Afterthought.

The world is seriously far too competitive for my liking. - -"

I want to run away into a big, shiny bubble with all my friends. We'll play and sing songs and run around red spotted mushrooms every day. Laugh and talk and goof around.

Big, shiny bubble.

Tomorrow will be a better day.

Today was so freaking screwed up! Urgh. Don't want to get my papers back.
Innate, uncanny ability to let it go and not worry about academic stuff.
Wonder if it's a good or bad thing - -"

Can't wait for Math to be over tomorrow! And I really hope the paper will be okay. That all-too-familiar feeling is too haunting already. Shall go out and play for a bit when paper ends tomorrow (: After which it'll be time to do homework and start work. I see promos slightly beyond the blazing red horizon.

I want to be able to write better and think more logically. Be less stupid. - -"
Cleverer. (Y)

Run away and break free! Hang in there, people. Term 3's barely begun.
Salut!

When "I'm not ready for Blocks" is an understatement.

Term 3 is here.

Look at the stars, look how they shine for you.

What can we do better?
When will we know how?
A man says from the sidewalk to a crowd.

So then I took my time,
Oh what a thing to've done.

Back

For now.

Reflections on Semester One

(This is an un-finished post stored and saved in my dashboard for a really long time... Can't really find the right words to finish this post, so it shall be posted un-finished.

Anyway.)





January, February, March, April, May, June

A quarter of college life has come and past. It's flown by really, really quickly and I think the remaining three-quarters will, too. Somehow, it feels like it's been a really long time. Much longer than six months. I think a lot of us were pretty much dying in the last few weeks of Term 2. I was. :|

'm flipping through my homework diary/planner now (IT'S STILL ALIVE!!! The longest any diary of mine has ever lasted :D) (I'm so proud of myself (: ), so many things have happened over the past six months! The feeling's somewhat mixed, though. It's complicated. 

And so here's an attempt - Refer to title.

(And the formatting is going to look uncannily similar to Yanquan's... I think it's a rather good way to organise stuff, hah! (: )

On studies/academia

Hahahaha I can almost feel my own little heart going 'twang'. Anyway, the year started off quite well. Reading lecture notes and doing tutorials ahead. Doing daily revision. Diligently doing work everyday, going to the tennis benches to study with Tabby L... (from now on they're going to be Tabby L. and Tabby A. respectively hahaha the wonderful Tabitha-s in my life (: )

And yup, that was at the beginning. 

:| Well afterwards unread lecture notes just started building up, bit by bit. Teeny weeny. And well, tutorials. What tutorials? Just... copy during lesson lor. (Heart just went 'twang' again... -_-)

I think Nationals period stretched us quite a bit. I know I was thinking to myself how people like Evelyn and Cherynn (hello hello hey hey hey you two! (: ) can go home after training and be so disciplined/awake to do homework ._. It became quite a routine to 1) go home, 2) 1-hour dinner/rest, 3) bathe, 4) take out homework, 5) fall asleep. The falling asleep part sucks! You know the feeling when you wake up (albeit rested) and then feeling so awful that you fell asleep? And then undone work gets sorted into (a) must-dos + urgent, (b) can don't do, (c) do next time. You know you really ought to complete all the work and more (considering you fell asleep in 2 tutorials that day), but only the must-dos are completed anyway. The rest remain untouched in the file for a long time.

Therefore, it is time to work hard. Hmm.

Results-wise, er... percentiles are quite awful. Math is, once again, the worst subject, sucks! ): I'm quite determined to do better in Math, but somehow hard as I try might it just doesn't work. I am really quite annoyed already. 

The other subjects aren't much better, actually. I'm still holding on to my little piece of love for English/Lit, but somehow in tutorials and lectures during discussions and essay-writing, everything is simply showing that I don't have 'it'. - -" I really wanna do well in Lit and be able to write well and think coherently and analyse poems and prose and plays and themes accurately and deeply! 

Geog's fine, I really like the subject and still enjoy learning it a lot (: I think it's a really wonderful and useful subject that is really going to come in useful now and in the future. More or less gotten used to our Geog teacher's style of teaching, they're really nice actually (: And understanding. 

And I don't know what I'm doing in Econs. -_- But I can't drop it now, might as well work hard to do well in it.

Hahahaha this has been such a ranty post so far. Block test's coming up, I really need to study a lot harder than I am right now and put in a tad more effort. Juggling other commitments at hand, but I think this chunk of my life should regain some priority. As such, here are goals for Semester 2.

