Darn

It's really quite bad to have a two hour tutorial from 2-4pm eh... Thing is, there is no problem as to what i'll be doing before the tutorial (sleep...), but there are some problem with regards to lunch (where and with who?) and of course what to do when school ends (4pm is a weird time). Freedom today has its negative run-offs steeping into loneliness and nua-ness.

It's rather fun to seek out and be seeked by friends for lunch. Many people have different slots, i am bound to get someone for food every day of school. If not then heck the lunch.

Well i suppose tonight i'll have to go off to lug back the pineapple tarts i have been selling. Not really looking forward to it. Anyone wanna buy? 50 tarts in a bottle for 21 bucks. Support.

Fucked Up Bitch

Well in life one gotta get in touch with a few of those fucked up bitches to understand how lucky things are for us. Your average naggy aunty and ah beng will look damn good in comparison.

Take for example my Work and Travel agency, good old Speedwing Singapore. They think we bloody paid 1.5k in admin fees and owe them a living.

People familiar with said agency will remember THE bitch. She has this awful come-fuck-me look and she talks like the whole world owes her money. She got some attitude to match.

I was collecting my passport from the company, rang the doorbell and went in through the glass door and lo and behold, she was typing there. Spouted something real fast like "wait...open door... very rude". Yea rite sister. The last time I rang the bloody doorbell she opened the door like so cordially, facing away and busily talking to some person in the background. I've got time to slap her and run away and she wouldn't even know my face. Nabei i was gearing up for a shouting match before some other nice girl hurried over and attended to me. While she was rummaging for my passport i sat near the bitch and stared at her for like 1minute. OMG. The fucking bitch actually carried on typing like she was the queen!

Damn this is the service i get from a fucked up company, and i trust them to support me when i am over in USA? God Help.

Jasmine or Magan, when you got the chance to see the bitch, please take a picture with her. I wanna post it up.

Swap'em

Ok so I am tremendously bored, refusing to read the mountain of lit texts and notes, and am going bit mad... An idea popped up.

Yunkuan told me a true story about a guy who swapped a red paper clip for a doorknob, and then gradually proceeded to swapping something else for a snow-mobile. After around 14 swaps, he got himself a house. Sounds rather cool eh.

Told Fish about trying out a Singaporean version of this thing and apparently she says even if it doesn't work, it could be fun (for her). Well... so here goes. I've also got this RED PAPER CLIP.


Alright. So the whole matter goes like this... Anyone of you readers who think they have something to swap my red paper clip with, please take a picture of said item and post it in the comments section with your name and stuff like that. If the swap falls through I'll update the latest item up for swaps in the sidebar.

Well it's all in the name of fun right, but let's all make sure we are willing and able to swap actual stuff, and the fun will be how it turns out. Take it as a social experiment or what. I suspect I won't get a house, but maybe a dried micro-waved cockroach, some sheep droppings or the like. So TRY OK!!!

Bobby's Dead

DAMN. Chess legend Bobby Fischer's DEAD!

Well back in secondary school i was in the ahem so-called "Knight Club", or the chess club. Well Bobby's like our team's idol la.

Eccentricity aside, he was easily one of the most brilliant chess grandmasters of all time. We use to practise his moves during chess trainings, and evaluate them. But no one dared to use his openings and theories in real chess matches, cos really, they are plain suicide and it takes a genius to pull the stunts to make it a resounding win...

One more brainy figure gone down the drain. Tsk. I like his weirdness...

US Embassy and Shakespeare

Yesterday was the day i've to go down to the US embassy to settle my visa interview. So in accordance with the strict security policy, i surrendered my bag at the guardhouse, did the compulsory metal detector scan, took a number and meekly sat at this small hall cramped with people seeking entry to US.

My mum told me that some people have commented that the visa interviewer is not necessarily nice; some are even brusque in the way they ask you questions. Well, all in the name of homeland security right? So i braced myself. Interestingly however, me and a friend had quite cool experiences at the interview.

My interviewer started off with the usual "What major are you in, and what year?" and I answered promptly.

Then she popped "So, who is your favourite author?" Dang, I spouted "Shakespeare" off the top of my head.

She replied "Well good choice! What Shakespeare's text do you like most?"

"Twelfth Night".

Then lo and behold she spouted a one-liner from Viola, "How now Malvolio!"

I was like "Ya that play alright..."

Then she went on "You know I did a scene in Twelfth Night during my tenth grade..." and now i was like ok damn, my turn to be inquisitive so i asked her "Which scene?"

"The first one." (I think it's a test question)

So i replied "Ah the one on the beach! The beach scene!"

Then she went on to other stuff like what my parents do ("My Mum works in MOM!")

Then to end it off she asked "Well have you been on a rollercoaster ride?"

"Not really, but hey! that's what Cedarpoint is famous for right?"

And i got my visa, nice and easy, and i say... FUN!

6 Lecturers, 6 Ways of Talking

School started guys... sian.

Well i've discovered that all 6 of my lectureres belong to 6 different races/linguistic background. And each talks in a damn unique way so much so that my brain can't cope with the different accents!

This HOT female italiano lecturer in Drugs and Society speaks with this weird italian accent... "Toxicity" goes the way of "Toh-shi-si-teee", "Stomach" is pronounced "Stor-mark" and "Controversy" became "Con-tro-veh-see".

Prof Patke in Utopias and Dystopias speaks with the indian accent and is tremendously funny. His counterpart Dr Ang "doesn't speak, but raps" in machine gun-like bursts without replenishing air and partakes in sardonic humour sometimes.

Dr Turner in Euro Lit is a Briton and speaks in a dry English ak-cent. The cool thing is that he is liable to mumble like Jay Chou when he wants to "emphasize stuff", or sometimes his speech just peters off into a whisper at the end of a sentence...

