Thursday, July 27, 2006

The return to Mambo

After my half a year's absence from Zouk and its Mambo night, I returned last night with fellow UCC ushers to find that things haven't changed that much (though that same guy at the podium seemed permanently rooted there, with modifications to his dance moves). I also noticed 4 new girls on the "stage" near the big screen TV with impressive Mambo moves everyone on the dance floor wanted to emulate. Seems they have been practising a lot to synchronize their moves.

But for people like Virgenia and Theresia, who paid their first ever visit to a Mambo night, it was great fun. Kudos to Chuhua too for her incredible "performance" when she too showed she could groove to the beat. No wonder the rest of us agreed that "If Chuhua can do it, so can you". And so did Liang Ming when he pulled out his side-shifting-hip-shaking-feet-grooving move of the night. Happy Birthday in advance man.


Wednesday, July 26, 2006

The Middle-East Crisis

I was talking to my Israeli friend I met during my exchange in Denmark over MSN earlier this afternoon, and was given a short summary of why a war is happening over in the Middle East. Below is an except which I edited slightly for better readability.

@BEL says:
hey Guy! Sorry I was not at my com the last time you messaged...anyway how're you doing?

Guy Zinman says:
Hey
I'm ok
How are you?

@BEL says:
Good so far, another 2 weeks before school starts then maybe won't be so free...haha


Guy Zinman says:
It’s amazing that you start school so early
Why is that?

@BEL says:
cos singapore is a stressful society
haha
where are you now? back in Israel or Denmark?


Guy Zinman says:
No I’m in Haifa, Israel
I won’t be back in DK before Sept
So what are you doing right now?
How was your big trip?

@BEL says:
how is it at home now with war stuff going on, are you affected?


Guy Zinman says:
of course

@BEL says:
no shit

Guy Zinman says:
we have sirens here several times a day
My father is the head department of orthopedic in the biggest hospital in north Israel
so he is handful right now

@BEL says:
you're my first Israeli fren (other than Tanya) that I can actually talk to to hear first hand accounts of the situation

Guy Zinman says:
Yesterday 3 missiles fell in the neighborhood near the hospital

@BEL says:
are you scared or are you just used to it?

Guy Zinman says:
I’m used to it already but mother wants me to move to a safer place in the house

@BEL says:
i suppose that's in the basement


Guy Zinman says:
I’m going to stair case

@BEL says:
k

Guy Zinman says:
didn’t fall here
fell much northern this time
I’m interested what does the media in Singapore say about all this

@BEL says:
a lot of the reports are adapted from the international papers, so it's a lot of second hand-accounts from Reuters etc

Guy Zinman says:
I see….so we are presented even worse in Singapore
It is easier to show pictures of suffer than present the dilemma and ask what would you do in a similar situation

@BEL says:
if you're interested, you can check out our local news at www.channelnewsasia.com

Guy Zinman says:
I’m in your website now…interesting
It’s interesting that the headlines are about the Chinese UN worker.
I didn’t even know that there was one until now.

@BEL says:
I must admit I'm quite ignorant of politics and news of things happening in the middle east until now, when I know I have 2 frens there

Guy Zinman says:
yeah well makes sense

@BEL says:
but I still don't have an idea of what the hell is the problem actually i only keep hearing bombings of Beirut etc

Guy Zinman says:
Well briefly, Hezbollah attack on the 12th of July (my birthday) killing 8 soldiers kidnapping 2 and bombing villages in the north of Israel. Hezbollah is a terror organization that is a proxy of Iran and Syria and in the last 6 years they were building quite an army south of Lebanon. So we’ve decided that we can not allow this situation to continue any longer. Their headquarters are (hopefully were) located in the neighborhood in the south Beirut and they have 2 ministers in the Lebanese government. So we are trying to fight only the Hezbollah fighters and to prevent them to shoot missiles at Israel and bring new ones from the north to the south.

@BEL says:
by saying "Hezbollah is a terrorist organisation", is it like saying they' similar to the Taliban?

Guy Zinman says:
Exactly, like El Qaida.
The population in Lebanon is very divided.
But I think (and hope) that most of the people understand that Hezbollah cause only damage and we want to dismantle them. So we want to push the Hezbollah fighter until after the Litanin River, so they won’t sit just next to our border. And then give the area to International forces or the Lebanese army.

@BEL says:
thanks, it's nice to hear a first hand account of what's going on...are you involved in the fighting for your country in any way?

Guy Zinman says:
No not at all
But in a war where Israeli civilians are targets
I’m probably a front line soldier

@BEL says:
well I'll pray for your safety everyday man...as well as your parents, especially your dad so he can help the injured

Guy Zinman says:
Thanks
I need to jump to the post now
but talk with me later

@BEL says:
okay take lots of care, I'll catch you when the sirens go off


Guy Zinman says:
cool
bye

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Stand up for Singapore please

I admit it's been a long hiatus since I last stepped into blogger.

Busy mah

Since my return from Denmark, my home internet is now wireless and that's causing a bit of problem whenever I try to blog / upload pictures and the next page returns an error. Despite investigations, the problem on cookies, scripting and expired pages still remain. So now I have to blog on Word and paste it into blogger when I'm in NUS, hoping that few seconds on uploading gets by safely.

So that explains my procrastination with blogging.

After Commencement ended last Thursday (a paradox it seems), my Korean friend Baek arrived in town to stay with me for 3 days before flying back home. So there I was busying myself with being a tour guide and tourist myself, reason being – even some of the attractions like the Sentosa Luge and Skyride were new and appealed to me. Unlike Su and Hyemi's compact 12-hour tour by car on the 12 th, the tour I took Baek on was mostly by public transport. Given 3 days, he had more than enough time to relax and enjoy, yet yearn to come back for more shopping, eating and more importantly to him, clubbing. Heh.

