spilling the beans

2006-09-13T12:58:00.000+08:00

And I'd give up forever to touch you
Cause I know that you feel me somehow
You're the closest to heaven that I'll ever be
And I don't want to go home right now

And all I can taste is this moment
And all I can breathe is your life
Cause sooner or later it's over
I just don't want to miss you tonight

And I don't want the world to see me
Cause I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am

And you can't fight the tears that ain't coming
Or the moment of truth in your lies
When everything seems like the movies
Yeah you bleed just to know you're alive...
["Iris" by Ronan Keating]

2006-09-03T19:48:00.000+08:00

okay... time's running out, the prelims are drawing nearer. i havent touched a single bit of biology. biology! oh my goodness imagine the amout of "cellular respiration" and "growth and development" and "blah blah blah" i'll have to cram into my brain over the next week. argh. shld've started earlier damnit. but oh well at least maths and physics arent so bad.. (okay maybe i'm comforting myself but what the hell. haha.)
i walked to the expo for the comex IT fair just now. the freakin place was so crowded it was as if they were celebrating christmas early this year. inside the halls i cldnt see beyond the people around me, and the entire place smelt horribly of sweat. almost pengsan inside there la. but it was nice to take a look at what amazing gadgets people have invented. the mobile gps system from Tibo (yea i know it sounds like some nonsense dunno what brand that's probably made from cardboard, but it isnt.. the bloody thing cost $1099) looked really impressive. it covers all roads in singapore and malaysia, and gives specific on-the-move instructions how to get from place to place. reminded me of tom cruise's show Minority Report. so as usual the salesman spent 10000hrs explaining how wonderful the thing was, and i wasted his 10000hrs by just smiling and walking away. i think he was gonna throw the gps gadget at me in anger but cleverly decided not to.
back to football.. (i know, again. yes yes. haha.) i watched england play andorra last night and i think they might as well just award the walk-over to england. england won that 5-0. paul robinson cld have opened a kacang puteh stall and sell to the fans behind the england goal. john terry and wes brown cld have been his assistants and england would still have won 5-0. i think gerrard is fitting in very well into that right-wing position. he hits the crosses beautifully. who needs david beckham now? (yea apart from victoria la) anyway i really pity the andorra team. haha. according to the commentator, their manager has been in charge since 1997. so far he's led them through 50 games, of which he won 3, and all were against FYR Macedonia. alamak i think he should retire. lol.

2006-08-28T21:14:00.000+08:00

i went to changi general hospital on wednesday for a follow-up on the fractured left leg.. wasted a total of 2:07:89hrs there. (for the maths-idiots, it's 2hrs, 7.89 minutes) yea that was the digits on my stopwatch from when i handed in the referral letter to when i settled payment. so much for efficiency. anyway the doctor did all sorts of weird tests on the leg, bending it in every way possible. i was so worried it might pop again la. but fortunately it turned out all right. so the nightmare of a fractured leg is officially over. i can finally play football again. haha.
the unfortunate thing... 2 more weeks and the prelim exams start. so the mugging fever has already kicked in. i think i'm going nuts bcos of all this studying. i was at the airport's viewing gallery today and i saw a plane engine right smack in the middle of the taxi lane. yea i know i blinked and rubbed my eyes but the bloody thing was still there. so i decided that i must've gone bonkus.
liverpool was disappointing this weekend.. i know it's sad coming from an anfield faithful, but chelsea looked impressive. as much as i feel like thumping jose mourinho's face, i think chelsea was the most balanced team this weekend. even manchester united played awfully. (no i didnt forget the "well") to depend on a mikael silvestre goal (which was probably meant as a cross in the first place) to save their skin is pathetic.

2006-08-09T17:48:00.000+08:00

whoa havent touched this blog in umpteen years. must have been rotting badly..
okay i've been really free with nothing better to do, stuck at home with a cast on my left foot. knee fracture. i was playing a football match for Red Force FC at marina south. the opposition won a throw in on our right flank and they took it long, past allan's reach. their striker met the ball, and i went in hard from his right with a sliding tackle. my left foot got caught in the uneven ground, and my body weight got thrown over the otherside, so the knee went "piak". i had a look at the knee and almost pengsan man.. the bone was jutting out at the weirdest angle on earth (even the esplanade looked smooth), and the pain was stinging. so i shoved the joint back in place and must have chipped off part of my bone as a result, or so says the doctor. it hurt so bad i kept shouting every 4-letter word i knew. i must have shouted fuck a few times then. okay la many times. anyway.. i'm hobbling around now, stuck in a chair most of the time. thankfully it'll only be for 2 weeks. i'll be soooo glad to remove this cast.
been mugging quite hard the last couple of weeks.. starting to get kanjiong. exam fever kicking in. argh i cant wait for it all to be over. tjc's revision schedule is fierce. well i suppose it's fierce in every college la.. i hope it all pays off eventually.

