pages only have a few nice pictures here and there.

so a random thought came to me, and as always, i decided to preserve it here.
i think success isn't so much about making money, as it is having a legacy and people remembering you when you're long gone. and that legacy should be that you changed things for the better. that's how i define success anyway. i see no point earning your first million, only to look forward to your next million. and thats how i saw the o levels and grades until recently. achieve straight 'a's only to look forward to your next exam.

i just want my grades so i've got more choices.
i want my grades so i won't look back and say i didn't realise my potential.
and so i won't feel guilty when i'm out enjoying myself after the o levels, haha.

yeah.
future's pretty much hanging in the balance now.

DSPS.

2007-08-29T03:02:00.000+08:00

okay, so here's the deal:
today i got home after chem, had an
'afternoon nap' around 3.30, and woke up at 11.30pm.
not only did i have totally no
awareness of the time that had passed, but i also managed to totally sleep
through an appointment i was supposed to have with hashnul, only calling him
three hours late.

call me lazy, or me just being plain tired, but this has happened too
many times already. i sleep at weird times of the day, mostly at inane hours of
the morning and struggle to get up in the morning, my punctuality suffers in the morning. so i decided to do research.

i typed sleep disorder in wikipedia and i found something that matches
what has been my lifestyle for the past two years or so.

Delayed sleep-phase syndrome (DSPS), also known as delayed sleep-phase
disorder, is a chronic disorder of
sleep timing. People with DSPS tend to fall asleep at very late times,
and
also have difficulty waking up in the morning.

Often, people with
the disorder report that they cannot sleep until
early morning, but they
fall asleep at about the same time every "night", no
matter what time they
go to bed. Unless they have another sleep disorder such as sleep
apnea in addition to DSPS, patients can sleep well, and have a normal
need
for sleep. Therefore, they find it very difficult to wake up in time
for a
typical school or work day if they have only slept for a few hours.
However,
they sleep soundly, wake up spontaneously, and do not feel sleepy
again until
their next "night" if they are allowed to follow their own late
schedule, e.g.
sleeping from 4 a.m. to noon.

The syndrome usually
develops in early childhood or adolescence,[1]
and sometimes disappears in adolescence or early adulthood. It is usually
treatable, but cannot be cured."

And these are even more features:

"The following features of DSPS distinguish it from other sleep
disorders:
People with DSPS have at least a normal - and often much greater
than normal - ability to sleep during the morning, and sometimes in the
afternoon as well. In contrast, those with chronic insomnia do not find it much
easier to sleep during the morning than at night.
People with DSPS fall asleep at more or less the same time every night, and
sleep comes quite rapidly if the person goes to bed near the time he or she
usually falls asleep. Young children with DSPS resist going to bed before they
are sleepy, but the bedtime struggles disappear if they are allowed to stay up
until the time they usually fall asleep.
DSPS patients can sleep well and regularly when they can follow their own
sleep schedule, e.g. on weekends and during vacations.
DSPS is a chronic condition. A diagnosis of DSPS is generally not given
unless symptoms have been present for at least a month.

Attempting to force oneself through 9–5 life with DSPS has been compared
to constantly living with 6 hours of jet lag. Often, sufferers manage
only a few hours sleep a night during the working week, then compensate by
sleeping until the afternoon on weekends. Sleeping in on weekends, and/or
taking
long naps during the day, gives people with the disorder relief from
daytime
sleepiness but also perpetuates the late sleep phase.

People
with DSPS
tend to be extreme night owls. They
feel most alert and say they function best and are most creative in the
evening
and at night. DSPS patients cannot simply force themselves to sleep
early. They
may toss and turn for hours in bed, and sometimes not sleep at
all, before
reporting to work or school.

By the time DSPS patients
seek medical help,
they usually have tried many times to change their
sleeping schedule. Failed
tactics to sleep at earlier times may include relaxation
techniques, early
bedtimes, hypnosis, alcohol, sleeping
pills, dull reading, and home remedies. DSPS patients
who have tried using sedatives at night often
report that the medication makes them feel tired or relaxed, but that it
fails
to induce sleep. They often have asked family members to help wake
them in the
morning, or they have used several alarm clocks. As the
syndrome is most common in adolescence, it is often the patient's parents
who
initiate seeking help, after great difficulty waking their child or
teenager in
time for school. "

And to explain why I still managed sleeping at proper times here and then.

"Once the patient has established an earlier sleep schedule, following highly
regular sleep/wake times and practicing good sleep hygiene are
essential. DSPS patients are counselled to not go to bed if they are not sleepy,
as doing so generally does not result in earlier sleep times. They are also
advised to avoid alcohol and caffeine before bedtime.
If treated successfully, a person with DSPS can sleep and function as
well with the early sleep schedule as with a late one. Stimulant drugs
(including caffeine) to keep the person awake during the day should not be
necessary. The chief difficulty of treating DSPS is in maintaining the earlier
schedule after it has been established. Inevitable events of normal life, such
as staying up late for a celebration or having to stay in bed with an illness,
tend to reset the person's sleeping schedule to late times again."

i'm going to the doc once prelims are over, and according to the wikipedia it is difficult to diagnose and frequently misdiagnosed.

