Whether it's just another 365 days or truly a new year is up to you

31st december. well, after a full 365 days, we're once again at the border between this year and the next, crossing the supposed boundary between past and future, regret and possibility, 2009 and 2010. that's all well and good, but the more i think about it, the more it just seems to me that the new year is entirely arbitrary and meaningless. the new year could just as easily been yesterday, or tomorrow, or any other day of the year, and as long as you waited 365 days before declaring another year the calendar would still function quite well. still, i cant deny that through ages of implementation, the new year has come to instinctively invoke in all of us a sense of new beginning. perhaps all the new year does is to provide a marker, a single unanimous date when everyone can find company with each other in taking that bold first step towards change.

2009 was definitely an unforgettable year for me. it nearly seems that all my life i have been frozen in time like some neantherdal trapped in a block of ice: looking out at the world but never learning and evolving myself to become a better person. after the events of 2009, i woke up and was appalled at the kind of person i have turned out to be. i was self-centred and melodramatic and completely undependable. honestly i tried to change myself to be a better person, but i feel that i have barely made any progress. luckily though, my awakening was also timely to experience new blessings which i would have totally missed as my previous self-absorbed self. the biggest gift that this year has brought, and i will never get tired of saying this, is the gift of friendship. forming new bonds, rediscovering old ties, and strengthening friendships which i already held dear to me are things that i will be eternally grateful for.

i guess it is customary for people to come up with new year's resolutions at this point of time. here are some things which i hope to accomplish in the coming year.

1. i will work on my physical fitness. i've been inanimate for so long already, and it is only this year that i started to focus on physical training. not much progress so far, but i hope i will at least get through napfa without getting into BMT (i know some of you must be laughing now, but everything must start from somewhere roght?). then after that, i'll work on not becoming a liability to the team during A divs, though i think this will be hard given that i have h3 exams during the competition period. i'll just give my best shot to see how it goes.
2. i will be serious in my studies. by that i dont just mean scoring well in exams. i will try my best to hand in homework and assignments on time, and not after repeated warnings from teachers like what i've been doing my entire life. although scoring in A levels is important, to me this is less of academics and more of responsibility. admittedly i am a very lackdaisical person by nature, but i will not let that become a liability to my friends, so i have to learn to at least tame this instinct of mine just long enough to focus on homework.
3. i will not complain about life. i realised how disgusting it is to whine about how bitter a life i live when it is plain as day that i am blessed, perhaps unfairly so, when compared to other people and even my own friends. i am but one insignificant speck of dust in this world, so surely i have no perspective of the true horrors that could actually count for a bitter life.
4. i will not be a liability to my friends. when my friend hits a rough patch in life, i will not be the oblivious moron i have been this past year, adding to his worries with my incessant whining or uttering empty words of comfort and soothsaying while not actually doing anything to help him. 2009 has taught me how important friends are, and it's precisely because of that reason that i feel that i have been a terrible friend to those around me this past year. in 2010, i will not make those same mistakes. friends have a duty to be there for each other, and if i become a liability to my friends in their time of need then i'm better off being a stranger to them.

well, that's all i can think off at the moment, but i guess 4 resolutions is enough to last a year, arent they? happy new year guys, hope you have a great time in the next 365 days, and dont forget to work towards making 2010 a truly new year for you and those around you :)

He will live on in his music and our hearts

I opened the newspapers this morning to discover, with shock and sadness, that Jimmy Sullivan AKA The Rev, drummer for Avenged Sevenfold, had passed away in his sleep on the night of 28th December (2 days ago) of natural causes. He was an extremely talented drummer, and with his passing I will have to accept that A7X will probably never be the same again. the title of this post is directed at him: RIP The Rev, you will live on forever in your music and in the hearts of all your fans the world over.

today was another walk-in practice. learned the couples dances and the hip-hop theme dances, which means that we officially learned all the dances for the walk-in. one of the hip-hop dances is especially tiring, because for some reason the choreographers wanted to have a few people doing some weird-looking solo parts (which do not look like hip-hop at all imo) and unfortunately i was one of them. we also tried to run through all the dances in one shot, like what would be happening during the actual walk-in, but obviously everyone was screwing up like crazy. oh well, hopefully we can all get it right by the hall practice, otherwise... well, im doing orientation 2 so i have more time to practice, but i salute those in orientation 1 for charging head-first into battle.

here's a tribute to The Rev. i feel that Critical Acclaim is one of the A7X songs that most clearly showcases the drumming, it's almost as much a lead instrument as even the lead guitar in this song. once again, RIP The Rev.

I was blind till today, for my eyes have only just been truly awakened

Watched Avatar today. it was supposed to be another class outing effort, but a whole lot of people suddenly pulled out, so in the end only 3 people went: myself, yicen and tzumi. let me get this out of the way first: it definitely lives up to the hype. the plot, though not fancy in any particular way, is pretty solid and tight on its own with no major holes. of course, nobody in their right mind would go watch Avatar expecting a Sixth Sense plot, would they? what they want to see is the special effects, and they're definitely gonna get what they want. Avatar has the CGI to compete with Transformers and 2012, except it simultaneously has a coherent storyline.

and what's more is that (drumroll...) we watched it in 3D! haha, it makes all the difference in the world, i tell you. dust gets kicked up into your face when a helicopter lands, bullet casings fly towards you when you stand next to a turret gun, and you instinctively move to dodge tree branches as they whip out in your direction. in terms of depth perception, modern technology has got it down pat. however, one failing of the 3D screening is that the focus is determined by the camera and not by the eye. people are used to having their eyes focus on an object they're looking at, but in a movie the image focus is dependent on the camera. so if, for example, the focus of the scene is on a fight going on in the background, then if you try to look at the branches in the foreground they will look blurry and you might get slightly disoriented. still, it's an amazing feat for 3D screenings to be this realistic already, so im definitely not complaining. apparently, james cameron knows that too, cos there are quite a few scenes where the camera pans deliberately slowly to boast the stunning graphics. it's not really a big thing, but i get the same cringe i feel when i see deliberate product placement in movies. the 3D glasses were kinda uncomfortable though, but im guessing that's just cos i dont usually wear specs.

oh, and one more thing: if you're gonna watch something in 3D, especially an action movie like Avatar, try not to watch it with easily startled people, or at least avoid sitting next to them. it was during the most intense fight scenes that i had to block out the sound of yicen squealing and squirming in her seat -.- seriously, it's not just me, tzumi also noted that she got quite worked up during the movie.

personally, my favourite "eye candy" in the movie was the design of the Ikra and Toruk, flying dragon-like creatures from Pandora.

