in between the black and white

2010-01-01T15:53:00.000+08:00

I have moved!

2009-12-28T21:18:00.002+08:00

tsd christmas gathering yesterday! we achieved what I thought was impossible: a meal cooked by ourselves. well, okay, so the tomato soup was canned and the ham didn't need any preparation. but still. salad and mushrooms and mashed potatoes! especially the potatoes! yum.

I admit that part of the reason why I was so on about organising both the boys & girls and tsd christmas gatherings this year was the feeling that I may not be able to do so for the next 3 years. I'm feeling quite ambivalent about going to the UK at this moment, but I know as september gets nearer I will start to panic / angst / emo etc, because I will be essentially leaving everyone I know and love behind. can't imagine spending christmas in gloomy london weather by myself.

anyway. I hope all of you out there had fun this christmas, and I also hope you guys like / will use the calendars! please don't neglect them, I spent the better part of a month making them haha.

slept at 2 plus and woke up at 8.30 this morning, urgh. this feels almost as bad as the day after staying up all night for the boys & girls gathering.

I need to find a job. probably an internship at some museum or nac rather than a job job, because a job job would be... sian. waiting to see if my cousin can get me anything at this firm she just joined that specialises in gp tuition hehe. apparently the work involves researching and writing essays! XD

ok cannot take it already. going to sleep

2009-12-22T17:45:00.002+08:00

dead tired after yesterday / today's christmas meetup with the boys & girls. I really think it's the first time in my life I didn't sleep for 24 hours. got up around 8.15 yesterday morning, didn't sleep at all till 10.30 this morning, and even then only till 12. definitely going to crash early tonight.

so I rented a lancer and drove people around, it was nice in a road-trip kinda way, as much as that can happen in singapore, with 5 people in the back bickering and poking and squashing each other and generally being very noisy. picked up everybody, had dinner at chomp chomp. the food was good especially the egg tau huay (?) at the end, first time I tried anything like it! then back to east coast for ice cream from ice cream chef, the vanilla bean I had was alright, nothing to rave about to be honest. off to teo heng for some crazy karaoke, then made our way to jasmine's place for cake (we discovered that cheryl and minyu's tastes are not to be trusted) and presents and wii which I totally sucked at, even if it was 3a.m. tried to sleep but couldn't. left jasmine's place around 5 (surprisingly those who slept could wake up), went to bedok for prata then changi for the sunrise that never materialised lol. sent everybody back and that was that.

it really is funny how the last time the girls met they were drinking ice wine, and now we all meet up and I'm driving, so the logical conclusion was the next time we have full attendance one of us will be married with kids or something. I've known most of them for 8 years which is... a very long time, considering I'm twenty. we've seen each other's ugliness and quirks and done stupid things and watched each other grow up. and now we're all on such different paths. it's a humbling thing, in a way, friendship. well okay I'll stop before I get more incoherent. so thanks boys & girls, really. merry christmas eh :)

2009-12-13T17:11:00.002+08:00

Shirt, jacket and pants: $340.70

Table for 10 at lunch banquet: $708

Cupcakes given out after church service: $1000

Watching our daughter, sister get happily married: priceless

2009-12-08T21:18:00.002+08:00

I got accepted to goldsmiths :)

but now it comes down to it, I find I'm so hesitant to cancel my US application. I think I'm scared that the next few years of my life may actually be confirmed now. I don't understand.

2009-12-01T19:38:00.002+08:00

new post on bilingualism is up.

hmm. so its ord week 4. time does fly by, even if I'm not actually doing anything.

what to update about? nothing interesting going on in my life right now leh. lol.

11 days till wedding of the year!

2009-11-17T11:53:00.003+08:00

a rather marathon post on Singlish is now up, it stands at 1530 words. I think I understand now how the girls feel having to write 1500-word essays. I don't think I could do 5 of those in a week.

anyway, it's ord week 2 now. I'm still pleasantly occupied, reading the papers, doing chores occasionally, going out (a rather rare occurrence thus far). just re-read The Silmarillion and I was struck by the immensity of that created world. the effort Tolkien put into it is just really incredible. the mythology, the languages, the history. it didn't amaze me so much before probably because I was preoccupied trying to figure out who was related to who and who did what, but on a second reading everything was remarkably clear, except I had to occasionally recite to myself the names of the children of Fëanor, Fingolfin and Finarfin. hmm. think I should start on Lord of the Rings again.

I am very close to finally buying a suit for my sister's wedding! actually rather excited. (johnny would say, slut.) got arrowed to go down to arab street and look around for places that personalise ribbons. ah well, all in the name of love.

2009-11-11T15:07:00.002+08:00

new post on censorship here. it's not very well-articulated and rather haphazardly written I think, but at least I tried. also added the link to thinking aloud on my sidebar.

I can't decide whether the days are passing by too slowly or too fast. because I really have whole days to myself now, but I'm actually pretty busy. so even though the hours are long I'm kept occupied.

I think my brain got fried while writing that post above, because when I stop typing and listen to my head I can't hear anything at all.

off to have some tea then.

2009-11-06T15:09:00.002+08:00

I collected my pink ic today :)

and so another part of my life has come to an End.

as with all the previous parts of my life that came to their Ends, it's bittersweet. because ETI has become my second home (my first home, come to that, since I spent more time there over the past one year five months than I did at my actual home) and because the lifestyle has been completely ingrained in me.

it wasn't that tough in the end, but I'm still proud I made it through the one year ten months.

I'm looking through the diary that I tried to keep during bmt. it brings back incredibly vivid memories. a few excerpts:

Day 5, 13 Jan '08: ... Everything's so... normal, outside. It's a different kind of normalcy here. ... WHY MUST WE BE PLATOON 4 AND HAVE TO CLIMB UP TEN FLIGHTS OF STAIRS. ... Everyone's so gungho, I'm not. Too blur, too unmotivated.

Day 7, 15 Jan '08: ... I get sleepy as soon as I sit down. I really need to do laundry. The things I don't like most so far are not having enough time to eat gigantic portions, having to shit in 5 min, not being able to wash clothes everyday and of course being removed from everyone and everything I care about. And all the tekaning. And cold showers. ... Did laundry! Feels good sleeping with handphone under my pillow.

Day 11, 19 Jan '08: Memorising IA drills in the toilet. ... Doing drills w/ Section and getting them right. Platoon talk w/ Sheng Shi - emo everyone-loves-each-other moment. Also very awkward. The cliches of social integration.

Day 13, 21 Jan '08: Talk by Sch 2I/C on the path to being a commander. Hmmmm. I can't really bring myself to bother or care. Don't want to be a combat guy though! We're supposed to be a leadership batch but frankly at this moment I have no desire to be one at all. OC EMO MOMENT!! He signed on out of necessity! "Sometimes reality and ambition clash".

Day 21, 31 Jan '08 (this was after my first bookout; I was writing this while on guard duty): The lapping of the water, humming of the boats (boatsmen awake at 4.30 a.m.!), 98FM playing in the background (good to stay awake). There's actually all these brief moments of almost epiphanic beauty here in Tekong. The silence of the soldiers and the chirping of the birds just before flag-raising (and the moments just before, recruits caught topless or eating and embarrassedly aware of themselves), the sunsets that are more vivid, almost tactile, than those on the mainland, the rhythm of a good march (it's like a TSD "feeling each other's presence" exercise). Wish I could skip SOC today but Guard Duty rest period is only till 11 sian. At least I have time now (it's 4.54 a.m.) to take a good shit.

yes, the transcendental and the banal came together in the strangest ways during my NS.

and yes, I've come a long way.

throughout bmt, sispec, engineer basic, mcvcc, and my posting in ETI, I've been very lucky to meet people, both NSFs and regulars, who somehow found it in their hearts to click with me and become my friends. probably only a couple of them will ever read this, but from the bottom of my heart, thank you all for making the hard times bearable, and the good times memorable. special shoutout to joel, elgene, shi wei, shi xiong and jerome (and in a different way, staff lee and staff andy). I was looking at my old blog entries and there was one, at the start of mcvcc, in which I said I couldn't hit it off with you guys. I'm so glad to say I was wrong.

the experience has simply been quite too many things to put into words succinctly. in retrospect, I'm grateful for it all, even the low points. I feel certain I've grown, that it's strengthened some traits, lessened some others, moulded a work ethic. I'm gonna miss the soothing routine and the contained world within camp. but I also realise it's time to move on.

so, as is only appropriate... ord loh!

2009-11-05T22:18:00.004+08:00

I just have to link to this. their facial expressions are priceless. (thanks to my bunkmates for this haha)

and for the novelty of it, the singapore complaints choir. it's ironic indeed that after MICA effectively banned the performance (more info here) they did private performances at old parliament house. how very singaporean.

2009-11-05T19:23:00.002+08:00

foreign workers living beside a cemetery - what would you think? just posted some of my thoughts here.

rain and more rain. lovely weather, but it makes me feel so melancholy.

2009-11-01T14:27:00.002+08:00

I seem to be settling into a pattern of posting once a month. in that case, I may as well fulfil my quota today since I'm feeling kinda chatty.

so, what with only 2 working days per week for the past 3 weeks - I've been referring to it as "weekends spent in camp" - I've been doing a fair amount of stuff. or nothing at all, depending on how you look at it. I changed the bedsheets, cleared out the storeroom, re-tidied my wardrobe, gave away old clothes, done 12 SAT subject test papers so far, scored a 2340 for my october SAT (yay), had a subway lunch at least once each week, did up the mass booklet for my sister's wedding, tried cupcakes from 6 places, added album artwork to just about every song on my ipod, had my first encounter with mlm, watched 500 days of summer and the hurt locker (both very good!), bought 4 oversize tees, went cycling by myself to changi village and nearly gave up on the way back, read the papers every day, brought home most of my stuff from camp except my guitar, clothes and toiletries, celebrated zach's birthday, had prata at upper thomson at 1a.m., started forming christmas plans, set up a new blog in an attempt to be more socially engaged, and had mcdonald's breakfasts twice at 6 a.m.

so, out of all that unordered chaos above, I think I'll elaborate a bit on some items.

first, regarding proper 'work'. my uk application is still at vjc; if this year repeats last year, it will stay there until january and I'll know the results in march. no headway on my us applications, due to my procrastination. I still have to polish up the essays, and once that's done I can send in the common app, supplements and application payments. then I'll also need to get mr tan and mr teo to send in the recommendations. as for SATs, although I'm grateful for my higher score for the SAT itself this time round, once november 7 is over and I take my subject tests, I should hope never to encounter them ever again.

I admit that my attempt to be more socially engaged is also a not-so-subtle admissions ploy to portray myself as, well, more socially engaged. if you please, you may like to visit thinking aloud, which is where I aim to post commentary on whatever I feel qualified to comment on. because of this condition, content is currently rather lacking - I can't help feeling like I'm using a loudspeaker to spit forth polemic while standing on a gigantic soapbox, even if no one's listening. though it is honestly what I feel, otherwise it wouldn't be there.

first encounter with mlm. hmm. well, to be fair, the whole place and premise of the enterprise sounded perfectly above board and legal to me. it's just that it completely offended my sensibilities. prosperous young men in shirts and pants and similar purple ties engaging in carefully calibrated banter with not-so-prosperous young men and women; the uncomfortable close presence of supposedly easy money hovering over every table at which a 'sharing' is taking place, insinuating itself into each pre-planned volley of questions: "Would you rather work till 60 and then retire, or work till 30 then retire?" "Would you like to earn money by doing nothing at all?" the questions are rhetorical. but I knew I could never commit to such a place, commit my life to bottles of pills, put a false conviction in my voice. I don't want a bmw convertible by age 25, I don't want to be a 'gold member', I don't want to be a perpetrator of some 'points value' system that in reality means absolutely nothing to me. it was all horrifying, in a way. not so much the place itself but the implications on lifestyle and mindset that the place held. I said I wouldn't mind working till I die. if the place didn't disturb me in a fundamental sense, I might have found the look on the guy's face priceless.

another thing I want to blog about is how I was going through my secret drawer just two days ago. now, my secret drawer contains just about every postcard, card, photo or memento I've received since secondary school. it is an immensely sentimental indulgence, and completely un-macho, but what the hell. I looked through everything and there was this huge huge wave of nostalgia. I have a letter from cheryl from sec 3 written in three colours and featuring prominent use of the word "bahx", postcards from serhua and rachel calling me 'daddy' HAHA, the script for What You Will, my sec 2 class photo (everybody is scrawny and ugly, particularly muthu), the list goes on. I also have, from jc, group scripts and my crit comm (HUGE HUGE nostalgia), photos of my group in our bright tees, three years worth of christmas cards from various people, 2 years of a15 timetables, the tsd a-level practical timetable, and (I must mention this) various notes from various people, the most outstanding being one from steph, written in pink pen on a yellow post-it, "I hate stats", followed by a picture of a bell. I couldn't bear to throw anything away.

I've rattled on quite long enough now, so I'll stop here. off to stalk people on facebook!

2009-10-11T15:27:00.002+08:00

before anything else, may I just put a link to The Online Citizen here. I was directed to TOC a month or two ago, and it was a cross between a refreshing breeze and a slap in the face. all the dirt in Singapore society that, I admit, I have been completely and blissfully unaware of cloistered in my comfortable middle-class ignorance.

it's because of TOC that I feel a need to be more socially aware awakening. a need to be more... engaged with the issues. grace has a link to an article written by gayle goh re: integration of immigrants, but the truly stimulating thing is the discussion (and in some parts, slicing to pieces) of gayle's article.

I want to write about these issues but it's difficult to form an opinion when they're so big they're all over my head. I'm unqualified. it'd feel pretentious to even try to express an opinion.

sat for my SAT I yesterday at anderson jc. woke up at 5 bloody 40 a.m. to avoid taking a cab there (I'm very, very proud of myself for that haha). the test was alright, just waiting to see what my score's like when it comes on the 29th. and now it's moving on to study for my subject tests! I never thought I'd touch jc math topics again, but my gc with fresh batteries beckons.

on a completely unrelated note, 11 more working days to ord. a whole bunch of weird feelings coming in now that The End is drawing near.

2009-09-16T09:53:00.000+08:00

sometimes, like this morning, I wake up and pace around unable to concentrate on anything, partly because there're things to do but I can't bring myself to do them, and mostly because of the emptiness in my stomach and the feeling that someone has tied a rubber band round my brain, pulled it, and now I'm just waiting for it to snap back.

it's days like these I think I have a mild anxiety disorder.