2006-05-16T21:16:00.000+08:00

got back a couple of lecture test and assignment results this week: GP compre 32/50, c.maths 18/30, physics 17/40. there's still bio and chem left. my best subject so far is GP, for the simple reason that it does not require studying. the rest of the content subjs are still hovering about the pass mark.. but i think chem and bio should be much better. maths and physics are my worst subjects. so i suppose those are what i'll have to correct before the As. which is in another what.. 5 months. time really flies. college life is just too short.
anyway, SPA has ended for physics and chemistry, and bio will be over by the 31st of May. i havent heard any better news this year! haha. i'm so so so glad SPA is gonna be over. it's been a horrible experience. tedious, repetitive, and to some extent, unfortunately meaningless. but then again the 2 periods per week for each science subject occupied by SPA previously will be used a tutorials. omg. 6 extra periods of tutorials a week! my wallet's gonna be drained by coffee again. nestle's latte and mocha are quite good. haha. effective, too.
trained out tjc girls football team today with phileo and raymond and jon. quite different from what i'm used to. the pace of the game is much slower, and it's so much gentler. feels awkward to me. imgaine football without the jostles and sliding tackles and pushing and shoving. kampong style, too. lol. but credit to them.. our girls team made it to the semi finals of the A division championship, and guess what, they get to play at Jalan Besar Stadium!!! that's an experience to die for la. astro turf and proper gallery for fans. i'm jealous.
just payed $16 for the tjc dance society's production this friday. i hope it's good.. bcos 16bucks is a huge hole to burn in my wallet. nvm i'll look for clement and rachel if it's not good. they were the con-men. or con-couple, for that matter.

2006-05-07T15:37:00.000+08:00

whoa havent written a new post in quite a while. been horribly busy.
anyway.. the A division season for football has just ended for tjc, and i'm finally a free man! but it feels weird, with so much time on my hands. used to train 3-4 times a week. football was such a huge part of my life. feel quite empty now. lol.
but then again, it really is time to sit down, settle down, and start mugging. dont want to be forced to drop any subjs after the JCT.. so i'll have to target at least a C grade for every subj. what a bloody minimalist, huh. haha.
so the june holidays are fast approaching. think i'll be spending most of it mugging for the JCTs.. going to china too to visit some relations; so i'll be missing the marist dive trip. sadness. that was something i was looking forward to. nevermind.. i'm sure i'll have other opportunities to dive with them again.
one consolation: the A level SPAs are coming to an end soon. yay! haha. it's just been soooo irritating. it's more repititive than anything.. i hardly learned much from SPA, if u ask me. i memorised most the answers, which were all the same anyway.

2006-04-18T16:54:00.000+08:00

this wld be the 2nd time i've missed out on the national A division football tournaments. last yr i sat it out bcos i moved from MJC to TJC during the JAE, and this year bcos i tore one of my quadricep muscles. sighs. been brooding over this for very long. but i suppose there's so much more to life than just football, isnt there? so i think i shall stop ranting about this. hopefully i'll get other chances to play competitive football again sometime in the future. anyway football's taken its toll on me already. it's time i settled down into a more sedantary lifestyle and start mugging. but sedantary? me? i can hardly imagine that. oh well..
anyway i spoke to michael ystd.. the asian dive expo is coming to suntec city this weekend. sounds so tempting la. think i shall go look around. i'll be missing the dive trip this june; going to visit some relations in china. i cant wait to dive again.. i think its a psychological addiction. i totally love the feeling of being in the vast ocean.. the feeling of space and freedom is indescribable. everytime i'm in the water it's as if time freezes completely.
i dunno why i'm typing this now. i'm supposed to be in sch reviewing a video of our last match against acjc, but i totally forgot about it. i just came straight home after chemistry pract. just as well then.. got to study for tmr's bio test. i havent touched a single chapter. argh!

2006-04-01T23:17:00.000+08:00

depressing. disappointing. whatever you call it. i've been hit by the stupid thigh injury again. just one day before the first match of our A division campaign against nanyang jc. i had to sit on the bench and watch as my team battled on the field. i feel i've let the team down, not being able to be there to fight for them. i feel i've let mr tong and coach down, not being able to repay the faith they've shown in me, giving me the starting position in defence for so long. i really hope the injury heals by thursday. tpjc will be a tough nut to crack, and i want to do my part for team tjc. but this has given Anand the chance to step in to the stopper position, and, to his credit, i must say he played very well against nanyang. although it ended 0-0, the entire defence, including our keeper jon, held out and did their best, keeping a clean sheet. it was very disappointing, to dominate the entire game, only to find all our shots either sailing over the crossbar, or tyco-ly parried by the NYJC keeper. the referee didnt help much either. some of his decisions were quite appaling.
life's really hectic now. 2 matches a week, and tutorials piling up. spent most of saturday resting.. slacking.. sleeping. lol. what a pig. managed to cram in some bio tutorial. but that's hardly sufficient. got to do better tmr. and there, as always, goes the weekend.
time flies. too quickly for my liking. college is only 2 years, and the last one year has just floated past without much time to relish the things that have happened or are going on. everyday's a rush through life, sometimes i dont even know what i'm here for. it gives me the "all right hurry up and get this over and done with" type of feeling, which shouldnt be. i'm sure there's more to life than this.
it remains to be seen, then.

