Happy 9th birthday blog.
I have forced myself not to buy any more CDs until I get a job. Hope the Government's Budget goodies get handed out soon!
It'd be a true lifeline.
Current job hunt status:
MFA Foreign Service Officer - Rejected after Round 2 :(
MINDEF Defence Policy Officer - Completed Round 2, pending
MINDEF Research Analyst - Completed Round 1, pending
MOM Policy Officer - Applied, pending reply
NPTD Officer - Applied, pending reply
CPIB Officer - Applied, pending reply || posted by Kællstar
Monday, February 07, 2011
Click Five's new album is... mediocre.
Speaking of music, i just realised what a difference it can make to your running. I achieved a personal best timing running with the following playlist:
Eye of the Tiger - Survivor
Battle Without Honor and Humanity - Tomoyasu Hotei
I Got A Feeling - Black Eyed Peas
This Fire Burns - Killswitch Engage
Ain't No Make Believe - Stonefree Experience
The Game - Motorhead
Rollin' - Limp Bizkit
Energy music ftw.
***
I have the killer Stage 2 of the MFA selection test this Wednesday. 7:45 am to 6 pm: unbelievable. Prayer is much appreciated. :) || posted by Kællstar
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Next week I start the job-seeking with a vengeance.
Tomorrow I have Stage 1 of the MFA selection test. 6 hours, 1 interview, 5 tests. And Yankai tells me that pales in comparison to the second stage. It's tough to be a diplomat, isn't it?
Friday I have MINDEF's psychometric test, 3 hours. Not as bad.
Well at least I'm 2 out of 2 for initial applications.
Planning on polishing that full resume and expanding my job scope, too, now that FINALLY all my commitments are decreasing.
I think I have enough left in the bank to survive till I get the angpow cash injection in February. If my relatives are generous I can last for another two months or so. Starting work by March or latest April is imperative. || posted by Kællstar
Saturday, December 04, 2010
THANK YOU Jamiroquai for stepping in to salvage a dismal 2010 in terms of music. Please do yourself a favour and go out and get Rock Dust Light Star, their 7th studio album. Best album I've bought this year, hands down.
Other albums I've bought recently have also been more than decent. Bruno Mars I quite like, and The Script's new album is well worth it's money as well. The Kings of Leon one is pretty good, and is starting to grow on me. So I've bought 4 solid CDs in a row!
***
My thoughts on the Egypt trip that I went to:
I think for a first trip to Africa you're best off going to either Egypt or South Africa. Egypt doesn't give as good a representation of the continent as South Africa does - but I think there's no other country like it.
I doubt there's any other country as dependent on a geographical feature - the River Nile - as Egypt is. Virtually every major city is spaced out on either bank of the Nile (or at the edge of the Red Sea). 80 million people along that stretch. The rest of Egypt is lonely desert.
You know, we always parrot that line in Social Studies about how Singapore has no natural resources and so we gotta bank on our human resources. But now I see how some natural resources are so good it's unfair. It's safe to say that the River Nile contributes to most of Egypt's key economical pillars - it's because of the Nile that Egypt flourished as an ancient civilization, contributing to its present-day economical tourism; the Nile itself is a tourist hotspot; it's a key transport conduit, and of course it's the base for Egypt's agriculture. As you might expect, rainfall - even clouds - are rarities in the desert country.
From my amateur observation of the country, it does seem as though Egypt lacks much industry or commerce. This might pose a problem for their development, because the easy solution to make money for them is pretty simple; produce crops, OR produce goods for tourism. And with Egypt such a tourist hotspot, many locals seem to have set their sights on making a quick buck out of any tourists they can find.
Every country tries to rip off tourists that come in. It's a fact. But in Egypt, they pursue it with a passion. There is a yawning gap in the cost of living between Egypt and most of the developed countries. This leads to two kinds of touts popping up in Egypt; firstly, there are those who try to scam you by quoting a price close to a developed country's cost, when actually they are willing to shave close to more than 80% off the price if you bargain hard. And trust me, you can bargain very, very hard and for very, very long. A shopkeeper will pursue you for like 10 metres if you walk out of a bargain with him, with the shopkeeper reducing his price with every step he takes.
The other kind of tout is more honest, but more irritating. They flaunt their goods at cheap prices in front of your face aggressively, trying to get your business by the sheer ridiculousness of the low price they quote. And while some of them are indeed really good deals, I became afraid so much to even look at them, because once they think they have a chance in winning your business they really don't let you go.
