yusrification

masters

2011-08-25T00:23:00.002+08:00

It's been eons since I've blogged. Almost 9 months I think.

For much of the first half of 2011 I got caught up with so much work. From December all the way to the last day of March, I was practically just spending my time working on the honours thesis. Indeed, that period was one of the most trying I've had. The only class I had was rhetoric in politics, in which I parodied Chaplin for my presentation in class. That was such an awesome get-up and performance in my own opinion. I fought in IVP, but lost in the second round (all this while the day and night before I was struggling to finish the references and bibliography for my thesis). In any case NUS emerged overall champions, which was really a remarkable achievement! (considering how badly we did last year). 2 days after my rhetoric exam paper I flew off to Macau and Hong Kong for my 1st grad trip with the Fatcampers. In effect I missed the GE2011, though I did try hard to stay up as late as I could in Hong Kong for the results. 2 days after getting back home from Hong Kong it was off to Jogjakarta with the guys. At the end of May I received my results and thankfully I got A- for both the honours thesis and for rhetoric, which was really more than what I was earnestly hoping for. June passed without any notable events really, and July was when I had my commencement and I went to KL to catch Arsenal in action against the Malaysian national team.

And now what? I'm doing graduate studies in NUS too. Well, the feeling of being an undergraduate and a graduate is different for sure. I hope the next 2 years will be kind to me, because it's been a stop-start experience for so far. On some days I feel justified about why I chose to continue studying, on others I just feel that it might have been a serious mistake. But I push on nevertheless - the next 2 years of my life has been determined, and I hope those two years spent along this path shall be justified. I take this leap of faith into the unknown, maybe having to face my baptism of fire soon enough. Somehow I will get through all of this, I hope and I pray.

I don't know why I blogged today. As a form of escapism, probably? My 3 month break consisted of so many things - holidays, training sessions, researching. Very many ups and downs. Maybe more down than up. Rather, the scale of the down completely outweigh all the ups. I can't deny I'm affected deeply. I figured the whole disappointment thing would dissipate but apparently it hasn't. It rears its ugly head now and then, and it makes me feel like crap from time to time. The cahiers de doléances might be quite long, but maybe it is my destiny that all this has had to happen.

Maybe I am destined for other things. From an egoistical perspective, maybe I am destined for better things.

History repeats itself - first time as tragedy, second time as farce.

Should I just keep chasing pavements even if it leads to nowhere?

2010-12-24T14:59:00.002+08:00

the last time i blogged was about two-and-a-half months ago. i assure you since then, a lot of thigs have happened. it's just that i've never found the will to blog.

so here i am on xmas eve, in school supposedly to do research for the thesis but what the heck. it's coming on at a really slow pace, but at least i've tried to start finding the books and journals and the newspaper articles. finding them is easy, but to actually pore through them and pick out their arguments... well let's just say even watching blackburn rovers against west ham is much less excruciating.

so the whole exam period came and went, and i admit i've never been so unmotivated to study as i was this time round. it was all about going through the motion, just getting by unspectacularly, especially after what was a tough semester. during the study period i found it very very hard to get myself to concentrate on revising even though i was in school. it got the point where i preferred the preceding period when i typed essays away at a rate of 2000 words per day. like a machine just churning out words and words, in total i typed around 28000 words in the last semester alone. not that i really want to relive those moments again, and i'm more relieved that the semester came as fast as it went. thankfully my cap did not dip by much. next semester hopefully will be more relaxed. just one module and the thesis to work on, and i hope the last semester to be the most fulfilling yet enjoyable one.

2 days before my first paper my paternal grandma left this world. i was already in school actually and surfing away on the laptop while trying to summon my reserves to get myself to begin studying when i got the call. so the whole day was spent with my relatives getting things done for her final journey. i've never been close to her, and i think only my eldest cousin was the only one close to her. still it's saddening to hear all the wailing all around, to see a loved one being buried in the earth, to see the face of death right in front of you. it's been 11 years since my maternal grandpa died too, so it's been quite some time since i've experienced death in family. nowadays i feel i'm always reminded more of death in many ways. which is good i think. i try to slow down the speed of my prayers, and i try to make sure i don't miss any of them. of course i think i still do a lot more bad than i do good. but still i think the thought of death, that one day passed means another day nearer towards death, is good. in life we all want to do good, to be good people, and to make sure our lives have been well spent doing things that are worthwhile.

speaking of christmas, does everyone really celebrate christmas? especially in singapore. if we base it on whether shops still operate on christmas, well i suppose we don't really do so. based on this then the only holiday that we celebrate is chinese new year! the eve of chinese new year is always a half day for most shops, and then they close for the first 2 days of the lunar new year. so i don't really understand the big commercialisation thing and the hype that accompanies christmas, especially in singapore. i wonder if this is really how the christians and the catholics really celebrate christmas, or is this how they really want it to be?

sometimes i wonder if we are overdoing things - to the point where they lose their meaning. what's the point of people showing off in the new paper their collection of agnes b, hermes or prada bags when in that same paper there are stories of people living day by day just trying to get by? why is there still demand for upper class type of shopping centres (like the recently-opened knightsbridge), when more and more people are struggling to pay off their home loans, and more and more people are sinking in poverty? for a response paper assignment in class my professor asked whether vote-buying in elections are democratic or otherwise. in the end i said so what if it's democratic or not? what matters that even if vote-buying might be undemocratic at least the payment that politicians award to their constituents (be it direct cash in hand, or public utility works that benefit all in the community) will go a long way in relieving the immediate crises that poor families face. maybe it's because i wasn't born into wealth, that's why i don't understand what is the big deal of having the need to flash your ridiculous wealth and such. but i think increasing materialism, which affects everyone, be it the working, the middle or the upper classes, suggests a more hollow type of life that we are living. which is sad honestly.

well, i think this my last blog post of the year. so till next year, happy new year to all readers!

p.s. especially to that someone who once said you are a fan of my blog, i really wonder if you actually still follow my blog. haha. in any case happy new year to you too!

the light you bring falls on me.

rainy

2010-11-10T00:06:00.002+08:00

today started off very badly.

i woke up feeling deflated and then dejected. then it was raining heavily. i left home slightly earlier than usual but i still arrived in school late. though many more were late. but the journey to school was painful. i've never seen jurong east mrt packed with people up till half of the platform. it was so bad. i could only board the connecting train to clementi at the 5th attempt. and the announcements that kept playing was 'please wait for the next train if you are unable to board the train, thank you.' like duh, damn it. why must they rub it in? then you know when you reach the bus stop and everyone is trying to squeeze under the shelter, then there will be these rude or lazy idiots who wont close their umbrella while walking under shelters and they will just poke everyone with their umbrellas, forgetting that most of the time they are shorter than average and their lazy ass arms are too lazy to extend higher so that the umbrella won't bang into anyone else. what a lousy and sleepy start to the day.

and in class everyone was just complaining about the 8K essay that we had to submit today, but i'm just glad it's done and over with. to the next essay, and then exams, and then research, then back to school, then the essays, the exams...

i don't know why people like to be 18. like when it's their birthday they try to fool themselves by saying that no i'm not like 35 but i want to be 18. do people want to be 18 because of the looks or because of the lack of responsibilities when you're 18 years of age? 18 or 24 or 35 i think it's almost all the same - welcome to the grown-up ages. if so i'd rather go back to my primary school days. like when i was 10 or something. so carefree, so fun life was. just rushing home after school to catch the cartoons on tv, or to go play that catching game me and friends always did at the playground near my house. that's where i banged into the concrete wall and a tiny part of my front tooth got chipped off. and yes the chipped off part is still there. ah, the memories.

and out of all this, am i asking for too much? i don't know if i am, but pray, you can tell me if i am.

'cause i'm broken when i'm lonesome.

year 4

2010-10-02T19:00:00.002+08:00

here i am in school on satuday evening, doing my readings alone somewhere in school.

sounds like a typical saturday for me actually. although this will become much more of a permanent fixture for the next few months i think. at least i have a new laptop to accompany me(yayyness haha) if i get bored of readings, then again we all get bored of readings all too easily.

life really sucks, the vicious cycle i mentioned in my previous blog posting is becoming even more vicious - and the work on essays are going to start soon. wow. i think i've never worked as hard as i am now in my entire life, and having said that this is not to say the hard work is paying off well. i think to do really well i need to do better than my current rate.

technically it' still the month of raya (well actually no, but based on a local cultural argument yes it is!). but i haven't gone out much anyway. most importantly i've visited my dad's relatives, my relatives back in my village in jb and went out with the silat people the other day. that should suffice for raya celebrations. it's not that raya holds no meaning, but what is the meaning of celebrating hari raya anyway?

i am lucky enough that i've been around long enough to be known by my name by my relatives, rather than the labelling as 'someone's son'. haha. but raya every year presents to me the same recurring theme that i've experienced for many cycles - that as every raya comes and goes, people get older and new people arrive on the scene, through marriages or birth.

but it is deaths that concern me. rather, impending death. my paternal grandfather celebrated his 78th birthday the day before raya this year. we gathered at his place on the eve of raya and celebrated his birthday with a birthday cake (just like me he's a september baby!). well he still looks fine, though he looks very worn out. my grandmother's condition has become worse in the past year even though she's relatively young by modern standards (only in her early 70s). she's almost bedridden and almost immobile, and her mannerisms remind me greatly of muhammad ali with parkinson's. its a sad sight really.

with the other neneks and atuks (or wawas) it can be equally depressing. it's quite sad when one of the actually said 'when i die don't forget to visit me okay'. another said in response to his unsteady balance and movement, 'my time is almost up already'. when we visited my maternal step-grandmother she said something about impending death too. on the first day of raya, i did my friday prayers at the alkaff mosque near potong pasir. then i noticed a coffin in the mosque. i felt so sad that the person passed away on the 1st day of hari raya. to pray for the dead on the first day of raya is quite depressing. to know a friend's grandmother passed away on the second day of raya is equally depressing. to know a friend can't spend raya with his mother is depressing too.

i'm happy that raya comes every year, but i can't escape the fact that as i get older so does everyone else, and that brings everyone closer to death. more so for those in their golden years. raya always reminds me of how much we've all changed and aged. i suspect that every raya will become more and more depressing for me, but i must remember that raya is a time of celebration and gaiety and not sadness.

well that's all for now. back to readings and more readings! selamat hari raya everyone!

reflecting now on how things could've been, it was worth it in the end.

year 4

2010-08-31T18:39:00.002+08:00

i know i haven't blogged for more than a month. it's already the last day of august in fact.

well, i've nothing much to say. other than the fact that this semester seems to be the suckiest so far. monday-thursday i have classes, one on each day, then friday-sunday is spent trying to finish the readings. the the vicious cycle starts again on monday. i've been struggling in trying to finish the readings, and i wonder how i'm going to cope once the essays come into the equation. school sucks, life in school sucks, everyone is either gone or busy doing something else. the fasting month makes me feel even more fatigued than ever, so i hope things will really pick up once september comes around. which is tomorrow by the way. damn.

considering how disappointing it was last year, i think i deserve better this year. i don't exactly mean to say that i expect it to be much better this time round (or expect anything at all actually), but i mean i can't believe it turned out that way. i rather that hadn't happened last year, so that i would not feel aggrieved but then again it really is not my fault. i did not ask for anything, i have never asked for anything, and yet what i got despite not asking for anything was upsetting, to say the least.

sometimes i feel i'm always being misunderstood, and the point is lost altogether. but enough is enough, i've had enough. i just want to go through this semester well and unscathed, that's all that i ask for.

and if you're done with embarrassing me on your own you can go ahead, tell them.

i rest my case.

there you go making my heart beat again.

the intern

2010-07-19T21:35:00.004+08:00

it's already the start of week 4 of the internship. by the end of week 5 i'm done with the internship. in my opinion the most important takeaway is that being a teacher is really tough - with not only teaching to contend with, but other various responsibilities as well. i think you must really love the job - i guess that's why many stay on in this line for years and years, even though they keep teaching the same things repeatedly.

it's a strange feeling to come back to my alma mater as a teacher, albeit a temporary one. the school has changed physically in many ways, but there are a few faces here and there who look awfully familiar. it is surprising to note a few who still recognise me. we've all been caught up with events like the family carnival and the upcoming 50th anniversary of my school. it's older than singapore! though we can't really match the history of other well-established schools that date back to the freaking 19th century for goodness sake! haha.

talking about teachers, yesterday i went for an primary school friend's wedding and we caught up with our old malay language teachers. only one of the three taught me - cikgu samnah. the dear old woman was a good teacher in my opinion, although in one or two aspects i disagreed with the way she handled students. but i really liked her as a teacher. so when i approached her yesterday she couldn't recognise me at the first instance, and asked me for my name instead. when i said yusri she looked at me and slapped me on the forearm. i could sense instant recognition in her eyes! *dances around with glee* haha.

the thing about me is that my face has changed quite a bit since i left primary school (or at least that's what most of the primary school people say). i think i can agree on that. well cikgu asked me where i have disappeared to all this years. it's true that i hardly came back to peiying after i left the school in 1998. i admit secondary school was so much more happening, and late hours and my band practices always kept me tied to bp. but when i said to her im in nus she straightaway muttered alhamudillah (praises to Allah), and i felt she said it earnestly.

i think many go into the teaching line for this reason - the satisfaction that they have made a difference in someone's life. many teachers have repeatedly stated that this is one of the defining reasons that they choose to teach. they know they cannot make millions as a teacher, but the cost of changing someone and moulding him to be a better and more educated person is priceless. the pride that comes with knowing that an ex-student has gone far in life is something teachers find extremely satisfying. i think they really love it when ex-students come back and say they've achieved this and that. i'm not blowing my trumpet but from my primary school batch i'm among a handful who have actually made it to university (there's probably around less than 10 of us from maybe around 40-50 malay students?). making it to university isn't something big for most people nowadays, but when looking at context it means a whole world to many people.

i think it means a whole lot to cikgu that at least a few of her students have made it to the menara gading (ivory tower). if anything she should know that she has contributed to my success really. if not for her maybe i wouldn't have improved my malay, which enabled me to get an A* for it. because of that i could get into bpghs, and most importantly i was offered to take higher malay in bpghs even though i never took it in primary school since i was from em2 stream. and taking higher malay meant i entered a better class, and most importantly mixed and befriended with people whom i consider good and close friends with up to today. because i took could take higher malay in school i could also take malay literature and did well for it in my o levels, and because i took higher malay in bp i need not take malay at jc. the knock-on effect, ladies and gentlemen, really affects me all the way till i entered jc and even nus. cikgu's role might be understated, but i am forever thankful. she really made me a better malay language student. as have my form teacher from p3 to p6, miss bong (now mrs wong), who really drilled us into better performing students. i am forever indebted and grateful to these 2 teachers.

the thing about my success, if it is to come by, is that it is obviously not only due to my own efforts. my parents, my teachers, my friends, my peers all have had a part to play. i don't know about others, but sometimes i feel i'm carrying more than my own weight of expectations on my shoulders. of course much of it is self-imagination, but i think it means a lot to a few groups of people that i do well in my endeavours. maybe i don't owe my life to anyone else, but at least i have a debt to repay to all who have had a part to play in moulding and engineering me the way i am today. especially my parents i guess.

on a less serious and studious i watched despicable me last thursday, and it was a good movie. as i've mentioned before, it takes quite an effort to make me laugh when i watch shows, and once or twice the movie actually did the trick. it was a light-hearted show that's fun to watch. but now i'm down with an irritating influenza, which meant i didn't start the week at 100%. the worse thing is that the next day the sore throat and the phlegm will start (because that is what that always happens to me every time i'm down with flu).

and holland lost the world cup. sigh. i didn't like the way they bullied spain around, but i think they had a chance to seal a win. a team that has been on a winning streak all the way from 2 years ago cannot be underestimated, but they fell short when needed the most. i told myself if holland really won it i will go and get that holland jersey with that gold star on top of its crest, but too bad i do not have to part with my $80. a valiant effort though, and at least i can't stop hearing the sniggers when i say i support the oranje. they aren't the one-trick pony, they are the real stuff.

fly like an angel heaven sent to me.

2010-06-26T17:51:00.002+08:00

i was vacuuming my room in the morning just now the when the machine suddenly stuttered to a stop. i wondered why though, and i pressed the 'on' button again to switch it on and suddenly smoke started to billow out from its back. it reminded me of cars that break down that have smoke suddenly coming out from the front. anyway the smell was really strong and quite a lot of smoke was being emitted. all i did was to go out of my room and tell my dad the vacuum cleaner had smoke coming out. eventually the whole house was drenched with the odour of the smoke. the 10 year old vacuum cleaner finally spoilt, confirmed by the fact that it tripped the curcuits when we plugged it in and tried to switch in on. it was quite shocking to see smoke out from the vacuum cleaner - certainly it jolted me from my slumber haha.

anyway the last i blogged it was going into the 2nd week of ivp. sadly i didn't better my performance from last year - again i bowed out at the semi-finals stage. another bronze in the bag, and 2 bronzes in 2 years would probably represent stagnation. Personally i think i've come rather far from being a nobody, but i know there is always a whole lot of room for improvement. maybe next year. that's what everyone else says too. i hope they keep their word - no action no talk.

so the past few weeks have been occupied with nothing meaningful of notes. had that 33-day preparatory course for my internship, a 9 and-a-half hours karaoke session (from 1230pm to 9pm!), and several days spent going out here and there. and making time to read books in between, and playing winning 11..

oh and of course - watching the world cup. i'm supporting the oranje this time round, like i did in 2006, though i hope they do better this time round. actually to be honest i don't really support them, 'cos i don't really really have a side that i fancy. i do have an affinity towards the netherlands, but that's about it. but let's just take it that i support them then haha. well there have been many upsets so far - the most significant is that the 2 finalists from the previous edition of the world cup are out! that also means there will be a new world champion too. starting next week though, i won't really be able to watch as many games as i would like to considering the fact that my i've to report daily at 725am for the next 5 weeks. though i won't want to miss the final - a point i've adhered to since world cup 1998. the final match would be on early monday morning, so i will have to schedule my sleeping schedule accordingly.

the other day i was almost tempted to waste 80bucks on their away jersey, which i thought was very nice, but i didn't in the end. fab bought the ghana jersey though, which cost 89bucks. we later went through piles of old jerseys, and he bought another 2 while i couldn't find any that had my size. i nearly bought a bolton jersey, but fab did ask a good question - who would ever want to buy a bolton jersey? and i replied, bolton fans la. an apt answer. i realised that if i was going to buy that bolton jersey, it was only because it had my size and at 29bucks it was dirt cheap. not really because i was a bolton fan anyway. luckily later on i actually used my head to think, and instead i go myself a white drifit polo tee at 23 bucks - something much more practical than any bolton jersey haha.

so the internship starts next week, and i'm somewhat looking forward to how things will pan out. it's quite exciting at times, but i know there will be plenty of challenges. might as well make the time and effort worthwhile. at least some of the teachers do actually still remember me. haha.

hanyalah satu yang bertakhta di hatiku.

ivp

2010-06-04T14:58:00.003+08:00

the last i blogged was i think 3 weeks ago. in those 3 weeks the most awesome-est of stuffs happened.

the week that was 2 weeks ago was the most fun and meaningful that i've had. a coffee session with an old friend from my ns days, a day trip to jb with the silat people, a karaoke and supper session with my jc classmates, and a picnic at botanical gardens and then dinner with my primary school friends - all within a week. i'm thankful i still meet up regularly (i think once or twice a year is considered regular enough) with these different groups of people. i think the value of such meet-ups cannot be underestimated. it is the rekindling of old ties, the remembrance and commemoration of old deeds and occurrances, and opportunities to further strengthen existing ties, and still be able to laugh about each other. priceless, i assure you.

in the space of 3 weeks all i've been doing was going to school for training, and just playing games at home in between. i made it through the first round last weekend for ivp, though tomorrow it's the quarter-finals and potentially the semi-finals later on. i'm not exactly psyched up for things, but i shall find my own ways to motivate myself.

2 days ago i got silver for ippt! surprisingly i got 21 points, at least 2 points higher than i could ever achieve even during my ns days. the 2.4km run was excruciating - the only thing that kept spurring me on was that i was not going to be happy if i only managed a pass for the timing and not the silver standard - a difference of $100 mind you! so i pushed and pushed and i barely made the cut - 7 seconds more and i would have gotten only $100. as usual when one goes for ippt one will notice old men and fathers with round bellies struggling to clear the ippt. i'm thankful i still have a bit of youth on my side and my silat trainings at least condition my body better for gruelling physical sessions, even if i don't think i'm that fit.

my exam results were good i would say, since i equalled my best-performing semester, which was way back in my 1st ever semester. i'm thankful for that too, considering i was taking the real estate module that i've been cursing about on my blog in the past few months. yet surprisingly i got an a for that, the best result overall. i really wonder how bad one must do for the exams for that module, since i didn't even finish the paper, which constituted 60% of the overall grade, and i believei scored 0 for participation marks in tutorial. jerome says don't question good fortune, but i mean i still want to know how bad one must do to get a bad score. sometimes we do so much yet we achieve so little.

so i've supposedly conquered the many battles - the 1st weekend of ivp, my ippt, my exam results. next up is tomorrow and potentially sunday. one at a time, slowly does it i guess. once that is over a little while more time to rest before the next challenge - teaching. it's isn't particularly a career option for me, but it is an avenue to spend my holidays on something meaningful and on something that pays well. haha. oh well, by the looks of things i think it's english and history for me. but we'll see about that.

back to research on the thesis paper! i've already thought of the title somewhat, and i hope that's enough to kickstart this arduous journey.

it's a quarter after one, i'm all alone and i need you now.

romanov

2010-05-16T02:09:00.003+08:00

when i was 4 my sister came into this world. i don't remember the exact events that occurred during that exact day, but all i remember was i didn't particularly enjoy the lunch that my dad cooked for that day before we headed to the hospital. my mom had checked in earlier, and it was apparent that even in times like that i still preferred mum's cooking. suffice to say that was the last time i think i ever tasted dad's cooking - not that he ever cooked, as far as i remember. but i digress.

i talk about my sister because in the past few weeks i keep staring at her baby photos. i swear that she's the cutest most adorable baby ever. she had cheeks much chubbier than i did - to the point that when viewed from some angles her cheeks sort of blocked her eyes even. mom used to say my sister kept 2 pears on either side on her mouth inside. but she was really one adorable baby - every single time i stare at those photos i cannot help but smile. because her expressions were either expressionless (which was typical of my photos up till now) or always full of smiles. and in those photos she really looks adorable with those toothless smiles and that bald head of hers.

i was very happy and excited when my mom conceived a younger sister. i think many photos showed me posing with her, and i can sense that in the photographs i really liked to take photos with her. i would like to think that i really adored and loved her to bits. although maybe when we grew older my temper always made her cry, and i did ravage abuses at her in my fits of anger. my poor sister. i wonder how she feels, knowing that she has a brother with a hot temper and one who was much smarter academically than her.

when i was 9 or 10 i asked my mom for another sibling and the reply was - 'we can't, we don't have the money'. from then on my queries about having another sibling took on joking tones rather than hopeful ones. but maybe that was a another reason - why want another when i can't even treat her well? in the recent weeks that i've glossed over her baby photos i ended up tearing or crying, probably because of the guilt that i could have and should have been a better brother.

maybe if i had helped her in her studies she wouldn't lag far behind that much. maybe if i didn't lose my temper so easily maybe i would have earned more respect. i do care for her, but maybe it is not enough. i know she once blogged about her dissatisfaction with me and my laziness in the house, but who can blame her? i hope she knows that i care in other ways. when i reach home every day the first thing i do is check her room and ask my mom where she was if she wasn't home. i've bought many things for her, from her running shoes to bags to small things like waffles from the bakery. if my mom last time asked me to fetch her from her kindergarten i would glady do so. mom says i'll ever only have a sister that i will have to care for as my parents pass off from the scene and as we grow older. hence i must learn how to treat her better. i hope i can take on that mantle. i think every sibling only wants the best for their other sisters and brothers, and so do i. God help me become a better brother.

On another note examinations period is long over. for the first time i felt mostly relaxed throughout the whole period - despite risking getting a poor grade for the damned real estate module. other than that i wouldn't say i am confident, but i think the whole period wasn't that pressurising. earlier this week i consulted my professor on possible topics for my honours thesis, and i hope my eventual chosen topic will be a form of salvation for me. i need something engaging for me to want to do research on.

the past few days have been wasted doing either totally nothing or spent training silat. when nothing is on i am usually at home playing winning 11 non-stop from noon to midnight, with prayer and lunch breaks in between (thank God for prayers, if not seriously i would totally forget religion). i just only finished reading steve berry's the romanov prophecy, upon the reccomendation of a friend. a very good book. i really enjoy thrillers that mix real history and fiction, so cue dan brown and steve berry for now. the romanov prophecy involves re-reading excerpts of russia's romanov's past and it is really intriguing. russia's history, whether its communist or its tsarist past, if extremely fascinating to me. the book revived my interest in russian history, at least for a while.

so my holidays will be quite packed. i have training, than the competition at the end of the month. in between will be class outings, maybe a bit of prawning and karaoke slotted here and there. i hope to read up for my thesis, and also bring myself to watch those dvds that i've held on to from other people for at least 2 and a half years. goodness. it doesn't help that i think a flu is developing, but i hope i'll be fine. unless the ensuing sickness can help me lose 2 kg, then i wouldn't mind! haha.

on another i would just like to point out that summarising and simplifying, to the point of twisting words, are totally different processes and they obviously produce different outcomes. the careless and naive tongue is of no good to the owner.

and everyone should know their place in this world. maybe one day posers will come to their senses.

you own the place where all my thoughts go hiding.

the song that never ends

2010-04-29T23:53:00.002+08:00

is this the end?

i would argue no, and so would a few others. i just want to say that at the end of the day i have been misunderstood yet again.

i think there is a difference between finding something interesting and being interested in something (or someone for that matter). go figure the difference.

secondly i don't understand what is the meaning of these words - 'i finally realised that you didn't mean to do all those things'... for heaven's sake whatever gave you the idea that i was being 'robbed or 'stolen' away from you? if this sort of accusation is not upsetting enough, i don't know why you assumes that she has been alright all this while.

i don't see a solution anyway so i'll just shut up after this. with you being selfish and me being stubborn, i don't want to care already.

on a better note i'm sort of halfway through my examinations. many of my friends seem to finish way earlier than i do (i finish only on thursday). well there's not really much to look forward to anyway even after exams end. what of next academic year? i can't wait for it to start, though it seems i'll withdraw more and more into my invisible tortoise shell that i've seemed to develop in the past academic year. no thanks to you, i should add.

okay i shall stop digging up the past already, before the audience feels that i'm going too far in raking up the past. i just want to let off some steam that has built up inside me somewhere. fortunately the studying groove hasn't been affected.

i won't tell anyone how your voice is my favourite sound.

2010-04-19T11:41:00.002+08:00

in reponse to your note i shall reply here instead. since i have been deleted from your msn and facebook realms that there is no point in me using that medium to reply.

firstly i acknowledge i have been insensitive and immature myself in handling issues. but i just want to make it clear - i might never understand your pain, i know you are going through a lot, but if you think i'm not going through pain then that's wrong. like i said before, do you think i take pride in breaking someone's heart? it is not a nice feeling - and i will carry this guilt around. since the start of last semester i have basically withdrawn into my shell - because i have been disillusioned with what people have been talking about, the accompanying murmurs, your antics etc. during that period all i have done was to shut my trap and not do anything much, and even that i have been criticised for.

tell me what you want me to do? you deleted me from your online realm, and it is a clear indication that you don't want me around. then later you ask me why i do not talk to you. then after that nothing much, then suddenly you come and talk to me again. and all this while i have remained quiet. frankly your behaviour has been erratic to say the least. has much changed? i would say no. even if you 'rehabilitate' my supposed 'loyalists' from my 'camp', i would say that the damage is irreversible. you have good friends, friends who look out for you and advise you on matters, so i would urge you to listen to them. they want the best for you, and so do i. my hand has been forced because i cannot take it that even after so long my friends are being given the cold shoulder (at least of when i blogged about this last month). i cannot take it that not much has changed since almost a year ago, even though i have really not done much to antagonise things. if anything they have been of pure coincidental in nature.

by blogging about this i have shown how ugly and cruel i can be, but it doesn't matter. i have generally kept quiet and just let out my frustrations on my blog, and then suddenly i'm blamed for raking up the past. i don't get it when you cannot try to history remain as such, and then it is me who is blamed for raking up the past. while i have kept quiet and kept to myself it has been ample time for you to sort yourself out, but even after all this while things remain like nothing has changed. what else do you expect me to do?

i have always remained like this - sitting back, not doing anything, letting you have all the space you want. and me? i just keep my own frustrations to myself, ranting it on my blog once in a while. what else do you demand of me? i'm really at a loss. you want us to be like how we were when we first became friends, yet it seems i don't exist to you. you say you are trying, but that has been the rhetoric since the beginning.

i am not begging you to add me back on msn or what, please, i have greater dignity than that. i just want you to walk the talk. and believe that destiny will bring you good things if you want to believe in it. on my part i have not done much (or anything, for that matter) because i don't want to make things potentially harder or more difficult for me, you and the people around us. i can carry on and disappear like i have been doing all this while, it's fine. for me whatever happens life carries one, and i believe that in the end you will find your path to happiness too. i just hope you will believe in that.

arsenal

2010-04-18T22:26:00.002+08:00

i am pissed enough to take time off my busy schedule just to blog away my frustations.

if you happened to tune in to the wigan-arsenal match you would understand why. throwing away a 2-0 lead to lose a game 3-2 to a club fighting against relegation is completely unacceptable. it's fine if one lost to barcelona or even spurs, but against wigan when you are 2-0 up is completely ridiculous. i've always thought that arsenal should never win anything this season - so that wenger would do good on his promise in actually restructuring the squad, after saying that if this batch failed this season he would admit that his policy had failed. which i think it did.

i don't get it why it is so hard to get a good goalkeeper and able defenders. Fabianski let in a goal that came through the centre (mind you, the centre, not the sides) of the goal and can't even catch the ball properly. he completely doesn't inspire confidence in defence and is still weak at crosses. almunia is decent, but lacks that extra edge to be top-notch. if wenger opens his eyes properly he can actually see that europe has quite a number of good goalkeepers. Good defenders can also come at cheap prices, and yet ironically for a squad so young three out of its four centrebacks are old enough to buy a hdb flat if they are single. what sort of a policy is that? silvestre, despite scoring, can't even hold his ground - and wenger thinks his experience can be beneficial to the youngsters? what nonsense. he'll only be passing on crap advice to the youngsters. i don't rate gallas that highly either.

even the defensive midfield part is too lightweight. song has improved a lot, but not enough, and denilson is even worse. he can't make his presence felt, and that was why barcelona completely overrun the arsenal midfield. a good defensive midfielder isn't that expensive also you know, i'm not kidding. if wenger's scouting network is so good i wonder why a brazilian is being played at the defensive midfielder position. it's ridiculous.

i'm fine with the midfield and attacking midfield options, although i think they tend to be too elaborate and casual at times. just that i think we need a more aggressive striker. for all the goals bendtner has scored he has an extremely poor first touch for a striker (when you need 2 or 3 touches like he does to get the ball under control it means you are really poor). anyway bendtner doesn't offer much options either other than using his huge-ass empty head to head balls in. arsenal really need a quality striker to able to step in when van persie is out, or to complement him. eduardo is completely past it, and vela looks like he's never going to fulfil the potential he supposedly has.

i've supported arsenal for 12 years already, but this season has been the most exasperating so far i think. the team plays like it has nothing to play for already, which i find irritating. i hope a radical structuring of the squad will take place, if not i really think wenger has not learnt his lesson well. it takes guts to admit that he has made mistakes in his tactics and selection, but i think for the sake of the club and the supporters i think he must quash his ego a little bit.

okay dah.

let me talk to you for a minute wenger, shut up shut up.

moe

2010-04-16T22:48:00.002+08:00

exams in one-a-half weeks' time yet i'm not revising properly. days haven been spent playing winning eleven, going out to shop and dine with friends, and even a laser quest session just now. i feel very lethargic nowadays and i really can't wait for the semester to end and for my final year to start. i actually cannot wait for the time when i can finally focus on my major modules and being able to research and and do a thesis on my area of interest. can't wait for that.

on another note i got rejected for the mfa internship. i don't know if i was not aggressive enough during my interview, or that there were really other better and able candidates on offer. on the bright side of things i actually got that moe internship (i just only got the email). i was offered the 5th choice (out of 5 choices actually). i applied to do my internship at several jcs, but i got the last choice - my former secondary school. haha. oh well, at least i will be able to see how the new building is like. been a good 8 years since i left secondary school.

the last silat friendly happened last sunday, and i didn't fight that well. i must buck up, but the one thing i'm happy is that i'm attempting to try new techniques to vary my style of play. there's still a lot of work to do, but i think its very important to vary my techniques. i'm a fairly slow player, so i gotta work on that too. on a side note it was depressing to see farah getting injured rather badly. to hear screams or teammates just crumbling to the ground in agony is heartbreaking. when i see such scenes suddenly i think of the horror on the faces of the arsenal players after the injuries to eduardo and ramsey. i think i sort of understand the psychological impact of witnessing such injuries - to the injured and to those who witness. it can be potentially damaging to the team morale seeing such horrific injuries. i feel sad for farah, and i hope she recovers quickly. go syasya! haha.

on another note i just want to comment on recent personal happenings which i find rather unsettling. i will ramble, so you readers have been warned. haha.

firstly i just want to comment that when i'm quoted i hope i'm quoted verbatim - or at least i hope my words are not distorted. when i make it clear that what i say is A, i really wish that i'm not quoted as saying B. this sort of thing gets me down very easily, because when people don't sieve emotions through the mind that's when irrationality sets in - causing people to think of things that actually isn't happening is happening, when in actual fact it's far from the truth. and this is linked to distortion of speeches that many people indulge in.

secondly i agree that i'm not perfect. it's right to blame me for anything that i have done wrong, because the actions result from me. but i think it is fair to say i feel my friends shouldn't be dragged in together and being treated as pariahs together along with me. in any case we are all not in our teens anymore - old enough to recognise that there are certain things, attitudes, emotions, and feelings that should be left behind back in the secondary school and jc days. obviously i'm not vouching for myself that i'm so matured even if i am that old. and i find no excuse even along gendered lines i feel that allow girls leeway on this and that, and guys for leeway on this and that matter.

thirdly, i've grown to realise that every occurrences have lessons for us to learn from. i have learnt many lessons, some wonderful and some painful, from what i have gone through - and they help shape my character and worldview. one thing is for sure - i am fatalistic to a fairly large extent, and i believe that God only has good things in store for people who strive to do something about their lives. while we work hard in our everyday endavours, i think many people forget that as muslims it is central to believe in the destiny that He has mapped out for us - whether we like or not. don't ask me if it is fair that God has destined certain people to be poor, rich, criminals, homosexuals, cancer-bearing etc etc, that is not what should be questioned. the point is this - it's not even about respecting God's destiny, but a muslim should accept destiny, and the belief that if i strive to work hard and be a good muslim i know things will turn out good for me. belief in destiny is central to islamic faith. if we don't want to accept destiny then i don't see how one can be a good person, much less a good muslim in life.

lastly i've said this time and time again - i really believe in the social work mantra, that people can help you but only you can help yourself.

generally speaking i don't like to antagonise people, and i don't want to make things awkward for myself and for the people around me. i think i don't know how else to handle certain delicate matters, as i feel i've exhausted all my options. and so have others. i think the ball has always been in the other court for a very long time. issues like these get me upset and upset my friends too, so i hope matters will be resolved. once that threshold has been breached - then all will fall into place.

with issues like this life becomes mundane and draggy, and there's really nothing much to look forward to. even ivp and the holidays don't look like they can give my mood a boost.

but you are the only exception.

mfa

2010-03-19T22:33:00.004+08:00

1) the flu and sore throat plus phlegm thing has been bothering me for the past week, and today i still feel a tad lethargic and weak. this sucks when i'm sparring twice tomorrow.