1. I will not sleep in tutorials and lectures. Especially Econs tutorials. - -" Even if it means spending the time doing other stuff to keep awake, I will do something useful like read notes and do work on my own. Okay maybe write a letter or two. 

2. Put in more effort to switch my brain into 'on' mode when taking notes and copying answers. AND THINK FASTER. I seriously need to be able to multi-task and process stuff more quickly. - -" And quit being this passive in my learning.

3. Study happy. Study regularly. Study every day. Study with friends. Study. 

My CCA

That, meaning floorball, hahaha (: Nationals '10 came and went, and it's only becoming more and more distant now. I really, really miss the team and the seniors so much, it's so awful. All the time and mad long hours we spent, training, eating, talking, playing, pranking. - -" Sigh, even the pranking.

Honestly, I wish we achieved more together. Feel like we didn't really play to our full potential or delivered enough lethal-ness to our opponents. Sucks how the results don't reflect how freaking awesome the team is. Or was, rather. Whatever it is, we've given our everything, it's over, and it's marked the beginning for Hwachong Floorball.

I feel really honoured to have had played in the inaugural Nationals for HCFB. Heh. It's a definite that the sport and the CCA will continue in Hwach, and I think it's a matter of time before we become really recognised and supported. Imagine HCFB ten years down, taking part in Nationals and stuff, and we were the first team to play in Nats! And I really want to do well. Play well. And it to do well.

Four. The team to go onto the bridge. It needs to become a team goal before it can be realised.

We're all still trying to find out way around to fit into this new team, there're so many of us, some of whom we haven't really spent a lot of time with yet. But I think we can, and we will be quite an incredible team with time. It's a reality that seniors are going to take their A's and will really not be around for much longer, we need to be a bit more pro-active in initiating stuff and practising and coming together. And discipline, commitment. Term 3 marks a proper start. Nationals '11.

And, I want to be a good hat. But before that a good player.

Floorball really means a lot in my life right now, I thank God I made the decision to join this CCA. (Sidenote: It's official! It's official!) This whole team sport thing is really amazing and wonderful. (: There're some parallels on court that I randomly draw with my life now and then, and occasionally I've had sporadic 'eureka!' moments of self-realised lessons.


College life, growing up

'Ve been thinking about how much we've grown up over the course of six months. The learning curve, since entering college, has been a really steep one. Exponential graph. Learning as in learning-about-life learning. 

In the past six months, I've had my faith blatantly challenged, beliefs shaken, character questioned. A part of it questioned by myself as well. I've realised how difficult it is to uphold some Christian values in the real world, yet how real important and true they are, and have come to learn of how important it is to have fellow believers in my life. 

There comes a time when we stop and ask ourselves, we wonder, "Who are we?". Who we are, who we're going to be, who we want to be and how we've really been. 've had quite a number of these moments in the past six months, especially when you see the reflection of the world in some people, that The Portfolio is actually pretty darn important, and that in reality, the saying "It's the process that matters, not the results" does not exactly hold true for everyone. 

Speaking of The Portfolio, there're quite a few commitments on hand now, they're taking up quite a lot of time and I don't know if it's worth it, but they're fulfilling at the same time and I shall strive to manage them well. Mentoring, T^3 CIP, Floorball, Photog, YOG volunteering, MOE SYF emcee-ing, SL proj... Let's make it work. (And not neglect studies too.)

It's quite amazing to think how we'll all be adults soon. Like, during lunches when we talk about ambitions and dreams... they suddenly don't seem that far away. Some people've got it all planned out already, they're setting out and working hard towards their goals. And then we'll joke about who and who becoming rich and successful in the future, perhaps Pamela becoming a rich and carefree wife, Hazel becoming Dr. Teng in the future... Stuff like that.

Hahaha my hopes of having six children always make people go, "WHAAAAAAAAAAAAT!?" Eh but I really want to have six kids ): Or maybe four. Anything but one. Being an only child sucks!






(And there. My un-finished post has come to an end. Hahahaha. (: )

wit.

Below is a speech to the graduating class of 2008 at NTU convocation ceremony last week by Adrian Tan, a litigation lawyer and the author of The Teenage Textbook. 


Was bloghopping and came across this on someone's blog. Wonderful read, reminded me of Ellen's Tulane commencement speech! It's kinda long, but read it! Kept me thoroughly entertained, I think you'll enjoy this read as much as I did. At least read to the middle! :D

Life and How to Survive It

I must say thank you to the faculty and staff of the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information for inviting me to give your convocation address. It’s a wonderful honour and a privilege for me to speak here for ten minutes without fear of contradiction, defamation or retaliation. I say this as a Singaporean and more so as a husband.

