It was both a bad and good time for me these recent weeks. First, I did whatever exchange students did. Partied like crazy and drank like crazy. When I think about friends being back in Singapore, in their 6th week of school, I can’t but just feel a tinge of gladness that I was not there. But then again, unhappy things have happened to my relationship with Stella. Close friends of mine knew what I’ve gone through and I am so happy that they were there when I was down. That was when I really wanted to be there in Singapore.

Things are getting better for me now. I’m partying and having fun and drinking again. I thought I owe some of my friends an explanation but it’s hard to say anything on these blog pages so let the story only be understood by those who already knew. For now, I’m going to post nice pictures, happy stories and wonderful tales of the people I’ve met, the places I’ve been to and the parties when I’ve gotten drunk.

To a close friend who is also having problems, stay strong and believe in love. No matter what happens.

P.S: I wrote the previous poem in Secondary 3.

Pictures tell a thousand words, or in this case, a lifetime promise. The guy you see in the photos is not just a friend or best friend; he is long wei, a brother to me. He belongs to this group of 5-6 people whom I will never hide anything from, whom I will share everything with (girlfriend included). I have tried my best (despite a tight schedule) to plan a nice proposal for him. Hope Jean and him will be happy always.

The unveiling of the ring box

The acceptance

And finally, the kiss.. Awww…

Today I had a hearty all-American breakfast: sausages, scrambled eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes, the works; all prepared by my lovely Stelly who woke up early to buy the ingredients, travel to my place and cook up a storm in my little kitchen. Why you ask? Well, we’ve gone through 2 eventful years together, that’s why.

We then went out for a present shopping spree for each other. During the walk we saw the Mint Museum of Toys and decided to pay it a visit. $10 per person; I would say it’s definitely worth it if you are a fanatic in ancient toys. Otherwise, it could be a very quick visit due to its small size. There were a few interesting exhibits but I couldn’t find anything I played before in my youth. Guess I’m not that old after all.

It may be Batman to you but its Bapokman to me. Look at those boobs and the pouty red lips!

And here’s Betty Boop having a hard on…

Anyway, I shall say what I bought for her first as it’s easier to describe; a 4gb iPod nano. We fussed over it, compared it to the Samsung but finally fell victim to the power of the Apple brand. She has been wanting to have a nice mp3 player for a while so I guess this is a practical yet fun gadget for her.

What stella bought for me was crazier though. Not sure if you are familiar with the brand FREITAG (http://www.freitag.ch), but it’s been my dream to own one of these amazing bags! I would probably never have bought it for myself due to its price but it’s so so great to get this as a present. Thanks dearie..

This bag is made from used tarpaulin from trucks and old seat belts 

Adding the FREITAG brand to those recycled materials? A price tag of almost 400 dollars

Thrilled with the purchase, happy with my bag and using it immediately, I then surprised Stella with a dinner at Sho-U, a Japanese fusion restaurant at Central, Clarke Quay. Food rocks but servings were so so tiny… Satisfied her perpetual cravings of salmon sashimi though.

And finally… Happy Anniversary to us!

Friday. I went to the Asian Civilization Museum with a friend from my internship days to check out an exhibition of Chinese snuff bottles. Admission was free and the bottles were amazing. These bottles were from the Qing dynasty; a time when it was hip to carry beautiful minature bottles filled with snuff around. Whenever someone needs a quick fix , all he or she needs to do is to swirl their pigtails to the back, take out the snuff bottle, uncap it and breathe a mini-spoonful of it in through their nose. Sounds illegal? Not in China! Who says the Chinese are boring?

Carvings look intricate? This bottle is smaller than my palm

But the interesting part was meeting this native North Canadian named Varlan. Native as in red indians, dance and campfire native. Although I’ve seen native Americans looking very much like latins or (no offense) pocahontas, Varlan look just like a typical caucasian. And the really really interesting part is he’s an artist; a honors graduate in fine arts in fact. So the three of us had a nice chat about the bottles, Singapore (but of couse) and North America. Varlan had made Montreal sounds so good, it made Singapore seemed like a backward place to live in! Incredible but true.

And the conversation with Varlan went into why he was in Singapore and what will he do here and it made me think about the rat races that we are signing up for right after graduation. Varlan is working 3-5 hours a day teaching English, and spending the rest of his time doing things he wants to do, like visiting places and painting. And us? We will probably spend 10 hours a day every weekday and a few more hours in the weekends so we can buy things that we want to own. Singaporeans like us probably never have a chance to walk around and really see what the country possesses. We have wonderful museums and exhibitions here but we only marvel at the grandoise of the Louve. We have exotic shopping places like Haji Lane but we just yearn for the street markets of Hong Kong and Bangkok. We have musical events from Good Vibrations to Phantom of the Opera but we only take out our wallets for our weekly dose of Hollywood cinemas. Is Singapore boring because of its activities (or lack of) or is Singapore boring because of us?

I’m not saying that I want to earn less and do more. But is it possible to strive for our ambitions yet at the same time, open our eyes to the potential sights and experiences around us? I believe so. Maybe by the end of the year when I’m back from Barcelona, I’ll be better able to indulge myself into the charms of this little island country. For now, I better book those movie tickets before it gets sold out.