2) my left calf is annoying painful, and it doesn't seem like it will recover by tomorrow. it took an unfortunate blow in training yesterday, and if i have to limp a few steps first after getting up from sitting down or lying down then i wonder how i will pull through tomorrow.

3) i got rejected for that internship.

4) me and my group mates have absolutely no idea how to properly tackle the debate motion, "What was rational in the early 20th century European knowledge system became irrational at the end of the century." i get lost completely in abstract terms like postmodernism, existentialism, and i'm researching on Foucault. that's just wonderful.

5) arsenal got drawn with barcelona. the sort of draw that would completely hinder arsenal's progress.

you turned my life around, you picked me up when i was down.

jack neo

2010-03-13T22:27:00.003+08:00

arguably the biggest news that has gripped town this past week is that of director jack neo's affair. you can see many parallels with the tiger woods fiasco - although jack neo isn't that famous, nor is he that rich, or good looking, or plays golf. okay then scrap the parallels part then.

but seriously - how often do you such things happening in singapore? it just takes a small spark to cause the whole edifice to crumble. who knew he was such an asshole? haha. though i must say singapore hasn't got that 'mistress' culture - by that i mean the public accepts that such things like cheating and affairs is prevalent in the entertainment circles and people lap up such stories with glee, like how they do in the us and the uk. on top of that these mistresses, when the media approaches them to reveal it all, make a killing out of such stories. unfortunately what we've gotten is a public backlash against jack neo, and also against the 2-year mistress. if wendy thought she could make a killing from divulging such stories - i think she's extremely naive.

on to wendy. firstly i think she's rather ugly. secondly, i cannot fathom why she identifies herself as a model first, then actress next. she might be a part-time actress, but is she a full-time model? one of the new paper columnists wrote that it was no wonder singapore's modelling industry is in the doldrums, when we have models with the looks wendy has. but then again for all you know, she could be, as jj described it, a 'hand' model - only her hands appear with the soap or cleansing cream on tv ads. but seriously, no offence to wendy, but it really is a joke if she really identifies herself as a model. goodness knows why she wanted to confront his wife anyway. and she said she called the media to document the whole thing to punish jack neo, but didn't fathom it will lead to all this. for goodness sake - either shes stupid, or i'm stupid. i don't think i am, so it's the former then. it's true - she's only 22 and still immature and naive. don't get me wrong - jack is an asshole if all these allegations are true, but i think wendy went too far. pardon my my strong stance here - i still cannot take it that she identifies herself as a model. haha.

on another note the past 2 weeks have been kind to me. i managed to get through the hellish week well, and this past week has been markedly relaxed for me. but i think things are coming along fine - i managed to do much of the real estate finance tutorial just now! what is more amazing is that i sort of self-taught myself, even though it took hours. but i don't mind really. and the past 2 weeks have been rejuvenating too. in the sense that i think i've gotten a clearer picture of what my future might turn out to be.

there are those plans for internships during the coming holidays. the other day while showering in the evening a sudden thought struck me - a topic or at least an area of focus for my honours thesis. i have some concrete thoughts on my post-graduation plans also. so far so good i think.

so for now i'll just carry on with what i'm doing. although, seriously, i need to drop 3kg somehow. how to do that while maintaining current dietary habits? i probably must start running soon, but i know that won't really happen haha.

on another note i just want to say this - that so far in these world, there are 3 types of people that i totally have no time for:

1) people who i hate

2) people who hate me

3) people who have a fucked up attitude (in general, specifically it's hard to define)

a clean sweep of all 3 would totally mean that you're quite fucked up. you're lucky only 2 of them apply to you.

when the stars go blind, and the darkness starts to flood your eyes,

when you're falling behind, i will carry you.

myself

2010-02-27T14:36:00.003+08:00

the past two weeks have been rather eventful. it's been two weeks right since i last blogged? okay it doesn't matter.

yusri the clumsy idiot

last monday there was this incident when i was walking to the toilet, where along the way one had to walk past this door and go down a flight of stairs to the toilet. the thing about the door is that it's really in the blind spot corner - when you turn left to and left again into the flight of stairs the door can just open in your face. that was what that happened to me. i was looking to my right when i walked past the door which was on my left - and the next thing i know some hard thing slammed right into my skull. for a split second i felt i was asleep or something like that, but when the pain suddenly shot through i sort of 'regained' consciousness. the girl who swung the door open repeatedly apologised, but i said it was fine. it wasn't fine actually, but i don't think the weight and the force of the swing cracked my skull or anything like that. i can still think properly so yes.

the very next day, in that same toilet which i was heading to when i got slammed in the skull, i was taking my abolution. i was washing my feet from the tap, and then i heard someone come in to the toilet so i looked back to see who it was. well, in the process of twisting my body, which was already in an awkward position (my right feet off the floor and under the tap as i was rinsing it), my left leg couldn't hold the weight of my body. coupled with the slippery nature of the floor, i actually slipped and fell slowly onto the floor as i tried to grope around for something to hold on to. but in the end i still fell, on my left knee at that. anyway i didn't know who was it that walked in, but when he saw the fall he smiled and laughed politely, but i managed to help myself get up on my feet. luckily the joint hurt only for a day maximum. if anything i really had a wretched start to the week.

yusri the smart-looking person

i admit i don't dress well most of the time, and it's true. although for the past academic year, i've been conciously trying to do something about it - no more drifit tshirts to class, no more wearing slippers more than shoes for the whole week - that sort of thing. well the past week was islamic awareness week, and i signed up as a facilitator. apparently the dress code involved wearing a tie and geeky spectacles. so i opted to wear shirts to sch (for the first time that i did wear them without the intention to go out after that), and with that i put on my funky purple specs as well to avoid wearing geeky specs. i think it was sort of groundbreaking - i think freaking everyone had to say something about the specs or the whole look - positive ones mostly haha. though i don't have that many shirts to wear really, but in any case apparently the specs make me look smarter. but well, i prefer to look abit dorkier than i really am i suppose. haha. anyway yes, my glasses are real ones.

yusri the cheapskate shopper

have you ever looked through your wardrobe and actually think how much of the things you bought were on sale? i've come to realise that for all my tops and pants - at least 90-95% of the were bought either on offer (like buy two for a lesser price etc) or carried discounted prices. i just bought a tshirt yesterday for $10, and its original price was $49.90. i'm not really crazy about bargain-hunting, but i do try to look out for things on sale. call me a cheapskate or anything - all i can say is i'm not of the upper class so this is what i do best.

yusri as the one who lives up to the meaning of his name.

my name means ease. ease of what or ease with regards to what i'm not sure really. i do try to take things easy, for those who know me really i can be easy-going. a lot of things in this life is not easy to do or accomplish, but i try to tell myself in many cases that it is easy and that i can do this. i recognise that i am a person of limited abilities (especially when it comes to hands-on skills), so i try to pacify myself with the fact that i should really take things slowly as they come - because this is how God has created me. there are very few things which i find easy to do, but i would rather choose to focus on them and think of them as making up who and what i am today. maybe i am not meant to do other things, which incidentally i am very poor at. but i believe in the goodness of the Lord - and i am thankful that my life in general, has been one that is full of ease.

there's still a little bit of your song in my ear.

island creamery

2010-02-22T00:25:00.002+08:00

it's the end of recess week of school and the start of the longest stretch of schooling weeks i've had so far.

i don't see why there is a need for my school to bring forward the recess week by a week. i don't think it's really because of chinese new year per se. i think the school is just kiasee (i.e. scared to die). if the school stuck with the normal system (the recess week starting after week 6), then that would mean on top of the recess week, 2 more valuable working days (monday and tuesday in week 5 would have been lost to chinese new year). this sort of kiasu and kiasee attitude has pervaded the school so much that it could not risk losing those 2 precious days, since semester 2 has more public holidays than semester 1 does. this sort of workaholic attitude will one just drive everyone nuts i tell you. it's no surprise at all that singapore ranks lowly on the happiness index. why would anyone be happy at the current stress levels the average student or worker is facing, and yet the mantra is to keep productivity levels up and better them evetually.

anyway weird stuffs keep happening. the other day we were at island creamery at serene centre, and we were staring at the ice cream display to choose the flavours. suddenly a man walked in and right in front of us and was looking at the display as well for a good few seconds. he then looked at us and pointed to pulut hitam and gestured a thumbs-up, and suggested we should try it. right after that he actually turned right and exited the store. if you ask me that was totally random but i chose pulut hitam anyway, and it was not too bad.

when i paid the money to the cashier i was due 50 cents change, and the cashier placed the coin on the counter but behind a small advertising stand on the counter. i found it weird that he didn't give it straight to me, so i had to reach out behind the small stand to get my change back. but by then the cashier realised his mistake and promptly picked the coin up and handed it to me. i think he was a newbie, probably 1st day on the job? either that or my presence really made him nervous somehow. haha. yesterday there was this man in the train who walked to and fro from the ends of the train carriage, while gesturing to himself in an orchestra conductor sort of way. he was clearly nuts since he paced up and down the carriages the whole time he was on the train. i've had my fair share of seeing weirdos show their talents in trains especially, so here's another to add to that collection.

well the recess week zoomed past that quickly. a lot of time was spent on going out with friends and having fun, and little time spent on studying. it's going to be such a long stretch from week 6 all the way to week 13, plus reading week and examinations week. not exactly looking forward to things.

when i look into your eyes i see something money can't buy.

2010-02-08T19:06:00.003+08:00

it's past 7pm and i'm stuck in school in the computer lab. okay not exactly stuck. class ended close to 6pm but i really hate going home during the rush hour. it's annoying, and i can't really imagine having to face all that crowd when i work in the future. it's cold here in the lab, and to while the time away i watched football highlights of major matches over the weekend.

arsenal lost yet again - i've said many times i believe in wenger's philosophy of football, but sometimes abit of scientific knowledge and experience might come in handy. lightweight and short players cannot cope against burly, brusque and tall players most of the time - i think it's quite common-sensical. for all the talent and potential the squad is dripping with - it doesn't necessarily translate into actual success. i think many players have been given chance after chance and yet they have yet to fulfil their fullest potential - names like walcott, vela, denilson come to mind. gallas sucks by the way. i still believe that the squad need a good and proper centre-back, a proper defensive midfielder and a good out and out striker. if he really wants to buy a good striker, try higuain. like seriously.

the last week was crazy - crazy in the sense 2 funny and ridiculous things happened to me. last wednesday i was in the library browsing through books when i had this sudden stomachache - i really needed to crap there and then. so i rushed for the nearest toilet, and i went to the only cubicle that had a tap and a pipe. unfortunately the latch of the door of that very cubicle, to put it simply, was unworkable. so the door couldn't be locked or even closed tightly at all. to make it worse it was a squat toilet. i'm sorry but i'm no fan of wiping my ass with roll after roll of toilet paper, so no compromise on that part.

what i did was to hang my jeans on the hook on the door, and while i squatted to shit i tugged hard at my jeans so that the door would close at tightly as possible. smart huh? haha. all the time i was shitting i had to pull hard at my jeans so that the door would not creak open. and all this while praying that no one would try open the door. haha. although the tricky part came with the cleaning the ass part - and unfortunately some idiot actually opened the door when i was cleaning my ass and the moment i felt the door was opening i tugged hard at my jeans to force the door shut. i don't think he saw anything though haha. i had to manage making sure the door was shut as tightly as possible while at the same time cleaning myself up. an impossible task made possible out of necessity. the lesson learnt is that don't ever shit in that toilet in the library - the latch is there but it can't lock the door. what a joke.

then last friday i was at alexandra arch, the bridge right beside hortpark that traverses alexandra road. it was at around 8+ at night, and we were there camwhoring. so it led to taking jumpshots on the bridge. i did a few, and then i did a flying kick to the front. what happened? the right side of my shoe came off - and up it flew into the air. i traced the trajectory of the parabolic curve that the flight of my shoe took - it when up and very high over me and over the bridge (gasps!) and down it fell on to alexandra road. there was a second or two of disbelief over what just happened - and the next thing i know we were racing down the bridge to go retrieve the shoe.

i ran down with only the left side of my shoe on - and thankfully i spotted my shoe from the pavement. there it was, sitting prettily on the right turning lane of the road. close to the central divider of the road. i don't think any vehicles ran over it. i feared that it might have landed on some double-decker bus or a lorry - and goodness knows how long before anyone would discover the presence of a shoe on top of it. worse, maybe it could have caused some driver to swerve and cause some major accident. well thankfully none of those scenarios happened, so i dashed across the road to retrieve the shoe and dashed back - all in double-quick time. it was then followed by long periods of laughter at the ludicrity of the whole thing. haha. lesson learnt? never do jumpshots when you are wearing loose shoes - especially atop a bridge. and never on henderson waves - it's at least 15 storeys high! anyway this story shall be term yusri and the adventure of the flying shoe. haha.

2 more ridiculous stories to add to the vast collection that i already have. haha. what's next i wonder.

another day to sing about the magic that was you and me.

2010-01-28T21:07:00.002+08:00

this is the first time ever in school that i'm taking a module i totally have no sound basic knowledge in and i foresee a momentous struggle to ensue in the coming weeks. it's called real estate finance.

not many people talked in the first tutorial session, and halfway through the class i remarked to jerome that "either these people totally know their stuffs so well that they don't have to question the tutor, or they are completely clueless like i am". by the end of the class i'm pretty sure it's the former. i'm not a defeatist in this sense really - to drop this module at a point where i haven't really put in much effort to determine if i can actually make something out of this would be premature. though i must do something about this, if not there is a chance i will score very lowly at the end.

for this module though i've been scanning a bit through online articles on HDB flat prices. i didn't know it's quite a hot issue now, with the high prices of resale flats especially dominating the headlines. the resurgent economy has led to a spillover effect to the property market sector, both the private and the public it seems. unsurprisingly the fact that the exorbitant prices of resale flats in the current climate, coupled with oversubscription (means supply lesser than demand) of the government's latest BTO projects, have led to disgruntlement and dissatisfaction among certain sections of the populace. it seems many are complaining about the lack of government help for low to middle income families, and young couples who cannot afford such prices. but this is juxtaposed against a select group of people who are willing to fork out up to 6-digit cash-over-valuation (COVs) premiums - thus one can use the colloquial term here 'spoil market' to describe this scenario.

personally this trend is disturbing - of course, like the economic boom and bust cycles, the property and real estate markets operate the same way too. but trends like this are a source of worry. inflation is surely set to soar. with increasing demand, influx of foreigners and new citizens, coupled with the fact that this city-state cannot continue to reclaim land forever - prices will surely rocket. i worry (maybe it's ahead of my time, i admit) that i might not be able to afford a matrimonial home by the time i am ready to get hitched. i think it's sad if i get married yet i only can manage to upkeep a matrimonial room that was once my own messy bedroom. living with the parents, honestly, is not an option i would like to consider once i get hitched. and buying a home is not the end - there is still the maintenance fees, the renovation costs, the loans to pay off etc. and we haven't even gotten started on the fact that married couples usually reproduce too. if one's finances have been spent on the home, then what is left for the kids?

some of my friends want to remain 16 or 18 forever. i would prefer staying at 21 or 23 as long as i can, i guess. but more importantly, i think many don't really want to grow up so soon and face real-world issues so fast. at least being a student at this age somewhat allows us to shirk responsibilities that grown-ups have to face, yet we are old enough not to be treated like a child. i want to grow older, but i want to grow older knowing that i can secure enough moolahs to guarantee a comfortable, stable and happy life. money talks. it certainly does, nowadays and especially in singapore.

on a less serious note the past few weeks i've seen weird stuffs and happenings all around, but i've forgotten many. last week i was walking on the pavement when i noticed this van - it was repeatedly honking intermittently for no apparent reason, even when it stopped at the junction. upon closer observation, i saw that the honk was spoilt. the driver was actually struggling to press the horn to actually prevent the honk from blaring, and at the same time try and manage the steering wheel and the gears to drive. what a bizarre situation.

on another occasion in the train there was this malay guy whom i noticed was dressed nicely, until i looked at his shoes. his shoes were black with red trimmings at the sides, but the shoes were in the shape of his feet - he could actually wriggle his toes individually (okay maybe for toes its independently, or whatever) while in those shoes. it's like those socks with separate rooms for each toe. haha pardon my poor description, but i think you get the idea. for all the uniqueness of his strange-looking shoes, it completely didn't match his attire i felt. oh well. i'm not much of a fashionista anyway haha.

a reason for all that i do - and the reason is you.

nightcycling

2010-01-17T21:14:00.002+08:00

today's post will be random thoughts and reflections of the past week.

week 1 of school has been okay - although i'm abit annoyed because i cannot print all the readings and materials at one go since some of the reading lists only contain book titles and no chapters included. that would take time to trawl through all the books. and this time round i'm using more textbooks than i've ever needed in a single semester. plus the notes i'm due to print - looks like 200 bucks is going down the drain this semester alone to fulfill my educational needs. haha.

i've started school already, but not this particular friend of mine. i ran into him on friday and asked him where he's been and what modules he's taking this time round. you know, the usual catching-up questions. his reply caught me off-guard. he said he's taking a break off from school because he doesn't have the finances to support his schooling, so he needs to work to find the cash. apparently last semester's fees are still owed to the school, though he could still view his exam results. i think the school is trying to work out some plan for him to ensure that he can carry on with his studies.

after we parted ways i couldn't help but feel pitiful for him. i think it is extremely sad if one has to stop or take a break from school just because one doesn't have enough financial means. i feel even sadder actually, for many of us who have the means and the opportunity to study hard especially in university, yet we don't make full use of it. i think there are many who do not fully appreciate how fortunate they are by already having a place in university, yet they while away their days fooling around and not putting in effort in work and take things for granted. i think that's very sad. if not for being less well-off, i really believe there are many out there who, given the chance, would love to have a shot at studying in university and doing well. this encounter with my friend has suddenly given me a sort of a wake-up call - that i should work hard in my studies as an undergraduate in the absence of any sort of financial burden. i still have to push hard even if my cap will not budge that much - but i have to believe.

last friday i also paid a visit to the doctor in school for the third time in 3 weeks. the 1st two visits at the polyclinic was for the feet rash that i had (which is still persisting damn it!), but last friday i went to the doctor because my mucus contained blood now and then for the past week. so he checked whether my nasal area was painful etc, then he took a metal tweezer of sorts and pushed against the inside walls of my nostrils to get a better look. then he said i had an inflamed nose. well i don't know about him, but i know my nostrils are as hairy as they come. yet through that thick foliage of nostril hair he could determine what was the cause of the bleeding. though i must admit - it's quite shocking to see blood mixed in my mucus discharge. last week i was coughing for a few days and my phlegm was dark green, light green and black-red at times. scary as hell.

yesterday night was the muslim society nightcycling event. i rather enjoyed it very much. i was co-facilitator with izzati, and we were assigned to team apex. i think everyone had fun just cycling up and down slopes and having a good laugh at each other - like when we were trying to practice our jumpshots for the camera, or just laughing off each others' cranky comments or actions when each and everyone of us began to lose sanity. as usual the groin area ached because the bicycle seat was rock hard.

just a few moments ago i noticed a red a3 piece of vanguard under my computer table - a drawing of the eiffel tower. and at the top it wrote 'md yusri bin md supiyan, 5b'. haha. i can't believe it's still around. a drawing way back from 1997, when i was 11. this masterpiece, if i remember correctly, is the cover for my art and craft file then. i think it got torn off from the file itself, but this piece miraculously survived - it survived us shifting place from yishun to woodlands! goodness only knows how, and i don't know who placed it here. i think it's my mom. haha. anyway it was graded b. i simply cannot draw, but i know i remember where the inspiration to draw the eiffel tower came from. haha.

i've seen a few weird things this week already. you know what's the weirdest of the all? yesterday we cycled past kfc at bugis, and inside there was a topless chinese man (looked 40s or 50s to me) walking around inside kfc itself. yes inside. it was close to 3am. and i thought chickens only rise at sunrise to do that cockle doo-a-doo thing.

'cause you're the only one who can get me on my feet - and i can't even dance.

sick

2010-01-10T16:30:00.002+08:00

school starts once again tomorrow and the cough and flu that has plagued me since friday persists.

at least the flu has cleared up but the mucus, like the river, always flows. discharge of phlegm is still noted with almost every cough, but at least the funny colours that appear in the phlegm have sort of disappeared. i'm thankful that i wasn't down with a fever - not really because that would totally rule me out of the silat barbecue last friday night. but more importantly, i'm pathetic when i'm down with a fever. my motor skills and movement slow down greatly, and all i can do effectively is lie down in bed all day. i don't know how some people can still carry on with their daily routines even with the fever raging - when i'm down with fever the whole world seems to pass in slow motion since i can't do things as fast as i normally do.

the good thing is that i think by tomorrow i should be fine - in time to start my 6th semester in school. the repetitive and routine nature of the school system is getting to me already. what's worse is that after blowing 1000 points on bidding since the last time round i blogged, the next day i blew another 1000 points or so for another module. that's a costly 2000 points just down the drain, wasted on modules that i should try and do well given the points wasted.

at least when school starts life suddenly becomes more meaningful and full of objectives - unlike aimless holidays spent doing mindless things like playing computer games and slacking around. okay well at least this past holidays i've read 2 books, which i think is a feat for me haha. even if school is starting, it's still much better than working. studying is definitely better than working (if you discount the money factor) - i hate working. work involves even more routines, deadlines, office politics, lesser freedom, and a tightly scheduled and boxed-up environment is surely unhealthy for personal development. but can one study all his life? well, if i was paid to do just that i'll do it.

anyway this coming semester i start at 10 every schooling day. that's kinda sucky, but it beats starting work at 8 or 830am and having to brave the morning traffic jams or the rush hour crowds every single working day.

i shall probably waste the final hours of total freedom washing shoes, reading the newspaper and playing games later on. what a lazy sunday this has been.

that may be all i need, in darkness she is all i see.

holmes

2010-01-05T22:26:00.002+08:00

i caught sherlock holmes at the movies just now.

i'm a sherlock holmes geek of sorts - i have an omnibus of the original sherlock holmes stories (19th century english, mind you) and other few books of him by arthur conan doyle. i'm quite a big fan. if you read holmes a lot then you would know how holmes is like as a person and how he goes about his detective work.

i knew the movie was going to present holmes in a different sort of way - but i think mostly it was aesthetically-related. holmes certainly didn't really dress like robert downey junior did - at least that's what i come to believe. haha. but i could connect well with what i've read of holmes and what i saw in the movie - it was typical holmes going about his work. although in the movie holmes was abit too involved in action sometimes - in the books he preferred sitting in his room and just thinking through all the facts- hardly any action sometimes.

but what i found more disappointing was the plot-it was based on the ideas of sorcery and black magic. because i knew holmes was too practical to believe in such things, so i was disappointed that the case he was working on was about sorcery and black magic. although in the end he proved that it was all a bluff and pure logic and a mastery of science was behind all the mumbo-jumbo sorcery. many people said that it was a great movie - personally i didn't like the plot entangling sorcery mumbo-jumbo with what in the end turned out to be pure logic and rational reasoning. but overall still a good movie - the acting was good i thought.

that was the first movie of the year for me. and the first since last june i think, when i watched the hangover - the funniest movie i've ever watched. haha. sadly next week school's a-starting. time flew past real fast! the holidays have been spent playing computer games, finishing 2 books, going out to do things like roller-blading and kite-flying, going for training and also to batam, visiting the museums, and of course shopping. but it is never enough is it?

on another note i cannot believe i spent 1040 points for 3 of my major modules. damn it.

just to be with you is having the best day of my life.

2010

2009-12-31T23:57:00.004+08:00

well i'm going to blog about my own 2009 as a personal recap. it's nearing midnight but it's not too late to look back on the year that has come and went right?

firstly i must warn readers that the post might be very long and controversial. of course everyone is entitled to their own viewpoints and opinions, and no one is wrong or right. all i just want to blog about is my thoughts and opinions on what i've went through in my life from different perspectives.

okay here we go.

as a person

well, i don't think i've got much to say here. all i know there's room for much improvement - more thrifty, more measured in my words and thoughts, rein in my temper and anger more etc etc etc.

conclusion? simple - just work on becoming a much better yusri.

as a student

i think that i can be performing better, even if you can cynically remark that my cap is good. personally i think it can be better - but having said that, i think i have done the best given the circumstances i faced. in the 2nd semester of my 2nd academic year in school (january-may) i was silat captain and was bogged down by the workload related to it. in the recent semester i went through personal issues regarding my breakup (just for the record, even though i asked for the breakup it's not like i don't have feelings and hence i'm not affected by it). without sounding arrogant i would think that i've done admirably considering these circumstances, and of course relative to others. i think i did the best that i can in terms of my studies - and i want to do better. if anything i hope this spurs me on - i think i handle my studies best when i've got my back up against the wall.

conclusion - i can definitely do better than just focusing on maintaining my cap.

as silat captain

as a captain personally i was disappointed with the team's overall standing in ivp (8th), but i cannot fault anyone for the effort put in. especially the core group that eventually made it to ivp. i think it has been a wonderful experience. it's just plain sad that we started out with a large promising group of people who come regularly for training, and it ended up to be a false dawn. this is my personal opinion - sometimes i feel that it is wasted that people who are able-bodied and injury-free are mostly the ones who are weak-willed and do not want to commit, and yet those who have strong will and want to put in effort and commitment are the ones who are hampered by injuries (long-term at that). such a waste.

whatever their reasons for dropping out, i cannot fathom. but generally i term it as being weak-willed or they have no strong personal standpoint ( i cannot think of an english word that comes close to the malay equivalent, pendirian), and only follow their friends and let their decisions be swayed by their friend's standpoints and wants. personally i reject the excuse that one doesn't go for trainings anymore to concentrate on their studies. seriously - think about it for a moment. following such logic, given the amount of time freed up with the absence of training, i would expect these people to have much better grades and caps than i do. since they reason that studies is more important, naturally i would see time dedicated to studying properly in the hope of pulling their grades up. but present to me any of these people whose grades are better than mine - and i can assure you there are none who qualify. zilch. if i have lesser time to study then my grades should be poorer, yet it is not (and no i'm not that smart either). i can tell who really wants to pull their cap up and yet still want to come for training but can't, contra those who in the first place have lost interest and yet cover up by saying 'oh i need to focus on my studies etc etc'. pure crap. again i say - i am not against anyone in particular, and this is an opinion on the collective, not aimed at any particular individual. for all you know i could be wrong, but not totally that's for sure.

being the team captain, i have learned many valuable life lessons. chief among those is that i cannot expect others to do what i expect of myself to do, just because i can do it. i think i expect people to do what i can just because it is possible - but that doesn't actually mean people will go about doing it. it was naive of me to think that way, but i've learnt from that experience. i've also learnt that when people find it convenient to be associated with me or with the team they try to act like they are involved and be 'part of the team', but when they don't find it in their interests anymore then you don't see them. such is human nature.

but overall i've found my role as team captain an enriching experience. the need to look after your members, the need to liaise with external parties, being involved in the thick of the action when politicking sets in, participating in ivp - things that someone in the position of captain can only experience. i think it has made me a better person and maybe a leader, but i don't think i'll change my leadership style if i'm placed again in a leadership position. as i always say, many things i could have performed better, but i think i tried my hardest most times.

conclusion? results-wise a disappointment, but an otherwise enriching and meaningful experience.

from the religious perspective

i have realised that some of my once-held views and practices have been erroneous, and i have worked/am working to rectify them. all i know is that i'm trying to take my time while praying, because in most cases there's really no rush in performing prayers. i'm trying to recite more frequently doa after the completion of prayers. i'm satisfied that during ramadhan i didn't miss any prayers (i miss prayers once in a while but i try very hard not to make it a habit), although the quality of my fast is suspect. my quran recital is still too fast, but somehow i find it tough to slow down. well i've achieved certain aims like knowing how to read and memorise this or that doa, but i need to start reading the quran interpretations and translations soon enough. at this age sometimes i'm ashamed that my knowledge and faith is still shallow, yet sometimes i don't bother to do anything about it.

conclusion? in terms of religion, there's no other way about it - you must always better yourself. must do better next time really. a whole lot of space for improvement.

personal matters (matters of the heart)

in case the reader is still in the dark - i broke up last august. i asked for the breakup, for reasons that are complicated. if i explain in detail it isn't nice to either party, and anyway my views will be biased towards myself. i shall just say that simply put, i don't think we are compatible, and i so-called did not 'feel' it anymore. it's a very guy thing to say, but well, i simply 'lost it'.

critique me all you want - all i can say is that i prayed and prayed to ask for guidance in those times of confusion and despair and i believe that He has given me the certainty to make a proper decision at that point in time. the means to achieving this end might be questionable, but the intent is clear - i did not see the point in dragging the matter for so long when i obviously did not feel for her anymore. of course she was devastated (like i said early on, it's preposterous to suggest i'm not affected by the fact that i potentially destroyed all her hopes and dreams).

but tell me - what else is there left to do? i'm fatalistic - hence i believe in destiny. i know it's very naive and probably too rational, but think about it - if things are not meant to be, why force it? i'm not saying that my breakup is the best thing that ever happened to me since it leads to my personal liberation, but really, sometimes things are just not meant to work themselves out. some people have to fall in and out of love with 10 people maybe before the finally find the one. some get it right the first time round, others after a few attempts. my point is this - at the end of the day, i believe He has destined for us only goodness. sometimes we humans fail to see that out of adversity and hardship arises learning points and things that will eventually lead to our happiness. if we believe in Him, we surely must have faith in what He has destined for us, even current hardship, despair or grief. because surely we cannot be at the bottom forever - the only way is up. if things don't work out, then maybe He has reserved for us someone better, more suitable out there for us to discover - and the temporary setback is but part of a self-discovery journey that many people have faced in order for us to be better people.

of course this does not mean that i'm so fatalistic - in my point of view i did try to salvage the relationship, but i could not fake the fact that my feelings were disappearing at an increasing rate as the days passed by. why? i cannot give proper, concrete answers. but i pray that she will find happiness and tranquility soon enough, and may she meet someone who can care for her and love her more than i have. maybe i have been a bad other half - that is not for anyone else to decide, but i harbour no bad intentions. it is no joke crushing someone's heart. i wish things never developed this way. maybe i wasn't mature enough myself. only He knows.

the breakup was ugly, the fallout was terrible, and i was affected of course. but what was i to do? i had to bear the guilt of it all, since i asked for the breakup, and yet at the same time try continue my life as per normal. if you think she's the only one who had it tough, that is simplistic and immature thinking. i tried to manage things the best that i could - in the process of course i ruffled a few feathers here and there. as i've said many times - i did the best that i could at that point in time, even if my decisions and words were questionable and controversial. but i just hope what whatever it is, my decision will prove to be the right one. i think it is and i hope she will finally accept that this is what was meant to be.

on another note, i'm still single. but yes - i have found someone new.

conclusion? must do much much better next time round. i pray and pray this time i've gotten it right.

