everything in
it's right place

they can be so annoying. especially my dad. it's really a small thing, but i don't know why i got so incredibly pissed. the phone rang, so i picked it up and as usual it happened to be his call (i think he's on call today). some doctor from ttsh, so i went out to the stairwell and shouted for my dad. didn't reply, so instead of telling the guy to wait more, i took down his message.

up came my dad, a minute later, and he went shouting into the room, 'why didn't you ask him to hold on to the phone?!'. come on, i already got his number, why don't you just call him back? but of course that never works, saying anything to my dad never works, his EQ is probably lower than a dead duck. no point in reasoning with unreasonable people.

stomped off in to my room freakin' pissed. i was so annoyed because he's been like that most of today. so fucking pissed. mumbled lots of vulgarities along the way to my room. happened that my mom was there using my com. haha oops.

and couldn't find my guitar pick. so i got even more pissed. i used to have millions of guitar picks, the floor to my room had so many that i could just pick one up and play. but no, now there's no guitar picks in my entire freakin' house. and they cost like, 50c each, so i'll have to buy another $10 worth. that'll last a year or two, maybe? but dunno why they get lost everything i put them down.

and i wanted to go run to cool off the stress level (haha, you can say that i'm easily stressed). but alas it was raining. ah life's a bitch.

now i'm destressin on 'alpia fruities rosinen in feiner vollmilch-schokolade' which is basically just chocolate coated raisins. and harry, one of the platoon commanders in my camp said that i'm fat. that's really blasphemous lah. dumbass. if i'm fat now, i wonder what he'll say when i come back from australia...

i had the weirdest dream last night. maybe weird isn't the right word, perhaps 'sad' would be more fitting. or 'happy'. ok, i'll just stick to 'weird'.

anyway, somehow i was sitting in the front seat of a car, and someone was driving it. can't really remember who, but it doesn't really matter. and suddenly you-know-who was sitting in the back seat, leaned forward to my ear and spouted out a confession of sorts. confession?

"hey you, it's been a really long time, you know? and i can't take it anymore, so you just have to know" but imagine saying that in a really rushed and anxious tone. and so on she went... and said something that made me super happy (happy in the dream, at least).

then the scene just flashed, like you know in the movies? scene change. this time i was cycling like crazy around on crappy mountain bike with a front basket, like those bicycles foreign maids use to cycle to the wet market for the grocery runs. and inside was a book (can't remember what book, but i like books!), and in my left hand a rose. creepy, right? and i was cycling up and down, always going back because i thoguht i'd left something behind. i was cycling to her house and, and i wanted everything to be perfect, with nothing left out, no blemishes.

finally i reached the lift lobby (those high security kinds, like at my brother's apartment. you need a code number to even enter the lobby!) and was about to press the intercom, but i just never did.

and then i woke up, heart racing, eyes wide open, at 4am in the mid early morning.



i said it was weird, right? just thinking about it is making me tired. sigh zzzzz

i hate digging. any form of digging, when there's a spade, or a changkol or whatever, no way... spent wednesday digging shellscrapes and my hands had so many blisters! gross. looked kinda cool in a weird way. but didn't feel any fun at all when i went to shower later at night... soap + open wounds = ARGH. dumb me forgot about that part, so i went on to scrub my hair and in the end i had to wash it off hands free. haha. gross la.

anyway jon is a major piece of shit, he posted so many retarded pictures and a video of me on his blog. basket. especially the one with kerby. kfkdg;sdlfkgjsdf

and no more army for 2005. whew, finally.

went out with dom, hl, deb and wayne yesterday for a so-called dinner at newton. but i already had my dinner at home, so in the end just went there to stone. but hian liang can drive!! which is totally not fair. anyway the good part is that he sent us about, from orchard to newton and newton to home. too bad debs went home herself though... but wayne followed her, so might as well just leave those two alone. haha.

i ate at the new ice cream place, geletissimo? but wasn't really that great. just tasted like any other ice cream, a bit too creamy for gelato? but ate the fried mars bars with ice cream from 'chippy' (chuppy? chunky?) at far east plaza. which was freakin' nice. wayne actually bought it, but he wandered off somewhere with debbie so i ate it for him. fair enough , right? all in the name of love.

went to play dota after that... which was quite a bad idea. dom ended up being so bored that he didn't play at all (he started playing battlefield1942 alone, and everyone knows thats a multiplayer game). debs turned out to be pretty good, after all being the dota disciple of wayne. and hian liang, i thought he sucked really bad, cuz his msn nick is 'dota sucks... such a waste of time..sigh..' which is a pretty weird nick to have.

anyway my dog just died. gah. my aunt was taking care of him. i'm surprisingly unaffected, partly perhaps because i haven't seen him at length for the past 4 years? my mom gave him to my aunt to keep her company, and the only time i saw him was during cny holidays. no dog this time, though. it's like going to funerals of relatives you've never met before, you know that you should feel sad, because everyone looks that way and to be any different would make you out of place. at least he died of old age (12? 14?), which is how i think most people would like to leave. sigh.

back to camp... on such a dull, gloomy note. till next time..

this christmas was really funny. my family rushed off after church to go eat a jap lunch (akane, the japanese association) which was really super nice for the price. an udon is only $12, and you know this is like one of the super expensive kinda restaurants. only for lunch, though. dinner is a whole different story... pricewise, that is.

played some guitar, some dota, then headed out for clementi kbox with the sonnies at night. was dead tired at the end so kinda fell asleep at the end. with the weariness plus dunno how many shots of bombay sapphire, how not to right? cuz i woke up at 6.30am and it was almost 2am. stupid buggers took my shoes and left me asleep over there, till the staff finally woke me up and said 'eh, ni de peng you dou zou liao le..' which just means 'hey, you know all your friends have left already...' bastards!

walked around in many circles (because all ktvs are freakin' confusing places) until i finally figured the way out. and found those bums waiting at macs for me! argh. so i was walking around barefoot for like 20 minutes. lesson learnt: trust no one, especially sonnies...

and i'm so damn friggin' bored

i have this conception that festive holidays need big events, big happenings. yes, that's besides the point of christmas, but it's my conception nontheless. and today i just feel so... seperated, from everything else? the most spectecular thing today was coming home from camp, and next after that losing a game of dota (despite killing like 2305938560 heroes).

oh but my cousin's daughter (niece, whatever you want) is really cute! she went around hugging my brother's kid (ok fine, nephew), and that was really cute. so friendly! but alas, they've all left for home so i'm now back to the computer, talking to no one in particular (ok yes, jane foo, bryan tan) and deciding whether i should play that damnned game which is dota. bahhhh

today is a good day... woke up at a productively early 8am. and went for a run. my stamina is really in such a crap state nowadays... haven't ran since i left for my japan trip. and today i ran the same route as always (to coronation rd west -> sixth ave -> bt timah - > hcjc ->duchess ave), which is only like 4.8km or so. and i took 30 minutes! but that was sans warm up and plus a scorching sun. still, no excuse, right? i even stopped to walk halfway!!!! argh.

ate at suki sushi at cineleisure. what do i say, don't go there ever again. the udon was pretty cheap, but you know you really pay for what you get when all you get is a bowl of udon with hot soup. maybe some salt, if you're lucky? and which sushi restaurant takes 20 minutes to make a plate of sushi? i asked them for tea, and they gave me an empty cup! d'oh..

king kong was pretty draggy... naomi watts is pretty much most of the reason for watching this show. 3/5 stars :)

and thanks di! even though my present to you was pretty crap... hahaha it's the thought that counts, right! but i feel kinda bad, because i gave her some second hand present, and she got me a nifty book! next time i'll buy you a super nice present ok? promise promise (translation: try my best)

and played the most terrible worship rehearsal ever. imagine electric guitar playing through slow christmas hymns... can't really visualise it, can you? that's why i ended up playing nothing at all, save for one song that wasn't even a christmas song. i spent more time playing the tambourine! but in the end we're praising God, and that's all that matters. but still! could've called an extra keyboardist instead of me..

want to watch narnia... mom watched it with dad for their wedding anniversary. so cool, right. go out on their private dates and purposely chase me away. hmm.

back to camp tomorrow morning. at some unearthly hour (back there by 7, up by 6). somebody, please just stop the time. when i was young i used to think how cool it would be to grow up, if time could somehow speed up, so we could all be adults and watch r(a) shows and surf porn without going to jail. but now... i'd rather be that kid, any day.

bought the new switchfoot album yesterday. didn't even listen to it before buying, because the sembawang cd shop in yishun (northpoint) isn't like HMV or borders with those listening stations. and i was too lazy to ask the counter stuff, haha i mean what if they start playing switchfoot over the shop's speakers? which would be pretty cool anyway. but thankfully switchfoot hasn't let me down, their new album is quite nice! pop as it is... i like their music style. and they're a christian band too, which is a double plus.