2009-09-11T18:31:00.002+08:00

passed my driving test, 4 points! :)

2009-08-29T22:08:00.002+08:00

for those who somehow find the interest to ask me about uni: I sent in my ucas application two weeks ago actually, so it's completely out of my hands now. the us applications are still a pain, primarily because of the essays. I have written first drafts for all the essays except for the poem and summarised movie storyline. these two are quite worrying, frankly. I have no idea where to begin!

in other news. rehearsals for open house are... well. if anyone at all is going, do look out for me. I should be standing around looking as if I got issued a corrective work order.

also, getting closer to my driving test. erk.

2009-08-10T17:39:00.002+08:00

See the moon and the stars, look how far we have come
Look around at our faces, they shine brightly in the sun
With our hopes and dreams, imagine what tomorrow it may bring
What do you see?
What do you see?

I was reading the papers on Saturday, I think, and I came across an opinion piece on this year's NDP theme song. Personally I think it's a refreshing change - not just to have Electrico, a local band, perform it, but also the entire mood of the song. A couple of points brought up in the piece really struck me. Sorry, I can't remember how it went exactly, but the gist was: as Singaporeans, when it comes to displays of patriotism (inasmuch as you can display patriotism in a song), we are more than comfortable with assertive declarations of our identity and our belonging. So we have the "Odes" of Singaporean nationhood: We Are Singapore, Count On Me Singapore, Stand Up For Singapore, the list goes on.

Then, we have the elaborations on the theme: songs like Home, Where I Belong, We Will Get There - which either reflect on the sense of belonging we have to the country, or project a positive, happy-ending future with our go-getting spirit, resilience, core values etc.

The great thing about What Do You See?, as the writer stated, and I very much agree, is that it is probably the first NDP song that, well, puts the onus on the listener. Our typical NDP song takes our sense of belonging and duty to the nation as a given. It is, essentially, propaganda. Propaganda that has become so ingrained in our minds that we hardly question it anymore - how many of us can truly say count on me Singapore, to give my best and more? What Do You See? is open-ended. Yes, there are, as always, the shining symbols of nationhood - moon, stars, our faces turned towards a tomorrow gleaming on the horizon. But, crucially, it asks a question.

Singaporeans are always afraid of questions. We do much better on answers: in ten-year series, exam papers, saying "yes" to more work, more money, more pressure, affirming the sentiments expressed in our NDP songs, even if we've completely glossed over what they mean or if we don't identify with what they say. It's much easier to just answer, especially when the answer is already laid out for you. That is why we are afraid of presentations, of speaking up, of being creative, of challenging authority.

So now we have a song questioning us: what do you see? What is 'Singaporean'? What does being Singaporean mean?

It's very fair to say these are extremely tough questions. How can we answer? It's easy to attach an ideal to a country and pretend that ideal is its essence. But I don't think meritocracy or equality alone warrants a sense of belonging. We can take a step down and throw out examples of 'Singaporeanness' - our food culture, kiasuism, Singlish, HDB flats, heartlanders, using tissue paper to chope seats. But I still don't think that's it. These are outward expressions of our identity, perhaps. They are the physical manifestations of certain aspects of our culture, our collective psyche. They may go some way in explaining, "Oh, you know, that's why I'm Singaporean." They can't suffice as reasons why you should stay here and not migrate.

For me, I think the reason why I feel Singaporean is simply because I was born here, raised here, and live here, with all the people I know. It feels anticlimactic I know, but I really can't put my finger on anything else.

All my family, all my friends, all the people I love and cherish so much, they are all here. They are what ties me emotionally to this place. It is because of them that this place can qualify as home. If you asked me, like the national campaign, "What would you defend?" I would immediately answer, my family and friends.

A cop-out? Perhaps. So what if all my family, all my friends, everyone I knew, moved away? Would I still want to stay here, and would Singapore still have any meaning left?

Honestly, I don't know.

Hm. I guess when we think about what it means to be Singaporean, the first thing that comes to mind, as I mentioned above, are our traits. A deeper level would encompass what we've been through as a country, the challenges we've faced, how we've overcome them, how far we've come.

I know I'm veering dangerously close to trite national education here, but as I like to say of cliches, it's only cliched because it's true. As natives born and bred here, we cannot ignore our history. So as much as we may roll our eyes whenever we see black-and-white footage of Lee Kuan Yew in our pre-independence, merger and early post-independence days, we cannot deny that his cries of "Merdeka!" and his tears contribute to the fabric of the society we live in now. And since we are members of society, this entire history becomes, inexplicably, part of us too.

I say all this as a fact, something to be aware of. I have no illusions that many of us (especially young Singaporeans) cannot identify personally with our country's early struggles. We can appreciate the past, yes, value what it has taught us, maybe, but it does not qualify as a reason for patriotism as it might for, say, our parents.

Similarly, the fact that the country may have made you who you are is not reason for patriotism. I think many of us will say we are grateful for and appreciative of the advantages Singapore has given us. For some people, this is a reason why they belong here. Personally, I feel that all the advantages I have had are reason enough for me to feel a sense of duty to the country. It is, in a sense, like looking after your parents when they're old. However, I can't blame others for feeling stifled or over-pressured because of our system and thus feeling like they don't belong here in this kind of environment. Our system can make a person cynical.

Which brings me to my next point, about cynicism. I would say that many Singaporeans (including the young, educated, relatively well-off type, like, well, me) are shortsighted by their cynicism. I cannot blame you for being cynical, but I believe I can fault you if you refuse to come out of your shell. It constantly amazes me how my relatives, taxi drivers, my driving instructor, can link anything - delays in road improvements along Jln Eunos, taxes, an ugly old house in Pasir Panjang that should be torn down but hasn't been - to the Lee dynasty, the impotence of our government, the terrible bureaucracy etc etc. It's okay to gripe, but there are limits. Anyway, side point. What I wanted to say is, I think many Singaporeans use their cynicism as a shield against any pride or belonging they may feel at being Singaporean. It's perverse. The table tennis team wins a medal at the Olympics, and immediately there're cries that the medal isn't really ours, it's China's. A Canadian visitor praises us on the general state of the country in the ST Forum, and someone shoots back a letter accusing him of being ungrateful to the Canadian government (what the hell, really). Young (especially artsy) people almost pride themselves on being cynical - and I'll admit I do that sometimes too. We have no space, no air, we're stifled, but we never really challenge ourselves to fix it or to rise against it. We're cynical without being proactive, with only enough energy to criticise. We dismiss Singapore - which, as I stated earlier, is an undeniable part of our selves - as casually as a bad meal or or lousy performance. We are too entrenched in our cynicism and inferiority complex to even admit that somewhere inside there may be something that is keeping us here.

Let me relate what happened yesterday. I was on guard duty in camp (yes, guard duty on National Day). One of the first things my guards asked me, because the TV in the rest area was spoilt, was whether they could come into the office to watch the NDP on the office TV. Unfortunately the office TV has no antenna, but luckily they managed to catch the live broadcast of the NDP on the Web. I went into the rest area to take a peek. And there they were, 8 18- to 20-year olds, in slacks and boots, standing around a computer screen watching the performances. One guy was singing Count On Me Singapore. I went back into the office, and the prowlers on duty sent a comms asking me if they could stop for a while to recite the Pledge. I said yes. When the time came, all of us said the Pledge, albeit not hand-on-heart, but we said it. Even the guards on duty, I believe.

I will readily admit that for many, reciting the Pledge together was half, three-quarters a joke - it's a crazy idea. I was laughing with the MP Spec as I said it. But the fact that we did - in those few moments there, that is the pride of being Singaporean. That is the sense of belonging, no matter how silly we may have felt, or how the surface of our minds kept on going "Stupid lah!". You may say the Pledge Moment was propaganda extorting a contributory emotion from its participants. But we must bear in mind the participants took part of their own will.

I realise I have failed in trying to explain what being Singaporean is. But no matter. Perhaps it is better to just know it when the feeling comes, as I did in the guardroom yesterday. It was very moving, and in a sense National Day this year has meant more to me than possibly all the past years put together, because it's stirred me to think of and write all this. So what do I see? I see a country still unsure of itself and its identity. But it warms the heart to know that we do, in the end, for whatever inexplicable reason, belong here.

2009-07-18T15:46:00.002+08:00

well. so I'm actually done with my ucas application. just need to keep on looking at the essay for the next few weeks before I finally send it in to vj.

good thing that's settled, because the nyu supplement has just been released. there are four short essays I need to write; the easiest one goes:

"Please tell us what led you to select your anticipated academic program and/or NYU school/college, and what interests you most about your intended discipline."

after that, it gets difficult. but at least this one I can still accept:

"If you had the opportunity to spend one day in New York City with a famous New Yorker, who would it be and what would you do? (Your New Yorker can be anyone - past or present, fictional or nonfictional - who is commonly associated with New York City; they do not necessarily have to be born and raised in New York.)

currently no one in mind for that one. maybe gatsby or nick haha.

anyway. after that is when things really get out of hand:

"Write a haiku, limerick, or short (eight lines or fewer) poem that best represents you."

and the last one:

"In the year 2050, a movie is being made of your life. Please tell us the name of your movie and briefly summarize the story line."

ARGH.

2009-07-17T13:24:00.002+08:00

course has started, which means my trainees have come in. next week is already week 5, so the previous 4 weeks have passed much quicker than I thought they would.

it's very draining to run around camp setting up for training or collecting stores or conducting training or doing admin or having meetings in which no one is listening. also because I haven't woken up at 5 plus every day since july last year, which was when I was on course. it gets worse outfield where every day is spent either creating dust or inhaling it.

ran 16km for the first time in my life this morning. it was alright, surprisingly. hoping for the best for ahm now. aiming below 2:15 for the supposed three days off haha.

uk applications have opened, and us ones will next month. so it's time to start getting panicky. booked my SATs for october and november, that's about all I've done. hopefully I finish my uk application by this weekend so I can get it out of the way. my driving test is on sept 11 (yeah. I know right) and the fact that the lesson planned for next sat is only my 4th one is getting me a little worried as well.

sometimes I think how momentous a decision like choosing universities is and I just feel so detached. unfortunately or not, what keeps on floating in my mind currently is all the stuff I should get done in camp on monday.

time to pull myself together.

2009-06-18T20:43:00.038+08:00

so. bali!

we begin on a wednesday morning at changi airport.

I was the only person in shorts, I couldn't believe it.

our flight was to jakarta, because all the direct flights to denpasar in bali were fully booked when we booked the package. on hindsight, choosing to transit was a bad decision. wandering around soekarno-hatta airport trying to figure out where exactly we should be going was not pleasant, particularly when everyone we spoke to couldn't seem to forgive the fact that we were poor tourists (though , given how all the service staff automatically became "bitches", perhaps they could be forgiven for acting like they did). anyway, we eventually got on the connecting flight to denpasar. upon arrival, we found our agent, a balinese dude called mahar. how did we find him? a placard saying "Mr Chia Keng On Matthew". felt so embarrassed.

the 20-plus minutes to the hotel gave us our first look at bali. truth be told, it was uninspiring. motorcyclists whizzing past run-down shophouses, many shuttered, dirty signs advertising telecom services, empty plots of land littered with rubbish, zinc-roofed shacks beside unfriendly sidewalks, lone shopowners guarding their stock of sarongs, t-shirts and souvenir trinkets, replicated ad nauseam. you have this impression that bali is some kind of paradise, but once you're actually there you realise there's a lot of dirt to it as well.

we were staying at the inna putri bali in nusa dua, which is basically a gated community of hotels. I really mean "gated" - there are, I believe, only two entrances, and policemen are stationed at both to conduct security checks. once you pass through the gates, you enter the idyll of bali. cobblestone roads, mown grass, appropriately grand sculptures and statues, magnificent banyan trees in the middle of roundabouts, even stop lines and zebra crossings that cars actually stop at.

the hotel was designed, but of course, in balinese style.

two gamelan players were stationed at the entrance (we thought they were robots at first), the staff were all suitably dressed, twice as old as us yet embarrassingly polite - a trait we found common to almost everyone we met in bali - and we didn't even have to bring in our own luggage, the "boy" would do it. we had officially become tourists.

and then it was off to dinner at jimbaran beach, which is supposedly where you can catch the best sunsets in bali.

jimbaran is a whole stretch of seafood warungs, or restaurants. the tables are all on the sand near the water, which gives the place a lovely atmosphere. you wouldn't think that atmosphere elicits the following kind of response though.

they serve very tasty grilled seafood by candlelight, which is totally romantic. apart from the fact that you can't really see what you're eating.

yeah, we were happy.

to top it all off, they have roving bands crooning the beatles and other classics. even jason mraz's "I'm Yours". and we got to see our first (and last) cultural show:

the costumes and masks were amazing, even if we didn't understand the performances at all. it was rather amusing though, that every single restaurant along the beach offered the same thing. it was as if the performers simply rotated themselves among all the different restaurants.

at over S$40 per person, the dinner was definitely not cheap. then again, we did have lobster, prawns, mussels, squid, and two kinds of fish. most of which was done well.

there was a free shuttle service back to the hotel, but we requested to stop outside nusa dua to look at the shops. immediately fell into the tourist trap of buying bintang beer singlets at the very first shop we went to. oh well. we even bought indonesian instant noodles from a convenience store.

the next day was a one-day tour, which started off with water sports at tanjung benoa beach. the parasailing, banana boat and flying fish were all awesome. the glass-bottomed boat and turtle island weren't though. the so-called glass bottom was a 1m by 0.5m glass panel in the boat hull, and it was saddening to see some patches of dead, bleached coral. global warming, I tell you. I thought the best part of turtle island was the s$1.50 coconut juice (served in a coconut, with flesh too!), though jason and muthu did seem to like the turtles. there was also a miniature zoo with chained monkeys (lemurs?) and a huge bat hanging off a tree and an iguana and python kept in crates, all of which did seem rather like an exercise in animal cruelty. I was rather disturbed by the monkeys which kept on gnawing at bottles and other scraps of rubbish.

after that was a long drive up to the kintamani area, which is in the highlands of bali. yes, bali, at around 8 times the size of singapore, has space for mountains. volcanoes, even.

that's mt batur, the second highest mountain in bali after mt agung. batur is an active volcano - the lake in the second picture, lake batur, used to be its caldera.

the boy in the first picture was selling what else but souvenirs. it was strange, going for lunch in a cavernous but completely empty restaurant called the Maharaja, dining in the company of flies, orchestral chinese music playing in the background, and there were these people outside selling tees at 25,000 rupiah or something. it was such a disparity.

we then made a stopover at tampak siring, or "holy spring", which is apparently an indonesian heritage site. legend has it that an 11th-century king is buried there.

more travelling on narrow winding roads to a photo opportunity of bali's famous rice terraces:

and we finally reached ubud, the cultural heart of bali, so it goes. we spent only an hour in downtown ubud, which means we only got to look at the main market, stuffed full of figurines and masks and kites and fans etc. wooden penis keychains, too. oh yes, we did take a look at the royal palace at ubud:

mahar dropped us off at the main tourist area of kuta. dinner at the hard rock cafe bali, then the hunt for the only Topman outlet in bali, at discovery mall in kuta. we walked and walked just to get to discovery mall, and once we were in the mall we walked and walked and couldn't find it, until we were wandering around SOGO aimlessly without hope and suddenly I saw the unmistakeable Topman sign. It was hilarious, 4 guys running towards a store with all the SOGO staff staring at us and laughing. okay, so everything was the same price as or even more expensive than in Singapore. but it was cool to be there lol.

next morning was spent at the hotel's private beach.

wish we had more time there. it was all great, sun and sand and sea, or should I say ocean.

and I have to post this. compare, please.

when it got too hot, we went back in to the hotel and, er, played pool and ping-pong. don't ask, we just got hooked for some reason. then it was back to kuta for more shopping. entire streets of souvenir stores, with some boutiques thrown in (3 "dolce & gabbana" stores along kuta's main street!). had some ayam penyet which was really spicy but really shiok. the mie ayam, even if it was just instant noodles, was really good too. guess that was our only taste of so-called "authentic" balinese food, cause we couldn't resist the temptation of a & w for dinner. XD

and all too soon it was packing up, getting picked up and whisked to denpasar airport. it just had to happen that before we left, we had to walk the entire length of the airport to find the domestic terminal for our flight to jakarta and then proceed to sit on the floor of the departure hall and play bridge.

as the plane lifted off the tarmac, I inevitably felt that twinge of regret for leaving so soon and even thinking ill of the island and its people. yes, admittedly, bali is a tourist trap. I spent S$533 on the airfare plus hotel, and another S$300 on my own expenses (inclusive of S$50 extra worth of taxes we paid at jakarta and denpasar airports which the travel agency had somehow neglected to inform us about). there's honestly not that much in the way of shopping, and there are its other deficiencies. but the people are good, and I think the island does have more to offer, if you look. at any rate, even if I sound like it was terrible, it wasn't. we did enjoy it.

this has been one marathon post. took me like 2 hours. appreciate the effort people.