We were strangers, starting out on a journey
Never dreaming, what we'd have to go through
Now here we are, I'm suddenly standing
At the beginning with you

No one told me, I was going to find you
Unexpected, what you did to my heart
When I lost hope
You were there to remind me
This is the start

And life is a road and I wanna keep goin'
Love is a river I wanna keep flowin'
Life is a road now and forever wonderful journey
I'll be there when the world stops turning
I'll be there when the storm is through
In the end I want to be standing
At the beginning with you

We were strangers, on a crazy adventure
Never dreaming, how our dreams would come true
Now here we stand, unafraid of the future
At the beginning with you

And life is a road and I wanna keep goin'
Love is a river I wanna keep flowin'
Life is a road now and forever wonderful journey
I'll be there when the world stops turning
I'll be there when the storm is through
In the end I want to be standing
At the beginning with you

In the end I want to be standing
At the beginning
With you...

here's to a great and happy 2010 to myself and all of you out there!

shopping

2009-12-30T13:50:00.003+08:00

the past 2 weeks especially, has been dominated by shopping. i'm really turning into a woman.

in that short period i've bought jeans, shirts, t-shirts and bags. it's not a complete overhaul of my wardrobe - but these purchases do give me more options in my dressing. of course i admit i don't dress well, with the fashion faux pas an intricate part of my life occasionally. but yes i admit shopping is fun - more fun sometimes done alone, and done when you really have the moolahs. i act as if i do - but in actuality i don't. haha. oh well, it's something that keeps me sane.

the past week has been spent mostly going out - weddings, kkk, botanical gardens, the national museum, jb - with shopping intertwined neatly in between all those. haha. as usual when it comes to weddings, they make me feel old - since those getting hitched are mostly acquaintances and friends who are only a few years older than me. and malay weddings are getting more and more outrageous, believe me. the other day i was lamenting the fact that the bride was wearing something that completely looked like the normal see-through kebaya that hawt minahs wear during hari raya. and the mak andam (i don't know the translation for that in english) was carrying around a huge-ass make-up kit/box/chest of some sort.

last sunday i went to my ns colleague ismail's wedding with fadzry. we came just in time to see the bride and groom arrive, accompanied by the kompang, and kuda kepang dancers - and a group of masked men wielding toy guns (one was wearing a cowboy hat) and trying to move along to the beat like the kuda kepang dancers. what the hell? i didn't get the whole point of it all - if it's cultural fusion, like what fad said, well please tell me the purpose it serves. haha fad says he doesn't karaoke at his wedding but in its place a live jazz band. i don't want karaoke either, but i want hip hop r&b tracks being spinned all day (the more palatable ones of course) - but i would imagine it would be tough to convince my parents on that point.

oh well. next up is what i think would be quite a long post - a self-reflection post of sorts since its the end of the year. i think i do that every year on my blog - i think so. haha.

it's crystal clear that now i'm in a whole new world with you.

back from batam

2009-12-21T19:22:00.002+08:00

hello i just got back from batam yesterday evening.

the first time i went to indonesia was 15 years ago in 1994, to tanjung pinang - then i was a geeky and naive 8-year old boy who followed his aunts, uncles and cousins on holiday there. my family didn't go, so only i had to make the red passport which was more expensive then the blue ones we all had. 15 years on i make a return to indonesia. but this time round to batam instead, as a 23-year old undergraduate (probably still geeky and naive) tagging along with my other family - the nus silat team. not only for a holiday, but also a silat friendly with the locals. i might probably never venture out to indonesia again - but at least my batam trip has been memorable.

the 4 days zoomed past just like that but overall it was an enjoyable experience. it's been a while since i got out of hectic singapore for more then a day. in all honesty it turned out to be more of a holiday. we didn't train that much and the friendly only at most took up half the day. and i did my fair share of shopping - 2 t-shirts, a shirt and a ripoff davidoff perfume - and of course lots of food along the way.

in those short 4 days i racked my brains a lot trying to handle the neverending zeroes that come with handling note after note of rupiahs in my hand. it wasn't that bad actually, although my wallet did become ridiculously fat with all those small notes that piled up inside. the hotel was great too - simply superb. the tv had a lot of channels and me being the sua ku (mountain tortoise i think it means) who doesn't have cable at home, i watched my 1st live epl match in eons (fulham - man u) and didn't know that movies on hbo had no commercial breaks. i watched a full movie without knowing what was the title till breakfast the next morning (wanted, featruing morgan freeman and angelina jolie). haha. caught 10 minutes of the da vinci code on the last day too - seems like an interesting read. the breakfast spread was marvellous too - if not for training slots in the morning after breakfast i would have gorged down a lot for breakfast.

shopping was okay - the sad thing was many shops had nice designs and t-shirts but on top of that they had words on them that never made sense, or was really unnecessary. some had broken english on them - so i had a tough time finding decent t-shirts really. in terms of prices most items are really cheap compared to singapore. even food is mostly cheap - for the same price you simply cannot eat the same amount in batam and in singapore. the seafood dinner was great too - i ate gonggong (seashells is it?haha i'm not sure of the english equivalent) for the 1st time! don't mind me, i'm extremely picky when it comes to food.

even though batam lies only at most 30km south of singapore it's a different world altogether. the weather is less humid definitely (for someone who perspires easily it took me longer to sweat there even though it was almighty hot at times). batam reminds me a little of johor, but it seems a tad more systematic and orderly to me. but it doesn't look as shoddy or backward as i thought it would be. batam is only a mere island out of the approximately 13000 islands that make up indonesia, and given the enormous size of the whole country i think batam doesn't look that neglected really. maybe it's because of the singaporean dollars that come in to the island, but still the whole place looks decent. most of the people though have tanned skinned - typical of rural dwellers i think, where people spend their work and days away in the hot sun doing menial jobs. completely unlike singaporean malays who spend most of their time indoors in the comfort of air-con stuffing themselves silly with food like as if tomorrow was doomsday.

the friendly was okay i suppose. obviously i lost - given how good my opponent was and i mean seriously, these people literally grew up with silat. i only started over 2 years ago and at this age i can only go so far. my opponent was humble though and did teach me something after our fight. actually the friendly was supposed to be on saturday but it poured so heavily that the mat was wet and there was no ready cover for the juries, spectators and competitors alike (yes, it was held outdoors without any consideration for wet-weather plans). so the friendly ended up being postponed to sunday morning in a run-down sports hall which still attracted quite a crowd. but the crowd was great really - never partisan against us. it was nice to see the locals trying their best to help ronnie with his injured shoulder. people with simple lives and seek meaning and happiness in the simplest of things - completely in contrast with singapore, even though the distance isn't that far. but overall it was a great experience for all of us - something for me to remember my whole life really.

i want to see more of the world. i've only been to malaysia, indonesia, taiwan, saudi arabia, jordan, israel and palestine. hopefully someday i'll return to the al-aqsa mosque and stand again at the top of the mount of olives. someday i'll watch a match at the emirates stadium. someday i'll pay a visit to the lenin mausoleum. someday i'll explore the castles of andalucia.

someday we'll know if love can move a mountain.

batam

2009-12-16T23:09:00.002+08:00

tomorrow i'm off to batam. with the silat team for a friendly with pesilats there and a chance to rest and relax at the same time.

i'm not really looking to going batam, but i admit it is a chance to 'run' away from singapore for a while. from certain people possibly, from certain issues, certain problems, certain facets of reality that i could really do without. not that when i come back there's really much to look forward to anyway - next tuesday is results day. damn it.

well i suppose that's all. i haven't got much to talk about. oh - shoutout to all you pool fans - get a reality check soon please? i realise pool fans are really the most self-delusional most oblivious fans you can ever come across. at least i know arsenal do have lousy players and do suck sometimes and i acknowledge it, and so do my fellow arsenal supporters. but i think pool fans never want to believe that their team sucks. you know the team sucks when the team captain says their champions league campaign wasn't good enough - for goodness sake it was TERRIBLE. haha. not to incite anger or anything, but seriously - everyone related to pool needs a reality wake-up call real soon.

you have become my addiction.

old

2009-12-06T22:14:00.002+08:00

it's december already. and when january comes along, then it's another long and anticipated wait once again for september, the month when i grow a year older. this year i'm 23, then next year i'll be 24. then when i graduate i'll be almost 25. basically around the time people start to talk about more serious and worldly stuffs like marriages, buying a flat, careers, cars, travelling etc.

it makes me shudder sometimes to think of such things. i'm still a youthful 23, yet conversations among friends have always revolved around these adult issues. it is not talking about it that is scary, it's the technicalities involved that makes it scary (like newly weds should buy cheaper flats so that they shouldn't burden themselves with unnecessary debts, or what age to get married at, or whether is it worth to get a 1st or 2nd hand car etc). we talked about such things when i met up with my jc friends days ago. haha. and facebook is giving me endless reminders through photos after photos of weddings or engagements or photos of their newborns.

when you're 21 and your peers are 21 too during that year alone almost everyone will have some sort of a big 21st birthday bash to mark that so-called important chapter in his/her life. once you're past that age then welcome to the adult world i guess. now i'm only 23 and the rate at which i'm going to my friend's weddings is picking up as the years pass by. of course 23 is considered a bit late for malays to get hitched i guess, but let's not get carried away with that point. haha.

today i went to a relative's wedding in a long while - and the bride is only 24 i think. and poor me is only into his first year of his own stalinist-style 10 year plan to get married. haha. i mostly only worry about not having enough moolahs to ensure that settling down in the future will not leave me saddled with huge debts. i know well enough love cannot conquer all, and definitely not financial problems.

just now i was going through my notes and clearing some old stuffs and inevitably i will always have to dig up some old artifacts from my glorious glorious past. like my pink sec 2 music file. and a folder full of musical scores. and old hari raya and birthday cards, letters and small gifts and trinkets and what not. looking through all these stuffs does remind me how far i have come and how old i have grown, especially in the past 10 years.

10 years ago, i was still in secondary school, wearing those tight and hot white shorts with socks like thierry henry's socks almost up to the knees. 10 years on i've made it to university, more than halfway through my course in school.

what about 10 years on, when i'll be 33?

a) happily hitched already with 2 kids (at least)?
b) only getting ready to get married the coming year?
c) still bogged down with financial issues and having to delay marriage till probably 40?
d) decided that marriage isn't worth the hassle and thinking that serving the parents would reap much more dividends?
e) actually d isn't accurate - rather thinking that singlehood is more worth living?

options a to d assumes that i have actually found THE one, or at least by around my mid-20s or early 30s i'm ready to settle down with THE one. haha. scary stuffs man. i wonder how people just a few years older than me face up to all these issues.

together we will move the clouds to brighter days.

peranakan

2009-12-03T22:38:00.002+08:00

okay zul here's the update you wanted.

so my last exam paper wasn't as bad as i predicted. although some of them were already preparing for their deaths (i was supposed to drive the hearse) but it didn't turn out to be the rwandan genocide sort of massacre i predicted. then again my first paper was really really bad, and the rest was average i guess. i'm lucky if my cap doesn't shift at all, for i am predicting it will drop this semester. and don't you guys start with that 'but your cap so high already' thing. i'm sorry, but it isn't that high, and i do have personal aims to meet. pardon me for that.

one good news is that my new urban male project was rated excellent by our professor. a real surprise for all of us. apparently good enough for her to ask permission from us if she could use it as a sample presentation for the next time round she teaches the same class. right. and the first slide of that powerpoint has a photo of me wearing that sissy brazil green/yellow num singlet with an equally gay pose to boot. oh well. same thing with my jc compulsory project work thing - our teacher used our files and work as a sample to teach the year1s how to go about doing pw. great stuff.

'students caught cheating in the examinations will be subject to disciplinary action which may lead to your explosion from the university'. my professor from the prc said that as the head invigilator. but he's nice really, i like him. though it was really funny to say that before my exam started.

on another note i'm really thankful the holidays are here. it has been a very trying semester. very trying. mentally and physically draining. a lot of issues to settle here and there. well, if anything i hope i grow to be a more mature and better person from it all. i have surely learnt a lot of lessons in life in the past few months. but i shall not dwell on it. as urged by friends i need to f**k it and carry on. and i shall do exactly that.

she f**king hates me, trust, she f**king hates me.

yesterday evening i went for dinner with some of my jc classmates. it's amazing that even though we left jc 5 years ago we still meet up often (probably the 3rd or 4th time this year alone already). which i think is not too bad. though some of us feel it's not enough. haha. the point is we still meet up. and it's nice to hear stories from one another. but it's no more really about homework or stupid crush stuffs like in jc - now it's more about careers, finding the one, marriage, finances, travelling. i cannot help but feel that i've grown up too soon. shit next year turning 24 already.

today, even though i spent the day walking around aimlessly (my thighs and calves were greatly strained) i had fun and it was meaningful. tomorrow shall probably be another fun day, then maybe i shall waste the weekend away playing fm and cleaning up my room, if i can drag my lazy ass to do so.

do you know you're unlike any other? you'll always be my thunder.

fly

2009-11-21T22:44:00.002+08:00

yesterday i lost my mp3 player - but i knew how it went missing. i think i must have unknowingly not put it back properly in my bag and it slipped out on the bus on the way to school. i didn't feel that sad though - i never had any sort of fondness for my current mp3 player. you know when you have things that you didn't really want or like but you have it, you are not really excited in possessing it. well i need an mp3 player really to accompany me while i'm on the go and especially when i'm studying, but i'm not really particularly fond of the one i lost (my original one got replaced with this after they deemed it beyond repair, so it was a one-for-one but not like-for-like exchange).

in any case on the egging of my friends an online report was lodged, and yes no one stole my mp3 player, so this morning i got it back from the lost and found at clementi interchange. i was already planning to buy a new mp3 player already upon the discovery of my loss, but well, maybe i shouldn't be so reckless with my moolahs. in any case i still appreciate the fact that it has been a worthwhile servant to me the past 1 and a half year. i should really update the songs in my mp3 player. although my sister has uploaded some unheard of, probably new songs (with one from aliff aziz-for goodness sake, what the hell is it doing in there in the first place??).

just now when i was peeing a fly-sort of animal was zipping around in the toilet bowl. i didn't really aim my willy so that i could hit the fly with my urine stream but it crashed into the stream anyway. and the next thing i knew, after it banged and got drenched in my urine it just fell into the water in the bowl. if it wasn't drenched the first time now it was. and it died, just like that. i wonder - was it the impact of banging into my urine stream, or the toxicity that killed it?haha. in any case i just thought the whole thing was really funny.

this semester has not been the best for me. all of my term essays brought back Bs except for one, and generally i think i will score mediocre grades this time round. i hope not though. it will totally reverse my efforts at maintaining my cap. but this semester i've really been lazy and unmotivated. this is like my 5th semester, so maybe it's the fatigue? or is it because of the repetitive nature of the semesters that's killing me? either way i fizzle out very fast and can't seem to study like i use to in the past semesters. all i know i can't wait more than ever for these 2 weeks to faster pass. can you believe it, today is only the 1st day of exams but i've heard of one who has already finished exams! envious man.

this cannot go on. must. fight. demons.

mims nizam

2009-11-13T22:23:00.002+08:00

the past week has been topsy-turvy.

the project was finally done. so was the presentation. i stripped in class, but not barebodied - just into singlet and boardshorts. haha. it was a fun presentation, peppering it with sexual slangs and lingo. haha. but most importantly i'm done with that.

whatever misunderstandings that happened earlier this week - i think safely said its all been cleared up, i suppose. i hope you all understand my point of view - in all earnestness, i think it is a fair point of view. but no worries, i think at the end of the day it really is a small matter. my apologies for blowing things up - but i think its important that people got the message. seriously.

last sunday i went for my primary school gathering, at choa chu kang part. had seafood dinner, then we were deliberating where to head to next. after much discussions it was decided that we head to ben and jerry's at night safari! of all places on a sunday night, unplanned at that. then we watched this free show consisting of fire-playing tribal men etc - and the chance came! to enter night safari under the guise of darkness for free, because of shady connections. and there you go. and unplanned trip to night safari, a free trip at that. haha. we saw flying squirrels gliding through the air. fruit bats, leopards, zebras, hyenas, gharials - a whole host of animals! what an amazing night it was. i can't believe we actually entered night safari - a place that i really would never have dreamt going. haha. but still a pleasant surprise. a welcome escape from the hustle and bustle of the last week of school.

just now i had dinner with nizam and syamim. a very interesting and thought-provoking long conversations we had. and yes we agreed on certain things. haha. but fun nevertheless.

i need such things to keep up the momentum for me to study. this semester has been extremely slack for me. it's reflected in the grades that i've been getting in my term papers, and it is slightly worrisome. sigh. must push on nevertheless.

i think i'm more fatalistic then i thought i would be. do you believe in leaving it to fate, or do you believe in being aggressive to work for the things you want? i believe in both, but i think everyone is destined to fulfil something at some place in some point in their lives. but some people believe that destiny is in their hands, that they create their own luck and destinies. there always is this tension between both.

oh well. ad astra per aspera.

essay

2009-11-04T14:35:00.002+08:00

finally, i'm done with my last term essay for this semester. errgh it seemed like i would never finish it. although i still have a group project presentation and report due, but at least i'm totally done with all my individual work. although revision (studying, rather) might probably have to start next week. that's quite late, but i still have a few loose ends to tie up.

the past and a half week has been great and not-so-great i suppose? last saturday, instead of getting a new pair of jeans, i bought 3 tops from topman. well don't worry, they've all been given thumbs up by amirah and syasya. so no fashion faux pas this time round. haha. i still want to get a pair of jeans, and that street soccer shoes and slippers for that gift-a-gift thingy. other than that the past week has been relatively smooth-sailing. if you ask of me still i'll tell u again that i've never been better. seriously.

yet not-so-great stuffs have also occurred in the past one-and-a-half week. events have played themselves out, of which i can only look and watch in disbelief. i wonder what else can happen in the coming weeks before the semester comes to and end. almost everyday i am greeted with surprising and shocking news that this and that has happened etc etc. i wonder why these things must happen, whether to me or to the people around me.

whatever that happens is fated to happen. as much as i can try to manage or control things sometimes they just don't go the way that i hoped it would. all i can do is dig deep, buckle down and get on with life. i think i have tried to do that admirably, although there is still room for improvement. seriously people can say whatever they want and do whatever they want. the most important thing is that my conscience is clear. we all want to live in a kantian democratic peace type of world, where peace-loving democratic states disengage from war against each other. we all want to live in harmony and peace, while having mutual trust in one another for the good of all. but that is just plain idealism. realism is probably true. that man is innately brutish, selfish, egoistic, and only care for themselves and their self-centred opinions.

perception is reality, or so they say. people think they know what they see and hear, yet the ultimate truth is that people are blind and deaf. they have eyes but they choose to see what they want to see, and choose to hear what they want to hear. they think of highly of their geniuses and smartness in interpreting for themselves what they see and hear. yet the ultimate truth - are we to judge what it is? only God knows what is the ultimate truth.

question: mengapa kita harus bersengketa?

answer: kerana fitnah dan salah sangka.

well said and sung.

happy

2009-10-26T21:35:00.005+08:00

last week didn't start of so well but at least it ended pretty nicely. i thoroughly enjoyed the early dinner some of us had after training at barcelos at vivo city. i'm pretty sure all those present had a blast! it has been a very long time since i had dinner so fun and enjoyable as that.

i'm really dreaming weirdly nowadays. 2 nights ago i really had an epic of a dream. in a single night i dreamt:

1) i was a taxi driver who actually asked his passenger to leave the cab because it was faster to go by public to where he wanted to head to.

2) as the same taxi driver who saw an accident on the road was saw that some guy had his arm severed as a result, and i actually hurried to get an icebox full of ice and actually placed that severed arm in the box to save it. well done.

3) i dreamt i slept over (with my dad!) at some peranakan family's place. god knows why.

4) i dreamt that me and my friends were having friday prayers at a mosque full of indonesian muslims, and guess what? apparently it was conducted at asar, not at zuhur! (gasps!)

5) i dreamt that after the prayers me and my friends discussed whether to go to pulau tekong or pulau ubin for dinner, and discussed the timings of the boats that we wanted to catch.

this morning i dreamt that i shat (past tense of shit) in my pants on the way to school and was scurrying to the toilet to do something about it. i don't know what happened in the end 'cos eventually i had to get up anyway to go school. haha. i wonder what will happen if i did dream of the part 2 of this morning's dream tonight.

my theory is (i think it's really true) that the more tired and fatigued i get the more ridiculous and vivid the dreams in my sleep become. i can't imagine why i can actually recall what i dreamt from 2 days ago. the only reason is that i knew they were so vivid that i can't easily forget it, and i know i was in some sort of a deep sleep - hence i know i was so very tired therefore it really felt like it was real and that i wasn't dreaming.

on another note i've actually been able to meet my own personal deadlines and targets with regards to my essays. thank God for that. now i'm somewhat left with my last essay to do and another project. after that i have to get my head down and start studying properly for the exams. time really flies.

many times i've been asked if i'm okay so far. my reply is that i've never felt better. there you go.

promise

2009-10-20T22:27:00.005+08:00

today started with so much of a promise yet it ended with a whimper.

that's what you get when you start on a high then you end on a low. it's really another one of those days.

by the time i was in class for my second lesson then i sort of lost it. i couldn't pay proper attention in class for the whole of the 2 hours. then i went to yih to have lunch just to realise that i'd left my water bottle in the previous class in arts. then i got reprimanded by the cleaner auntie there for wetting the whole floor accidentally when i was washing my feet during ablution.

then you know it gets worse when you go for your next class and your friend says 'hey i was cleaning up my closet the other day and i found this thing and the first thing i thought of was giving it to you!' then you realise it's a new urban male discount coupon (with 1-for-1 offer to buy men's underwear). okay well it's not so bad really, it should aid in my num project haha.

then it really sucks when it's at night and it's really humid and hot, and then when i boarded the train at jurong east this prc woman sat beside me who stank real bad (i swear it's the 1st time i've smelt a woman so bad). then when i've sat for at least 15minutes from jurong east past yew tee then i still felt hot and was starting to sweat again. then when i reach home beads of sweat were collecting on my forehead and then i realise maybe i was the one who was probably stinking up the train just now after all.

what a sucky day today was.

life

2009-10-15T21:19:00.002+08:00

today i had a long chat with a friend.

after that i went back to reading up for my upcoming essays and unfortunately it was interspersed with fleeting thoughts of mine.

i realised our conversation, even though it talked about the present, required us (or rather me only i think) to take trips back into history and do some archaeological digging up. and for all of my normal, plain and boring life - it's amazing all that happened. or at least i think i stopped certain things from happening, if not i think i would have had a lot of cans of worms opened up. yikes.

i'm not that old, but old enough to have had my fair share of experiences dealing with all sorts of people - from my experiences in ns, in school, at work, in ccas, while going overseas etc. then i come to realise this world really has a alot of funny and weird and special people. individualism was celebrated during the renaissance of the 15th and 16th centuries in europe, as they upheld man as the supreme creation of God - as being so unique and special in itself. then when watson and crick broke the dna code, people came to realise that humans aren't that all special after all.

is it?

everyone is born one and the same - but our upbringing, our human interactions, our social conditions, our surroundings etc etc - they shape how every person turns out to be. our worldviews are biased, because they are a result of what we think, what we think we know and what we think we've been through. everyone can be similar yet completely different at the same time.

but i've come to realise this - that including myself, everyone at some point in time is a freaking hypocrite. the only difference is how great a hypocrite one is, and whether we realise it ourselves.

some people say they don't like hypocrites, yet we all indulge in some of that sometimes. some say we should practise what we preach - but can we really do that? what is hypocrisy? preaching A while practising B? what about preaching A last year but doing B instead this year? is that a change in understanding or opinion or simply plain hypocrisy?

from noting all this points with regards to my thoughts on hypocrisy,or rather life in general, i've come up with 2 points.

a) nothing happens in a vacuum - everything that happens is based on context or background. everything happens for a reason - it's only whether you know or you don't know why, or you can or you can't see why. the sad thing is people usually employ heuristics (something like mental shortcuts) to make sense of something that seems complex so that it's easier to interprete. like say if a guy dresses smartly in office wear and wears a tie and a blazer we would probably think he's some middle-level manager in an mnc. who's to say he's not the doorman that greets you every time you enter that louis vuitton boutique?

b) different interactions result in different outcomes. like when you put caesium into water the container will explode immediately, yet when you put salt into water it will just dissolve. my point is that even if we all have innate and inherent characteristics that will probably not change much, sometimes when we are in different environments and interacting with different people - the end product is always different. i've always wondered why i'm like this being around a certain group of people, but like that with another group of people. it's not really a case of multiple identities, but just the net results of interacting with different people.

obviously these are ideas you might have thought of way earlier than i have. but generally these have been the lenses through which i've been rationalising with myself on all the things that i've observed of others and whatever that i'm experiencing myself.

on another note tomorrow we are going down to several new urban male outlets. can't wait to grapple with all those padded briefs and brazilian bikinis! haha.

hossan

2009-10-08T22:03:00.002+08:00

the past few days have been crazy.

every single day i sleep at 12+am the earliest, but i'll be up and about by 7+ in the day and always in sch by 9+. in between i managed to squeeze in training, meetings, 2 presentations, a show, a networking session and actually completed the readings that i aimed to finish within tight schedule. it's amazing that i did all that i think! thank God.

talking about the show that i went to watch with clare at the national library. the hossan leong show! quite hilarious. it was a stand up comedy that was 1 and a half hours long. he's quite the entertainer, but i think i could not two or three jokes that fell rather flat. haha. but i liked the part when they had a talk show that centred around the mas selamat escape affair, and the one where he dressed up as a peranakan nyonya for the cooking segment. chua enlai's voice still irritates the hell out of me though haha. but it was great overall. although we missed out on the lucky draw prize narrowly, 'cos one of the winners whose seat number was called out was sitting right beside us. but it was a great escape from the crazy school schedule i've had this whole week. i appreciated the fact that i reached home early (740pm) today, and finally could play a bit of games to keep myself sane. but come tomorrow its back to work. a minor reprieve only for the night, and it won't solve any chronic sleeping shortages that i'm facing.

i think i've been winning the fight against the sleep demons, but someday i must succumb - for my own health i think. but like there's no time to waste! see how.

2009-10-05T11:38:00.003+08:00

been quite a while since i blogged in the day and unshowered. haha.

last week was a blast thank you. but this week has just started but i can tell it will not play out that well. oh well.

looking forward to the show tomorrow though. i'm wondering if i will be stretched a bit too much this week, but let's just take the plunge.

raya

2009-09-29T20:50:00.002+08:00

i should have blogged on this long ago but i keep forgetting - thank you very much to my dearest friends clarissa, anisah and faridah for the proper birthday gifts that i received from them. i really appreciate them a lot. especially as they were real surprises haha. thank you so much.

on another note as i was tagging photos on facebook just now my mom just came over to talk to me for quite some time. let's just say it's all about challenges one will face in adulthood. you know, about money, marriage, divorces, buying a home, buying a car etc etc. things that i've actually been thinking and worried about since my secondary school days. i wonder - with the very little capital that i have, and even with me probably joining the workforce in 2 years' time - will i have enough cash to support myself, my parents and get hitched along the way?haha. that's why i keep saying - life as primary school kid is still the best. so carefree and full of life.

abraham lincoln once said this - "in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. it's the life in your years."

well said. pardon me for my obsession with abraham lincoln's quotes. trust me, he's most probably the greatest president america ever had. and many others will vouch for that. but think about what lincoln said. i think it's true. one should really live life the way one wants it be and to the fullest possible.

on another note with the start of the month of syawal and this hari raya period, thankfully i feel i've found back my studying groove. thank goodness for that. i think i know why. but the point is it feels great to have found back my studying mojo. although i'm still facing a chronic lack of sleep, of which i wish other people could really help clear my sleepings debts by sleeping some hours for me. please? haha. with the advent of term essay deadlines and what not, it's really going to be a hectic 7 weeks ahead for me. i hope i will come out of it all unscathed and in one good piece.

lastly - the storm has probably died down but i'm not satisfied. here i am trying to do things to ameliorate the situation but obviously it has gone totally unnoticed and unappreciated. what else do i have to do then? as i have mentioned in my earlier posts - listen to all viewpoints before passing a sound judgement. parochial and partisan worldviews and mindsets will just hinder anyone from making sound and sane remarks or resolution. judge me for all you want, but judge me after you hear me out or at least hear my side of the story first. heuristics are of no use, especially when things are taken out of context and applied incorrectly. the only place for rumour-mongers and is the damned hellfire, where the fire burns eternally.

on another note have i mentioned that for my business module project, we are doing on new urban male? haha. i can really say it's going to be a blast - and my groups seems real happening. it will be a blast! haha.

did you know that num's logo of the sperm came after the stores were already up and running? now you know.

race

2009-09-22T21:18:00.002+08:00

everytime raya beckons, it always becomes a racially-charged affair for me. haha.

not talking about the CMIO division - rather the subdivisions of the malay communities in singapore - you know the javanese, boyanese, bugis, minangkabaus, arabs, pure malays (or so they claim) etc etc. i'm half boyanese and half bugis - like a total minority in the sea of javanese in singapore.

why it becomes a racially-charged affair? because day 1 of hari raya is always spent visiting my father's relatives - mostly my grandfather's siblings and their assorted daughters and sons. it's a huge number. i think many other people just slack away at their grandparents' place on the 1st day of raya, whilst i'm already doing my rounds with my family, together with my immediate uncles and aunties and my cousins in tow. a whole convoy of us will just drive around, and the route has never changed for day 1.

so i go around visiting all these siblings of my grandfather(who's the oldest among his siblings, and my father is the eldest, and so am i yadda yadda yadda), and so its like i get drenched in all these boyaneseness haha. the tete-a-tetes are no more carried out in boyanese already, but you can just feel it. also it's typical for everyone to get questioned like-

When are you getting married? like for goodness sake i know 23 is the perfect age (or is it any age?)for malays to get married but i'm not so normative.

