I can watch it alll dayyyyyy looonnnnngggggg
coz unlike Heroes, I know it doesn't have a crap
ending. ohh yeahhhhh
Hanging out
Down the streets
The same old thing
We did last week
Not a thing to doooo
But TALK to you
WooaaaaaaYEAHHHHHH
I was at the kitchen, examining a bunch of bananas for
ripeness.
The father steps in.
I heard his gruffy voice, "Can eat already. But not
very ripe."
I thought I heard wrong. "Huh??"
Said The Father, more loudly this time, "CAN EAT".
So I twisted one lucky yellow banana out of the bunch
and it splitted open down the side instead of
detaching from the top, a sure sign that it is... not
ripe enough.
The Father continues, "But not very ripe".
wtf..
The Intern strode in at 9.13am. The daily consistency of the slightly late arrival deserves a mention.
9.16am, the death clutch of sleepiness slips in her deadly hand.
The Intern is too drowsy and too far gone to continue writing.
A toast for my deceased grandpa. And another to the reaches of the Internet.
I'm doing the midnight shift for the fourth straight night at the funeral, currently tapping into somebody's wireless network from a pavilion among the HDB estate.
In an hour's time I'll see a pudgy woman emerging from the lift lobby behind me, with a cigerette in her mouth.
In two hour's time another better looking lady will be on her way to work, carrying two bags with her, sometimes three.
And yet another hour later, I should be waiting for the rest to wake up from deep slumber, so that I can return home to my morning bed. I usually fall asleep the moment I lie down. But not today. The crematorium awaits the body which won't wake again.
Contrary to what many may have feared, The Intern is still alive.
Days have fallen into weeks, and the weeks daisychained to the first month passed. By the end of this week, the halfway mark would be reached.
Each day of slavery has since taken on a monotonous routine of filling up the 17" monitor with my face while trying to debug some programming shit. Such braindrain is punctuated only by lunch and teabreak which is sadly losing its regularity; Fat Tham declared to embark on another of his nonsensical Slim Tham 2007 plan.
The working environment remains cold and silent. The most meaningful exchange of dialogue was over in two lines when Jenny the HR personnel handed me my first internship pay cheque. It was a fruitful conversation. Fruits are expensive these days. I now spend my daily existence looking forward to the next dialogue that I will have with her in a month's time.
The hours after work are less predictable. But I usually take the lift down. If nothing major crops up or the world doesn't need saving on that day, The Intern heads home to watch Heroes. About 4 more episodes to the finale of Season 1. At the end of that, the secret cache of 100+ carefully selected films should be able to last for a year or so.
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:
I can say very surely and strongly, that i dislike japan. despise even. That's not to say I can never have a japanese friend, but the nation on the whole is screwed up in my opinion.
In fact, I used to have a half jap half korean classmate back in secondary school. And in my impressionable young teenage mind, let's just say that her behaviour appeared somewhat deranged at times.
In the recently whaling saga, and not for the first time, the japs insist on killing 1000 whales in the name of scientific research. What research, they did not say. I guess they haven't think of what excuse to research on yet. But what they do know is that once the phony cover is over, it will be followed by the macabre sale of whale meat, for food??, and maybe to make perfumes from the dead whale blubbers.
Screw you japan.
I haven't ever see a whale yet, and you're gonna kill them all off.. bitch.
And of course I have to talk about WWII. The government have never seem to be remorseful about their atrocities even till now. The forced apologies over the years were merely to placate the anger of affected countries. And will the kids in jap schools ever know about what a great bunch of mother fuckers their predecessors were in all the wars? (see wikipedia)
By no great coincidence, japanese are perverts. The number of molesters who get away with it scot free is shocking. (see wiki) Heard from a japanese tour guide that, if you get molested on the train, either whack the guy or keep quiet. the police won't or can't help. The profligacy of jap porn is another example of the perverted nature. See the vending machines dispensing used panties for olfactory pleasures. And how about porn stars eating theirs or someone else's shit.. now that's really really fucking gross and a libido turn off.
From war crimes to murdering whales to sick perversion.. just a stroll down different avenues for them isn't it?
The mind is engulfed by sleepiness.
4 hours and 35 minutes to 6pm
...
I must hold on...
On a more constructive note, I spent the afternoon of Day 3 posting an entry on my recent National Stadium tour trip.
Not the best of photos, but it could have been far worse. All comments are welcome.
If the ignominy of the first two days is any measure, then day 3 of the enforced slavery must look like a great success.
In the lift on the way home, a man in strange running attire said bye to me. I must have managed a smile at the lift landing before that. But a very weak one it was, such that I wasn't sure if the smile came out at all.
Not that I was suddenly the happiest employee of the day, just a reprieve to the strangeness of it all; to be an intern in a company, yet not really in the company, nor doing any of what they call work.
