pOlar bEar's Garage

Hiatus~ Finally a new update!

2010-08-07T12:12:00.002+08:00

after slacking for around 3 months, it's finally time for a new post!

been pretty slack recently. everyday is about swimming and gymming and finding random short term jobs. this includes sitting at carparks for hours watching cars that goes by, conducting games for a family day, being a high class bangla for a day and selling laptops at NUS again.

selling laptops usually pay quite well, but as usual, conflicts are inevitable. wether it's misunderstandings or because people tend to have preconceived notions about one another, somehow things get ugly when it comes down to money especially if you don't know each other well enough. i think this time it was epsecially bad because half of the people were actually friends which naturally caused them to form 1 clique. it was only normal for the rest of us to form the other clique. oh whatever, it's not like we are going to see those barbaric people again. if they want to think badly of us, it's only because they don't even know us.

FOC is just around the corner and it's time for us to make our final preparations. need to gather even more manpower, settle our logistic needs and reallocate manpower. i really hope we manage to pull the monster hunt and mini o's off. we've put in many months of hard work for this. and freshie girls, please don't hate me if you think i've made it too scary. haha.

alrite that's all for now. cya!

Holidays! Reigning free

2010-05-14T14:34:00.002+08:00

after months of suffering especially the period where the only meaning in life was to study for exams, it's finally the holidays!

well, i don't have any exciting plans to go overseas and i'll probably find a job. but the change of pace is much needed. i finally have time to sit down at starbucks and just chit chat with my friends and watch people walk by. for some reason, it's so crowded everywhere even on weekdays. isn't it the exam period for secondary school students? how come they are so free to go to town or gym or swim? it gets pretty uncomfortable when it's too crowded.

the weather this week has also been pretty downcast and gloomy. why is that the case during holidays? during the exam period it was scorching hot and it was impossible to make it to SRC for exams and stay dry. now, it's either raining or so cloudy, you know the rain is coming soon. hopefully the weather gets better over the next few days. i mean, there's only so much rain in the clouds right?

alright, that's all i have to say for now. until next time, cya!

Preparation: One week to exams!

2010-04-14T23:58:00.004+08:00

yea, it's been a while since the last post but i've been pretty overwhelmed by school and stuff (as always). it's near the end of my 2nd semester here at ntu which means exams are around the corner!

i've been feeling pretty down for the past few days because i was thinking of stuff and don't really feel very confident for this semester (which sucks because things will only get harder). i don't really know why. i've been studying and really trying but my results don't seem to be showing it and all my group projects and written assignments are getting mediocre grades. i really don't know how i will do for the finals and i'm trying my best here to stay sane.

i think i might have turned into a real geek (is there such a thing as a stupid geek?) because i actually started feeling better when i started studying for OB. besides talking about organizational structure and team building, OB talks quite a bit about individuals' personality, emotions, motivations and perceptions and such. it made me realize i have been a little fatalistic recently. i decided i need create opportunities and outcomes for myself. sometimes it's worth taking a risk when what you might lose is little compared to what you might stand to gain.

haha. maybe i've really gone mad from mugging.

oh! and i've found my new favourite taiwan variety show (not exactly at the best of times. but well, need to stay sane amidst the mugging). it's 大學生了沒! i think the topics they discuss are pretty interesting and it really give perspective from people around my age. and it's not too gossipy like some other shows (shan't mention names in order not to be flamed by the fans)

alright, i better sleep early so i can wake up early and continue mugging (i'm going to use the textbook which i bought for $10. hahaha. that's another story i'm too lazy to tell.). hope i can keep the optimism up and go all out. cya!

Cogitating : Time simply flies by...

2010-03-28T01:20:00.009+08:00

ok, i must apologize about the post that was supposed to precede this one but i really got carried away with the flow of things.

alright, you might be wondering what i was talking about. but of course i was talking about SP! yea, the rehearsals and dance practices were really tough but in the end we put up a good show! (at least in my humble opinion) i really enjoyed the time spent with the rest of the cast and crew. how many opportunities do you get to sit on the back of a lorry singing "i want it that way" at the top of your lungs with people you enjoy being with on the expressway and banglas on the next lorry are staring at you. some moments in life are just priceless.

honestly speaking i can never look at these people the same way again after seeing how crazy they can get when they are drunk. haha. i had a great time and i hope the rest felt the same way too. look foward to hanging out with them again (maybe after exams since all of us will be busy mugging the next few weeks.) joshua! you still owe me mac breakfast!

today has also been very entertaining by itself. woke up early for the 3km run in ntu today. i think it's a really long story that can only be fully narrated over a cup of coffee but the main point is that kahmin did something totally malu and we all know it.

it has been quite a mentally taxing week. it was e-learning week but i had a big AA102 quiz on wednesday so i was mugging hard for it. i really needed to take a break after that because i was really drained. so i have to spend my weekend watching e-lectures, doing tutorials. ok la, at least i got to go chill out a little just now.

after a few HTHT sessions recently i think my mood has definitely improved. (just don't remind me of the can 13 auntie with horrendous attitude problem. totally incorrigible.) i realized i need to start figuring out what i really want. i shouldn't just look ahead at what i'm aiming at but also remember to grab hold of what i have now. sound very profound right? haha. i just made that up a minute ago.

okok, got to go now. i'll leave you with the song that is really stuck in my head now. cya!

Reminiscence : Thinking back...

2010-03-14T02:51:00.001+08:00

so much has happened in the past 2 weeks but today i really felt like all the time i've spent is really worth it...full post tomorrow...

Perseverance! 4 Day War.

2010-02-21T01:08:00.004+08:00

well, all thanks to the CNY holidays, all my lectures and tutorials have been pushed into the remaining days of the week. yes, that included the 45 minute econs tutorial that totally wasted my saturday morning. and the next 4 days are not going to get much better.

i've got stats tutorial on monday, econs and accounting tutorials with quizes (total weightage for the modules of, like what, 5%? 10%? that's quite significant) back to back on tuesday and the HO closing which includes the dance competition. i have practically only tomorrow to rush through all my tutorials and study for the double quiz. not to mention the dance practice that will probably be happening for the next few nights. hopefully it doesn't go into 3+am every night because i really can't survive with less than 4 hours of sleep a night. no, in fact i'm going to make it a point to leave early if they are going to drag on and on. anyway i'm only dancing a small part. no point making myself so wasted and not be able to do anything at all. (including dance the next day) you could say, live to fight another day?

it's going to take a lot of mental strength to survive the next 4 days...thank God i managed to finish all my OB stuff today. that includes the CT assignment AND motivation rating due on monday AND the teamwork assessment rubric due on tuesday. like wth? my whole day was burnt watching the econs lecture and submitting all my OB assignments.

perhaps it's time to get a new phone. the price for one of the phones i've been eyeing has finally dropped and my broken phone has some metal part which sticks out which i think will damage the pockets in my berms and jeans soon. the only thing i'm worried about is the shop refusing to accept my phone for trade-in because the exterior is broken (and it's pretty obvious). hmm...after that i'd be quite broke. i still haven't figured out wether i can get a job in the looooong break after my exams because we still have to plan for the FOC and prepare for senior camp and the actual camp. oh yes, that reminds me, i need to call the lady from SLA soon. oh no but i'm going to busy till after wednesday....

oh and i went down to the phiten shop at tampines one yesterday. the service was really bad. i remember seeing 2 different models for bracelets on their website (the singapore official distributor's site) but there was only 1 at the store. so i asked the shop assistant and he simply insisted there's only 1 model. ok, never mind, i refuse to argue with him. so i continued looking but obviously the guy had no intention of recommending any other products or do any form of sales at all, i got fed up and just walked out. maybe i'll give it one more chance if i have the time to drop by marina square. well, that definitely won't be this weekend.

maybe it's just me or are people nowadays having worse and worse attitude? is there some attitude problem epidemic or something? just the other day i was at the gym in school and i was resting between sets. this guy came over and wanted to borrow the weights i was using. his tone didn't sound very polite but i said ok. then when i finished up my last set, i told him i was done and he could have the weights and he just kind of grunted. annoying guy. and he was wearing a singlet even though the rule at the gym explicitly said sleeved tees only. some people just don't know how to read simple english.

oh man, got to beat the stress.....i have absolutely no free time for myself. it's either studying, doing tutorials or doing something for hall. hall, hall, hall. i spend so much time, put in so much effort for hall. for what? i don't really feel appreciated and i don't see my efforts paying off in any way and i still feel excluded at times. sometimes i wonder to myself if it's worth the effort. i don't mind contributing but somehow i only see myself giving? i don't even know if people actually see me as a teammate. yea maybe i'm not good enough and pretty redundant but hey at least i make an effort to turn up for trainings and such? am i asking for too much? bah, who am i kidding. they probably wouldn't care even if i wasn't there.

time to sleep so i can wake up earlier tomorrow and try to finish at least all my tutorials by the afternoon. tsk. bye.

Justice: Distributive, procedural or interactional? How about non-existent?

2010-02-16T01:44:00.012+08:00

the second day if CNY is already over and honestly it's really uneventful. i mean, i didn't even expect much in the first place but this really...bleh.

alright, on cny eve went for reunion dinner. went home. watched sunadokei (a.k.a sand chronicles), which was recommended by shuyi, on mio tv. yesterday was the 1st day of CNY which also happened to be valentines day this year. not much difference since i don't have anyone to go out with anyway. quite a few relatives came over in the day and we went out to visit a few in the evening. nobody came to my place today and i went out to like 3 relatives' place in the late afternoon till late. really boring. no cards, no mahjong, no nothing but diabetic drinks and some snacks to go along. and our plans originally to visit xueling's house tomorrow apparently has been cancelled due to the non-response from the rest of the crew. bleh~ guess i'll hit the gym or go shopping or something.

since there wasn't much happening, i spent quite a bit of time watching Kamen Rider Hibiki. it's the series from '05 - '06, after Blade and before Kabuto. you could say it's the "missing series" because central/okto decided to totally skip the series so the mainstream audience here won't really know about it. i've heard a lot about it being very different from the typical kamen rider series and after finally watching it i would agree. it's not something the masses, especially the kids who watch "super hero time", would be able to appreciate. however, i personally find that it has a very unique flavour and could be one of the most underrated kamen rider series. honestly i think kiva and kabuto was a little overrated. i think the design of the riders and the cast are better than many recent series, especially when it comes to the casting of female characters. i mean, akiko from W really makes too much noise and going around hitting people with her cheap green slippers isn't going to score her any extra brownie points. and it's also nice to have a more mature kamen rider rather than all those pretty boys (are they, really?) who look like they'll break like twigs. (*ahem* wataru. *ahem* ryoutarou). it kinda sucks to be saved by the likes of those riders. it's quite a shame the production team was replaced halfway. i'm not sure about the new direction since i haven't gotten that far. well, i doubt we'll be getting such a different experience from kamen riders in the near future since toy sales weren't that good, probably due to kids not really getting the story. and, trust me, toy sales is pretty much what they're concerned with. i'm really tempted to hunt down the S.I.C hibiki (Vol. 32. Hibiki/Armed Hibiki) but it's pretty old and hard to find. (which reminds me, there hasn't been that many updates for my side project. well, i'll get back to it once my printer has colour ink again so i can produce more props.)

ah, it sucks to have to use a broken phone. i mean it still works, but it's broken. i always take care of belongings to make sure they are in a good condition but it happens that when i lend people my stuff, they tend to come back spoilt. quite often. i remember my external hard disk and various other occassions caused by various people. not only does it suck to use a broken phone, since the damage is external, i don't even know if i can still trade in my phone when i get a new phone. major bummer. the net realizable value of my phone has practically dropped from $200 to $0. shit happens.

since i'm on that note, it seems shitty things don't come alone. well...it's this and that. various things that don't seem to go my way. i'm just constantly being reminded that my efforts tend to be wasted. and somehow, more often than not, i'm feeling very excluded. especially since i see strong bonds being formed by people around me. it's really complicated when people you want to bond with are kind of mixed up with people you don't really want to (i.e. people you don't like). and sometimes it's just total exclusion. or you're only included so you can be made to do something that has to be done but the rest of the people don't want to. which is worse? i don't really know. but, anyway, i'm in all of the above situations. it just feels like everything is so superficial, nothing is real. i'm just the one who's just there when it's convenient but just some extra person when i'm not needed. i don't really know what's the problem. am i being too easy? am i too difficult to get along with? maybe it's just my weak nature and being too easy to manipulate. i feel like a plastic fork. use it when you need it, throw it away when you're done. yeah, most of the time i just play along because i stupidly believe in other people too easily. i guess it's true, "you can't be so trusting in a world like this." the lines from my script suddenly has a resounding truth to it.

maybe this explains my singlehood for the past 21 (coming 22) years. my weak nature and lack of character. i'm just too "average". and i guess i'm too picky for my own good and not brave enough to make it happen when i finally find one. maybe my interests are too obscure and the things i'm good at aren't really appreciated and i don't any chances to show them off either. it may not even be worth anything when compared to others in the first place. i can't help it but things around me keep reminding me of my weaknesses and a shroud of inferiority looms over me. sometimes i try to forget about all the negative thoughts by only focusing on the positive things but inevitably, they tend to come back and bite me in the ass from time to time. and when they bite, they bite back hard. whiny guys who tend to emo once in a while, wallowing in self-pity don't really appeal to most girls i guess.

hmm...kind of out of topic, i've been thinking of getting something from phiten cause it supposedly helps in muscle recovery. but i don't really like the sports necklace. maybe i'll get a bracelet or something. i'll probably drop by the store at marina square to check out some of the products.

oh well, i guess in this post there was some sort of explanation of why i'm kinda moody lately. i can't really help it. it's tough to coax myself into feeling happy when i'm being bogged down by so many insecurities and troubles at once. each time i go to bed hoping that they will go away in the morning. but they don't. well, it's time for me to try it again. so...good night. until next time...