I'll leave with one more picture of jimbaran. cheers.

2009-06-07T18:59:00.002+08:00

updated list of unis and courses I'll be applying to:

1. goldsmiths, university of london - media & communications
2. new york university - media, culture & communication
3. cardiff university - communication
4. cardiff university - (joint honours in) journalism, film & media and cultural criticism
5. northwestern university - communication studies
6. university of melbourne - media & communications
7. university of the arts london - media & cultural studies

it's more or less finalised, I think. to be honest, I no longer really want to go to no.7, I don't know why. no. 6 is an insurance policy. if I can't get to melbourne, I might as well apply to ntu.

I have emailed mr cook already (no scathing remarks on my re-application, luckily), emailed emma the mica lady to update her, and just emailed mr josef tan to ask for his help for the us applications. so, coming very soon: the essay odyssey. I have my ucas one to review, and probably 6 to write for nyu and northwestern. URGH. then soon enough, SAT, PLUS subject tests, which I will definitely have to study for - I plan to take lit and... math? haha.

I was looking at the contact list for VJ teachers and was alarmed to find that out of all my teachers, only mr tan, mr teo gene-en, ms chia yueh chin, jireh and mr young are still at VJ. I didn't know ms cindy low and mr thomas teo had left too!

this just compounds the feeling of getting old which I was so keenly aware of yesterday when muthu desmond minyu and I stopped at dhs during our cycling / food trail. you see the place where you spent 4 years of your life with the three people beside you, and you see your sec 1 classroom converted into some cca room, and you see these new blocks behind the old landmarks that haven't changed much but changed sufficiently to make you feel a little... wistful. and you see that it's not really your place anymore.

but it was fun, the trip yesterday. prata at bedok simpang and dinner at the lagoon food centre! talking with the three of them about random things like who's going to get married first (I was rather surprised that the consensus that out of the three guys, the first would be - me!) and thinking about the future and generally feeling old lol.

off to bali on wednesday morning! now that feels really surreal.

back to camp later. I must say 8 months in the department has made me less emo about army. the work (or sometimes, the lack of work) becomes a kind of routine which is rather soothing. I find myself more zen nowadays, especially towards certain people, though there are times when I still can't get over how jaw-droppingly stupid / stubborn / odd / *insert other adjective here* people can be. ok lah, not like I'm some model of normalcy myself, but still.

okay dinner calls.

2009-05-09T12:41:00.002+08:00

I must say that NYU is starting to look as attractive as Goldsmiths.

Wish I could say the same for the admissions process.

2009-05-03T18:47:00.002+08:00

suddenly I wish I could, when asked "What are you going to do in uni?", reply simply: "Theatre."

2009-05-02T12:35:00.002+08:00

april was the first month in five years I didn't blog, which I assume must say something. perhaps I really am happier now, like claire said, hence the lack of verbose angst. actually I think it's just because I'm an NSF. and I'm getting lazy. but anyway. guess this post will revitalise this place. and yes, I'll replace the chatterbox. eventually.

met up with steph zach and claire (and bumped into mr. young) to go watch POOP by the finger players at the esplanade theatre studio last night. I think the consensus was we were all glad to have watched it. personally, I liked janice koh's performance, though neo swee lin did have many moving moments. the lights and shadowplay were good too. it felt... nostalgic, to watch a piece of theatre again.

after that we piled into claire's monster of a car and claire drove us (3 major faults along the way, HMM) to simpang for supper, where grace and charlotte joined us. we stayed past 1a.m. eating and catching up. it felt great just being with a group of people who still mean something special to you because they get you in a way no one else does. although all of our meetups are always tinged with a horror that we aren't getting younger (I sound like I'm fifty. should not be talking this way), there is also always a huge sense of comfort that some things just don't change, like bitchiness and zach's appetite.

recently I've been feeling a little... troubled. there are many things I should be doing that I'm not, like driving, writing, and most importantly uni considerations. but I just can't bring myself to buckle down to getting to it. it goes, oh, I still have 4 more months till applications open, or, aiyah, I don't really need a driving license anyway, or, there's no point trying to write or do anything else of considerable importance but that isn't directly urgent, because, you know, what does it matter? I can't stop playing the same songs on the guitar and I can't stop doing whatever else it is that somehow takes up all my time but never leaves a trace of an impression when it's done. when claire said she was once twelve essays behind in school, steph said something that really struck me, she said, "matt, you were never an essay behind." and it's true, I wasn't. I worked fanatically, almost. I still do, to a certain extent, in camp. which I guess may be the reason why I'm not putting any effort into doing the things that matter. time to bludgeon my self-will into shape I suppose.

I've also been thinking, pardon the pretentiousness, about what the phrase "existential distance" means and how I seem to be seeing it in places like the reflections in an mrt window or a single glance from a friend that no one else sees except me or an old couple holding hands under a too-small umbrella. it's inspiring unfinished lines of half-baked poetry that I haven't mustered the courage to even write down because I'm afraid it'll immediately turn cheesy.

well. I'm glad I got all that out of my system. now all of you can commiserate with me on my soon-to-be resurrected chatterbox. and I'm off to look for more song chords. I'll get down to unis tomorrow.

2009-03-24T18:11:00.002+08:00

it's been a great 20th birthday. on the day itself it was our FEE department day, and we all went for the dinner and karaoke at the end of the day. I was coerced (okay, not really, I just needed some pushing) into singing Jay's Cai Hong, after which I kinda got into the mood of things and sat in front watching others sing and singing along. then, turning around to make way for someone, I saw joel carrying a cake. of course, completely unwittingly, I had spoilt the surprise. nonetheless, it was touching, if I may set that word in an army context without sounding squeamish, to know they had specially gone out to get the cake and then to have the whole department sing me a birthday song.

it's... funny. I just didn't expect something like that to come from my army friends. which I realised later on wasn't being fair to them, or to the camp environment. after all, recently when I book out, I find myself thinking sometimes of the sense of comfort and purpose that I feel in camp. sure, work can be a bitch and everyone has their own flaws, but there's a soothing predictability in the routine, the bunkmates.

anyway, moving on. saturday was spent with some of the tsd people, plus a lunch of junk food, pies and mel's cake. we then played taboo until most of them left and johnny muthu and I were just lazing on my couch talking about nothing in particular. lesson learnt: never let johnny plan a birthday celebration. lol but of course the company's more important. with who else could the following occur:

me: (the word I'm supposed to describe is 'jet', and so I sing) I'm leaving on a...
(pause)
johnny: treetop?

dinner to celebrate my grandmother's birthday at ting heng seafood restaurant in tiong bahru, the food was amazing. and real cheap ($40 per person for crab, prawns, bamboo clams, fish, and 6 more dishes - it was $400 for a table of 10).

coldplay concert yesterday. it was awesome. as soon as they appeared the whole crowd just stood up and went wild. and the setlist: most of viva la vida, yellow, politik, in my place, speed of sound, fix you, god put a smile upon your face, a lovely piano version of the hardest part, and the scientist, which is the first coldplay song I fell in love with (I nearly cried when they played it). the yellow balls bouncing around and the butterfly confetti during lovers of japan brought things to a whole new level (of course, everyone, jason and I included, took back a set of different-coloured butterflies), and the lights, plus the backdrops and the cool screen things, were all impressive too. and, surprisingly, they were very engaging, especially when they came into the crowd to perform that song by the monkees about seeing her face and becoming a believer (lol sorry I don't know the title). jason and I loved it all. I'm so glad I got to go - thank you to my jie, kor and mother.

clearing my off for atp today. so since I had nothing to do, I decided on a whim to go cycling. I did the whole eastern park connector network, around 40km in total, in about 3 1/2 hours. much less than the 6 plus hours I took for the first time I did it last year before enlisting. it was nice to know that the army has done me some good, because I felt less tired at the end than the last time. though my knees were aching like anything at the end.

it was very nice weather to cycle today, cloudy for the most part, a bit of sun towards the end. NParks has spruced up the paths, and directions are much clearer now though some markings have already begun to fade. I was struck by how quiet bedok and tampines estates were (I must admit I thought of urban desolation a la lit h3 and alfian sa'at haha), by how everything looked the same but the person travelling through them was different (yes, the recurring theme of journeys), and of course by the many rovers and 3tonners I saw. all the memories of driving school came back. it felt so odd, you know.

hm. I'm supposed to meet an insurance agent at amk hub tomorrow. I dunno, but I have this urge to cancel the meeting. it's tiring to even entertain the concept of life as a fiscally responsible grown-up with clear aims. I'm thinking of going just to put it aside so I can forget about it and he won't bother me. it keeps on nagging at me. no sense of purpose, no sense of purpose.

alright, I've run out of any subject matter I can use as an excuse to ramble on, so if you're still reading at this point, thank you (...?) for making it through this marathon post. I wonder if I made mundanity sound exciting. probably not.

2009-03-08T12:02:00.003+08:00

well well. the horrible week that I mentioned in my previous entry turned out much better than I expected. cleared my atp, got a silver for ippt, and ithe deployment training got cancelled because it was a cat 1 =D

hm. as usual, nothing much has happened. well, this past week marked the second time I went to raiders with the guys to play counterstrike. hahaha

11 more days to twenty. still trying to figure out how I feel about that.

2009-02-20T20:37:00.002+08:00

first guard commander duty tomorrow. one whole saturday plus sunday morning burnt at guardroom.

booking in earlier on sunday night to prepare for monday.

a probable half-hour ability group run on monday morning, followed by training on camouflaging of vehicle and deployment drill. 3 sets of vehicle stores to load, 3 vehicles to camouflage, and 1 shellscrape to dig.

ippt on wednesday. I'm hoping really hard I'm lucky on sbj and my shuttle run doesn't screw up on me.

imt on friday, then atp on saturday. so another saturday burnt.

I cannot, cannot wait for the 28th to be over.

2009-02-16T19:40:00.002+08:00

I have officially withdrawn my UCAS application. which means that now, with regards to uni, I am effectively back at square one.

you may know (or, like most people, you've probably forgotten or you didn't know at all) that the only college in the UK I really want to go to is Goldsmiths. and as I realised last year while applying, Goldsmiths states on its Media & Communications degree website that it does not accept deferred entry applications for that particular course.

however, due to stubbornness, a wish to assure the Ministry, naivete and a fair bit of comfort in denial, I applied through UCAS last year anyway. so I went through the entire process of picking colleges, writing the personal essay, sending my application to VJ, enduring Mr Cook's monosyllabic emails and the four-month wait before my testimonial was written, etc etc.

of course, throughout the process the thought kept on nagging at me that Goldsmiths wouldn't accept me. but I countered, well, if they don't, then I'll just apply again this year.

true enough, just a couple of days after my application reached them, it got rejected.

so... even though Cardiff accepted me for both courses that I applied for (Communication and Media, Journalism & Cultural Criticism), simply because I didn't have a fair shot this application, I am going to apply again.

... yes. I know it was stupid of me.

so it's another 7 months till the next cycle begins. in the meantime I'm going to re-look colleges. not just in the UK, but the US too. and I am telling myself now that I will do it RIGHT this time.

I'm only worried that Mr Cook will have something to say. >_<

I called the UCAS hotline just now to assure myself that I could actually apply again, and after the call I do not know how I am going to live with a British accent if I go over there. even worse, I'm already worried about picking it up.

in happier news, jason and I are going for the coldplay concert, top seats =D

and just for the record, Yellow on acoustic guitar gives me the shivers.

and I'm off to book in.

2009-02-01T14:31:00.002+08:00

yesterday's tsd reunion steamboat at claire's place was great. stuffed ourselves with the steamboat and three kinds of desserts, then sat in claire's living room and yakked all the way from 10 plus till almost 2am. it was the first time in a while that I felt so... alive.

2009-01-16T21:11:00.002+08:00

I am starting to get angsty once again. I think it's all the paperwork that I've been doing. it's unhealthy.

today we did a 2.4 trial run, and my time was 10.59.

just yesterday night I got a call from joshua, who I met at driving course, and he asked, was I going for the jason mraz concert? and I went WHAT, and then I went down to the office and checked sistic. ticketing opened on monday. it's gonna be at the indoor stadium, march 3rd. and there were no tickets left. at all. like, zero.

I swear I need to be more in the loop.

anyway.

Sitting on a carousel ride
Without any music or lights
Everything was closed at Coney Island
I could not help from smiling

I can hear the Atlantic echo back
Rollercoaster screams from summers past
Everything was closed at Coney Island
I could not help from smiling
Brooklyn will fill the beach eventually
Everyone will go except me

2009-01-11T14:10:00.002+08:00

it's been a long week, because this is the first full week I've been in camp since december. plus duty on thursday night, when I came back home I slept 13 hours (!).