The ikra. Otherwise known as Mountain Banshee. Otherwise known as the second-awesomest fictional creature ever. Second to the toruk, of course.

The toruk. It's probably the size of a commercial jet. I used to think the Lamborghini Gallardo was the coolest thing anyone could ride. I was so damn mistaken.

another cool thing about Avatar is how it not only draws inspiration for the Na'vi from african tribes, but also illustrates the tribal culture for the layman. the african tribal belief that all of nature is connected is beautifully conveyed as all of Pandora's flora and fauna is literally interlinked through a vast network of organic neuron-like structures. it physically presents to us how the ancient africans must have felt connected to nature in a way we cannot imagine.

after the movie, had dinner at macdonald's before going home. something random here: macdonald's curry sauce is very interesting. it's probably the most unique condiment that macdonald's has, it genuinely tastes good in my opinion, and yet it doesnt taste anything like actual curry. weird, but i still put it in my mouth all the same.

walk-in practice tomorrow. learning the couples dance. i foresee repeatedly stepping on some poor girl's toes in the near future. i apologise in advance.

Conserve your past; create your future

Since the photos of yesterday's class outing are already up on facebook, i thought i should include a pic of the mysterious, wonderful "hole" i've been talking about the entire time:

First signs of groundwater

Project shifts from "random hole" to foot spa

Us with the final product (all wearing the class tee!)

and one more thing: yicen just told me today that the hole was initially meant to bury me, so for a while i was literally digging my own grave -.-

Went to sentosa again today with a group of the other ogls to familiarise ourselves with the external hunt stations, and i also got to know some of the other ignis ogls. i have to say that monica and the rest of the committee did quite a good job in planning it. the instructions were all very clear and detailed, and some of the checkpoints are really quite obscure and will be difficult to find even for people who go to sentosa all the time. a really big tip for whoever reads this and happens to be taking part in the external hunt next year: they provide free pamphlets with maps at the monorail station; TAKE THEM. they're a real life-saver, though there might be a few stations which aren't marked even on the map... though as expected i wasnt paying much attention admittedly; most of the time i was talking cock (and gossiping about... haha) with lionel, yicen and the 09SH25 people from the terra group.

after it was over, went for lunch at vivo's kopitiam with the ignis ogls and monica, then the bunch of us plus guan hao followed lionel and lucas to look for gifts for the student council present exchange, though we got sidetracked and went to the pet shop first. spent quite a bit of time in there loling about getting chew toys, dog biscuits and leashes for jessica and shira, but in the end they got blow-up baseball bats from daiso. bumped into the terra gang quite a few times on the way too. went home after that.

at night, went to J8 for the lit class dinner. unfortunately, we couldnt get the whole group: only myself, luke, nik, shuyi, yinzheng, yandeng and robyn. talked cock a lot, and robyn was especially crazy. after dinner shuyi and yandeng left, and the rest of us went to the bubble tea shop near J8 to play taiti (ok how the hell do you spell it?), though i had to leave early. dam funny chatting with everyone after a whole year of not seeing each other, hope there will be another gathering with more people.

Sometimes we regret how things turn out and we spend all our time wishing for a time machine to go back, but the sad truth is that that time machine doesn't exist. Regret is an emotion meant for us to learn from past mistakes, and not for us to devote all our time to. Effort spent on something you cannot change is wasted effort, and should be invested in the present and future rather than the past. The one thing that we can do is keep hoping and biding our time until the window of opportunity opens again, and then giving your all to fix things then.

robyn intro-ed me to this ridiculously slapstick and funny song. my favourite was the cellphone part.

Faith is non-comparable

Today, i got approached by one of those people who go door-to-door promoting christianity, which inevitably got me thinking about the touchy issue of religion. before i say anything else, let me just say first that i'm an apathetic agnostic (for those of you who think otherwise, agnosticism is NOT the same as atheism), which basically means that i believe there is no human way to confirm or disprove the existence of a god, and since acts of god are indistinguishable from extreme coincidence or undiscovered science, there is also no discernible impact on humans whether a god exists or not. simply put, it means i "cant be bothered, but with logical reasons". it's not a religion, but rather an ideological opinion on religion. personally im neutral to all religions, so please dont take what i have to say as anti-christian or satanic or wadeva, cos seriously i get enough of that from the music i listen to already -.- (die, metal-haters!)

i think that basically many religions involve living in accordance to the rules set by a certain deity or god, or in other words they are simply philosophies to live by, but with the added factor of punishment/reward from a god depending on how you carry yourself. since there is no conclusive objective evidence of the existence of any god from any religion (if there was, the existence of atheism and agnosticism would be null, wouldnt it?), there is no way to deduce which religion is "right" and which are "wrong", which would mean that it is equally right for a person to follow any religion as long as the values it promotes are morally acceptable (which is why religions like satanism are the minority which i would outright disapprove of).

of course, people will start defending their own religions, quoting from their respective books of teaching which prove that their religions are true, and i dont have a problem with that. after all, having faith in your own religion is alright, and in times of confusion and uncertainty faith could be the very element to pull you through. what i do have a problem with is people trying to convert others to their religion and being pushy and insistent about it. if, at all, a person converts to a religion, it should be because he has sorted his thoughts and realised that one religion has had a greater impact on his life than all the others, or because he has taken the leap of faith and believes in the religion, and not because people constantly urge him that it is the right religion and that they would be doomed if they didnt convert. providing information about your religion and letting people make informed decisions is alright, but coercing and nagging at people to convert is not. in short, when it comes to getting people to convert to a religion, passive promotion, and not active promotion, will yield a more devoted and wholehearted group of followers in the long run.

ok, now that that's over and done with, i can get on about the rest of my day. went to sentosa for the class outing, but attendance was kinda (very) pathetic: myself, jtan, lionel, yicen, brenda, jj, tzumi and gabby. a pity rayson fell sick and couldnt make it :( get well soon! so anyways we all wore the class tee, which is light blue with a stripy 09SH27 wording on the front. the design met with negative to mixed reviews from the guys, but we're all thankful for the effort put in by the "shirt committee" (if im not wrong it's yicen, brenda, tzumi and jj) :)