also, just realised that flickr has an archive limit of only 200 photos! i think i've uploaded about, say 400 over photos? meaning that half of my photos are gone... bummer. shall have to find another website with a more permenant space.

checked out the new ministry of sound on saturday. it was half fantastic and half traumatic. not much to comment... just to say that i won't be going clubbing in a really long time. luckily most of the night was free!

finally the long two weeks (ok, it didn't really seem that long!) of guard duties are over, and the end of the year is drawing to a close. but my stupid unit still has two more high-key exercises; hopefully i won't have to participate much in many of them. while on duty today, the camp clerk called me to confirm that my disruption has been approved! yay, because with every step i'm finally closer to getting out of army. sometimes i wonder if i'll ever miss any of them, those army people. however every time i step out of the camp, i jump with so much joy, joy that affirms i'll never miss any of them ever.

maybe one or two. we'll see each other again anyway. gah.

came home to find my house in a HUGE MESS. apparently my windows have been dropping off for no reason (killer litter?) so my mom had to get all of them fixed. couldn't do anything except surf the 'net... so resigned to playing DOTA AGAIN. but i won, so i'm redeemed :)

and finally, after mom's very delicious asam pedas (i think that's what it's called), watched eric khoo's 'be with me'. oh man, the two girls are sooooo hot. and the clothes they wear... damn annoying! because they're so hot! and they were lesbians! but only in the beginning. haha, ok getting a bit overboard.

time really flies. it's already 9pm, and i've got to report back by 8am tomorrow morning. and look, it's almost 20th dec. 11 days more and it'll be 2006, sadly we'll all be older outside, hopefully always young inside, and maybe smarter and more mature. people are changing all the time. let's just hope we'll all be changing for the better.

dear steph song
will you be my princess
because you oh so so chio

-melts-

p.s. this is probably the ugliest pic of steph song (if it even is her!) ever found, but it's the only one i could get on the 'net :( you deserver better than this... lol

some people seem to be more in love with the idea of love itself, than the actual person, really. which is pretty amusing. psychos...

i feel like i'm pretty much stuck in a shit hole right now. don't ask me why that particular description, but it's just one of those words that came to my mind (i have a wonderfuly diverse vocab).

mainly, i'm sick. not really the flu sick, more like the fever sort of sick. it's been a really long time since i've had a fever though, and the many many many screwed up shifts of so called guard duty might've contributed to it. imagine waking up at 10pm, staying awake till 6am, then sleeping till 2pm, all the way till 10pm etc every day. basically, just imagine 8 hour cycles; eventually the body clock will just go really haywire. like mine. and all i feel like doing now is... nothing. especially not take a 2 hour bus ride all the way to yishun mrt.

met debbie for dinner/whatever outing today. the flu and weariness kinda destroyed the evening, i was so tired and lethargic and lackadaisical. i didn't even really talk much, or at least much that made sense, but oh well. maybe we'll go to the zoo one day, ok? one day... heh.

went home and dota-ed... was sort of screwed up. played it more or less for the sake of staying awake - out of camp seems much to precious to be spent and whiled away with useless activities like sleeping. because that's what i do all the time when i'm back on duty!

checked the blog's statcounter just now. phewww.

can't wait for the 20th. then i won't have to stay up at odd hours, i won't have to stare at ships and boats and seawater, and i WILL get to go home. finally. army seems like it's finally ending, and sometimes i wonder whether i'll ever miss any of it. seems crazy right now, but possible enough not to rule out. who knows, school might be even worse! however hard to imagine, as it is.

ministry of sound is opening on friday. was thinking of going, ya... just to check out the place. will probably end up NOT going, as it usually turns out with clubbing. but really want to see what the hype is all about..

time to zzz. it's going to be another long day tomorrow.

argh i woke up late! relatively anyway.

wanted to download a whole list of songs to put into my mp3 player.

1) suede - beautiful ones
2) ok, now i've seen to forgotten ALL of them.
3) gah

back to camp againnnnn

nowadays my duties are so boring that i've taken to - and it couldn't be worse - consuming coffee. bucket loads of it! i make a cup every hour i'm on duty. of course it's the instant kind of coffee, but i don't know if that's a good or bad thing. does instant coffee contain as much caffiene as the ground, machine-percolated brews? of course if it doesn't, it would kinda defeat the purpose of downing that many cups. but oh well, it keeps me awake.

she's only been gone for a few days but i miss her already. i don't think anyone would come surfing to this silly site when they're miles away, on holiday. i've... - let's face it - i've been wanting to tell her for ages, but i can never get around to saying it. probably also because of the fact that she already knows, or i think she already knows. that's what wayne said anyway. but i'm afraid she'd think the that reason i feel that way i do is that i'm really just a lonely army boy who needs the companionship, that i could be a little better off with a girl or two to chat up when i'm bored. that's what emily thinks of her ex. so common sense tells me to just put off this telling business till another day, after all, i am going to australia in less than two months time.

once, i used to think that if i ever liked a girl, it would be someone exactly like her. but of course what would be the point of that, then?

i'd see how i feel about it when i come back during the winter break. and then i'd really know if i'm just another lonely army boy. but oh wait, i already know the answer to that. more like i want her to know.

valentines day, can you believe that? i'll be spending my valentines day, a day where people usually get together for dates and whatnot, or at least chill at the neighbourhood pub with their also-lonely pals for a pint or two. but no, i'll be sitting next to my ma and pa on an eight hour journey to a far away land that i don't really want to go to. life goes on, i guess.

sometimes i think that i spend too much time thinking and no time doing, if you know what i mean. sometimes i tend to think that i'm doing too much but i'm not really. other times i AM really doing too much. but what is too much anyway? ha ha, i think i'd just wait and see if she says anything. i really hope she does - anything at all - because i can never get myself to pick up the intiative. i don't want to know what she thinks. just the fact that she actually thinks something of it already scares me out of my wits.

i've been listening to lots of jack johnson recently, because acoustic guitar music is just wicked stuff. but all the lyrics tend to be either depressingly sad, or about happy love things that'd make me depressingly sad. i think this a trend among pop music? because love is such a pop subject anyway. the tunes are really catchy and entertaining, but it's weird to think that depressingly sad topics can actually perk you up. most of the time it just makes me feel like a train wreck.

a couple of days ago, i mentioned about how books were so wonderful, because they rip the words out of my mouth? that i can never find the right words? well i was reading nick hornby's 'high fidelity' at that time. and most of the time it seems that hornby's really talking about me instead. i actually noted down some paragraphs, so that instead of actually thinking of something to blog, i'd just copy all those noted words down and it'd be exactly what i wanted to say. but not today, perhaps.

if you really happen to read this, well, don't tell me :)

that's a nice song. search it up at radioblogclub.

just woke up, feeling really... blur. haha is that the right word for it. heard on the radio yesterday that this is called sleep inertia. seems to make sense, yup. my sleep must really have lots of momentum then :/ it feels like i just got back from another club, and i'm really not all that into clubbing anymore. all that socialising... haha just feeling a bit, lazy?

anyway mom woke me up with a buzz from the phone. apparently she saved me supper (ytd's dinner, actually) but i totally forgot about it. so now it's my breakfast. talk about really upside down meal times..

went out with emily and the test tube twins (daphne and diana. they're like, singapore's first test tube twins right?) for dinner yesterday at suntec city's ichiban boshi. talking to emily is funny, she always ends up talking about her boyfriend or this guy who likes her. and they're always different people, so i can never keep up with their names! so i have to refer to them as 'that guy'. i was at tcc (the overly expensive coffe connection) with her and we blasted away 1 hr just talking about nothing at all. haha weird.

left early because i wanted to go home to get ready to go to zouk. but in the end didn't go. cuz i was sooooo tired in the afternoon. i even fell asleep next to the 'no sleeping' sign in the library! which was how paiseh! but later that night, the cumalitive effects of 3 coffees and redbull had me up quite a bit.

and spent so much time playing around with the radioblogclub website!!! gosh it's a real time waster. this is what i really need at my guard duty place. and found out where all my old msn message histories were hidden. reading through the past can be quite amusing/hilarious/annoying/saddening/boring. read through a few people's histories. maybe i shouldn't do that anymore, cuz there's not much to gain in it anyway. oh wait actually there is, i could sort of learn from the mistakes. but you know how when i was typing those words at those times, some of it would obviously be quite skewed from the truth. so i wouldn't know if i was just making it up, because sometimes i do that.