"Lack of public awareness of the disorder contributes to the difficulties
experienced by DSPS patients, who are commonly stereotyped as undisciplined or
lazy. Parents may be chastised for not giving their children acceptable sleep
patterns, and schools rarely tolerate chronically late, absent, or sleepy
students and fail to see them as having a chronic illness."

So maybe, just maybe, I'm suffering from a sleep disorder, or I just sleep like a log. Weirdly, my mom catches up on sleep during the weekends too, might be a family thing.

night.

indoctrination.

2007-08-28T00:55:00.000+08:00

i'm up studying social studies.
such a bore.
chemistry and ss prelims tomorrow.
stupid timing really.

so, with the school having all the mugging subjects in one week,
i'm pretty much gonna be a zombie this week.

i've bene playing guitar to destress, came up with a few riffs, and verses here and there.
all in E major.
dong's been a big help! thanks dong!
yep, anyway picking up guitar grimoire from hashnul tmr.

so here's the deal this week:
Chem and SS tonight
Geog Elect, Bio and 3 History Essays tmr
Geog Elect, Bio and 5 History Essays on Wednesday
History on thursday

should start behaving like a normal human, and not some stoned mugger after that.

i've a really loooooong list of what i want to do after all the exams are over.
o levels are a bit more lax i suppose.

in no particular order:

1. get my social life outside school back.
2. JAMMING!
3. RUN!
4. CYCLE!
5. band camp
6 movie marathons
7. chalets and reunions
8. APLYC

kann's put me in the heritage play for aplyc, and i've gotta sing and memorise lots of lines.
not gonna bomb like i did with delasalle, hehe.

on the other hand, jeremy gabriel and i have been asked to be emcees for graduation night.
i reckon it will be our last making a fool of ourselves in front of so many people.
so why not!

bring on the honkie accents, short/fat jokes, puns, and lame humour.
oh, and maybe the Parade Commander skit too, that jem and i planned for the sji international camp, but never performed, funny shit i tell you.

i'm a busy man after o levels!

anyway back to how singapore's sustaining growth.
for one, if it wants to sustain interest in social studies, they should improve the bloody textbook.

night.

Rutilant Horizons and Night Study

2007-08-26T19:46:00.000+08:00

hdb sunset.

same sunset, different settings.

sjimb.
whoaho! (:

self-explanatory.

2007-08-25T21:23:00.000+08:00

choices define who we are right?
we know that.
most of us do.
yet, we still make wrong choices.

and sometimes knowingly.

i think i'm constantly making a wrong choice.
to procrastinate.

i will think more about this later.

i need to mug geog and ss.
one of my sec 4 classmates actually called me a secret mugger.
lol.

Constant Motion

2007-08-23T23:09:00.000+08:00

we don't wallow in the abyss of self-pity,
we move on.

we don't linger like an unwanted ghost,
we move on.

we don't hold on with reckless abandon,
we move on.

first we are dependent, then independent, then interdependent,
we move on.

we don't whine, we reflect and actualise,
we move on.

change, is the only constant.
we move on.

we move on, our roles change. when it's time for us again to contribute, we will.
for now, let go, move on, and concentrate.
the best and proudest thing we can do now is to excel.

i want my 9 points and below.
i will get it.

Come hither, friend.

2007-08-20T00:03:00.000+08:00

Sometimes we immerse ourselves so obliviously to the outside world, into the worlds and epochs in books we so thoroughly enjoy. The characters seem to jump right out of the book. Suddenly, Harry Potter's struggle with his identity is something so familiar, Bassanio's elopement somewhat similar to friends hiding in a corner of the Macdonalds at King Albert Park, and the Sandman, like the people who inspire and appear in our dreams in the deepest of slumber. They might even bear an uncanny resemblance to our friends. How they converse, how they express mirth, their flaws, and their strengths.

We see our friends in these characters, sense a certain part of him in the fictional, but why? Only because we understand our friends, or so we think.

When plot developments happen, and complications occur, we might understand why a character might have set upon a certain course of action, it being a result of the character's temperament and circumstances. Sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric, melancholy; people who manifest these humours, with one being the dominant one, are so common in our lives, and in the books we are spellbound by.

Yet, no matter how much we understand the sense and sensibilities of these characters that are so akin to our friends, we fail to understand our own peers occasionally.

Funny, isn't it, then that while the study of characters, and the empathy we feel for characters, is supposed to help us understand the human condition better, still we sometimes fail to comprehend the paths our closest friends take.

So how deeply do we understand our friends, and more importantly the mistakes they make?

Which also leads to the question:
How prepared are we to forgive?

I believe before I can practise 'forgive and forget', I need to understand what has transpired first, and why I should forgive.

What's your reason?

Sonnet XVII

2007-08-19T16:57:00.000+08:00

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you
simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I
don't
know any other
way of loving

but this, in which there is
no I or
you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so
intimate
that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.