I believe now in camp I'm getting a taste of how working life will be like. suffice to say it's not leaving a good taste. it's frustrating. and, guys are bitches. not just tsd guys, mind you. not that everyone didn't know that already, but just so it's on the record. of course I'm guilty as well. but I suppose we have a reason. we're all fine as friends, but once it comes to work. ergh.

on duty on thursday, I realised just how much people latch onto one characteristic and define you by it. I have no idea if people who dunno me really believe that when I go out with friends on the weekends it is to go to a library and study, or that if they brought me clubbing I'd sit in a corner and read a book. the worst part is when all this is insidiously implied, and even more so when the person asking is halfway between innocent and mocking. I am sick of it.

celebrated cheryl's 20th yesterday with dinner at waraku at central, then gelato at some place just opposite the river. then we walked to timbre at the substation, but it was full and the queue was, well, long. so after a bit of aimlessness (as usual lol) we ended up at coffee club at hotel rendezvous, where we had a good long talk about relationships. the highlight must have been serhua's theory of love (please contact her directly for enquiries). was nice to just sit there till almost 2. cheers to more times like that.

uk unis may not consider applications sent in after 15 jan if there are no vacancies for the course. since I'm applying for deferred entry, that shouldn't be too much of a problem... but still. I sent in my application on september 14, and it's still stuck in vj. have emailed mr cook already anyway. twice.

anyone has any contacts for getting an acoustic guitar (secondhand okay, need not be in mint condition) on the cheap? if it's cheap enough I want to bring it into camp.

I just got The Photo Album heh heh heh.

off I go.

2009-01-01T14:32:00.002+08:00

I haven't felt like blogging at all recently. in fact I've been thinking of just letting this blog fade away into the cyber void. but since it's the new year, well. I get a reason to publish!

so, 2008 has been a year of... what? after talking with jane and muthu the other day this question has kept on flitting into my head. the reason why I go blank here is because, as wailumn said, national service hit the 'pause' button on my life. though, I guess, it's been an experience (and will continue to be). and though I haven't achieved anything concrete, hopefully I have mellowed. I think so.

so, 2009. there is little trepidation of what the new year might bring this time. as for wishes and goals, well.

1. pick up guitar
2. learn how to drive
3. keep fit
4. exercise fiscal reponsibility and restraint (heh)
5. maintain relationships
6. start writing again
7. mellow and mature (inasmuch as I can do in this regard)

I think these are achievable. but we'll see.

here's to a good year (even if it may suck at points).

happy new year everyone.

2008-12-05T23:53:00.003+08:00

and it's already december!

... and still nothing much is happening. recently, I've been getting increasingly astonished by how so much of nothing can happen in the army.

I am waiting for the day when snow patrol and death cab come to perform in singapore.

in the meantime, at least there's christmas. :)

2008-11-08T11:18:00.002+08:00

just caught on to the fact that the last time I updated was when I passed my class 4 test. that means I've already been back at nee soon for 2 weeks and a bit. the thing is, there's nothing much to update. er. well, I've been doing admin work mostly. redecorating the office has probably been the most exciting task given to me so far. other than that, life's been... uneventful. will be going to support an exercise for the first time from monday to wednesday though, that should be an experience at least. considering 328 SCE is the best NSman engineer unit and all.

went to watch Cake Theatrical Productions and The Finger Players' joint production. Flare, yesterday at the National Museum Gallery Theatre with steph and charlotte. it was an excellent production really. it's based loosely on peter schaffer's Equus, so horses take on some psychological importance in the play (bringers of doom and death, symbolic of madness and breakdown etc etc - I thought I'd go into some lit/tsd jargon here but realised I no longer have the capability to do so). the acting was solid as charlotte said, particularly the mother/son duo. and the puppets (the horses, and the actors playing them), and the lights, everything. a few parts were a little draggy and some effects were in doubt, but the good scenes more than made up for the lapses. the first scene with the villagers - puppets, music, nora samosir's voice. and the entire mother/son/Swift story. wow. I'm glad I went.

I always get a little wistful after watching theatre nowadays, knowing that somehow it's not the same. even if a miracle happened and I got directly involved in a production again, I doubt the feeling would be the same. it'd be like looking in from the outside, still.

this feeling of lethargy is setting in. I feel quite certain now that I'd give up on a hobby quite soon after picking it up. which is a paralysing thought when you want to start writing again and start on photography and learning the guitar. which is probably why I haven't started. well, except with the guitar, I was playing around with my father's last week.

perhaps 12 years of accumulated laziness is finally catching up with me.

in other (more cheerful) news, it's 47 days to christmas! probably time to start considering presents and cards and plan stupid christmas outings, for example, busking ouside the fullerton hotel with a santa hat and a sign saying, "We know we're bad, so if you don't want to give money to us, please donate to them!", them being the salvation army volunteers who we'd have kidnapped from city hall and planted beside us.

can't wait :)

2008-10-20T22:14:00.002+08:00

I passed my 4th driving test! I should also add that I failed the previous 3 at the same junction 2 minutes outside of the camp, so I am extremely happy. now it's only one or two days more of island-wide driving then it's back to nee soon.

it's been a funny 6 weeks, in retrospect. I will remember for a long time jerome suddenly turning to me one day when we were doing 3ton parking and saying, "matthew, you don't look like a heavy truck driver!"

I've come a long way I think.

I've met a lot of people I never thought I would, and I sure hope to keep in contact with at least some of them.

but the most crucial part of the experience so far is probably the 3 failed tests. I admit I'm not used to failure, and the past 10 days since I took my first test were quite emotionally draining. all the arcs of alternating self-confidence and feeling plain stupid.

it was humbling, so much so that it became, and I'm not being trite, a spiritual awakening of sorts. I wouldn't say I've become much more religious, just that I've become more aware of God's presence at all my low points.

okay I need my 6 hours of sleep to mitigate the risk of driving tomorrow (hur hur hur), but before going off, I must quote Expo '86:

Sometimes I think this cycle never ends
We slide from top to bottom then we turn and climb again
And it seems by the time that I have figured what it's worth
The squeaking of our skin against the steel has gotten worse

But if I move my place in line I'll lose
And I have waited, the anticipation's got me glued

I am waiting for something to go wrong
I am waiting for familiar resolve
I am waiting for another repeat
Another diet fed by crippling defeat
And I am waiting for that sense of relief
I am waiting for you to flee the scene
As if you held in your hand a smoking gun
And on the floor lay the one you said you'd loved

I really really like death cab for cutie.

I wish I could write songs. :(

2008-10-12T17:00:00.002+08:00

I failed my first driving test (military, not civilian, in case you didn't know).

failed to give way to traffic. failed to give way to pedestrians.

I need to pass on tuesday. I want to get out.

this year's biennale is pretty alright, by the way. not as rah-rah as the first one, but there're some good works. didn't have enough time to look at most of the videos though. anyway, it was good to meet up with some of the tsd people (even if it was only zach and steph) and have a good laugh at the pretentious captions and all.

there has been a growing realisation that maybe just drifting on from week to week does not entail an existential crisis after all. that's probably the normal state of things. though, on second thought, those two aren't mutually exclusive.

oh well. another week.

2008-09-30T20:59:00.002+08:00

recently, I've been feeling very listless. I only just realised that that's because I'm bored with my life.

perhaps what's worse than that is feeling like just leaving things that way.

I'm going to sleep.

2008-09-14T20:08:00.002+08:00

I have sent in my ucas application!

my statement took up the full 47 lines allowed. it sounds, like most personal statements, vaguely overdone. but whatever, it's done. now it's just hoping that goldsmiths at least takes a look at my deferred entry application and doesn't reject it outright. cause if they do, then my whole application (and the $50 I'm paying for it!) was for nothing.

I'm not as relieved as I should be. ergh.

is anyone at all willing to sponsor a $100 river island shirt for me?

...

oh well. time to book in.

2008-09-13T14:58:00.002+08:00

life's getting better, I guess. getting used to the rhythm of training at kaki bukit. have progressed to driving the landrover on public roads now, spent parts of thursday and friday driving around tampines, pasir ris and bedok reservoir (if at any time you saw a military vehicle stalled on the road, that was probably me). public road assessment is on tuesday and needless to say by monday evening I will be scared shitless.

I am very tired and would like to sleep, but I need to edit my statement. and a guilty voice at the back of my head keeps on telling me that for two weeks I haven't done any form of exercise except controlling the clutch.

I need longer bookouts.

... back to my statement then.

2008-09-07T19:10:00.000+08:00

update!

wall-e is GOOD. watched it yesterday with zach charlotte steph and jason. was nice to see them all! at dinner at ichiban sushi (which was also good! and very filling) we were rather quiet at first until somehow or other we got into the rhythm of talking. I do believe the topic that got us going was something or other on law, sex or a lame joke. (says something about us eh? lol)

this past week was my first at military driving school. reveille 5 a.m., breakfast, bus to kaki bukit at 6.30, driving and theory the whole day till 5, dinner, bus back to sembawang at 6 plus. apart from the redundancy of the daily bus rides (it's 20 minutes from kaki bukit to marine parade by bus), there's also the terrible showers at sembawang - when there're a lot of people showering at the same time, the water pressure is less than a pee stream - and, well, the sianness of it all. I am coping, but it's not easy going. especially since this week I had a flu. I just want to complete everything and pass and leave as soon as possible.

I need to be less kancheong spider when I drive. sigh.

I have decided on uk unis and courses. for now the list goes:

1. Goldsmiths, Media & Communications
2. University of the Arts London, Media & Cultural Studies
3. Cardiff, Communication
4. Cardiff, Journalism, Media & Cultural Criticism

I have also (just) finished the first complete draft of my ucas statement. it's a lousy attempt and I will definitely have to redo it. but I'm glad the evil part of actually starting on it is now over. I'll have to try and finish by next week when they start accepting applications.

what else. death cab for cutie's Narrow Stairs was surprisingly good. before I heard it at gramophone I thought death cab was a screamo rock band or something. I'd never have thought they're actually my kind of music lol.

am currently reading (very slowly) jonathan franzen's The Corrections, which is very good. a bit much at times, but entertaining and poignant when it needs to be.

alright, have to go and have dinner before bookin at sembawang at 9.30. sigh. till next saturday.

2008-08-17T16:40:00.002+08:00

I must blog about the olympics!

what I've been thinking the most is: so, as all these athletes, so many of them around my age, are breaking world records and winning gold medals, all I'm doing is sitting in front of my tv and watching them do it. it's an odd situation. as tay yek keak put it so eloquently in today's paper, they're doing things that even my CGI self would get a hernia doing. every day I feel woefully inadequate, as I gaze at the gymnasts and runners and swimmers do their thing. sports meets have this effect, I suppose. nastia liukin is 18, shawn johnson 16, and they're the top 2 gymnasts in the world. what can I do? trip over myself trying to find the right words to describe their routines.

of course, beyond the sense of inadequacy is a hell lot of admiration for these people. admiration and respect. michael phelps always comes to mind. he's only 23 and is already the greatest olympian of all time. that's just... huge. I always wonder what he's thinking. does he consider the gravity of not just the title bestowed on him, but also the achievements leading to the title?

I'm definitely not a sporty person, and a world where a hundredth of a second actually makes a world of difference seems almost alien to me. I guess that just increases my admiration for these athletes. for their willingness to just dive in and strain for every little improvement, and refuse to think of implications, consequences, meaning.

no wonder I'm not a sportsman really. lol.

it's at times like these that I truly believe in humanity and possibility.

so, cheers to the olympics. I'm hoping to be able to volunteer for the youth games in singapore in 2010, though, if I can't, I'll make sure I catch the london games. but, before that, although no one will read it, I sincerely wish all the athletes well. that, of course, includes singapore's table-tennis team. good luck to them.

humanity and possibility. I like that.

and since we're talking about sports. hmm. I'll go for a jog now. heh.

2008-08-04T17:58:00.002+08:00

travis were fucking awesome. they sang around 20 songs, from 11 to 12.40. it was really just glorious, stuck in the crowd and singing my heart out and waving my arms around as if I was drowning at sea. even better when everyone else around started doing the same. it was... profound. elemental. like a party at gatsby's mansion but without the undertones of corruption hahaha. when the music on Turn started, and again when fran reached the chorus, when the brit girl called claire just turned around during Closer and started singing and swaying with me, when the intro to Love Will Come Through started and jason and I both screamed, when everyone, everyone jumped and jumped and echoed Why Does It Always Rain On Me, when every song reached the last few notes, I felt like crying. because I was so damn happy. fucking awesome.

and I still can't listen to anyone else but them!

if they do come again, I am getting tickets the moment I hear the news. actually, I'd do the same for one republic and jason mraz as well. really regret not getting a sunday ticket.

went for the scholarship award ceremony just now at the art museum. felt really guilty for falling asleep during the briefing. though they were talking about core competencies and strategic outcomes and all that.

I don't know why I have such a strong aversion to such 'government-speak'. it disturbs me, vaguely, I think, how everything becomes an objective. it's an abuse of language.

yeah, I know. I'll be working there for 6 years right.

I think I might just be able to surprise myself with political incorrectness. hopefully I am capable.

I still find it really funny that najid and I are the only two to have got the overseas scholarship. and even funnier that we're the only two who haven't settled on where to go yet.

back to camp soon, summary exercise this week. only 16 days to passing out!

2008-08-01T21:24:00.004+08:00

would anyone at all want to watch RESERVOIR by theatreworks?

“Deep in the heart of MacRitchie Reservoir lie the ruins of the Syonan Jinja, a Shinto shrine built during the Japanese Occupation of Singapore. Envisioned first as a spiritual and recreational centre for the future empire, then built by Australian POWs and Japanese craftsmen, today it exists only as stone relics and fragments, swallowed up by the thick tropical rainforest.

As young artists, we have embarked on a journey of discovery to reclaim this forgotten monument. Its very existence is intriguing – a beautiful artefact of civilisation from an age of blood and destruction. Its architects made outlandish promises: that the site would be the greatest in the world after the Meiji Shrine, that the area might be a future host for the Olympic Games.

Perhaps most provoking is the love-hate relationship between Singapore and the shrine. Historians and tourism promoters want it preserved, even rebuilt to commemorate our national heritage. Ordinary citizens, however, have violently objected to any celebration of former Japanese rule – even as they happily consume Japanese commercial and cultural products.

Led by TheatreWorks’ Associate Artistic Director, Choy Ka Fai, we are an ensemble of creative people from Singapore and Japan with roots in poetry, dance, drama, architecture, sports and multimedia. We have made pilgrimages to the jungle, probed the site scientifically, studied archival documents, drawings and oral histories, and processed our own collective memories to recreate and re-imagine the shrine as a sacred site.