2006-03-23T16:17:00.000+08:00

term 2's been good so far, especially after the release of the new time tables. each period has been reduced from an hour to 55mins, so cumulatively, school ends earlier everyday! the best catch: mondays end at 1250 now instead of 4.15! so thanks a lot, whoever proposed this 5 min reduction. it makes life that much better. phew. but as usual, thursdays are horrible. chemistry tutorial in the first period, then 2 periods of physics pract, followed by 2 periods of GP, lunch, then 2 periods of bio pract, then PE. oh my goodness. the drinks stall uncle can look forward to earning quite a bit of money from my class. we exhaust his supply of coffee every thursday.
just heard today that in the 4th week of this term, the following will occur: 1) chemistry lecture test covering alkanes all the way to NMR (the entire organic chem syllabus), 2) physics test on A.C. and analogue electronics, 3) bio test on transport and the excretory system, 4) 2 'A' division football matches against SAJC and HCI, 5) Mardi Gras celebrations in school, for which my class will be setting up a stall, meaning there's a lot of preparatory work to be done. i dunno how i'm gonna survive that week. i'm dreading it totally. someone please throw me a lifeline! arghhh... hopefully i'll still be in one piece after that. otherwise, i'd very much appreciate anyone who comes to visit me in Buangkok Green Resort, as they call it... you know.. the insitute of mental health. lol. i heard it's a scary place to be in.. and i dont intend to find out.
anyway, the A division tournament starts in a week from now. so the team decided to increase team spirit and identity and all that. so... no we didnt buy ourselves ostentatious jerseys or carry the same bag or anything like that.. we just shaved our hair, army-style. haha. so for the ten millionth time in my life spanning 18 yrs, i'm botak. again. next year will be the ten million and first, when i enter the army.

2006-03-12T16:36:00.000+08:00

just realised that i always mention football in each and every single post i make here on this blog. sry it it bores some of you out.. but the point is: football is such a huge part of my life. dunno what i'll be doing without football. so yea you guessed right, there's gonna be more of football in this post. bear with me. =)
the A division draws are out, and we find ourselves wedged in the most horrible group we can imagine ourselves in. 9 teams: MJ (champions last yr), SAJC (power house as well), RJC and ACJC (big boys in the A division too), Hwa Chong, NYJC, Tampines, Anderson, and ourselves. we're the underdogs together with ny. qualification (top2) for both our teams will seem a great shock to many people. but we're definitely hoping to spring some nasty surprises this year.. hopefully on the big guys. haha. the plus point: there's no pressure on us to deliver anything. we're just gonna go out there and enjoy ourselves. btw, our matches will be held at tpjc and mjc. so i can catch up with lots of old friends thereabouts.
its the holidays. finally able to breathe a sigh of relief. at least for a few days. but 4 days are gonna be burned by football (yes yes i know, "oh my goodness not again please, gerald!") so many things i want to do this holidays. sighs. looks like they'll have to wait again. got to get the studying part right too. which reminds me again the As are 7months away. argh! dunno how i'm gonna survive that. but i have to. somehow. lol. sounds stupid.
ok la move on to something less boring and depressing. the piano. find myself listening to and playing a lot more of Chopin's waltzes and nocturns these days. they sound amazing on Symphony 92.4FM. beautiful pieces. some of them remind me of the Tom & Jerry cartoons i used to watch years ago. they use Chopin's waltzes and music too.
went to SMU's open house just now. i found it quite nice. vibrant place and people. very sincere and friendly, quite unlike the experience i had the last time i went to NTU for a chemistry research attachment. SMU's double degrees and overseas modules look pretty attractive. whatever it is... the As got to be right. so that's the goal for now.