The class shirt (picture is from the 09SH27 blog). models are tzumi and yicen i think?

the bunch of us went to the beach, and lionel and i initially wanted to swim over to the nearby island, but it turned out that most of the guys didnt bring clothes to change into (come on, who goes to sentosa's beaches and doesnt bring spare clothes?) so that idea was quickly scrapped. played frisbee for a while, and i got saboh-ed very early on when someone threw the frisbee too far and i got arrowed to swim over and get it back (i ended up being the wettest guy at the end). in the end, we spent quite a lot of time... digging a hole -.- at first we wanted to bury someone in the sand, but as we started digging we lost focus and decided to dig until we reached water, and then it became a project to dig out our very own foot spa. the water became very foamy and disgusting, so we wanted to dig a channel to irrigate the "spa", but the wall collapsed and we inadvertently created a mini bay/lagoon. afterwards we just spent the time maintaining the walls and watching the rising tide slowly erode the bay. it's quite cool to see everything you learned in geography enacted in real life and soon we could see cliffs retreating towards shore and beaches forming at the foots of the cliffs. jgan and jacob joined us for dinner, which was at JustAcia at dhoby ghaut. jgan, jacob and gabby started "poisoning" each other with weird concoctions arising from the free flow of drinks and ice-cream, think we made quite a scene there. jacob got us souvenirs from taiwan, which were pens with heads of various cartoon characters on the top (winnie the pooh, hello kitty, and even the rarely-seen mian4 bao1 chao1 ren2!), and you could press a button to make their bodies pop out. i myself got a three-eyed alien from toy story. now there's something else to entertain us during boring lectures! :)

cant believe i'll be going to sentosa again tomorrow for the orientation external hunt preparations -.- sentosa is seriously overrated imo, but i guess it's a conversation starter for your orientation to be held at sentosa.

and i'm still hooked to metal/rock remixes of pokemon songs :)

Echoes from simpler times

For some reason, i got really nostalgic today, so when i came across this youtube video of a rock remix of pokemon GSC champion battle i immediately took the bait. it's absolutely awesome, but the download link provided leads to a 17s snippet of the song :( anyone know where to find the whole thing?

The season of giving

Yesterday, went to my cousin's house for a christmas party. played band hero for hours on his xbox 360, and now i cant stop thinking about it. playing the drums is damn fun :) there was also a present exchange, which i feel is a very good christmas tradition. present exchange embodies the spirit of giving so perfectly. you dont know who you're giving to, you dont know who you're receiving from, you dont even know what you're getting or whether it will be worth the trade, but you do so anyway, because of the joy of giving. or at least that's the theory behind it. in reality however, i doubt that few of us go into the present exchange without thoughts of political correctness and social obligation. still, it warms the heart to think about the origins of such traditions once in a while.

guess what, my mom still leaves presents for my brothers and i on christmas eve and insists that it's santa claus when we wake up on christmas morning. of course all of us know that jolly old men with reindeer dont trespass into people's houses every year, but it's just a tongue-in-cheek joke every year. this year, we got wii sports resort (of all the games available for the wii, my mom fell in love with the wii sports series -.-). well, i have to admit it's quite fun in a no-brainer kind of way, and i guess it would be quite a good party game if you had enough controllers to go around, but my mind is still stuck on band hero from yesterday's party! i'd love to get a copy myself, but the entire set with guitar and drums must cost a bomb. and from a practical point of view, even if i start saving up now and buy the game next year, i'll only have a few months max before i have to go for NS -.- maybe i should get DJ hero instead? after all it's only a turntable controller so it has to be cheaper, but i wonder if it'll be as fun as band hero.

oh, and of course how could i forget... Merry Christmas everyone! :)

edit: just saw this pic while surfing the net and loled. im sure this is what most people think of the music i like.

Stranded on Paradise Island

Yesterday's training was quite interesting. did some agility ladder stuff (the two ladders have been rotting in the hockey store for eons) and also an exercise in jabbing/defending which i found very helpful. im usually playing the forward/midfield so i dont really get a chance to practise my defending skills, but now im wondering if im more suited for defending because i never seem to be able to get the ball when i play further front. oh well, i'll let coach decide for me in future. my right foot took quite a beating during training yesterday. got whacked on the ankle, then the ball got sweeped (swept?) onto my toes. still some slight bruising below the ankle bone today. besides the unfortunate minor mishaps though, training was actually quite fun, surprisingly. i wish training could always be like that, but alas i know that there will be more physical training in the coming year T_T on a side note, the captains are merciful (yay!) so there wont be training on christmas.

today's christmas eve! cant believe it's already december 24th. time really flies, and 2009 has flown past in the blink of an eye. i guess it's about time for me to start reflecting upon the year's happenings. if i had to sum up 2009 in one phrase, i guess it would be "guilty pleasure". to be honest, the fates have been kind to me this year, and i have plenty to be thankful for. firstly, my academics have been largely stable throughout the year. also, my fitness has improved greatly thanks to hockey (still not up to standard yet, but at least im making progress). finally, and most importantly in my opinion, i made so many new friends, and reconnected with so many old ones too. and yet, despite all that, i cant marvel at my blessings without at least a tinge of guilt, because unfortunately the fates have not been as kind to those around me. in the same year i experienced so many blessings, i have seen friends around me, close friends, suffer so much. it hurts to see my friends suffer while i get away without a scratch, seemingly unfairly. sometimes i wonder if i deserve any of this, or if i should be doing anything to help my friends, but in the end i find out that i am completely useless, and all i can do is simply watch my friends' pain.

im posting this early cos i'll be going for a christmas party at my cousin's house later. feasting and xbox 360 marathons await! merry christmas everyone! :)

Speak when spoken to?