Festivity! CNY is around the corner! But...

2010-02-08T01:32:00.004+08:00

CNY is around the corner and things are starting to get busy. besides the shopping that has been done or needs to be done, assignments and quizes are approaching!

OB is really a troublesome module which rears it's ugly head at least once a week. my tutor is the type that might get a little uptight at times and some people might not like her style but so far i'm really quite ok with it. the first peer evaluation is coming up and is due on the 16th, that's like right after the CNY holidays. not to mention the critical thinking assessment that's due on the 22nd. it may seem like a simple assignment but i think there's a lot more skill involved than meets the eye. and i've barely started on it. i better start writing something this week.

well, at least the accounting II assignment is a group project which we are going to work on this week. hmm...i think stats has a project as well but i'm not so sure about wether the question is even out yet. i guess i need to check it out.

in addition, the hall olympiad closing is coming in like 3 week's time and we still need lots of practice for the dance competition and there's really not enough time. not to mention we still got 2 hockey games to play.

ok, as promised last week, here's a preview of some of my CNY hoots!

my reverse tip Fred Perry polo! notice that the tips on each side are reversed. same goes for the sleeves but you can't see from the picture

my new pair of onitsuka tiger for the year of the tiger! this is a pair of Ultimate81 which is pretty hard to come by in singapore so i don't think i'll need to worry much that i'll bump into someone with the same shoes as me. (most OT's you see around are Mexico66) notice the gold stripe and the gold part at the back. i'm lovin it!

oh yea, in case you were wonndering, i ordered both the polo and my shoes from zappos. there's no need to worry about authenticity when ordering from a reliable website. (zappos is owned by amazon.com) remember! always order from reliable sites when you worry that you might get scammed into buying fakes.

hmm...remember the drawing of the running shorts i was looking for? good news is, i found it at the haven of all things sports related, Queensway! the things is, i realized my drawing might have been a little off. haha, anyway, here's the picture of the said running shorts.

yup, i guess i need to work on my drawing skills a bit more.

i've been having a rash on my arm which has been pretty annoying. but i've just got a cream today and hopefully it will go away soon. it has tea tree oil and aloe vera in it. i always trust products with aloe in it. haha.

yawnz, alright, i better go to bed now. lessons at 1030 tomorrow and i've got the little gathering going on at night. but the tough part is getting back either tomorrow night (it might be late) or on tuesday morning (i've got 0830 lessons!). yikes! i guess i'll worry about that tomorrow. alright, until next time, cya!

Positively! Weekends really are the best.

2010-01-31T01:38:00.005+08:00

i don't care if monday's blue

tuesday's grey and wednesday too

thursday, i don't care about you

it's friday, i'm in love!

...

...and then it's saturday and sunday! weekends are the time when we can take that short break from all the business in our lives. it's when we really are living ain't it? haha. wether we are working or studying, everybody looks foward to the weekends. (well, most of us anyway)

honestly weekdays haven't been that bad recently (better enjoy it while it lasts), but weekends are still definitely better. sleeping in, eating breakfast at home, gym, run. just some of the things that make weekends, weekends. (okok, i know i gym and run on weekdays also but i still prefer to go hg gym and meet up with my buddies there. school gym....ok la i only know a few people whom i bump into occassionally)

speaking of which, i desperately need new shorts to wear to the gym! i simply don't have enough to keep up with my training schedule! really need to make that trip to queensway soon.

the shorts i'm looking for (picture drawn completely from my memory)

if anyone happens to see this in M size please tell me ok? for some reason it's really hard to find. (argh, robinson's why don't you restock)

i realized i've been too slack with my running recently so i decided to increase the intensity! got to watch out for my diet as well. i've just learnt that fruit juice may not be that good for you. no more fruit juice! no more supper! rawr! and i also decided to focus a bit more on training my deltoids! it's one of the most neglected and underrated muscle groups. time to throw in more exercises which involve my delts from now on.

got to remind myself to stick to my new year's resolution to be brave. be more daring and forthcoming. i don't think there's much to lose.

oh ya! h00ts for CNY have arrived! i'll probably do a short feature on my next post. kind of like a preview of sorts? haha.

okok, time to go. got to watch the stats e-lecture tomorrow morning then go to the gym in the afternoon. that's all for now, cya~

Shopping: Should be made an olympic sport

2010-01-17T13:23:00.005+08:00

yup, that's right. man, maybe i'm getting old but recently shopping around in town has been pretty tiring. well, maybe it's because i walk from dhoby ghaut all the way down to far east and back. but, hey, you got to check everything out to make sure you don't miss out anything right? or it could be that with the numerous new malls popping up there's just so much more to cover.

exploring ION is really an ardous task. i only visit the basement levels because the stuff in the boutiques upstairs is probably out of my budget. even so, there's so much to see. i can't even start naming the shops. there's also lots of food at the bottom floor. hmm..honestly 313 only has uniqlo (you don't expect me to go to forever 21 right?) orchard central is another headache altogether due to the horribly spaced out and confusing lay out. i would avoid that place unless i really had to do otherwise.

my efforts have been pretty futile for the past 2 weeks. i actually found the adidas shorts i wanted at robinson's but they didn't have my size (the ones left were too big). it was pretty disappointing because they were on sale too. after that, i've been to every adidas store and anywhere selling adidas that i came across but to no avail. maybe i should make a trip to queensway soon. tough luck with my jump rope too. i'm trying to find the weighted everlast rope. i found it on ebay but the price with shipping was a little too much. if anyone happen to see the item below in stores please let me know.

WANTED:

i did managed to order a pair of shoes and a polo tee online though. you might think "oh yea, why don't you just shop online?" online shopping has it's own sets of problems. i got kind of paranoid over the idea that i might get the wrong sizes so i actually went to the shops to try the sizing before ordering online. so it's actually kinda like double the work. but the savings are really quite significant.

even then, there are stuff i can't find even online. i've been trying to find a nice pair of berms but to no avail. for some reason it's really overpriced. of course there are cheap options but the quality is like meh. then those with slightly better quality are really overpriced. i guess i'll have to look harder.

aside from shopping, it has been the first week of school. no tutorials, just lectures. i tried my best not to fall asleep but ended up kinda dazed for most of the lectures (except accounting II. the lecturer was pretty funny). tutorials are starting next week. 1st tutorials are really important. if you start off on the wrong note. that's it. well, i did managed to get the elusive HMJ1 elective (Japanese level 1) pretty easily. i guess it was a stroke of luck. but i've been camping for a slot to index 00567 for OB but still haven't managed to get it. c'mon, someone change out of the class already.

i've been swimming a bit other than just gymming so i think i got a tad darker. but for some reason my tan line hasn't totally gone away. hopefully, with more sun it will go away soon.

as you can tell time is a resource that really isn't enough for me. i got a little sick last week and was in bed whenever i could. that really sucks. i think my room in hall needs a little more ventilation but ed (who's my roomie for those of you who don't know) refuses to open the windows. i don't care already, i'm going to open them anyway. i mean it ok when the air-con is on but when it's not even if the fan is at full blast it's still kinda stuffy. i mean it's common sense right? anyway, from now on, i really need to do my tutorials fast during weekdays so i can enjoy my weekends. saturdays for swimming and shopping, sundays for gymming and chillaxing. haha.

alright time for lunch and then i'll be heading to the gym later. cya! ;)

Acquiescence: It's the last week of holidays!

2010-01-03T13:35:00.013+08:00

here i am sitting in my chair only to realize it's the very last week of the holidays! i've never been the type who dreaded the starting of a new school semester. you could say i'm the type who hold mixed feelings towards it. i mean, although there's going to be schoolwork and mugging and group projects and stuff, it also marks a new beginning.

i think it's important to start off well. it's during the first week that you'll get to meet new classmates and start to form your groups for projects and stuff. if you happen to group with freeloaders or totally useless members you're pretty screwed and it will take immense effort to salvage the situation. aha, but be careful. if you start the term with the impression that everyone starts on a clean slate and are on a level playing field you are so wrong. i've seen people mugging for modules they will be taking in the next semester during the holidays. yes, even though they have no lives they have definitely spoiled the market.

rather than focusing on the eternal conflict between anticipation and apprehension, i've decided to enjoy myself thoroughly this last week of the holidays. gonna take some time off to really relax before the semester begins. if i keep up with the constant buzzing of business i'll probably go mad. time at the gym also helps to relax the mind in a tantric kind of way and somehow the soreness in your body actually feels pretty good. probably because it's voluntary. which reminds me, i need to take my damned IPPT within the next 5 months. i think my jumping needs some work. don't know if skipping will help but skipping is a really good exercise. i think i should invest in a good jump rope. with all the post-christmas sales going about perhaps it would be a good time to pick one up along with a new pair of running shorts which i need.

which reminds me,it's time to upgrade my handphone! hmm...it's quite a tough choice. honestly i'm not an iphone kind of person and it's seriously way too overpriced considering it's hardware specifications. it's kind of like paying the price of a pistol to get a nerf gun. you get what i mean? well, the first one that really caught my eyes was...

...the HTC HD2! with it's extra large display running on winmo powered by a whopping 1ghz snapdragon processor it really made a striking impression even though i'm not a techie. i even placed a pre-order but ultimately the price singtel offered was way too expensive. i mean it's good but it's still way too expensive. starhub gave a really good deal but too bad i'm still tied down by the red camp.

ok, then i went around looking for the next best option so i considered....

...SE Satio. the 12mp camera is really an upgrade from my c905 which has an 8mp camera (it's actually quite good already). but there are a few factors which is making me a little hesitant to get this. first it's running on the SE interface which has proved to have many limitations and lacks threaded messaging (c'mon all new phones nowadays have threaded view. what were you thinking SE?) also, despite the very sleek looking back view of the phone with the camera lens cover and everything, the phone somehow gives a very plastic feel when i held it in my hand for some reason. well, good news is that according to joseph, after updating the firmware the interface is no longer laggy (i was really quite astounded by the lag when trying out the live sets at the telco shops). i guess i'll keep this in consideration because i've seen a piece of the future....

...the SE X2! *drools* okok, the hardware may not be as power as HD2 but the design is definitely one of the best around. and it has mutliple input options. besides the slide out qwerty keyboard and optical trackpad, it also features a resistive touchscreen with handwriting recognition and also virtual qwerty keyboard. as with the X1, it packs a stylus on board. running on winmo 6.5 and equipped with a 8mp camera you could say it's the ideal combination? i'll really have to wait for the official release before i make my mind. SE, when is this shipping out? hopefully the pricing will be more resonable as compared to the HD2. there's hope because the X10 will also be released soon and that will probably be matching the HD2 in terms of price since it's like SE's offering of the HD2 running on android (powered by the same snapdragon processor). i've just got to hope singtel doesn't screw me over again.

ah, time flies when drooling over sleek handheld devices. it's time to go! until next time, cya guys!

2010! New year new beginnings

2010-01-01T15:03:00.004+08:00

alright! it's a new year! hmm...before i touch on the future, perhaps a little retrospection would be good...

2009 was a really busy year and a lot of great things happened but overall it wasn't that fantastic. had lots of great times with my colleagues from starhub as well as the trip to australia with my primary school clique. not to mention my 21st birthday which many of my wonderful friends made really memorable just by turning up (even those who turned up late. i really appreciate the effort). 2009 also marked the biginning of my uni life. but what really marred the year were the continuous setbacks. things have been pretty rough this year. tough situations and tough people just keep coming. even right now i'm still being plagued by these haunting circumstances.

some people are born exuding an aura of annoyance but the thing is they don't realize it. unfortunately for me i just have to tolerate their lack of EQ. but my tolerance is reaching it's limits soon. also, apparently continuous effort and earnestness isn't really appreciated around these parts of the world. trust me, the number 1 lesson i've learnt from 2009 is never to expect an outcome proportionate to the effort you put in. whoever has been telling you otherwise has been lying through their teeth.

ok, never mind. let's forget about the unhappy past. what's most important is we learn from experience and become wiser.

what's a new year without new year resolutions right? my new year resolution is....to become braver. i've been told that it's quite an unusual new year resolution. it may sound simple but bravery covers many different aspects.