- excerpt from Sonnet XVII; 100 Love Sonnets, 1960; Pablo Neruda
used in the movie Patch Adams. beautiful! (:

mug like a neen-ja!

2007-08-19T16:28:00.000+08:00

i think mugging brutishly sucks.
you know when you just read through more and more chapters?
especially for chemistry and biology?
total waste of time.

i know people who take a chapter on one at a time.
but seriously, it's a gross waste of time.

example:
boy A does one chapter of chem a day, starts few months before exams.
boy B finishes chem in about two days, summarising the main concepts and things to memorise on the first day, and drilling them in on the second day.

similarity:
both boys listen intently in class.

difference:
boy A reads the chapters.
boy B reads, understands, and makes links inter-chapter, and intra-chapter. then summarises into one compact set of notes, to be mugged just before the exams arrive.

so if you want an analogy, let's say mugging is like a fight. the subject is your opponent. you need to master him.
boy A is a very very very patient sumo wrestler. boy B is a ninja! he attacks the weak points, striking them swiftly, silently, and really effectively. the former just attacks with brute force, maybe coupled with a teensy bit of strategy.

so seriously, mug 'elegantly'! stop wasting time!
i think mindmaps are damn good, especially for chem!
using nunchucks are good, ie revision guides.
those that really concentrate on concepts instead of details, details can come later.

sneezing!

2007-08-17T23:48:00.000+08:00

went for prata with my mom after night study, got home, and heard someone from downstairs sneezing really loudly like a japanese.

you know how he sneezed?

oii-shi!

i'm serious! :D
night.

a day in 431.

2007-08-17T00:11:00.001+08:00

before the school bell

courtesy of jp, alastair, and shortfart
on the way down to the office.

a day in 431 continued.

2007-08-17T00:06:00.000+08:00

glenville's got pants on, haha!
waiting for PE to start.
glenville trying out a wrestling move on oily!
flappaflapflap!
mr nathan settling admin stuff with the two jeremy tans.

a day in 431 continued.

2007-08-16T23:58:00.000+08:00

HMM!
RUGBY! spot chinchow!

gab and jeremy kor
retard.

a day in 431 continued.

2007-08-16T23:16:00.000+08:00

another retard. gab again!
jeremy gone wild.
jeremy settling down
NINE! aka NAVIN! jeremy's still crazy in the background.

shots by gabriel, jeremy, people grabbing my cam, and i.

prelims are looking good! except for history, 15 essays to memorise. bleh. sjii entrance test and orals tmr, gotta see how it goes.

night!

fasten your seatbelt.

2007-08-14T23:45:00.000+08:00

excerpt from my offline journalling.

during the national day celebrations, the old folks from kwong wai shiu
came.
i'm not sure if it was to show the school who they are helping or
really because it would cheer them up seeing loud pubescent kids like us
mangling national songs. (it's loud and there's a melody i suppose, but
still)

when it came to the end of the day, the old folks, in wheelchairs, had
to be brought down from the hall. sji though, isn't wheelchair-accessible for
the upper floors, so i just happened to be in the area after doing
guard-of-honour duty. along with ruggers, we brought one auntie and one uncle
down.

for the auntie, we brought her down half the flight, she walked the
rest of the flight down. when she got onto the waiting wheelchair, the footrests
were swiftly swung out for her and all. we didn't hang the seatbelt over
the handle so she wouldn't sit on it however and she took it upon herself
to take it and fasten it.

one of the nearby caregivers tried to help her with it, but for an
instant, there was a flash of indignance and anger across her face, and she
brushed away his hand.

so can you imagine one day when you're old, and not exactly capable of
doing everything, people start assuming you're quite incapable of doing simple
tasks. either that or they're just really helpful, but still having people
around you who think you need that much help,
it's painful.

that's one thing i realise, sometimes we try to help others at the
expense of their dignity, especially old folks.

if one day i lose all my motor skills, and
coordination, i'm old, infirm and maybe even sick.
who's gonna
care?
my family? volunteers? kids doing CIP?

so really, i
realised while yes we need to study, adults need to do their work, and life
needs to go
on, society is so segmented, that we don't see the bigger
picture, and mind you, the progress
of a nation is not the bigger picture.
what we don't see published in the papers is how much
more people care about
others, how much more families stay together, how spiritual or bothered about
greater things singaporeans are.

sure, we're a properous country,
most of us have all the material comforts we need and sometimes
want.

but somewhere out there, someone is looking up at the plain
ceiling, staring glassily at the fan that's spinning endlessly,
when, when, will the day come to a close?

and that question will be repeated the next day, and the day after,
for many weeks to come.
volunteers might help alleviate the loneliness,
and the activities at a nursing home might help liven things up, but
there's nothing quite like having your loved ones near.

Muse with pen in hand, and light of dusk.

2007-08-14T02:39:00.000+08:00

Hello
wax and wane,
ebb and flow,
inspiration comes,
only the dunce lets go.

pander to fickle inspiration,
it will do for now,
stories fade with print,
but the fantastique lives forever.

i'll be blogging here from here on out.
but i'm still on hiatus until after prelims.