More issues than a magazine subscription

I shall begin with the confession that I've been enjoying cold showers more and more nowadays thanks to the blasted heat that seems to settle in my room, for that matter almost everywhere on this very sunny island. It seems that as I walk outdoors on a sweltering afternoon, I'm practically walking through a wall of water vapour. Even after a shivering bath I can start sweating away again a mere 5 minutes later. For the want of some rain.
To beat the heat, I went ice skating with a few friends on saturday, for once adrian did not mess up the outing. It was fun, but as the rink got more and more like a puddle as it melted, my enthusiasm for crazy stunts waned as well, as I didn't want my jeans and gloves to get wetter than they were. During a crazy moment, the four of us lined up train like, hands on our shoulders while adrian was the last guy pushing us along. Predictably, it ended up with the 3 of us on our butts when the front guy couldn't control the speed while adrian stayed on his feet laughing at us.
Watched Pirates after that, but was thoroughly confused by the characters constantly 1) changing sides 2) backstabbing each other 3) making secret deals with each other. It got to the point I just wanted them to just all out to kill each other. And I didn't stay back after the credits, hence did not watch the extra scene. Still, it was nice fun, did not feel like it was 3 hours.
Had dinner at IMM's ajisen, with plenty of food being exchanged, as someone would not like a certain ingredient found in their ramen and would pass it on to someone else. Drove those who wanted to go to dhoby ghaut in the car, halfway they suggested to go to island creamery at serene centre, which caused me to change course and be at the mercy of yangqi's directions, which got me to a flyover instead of being able to turn to the road we wanted to go on. A scoop of ice cream, then dropped them off at dhoby ghaut before going home.
Sunday was spent fruitfully, as there was a family lunch, followed by some shopping. Dinner was later due to the heavy lunch, I took the time in between to do some stuff I was supposed to do for ages but have been too lazy to do so, and spent 3 hours after dinner revising chapter 8 to 15 of my Japanese course.
Have been spending more time at home than I wish. Not as many assignments as I would like these few days. As a result, been doing more reading and listening to music. Maroon 5's new album is really nice, very smooth and catchy. I like Avril's "When you're gone" as well, plus a few other songs here and there.
Ok words fail me as my eyelids are darn heavy, so I shall stop here. My life is a tad too boring nowadays, shall seek out newer stuff soon.
Now only if this irksome heat would dissipate...

Brother

Spent the evening playing pool with my brother, who said he wanted to spend some time with me. More like his friends pang seh-ed him and asked me to be his opponent to be trashed cum banker.
But still, it was fun. Haven't spent time with him like that for quite some time. I lost horribly at pool, as I suck at the game.
In between, we talked about stuff, like he would tell me about life in his JC, school work, fashion (!) and other interesting stuff. As I spoke to him, I sensed a maturity of thought, which I was very comforted by. This was the same brother a year ago was totally addicted to DOTA, but now is more interested in other stuff, and even sheepishly told me just now that he regrets the time spent playing computer games and should have used the time to do other stuff.
Spending some time with my brother felt very good, despite having to pay for him. Won't get many chances to do so when I'm in UK, so will cherish the times we share together. Even if it just a simple pool game, family is something we tend to overlook, thinking that they'll always be there, but we should still remember to take some time to be thankful for their presence in our lives and spend a little time with them.

Irreverent

When I go to London, I've decided, I shall work as a match steward at a stadium, but not 2 certain stadiums. Up to you to guess which one.
Anyway, when I told nick about it, he reminded me that I was supposed to be the translator for Dong Fangzhou. Slowly la, first as a match steward, then they'll realise I'm Chinese with passable Mandarin so I shall be the translator for the influx of Chinese players. Maybe can go to the Valley to translate for Zheng Zhi, but Charlton is relegated already, no big bucks there. Anyway, then from translator, will progress up the ladder to become the first Singaporean football manager to manage an English club so I can spout cliches like "The ball is round." and "At the end of the day..", complain about referees, get into slagging matches with other managers, shout at players, lie through your teeth to the press and moaning to the whole world why your best players are always injured, your other players are crap, your board always never give you money to spend, referees are biased against your team, other players are divers, why the sky so blue or the grass so green etc. you get the idea.
Yet another frivolous post. Been a few of those these few days.