Finally, as we quickly learnt, NOTHING in Egypt comes for free. No favours, no goodwill, no nothing. If some guy points to you directions or tries to help you out it's all because he wants a tip (what they call bakshish) at the end of it. I was taking a photo of a temple and a security guard advised me to stand a few metres away to get a better view, so I'm like okay, thanks. I take the photo and he shamelessly asks me for a tip, as though he owned the land I took the photo on or something! And that really rubbed me the wrong way because he was a security guard - NOT a beggar of the street whose desperation for tips I could maybe understand.
So Egypt was kinda dampening. It's kinda hard to enjoy a country when you feel the whole country's out to exploit you, y'know? Of course that's not true, but the Egyptians that I did encounter certainly left me nonplussed.
It certainly made me a bit soberer as to the helping of the poor - it's easy to help the poor when you have a romantic notion of them as peaceful, oppressed, hardworking, with a quiet dignity and simplicity and all that. When the poor is thrust in front of you, loud, obnoxious, demanding, cunning, willing to debase themselves just for a bit more coin, it's much harder to love them. Yet we still are to do so, aren't we?
Let me talk, however, about some more positives about the trip. The ancient Egyptian culture and history really is astoundingly impressive, and the Pyramids, Sphinx, Valley of Kings, some of the temples etc. will awe you. They would have impressed me more with less touts and tourists swarming the place, but then again, I'm part of the problem. Second, I love the scenery. It's not the most scenic place ever, but there were still times in the Nile cruise or in Hurghada that were breathtakingly beautiful.
Egypt's salvation is its curse, really. The country has tourists pouring in and obvious tourist sites, but they don't go out of their way to ensure the best tourist experience and instead seem intent on milking every dollar out of you that they can. It's not really unsafe, just unsavoury. But overall, Egypt is an eye-opener: it offers a perspective into history and culture that not many other places can. || posted by Kællstar
Friday, November 12, 2010
So I'll be flying to Egypt tonight, following me parents... looking forward to it. I like how the "14-day trip" includes:
the 13th, when we're flying off at 11.55 pm,
and the 26th, when we're touching down at 6 a.m.
And the 14th and 25th will largely be taken up by travel.
So in essence, it's a 10-day tour of Egypt.
Next time we should start camps at 11.59 pm on Sunday and break at 12.01 am on Saturday and advertise it as a full week camp or something.
But the trip should be good. See you guys again in 2 weeks. :) || posted by Kællstar
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Updated my spiritual blog - so much for weekly posts, haha. But I'll try and keep at it.
Ending my internship in church in 2 days, so definitely I'd talk about that and have more time to blog in November.
***
93 more households need to sign for the en-bloc of Pine Grove to go through, with 443 already having signed. Man, they're really getting close this time. Can they get the 80% they need by November? It's hard to say. The lucrativeness of the offer has seriously swayed quite a lot from the Save Pine Grove Action Committee, I bet.
I'm ok with both staying or selling. I love the place and it's convenient location, you can't beat it. Furthermore I don't really like the hassle of moving. On the other hand, 2.5 million is a seriously good deal, and we don't need a place of comparable size, since our family unit is now 3 and not 4. Our house has cluttered up a lot of junk over the year (I've lived in this house since I was BORN) and it might be a good idea to start anew again somewhere, especially while my parents are still in good health and mobile.
So I'll be satisfied either way.
***
Was on quite a tear at the poker tables this week. Finished 20th out of 9000 in a No Limit Omaha Hi/Lo freeroll, my best finish in a freeroll ever. This qualified me for a real money poker tournament which I'm gonna play this Saturday. Hope the skill and rungood continue till then. :)
I decided to try my hand at a freeroll qualifier for a seat at the Asian Poker Tour tournament in Sydney, purely for the lols, since I don't think I would actually go even if I won the seat. The freeroll was open only to players from Asia... and the standard of play was seriously bad. Some players were really dumb. For real.
20 players from Round 1 would qualify for Round 2, and I made my way fairly easily into the final 54 participants after we all started with 872. It was at this point that I had to go for Bible study, so I sat out the rest of the tournament hoping that I could fold my way into the top 20...
then I came back the next day to check the results and found I had finished 21st. -.-
Stay free, Asia.