everybody does. we all like to turn up the good points and chuck the bad points. maybe vice versa if you're a cynic! but when i was in australia, i seemed sort of different. the company, perhaps? wow i was like, so sensitive! and at some points, pretty dumb as well. in many senses of that word, perhaps all. hahaha oops

just being chris ong. heard that phrase so many times yesterday. just an observation..


time to eat breakfast now. or rather my dinner. gah whatever

i've been reading lots of books recently due to my ops duties. sort of a more recent hobby of mine, reading. i think it's partly because it makes up for my lack of adequete english skills. because some of the books i read rip out that stubborn situation out of your mind, and put it right in front of you. it materialises your thoughts and feelings, puts your thoughts into words, something more concrete.

it's quite interesting, nice in a way, to read a book and and suddenly say 'ah ha, that sounds really familiar!' or 'hey, it's like he's describing me'. maybe i haven't really grown up enough yet, past these shallow generic and general descriptions.

this is random

sometimes i want to say things, but i'm afraid of how they'll come out. sometimes i want to say something, but i really want it to mean another. sometimes i just really don't know what i want.

well, told you that i couldn't really find the right words

all army people suck!!! go away!!!!

finally some pictures of my japan trip. the flickr list on the right has more of them, but i like these few more.

another two books added to the collection, robert wilson's 'a small death in lisbon' and 'ashes' by kenzo kitakata (a japanese guy!)

also bought a pair of black converse shoes. so now i finally have some shoes besides my sec4 school shoes that i can wear with berms. hahaha yes... ok back to zz

So I was watching this show on the tele after coming back from DotA-ing with Jon Ong and friends. It was about the Da Vinci Code, best selling book by Dan Brown that draws on the controversy that Mary Magdelene was married to Jesus and that the Holy Grail was in fact a reference to a holy blood line i.e. family line of Jesus.

In the end, after summarising all the facts against Dan Brown and thereby concluding that Dan Brown's book is really only just a book of fiction, the narrator had this to say: What Dan Brown did with his book was just the same as what Romance authors did nearly 800 years ago - give us a hope in something that we all would want to be true, but in actual fact know can never exist.

And I recited that last line in my head again (and again, and a few more times).

Maybe the script writer should have cut out the second half of the sentence, the 'never exist' part, and then the world would definitely have been a better place.

For me, at least.

Maybe first I should explain the meaning of my previous post, the one where I exclaimed that my parents were mad. Well, they were. Really mad.

Apparently my brother called to tell my Dad that he had borrowed the camera, but my Dad carelessly misunderstood it as "oh, can I borrow your camera?" So he messaged my room (I have this intercom system thingy in my house), and said to have the camera back. But oh-shit-guess-what?, I had lent it to Sarah. Ok, a whole lot of other stuff as well, but that's besides the point. Ya and at that point I don't really know why I did it, but I felt compelled to lie. Haha yeah, I'm such a screwed up person. Lying can get you out of a lot of trouble, you know? But it's also bad. Sigh bad chris. BAD!

Told her that I had mistakenly left it in my bag (which I also dumped on to my friend), and she started screaming, going on and on about how I shouldn't be so careless next time. Well, once you start a not-truth (that's how I'd like to refer to it, lies just sound so bad!), you have to go all the way, right? So well, nothing much to it, just a whole bunch of sorries and I-wont-be-so-blur-next-times!! The next part was pretty unexpected though, she wanted to drive me all the way to Sarah's house to pack it up!? MAD. At 8.30pm at night. When my brother only needed it the next day, but of course tension was building so what to do, right. After a while I just got totally pissed, and said I'd take a cab down to her place myself - no way i'm gonna sit in your car - and was almost on my way out. AND THEN..

My Dad finally said he was talking about the Nikkon D70 SLR (the $2000 camera...). And how would I know, right? 'Cause it wasn't even with me ever (my parents had taken it themselves back from Japan).

Whew, that was quite a bit of explaining. To speed things forward, I ended up going out with the church people to KBox today just so I could avoid preparation for my nephew's birthday party. Maybe on hindsight that was a really immature decision, but on hindsight a lot of things are, yes?

To digress: I think I'd probably improve my chinese faster if I went to KBox for 3 hours every week instead of those dumb chinese tuition lessons. And with KBox there's no homework! Discovered some nice songs though. I quite really really like Fish Leung's Ting Bu Dao (Cannot hear... the literally translation. Right?!?!). But the rest of the songs are soooooooo slow and sleepy. Even worst than Norah Jones, man.

Going out to play DotA again. Bah, cursed games. I'm now envisioning a time 40 years from now, when I'm playing DotA with my grandkids, and the phrase "M-m-monster killl" echoes through the room. Lame, right? But SCARY.

my parents are mad.

argh.

this is really irritating. because for one of the few times in a very long while, i was playing dota (ok not referring to that) and got a level 25 bone fletcher, with a desolater, buriza, treads, and black king bar, and easily kill anyone in the map (well i was going to start, because i spent the entire game just getting the $$$). and then my computer crashed!

not really crashed, but the connection just dropped. my stupid pathetic 3.2ghz pentium 4 can't even hold up to a 6 year old game!

also signifies my lack of multi-tasking skills. trying to reply to sms, talk to your brother, and running away from a computer sniper shooting your ass off is really not my cup of tea.

1) Lifehouse
2) Switchfoot

In case you were wondering about the answers to the question "Which two bands totally rock your socks???"

I'm home again today, which means today is a Good Day. So I shall dedicate this post to Good Punctuation, because i never ever have that. Hahahaha. Ok, anyway my entire camp is on block leave for thursday and friday, which is a total bummer because I'm really running short of leave. I hope they don't take it from my next year's leave, because I was really thinking about going to Bangkok with the sonnies (sonnys? is there a past tense to this...)

Bangkok! Haha and the other day karl and i were sharing a taxi back from holland village, and he was telling me all about the different places to go. Because he sounds like such a pro regular to bangkok, but somehow I just forgot most of his advice. Bah.

Just finished a game of DotA. With Jon Ong and his friend. It's kinda funny because he messages me almost every day to play at home nowadays, and most of the time recently I happened to be home. Sometimes Jon Chan gets dragged in too. Well today we were 'owning' really hard, which really means that the enemy is so pathetic and lowly that they all belong to us. So we own them. Is that right? Good punctuation screws up my thinking really bad.

Anyway, DotA is really a game about statistics and numbers, and today it was really funny to see our damage numbers go so high. Like, really high. My lightning person could shoot machinegun speeds at 100+250dmg a shot. In the end we won pretty easily, so easily in fact that it wasn't really that fun at all. Fair fights are fun, but it's not really very fun when you lose or win outright. Yeah, even winning. Ok, I take that back - insert an 'almost' somwhere in that last sentence.

Enough computer talk. Spent most of the game wondering whether I should have joined the Aussies (actually, just the Singaporeans back from Australia) at Zouk, especially since it's Mambo night. Which equates to good music. Retro hits, 80s rock, all the goodness! Trying to balance all that against a game of DotA and saving a few dollars doesn't really balance up, but I guess it's no time for regrets! I'm going again this Friday, so I'm going to be crossing my fingers and hope that the whole damn freakin' Singapore will be there. So go, will you!!!



Ok Sarah just said she doesn't mind watching Chicken Little tomorrow. She says her friend's really been pangseh-ed by everyone, so if he could come along. I totally don't mind at all, but a few problems arise from this: 1) If I talk to Sarah, her friend probably end up really bored 2) If I talk to her friend, it really wouldn't be anything about JC life and no DotA, so most of the conversation will come across as quite forced? 3) If I don't talk at all, they'll probably just pangseh me. Haha, 1 and 2 I'm not really sure about, but the last one, I can almost smell it.

Gosh Chicken Little? What am I thinking, right? There's always Aeon Flux, and A History of Violence, Prime, and Just Like Heaven. Saw the trailer during Harry Potter the other day though (Harry Potter... another one of those... ), and also read a review in the papers. Which wrote it up to be a lot more than I expected it to be, so I guess it should be worth watching?