utter stupidity

2006-03-07T21:02:00.000+08:00

just 2 months have passed and i can feel the heat of life as a yr2 student in college. spend most of my time rushing tutorials and studying for lecture tests. so far the results havent been looking good, but thankfully things are starting to improve. i heard they're gonna issue progress reports for these past 2 months in tjc. i'll die a horrible death if they do. havent been scoring.
anyway now that the dislocated shoulder has healed sufficiently, i've started training.. even managed to play the last 15 mins of the match against nyjc without discomfort. so those are good signs. after that match, i realised i lacked match practise (sounds like FM, for those of you who play), and distribution in terms of long passes have deproved, so i made sure i played in every training match and began hitting plenty of long balls. so much so that i forgot muscles are muscles; and muscles are not machines. after 2 weeks of fierce long balls and training matches, yea they improved, no doubt, but my quadricep (thigh) muscle tore. so now i'm back on the injury list again. utter stupidity. hit too many long balls one monday: our teacher managed to get us off PE to train for soccer, so hit long balls then; and later in the evening i went for training and hit even more long balls, then halfway through the training match, i made a monster clearance and i heard and felt the dreadful "piak" in my thigh. could'nt walk properly after that. awful experience. anyway it's been abt 1 week and a half now, so i should be back in action by the march hols. no more stupid over-exersions this time around. i'll be extremely careful so that i can play in the A div. it'll be totally depressing if i had to sit it out.
my guitar string snapped yesterday. didnt realise the D string had rusted somewhere at the third fret. i was happily strumming Hoobastank's The Reason and the entire bloody string snapped. was quite a rude shock. have to change the string soon.

cant think of a title

2006-02-09T18:21:00.000+08:00

ok i'm finally updating my blog... the frequency of these updates speaks volumes abt the pace and intensity of school work and such at the moment. havent had time to do much in a long while.
the dislocated shoulder is finally showing signs of recovery. i took the sling off during the chinese new year, and the doctor says i can start training already. so it's back to football proper. extremely glad to be able to play once again. but i wont be able to feature in a competitive match till march. frustrating yes, but better than nothing. so i'll make sure i wont do anything stupid between then and now. looking forward to representing tjc again. btw the football team is playing nyjc next wed at the tj field.. hope we'll be able to get a good result.
had a really tiring day today.. thursday is the worst day of the week for me. my thursday timetable is as follows: 1 period chemistry tutorial, 2 periods physics pract, 2 periods GP, lunch, 2 periods bio pract, then 1 period PE. each period lasts an hour. been struggling to keep my eyes open throughout the day. rather futile, though. i was nodding away during bio pract. mrs ng was staring at me but she was nice enough not to mention anything. got back our physics practical assessment today. i screwed up the entire thing just bcos of 1 silly error. i calculated and plotted on the graph the temperature in degrees celcius when it was specifically instructed to be done in the kelvin scale. lost thousands of marks there. haha. something's happened to me over the last couple of days. first i calculated temperature in degrees celcius instead of kelvin, then i walked straight into a lamp post while typing an sms on my phone, resulting in hilarious comments from a bunch of Malay boys, then yesterday i boarded the wrong bus and went to no man's land, and last week mr tong gave me some forms for the football team, but i left them in his office. fortunately clement rescued them for me. and yesterday again i left my file at the sports complex. realised i didnt have it with me when i was at the bus stop. had to sprint at 500km/h back to the sports com to retrieve it. fortunately again, the aunty hadn't locked the gate for the day.
got a bio test tmr. mutation and evolution and the nervous system. i shall blog again when i have the time.

school school school, here we go again

2006-01-18T21:38:00.000+08:00

think its been abt a week since i last entered something. been really busy in school. sat for 4 tests so far, all of which i doubt will score well except bio. this year's gonna be really fierce. it's only the third week of 2006 and i'm being bombarded by test after test and piles of tutorials. fortunately, i dont do S papers. (not that i qualified for 2 anyway...) otherwise i'll have lessons up till 6.15pm tiwce a week, and on top of all the tutorials for the 4As, i'll be crammed in the room rushing S paper practise qns!! cant stand that. but i think the rythm is slowly setting in... getting used to the rude academic bombardment. the next 10 months will be really long and torturous. but i'm here; i'm ready. haha.
now to the unfortunate right shoulder. the doctor says i'll have to leave it in the sling for 4 weeks as of 3rd jan 06, which means i can only take it off on the 31st. i'm yearning desperately for that day. after that its gonna be light training for another few weeks before i'll be ready for any football action for TJC. other sports like basketball, tennis, volleyball, badminton... out of the question. makes no difference to me anyway. the doc gave me an MC from PE lessons for 3 months!!!! thank you doc! haha. can slack every monday morning and thursday afternoon. no PE!
due to my injury i cant train with the first team, so i've been tasked with handling the J1 sqd. it's something really new to me... coaching a fresh team. so i'd like to take it as a challenge and see what i can do. i think i'm enjoying it so far. hopeully it'll remain as enjoyable and rewarding as it has been.

home sweet home

2006-01-06T09:28:00.000+08:00

the title says it all. i'm finally back home from Outward Bound Korea. it's really good to be home. so many things have happened over the past 11 days.. i'll try to recount all of it; hope it wont bore all of you out. okay here we go:

26th dec (boxing day)
we gathered at changi international airport terminal 2, row 7 for check--in onboard flight SQ882. the only other person from tjc was zijian, so i met him there and we started making new friends immidiately. lol. really friendly people, my course-mates. didnt do anything much this day, just flew for 6hrs to Incheon International Airport. i watched "just like heaven", then played a few nintendo in-flight gamesm and spent the rest of the time sleeping.