Got girlfriend already? haha. it sounds worse when they use the term 'cewek' my goodness. at least now i can so-called speak the truth haha.

Oh so today you drove the car around? haha even selling my backside can only get me the carburettor only.

Wah so big already! haha if they could really remember me i haven't really grown any taller in the past 7 years at least.

well thank goodness at least many know me by name, which is reassuring to me haha. it sucks to be known just as someone's son or something like that. but this time round i get suggestions like 'go find a boyanese wife, boyanese people power you know!' - i'm like what? it's like im being maligned so much in school for being a boyanese (no i don't do black magic sorry) and i think for these oldies, race matters to them very much - as it was when they were in their youths. youths nowadays can't even be bothered i guess since we are all crammed into that category called malay - of which even its definition is sensitive and highly political. in any case apparently i don't look boyanese at all - probably too fair, or my eyes are too big. but physically i don't even take after my dad(except for my ugly teeth and that i'm supposedly fair). thank goodness for that actually, if not i'll probably start balding like right now, have stubby fingers, slightly rotund and chinky eyes. haha.

so i look more like my mom - who is a full-blooded bugis. you don't hear much of the bugis people in singapore but you know what? at least the government sees something in these groups of people - enough to name a freaking mrt station after them! an mrt station! think about it - not teochew, hokkien, java, gujerati or what have you - but bugis! oh and the shopping centre too. there's also the information sign in the middle of bugis junction about the bugis people (or buginese).

did you know the bugis have been trading with the natives of australia a whole millenium before any europeans even heard of australia, let alone set foot on it? they are gutsy and adventurous by nature (both as traders and sadly, pirates and no, johnny depp isn't a closet buginese). apparently if you hadn't sojourned in your youth you wouldn't be called a man in those days.

just now i went back to my village where my grandmother stays, and where many of my mom's relatives also stay. a whole lot of bugis people there. it's interesting, going back to the kampong. it's like day 1 i'm spending raya in an urban, boyanese setting - and day 3 its a bugis and rural setting. and of course the usual questions get spewed at me but the thing is i think these buginese people are proud of their heritage - yet i think they just take it in their stride and not go off talking big about.

think about it - even the annoying javanese, with their clear majority in numbers in singapore - does the government even bother with naming street names, shopping centres and an mrt station after them?(i've heard of java road and kampung java road but these are minor roads). let's not even talk about the boyanese here haha. maybe it's because these people are from the rural areas, so supposedly they lead laidback lives - but you can see they are humble people with good values about them. i feel privileged that at least my mom is of this heritage and race, so i can hop on the bandwagon and claim 50% of it? haha. but i do feel it's something to be proud of.

don't get me wrong. haha i think it's really outdated of me to even talk about race like this - but it gives me a sort of 'unique' identity that i'm happy to carry around. my IC says i'm boyanese, yet im half boyanese and bugis. i feel honoured and blessed (to say proud wouldn't be precise) to have such a heritage, not conforming to the common discourse of being the javanese (which seriously, i've no idea what their heritage and history entails).

i like the fact that my family and my extended family (on my dad's side) tries to keep the familial and cultural bonds strong by visiting each other as much as they try to relive the famous pondok spirit of yesteryear. i like the humbleness of the bugis people, yet i believe them to be the most feisty and gutsy of people.

although, since my dad is the only male among his siblings, therefore the only real boyanese grandchild my grandfather has is me (i only have another sister). haha. so i'm the one to keep the flag flying high i suppose?

if they had a flag don't be surprised if you see horses on the flag. haha.

raya

2009-09-18T22:37:00.003+08:00

hari raya is like a kedai mamak - it's just round the corner.

so this year my mom didn't make any orders for baju kurung for the family. so we'll be wearing what we wore 2 years ago, which is quite nice actually. i've always wondered when we will ever stop making baju kurung yearly. really, i hardly wear baju kurung throughout the year (even on fridays i wear a dri-fit tshirt to the mosque). so the many-many baju kurung that take up the space in my wardrobe just rot away not being used.

this year my house is like a bakery. the past week especially - everyday i go home there's always some new kuih to greet me when i reach home. at least 6 types now. and just now i saw that even kerepeks have been stowed away in the kitchen cabinets. though this year my mom and dad aren't weaving ketupats - something i've tried to learn doing since my primary school days, but it's probably among the most complex things malays ever invented. like seriously.

and next week is recess week - but it's gonna be filled up with raya outings i feel. aiyah. i should be studying a lot. especially when i still haven't found my studying impetus. it's quite disturbing. and somehow i've felt so much more lethargic and tired throughout the fasting month, which has been affecting my concentration in class. of course it's exacerbated by the fact i still play pes2009 and fm09 very often till late in the morning. haha.

and it seems like everyone is writing self-reflections on their blogs, to note if they've become a better person after a whole month of fasting. i don't think i actually have, and yes i've been quite lazy this past month. but this month i read quite abit of the Quran, i did my 1st ever qiyammulail (yayy!), performed my 1st ever tasbih prayers and never missed any prayers (i mean the compulsory 5 times a day) during the fasting month. i do keep up with my terawihs at home or at the mosque, and many times i have been able to break fast at home. there are times (not that many! haha) which i miss my prayers in my course of life and feel rather guilty about it, but i think during the fasting month this becomes even worse.

i'm not like criticising anyone out there but it's just my point of view - that if you don't do the compulsory stuffs (especially the 5 daily prayers) then you might as well not fast. personally i really think it's weird that a lot of people fast yet they don't keep up with their prayers. prayers is something one should be performing everyday of their lives, even outside of the fasting month. i don't see the point in fasting if one doesn't pray.

like when i was doing my NS and during the fasting month i had to go to taiwan as part of my training. i somewhat had problems keeping up with my prayers (which of course on hindsight i should have really done better). but my is thinking this - i could actually attempt to fast through the training, but if i was already having problems trying to do my prayers then i saw no point in keeping my fast. that was what i believed in. of cos it's quite an erroneous and controversial sort of thinking but you get my point right.

this actually went against another one of my beliefs - that i should always do what i can, to the best of my abilities, even though i know i probably might sin somewhere along the way. we all sin i suppose, sometimes unknowingly. but for me i try and do my part in doing damage limitation - i usually curse and cuss and swear when i talk sometimes( for example), and yes i admit i'm not pious or angelic but i mean i do try (i hope) to do good or perform my religious obligations as much as i think i can, trying to suit to the time and place and context. maybe i don't go all out, but i try to make sure my foundations are strong i suppose. although sometimes the temptations and the works of the Devil - something every human being faces every day.

but well i think this past fasting month has been quite average for me, but i think it's quite important that i've tried to do things that i've never done before, in the hope of gaining merit and also kickstarting something that i might want to continue doing in the future. like helping out in the qurban last hari raya haji, and the qiyammulail i did 3 weeks ago. and once raya and syawal kicks in - wow all the assignment deadlines will also come one by one. really looking forward to the end of the year actually.

the die is cast and the Rubicon has been crossed. but Rome is still far away. many roads lead to Rome, and certainly Rome wasn't built in a day.

sucky day

2009-09-14T20:48:00.000+08:00

you know your day is not gonna start off well when you get out of bed and had to rush to get ready for school. i was lucky i didn't wake up that late (late enough to force my sister to iron my shirt for me though haha) and i was 5 minutes late for class. i actually had to catch my breath later on as climbing up the whole flight of stairs up to the lecture room was really taxing.

to compound it further i lost my notepad. damn it i thought it was in my file but i think i left it in the seminar room. oh well luckily it didn't have that many important things in it. ah actually there might be. damn.

then i was late in reaching home because of delays here and there, and the jams, and i couldn't break fast in time at home. to top it all off the lifts broke down when i approached the lift landing at my block. both lifts were immobilised and didn't respond at all to any repeated button pressing. so i had to slowly climb all of the 10 storeys and reach my doorstep, all sweaty and 15 minutes past the prayer call for break fast. luckily the green tea+lemon packet drink i had to accompany me with during that climb was nice.

i've had worse days i think.

survey

2009-09-11T23:26:00.000+08:00

okay people please help my friend out there as you come by and read my entry haha.

She recently submitted her Travel Guide on Hong Kong for a competition and the winner wins by the most votes! She needs all the votes she can get! You can even download it for FREE to read it if you please.

http://www.guidegecko.com/hong-kong-a-diamond-in-the-rough-travel-guide/d,4986

Follow the link. Roll your mouse over the stars till ALL 5 are GREEN, then click on them. You have to register, (just fill up a few things) and i promise it will take less than 1 minute!

obviously that whole thing was crafted by my friend but do help her out and vote 5 stars okay!

haha on another note the week came and passed just like that. though this year i had a whole host of birthday wishes via sms and facebook posts, which took me an hour to reply them all personally haha. went for classes as per normal on that day and at night had dinner with clare at swensens at marina square. if we had known the 1-for-1 ice cream buffet offer at ion orchard was still on we would have went there. it sort of slipped my mind haha. oh well.

other than that nothing much has happened. i'm still trying to get back that studying groove but i think it's sort of picking up now so yea. hope i will gain some sort of momentum. damn it it's already the end of week 5! oh and just now i tried out the gamelan! haha. my friends had a gamelan jamming session to prepare for their practical test next week and so i wanted to give it a try. very interesting! and mesmerising! haha. let me see, maybe when i go to year 4 i shall take that module as a UE.

hari raya in a week's time, but i would rather fret about my lagging behind in studies than anything else. i remember last year the day before hari raya i cooped myself up at the school computer lab and finished my essay in 1 day. oh well. at least i'm due my cash injections soon!

birthday

2009-09-06T23:05:00.000+08:00

maybe i've blogged about this before.

10 years ago on this day my maternal grandfather passed away. i will always remember the date because it's just a day shy of my birthday. and also because i was alone at home when i got the call informing me that he passed away that same morning. a tragic death, i feel - he had an asthma attack while having breakfast and he passed away just like that.

10 years on and a lot of things have happened to myself of which he could not witness. i've grown up, went to a few schools here and there, went through ns and now i'm in university. graduating from a university might not be a big deal these days, but considering my ethnicity and my family background - most of the time it always is. my grandpa was to me, as fit as a fiddle even in his 60s. my paternal grandpa is still alive - 80 in 4 days' time. still looking fit as a fiddle too. i hope at least he can live long enough to see me graduate.

in those same 10 years - like i said i have grown. but have i become a better person? a happier person? singapore ranks lowly on the happiness - i was definitely much happier when i was 10. haha. young people wanna grow old faster because they wanna have freedom - but is this the freedom everyone craves for? i wanna be young and youthful once again - because life was much simpler and happier and more meaningful. though i turn a year older tomorrow, so i suppose there's no chance of an age reversal process i guess. a la benjamin button. haha.

2 nights ago i qiyam-ed for the 1st time ever. an interesting experience. it's one of those things i felt i should do before i get older and lose my zest and spirit to do such things. like how i helped out with qurban last year. a truly memorable qiyam and iftar for me i think. i hope at the end of this blessed fasting month i grow to be a better person - on the inside and on the outside.

so tomorrow i turn 23. old sia! i have no specific wish - i just hope whatever things that i do or decisions that i make, is all blessed by God. sometimes the most cruel or painful things one has to do is not the nicest of decisions - but when the situation calls for it - you just have to take the plunge and do it.

grandma's place

2009-08-29T22:53:00.000+08:00

today i broke my fast (is that the right expression?) at my grandparents' place at serangoon. not everyone was there, especially the younger cousins that i adore so much. although my other cousins do make me laugh with their antics and nonsense so i was entertained anyhow. haha. at least it wasn't that boring as it always is. although i think i was more entertained by the micahel jackson tribute thingy on channel 5.

i thought i was going to miss that but we all ended up like breaking fast with our eyes glued to the tv screen. haha. so much for me wanting to make this a better ramadhan. but mj is really larger than life - not just a singer but an entertainer. where have you ever seen footwork like that? although i suspect he got that v neck white undershirt of his from cotton on (really i've yet to find anything decent for guys from that shop). but it was quite a blast as i've never really seen mj in action like that - although i wonder why so many in the crowd ended up tearing like crazy. just pure madness.

on another note the past few days have been turbulent. slowly but surely things have died down - although i could really really do without a lot of the things that have happened. oh well if it is supposed to have turned out like this than that is destiny - i shall just ride it out and pray that the dust will settle soon enough. it's just unfortunate that some people have been wrongly accused, wrong affected, while others just cannot think and act rationally as i would like have them to. oh well - i think i expect too much from people sometimes.

annoyance

2009-08-26T00:14:00.002+08:00

it can get on your nerves when whatever you do you have to really bear in mind everyone else's opinions and feelings.

this is getting annoying and i don't have much patience.

dreams

2009-08-23T00:30:00.002+08:00

this past week i've been dreaming like almost everyday. i know myself well enough that when i dream vividly and i can still remember the dreams long after i've woken up it means that i'm really tired and worn out. the more worn out i get the more i dream and the more vivid they become.

last night (or rather this morning) my dream became an epic of sorts. considering i only really got out of bed at 315pm (haha i was supposed to go to school to print notes etc but i was too tired) that shouldn't sound so surprising. actually i got out of bed at 11am to vacuum my room but soon enough i went back to bed to continue dreaming.

i dreamt of alot of weird and interesting stuffs, of which i shall not post up here. haha. my point is this - what are dreams? are they means and ways of which the devil plays tricks with our minds? or do they really reflect what we think we want in life? or are they reenactments of what we've all gone through? are dreams really opposites of reality? are dreams precursors to what is going to happen to our lives in the future? so many questions yet all of them cannot be answered easily.

on another note i'm being referred to as a insensitive jerk, and idiot and a meano on facebook for all to see. it's fine with me. i got dumped in my first relationship and i sympathise with the sort of angst, since i myself displayed the angst publicly on this very blog like eons ago (or rather on my old blog). so i'm fine and it's probably true. i have no excuse for myself - other than i really could not see any other way out besides going separate ways. as i've said there are certain things in life in which we have to make tough decisions. i think no one else is more sorry than me that this relationship had to end in the most horrible of ways. i know how it feels like to be in her shoes and there is nothing else i could say. it's fine with me if people start turning against me or that sort of thing. things like that always happen but i don't know - at least i still go home to a proper home with a caring mom and and a devoted dad and a sister to mind over sometimes. and also God, whom i believe always open doors for people to seek forgiveness and mercy. i really hope this month will make me a better person.

oh well that's all for now. day one of fasting was spent doing nothing, since like almost 3/4 of it was spent sleeping and dreaming. haha. oh well. it's still great to know arsenal trashed pompey 4-1. its 10 years since i started supporting arsenal by the way. okay toodles.

2009-08-22T01:25:00.002+08:00

since the last month i blogged, many things have happened.

school has started.
now we are already in the fasting month.
and i am back to being single once again.

as for school - it's already the end of week 2 yet i feel like i'm still in slumber mode. i feel that school has yet to start - although i've really printed out a lot of my readings already. like really a lot. i wish the holidays were still here. oh well. most importantly i've had cash injections recently and is expecting some more injections in the next 2 months or so. yayy! haha.

as for the fasting month - praying terawih was relaxing just now. isn't that the meaning of terawih?(correct me if i'm wrong). i felt peaceful just now and i hope i have a great ramadhan. i hope you guys do too. for me personally, fasting month is when i can totally not think about food and water and think of other more important stuffs like studies. okay i'm not some nerd or anything, it's just 'cos i'm a full time student so i mean studies would somewhat dictate my life direction for now. so almost all resources is geared towards my studies i guess. food and water are really distractions when it comes to studying, so hopefully i'll get to kickstart this semester. well of course i look forward to this month as it is the month that is full of forgiveness and mercy- and that i pray to the Lord for his compassion and mercy, so that He guides me as much as possible to be the servant of God that is expected of all of us. i hope that i benefit greatly from this ramadhan.

as for the breakup - well it hasn't been pretty. if you ask me you could fairly say i'm the bastard in this whole equation. but ask me and hear me out before you pass judgements. though i'm really fine if i'm accused of this and that - simply because some things just cannot be explained in logical or rational terms or i have no excuses. all i know is that the decisions that i have made have been well thought out. it has not been easy, but there are some things in life that require you to make tough and life-changing decisions. and this is one of those.

i just want to be myself and be happy being myself. decisions that i've made have been selfish in nature, though i believe it is in the best interests of all parties. i feel that i'm happier off this way and i'm happy that my life has panned out the way it has so far. sometimes one doesn't realise how past decisions or actions, when looked upon in retrospect, have actually made our own lives better and happier when we didn't think that back then it would. i hope this is one of those things really. all i know life goes on, no matter how badly stained our history will be.

now i go to bed. here's to a brand new tomorrow with day one of fasting.

tough times

2009-07-17T15:56:00.002+08:00

calm under pressure.

decisive.

organised.

these few traits that i'm sorely lacking now - hopefully a clear mind can settle them all.

i'm sorry. I need time and i need God.

7 months later

2009-07-14T01:11:00.002+08:00

wow. i haven't blogged for a freaking 7 months. suddenly i just felt like blogging again. been bored these days. my pc is spoilt so can't play games, i'm just whiling time away while waiting for school to start. many of my friends have also not blogged for eons either. whether i shall start to blog again after this i don't know. this is like something at the spur of the moment sorta thing.

7 months!!

in those 7 months that have passed a lot has been done and accomplished!

1) i went through probably my toughest semester in school
2) i studied hard or well enough so much so my cap didn't change at all
3) i juggled my silat stuffs (which was like a 6th module) throughout this crazy semester
4) i fought in 3 friendlies
5) i went through ivp and actually got a medal!!! unbelieveable!
6) the 1st year anniversary came and it's still coming along well
7) i watched arsenal's season crash and burn in a matter of weeks and could not believe it all

among other things;

my collection of dri-fit shirts has increased. now i have dri-fit shirts that are white,black,sky blue,dark blue,red, green,orange,yellow,purple in colour. what a ridiculous collection of dri-fit shirts i have.

my sonyericsson s500i suffered a stroke on its left side, so some buttons couldn't be used. had to buy a cheap nokia stand-in handphone at the end of december to replace it. later on i realised i could still use the se handphone without using the paralyzed buttons. thn last month i completely destroyed the se handphone when my knee pressed hard on it when i didn't see it was lying on my bed in the dark. the screen went kaput so i was soon back to using the nokia one. then 2 weeks ago i dropped the nokia hp on the bus on the way home, so soon enough i just had to get a brand new proper hp. so now i'll start school with an se c510! not the best or prettiest of phones but still decent enough.

last december i went book crazy at a borders sale (my previous entry touched on this! haha) and well to say this frankly - i've not yet read half of those books yet - i think.maybe more. haha. you know those clothes that you wear once and never wear again? i make those mistakes too with books. plenty of them. i think i might somehow find some motivation to read such stuffs but in the end it just falls flat. what a waste of money. haha. it just makes the bookshelf looks more packed only. so i just finished reading my 1st ever dan brown book (i know i lag behind like crazy) so on to the next one. god knows though when i'm gonna read books i've bought eons ago but that are yet untouched.

i did some spring cleaning the other in my room and uncovered a whole treasure of stuffs. haha. i found a birthday present from tyan (all the way back from my jc days) which i've still yet to open and fix it up (one of those zoids thing you know). i found laminated sheets of paper from my jc form teacher which he included words of encouragement for our class to ponder over. i must admit he really actually cared for us, just that we kinda didn't respond in kind. although! he did say his future classes were worse than us, when i thought we were bad enough. haha.

not forgetting the year 2000 premier league sticker book. haha. i can't believe me and kim lin forked out money to buy the stickers and almost almost completed the book. and after all the effort and sharing the 'burden' he let me have the book. wow. and the rest of stuffs that i have - my lyrics file, my band music scores file, my thick jc history files, the books and what not - all the memories came flooding back.

memories stay, yet friends come and go, i realise. only those few that really stick it through with you - i think that's the truest of friends. i think i'm blessed. somehow. i wonder - i lead a completely average life with not many things that interest me yet somehow almost every single day i realise - there is always something to do with my friends. i wonder.

oh well. school is starting again soon in around a month's time. i look forward to it actually, though i admit the holidays have passed real fast. okay till next time.

kurban

2008-12-09T13:13:00.003+08:00

hello blog!

i haven blogged for a few months i think! haha. sorry man, just had no mood to blog at all. then when i wanted to the exams came and passed and i didn;t have the patience to just sit down and blog for a while.

so what has been happening? nothing much i guess. i thought the exams that just passed were okay, except for one paper. at least the general feeling is better than last semester. but add to that i have a new group of people and friends who were willing to also just spend long hours at the school library, even on saturdays and sundays. for weeks we led a sad life but i hope all the effort would pay off eventually.

arsenal has gone through a somewhat inconsistent patch lately. probably the most annoying was the loss to villa following the win over manchester united. their season has been largely inconsistent, and i think its due to a lot of factors. an ineffective captain, a few underperforming players and several players who are really not good enough to make the cut. alot of people are really not the best of managers but it doesn't take a genius to figure out that players like bendtner and eboue are never going to be good enough. seriously. after eboue's horror show against wigan it just confirmed what i think of him - a player who's strength is just plain speed and that's all. for wenger to expect him to play as a right winger, his finishing is really atrocious. i don't recall him scoring and i don't expect him to do so. as for bendtner, the guy is big but looks clumsy all the time. even adebayor might be big but at least he scores and is more consistent. although i'm still tearing my hair out at how the team doesn't want to score from long range, although nasri has done so and denilson has shown he does try once in a while. i really think a few old heads should be brought in and some of those youngsters should really be sold off.

last saturday i went book-crazy at the borders sale. me and fabian went there at 12+ and left only at around 3+. i thought it was worth going there. novels went at $5, and alot of non-fiction books went for the same price too. although strictly speaking i bought more of those kiddy-books haha. as in those kind that are more interactive and with more graphics and makes for simpler reading. in total i spent $96.12 and fabian spent around $71. haha. for books i think it's no issue that i spend such an amount. after raiding borders i met up with the guys at dhoby ghaut and spent the whole day just slacking around and playing games with them. quite fun. this was somewhat like a follow-up to the post-exam party the previous night.

the other day i watched bolt with nana. it's quite funny and cute. i'm the kind that don't really laugh out even when i watch something funny or comedies, but bolt made me laugh out a few times so i think it says alot. but maybe you might want to download it online and watch on your computer though. nevertheless i think it's worth catching! haha.

yesterday i spent most of the day at tentera mosque helping out with the qurban. my 1st time ever! i went with hanan who was also making his debut! haha. there were other people like hasan, harun, hakim etc etc. i was quite an eye-opener. all 174 sheeps were slaughtered. i've never seen a live slaughter before actually. i actually felt abit pitiful initially (although one is not supposed to) but after a very short while everything felt very routine. i just got numb seeing all the faeces and blood spilling all over and there were alot of sheep to be slaughtered! haha. we didn't slaughter any but most of us just help to hold the sheep in place so that it would be easier to slaughter them.

some were fighters to the end, struggling and kicking about (i got kicked at my heels 5 or 6 times!). some had horns already. but most were submissive. they just lay still, only occasionally moving about. i think they know salvation is what they will achieve for all this. at least they know they are guaranteed paradise - but what of us? one thing is that yesterday's session made me feel closer to the Almighty.

and after the whole thing was over the smell was unmistakeable - we all smelt like sheep/goats. me hanan and hasan walked all the way to the MPSH in school so that we could take our time and bathe. along the way people could jsut see how dirty and smelly we were. haha. the smell was hard to get rid off. after bathing the smell still stuck to our palms and feet. haha. but i think it was worth the experience really. though i've got a cut on my left sole and my arms are aching now.

okay that's all for now i suppose. training resumes back later although i am going to be hampered by the cuts and bruises here and there i suppose. see you all later!

2008-10-12T20:08:00.002+08:00

i'm now blogging on my sister's lappie.

mine is down. damn it. and i think i can only collect back my cpu tomorrow. haha. i seriously think i've a problem with computers since they always spoil all too easily.

in any case raya has been very mundane. we didn't go out this weekend, and only went out on the 1st day and last saturday. not that i took advantage of that and studied anyway. but i'm now bored and just sian my lappie is now the subject of yusri's it jinx. oh well.

anyway raya every year is all the same routine things. only this year i see mre of those minah and mat couples going out and doing their routines. i see more of those see through kebayas and ther figure-hugging tubes. those long skirts with slits that go high up to the thighs i've yet to see though. one of these days we're gonna get those cleavage-baring kebayas you know. don't bet on it not happening.

the other day on my way home i saw this mat and this secondary school girl with her uniform on. the mat was going off so they did this customary handshake of theirs (you know the kind stupid minahs submit themselves to do with their so-called 'elder brothers'). but this was revolutionary. first the minah shook hands and placed his palm on her forehead. then she pecked both the cheeks of the mat. thn the mat returned the favour and did likewise. and then to top it all off - they then pecked on the lips. then the mat went off.

wow. i'm sure they are not even together in the strictest sense of 'in a relationship' but look at the elaborate customary goodbye ritual. wow. i'm amazed it has already progressed to such a stage. i've always viewed girls who show their 'respect' to elder guys by shaking hands as stupid. for what rational reason should they show such respect? i'm sure at this point in time girls can think for themselves what is right and what is wrong. what sort of pleasure or honour they derive form such acts i cannot fathom the slightest. it's all linked to the 'abang angkat' and 'adik angkat' thing which i find even more ridiculously absurd. i've always viewed such things with utter disdain.

pardon me if i sound too strong, but sometimes i feel that my own community is really heading towards self-destruction. we make up almost 15% of the singapore population, yet only 4% of our students make it to university level. indians make up 7& yet 10% of their students make it to universities. there is a huge disparity in that. how can that not be possible? during fasting month i see malay people still sitting around at coffeeshops not only sipping coffee but beer at that. people are struggling to make ends meet but we have youths who spend their time idly and can be seen at their worst at night and especially weekends. then when such problems spiral into out of control, then who's to blame? parents? the stupid kids themselves?

then suddenly the onus is on the government or even the few malay elites to take on the problem. is that fair i ask you? when are they ever going to realise that we are at the bottom rung of society in every sense - economy, education, social status etc etc. but all they wanna do is to make babies all year round and drink beer and idle and etc etc.

i have friends who drink beer, and aren't probably the most pious but at least they have something called common sense. common sense to know what in life they want to be, and know what is stupid and what is not. at least they know what they seek to do in life. sometimes i wonder what else do malays lack. if religion cannot provide a meaningful guide in life, at least common sense should. or even a sense of why can't i do better than him, or i want to be like that guy kind of mentality. but it's sorely lacking, and i fear when i grow older the malay problem will just be a mega-problem. till then i would think it's too late to stem the tide.

pardon me for my strong feelings. i just feel sometimes when it comes to issues regarding malays, i can't help it but feel very strongly about it. yup. so that's all.

on a lighter note i think i'm receiving much more duit raya than in previous years. okay dah. toodles!

hari raya

2008-09-30T19:20:00.003+08:00

it's the night before hari raya tomorrow but i'm stuck here in school in the computer lab still trying to get my essay sound coherent. this sucks.

just now i ran into mehmet, one of the muslim international students here from turkey. he says tomorrow he'll be studying away in his room. that's pretty ultimate.

this year's ramadhan hasn't been the best of ramadhans. i think i can do better next time round. just didn't feel like i've done much. even raya doesn't feel like tomorrow. somehow i don't feel the excitement and the hype surrounding hari raya this year. i don't know why. it doesn't help that raya comes smack in the midst of tests and essay deadlines for many people, yours truly included.

well my mom says raya every year also have, but the chance to sit for your exams etc come only once. haha. very practical reasoning. oh well, its better spending the night of raya away in school struggling to finish essays rather than spending it in the jungles of taiwan 3 years ago.

okay selamat hari raya people.

attitude

2008-09-19T12:26:00.002+08:00

within the short space of 1 week i've been scolded/reprimanded/suan-ned by 3 different lecturers. i realy feel like a student with an attitude problem. maybe i am deep inside. i know in my jc days my form teacher did resort to calling my mum up after i skipped class once. haha.

last week, on monday in tutorial the lecturer, i think upon seeing me sharing notes with another guy, suddenly said out to the whole class that for the forthcoming test we had to bring all our notes, printed out on paper since it was an open-book test. tsk. i kinda looked around and realised i was the only one who didn't bring my notes to class. what an open way to suan me.

then the following wednesday i got reprimanded by the lecturer in lecture for talking with nick. okay that was really my fault, but well it was surprising. i mean the fact that i got reprimanded to that extent. although actually i've always had a history for being told off for talking in class. like countless times i think. from being scotch-taped to the mouth in p4, to jc1 when my teacher said in class - 'muhamad yusri! stop touching tan xing yi!' haha. so embarrasing, in a full lecture some more.

and then earlier on monday, me and fab got reprimanded for apparently laughing at the picture the lecturer screened during lecture. yes we were laughing softly, but for some weird reason or another the lecturer thought we were laughing at his powerpoint. twice he remarked on it in a general statement, but it was obviously directed at us since he kept eyeing us throughout the lecture and right after the moment we laughed he immediately reprimanded us. tsk. we weren't even laughing at the pictures he screened.

so 3 times within a week i got scolded/reprimanded etc. i'm showing streaks of a student with attitude i think.

okay that's all.

birthday

2008-09-08T20:32:00.002+08:00

i turned 22 yesterday.

today i shall blog about my birthday. maybe i've talked about it before but it's okay i shall just repeat.

birthdays in my family have never been an occasion to celebrate. it's really one of those standout points of my familial culture. birthdays pass like they never exist. it's not like we forget each others birthday, it's just that we don't celebrate. so at most i'll get the occasional kiss from my mom or hearing my sis saying 'wah nari birthday seh!' haha.

which is enough for me really. i don't really know why we don't celebrate birthdays, but i think it's tied to this other point - we don't eat out. very very rare, if ever. so no going out to eat, hence no going out to celebrate. even at home, i can only recall my sis' birthday being celebrated only once with a cake (when she was 6 i think?). the cake had strawberries on top, and if i remember correctly it was a mango cake. or something like that. the only birthday cake i had was when i was 4, and although i'm not quite sure who bought it, all i remember is it was a chocolate cake with strawberries on top, and we had it at my grandparents' place. since i was 4 then, there was only my elder cousin and my sis who was just born months earlier, and my mom and maybe my aunts, so it was quite a low-key affair. my next birthday cake was when i was 18 - a hello kitty cake, shared between me, fab and jj in a combined birthday celebration at pizza hut after our maths prelims exams. why hello kitty, i asked my classmates. oh, we couldn't get dear daniel, so we had to settle for hello kitty. right. i still have the photos of them up on friendster amazingly. haha.