They did it again. In August last year, SBS and SMRT has applied to the Public Transport Council for a fare hike and now, they are going to say "oops" because they have "did it again".

I remembered the Government praising the entry of SBS into the mass rapid transit market with their North East Line, stating the benefits of a competitive industry with falling prices, innovations and greater service.

Let’s not talk about perfect competition; let’s not even mention monopolistic competition, it’s a cartel, for god’s sake! And what is the PTC for when the transport giants can even arrange to do this fare hike thing on the same month every year! Sooner or later, the private bus and taxi companies will hop on the price-fixing bandwagon and what a happy and crowded one it will be.

I can just imagine fat chairmans with their tummies full of truffles and caviar, boasting about the bonuses that’ll be served to them on their cash-laden desks at the end of this year. Well, I say let them sit comfortably and even laze a little, for the day I become a MP is the day they will shiver in their thick Hugo suits.

Hmph!

I spent the beginning of July really differently. Everyday was simply filled with activities like suntanning, gym, suppers with old friends, psping and practically nothing else. That was a life I never experienced before; almost as good as my secondary school days.

Now it has changed again, albeit to something I experienced during an ordinary SMU term, to stress. I’ve been at Standard Chartered Bank’s iLab in SMU for the entire week working on both technical and non-technical (and of course, some non-iLab) issues.

VMWare - I spent 3 entire days installing and configuring our Jazz Instant Messenger to work on the system. Before that, I was googling everything I can to learn how to even start.

IS470 - I spent hours researching on my topics, reading white papers, googling (again), so as to write out a proper proposal for Professor Debin in order to kickstart my IS Depth module. Hope it will go well.

Standard Chartered Bank Priority Banking Academy - This event caters to the children of priority customers in SCB, obviously the ones with much more zeroes before the decimal point than after. A 4-hour training session is required of me. How am I going to make that 4 hours fruitful and interesting with the kids? It’s LTB time.

Exchange at ESADE - I’m flying off to Barcelona in 25 days time. My VISA is not ready yet. My accomodation is not ready yet. My packing list is still empty. And I’m broke right now! Sigh..

Road Trip - Actually, it’s train trip. I’m going to pack my bags and just hop on a train northwards with a couple of friends. Where we’re going, north. Where exactly, we are not certain yet. All we know is that we’ll end up in Thailand and start heading back (see picture below). With our (hopefully) trusty cameras, we’re going to be collecting images at every waking hour.

And that’s where the stress comes in. I’m afraid that I might not be able to make it to Thailand; money and time being huge opposing factors. Well, what the hell. We only live once.

I’m so touched that Stella said this to me:

"Go. This is your only chance to do something like this."

Thank you dearie.

A problem. That’s what I have against public transport in Singapore. After going to places like Paris, Barcelona, Japan and even Hong Kong, I am convinced that Singapore does not have a ‘world class transportation system’ or so it claimed. Some of the places I’ve been to, have subway stations spread apart the same distances as our bus stops! And how great it is, to be able to walk underground for ages, linking practically every building to a heavily networked system. Which is why we seldom hail a cab in foreign lands (except Thailand of course).

In Singapore, don’t you realize that when you are rushing for time, you’ll have a urge to hail a cab? And then you walk out, wait there for 20 to 30 minutes and find out that the train could do the job faster? But you just don’t want to take a train because 1) it is far from your home, 2) it is far from your destination or 3) you don’t want to be squeezed between the peak hour crowds.

So lies our final option, the cab, the worst transportation system in Singapore. They ask for ridiculous surcharges, are never there when you need them, and keep complaining about their job when you finally get one. I do have my fair share of good taxi rides but it’s few and far between. Now at last, the bad eggs of the taxi drivers community will be scrutinized by mystery service auditors!

They’ll be judged on their appearances (doesn’t matter), their vehicle condition (doesn’t matter), length of waiting time (now this is important), and closest to our hearts, the frequency which they do not respond to our flapping of arms and happily drive past us with the bright green ‘TAXI’ sign above the vehicles! How many times have you experienced this? Seriously, world class transportation? Maybe if the world’s the size of Singapore. That’s what our politicians want us to believe, isn’t it. Go abroad and come back. How can we come back when we have seen what’s out there?

Coming back to topic, I’m glad this audit is being initiated. If we cannot have a perfect competition in this industry, controls need to be stringent. If we cannot be a strong kid, to be pushed into the streets and to learn things the hard way. Maybe the only way is to be a mummy’s nation; much like a mummy’s boy to be told what’s best, what to do and what not to do.

My good friend, Edgar, did a photoshoot at my mum’s school last sunday. We went down to Serangoon to fetch the lightings and backdrop and literally constructed a mini-studio in Rieme Hair and Beauty School Pte Ltd. Shooting about 10 models in all, I being the assistant, we came up with a few valuable shots that’s are good bangs for the buck!

For now, I’ll just show one particular shot of this girl in my life.