Our performance, a tapestry of images, sound and movement, will be a drama of recollection, an attempt to capture the Syonan Jinja's sleeping spirit.”

“Egypt has its pyramids, China its tomb of Shi Huang Ti, England its Stonehenge and Indonesia its Borobudur. Why not Syonan Jinja for Singapore? It has its fair share of history, mystery and romance.”
Report on Syonan Jinja Surveys September 1988. Records of Singapore Tourism Promotion Board. National Archive of Singapore.

I like theatreworks. it's a pity I couldn't go for last year's 24-hour playwriting competition, or this year's, for that matter. their productions are rather over my head a lot of the time, but they do pick very interesting subject material, lofty would be proud. anyway, the performances are 28-30 august, 8pm nightly, with a 3pm matinee on the 30th. tix are only $15 for nsfs and students. and it'll of course be at 72-13 along mohamed sultan. so, anyone?

just this week I picked up this gem of a lyric from travis' Side:

but life is both a major and a minor key
just open up the chord

I've been listening to travis the whole week of course.

singfest is TOMORROW! whoooooo

2008-07-27T19:32:00.002+08:00

xfiles with steph mel zach and khairi yesterday, plus ling deb and johnny at dinner, followed by icecream and bumming at merlion park. karaoke at teo heng today with muthu minyu eunice and desmond. love you guys!!!

I signed in to hotmail just now and found out I received an email from someone I didn't know, entitled 'bald pictures'. I thought it might be spam, but I just opened it anyway, out of curiosity. there was a short message: 'here you go, lil matthew chia!' and there were pictures of a guy (with a girl, presumably the sender, in some of them) who, from his hair, must have just entered the army. there were quite a few pictures - around 10 - and the last was of the guy's 11b. he was a year older than me, and his name was chia peng chong matthew. I replied the sender, telling her she must have got the wrong address.

I can't explain just how much this affected me. seeing a face I didn't know, but a name I did. and seeing him smiling at me.

I went to look at all my old photos. I paid special attention to how I looked. and I was smiling so much. I looked so happy. we all did. I had travis playing on my radio. and suddenly, looking at all those pictures, I felt weary. overwhelmingly weary. I still do. I just want to stop. no, not just stop. stop.

2008-07-25T12:56:00.004+08:00

On Sunday before booking in, I emailed Goldsmiths, Royal Holloway, LCC (London College of Communication at University of the Arts London), Loughborough, Lancaster, Birmingham and Cardiff asking about deferred entry to their Media / Communications courses, emphasising the circumstances (how MICA wants me to apply this year and all). Five days later, I received three replies. The reply from Loughborough didn't tell me anything I didn't know, the one from Goldsmiths was, I'm pretty sure, taken from a template, and the one from Royal Holloway was a system-generated message stating that the person I emailed would be back on Saturday. Not this Saturday (i.e. tomorrow), by the way. The Saturday just before the Sunday I sent out the emails.

And so that's how it goes. That Goldsmiths apparently does not accept deferred entry (which is why I asked, to see if any exceptions could be made) was already a blow. Not just that. Media Studies is apparently a 'Mickey Mouse' subject - creating an asymmetrical labour market, is what I think it'd be in economics terms. Last year, there were 43 times as many Media Studies graduates as there were job vacancies in the media industry in the UK. Also, it apparently teaches you nothing in particular. And such courses, and the students taking them, are often subject to derision and perhaps even a dose of pity. Add that to the fact that no one really knows or cares about MICA, and the universities and the very subject I'm considering are not exactly... how shall I say it, very prestigious.

I know I have no right to complain. I know it doesn't really matter what other people say. I know that there are other good universities in the UK besides Cambridge and Oxford. I know that Media Studies can be challenging because of its interdisciplinarity and the diverse issues it covers. And I do know I do / will have a passion for the subject. It's just that I can't lie to myself and say I'm not affected by everyone in camp referring to the 'scholar' as if he's not me but my invisible twin brother; by my mother's surprised, almost doubtful look when I first told her it was going to be Media Studies; by the negative stuff I've been reading; and of course, by my own inferiority complex.

Doubt is a terrible, terrible feeling.

2008-07-19T13:48:00.002+08:00

it just hit me that if my life were a novel, who'd buy it?

after all, novels work because they're populated with characters that reach a limit and cross it, or, failing which, spiral down in disappointment. generally, you get what I mean. they progress. they get somewhere, even if it it's back to the same place in the end.

oh well. no biographies on me anytime soon I suppose.

2008-07-04T23:05:00.003+08:00

before anything else:

www.singaporetheatrefestival.com

I see charlotte's point now, they're actually doing a pretty darn good job of making the productions look enticing. I want to watch Apocalypse, angel-ism and Double-Bill #1. anyone? quick quick, early bird discount ends this coming week!!

well. another five days in camp gone by, and I'm feeling much better. we are quite likely receiving the most welfare in the entire engineer formation at the moment. not to mention I think I'm improving. I can drive straight...er now.

I've finished khaled hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns, and I'm very glad I picked it up. it is in the end as heartwarming and moving as it is shattering. I'm not going to bother critiquing it (I don't have the capability anyway), but I'll just say I believe it's more powerful than The Kite Runner. I also believe that somehow, people who've been exposed to lit will enjoy it more. must be all the paralleling going on.

after booking out today, I went to beach road to get a new set of uniform for my parade 4 (e-mart was out of stock, and I need a set this coming week). after that I should have gone home, but a sudden craving for subway came on and so I went to raffles city, where I got my meal and sat down on a random bench in the shopping centre, alone. I guess it was a kinda loserish thing to do, as the pitying stares from quite a few passersby implied. but my mood was a complete reversal of last week's entry. instead, I was overwhelmed by the enormity of all our lives. you see people walk by and you wonder what they're thinking, where they're going, who they're meeting, and it all adds up. it's... exciting, that's the only word I can grasp now to describe it. the typical buzz of a teeming city. I guess that's why I like urban areas.

all this talk of observing others and being part of the city reminds me of who else but dear old nick carraway. nick has been popping up in my mind quite a few times this week partly because of all my musing on loneliness and blah, and also because I've been driving the vehicle a fair bit this week and remembering all that about careful drivers. you really can tell a lot about a person from their driving. I think for a long time before engaging the gear, I try to be as cautious as possible, I have a fear of high speeds and I stick to the corners a bit too fastidiously.

booking in tomorrow (saturday) night, for live mine arming on sunday. sigh.

2008-06-29T14:32:00.004+08:00

surprisingly enough, what I've been feeling the most recently is loneliness.

I suppose for the most part it's due to my new posting to the mine clearing vehicle (MCV) course. new bunkmates (only 5 of them), new instructors, completely different learning environment, even if I'm still in nee soon. getting separated from all my basic course and even sispec bunkmates feels just about as bad as all the times that I entered new classes when still schooling. it's the sianness of making new friends... again. and this time wth people who I'll readily admit I can't hit it off that well with.

though, as is always the case with me, such a feeling must always present itself with existential connotations. after the outing to the botanic gardens yesterday with charlotte and jane I was walking through marina square listening to Gravity and everything suddenly just felt different: the NSFs in charge of crowd control sweating in their berets and silently resigning themselves to yet another saturday burnt; transactions in dumbshow; the lingering smell of a passing stranger's perfume; the poignancy of two clasped hands seen through a gap in the silenced crowd. all our lives, our aloneness, our companionship, our loving, our aching.

all our aching, in the deep places we cannot even begin to understand.

2008-06-22T18:29:00.002+08:00

I only have half a week of my basic course left, and after that I'll be moving on to my specialisation, whatever and (quite possibly more importantly) wherever that might be. as much as it may be anathema to say I remotely enjoy any aspect of the army, I actually do like nee soon and the basic engineer course.

there have been times where I felt woefully inadequate in terms of skill proficiency, and for the first time in my army experience I felt more guilt that I didn't learn properly, as compared to before, when I would just attribute every fault to the system or instructors. so I guess my sense of responsibility, for my own learning and the instructing of whoever is under my command in the future, has awakened. I sound as if I've swallowed all the propaganda they've been feeding us - you know, I think I have. because I've actually started seeing the commanders with more respect and less contempt.

at any rate, once again I'l be moving on to another phase of my training, so I'm just hoping for the best.

I like to think I've become more zen about things. I guess cause it takes too much energy to angst and rage and *insert other strong verbs here*.

have you ever felt a certain sense of disconnect from yourself? like when you look at a picture of yourself taken some months back. you go, oh, my skin was paler then, I had more hair (well, in the boys' case, of course), but those thoughts can't justify the nagging sense that between then and now something quite indescribable and intangible has happened, and you don't really know what that could be. or even when you look in the mirror for an extended period of time. I mean, unless you're utterly narcissistic after a while you'd be wondering (cliche alert!) who that person in the mirror is. we seem to control our expressions, our actions, our words, with such ease, but my problem with that is sometimes I don't understand that control. no, I don't think I'm schizophrenic, but it's just a weird feeling. not enough for me to plunge into an existential crisis, but it lingers.

oh well. random philosophising over. now come the mundane minutiae of my existence - I apologise for the disjointedness that is to come. johnny's birthday party last saturday went awesomely, if I may say so myself, and this saturday did as well, what with charlotte and I going to jane's place in the morning to 'surprise' her (inverted commas present due to the fact that I accidentally informed jane), followed by lunch and the giving of roses by random hot guys who charlotte and ling went to great pains to find. then there was dinner at zach's place and TABOO!, which is probably our favourite game now. I shouted till I was hoarse lah. then I went home to change and it was off to st james to meet the boys and girls for jasmine's fashion show, which I sadly missed because 30 took half an hour to come and I was thus very very late. we hung around for a bit and tried to dance (obviously we failed) before going off.

side-note: I really can't take hip-hop music. really. am I unhip or what.

woke up too late to attend the 9.15 mass, the first time this has happened in years. have been spending the day at home just bumming around, listening to air supply (my mother went for their concert yesterday) and just soaking up the feeling of being around my family. their presence is just... comforting, after five days in camp.

I need to start confirming my uk applications. choice of universities hasn't been settled, zero research done. and I'm going to become a government scholar. sigh. a true-blue civil servant should have done all this about a year ago. for some reason I just keep on procrastinating.

oh! I want to watch travis!!! just watched a few live performances on youtube, and finally can see why people say they're good live. they are. I want to go see them! except the rest of the lineup for that day of singfest kinda sucks? sigh.

alright, I think that's enough nattering for now. more next time!

2008-05-30T21:20:00.002+08:00

am finally back from my first week at nee soon. it's felt like forever, probably because it was lectures for most of the five days. I'm getting accustomed to the place I guess, but it still scares me.

the mica letter has arrived, and it's hard to believe that 10 years of my immediate (well, maybe not that immediate) future are contained in the three sheets of paper enclosed. in fact, all I need to do is sign and write the date and I've basically signed away 6 years of my life. I've been thinking about it and realised what an enormous, enormous decision it is. I'll be 30 or 31 by the time I finish - old enough to enter a mid-life crisis like what my sister says she's starting to experience. I just can't imagine. but still.

I should start writing again. hmm.

2008-05-25T18:40:00.003+08:00

I am around 50 minutes away from that dreaded taxi ride to nee soon camp and 4 weeks of combat engineer training, so forgive me if any angst that follows is hard to stomach.

having been on leave since wednesday (I reported to camp on tuesday just for in-processing) has made this last day of my bookout particularly painful, because, of course, fun, calm and escape are only most acutely missed when they are about to be taken away from you. okay, so it's melodramatic to call camp a prison, but with the discipline experienced on tuesday and my cousin (who's an instructor in camp) telling me that these 4 weeks are going to suck, I find it hard to change that mindset. I just can't seem to think positively; I'm not lying when I say I was nearly overcome with this sense of despair only just now.

you know what, forget it. I suddenly don't feel like angsting anymore. the other night I was reading my blog archives and realising just how emo I was while in school; it's ironic, of course, because I'd much rather go to school than experience the army. I guess that's always the case with what you're going through currently.

I have to go now, sigh. I wish this week could replay itself - wednesday at nuh with jane, thursday spent at kbox with kian wee yen sen and woonloong, my bslc sectionmates, friday night at the arts fest opening with tanying, yesterday bumming around at home then sending my mother off for her europe pilgrimage (miss her already), meeting johnny and going shopping today lol. thank god really, for all the people around me. thank god.

it's only five days I know, but I'll miss everyone terribly. okay. off I go.

2008-05-21T19:59:00.002+08:00

the mica lady called just now and said "we haven't forgotten about you."

it's an indescribable feeling. until I actually receive the letter of offer which is apparently coming, I still can't quite dare to believe I have actually got a scholarship. that in two years, london could be a reality rather than something I can only imagine. it's incredible.

of course now I have all these scenarios going through my head: the letter never comes, or they call and say sorry, we were wrong, or it turns out to be an offer for a local scholarship. but whatever. I am immensely relieved. and happy. happy.

2008-05-11T19:35:00.002+08:00

nowadays I don't know what to blog about because, well, there isn't anything to blog about. half the time I'm worried about something (soc, field camp, you name it), the other half I'm just indifferent. it's bad I know, going through ns as if it's a negative experience. but I can't help feeling emo as hell when I get the two days of bookout and become a civilian once more - it makes booking in feel that much worse. mercifully I have my section mates.

at any rate, I'm passing out from bslc this saturday. all I hope for is to escape aslc and get posted to signals. and pass my soc.

army talk aside, met up with charlotte steph jason and zach today to watch an oak tree. well. I didn't like it much, to put it succinctly. like the rest said, it was good as a workshop of sorts for the actors, but for the audience... I have to say I fell asleep at one point, though that can of course be attributed to the army (I slept 12 hours friday night and 8 and a half saturday night and still felt sleepy). the concept as a whole is interesting, and the script has its merits - I particularly liked the parts about dusk and all - but the execution fell short. I thought all the directing given to ivan heng was unnecessary and indeed rather distracting. overall, yeah I guess I was disappointed. but at least we met up!

... and now I'm off to camp. my last week, and then starting over again. wish me luck.

2008-04-27T19:00:00.002+08:00

I'm starting to feel that all-too-familiar emo/sianness at going back to camp. all I want is more times like this:

2008-04-27T18:05:00.002+08:00

it's been a long time since I've updated, hasn't it. as it is I'm going to start my 6th week in sispec. after this week I'll be three-quarters through the course! time does fly, on hindsight. just that when I'm actually in camp the days seem to stretch on interminably.