My wife is a wonderful person and perfect in every way except one. She is the editor of a magazine. She corrects people for a living. She has honed her expert skills over a quarter of a century, mostly by practising at home during conversations between her and me.

On the other hand, I am a litigator. Essentially, I spend my day telling people how wrong they are. I make my living being disagreeable.

Nevertheless, there is perfect harmony in our matrimonial home. That is because when an editor and a litigator have an argument, the one who triumphs is always the wife.

And so I want to start by giving one piece of advice to the men: when you’ve already won her heart, you don’t need to win every argument.

Marriage is considered one milestone of life. Some of you may already be married. Some of you may never be married. Some of you will be married. Some of you will enjoy the experience so much, you will be married many, many times. Good for you.

The next big milestone in your life is today: your graduation. The end of education. You’re done learning.

You’ve probably been told the big lie that “Learning is a lifelong process” and that therefore you will continue studying and taking masters’ degrees and doctorates and professorships and so on. You know the sort of people who tell you that? Teachers. Don’t you think there is some measure of conflict of interest? They are in the business of learning, after all. Where would they be without you? They need you to be repeat customers.

The good news is that they’re wrong.

The bad news is that you don’t need further education because your entire life is over. It is gone. That may come as a shock to some of you. You’re in your teens or early twenties. People may tell you that you will live to be 70, 80, 90 years old. That is your life expectancy.

I love that term: life expectancy. We all understand the term to mean the average life span of a group of people. But I’m here to talk about a bigger idea, which is what you expect from your life.

You may be very happy to know that Singapore is currently ranked as the country with the third highest life expectancy. We are behind Andorra and Japan, and tied with San Marino. It seems quite clear why people in those countries, and ours, live so long. We share one thing in common: our football teams are all hopeless. There’s very little danger of any of our citizens having their pulses raised by watching us play in the World Cup. Spectators are more likely to be lulled into a gentle and restful nap.

Singaporeans have a life expectancy of 81.8 years. Singapore men live to an average of 79.21 years, while Singapore women live more than five years longer, probably to take into account the additional time they need to spend in the bathroom.

So here you are, in your twenties, thinking that you’ll have another 40 years to go. Four decades in which to live long and prosper.

Bad news. Read the papers. There are people dropping dead when they’re 50, 40, 30 years old. Or quite possibly just after finishing their convocation. They would be very disappointed that they didn’t meet their life expectancy.

I’m here to tell you this. Forget about your life expectancy.

After all, it’s calculated based on an average. And you never, ever want to expect being average.

Revisit those expectations. You might be looking forward to working, falling in love, marrying, raising a family. You are told that, as graduates, you should expect to find a job paying so much, where your hours are so much, where your responsibilities are so much.

That is what is expected of you. And if you live up to it, it will be an awful waste.

If you expect that, you will be limiting yourself. You will be living your life according to boundaries set by average people. I have nothing against average people. But no one should aspire to be them. And you don’t need years of education by the best minds in Singapore to prepare you to be average.

What you should prepare for is mess. Life’s a mess. You are not entitled to expect anything from it. Life is not fair. Everything does not balance out in the end. Life happens, and you have no control over it. Good and bad things happen to you day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment. Your degree is a poor armour against fate.

Don’t expect anything. Erase all life expectancies. Just live. Your life is over as of today. At this point in time, you have grown as tall as you will ever be, you are physically the fittest you will ever be in your entire life and you are probably looking the best that you will ever look. This is as good as it gets. It is all downhill from here. Or up. No one knows.

What does this mean for you? It is good that your life is over.

Since your life is over, you are free. Let me tell you the many wonderful things that you can do when you are free.

The most important is this: do not work.

Work is anything that you are compelled to do. By its very nature, it is undesirable.

Work kills. The Japanese have a term “Karoshi”, which means death from overwork. That’s the most dramatic form of how work can kill. But it can also kill you in more subtle ways. If you work, then day by day, bit by bit, your soul is chipped away, disintegrating until there’s nothing left. A rock has been ground into sand and dust.

There’s a common misconception that work is necessary. You will meet people working at miserable jobs. They tell you they are “making a living”. No, they’re not. They’re dying, frittering away their fast-extinguishing lives doing things which are, at best, meaningless and, at worst, harmful.