***
Had farewell lunch treats from the staff - Wednesday at Huber's Butchery Bistro and Thursday at Rakuichi. Both were good stuff. Thanks to Darren, Pastor Sai Moi, Pastor Lucy, Mag, and Sheena for their generosity. :) || posted by Kællstar
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Top 10 Underrated Songs on my iPod
I would like to just take the chance to highlight a few gems that may have flown under the radar - like those songs on albums not advertised as singles but which I grew to love upon repeated listening.
1. Keep the Faith - Bon Jovi
Bon Jovi has a trio of songs that seem to include a spiritual element in their lyrics. Everyone knows Living on a Prayer thanks to Guitar Hero, but the other two are pretty epic too and deserve some love. Keep the Faith is one of them; Lay Your Hands on Me is the other.
There's a lot to recommend for Keep the Faith. It's immediately catchy, has wicked chord progressions that alternates between a major and minor, one of the best Richie Sambora guitar solos and simple lyrics. Exactly my kind of song.
2. Violet Hill - Coldplay
The song immediately after Viva la Vida in the Viva la Vida album, and the one that stood out for me since the first listening. It seems like everyone has their favourite Coldplay song - and they're all different - but this one's mine.
Coldplay songs all invoke different scenes and emotions, and this one is a great mix of campiness, irreverence, and macabre mournfulness. Love the guitar riff at the end of the chorus too.
3. Join With Us - The Feeling
I'm of the opinion the second Feeling album is weaker than the first, but this one is one of the standouts - which actually got some prominence by being featured on a car advertisement... Toyota, I think it is.
Anyway this follows the Feeling formula found in songs like Helicopter: playful verse and chorus with innovative backing vocals, guitar solo, before revving up into the bridge. But all of the parts flow into each other superbly. After the awesome bridge the song tacks on a very nice instrumental and ends with a choral finish. Now that's what I call an ending.
4. Song For A Friend - Jason Mraz
The ending song for Mr A-Z, I believe. The front part of the song is a nice little sad song, but at the end of the song Jason bursts into a surprise and very catchy coda, which you might have missed if you decided to change song already.
5. Assassin - John Mayer
I talked to David about this song; he said his first reaction upon hearing this song was "What the heck is this song about?" Well - it's certainly the most unusual of the Battle Studies album, and the one which may indicate the way John Mayer is experimenting in his music. Call me intrigued by this song. There's that guitar riff that starts the guitar solo which just changes the key in such a weird fashion, I still can't get it all the times I listen to it.
6. Spiralling - Keane
Because of the nature of Keane's instrumentation, I would use Keane and this song specifically to teach integration of different keyboard parts into a song... it's just very well put together. I'll gladly sit down with whoever cares to listen to talk about this, it's kinda hard to explain here. Haha.
But I just love the vibe of this song, and the way the song builds up in the bridge part. And how they end the song with a detuning. A most refreshing way to start their Perfect Symmetry album... but the album itself goes downhill after the 4th song, so yeah.
7. Nothing Lasts Forever - Maroon 5
The song in their second album that is most musically faithful to the original album, which makes for a simple but often overlooked song. I mean, they didn't even play this song at their Maroon 5 concert that I went to!
Things to look out for in this song is their slow, measured buildup, and the E.Piano parts that support the music. Good stuff.
8. You Won't Feel A Thing - The Script
Ok I think this song is going to break out soon, hopefully. It's the first song off their newly released second album, but they chose to release Science and Faith as their single instead. In my opinion, this song's better!
It's just one of those songs I instantly took a liking to. I also love the "Eh" and "Oh" in the chorus - it's pretty hilarious.
9. Maybe - Stereophonics
Stereophonics just had to write another more famous song called Maybe Tomorrow, such that you can't find their less famous song Maybe on Youtube because all you get is renditions of Maybe Tomorrow.
Anyway, this song is a good lesson on how to make a two-chord song interesting. The verse and chorus is just variations of the D and A chord, but never sounds monotonous.
And any of you attempting to crack lame "MAY-be that's the reason Ivan likes this song", please desist.
10. Moment of Surrender - U2
A beautiful song from their most recent No Line On the Horizon album. Love the strings intro before the main part kicks in with a groovy drum and bass line mixed with simple and understated keyboard and piano parts. Then Bono comes in with plaintive voice.
Ivan likes this.
Just doing a good citizen's duty and spreading the good music around. ^_^ || posted by Kællstar