27th dec
arrived at the airport at 0645, and by the time we settled immigration and customs and all that and got on the bus, it was abt 0815, and we were on our way to Outward Bound Korea base camp, Ode-san. slept all the way on the bus. reached base camp at abt 1500hrs. but base camp was pathetic. haha. it was a plot of land rented from a farmer who couldnt farm much in winter... it had just 2 toilets, one portable one just like the ones we see in singapore for peeing, and a bucket beneath a chair with a hole in the middle inside a small tent for shitting. lol. i immidiately decided to minimise the number of times i used that shit hole. lol. it smelled horrible. met our guide and instructor: Lee Ji-Ho. he had a red down jacket and a rabbit-fur hat on. the first impression i had was "this guy must be some north-korean and russian military man". lol. he looked really fierce. but fortunately he turned out to be a very nice guy. joker. so after collecting all our gear and pitching our tents and all, the sun was setting, so we cooked dinner in the dining tent, ate, then slept. temperature that night was -10 deg celcius.

28th dec
woke up to see ice all over the walls of our 3-man tent. everything was frozen, including the water in my nalgene bottle. played frisbee to get our spirits up.. but i didnt really enjoy it cos my feet were frozen. frostbite. couldnt feel them at all. cooked breakfast in the dining tent and managed to warm up my feet a bit by the cooking fire.. then went on a check out hike along a river, southward. one part we crossed the river without the use of boats. we literally walked on the water. everything was frozen and the whole river was ice, so we just walked over it. lol. i took a shit along the way. had to dig a hole, dump, then cover it back. so much better than shitting in the base camp toilet. at least you had a beautiful view of the river and cliffs while you dump. haha. we hiked back up-river, then did some rope work. reppeling and cliff-traversing and all that. really fun, plus beautiful views.

29th dec
was used to the cold by now, so it wasnt such a shock to wake up and find ice all over. the coocoon sleeping bags were really comfortable. so warm inside. so.. played frisbee again, cooked and ate breakfast, then set off on a navigation excercise in the mountains. i was cheif navigator bcos i had map experience. really steep inclines and trecherous terrain, but we managed to find all our check-points and made it back to basecamp before dark. spent the rest of the day planning with my team for the 4-day expedition which would commence the next day. i was navigator again along with zijian. so we spent most of our evening staring at the maps and marking routes and all that while anders, dexter, nicole and the rest planned who carried what, and jonathan, our master chef, decided what we would cook and eat during our expedition, packed all the necessary stuff, then distributed it. i packed my badpack, and this was what was in it:
1. extra thermal underwear
2. extra underwear
3. extra socks
4. down sleeping bad
5. sleeping mat
6. headlamp
7. downjacket
8. crampons (for walking on ice)
9. snow gators
10. sierra metal cup
11. LPG lamp
12. 2 boxes of chemical food rations
13. lunch rations
14. thermal water bottle
15. nalgene water bottle
16. 2 maps
17. compass
18. spare wind-proof gloves
19. balaclava (beanie)
20. team first-aid kit
i have no idea how i smashed and squashed and hammered and poked and shoved and folded and squeezed and rolled and jammed all those into one bagpack, which weighed 1 million tonnes by the time i zipped it up.

30th dec
we set off from basecamp in a public bus heading for the Ode-san National Park entrance carrying our backpacks. walked 10km to reach our destination, a mountain shelter. but 10 km in ode-san is not like 10km in singapore. there, inclines were steep and we kept climbing and descending and climbing and descending. sometimes we even had to crawl on all fours. the ;ast 4km was total hell. it was a steep climb of almost 1000m in elevation. everyone was sooooooo tired by the time we reached the mountain shelter, by which time we had hiked for abt 9hrs. but it was fun. used the crampons to cross a frozen waterfall. ice is horrible to walk on. really slippery, so had to attach crampons to our boots. the mountain shelter was just a hut without electricity and sanitation whatsoever, so it was no different from sleeping in the tents.

31st dec (new year's eve)
woke up to find the entire mountain covered in snow. it was snowing hard that night, and this morning everything was white. hiked down a little to get some water from a groundwater source, then carried 2 jerrycans of water up to the shelter with wei ren. we hiked abt 1km to the peak of the mountain, took some pictures, enjoyed the beautiful view from the top of the world (lol), then hiked back to the shelter to get our bagpacks, then started on the day's journey after breakfast. hiked over more ups and downs in terms of terrain, crossed more frozen rivers and battled with the snow till we finally found our destination: a small piece of flat land where we were going to pitch tent for the night. we dropped our bagpacks, then hiked even more (abt 2km back and forth) to where a lorry dropped our resupplies, collected them, then lugged them back to the campsite. we pitched our tents, then pitched a dining tent and started cooking a good meal of bacon, eggs and rice for the last meal of the year 2005. we were way too tired to countdown, so we slept after dinner.

