the years gone by

Birthdays over the years
2008 - HK, had dinner alone in a little eatery near Fa Yuen St
2009 - nothing
2010 - Taitung to Hualien, Taiwan, with stupid

Christmas over the years
2008 - alone in sihanoukville, cambodia, in a quiet night
2009 - chiangmai with stupid
2010 - That elephant safari place, Sri Lanka, in an isolated resort with the scb folks

New Year over the years
2008/09 - nothing
2009/10 - Khao San Road, Bangkok, with ass and stupid and surrounded by 2000 ang mohs
2010/11 - on the plane from Colombo to Singapore with Jas and CJ

2010 in figures

days spent overseas - 54

countries visited - 7

friends (unique) overseas with - 24

wedding invites received - 10

cameras in possession - 6

friends on facebook - 378

friends on facebook whom i've met for at least 5 min - 132

photos taken (excluding film, small cameras and deleted photos) - 5916

no need for a title

1st September 2007. Saturday.

Worst day in my life for the last two years. Even Liverpool's 6-0 drubbing of Derby couldn't lift me up. That's how bad it is. Well at least they didn't top off the terrible day in equally befitting manner.

1st September 2007. The preceding days were almost as bad. I could feel the devils coming yet I was helpless, just waiting for something, or nothing, waiting for the blow to strike me fully where it hurts. And it did.

After two years I said hi to james blunt again. he understands.

faded black and white melodies

listening to sad love songs at 4.30 in the morning does something to the soul; a feeling that i used to know very well indeed.

hi waipeng, i'm reading your blog. and your friend trixie's too. and funnie, that you both know lester, who used to be my best friend 15 years ago, whom i met again in ntu, but we left it at that for some reasons unknown.

Michael W. Smith's Friends is playing now. The song that we sang back in our Sec 1 or 2 class performance. Nostalgia-filled faded memories. I can almost drop a tear right now, the friends we had and those who departed from our lives.

I would like to reacquaint all my old friends. before it's too late.

before the merciless hands of time sweep us by.

which brought a thought to my head, is there a limit to the number of close and active friends one can have at any point of his life? once a certain quota is reached, old friends are pushed down the list and replaced by new ones?

final whistle

the boys and girls started school this week, back to the humdrums of classes and canteens and girls watching. life in ntu and hall goes on without me, without skipping a beat.

and i miss it all, with somewhat a heavy heart.

I made the decision to cut school in 3 years so that I can get some income. but now that i'm here, working seems to be the last thing on my mind.

the abrupt arrival of the end of 3 years in university felt as if the final whistle of the Liverpool game came 15 minutes early. without injury time. and i'm the substitute who's still warming up by the sidelines.

this recently expired phase has made up one of the most memorable part of my life, alongside my secondary school years, where friends and love were gained and lost. upon seeing the email sent by the students union promoting whatever activities that are going on, i can't help but wish that i'm back there again.

gotta move on, back to the unfinished cambodia photos.

Fate

I don't know why it took me this long to write about such.

Destiny, dated.

I saw two girls in a train compartment at Raffles Place. four hours later, after traveling to the west and back, I spotted them, again together in the same compartment, heading in the same direction.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Before I moved out of hall, my mailbox's key was mixed up with my old room's, so I tried them out at the mailboxes. I discovered that my key opened both mailboxes. I then tried it on all others in the same block but none would work. So out of the entire block, I had ended up with two rooms that shared the same keys.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

During a dreary lunch break, I was chatting with Peiyi about the odd-jobs that we had done before. She then mentioned her stint at a florist many years ago, and recounted a weirdly memorable order that she had taken from a customer over the phone. The dedication on the bouquet's card was highly mushy and too long for the phone so it had to be sent over the length of 3 smses. The customer also sms-ed back at the end of the day to thank her. During then came the shocking realization that there I was, sitting at a cafe, sipping Mr Teh Tarik with the girl from whom I had ordered Valentine's Day flowers before we knew each other, half a decade ago.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sometimes I buy $2 of Toto because I'm a cheapo. On a particular day, while on the way to the lottery outlet, I acquired a good feeling. The good feeling that I had made me buy $5 instead of $2, hence increasing my chances of winning from 1/1,466,110,800 to 1/586,444,320. That evening when I checked the locations of the winning outlet, I saw that the both the Group 1 and Group 2 winning tickets came from the same outlet that I bought from...