Dr Holden in Poco Lit is by far my favourite. He speaks like a stage Shakespearean actor: sonorous, metered and with a hint of Irish accent (or something like that). He is a funny-guy too.

Looking ok for a first feel of school... Hopefully everything will get better.

Sad MV

Well this is the MV of Jay's new song 我不配... Damnable sad. BUT CHECK THE GIRL OUT!!!

Now if one has such a pretty, understanding, nice and supportive girlfriend, why would one wanna put her to such trials just to remain an unknown couple? In fact why would someone put a loved one through sorrows and hardship just to gain an ephemeral sense of security?



But the song has a familiar resonance to me. Sometimes appreciation of simplicity only comes after simplicity is lost. And being complicated is like being stuck in a net: the more one struggles the more convoluted things become. Things would not necessarily become better; maybe the best way now for me shall still be a stasis of what is present. Those days of the past, simple as they were, only shows to be happier when compared to what transpired 1 year back. 谁能配谁? Sometimes trying is not enough i feel... Appreciating things correctly may well prove just as important.

Never was so much paid by so many to a module...

Goodness... I've never heard of anyone in their sane mind (at least in Lit), who'll fight that savagely for a place in a module...

I paid 1900 points for EN 4241 Utopias and Dystopias! Level 4000!!! Being a seminar module, a class should be around max... 25 people? My showhand bid was a whopping 2979 points, and for the first time i was not sure of getting a Lit module...

Woh. And there is just the small case of doing well for something that costs so dear. I like sci-fi, hopefully that translates to better results huh (yea rite).

The semester's all set up, gotten all my modules and sigh... and here we go again...

Mug Shot

Which country in the world uses yards and pounds when the whole world's gone metric?

Which country in the world requires mugshots for documents with dimensions of 2 inches by 2 inches (that's 50mm by 50mm for you)?

USA!!!

And i've to save money (and who the hell will shoot instant 2x2in instant photos around my estate?); so i've decided to take a picture using my own digicam, my bros are the photographers, and my wall's the back ground. Then i'll duplicate my mugshot, a few 2x2in ones and as many normal passport sized shots as i can squeeze onto an A4 photoprint... And like neoprint like that, i'll cut them out and keep them for official use...

The adventure ended up like that...


Ok... not him... but like that


Check the tony-stubble (though i swore i shaved minutes before) and the sleep-deprived look... This is the picture i'm going to submit for my American Visa... I hope i don't look like a terrorist or something... Sian 1/2. This looks really super budget...

Did i tell you i'm going to use this shot for all other official documents? Like for MOE... jobs and so on.

How fun. Die.

Small Island

Just finished watching History Channel's program on Russia. It's a historical documentary on the rise of Russia as a nation, the monarchs and what they did. So there was the usual fare on Peter and Catherine the Greats, Tsar Alexander and all that.

Russia is a huge country indeed. And somehow the issues these people gotta concern themselves with seem so convoluted, complicated and diffuse. Land laws, intellectualisation and reforms and so on. And the decision and national affairs do matter to the Russian intelligentsia, and have a profound impact on the Russians themselves and to a greater extent, the world in general.

In comparison, modern Singapore seems alot smaller, both land-wise and 'brain-wise'. Makes me think... are we that small such that what we do or think seem puny compared to greater entities like Russia?

The materialist culture is so ingrained in us that perhaps we are conditioned not to see beyond. What we own denotes what we are: which schools we went to, what kind of houses we stay, what courses we take, who are our friends... Say for eg if one has a "Raffles" appellation to any "School", he or she probably will make it to the better schools, and thus gain a more positive identity later in life. Another one who comes from humbler origins but still makes it will be judged by his or her hardworking and persevering nature; that will become another positive identity marker. The same applies to clothes, consumption patterns and so on.

Knowledge is not valued as itself, but rather what it can bring. Some relatives always mention that my literature degree (soon to be gotten ok) can't land me a nice cushy job. Haha but i like reading, i like theorising and extrapolating ok? Well at least i get to laugh out at some obscure humour in movies that the majority of people do not get. The sad truth is that applied knowledge triumphs over pure knowledge. Survival in Singapore needs money, even dreamers have to eat.

I hope one day i can get enough money (see... materialism again) to do what i want and see things i like to see. Maybe a job or study stint overseas, cultural tours to far flung places and all that. Singapore is nice, but it is getting too stifling.

To do all that, I must get a cushy job first right? Sigh.

Happy New Year

Well another has passed. 2007 has gone and now it is 2008!

'07 has been rather eventful for me. Whole freaking year full of ups and downs. Like a rollercoaster ride. But the growing up and the pangs was well worth the pain (and have to be, no other choice at that).

So thank you friends, those mad, freaky BUT nice people that hung around me.

The A1 gang deserves special mention. It's been a long time since J1, guys... 6 years and counting in fact. So there will be lots more fun to come, new people getting into our gang... and not to mention all the weird KTVing, outings, meals, overseas trips and assorted racially harmonious stuff we do.

The primary school people is another source of fun and solace. Late-night crawlers us all, may the supper gang persist. Life changes, people come and go, but let's hope the gang stays ok, everyone happy and do not get fat from the pratas we consume.

And the other assorted people struggling in the good old NUS, stress is stress, but we'll make it somehow or the other (you guys can be like KJ, pull hair while doing tutorial, but go chill out at night). So there's good grades and good company to be had this semester ok?

The family is as cool as ever. Good wishes to all the cousins doing their assorted stuff (we'll meet uo real soon), uncles and aunties who are doing fun stuff (like my dancing mum), and may everyone have a better year.

Welcome '08. Orh Lang Sai.