1st jan (new year's day)
woke up at 6am korean time, cooked and ate breakfast, then unpitched our tents and packed the resupplies, hiked down the same road to return the supplies, and hiked back to the campsite. the lorry couldnt come into the campsite bcos the roads were frozen over. poor conditions. so by the time we set off on the day's journey, it was abt 10am. hiked out of the forest area, then entered an even more mountainous region. the winds there were horrible. snow fell so hard that it stung when it hit our faces. strongest winds measured 20m/s, equivalent to 72km/h. those were the most extreme conditions we faced. bu after walking for abt 7hrs, we reached a small town where we would stay that night... in a modernised lodge, with electricity and lighting and sanitation. back to civilisation after a week in the wilderness. that marked the end of our expedition. everyone was sooo relieved and happy.

2nd jan
took a bus back to base camp, where we had a few hrs of solitary confinement. thought about a lot of things then.. abt life, love and all.. trying to figure out how it would all fit into the picture. realised lots of things too. some of the less private ones i'll share here: (quoting Ji-Ho) life is about finding a balance between "being" and "having". when you "be", you lose out on the "have", and when you "have", you cant "be", and ultimately, in my opinion, "being" is more important than "having". preachy, huh. haha. so to sum it all up: life's a bloody mess.

3rd jan
went to a local fishing village on the public bus service, and immersed ourselves in the local culture and life without any money. people there were really friendly and nice, and they were extremely good fishermen. we thought we could see some Bae-Yong Jun or Boa type of handsome hunks and pretty girls there, but we were largely disappointed. they all looked the same; rugged, wind-battered, sun-burnt, strong, tough and harsh. haha. we spent half a day in the town roaming the streets, then went back to base camp for certificate-presentation. after all that, we had a bit of time left before sunset, so we played a bit of touch-rugby. man do i regret doing such a stupid thing. while playing i fell. just any normal fall, but this time the devil was smiling at me. i fell hard on the shoulder and dislocated it. shit. it hurt quite badly then. i almost lost conciousness, due to, according to the doctor, pain and shock and my shoulder bone pressing against a nerve. Ji-Ho and Chor Toh drove me to the town again to a small hospital where they took x-rays of my shoulder, then the doctor pulled my shoulder and shoved the bone back into the joint. it hurt then too. the price of tihs was 95,000 korean won (~S$150), inconvenience in terms of an arm in a sling for 4weeks, and a possibility that my army (NS) carrier is gone. shit shit shit. anyway i slept in the office that night. and all my team members signed on the sling. the doctor and Ji-Ho did too.

4th jan-5th jan
returned to seoul to do some shopping. didnt really buy anything. spent most of my time helping zijian find kimchi. found it eventually in a convenience store near our hotel. woke up at 5am on jan 5th for a 9am flight from Incheon to Changi.

so that's what happened to me during the past 10 days. i'm already missing OBK. i loved it totally. the course and the people. here's a tribute to my team: zijian, wei ren, dexter, nicole, mok, sarabelle, yingsha, debbie, anders, and jon. thanks for everything. Team Pig couldnt have conquered that mountain if not for all of you. and thanks to all the OBK participants for helping when my arm was in that pathetic sling. and nicole thanks for attempting to dislocate the other shoulder. lol.

ok i'm going to the hospital now for a follow-up checkup. to all my classmates 1805 tjc, see you all in college on monday.

boxing day

2005-12-26T11:43:00.001+08:00

today is boxing day, and this means 1) it's the 26th of dec. 2)2005 is going to be over in 6days' time. 3) i'm gonna be sooo dead bcos i havent completed all the holiday assignments. oh dear. lol.
just realised i havent seen the christmas lightings at orchard road this year. been really busy; havent had a chance to go have a look.
i'll be leaving for korea tonight.. guess what? we've been shoved off our original flight on korean air. and thank God they shoved us off, bcos we've been transferred to fly singapore airlines!! haha. how lucky can you get? and we dont even have to pay extra. majulah singapura. best airline in the world. okay enough of that brag. i've been monitoring the weather in korea.. snow storms in seoul; 3 people have died. 2 frozen over and 1 bcos a roof collapsed on him due to heavy snow. yea, poor things, but that's besides the point. if there're snow storms and unexpectedly cold temperatures in the city of seoul, what would it be like at the east coast of korea, 4000metres up in the ode-san mountain? well.. i'll find out in 24hrs' time. i figured i'll bring a camera. hopefully can capture some nice pictures.
right. my mum's screaming for help in the kitchen now. haha. i'll go save her. i'll be back on the 5th of jan.