So i've just been informed that there'll be a hockey dinner later today, which leaves very little time for me to make up my mind. should i go? already most of the guy's team can be assumed not to be going, and now i just found out that seng, who's one of the few who would usually go, wont be able to make it this time. which leaves probably less guys going than i have fingers on one hand. which is pathetic, to say the least. well, the dinner's gonne be at ion orchard should i decide to go, which is supposed to be some mega high-class shopping complex right (i've never been there before)? i've always wondered what's the point of having these ridiculously big shopping centres. i mean places like vivo city, ion orchard, what are they for? people are going there to buy stuff, not to live there or visit it like some tourist attraction. take vivo for example - on weekdays it's like a ghost town. all the expense, just to capture the fleeting weekend shopper crowd; is it really worth it? why do the developers keep going larger and larger scale when examples such as vivo already tell them that they have already gone beyond increasing returns to scale (haha, injecting some econs, since i've totally forgotten everything and desperately need revision)?

ok, on an unrelated note, edmund has decided to start a new blog! *party poppers* haha finally, the last post from his old blog was from june or something if i'm not wrong. reading his blog suddenly made me think about blogging as a medium. it allows for the average joe to voice out his opinions about anything, securing him his own little speakers' corner with which he can do anything he wants. i guess it's because of things like blogging that i can rest easy every night knowing that 1984 will not become a reality, because as long as thought can be expressed it will never go extinct. but is it a bit presumptuous and perhaps even arrogant to want to write a blog? after all, having a blog implies the underlying assumption that there is an audience somewhere out there who wants to know what you're thinking. is there really? there are so many people in this world; are all of their thoughts worth the time to express? by the virtue of free speech it is demanded of us that we should accord everyone the opportunity and respect to express themselves, but in reality is that so? arrogance has always been a trait i loathed and i have always feared a day when i would be overcome by it, but has it already crept up within me through blogging? do i have a right to shout out my thoughts to the world like people want to listen? having a blog seems to imply "listen to me! hear what i have to say!" and now im wondering if i deserve that privilege. do i have the right to express my thoughts here? should i have the right to? should i speak up if nobody is willing to listen? the starting of a friend's blog makes me question the existence of my own. the irony is rich in this one...

365 - 364 = 1

A few days ago, my dad bought a gps tracker for the car. he's not terrible with directions, but my mom sometimes could use some help, so i thought "fair enough". well obviously that wasnt the end of that, cos otherwise i wouldnt be dedicating this post to talking about it, would i? just to test/show off the gps, my dad thought it would be a good idea to search for a restaurant in johor bahru, drive there for dinner (with the help of his spankin' new gps of course) and then drive home again. so, this afternoon he googled a restaurant, and the very same evening he decided to seek the family's opinion (whether he followed it is another thing altogether) and drive to a hong kong-style restaurant in JB called New Hong Kong (let's not eat malay food in malaysia, let's eat chinese food!). well, in singapore the gps worked fine, but then again my dad knows his way around singapore so it's quite unnecessary in this case. at woodlands checkpoint the queues were insanely long and we spent so much time simply waiting that it was a full 45 minutes before we even touched malaysian soil. and once we did, the gps became obselete as traffic was chaotic as hell and just about every road was being detoured or diverted somewhere else; most of the time the gps indicated that we were not even on a road, and it even tried to direct us back into singapore at one point of time (scheming little LCD display, i'll bet it's working with the machine revolution). so finally we made it to the restaurant, but here's the most epic fail: it turns out that the restaurant actually has a branch in singapore. so we spent about 90min waiting and inching forward and sitting in the car and rotting when we could have eaten basically the same thing in singapore.

for some reason i just havent been able to get myself back up to the same level of fitness since before i fell sick. just as well the tomorrow is self-training; maybe then i'll be able to adjust myself accordingly.

2009 is coming to a close, isnt it? it just hit me, which is kind of dumb, because i was just talking about christmas in the previous post and i didnt even make the connection that christmas is nearly the end of the year anyway. soon will come all the celebrations and traditions associated with the new year. i just realised how meaningless the new year is, in that in any case the year is just an arbitrary amount of time set by the earth's rotation about the sun (and even then it's an approximation - a year is closer to 365.25 days, hence the leap day once every 4 years). if so, why do we attach so little significance to 364 days, and yet so much sentimentality to 365 days? perhaps humans just need to break up their lives into manageable goals which are a standard length of time apart; after all, it's less depressing to think of life as a series of milestones rather than a barren road leading to infinity, because at the end of the day the harsh reality is that life is never done until it's over, and by then it's too late to celebrate.

Let's pretend that it's Christmas, because Christmas isn't coming

When my younger brother reminded me today that christmas is a week away, my first thought was "no way". indeed, if you have as poor a sense of time as i do, then let me remind you that christmas is now 5 days away, but of course it would take quite a disorganised mind (such as my own) to forget that the season of giving is soon upon us with all the reminders in newspapers, television ads, and just about any store with half a mind to exploit an annual excuse to sell off outdated merchandise at a cheap price. but can you blame me when they are more eager for christmas to arrive than i am?

nowadays you see ads for christmas-related wares and events all the way in mid-october, and your mind gets so jaded to offerings of "season's greetings" and "yuletide joy" that seeing santa claus and christmas trees soon fails to ring any (sleigh)bells at all. all this advertising and exploitation of what was originally meant to be a celebration of the birth of christ (i hope you guys remember that; it wasnt always about gorging and splurging!) simply cheapens it, in my opinion, to the point where it's disgusting. the "spirit of giving", once a pure and genuine virtue, is now an oft-quoted excuse for you (yes, you!), Generic Consumer Guy/Girl, to get out there, throw some money at the corporate fatcats, and feel a warm fuzzy glow while doing it. even in the act of trying to preserve and promote the original meanings of christmas, someone somewhere out there just has to be laughing his way to the bank.

case in point: how many chirstmas tv specials and christmas movies are there every december, all supposedly spreading the message of christmas while greedily and shamelessly swallowing up the profits while doing so. what really drove this point home for me was when i read the Straits Times review of A Christmas Carol, that animated film with voice acting from Jim Carrey. there was a particular phrase which the reviewer used which struck a chord with me, that parents would most likely bring their kids to watch it out of obligation of having to bring their kids for a christmas-themed event.

christmas is supposed to be a time when people feel obligated to spread love and joy to those around them; to use the term "obligated" for such a material, such a meaningless endeavour, is such a disgrace to christmas itself! and yet, sadly, these words will likely fall on deaf ears, as people become more and more numb to the death of christmas. already it has become common knowledge that during christmas one is obligated to politely attend christmas parties with distant relatives; obligated to thank people for gifts which they will subsequently give away next year; obligated to role-play the christmas spirit in a time when it should come naturally from within. call me a pessimist, but in my honest opinion christmas has died. christmas is long gone, and in its place is a bizzare annual ritual where people pretend that it's christmas but have no idea why they're doing any of the things they're doing.

so go on. come december 25th, go have your dinners and attend your parties and open your presents. i myself have plans on that day. just remember that you are not doing those things because it's the 25th of december and you do this every year, but because it's christmas day and it's something you do to commemorate it. then you can have your very own christmas, impervious to the death of christmas everywhere else.