I believe a lot of stuff has happened these few weeks, but the problem is nothing much really comes to mind. ah yes. I went for my psc scholarship board interview, which was scary. no further details here in case someone from the higher echelons of government comes by and sues me for slandering the board members. at any rate, psc sent me a letter saying that they found me 'suitable' for a scholarship with mica (ministry of information, communications and the arts). that doesn't amount to a confirmation that I got a mica scholarship, quite clearly. but then a mica woman called me and said I got it, a full overseas one. yet I had to go for an interview (another scary one, mostly because of the rather difficult questions asked). so now I'm really not sure what's going on. I don't really want to think about it, because if mica falls through I have no other alternatives, since in a moment of folly or stupidity I called sph and withdrew my application for their scholarship when I thought I had got the mica one already.

anyway. it's strange to see people getting accepted into unis, courses, scholarships, making decisions. we're growing up. but it was certainly nice to see cheryl and desmond and muthu yesterday (the two guys were on their first bookout) and then the whole tsd gang later on at dinner.

spent the whole day at home today listening to the three travis cds I bought at one go heh heh. I think I need to stop splurging, I do.

till next time, then!

2008-03-23T23:05:00.002+08:00

early tomorrow morning I'll be off to pasir laba camp. it's so far in the west it's almost in malaysia. not kidding.

I am feeling very nervous. I'm not sure what to expect, but as is the norm I'll be trying to expect the worst. and hope for the best.

till saturday (hopefully)!

2008-03-21T11:57:00.003+08:00

I got posted to sispec!

I'm pretty alright with the posting I guess? well. I'm just feeling rather ambivalent right now. there is a sense of relief, however, at not having to go through ocs or becoming just a man. though I wish I could have got some weird slack 9-to-5 job lol. oh well. I guess I'll be happy as long as I get through it alive, uninjured and hopefully not too much changed. right now I'm starting to feel a bit emo at having to go back to army life once again.

I'm also still worried about the future. I've already applied for sph and mica/mfa scholarships; sph called on tues and asked me to go for a writing test wed morning (they sure were in a rush). the test was alright I guess, a gp essay and chim secondary school-style cloze passage and compre. as the 6 of us who attended the test were leaving the HR lady said that because we had applied so late, they'd only call down for an interview those who scored very high for the test. as for the ministries, psc called on wed, told me to go for a 4-hour psychological interview (!!!) tomorrow (sat) morning, and also gave me the date for my selection board interview: 11 apr. all this is rather - very - scary and I feel utterly unprepared, even more so since I'm going back into camp and will have hardly any time to prepare for any possible questions. not to mention I haven't properly researched unis and mass comm/media studies courses, though I do think I have it narrowed down to either goldsmiths college, university of london or university of the arts london.

but on to less stressful stuff. this week and a half of leave have been absolutely great, meeting up with everyone and realising that really nothing much has changed, which is always comforting. went to muthu's place for the first time in 6 years. had a nice bday celebration by the tsd folks at shokudo food bazaar (the new marche-style jap place in raffles city) though before that they made me walk round the entire city hall/bugis/bras basah area for one and a half hours picking up my guests and leaving me feeling rather stupid cause I couldn't solve the clues lol. wednesday was spent at the writing test, then with eunice muthu cheryl and minyu at vivo where we bridged/picnicked cause it was raining. but as always with them it was great just sitting there and slacking. then at 5 minyu had to go, the four of us made our way to sentosa (it had finally stopped raining) and we bummed around some more on palawan beach. I uploaded the pictures btw, here are a few:

amazing, the things you do on an empty beach.

I just finished reading khaled hosseini's The Kite Runner - I do think the impact was watered down because I spread my reading out over a period of one month plus, but it is for the most part moving and I think quite deserving of its reputation. its just amusing how when reading the book I kept on thinking how it'd be if I were studying it as a lit text. themes of guilt and redemption, all the mirroring and contrasts and cycles and all that. it made me feel so... nostalgic. I miss school.

alright I'm off to bed. erk, I was supposed to do my uni research now and ended up blogging instead. and I still need to pack for my new posting and do other random things like polish my boots and sew on buttons. looks like I only have sunday left to do all that. bleh.

2008-03-16T17:03:00.002+08:00

I was just typing out my essay for psc when I typed 'repayed', and wondered for at least 5 seconds why spellcheck had underlined that word in red.

AHHHHHHHHHHHH

2008-03-12T16:21:00.002+08:00

POP loh!

now that bmt is over, it's time for the inevitable long-post-big-event-reflective blog post. so here goes.

I enlisted feeling the same way I would just before a big performance, the butterflies in my stomach counterpointed by, oddly enough, a queer sense of excitement. yet ultimately the two main emotions that for me marked bmt were fear and worry. after a while - almost immediately after leaving my family behind at the cookhouse, in fact - my sense of adventure died and was replaced with immense trepidation. I will readily admit I worry far too much about most things and can get terribly pessimistic at times, but I'll also say that self-knowledge doesn't mean I can get rid of these feelings so easily. and it was difficult to feel optimistic or happy sometimes. I guess it didn't help that I'm quite an inept soldier, and I picked up my basic soldiering skills more slowly than others. I would dread every major activity - live range, field camp, sit test, grenade throw, ippt, soc - and in a way that drained me more than the physical or mental strain of those activities.

so the whole of my bmt was spent trying to conquer my fears, quite basically. I'm not sure if I succeeded, but I've made some progress. for that I have so many people to thank. the platoon and especially section 2, the commanders, friends and family for keeping me sane and giving me something to hold on to dring those long weekdays. being removed from everyone and everything I cared about was hard especially at the beginning, and it hit the hardest on book-in days. but I guess I've got used to it, the whole bmt lifestyle.

it doesn't mean that I've got used to the army in general. there is something about a regimental lifestyle that chafes, and though I've been thinking about it for the longest time I can't figure out what exactly it is. it's the stuff that makes me emo - the mindless punishment meted out randomly, the bureaucracy, being unable to integrate fully, the endless stories about command school, the propaganda (seven core values indeed), the bitching. there's something that links all the above, and it's that which strikes right at the core and makes me feel all hollow. ennui would be a good word to describe it. not just sian, but a deep malaise. it gets almost crippling sometimes.

but enough of the negative. I've been lucky enough to experience some epiphanies, revelatory seconds of beauty. the rhythm of a good march, the echoes of a marching song, the snapshot of a single mangrove tree against a muggy sky, the smile of a buddy knowing exactly how you feel, the silence of soldiers embarrassingly aware of themselves, caught eating or changing as the flag-raising or flag-lowering melody reverberates around the parade square. forgive me for getting pseudo-poetic - I don't mean to rhapsodise, but it's moments like these that mean so much in their simplicity. they become almost spiritual.

now that I've passed out, everything will become, as my OC says (or should I now say, used to say), echoes and memories. I feel more introspective than anything else now, and to be honest I'm still trying to feel what I really feel about everything. but even if bmt hasn't helped me to further understand myself or others, at the very least it's probed me to really think about these issues. even if I lose contact with the friends I've made, even if these 9 weeks become just a haze of indistinct images, for this introspection I am grateful.

2008-02-24T17:41:00.001+08:00

I'm worried about the future.

2008-02-16T23:42:00.002+08:00

field camp. hmm.

well, suffice to say it wasn't as bad as I expected. the worst things were the hygiene and lack of sleep. and having to camo on all the time. but the biggest thing was probably simply the fact that I was completely removed from civilisation. luckily I had razorlight or one republic playing in my head most of the time to deflect some of the boredom/sianness/emoness/tiredness.

I'm far too lazy to blog about every single thing, so if you want to hear about ns life, meet up with me on a weekend and listen to me bitch about the army. I'll throw in performances of army songs for free.

went out with boys and girls today - lunch at astons was pretty worth it, as was the karaoke at some (on first sight) sleazy place in katong shopping centre. and dinner at jasmine's place was good too.

spending five plus days each week away from home and everything else that gave your life meaning for 18 years really puts a lot of relationships into perspective. I have never felt so grateful to all those who manage to find some strange reason to care about me. thank you, all of you.

2008-02-07T22:30:00.000+08:00

so here I am again, it's been 4 weeks in bmt. I've probably got used to army life already, but it doesn't mean I've accepted it. there's something about the regimentation, the "developmental exercises" (otherwise known as tekan-ing), the entire structure and rhythm of army life that chafes. I'm still trying to find a way to express myself, because if it does come down to deciding not to go to ocs or sispec if I'm offered a place, I'll have a lot of explaining to do to my family and the hundred other people who will ask. I watched ACSian theatre's In Quest Of Conscience last bookout, and what struck me was how it's so completely removed from army life (even if it was about concentration camps). that's the life I'm comfortable with. I can't believe fully in protocol and mindless waiting, activity and punishment.

field camp starts on sunday, dammit. the emoness will probably come soon.

I'm also starting to feel increasingly worried about a level results as well as scholarship and uni applications which I have completely neglected for so long. I am very rusty, and I am not joking when I say my brain isn't what it used to be. I can't even think of a way to express myself in a way that deflects the egotism of that statement. ergh.

I need to sleep, so. thank you everyone for the prayers and messages and all, I'll see you guys around ;) happy cny!

2008-01-28T09:30:00.000+08:00

tekong!

as many of you probably already know, it hasn't been as bad as I expected. I'm coping, and my bunkmates are fine and all, but now I'm struggling with the idea of having to go through this cycle of mindless activity and the way-too-short periods of bookout for two years. it's really... sian.

however, I think the bookout periods will sustain me. big thanks to all those who came on saturday, I've really really missed all of you and seeing you guys was, pardon my cliche, one of the best feelings in the world. same goes for my family too of course.

I have to go now, because I haven't finished packing and I have to be at pasir ris at 11.30. I thought I had a lot to say, but I can't seem to express it (modern writing, sigh). I'll be thinking of you guys.

till next bookout!

2008-01-09T11:21:00.000+08:00

so this is it.

I'll be alright. I'll be alright.

just please don't forget me everyone.

I'll be back sooner than you can say 'tekong'.

2008-01-06T21:48:00.000+08:00

first clubbing experience yesterday after the inter jc pageant thing. HAHA I know what you'll say, matt and clubbing just don't go. was alright though, pretty fun actually lol.

watched across the universe today with charlotte zach and khairi, great movie! I was a bit weirded out at parts, but the singing was gooood. and jim sturgess not only looks but also sings like a Beatle. life is unfair.

thank God for music. if it didn't exist I'd be insane by now.

There are many things that I would like to say to you
But I don't know how

2 more days and then the army.

2008-01-03T22:34:00.000+08:00

three letters for today...

since I had nothing on today, I decided to try out the Eastern Coastal PCN (Park Connector Network), a 42-km route that links up existing park connectors.

I started off early enough, at 10.45. after renting a bike, I crossed the overhead bridge near vjc and went along the siglap park connector, which cuts through Suburbia i.e. telok kurau/frankel estate/kembangan. it was mostly stuff like this:

obviously, even if we can call singapore something like City of Canals, it will not, unlike venice, be able to transcend the utter banality of the title. there is, quite unfortunately, nothing scenic about our canals at all. and if they are (as NParks calls them and the greenery surrounding them) the "green lungs" of the city, then singapore must have diseased lungs at low tide. but enough snideness. it was easy riding, except I couldn't figure out where the track went at kembangan mrt station - it reappeared on the other side.

from kembangan estate the route crosses the PIE and winds through bedok town park - a fair number of slopes that tired me out, though it must be said I ain't much of a cyclist. then came the overhead bridge crossing bedok north road.

that says it all really. trying to use the grooves on the sides nearly fucking killed me - the steps were wet cause it had rained earlier on and I nearly slipped with the momentum of the bike going down. in the end I resorted to carrying my bike down - that would probably have saved me a lot of trouble if I had done that coming up as well. luckily no one saw me looking like a complete idiot struggling with the bike, which was very heavy.

anyway. from there the trail leads on to bedok reservoir park:

then it goes along tampines ave 1 and 2 before following the mrt track to tampines central. had lunch at tampines mall before starting off again, going through sunplaza park, behind tampines ave 7, crossing the TPE and entering pasir ris. took a detour to pasir ris park, which was almost completely empty. it was all quite melancholy: paths with no one on them, grey sky (there was a very light drizzle), grey sea, all the trees bracing themselves against the wind.

as you probably noticed, I have a thing for solitary trees and bodies of water lol.

moving on, from pasir ris park the trail goes along the remaining length of pasir ris drive 3 all the way to loyang avenue. near the end of the pasir ris section, the track slopes upwards on a seemingly-imperceptible gradient for I think 400 metres - this part exhausted me. mercifully the track goes down into loyang valley, which gives a great slope. pity that at the bottom of the slope you have to brake to cross a road. no fun.

from loyang avenue you turn into cranwell road and supposedly into netheravon road, but I figured I might as well cycle along the sea, so I went a bit further on and went down the changi coast boardwalk. it's not made for cyclists, so if anyone wants to take this path do be prepared for a fair number of narrow steps and sharp turns coming after slopes. the boardwalk was pretty nice actually, with the sea breeze and the opportunity to see, um, scenery like this:

for singapore, this has to be a geological marvel! =/ it can be found along the rather misnamed Cliff Walk - there was no cliff as far as I could see except perhaps the half-metre drop from the path to the sea, and if that rock there constitutes a cliff, then bukit timah hill should be bukit timah mountain.

so, after a long walk I finally reached changi beach park (beyond changi village). this section is pretty pleasant, good sea views and all that. there were some surprises like the following:

alright, so a grove of casuarinas may not be all that big a deal, but riding through it made me feel as if I was in another country. the closeness of nature (or maybe the trees were planted, hmm), it reminded me a bit of new zealand.

after this there is a very straight section that goes alongside changi coast road, I'd say it's at least 4 or 5 km.

it brought to mind the verses that Bilbo sings in The Fellowship of the Ring:

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

of course, the track cannot carry as much inspiration and meaning as Tolkien's Road can, but the lines just seemed to fit.

from the Coastal Park Connector as that section is called, it's back to east coast park. by this time I was really tired, so I went on very slowly. stopped at bedok jetty:

and then I was back, 6 hours 25 minutes after I started. actually, you can probably complete it in about 3 to 4 hours if you cycle hard enough. but doing it leisurely was good enough for me. I still ended up with sore thighs and aching knees anyway. not to mention my forearms got sunburnt (I got a watch tan) even though the sun was barely out and it was perfect weather - cool, cloudy and breezy.

I don't have many grouses about the network itself really. just hope the signage can be improved, especially at road junctions and at places where paths diverge (e.g. at overhead bridges which the track leads up to but which do not form part of the network). and I sure hope something can be done about that bedok north bridge.

but apart from that, it was nice to spend the day wandering through our parks. in fact, I wouldn't mind doing it again! (that's a hint to you boys and girls - I can be your guide now! lol)

and this post has taken far too long to write. off to SLEEP.