Time of our lives

There seems to be much to talk about, starting with the resurgence of the elitist issue. I'm really fed up with this thing already. My only wish is people don't blow up the matter again and those who wield power to influence others not fuel the fire.
It all started with the HC boy (I deliberately used the word boy) who punched the bus driver over a frankly silly matter. A writer tried to argue that students in elite schools have more pressure thus are more likely to snap.
Frankly speaking, I think that, after going to so many schools, students from elite schools are no different from those in other schools. I think it's absolute crap that one should think they are any different. Doing so merely just messes with your thinking. It doesn't mean you came from a brand name school you're set for success.
I just hope that people can stop having such wrong notions of such students. Also, one thing I believe in, is that it is pointless to argue the case for students in such schools, as it'll be hard to find any sympathy or understanding from a society who currently have wrong ideas about them.
Talking to Nick about our respective futures, he said he really wants to be a farmer in NZ. I said if he gets to become that, I'll visit him every year with my family. The kids will play in the field while we sip wine on the patio talking cock. Good life, no?
Just had this idea of creating a new drama serial after talking to Nick and watching Bones on Channel 5.
It'll be a story about this social worker, who isn't your ordinary kind helpful stereotype. He does social work to get to know emotionally vulnerable women so he can take advantage of their instability, chooses who to help, and only helps those who he thinks are worth helping, yet, he still gets the praise of many. This newly hired social worker who is very idealistic and paired up with him finds him reprehensible at first, as she disagrees with his ways. In the end, she gets convinced by his unorthodox and unconventional methods to help people.
The crux of the situation is that the guy himself doesn't believe what he does helps anyone anyway. "I'm not a good person." he'd constantly say, because he believes that he will never reach the point that he can help someone without thinking about how it'd benefit him. And he is not totally convinced about social work, he sees it as a job, unlike the girl who is filled with ideals, he just does it because, in his own words, "I want to."
Just throw all sorts of situations for them to handle, which they will in their own ways, causing conflict which need to be resolved by the end of the episode, and voila we get a full season. Character development would show the guy have a bit more faith in what he does, and the girl would temper her idealism to something more practical.
Removed my P plate. Am now officially able to accrue less than 24 points before losing my license.
Just feel a bit of ennui. It seems like in my haste to do many things, I have exhausted myself of things to do. Time to go search for more stuff to do before restlessness sets in.

Remember your first wedding?

For those who saw the new commercial commerating 40 years of NS, the abovementioned words appear at the part when a new recruit grabs his rifle from his superior in the rifle presentation ceremony. Brought back some memories, it sure did.
"You must snatch it from me! Like a man!"
Wednesday went to watch Phantom of the Opera. Very good stuff, people were humming the tunes in the toilet while peeing during the intermission. Am now listening to the soundtrack regularly as well. Well worth the 147 bucks.
Friday, the mahjong session that were gestating for a week finally materialised, after a few hiccups along the way. What with people playing out last minute due to a forgotten birthday party or people insisting that they'll only come after watching the 7 pm show on Channel 8 for a chiobu. The driver of the mercedes shuttle bus came to my place early afternoon as he was bored, we browsed kino for a while and he got to be known as Andy, driving all the way to redhill first then to meyer road, where we didn't complete a mahjong game again. Played the stupid drinking game after supper, i kenaed the nonsense for the last round (Tequila, whisky and water). The first round was worse, absolut strawberry, jolly shandy and milo.
Sun was a farce, as we were supposed to go ice skating but got the closing time wrong. Ended up going to settler's cafe in holland village, played their namesake's game and found it quite fun. Adrian got 2 answers right during the idiot game when he was supposed to get them wrong, and claimed he did that accidentally. I'm sure.
Am very behind with my Japanese homework as a result of constant going out, shall take tomorrow to study.
Shall just end with a story. On Sat, I went to office for some refresher course. As it was a very last minute thing, the turn out was very poor, with only 3 people (myself included) appeared. As the meeting hadn't started, I chatted with a colleague who came earlier than me. She started to enthusiastically tell me about what happened to her the previous day.
A bit of backstory first. There was a collective office lunch once, and I sat opposite her for it and started to talk to her. I've seen her before a few times, and she is always dressed in a very mature manner, so I always thought she was a good 3 years older than me. Over the course of her conversation, she revealed she's only a first year uni student, then it dawned on me that she was actually younger than me! In my sleep deprived state then, my mouth moved faster than my brain and I just blurted out these words.
"Your only 20? I thought you were 24!"
She said "No." with enough frostiness to freeze hell over. I thought, Oops, BIG mistake there. But thankfully she didn't really take it to heart, and we chatted amicably during our subsequent meetings.
Back to last Sat, she started to tell me that she was in Bugis the previous day shopping, and suddenly she was approached by 2 young looking but well dressed guys. 1 of them said, "Err, can I have your number?" and she was taken aback. She didn't give them her number, but a email address she hardly uses, and asked for their ages. They told her they were 18.
Which led to her to triumphantly say to me, "Hey 2 18 year old guys approached me leh! And you still say I look 24." When I tried to tease her about those guys having Oedipal complexes, she retorted, "Eh don't talk nonsense la. When you get 16 year old girls approaching you then you have the right to talk!"
And the best part, she repeated the story to anyone who cared to listen in the office.
Line of the week. When discussing examples to illustrate points to the students, many atime we use the ones that are "unforgettable" for various reasons so that the students will remember.
"Why is it that the best examples are the ones that inevitably have to do with bodily secretions?"