1. to dare to stand up to unreasonable (and irritating) people
2. to dare to fight for my own rights and make my own stand
3. to dare to be less dependent
4. to dare to try new things and get new experiences
5. to dare to beat the system

these are just a few examples but it really covers a very wide range of aspects. i feel like somehow in the past year i've let myself revolve around the situations and circumstances that have been happening. it's time for change. i'm going to take back control of my life. i should be at the centre and the rest should revolve around me. time to take a step foward. those people who have been taking me for granted should just look out. you've had your chance with the docile side of me. there's only so much bull i can take so i'm going to be hitting back. and i'll be hitting back hard.

at this juncture i find that it may be appropriate to address this to whomever it may concern (i'll relay the message personally anyway): i'm quiting hall cheerleading! i gave it a shot but i really find it to be unsuitable for me. first, the scheduling is always last minute and random. not to mention the lack of meal times. (the timings are just plain bad) and about trainings in the day time, most people have other commitments that they would actually have higher priority like training for sports. and the person who's supposed to take charge isn't even serious about this. c'mon if you want us to turn up, you got to turn up. you are obligated to do so. also, we don't even have a first aid kit nearby. cheerleading is a high risk activity. any injury i've sustained in a single training session has been more serious than all my softball and hockey trainings combined. and it leaves me so battered i can't even go to the gym! my neck is still injured such that it hurts when i turn my head. enough is enough. i'm not willing to put my health at stake for nothing. seriously there's little incentive (if any) for me to continue. i quit.

that's just the first step to the new me. so whoever else it is, watch out because i'm going to get in your face if you keep it up and take me for granted.

maybe i'm getting a little angsty but this whirlwind of involuntary activities has really been disrupting my gym sessions. it doesn't help that the gym closes early on holiday eves and public holidays (like today). it has been ultra annoying these 2 weeks because of this. well, it's not necessarily a bad thing. at least i've managed to get my thoughts sorted out and i'm liking my shiny new attitude. tougher and better. so to all you muthaf**kers out there, stop wasting my time.

to end this off, i'll leave you guys with my song of the moment. enjoy!

Rejoice! Don't you love holiday seasons?

2009-12-18T02:13:00.004+08:00

i've been in the sun a lot cuz of trainings so i'm like at least 2 shades darker than what i usually am. it's not really a bad thing but trust me, do apply adequete sun protection. i honestly don't want to know how skin cancer looks like. (besides, it sucks to get sunburnt and when you start peeling all over)

personally, i especially enjoy the holiday season. i mean, why not? it's a time you can go shopping and walk around town looking for prezzies for others and yourself. and starbucks always have their seasonal drinks. haha. but there's soemthing different this year and that's carolling. nope, i won't be going to listen at carolling sessions, i'm actually goign to be in it. our hall choir is going to perform at white sands and sentosa. i hope things don't turn out too bad. lol

oh ya, besides killing sea serpents and watching anime/drama, i've been working on a mini side project. to find out more click the link to モモの狂乱日記. just something i decided to work on when the idea came upon me. more chapters should be coming soon.

december seems full of birthday parties for me. i have already attended 2 and there's still 1 more coming up. hmm....honestly i haven't figured out what to sing for gek theng's birthday party yet and it's only slightly more than a week away! suggestions please? i also dunno why but i'm supposed to perform for her party.

alright that's all for now. until next time, cya!

Advance! Moving on to other things...

2009-12-05T00:50:00.002+08:00

yup, the exams are over! well, there's a whole lot in store for the next month! (i'm trying to ignore the fact that the results are going to be out in 3 week's time)

hall olympiads are coming up which means i'll probably be in hall for practice and trainings most of the week despite it being the holidays. i gotta admit it's going to be fun but it's definitely tiring. but that's no excuse not to go to the gym! yes, i'll finally get to catch up in my personal training as well. yea, i'll do some running too.

holidays are the best time for, you said it, shopping! you don't really have to buy something all the time. walking around town, checking out the chic-, i mean, sights. it's something pretty fun to do. christmas is coming up, no harm keeping a lookout for some prezzies.

i've been looking high and low for a very important prop for my upcoming personal mini project. it's proving to be truly elusive but nonetheless, i will hunt it down!

oh ya, i've just started playing castle age on facebook. i think it's a really great way to waste time when you really have nothing else to do. hmm...i think it's time to take out my psp and ds huh? haha

HD2, HD2, when are you going to be released? starhub is going to release it tomorrow but singtel hasn't said a word. hello,singtel i pre-ordered......you better release it quick.....and with similar pricing and pre-order promo as starhub.......

ooh ooh, i finally unlocked shining star on jubeat and managed to full combo all 3 difficulties which got me the title: SYNTHESIZER EXPERT. yay. now i can focus on trying to unlock the rest of the songs. haha.

alright, that's all for now. time to go now, cya~

Melancholy...Only despair awaits....

2009-11-24T23:46:00.007+08:00

somehow it feels like everything feels so futile. what a horrible way to end my first semester in uni. it was really stupid. it seems impossible to salvage my grades for that stupid module. i'm going to need some stellar marks for the finals just to bring it to a semi-decent grade.

sigh, don't really want to disturb my other friends. afterall, they are having their own fair share of stress from the exams.

everthing else for that module seemed to be going fairly decent as well. not to mention there are lots of imba crazy muggers who spoil the market by getting ridiculous marks and cause the average to be equally ridiculous. i really got pwned....did i self-pwn? maybe. probably.

perhaps i'm destined to be the bottom feeder. i was really astonished by their reactions. it's like....they already accepted their fate long ago. somehow it's no wonder that i landed in this dismal situation. i don't know, maybe i would have felt better if i was the one who is solely responsible for causing this plight. some people say i'm just unlucky. oh well. at least i've seen a grade that probably most people can't even fanthom throughout their entire uni life. lucky me. haha.

now i really feel useless. i'm not good at studying, not good at sports, can't do anything particularly useful....you could say lacking in every department eh?

it's a really sickening feeling that i don't know how many people will actually get to experience. everything seemed ok, then suddenly you get whooped by some people who don't really seem to care. you get taken down when they self-destruct. you know, like in pokemon. everyone gets knocked out. mass destruction. boom.

i don't even know how many people will see this. sigh. but people are probably too busy and already too stressed to want to care about it. i wouldn't want to trouble them either. haha.

some people are stressed even when they already have A's for everything. some people have the money for retail therapy to destress. some people are already very well prepared. can afford to take a day off.

at this point of time i haven't really found a way to console myself. maybe i was expecting too much in the first place....

Doomed....Sometimes sh*t happens.

2009-11-24T02:18:00.004+08:00

sigh...i'm really disgusted and confused and stressed out by the shock. how? what to do now.....there's option A and.....option B. each has it's own implications. i feel so jaded. and it was going fairly well too...it was a stupid mistake

i'm really lost for words. well, i'll sign off with a picture

Exams! Haven't really had one in a while...

2009-11-17T16:48:00.002+08:00

hmm...i guess it's about time for an update here. well, been rather busy mugging for the exams which are coming up (first paper is in 2 day's time and the last paper is in 2 weeks). ok, at least they are nicely spread out. been doing some past year papers but i wouldn't really know if i got them correct. i guess it's just to get the feel so i won't freak out on the actual day.

after the exams it's going to be christmas! time to go shopping and destress and play more jubeat! 1 more rank to unlock Shining Star. almost there. it's about time i got the g-shock i've been eyeing for quite a while and also some other stuff. oh ya, more time for gym and running and such. but there's also going to be HO and trainings.

for those of you wondering, nope, i still have no idea how my group did for the accounting project. the results should be out by this week though.

ugly betty and heroes are back in their 4th seasons! heroes is a bit boring. haven't really see the breakthrough yet. betty on the other hand just keeps getting better. she finally gets a (slight) improvement on her wardrobe with a new hairdo and specs! the braces are also coming off soon. the scriptwriters have to complicate things as usual by throwing amanda into the picture and turning things into a bizarre love triangle with betty and matt. although amanda is still looking hot, i still think she should just back off. haha.

i guess that's all the time i have for now. cya later!

Holiday? I think not...

2009-10-17T03:06:00.004+08:00

it's all over! i've submitted my IT project and biz law assignment! hell week is over! i'm free!.....NOT!

i wish that was the case but unfortunately it's not. i'm sure many people looked foward to this weekend because it's a long weekend. a well deserved break. but, no, some people don't like holidays. and i have to suffer for it (again). if you want to see me, you can drop by TR154 at 1030 on Monday. yes, that's because apparently it's standardized that all AA101 tutors want to have it on that day. well, apparently there aren't that many AA101 tutorials on that day because i've not heard anyone else from other classes complaining that they have to be back in school. what a bummer. i guess people who made us sit in class for 2 hours in school on hari raya would have no qualms doing the same for deepavali. what was i thinking?

alright, that leaves me with a normal 2 day weekend. that's ok right? sure, if not for my AA101 group project (i fear for all of us. at this rate we'll flunk. time to pull it together guys!) and my IT business plan (yes the 20 page one). oh yea, not to mention my comm fund oral assessment. all 3 of the above items will be graded and make up a significant part of each module's grades. great. not to mention the tutorials for monday's lessons will have to be done.

and i seriously need to pick up my paycheck. that sum of money has been sitting in the A/P of my previous employer for way too long. i need to do some shopping. the zip on one of my berms broke. time to get a new pair. it sucks to be a student when you are broke, overworked and under-rested

if only that was all. sigh. what to do when a strong competitor arises?

i guess it's time to get some rest before working myself overtime and devoid myself of enjoyment for the next 2 days. good night~

Crisis! Hell(-ish) week begins!

2009-10-07T00:28:00.002+08:00

2 days since the semester resumes and i've already got work up to my neck and it's all due to happen within the next 7 days! here's the lodown:

1) Comm fund written assessment tomorrow!

2) FM tutorials to be done by Friday!

3) Accounting Quiz to be done during weekend!
(they just told us today and we have like 4 days to study?!)

4) Biz law assignment (20% weightage) due on Monday!
(i've been at it since last thursday and i'm only 75% done)

5) Biz law tutorial presentation on Monday!
(our 3rd group member abandoned us so i'm left to run a 2 man show with my friend)

6) Access assignment due on next Tuesday! (it's a real pain to do)

i'll really need to allocate whatever time i have carefully bearing in mind practices here and there. phew hopefully i'll survive this week unscathed. alright, no more time to spare, cya~

Recess! Time to do some reflection and look beyond...

2009-09-27T18:10:00.002+08:00

Alright, it's recess week! (already?) yup, that means half of my 1st semester in ntu has already passed. time really flies. in a few more weeks it's going to be the exams. not to mention the various projects and assignments i will need to submit very soon. but before all that, i think i should spend some time reflecting on the weeks that had already passed and see what learning points there are.

ok, as a recap, things started out pretty much in a slump but fortunately things are starting to look better. hall is damn happening and it's lots of fun getting involved. and for some strange reason, class does seem somewhat interesting (though that doesn't really prevent myself getting into a daze during lectures. lectures just have this myterious effect which gives you an "out of body" experience. lmao) especially after i got rid of that tutor with a damn lousy attitude. my current FM tutor is at least 10x better than her.

i'm really thankful for the people around me that i've got to know. i really hate being alone and i need people to hang out with. hall is where i've really got to spend time with some really great friends. one thing i realized is that (at least in class context) nbs people tend to be rather competitive (i'm not excluding myself because i honestly have no idea how i behave in class) and because of this it's quite difficult to know them better (less group mates and some people who have a lot of tutorial classes in common with me). but i guess it's ok, it's something i can live with. but i MUST emphasize that people from hall 3 rock! haha.
(well, an exclusion clause applies to certain people in ntu who are plain annoying. there aren't many but there are still a few. hahaha)

ok, after retrospection, it's time to look into the future. let's start with the not-so-distant future. some things i plan to do by this week
1) finish my holiday assignments
2) file my notes and tutorials by module
3) do my reading up from textbook and other readings
4) not to forget to squueze in some fun

hmm....maybe i should look at the upcoming events as well
1) prepare for cult night
2) cult night
3) mug for exams
4) EXAMS!
5) trainings for the various sports and games
6) HO!
7) christmas~*
hmm...looks like it's going to be tiring but a very enriching few months coming up. oh ya! i'm going to upgrade my phone after exams. maybe can start checking out what phone to get soon.

the jubeat ripples OST that was just released is super addictive! my only goal for jubeat now is to unlock shining star and full combo it on all levels. but it's going to take a while. probably after exams.

alright, that's all the time i have for now. going back to hall later. going to camp in hall and mug the whole week (at least most of it). cya!