When I matched the winning numbers with mine, I realised that even destiny gets it all wrong sometimes.

Lei ha, Siem Reap

Quick note before I dive into and get lost in the hundreds of photos taken in Siem Reap..

Three full days - exhausting, enriching, scorching, amazing, dusty, and ultimately, well spent. Shall try to finish writing and filtering through the photos as soon as i can, before the memories disperse like dust blown off the Cambodian roads.

The Kallang Swansong

Ahh, I've got photos.
Or here, if reading does't make your head spin.

National Stadium - Closing Ceremony

Published in the papers!

I'm famous!

For a few milliseconds on Wednesday at least.

My letter got published by Today in her feature on the National Stadium where readers wrote in of their memories. So I did. And my passionate letter must have moved their hearts and souls to get selected, but not before the editors tore apart the innards and churned it around, save for the start and end which thankfully remained more or less intact, else I wouldn't have recognized it at all.

Between me and the lady called Jun-lei, who edited my piece, it started out embarassingly though.

My entry started with the mention of a little tin box which holds all the ticket stubs of the football matches that I had attended at Kallang. When she called me, The masquerading Intern, I was asked to bring down that little tin box with the particular ticket stub of the match that I wrote of. Sure I thought, I'd be delighted to.

When I rushed home after work, my precious tin box was nowhere to be found. It wasn't standing at where it should be, nor was it anywhere else. After moments of digging around, I finally realised that I had somehow arrived at an unsentimental decision to dump it, tin and contents, just a couple months ago.

That was a really depressing moment.

I had carefully kept all the tickets for years, starting from the 90's. So for almost a decade, they sat in darkness as docile memories do. Then came that fateful day when I decided that I'm never ever gonna do anything with these tickets since hey, they are all in my head and heart, so I threw them away. And now when that moment arrives for me to show off that piece of paper saying Singapore vs Bahrain, dated 2001, I have nothing.

Sad.

And embarassing when I call back Today to inform the lady that I no longer possess the tin box which I wrote of with pride.

Anyway, from the result of the editing, I experienced at first hand how conforming and politically correct the paper must behave especially when it is part of the national broadsheet. The words of the eventual published piece couldn't muster a fraction of the emotions burning through Kallang that night. Mild by comparison, that's right.

Here what's I originally wrote, within the restricted 200 words:
A little Mauna Loa Honey Roasted Macadamia Nuts tin box holds all the ticket stubs of the Lions’ games that I had attended. Of them, the most memorable match was the World Cup Qualifier against Bahrain in 2001, held at Kallang.

Singapore needed a win to qualify. Our opponents were leading and we struggled to get past them, tried as we did. Despite their superiority on the pitch, the middle-eastern charlatans started time wasting with more than 20 minutes of the game to go.

The crowd was incensed, outraged.

The trickeries of time wasting that they employed made a mockery of the beautiful game, even out-doing the comical Rivaldo in World Cup '02.

Singapore fans reacted in a way I had never seen before, cheering, shouting and cursing as one. That was Team Singapore, if I may borrow the present day term, at its united best. Coins were thrown and bottles flung in a mad cacophony. Rubbish strewed the pitch, and I don’t mean the Bahrain players.

Police had to intervene, so did Nazri Nasri, the Lions captain then. The Bahrain team bus was waylaid by lions and had to be escorted out. Kallang certainly roared that eventful night.

The edited version:

To wrap things up

It's been barely 10 days since I last mugged with the muggers at the SAC, but it seems like distant memories now. the preceeding days were kinda rushed, scrambling to get my FYP program together, the insignificant presentation that came after that, then a mad hurry to siphon off the ntu irc network as many movies as I could, before I bid farewell to my home of the last 3 years.

My life in NTU went past fast and furious. Cliche as it may sound, it seems just like yesterday when I was still a blur freshie, terrified of the man-eating Electronics and Maths I in Year 1 Sem 1.