Sheesh it's already 1.30am. Time to ZZZZZZZZZZ




Note to self: Remember to apply for POSB debit card tomorrow, while at Tampines

it's my dad's birthday today! but i feel like a lousy son, because i'm not 100% sure how old he is, and i'm really tired today so i don't feel like going for dinner. (we celebrated his birthday last sunday already). but for this day of the year at least nobody's gonna be complaining or arguing or quarreling. or at least everyone will be trying.

been playing lots of sudoku recently! and figured that i was pretty crap at it. i take about 10-12 minutes for each puzzle at www.websudoku.com, and the website says that the average user takes only about 7 minutes! so i'm almost twice as shitty as normal. but i'm slowly improving! so that's good. sometimes i'm really stupid tho, and take up to 25 minutes!!! sigh.

went to sembawang wharf today to check out site for next week's duties. the bunks have aircon! but it's going to be a very long, tiring, tedious two weeks. :( at least i'll have my christmas' and new year's day free. or not - nothing's ever confirmed in my job. apparently my unit is one of the crappiest in singapore, but forget i ever said that.

flowers for algernon has been an interesting read so far. but debbie doesn't like it -pfft- i think it touches me with it's honesty, in the way it's in the form of a journal, not much different from the one i'm now writing in. sometimes there is just so much to say, about things going on, about flowing feelings, but rarely do i have the courage to write it out or even think about it. at times, i just can't be bothered, because after all i'm really a damn lazy piece of shit. there's so many things i've been stalling off for weeks, even months. i don't understant how anyone could not like it. debbie says it's childish. SHEESH! but i like it and that's the final word.

books - once i used to really hate them. now i buy more than i can read. lots of people are getting in to books nowadays, so that's cool. christmas is coming! ohhh i wish i could get some more (nice) books for christmas! -hint hint hint hint-

damn freakin' tired, so i'll just stop here

was too lazy to find proper pictures, so these covers ripped from amazon.com will have to do. and yup, i'm going to read them in that order. the first one is about a retarded boy (seriously, now) who becomes a genius after an experimental brain operation only previously tested on animals.

the second is a novel about philosophy, love, kind of. you can call it arty farty and intellectual and abstract, if you're that kind of person.

the third is supposed to be a light-hearted and funny book, a comedy? typical nick hornby stay-up-all-night, page-flipping goodness. about middle-aged guy having a tough time making transitions, as amazon.com tells it. (i'm sure you can tell how much i love amazon.com, even though i don't buy from them. books, videos, music, no matter how abstract and unheard/unseen, you can find it here. just at the press of a key; marvels of the information age?)

also went to catch harry potter with diana.

it was quite funny because this dummy didn't bring her handphone back to singapore (due to it the phone being 'locked to the provider', but i shan't digress). and she didn't bring out any phone at all, and she doesn't have a house phone either. so i wanted to tell her that i'd be 30 minutes late, due to an unusually long game of dota (haha, ok don't start about dota. but i was winning, fortunately). so in the end i rushed down in a taxi, only to find out that i couldn't contact her? and the dumbest part was that i half-forget where we were supposed to meet. bummer.

luckily it was sorted out soon enough.

and also finally figured out the name of that quiz: sudoku. anyone up for a challenge? hahaha i'm going to try to win the new paper competition thing! there's one every week, right?

zzzzzzzzzzzz

i have this really bad sore throat now, so everything i'm saying comes out really really muffled and weird sounding (to me, anyway). bah.

spent the whole day out, something i haven't been doing much lately. especially because it's the whole DAY out, not the whole NIGHT out. which is good! i'd rather it be this way - there's much more to do (other than pubs or club or dota) and there's no taxi surcharge! hahaha.

woke up at 7.30am, quite a feat considering i slept at 4.30am! was rather surprised that i actually woke up on time. cuz i usually have to set the alarm clock an hour earlier than the actual wake up time, and this time i didn't but i still woke up on time! ok heh not much to brag about huh? but it's an improvement, nontheless. had to go to church for the usual sunday morning worship rehearsal, and it was realllllly messy. somehow everyone just sounded so lethargic. i don't really know how to classify it - in terms of what's wrong musically, like playing style etc - but it just seems to lack energy.

i've got a feeling nobody will understand the above paragraph.

anyway the actual service itself was pretty messy, and i wonder if anyone actually heard my guitar (usually the sound crew puts it way too soft for anyone to hear). but after church we went to RITZ CARLTON for some brunch buffet spread to celebrate my dad's birthday. this year was kinda different, because instead of my dad paying, we 3 sons had to pay! being the youngest, my only contribution was to pay for my own meal, something around $120. which is still quite a lot! despite being ritz carlton, like one of the most expensive hotels in singapore, i didn't really find it all that special. maybe because we've been there so many times already.

went out with sarah after that, to watch 'the exorcism of emily rose'. haha horror movies amuse me, to an extent. it's fun to be scared, even though i'm such a useless shit - i was freaked out like throughout the whole show. and some of my friends stil tell me that it's not even scary. gah. maybe it affects me slightly more than others, because it deals with issues regarding christianity and my actual beliefs, so it seems slightly more plausible or so, relatively anyway. not much of a story, but still interesting. 3am, wheeee?

walked around a bit, to funan, raffles city, blah blah. but it still beats stoning at home, sleeping (my rediscovered hobby).

also, perhaps the most productive part of today: i bought more books! especially to last through the next few weeks of guard duties.



still lots of things to do, but thankfully no need to go back to camp. ahh, life actually feels better today! (no camp!!!)

oh, so i realise that manic depressive posts are boring and unenterting to read, so let's just erase those from existence, ya? done. yesterdays and are yesterdays. i think i'll keep it at that.

haven't felt like blogging at all recently. there's a lot to say, but not much urge to say it. pretty much because i'm just too lazy.

so many people are celebrating their birthdays at this time of the year. there's ziwei, diana, cheryl (i don't know her so well, but a stupid internet site keeps spamming me with reminders), my dad, valerie, sherwin, and a whole bunch of friends's birthdays who i can't really keep track of. and exams! everyone's finishing or finished their exams already!

which is so sad, because they'll be partying their hearts out while i have guard duties, army trainings, basically just army. which totally sucks! somehow i always tend to tell people how useful national service is to their lives, how it teaches people to mature and get a bit fitter and blah blah. i think i should take those back, because army just sucks.

thank goodness i'm leaving soon. i practically just count the days. but it's a two-edged sword; i don't really want to leave singapore to pursue studies overseas. however, at the end of the day, i think i'd take the latter option if i could get out of that place.

as you can see, it's a monday morning and i have to go back to camp in the afternoon, which explains the reasons for my lamentations.

as to survive through the pain and torture of another week (oh do i make it out to be that bad, really?), here are the new survival tools for this week:



a book and some music, the basic necessities for struggling through any boring event. the album's pretty ok; bon jovi's gotten really pop in the last couple of years. think a hybrid between j-rock, modern radio pop, new age u2 and the same old bon jovi. still, it is kinda enjoyable to listen to. the book's really nice to read too! nick hornby's a really talented writer, but too bad that my first book by him had to be, just HAD TO BE 'how to be good', which was apparently one of his most terrible books. terrible in a sense, the word 'relatively' comes to mind.

i can't seem to blog properly nowadays. my attention span's too short, like i'm getting ADD or something similar. bah. here's a nice pic to end my otherwise mundane post. i really like it, by the way.

since there's nothing much to do nowadays except computer games, the television and procrastinating, i've been exercising! yep, that's right. it's such an odd mix, the slothful, couch potato lifestyle mixed in with running and weights.

so here's the new routine!

wake up
drink coffee (very important! :/ )
play computer
watch tv/dvds
run (usually in the form of interval training[!!!])
play computer
weights
mindless doodling on the com/msn/silly web games

p.s. got the game link off xiaxue's.

which isn't really a lot to be proud of. in fact, it's nothing to be proud of at all, haha! except maybe the bit with the exercise. there's still so much to be done, like pack the bags for japan (very important!), read my bible (which is still rather on-and-off?), pack my room.

and study, which is also another very very important important priority! the guys in the army tend to miss studying, but it's all the same. once you get down to it - really studying - nobody really misses it that much. recently i thought chemistry was such a brilliant subject and read the textbook fervently, until i came to the part titled 'quiz'. oh yeah, i kinda flunked all the questions. interesting to read, but to remember 100%, NAH!

kinda did billions of pushups (no gym) and a few reps of weights. so now my arms are really burning. no, i take that back. they're gonna really explodeeee.

soon i'm gonna go running with jacq, from church, too. apparently she's been running a route around my house for the past many many weeks, and i didn't even know. and she runs really far (about 4, 5 km?). ok it isn't really that far, but every time i run that route, it feels like a marathon. it just feels draggy, because half of the section is along bukit timah road. it's a straight road (totally straight) and it just seems never ending when you're running it.

one last set. bah burn burn burn

going to japan next monday. so i feel like cutting my hair, such that it'll look sufficiently nice and also so it won't feel so thick (haha for a guy, that is!).

however my hair is so short that the hairdresser would probably think i'm either dead bored, really retarded, or some combination of both.

this is funny. i was at hmv, and heard jay chou songs running in the background. couldn't recognise any of them, only to eventually realise later that it's jay chou's new album. and the official worldwide release date is... *drum roll* today! so they were giving out free posters (which only really comes with the preorder sales) with the purchases.

some of the songs are really nice! like track 7 and 8. however my fan ti zhi (traditional chinese) and my overall grasp of chinese is terrible, so i can't translate the title.