Sinking to lower lows

Training today was, what's the word, horrible. I've had many trainings where by the end I was barely able to move a muscle, but this is the first time i actually didnt even last through the entire training. what the hell's wrong with me -.- im not sure how long i ran when i started getting a terrible headache, then when i sat down i started feeling nauseous and vomitted, then i felt extremely cold and lethargic, could barely keep my eyes open while the rest of the guys played a match. and it seems that in all the commotion, i forgot to bring back the clothes i changed out of -.- double fail, self-pwnage.

well, luckily after vomitting and sleeping and eating lunch, i was back to normal again (it seems like whenever one of your symptoms is nausea, you will be cured when you vomit; a blessing in disguise!), so i could join in the walk-in practice halfway in. i was a bit worried at first cos i missed a session while in korea and they learned an entire dance without me, but luckily it was very short and quite easy to pick up. basically during the session we learned another dance, then recapped the previous dances. afterwards, the girls teaching the dance brought us out to the field to try and teach us baby freeze and cartwheeling. damn funny watching zi kai and j.gan trying to do the cartwheels, but surprisingly i think most or all of us can really do the baby freeze and cartwheels in the end. suddenly the 6 years spent in ai tong wushu dont seem like that big a waste of time anymore; i still think i learned absolutely nothing wushu-related, but at least i learned how to cartwheel from there. jacob made a fashionably late appearance at around 4pm, and i think he has no idea how to do any of the dances, but at least we (by that i mean lionel) named a dance move after him (it's called doing the jacob; zi kai has a move named after him too, also courtesy of lionel). the dance people were kind enough to send all the ogls a copy of the dance songs, but honestly i cant even remember which songs go with which dances.

Gravitating towards memories

It's weird how every singaporean knows that sentosa doesnt live up to its hype, and yet it's still one of the first things to pop up in mind when we need a generic "fun" place to go to. there's gonna be another class outing, and it's gonna be at (surprise!) sentosa. i wonder why the general plasticky blah-ness of the place, together with the entry fee and bad geography of the place, still doesnt manage to drive people off. i personally dont have very high hopes for this outing, i predict that the guys will want to go play sports or sth, and the girls will want to camwhore. then once again, class segregation. that's just my prediction anyway (taking down bets, anyone?). we'll see. i'll hope for better.

and the day after that have to go back to sentosa again to scout for the landmarks for orientation external hunt -.- arent the juniors-to-be lucky to get to have external hunt in sentosa? mine was only in clarke quay and woodlands. man, 2 days in a row at sentosa gonna blow a huge hole in my wallet. >$< (weak attempt to draw money with wings flying away, haha)

tomorrow's gonna be my first training since coming down with my throat infection. i feel generally ok, but i still sometimes have coughing fits. worse come to worse, i'll have to skip the running exercises. afterwards there's walk-in practice, but im not sure if training or walk-in practice takes priority. there's a one-hour overlap between both, so which should i go for? play by ear again i guess, i never was any good planning ahead of myself.

i just read another george orwell classic, Animal Farm, yesterday, which i believe was his first book? there were many glaring parallels between it and WWI, such that even a non-history student like myself was able to pick up on a few clues. once again george orwell is an excellent author, and of course after reading this book it begs comparison with 1984. the language used in Farm is a lot simpler, which reflects the simple-mindedness of the majority of the farm animals, as opposed to 1984 where the main characters are from the Party and are considered above average in intelligence. overall i think the book does an excellent job of showing the transformation from the idealistic Animalism and the eventual totalitarianism which it turned out to be. loled when Napoleon using dogs to threaten the animals is supposed to mirror the use of brute military power to silence the masses (i cant help imagining military tanks with dog faces XD).

i fell in love with The Human Abstract all over again, realised that there's a lot of complexity in their songs which i didnt notice before and didnt appreciate. they're still not as good as Protest The Hero (haha, those guys are hard to oust from my playlist), but i think i've finally found another good progcore band to listen to. here's another great THA song, Harbinger.



extra: i was searching for Harbinger on youtube when i accidentally came across another Harbinger from a band called Neaera which sounds kinda cool. might take a closer listen another day.

Lost in translation

It's scarily amazing how people can so readily accept a word without finding out what it means, just because it sounds cool. im referring specifically to the name that Ignis will be using for orientation 2010 - Ixion. i have to admit that my first reaction was very sheeple-like; after all, it's got an "X" in it and an "io"-sound! come on, all the cool words are like that - axe, extreme, axiom... the ignis blog says that ixion is the "greek god of fiery", but as usual i wasnt statisfied without doing a little research of my own - after all, being a god of "fiery" isnt even grammatically correct to begin with -.- to my horror and disappointment, i discovered that ixion was a man with far greater problems than just bad grammar.

for starters, notice that i used "man" instead of "god". yup, ixion was all mortal. and not only that, he was a pretty horrible example of a man. his first sin was that he married a woman and then tried to worm his way out of the bride price that he had previously agreed on (cheapskate -.-). no matter, the father-in-law took care of it by stealing his entire herd of horses (it seems like in ancient greece, everyone has a herd of something - cows, sheep, horses, whatever) and keeping them hostage until he pays up. being the scrooge to the end, ixion invited his father-in-law to a meal at his house, then pushes him into a pit of flaming coal (yup, because everyone has a pit of flaming coal lying around the house). his being the first case of murdering a family member that ancient greece has ever seen, none of the gods were willing to forgive him and he became sort of like a wandering ghost until zeus took pity on him and invited him to Mt Olympus for the cleansing ritual. still the dumbass ingrate that he is, ixion tried to seduce hera, and zeus caught him red-handed by using a cloud shaped like hera to bait him (extra: afterwards, the cloud actually gave birth to a bunch of centaurs; man + cloud = half-man-half-horse?). in short, ixion is the furthest you could get from being god of anything, but it just so happens that his name translates to "fiery", and zeus punished him by tying him to a flaming wheel for eternity.