Ripples! New horizons...

2009-09-14T15:18:00.006+08:00

In case you haven't noticed, my blog has a new layout! this time it takes after the latest installment of jubeat, jubeat ripples which has an overall light and bubbly feel to it.

hmm....the waves seem to be calming down and i guess i'm somewhat getting out of the emo trap. let's just hope start things start picking up from here eh?

putting unhappy things aside, i took some time to go through stuff that actually happened in retrospection. the past few weeks have been a blur and i'm not expecting it to be letting up anytime soon. i already see the hordes of projects coming up. the thing that have affected me the most is the people that i have met in the past month or so. it hasn't been a particularly long time but we've been through quite a lot together. people have been around when i've been feeling down and i really appreciate it (even though sometimes i don't look like it. haha.). i hope to be there when i'm needed as well. the direction where things are headed are slowly becoming clearer as well and that's definitely a good thing.

recently i found that i have less time for gymming but i guess playing more sports (or trying to) in hall kind of makes up for it. i'll try to still go during weekends and i'll try to squeeze in a session during the week. i'm signing up for the Nike human race and i hope to get some training here in campus. (trust me, the 179 route is a killer. the slopes are just crazy)

anyway, last night we had our Hall III dinner and dance, sin city! it was a blast! everyone dressed up in their formal wear. the girls really put in a lot of effort in dressing up with make-up and everything. it was casino themed so we had some tables opened. no real money was involved though. we played with chips and those who won the most from each game stood a chance to get a prize. as usual, my luck was terrible and i practically lost everything. we also had our pageant. jonathan won hall king and mr photogenic BUT he still lost his bet for not winning mr popular. as such, we'll get to see the hall king run around NTU in his boxers. hahaha.

here's a shot of all of us after the pageant

we'll be having IBG floorball tonight. hopefully we won't get trashed like what happened for basketball. i think that the things that you do in hall will be with you for a long time and for now i'll try to make the most of it. there's definitely more to uni life than just studying.

having said that, let's not neglect our academics and maybe i should go mug a little and then take a quick nap before dinner and IBG later. so, that's all for now. cya! :)

edit: just tried registering for the nike human race and the registration is full. sian.

The long awaited return...

2009-09-07T21:39:00.010+08:00

first of all i have to say i'm sorry for my long hiatus. things got going and i just didn't have the time to stop and update this place anymore.

so, why my sudden return? well, i guess sometimes you just need some alone time and rant. and hopefully someone will read this by chance and maybe get an idea of what's really on my mind and what's going on in my life. i mean sometimes people say i get too defensive when i try to share some thoughts with them. and i've noticed that it's a trend recently to give very harsh remarks to people in a vulnerable state. (less some good friends of course)

honestly things haven't been going so well. the most significant starting point was......NBS camp, or rather the rejection. it is highly speculated that this highly elusive camp accepted campers based on the photo attached to their application form. ok, so i took a photo and attached it to the form and submitted it. after weeks of waiting in anticipation, there was no notification. you could say i was really really disappointed (especially because one of my seniors was actually a chief GL and he kinda said he would pull me in). i must emphasize it was a great disappointement for me. oh well, i eventually tried to get over it. then i happened to see photos from the camp............i mean seriously.........somehow i doubt that they looked at the photos this year because of the overwhelming response rendered them unable to find the time to do so. it's not a generalisation but you see some of the campers and you think to yourself "...seriously?" (eventually i convinced myself that my application got lost in the mail. i know, i'm a little dillusional)

alright, let's put the whole NBS camp saga behind us. I still went for hall camp which was great fun. the good thing is that i made some very close friends. ok, let's fast foward a little to the events that took place a little more recently.

a few weeks ago we had interblock games, the first week was sports and the second was recreational games. it was an experience that made it dawn upon me that i suck. i can't play sports or recre games. ok, maybe i haven't found my niche, fine.

yea, last week was the campaigning period for JCRC. the week started last sunday from 2pm onwards. we painted banners (some of us by ourselves, some of us had plenty of help and some of us maybe just came a little late). by the time we ended it was, 2am or so? yup. subsequently we went door to door various times to get people to come down for rally or to give out our flyers. during the rally, i gave my best effort and showed the most genuine side of me. well, i guess all the sleepless nights and the effort i put in was still wasn't enough. my competition won by 20+ votes. little? a lot? that's for you to decide. yea it was a great experience but a loss is a loss. and now i'm faced with a daily reminder of my loss. i don't even know which subcomm to join or wether to join at all. i feel so lousy.

the very next day Han Yuan managed to convince me to give softball a try. i told him that i'm really bad at ball games but he insisted that as long as i'm willing to learn things will be fine. so i decided that i should make an effort to try. but when i told this to some friends, one particular person put me down really fast. it was something like "but you have no ball sense, how are you going to play softball". very encouraging indeed.

ok, so i made full use of the opportunity i had to join a cca that i really wanted to join, dragonboat. rowing was plenty of fun albeit i'm still a bit stiff (damn those band days where we had to sit in a posture as though there was a yardstick down our shirts). the land training composed of various components, gym (with barbells), running, pull-ups and medicine ball training. lifting weights is still somewhat ok for me because i've been gyming . but i'm a total flop when it came to the running, medicine ball and pull-ups. today was the first time i ran with the team in school. the running almost killed me especially with the hilly terrain in NTU with numerous incidence of uphill running. alright, i did say almost, so i managed to survive the running (lagging rather far behind from the rest though). next up medicine ball training. i barely caught my breath when we started and anyone who knows me well enough know that i'm terrible when it comes to balls, not to mention i was already almost out of breath. but miraculously, i somehow managed to survive. next up, pull-ups. i was surprised that i could still do my first set of 10 pull-ups with ease. but that's the end. by the time i finished my 2nd set, i was feeling so light-headed. i was seeing white and i could have sworn that i was very close to fainting. what a total embarassment. well, next week we are going to have trials and they are going to cut the team size. i will definitely put in my best effort, but that's no guarantee that i will be able to stay, considering i'll be such a burden. i'll definitely try to improve but will i be able to do so fast enough? we are talking about a competitive sport here. given the chance i would definitely want to strive towards competition level.

seriously, after i get cut i will have no idea what to do next. academic-wise, things don't look too bright either. i think i totally flopped the accounting quiz today. it's a very conceptual quiz and i think i still made a mess out of it. i did study for it ok. and when i tried doing my FM tutorial today i was completely stuck. i guess i'm not good at anything. sigh.

also, all this while i've been preparing for my driving test this saturday. personally i'm still pretty unconfident of my driving skills. i think the simple stuff like the crank course will just kill me. the circuit is really a nightmare. driving on the main roads is still ok but i don't know if i can even make it outside of CDC. God please save me.

i've been putting in so much effort for so many different things at different times but nothing seem to be working out for me. i really don't want to be a loser but i can't help feeling like one. as i meet failure after failure and continue to be faced by the prospect of failing again, i just feel so very jaded. along the way i've lost pretty much self-esteem. i wonder when will things start turning around, but i'm afraid i still haven't reached rock bottom yet.

Happiness! What a fulfilling day...

2009-04-10T01:08:00.009+08:00

ahh i'm kinda tired now from all the excitement i had today but i guess it's worth it. it has been a very eventful and fulfilling day. let me start from the top

i woke up early because i had to reach CDC by 8am for my e-trial test subsequently followed by my BTT (yes, finally). the first time i did the e-trial i got 88% so the screened flashed "FAILED". i was stunned. luckily it was just the e-trial. after that, i tried another paper and passed. i finished quite fast so after doing some last minute reading up i went to the toilet. it's quite hard to find toilets where you have to pay 10cents to enter but you can still find them at CDC (they are so cheapo). ok, at least they are well-maintained. after that i went to do the actual BTT. i passed! yay! so i can start having practical lessons. after that i took a bus to bedok then took the MRT to tampines because...

it's the grand opening of th Uniqlo store today! it was soooooooooooo crowded. when i just got to the newly opened trampines 1, i looked high and low for the shop but to no avail. eventually i finally found it. it's at level 2 in case you wanted to know. they've got quite a wide range of clothes but the stuff for guys is not as varied as compared to the stuff for girls. really a lot of stuff for girls. i picked out a few items and headed to the fitting room. the queue was unbelieably slow. i waited around 40minutes to try on my clothes. i'd say the service is quite good though. they had a person who would help you get sizes if the piece you tried on doesn't fit right. well, by the time i got to the cashier it's about the near-end of lunch hour which meant that office people would have gone back and and hungry aunties would be having lunch so the queue at the cashier was temporarily shorter than usual (it was all the way from the cashier till the entrance) so i managed to pay in around 15minutes of queue-ing. i'll admit that currently it's a little overhyped and i hope things normalize soon. if not everyone will be wearing the same thing. phew~ after that i rushed back to office.

meh work is as usual. nothing much special but some colleagues got pretty excited when they saw me with the uniqlo pastic bag and wanted to see the catalogue i brought back. after work we headed over to RE to submit our timesheets (they better pay us on time this time round). after that i grabbed a quick dinner and headed down to the gym.

oh ya, before we left orchard and me heading to the gym, there was quite a commotion at orchard road. there was some topless chinese guy like walking in the middle of the busy road. then he got into a quarrel with some indian man and the TP and police came to restrain him. but surprisingly (or rather disappointingly) they didn't try to arrest him but tried to get him into a cab (which he refused to get in) which they just randomly flagged to stop(poor taxi driver. wasted his time waiting and he might have to fetch the crazy guy) . i think he's a little off his rockers. many people were speculating what happened. some guy beside me said "must be he fell out of the taxi". duh, no, don't anyhow assume can? so i made an even more exaggerated comment like "oh i think just now the man fell off Tangs leh". the worse thing is, the person on my other side heard me say this and actually considered it as a possibility. he said (to his friend) "people say he fell off the building leh. hmm...but if he fell he should be injured hor?" in a genuinely confused tone. *facepalm* singaporeans, other than standing around and watching "free shows", please use your brain a bit and not speculate/assume too much?

at the gym i whacked my shoulders and biceps today. wah damn tired.

which leaves me where i am right now. mentally kinda drained, physically also pretty tired. (forgot to mention bank account also kind of drained) well, like i said it's been an action-packed and very fulfilling day so i don't really mind.

hmmm...on another random note, i realized that those facial wash with "soap-free" formulas are a bit too acidic for me and tend to irritate my skin. i guess i have to stick to the "got soap" type.

okok, tired. going to sleep soon. so, until next time, cya and good night!

Back! With some ranting to be done...

2009-04-04T23:59:00.005+08:00

hi! i'm back after a long hiatus! what have i been up to? well, busy with life.

my job mainly attributed to my lack of time to update this page. the pay is slightly lower than my previous job (end of last year) but the work is not as dry and boring. i get to talk to people occasionally instead of just archiving documents. my colleagues are an interesting bunch, with some more "interesting" than others. we really don't mean to be nasty to anyone but sometimes......certain people bug us. a lot.

things also seem to be going well at the gym. i think the training has been helping. guess i got a little stronger? but i'm still pretty weak. also getting to know more friends at the gym which is a good thing. definitely makes it more enjoyable (and safer) to train. hmm...i think i kind of hurt my wrist this week. it hurts when i bend it. hope it gets better soon. i really enjoy my time with them. hope we don't drift apart after uni starts.

sigh, but not everything has been going smooth. recently somebody i'm close to (and meet practically everyday) was having some mood swing of sorts. the person seems troubled but when i ask what's wrong the person will say "nothing" or "just tired". then when talk also give me attitude. in front of other people still pretend to be a bit more normal, but when it's just two of us, sometimes totally just give black face, don't talk, play with handphone. it's very agonizing for me. i'm not sure what's going through this person's mind, so i won't know how to help and i just endured this person's antics. but ok, being the kind of friend i am, i just take it as lightly as i can and try to keep the good spirits up. then after this person's computer got fixed, the person suddenly became more cheerful. (don't tell me the computer was the cause of all the emo-ness, moodiness, mood swings, bad attitude and such...) ok, that's good. i also feel happy for this person.

today was also another disappointment. i suddenly had a very strong urge to go club. (i haven't gone for months) so i started asking my friends. and i got rejected. i practically asked everyone i know. primary school friends, secondary school, jc, ns, gym. but nope. some were busy. some were kind of interested but i just couldn't find more people from that group. some just got home and were tired. some just turned me down flatly. i mean maybe it's the activity? but probably not because the same thing happens whenever i try to ask people out. dinner, movie, or whatever. i'm sure some of you had received my random messages and calls. do i really have anyone to count on? when people ask me to go out, i'm usually "on". even when i say "see first" which usually means "no, i'm not going to be there" for most people, there's still a high chance i will still go. so how come when i try to get people to go out, people generally don't want to go out with me? am i such a big turn off? as evidence that this is not the first time, please read my post from december as evidence that similar cases have happened. maybe i should just give up.