the fact that i can remember my cake had strawberries on top of it almost 2 decades ago probably sums it all up.
hardly anything exciting happens on my birthday. in 2004 i went to school to study, in 2005 i was in camp doing running in the morning. in 2006 i spent it fixing some hardware up for my pc. i can't even remember what happened on my birthdays when i was in primary school or secondary school. it didn't help that my birthday always fell in the september holidays. haha. so last year was really weird in having to come to school for lessons on my birthday.

in any case don't take me wrongly - it's not that i'm lamenting that my birthday doesn't get recognised/acknowledged/celebrated. it's really fine with me. i know nowadays people interprete having birthdays to honour themselves in a way. out of the 365 days in a year, the birthday then becomes a day for people to rejoice and be happy for themselves and having the people that they love around them. it's perfectly normal.

in my case, mum and dad grew up in tough times, and celebrating birthdays are probably the last thing on their minds while they were growing up. i suppose that mindset still carries through to today. being as practical as they are i would really understand if they never celebrated anyone's birthdays in the family. even my sister has never grumbled or anything on this point. i accept this as the culture of my family which would really deviate much from the typical familial discourse of contemporary singaporean families. haha. so i'm fine with that no worries. and i'm sure there are people who have similar familial cultures too, and i'm sure they don't feel the least disturbed about it. of course in the event i have children in the future, i shan't impose such a culture on them - since kids nowadays seem to be born naturally as spoilt brats.

last year i had my primary school friends celebrate for me at amirah's grill. it was fun. a small mini-party of sorts. i appreciated that since i've never had any birthday dinner of any kind before. very sweet of them, especially nurul rather, to have organised such a thing. we played peribahasa charades and taboo. haha. very fun.

what about this year? as always i woke up on my birthday feeling normal, like the day was just another day. i went to school to study actually, since i knew i wouldn't do anything productive at home anyway. after studying for quite a while then i went to choa chu kang. a dinner with izy and iza. well, not exactly correct.

we made our way to cck park, and wow i was surprised and amazed at the turnout. a surprise guestlist was already waiting! for a fact i knew more people were invited, but the turnout was unexpected really. i probably can't act being shocked well, but in my heart i was telling myself wow, these people actually bother to come from afar to come and eat. i'm touched really at the turnout. so far the biggest number of people i've somewhat celebrated my birthday with. at least the food was great, and so was the company. can't really say the same for the presents, but well - i shouldn't complain should i? haha. thanks anyway. the gifts that they gave centred upon the theme of bottles, so now i have bottles of all sorts and sizes just occupying the already-packed fridge, and they are also lying around in the kitchen. haha.

in anyway thank you very much people for coming down. even though the dinner did not last long, i'm touched and amazed by the fact that the turnout was really good, and many bothered to set aside time to come from afar and be there last night. and a special thanks to my dearest who organised the dinner for me! thankyou for the cupcakes too dear! (amazingly they have strawberries on top too) oh and her friends too - funnyfriend, onion and whatever-her-name-is - for the card. thanks to all of you who also gave me gifts and cards, and thank you very much too to all those who smsed, msned, or even facebked me well wishes. really alot of people wished me well this year. haha. a far cry from those days of the jahiliah era. haha.

on another note i think my lecturer was sindir-ing me abit in class just now. tsk.

smrt

2008-09-02T21:33:00.003+08:00

the past 2 weeks or so have been spent doing some things that i haven't done before.

last last sunday was spent running in the early morning in the safra bay run/army half marathon. okay well, granted that i actually signed up for the non-competitive 6km route. haha. i ran with hadi and liz. more of jogged rather. hadi fetched us and by 8.40 we were off (missed the flag-off by 10 minutes but no worries). eventually we did catch up with the main body that ran off at 8.30am anyway. 2 years ago i ran the 10km non-competitive one with my bmt colleagues, but this time i'm back as a civilian! haha. oh and i saw my old encik at one of the water points, and i purposely ran past the water point to avoid him seeing me. haha. during the race too i saw moms pushing prams with their children inside, and i wondered at the pace they were walkig at they were going to take forever to finish. because it rained in the wee hours of the morning, it was really cold and damp in the day, and what was worse was that the padang turned into a mudpool. many resorted to walking barefooted on it. well we managed to get the goodie bags and take as many free 100plus cans as we could. haha. luckily hadi drove, so we could change and dump ur stuff inside his car. haha. after drying up we were off to tanjng pagar railway station!

i suggested lunching there because i've been told the food there is nice but i've never had the chance to eat there. 1 problem is i've only been there once, like more than a decade ago, and that was just alighting from the train from kl and then heading home. and secondly, the railway station is really out of the way for me, and i've no particular reason to be there or anywhere near that area. well in any case the food is quite nice. should go there again sometime. the murtabak i had was really something, and the food my friends bought were quite nice too. so i spent the whole sunday morning doing 2 things that i've never really done before on a regular basis - run on sunday morning with friends, and eat at the tanjong pagar railway station. something i should really do more often (the first one see how, but the second one shouldn't be much of a problem. haha.)

last friday i went to comex and got myself an external hard disk drive from western digital. i think it's got a sleek look, and for 250gb i got it at 109bucks. an okay price for me i guess. far cry from the days when an 80gb external hard disk costed 179 bucks. now they sell 1000gb (or rather, 1 terabyte) at 199bucks! freak! i got my thumbdrive last year at 19.90 for 1gb,and now 1gb can cost you $5 only. tsk. even the cost of printers have gone down. haha. i met up with fahmi for a while and walked around comex to see other deals. like a telescope for 40 bucks that was being sold. haha. we didn't think a telescope could ever be that cheap. oh and i got to see the iphone. i didn't play with it but i just saw fahmi play around with it for a while. looks cool but abit too pricey, even the singtel plans that come with it.

last sunday was spent taking part in the smrt challenge! haha. a chance to win 2K cash was up for grabs, so me, firdous, rahman and juliana signed up as a team! initially we were put on the reserve list but on wednesday they emailed me saying we were taking part. so yup. again on sunday i had to wake up early (even earlier in fact this time round, at 5.30am!) and make my way down to toa payoh. other friends also took part in this, like hanan who teamed up with his family; iza, fahmi, fadhli and nadia formed a team; haekal was with his girlfriend and her friends; there was aisyah and her family too and hazirah and maryam with their friends. haha. well the whole thing was quite fun, even if there were alot of lame parts. haha. well the thing is it's a great way to spend with friends to escape the monotony of everyday life. running around and doing lame challenges on sunday morning was at least something different to do. after the challenge ended (came in too late to be in any prize-winning positions haha) we just hung around in the hope of winning lucky draw prizes but to no avail. after the whole thing i joined the gang in bowling, but actually we never really managed to find a bowling alley after going 3 places. so we just did what malays excel best in - just sitting around and talking nonsense. haha..

today was spent doing something i've never done before - shop in chinatown. haha. well not exactly in chinatown though. today i slept like pig and only woke up at 2pm. by 3pm we were out driving down to people's park complex (or centre) to shop at og. apparently my aunt isn't sure of the way so my mom asked me to drive. i don't really enjoy driving to the cbd at this kind of hours because of the jams, and in any case the way home was horrible, because it was really pouring and the peak hour jams were quite nasty. at least at og i managed to get myself a shirt and 2 belts so it's still okay. i've never really gone shopping at og, with my mom and aunt at that. og isn't really the kind of place youngsters would really go to shop at, and furthermore, we were in the heart of chinatown. haha. i hardly saw any malays, in fact i think i only saw one. and of course alot of aunties. haha. and now i'm thinking that i should have gotten that portable dvd drive from comex for my lappie, now that my pc is down and out for some time i reckon. but i suppose that's gotta wait. haha.

so now the fasting month has started, but even after 2 days i don't feel the atmosphere or the feeling. what kind of atmosphere or feeling actually, i can't describe properly in words, but i just can't feel it yet. in any case it's good, because obviously one can save pocket money during fasting month and still look forward to getting even more money during hari raya. haha. oh and the progress package due in october. that's quite lot of cash due. *rubs hands in glee*....

okay that's all.

lappie

2008-08-21T16:06:00.003+08:00

i'm supposed to be doing my readings but i'm blogging instead.

been here since 10 in the morning, and now it's past 4 already. in that time i've been writing cards, had lunch, read only 4 pages of readings, napped for over an hour, printed notes, wasted time, and i'm still wasting time. the amazing thing is that i'm blogging first time on my cutsie lappie! haha. it can be very trying since the buttons on the keyboard are quite small, but it can be done!

thursdays are nightmarish because i start at 8am every thursday. that sucks since that would mean leaving home even before the sun is out. on even week fridays i start at 8am too, so sometimes i start at 8 two days in a row! okay well, at least all the nonsensical and unnecessary stuffs that bogged me down during the holidays are now history, although there's still a few things to tie down. silat training has started once again, and even as the 3 of us are trying our best to do as much as we can, things can get very stressful and taxing at times. not like anyone really understands it anyway.

for this semester, i'm taking 3 political science modules and 2 history modules. i think the only interesting ones are the history of the usa and the politics of china. although the lectures haven't really been a blast, at least from what i've read so far things sound rather interesting. i can't really say the other modules are drab and boring, but they've yet to capture my imagination yet in any way. but so far so good i suppose. other than that, mine and nana's timetable don't clash for most of the days, so i shan't see her much in school i suppose.

other than school, there's been nothing much except to catch the olympics. haha. but it's been great watching the olympics! it's not like i can watch beach volleyball, table tennis or even swimming live so often. it's been quite an event. with phelps becoming the greateast ever olympian, and bolt breaking the 100m sprint record (and from the looks of it he could have actually run faster! how scary is that?), the games have been a spectacle. watching the chinese weightlifters in action were mind-blowing too. i still remember that judo gold medal match in which the guy won in 13 seconds! freaking 13 seconds and he won a gold medal! and the amputee who finished well in the 10km marathon swim. all these are amazing feats! add to that brazil played horribly in the men's football against argentina. haha. and it's extremely surprising that silvestre has joined arsenal! haha, totally out of the blue kind of transfer. oh well, they have still yet to find a good defensive midfielder so i doubt silvestre's the last transfer of this season.

okay so that's all. i should really get back to doing readings. toodles!

stressed

2008-08-12T13:44:00.002+08:00

too many things weighing me down already.

feeling very lethargic.

epind

2008-07-27T21:46:00.002+08:00

just now i went for my friend epind's wedding.

quite an interesting affair it was. we were early birds really. epind is my colleague from my days as a bmtc instructor in pulau tekong, so i went there with my other army friends. it was great to see all of them after almost half a year. as always i'm being ridiculed for my 'slenger' ways but it's okay. haha. i think at least i don't mind their company, and they can be quite fun. sometimes i don't quite understand their lingo but generally it's okay. i enjoy my time being with them and actually i learn quite alot from them. the thing about me is, i didn't really know life outside of my studies and always mixing around like-minded people before ns. then in ns i'm exposed to people from all sorts of backgrounds. so in a way i learn to appreciate that different people have different thinking and backgrounds. as always we like reminisce, and we all laugh everytime we talk about funny incidents that happened during our time in camp. in any case that was the first wedding among my friends that i've attended, and i expect more to follow. now we all come to the age where we start to think long-term - of finances, careers, and of the life partner. sometimes i think i grow too fast. haha.

the other day i went to watch get smart with nana. okay admittedly, we watched it very late since the movie opened more than one month ago. in any case the movie is quite funny. steve carell is one heck of a funny guy. i like guys who can act funnily or crack jokes but still keep a straight face. it's not an easy skill, and carell can pull it off quite well. if you all remember, he was jim carrey's rival for the newscaster spot in bruce almighty, and remember the scene when carrey made fun of him on tv by controlling movements of his mouth. haha that was really funny. get smart overall is a good movie i thought. everyone's just about asking me if i've watched the dark knight - well i'm not really a fan of going to the movies, so i don't really bother about catching the latest blockbusters and stuffs so yup.

school's going to start in 2 weeks' time - and i want to it to start as soon as possible. i'm getting worn out with so many things to do everyday. the personal organiser is really brimming with stuffs to do, and i would rather it be full of school stuffs to do. okay i guess that's all for now.

busy

2008-07-16T19:25:00.003+08:00

okay i haven't updated for two weeks i know.

been bogged down by lots of stuffs really. it's crazy.

ever since the last entry, i've been doing a few silat performances, had a 4 day camp, trainings in between, going to jb, and shopping for stuffs. even at home i admit i've been playing game on my computer, but still there's alot of emails and forms to settle and handle. ergh. this sucks. this really has been the busiest of holidays. i think june wasn't this busy with work and traning and ivp in between.

just now we had a silat performance for scgs primary that lasted close to half an hour. i think we enjoyed ourselves, and i'm sure the girls did too. i think none of us had ever really performed in front of so many kids and all girls at that. it was fun at least. haha. even after this there's tons of stuffs to do - matriculation fair, freshman orientation camp reunion bbq, taking over of the reins for silat, night cycling committee gathering, lunch with the nus president, invitation to epind's wedding, cmad, cycling trip to ubin, meetings and more meetings..... and the list goes on. ergh. faa suggested getting some sort of a personal organiser, which i did just now, so i think it should help. suddenly i realise everyday of the week there is always something which i think i should really start jotting down in the organiser.

well last week was the freshman orientation camp and frankly speaking, i've yet to recover from the exertions. i was a facilitator, and well i didn't really come out of my skin i admit, but i think i achieved what i set out to do. at least i tried not to be half-asleep during the camp, and i tried to interact with the kids in one way or another. maybe i didn't interact much with them but i think overall i'm quite pleased with myself. haha. we didn't win the overall challenge but i'm happy i got that group of kids. i think it was fun being with them really. as expected it was tiring, and maybe not as happening as vault camp last year, but it was still great nevertheless.

july sucks and i really can't wait for school to start. even when school starts i think there's really not much things to look forward to anyway. now i understand why they say university students really have no life.

news in the footballing world are quite shocking nowadays. as always arsenal are always offloading their best players to barcelona. this time round it's hleb, who joins a list of good players like overmars, petit, sylvinho, van bronckhorst and henry. i think there are more but i can't remember who else. the only player to move in the opposite direction is fabregas only i think. oh well, it has been reported arsenal will have to resort to selling its best players to keep themselves afloat. for a club the size of arsenal it's really sad.

okay that's all. i'll think i'll go play game first then slowly think about what i've to do for the next few days.

ica

2008-07-03T20:26:00.002+08:00

okay yes i haven't blogged for more than half a month.

i haven't really had anything much to blog about really, so finally today i do have something worth blogging about.

remember the posting about me having to update my thumbprint in my passport? well the thing is yesterday i went to jb and the same thing happened - i kinda got callled up again into their rooms and half an hour was wasted. tomorrow i'm going to jb again so just now i went to ica to have this matter sorted out.

when i asked the lady at the 2nd level she told me to go to the 3rd one. so i took my queue number and waited there, wondering why i was sent to the identification card department instead of the passports department. well when i went into the room i found out why. the thing is this - my passport of course derives my thumprint from my ic. so when the person re-scanned (or updated) my thumbprint and i saw it against the one on my ic, i understood why i always have problems clearing the automated gantries at checkpoints. both sets were so different! at first glance you would think it's two different sets of thumbprints. anyway the guy said my original thumbprint was poorly done, but still - they both look completely different on the screen. so the thumbprint in the ic was the source of the problem, meaning for the past 7 years i've been going around with a thumbprint on my ic that isn't exactly mine. haha. well at least i think tomorrow i should be able to clear that automated gantry without any problems.

after that i dropped by sim lim square to try get the screen protector and maybe laptop cases. the thing is my screen is 9", and my sister's is 17". it's really extreme - one is too small, one is too big. so i walked around and i hardly saw any that could fit both. most were between 12"-15". so i didn't get what i wanted, and if screen protectors of that size were rare, don't even think about finding laptop cases of that size. in any case my lappie is really small, it's pint sized. it really affects the eyes, so much so that after a while using my lappie when i read smses on my handphone suddenly the alphabets become bigger, or rather longer top-down. haha. i'm not kidding. i'm still trying to get used to typing on smaller buttons on the lappie, so i think it will take quite a while.

the past 2 weeks have been filled up with various stuffs. so-called training camps for facilitators for the upcoming freshman camp, silat, last few days of work and just going out. so next week is the camp, and then followed by silat performances, and matriculation fair, barbeques maybe, and maybe also a chalet. haha. even holidays are ultra-packed.

i'm now just abit disturbed by the fact that the online timetable builder is not yet updated when the modules are already out. so i'm really still thinking of what modules to bid for next semester, since the political science modules are mostly such a turn-off but the history ones are very interesting. which really makes me want to major in history but well, i think i should really stick to political science. for practical reasons i guess.

okay that's all for now.

holland

2008-06-14T03:37:00.002+08:00

i'm now blogging during the half time between france and the netherlands. kuyt scored and the dutch are leading 1-0. if it stays this way the dutch will qualify for the quarters! haha. they play nice football, as do portugal, which is the 2nd country i support. i like the style that both countries play with. it's a pity the dutch jersey this time round isn't as nice as the one they had for the last world cup.

work has been such a bore. late nights caused by staying up to watch euro 2008 hasn't helped my cause. sometimes i just while time away by walking around and chatting with the other staff to while time away. the other day i took a 2 hour lunchbreak just to waste time. haha.

the other day me and nana went out and happened to drop by at the convert's association at geylang. a place that she wouldn't feel out of place i told her. haha. in any case the bookstore has alot of interesting books, so i got myself a teach yourself arabic book. haha. there's a high chance it might end up rotting away on my bookshelf, as is always the case with me and books purchased. and the book is quite thick. but i should really pick up arabic. jerome says it's a waste that i don't since it would really be an advantage for me. so i should probably start somewhere then. haha. even if teaching yourself a language is quite hard. but hey, apparently raffles did that in his youth. haha.

just now i dropped by the pc show at suntec. i ran into fahmi and he accompanied me in getting the asus pc eee 900 laptop. i got it at 798 bucks. it's that cheap because its small (the screen is 9 inch) and it has minimal functions. just enough for me to bring it around in my sling bag to do work anywhere in school. haha. so now that i have a laptop, i don't have to go around doing work on other people's laptops or just wasting 4 or 5 hours away straight at the computer lab in school. i'm trying to resist the temptation of installing msn on my laptop, although fahmi says that's impossible. let's see how. haha.

recently people have been in the mood of holding my hands for no reason at all. at work all i do is promote the exhibition there, and when i point to the tickets in their hand some actually reach out to hold it, as if i wanted to shake their hands. hallo people! who shakes hands with their left? i was really using my left hand to gesture. haha. 2 people in succession reached out to hold my hand thinking that i wanted to shake their hands when i wasn't. haha. just now was even weirder. i was crossing the road to suntec, and then there was this family crossing too. there was this granny, and she mistook me as one of her two male grandchildren. without looking she unwittingly held my arm, thinking that i would hold her arm and guide her to cross. haha. when she turned she exclaimed eh! then she moved away in embarassment. haha. i was stunned for a while. really weird.

oh and one more thing - thanks to those who flooded my tagboard. the thing is it's not i'm giving up. i'm not. i will try again so don't worry. it's ust that i'm fatalist in a way, in the sense that i will try even if i think i will never be good at it. but well, we all wouldn't know what's up for us in the future. so yes i will pick myself up and try.

okay the match has restarted and it's really end to end stuff. france are really piling on the pressure. come on netherlands!

2008-06-09T20:09:00.002+08:00

so much for the lucky forehead. i lost my first match and with that i'm out. haha.

i was utterly disappointed with myself because i didn't put up a good and proper fight. i'm not upset because i lost, but more of how i lost. i thought it was a rather disgraceful showing. i totally could not execute any moves properly, and at the end of the day the opponent was much better than me. i got felled a few times, and even if there were a few unfair calls against me overall i accept i fared very poorly and my opponent did much better. it was embarassing to say the least, in front of all my friends and not put up a proper fight. i also showed my utter lack of fitness towards the end. after the match i just locked myself up in the toilet for around 15minutes and just leaned my head against the door and closed my eyes and thinking of what just happened. a lot of things just flashed through my mind during that time which seemed like forever. beads of sweat were still drippping down my face then. i couldn't help but feel that i should have performed at least much better. i don't think i want to watch my video of that match. at least not now. congrats to those who have proceeded to the next few rounds.

oh well. i joined silat in the first place not because of glory or medals - but because i want to try something new, something i might never have the chance to do again. i accept that for some reason or another i really have limited skills and abilities. years of playing football and badminton have never really improved my skills, and attempts to learn simple things like swimming and playing the guitar have failed. i give up easily sometimes and i lack discipline too but many times i really feel hampered by the fact that i really cannot master skills well. like some people have a talent to draw, or sing, or play the guitar, do sports, become it-savvy etc etc. i just can't grasp them. i'm very poor at things when it comes to being hands-on about it. it gets frustrating when i think of exactly what useful or worthwhile skill that i actually have, because it seems that i have none. this of course would not stop me from training. i might never improve in the future, but at least i should really try harder the next time round. i should still try even if i fail, but at least i must know i have tried. oh well, we'll see how the next 2 semesters pan out.

work is ultra boring. all i do is just stand around and give brochures and that's just about it. for 7 hours! haha. at least today wasn't so bad. because there were 5 of us at my area and we kept talking to each other to while away the time. if you ask me i prefer working at takashimaya last year, even if it is quite tough and the hours are long and all. then again generally speaking, work sucks and for all the pressures i get throughout my school life, i would rather read thousands of readings and type out essays than just do routine work every single day. seriously. oh well. at least i work till only close to the end of the month, and july i have lots of stuffs to do and things to occupy myself with.

it's a good thing the euros have started. i'm with holland, but i have an affection for portugal too. haha. good thing my house can tap on those free indonesian channels.

2008-05-30T23:31:00.004+08:00

firstly sorry that it took such a long time for me to get the groove to blog.

for one alot of things have happened in between either making me lose the mood to blog or i'm just plain tired from all that has happened.

first things first - my results. my results, as expected, took abit of a dive. that it happened was inevitable, the only thing that mattered the magnitude and scale of the fall. overall it's still okay, but i can't help feeling shitty about it. seriously i could have done better, and it isn't help by the fact that for one reason or another, i felt that the modules that i took last semester were rather tough. i felt crappy after getting my results since it's never nice to fall, but i'm now okay and ready to fight it out all over again next semester! haha. although it's interesting to note how fast a year has passed. a year ago i was still tending to pots and pans of various prices and shapes and sizes in takashimaya, and now here i am just having completed my freshman year. and looking forward to next week's ivp.

that of course brings me to the impending ivp. it's only next week, and of course it's impossible to say i'm ready. how can one ever be fully ready for a competition like this, or even exams per se? the thing about sparring in silat is that you do it alone, and for me it's really the first time that i'm competing in an individual event. yes, collectively we represent the school but at the end of the day in the ring it's really personal. this is different from performing with the military band in front of 60000 screaming crowds at the national stadium, and also answering questions in quizes. this is more physically and mentally challenging, and i go through it alone. if you ask me the fear/edginess/nervousness has yet to sink in, and maybe it will only sink in on the day itself. then again, seriously speaking as a newbie i don't have anything to lose since i start on a clean slate, and the only person that i have to prove to is really myself. so i'll just do what i can, and see how far i can go in ivp. technique-wise i'm really not up to standard, but i'll make do with what i can.

on another note after a long search i've gotten myself a job. thanks to intan, and then rahman, we got jobs at the science centre. my job is quite slack actually, though i only start this coming monday. all i'm supposed to do is just usher guests to some water exhibition thing that they are having, and i work only at most 4 days per week, 10-6pm. haha. it's quite a brainless job, and at least i get to walk around i guess. or rather, i'm suppose to move around in this automated skate-scooter thing that's called a segway. haha. well it's only for month so it's okay. it's just to fill up time and try new things. at least there are a few friends at work so it's still not too bad. after work i can just zip down to school for training if required, and if i really need the money i can just put in effort in that conversational malay tutoring programme that i went for an interview for earlier this week.

which brings me to the next point - an interesting incident happened on tuesday! haha. i was looking for the building on cecil street for the interview, and as i was doing so this sikh guy just came up to me and said hullo brother! i said err hello, and ignored him since i was more bothered with finding the address 139 cecil street. the guy didn't take the hint and the next thing he did was to come up to me and say -

"you have a lucky forehead. the shape of your eyes yada yada yada tells me that you are going to get lucky next mth. you are going to get a promotion in whatever you do the next month. that is what i forsee.

i just replied err okay. haha i didn't know why i should really believe all that mumbo-jumbo of his. then he went on to say he was a yoga practitioner that kinda thing, and the next thing he said-

"alot of people die early, in their 60s or so. as for you, i look at your face and i say that you will die at the age of 94."

i smiled and just said okay. haha. wow, he's like some modern nostradamus or something like that. upon which he took out a small piece of paper, the size of a bus ticket, and wrote '94' on it and asked me to crush it in my right hand, keep it clenched inside and hold my hand down. he then asked me to choose a number between 1 and 5. i chose 4. then he asked me to choose another number between 1 and 5, and i said 2. then he wrote both numbers down on another piece of paper, and in between he wrote '3' and circled it.

"3 falls between 2 and 4, so 3 is your lucky number. so in whatever you do remember the number 3 will bring you luck. so now choose a name of a flower."

flower? i couldn't think of anything so i just said rose. then he said

"so rose is your lucky flower. rose will bring you luck. now bring up your right hand, still clenched, and blow at it at the hole there. and open it."

well well, guess what? remember he wrote 94 on it? when i opened it the number 3 and the word rose was there, and some scribbling below them which i couldn't figure out. haha. i really didn't look impressed, although the whole thing is quite amazing. in the end he just wanted donations, saying he was from india and all. i could only give me 2 $1 coins since coins were all that i had. haha. then he went away. oh i forgot to mention - his body odour was really strong.

after my interview later on i went to do abit of shopping, and finally i got myself the bag that i wanted. isetan was having discount on the springfield bag, so i just bought it. the last weekend i bought a pair of dress shoes at the robinson's sale. we originally intended to go for the adidas sale but it closed after 7. so we went over to robinson's to see what we could get.

what an eventful week it has been. next week is really going to busy, with work, training and ivp. and the class gathering this sunday. haha. go go go!

silat camp

2008-05-19T23:14:00.005+08:00

the past week and weekend has been very draining.

on thursday i did an 8km run with hadi. he was late since he was spray painting his bike first, so i did an 8 round warm up on the cck stadium track first. we then ran 5km around cck and teck whye area. hadi had his fieldpack on his back, which weighed i think 10kg? maybe heavier but i'm not sure. the run was quite relaxing, and should really go running more often to build my fitness up.

then friday saw the start of the silat training camp, which i co-organised with na'im and farah. i forgot to thank them for their efforts, so thanks guys! i shall thank them personally next time. in any case training kicked off in the afternoon doing ridiculous push-ups unimaginable by my own admission, and after that we proceeded with doing the 2.4km run. i fared very poorly (13.07 mins!!!), and it didn't helped that it was really hot, and i did not recuperate properly from running 8km the day before. my timing was embarassing so i must buck up. the night was spent away just talking and laughing away in 1 of the rooms.

the next day was our friendly with ntu. my first ever match! haha. i sparred with this guy who was two weight classes above me, and somehow i won. it's a nice feeling to win when your team is trailing 3-0 down, but more importantly i think at least i tried to do something about the match. i know i didn't play that good a match since i didn't really kick him around but all i did was to block and punch him repeatedly, and only managed to do a throw in the dying seconds. at least it was an experience to savour, and this should help me in my learning. the techniques must improve though, and i must be braver in using my legs. but it's nice to win, and well the team eventually did win overall, even though it was by the slimmest of margins (11-10). at night was abit of games session and just talking the night away.

sunday was madness. we ran from school all the way to bukit timah hill via clementi road. once we reached its peak we took a wrong turn and went down another way, and ended up at dairy farm road (bukit panjang was just a stone's throw away!) then we took a longer route way back, just walking all the way. by the time we reached ulu pandan road the rest had already left us far behind since they had started running ahead, so me, zuraimi, hanan and amirah flagged a cab back to school. haha. all in all i think we convered almost 20km or walking/running. it was crazy. 5 hours spent outside just running or walking. luckily training was not that rigorous in the afternoon.

today i went out with nana to marina square. i got those guards that we were supposed to get long time ago, but i didn't get the groin guard because i didn't know what size mine is. okay, i should rephrase that. rather, what size i should wear. haha. so i just got myself a pair of adidas forearm and shin guards. haha shame on me for emphasising on the brand, but i really like the brand. at a combined cost of $32, i think it's okay. then we walked around and ate at zamzam at bugis, where there was this funny scene involving my primary school friend hatta. haha. on a day like vesak day i was bound to run into a few familiar faces and that was what that happened.

okay that is all. must push push push!

perak

2008-05-14T11:27:00.002+08:00

i just got back from my malaysian trip yesterday.

quite tiring actually. it was a trip for all the sports leaders in team nus, so we did get to meet other sports leaders. frankly speaking, i think it's typical of me not to really come out of my skin and mingle around with the others in such camps. there's some barrier within me i think. oh well. so i kinda got myself left out of things, but well there are some people that i managed to make small talk with. it didn't help they really look the sporty kind, and they are always talking about competitions., IVPs, trainings, their halls, how they got their halls (it seems almost everyone lives in halls). haha i've never even entered a friendly, let alone a competition, i don't stay in halls, and well, silat is quite different from the other sports, especially team sports.

and again it happened. my passport couldn't clear the automated machine system fpr the 512976154th time. so this time round i actually got called into the office and the officer in charge tried to sort out things. apparently the system could not match my fingerprint to the one in my passport. so he says i have to go to ICA and update my thumbprint. right. the rings on my fingers are like trees you know? every year they grow an additional ring, so i suppose i have to keep updating my fingerprint annually.

we were based in gopeng, perak. i did whitewater rafting there. it was okay, even though going through the rapids didn't really pump up the adrenaline. on day 2 we did caving. it's quite interesting to be in the cave, seeing all the limestone formations. it was like a mini-geography lesson. although it was really troublesome getting down on my hands and knees and just crawling through the underground river in the cave. our clothes stank real bad from all the smell of the guano and the murky waters. later on we did rock climbing, and it was something i have never been able to complete actually. well then again, almost everyone could do it, so it isn't and outright achievement anyway. haha.

but the camp was okay i guess. maybe i didn't help myself by not really interacting, but yes i think the activities were okay for an inaugural trip of such a level. a few days escape from singapore and suddenly when i get back i get a whole lot of surprising news. haha. and the training camp is this weekend. it's all so troublesome. oh well, faster do faster finish.

on another note, some idiot of a malay girl called me while i was in malaysia claiming that i know this guy and she kept asking me on that. when i asking her back who she was, she just answered 'orang lah!' typical stupid minah kind of answer. then i just lashed out eh hallo, i don't know who you are but i'm now away in malaysia and you are really wasting my money on autoroam so please don't waste my time anymore. haha. apparently it worked and she hung up, and the call lasted a grand total of 1 minute! phew. if not i would have to pay for another minute of extra charges. but the next day as i was clearing the malaysian checkpoints she smsed. she tells me to tell this friend of mine to watch his mouth if not his face would be 'scratched' by some other guy. wow. how can i help save someone whose name i've never even heard of?

typical stupid brainless minah resorting to such measures when some guy's mouth becomes a loose cannon. i got worked up over this because she really thinks i'm masking my real identity even though i've told her my name and all. haha, seriously, good luck to that supposed friend of mine. if his face gets splashed with acid or pepper or confetti like as if i can do anything about it. i know it's a small matter, but it's just that i can't believe i wasted my time actually talking to some idiot of a minah on my handphone when we just reached kl.

some people really have nothing better to do.