christmas fast approaching

2005-12-19T09:41:00.000+08:00

just got back from kuching sarawak yesterday. went to visit some relatives there, so accomodation was free. haha. the kuching international airport was as big as an mrt station back here in singapore. yea.. the sarcasm should be evident enough. it had 2 floors, no air-con, and birds nesting in the baggage claim areas. the only thing it lacked was a train arriving every 2 mins. the airport authorities must have shared my observations; they were renovating the place. signboards were not up yet, instead they had A4-sized photocopied paper stuck on the walls with the classic microsoft word arrows printed on them. lol. apart from the ghastly appearance of the airport, everything else was fine. haha. food was cheap, movie tickets were cheap, everything was cheap. haha. and houses were super big. a fully-furnished bungalow complete with swimming pool and garage in the upper class district there costs as much as a 4-room HDB flat here in simei. oh man.
so now that i'm back, its down to football training, completing the holiday assignments, and preparing for the OBK trip. i just realised that for the past few years (except last year), i've never been at home on boxing day. for the whole of my sec school life, npcc year-end-camps commenced on boxing day. only last year after graduation i lived boxing day as a free man. lol.

again cant think of an appropriate title for this one

2005-12-08T21:13:00.000+08:00

it's been a month into the holidays.. how time flies. just started my science council (chemistry) posting to NTU and oh man.... i've decided i'm never gonna work in a laboratory for a living. it's boring work! it's a total torture to me. imagine doing SPA (the science practical exam spa, not the de-stress spa) from 8.30am through to 6pm. that's what working in the lab is like. everything's so technical, and it's procedure after procedure... tak boleh tahan. whoa fortunately tmr i can leave the lab early. got to attend soccer training. phew.
speaking of soccer training.. the training intensity is picking up. every training session is so strength-draining now. getting fiercer by the week. fortunately it hasnt been pouring rain the past few days- otherwise the field will be soaked. i'm quite surprised, actually. this year's monsoon is quite disappointing, if you look at it that way. lol. not up to expectations. 0
got a really nasty injury from a soccer match last week.. got stepped on the wrist by someone wearing a pair of boots with metal blades as studs. could hardly move my wrist for the past week. thank God it's recovering now. can finally play my guitar and piano again.
i still have tonnes of holiday assignments to complete. have to get them done soon. i dread this part of the holidays most. haha. rushing the holiday assignments. i'm quite tempted to just leave it blank and dont submit, actually. lol. but i think that's a bit too much. hmmm..

new look

2005-11-26T17:11:00.000+08:00

right. finally done changing my blogskin.
anyway.. this year's holidays are a bit uneventful so far.. going through the same cycle almost everyday. football is my life for the time being.. been training and training and training. the monsoon season has made football trainings very unpleasent. the whole field is water-logged, so everytime we train, its like stepping onto a bloody padi field. makes playing football so much more difficult, and (i cant believe i'm saying this, but yes,) irritating. mud all over my shirt and body, and my poor nike total 90 III... it's new!! oh my. one training session and it turned from white-and-black to completely brown. have to come home after every training and start scrubbing everything. lol. but as they always say, it's all for the love of the game.
looking forward to next week. we're playing sajc at home in tj on wednesday morning, then playing another game against i-forgot-who again on thursday afternoon at st wilfred's. cant imagine how heavy my legs will feel after that. got a chalet after that too all the way to saturday. fierce. haha.
outward bound korea sent a letter with a packing list. just realised i have to prepare a lot of things for the korea trip. think i better start soon.

cant think of an appropriate title for this one

2005-11-15T21:53:00.000+08:00

started my sgh medical attachment today. fortunately it turned out quite different from what i expected. instead of boring admin stuff, we got to follow the doctors in their outpatient clinic. i was posted to the otolaryngology dept in the morning.. ear, nose and throat specialists. quite cool, the gadgets they use. haha. saw the doctor stick a tube in a patient's nostrils, and he had it run all the way to the back of the throat. a camera of some sort. the poor fellow was moaning and groaning in discomfort. lol. went to the colorectal surgery dept in the afternoon. that was really cool as well. they had the same sort of mini cameras attached to tubes, only here they stuck it up someone's ass instead of down someone's nose. oh my that looked horribly painful. of course i didnt get to see the doctor actually sticking it up a patient's ass.. but that's what the tube was for.. and it was rather large to be stuck up the anus. if i really do become a doctor, i wldnt want to specialise in colorectal surgery. lol. as the doctor said, its "full of shit", literally.
went the kallang after that.. then went to the national stadium. watched the singapore under-23s play the malaysian under-23s in preperation for the SEA games. the match was quite fun to watch, plus all those funny comments the old uncles made, but here's the catch: we reached the stadium at 7.30pm, and realised that the place was unusually empty. then we watched the match for abt 20mins.. and the referee blowed for what we thought was half time. but everyone got up and walked out, then we realised it was already full time! it turned out the match kicked off at 6pm. shit. wasted trip. should have checked the timing before we went. sigh. another "should have". lost count of how many "should-have"s in my life.