Exams went okie. Not ok as in I'll beat the shit out of the other students, but okie as in I won't get shit beaten out of me by the papers, my final final exams. So compared to how amazingly lost i was just weeks before 18th April, I have done relatively okie.

My last paper in NTU went down without a whimper. It was Distributed Computing, of which I'll prolly get a B if I didn't screw up too badly. The venue was at Hall A, Nanyang Auditorium, next door to my virgin paper in NTU, School of Biological Science. In that inaugural paper, I scored an F for Electronics. Of course, I then cleverly changed my course to Computer Science and managed to erase that mark of failure.

In these 3 years, all in, I have taken 33 exams and 1 major Final Year Project. In retrospect, my bunch of Shitter Friends and I realised that, if like us, you just wanna get your degree with an average grade, then hey, university is actually not very difficult. You can't afford to be lazier than us though. I don't do tutorials, have never approached a lecturer to ask any questions, skipped some lectures, skipped alot of lectures for some subjects sometimes, normally don't know what's going on throughout the whole semester, but I mug real hard in the couple weeks just before exams. So basically it is possible to cover 85% of what was taught in an entire semester in 3 days.

And I am living proof that one need not be good in maths to get by in Computer Science. All I know is my elementary maths from secondary school education. At the end of the 3 years, I proudly declare that I can't perform the simplest of integration or differentiation. I hate maths related subjects. That explains for the few Ds that I got.

ah well, these are stuff that just came to my mind at this point of time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

FYP, the 1 year old demon, is over as well. My presentation was alrite, it being more of a formality. Neither supervisor nor examiner seemed too interested. And I doubt they even read my report. I suspect all the efforts put into my report and presentation went in vain. To them it is probably just another project, just a routine whereby if the student didn't screw up, he'll be awarded a B and get done with it. So at the end of the day, my supervisor, Tweety Bird, told me that it boils down to the effort that I put in through the year, and not the final product. Which means that I've wasted a few good days trying to make my program look good. damn it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My last few days in hall was spent in front of the computer screen. I've only recently discovered the magic of irc and the riches that it holds. so before I move out, I thought I would like to make full use of my internet fees for once and grab whatever that catches my eye. It was pleasantly surprising to find some gems among the many films that people were sharing there. In that few days, I turned from film enthusiast to film collector.. Plus the hoard of dvds that I bought over the last few months.. Seriously, I dunno when I'll ever finish watching all the films.

facing death and spitting in its face, and then start a new blog.

i'm an invalid.

the bane of meritocracy.

my final year project report is due in 8 days. i estimate around 60 pages is needed. a whole week of good intentions, and i'm still at page 2 of the introduction. not to mention the other 4 projects due within a month. if this is football i'll get red-carded for time wasting.

up to my ass with all these stuff to do. or up to my neck. whichever is more intense. and did i do them? nope. i casually flick it off my mind and started a new blog instead.

oh-brilliant-shit.blogspot.com

this is where i'll detail down whatever places that i've explored. my travel blog. where i show off my skillfully edited photos. starting from the recent Gunung Stong trip. will add more when i find time.

fyp fyp.. i am much braver than i think i am, or ought to be.

one more time

today is a cloudy day, a hollow weekend

so is this the end that is long overdue, or yet another false alarm? i'm tired too. shall not think about this for now.

i'm feeling absolutely moodless to do anything that requires thinking right now. would have gone for a run, but for the niggling knee problem that's back again. a little longer than usual. hope it holds up for tmr's xphysique.

speaking of which, i'm not even sure how the event is like. zero preparations. not that i mind though. would have joined it just for fun.. but now that i think of it.. i do need to raise some money if i'm to go mt kinabalu and diving in may..

fond memories of such races.. in the 'Mazing Singapore Race, zijing + fei + feli + me.. Team Cucumber finished 6th out of 100++ teams.. but if anyone would care to listen, we were firmly headed for the top 3 spots till the organizers screwed it all up. still, that was a good experience. we were a happy team then.

in the NTU ODAC's Rat Race, junwen + feli + me, we finished 3rd, and we strongly suspect the 2nd team cheated. still, we were a happy team.

then in the Great Maritime Adventure, fei + feli + me, we got promoted to 3rd after the team ahead of us got disqualified. easiest race among the 3, kinda silly.. and lotsa money. Won $5k and some mp3 players, though ironically, that was the saddest time, and also our last event together.

i hope we have fun tomorrow, alda + weisiong + zhenhan + me. dun fall off from abseiling and die. thinking about abseiling makes me nervous, just a little.