another disappointing thing i realized. the person (who's supposed to be back to normal now) does not seem keen on trying to make any effort when i tried to discuss my problems. the person keeps giving half-hearted comments which aren't very constructive and just say for the sake of saying. i thought i could discuss my frustrations with this person and be understood. but i'm not sure why. this person has changed? i have changed? don't seem to understand each other anymore. what's going on?

another person i was talking to said it would be better when i find a girlfriend. yup. i think so too. i think i'm the kind who likes having someone to spend time with. i don't think i'll mind if she's a little sticky (as long as she can give me a little personal time like gym time). the sad thing is, where am i supposed to find? don't know why i'm so picky also. and so far everytime i tried, i will get rejected. (maybe it's just my fate to get rejected by girls and by my friends?)

going on austrailia trip soon. i really really wanted to go tokyo instead but well, someone in the group just went japan recently and didn't really seemed keen. being the kind of complying person i am, just went along even though i'd really love to go japan with the money instead (i don't mind going for a shorter trip). at first we started with 5 ppl. then slowly left with 3 ppl. i knew that if i pulled out the trip would've probably been cancelled. well now we managed to get 1 more person not from the original group. it's a self-funded trip so i'm going to be very very very broke.

maybe i'm just too complying for my own good? because i don't want other people to be disappointed, i just want them to be happy, sometimes i just overlook my own interests. then when i look back, sometimes i will regret and ask myself why am i so foolish. so am i supposed to say "no"? because of my complying quality, some people might see me as "without a mind of my own" or "unable to make decisions". i guess it's a turn off for girls huh? but normally when i voice out my opinions like when i say "i'd prefer not to eat fast food" people will say i'm very picky and hard to please. can someone please explain which is it? i seriously hope people aren't just putting the blame on me because it's convenient to do so. i'm a simple guy and i'll just take it that i'm in the wrong most of the time. please don't abuse me. because when i realize that i've been played...........i'll flip. and it will get nasty.

i'm still in a state of confusion but as i go i'd like to share a song somebody just shared with me. it's a very nice song (and the singer is very pretty). enjoy and bye!

Happy CNY! May good fortune befall on you!

2009-01-26T12:20:00.005+08:00

it's the first day of CNY! i'm sure all of you are looking foward to the goodies and the ang paos. well, i'm not going out yet and my my relatives won't be arriving yet so i'm just sitting here listening to some trance and chilling out while waiting for lunch.

good news! i've found a job! come wednesday i'll be starting work at my new workplace. hope the people will be nice and everything will turn out well. so what has happened to my to-do list? i'm proud to say i managed to do most of the things i've mentioned. let's go through item by item!

1) apply for my BTT at the kovan branch office of the driving centre
this one is not done. haha.

2) change my old bank passbook for a new one (because the old one is all filled up)
yup, check. got my new passbook from the centrepoint branch

3) get whey protein and a shaker (probably going down to the TSW warehouse at toa payoh. save on delivery charges)
went down all the way to the ulu warehouse. the customer service was pretty good. in the end the guy managed to convince me to get this

got the strawberry flavoured one. tastes pretty much like strawberry milkshake. yummy. it's a promo item so i got it at a discounted price and got freebies! like this t-shirt

honestly it's a bit big la. and also this

shaker. also got a free issue of DXL magazine.

4) get a new wallet and some more uhh....inner wear (probably from robinsons)
did get the stuff but not from robinson's though. ended up buying undies from BHG and got the wallet from Taka. i won't be showing any undies but here's some shots of my wallet.

it was on sale so i managed to get it at less than $100. woot~

5) get new gym gear (since there's a sale and i have discount coupon)
surprisingly got it at robinson's because they were having 30% off nike stuff. heh heh.

just a very basic singlet. nothing too fancy.

i think i mentioned this earlier but there isn't much of a chinese new year mood this year so i didn't get down to getting new shoes and everything. i only managed to get one t-shirt after browsing through shops in bugis and walking from one end of town to the other. (from far east to wheelock to wisma to taka to paragon to heeren to cine to centrepoint to PS to the cathay)

it just seems like clothes nowadays either look unappealing to me or just plain overpriced. sigh~

BREAKING NEWS: omg...my fridge just broke down....where to find a place to buy a new fridge today??!!! even if the place is open what are the chances that they are going to deliver now?? of all days.............