After his departure on the 17th, I watched Superman Returns on the 18th, returned to work in UCC on the evening of the 19 th, played tennis with Lewis (a good sparring partner who had to return to the States unfortunately) on the 20th (and attended an FOH meeting thereafter), and worked again on the night of 21st at the Indoor Stadium this time for the ZPOP Charity Concert. And that's what I figured was worth mentioning next.

Before knowing that there were 4 major artistes singing for the ZPOP concert, I only knew of Jolin Tsai, just the name. Seeing her for the first time live on stage, I must admit her looks (and dance moves) were all that impressed me. Neither her squeaky pop-sy voice and bimbotic appearance wowed me over. At one point, she walked over to one section facing the centre-stage, and said (in Chinese) something like, "I like my Singaporean fans because they will stand when I sing", to which the (slightly more elderly) crowd seemed to be oblivious to. And her screaming fans were on the adjacent section trying desperately to get her attention.

I also thought Fish Leong was a guy until my friend told me "he" was a "her". Oops.

No wonder Daphne made a smart tactical move of assigning me as East ticket collector as opposed of an insider. Thanks to that position, I met a couple of friends at the doors, including Eva, who commented why she saw me ushering everywhere in Singapore, and Diana (Sports Camp 05). More importantly, I saw Priscilla Chan, looking just as good on TV as she does in person.

But here comes the crux of this entry.

I was quite stunned and saddened by the fact that towards the end of the performance, when the President of the Republic of Singapore was giving away plaques to the top few contributing donors to the 29 charities, the audience started taking their leave, thinking that's the end.

FOR GOODNESS SAKE, can you not show a little respect to the PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF SINGAPORE! Wait until he finishes the presentation and photo-taking on stage before you start making your hasty exit! I'm no patriot, but I do know basic courtesy. Do you?

There was also this other guy with his 2 daughters looking no older than 10 years old entering my East entrance. They arrived pretty early, and instead of walking one big round to queue up from the start of the metal barricades, they climbed over the shorter plastic chains towards the door. Before I went forward in an attempt to stop them, I heard the father telling his kids loudly in Chinese cum Singlish, "why you want to walk one big round when there's nobody in the queue? Our Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong wants us to think out of the box and not be so " stone", you must learn lah!"

Upon hearing that, I purposely forgot what I had to do, and asked for their tickets, to which the father told his daughters (again in Chinese), "come give your tickets to uncle".

UNCLE.

Even his kids were giggling at the sound of that.

*Big sigh*

Monday, July 10, 2006

Why Abel hasn't updated this blog...

Since Commencement 2006 started on Thursday the 6th, I've been working non-stop for 10 consecutive sessions. And now I'm just taking a break before working for the Coldplay concert at Indoor Stadium tonight. And then it'll be back to Commencement 2006 ceremony 13 tomorrow morning...Will have to find time to organise/print my pictures before I continue to update my blog...

Congrats to all my graduated friends who knowingly or unknowingly met me while I was at work in UCC, especially the UCC peeps Yiming, Pei Pei, Peisze, Meijun, Jingkai, Sanchia, Galvin, Farid, Kim Mui, Fengyi, and close friends Azlan, Luyi, Cheryl, Jin Ying, Koko, Stephanie, Irene, Yeo Huan, Sheena, Nicholas, and more I've yet to meet in the next 3 days.

Thursday, July 06, 2006

When the weather gets too hot...

...what better way to cool it off with a haircut. And a little bit more.

After 5 months and ONE haircut by my French friend Omar (because everything in Denmark's so expensive), this was the longest my hair ever grewed.



After Tuesday, when I met my UCC friends for a meeting and dinner thereafter, and another 2 friends later that night for drinks, everyone's response was unanimous - they commented about my long hair and suggested I do something about it (read=get rid of it please). I figured good friends dispense good advice (hopefully), and made an appointment for the afternoon at the hair salon I used to visit. Midway through the cut, I took this picture...



And then the bleaching began.



I was then put under the steamer (or whatever you call it) for a good 30 minutes, drowning me in perspiration.



And finally, after her colleague rinsed my hair and dried it off, Kenny started with the dyeing process.



Cindy helped me choose a funky greenish-blue tinge with a dark golden-ash colour as a base since I was undecided over what I wanted. Sounds weird but it looks good, or at least I think it does. You'll have to see it for yourself, so that's enough reason for me not to post my new look up. Heh. Anyway, I bet Cindy and her team of hairdressers have never met such a photo whore like myself, snapping away while the whole cut+dye process went on. Bet they didn't know I had about 16 GB of pictures and videos by the end of my SEP and backpacking trip. Well at least they had fun looking at me take and helping me take.

Monday, July 03, 2006

And the post-SEP depression begins.

I'm back!!!

Yessiree...everything feels untouched for the 6 months I left it.
So much to update, so much to do, so little time.
There's unpacking (well that alone includes cleaning up my room and stuff).
There's updating my blog on the backpacking experience.
There's catching up with friends (and rewarding those who keep in touch via msn or my blog with souvenirs).
There's catching up on food.
There's catching up on TV and feel of flipping through the good old Straits Times.
There's catching up on tennis, back on hard court.
There's compiling my photo album.

And then there's work.
And then in a month's time, school and the Final Year Project (FYP).

Everything's breezing just too fast. I wanna slow down to the European pace. And I miss Denmark and all those I met.