The second significant event occured earlier in the day when I went to the desk of a particular Jenny to return the Confidentiality Form. It was left on my table over lunch, quietly, like how the life of The Intern in The Company goes.
I was then told to photocopy my IC at the photocopier just beside. I fumbled at it for minutes, but it kept telling me "..size not detected".. Is the status of The Intern so lowly that he is not even recognized by a photocopier, the slave of all slaves? Defeated at my first real task in The Company, I had to approach Jenny for help. Which meant that she got to see the stupidest looking IC photo ever taken, circa 1993. Jenny remained professional and stone-faced. She did not LOL.
Now for some pride.
The greatest achievement of the day, the week, or even the entire lifespan of The Intern, was when I discovered where the pantry is located. The one which they have been despicably hiding from me. Morning after mornings, tea-break after tea-breaks, caffeine laden scents had been missile-guided towards my defenseless corner cubicle, yet no one had offered me as much as a clue to where a single drop of water could be found.
So I spotted it after the misadventure with the photocopier. The pantry, the essence of office life anywhere, sits on the opposite side of the entrance, shrouded by high cubicle walls and guarded by the zealous HR people. Maybe as a form of company benefits, HR determines the number of cups of coffee an employee gets a day, and interns get nothing. I casually took a quick reconnaissance glance then turned and left.
Wait till next week.. I'll bring in my own mug, sneak pass HR and come strolling out with my own coffee, just to let them know they have been defeated.
"Hi, I'm the new intern working under XXX XXX. Today's my first day."
I was led to xxxxxx, who looked kinda lost when he saw me. I was offered a seat and the company's magazine while he get someone to set up my computer. So there I sat for 1hr 15min and no further words were exchanged, even though he was sitting just behind me.
That done, I was shown my cubicle right at the end of the short corridor, which suits me fine. He then demo-ed the company's intranet system to me, and in particular the Project Management System, which can be aptly read as PMS. My task for the whole of the day was to click around and see how I can improve the PMS, thereby bringing salvation to all the people suffering from PMS.
...
LIKE HEELLOOOO?? How am I gonna improve on a system which I've never used before? Shouldn't them the frequent users know best on what should be done? It looked fine to me as it is anyway. Silent questions in my head, and I was left alone in my corner once again.
Whatever happened to the friendly breakfast that my friend had told me about? Or at least a simple orientation around the work place? Everyone turned and stole a glance at the new face. The Intern. My attemped smile and nods returned nothing. The Intern retreats to his corner.
Nevermind the orientation, when lunch time arrived at 20min to 12pm, the Office was suddenly devoided of life. I was conveniently forgotten. Not that I need a babysitter, but isn't the first day lunch invitation a customary gesture? Not a very friendly place it seems.
Thankfully The Intern has many good friends who work around the area. A couple of sms-es soon found myself having lunch with them. So I learnt that Golden Shoe is a good place for cheap and good lunches. And I witnessed at first hand the fabled tissue-chopping culture of CBD. Tissue packets were everywhere, not for its content, but for its prowess as an object to chop a priceless seat during lunch hour. Once we finished eating and get going, a tissue packet instantly landed on where my butts was positioned half a second ago. An office lady turned and walked away smartly.
The Intern parted way with friends and headed back to the office. At the door, it dawned upon me that I wasn't given the access code. I pressed the buzzer. No response. I walked around, but I was alone. An Indian chap from another office walked down the aisle and eyed me suspiciously. I pressed the buzzer again. I could see reflections of at least two persons near the door but of course they feigned ignorance. Indian chap returned from the toilet and must have sniggered at The-One-Who-Is-Still-Standing-Outside-The-Door. Eventually I hung around for almost 10 more minutes before someone turned up and I followed him in. So of course xxxxxx must have thought that The Intern have been lazing in an extended lunch on his first day of work.
...
Not knowing what to do, I approached xxxxxx and told him I can't really figure out what to improve on the system. So he told me to think in the shoes of say, a manager, which is basically him, and what can be added to aid the manager in project management, which is basically what he do. So The Intern had to pretend to be The Manager now and know what functions or tools can be added on his first day of work which didn't include an orientation or lunch invitation. Why can't he just tell me what he wants to implement? strange.
The Intern would like to include a function that informs any Interns (current and future) of where the pantry is and the access code for unlocking the door so that all Interns may return from lunch on time.
...
The rest of the day was spent pretending to be busy. I looked forward to tea-break. At 4pm, most of the office mysteriously and quietly cleared out again. Disappointed at such attitude, The Intern went to shit. The cubicle was really cramped. My knees were touching the side of the wall. When I returned, everyone was back already, and they eyed The Intern-who-took-a-long-teabreak-on-his-first-day-of-work with contempt. I could feel their stares behind my back.
At 4.30pm, I really really looked forward to 6pm. And time.. goes by.. so slowly.. and time.. can do... sooo much...
I adjusted the time on my computer so that it goes 5 minutes faster, the same as my watch.