okok. in order to salvage the situation we are going to have a steamboat lunch now. be right back.

~~~~ Interlude ~~~~

yup i'm back. just bought a pack of ice from downstairs to keep the remaining stuff chilled longer. probably going down to courts later to get a new fridge.

during chinese new year there will be a lot of fengshui masters who will give readings for the different zodiac signs and such. my personal stand is that it's ok to listen but just don't take it too seriously. especially for the bad things. let's say the prediction is that you will have bad luck in love for the year and you have that mentality in your mind of course nothing good is going to come out of it. it will be a self-fufilling prophecy. it's all in the mind i'd say.

hmm...i'm wondering... i think i should relook at how i do my training and pick up as much from my friends in the gym as possible. need to adjust in order to become stronger. think i'm still quite weak. sometimes it's good to go back to the basics. maybe i can try to have a more focused goal?

oh ya! my new workplace is ok with casual wear (like jeans and tee) for office attire! a good excuse to get more tops. but feel like getting some simple ones. how's topman? cotton on? i'll go have a look after CNY. is there such a thing as post CNY sale? won't be much of a problem since i work in town now. buahahaha

got to run now. byebye~~ have a happy chinese new year!

Making the most of the situation! My to do list...

2009-01-18T23:01:00.005+08:00

it's been another week of staying at home and applying for jobs online to no avail. okok, maybe i didn't really stay at home the entire week but in essence it felt like a pretty long week. being jobless and having to stay at home eventually gets to you. i somehow i felt pretty emo last night. It's the compound kind of problem of not having a job leading to not having any mood to shop and the nmnhnblm part of me starts acting up. sigh sigh. but eventually i got over it and decided there are some things i ought to do during this period of waiting for a job offer. but, before that, how about briefly touching on how i spent my day?

well i woke up as usual and surfed my usual forums. after lunch i got quite emo but a friend on the forum suggested i should just go to gym (which i was planning to anyway) and work my emo-ness away. well i guess it kinda worked. did some running and focused mainly on my core today. met some of my gym buddies. the thing is the gym plays class 95 and the theme they had for this weekend is hits from the 80's. as you can imagine mambo hits such as "together forever", "venus" and "don't you want me" started popping up. my natural mambo instinct was to start dancing mambo but fortunately there was enough sanity in me to stop myself from doing so and embarassing myself in the gym. haha. it was hard but i survived. lmao. after that went to meet ed at amk and we played jubeat at the arcade. it's really good for destressing. had dinner then went back for more. managed to get a few more S's. heh heh.

oh yeah, i realized something about songs in the 80's. apparently the hottest words to use in lyrics from that time are "yeah~", "baby" and "c'mon". haha. just a random comment.

okok, time to get to the to do list. as mentioned i hope to accomplish these tasks before i start my new job. so here goes:
1) apply for my BTT at the kovan branch office of the driving centre
2) change my old bank passbook for a new one (because the old one is all filled up)
3) get whey protein and a shaker (probably going down to the TSW warehouse at toa payoh. save on delivery charges)
4) get a new wallet and some more uhh....inner wear (probably from robinsons)
5) get new gym gear (since there's a sale and i have discount coupon)

besides this maybe i'll try to squeeze in a session of swimming between my gym schedule. probably visit the arcade to play jubeat and level up. and i'll continue looking for a job.

okok, time to go now. so until next time, bye bye~

Uneventful...Cough Cough

2009-01-11T23:15:00.003+08:00

alll i can say is that i managed to survive the first full week of unemployment. somehow being unemployed totally kills the shopping mood. what is happening to me? chinese new year is like only 2 weeks away! and i haven't even bought anything. totally can't feel the cny mood this year.

been down with the flu bug from wednesday to friday so i was pretty much out of any gym action. it has been an extremely boring and uneventful week. no new episode of gundam 00 this week, no manga releases from weekly shounen jump like bleach or naruto or reborn or psyren, heroes is on break till february, ugly betty returns only next week. sheesh. i wonder how i survived the past week. well, ed found a temp job so helping him find his office wear did help a bit. (his first office job so we had to start from scratch.) well, the good thing is that a lot of girls are in the cny shopping mood so we got quite a bit of eye candy to look at. heh heh.

most of my time spent at home was spent looking for jobs on websites and in the classified ads or surfing forums like hardwarezone.com . hmmm...is asking for my previous pay too much? i really don't know. i really hope to find a job by this week. hmm...i will probably be needing a haircut by next week before cny. see how lor. since the salon i usually go to is so close to the gym and considering i go there thrice a week.

yawnz~ hardwarezone is so lag at this time....sigh~ bored~ been thinking abt some stuff. ok la, until next time. bye bye~

New year, new beginnings! Retrospection and expectations

2009-01-01T20:01:00.003+08:00

hmmm...before we get to the more chunky part let's start the post with something more light-hearted?

let's have a look at my last kills for 2008.

took a walk around town the other day because of all the year end sales going around hoping to get some steals. got this tee from zara. saw it a while ago but wanted to wait till it got on sale which it did. yay!

then i went to fox and saw that the tees were going at 30% off. managed to pick out 2 tees with rather simple designs, but the cutting is pretty comfy. then before i went to pay, the salesperson i could get an additional 15% off if i paid using a dbs credit/debit card. woohoo~

went for countdown yesterday with ed at zouk. we tried to get company but the girls wanted to have their own little gathering at shuyi's house and we were pretty set on going because it happens to be mambo nite.but never mind, in the end we saw quite a few of our friends there. the dancing started around 11plus with mostly random songs with a few mambo hits here and there. surprisingly the crowd isn't THAT bad as expected. we counted down and the dancing continued. it got to a point where the music totally didn't match our taste so we went over to phuture for a while. when we got to phuture the music is pretty ok but the crowd was horrible. it was mostly young bengs and lians there. we got ourselves some drinks and went back to zouk. we chilled out at for a while until the mambo hits starting playing at around 3.30am? that's when the real deal got going. the mambo regulars who were looking damn bored on the podium suddenly burst into life and the "synchronized dancing" started. we were moving our bodies and doing hand signs all the way till 6.15am when the lights came on. it was fun but really tiring. i came home, took a shower and concussed until 3pm.

after last night i have come to make 3 conclusions:

1) drinking sucks. and it is possible to have fun in the club without drinking alcohol (especially if it's mambo) but do try to stay hydrated

2) 80% of the girls that club are either too chui (cannot make it) or too old. the other 20% come with their boyfriends. so, never go to a club and hope to find a decent(-looking) girl.

3) beware of drunk OLs who might try to take advantage of you (don't ask.)

ok after all the fun and excitement, it's time to get to some serious stuff.

honestly, 2008 wasn't that bad of a year. for most of the year i was in the army. went to taiwan for an overseas exercise. got introduced to a new church. came out of army. went on holiday. got a job. made some pretty great friends along the way.

well, there were emo and sucky times too. like how my current predicament has made me think a lot recently. the company decided to fix headcount because of the financial situation so they are letting all the temps go. yup that means as of now, i'm jobless (again). i got pretty distressed when i heard this. no more income? is this the end for me and my newly befriended colleagues? i have to stay at home looking for a job and just stone again? and now i have to compete for jobs with those who ORD-ed in december? i'm back at square one? the feeling of sliding back was terrible. after days of mulling around, a flash of insight hit me. i'm not exactly back at square one. the one month plus of working wasn't for nothing. there were things i've gained without knowing. i've made some money. i've gained some job experience. i've got to know some gym buddies. and i've probably gained many other things i don't know yet.

oh well, so i guess i'm back to looking for a decent paying job. i've contacted job agencies and just gotta wait and hope they will contact me soon as i continue to plow through the classified ads. actually i think it won't be that bad since the all the students have to get back to school so any positions they were holding would be open.

i have high expectations for what is to come this year. hopefully i'll find a temp job that i'll like so i can earn some money before uni and to keep me occupied lest i might just go crazy staying at home. hopefully i'll manage to meet someone this year when the time is right. hopefully i'll enjoy myself at the university when it starts in august. and i'm looking foward to meet more people as i go through the various phases in my life.

well, that's all the time i have for now. until next time then. bye bye~

Jingle bells~ Pre-christmas outing!

2008-12-22T23:27:00.003+08:00

haha i wanted to do a post on my zoukout experience but my friend hasn't sent me the photos and i didn't get much on my camera so i guess that will have to wait. in the meantime, i'll do a feature on last night! it's some kind of tradition for the few of us since secondary school times to have a christmas outing. doens't have to be exactly on christmas day but ya you get the idea. alright let's start form the top.

ok, yesterday was my dad's birthday so i took him out for breakfast, or rather brunch. it wasn't anything fancy but i guess it's the thought that counts? hee hee. after that i went to hit the gym at hougang. ran on the treadmill and did some training with jac when he came (my colleague and my new gym buddy. haha). aching all over by the time we were done. (for some reason my lats are still aching.) went home to shower before heading down to raffles city.

so i managed to reach raffles city early. (trust me, this doesn't happen very often. lmao.) when everyone (except shuyi who was late) arrived, we went into our dinner destination: shokudo food bazaar. honestly i'd say the food is a little pricey (especially the drinks) but the quality still ok la. (at least it's more edible than the shokudo pasta at cineleisure) we waited for shuyi before we went to get our food, so by the time we got our stuff we were obviously famished. the girls left us in awe when they ordered hordes of food (i think they ate more than us guys). when they saw our faces, they said something like "it's christmas. it's ok to eat more once in a while" wow, ok.

something more interesting about the place than the food and the seating areas with different themes were the people who cleared the dishes. they were like ninjas. nope i don't mean they dressed like ninjas but they are sure trained like ninjas. they lurked in the shadows when we are eating and once you finish, *poof*, they appear and ask if they could clear your dishes almost instantly. we came to the conclusion that this is part of the restaurant's strategy to make you lose track of how much you've eaten so you'll order more food than you know it. smart right? anyway, after we finished our food, we decided to hang around a bit more to camwhore.

alright, it's time to finally show some faces on this blog so people won't say it looks like a blogshop anymore. haha. so here goes! (warning! large pictures!)

that's momo with his oyakodon (rice with chicken and egg)

aileen showing off her 自拍 skills.

hungry simin (i'll have to say it's a very nice shot by ed)

the girls

the guys

guess who won?

haha. so after feeling all stuffed we went to have a look at the christmas tree outside raffles city.

then we walked over to the esplanade. they had some of those white balls which you could write your new year wishes so we shared one. they will put the balls into the river so u can see hundreds of white balls floating on the singapore river when they are done. quite a wonderous sight i can imagine.

writing on the ball with shuyi

my new year wish. do pardon my poor grammar (or lack thereof. lol)

after that, we went over to cafe cartel because it was after 9pm and the cakes were at 50% off (such sinful indulgence. gotta work extra hard at the gym tomorrow)

waiting for the cakes to be served

ed going in for the kill!

trying to look like i don't like cakes (who am i kidding?)

mmmmmmmmmmm.......

then we did our usual christmas gift exchange. the girls unwrapped their presents with lots of anticipation as usual. after that we had one more surprise!
.
.
.
.

there's one for everyone! supposed to put it on your keys.

and finally.....a group photo!

yup so that's how we spent our sunday evening.

whoa it's getting late. gotta work and gym tomorrow. hope to update soon. until then, bye~

Realization. Putting a Foot Foward...

2008-12-08T22:48:00.004+08:00

before i get to the gist of the post just want to share a movie i caught today:

it's a movie called cape no.7 (海角七號). it's a taiwanese movie and apparently it was quite a big hit there. well the cinema was quite full so i guess the response here isn't too bad as well. watched it at the cathay with ed and momo (a.k.a sheng chao. another of my buddies). it's pretty hard to describe. the spine of the story is that there's going to be a concert at the beach by a japanese star (kousuke atari), but one of the resident committee heads kicks a big fuss and manages to convince the organisers to put in some local acts. and so an audtition was held and a make-shift band was formed, led by the committee head's son, Aga (portrayed by van fan). but the true nature of the movie is romance. whilst there were many different situations faced by the different characters in the movie the main ones were the blossoming romance between Aga and Tomoko (portrayed by tanaka chie), interlaced with the love story between an unnamed teacher and yet another Tomoko which took place in 1945. the 1945 story is cleverly unravelled through 7 letters the teacher wrote to kojima tomoko during the 7 days he spent on the ship home to japan.

i wouldn't exactly say it's a movie that tugs at your heartstrings and make you want to cry like 881, but it is a beautiful movie. the scenery of the beach is very beautiful, the local taiwan flair makes it very beautiful. the movie ends with no particular endings to certain characters' situations. but i guess there's perfection in imperfection. sometimes things are beautiful because there are flaws. sometimes in life, things are like that. they may get better or they don't. at least for that moment in time. and there's still room for imagination. very nice movie.

....okok time to get to the gist of my post but before i say anything else, i want to say what i have got to say from this point on has nothign to do with the movie. it just happened to dawn upon me today ok.

i had a realization today. there's really no point in being so 花痴 (if you don't understand i also don't know how to rephrase. chee hong? despo?). i mean, romance will come when it comes. it's not something you go around looking for. i guess the person will just appear when the time is right. no point pining for it and wasting your energy just longing for it. there are better things to do with that energy and by not focusing on just that one thing, you can actually appreciate the other things you have around you.

i don't know, recently i've just been making quite a few different realizations causing different parts of me to change. i feel that i've been growing a lot recently. kind of like a growth spurt. not physically la, not like i've been getting much taller since secondary school. more of me as a person. it's not something that others can see but it's something that i can feel and that i know. i guess this is part of growing up? i'm not saying i'm totally matured as a man now but i know i'm taking one step at a time. i know i'm slowly leaving some of my childish thoughts and behaviour and wilful ways behind.

at this point of my life i've come to understand that there are certain things that you've just got to figure out yourself. some things just can't be told to you by others and you have just got to explore your own views and principles in order to reach the next level.

i want to be less self-indulgent. i really mean it. take things slow la. don't expect me to change totally tomorrow but bit by bit i want to change. looking back, i have come a long way from the shy little boy i was. slowly gaining experience, slowly getting more confident. but i don't just want to stop here, i hope to continue growing. overcoming my own insecurities.

haha, also don't know why i'm so philosophical today. maybe it's the cool breeze getting to my head. oh well, that's all the time i have tonight, still got work tomorrow. looking foward to another day at work. though the work may not be really interesting, the people are and i do enjoy their company even though i don't really talk to some of them (some female co-workers). and tomorrow is gym day! haha. if you guys haven't realized, i love going to the gym. the familiar smell of the air freshener just puts my mind at ease for some reason. okok, really got to go already. nitez~

Surprise! I'm Back~

2008-12-07T23:14:00.011+08:00

haha bet you guys didn't expect me to be back with updates so soon eh? well, neither did i but i had some time and the mood got to me so here we go!

ok i'll start with some of the stuff i bought from my trip!

got this from....you guessed it, hk disneyland. haha. wanted to get a souvenir that i will actually wear when i saw this. hmm...i think it goes better with lighter coloured bottoms....

next, a pretty basic abercrombie polo?:

hmm...got this shirt and cardigan seperately but thought it looks nice together. the shirt was really a steal. managed to get it at a really unbelievable price. haha.

remember the pair of jeans i mentioned in the earlier post? well, here it is. the shop i got it is a HK brand called Chocolate which has 2 lines, black chocolate and white chocolate. white chocolate has a more retro feel whereas black chcolate is more of casual wear. the jeans is from the black chocolate line.