(ok i figured that track 7 is 'lang man shou ji' which means romantic opportunity or something? ok i give up haha)



in other news... played dota today with the sonnies. sigh. (i killed the most number of people in one game! haha ok nevermind)

my butt has been itching to get out of the house really bad recently! because i really don't like to stay home. but in my attempt to save money (which is going less than satisfactory), i'm staying home all day, everyday to play computer! and bits of guitar.

this is really bad for health. and to add to that list: watching dvds. which is also another couch potato trait.

so i've been playing computer games (world of warcraft, dota, maplestory!?!?? which totally sucks), watching dvds (batman begins, before sunset, a lot like love) and playing guitar (think 'oasis' and 80s/90s pop). insert the ocassional run here and there, which really amounts to nothing, recalling how badly i flunked my obstacle course test. add a dash of sms and phone calls, and one can really see the reliance on technology nowadays to keep me entertained.

speaking about couch potato traits, the amount of beer and coke i've been consuming is also appaling. soon i'll just be one fat ass slob who can't do anything but watch tv and play computer. and on and on it goes again!

edit- however i did pass my test the second time around, not that it's anything to be proud of! urgh

so i spent the last few days talking to the muslim people in my camp, asking them about their religion. an apt time to be asking and bugging them, since it's their fasting month all the way till next thursday. turns out that a lot of them don't really give a shit about their religion.

(remember that i don't like people like that? but it's alright, cuz i'm somehow getting sucked closer in to that genre)

and it turns out that a lot of what they believe in is the same as what i believe in, which is christianity and another whole religion altogether. so i started talking with them about the similarities and differences and why they chose to believe what they believe in. it came to one point where he asked me, 'if jesus was god, how could he worship god?'.

i know the answer to that question - jesus is part of the holy trinity together with god and the holy spirit, and though seperate, they are also one. such a textbook answer, isn't it? and why do i believe in this doctrine? erm... because i was brought up this way?

this is why it irks me a lot, that i am one who dislike, even despise people who don't give a shit about their faiths (unless they don't believe in any) and that i myself cannot find the answers to my own questions. i asked my mom about it (because she knows a lot of these things) and this is what she told me: the doctrine of the holy trinity is so mystified that there is no answer except to accept it for what it is. jesus is god in human form, and the holy spirit is god working through us, and they are seperate yet they are one. there's no explaining it, you either believe it or you don't.

a key part of christianity is evangelism, the spreading of the religion to other non-believers. but how do you explain to someone that in the end, you "either believe it or you don't?"

do i seem really DEPRESSED? while procrastinating to update my template (something that i've been wanting to do for some time now), i read through a few of my previous entries and really noticed that they're all so sad?

i.e.

• 241005 yesterday's post
  
  
• 180905 really strained relationships. or just perceived? i don't know. blocked out the text in this post though. it's there but you won't see it. just like so many things around.
  
  
• 110905

  i'm suddenly feeling very annoyed. irritated. just dwelling on past events, which has always been a bad thing. but memories always come back to haunt you. which sucks.
  
  

• 230805 more strained relationships
  
  
• 270705 because i just want to feel shitty
  
  
• ok this is not related, but just thought it was a funny entry. it still tends to be true, save for the fact that lifehouse's 'undone' doesn't sit take top spot anymore :/
  
  
• i mean come on, my blog's title is "WHY YOU SO LIKE THAT AH?"

anyway, i was supposed to be brainstorming some ideas for a new template, yes? and in my search, i stumbled upon this website whose layout i thought was pretty cool. fine, not cool per se but the simplistic layout and font which attracted me to it. i just want a typwriter style layout!!

however the sheer effort of having to type out all that html and css code is too much for me to handle. even thinking about it gives me headaches! the previous layout took about an entire night to do, and being the occasional perfectionist (ooh, does that make sense?) i am, i even strived to make it compatible with both internet explorer and firefox! so nerdy, right? partly because i use firefox while the rest of the world uses internet explorer (which totally sucks).


meh (this is how i end posts with no coherent ending abruptly)

past experiences can really come back to haunt you, to hunt you ass down. it's unbelievable that after such a long time, thinking about the past still hurts. i'd like to tell myself that i'm over it, but a part of the issue just left unresolved and that block just gets in the way. sometimes these issues really are resolved, but not in the way that i'd like. so i label them as 'unresolved' too. i'm being vague, am i? do i seem like i'm talking in circles now?

to be so bitter about certain things.

love is a complicated issue. everyone wants to be loved, to feel special, to love. i think it's sad when people hold it back because they're not sure about how the other party feels. or worse, because they know how the other party feels. unrequited love just pierces right through.



sorry. sigh i'm just so tired now, just too braindead to think anymore.

today was a funny day. you know, funny as in weird.

the main event was booking in to camp, unfortunately to zero my rifle (sar21 which also happened to be already zeroed). basically to those of you who don't know, zero-ing aligning the sights of the rifle to the actual trajectory or whatever, so that you can actually hit what you're pointing at. ok ya whatever. turned out that it wasn't so bad after all. spent most of it sleeping! haha while waiting for my turn. but now i feel bad because i didn't really help with anything at all. meh.

woke up from a bad dream today with my heart racing pretty quickly. it wasn't really a bad dream. but i woke up as if i just had a nightmare. weird, right? what i dreamt about was actually a collage of different dreams, but i only remembered the last one which was about going to church!

the scenario: i had to play in church for service and service usually starts at 10am, with the morning rehearsal at 8.30am. but my family and i were watching tv and you know how dreams go all zigzag and all over the place? yah then i noticed the time and it was 10.15am! ok this probably wouldn't seem to be that much but i like to be punctual for all my activities if possible (but seldom happens haha). and 10.15am would mean being 2hrs late!

so perhaps this post doesn't make much sense, but it sort of got me thinking about church, christianity, religion, and everything in between. these things just seem so illogical at times, that it's really just beyond comprehension. and recently i've been thinking a lot about it, asking questions, trying to understand. somehow i just can't stand people who have no idea about the what they believe in, and worst of all refuse to admit it. i despise people who follow others blindly, but i'm such a hypocrite in the way that i sometimes commit these very same mistakes.

maybe i'd call this phase: 'finding my purpose', or 'the meaning of life'.

• woke up at 7.30am, even though i slept at 3.30am


• played eguit for church, thought it sounded pretty screwed up. however my brother told me it was pretty good and 'funky'


• had to join my dad's small group for a cluster meeting. and got saboed by jeff to say some stuff. which was pretty embarrassing. ok that's an understatement. however george (the cell group leader) said some very nice stuff about me! :) haha was kinda shocked. maybe because i don't quite agree with him.


• sometimes i think that our group in church is a load of fun. like today. reminds me of school, to an extent? school in singapore, to be exact.


• was so stoned after church that i fell asleep the moment i lay on the bed. really really tired


• watched 21 grams, a movie about 3 people struggling with tragedy and their quest for redemption. actually i think it's a really wonderful movie, however i watched it during dinner with the family and thus didn't pay much attention AT ALL. and this is one of those movies where you have to devote every single bit of your concentration. because it only becomes enjoyable once you do. so sad! because you only get that moment the first time you watch a movie and now if i watch it again it won't be as good.


• note to self: don't ever watch these kinda movies with my mom, EVER. halfway she starts saying "ooh how come you can see her breasts? and the man is really naked ah? i wonder how these actors act like that with all the people looking!" and "eh these people all take drugs, don't know how to take care of their lives". sigh.


• i am going back to camp tonight. that really sucks


• someone just messaged me a really weird sms. so i have to note it down here.


• i'm going back to camp tonight. oh i said that already?