the whole point of this greek mythology lesson is that i find it interesting, perhaps slightly worrying, that people are willing to so easily forsake the original meaning of a word for the sake of "it sounds cool". another example comes from Harry Potter. there's this one spell, enervate, which has the effect of restoring energy, but the word itself comes from a latin phrase meaning "to drain energy", which in case you havent noticed is a complete 180 degree turn in usage. this phenomenon is more commonly seen with vulgarities, like how f*** used to mean strictly fornication but now can be substituted for any noun, verb or adjective (i challenge you to find another word that can do that). of course a language must be given room to evolve on its own, but where is the line between acceptable expansion of the language and blindly accepting any random twist in usage of a word or phrase?

on a lighter note, it seems that Ignis is not the only one which made a mistake like this. Terra made a smaller, though still funny, mistake in choosing their orientation name, Tellus. in roman mythology, tellus is an alternate name for Terra (surprise?), the goddess of the earth. however, orientation 2010 names all have a greek theme, and there is a Tellus in greek mythology, but he's a lot less grand as tellus of rome - tellus was the mythical "happiest man alive", a resident of athens who supposedly was happy over everything. so... a sinner forever punished, and a man with a permanent smile. orientation looks interesting already :)

Missed the window, trapped by the glass

once again tried to do maths but couldnt, so i tried to do chem. guess what? cant do chem either now -.- lots of rust in the ol' noggin right now. out of the 3 questions i attempted, i only got one answer which matched the answer key. im pretty sure accuracy 33% is not enough for the A levels.

damn it, have to skip the robotics club reunion outing tomorrow cos of sickness... this sucks big time. wont be able to see the seniors one last time before NS, wont be able to see cfc during his time in singapore. could there be a worse time to get sick? (i know there are worse times to get sick, im just sayin')

All thoughts are nought in this corporeal prison

Last friday, went for hockey training, performed severely below par. for some reason the sun was really killing me that day. came back from training with a splitting headache, so i decided not to go for nyp night training. instead, i tried to do the physics drq booklet, but it was really hard to concentrate with the headache and im pretty sure i ended up completing it way over-time. was kind of appalled by all the idiotic, careless mistakes i was making. have my academic capabilities really rusted beyond recognition? is this the level that i should even be operating on?

the next day, woke up with a really high fever. i wanted to go grab the thermometer, but i got dizzy the moment i sat up, and i unwittingly went back to sleep. im not sure whether it was minutes or hours, but some time later my mom woke me up and brought me to the doctor. turns out it's a throat infection of some kind (i actually took a flu jab sometime last month - now im beginning to think it was wasted money -.-). spent the rest of the day mostly in bed.

the day after that (today), the weirdest thing happened to me. i woke up to get breakfast, and then i started sweating uncontrollably. i was literally drenched in sweat and shivering at the same time. i thought this meant that i finally broke the fever (at one point it did go down below 38 degrees, the first time that's ever happened since it started), but by afternoon it climbed back up again. at least the dizziness has subsided, but i still feel a bit weak though.

Indeed, all thoughts are nought in this corporeal prison - no matter how much we know, how much we understand, we are ultimately human, and for all our self-imagined sageliness all will eventually succumb to the binding chains of the human body. what use is all this thought, if all the same we still need food, water, air, medicine? how different a life would one live as a human or as an animal? it all seems kind of pointless and futile.

"If you are human, then this is humanity"

in korea, i started to panic a bit cos i realised that there's still a lot of homework and not so much time left to do it, so this morning i tried to do a bit. being a natural-born slacker, obviously i failed. all i managed to do was finish the AC circuit tutorial, which took me a few hours. i had time, in fact i was going to start on the rest of physics, then i got distracted... and wasted the rest of the day away. got carried away surfing the interwebs, which explains the latter part of this post, which...

...is the reason for the title of this post. it's actually a quote from 1984 by george orwell, a book i've been re-reading these few days. the protagonist argues with the "bad guy" that some day, the human spirit will awaken and overthrow the Party, but he rebutts by saying that the protagonist is effectively the last surviving person who could still possibly defy them. he then brings him in front of a mirror to show his tattered body, tortured for months, and declares "If you are human, then this is humanity. Now put your clothes back on." the statement that im trying to say here is that humanity is only as good as the humans that make up the population, and of course the future of the humans are the human children. i was randomly surfing the web when i came across this article about an 11-year-old mother. the mother is 11, the father is 19, and to add to the drama she even went into labour and delivered on her wedding day.

my first reaction was of course "eww". after all, you cant imagine anything pretty out of the phrase "11-year-old giving birth". i wouldnt even have thought it was physically possible for such a young body to already be reproductively capable.

then my thoughts went on to the future that this new mother would have, if it is even conceivable that she will have a future to speak of. from what little dialogue of the interview with this girl that was published, i cannot imagine her as a mother in any way. she says things like "I'm not going to play with toys anymore - I have a new toy now (the baby)". what kind of mother treats her baby like a toy? and doesnt the word "toy" imply that she moght get bored of her plaything and possibly discard or neglect it?

and this other statement, "It feels strange...now I must grow up. I am not going back to school." do you see the problem here? SHE'S NOT GOING BACK TO SCHOOL. she's not going to get any education higher than... whatever is the bulgarian equivalent of primary 5 education. she's not going to be able to land a job any better than menial worker. she does have have her mother and mother-in-law to take care of her, but they cant possibly provide for her and their granddaughter all the way into adulthood; what about retirement, what about death? the two grandmothers will sadly have to go some day, and when that happens i cannot bear to envision what will become of our young mother here.

and of course, all this is ignoring the psychological trauma to both mother and daughter, that their age gap is only 11 years. ironically, there were these 2 sisters in my korea tour group who are 7 years apart, so it's not hard to imagine adding another 4 years to that and suddenly calling your older sister "mom". which is wrong on so many levels i shall let your imagination run with it.

and finally, i thought about how this might be the first symptom of worse things to happen to humanity. in days long gone, pre-marital sex was considered taboo, but slowly it got accepted into society, and now any movie or TV show featuring a guy and girl is bound to have a sex scene somewhere along the lines. and then slowly we descended further to a point where 18-19 year olds have sex and people barely raise an eyebrow. sure, back in the day these were considered highly controversial sins, but now they're getting more and more frequent and people seem to be caring less and less. im sure if our forefathers saw the state we are in today they would surely vomit blood. parenthood at 11 - sure, now we might gag in disgust, but could it possibly be a precursor to what will soon be a common, even acceptable occurence? this girl, this generation, my generation, is decaying beyond recognition.