2008-05-06T17:53:00.003+08:00

okay finally i'm done with the exams yesterday.

but today was spent painting my room with my mom. now it looks really good with a fresh coat of paint, although the blue is abit too blue, almost looking like baby blue. the paint colour is called skylight anyway. so the shade of blue is brighter than the previous one. haha i can't help just looking at how fresh the walls look now.

and yesterday after the paper, i joined some of them for a short karaoke session in town. i can't sing for nuts really, but heck. it's always fun to karaoke once in a while, although i would never know what malay songs they would be singing. some of the old ones i would probably find familiar, but the more recent ones are really alien to me. haha. well when my jc class had karaoke sessions last time they always sang chinese songs. haha. but either way it's always fun to sing, or rather croak , my heart out.

and the exams have been really shitty. the papers haven't been good to me, and i could also feel that my revision was not effective at all. it really is worse than last semester, so since all have been wrapped up let's just say all i can do is pray and hope for the best. the main theme is damage limitation.

so now in this short few days, it's all going to be such a rush. another round of painting tomorrow, then going out on thursday and friday. thn saturday night till tues its off to malaysia. next friday to sunday is training camp. and i need a job to fill up the coffers. its really times of recession. inflation at 6.7% and the crazy rise in rice and petrol prices is no joke. looks like i need to reject offers to go on trips to bangkok then.

the other day on the train i saw this girl. she was about 5 or 6 i think? but she's such a poor thing. she had a tube inserted into her left nostril, then she's on this custom-made pram. she seems very immobile, as she was emotionless. her pupils were always looking upwards, so much so that you could only see half of her pupils. then her mouth was always open and kept hugging this soft toy of hers. i think she had a prosthetic left leg but i couldn't be sure. so poor thing. the girl really couldn't talk or show simple expressions. all the time she just stared blankly to the ceiling. i wonder what condition she has. it's quite saddenning. she's only a kid and she's already like this. i wonder how other kids who might suffer from even more chronic conditions are like. it was really something. sometimes one questions why some are born with such conditions and have to go through alot at such a young age. maybe the answer should be so that one could appreciate how healthy one is born, and really thankful for that. oh well, i wouldn't know.

okay that is all. really full of random thoughts.

exams

2008-04-24T19:18:00.002+08:00

i have just got time to carve a few words.

well i haven't been going on msn lately, and furthermore my pc finally succumbed to the confounded virus that has slowly ravaged my computer slowly for the past few months. so now it's being repaired. funny how it always breaks down during the most of critical of moments. it is a sign!

other than that life has been take up by the madness caused by last minute preparations for the exams. after that there is no break at all. off to find a job, off to perak for some camp, off to a camp in school, off for training, off for competition. haha this must really be the busiest of holidays ever. oh well. at least i have no major complains against anything. other than the fact that even if i come to the central library at 10am the most strategic of tables have already been taken, and that my mom is always always talking about marriage and life partners stuff more frequently nowadays. haha. it's damned ridiculous.

okay other than that that's all i guess. all the best for all your exams then.

kusumawangi

2008-04-16T23:21:00.002+08:00

i'm now down with fever, with a stomach that's feeling really weird. been lying on the bed the whole day and i feel very weak. more on that later.

(watch no football, skip next paragraph.)

okay so arsenal is effectively out of the title race. and manchester united is going to win the title. arsenal's early season defensive strength is now no more than just a myth. well i think i'll look forward to next season then. haha that's all.

last sunday there was a malay production in school called kusumawangi. we went down to catch the play - and it was quite good actually. i thought the whole thing was superb. maybe the tickets were abit pricey, but well it's a one-off thing anyway. but well done to all those involved in the play. for such a long play and within the time constraint they had balancing studies and all, i thought they did a fantastic job. haha. after the play we all camwhored till we were the last ones to still be there actually. i haven't uploaded since i aws busy, and now that i'm sick i can't be bothered too.

monday came and i hear stories. both happy and sad. i'm really happy for some of my friends whose lives have taken a turn for the better. i feel mine has too. so we are all very happy together. hearing such stories and accounts and seeing smiles on the faces of my friends makes me feel happy for them too. although i do hear sad stories. well i feel for you all, my friends. i do hope things would turn out for the better for all of you. God-willing, it will. so don't worry.

then suddenly yesterday i was down with fever all of a sudden. we went to burger king to have dinner, then while i was in there i felt very cold for some reason. then when i went back to the library i realised that i was going to fall sick. the library was terribly cold, even though i had my jumper on. thn i kept yawning away, and my eyes were so watery. i had trouble concentrating on my readings, and by the time nighttime came i knew i had fever.

i was lucky syikin's dad gave me a ride home, because when i got home i totally caved in to the fever. haha. i was really wondering how could i have 'survive' the train ride home when i was down with fever. the thing about me is, i hardly get fever. there have been instances whereby like i could go on for 2-3 years without falling sick, so when i do fall sick, i really really fall sick. so now i feel that the fever has sapped my strength away. yesterday my body was really burning, maybe i could have fried an egg on my forehead. today the fever subsided, but i felt really weak and lethargic. i laid on the bed the whole day yet i can't really fall asleep. and my stomach feel really weird. it's feels like the stomach isn't digesting any of the food i've consumed, since it feels very watery. haha. luckily i have no school just now and tomorrow. hopefully by friday i shall be back to 100%. it's such a waste that i didn't study today because i just couldn't, and tomorrow seems like another wasted day recuperating.

oh well. i pray i get well soon.

dear you,
thank you very much for everything. i appreciate it all. :)

she brings me brighter days.

captain

2008-04-10T00:14:00.003+08:00

this week is a week full of all types of emotions.

(skip the next 3 paragraphs if you don't follow football.)

yesterday for the first time in probably eons i caught a champions league match live. it kicked off at 230am, which was an hour earlier than normal, and i started school at 4pm today anyway so i could tune in. well i caught liverpool-arsenal, and to be honest - i think it was really arsenal being luckless. i thought we had hope after walcott went on that crazy mazy run that stretched almost 3/4 length of the pitch and squared the ball for adebayor to score. but a freaking dubious penalty (it was really 50-50, any other referee might not have given it) spoilt it all. then the babel counter-attacked which resulted in a goal really made it seem as if arsenal was really that horrible. i hate the way arsenal lost last night. i was up and about prancing around in my room, just shouting at myself in frustration at 4+ am in the morning. haha i haven't been so frustrated and so emotional watching football for a very long time. even the arsenal defeat to barcelona in the champions league final 2 years ago i could stomach. but to lose in such a stupid manner - i really went to bed feeling frustrated and dejected.

anyway if you watched arsenal play yesterday, i really think there's something wrong with the team. i really don't like some of their players. i don't think diaby is good. i've never really thought much of eboue. gallas is really not the leader arsenal needs right now, and his hairstyle is really ugly. clichy is not really the player he used to be. especially after that loss of concentration against birmingham he really looks out of depth. senderos was found wanting when hyypia scored yesterday, and i don't rate him much. bendtner sucks big time, and even more so after blocking fabregas' shot in the first leg against liverpool. for all of the stick adebayor got, i think at least now he's maturing. for god's sake wenger - please buy more experienced players, who will fit in the team. names like menez, schweinsteiger and diego have been tossed up. please dip into your pockets and buy like 1 or 2 of these players. the club looks out of depth and even if arsenal spends prudently or frugally or whatever, seriously abit of splurging wouldn't hurt. i find it amazing arsenal's record signing is still sylvian wiltord at 13million pounds. compare it with 26million for torres, 30million for shevchenko and 20+ million for rooney and veron.(remember him?)

anyway nothing much from last weekend's goals - just that go and catch the highlights of the palermo-juventus game. the goals that palermo scored are just superb. they beat juve 3-2 anyway. watch out for the last goal. it's really a good goal. other than that that's all. apparently arsenal and manchester united square off this weekend at old trafford. we can win, but the way i see some of the youngsters who play - i can't help feeling disturbed.

i'm a tad disappointed i got B for my marcos and suharto essay. i was hoping mayb a B+ would be good, but it's always the same thing - i'm too long-winded and wordy. haha i know that very well. i speak in circles and i'm vague. that's how i am with my mom and with my friends, when i blog, and also in essays. haha. okay well at least the essays and assignments deadlines are over! finally i can revise properly for the exams!

other than that this week has been fine. i just need to get the groove going for revision. and catching up on sleep. and making the most of new responsibilities that suddenly i seem to have to undertake. i feel i'm happier and more cheerful nowadays. i hope that will last as long as God wills it. i pray that things will go find and turn out okay, because i really want everything to work out well for me. i pray i will have the strength, the drive, the will and the mental capactiy to go through it all.

okay, so now for project manchuria.

religion

2008-04-04T23:51:00.002+08:00

okay i'm left with one more freaking essay for the whole of this semester, and finally after that i can sort out the mess that is my studies, and then start preparations for the exams. like finally. i haven't read any readings ever since school restarted after the mid-term break, and that was like more than a month ago. that is really horrible, and after monday after i finish this japanese empire essay only than i can sort out all the mess.

(skip the next paragraph if you don't follow football.)

it's been ages since i last caught a champions league match. i think the last one was when i caught the arsenal-barcelona match way back in may 2006 in camp. if by any chance any of you caught, well good for you. i've watched the highlights for all 4 matches, and i can tell u this - bendtner is an idiot. what kind of blocks your own player shot right in front of goal? fabregas' shot was already heading into the goal for sure, and suddenly bendtner just blocks it with his feet and instead of try to backheel it in he sort of fumbles and the chances goes begging. a complete oaf. what's so hard about just widening your legs and let the ball pass through? even if he was in an offside position, i would think he wasn't interfering with play. in any case arsenal gave themselves a hard task to accomplish, then again we've beaten liverpool 6-3 before. we beat milan 2-0 at the san siro like last month? and a few years ago we whacked inter milan 5-1 away. so yes we can still be optimisitic. although i agree with some people - i think wenger is jsut too cautious in the market! come on, buy diego or something!

anyway recently i've read abit about the furore against the fitna video produced by this dutch politician condemning islam as a religion that advocates violence. then yesterday i read a newsweek article, which summed up certain events that aimed at provoking anger at muslims. like the comments the pope made last year by quoting some emperor which was offensive to muslims. and then this. and then the article mentioned about some egyptian journalist who had his baptism publicly advertised. and iapparently the journalist grew up hating islam and his articles basically reflect his thoughts on islam as not being the religion that promotes peace. and remember the danish newspaper that published cartoons really making fun of the dearest prophet.

i think all this is rather sad. if islam really promotes violence, how can it then grow to a religion so widely accepted that 1 out of every 5 earthlings is a muslim? via forced compulsion? there's no such thing as compulsion in religion. i'm sure violence is not a factor in attracting people to embrace islam, or even any religion for that matter. i think people are just trying to distort it for some funny reason or another. the other day the muslim society had a quran display session at the library. apparently some christian (or catholic, i'm not sure) guy attacked fairus verbally claiming that he saw the fitna flim and really made his feelings clear about islam being a religion of violence. i think a lot of people lack tact, making baseless accusations. i think if we are all out just criticise other people's religions then forget about religious harmony and all that stuffs. for all of the craziness of my friends we won't like criticise other people's beliefs straight in their face.

like what's the problem with all this people?from the dutch politician to the christian guy that confronted fairus - seriously, what kind of religion preaches violence? if you ask me, i think all religions preach good and peace. i mean, that's like the basic principles of religions i feel. i'm no theologist, neither am i so well versed in my own religion, but 1 thing is for sure - i think all this open criticisms have got to stop altogether. baseless accusations, fuelled by quickfire ways just to get cheap publicity is just not going to win favours from anyone. it is not going to rid the earth of all the problems. it's a clear fact islam does not promote violence, and those who do are firstly abit perverted in their thoughts, and really, they just happen to be muslims in some cases. it's the same case when the americans failed to realise that the vietcong and the vietminh were really fighting for a nationalist cause. but all they knew was this was part of a global communist conspiracy. it's all the same. double standards everywhere, and failure to grasp local realities are always going to get people in a dirty mess.

okay that's all. i jsut felt like blogging about this tonight out of a sudden.

fish

2008-03-31T23:05:00.002+08:00

finally the workload has somewhat been relieved after all those deadlines have been met. so i'm now left with two more essays to do, so it's really not too bad.

(skip the next 2 paragraphs if you don't follow football.)

well well, the commentator said it was the 'comeback of all comebacks this season'. well it could be. i watched the highlights for the bolton-arsenal match, and yes it really took quite abit of spirit to mount such a comeback. being 2-0 down and a man down (diaby was really naive in his tackle), to eventually score 3 goals and win the match really took some nerve. and of course a huge slice of luck with the last goal. and even chelsea had lady luck smiling on them. go and watch the highlights. middlesbrough could really have won the game, and the crossbar came to chelsea's rescue thrice! well as fate would have it arsenal still trail the leaders by 6 points. at least with such a win, it should probably give them a kick in the back and push them on to the trilogy against liverpool this coming week and the next. did you see ronaldo's goal against villa? pure cheekyness i say.

oh and newcastle can actually trash spurs 4-1 away. wow. that really is a morale-boosting result. it should do wonders. in other leagues a few minor surprises, like how barcelone eventually lost a match 3-2 when they were leading 2-0 initially. so now real leads the table again by 7 points. lucky them. and ac milan lost at home, and from the highlights i could really see that their defence was really all over the place. anyway milan is really an ageing team, so it would not really surprise me that they are really a shadow of their past self. and i just realised this - i have alot of female friends that follow football. haha. i know syamim supports arsenal like i do! then for liverpool, there's like nani(i think), zuhara and nazeera. oh farah nat supports the read devils (damn them!) and well, even chelsea has a supporter. haha and the odd one out has to be nadia, who supports of all teams, juventus. ah vel supports ac milan! that i remember.

on another note in the kitchen we have a soap dispenser above the sink that is spoilt. so my dad actually filled it with water and bought 5 fishes last weekend to make use of that spoilt dispenser. haha. so we had 5 anchovy-like fishes initially, that didn't live long. by the 3rd day the last 1 died, and he bought 2 more fishes, this time slightly bigger. and by saturday night both had already died. well so now theres a new fish, and i hope it's more of a fighter than the previous ones. it's quite sad really when even a small fish just dies and i have to scoop it out and just chuck it in the bin. i hope this one lasts for long. its gold in colour, and i would think it is really bored swimming around in such a small container, suspended in mid-air at that. haha.

and in case you didn't know i got a crew cut last thursday. haha i get everyone asking me why? why? haha. well, i think its really decent. just needs a little getting used to. i think it's quite fine so to those who can't stand it, wait another 2 months okay? haha there are those who says the haircut looks fine, and of course with the normal hair it is better. that goes without saying. but sometimes change is good. haha. if i could look as good as the black people who really look damn nice with a crew cut, i would really just maintain that sort of hairstyle. it's such a waste that i'm not. haha.

ah exams are round the corner, a month away but because of all the deadlines that i have to meet i haven't done any readings for a month really. i should do something about it really soon. this semester is really heavier than the last one. and i have this feeling next semester is going to be pretty dreary and draggy.

to sign off, i'm much happier nowadays! and i can't wait! haha.

marcos

2008-03-24T23:47:00.004+08:00

no school for the past for days officially, but i was in school for 3 days though.

(don't read the next paragraph if you don't follow football.)

okay so now arsenal is 3rd. right. we haven't won in the league in 5 attempts, and that is certainly not championship form. i thought they could hold out for a 1-0 win at stamford bridge, but my heart sank when drogba managed to get the winner. it didn't help that mascherano was surprisingly sent off some some unknown reason for liverpool. so how now? from having a 5 point lead at 1 stage, now we are 3rd, freaking 6 points behind manchester united. even real madrid has a 4 point gap over barcelona, even though they are on a wretched run of form lately. speaking of which, yesterday i caught the real madrid-valencia match. well, real couldn't really take advantage of alot of chances. they could have won the game actually, but valencia took advantage of the lesser chances they had. quite end to end stuffs at times, so it was not quite a bad game. even juventus beat inter milan at the san siro. that is really something i guess, since i don't really rate juventus that much. haha. in any case, well, arsenal have trailed the league leaders before and then put on a run of consecutive wins and the went on to win the title. i think they just need more self-belief, more than anything else. oh well. i hope for the best.

(skip the next paragraph if you don't follow politics stuffs.)

i am reading up for my essay for 1 of my modules, and it involves the fall of suharto and ferdinand marcos. it's quite interesting really. for suharto, what really triggered it was the role that university students played in rioting and campaigning for suharto's resignation. actually it happens/have happened everywhere in post-colonial southeast asia like in malaysia, thailand, philippines etc. of course i don't think such student activism will ever happen in singapore. most probably due to ambivalence i think. in any case i find it interesting that it was the role of the students that actually gave the oppositional forces the momentum. for marcos, the more famous people power who protected the rebel armed forces that advocated marcos' resignation was the spark. then 1 by 1 various units of the armed forces eventually defected to the rebel camp, and in effect 90% of the armed forces was under fidel ramos' command by the time marcos fled the philippines. it's all quite interesting when i read it. it makes me think that politics in southeast asia is really unique and very interesting, and seems different from politics elsewhere. well i haven't started on my essay anyway, and it's due on friday. so i should work on that actually. haha.

on saturday evening i met my primary school friends for a get together. it was quite fun. i think only noriza and faizal couldn't make it. yup. in total there were 7 of us, and the photos are up on facebook. it's always nice to get together sometimes. as for me, i see my secondary school and junior college friends almost everyday in school. but to meet up with those buddies whom i've known like for almost 15 years - i think it's quite an amazing experience. i realise that some things really never change in some of us, like the way we talk or look or our attitudes or perceptions of each other. it is always nice reminiscing since i like to hark back on the past anyway. i think next time we meet is to break fast together. i shall look forward to that.

yesterday on my way to school there was this really weird guy around. he kept talking to himself, but it's not the monologue kind. it's as if he's reciting lines from some drama as if he's an actor trying to practise his lines. he spoke mandarin of the china national type of accent, so the tone of it is even more remarkable. i kept thinking either he's reciting excerpts from mao's little red book, or he's part of some chinese opera troupe. the way he kept saying those lines and phrases had a certain tone to it. in any case when the light turned green, he just ran across the raod in a funny sort of way, and then he just walked around in circles on the other side of the road, waiting for something like that. but the next thing i know he was also queueing up for 96, so what was he doing waiting around the side of the road outside of the interchange anyway? something really wrong with the guy really. anyway yesterday i just thought of something - how come weird people are always guys? i don't recall ever seeing women who are weird like this. i really wonder why.

so this really adds on to the lsit of weirdos i've seen recently. oh tomorrow is the lecture where me and fairus will just look at that weird that guy who's always mumbling to himself loudly in front of the lecture. another cycle of weirdos-watch begins again tomorrow then. haha.

confusion

2008-03-21T02:46:00.002+08:00

just a quick one.

recently alot of thinking has been done, and i think i've achieved enlightenment.

finally on the way home just now it struck me out of nowhere. so i believe i have received the sign(s).

i believe it is so. if that is so, then i shall follow my heart and my instinct and let them lead the way.

thank you God for guiding me.

history essay

2008-03-18T23:25:00.002+08:00

my brain is really drained from the exertion caused by the craziest essay i've done.

and there's still many more deadlines to meet, so i hope i can recover from this lethargy and from being mentally drained too.

(skip the next paragdraph if you don't follow football.)

nothing much to say actually. arsenal again came back from behind to draw, this time against middlesbrough. it's really becoming a very bad habit. well because of the taxing nature of the essay i haven't really been able to follow football over the weekend. my only worry is well, when are we going to start winning again? this is seriously the best time to put together a few wins and win the title at the end. oh well i hope things will pick up.

last sunday we went to megacarnival at taman warisan at bugis. it was okay, and we just amused ourselves by making a video. a surprise video too. but yea, i spent quite abit of time there. in any case, for all their limitations they did quite a decent job, but definitely for the next group of organisers, we all certainly would expect much more.

okay today i think i shall blog about very random things.

like today i went to the ntuc fairprice, and i'm really amazed at how much the prices of chocolates have risen. it's really risen by alot. $1 could get you a candybar chocolate a few years back, now it can't even buy 1/2 of milobar. it's really ridiculous. even kit kat is nearing $1 already. everything has risen significantly, from boost to hersheys and many others. i suppose it's really due to rising oil prices. the only thing not to have risen ever since i was still a young teen (i still am,deep inside) is toblerone. i'm surprised it hasn't risen, and naturally i purchased it just now. i suppose the swiss are so netural in world affairs that they don't even bother to let themselves get affected by the global rising oil prices.

yesterday on my way home in the train this guy sat beside me (i suppose i shall not mention his race) and just blasted the music from his handphone. how annoying can one get? i'm already so drained from 4 hours of non-stop staring at the computer monitor in school earlier, and this kinda people have to sit beside me? and he was actually grooving to the music. like trying out stupid hand movements and looking into his reflection in the window at the opposite side. this is the ultimate 'shiok sendiri' for goodness sake. i was thinking 'oh no the bugger's going to annoy me all the way till i reach my station!'. well, it turns out the handphone was his friend's, and i think he got annoyed by him because i think he feared his battery would run low if the guy kept blasting music continuously. anyway thank god he took back his handphone, because the other commuters were visibly pissed already. and the music was horrible for goodness sake.

today me and fairus kept laughing in lecture at this freaky and weirdo of a guy. he's really weird. he wears thick black socks and SAF sandals. wow. and he'll just mumble to himself loudly during the lectures (so loud that we could hear him all the way back at the last row in a big lecture theatre), and i seriously wonder what the lecturers think of him since he sits at the front. his mannerisms are really weird. i really wonder why some people are like that. is there an argument for him really being born like that? or is it the environment at home or in school that shapes him to be like that? i really wonder. in secondary school we had this guy in class, who was really weird. the name's terrence. ask any of my upper secondary school classmates, and they'll tell you all. he's really weird. he loves garfield so much he has a garfield pencil case and bag too i think. then, now and then he will just whip out his wallet and kiss garfield's photo that he keeps inside. they guy had green algae or mould or even toadstools growing on his nose. he was really very unhygienic. i'm serious. and he'll memorise like all the malay people's dad's name so that he could make fun of it if we bullied him. of course in a class like ours, naturally we would all bully him anyway. but well, apparently he's semi-retarded, according to our teacher. so i suppose that might explain his behaviour and character. the teacher did warn us about him. but well, we still bullied him anyway. haha. okay we were bad i know.

oh well, life would be mundane without such characters who don't fall into the lines of the common discourse.

on another note, i'm officially still confused!

okay that's all. presentations and interviews and essays coming up.

confused

2008-03-12T00:08:00.002+08:00

it has been a crazy past week.

with all the tests and assignments and essays due, it's really madness.

and i'm not the buziest of all the peoples. there are like so many of the others out there who have had 1 hell of a week, and are going to have a hell of a week and hellish days for the weeks to come. i'm feeling strained too because of assignments that are piling up, which for most i don't really have any idea on how to start on them.

i'm feeling rather lethargic nowadays due to lack of regular sleep, and neither do i have any mood to do work anyway. then again i don't have the mood to do alot of things to either. the general slump is really worrying but i can't be bothered to arrest it. haha.

(skip the next paragraph if you don't follow football.)

okay so here's the thing - how can any team beat milan 2-0 at the san siro, but only manage to secure a 0-0 draw against wigan? it's mind-boggling but it happened. it makes me frustrated as a fan of arsenal, but football is like that. and i missed all the champions league matches despite wanting to watch them in the first place. i just couldn't imagine only turning in at 6am after watching all the matches, and that would mean being zombie-ish in the school the following morning. so basically my only diet of football would be select la liga and serie a matches, largely thanks to the antenna's ability to tap into indonesian channel networks. but la liga isn't that boring too actually. valencia actually plays good football, and it's the kind that's quite pleasing to watch. ever banega is really good in real life. too bad they took a 2-0 lead, only to be pegged back to 2-2 by halftime. anyway inter is quite on a roll in serie a, but seriously their defence is quite weak i think. a team like reggina could actually test the inter defence with shots that with abit more luck, could have just turned into goals. it's no wonder inter couldn't hold up against liverpool. i think inter will still be knocked out anyway, since i think pool have the capacity to beat inter even at the san siro.

(skip the next paragraph if you don't follow politics, especially malaysian politics.)

well well, so bn got trounced at the polls. i can't help thinking that abdullah called for the polls too early. but i think it's because he wants to console by trying to gain legitimacy for his rule in the aftermath of problems plauging the government. and if he held the elections any later, anwar would have qualified to take part in the elections too anyway. but then again i still feel he called for elections too early. and bn paid the price for it. they lost 4 states (that's really alot mind you) to the opposition. so now it would really be interesting to see how the whole thing pans out. the thing about malaysia is, its among the more democratic countries in southeast asia. democratic in the sense that at least results in the polls are not overturned by a declaration of martial law or complete disregard to the election results (think philippines and burma/myanmar). what makes it more interesting is that this election results is part of 1 of the modules that i'm taking - government and politics of southeast asia. as in the results will affect the syllabus of the module with regards to malaysian politics. but it is interesting to see if bn, or more specifically umno, can regenerate or reinvent itself and then regain back lost ground in the next elections.

anyway i think enough of the melancholic series. haha. i can say now i'm not that sad anymore. but it's changed to confusion. okay now i'm really really confused about a few things. a lot of matters have suddenly surfaced, and old facts and knowledge have suddenly been give new twists to them. this whole confusion thing is really driving my brain nuts. sadness is the disease of the heart, confusion seems to be the disease of the mind. i get weighed down by all the considerations and decisions i have to make with myself. i need to do alot of soul-searching, and self-reflection. i need a guiding light, i need a moment of truth, and i need the peace of mind.

but most importantly - i need a sign. God help me.

melancholy

2008-03-03T16:40:00.002+08:00

http://megacarnival08.wordpress.com/ - visit this webbie people, and show your support!

it has been raining yesterday and today, and it makes me feel even more lethargic than i already am.

today the news writes about the israeli attacks into gaza. apparently it killed alot of civilians, children included. the other day i watched a documentary in class about the atrocities that the israeli army has done to palestinians in the past. i think it's sad. i don't know if i can comment much, but as a soldier one cannot kill civilians. the thing is, this isn't even war. yes, everyone has a right to protect their security within their own territories, but for me this is too much already. but the world can't do nuts about it, and everyone just goes about issuing statements of restrain and what not. something that i can even do on my simple blog. well i won't say much about this anyway, but like many world leaders all the world i shal just 'condemn' these 'acts of violence' and urge 'restraint' from both parties and urge the renewal of 'peace talks'.

and let's not even start on mas selamat kastari. i suppose he appears everywhere on buses, train stations, even in RCs and CCs in the form of posters, but yeah, he still eludes the authorities.

(skip the next 2 paragraphs if you don't follow football.)

well, arsenal gave me a near heart attack by only equalising against villa in the dying seconds. it's quite worrying to see arsenal's attacking options being very limited in the absence of eduardo and van persie. i can't remember the last time adebayor has scored for arsenal, and that slump is worrying. well at least the did really put in effort in coming forward but villa really made it hard. if playing badly and still being able to gain a point is the hallmark of a champion, then i hope this yer would be it! seriously, at least now it's already march, and arsenal is leading the pack.

oh and if you all did read on what i wrote on sissoko last week - well guess what, over the weekend he did yet another overhead kick. but this time at least it lead to juventus' opening goal. it was frey's fault as he only managed to weakly punch the ball out to sissoko, and he acrobatically executed an overhead goal into the net. well done for him, but eventually juventus still lost 3-2 at home to fiorentina. in any case, i watched abit of that match and sissoko's passing is still as wayward as ever. haha. other than that this weekend's football diet hasn't served up as much controversy as last week did i guess. so next up is the midweek champions league ties, and i should like to want to watch them games, since i missed them 2 weeks ago.

on saturday evening we had a silat performance all the way in hougang and it turned out okay. no major injuries, except for me bumping into zul when i was being thrown on the mat. i caused redness around his left eye, and a small graze below his left eye. other than that the performance was okay. even thought there were mats but the whole matted was quite small. there was not much room for manouvre so we had to improvise with things a little bit.

yesterday night i also caught a silat performance with fadhli at ucc. but this time round it was a combined effort with nus ilsa tari. overall the event was okay. the dance was quite good, althought the silat performances was a tad disappointing. saw a few perguruans on display but there wasn't much excitement in any case. both me and fadhli agreed that well, at least we didn't have to pay to enter and watch. haha.

(the next few paragraphs will form part of the melancholic series that i've somewhat started from the previous entry. so err actually it's best if you avoid this part. and don't say i didn't warn you.)

so how do i start this.

let's just say life has been becoming sadder than it already is. if i want to be frank, yesterday was probably among the saddest days in my entire life. yesterday i woke up feeling horrible, and i made my way to school to study. i had to force myself to get out of home so that sunday wouldn't be wasted at home. overall yesterday, studies-wise it was a very productive day. i managed to complete reading a political science textbook. so all is okay.

but yeah, i cannot hide the fact that deep inside i'm somewhat devastated. crushed, like the collapsed crane incident at nus the other day. for almost the whole of yesterday, whenever i'm alone, i just felt like breaking down there and then. when i studied, sometimes i felt distracted by thoughts and all. i will just stare blankly into space and think.

yesterday i received good news too. well done my friend. at least i can say congratulations to you, and may things turn out how you hope it would. if i might add, this was what i was hoping that would happen for you. although it is not exactly how i fathomed it would turn out, well at least you are happy with it.

and i hoped that it would happen to me too. it would seem almost perfect. i have my own dreams and visions. alas, i don't think they will ever be realised. your good news made me happy for you, yet even sadder for myself. when i look at things from even bigger perspective, it magnifies the devastation even further. but do not put blame on yourself. it does not take away the fact how elated i am for what has happened to you, so i am grateful. do not worry about me.

the book i was reading yesterday was on negotiations and diplomacy. if only feelings could be negotiated. if only we could bargain for feelings. but people are not states. and neither does feelings involve professionalism and formality.

i cannot hide my extreme disappointment because of my sense of attachment and fondness. when put in perspective, it is different from how it was in the past and how it is now. am i the victim of choice or circumstances? i wonder. it is sad that like i said the last time round - i am not most eligible, neither am i the scum of the earth. then what is it? as oxymoronic as it sounds, there is always constant change. people change, and so do their values, ethics, character, personality, thoughts, ideas, beliefs and many more. do i want to? if i am given chance i will see to it and see if it is okay.

in any case, i just have one thing to say - i'll see where the heart takes me. if it turns numb or is open or whatever, i will just go. i know God's miracles works in the strangest ways, and i believe in Him. all i need is a sign. a guiding light. this slumber will not last, so do not fear or worry for me. the only person that one can ever ask for help from is himself. hope is everywhere, it is just that i haven't had the belief to hope yet. it will take time.

still at the crossroads though, don't know whether to go straight, turn left, turn right, or make a u-turn.