People will tell you that work ennobles you, that work lends you a certain dignity. Work makes you free. The slogan “Arbeit macht frei” was placed at the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps. Utter nonsense.

Do not waste the vast majority of your life doing something you hate so that you can spend the small remainder sliver of your life in modest comfort. You may never reach that end anyway.

Resist the temptation to get a job. Instead, play. Find something you enjoy doing. Do it. Over and over again. You will become good at it for two reasons: you like it, and you do it often. Soon, that will have value in itself.

I like arguing, and I love language. So, I became a litigator. I enjoy it and I would do it for free. If I didn’t do that, I would’ve been in some other type of work that still involved writing fiction – probably a sports journalist.

So what should you do? You will find your own niche. I don’t imagine you will need to look very hard. By this time in your life, you will have a very good idea of what you will want to do. In fact, I’ll go further and say the ideal situation would be that you will not be able to stop yourself pursuing your passions. By this time you should know what your obsessions are. If you enjoy showing off your knowledge and feeling superior, you might become a teacher.

Find that pursuit that will energise you, consume you, become an obsession. Each day, you must rise with a restless enthusiasm. If you don’t, you are working.

Most of you will end up in activities which involve communication. To those of you I have a second message: be wary of the truth. I’m not asking you to speak it, or write it, for there are times when it is dangerous or impossible to do those things. The truth has a great capacity to offend and injure, and you will find that the closer you are to someone, the more care you must take to disguise or even conceal the truth. Often, there is great virtue in being evasive, or equivocating. There is also great skill. Any child can blurt out the truth, without thought to the consequences. It takes great maturity to appreciate the value of silence.

In order to be wary of the truth, you must first know it. That requires great frankness to yourself. Never fool the person in the mirror.

I have told you that your life is over, that you should not work, and that you should avoid telling the truth. I now say this to you: be hated.

It’s not as easy as it sounds. Do you know anyone who hates you? Yet every great figure who has contributed to the human race has been hated, not just by one person, but often by a great many. That hatred is so strong it has caused those great figures to be shunned, abused, murdered and in one famous instance, nailed to a cross.

One does not have to be evil to be hated. In fact, it’s often the case that one is hated precisely because one is trying to do right by one’s own convictions. It is far too easy to be liked, one merely has to be accommodating and hold no strong convictions. Then one will gravitate towards the centre and settle into the average. That cannot be your role. There are a great many bad people in the world, and if you are not offending them, you must be bad yourself. Popularity is a sure sign that you are doing something wrong.

The other side of the coin is this: fall in love.

I didn’t say “be loved”. That requires too much compromise. If one changes one’s looks, personality and values, one can be loved by anyone.

Rather, I exhort you to love another human being. It may seem odd for me to tell you this. You may expect it to happen naturally, without deliberation. That is false. Modern society is anti-love. We’ve taken a microscope to everyone to bring out their flaws and shortcomings. It far easier to find a reason not to love someone, than otherwise. Rejection requires only one reason. Love requires complete acceptance. It is hard work – the only kind of work that I find palatable.

Loving someone has great benefits. There is admiration, learning, attraction and something which, for the want of a better word, we call happiness. In loving someone, we become inspired to better ourselves in every way. We learn the truth worthlessness of material things. We celebrate being human. Loving is good for the soul.

Loving someone is therefore very important, and it is also important to choose the right person. Despite popular culture, love doesn’t happen by chance, at first sight, across a crowded dance floor. It grows slowly, sinking roots first before branching and blossoming. It is not a silly weed, but a mighty tree that weathers every storm.

You will find, that when you have someone to love, that the face is less important than the brain, and the body is less important than the heart.

You will also find that it is no great tragedy if your love is not reciprocated. You are not doing it to be loved back. Its value is to inspire you.

Finally, you will find that there is no half-measure when it comes to loving someone. You either don’t, or you do with every cell in your body, completely and utterly, without reservation or apology. It consumes you, and you are reborn, all the better for it.

Don’t work. Avoid telling the truth. Be hated. Love someone.

You’re going to have a busy life. Thank goodness there’s no life expectancy.

Your two-cents' worth? (:

for a lifetime.

Photos from my eldest cousin's wedding, 21st May 2010 (:

My historic first being a bridesmaid/jie-mei! :D :D :D Some shots were taken by the official photographer, others by my cousin/myself with her Olympus DSLR/Nat's Canon S90. The S90 is a work of genius. I will get that should my next still be a compact. Million thank yous to Nat for lending the camera! :D

Toffee! Looking like a handsome rabbit. :D

Some custom of helping the bride wear her shoe (:

Jie-mei(s) showing our power HAHAHAHA :D

Posing with warfare equipment.