If we are human, then this, this horror, is humanity. I cannot decide if it is harder to admit that we have degenerated below the baseline of humanity, or if humanity itself has plunged below the horizon of civilisation, into the inky depths of bestiality.

There are mirages in the snow too

Back from korea! if you missed me then thanks for the concern, if you didnt then... well i cant really ask for much can i? i'll try to summarise as much as i can, but it's 8 days worth of stuff so there's probably still gonna be a whole lot of words here.

the first day was a scam. the entire day was spent in-flight to korea. obviously nothing much happened. i brought along a book to read: george orwell's "1984". it was supposed to be a sec 4 reading assignment, but i think i have enough fingers on one hand to count the number of people who actually bothered to read it. seriously, all of you (especially cat high 2008 batch -.-) should read it. it's a great book.

on the second day, touched down at 6am, and was immediately caught off guard by how cold it was. to add on, there was a slight drizzle. the first stop of the tour was breakfast, then off to a traditional korean bath house, the type where you have to be completely naked in a communal pool of hot water... that was very awkward needless to say.
afterwards we went to the 大长今 filming set. not really a fan of the series so this was a bit boring for me, but quite interesting to see how all the small sets can look so big on TV.
after that was lunch, then we visited an ancient korean palace. interesting to note that all the writing is in chinese because korea was then still a chinese colony with no language of its own.
after that we visited (by that i mean loitered outside) the president's house. it is equipped with offices, conference rooms, even a small park, so that the president rarely ever needs to venture outside his own house, whether for work or leisure. sounds a bit emo if you ask me, but i guess the president can be as emo as he wants.
yet another airplane trip, this time a domestic flight to Jeju island, then it was dinner. Jeju is famous for seafood, so dinner was a sashimi/steamboat feast (haha, i know you're jealous :P ), but the highlight of the meal wasnt the fresh seafood, but the living seafood: abalone still squirming in its shell, and octupus tentacle bitten straight off the living octopus. for obvious reasons, i was a bit hesitant to put living animals into my mouth, but my dad tried a bit and the look on his face was priceless.
checked into a hotel for the night. havent slept for about 36h straight, so i fell asleep immediately.

on the third day, breakfast was abalone porridge (that's abalone for 2 meals in a row, if you werent jealous then i bet you are now :P ), then we went on board a submarine (specifically, a little yellow submarine. beatles revival is happening everywhere, even in korea). the water was so much cleaner and blue-er than singapore, so much more picturesque and postcard-like.
afterwards we started climbing this hill which i believe is supposed to be the tallest of some kind of special geological hill thingy? i dunno, i wasnt really listening to the tour guide, i just ran up the hill. was so hot and sweaty afterwards that i actually took of my jacket for the first time since arriving in korea, and even did the unthinkable and got an ice-cream.
then we went to this orange farm to pluck oranges. Jeju is also famous for oranges, but i dont really like oranges so this part was kind of boring too. a funny thing is that so many tourists have come and plucked the oranges that in some trees the farmers actually hung plastic oranges so that the tourists would have good-looking trees to pose for photos with.
ate lunch, then went to this horse farm for a short horse-riding session (and it was short -  barely 5min)
afterwards we went to the southern-most point of korea, this rocky beach, where there were cool-looking hexagonal pillars of rock at the cliffs, and it's all natural.
then we went to a teddy bear museum. saw the world's smallest teddy (barely half a centimetre tall), a 125-carat teddy (the eyes were made completely out of diamonds, and the fur was speckled with gold) and the world's most expensive teddy (a one-of-a-kind LV teddy which sold for more than US$100M).
dinner, then watched this stage show called Nanta, which is a non-verbal percussion/dance/comedy show in the same vein as Stomp. it's about 4 chefs who have an hour to prepare a wedding banquet, and it's really good. would definitely recommend it to anyone who gets the chance to watch it. after that, checked into the hotel for the night.

on the fourth day, took a plane back to mainland korea, where it started snowing for the first time since our trip began. it was really cool to see snow for the first time, and it wasnt what i imagined it to be. i always thought snow would be like ice kachang falling from the sky, but it looks more like cotton which melts on contact.
travelled to Everland, the fourth-biggest theme park in the world. unfortunately, the snow meant that most of the thrill rides were closed, including the T Express which is the world's biggest and steepest wooden roller coaster. luckily, some of the other rides opened up later on after it stopped snowing, but ironically the ride which caught my attention the most wasnt a thrill ride. it's a ride called "Rotating House" which has a brilliantly creative concept. it's sort of like a really small swinging ship housed indoors, but the trick is that the entire room itself is also part of the ride and can rotate as well. when the room and seats rotate in the same direction, it looks like you are not moving but you can feel the direction of gravity changing. when the room and seats rotate in opposite directions, it looks like you are flipping 360 degress when in actual fact you might only be flipping 20 degrees.
that day was the first time that the temperature consistently remained below 0 degrees the entire day. as if to prove it, my younger brother plucked an icicle from a small hut and carried it with him for about half an hour, and it didnt even get wet, which obviously meant that the temperature had been below freezing all the way. i couldnt talk fast because my facial muscles were literally numb due to the cold.

day 5 had a more relaxed pace than the others. in the morning we went to rent ski equipment for the following day, then hiking up a snowy mountain. the view was great, but it was quite scary walking up and down with all that slippery snow and ice lying about.
then we arrived at an indoor water theme park. once again i  felt like i got scammed by the tour agency. they said that the theme park was indoors, but in reality most of the exciting slides were all outdoors and were closed for the season. however, there were a few heated outdoor pools that were still open and it was quite interesting to see the heated water evaporate, then immediately condensate into a thick fog.