ok la really got too much stuff from the trip. i think i'll feature more as time goes by if got the chance.
how about some stuff i got in Singapore?

actually got this pair of shorts before the trip. it's the kind that ends around your knees and has a skinny cut. got it at far east so it was quite affordable.

(haha i know it kinda blends into the background)

hmm...i decided i should pick up a new scent. the first one i thought of is Hilfiger from Tommy Hilfiger which i managed to get a whiff from the november issue of men's health. (they are really smart nowadays and the advert actually has a flap where they binded some of the perfume into the glue. i know it's pretty hard to visualize) but when i got to the shop i found it a little to musky for my liking. so after taking a few samples, i decided on this:

it is slightly lighter and has nice citrus notes.

there was this grey nike polo that i saw a while ago at starthreesixty once but never saw it again. then yesterday when i went to the nike by B.I.R.D at cine i took a little dip into their sale section and voila! i fished out the same polo only that it's in red. it's still nice and i've haven't got anything in bright colours in a while so i bought it.

apparently it's made from organic materials. wow i thought organic foods were good enough. now fabrics must also be made from organic plants? hardcore~~ oh ya in case you haven't noticed i've made my photos bigger than before so you can see it more clearly, thanks for the feedback.

hmm...recently been in the mood to listen to some retro songs. anything ranging from dancey- songs to jazzy tunes, from the 70's to just a couple of years ago.
speaking of which, i wanna go mambo~~~ but now that i'm working it's practically impossible. sigh. oh ya, it's zoukout next saturday! it's gonna be partying throughout the night!! i even got my tickets. thing is...i don't know who to go with. or rather, to be put more bluntly, i have no one to go with...(like totally what the.........) how?? it's only 6 days away and i haven't found my kakis. help~~~

which reminds me....today i was so lonely and hungry...*sob* i tried to find people for dinner but they either had wedding dinners, already had plans or just stayed too far. so i went to the gym in the afternoon and i came back still determined to find some dinner kaki but to no avail. the best ones were those who totally ignored my sms and did not even reply. (if you people are here reading this you ought to be ashamed of yourself. can't even be bothered to say not free/not interested?) ended up going to the kopitiam nearby for dinner by myself. got very annoyed because the auntie refused to come take my drink order despite me purporsely making eye contact a few times. obviously i wanted a drink la, if not i want to seduce her ar. in the end i finished my fried rice without any drinks. bleah~~

sigh~~ it's christmas season and i've been listening to this song "my only wish" by britney spears. it's from a couple of years back when she was still (appeared) pretty innocent and sane. the lyrics really speaks for me.

oh yeah yeah...Last night i took a walk in the snow,
Couples holdin hands, places to go,
Seems like everyone but me is in love
Santa can you hear me?
...
I want my baby, baby
I want someone to love me, someone to hold,
Maybe maybe, she'll be all my own in a big red bow
Santa can you hear me?
I have been so good this year
And all i want is one thing,
Tell me my true love is here
she's all i want, just for me
Underneath my christmas tree
I'll be waiting here
Santa that's my only wish this year
...

(i took the liberty to change all instances of "he" into "she" for accuracy. ok la, no snow la, took a walk down orchard road can?)
sigh~ when will someone special appear in my life? the other day i was just telling yu chuan (a.k.a ed, edwin or chuan. for those who don't know, he's my 死党) how i'm actually quite happy with the current state of my life. working is actually spending time rather constructively rather than rotting at home doing nothing. i get to earn money and time really passes faster. getting to know more people too. and i still have time for the gym. also have friends i can count on (or so i thought the other day). only thing missing is somebody to take that place in my life. sigh~ longing to love and be loved. it sucks to be a helpess romantic.

anyway, my mum and bro just came back from yet another holiday (3rd one recently including the one i went?) and brought some mini sized tau sar pia from penang. pandan flavour one. quite nice. but, nah, i won't gorge myself to distract myself from my woes. ok la i don't really believe in santa so i hope God can answer my christmas wish instead. haha. guess i'll have to keep looking harder.

oh well, until next time. do wish me luck in my love life. bye bye~~

Busy Busy Busy

2008-12-07T00:40:00.002+08:00

oh man been really busy with work. barely have any time left other than work and gym. sorry for the lack of updates ar. so far work has been pretty good though. definitely a more constructive way to spend my time rather than rot at home doing nothing. my colleagues are very friendly too. getting along very well especially with the guys. the only thing is i'm probably the youngest there....alright give me some time to regroup and i'll be back with more updates? sorry sorry. haha, do continue to expect more exciting updates ok?

Memoirs! Journal of my China and Hong Kong trip (sightseeing version)

2008-11-22T23:45:00.005+08:00

okok, technically Hong Kong is part of China. but who cares. more importantly, i'm back~~ sorry to all my loyal supporters who didn't get an update last week because i flew off for the trip. i'll try my best to make up for it ya? what better way to put my c905 to test than by giving it the all terrain field test overseas! so, i'm glad to inform you all the the pictures you'll be seeing (with the exception of the 2 marked with *) were shot entirely on my c905! alright alright let's jump right in!

DAY 1 - 15 Nov 08

we flew off in the wee hours of the day from the budget terminal (yes, we took budget airline for this trip) on tiger airways and reach Macau airport sometime in the morning.

we wasted no time and made our way to the Venetian. the Venetian is the new super grand super big hotel cum casino cum shopping centre with a venetian theme (like duh) which was opened last year. after leaving our luggage at the counter we took the lift to the 3rd (?) floor where the shops were.

yup this is all indoors. they even have a "river" with boatsmen who sang if you paid them. but this place isn't really good for shopping because it only had all the high end boutiques (think ngee ann city but with even more boutiques which are very high end) so we had our lunch at the food court (which charged restaurant prices i might add), took a quick visit to the casino and left promptly. we then went to visited the local tourist attraction which is just the remaining wall of some old church. boring. didn't bother to take any photos. then we went back to collect our luggage and took a ferry to our next destination which was on mainland China, Zhu Hai (literally "pearl sea"). got there checked in, then went for our dinner. we went to some restaurant near the hotel. one of our uncles who travel to that area a lot for work starts acting like the boss and orders a lot of food. and it's all seafood. oysters, clams (more than 1 variety), roast pigeons, hairy crab and whatnot. it was a huuuuuuuuuuuuggggggggeeeeeeeee feast. so it was a good thing right? not really. thing is i hate being "force fed" and personally i had something against this particular uncle. i shan't divulge his evildoings here but if you are interested enough you can contact me personally ya. haha. anyway, so i gave him my signature "pissed look". of course he doesn't like it. but too bad. and hey, it's not like we are making him pick up the entire tab. bleah~ *sticks tongue out* after that we went to do a little shopping which was pretty rushed. shops there don't close too late so we went back to the hotel and called it a night.

DAY 2 - 16 Nov 08

being rather unfamiliar with the area we decided to join a day tour. we went to various places which i can't really remember so i'll just touch on the few more significant ones.

(WARNING! wall of text!)
we went to this tourist attraction which is a statue of a maiden with a pearl in her hands. according to legend she was a daughter of one of the 4 sea dragon kings and she particularly liked this region and came to bless the area. eventually she fell in love with a local fisherman. some evil witch in the area (somehow there are lots of such characters in the small region) got jealous of their love and told the fisherman that the maiden (who's supposedly some mermaid. with legs? i don't know) is not human and will revert to her evil spirit form if she takes off any of her 8 bangles (heavy leh). so the fisherman grew suspicious and asked her for a bangle in order to prove her love for him. she got very upset and told him she would die if she removed any of the bangles but the blockhead (don't expect too much from fishermen) insisted that she did. so, reluctantly she removed a bangle for him and true enough she died. the fisherman was devastated and distraught over his lost love. then the wise village head told him there is a way to revive her, which is to give her some revival herb from the mountains. the thing is, the herb was still too small and the fisherman had to take care of it and make it grow by watering it with some of his blood everyday. after many many many days the plant matured and he used it to revive his love (how come the corpse never decompose?) and she got revived as a normal girl, the prettiest in all Zhu Hai. one day while she was frolicking at the beach with some gal pals they found a humungous peral and she decided to offer it to the village head with gratitude, hence the statue with the pearl.

that was a super lengthy piece of folklore. when i was about to take a photo of this forementioned statue, busloads of pageant queens appeared! of course i'd take the real girls first right?

okok, the statue (finally):

after that we went to take a cable car up one of the mountains there.

a shot of the mountain scenary:

on the mountain stands a statue of the fisherman aka the mermaid's husband:

a nice view of the city from the mountain:

what's a trip to china like without some engrish?:

there was also this rock where couples would put locks that had their names engraved on. supposedly these couples will be blessed by the fisherman and the maiden (who are mortal? or eventually became dieties?):

after the day tour we went to do somemore shopping at the undeground shopping centre. some stuff can bargain while others were pretty much fixed price. we went for dinner at some japanese restaurant and "the boss" ordered tons of food again. i thought if i saw another fish i would have puked. and he made the statement "ah, we're eating fish so there's less meat than yesterday". what, since when is fish considered vegetables? what kind of retarded statement was that? *roll eyes* and it's not like we are not paying for it (ok technically my mum paid for my bro and me).

DAY 3 - 17 Nov 08

my mum arranged for some driver to bring all of us to He Shan (somewhere in Guang Zhou) to visit some distant relatives. the driver went on the highway and it took around 1hour to get there. mind you it's supposed to be a rural part of china.

not as shabby as i would expect though. they grew rice in the region and it was harvesting season. they lay all their freshly threshed grains on the roads (where cars drive over them and people just trample on them) for them to be dried out by the sun:

some people in the fields (the one in blue is actually some distant relative of mine. hmmm...fortunately i don't see any resemblence):

a water buffalo in the fields:

ok, i dub this village "the village of sleeping dogs" because whenever you turned your head, there would be a sleeping dog in the alley. amazing.

we went back to Zhu Hai after dinner there (another hour of traveling. ugh. toilet~~) went back to the hotel and just slept. (apparently some air of resentment was brewing but it didn't involve me. don't care. sleep.)

DAY 4 - 18 Nov 08

the morning started with something going on between my aunts and my mum. don't really get them la. it's hard to tell why 3 women hitting menopause get cross with each other.

we took a ferry to Hong Kong (finally). some confusion with the HK cabbie caused more unhappiness in the air between the 3 women. we checked in, wasted no time had a very decent lunch at those HK style cafes (i had roast goose rice. it tasted pretty much like duck.) and took the MTR (not MRT) to this Nv Ren Jie (literally "woman street"). it's pretty much like bugis street style but they sell totally random things from fake prada to doraemon underwear.

after that, for some reason, things got really ugly between my aunts and my mum and they started seriously PMS-ing each other. hey, how u expect a guy to shop when caught in the middle of 3 PMS-ing women? (ok it's more like my 2 aunts vs my mum)

then my mum insisted on taking the MTR to take some escalators to some mountain. with unhappiness still in the air we took the train and got to the station. after around 20 minutes of going up one escalator after another we reached the end of the escalators which was at the mountain mid-level. it was a truly stunning view
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

...of course we were stunned. there was NOTHING! talk about a total disappointment. needless to say this brought the bad atmosphere up one notch and we cabbed to the mountain top.

managed to get a nice mountain view of HK at night:

after that we took the tram down the mountain which wasn't fantastic either because we moved backwards. (bad atmosphere up up up) after that my mum insisted we went to catch the laser show and the walk of fame. but by the time we reached there it was too late (needless to say you know things are getting beyond nasty). did get a nice river view though:

a statue of Bruce Lee:

Jackie Chan's handprints:

we had macs for dinner. i really wanted to get a pair of jeans i saw which i couldn't get because they were PMS-ing so i started giving my signature pissed look and made a lot of noise (heh heh 3 PMS-ing aunties + 1 cranky guy) surprisingly my 2 aunts offered to go back to Mong Kok (where Nv Ren Jie was) with me so i could get my jeans from one of the shops (no, not from the roadside stalls). i think they just wanted to get away from my mum. the great thing about HK is that shops don't close even at 1130pm! and it was a weekday! so my mum dragged my bro along with her to wherever her planned adventures led her. went back to the hotel and slept.

FINAL DAY - 19 Nov 08

this is the day we went to Disneyland! woohoo~ we cabbed there with all our luggage.

some bridge on the way:

i see disneyland!:

when we got there, my mum went to settle the tickets while my aunts settles the luggage. do i even have to mention how totally mundane things trigger off PMS-ing women?

the tickets!

so we went in and took the rides and watched some shows. it was quite a lot of fun.

high school musical HK style:

my bro's pizza:

my seafood baked rice:

some attractions:

*

*

we got some souvenirs and went out only to find my aunts already waiting outside. we got kinda lost along the way and apparently they've been waiting for about an hour for us. honestly they were way too early (even the 3rd, non-PMS-ing aunt said so). regardless, this is the final straw. the 3 women just shouted at each other all the way to the airport (poor cabbie). after that, my aunts just stopped talking to my mum completely. they are still currently not talking to my mum. haha. God knows when their menopause will end. but i definitely made it a point not to get affected by their bad atmosphere. expenses paid trip with lots of buys. nothing much to complain about. (other than the stupid uncle. fortunately not related to him by blood, he's the 3rd aunt's husband. ugh.)

i decided that if i included the stuff i bought, this post would be way too long. so i decided to split up the shopping and the sightseeing into 2. hence the "sightseeing version". look foward to the alternate version! until then, bye~

Advent. C905 has arrived!

2008-11-09T23:19:00.003+08:00

Whoa. The whole deal happened so fast i almost couldn't believe it was done so fast. Before i start the story of how i got my hands on this sweet Sony Ericsson C905 (which isn't even officially released in Singapore yet. If you want it, you'll probably have to wait a few more weeks for it to appear in the Singtel or M1 shops.), i'll give you a look first:

closed mode

opened mode

back view

back view with camera cover open

in the dark

cool keypad lights~

alright, how should i even begin? hmm...ok, we stayed over yesterday to play mahjong the whole night so by the time i got home it was already 7 plus in the morning. after taking a shower, i went to sleep at aroud 8am. i managed to wake up at around 1130am still a little groggy so i went online purely on instinct. then i just happened to check out the mobile phones bazaar on hardwarezone forums. i checked out one of those "sign new line we pay you high $$$" threads. the price for signing up singtel went back up by $100 this week! this is all thanks to the official release of SE's Xperia X1 yesterday. (i'm not really into smartphones) this is super timely because i'm going to ORD next week and i can't sign up for student plan after that until uni starts which is like Q3 2009?

then i went on and saw another thread which said something like "C905 and ......for sale". my eyes just lit up lor. it must be a sign from above! the price was pretty good too so i quickly contacted the guy (speed through skill!) and reserved the phone.

so i went down to town to meet the first guy (his screenname is Densocool in case you wanted to know. can deal with him in the future if you want to recontract your line but don't want the phone) and made the deal to get some cash. then went down to woodlands (yea, it's pretty far but it was worth the trip) to meet the second guy (his screenname is Mcqueen85 just fyi). so i used the cash i got to offset my purchase and topped up a little for my C905! (happy~)

this baby has got a 8.1 megapixel camera with xenon flash. and it also has wifi! alright, i'll be back in the next couple of days to show the results of the field testing i'll be doing to see what this thing can do! so in the meantime, you've got to hang in there and wait in anticipation ok!

Fresh November buy! and why i enjoy hitting the gym...

2008-11-02T21:33:00.010+08:00

i didn't realize it's already November! a few more days to freedom! woohoo! anyway, if you've been paying attention to my wishlist, you'd probably have noticed that i've been wanting to get new swimming trunks so i don't have to wear my SAF trunks anymore. well, i've finally got it!:

what, were you expecting pictures of me in my trunks? please~ i'll spare you the torture. haha. anyway, sun paradise was having a storewide sale so i manged to get these at like 20% off. heh heh.