Real Girl - Mutya

If I had one chance to
In my life again
I wouldn’t make no changes
Now or way back when
And if everything turns out
The way I hope it goes
But I cant wait to find out
What it is that God knows

And all I can do is be true to myself
I don’t need permission from nobody else
‘Cause this is the real world, I’m not a little girl
I know exactly who I am

Yesterday, I was frantic. I went to school, printed some necessary papers, reached home at 830 after my dinner and realized I did not have my application form printed! I ran from home to Clementi central, only to be told by the Fujifilm staff that they do not perform printing of documents. Luckily, my friend lives nearby and he agreed to print those papers for me. So I ran some more to his place.

We had a chat and it was about 850 when I saw the text "Affix passport-sized photo here" on my application form! Damn it! 10 more minutes before the shops closes. I ran (again) to Clementi central and through the doors of a studio asking "Do you take passport photos?" To my dismay, their machine was already shut down. Fortunately, they have a smaller printer which could work and in 15 minutes time, I got 8 little pictures of myself plus a CD.

So why was I doing all those stuff yesterday? Well, this morning, I was up by 8 am and at the Tourism Court building by 10 am for an assessment. How did I do? I wouldn’t say it’s spectacular at all. What will happen? I do not know. I’ll update once results are out.

Now, I’m just ready to go sun tanning.

Hellooooo sunshine!

If you didn’t understand the beautiful poem in my last post, let me explain. A bunch of us were sitting in the office, playing this multiplayer game called Killzone on our PSPs when my sergeant major called out, "Who wants to do live firing duty with NCC?"

And I rose my hand.

This is not the first time in army that I have readily volunteered for sai gang (hokkien for ’shit work’). Yet, I keep doing it; and I do not know why. I guess it’s the time I spent at home doing home doing nothing that’s torturing me. Or I just like to be kept busy or in a state of being needed. Or maybe.. maybe I’m just 泛溅 (chinese for … gosh, I can’t translate this).

But anyway, it was quite fun. Those little kids from the National Cadet Corps look so… young… And well, a lot of them are ranked higher than me! Lol. I remember that I chao gan (hokkien translation for ’scolded’, albeit in a vulgar manner) these peeps from my secondary days. "Why the $%^& did you join a CCA that punishes you? Look at me? I’m playing soccer! And you? You are doing push ups for a beh gan teacher!". (Beh gan: ‘cannot make it’)

Where was I? Oh yeah, they were young. And looking at them make me feel so old. I can’t imagine that I’m already 26 this year. Round it up and it’s 30. Round it up some more and it’s 50. A lil more and I’m dead. And can you believe it, I’m still in the freaking army serving my National Service! So, good riddance to the last sai gang of my NS life. The almighty ORD date, 18th July 2007.

It’s over 5 years since I enlisted.

I’m leaving.

And never coming back.

At least until next Tuesday.

Cos I have COS duty.

…

Oh my god… Urgh!!!!

I’m leaving my house
To a place where a little girl try
To trade army uniform with her blouse
To fire a gun and do not die

I’m leaving my house
But I have important work yet to do
Scared and worried like a mouse
I asked Zhuang and he was cool

I’m leaving my house
I’m early for work but could not sleep
So I write this poem and with a glorious bow
This entire post is just full of shit

Fast Car - Tracy Chapman

You got a fast car
I want a ticket to anywhere
Maybe we make a deal
Maybe together we can get somewhere

You got a fast car
But is it fast enough so you can fly away
You gotta make a decision
You leave tonight or live and die this way

The affordable retail giant of H&M in Singapore is not simply a wish anymore.

Yup, I didn’t know doing 80 situps a day will make me lose so much weight. Girls, if you want to diet, do situps. Your stomach muscles will feel so tight, you can’t eat anything at all. But that’s not what I wanted. I just wanted to be lean. I guess I’ll need to eat more in spite of the cramps. (By the way, a lousy mood causes weight loss too.)

To counter this inevitable situation of body depreciation, I finally got a chance to invite my friend of almost 20 years out for drinks and food. Mr. Edgar Su, the ambitious photographer and a jolly good friend, proposed an evening out at Wala Wala. Well, the band wasn’t bad and the male lead could sing; just that he was probably too engrossed in his own performance rather than the crowd. Both of us decided that he got his dream job; living a life of fantasy. Bleah…

Anyway, I bought three books today at Times Bookshop. Why three? Because of the 3 for 2 promotion, dummy.. Book review in a few weeks time? I hope so.

The (cliched) titles are as follows:

1. Freakonomics by some economists no one bothers about (Yeah yeah.. everyone’s reading it, so what?)
2. Winning by Jack Welch (Everyone’s reading this too? WTF?!)
3. Lisey’s Story by Stephen King (Yah man! I’ve stopped reading his books since secondary school days. Now it’s time to relive the horrifics of King’s writing in this new paperback!)

Well! I realized that my topic jumped uncontrollably from weight loss, to an old friend, to an aspiring singer and lastly, finishing off with 3 new book titles. It’s late. I drank 2 bottles of beer and 2 cups of liquor. Not a lot at all by any standards but I maintain my right to be crazy. After all, life does get crazy at the least expected time, doesn’t it?