5pm came, but 6pm wouldn't turn up.
5.15pm arrived. 6pm is nowhere to be seen.
Even 5.30pm reached.
5.45pm caught up with the rest. The Intern is excited.
Finally, 6pm. But xxx xxx was nowhere to be found. The Intern thinks it's only polite to wait for him to come back so that I can inform him I'm leaving.
6.10pm. 10 minutes of injury time have been played. Enough is enough. The Righteous Referee blew the whistle signalling full time, off the comp, packed up and left.
The day has ended in sad defeat for The Intern.
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.
Anfield '05 we kicked their ass
Anfield '06 we kicked their ass
Anfield '07 we kicked chelsea's ass once more
Istanbul '05 we went and won
'06 (who cares where) we took a break
Athens '07 HERE WE COME
WOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
the entire defence had a great game. Carragher, Agger, Finnan, Riise, Reina. Mascherano was excellent, bar a mistake in the first half. Pennant was good, as was the workhorse Kuyt who ran down every single ball. Even Zenden had a much improved game whereas Gerrard, sad to say, was far from his best yet again, though he could do no worse than Crouch who had an awful game in my opinion..
ahh whatever, we won.. reina's penalty saves were superb.. the least that i can say.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
on a sour note, I seriously can't stand watching any matches at the hall tv lounge. why must there always be a bunch of idiots who gets on my nerves?? is it just Hall One, particularly block 16? to support Liverpool is a good choice. but to call yourself fans, you should at least get the names of the players right. these 4 morons came in 15 minutes late and talked nonstop without any consideration for the person who's quietly enjoying the game, namely me.
people who don't know a shit about what they are talking about should just shut the fuck up. so disgusted and irritated was i, that i couldn't bear to look at their faces even once, lest i spit and scorn at them should i chance upon them in school.
At the start, they made fun of all the black chelsea players.. makelele, drogba, essien, kalou.. all of them. a little pre-match excitement, i can live with that. "why is he so black?", "did he go for a sun tan?", "did he take an injection?", "they all look alike" .. blah blah .. but if by the 70th minute of the game they were still discussing how black essien is, then surely i can't be faulted for getting pissed.
incessant unintelligent unfunny senseless boastful LOUD crap talk throughout the 90min + half time + extra time + injury time + penalty kicks. fucking pests really. these are the fans i detest, those who watch one game a year and boast to everyone that THEIR team won last night.
if you are or know anyone like that, there should be plenty out there, kindly tell them to sit back, watch and learn, stop reading NewPaper, think before they talk and not to talk like they are playing Championship Manager. They can't even pronounce Steve Finnan correctly!! fuckin retards.. and I nearly groan when they mentioned Kuyt's name.. OMFG really.
I'm glad this is the last liverpool game that I'm forced to watch in hall. and thankfully we won. it makes everything slightly more bearable.
Athens Here We Come...
7.37am. 1st at the SAC: Champion Mugger showing championship form.
7.48am. 2nd at SAC. :: Mugger Alda :: who can wake up, have breakfast, shit and still make it there by 7.30am.
This is what you see if you're the first at SAC.
My bee hoon breakfast.
Johan showing off the crispy pancake that he bought for us from Bugis. His parents, visiting from Sweden, made a surprise visit to our stronghold the day before, enroute to touring NTU where their son has been wasting the past year at. Nice peeps. 
Typical studying scene, to show that we really do study there.
The inflatable pillow is good for sleeping. When placed over the head, it serves as a hairband and effective earplugs at the same time. This is an indispensable studying companion. Makes you look like Empress Dowager too.
Suddenly everybody wants to be empress dowager the old maid.
I told them i once joined the Samsung Olympic Torch-bearer competition where one tries to hold his hand up for as long as he can. Someone proposed a challenge. The rest crazily agreed.
After around 15min, it was down to me and Johan. Eventually I emerged victorious, of course. Singapore 1:0 Sweden.
IMG_0100.JPG
13th April 2007, Friday
8:52:19pm
This is the 10,000th shot that I took using my Canon S2 IS, since i bought it roughly in September 2005. That's about 1.5 years of intensive shooting, averaging out to 555 shots per month. The milestone was sadly reached without me realising it, and took place in the middle of a tussle between Alda and Johan when we were studying at the SAC.
The camera counter resetted itself after the 9900th photo, a number, which i figured out only later, that was significant simply because the last photo of that set of hundred would exceed the 4-digits maximaum. Hence 9900 + 100 = 10000. Which means that my 20,000th shot would be IMG_0200.JPG.
If only it had been a better shot, a more carefully thought out one. But looking back, I realise I've come a long way since I first laid my hands on this camera. I've learnt a great deal, photographed memorable parts of my life, and taken quite a number of photos for my friends, hoping I've left a bit of me in them, like how they have impressioned upon my life.
. . r e m e m b e r . .
Pao and Weiweiwei made a late night visit.. and end up doodling.
