i think i won't survive staying out late every day. i always end up feeling damn shag when i reach home at night and result is that i do hardly any work.

moral of the story? i need days that i can go home early. to sleep or otherwise (ie do work).

sigh what a short post.

felt like sharing this:

"Writing is not just jotting down ideas. Often we say: "I don't know what to write. I have no thoughts worth writing down." But much good writing emerges from the process of writing itself. As we simply sit down in front of a sheet of paper and start to express in words what is on our minds or in our hearts, new ideas emerge, ideas that can surprise us and lead us to inner places we hardly knew were there.

One of the most satisfying aspects of writing is that it can open in us deep wells of hidden treasures that are beautiful for us as well as for others to see."


it makes quite some sense no?

i've been looking alot into scholarships/career opportunities recently and WDA suddenly seems not bad! mmm.

things i learnt from entre outing today:
1. do not try to be a hero and challenge people to tabasco eating competition. you WILL end up horribly sick, even to the point of throwing up.
2. if you are not a participant stay far away from those that are. otherwise if vomiting occurs, you'll become an innocent victim (that was me).

man, i can't believe i was scammed by some elaborate plan into drinking a glass of salt-added water today at breeks! bleh. it was epic omg. next time i'll remember that going to toliet with your food/drinks unfinished tends to result in people tampering with them.

entre training and development session today was quite good though, learnt alot about marketing! i like GMs like these. productive and helpful.

ok, i'm feeling really tired after an entire day out. snooze time..

we live in an age of information explosion.
the salt curve theory works. too much information can be a bad thing. total overload.

i admit that making a documentary looks alot harder now than what it should have been. but hey, documentary-making science/art (whichever word is applicable) is pretty fascinating actually.

ragh which reminds me of the frustration over my supposed uni course inclinations. i find studying businesses and stuff interesting, and sociological theories are rather mind blowing as well. so what course am i supposed to take? ah well. maybe now's not exactly the time to make up my mind. there is after all nus fass open house coming up in may..so that's something useful to look forward to.

this week seems awfully packed with academic concerns. SPA(s), class tests, lecture tests, and of course the eternal pile of homework that never stops multiplying (makes me think of cells, somehow). and today we wrote 2 essays consecutively + sat in the same seat throughout the whole day (that means 8 to 3).
i don't like tuesdays.

yea enough grumbling typical of a Singaporean. time to convert some of that excess saliva into constructive work..

super nice song by JJ Lin below =D lyrics are in fan ti form (ie the ancient chinese text), but heck as long as you can understand, hopefully.

---

第几個一百天-林俊傑

我 把愛鋪成藍天
讓不安的妳 一抬頭就看得見
我 把心燒成火焰
讓怕黑的妳 擁著溫暖入眠

我曉得 時間如雪 有時候會覆蓋一切
但是真愛 一如倔強會重生的綠葉

第幾個一百天 還是很有感覺
用眼睛去素描 妳內心的世界
第幾個一百天 也像剛熱戀
兩個人手一牽 連命運都改變

我 把心燒成火焰
讓怕黑的妳 擁著溫暖入眠

我曉得 時間如雪 有時候會覆蓋一切
但是真愛 一如倔強會重生的綠葉

第幾個一百天 還是很有感覺
用眼睛去素描 妳內心的世界
第幾個一百天 也像剛熱戀
兩個人手一牽 連命運都改變

曾有的敏感脆弱
在我的胸口 妳就躺下來別說了
將有的固執衝動
我也會擁抱妳安撫著體諒妳心疼著Wooh ~Wooh~

第幾個一百天 越來越有感覺
用眼睛去素描 妳內心的世界
管過多少一百天 也像剛熱戀
兩個人手一牽 連命運都改變
當守護變信念 連淚水都很甜

random concept:
"Everything is so amazing and nobody is happy."

technium webpage is plain awesome.

and me? plain lousy.
i need discipline X10 to keep me from distractions of this world we live in. sometimes i wonder where all the UG training went.

oh and i feel weird. my muscles don't seem fully recovered even though the last time i did anything remotely strenuous was last week during napfa. but a week should have been more than enough for recovery time from experience. maybe my body is cranking up?

on a last note, media sensitivity means that i'm holding back some of the things that i would have liked to say here. i would really like to make the argument that all things can be expressed in words elegantly enough (just a matter of finding the right ones), but for now i'll believe that words just can't get the subtle nuances and implications across sometimes.
pity.

i'm finding trouble keeping my post beginnings interesting and varied. i guess this can be considered an (unsuccessful) attempt at something novel?

napfa's over and PW results are out. i'm so glad to say that He has come through for me in both instances. all that training, meeting, and other related hair-pulling experiences have culminated in a nice ending. i can only offer thanks upon thanks, to mr koh, to my group, to everyone who made it possible.
man, i still got to say that mr koh is one of the best teachers around. i kid you not!

thursday we had mr julian tan to relieve chem tutorial. and can i say that he's darn good? he's funny, he's damn knowledgeable. a little scary cause he expects us to be very good with our content though. but i suppose that helps to push us forward so it's not really a bad thing. and he says he can do physics even! wow. i want to hire him to tutor me h2 chem h3 chem and physics already.
he even sounds good as a civics teacher. he mentioned how there are 3 things people are attracted to: numbers, ideas and people. which is a really good point!
most of all, i think he made it dawn on me that i still have very much that i don't comprehend when it comes to organic chem..no wonder i got a D huh?
it's amazing how one lesson can give you so much insight, just like that.