2008-01-02T15:45:00.000+08:00

I know I'm late for the customary new year's post, but indulge me for a moment (after all, that's what you do all the time if you read my blog).

2007 has without a doubt been the most momentous year of my life so far. that's not saying much, looking at my still rather limited pool of life experiences, but it does mean that I've learnt - or think I've learnt - a lot. most of that would come from tsd of course. not just the course, but rather the people. many others have also made an impact - far too many to list down, but it's all these people who I'm grateful for and really thank God for.

I'm not sure how much I've grown - I don't think learning equates with growth. but I do know that this year and the next will force me to mature. and it's with a queer sense of excitement but also trepidation that I head into what will be another life-changing year. I can't imagine what will happen, and what will happen to me, but I'm just hoping not to let myself get myself down.

alright, down to the more prosaic matters. countdown at bedok reservoir park was really a blast, I have some pictures that I'll upload later. it's always nice to have random conversations with the self-confessed weird people that make up tsd. and needless to say, jason generated the best part of the evening's entertainment. I'm sure we all remember that, so no need to put up his comments lah huh.

Little Guilin indeed.

oddly enough, I've already accepted that it's 2008. hopefully that's a good sign.

2007-12-30T15:08:00.000+08:00

snow patrol's Just Like Christmas is a beautiful song. thank you steph!!!

i've uploaded the new zealand photos (all 520 of them), some tsd ones and those from yesterday's boys and girls gathering, just go to my photos. here's a sample:

merlion park! we sang carols and khairi actually put his cap on the floor, but we didnt get a cent. so much for the season of giving.

muthu got steph's present for the gift exchange during our tsd christmas gathering. HMM.

boys and girls christmas gathering at jasmine's place

this picture makes me go awww. lol

and just to end off:

happy new year in advance everyone!

2007-12-21T14:35:00.000+08:00

my pc is finally back up, and so I am finally officially back and blogging.

it's been a long time. though, in many ways it hasn't felt that way. "How time flies when one has fun!" (I'll leave you to figure out where that came from.)

new zealand was beautiful. the weather, the people, and of course the scenery. I'll post all the pictures on my webshots soon, but here are a few of the better ones:

the road to milford sound winding through the southern alps.

lake dunstan, near cromwell, south island.

sunset over queenstown bay.

I've been back for 2 weeks already and still think about new zealand every day. it's been a drastic change and a rather sad one in some ways, from seeing mountains and lakes out of hotel room windows to being amazed by the almost overwhelming urbanity (?) that crowds round my room window here. I definitely want to go back someday, perhaps in a different season (it was the beginning of summer when we were there) and really just soak everything in once again.

been really busy the past two weeks, going out almost every day. christmas shopping was actually pretty fun while it lasted, even if it was a complete hassle sometimes. got a couple of nice, cheap tees from bugis street in the process. went to vivocity for the first time in my life. celebrated jason's birthday, met up with the boys and girls to watch The Golden Compass (which was a bad movie, if I may say so), went cycling, had a rather well-attended eds gathering at siglap pizzahut, confessed my sins (I know this is rather irrelevant in this list, but hey, it's an event), brought mel to the famous bedok north hawker centre... I even acted as a shopping-centre guide for two china girls called grace and candy who my mother's friend had chatted up just the day before. it's been great just doing stuff and catching up with everyone.

I suppose all these outings have added significance because we have quite inevitably come to The End. this is, of course, not the first End we've been through, but it is for me almost certainly one of the scariest. we really do go separate ways from here. I'll get over it sooner or later, of course, but for now it is rather depressing.

sometimes you go through an incident that adds on to your intuitive knowledge of life, of people, of love, all that jazz. I suppose it makes you more mature, but before maturity comes confusion and doubt, directed both outwards and inwards. I became aware of that one night recently, on a 16 back home.

... but I'm being cryptic, so I'll stop now. I better go off to run soon, the army beckons.

2007-11-25T20:26:00.000+08:00

I've been having a great great great time these past few days:

dinner at new york new york after lit paper 3 with the tsd people. gave mel her wafflemaker which makes heart-shaped waffles (!) and tiramisu from menotti (which is really hard to find, steph and I walked round raffles city at least twice)

mahjong on thursday with the usual suspects, watched enchanted too! that has to be one of the happiest shows ever, it's so... happy. sweet without being saccharine, always a good thing

amazing race at the beach with 06a15 on friday! walked like hell, got sunburnt along with everyone else. I did NOT expect it to be a MATH amazing race. such a pity clara llijia and I didn't win lol! anyway after that we all went to clara's place and did stupid stuff in the pool like synchronised swimming (?!) and racing across the length of it while ignoring the stares of the people who were actually swimming. bbq at night, I discovered I like cooking! hopefully we'll have another outing...

watched The Pillowman with charlotte and zach yesterday. EXCELLENT show, definitely the best local production I've watched this year (that doesn't say as much as it should, because most of the other stuff I watched was... well, you know) excellent acting especially from michael corbidge and daniel jenkins, shane mardjuki's accent was amazing, as was adrian pang's control. tracie pang did a great job on the entire concept as well. completely worth it! I'm expecting a sweep for them at the theatre awards really. after that was dinner at plaza sing and a long walk to merlion park where we sat down and basically did nothing lol. felt good.

and I'm off to new zealand tomorrow! will try to buy back stuff for everyone, never fear. alright I really should start packing

2007-11-21T17:27:00.001+08:00

it's over!

YAY

2007-11-14T17:47:00.000+08:00

econs case studies - not so kind.

I left my gc in the hall. I have half a mind to just leave it there - after all, I probably will never ever need to use it again and I doubt I'd be so profit-motivated as to try and find someone to sell it to. but I suppose tomorrow morning will see me going back to school to face the chiding of the pe dept to get it back. must be the kiasu in me.

in happier news, at least econs is over! the one subject I never want to have anything to do with again.

off to play roller coaster tycoon!

2007-11-13T20:59:00.000+08:00

I just realised how tired I am. I feel exhausted. doesn't help that the run I had just now that was supposed to liberate me from the thought of econs essays not only didn't manage to do that but also made me acutely aware of my knees. I suppose it's the exams. thank god it's all ending soon enough.

lit paper 1 and econs were kind to me. hopefully this trend will continue.

I have so many things to do after the exams but I only have 37 days (minus the 11 days in new zealand) to do them. and every time I see lijia she HAS to mention the army.

sometimes I wake up and I wish in spite of myself I lived in a movie or a TV series or a photograph because everything there just seems so... different, you know what I mean. this time it's due to watching Heroes yesterday (yes I know I'm slow, blame Channel 5). I suppose I'm a hopeless escapist. it's never occurred to me before I could be one, I think I always unconsciously prided myself on being pragmatic. maybe that had a reverse effect.

the world just seems so real. too real, you know.

I don't think I'm making sense. I should be studying econs.

2007-11-08T10:47:00.000+08:00

gp and math already seem damn long ago. thinking about gp does make me feel worried.

right now I'm just a bundle of quietly panicking nervous energy. I cannot keep still and I CANNOT CONCENTRATE!

econs is a bitch

2007-10-30T16:44:00.000+08:00

it's around 15 hours to gp.

I was supposed to read up stuff on the internet, but I ended up visiting blogs and thinking about secondary school instead. and how everything is going to end, and how the army is looming.

needless to say, I'm not exactly in the mood for gp now.

hopefully a nice run with franz ferdinand playing will help. I need to get all happy and hyped up for tomorrow.

all the best everyone.

2007-10-19T21:39:00.000+08:00

I think today must be my lowest point. all that stuff about the futility of effort, dreams versus reality, disillusionment, h2 lit stuff, you know what I mean. I have a headache. I never get headaches. and a toothache, bloody hell.

I'm just tired. think we all are. the things we put ourselves through.

2007-10-14T16:15:00.000+08:00

two words will suffice:

stagnating

fuck

2007-10-12T10:48:00.000+08:00

yes as jason has so succinctly stated in his tag, I am going to be cruelly cut off from the rest of civilisation for two years starting january 9th 2008. not that I'm unhappy with the enlistment date - it's good I'm going in earlier. but the general idea is depressing.

oh well. have to look on the positive side I suppose. getting buff and all that hahaha

I also have to record here my first ever (and hopefully last) ear syringing experience. my left ear was recently blocked, and it got so uncomfortable I went to see the doctor, who after stuffing a scope in both ears proclaimed gravely that there was "wax plus plus" in the left ear. so yesterday I went back to have the wax cleaned out. that entailed the use of a miniature metallic-looking hydraulic pump (okay I exaggerate. it was a large syringe, but still. imagine that going in your ear) which was unceremoniously shoved into both ears (one at a time, of course), releasing a gush of hot water inside.

Plath sure as hell didn't know what she was talking about in "Morning Song" when she said "a far sea moves in my ear."

anyway, the point of the water was that it would force the wax out, which it did, after two syringes in the left ear, and another two in the right, which proved rather unnecessary because that ear was quite clear. I thought my ear canals would be punctured and I was going to die. honestly. it was like going to the dentist except in this case the bodily orifice in question is about ten times smaller and the dentist can't exactly see what he's doing.

and of course the doctor had to show me (with relish!) the wax floating around in a pool of water he collected. and the whole thing cost $45. but at least I can hear clearly now. it's so wonderful.

went to support lijia at the New Paper New Face finals last night. she didn't win anything, but she did great anyway! okay I shall stop here and refrain from lambasting any other contestants

off to mr thomas teo's house later for a math party. so exciting!

2007-10-09T10:46:00.000+08:00

just to say that I am alive and mugging (well, sort of), and getting rather panicky. can't help it.

study hard everyone.

2007-09-22T16:53:00.000+08:00

been enjoying myself the past few days. it's almost criminal.

went to queensway with johnny and got a fair bit of stuff, so that satisfied the metrosexual in me;

met the boys and girls yesterday for lunch buffet at this japanese restaurant, hisshou, its rather inexplicably remote location and the walk there in the sweltering midday heat in jeans and black class tee (and I KNOW people were staring at the 'Smartass' printed on the back) quite remedied by the food, which was great! - so that effectively killed off the glutton side for a while, but there's still lots of tempting junk at home;

watched Impetus by Theatreworks V.I.S.T.A. Lab yesterday with charlotte and steph, and have been doing/will be doing front-of-house for JBJ, so that's fulfilled my duty to the arts lol;

basically, lots of money-spending, which is giving me an acute understanding of how Pip feels. and meeting up with friends has been a welcome relief from studying with them (something I'm afraid I must start again very very soon. sigh)

but it's okay! till next week.

2007-09-17T22:25:00.000+08:00

whoa it's been 2 weeks. long long time.

prelims are over! that's the best thing that's happened in a long long while. I feel like this huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders (though I suspect it will return when I start studying again). but it's alright. even doing a study timetable now won't get my mood down.

all the papers were alright I guess, more or less.

hmm. nothing to say.

2007-09-03T16:25:00.000+08:00

it's been a rainy past few days.

I like rainy days. most of the time I like them when I'm inside the house, but sometimes, when the rain isn't that heavy, I like being outside. the detours to stay under shelter, the rivulets going down the pavement slopes, the grass patches now looking like padi fields.

and of course, each rain drop sliding off the edge of my umbrella.
(Rihanna comes to mind.)

my studying isn't exactly going very well. I haven't started on math or tsd. I still have to go through econs essays. and lit will hopefully be one-fifth (the biggest fifth - Great Expectations) done by today.

I don't know why I've stopped panicking somewhat, but it's a relief. I think it's the rain.

2007-08-28T16:35:00.000+08:00

because I've just uploaded songs onto my free mp3 player (thanks cheryl!) and finished re-editing my h3 for the 4th time, and I feel panicky for prelims:

1) Put your playlist on random.
2) Type out the first line of the first 15 songs you hit. DON'T CHEAT EVEN IF THE SONG IS EMBARRASSING YOU HAVE TO USE IT.
3) Strike it out once people have guessed.
4) Try not to google.

1. In my place (doh!)
2. I'm sick of picking up pieces and second-guessing my reasons
3. Fine, I understand
4. Don't wanna be an American idiot (double doh!)
5. Once upon a time on the foot of a great mountain there was a town where the people known as Happy-folk lived. (haha)
6. Turn it inside out so I can see
7. Please don't let this turn into something it's not
8. Lonely, I'm Mr. Lonely (...)
9. Sick and tired of this world
10. A warning sign
11. (can't hear what Kelly Clarkson is singing on this one - it's Gone Away)
11. You left me hanging from a thread we once swung from together
12. This is the last time
13. Keeping me up on my feet was a love so complete
14. Where do we go nobody knows
15. It's hard to argue when you won't stop making sense

there're 6 songs up there that have their title in the first line o_o. and 3 bands appear twice. oh well.

and so I'm off to go try and study.

2007-08-26T22:14:00.001+08:00

right now I just wish I could be really good at something. writing, critique, photography, singing, playing an instrument. nowadays doing the above, or even thinking of doing them, just makes me feel so incredibly inadequate, limited, and like a poseur. it's a horrible feeling, knowing I'll never be good enough in the things I really want to be good in. and that thought just contaminates whatever pleasure I can derive from doing the above.

sorry for sounding like a whiny brat. I needed to get it out of my system.

it's gp tomorrow. I don't feel prepared.

forgive me if I turn out moody tomorrow. it's the angst.

2007-08-20T20:57:00.000+08:00

I saw this along north bridge road when I was going to collect my free mp3 player from renewing my TIME subscription, and just had to take a picture. perfect example of urban desolation. come to think of it, I'm surprised alfian sa'at didn't include a poem about derelict shophouses in either collection.

anyway, the mp3 player doesn't work. more accurately, it can't even setup. I am, needless to say, fucking pissed.

it doesn't help that the stupid rash/redness around my mouth has come back. and the thought of prelims is simply terrifying. *strangulated noises*

2007-08-16T23:13:00.000+08:00

johnny: it's so coincidental that grace and christian have the same birthday! their ic numbers are only a few digits apart... they could have been in the same place as infantry!

I need to start recording funny quotes the moment I hear them. otherwise I just forget. sigh. I can remember people's phone numbers but I can never remember what they say.

still haven't started studying - took the whole evening to finish complex numbers 4. well, admittedly I went jogging for the first time in a week and a half, watched shou zu and hdb tai-tai XD kym ng was hilarious. and I really regret I didn't get to catch Gone Shopping.

prelims. hmm.

university of the arts london's criticism, communication and curation: arts and design degree sounds frickin cool. then again, so does their media and cultural studies course. however, the fact that they make international students pay 3 times as much tuition fees - not so cool.