1 week break

2008-02-28T23:28:00.002+08:00

it has been a very eventful past few days, and i forsee a lengthy entry ahead.

and visit this website please people! http://megacarnival08.wordpress.com/

(those who don't tune in to football, two things - firstly, skip the next 4 paragraphs for obvious reasons, and secondly, for the love of God, do tune in! you're really missing out alot!)

been wanting to blog about the football matches on the past weekend. since it has really been a very interesting one for me. for starters, i think everyone would have read about eduardo's horrific injury. i saw the video on it and the tackle was quite horrible. eduardo suffered a fractured leg and a dislocated ankle, and most probably we won't see him in action till next year. which is real sad, because firstly he's from arsenal (like damn it!), and secondly, he's really a skillful player. martin taylor should be banned further! it was a tackle was really uncalled for.

if anyone tunes in to la liga or the serie a, what i'm going to talk about next might interest you. especially those who caught the real madrid-getafe match and the reggina-juventus match. for the first match, real lost 1-0 to controversial circumstances. real was having an off day and when they finally scored the opener, around 6-7 real players celebrated at the opposing corner flag. but the goal was ruled offside, and getafe quickly took the freekick. they counter-attacked and it was 4 against 2, and eventually getafe scored from that counter-attack. real could never muster a goal from the match, and lost in front of their home fans. i find it all so funny. for the 2nd match, juventus managed to grab the equaliser after going down 1-0. then reggina attacked, and a cross was sent in from the right. sissoko (yes he's at juventus now) attempted to clear the ball. but the manner in which he did it was really outrageous. he attempted and improvised overhead or bicycle kick to clear the ball, and at such a height, he was obviously going to miss it (which he did, anyway). in any case he caught the back of a reggina player and the referee blew for a penalty. a little more and the swipe of sissoko's boot would really have caught the player's head or face. juventus lost 2-1 because of sissoko's folly.

well, what can i say? it sissoko. if anyone ever saw him play you'll know how horrible he is. what kind of player would attempt an overhead/bicycle kick in your own penalty area to deal with a cross? it's not like hes short or anything, hes 1.93m tall for goodness sake. and for attempting such a clearance he could have just injured the opponent in the face or something, which is quite serious. but then again sissoko doesn't play with his brains. i seriously wonder, that how come for someone his age (he's only 23) and for the player that he is, he has already played for 3 big clubs - valencia, liverpool, and now juventus. only God knows how.

then again the past weekend i watched a few matches in la liga and serie a. and alot of players area really really good. you wonder how they have the temperament to pull of skills and tricks in high-tempo and high-intensity matches. joaquin of valencia is really good, and so is silva. zigic is just a freak at such height ( he's 2.02M tall) but he seems lousy. amauri of palermo is very good also, and no wonder clubs want him. there is much hype about milan's oddo's high quality crossing abilities, and from what i saw it isn't just hype. it seems true. and well, i don't think i have to say much about players like eto'o, messi, xavi. i used to admire xavi alot, because he seems to be able to do everything very well - dribble, pass, tackle, head, shoot, score. the epitome of the central midfielder is really xavi.

okay enough about soccer. last saturday's bbq at east coast was a blast. haha when it's out with people from bp, expect non-stop laughter and nonsense. and last saturday was no different. it was nice to see alot of people i hardly see around, and to spend a saturday night with old friends is always nice. sunday was spent at golden mile complex (don't ask me why okay haha).

tuesday was spent karaoke-ing with friends. haha. i'm not really into karaoke-ing, but i've done it a few times before. having said that, everyone knows for a fact i cannot sing. but in any case it was a great session with hanan, haekal, fahmi, fadhli, zuraimi and iza. but the sad thing is partyworld will close down in 2 days' time. it's so sad. and k-box is so expensive. looks like we can't really karaoke in clementi anymore then. this week is the 1 week break from school, but i haven't really been able to hit the books yet. the things is the readings are such a chore. even things like history (supposed to be among my favourite subjects), i dread reading. especially of asian history, and even more when it comes to early history. you know, those 2000BC kinda history which involves archeological digs and all to find pieces of pottery and fossils. that kind of history is so primitive and very backward, and i don't like it. i much prefer modern history.

okay i want to talk deep also. i just feel like doing so.

i want to talk of the matters of the heart. my heart. firstly the area around my heart hurts, because yesterday i accidentally got kicked there in training. but that's physical. to talk of the figurative heart, it is a tricky topic. me and na'im have talked abit recently, and i realise that with regards to matters of the heart, our positions don't differ much. we are facing problems and issues. i am facing issues head on, and i have no idea what to do.

i think it is sad. i am not the most eligible person around, but neither am i the scum of the earth. same goes for na'im. i wish things were never this way. i wonder what else do i have to do. i wonder why things turn out this way. and i wonder why it doesn't turn out this way for other people. i wonder why it cannot turn out like other people. things get complicated as one grows older, and this goes the same for the personal matters of the heart.

the interesting issue when it comes to this stage of life is this - do we bear in mind issues of marriage too when we like someone? is that an important criteria in liking someone? do we have to imagine the rest of our lives together, and feel whether there is a future for both of us? do we picture building a home and future, with kids running around? it is a very interesting thought. and a passing thought too.

in any case, i'll be frank and say i'm really at the crossroads now, still choosing which way to go - to go straight, turn left or right, or make a u-turn. i also don't know what is there to hope for, and whether do i need to hope for anything anymore. i wonder what is the next step that na'im will take, and everyone also wonders what i'm going to do next. i can tell you i'm as clueless as you all are. the good thing about life is it isn't all about personal stuffs only.

okay that's all for today. i think that's enough melancholy for today.

lethargic

2008-02-23T13:52:00.002+08:00

i have just passed the most tiring week so far in school. ever.

what a relief. school has been really weighing me down, mainly because of the history essay that i had to complete. basically it's a take home mid-term test essay, 1500 words complete full with citations and references. the questions were released on tuesday, and were expected to be handed in before 5pm on friday. it was crazy.

i only started to read sme of the readings only on tuesday. and by wednesday i still hadn't started, despite giving training a miss. i only started on the essay properly at 3pm on thursday, with just under 26 hours to go. the last time i did such a thing was with na'im. with just 36 hours to go, we just went for the jugular. and for a paper that was started upon with only 36 hours to go (3000 words mind you!), the grade that we got was not too bad at all. well i managed to complete it anyway by 2am+ on friday morning. considering i really didn't know how to tackle the question at the beginning, i think it's still not too bad. for more criticisms about the troubles of doing this essay, do visit fairus' and gad's blog. haha. and the thing is, there is going to be another term essay for this module of the same length. it means we will have to do 2 essays in the end. it doesn't help every module has a term essay to do.

and the hardest among them, is the exposure history modules. of all the modules! the questions are really hard, even harder than this paper that i just completed. it's crazy. and considering next week is the term break, and i also haeve quite abit of non-studies activities excitingly lined up already, it's really going to weigh me down.

so that's why i've been lethargic this past week. not enough sleep+history exposure module test on tues+history term paper due on friday+talk on judgement day on tuesday+classes+readings+hokkien class on thursday and friday. and this is without any silat trainings or gym sessions. haha. finally a break from all this! but after school starts again, back to the hectic schedules!

oh and about the hokkien class. crazy me signed up for the hokkien conversational class. so did izarina, fahmi, fadhli and nadia. it was fun. the only hokkien that i know is probably a range of vulgarities, and some funny terms that jj and fab always like to use and i learn from hearing them speak. haha. but i think i know abit more from now. it's quite interesting to note how vulgar hokkien sounds, even if what is being said isn't. it is also interesting to note how beautiful arabic also sounds, yet sometimes when you hear the translation it isn't something pleasant. haha.

in any case we were quite enthusiastic in learning i guess. haha. even if we are never going to really converse in hokkien daily, it's quite interesting to learn abit. maybe i can ask jj and fab to teach me even more. i would like to go for more hokkien classes! haha. but the teacher was kind. in any case, he can speak english mandarin hokkien cantonese teochew hainanese japanese and basic malay. that's really quite impressive. one fine day i should pick up a proper 3rd language. it's a shame i could never really master arabic. in any case i won't take a 3rd language in school anyway. okay so now i can count from 1 to 99 in hokkien i guess. haha. can't remember what 100 in hokkien is though. well at least among the 5 of us, we can spew all sorts of nonsense to each other if we meet up next time. haha.

so later on i have a bp bbq at east coast park, which i'm going with fairus and hanan. tomorrow is a trip down to golden mile centre with some of the rest, probably i'm playing the role of a tour guide and middleman. haha. then tuesday is the karaoke session, then wednesday/thursday is the cycling session at east coast park. thn saturday there is the silat performance at hougang. i wonder how come i have so many things on, considering the lack of social life i enjoy. haha. in any case it is always a much-needed welcome break from studies.

okay la that's about it now. wa ai ki jiak peng liao. buay tahan leh.

slack

2008-02-17T14:30:00.002+08:00

and overdue entry, but not as overdue as na'im's. haha.

last tuesday i went for my run again, and this time round i made it further - to the huge playground at west coast park, where the mccafe is situated at. i think in total i ran around 3+ kilometres? maybe closer to 4km. but i didn't feel as tired as i was the previous week. maybe my pace was more relaxed, and in any case running in a park is much more relaxing than running along the roads and haveing to brave the fumes for those huge ass container trucks that always zoom by to the port. it was quite a nice feeling to reach the playground, at the time when the sun was about to set. after heading back to school i popped by for the muslim youth intelligentsia series. well, alot of questions were posed but hardly any answers were given. in any case it was alot of poeple just trying to impress each other with what they know (me included) and no more than that. well in any case i had no interest in the topic whatsoever. the next one, where the theme will be the synonimity between being malay and muslim, sounds interesting. next week's talk on the science of the end of the world sounds rather interesting. i think i'll have to skip my runs then for this tuesday.

after training on wednesday me and na'im had the sepupu (cousin) challenge. i challenged him on how fast we could et our roti prata. i had 2 eggs and 2 plain, he had 1 egg and 1 plain. and by the time i was done with mine he had only eaten his egg prata. haha. anyway when it comes to something i like to eat i suppose i will eat it fast. haha no such thing as enjoying the food slowly for me. unless you throw me something that i loathe (spaghetti, for instance) then i will probably take my time over it.

yesterday we pulled off the 100 people mob gag on amirah and it was fun! but damn it i was so caught up with it i didn't capture the thing on video, even thought i was holding the digicam. damn it! i feel so guilty, because only i saw the whole thing happening from the back! it was nice, but i wished everyone could have seen it for themselves. what happened was we were walking up the slop after training, and everyone was walking around amirah. then from the back i shouted bomb! and everyone else reacted by squatting down and tucking in their heads! haha. it was a pre-rehearsed move already, and amirah reacted likewise! it was funny because she just followed what we all did. it's just wasted that i couldn't get it on the camera damn it! anyway we got our inspiration from this youtube video, in case you haven't watched it - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj0Ma2CsHME.

yesterday i also went to my paternal grandparent's place. a mini-celebration of my cousin's birthday. in any case nowadays i like to listen to what my grandpa, my uncles and my dad talk about. it's very interesting to hear them talk about alot of things. yesterday was about fruits, johor, work accidents, certain history sites of singapore etc etc. very interesting stuff. and i've been asking around to find out how old their grandparents are as compared to mine. because the thing is my grandpa is 79 this year, and my grandma isn't that far behind. even the maternal step-grandma is well into her 70s too, and if my maternal grandpa was still alive today, he would be 79 too. well yes, my family is abit aged. usually by the age 80, alot of malay people would have great-grandchildren already but it won't happen anytime soon in my family just yet.

in any case it was interesting to hear the conversations. and my grandfather is certainly an adventurous kind. he likes to go around anywhere alone, and for his age he's still quite active! haha. he even knows the fish soup at the banquet in geylang is nicer than the one at vivocity. he's brave enough to take the public buses alone in and around the jb area (and i have been criticised for going to jb alone to shop!). he knows the processes of how a body is exhumed in singapore. and because he grew up in singapore in the 1930s, so he knows what singapore was like before world war II. like how areas like bishan, serangoon (the very plot of land on which my grandparents' flat is) were cemetaries. how areas like cambridge road (near farrer park) were full of fruit plantations and nurseries. and kolam ayer was a pig farm area! the area around cedar girls' school today was where the hindus used to cremate dead bodies in the open, and the smell of the kerosense would just waft around the whole area. and he used to work as a grass-cutter once! haha. seriously i've no idea what he worked as in his youth. as far as i know by the time i was born i think he had retired already by then.

he still does gardening as and when he can in johor i think. in any case he's one of those bigwigs among the boyanese pondok community i think. haha. because boyanese people used to live in pondoks around the farrer park area in the interwar years especially, so they were a really closely-knit community. my dad knows people from the pondoks too i guess, but as for me - well, let's just say this boyanese knows not a single boyanese word, much less know who's who in the community. in any case my grandfather sounds like someone great! haha. although one thing in common that me my dad and my grandpa has is that we like to go around places alone. haha. it seems my grandpa likes to 'merayap' around on his own. my dad does this too on a saturday, when he'll just take buses and get lost somewhere in and around singapore to sightsee. i do that myself when i go to places alone, to find out how this place looks like and what not. and the other thing in common is the temper. my grandpa and my dad has a horrible temper. so do i. haha. so yes, do not rub the wrong side of me. this is a warning. haha.

even my late maternal grandpa - i think he's something like a bigwig among his community. they have some nickname for him as a form of respect of that sort. all i know in his youth he was an avid biker - owning up to 6 bikes at a time! haha. and he played badminton regularly too. but he was the soft-spoken type, unlike my paternal grandpa. although i was also not sure what he worked as in his youth. oh yes i've mentioned this all before about my grandfathers on my blog. now i remember. i'm making it sound as if my grandpas were/are really great people in their own right. well, at least in my minds they are! haha.

well it's just that i find it amazing to find out how my grandpas were in their youth, and how they can still stay active even when they are in their twilight years. my only wish is that when i grow old like in my 60s and 70s, i still can fend for myself and still be able to think with a rational mind. when i hear of stories of people just not taking care of their parents in their twilight years, it makes me sad. i pray that i will not be among those who do so, and i don't want to be treated like that either. people who never fend for their parents in their twilight years incur the wrath of God, and that isn't nice at all. in any case, i always wish even in my 60s or 70s i can still go around singapore on my own, still be able to play badminton with my friends and still go out and do alot of stuffs. or even have the sane mind to read.

that was a very long and random entry. ok sorry people.

depressed

2008-02-08T23:35:00.000+08:00

warning: i think the entry will be quite long.

the week has been rather interesting. the other day on tuesday, i went for a run and when i reached back i was really gasping for air. that is how unfit i am. and i'm quite sure the maximum distance that i ran was around 2km plus. but i think that helped me the next day in training, since i felt fine after going through the paces in training. i think running does help, although if i still tire out too soon after a short run i have no idea how i am ever going to improve on my fitness.

on thursday the night cycling central committee went to sembawang park for an outing. well, the beach was really awash with a lot of non-chinese, but i didn't expect them to be that many. if sembawang park was as packed as that, i wondered how east coast would be like then. in any case we played a lot of games, dared each other to do nonsensical stuffs and of course, camwhored. the photos are on facebook so do check them out. after the outing we went to causeway point to have dinner at banquet - alas, it wasn't open so we walked to al-ameen at woodgrove and ordered food to take away, and ended up eating dinner at a playground somewhere in the middle of the hdb flats of woodlands. haha. but yes, the whole thing was fun. although people really stared at us since all of use were wearing the committee shirts.

well my watch strap broke when i was playing captain's ball, so now i'm left with 1 watch out of 3. i lost my actual watch around 3 weeks ago, and now the reserve watch is broken. the watch that i'm left with is too nice to be worn to school. haha. so i need to find a new watch! but there isn't any cheap ones out there anymore. well at least for the type of watch i'm looking for. it's quite annoying. yes, you might say a watch is now redundant nowadays since handphones and even mp3 players keep track of time. well, i'm too used to just looking at my wrist for the time and this might sound wrong but i feel naked without wearing a watch.

just now i had training and i did okay i think. till sparring time came, i fared rather badly. i was against jason, and it was his first time sparring. well i kinda lost to him, since i didn't put up much of a fight. i don't know why. firstly i think i didn't really want to exert myself because the injury on my right foot keeps coming back. i seriously have no idea how long it will take to heal completely, since it's been more than 1 and a half months already since i first got injured. it really is annoying when it sometimes hampers me in training. add to that now a sudden back strain as i'm typing, and my left inner thigh is hurting like mad because there's a pull there. in any case i haven't really gotten my techniques in training right yet. i'm really struggling and way behind others. i'm quite slow in picking up alot of things. unfortunately, this is also amonng them. well guess all i know is that i try to do what i can within my limits.

alot of things in life i've never really been able to do properly even though i do spend quite abit of time on it. like in my secondary school days. i was in the military band, i actually became leader of my section. sounds impressive. but i can't even blow the trumpet properly. i could never reach the high C note, and i could never tongue my notes properly. and that considering i spent around 3 years with my trusted trumpet. i've been playing badminton since secondary one but my skills have never improved. football? that goes without saying. my style of play has also never changed over the years. i don't know, i feel that i'm not really good with things that require a certain amount of skills. i always wonder how people can be good at let's say playing the guitar, at football, bowling, singing all at 1 time. seriously if you ask me to name something that i'm good at with my hands or something that requires a certain level of skill, i can't really name you anything. all i can tell you is i know probably almost all the capital cities of the world, and maybe add in their currencies as well, and how their flag looks like, and where they are on the world map. well that is quite a useless piece of skill, if you ask me. unless i have to appear on whose line is it anyway often, then that's a different story altogether.

the general mood is now of sadness i guess. i don't know, i feel more down than up nowadays. is just some general melancholy that has hit me. maybe it's gotta do with the workload that is going to pile up, with all the deadlines that i have to meet. and mostly my personal life, which is just about as messy as pakistani politics right now. oh well. i'm stuck and i don't know where to head to.

i have no idea what to do now, since i'm at a loss. i need some timely divine intervention to drag me out of this mess!

crazy

2008-02-05T00:14:00.001+08:00

i'm officially going crazy.

for the past 7 nights, 4 of those nights i have dreamt of my night cycling central committee.

and this is when the event has already long passed.

initially out of the 1st 4 nights, 3 of them were dreams about the cen comm. when i thought they have stopped then yesterday i dreamt about some of them again. doing recce at that! with a huge ass map that didn't even resemble ANY parts of singapore.

if it's not about recce, than its about the actual event itself, or even meetings.

haha is this the hangover effects, like nuclear fallout kind of effects? post-event mental trauma of that kind. it's not like i've been thinking hard about it or anything of that sort. i hope this passes over then. haha i don't want to keep dreaming of recces and meetings and bicycles and routes and what not.

in any case i got injured again during the last training. blocked a kick while sparring and in the process my right foot (again!) got whacked. it was funny actually because hanan got injured against the same opponent, and i actually came in to replace him. in any case, he got injured at the right foot too. when i walked out of the area i just looked at hanan and we just both laughed. it's just funny we got the injury against the same person, me after him, and at the same spot. haha. reminds me of that minor accident that i had with him during night cycling. i was riding fast back to fetch the next wave of cyclists and i wanted to make a right turn ahead. but suddenly at the path junction a tyre stuck out and i couldn't avoid it in time. i didn't see the cyclist coming becausemy view of the path was blocked by a hedge of some sort. in any case my bicycle just crashed into the tyre and i flew. i landed on my back and picked myself up, only to see that i had crashed into hanan, of all people. we just laughed because it was all so funny. luckily i didn't suffer any injuries, but his front tyre got punctured.

and na'im's brother got married yesterday. and i went down and so did my friends, who played the kompang. and there were other friends too, since the bride is a teacher, so apparently some of my friends were ex-students of hers. i just went around to take photos and video shots of the couple and also of my friends. the rain threatened to spoil the day but luckily it didn't rain heavily and for long. marriage is such a huge and messy affair, so i don't want to get married so soon! haha. i think i'll get that car and work my ass off first, then i'll talk about it.

well for now i should just happily stick to my readings of suharto and general ne win and of negotiations and the spanish conquest of mexico and what not. and not think of night cycling stuffs anymore. errgh.

tennis

2008-01-27T22:16:00.001+08:00

this is the 1st time in years that i've blogged a 2nd time on the same day.

in any case, now its recurring foot injury+groin strain+mild bout of diarrhoea+fever+lower back strain=an unproductive sunday.

in any case today is the first time since 2004 that i watched a live tennis match. the last time i watched a live tennis game was when sharapova won wimbledon all the way back in 2004 as a giggly 17-year old. i still remember that when she was interviewed immediately after that match, it was obvious on the court she seemed older than she was - but off it, she seems like any other 17 year old girl. she was so excited and jumpy as she won her 1st ever grand slam title, and that signalled the rise of a starlet. today's match also announced the arrival of novak djokovic and jo-wilfried tsonga to the world stage. it is interesting how tsonga's shots can just take the speed of the ball away, but djokovic made lesser unforced errors as compared to tsonga. but tsonga's style of play is really interesting. and djokovic still battled through his injury to win. in any case it was refreshing to see new faces in grand slam finals, other than always having to see roger federer always in the finals. anyway i think the shirt that djokovic wore is damn nice. haha. well, both players are sponsored by adidas anyway.

and today we witnessed the passing of the late suharto. i think my readings in 1 of the modules i am taking this semester (government and politics of southeast asia)uld really touch alot on suharto's role in indonesia's growth and development. i think the module is extremely interesting, since i've always really wanted to know the development of this region politically since WWII. oh well, i think this would then put more spotlight on suharto's 32-year reign indonesia.

okay that's all that i wanted top blog about. hopefully tomorrow i'll wake up feeling better.

unwell

2008-01-27T16:03:00.000+08:00

the past week has been an interesting week.

with the after action review/post mortem of the night cycling event somewhat done, i suppose i can close that chapter already. it's been great getting involved in the event, and i hope everyone in the committee had fun working with one another. i did, and yes i believe there won't be such a committee as crazy as this. i think it proves that one doesn't have to be ultra-serious in nature to get things done. haha.

on another note i'm gaining back even more injuries. my foot injury has not healed yet, and add to that i have a groin strain on the right side. that's just great. i probably understand now why athletes or sportsman always incur alot of niggling injuries that take forever to heal. and even so, some kind of past injuries might come back to haunt them. sometimes i have trouble walking because of this groin strain, but i think it should clear up soon. it's quite annoying when i can't try harder because of restrictions due to my injuries. in any case, my fitness is really horrible, so i should seriously start running on my own.

yesterday evening my jc classmates had a barbecue to celebrate thomas' and gq's brithday at gq's place. even though i live like a few bus stops from there, i was the 2nd last to arrive. haha. in any case when i arrived, which was around 815pm, there were struggling to get the fire started. it was only at around 940pm then did the charcoal start to burn. i think the charcoal was really of poor quality. since much of the charcoal could not really catch fire, the fire actually burned out in just under 2 hours. although we did manage to barbecue some food actually.

but it was nicer meeting back some who i haven't seen in ages. it's always very nice to see how everyone else has grown up and change, but some things just never change. like the way how some people laugh (read: fang). 5 years ago seems the way it is 5 years on. it's scary to imagine what it will be 5 years later, when most of us will be 27. i always wonder why kids nowadays want to act like they are so grown up. and then when they actually do grow older, they wish they didn't have to. life when i was younger was so much more carefree and we all had lesser worries and things to think about. and now, we are faced with things that are more 'real'. issues of money, marriage, parents love, studies etc will always dominate how we think and how we want our lives to progress towards. i'm too scared to even think of the future, and that's why i like to hark back on the past. at least it has already happened.

in any case recently i've had various interesting conversations with quite a number of people with regards to love matters. i think ever since i've started school, i've heard more stories about people's love lives and their personal lives than i have ever done so in my whole life. it is interesting to note that almost everyone has their story to tell. in any case, there is no one size fits all solution for all love matters, since they emerge out of various factors and reasons, and they happen in different circumstances and surroundings. i am not that great an advisor, but i hope i can be a good listening ear. the most interesting thing is how we can always try and seek solutions for other people, but yet we can't even find proper solutions to our own problems.

in any case i woke up today feeling queasy. i think it's because during the barbecue yesterday i kept drinking 7up and root beer and some mirinda drinks 1 after another, so my stomach has an adverse reaction to it. in any case i think it's a mild bout of diarrhoea so i feel a little under the weather now. i think i shall just go down and lie on my bed and attempt to read my readings. haha. hopefully that chases away the diarrhoea thing.

recurring foot injury+groin strain+mild bout of diarrhoea=a sleepy and draggy sunday that just punishes the life out of me.

night cycling is over

2008-01-21T23:36:00.000+08:00

okay so the night cycling event is over! haha.

well as expected the event started late. i knew it would just start late haha. but at least it ended on time. well to tell you all the truth if you ask me to review the event, i'll tell you frankly i feel like that whole night was just a dream. i feel very numb about it. it's like the whole thing passed through, like it never happened. haha. on the whole i think the event was carried out decently.

i mean, alot of people were quite perturbed already about the not-so-safe nature of the route. well some made their feelings clear, but i felt at the end of the day things turned out okay. well of course, the power of hindsight tells me we could have done better. but i think considering what had happened, i think we did what we could. i felt i had the right people in my team in the right places, and we all kinda helped each other out.

but i hope everyone had a great time during the event. i had fun though organising the event. at least firstly, no thanks to me actually handpicking most of the members of my committee. haha. reeks of corruption, nepotism and cronyism doesn't it? haha but it's important! at least the meeting doesn't have to be mostly conducted in a highly tense level i think. although of course we have had our fair share of friction, but i think overall it was excellent working with them. i am only the first among equals, and not a cut above the rest. so thank you to my committee members! and very sorry if i did rub you all on the wrong side. figuratively, of course.

oh and thanks to everyone else who contributed to the event in any ways. i truly appreciate all the effort! whether as outriders, drivers, medics, facilitators, photographers, marshallers and even participants, many thanks to all of you. without all your help the event could not have been carried out. so yes, i appreciate all of your help and assistance.

so now, it's back to work! haha. tried reading my history book just now, but really, i have never been a fan of chinese history, with their 1001 dynasties and what not. but the government and politics of southeast asia module that i'm taking seems interesting. the readings seem interesting too! haha. that's a first. so now full focus on studies! that's it, no more being part of any organising committees for me i feel. firstly i think that's enough for me, secondly i don't think i can ever work in a specialised job like doing logistics or marketing. i'll die doing such specific work. at least as a project director, i can delegate stuffs and probably do what i think i can do within my means. and anyway i don't want to be a project director anymore in any case so yes, im swearing off all organising committees then! haha.

so now i somewhat regain back my normal life as an undergraduate. trying to balance studies and my cca, and making new friends too along the way. and dealing with stuffs that i chucked aside temporarily.

like feelings. i suppose i have to face them again. honestly, i've been feeling numb ever since my event ended. so i don't know how or what to feel about things. i have no idea why i'm in such a state. like everything is so draggy and i'm just slowly getting to grip things. i think i shall slow drag myself out of this slumber eventually. but it's painfully slow though.

dear you,
i just can't seem to let go. and i don't know if i want to either.

will2wheel

2008-01-17T10:44:00.002+08:00

okay the event is nearing, in fact only 2 days' away.

so there's even more little little things that we all have to concern ourselves with. and i've to either get people or go around singapore myself to collecrt everything that we need for the event. it is ultra-troublesome, but well, it's only for a few more days! haha.

well anyways thank you to those who actually tagged with regards to my previous post. oh well, it's not i have problems (i hope!) with my members, it's just that not everyone sees things in the same perspective of things. so there's bound to be misunderstanding or disagreement on matters etc, so if this is not managed then it would be hard. in any case, i've learnt that in any circmustances it is crucial to keep a cool head and still be able to think rationally and sensibly, if i can help it. no point in losing your anger unless that would really help solve any problems, that maybe i should consider that. haha. in any case i'm not stressed, not too worry, just that i do got weary and worrisome. but i hope it all goes well.

in any case my foot hasn't healed. i wonder how long it would take to self-heal. that's what the doctor said. no medication could hasten the healing process, and there was no need for any x-ray. but it's been more than 3 weeks and i still can't use it to kick or anything. but i guess i wont rush it, in case i injure it again.

and the other day i dropped by johor bahru for a while to shop. went there alone to shop, and for that i've been labelled crazy by some people. haha. why not? what's so crazy about shopping alone in jb? i mean it's not like i'm some foreigner who flashes his wads of cash around. in any case i blew away 126RM on 1 pair of shoes and 2 shirts. im happy, 'cause i really think my 2 shirts are very very nice. and so are my white sneakers. i had to getaway from singapore for a few hours to escape whatever workload i had back home, so yes, i admit abit of retail therapy does work for me sometimes. yes, i do exude a tinge of femininity sometimes. but no, it doesn't mean i'm turning gay or metrosexual or something like that. it's the same as telling me a frenchman would turn to an englishman just because he's learning how to speak english. that's a load of nonsense.

okay i should really go work on that powerpoint slides. can't believe the other day i froze for a while because i kinda forgot how to use powerpoint. it's been like freaking 3 years since i last used it. okay time to bury myself deep in my work now.

pd

2008-01-11T11:53:00.000+08:00

i am starting to feel the heat.

it's not stress, it's just im getting more disturbed, more perturbed and more pressured than ever. i'm not boasting, but i hardly stres myself out to the point where i cannot take it anymore. even for studying, i think i study to actually forget anything else that is stressing me out. studying can be fun and healthy if one manages to find out how to appreciate it and manage the stress levels that supposedly accompany it. i get most stressed when i am planning my timetables for school actually. last semester i took freaking 4 hours just to come out with a proper timetable for myself.

it's with regards to my event. yes, initially there was alot of loose ends that we have not tied. but most of the issues have already been cleared, but new ones have surfaced. it's getting abit frustrating though when some issues just cannot be settled. that's one. and another thing is the event seems quite popular i think. it turns out even my secondary school friends might want to join. it probably gives me added incentive to do better, but it also exerts more healthy pressure on me too i guess.

in any case apparently i ruffled a few feathers with my no-nonsense last minute email to my committee members. well yes, i wasn't being professional by allowing my bad mood to interfere with work. but i felt i was going to push the members soon anyway, and i had to get things done too. yes it was last minute, and my email was abit curt. but it's not easy being in my shoes!

people sometimes think it is easy being the project director. just abuse the authority and just delegate stuffs. well some stuffs i really don't know who's supposed to do, so i do it myself. and i'm not boasting, but i've already done quite a bit of stuffs that i needn't have. and yes, i do forget things also, i admit.

but i'm not perfect. neither am i the best project director around. i took up this post voluntarily because i felt the event was interesting, and not because i was appointed to it and given blessings by the people upstairs. whatever i do, i do according to what i know and who i have. my instincts and gut feelings guide me, which obviously do not involve proper planning and delegation of stuffs. in that sense i'm quite horrible as a project director.

i suppose alot of people would not have belief in my way of doing things. well, all i can say is, i do things as according to what my gut feelings and instinct instruct me. of course i do try to think rationally, but yes, i 'm not the most professional to do so. in any case my methods have not gone down well with people, so i'm sorry okay people.

seriously, i have alot of things, the little things, that i have to settle. come and be in my shoes, than you will understand why it is best to have a project director that is level-headed and always calm under pressure. i don't mind taking up jobs that i can delegate to other people, if i see i can help out in it. it's not a race to win hearts or votes for that matter. in any case, i'm really sorry if my people management skills have been poor.

dear you,

i'm sorry if i was being unreasonable. it's just that i couldn't accept that you would get mad over a simple thing. but yes, i see things differently and maybe i was insensitive. can we start afresh? you know i'm always scared whenever you are around,. and it's not like i'm purposelly giving you the cold shoulder or anything. i'm just scared.

chalet

2008-01-06T18:37:00.000+08:00

my right foot still doesn't feel right (no pun intended).

it's been 8 days since i injured it but i can't even jog on the spot without feeling pain at the bone. the limp is gone but the pain persists. didn't help that i aggravated the injury at the chalet last thursday. i think i should drop by the polyclinic on tuesday then, since if this doesn't cure fast it would really hinder my training progress. hence i had to give training a miss yesterday.

in any case i just got back from my chalet 2 days ago with my silat mates. it was quite fun. it was also my 1st ever chalet with friends. yes, despite me being already 21 years old, that was my 1st ever chalet with friends. haha. it started on wednesday, and we left the place early on friday morning. went a full 24 hours without sleep for the 1st time ever i think, then managed to catch only an hour's nap and carried on with the day's activities on thursday. haha. it was crazy, just walking around with read eyes and lacking alot of sleep. but it was fun nevertheless.

it's real fun just to walk and hang around by the beach in the wee hours of the morning, talking away and playing games. we tried to catch the sun rise too, but the clouds were blocking our view. our barbeque was on thursday night and it was quite fun too, and i and hanan ended up by being hosts for charades for everyone else. haha. if was fun thinking of all the craziest and hardest words to describe in charades. me and hanan managed to come up with things like osteoporosis, equestrian, placido domingo, coroner, quebec and lots more hard and crazy words. haha. but most of the time i spent really talking alot to people, and re-strengthening bonds that i already had. all in all i think i had a great time at the chalet, even though we actually spent only around 36 hours there despite it being a 3D2N chalet.