day 6 was skiing! this was my favourite part of the trip. i wouldnt mind going for another trip purely for skiing. i started out really shaky, but slowly i started to get the hang of it; it's really not that difficult. a few minor falls and bruises here and there, but nothing serious.
after that, we went to seoul for a kimchi appreciation course -.- ok it wasnt that bad, and i have to admit that cuttlefish kimchi is quite nice, but on the whole i still think kimchi is severely overrated and extremely disgusting. there was also a session where we could dress up in traditional korean clothes and take photos. im not really a camwhore, but my dad thinks he's some professional photographer (keyword: THINKS) so he forced me into a set of clothes and started snapping away -.-
afterwards, we went to sinchon for some shopping. sinchon is supposed to be the well-known "ladys' street" for all the women's apparel and cosmetics they sell, but im not really interested in stuff like that. while all the other tour members boarded the bus with bags upon bags of clothes and make-up, i was the only one with nothing in hand except a hotdog.

the seventh day started out really, really boring, because it was mainly a day dedicated to shopaholics, which i am most definitely not. first we went to a ginseng shop, then an jewellery shop specialising in amethyst. my mom was adamant that i at least get something from all the shopping, so i got a little amethyst scorpion thingy to dangle on my phone (im a scorpio so i've always had an affinity with them). afterwards we went to a Face Shop for cosmetics, and i was amazed at how many different types of BB cream there were. for the uninformed, BB cream is a supposed miracle make-up/skincare cream that korea is famous for, and there were at least 10 different varieties in that one shop alone, and i saw even more later on while roaming the streets. it's crazy how one single product can have so many wildly different incarnations.
afterwards, we went to dongdaemun (not sure how to spell it), the fashion capital of korea. once again i was bored out of my skull. ended up trying more roadside snacks lol.
finally, we went to Lotte World, another famous theme park in korea. this time most of the rides were open, so i was able to try more of them. most memorable was the Gyro Drop. it would slowly ascend while spinning, so that you get a 360 view of your surroundings as you slowly climb to the top (im not sure how tall it is, but was the tallest ride in the entire theme park), then stop. you stone for a bit, then without warning you are dropped all the way to the ground. roller coasters may have loops and helixes and corkscrews, but nothing beats the thrill of plain simple free-fall, where you slowly float above your seat and your legs dangle in front of you. awesome.

day 8, the last day. the morning was spent buying stuff at a local produce shop. my mom bought, among others, a set of "laundry balls". apparently, these balls were invented in korea, and you can just dump one or two of these plastic balls into the washing machine and you wont even need washing powder anymore. i have no idea how the hell it's supposed to work, but either way i guess it makes a funny oddity to have around the house.
after that was all the usual airport admin work, and we finally set off for singapore. watched "Up" for the first time on board, quite a nice movie, touching and funny at the same time. it's amazing how disney manages to keep the magic going with movies like Up and Wall.E. i bet i'll be watching disney movies all the way into adulthood and beyond, and i'll never be afraid to admit that i love disney movies.

holy crap this is a long post. oh well i wanted to post this yesterday when i got home but jet lag and laziness (more of the latter) persuaded me to procrastinate.

Come on, let's hear a "Bon Voyage", please? :)

Today's the day! the cab will arrive in a while, then it's off to korea; the land of kimchi (yuck), Wonder Girls (double yuck) and guys with girlishly long hair (holy f***)! ok there's also plenty of cool stuff there, otherwise this wouldnt be much of a holiday, would it?

tried to cram as much SSBB as possible today before going, cos obviously im not bringing the wii to korea with me. on a random note, SSBB is infinitely more intense and fun when you play with tournament rules: 1V1 3-stock 8min match with no items.

still on an SSBB-related note, this is officially my favourite SSBB bgm, my favourite pokemon remix, and possibly my favourite game-related melody ever. it's the SSBB remix of the Victory Road bgm from pokemon ruby/sapphire. in case you've forgotten all about pokemon (and if you're not crazy deep into pokemon, then probably you have), i found a video which show's the original for the first 1min+, then shows the remix. i love the added drum and electric guitar sounds, and even the synths (which i usually dont really like) serve as sort of a "rhythm guitar" kind of function.



just take note that im not bringing my phone with me the next few days cos i dont have roaming, so if for some reason you need to contact me then use email or sms. also, i wont be updating until after i come back.  unless korea has some dirt-cheap internet cafes lying around (highly unlikely).

Bye. Singapore!

Out of the frying pan, into the freezer

The weather these few days is crazy. isnt it supposed to be the rainy season? so why is it that the sun shines so brightly that i cant even look straight without literally seeing white? i find it quite ironic that it's only in the november-december period when i start getting sunburns during training. and the heat really saps everything out of you; i almost never sleep during the afternoon on normal occasions, but when i got home from training today i sat on the couch and opened my eyes an hour later. getting hyped up about going to korea tomorrow, looking forward to escaping this furnace and (hopefully) seeing snow for the first time in my life :)

no walk-in practices till the 18th! this means that i wont be affected by my korea trip and hockey trainings as well. haha, quite amazed at this happenstance cos i was getting a bit worried about schedule clashes. in hindsight, i really have to say that this has been my most packed holiday ever, even more so than some of my school terms. which of course goes to show how much of a no-lifer i usually am, but admitting that you have a problem is the first step to overcoming it?

a 4-4 outing is in the works! and this time, we might even be getting a few teachers to join us. hope it gets followed through to the end.

Random funny thingy: if you havent heard of Craigslist, it's a website where people post about stuff that they want (could be to buy/sell, hire, give away or pretty much anything else) and other members respond. something like the online answer to a flea market, but much more comprehensive. of course, when there are so little criteria, there are bound to be posts that are a little... odd. some users actually have spambots that pose as women looking for men, only to use they email addresses they collect to sell to ad companies who proceed to spam the poor, horny victims with adverstisements for viagra and other stuff. here's a video of a guy reading out an actual Craigslist offer from a spambot gone hilariously wrong.



for your reference, here's the original text post of the offer. the attention to detail is amazing (notice how he squints when he says "seats" because it's spelled "seet"), and the rubber duckie at the end always gets me no matter how many times i see the video.