1) go running
2) watched 'the motorcycle diaries', which turned out to be a superb show
3) play world of warcraft (if that's even counted. yeah right.)
4) erm that's about it

about to add in #5, which is "watched 'before sunset'". oh look and it's almost saturday already! one week gone by, just like that? gah

ok, so i just watched this show titled 'jan dara'. a very nice show staring christy chung and a few other handsome and beautiful people.

basically the story is about a boy called jan dara whose mother passed away giving birth to him. and therefore his father hates him for it. a story about family relations and how screwed up they can be, about sex, crazy men, tormented, sordid and ultimately lonely lives.

oh, did i say sex? this is probably the only show i've seen where all the female leads (or sometimes not so prominent 'leads') are naked at one point or another. i mean, almost all the characters in this show have sex at one point of another (so exciting, right? heh). told you it was about sex!

overall it was a pretty good watch. but also really sad.

also have a bunch of tony leung movies! haha i don't really watch his shows, and i don't really know why but my mom has a whole stack of his dvds. claims that it's from my brother. was thinking of watching 2046 but i think i'll save that for tomorrow? sounds pretty good too though.

happened to be blog-surfing - yes the low-life activity that people like me do under circumstances of extreme boredom - today and chanced upon this. rather amusing. if only all girls were like this, the world would be a better place! for guys, at least.

boys are seriously quite dense creatures. they can make you sO mad and not realise it. then even dumber girls, for example me, will get damn worked up for nothing. because the boys dont actually know you are angry with them. a particular boy made me sO mad today that i had difficulty breathing.. but he obviously doesnt know about it. but thats alright. im completely fine now.

monday's plan was supposed to be as follows:

7am: wake up
8am-12pm: study
12pm: borrow dvds from serene center
rest of the day: play computer/practise guitar/watch dvds
10pm: go running


unfortunately i woke up at 11pm, and spent the next hour wondering why i woke up so late. thereafter i realised that it was a really stupid decision to walk to serene center in the blistering hot sun, so i didn't do that either. managed to spend all of 15 minutes practising some guitar techniques (at least it helped a bit) and added in a fair bit of snoozing to the timetable.

the evening run didn't happen either. must be the monday blues, yeah.

tuesday's plan: go running after breakfast, borrow the dvds before coming home, and study in the afternoon. hmm yup. the studying bit isn't really that critical, so i'm pushing it to the afternoon when my sis-in-law (brother's wife) will be coming over. she's bringing the kid, so i'll have to lock myself in my room. again, lest playing and spending the next few hours doing baby talk and smelling baby drool. haha.

just played a bit of world of warcraft, and i can never understand how some people like those hardcore taiwanese gamers can get sooooooo hooked on to it. i was all stretched and tired out after just 2hrs! and the newspapers say that they apparently spend up to 48hours playing in a row?! my eyes feel like they're on a red bull overdose :/

meh.

there's no combination of words that i could put on the back of a postcard
no song that i could sing but i could try for your heart and
our dreams they are made of real things like
a shoebox of photographs and sepia-toned lovin'
love is the answer at least for most of the question of my heart like
why are we here and where do we go and why is it so hard
it's not always easy and sometimes life can be deceiving
i'll tell you one thing it's always better when we're together

brunei was a pretty interesting experience. the weather there is quite nice: moderately dry air and gentle breezes, so you don't quite sweat as much as singapore. it's cool (sometimes cold, even) at night, so sleeping is a generally pleasent experience. there's very few mozzies out in the field and though it's dark at night it's not the least bit scary (unlike certain parts of tekong). the terrain is really hilly, steep gradients with lacking map information and lots of hidden features. so navigation is a pain in the ass.

the training was as follows: 3 days of navigation, followed by a 3 day stay in a 'jungle village' of sorts and the grand finale of it all, which is a company level exercise comprising of 2 missions over 4 days. between each of these events is either an overnight sleep back in the bunk or some misc training to brush up on the technicalities.

we don't get much fresh water outfield; most of it is from rivers and streams. initially i was skeptical about drinking water from these sources (i mean, omg this is river water right?!), but it's rather pleasent after all. the water is cold and refreshing, tasting pretty much like mineral water (just what it is, isn't it? haha). nothing beats sitting by a stream after a long trek to freshen up and have a nice cool drink.

rediscovered my old love of playing with fire. setting aflame almost ANYTHING puts a smile on my face. must be some arsonistic tendencies. especially on a really cold night up mount biang (also the highest hill/mountain we climbed up during our 18 days). the temperature drops to around 20plus celcius, coupled together with the wind creates some reallllllly cold situations. my gpmg gunner and i formed a small fire of sorts and sat by the glowing embers, bodies all curled up (not together lah!) trying to keep ourselves warm. maybe that's what it's like to sleep by a fireplace? yummy warm feeling.

the stupid forest there gets so dark at night that i couldn't even manage to see my hand right in front of my face, let alone with the night vision goggles (no idea why i brought those along). anyway.

i guess in a certain sense the training really built me up, in terms of maturity. maturity to handle my platoon men, to handle situations, to handle myself. people always tend to take many things for granted, and only realise it when it's taken away from them. it's so easy to critic other people, but never yourself. and in the end there's really no one else to say sorry to but yourself. many people in my camp are jerks, but it doesn't mean i'm allowed to be one too, right? but at least i got a second chance this time (unlike many other times). it takes a lot of balls to fully admit that you're wrong. given my really short attention span, i hope i won't forget this.

really missed my parents, the sonnies and a few others. HI I"M BACK!!!!!!!!!! :) :) :)

1) compared to singapore, brunei is a really lonely (and different) place

2) don't attempt to play dota in brunei

3) how to be nice



maybe i'll elaborate later

sonnies - love is only a feeling (the darkness cover)
sonnies - creep (radiohead cover)

here's some of the songs our sonnies recorded yesterday at alvron's music studio. was actually the most succesful jam session of the last few years, out of secondary school. bryan chan was on the bass, jon and i on the guitars and huang ming on the drums. bryan and i had to take turns with the vocals (i'd rather he do it haha). jon detailed more about it on his blog, but i'm really too lazy lah having just woke up.

i'll be off tomorrow. i just can't wait to return, even when i haven't even left yet. it's amazing how fast time flies past when you don't pay any attention to it at all. i'll miss some people. take care, au revoir.

everything is a blur today, because i slept for 12 hours last night when i usually sleep for only 5.

i've been eating tons and tons and tons of crap recently, meaning unhealthy food. so much so as to not take any consideration for health. and i've come to the sudden realisation of how fast my metabolic rate is. i can feel the layer of fats building up (they call this the 'BEER BELLY!'). but the magic part is after about 20km of running it all disappears!

the point being, since i'm going to be eating even more crap in australia: go running!

haven't been running for the past few weeks, in preparation for next week's big event: brunei's lancer training trip, aka expressions hardcore 3 week detox.

technology these days is really good. was reading the newspapers today, and in the digital life section there was an article about internet telephony service. there are programs that allow you to talk free between computers, and even call internationally.

i tried out one of the programs, skype. partly because i was bored, partly to talk to some of my friends (who happen to be all over the world, nowadays). and the best part is that the rates are unbelievably cheap! 1cent for 3 minutes of talking, nah that's negligible cost. it'd probably come in helpful next year once i go back to australia. you buy the call credits (in blocks of $20) via the internet. so my mom can help me pay for it :) hahaha. after all most of it will be for talking to her, right? ;)

the only thing that irks me is that i don't have an independent microphone, so i have to use the built-in one on my laptop. which means me face down, practically just staring 3 inches away from the keyboard. perhaps too used to a 'real' telephone handset, and too used talking while in bed.

still interesting, nontheless. i got to call diana! haha :) so now i don't feel so guilty for not having called her the past zillion years.

more like shredding my hair trying to play the guitar. i've realised how much i've lost in technical ability, due to the complete lack of practice the past 2 years. the only time i ever play guitar nowadays is when i have to play for church! and then it's only for the two hours during the rehearsal and the next half hour during service. so now even simple songs turn me off somewhat.

being able to play a song is one thing, but being able to play it well, professionally is a different matter. some of my phrasing is so inconsistant, it's appaling!



jamming this saturday with the sonnies. jon and i on the guitars, bryan on bass and vocals and huang ming on the drums. it'd better work out this time! because jon and i spent sunday practicing the main parts. so if it's still crap, then we'd be better off selling our guitars and just dying.


I'm being punished for all my offences
I wanna touch you but I'm afraid of the consequences
I wanna banish you from whence you came
But you're part of me now
And I've only got myself to blame
You're really growing on me

(i missssssssss youuuuuuuuuuuu)

DON'T SLEEP WITH WATCH
Watches can emit a certain level of
radioactivity.Though small, but if you wear your
watch to bed for a long time, it might have adverse
effectson your health.

DON'T SLEEP WITH PHONE
Putting the phone beside your bed or anywhere
near you is not encouraged.Though some of us will
use phones as alarm clocks, but please put the
phone as far as possible. Scientists have proved
that electrical items including mobile phone and
television sets emit magnetic waves when
used.These waves can cause disruptions to our
nervous system.Therefore if you need to put your
mobile phone near you, switch it off first.