The why to my heart

have i forgotten how it felt to feel
my love, the feeling once so strong of sweet sorrow
it was everywhere, the words i wrote, the tears i laid,
the joy you gave.
it was there, i know. And remembered it clearly, before i lost you.
mi_lanel, budding rose of my formative years,
of you, my decade of decadence


Years of wilderness (fallen)


Then from nowhere it came back again, so strange, so swift.
Feli they call her. Pebbles, as she was known to me.
She called, I answered, we talked, and fell.
Fell into that familiar feeling I used to dread,
of fearing that tomorrow will arrive without her in it.
That was a love that was wrong, yet so perfect.
For surely, good things don't come so fast and sudden,
took my breath away.
And they don't.
She left, and i could not comprehend,
the perfect stranger that we became.
nor the joke that heaven made of me.


days of derelict.


Strength came upon me one day,
I know not how.
I put you away, in my
locked closet of memories.
Along with the book of us,
words and images i carefully kept,
the final chapter that i wrote for you.

I wasn't sad, suddenly.
Like i leashed my heart to a heavy rock,
the equi-weight of you in my heart,
and heaved it overboard
into a sea unknown.

Down without a splash,
no last words of condolences.
Numb, but for that occasional spray
of fine mist from yesterdays.


Forgotten.


So forgive me, forgive me
this life void of passion
dead avenues that gently ambles along
to great plains of emptiness

《明日歌》

《明日歌》
清 钱福《鹤滩集》

明日复明日，明日何其多，
我生待明日，万事成蹉跎。
世人若被明日累，春去秋来老将至。
朝看水东流，暮看日西坠。
百年明日能几何，请君听我明日歌。

Somehow I've always remembered part of this, from many and many a year ago, while cramming in my higher chinese textbook, yet not being able to understand much. You learn as you age, and things just flow back to you sometimes. Upon reflections, how meaningful all these seems, yet reflections can never bring back the passing of time.

and I found other variations as well. For Today, Tomorrow, and Yesterday.

《今日歌》
明 文嘉

今日复今日，今日何其少！
今日又不为，此事何时了！
人生百年几今日，今日不为真可惜！
若言姑待明朝至，明朝又有明朝事。
为君聊赋今日诗，努力请从今日始。

明日歌
文嘉
明日复明日，明日何其多！
日日待明日，万世成蹉跎。
世人皆被明日累，明日无穷老将至。
晨昏滚滚水流东，今古悠悠日西坠。
百年明日能几何？请君听我《明日歌》。

昨日诗
佚名者
昨日兮昨日，昨日何其好！
昨日过去了，今日徒懊恼。
世人但知悔昨日，不觉今日又过了。
水去日日流，花落日日少，
成事立业在今日，莫待明朝悔今朝.

Happy Anniversary

I remembered the day before it was due. On the day though, somehow I forgot about it, busy with mahjong i suspect. But still, it's a day worth remembering.

On 30th Dec 1999, i wrote this on Diaryland.



2007 hence enters my 8th year of blogging, or just an online diary as it was called, once upon a time..

Happy Anniversary

Now that drugs don't work

I laid on the hospital bed, looking at other young patients. My eyes took them in in a different light, glowing and surreal. My shyness gradually subsided, much like the thronging pain from my fresh wound. Morsels of undiscovered warmth seeped through me, in a way that I've never felt before. I wanted to lean over and make friends with them, whose faces I had pretended didn't exist till then. I wanted to embrace this new found world. Something in me then questioned the absurdity of myself doing it. I battled that thought for a while, till I finally succumbed to the power of morphine. Drifting off from one surreal world to another.