Fierce

2005-11-02T22:58:00.000+08:00

did something really stupid during football training ystd. our team was training, and so was the hockey team. we were running on the track, they were practising shooting. as i ran past their area, a stray ball came rolling towards me. trying to be a kind soul, i decided to help whoever hit that ball to stop it from rolling further away and return it. and having played football since i was 4, i instinctively stuck out my damn leg to stop the hockey ball with my foot. up to this point, i'd like to urge any thrill-seekers out there to heed my advice of "please do not try this at home", bcos that bloody hockey ball left me limping throughout the entire run. no idea how those hockey players tahan...
anyway the title fierce refers to the new fitness training programme for the rest of this holidays. got a beep test nest week, and our target is at least a 2-digit score. S-league players must hit a minimum of 12-7 i think, and if i'm not wrong david beckham does 17plus. plus circuit and gym training, 2 to 3 cycles of 11 stations each, tiwce a week on top of ball work, sprints and conditioning, and to top it all off, weekly 4km runs within 20mins. fierce. lol.
i skipped the PW tutorial on wrting I&R. so now i have completely no idea how the hell to write it. deadline is looming, 7th nov. think i shall just conjure smth up soon.

the advent of the holidays

2005-10-29T12:55:00.000+08:00

right. the holidays are finally here. but there's still the AO chinese paper on monday to fret about. once that's over and done with, plus the oh-so-frustrating PW (which fortunately will be over on the 11th on november), i'll finally be able to proclaim my liberty. lol. at least for 2 months. phew.
oh yea.. maris stella was featured in the newspapers yesterday for the overseas student programmes.. home section. guess what? yen hao's photo was there. our dive at pulau tioman. yea. they showed him and Besley gearing up for a dive. so any marists or marist divers reading this.. you ought to feel smth. haha. that's our alma mate, for goodness sake.

Life, post-promo

2005-10-19T22:57:00.000+08:00

promo exam results before moderation are as follows: EEOO. barely met the criteria for promotion and continuation of 4 A subjs. (thank you God) i sound like a minimalist.. anyway, whatever the situation, life goes on..
just realised i'm gonna be really busy during this year end hols. i've got 2 medical internships: one at SGH and another at a private hospital (with a gynaecologist! dunno what i'm gonna do there..) so that'll take up 2 weeks.. football (yes, we use British English. lol.) training will be increased to 4 times a week, with some days with double sessions.. leaving almost no time for anything else. my christmas will be shortlived too.. leaving for Korea on boxing day on an Outward Bound trip.. coming back on 4th Jan 2006. that means i'll be celebrating New Year's Day up in some mountain in god-knows-how-many inches of snow in Odasen National Park near the de-militarized border seperating the 2 koreas. it also means i cant sign up as OGL for next year's orientation. what a waste. i was looking forward to that.
for now.. PW!!! argh!! i wish my op assessment was tmr. then every damn thing would be over and done with.. and i'll be free at long long last.
going to kensington park on satruday. football! yes. finally.
gonna watch chelsea and liverpool play their champions league games later. 0235. i think i'll be showing off some "head-nodding" skills in college tmr bcos of lack of slp.

promo exam results...

2005-10-17T22:16:00.000+08:00

got back our chem and maths papers today. the numbers in the "total marks" column on the respective cover pages read 36 and 44 respectively. how pathetic can it get? oh man.. i think those are one of the worst scores in my class. almost everyone else scored Bs and As. but it seems like apart from a few geniuses, the entire level did horribly.. level average for chemistry is 35, or so i heard. so now i can only hope and pray to almighty god that the school admin will carry out moderation of some sort. sighs. have to resort to such desperate measures. lol. i hope tmr will be better... bio and physics (although i'm almost certain physics will record my lowest mark)
oh well.. quoting from the movie Cold Mountain, it's no use if you had power over the weather, gathered all the storm clouds, then holler in misery,"shit, it's rainin'!" guess i'll just have to work harder next time. but i lost count of how many million times i've told myself that. haha.
PW is beating the life out of me now.. so many deadlines to meet and so many things to do. cant wait for it to be all over. official OP assessment is on the 11th of nov, but there're so many rehearsals with different tutors before that, and our OP slides are far from ready.
one consolation amid all these: football training's finally resuming. looking forward to stepping out onto the pitch again.
for now, i just hope i can be promoted and allowed to continue 4 A sbjs. argh.

noob

2005-10-16T23:40:00.000+08:00

finally got this blog up and running. it's rather bare for now, and the layout is pathetic. it will be for a couple of days.. so just bear with it. i'll update it and improve on it.