today's psc psychometric exercise was actually quite fun. i think i can conclude quite firmly that i'm an ideas + people person. which...i'm not sure what that entails for me, but oh well.
ecareers is a pretty imba website, people should go and check it out. it helped me to narrow down a few potential careers in future, and the database and organisation there is just awesome.

hmm, i should probably mention a little bit on my CTs. ABBDD, and i'm not proud of it. it's even a deprovement from promos, which is not something i can rejoice over. but all things have a reason for happening, and i trust that He will help me to set things right eventually.

with that knowledge, it's off to books..

area 4 awards ceremony today.
got this not-so-cool but super meaningful service award. photos of event on facebook.
it really means alot knowing that you get appreciated for what you've been doing all this while. though frankly, it wouldn't have mattered in terms of what i would have done. even if i didn't get anything at the end of the 2 years, i would still have done it all.
one can really become so attached to something that you won't want to let it go.

the rest of this week has not been so pleasant though. kinda rotten actually, what with me sleeping through most of it or just being plain unconstructive. thanks dhruv for waking me up, "tired" is really such a weak excuse.

i need to buck up and i will buck up.

why does the word fatigue exist.

it might be just me but i always end up unproductive or at best minimally productive on days where i get back home in the night. the thing is this happens all too frequently, with npcc twice a week and all the additional commitments here and there.

it sucks when you have a ton of stuff that you want (like seriously want, out of interest more than obligation) to do but fatigue just wears you down. what can be worse than not being able to do what matters to you most? might as well kill me right.

i can feel time slipping away from me rapidly.
news of award presentation ceremony to outgoing instructors during sec1 swearing in cum SI promotions which will be held this saturday was a pretty stark reminder of this. just how much more (or little) time do i have left in this cca to make things right? we all talk about "leaving with no regrets", but at the end of it all how many of us can really proudly claim that we have attained this? not many, i reckon.
perhaps that's why despite the fact that i screw myself over on training days because i become somewhat incapacitated after getting home, i'm still faithfully going down every training, every monday, every wednesday. i think sometimes, the love or passion for something can escalate to the point where you just don't want to let it go, or let it out of your sight anymore. even at the expense of other important things.

jc has really made me feel stupid when put next to some of the brightest brains in the nation. CTs this time round was probably a really good indication of how you must work really really hard to reach the top and stay tops. chem and chem h3 was probably the biggest disappointment for me, what with a drop from A to D and failing h3 test. just because i happened to be lucky enough to stay tops (or near tops) in primary school and sec3-4 does not mean very much now - look at where i ended up.
ok, i think there isn't a point to cry over spilt milk too much.
i'll pray, it always helps.

remember when i said that my computer was down?
i got a new one.
but it's goodbye to my old harddisk. (think all the files that were stored in there previously)
yes, most of them turned into space junk or something like that.

so now...i have to begin the laborious journey of asking for people whom i've worked with before to send me the files so that i may be able to recover 50% (hopefully a lot more) of what i previously had.

ah, technological failure sucks. especially when it drops a bomb on you just like that.
moral of the story? backup your files frequently. i kid you not.
a lesson well learnt at least. just hope i keep the lesson in mind.

sheesh, i hate to admit it but it really seems to make sense that, given we have around 6 months left till prelims, that leaves us 1.5 months approximately for each subject. this doesn't even include GP, and h3.
think about that. 1.5 months to get 2 years' worth of content right. taking away sleep, meals, slacking, etc etc, what's left is really a pathetic amount of time.
it really frightens me to think that, at this point in time i still have much of a "holiday mood". there really isn't time to let up at all, yet we're always letting the precious seconds and minutes slip away because of our temporary succumbing to worldly temptations.
and that also leaves me with an unplesanat little countdown to the rest of my days left in RINPCC. i hate to say it but i know there will come a time when i have to go. even if i want to extend my term as CI, i can't be here perpetually. eventually the helm of leadership will have to be passed on (or not), and then we'll just have to see if my labours bear any fruit upon anyone.
i'm thinking now whether post-jc years will be like that too. i can't imagine working life becoming more relaxed. what more if you intend to set up a business on top of your usual job? that seems super super crazy. but for now, clearing As are what's top priority so i'm really thinking too far ahead at the moment.

you know what, that means it's time to get back to some studying.

so very many of us are afraid to try.

i have a theory that excessive fear of the unknown and new has become a social disease. just look around, how many people squirm away from trying out something new with 101 reasons?
in the classroom, students sit in the back rows because they're afraid of the teachers calling upon them. in social gatherings, people stick to those that they are close to because they're afraid of strangers. if this behaviour is evident in such simple day to day events, what more of issues such as taking criticism and improving on oneself, and pursuing what you really want?
really, i think we've (me inclusive) all developed such a morbid fear of the word "try" that we are self-imprisoned. not of the body, but of the mind, of the soul. and those chains that self-bind are the worst kind of chains that can exist.

on a brighter note however, i'm so grateful for today's training and the TGIF party (especially my icebreakers), and it's like joshua said, you don't have to know all the facts to believe in something. be it believing in the power of technology (despite knowing nuts about the intricate mechanisms), the power of love, the meaning of what you do, and many other things that you might intuitively/strongly believe in no matter what others may have to say (negatively) about it, haven't we all placed some kind of ""blind" faith in something before? just something to think about.

i do wonder how much of our lives we spend in mindless guts-slogging.
hopefully, it's minimal. all the wealth riches and material comforts in the world cannot make up for an empty soul.

meh, i think i write here like i'm from another planet sometimes. or at least, i think some others (or many others?) will look at me that way.

for now, this is going to stop because i'm rather dead beat (both physically and mentally) after an entire day out. 8am to 10pm, siao.
yup, night..