DON'T SLEEP WITH MAKE UP
People who sleep with make up might have skin
problems in the long run.Sleeping with make up
will cause the skin to have difficulty in breathing
and problem in perspiring. You will also need a
much longer time to go into deep sleep.

DON'T SLEEP WITH BRA
Scientists in America have discovered those that
wear bras for more than 12hours have a higher risk
of getting breast cancer.So go to bed without it.

DON'T SLEEP WITH OTHERS' WIFE
You may never wake up again.

i just typed a shitload of stuff, but because my computer started typing things backwards (literally.), most of the stuff i typed was gone. a brief recap:

1. going back tonight for half-marathon tomorrow morning :(
2. mon to wed field camp. "i hate army" but who doesn't? does teach a person some good qualities though.
3. went to tower club's atlantic restaurant, in republic plaza. pretty. exclusive.
4. can't remember four.

me: whats the weirdest place you've had sex in

friend: haha... library
friend: hehe
friend: okay going to have sex now goodniteee

really annoyed today. from the moment i woke up all the way till now. because of so many different things. mainly due to my lack of tolerance for certain things. really wanted to talk to some people today too. in person and online.

and the fact that i have to book in on sunday nights. ok, that doesn't really qualify, because i AM in army, and all the more i have a 3 day exercise tomorrow. and that there's still so much left to do, but yet i have to go in ten minutes. i can't believe how anyone could possibly be bored, unable to think of ways to occupy their time. somehow i can never get enough of it?

but this booking in thing is the smallest of my current list of irritations.

gah

woah, this program is so cool. you can practically look at the entire geography of singapore from satellite imaging. i mean, i can spot my house! managed to waste about 2 hours looking for things around the world. most of them from singapore:

some placemarks...
my house
jon's house
cheuk's house
bryan chan's house
holland village
bukit timah shopping center (DOTA!!)
various other places of dota (dotdotdot)
my camp
my bunk in my camp
my stupid bunk when i was in bmtc
my stupid apartment in australia
victoria market, melbourne state library, and melbourne central

went looking around the world at random places like jakarta, new york, random patches of ocean (i don't think google scanned those in, because they kept turning up solid blue. d'oh!). crap places like area51, airports, military bases, 3d mountains (oooh!), and other nonsense.

now kerby wants me to download a program called lancraft, so we can play dota AT HOME. this is getting crazy. one day we'll all turn out like those uncontrollable taiwanese gamers who need laws to help curb their newfound DOTA ADDICTION?!


my left leg is now really screwed up. i can't bend the knee more than 30 degrees without it hurting like a bitch, and the ankle is swelling up. but my dad did a quick check and just brushed it off, saying it was nothing. hello? nothing!? he gave me a tube of analgesic though, so that's sort of numbing the pain off a bit. i think i'm finally falling to the same fate as my other two brothers: screwed up joints!

nowadays i'm trying to be a nice person. sort of, because it's selective. so does that still count? i've been really pessimistic lately. ok maybe not so much a nice person, but a better person. more self-disciplined, more responsible, yeah along those lines. and perhaps it's time to change.

studying, reading, saving some money, actually exercising instead of just thinking about it, thinking before speaking (haha, ok that's hard), some more studying...

actually, that was my new years resolution for this year, but as they say, resolutions are meant to be broken! hopefully i can keep this one up and running for a while.

woke up really early today, despite sleeping quite late yesterday. was really sleepy in church: i think i practically fell asleep during the rehearsal. and almost during service too. yah, didn't really listen to a word the pastor was talking about.

i happened to be using paul's line6 variax700 acoustic today. it's really too high tech for me! i accidentally pressed one of the buttons and suddenly the tuning all went wonky. apparently it has this auto detuning function, where you press a button and the tuning alters to a preset tuning. you can change it via computer or some really chim programming. VERY COOL. if i actually had one, i'd be playing slide guitar all day long!

anyway i didn't really know that it had this 'feature' then; i practically played the entire first song out of tune! i was like "i'm playing a C, but the note is a Bb?!" initially i thought it was out of tune, but PERFECTLY out of tune? (look at the irony of that phrase, by the way). because the tuning was spot on for Bb. so crappy, right. then in a fit of panic i grabbed the tuner, but luckily i matched 2 and 2 and changed the setting back.

talked to sarah after service. decided to be the nice guy that i am, and complimented her, saying that she lost some weight. but nooooooo, she slapped me like sooo hard! some people ah! hehe ok fine, i was just trying to be nice, but it's the thought that counts, right?? women are so unpredictable. say that they're fat, and the scream. say they're thin, and they call you a liar!

the family communications talk later was a bit weird. uncle weimin (wayne's dad. he's in the pic above) acted as if he was a teenager. it's really weird to see an ah pek old guy acting like a young punk. and he actually pulled it off! haha hilarious.

went for a dumb game of dota later. was pretty crappy (because i lost).

and whiled the rest of the afternoon away playing computer games. i'm becoming so nerdy, the mere thought is horrendous. played rome:total war, which is a strategy game where you control a roman faction and try to conquer the world (actually, more like the entire middle east). last i played, i totalled the spaniards and was proceding to pester the brits with naval embargos and diplomats.

ok, this is bad. enough of computers.

after dinner (which was a fantanbuloussss box of sushi from medi-ya, or something along those lines), watched a local chinese movie called 'home run'. the literal chinese translation is "run! children". but don't put any hope in my chinese, though. i think it's a really great movie. on tv nowadays, local sitcoms tend to be so badly directed and filmed, with the really mediocre quailty acting talents. but in this show the lead characters were siblings, a little boy and a really really little (but insanely cute) girl. and she acted so well. if she was older i'd marry her in an instant.

ok, no that's just gross.

such a random entry. talking about all sorts of crap nowadays. in a dull mood lah. missing a few people :/

ok, the title may be a bit misleading. it's ALWAYS a guys night out. the sonny gang, that is. comprising today of jon chan, kerby kwan, bryan tan, and i. you'd notice that i said 'today'. that's because our sonny gang has a few other members, but they couldn't make it today. namely bryan chan and tan huang ming.

oh wait, is huang ming actually in? (he's our airhead drummer). oh yes, that's right. our band. ended up spending the night playing pool and dota though. it's surprising that after all these years, i haven't really got worse at pool, skill-wise. but you can't really get worse in something that you weren't even good at in the first place, right?

kinda wanted to go jamming initially. anyway, a bit about our dysfunctional 'band' first. when we go jamming, things always deterioate into rather pathetic conditions. i'd start pseudo-soloing, jon would go on with sweet child of mine and bryan would just stone in the corner, fretting that he had to play bass instead of guitar (fretting! get it? har har). while everyone, at the same time, try to tell huang ming to shut up.

fortunately we managed to waste today on dota and pool. it's the the quality social time we're spending together that counts after all, right? hoho.


suddenly felt like being a non-procrastinator after coming back. even though it's 2.30am in the morning. finished up the ucas form, which included typing up lenie cho's (the acsi vice principal) reference letter. here's the list of universities i've applied to (this is for you, debbie):

University of Aberdeen
Brighton and Sussex Medical School
University of Glasgow
University of Newcastle Upon Tyne (woah... sounds so medieval)

the practical me says that i won't ever get in to any of them. which is good, because i'll get to go to australia, with my flat just opposite the university (waking up - byebye to sunrise scenes). i'll also get to live with singaporean people, because i think caucasian kids (ang mohs lah) are the most irritating, spoilt, retarded brats to walk the earth.

it's also bad. because i'll have to go to australia, and not study medicine but biomed which is a crappy version of medicine, and not get to watch awesome bands like U2 and the cranberries, and not join mad beer festivals with naked women all over the place. don't forget that it'll cost a billion dollars. plus i'll have no current friends there, but that's ok considering the quantities of beer and irish/scottish (naked) women, plus being able to hang out (or loose) in kilts!

i guess you just can't have your cake and eat it too.

i need to get out of the house tomorrow. so i can escape from my mom asking me to follow her to boon lay for some latchkey program. it's a program where you help out poor little kids who don't have enough money to get tuition. so in effect it's giving tuition to primary school kids.

does resorting to this make me a very bad person? probably.

i'm eating the turkish delight treats emily gan gave me like a zillion years ago. there's this white coating powder on it that i suppose is sugar. but then again it's so old, it could've been mould. gross. ah but i'm eating it as i type this. bah.