but now back to business. it's already the last week of holidays. boo hoo. and everyday for the whole week i have stuffs going on! tomorrow i have some briefing thing going on somewhere in the east. tuesday is booked for a trip to queensway and east coast park. on wednesday i might have another class outing (having missed last week's one) and followed by training in the evening. thursday i have my night cycling meeting. friday there might be a POW outing, if not fab says he wants 2 go to sentosa, and that same evening i have another dinner in the east. saturday i have training, and then another overnight recce well into sunday morning.

my goodness, no space to breathe. what a hectic start to the new year. well i hope the next semester will be good for me. hopefully i can find time to study and revise properly, amidst all the activities and trainings that i will have. 2007, personally, wasn't such that great a year. but at least i made really alot of new friends, from work and from school. really alot. but i hope 2008 will be a blast for me. and 1st on the list - to get through this hectic week, and then next up -my night cycling event!

please visit http://will-2-wheel.blogspot.com/. for further details on my night cyclnig event. thank you for your support!

swollen

2007-12-30T01:25:00.000+08:00

my right foot has grown 1.5cm longer than the left foot since 12 hours ago.

it's swelling and it looks downright ugly. i injured it during training just now. i did a sweep which was too high, so my right foot slammed into syed's shin. ouch. apparently even the sound of the impact wasn't that nice either. haha. so now i can't walk properly. it hurts 2 even sit at times, what more walk. i think i will be out for 4 days? haha. this really sucks. i would really rather get kicked hard in the stomach again and feel that funny vomitting sensation again. at least the pain is temporary. i feel so stupid having to walk around slowly and trying to lift the pressure off the right foot. tsk tsk.

so that's e greatest takeaway from training just now - an injured right foot. well, it was my fault since i swept too high, but well we all learn things the hard way sometimes. so other than that, all's okay. training on wednesday, badminton on thursday, meeting and football kickabout yesterday and training just now. other than this freaking injury i managed to get through it. haha. crazy schedule.

and my results. i did pretty well i think, although i am naturally surprised. because seriously, i didn't study hard enough but yet my grades i think were still not too bad. i shall not disclose them here since i will lack alot of tact i i do so. and seriously, i don't know how to console people who didn't do exactly well. the only thing i can think of is that today might be my day, so tomorrow it might be yours. till now i'm still surprised about my grades, but i hope i can at least maintain it somewhere around there.

this foot better cure in time for the chalet next week. i don't want to trudge around on the beach like an idiot later on. so uncool.

new tagboard

2007-12-24T21:09:00.000+08:00

yup i've finally put up a new tagboard! so tag people, because it will look ridiculously empty if you don't! haha.

on any case the past few days have been whirlwind in nature. hari raya haji was spent at my grandparents' place. and my cousin did well enough to get into victoria school. well at least he's gotten into a school steeped in tradition. more importantly, that should shave off any form of burden that i've carried with me thus far. ah my uncle says me and my elder cousin should be role models for the younger ones. well, i think we've pretty much carried ourselves well so far, since both of us are already in universities. anyway the future looks bright for my cousins. i can see they are smart and talented in their own ways, and will do well later on. haha i swear i never spoke as much english as they do now when i was much younger. even the 2 year olds have a vocabulary range of words that are quite impressive, i must say.

friday was spent with the supposed cousin naim. tried to find the bag that i wanted but to no avail. ended up linking up with nura, syaza and faaizah at wisma atria, and watching a performance by the hearing-impaired club of ngee ann polytechnic. i think that's what the society is called there. haha.or is it the sign language club? i've no idea. anyway they were performing christmas songs using sign language, which is no easy feat i tell you. i think it's harder to learn sign language than learning a new spoken language altogether. but at least sign language is internationally recognised, so it is the same anywhere. the only thing i know how to say via sign language is 'i love you'. haha. oh, and 2 signages of vulgarities too. haha.

had silat training on saturday. sparred with hanan! haha. got kicked yet again in the stomach, but i know how to deal with it this time round. just burp it all out! haha. i actually did that and i was okay again. but it was a poor outing for me anyway, i managed only 1 proper sweep throughout the bout and mostly got thrown on the mat by hanan. haha. i've only taken silat up for like 3 months, so i'm very poor on my techniques and the sort. the coach says i must buck up! i'll try, but i'm a novice so don't expect much! haha. but i'll still keep my head down and try work on it quietly.

and then after training, off to a football match! haha me and hanan rushed off in a taxi to bedok view sec school. nus muslim society vs nus malay language society. i played for ms, and the moment i stepped onto the pitch my boots tore open. haha idiot me didn't wash my boots after i ast wore them 3 years ago (during that title-winning year in which i scored an audacious lob with my left foot! haha). so the dirt and the soil kind of hardened around the boot, thereby exerting pressure on it and causing the leather to wear down and tear. haha it was so comical. not even 15 seconds i was on the pitch my boots got torn. i ended up having to constantly switch boots. all in all i wore 3 different boots! haha. (to add on, it means that i went through freaking national service and working and even started school while my boots were rotting away in the shoe cabinet! haha so disgusting of me.)

but the match was okay. by half-time we were leading 9-1. ah the 1 goal we conceded was partly mine and fairus' fault. fairus was under pressure by the striker so he couldn't clear the ball properly, and then when the ball came to me i let it bounce before clearing. that's 1 mistake you should never do - to let the ball bounce in the penalty area. so the opponent managed to steal the ball away and blast it home. but no worries, we won 12-3 in the end. i only managed a handful of passes and clearances, and only a shot on target. by the end of the match it was pouring heavily, but me hanan and fairus continued to play in the rain. so fun! i felt like it was back in primary school days again, those carefree days, just laughing and fooling around. after the match it was dinner at bedok corner and then home. saturday was a crazy dy, but a fulfilling one. i didn't get cramps despite silat training, sparring, and the football match played in the mud. only a slight groin strain and that's it.

sunday was spent with jj and fab, the 2 closest friends i had back in jc. found the sort of bag i wanted, but at $69, i'll hold out first. it's from river island and it's leathery, so i'll keep it in view. but i managed to accidentally find a new pair of boots! at 29.90! i simply had to get them. 1stly it's adidas boots. 2ndly, original price was $99. despite the boots being white (kind of poser) in colour and the model is very old - but well, boots are still boots i guess. it's still 1st hand boots, no matter that it's an old model. but since it's from a clearance sale, so the boxes were abit old too. luckily i tried on both sides, because i realised 1 was bigger in size than the other! so like a madman i opened the other boxes myself to find the matching pair. i eventually did, but i created a mess after that. haha. but well, for 29.90, i think it was worth going through all those boxes like a tramp. but when i got back, i realised there were minor differences between both sides. the right 1 had its logo at the back in blue, while the left 1 was in silver. the right boot had the special beckham adidas logo on its tongue while the left bore the adidas logo. even the 2 stripes differed slightly in colour. haha. but the differences do not stick out like a sore thumb, and in any case i think they boots were really supposed to be made that way. haha. but i feel it's a good deal! haha.

so tomorrow is xmas, and next week is the start of 2008. me and naim have agreed that we both end the year on a low. for me all i know i have successfully achieved my 1 and only new year resolution for 2007, although all this while i had always quietly held the hope i would not achieve it. so yes, the year has been okay for me, i think generally speaking i've had much better years before.

my racing heart, is just the same - why make it strong, to break it once again?

tried

2007-12-18T21:54:00.000+08:00

warning - the author is extremely tired.

why? well for almost the whole of last week i had silat trainings everyday. of course it wasn't that tiring per se, but it all kinda builds up. and it all culminated in that performance we staged on saturday for PPIS at jurong spring cc (former hong kah cc). basically it was mostly a performance showcasing the more cultural aspects of silat. well for my part i had to be thrown and kicked around by halimah (or hally, which i believe is the anglicised name. haha). and yes it did hurt alot.

i kinda forgot that we were now on a wooden stage and not practising on those thick mats. what was supposed to happen was that at 1 stage i was to run towards her and she would kick me in the chest and send me flying in the air. yes i flew, but the landing was anything but smooth. when i got up my whole body was in complete pain from the impact of being slammed against the hard floor. for some reason i felt like my life was being squeezed out. haha. but seriously, if it was normal training i would have tapped out immediately. anyway some of us suffered from injuries too, more especially so for chong, who left the place with a cut across his right cheek.

in any case the following morning when i got up and went to the bathroom to shower, i stared into the mirror almost immediately i said 'what the f**k is that???' well, there was a huge ass abrasion on my left shoulder that turned mighty red overnight. a reminder of my flying act the day before. i had already felt pain there but the day before it wasn't inflamed as that. anyway it is still bright red as of now, and its roughly the size of 4 50cent coins put side by side? yup. they say its sort of 'bleeding' underneath the skin, so that probably explains why it is as red as that. haha. it doesn't hurt much, but it's just so strikingly red that i'm thankful it wasn't on my arm or face or something like that. haha. hope it heals soon though.

and anyway that same sunday night, after the performance the day before, i went to recce the route for night cycling. had loads of fun, even with only aizat, naim and zuraimi. haha. had dinner at burger king at east coast, and then we cycled to esplanade. before that we managed to stop at chjimes and catch poor liverpool against manchester united for the whole of the 2nd half. that was followed by supper at gluttons' bay at esplanade. haha i had a huge ass ice kachang served, and had roti john n kaya toast too. and then we cycled back via nicoll highway, the national stadium and through east coast park. and reached back at around 330am. we had breakfast at mcdonalds at 4am. haha. basically, i had 3 meals within the space of 9 hours! haha. a real glutton. well, but cycling at night is really fun. i think i should do that real often. haha.

but ya, i'm still tired from the exertions. i haven't had proper sleep since then, and still had time to play futsal just now after the rain. haha i'm really not good at soocer. and i'm even more tired than ever.

dear you,

if you are reading this, i'm real sorry. i am mean too. but i hope you understand. i hope things become better from now on. i really do hope so.

ice skating

2007-12-10T00:52:00.000+08:00

it's been more than a week but instead of recharging, i'm becoming even more tired by the day.

i sleep late everyday, but i automatically wake up at 10.30am every single day! it's extremely annoying! there was once i just came to at 10.30am, when the alarm was set at 10.45am. i've no idea why i'm like this. it's extremely frustrating. so i go labour through the day lethargically. the past week has been like this.

but i did do quite a few things last week. like go for recce trip with some of them on monday night! haha. had to recce the route for night cycling event that i'm heading. but the route seems abit treacherous, no thanks to the construction sites along the route. but i think it's still possible, no worries. and i played badminton on wednesday. haha i'm becoming worse at is, 'cause it's been a while since i last played. but at least had a proper workout for a while.

then the central committee meeting for night cycling was okay. dragged too long i think, since i dragged for nearly 4 hours. haha. and there's still alot of uncertainties. ah things are getting harder and more complicated. haha alot of things are weighing me down, so i hope all will go well.

then saturday! iceskating with the POW mates. quite fun! haven iceskated for almost 4 years, going back to march 2003 for the last time i did that. haha so some like hanan and izzati were making their debuts, but i think they had fun. ah i fell down once! i thought it would be a mishap-free outing for me, but to no avail. haha. anyway the fall was unprovoked, so i kinda lost balance suddenly. so humiliating. haha. then after ate went to eat n watched the singapore-malaysia sea games match at a nearby coffeeshop. and then 1by1 they left, culminating in a not-so-nice incident that happen which totally ruined the whole outing for all of us. the day ended with me and hanan just sitting down at ngee ann civic plaza and chatting the night away, while fahmi was getting his new handphone at the huge ass tent there. yes, we came to orchard all the way from jurong east just to sit down and talk. haha. was an strange ending to the outing, but it's not like we envisioned this to happen.

so another week full of things to do this week. mostly related to silat activities. got some performance coming up so must practise! haha. and actually i have to clean up the room, but it seems like that is never going to happen! haha. oh well.

on another note. i think i should not launch a new project. i don't feel it is appropriate, neither do i feel like it.

freedom

2007-11-30T22:26:00.000+08:00

finally i'm free from the hell brought about by the examinations!

to those who still have to slug it out in the exam halls, slowly, very slowly, slug it out okay? i'm always here to give you moral support of any kind! haha.

so the exams were so-so. as always, the times that i tend to indulge in monologues are during exams. i'll end up cursing and swearing, shaking my head, or even smiling in exasperation because of the ridiculous nature of the questions. it's been 3 long years since i sat for any proper exams prior to this. well, things haven't changed much i suppose. although i must admit i did not really have the mood nor the zest to want 2 study. hopefully i'll do alright.

so now is the start of a 1 and a half months of break, before school starts again in mid-january. i should probably occupy my time with the night cycling programme thing. anyways, the silat friendly in kl has been cancelled. so sad. means we can't pick a fight with the brothers across the causeway. haha but in one way it's good also. i'm not ready to spar yet. haha. i got kicked very hard in the stomach the other day by the president while sparring for the first time. i thought i was going to vomit so i went to the toilet, but instead of vomitting i let out 1 huge burp of air. haha. disgustingly funny. i suppose i have lots of fitness and strength work out to do then this holidays. must eat 20 hard boiled eggs daily like fabian does. must eat brown rice as often as i can. must eat chicken breast everyday. must eat potatoes everyday. haha, like real only.

other than that this month should be spent religiously slacking away. the past few weeks have been mentally strenuous. but the first semester in school has been a blast. delicate matters of the heart aside, i think school has been fun. i've made a lot a lot of new friends here and there, and strengthened a lot of pre-existing relationships along the way. if only studies-wise it was as laid back as it was in my jc days. then it would really be more of a blast.

i suppose that's all then for now. the most important takeaway is that i'm emancipated from exams! and i've even managed to change the blog's layout. yes yes, it's extremely simple. but that's how i like it, and i don't know how to meddle with the javascript all to make it more exotic and sophisticated. i'm really sorry that i'm not IT-savvy like most of you. haha.

and don't mind the rihanna and ne-yo song okay. i think it's quite nice and listenable.

extinct

2007-11-13T23:48:00.000+08:00

exactly 1 month later and here i am to blog again!

haha i am really surprised people actually do go to my blog to see if i've updated. wow. people so read my blog. haha. and some have complained how come there's no update. so here goes.

well let's start with raya! i think my raya collection hit 200++ or something like that. and with some more money in the piggy bank. plus the bursary award that i jus got just now haha. that should really beef my finances, hence i declare that yusri's economy isn't in recession! it is healthy i think, but don't expect me to treat any of you all after declaring i'm officially out of recession! go away! haha.

exams are next week and basically i haven't studied yet. AT ALL. tomorrow i should really start! haha. but that's what i've been saying everyday. but at least i've completed whatever essay that i'm supposed to do. at least the grades for my other essays haven't been that bad, so phew! but now for the exams! let's see what miracles i can perform within these 1 and a half weeks. it's crazy. i have 5 exams squeezed in 6 days! i hope i'll pull through unscathed!

and for silat - well at least i think i've grown more confident in myself. i think i roughly know how to attack someone already, but must work harder on strength and fitness. alot of times i've been found wanting and panting away due to lack of fitness. training has been abit tough at times, but must endure! haha don't expect me to be super fit just because i'm done with my NS! and end of next month we might go to kl to spar with our malaysian counterparts. i hope i don't get my sorry ass whacked there! on top of that, that would be th 3rd time i would have gone to KL in the space of 7 months!

and yours truly is the project director of the night cycling for the NUS muslim society! do join okay, all you readers! haha damn, i've to do work too! but i think and i hope it would be fun at the end of the day! at least we have the whole of december to do it! i see hope in my committee, and i think we can pull it off! its during mid-late january people, so make it free! it's on 1 of those saturdays to sundays. so come on down and cycle with us for 1 night only! haha.

and i seem to be building more friendships along the way. it's fun. we have our own groups, and our society. at least i can claim allegiance to the group, and it's real fun. haha sometimes i feel that i'm turning into some screw loose, but it's okay. at least i feel i shouldn't be so dull! haha there's really a need to make as many friends as i can. there's so much things to know about everyone sometimes i get things and facts about them muddled up easily.

but here's the saddest part - another failure in the love department. fails yet again. so project coldplay is out of the window. sometimes i wonder what is it that i've done or i have not done that is wrong. or what is it within me that is inherent that results in failure again. i truly wonder. maybe i shall not bother ever again anymore. at the end of the day, why make the heart strong just to break it once again?

so that's all. i think the next update should be after the exams, which end on the 30th for me! till then, good day!

and note the number of exclamation marks i've used in this article! haha i make it sound like i'mall so jumpy and excited writing this entry like that.

raya

2007-10-13T23:41:00.000+08:00

no this blog ain't extinct yet!

it's just that i haven't got the mood to blog for the past month. there's just been tons of thing that i'm supposed to be doing, but i haven't. the most i've been doing is just fretting and worrying about my tasks, but never actually going about to settle them. haha. 2 essays due by this friday, and 1 more due next friday! haha and let's just say i haven't really got anything going on yet. so that says alot.

and today's raya! okay la, it isn't as happenning as it used to be. i guess that's the syndrome everyone faces as they start to grow older. but this year isn't as horrible as the past few years. like in 2004, 2 days after raya was my maths paper during my a levels. 2005 raya was spent in the jungles of taiwan during my trainee days (definitely among the lowest points in my life). so this year at least, as a proper civilian who's back studying in school, i guess things returned to normalcy.

then this year i have a sudden urge to on the radio as often as i can and listen out for raya songs. alot of them are really nice! especially some of those sad ones. like sepasang kurung biru! sounds sad yet so nice and soothing to the year. there are so many songs i've no idea what their titles are! but it doesn't matter, sounds nice can already.

as for project coldplay, the one i mentioned in my previous entry - well i've sought to do what i wanted. but the desired results, still yet to be seen. i hope things go well. although i try to be realistic - if things aren't meant to be so, thn it really isn't.

as they say, hope springs eternal. whatever that means. haha.

sian

2007-09-17T00:46:00.000+08:00

wow they had a surprise birthday mini-celebration for me! haha.

so embarrassing. anyway thanks for planning it. albeit it was really belated, but it was so shocking. made me feel really embarrassed. and got even more gifts!haha. my birthday this year is so happening. i really wonder why.

so i just bought this new lcd monitor. it's real huge to me! although only 19 inches but it's huge, and damn bright. haha i jus spent $334 in cash just like that on the table and walked away with this LG lcd monitor. the father's money, of course. haha. looks quite nice though, the screen. so i'm left with changing that old modem, and of course getting that new laptop. but the lappie shall arrive earliest, next year. so still a long way to go.

and silat training yesterday while fasting was really refreshing. i felt fine. of course more tired than ever, but i wasn't feeling faint or anything. felt good actually, although compared to what i've been through in army, that pales in comparison. then again i'm not as fit as i was in army, so it evens out. haha. but it was okay. i feel i've improved quite abit so far. but there's still along way to go. i've only just started out, but things are fine. the seniors are willing to guide and that's very heartening.

so yesterday we broke fast at the grandparents' place. ah it's been awhile since i last saw my noisy cousins. haha they are really a noisy lot. but they were so funny. they were playing in 1 of the rooms. when i walked past music was blaring from that room, and i peeked inside,they were all grooving to the music! haha. and it's those hip hop rnb kind! haha so funny. it was like a mini-club out there. then they were just jumping around and having fun with the music in the background. didn't know the handphone could blast the music out at such a volume.

haha but you see the joy the kids had. then you wish you could just go back to being a kid once more. to just do nothing but have fun all day long, and not worry about anything the big adults have to worry themselves with. with work, children, bills, the wife, the car, the house and all. things were so happy-go-lucky, and so much simpler. all you could do was just run and jump around, then cry and suddenly the whole world would just rush to you and calm you down and pamper you. haha. no homework, project work, essays, readings, notes or even fieldtrips to fret about. the carefree-ness of adolescence. haha.

on another note.

the new project is called project coldplay. might achieve my goals through the blitzkrieg method. we'll see how.

watch this space man. haha.

21st

2007-09-08T23:36:00.000+08:00

so yesterday i reached the milestone that is the age of 21.

21 years ago, my mum gave birth to me at the now-defunct toa payoh hospital. apparently i came out at 0949 hours. in case you don't know what time u arrived to this world, kindly check your birth certificate. it is SURE to be stated somwhere there.

and so 21 years on, so much things have changed. i've vome a long way, and so have everyone else. so apparently i'm now permitted to do more things that i previously couldn't. ah but age is just a number, as they say. it's got no real bearing over how one can be mature or immature.

but my birthday turned out to be fine. the mum forgot all about it, but sadly my family is like that. birthdays aren't celebrated at all in the family, but it's really okay by me. but the day turned out well. messages flooded in incessantly. alot of people actually wished me this year, for some reason or another! haha. and i've got presents! haha i hardly ever get presents, so i totally have no idea what's the thrill like of opening presents.

the day was spent in school, and the night was spent at amirah's grill at bugis with the primary school friends. thanks to nurul, i believe! she got the whole thing all planned out nicely! haha and the various surprises i got along the way was cool. played games and ate great food, and had a blast of a time! special thanks to the primary school friends for the fun! and the presents too!

haha seriously, i've never gotten so many presents before. i got 4 on the day itself. i think i'm supposed to get 4 more next week. wow, that totals up to 8 already. not too bad for some freak like me. haha. so i shall wait, it's okay. it's really nice at least when someone actually bothers to do up something or get something for you. this must be the most meaningful birthday ever. unlike in 2004, when i actually came to school during the september holidays to mug away. then in 2005, i was in camp, running 7km as part of training, and never dared to tell anyone it was my birthday in case i got sabotaged! haha. thn last year, 2006, was spent fixing up the new computer components on a rainy day at home! at least this year it was properly celebrated i guess?haha.

so special thanks to these people - ayu, kent, shahidah, clare, fabian, liz, izy, sahibah, my political science tutorial class!, nura, yenlin, jj, na'im, zuraimi, hanan, chong, shahril, rahman and juliana, vineson, jimmy, jihan, nurul, noriza, faizal, rushdy, hatta, yanny, ali, millah, haryati, joeann, taiwei, syamim, nasrul, and sarah - did i miss out anyone? i hope not. so long the list!!! and even more many thanks to the people who gave me gifts! so nice of you all to actually think of buying something for pathetic old yusri! haha.

truly a day actually worth remembering.

aching

2007-08-30T22:51:00.000+08:00

my body is aching all over. i can't move any part of my body without feeling the slighest of pain somewhere around my body.

no thanks to the first ever silat training i had yesterday. haha i admit it was tough (my legs were quivering at times! haha) and i'm really not in shape. running on hard ground barefooted means the soles of my feet ache badly too. but i guess i need some getting used to it i guess. but so far so good. but it's really tough trying to get the techniques right.

and school's okay. although i haven't really been able to push myself to read most of my readings. i'm still trying to tune my brains back to the student mindset. haha it doesn't help with the flurry of people i've met within such a short space of time. too many people, too many names to remember. errgh. almost everyday i learn a new name. haha it's really troublesome when you start to know more and more people.

haha the other day at the lift landing while going to school i bumped into a girl who's also in my faculty in school. turns out she lives just 2 storeys below me. so 1 neighbour who went to my secondary school, antoher 1 who went to my junior college, and yet another 1 who goes to my school - same faculty at that! haha so that totals 3 altogether! another surprise to add on to the forever growing list of shocks and surprises i've had so far.

and so much for history being my pet subject. i've totally no idea on the french revolution and anything else that happened in the history of modern europe after that. means i've to diligently read the thick-ass history book real slowly. there's so much to read, it's really quite taxing this european history course. whatever people have learnt within 2 years, i'm to squeeze everything within 3 months!! goodness me. can really slowly die.

can't type without even feeling the slightest of pain. oh well.

welcome tea

2007-08-18T14:10:00.001+08:00

school's not really a blast.

for the first week it's just rushing to queue up for the readings bundles and whatever textbooks that i need to buy. and the lectures are all mostly introductory ones. ah but the tons of reading i have to do, is enough to just deflate my spirits. in fact for once i really have to be very much learn independently, which is something i have to get used to. and the tutorial ballotting system is really ridiculous. i'm too lazy to even bother about it now.

so i went for 2 welcome teas the past week. the malay society one was held 1st. played this superhero dress-up game, where they asked me to put hats under my shirts to make me look muscular. well, of course it looked like boobs! althought i must say at least i did win the final challenge! haha. ah but the muslim society welcome tea was much more refreshing.

met alot of international muslim students, like those from pakistan, iran, myanmar, mauritius, bangladesh and the list goes on. it was really an eye-opener just interacting with them. it's a hard feeling to describe, when you get to meet fellow muslims from across the globe and exchange your thoughts and feelings. i wonder how these people really get through with their lives in their war-torn, poverty-stricken countries, where there is political instability, and the threat of war is very real. countries where the trains still run on diesel, where freedom of speech is strictly forbidden and so on. it makes me think that despite such obstacles, people still believe in the hope that the religion brings. hope springs eternal as they say, and the fact that they are willing to part with their families to actually find a better future is amazing. such is the strength of their willingness to travel to further their studies. living alone in a foreign land is extremely daunting and they risk being outcasted. i really admire such people. it's really interesting to interact with them honestly.

and just now i had a tuition class in the morning, under the mendaki tuition programme for malay/muslim students. i was a relief for some tutor who couldn't make it. i thought sec 3 express english. and from the way i see it, i think we're gonna have a huge problem at hand in the years to come.

the students just don't have the right attitude! stupidity is 1 thing, but attitude is another. if you are just not born smart, the do it the tried and tested way - through hard work. one can be stupid yet achieve goals in life. and that is if you have the right attitude. even the most smartest person in the world will never be succesful if he chooses to be lazy and not make full use of his own potential. and those kids that i were taking are the future of the nation! the very ones that will make the step up when they come of age! the very ones who will decide the path the nation would tread upon!

on one hand, we see more malay people becoming more successful - we see more doctors, lawyers, engineers and the what have you. but on the other hand, more people are dropping out of schools, more truancy cases, more shotgun marriages and the what have you. yesterday one lecturer pointed out the suicide cases among singaporeans are the lowest among the malay/muslim community. but of course, that's not the real picture. pre-marital sex rates, abortion cases, divorce rates have been increasing for the malay/muslim community. and the real reason for such things to happen?

the lack or guidance and education. but as i've said before, one has to help himself too. teaching someone to fish today for a living doesn't guarantee he'll drag his lazy ass to the sea tomorrow to fish on his own. one can be the most knowledgeable person on the planet, but without the right attitude, i doubt he can be successful. and the scary thing is alot of kids do not realise the importance of education. the paper chase is inevitable in a resource-scarce city-state like ours. like it or not, realisty is as such. none of them are thinking practically! as if i have a choice to not want to study too.

it's really scary. and of course, those students i took on just now are not the worst of the lot. if such trends persist, i shudder to think of the future. i get scared thinking of my own personal future. don't such kids get scared of the consequences and repercussions they will face if they falter?

someone should just invent a reality-check mirror where if you look into it, your reflection will just scream its lungs out at you or just give you tight slaps as reality checks.

school

2007-08-13T23:06:00.001+08:00

yai start school tomorrow!

so finally the day arrives, after more than 2 and-a-half years of waiting. i don't have classes on monday hence my school week starts tomorrow. ah the anticipation ends tomorrow, but i've only got a 2 hour lecture tomorrow and that's all. the tutorials haven't started yet so this week is rather relaxed actually. so finally the feeling of going to school will sink in again tomorrow. call me wierd but i like going to school. save the studying part though.

went to gym with liz just now to kill time. i think i had a great workout just now, so i expect to wake up tomorrow with a body like a bodybuilder's! haha. but just now was not bad. ah if only i wasn't born such a lazy ass, i would probably have a better-looking body, maybe learnt how to play the bass guitar and have a much much cleaner room now. and a million other things that i could have achieved. haha.

the other day, had dinner with the friends for the orientation group. it was fun! then went to catch some show with them at victoria concert hall. i think the people in my group are quite fun. of course, not in the sporty or outdoors sense. i feel we all can connect on the same level. haha. i can't help thinking i've more than enough friends in the arts faculty. of course one can't have too many friends, but it can prove to be a headache!

anyway the past week i've had too many surprising news. think i had 4 shocks last week. which is really enough. anymore would just shake the pillars of peacefulness of my life. haha. i've really had a shock too many for the past week. and i also got myself a new handphone on top of that! so that should really end my shopping spree. note the keyword is should. hope that no one would have my handphone too, if not that would be quite a spoiler.

okay so tomorrow i start my life as a student! whoo-pee-do!

the competition with girls and the competition for girls starts tomorrow! haha.

dreams

2007-08-07T13:54:00.000+08:00

the other day i had 1 of the most wierdest dreams ever.

i dreamt that i was on this mrt train on the east-west line, heading towards boon lay, with my parents. as you all know, they are now building an extention of that line, till somwhere in the pioneer road area or somwhere there. but by right boon lay would still be last stop. but the train didn't stop at boon lay, in fact it picked up speed as it sped past boon lay. so naturally everyone on the train was horrified, since the tracks would run out eventually, and the train would go hurtling in the air (think spiderman? the scene where spidey stops the train from going over the tracks and crashing down). but the thing is, in my dream, there was no such heroics. when the tracks ran out, the train just went into the air and plummeted into the sea, but just beside the shoreline, probably somewhere in the tuas area, near the second link. amazingly, nobody died. everyone managed to force the doors open and just swim to the surface. heck, even my parents did that. and of course, a full scale investigation was launched thereafter.

but what a preposterous and wierd dream.

on another note.

the past week's been damn busy! organising schedules, outings here and there, bidding of modules. and my room's still in a damn mess. i'm too lazy to even bother, but i need to do something about it soon anyway. classes start next week, and from the synopses of the modules, they look quite interesting. there's like a fieldtrip to lucky plaza / penisular plaza, and even a remake of the famous versailles treaty of 1919 to be played out in class. oh and a screening of nang nak in one of the lectures. it might not turn out to be interesting, but at least it's different.

back to school in a week's time!

sch's starting

2007-08-01T19:54:00.000+08:00

sorry for the way overdue entry!

but hey - school's-a-starting!

haha. something i've actually been waiting for ever since i left school at the end of 2004. although i must say i'm not really as enthusiatic as i would like it to have been, because all the preparation is so confusing! everyone is just as confused as i am about alot of the things, and especially the bidding of modules. i'm slightly stressed up by it, no thanks to the meticulous planning required.

but so far all has gone well. been going back to school for the past few days, and i feel i've really got alot of friends all over. i'm not saying i'm that popular - it's just that everywhere i turn, i'm bound to find someone i know. like today. i bumped into a friend on the way to school, and in school i bumped into so many other long-lost friends. the ex-NS buddies, the primary and the secondary school friends too. hell, i even bumped into an ex-NS colleague while crossing the road just now. and he was on his motorbike waiting for the lights to turn green! haha. had time to catch up abit with him before the green man started to blink.

can one simply have too many friends? but it's hard to define how many is too many. even acquaintances or those "hi-bye" people, some would consider as friends too. well all i know i have quite a number of friends inside my faculty. and i'm going to miss my upcoming faculty's orientation anyway. and this whole week has been really busy busy busy! well, at least i ave things to do outside of home everyday anyway, so i'm not exactly complaining!haha.

ah i expect lesser time to play games then! that's real sad. but school's-a-starting, and i hope i have a decent start in school. after more than 2 years of brain-freeze, i hope it still can function properly! haha. but there's so many people to compete with, and its really scary when one thinks of the competition for places and grades later on. tsk tsk.

on another note, i thought i was done with my shopping! but i just had to buy another pair of jeans, and i'm relly thinking of upgrading my handphone. but it should wait, because i want to see if i have enough cash after i pay off my bills and all. haha. getting a new handphone would really cap it all off! but i must see how.

okay i better play my computer game first before i really have no time in the future.