Double-joy.

Toffeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee :D
With those vulnerable puppy eyes!

Hahahaha this was posed. But quite cool <:)

The boys all raring and ready to go...

Shouting, "I LOVE YOU JOEY!!!"
18 storeys up!

All the Xiong-di(s) and Jie-mei(s) (:

Family <3

Entering the car...
And the red umbrella is another custom thingy!

Super love this shot, taken by the photographer.

Ohmygoodness, the entourage of cars following the bride and groom's were all sports cars...
I almost died from heart attack/motion sickness,
travelling at 148km/h. !!!

Flight of fancy.

The bride, groom, bestmen, bridesmaids and the car.

The boys jump while we pose coy.

Ah this shot's so sweet, hahaha! (:

SUPERRRRRRRR cute baby! Groom's niece. (:

Cuuuuuuuuuuuuuute <3

Look at her hair please! Ahahahaha! :D

The exciting bit...
I've always seen this on TV, first time being a real part of it! :D

Frenzy...

The bouquet lands.

Early wedding bells (:

Thank God I didn't catch it can you imagine if I did - -"

Tea cups from the tea ceremony (:

Photo album at the reception table at the wedding dinner (:

I love this dress!

For a lifetime, and beyond.

Family again (:

A few of us with the bride (:

After signing the marriage cert.
Just Married (:

Mirror.

And not all that pretty-dainty (:

This was my first time wearing a tube dress I kept adjusting it %@%£^$! times - -" 

Reception table.

Cousin (:

Ah, we used to play blanket-houses and all sorts of rubbish when we were younger.
We've all grown up man.

Entrance into the ballroom.

I like YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM-SENGS!!! :D

Dinner table, with cousin's friends (:

Cousin's ex-classmate, who was also my tuition teacher for a short while. 8)

Dinner table

Adults are not very good at candid shots.

We love, because He first loved us.

go forth.

I miss our team and I miss the seniors. ):

Photos from: Mentoring camp & Famine camp '10!

HC-BP Mentoring Camp 2011

HEROES! :D

That is a this-is-the-fifth-time-you're-asking-for-masking-tape face.

(Little one, I will still gladly tear another for you if you asked me a sixth.)

Cute. 

Naughty.

But cute.

Ilhan (he's five) and Nadiah (she's six) (:

Team Pocahontas! :D

Our President speaks.

Experimenting with aperture on the D80.

President Ester Cheang speaking again :D

Boy-boy again (:

Ahh <3

Aiyoh everyone at camp knew him lah, please. All the mentors.

Super cute lah, please! But super naughty alamak!

But super cute!

Love this shot.

Tabitha Lee Xiao-en leading the crowds in song-session!

This girl NEVER ever poses for the camera! This shot is so rare you know!

Ka eh ru no yo ma wa ri

Ga ko ga ko ge ko piong piong...

(eh YOU who took Jap, what do the lyrics mean??? 

i've been singing for the past 9 years without knowing what exactly the song's about!

some frog right!? what happened to it?)

Random cute boy-boy.

Do you realise there's a grammatical error, really.

"A hero is someone who doesn't let fear stop them."

...

This is Pamela Tay, one of the participants/mentees at the camp.

She is 3 years old, one of the youngest there.

<3

Our first ever photo together ^^

(Eh, let's not count the fake one :D)

Her hands are huuuge.

Black and white shots have such a nice feel to them (:

Both hands up!

Can't really see in the photo, but Pam's hands are both up also!

Ah-cute, yet again (:

With Georgina, new friend. :D

Hahahaha another person commented we speak alike - -"

Famine Camp 2010

Zitian's hand. Hahaha!

(Cool) Photographer Xiaoen at your service :D

Took about 400 shots. Not posting most of them, only a few personal favourites and the paparazzo shots of Tay Jia Min.

Phase 2 of their game. Kinda like this shot, somehow. 

PAMELA'S IDENTITY CARD HAHAHAHAHA!

"Child." 

Check.

PAMELA TAY, JIAYOU AT CAMP NOWWWWWWWW :D

20 more hours to go! 

<3

More photos when there's time! Off to bathe and sleep (:

Morning run with Tabby (Ang) and trg tmrw.

Train hard.

F.O.U.R.

Adieu.