Goodbye, halcyon days

Something just hit me while I was bathing.
Recently someone dear to me and younger than me told me, after a bit of probing, that he got a girlfriend. My suspicions were aroused when I saw him myseteriously acquire a set of homemade muffins and was confirmed when his MSN display pic showed 2 people instead of 1.
When I told this story to a friend, he laughed and said that he got chocolate cake after his very book out from tekong.
What set me thinking was, when I spoke to the guy that was younger than me, I know his puppy love would face a lot of obstacles and chances are it won't work out and end in tears. The cynical side of me wanted to tell him that, but I decided not to.
Despite this knowledge, I think the things that they'll do for each other would make it worthwhile. Just like the friend with the chocolate cake, although it did not end up the way he wanted, I'm sure if he thinks back to that day he'll smile at the memory of it. Let's face it, after shagging around in that shit island for 2 weeks, dragged from the comfortable civilisation we were used to to something so alien and different, I'm sure the feeling you get if someone was there at the bus interchange waiting for you with a smile would be a feeling of pure unadulterated happiness, untainted by the cynicism of the world.
And I wonder, if I did end up missing out on such simple but pure love, that only belongs to a time where we were all wide eyed and innocent, and that can never be gotten back again.

Helium voiced jailbait, anyone?

Sorry for my laziness, having had the desire to blog much, until it hit me the days that had recently passed are worth remembering, for various reasons. Here's a post to say it all.
Manchester United are Champions! Cheers all around, now for the FA cup final next week. Was desperately trying to find out the Manchester derby score in Hong Kong, only found out it using a internet terminal in a MTR station. And was brushing my teeth in the toilet and heard yangqi telling me chelski only could draw and Man United were Champions!
Watched Spider-Man 3 before I left for Hong Kong, and was quite disappointed. It felt like they were trying to squeeze everything into 2 plus hours and it caused the film to be rather rushed. I hope there's a director's cut DVD somewhere, where they lengthen the film and explain many things that were just left hanging. And poor Venom got shunted so badly.
Was at a secondary school in the west yesterday for work. They were a bunch of sec 2s, with the programme focus on exam and study skills. As I interacted with the class, I found that they're class is very fragmented, with the class monitor that there are as many as 7 cliques! I don't think it was very healthy, so I spent the majority of time talking to the students during the programme, but as a result, I got chided by my Trainer, who is a full timer. The rationale is that we're here to deliver the programme, which is about exam and study skills, not about improving their class spirit.
Which bothered me, a lot more than I'd liked. Normally, although I empathise with the students', especially when they tell me their problems, I can successfully distance myself from them, in a sense wash my hands off them totally. It makes me sound like a callous bastard, but my thinking is that I shouldn't be affected by their problems, otherwise with the number of students I meet, I'd buried under by the burden of their problems. But this class is stuck in my mind. Yesterday, despite knowing that I wasn't there to help improve on their class spirit, the human being within me still wanted to try and help them, even if it is just in a pathetically feeble way; instead of the calculator within me that would decide that the time I have with them is too short and thus not bother.
And they're not the worst class I've been too. Maybe it's because the monitor told me that teachers that don't even teach their class call them stupid. I felt an inexplicable flash of anger when I heard that. And worse still, was she said it in a tone of resignation, and I could guess what she felt. She didn't believe that her class was stupid, but if she were to hear it more, she may just start to believe in it.
She could have been playing games with me for all she cared, but taking it in this context, I must state categorically that I dislike teachers who put their students down, but I can understand why. Teachers are human as well, but they have to remember that their words can mean a lot, even if they think their words mean nothing.
I think it's just me, or either that I have been watching too much GTO. I think for my job, I have displayed the required emotional detachment necessary to survive so far. Still I wonder if that means that I have been discarding my humanity away, a shred at a time.
Had 2 people stand up on me for meals, but expected it as they were both busy people anyway, there was a high chance of it happening. It seems like, save for a few people like myself, many of my peers have seemed to began to enter the 9 to 5 life and are governed by it. Which kind of scares me as I'll enter it soon.
To elaborate on the point, I had supper with a colleague on friday, and she and I were on the opposite ends of the university education spectrum, she a fresh graduate, me a year 0 uni student. She spoke of her interview, and I jokingly reminded her after getting a job the next stage in life is to get married.
She's only 2 years than me, and I'm mucking around, waking up at 11 each day (if I'm not working) and wonder what I'll do for today, while she's out hunting for a job. Gives anyone a perspective on what lies ahead, and it's already mid May. Give it another 4 months and I'll be on that plane to the next stage of my life. And another 3 years it's the mortarboard for me.
Given it's the time for people graduating, I think it's apt to think about my future graduation. Always have a goal in mind, right?
Had to work last thurs, somehow did not sleep well on wed, so was quite tired while working. Went home to crash, but couldn't sleep at all, then had Japanese class, after that I went to be a very good friend for someone. Don't want to describe too much, but suffice to say it involved being a court jester while being very very very tired, having only 2 hours of sleep (at least it was level 4 sleep), and trying to get a cab in the morning for 40 mins to get to work. Surprisingly, I was more alert on friday than on thursday. The wonders of level 4 sleep.
And to the aforementioned friend, you owe me haha. You know who you are.
Intended to sleep early on sun, after watching the trophy presentation, but ended up being a listening ear to a friend from my school days, who was having some problems with her relationship. After 1.5 hours, she thanked me for being a listening ear, and said jokingly of course, although I was nice she won't fall for me as we know each other too well already.
Which is quite true to me. I don't think good friends can be lovers, it's not impossible, but I think it'll be a bit weird. So now all the teasing and name calling and casual banter will be replaced by sweet nothings and hand holding etc is it? It just feels weird to me. But yeah, what do I know about relationships anyway?
Saturday, went to support a friend who was acting in a play. It didn't really turn out the way I thought it would, but at least the rest of the Guys were there so I could count on their company.
Thinking about it now, if I had been in that situation a few years back, I may have just sniggered and made disparaging comments about it. But now, I think I can understand where they come from, despite not agreeing with their ways.
Like what I always tell my students, and what I told those students on monday, I don't care about your teachers, I don't care about other people, I don't care about anything else, I only care about what's inside a person. I believe in what a person can do, what he or she is capable of, and to quote FF12, "to put the reins of history in Man's hands again". To be responsible for their own successes and screw-ups.
Perhaps I'm too idealistic. Even I have trouble taking things by the scruff of the neck and making things happen. But perhaps all we need to know is that, we all CAN. When you want something badly enough, you'll make it happen.
For a final note, to that class I took on mon, I highly doubt you'll read this, but let this be my release. I hope you overcome your problems and become a great class and work hard.
Ok done.
Purged myself of guilt.