OK SO, so i've been asking quite a few people to watch charlie and the chocolate factory. however i do realise that i am a few weeks late, and that practically everyone who would even think of watching it has done so already. crikey.

but but but i have to go down to borders to check out some cds too. right, that's a great excuse? oh well...

sort of stretching now, before i sleep. so i won't wake up in a fit tomorrow, or not be able to move and other assorted ailments. so i was kinda surfing around the 'net, looking at people's blogs, reading the reallly really old entries to look for my name (bhb!), friendster, that sorta yadayada. yeah, you can say that i was bored.

it's funny, realising how people used to call me 'crispy' all the time previously. now they just call me chris. even elaine (the church's music team i/c) now puts my name down as 'chris' in the roster as opposed to 'crispy', which she used to do regularly. not that losing the nickname signifies anything, though. dominic still calls me crispy... :/ at least i can recognise who's messaging me on msn instantly.

reading those blog entries, one'd realise a common trend. everyone's complaining about love, getting love, love lost. it's such a human trait after all, to feel love. and now someone on msn is complaining to me about breakups!

anyway. did some weights today. should start running, reading some of my bible and studying too. i did start studying two weeks ago, but now it's slowly diminishing to three pages a session. which is almost impossible to consider as any form of study. and don't talk about that bible! man, my current level of self-discipline is just totally appaling, if non-existant!


i've yet to figure out 'raison d'etre'. the pronounciation, that is. fiona xie... you're my raison d'etre, compiled with sushi and electric guitars! mmmm yummy.

i think i've gone mad! lately i've been practicing some classical piano stuff, the stuff from piano exam scores. i think it's from the barouque era or whatever it's called, but all the contrary motion stuff is making me dizzy!

and on my guitar, i've retuned in to open g tuning to play bluesy slide guitar. on the other hand, unlike the piano bit i didn't really find it much fun. it's a lot easier than jazz and more of a no-brainer, but jazzy stuff still sounds so sweeeeeeeet (and mentally challenging, which is more of an understandment.)

new word for today (because everyone seems to be using it): raison d'etre

there are some people (friends, perhaps) that i've been having problems with. maybe you can't really call it a problem, but that's the closest i can come up with. i find communication so difficult with these people. i'm held back by a few bad experiences and all i want (or think i do) is for our friendship to be like it was before: happy and contented. but invisible barriers just come between us and the words never ever get to come out of my mouth.

some of these people i really miss. no, i mean really, really miss. but you'll probably never get to know, because i'll probably never get those words out of my mouth. however this is the internet after all, so hopefully you'll stumble upon this dumb blog and realise what my silent words are struggling to say.

something i created this morning, because i felt that it was too early for breakfast (hah, what a lame excuse). ended up not eating breakfast at all. i like the birds though; reminds me of a very nice guitar.

also. i'm trying to redesign this blog, with more of a vector graphics feel to it. recently, i've been more into the patterns kinda thing.

after checking out the coming races, i'm starting to regret slacking off. especially this: the nie biathlon 2005 and the new balance aquathlon 2005. especially the first one, because george (cell group leader and youth ministry leader in my church) is participating in that. to add to that, it's only a 500m swim! in a swimming pool. talk about adding salt to the wound!

on the other hand, i'll be in brunei by then. gotta hate army, sometimes. actually, almost all the time...

this is funny. it's a gift that sheryl gave to me a long time ago. i think i must've been really stupid (or perhaps still am). maybe it wasn't a joke after all. just one of the artifacts i rediscovered after randomly browsing through the junk in my room.

it seems that i'm slowly sliding back into my lackadaisical mood again. there's things to do: fill in my ucas application before september, tweak the guitar effects and figure out what to play for sunday, study chemistry, sleep (because people usually sleep at night). but somehow i'm too lazy to do either of those. it's those incredibly unbelievable bouts of laziness where you're just too lazy to do anything other than sit on your ass. maybe i should put a reclining chair here, so if i'm really lazy i'd just press the recline button and sleep.

many people dream of big houses, fast cars. however when i was young i used to dream of living in an incredible small room, where i sleep on a recliner chair cum toilet bowl (gross, i know). in front of me would be my computer, a guitar/keyboard whatever to my right, and a fridge to my left.

clothes would go out the window where some auntie or maid or mother would wash them, and food coming in (or out) the same way. the tv would go on the ceiling, like those flat screen advertisements so you can watch tv and fall asleep if the program's really boring (like many of them always are?!)

anyway, to digress. becky (the supposedly once a year penpal who lives in the states) replied. so this really means that we're not once a year penpals anymore, probably more like a month. but she said pretty much the same thing, so i guess i'd probably reply with pretty much the same thing too. talking to strangers is one thing i could never get around to doing comfortably (i mean, only weirdos go around talking to random people, right?). but it's comforting to know that you can unload your entire life story and all its troubles on to them and know that they'd forget it within 30 minutes. or am i the only one who does that? oops :x

lost 3 balls on level 1 itself just now while talking to someone. some memories are best just left alone, yeah?

anyway, went to play the cursed game called dota with the army gang after booking out. figured out how to use the skeleton guy! jiayi called me a 'tanker', which apparently means that you can stand there hitting people without needing to siam out of the way. that was his definition, anyway. and only died a 3 or 4 times out of the 1hr20min long game, which kinda sucks because if you die at the end you have to wait 90 seconds. so it's 90 seconds of stoning. ok, enough computer talk.

on a week long block off now. which means that i don't have to go back to camp till the 28th! ok that's more than a week, about ten days. but not really intending to go out at all, because i'm trying to save up for that bike. which i've been trying to save up for ages. the target goal would be around S$1500, which is approximately AUS$1200. seems barely enough for an entry level bike, so if things seem pretty crappy there i'd probably get it back here in singapore. but it also means that i'd have to wait till the winter/spring/july/whatever break to come back to singapore. bah! that's a lot lot of time.

and i still owe my dad cash.

i think it sucks to owe your parents money. but on the other hand, it's better than just plainly taking it. obviously some people think otherwise, but i'd like to think that i can take care of myself, by myself.

anyway. ten days out of camp, time's gonna fly really quick. i'll be having the internet, flight simulators, my guitars and chemistry textbooks to keep me company through the way. mayyybe a little mambo night though, anybody interested? haha

can't believe howww clumsy i was today. woke up late, 11.30am even though i wanted to wake up at 7am. sleep is one of those things you'd really want but not really at the same time. it's those extra non essential activities - nobody's ever died because they didn't have 12hrs of sleep everyday. it's like having zillions of dollars in the bank: good, but not necessary (for most).

also dropped my mom's pairs of oakleys somewhere. this is like one of the most super blur drastic mistakes i've ever did, after bringing my ipod for a dip.

then realised that i didn't bring my wallet. i mean, what on earth is wrong with me, right? sheesh so ended up borrowing $15 from my dad and another $10 from my pc (fare card had negative value).

sheesh

sometimes i feel like screaming at ani difranco in the face: shaddap lah! she can play the guitar, good. but she plays these irritating songs that just make you feel like stabbing her repeatedly.

still have yet to fill in my ucas application for universities in the uk, even though i know that i won't get a place in any of them. it's just to show that i've tried, get it? some people need the proof.

also have to reply to becky (the once a year american penpal). but it's starting to feel like a realll chore, plus it's not even a year yet.

ah

From: Becka Gresens
To: CHRIS ONG
Date: Aug 12, 2005 8:45 AM
Subject: DUDE

ARE YOU BREATHING

BECKY

oops. i think i forgot to reply to the last two emails because i didn't really bother much (and therefore quickly forgot about it). note to self - reply later tonight.

after extensive browsing and numerous tests and whatever, i have come to a conclusion.

singaporean girls (the younger ones, or at least those who look below 30) consist of approximately 90% ah lians. all hardcore fans of bands like machi, f.i.r. and other taiwanese and chinese celebrities are ah lians. also, 20% of these fans are probably crazy (mentally unstable) too.

also, singaporeans really love freebies. they not only want one or two or three, but as many as possible just because it's free!?! and the lies some of them would go to get their way!

anyway, here's some tips if you want to get in to your next 'festival of praise' or whatever free event coming your way:

1. "my stuff was inside just now i just went out to bring my mom to the toilet!"

2. "my kids are lost inside help me in NOW"

3. (if you're a kid but obviously went there with friends) "i only went to the toilet but my mommy's inside!! *cry*"

4. just chiong past and ignore security while they try to chase you down in futility. and at the same time let in everyone else who's waiting behind you.

5. "can i stand behind you? this place is so dirty *doe eyes* i won't go in i'll just stand behind you cuz it's soooo dirty!!" *then sneak in while no one's looking*

gah. just some of the nonsense people try to tell me while doing security (i'm more of a traffic cone/sign post than a security guard). it's unbelievable, and the most incredible part about all this: i can't do anything about it but let them in, being the nice kind considerate guy i am. one day i'll be mean and just say 'SIAM LAH KNNBCCB@#$@$^$&*(!!!"

arghargh