I realised just yesterday that I want to be an academic! well, not the full-time kind. the kind that drops by universities around the world and sits down and writes an occasional paper. and gets paid a lot. hehe.

2007-08-14T23:56:00.000+08:00

I've finished my second h3 draft!

yay!

and now to bed.

2007-08-11T00:04:00.000+08:00

8.53 a.m. I wake up.

9.50 a.m. I board 13 to go to eunos mrt. reading Happy Days along the way, I remember how karmun did her mono, how zach was willie and the image of our paper-mache mound set against the backdrop of the ip hub, ocean towers behind and a clear blue sky.

10.05 a.m. I make a dash for the west-bound train. running into a carriage rather unglamorously clutching my satchel and my pink umeya bag with 9 books inside, I am suddenly acutely aware of how people stare. I do not look at anyone in the face. instead, I go back to Happy Days.

10.20 a.m. the carriage clears at raffles place. I sit. I am now on Endgame.

10.40 a.m. I run to board a relatively-empty 96 to nus. I think about how strange it would be if this was a daily routine.

10.56 a.m. I reach Central Library. the first thing I do is go to the toilet, because, well, that's what I do.

10.58 a.m. I go to photocopy some stuff.

11.49 a.m. I finish photocopying.

11.51 a.m. I go up to the singapore-malaysia collection.

1.16 p.m. I have gone through 2 shelves of books. I kill a silverfish by dropping a book on it out of shock. I watch its head squirm as its body is crushed. I go back to a book.

1.25 p.m. I suddenly realise the silverfish has disappeared. I start worrying I have sat on it.

1.30 p.m. I make my way down to yusof ishak house to get a tuna sub with ice lemon tea and a chocolate chip cookie.

1.56 p.m. as I sit eating my cookie I think about how, 30 years from now if I have some health problem, I will look back on this day and regret spending that extra $2 on a load of sugar. I finish my cookie however (of course).

3.45 p.m. I have gone through another shelf of books.

4.15 p.m. I have gone through the remaining 14 shelves.

7.36 p.m. I think what a load of crap h3 is. I realise (far too late) that sociological approaches to literature are not the same thing as themes of society in literature. I wonder how homi k. bhabha can write so much about seemingly nothing in particular (though I did extract a quote from his book). I wish I could write like t.s. eliot.

8.17 p.m. my stomach is now making funny noises.

8.53 p.m. I am finally on a bus out of nus, 10 hours after entering it.

9.20 p.m. I have finished my filet o fish student meal and imagining the burger and fries congealing in my stomach as the ice lemon tea I'm drinking goes in. I look at the pair of siblings (or was it mother and son) sitting in front of me, silently eating. I wonder why on earth so many people are in a clementi mcdonalds at 9.30 on a friday night.

9.28 p.m. I get into the queue for 196. there is only one person in front of me. the two queues for 285 and 99 on either side clear, and under the fluorescent lights I notice that the last bus leaves at 11.45. I want to take a picture of the interchange for some reason.

9.36 p.m. I board 196. the lady in front gets on, as do another lady and an old malay couple.

10.20 p.m. the bus reaches the esplanade. it's rather full now. out of at least 30 traffic lights that it has passed, less than 10 were green. out of I'd say about 35 bus stops, the bus didn't stop at only 3. I wonder why the hell so many people are on 196 at this hour.

10.34 p.m. the bus reaches the old dunmanhigh bus stop. along the way, I saw a fat guy in skinny white jeans. never, ever do that, I tell myself.

10.41 p.m. the bus reaches parkway.

10.46 p.m. the bus reaches the marine crescent bus stop. I get off along with most of the people who were on the bus. the old couple is still there. I wonder where they're going.

10.50 p.m. I reach home.

12.40 a.m. I think what a fruitless blogging experiment this has been. I think about going to sleep.

2007-08-09T22:43:00.000+08:00

yesterday seems like a dream, an excerpt from a singaporean version of The Great Gatsby. I think it was just the surreality (is there such a word?) of it all. the comic mistake of going to marina bay for a steamboat dinner and then getting on a van that brought us to boon keng instead, strange conversations e.g. the best way to dispose of someone you've just murdered, the cookies that got harder the more they got exposed to air, all 7 of us queueing up at carrefour to pay for our 35-cent bottles of mineral water, the one-and-a-half hour walk from dhoby ghaut to jasmine's place.

881 was great. excellent visuals, a very solid cast, and a pretty tight script. only thing was it was a bit jarring the way it swung between over-the-top antics (cone and durian bras shooting out laser beams!) and pathos. or maybe that was the point, I dunno. anyway, now that I've watched it I feel I should watch the other royston tan movies. oh and I want to watch Gone Shopping too!

ah, I forgot to mention the weirdness of eating cereal at 3.30am. and also all of us sleeping on the floor as if jasmine's living room had suddenly turned into a mortuary.

so that was our boys & girls outing. yes, let's please continue to be 'adventurous'!

I have this thing for double-decker buses on a cool morning after it's just rained. they always get me thinking and soothe me, somehow.

it's be cool if I could learn to take good photos.

it''d also be very cool if I could finish my h3, which I still have not re-started on. I'm spending the day at nus library tomorrow, and I just hope I can finish whatever it is I need to do, because I can't stand the thought of doing h3 much longer.

it really isn't a nice feeling to lower your own expectations.

2007-08-08T16:02:00.000+08:00

I am presently very much fascinated by geek chic.

of course, all at the expense of my h3 and studying for prelims. oh well. sigh.

2007-08-06T17:28:00.000+08:00

bag exchange!

we're at a bus stop heh

I love those pictures. there're a couple more on my webshots, if anyone's interested.

I have to start research for h3 all over again. SIAN.

reading other people's h3 essays is depressing.

I kinda have a fair bit of work to do, but I want to go for a jog later. hmmm.

I wish I wasn't studying econs. I think I'd actually be rather happy. it's nice to read up on lit and tsd and all. you know, I really wonder how people bring themselves to do econs in university and spend the rest of their lives working in edb or some other similar place.

I really am rather worried for prelims. then again, so is everyone else. ah stop thinking about it.

I do think I'm actually starting to like alfian sa'at's writing once again. please don't stone me.

2007-07-29T16:11:00.000+08:00

on saturday I went for some interview workshop thing organised by the scholarships committee, before the college day ceremony.

it's just very weird, prepping for these interviews and scholarships etc. it should make me feel privileged, but I feel more pressurised. (the thought of prelims makes me feel like screaming.) but that's not my main point. all this scholarship stuff is so... not right. I would say wrong, except, well, it isn't I guess. but there's something definitely not right about spending a saturday afternoon in a room going through 'experiential learning' via games that are supposed to prove a point that is somehow applicable to an interview, and there is something not right about watching someone go through a mock interview and seeing them squirm through it, there is something not right about confidence never being a bad thing, there is something not right about receiving emails notifying me that notices have been posted on some scholarships website where it is the students who end up discussing the lack of discussion of local and world affairs among vjc students as if they're already 45 years old, there is something not right about belonging to this 'distinguished secret society' and trying to feel that I deserve it.

I don't know why all this angst is coming out. I guess, ultimately, its me not wanting to grow up. (and it makes it seem worse that the previous statement seems ironic in the light of my seriousness.) or perhaps its this whole I'm-going-to-be-a-scholar-so-I-become-a-grown-up thing, its vaguely disconcerting somewhere deep down, but I can't put my finger on why. I can't help feeling that this is simply a way to somehow exonerate myself from the whole 'BrightSparks' label, which in a way makes me feel worse.

and this might be surprising, but for almost the first time in my life I'm really feeling the necessity to do well. here's an excerpt of family conversation at the coffeeshop after mass this morning:

mother: you better try your best okay.
sister: get a scholarship!
me: yeah I know.
mother: (jokingly) never mind, even if you can't get a scholarship we'll ask your sister to finance your education.

(slight pause.)

sister: try your very best okay.

2007-07-26T21:20:00.000+08:00

this is my 500th post! not as if it really means all that much. but it's just a... milestone, I suppose. hard to believe I actually kept at blogging for 4 years.

not much has been happening. school, trying to do h3, feeling stretched and stressed and worried. prelims are this close and well, I haven't exactly got my act together. actually, not even got it started. it is... distressing.

I really want my lit h3 to finish itself. bleh. *cue noise of irritation*

I've finished reading harry potter and the deathly hallows! good book. it's a sense of closure, to say the least. it's so bittersweet though, now that that's over.

okay. work calls.

2007-07-20T16:46:00.000+08:00

first week back at school. it's been... tiring. of course, there's all that stuff about prelims being 5 weeks away, etc. but for now I just want to finish my h3 draft ergh.

it's been difficult to do so though, because I've hardly been at home all week. tuesday and wednesday nights were spent at the drama centre doing foh for asian boys. it's a funny feeling, seeing alfian sa'at there both nights. I was contemplating going up to him and asking him for an autograph lol. at any rate, foh was quite relaxed, pretty good experience. it's only my second time doing foh after fundamentally happy hmm. wild rice is really professional and everything, that was good.

yesterday night was spent with muthu cheryl desmond eunice minyu and jasmine having a takeaway dinner from chippy's (food's good, but way way dry/heaty) and watching harry potter! the movie was alright, I thought it wasn't as bad as most people said it was. then again, I usually like most things I see/hear. I liked the cinematography, and some of the acting was great - umbridge and luna lovegood, who is also coincidentally really pretty. ron and hermione were kind of absent, that's true, but I was rather glad daniel radcliffe's harry wasn't as angsty as the one in the book (I don't think I'd have been able to sit through the movie if that were the case). because essentially it summarised the book, there wasn't really a climax or, dare I use the phrase, through-line (haha). and I wish there was more on the department of mysteries. but overall it was ok lah.

oh, pictures from yesterday are up! and also the pictures from racial harmony day today, they're under the tsd album. sorry for the blurriness in quite a lot of them.

alright, off to do h3 (cue expletive).

2007-07-15T18:03:00.000+08:00

everyone's been blogging about the anticlimax that was tsd a levels, so I guess I won't ramble on about it. it was strange, performing in front of mr pym and knowing that it might be the very last time we were doing what we were doing. needless to say I didn't really get 'in character' for group, mono or duo - I was far too lucid and aware of the whole situation for that to happen. at any rate, the exams went okay.

it's all very melancholy. no more thaipan dinners, parkway meals, 7-11 food (maybe that's a good thing), late nights in school, booking slots, looking for spaces, no more being just completely immersed into the whole experience. I don't know whether to think it a pity or mercy that the whole thing just slipped away so quietly.

thank you tsd '06 for everything. it's been a rollercoaster ride that ended before we knew it, just as it took our breath away when it began so unexpectedly.

on friday I was in school at 7.30 only to find 24 empty and dark. it was amusing, but so bleak. cleaned up all the tech stuff in night and day (you didn't honestly expect me to go for pe), and it was just such a strange, indescribable feeling. it's/I've/we've come full circle, that would be the most fitting description I think.

so looking at the above few paragraphs I see that I did ramble on. oh well. my final elegy for tsd I suppose. heh. or maybe not, there's still public performance at the end of the year. don't know how that will turn out though. at any rate, the sense of finality, of closure, still remains.

and so it's time to move on. h3, prelims, scholarships, universities, jobs. it's almost brutal, the way we're never allowed a rest, or even a pause.

but even as I say that, I'm already thinking of what university to go to, what to study. journalism, media management, arts management, media/cultural studies, events management, london, new york, boston, los angeles, melbourne, singapore. not to mention scholarships. it's exciting, but it's also scary as hell, thinking about the decisions I'll have to make so soon.

time to plunge in at the deep end again.

2007-07-02T22:44:00.000+08:00

some little f***er stole my wonderful nice new white-and-green-yellow new balance shoes which I was starting to like very very much. damn upsetting. the thought of it is eclipsing even the exams which are in three days. its maddening.

2007-06-29T22:44:00.001+08:00

WE HAVE A GROUP PIECE WE HAVE A GROUP PIECE WE HAVE A GROUP PIECE.

and right now that is the best feeling in the world.

2007-06-24T17:52:00.000+08:00

2 weeks since I last blogged. hmm.

common tests. jane's birthday party. groups. that's the last 2 weeks in a nutshell.

shall not even bother talking about common tests. jane's birthday party-chalet thing was good. changi safra country club, which must be in one of the most remote corners of singapore (or technically, maybe not, because changi airport was like only 1 km away or something). the bungalow was amazing. we could have lived there. dinner was good (catered, mind you), company was good. we played cards, walked along the ecp cycling park nearby before being scared back by the approaching lightning, watched shakespeare in love, hung around at the playground finishing obstacle courses. good memories. photos are up by the way - link is on the sidebar.

and of course, groups. its hard to believe that jane's birthday party was on tuesday of the last week. in the 4 consecutive days of groups that followed we went through 4 variations of a piece. and we're starting on a new one tomorrow. and I just realised groups is in 12 days.

fuck.

2007-06-10T22:19:00.000+08:00

I have no idea where half my holidays have gone. I remember the last saturday in school at groups, then after that a blur of events that somehow constitued 2 weeks. the way time is going past is scary.

singapore model un (smun) 2007 organised by nus political science society and held at nus was a pretty eye-opening experience, for what it was worth. oh by the way, smun photos (or the few I took) are on my webshots! anyway. it was good being a conference reporter and actually getting a taste of journalism. now I know how words get twisted in the press. and I have also had my first direct encounter with censorship! on a report about the orientation programme that contained some bitchy remarks. oh well. at least now I know I can consider journalism as something to go into.

got to know the nus campus, which is very self-contained. it was like a world in itself, what with the halls of residence (which were much better than I expected, and that goes for the food as well) and the internal shuttle buses and the campus maps, and all the eateries. it was weird coming out of the campus and finally seeing a traffic light after 4 days. and actually go home.

I don't regret going for the conference, which is a very good thing. on the other hand, I regret signing up for lit h3, which is an utter pain. I have just started doing my paper today and its quite simply fucked up. no research, no style, no content. I write better essays during exams I should think. I'm a third through, I wanted to continue but I can't bring myself to, I feel like imploding.

actually, I don't want to continue, I want to just drop the damn thing now. in fact I think I'll ask ms chia if I can, because I don't see myself doing well for it anyway. probably should churn out one fucking draft before I ask her though.

and common tests are in 4 days, which does not help at all.

ergh. stress!

2007-05-27T14:23:00.000+08:00

been a crazy week. but, at least we now have a group piece!

holidays. mmm. I do not see the stress I have been facing going away. rather, it'll just manifest itself in other ways. like a lit h3 paper I have not started on. and common tests which are in 18 days. well well well.

at least there's no school.