Faraway Sojourns

I have been away, literally and physically, for a while. Somehow that reluctance to chronicle my life came about again, hence the lack of any entry for 2 weeks. Also, I have been physically away from my home, exchanging one island for another in the form of Hong Kong. There seems to be much to talk about.
Hong Kong was fun, as the company I went with, save for 2 good friends, I don't know them in great depth. Although I can't say we got to know each other better as a result of that short trip together, their idiosyncracies made the trip memorable for many reasons. We spent most of the time touring the commercial and retail heaven that is Hong Kong, but yielded only frustration as there seemed to be a lack of attractive items to blow our hard earned cash on. Still, we amused ourselves by indulging in desserts at the oddest of times, bantering with each other, braving the slight drizzle and smoggy air as we trooped along. Holidaying in Hong Kong requires great stamina, as we stayed up till 2 am every night.
Things that amused me were incidents when 1 of the guys insisted that we had 5 Aces while playing a card game, the same guy taking a photo with an air stewardess on another person's phone and spent the whole trip begging for it, camera shyness on a girl's part, having weak knees at the sight of the Ocean Park "Tiao Luo Ji" (Suicide machine, for the literal translation), the nice city skyline scenery at night seen in many a TVB drama.
It was a nice trip, am now raring to go for another one.

Top of the pile

Monday, August 09, 2004

Claiming back what's ours I was walking towards kinokuniya yesterday after dinner with my family. Upon reaching the entrance, I saw a boy wearing the new Manchester United jersey. I felt it looked odd, and on closer inspection, I realised why so. There was no golden lion on the sleeve, just a normal blue one. Then all the hurt and disgust came flooding back, before slowly being replaced with righteous anger. This time, we're going to get that golden lion back, and how. Just you pretenders wait.

And so they did, with style and panache, the Manchester United way. 3 years of hurt gone, finally, it happened.
Champions