oh yeah, i did get my new specs too. sponsored by my mum (even though she's really annoying a lot of the time, she can still be nice sometimes. haha):

got them from paris miki. yes they were having a sale so i got the frames at 20% off. they are from levi's if you haven't noticed by now. the good thing about paris miki is they provide free maintenance including changing of nosepads (too bad this pair doesn't have any). alright, now i can wear these out when i'm too lazy to put on my contacts or on days i just want to have a different look. haha

right, as promised i'll shall share a little of my personal life, why i like gymming.

the question struck me when i was heading to the gym today despite the ridiculous thunderstorm (oh yes, i do have an uncanny affinity for thunderstorms. it started raining like crazy 15-30 minutes after i reached the swimming pool the other day. this has happened a couple of times.) "why do i spend so much effort going to the gym a few times a week?" don't get the wrong idea, i'm not the super bulky kind of gym rat. i'm not super buff either. anyway, i pondered over it for a while then several things came to me.

gymming is a great way to vent my frustrations. in life, it's inevitable that we get really annoyed or pissed by things that happen or people we meet. but how do we handle that anger? i'd prefer to express it as constructive anger. so on the threadmill when i've really cranked up the speed, i'll just think about all that stuff and use the energy to push on till the end of my run which i think is pretty intense (to me anyway).

needless to say, working out at the gym keeps you in shape. but i think it goes beyond physical. personally, it also refreshes the spirit (somewhat). when you are pushing yourself to complete that last rep, it takes a lot of mental strength to endure all the pain and just finish it. (seriously, it's no pain, no gain. i'm sure there are people who think that we could lift those weights that we do right from the start. no, we had to slowly get there too you know.) but when you do finish it and meet your own target, you'll feel a sense of accomplishment. at the end of the day, even when you body is supposed to be aching all over, you still feel pretty darn good and it usually makes you forget that you are actually hurting in places you can't even describe.

hey, no man is an island right? even though gymming is pretty much of a solo thing maybe other than having a buddy making sure you don't drop the barbell on yourself, it can be quite a social thing too. i don't mean going to the gym and chit chat about everything under the sun. but after you've been going to the same place for a while you do get to know some people. it may be just a "hi", "bye" thing with maybe just a short conversation between sets, it still widens your social circle. and you may never know, they might actually become your good friends right? and there are girls who gym too ok. perhaps you could just find "the one" there.(must be on the lookout whereever you go right? haha) well, i think i can still be more sociable in the gym than i am now. i mean i do know some people but i think i'm still considered kinda shy and don't talk much to people i don't really know. i mean they are nice people but i guess i still need some work.

so, going to the gym is really a very wholesome activity that comprises lots of different benefits and it's a cheap way to pass time at only $2.50 per entry. no wonder i'm hooked on it and i genuinely enjoy doing it. i can see myself doing it for time to come. maybe you can give it a shot sometime too?

High School Musical! and a slice of my life...

2008-10-26T23:42:00.011+08:00

yup it's true, i know i should probably watch something of another genre soon but somehow i ended up watching HSM3:

the third and final (?) installment of the story of Troy, Gabriela and friends in their little sugar-coated land called East High. somehow i wasn't even surprised when they started bursting into song in less than 5 minutes of airtime.i mean, it was the successful formula that warranted a third chapter to this series with the teen-bopping music and all. i'd have to admit that the music was pretty good actually. it did, afterall, keep me from feeling nauseous which i would have considering how lovey dovey the perfect couple troy and gabriela was. brrrr......

there were a few things, however, that did got me confounded. like how troy's magical grime-defying white v-neck never gets dirty, even in a scrapyard. now wonder he wears it for so many scenes in the movie. and how the wet green paint that got on his hands doesn't stain the white railing he touches immediatly after that. i understand the theatrics, but, running straight to class after getting drenched in a mysterious morning shower while spinning around on the rooftop? but most importantly, how Vanessa Hudgens' legs are so damn hot. (and yummy~)

Oh well everything ends well with people going to Stanford, Yale and Juliard amongst other colleges. i guess it's ok to watch such peppy shows once in a while.

alright, i'm actually pretty edgy today so things are going to get a little angsty for the rest of the post.

first, i was going to the gym before i went to meet the rest so like any other person, i waited for the bus. if you must know, the bus i waited for isn't really that popular a ride so SBS very cleverly makes it comes rather infrequently. and so the bus finally arrives but the driver just drove off, totally disregarding all the people at the bus stop. like totally WTF? so i had to wait for the next bus which, as usual, took really long to come. that really wore my patience out a lot for the day. but, nevermind.

next, after dinner, we were on the way to cine to get the tickets. then, it happened, yet again...
no~~ nobody ever believes the person who's always the victim. they don't care because it never happens to them. i frequently tell them "it's the danger zone" whenever we go out to town but they continue to courageously march under the trees along the stretch of the road to heeren. bam! (or more precisely, splat!) i got hit by bird droppings for the upteen number of times. honestly, i've lost count. so i try to wash it off, but it just doesn't come off. i don't know what nuts that damned bird has been eating but it just left a sickly green stain on my t-shirt. so i started my new quest to get a t-shirt. yea my friends put in some effort to help me but eventually just gave up. i mean, sure, it's not them what. i guess no one looks at me so nobody would notice the green area on my shoulder. maybe i'm just too self-conscious. but having to wear that stained t-shirt really got me pissed. there's only so much heat a guy can take.

something has been really getting to me recently as well. for some unknown reason my mum has been extra annoying and unreasonable after her trip to shanghai (i forgot to mention, she didn't bring any souvenirs for me. thanks ah.) she made a hell lot of noise when i asked her to buy the straits times yesterday since she was going down to pick my brother up anyway. she went on and on about how picky i am because i refuse to read the business times which she got for free from her subscription to the chinese paper. come on, if they are really the same why would SPH bother to run 2 different papers? and, hey, i'm under no obligation to read it just because you got it free. if i wanted to read it, i would have, you telling me to do so won't make a wee bit of a difference. she also prattled on about how i buy stuff that are "made in china" when we are going to hong kong in november and should have waited till then. what kind of logic is that?

actually one of the scenes in the movie reminded me of the time when i was preparing for my prom. if only my mum was half as supportive as troy's mum. i didn't even asked her to spend a single cent on my prom stuff ok but she just went on disapproving my clothes, saying it's so~~~~ expensive and whatnot. i only got a shirt, shoes, pants, belt and a tie. i didn't even get a blazer....i already tried my best to keep the budget reasonably low considering i had to pay for everything myself and everything came out of the savings i made out of my own effort. she thinks she's a modern woman with an open-mind. but in reality she's really in her own world and is as stubborn as an ass. (so much so she probably is one) i mean, look at what she told my cousin about her birthday. she said that my cousin should be careful of which guy cuts her birthday cake because some guy who likes her might want to cut it to "show off"? show off what? that he's a good cake cutter? if anyone not living in the 50's or mars can find the logic in that piece of admonishment please kindly point it out to me ok? really can't stand her antics anymore.

ugh...that was a mouthful (handful, whatever). i hope tomorrow will be a better day. damn, i miss the days when my mum was overseas. oh well, until next time then. cya.

First Blood! Bargains Galore~

2008-10-20T01:26:00.003+08:00

first of all, i want to say thanks to everyone who has read my blog. also, thanks to everyone who has given their feedback. all suggestions given have been very constructive and i'll be sure to take them to make this blog better.

alright let's jump right into the juicy stuff! after holding onto my reins for like more than half of the month i finally let go and managed to get some pretty good deals!

i actually made a trip down to queensway shopping centre to try to get a deal for the nike gym bag i saw in the stores but it was a rather disappointing trip. even though the shops there sold it at like 15% cheaper than the retail price at the nike stores, not a single one of them had the brown colour one which i wanted and only had the black one. (bleah~~) so i made up my mind and decided to head down to the nike store at wheelock place to get the brown one (imo, to get the right colour, it was worth paying the full price) i went down and asked the shop assistant for a new piece. after checking she told me the last one they had was the display piece and i was a little hesistant but then the nice lady said that she could give me a 10% discount for that piece! (wow~ so unexpected!) so here's the bag!

it's big enough to put all my gym stuff inside! (even my shoe bag!) next time i can go to the gym after work! and the strap is removable so it's super versatile! look at all the different ways i can carry it!

you can sling it!:

carry it using the handles:

on the shoulder:

and for the slightly more adventurous, like a backpack (it's a very japanese-y way to carry it):

totally love it! it's casual enough to go out with yet sleek enough to bring to work! nice~ hmm...maybe if you guys have any more good ideas can tell me. haha.

anyway, on the same day, i went down to taka because they were having their brand sale at the basement forum. everything was going at crazy prices! but i managed to keep my cool and just got this celio* shirt:

it was on 60% discount so i ended up paying less than $30 for it. (too good to be true~) just in time for the wedding. heh heh.

it is also about time i got a new singlet for gym because i've been wearing my favourite blue mizuno singlet a little too often. saw this on sale at the adidas store:

couldn't believe my eyes! it was on 30% discount at the official adidas retail store! even those shops at quuensway only gave like a 20%? lucky~
i can wear this with my adidas split shorts with red stripes! yay!

alright alright, enough with the excitement. i've gotta go get some sleep, need to wake up early tommorow for my dental appointment. so, ciao~
stay tuned for more updates! ;)

Official release! 魔杰座!

2008-10-17T13:02:00.003+08:00

ok let me clarify something. the previous album review i did for 魔杰座 was for the preview version of the album. as it turns out, there have been changes to the official released version. basically the songs remain the same but the order and most of the titles for the songs have been changed. the cd also comes with premiums! jay poker cards and calender! (yay?) okok, here's the official cover:

the official tracklist (*names of track in preview version in brackets):
01.龙战骑士 (*魔杰座)
02.给我一首歌的时间 (*女儿红)
03.蛇舞 (*东方之殿)
04.花海 (*红楼梦中)
05.魔术先生 (*失恋的青蛙)
06.说好的幸福呢 (*失落的非主流)
07.兰亭序 (*从新爱)
08.流浪诗人 (*大灌篮)
09.时光机 (*达芬奇的画布)
10.乔克叔叔 (*小丑)
11.稻香

i feel that these song titles are way more appropriate than those on the preview edition. this track order is also much better. all these factors added up gives the official album a much better overall presentation. i like this album a lot more because of that too.

apart from the songs i've mentioned in the earlier review, i find that 给我一首歌的时间 is also worth a mention. it's a soothing slow song. very K-able. (*note: K-able = good song to sing at the karaoke) 说好的幸福呢 reminds me of Landy's 祝我生日快乐 which was of course written by Jay himself.

the title track 稻香 really gets to you after a while. it's a very light-hearted song that talks about how we should just take things easy in life sometimes. somehow it just makes you want to get in touch with nature, probably because of the lyrics about the scent of wheatfields and the cricket sounds at the beginning on the song. (until you start thinking about the annoying mozzies and how all the grassy scents would just trigger off your nose into a sneezing frenzy that is. haha.)

well, that's all for now. until next time~

Grand debut! ~Deluxe edition~

2008-10-11T00:13:00.006+08:00

this is the first post on my new blog and like any deserving tv series or fledgling magazine, this is going to be the equivalent to the 2 hour premiere or special double issue! yup, i'm going to give my readers (if any) a special treat right from the start.

why did i decide to start a blog you might ask? oh well, as i've got some free time on hand recently i decided to might start on a new project to spend some time fruitfully(?). second, i also found i needed a medium for my endless ranting (especially when i have nothing else to do). third, i also thought that if i catalogued my shopping misadventures, i might actually realize how much i'm spending and this might help curb my cravings (hopefully). so, yes, this is also going to be my shopping journal! yes, perfectly normal guys can also have shopping journals. fourth, well there is no fourth yet and i'll tell u if i think of more reasons. anyway, if you're looking for profound or emo stuff here, you are barking up the wrong tree (well, at least most of the time).

alright, let's get started shall we? for my super special extra long virgin post, i'll cover my top buys for the month of September! (surprisingly i've managed to control myself so far for October)

first up, *drumroll*, my new pair of denims!

front view

back view

was looking out for a new pair with slim fit when i managed to get this at levi's when they were having a sale. (hmmm...don't they always have sales?) after discount i think it still wasn't very cheap la, around $100plus a bit liddat. love the cut! when i tried it on i just knew i had to get this. oh ya, the wallet chain u see in the pic is my own (got it earlier this year). there was a denim version of the chain (so it's more like a strip) that came with this pair. i thought this would look better so i changed it. recently i've been wearing this pair quite a lot. so...it's a good buy.

next up!

this was purely an impulse buy. the store was having a sale and the design really juz got me from afar. BUT it's a good impulse buy, not the kind that's left hanging on the hanger. it's definitely a steal!

last (in case you were wondering, they are just being listed out in the order i bought them):

this is one of the cases when the display on the mannequin actually got me into the shop. haven't got to wear it yet but i'm planning to wear it tomorrow. but so far so good!

ok! i'm done with the shopping journal part of this post! why don't we move to the review of the last movie i watched? the last movie i watched was...

yup, House Bunny! stars Anna Faris and also Katharine McPhee of AI fame. Anna's character is a super stereotypical bimbotic blonde from the playboy mansion. she got kicked out and she finds herself becoming the housemother for the outcast zeta house. well, she helps them get popular, they help her get her guy who isn't just into looks rah rah rah. predictable main plot aside, there were many antics and dumb blonde jokes that just got us laughing. it's just a light hearted comedy that you can watch when your mind just needs a techincal break. it pretty much served it's purporse and it is better than some other movies i've watched recently.

Phew~ that was quite a lot but, hey, since this is the 2 hour premiere, heck, i'll throw in an album review too. and the album i'll be reviewing is...

S.H.E - 我的電台 FM S.H.E (wo de dian tai FM S.H.E)

the first time i listened to this as though i was just listening to a regular album where i just browsed through the tracks and most of the songs didn't leave much of an impression. but a few days later i gave it a second chance and listened to it from the very first track and it was a totally different experience! the theme of this album is to sound like you're listening to the radio with certain tracks that sound like the dj is talking. what really cracked me up was the track "xi bi fu ren shi jian" where hebe tries to play an aunt agony role and selina pretends to be a caller who needs a little help in her love life. selina's character is pretty shameless and admits that she is quite pretty even though her face is a little round and was quite proud that a middle-aged guy tried to hook her up even though she was too busy to give him her number. there are actually many good tracks that really stick in your head after a while. like the song "bi ni jian" sounds like a revamped version of the MJ oldie "billy jean" and "an jing le" is a rearranged version of jay chou's "an jing". there's also my personal favourite "612 xing qiu" which is loosely based off the book "the little prince", the story about the prince who lives on his home located on asteroid 612 and has feelings for his rose (it's pretty hard to explain here, you should read it for yourself. it's a classic). if you haven't heard this album i'd reccommend you get your hands on it and listen asap!

hmm...while we are at it, why don't we end off with yet another album review?

Jay Chou - 魔杰座 (Capricorn) [Preview Edition]

personally if you asked me, i'd expect more from a jay chou album. it actually isn't bad but just not up to the expectations for a jay album. there are tracks i like though. this album generally has a soft, slower feel to it. the song "dao xiang" is reminiscent of his older song "ting ma ma de hua" and has a very Nan Quan Ma Ma touch to it. the song "shi lian de qing wa" is one of the mid-fast tempo songs and has a cutesy presentation. it also cleverly uses a line from jay's song "niu zai hen mang" from his previous album. "hong lou meng zhong" is a slow song that kinda leaves an impression too.

alright, that's the end of the deluxe premier edition of my blog! look forward to more random posts in the future with more shopping updates or just some of my ranting! heh heh.