=p

the tears on my eyelids, are fake
the ruffled frowns, but a facade
perhaps the pitiful story too, might just be another plead for attention

let freeze the heart that receives thee
might the sorrowful sigh turn harsh in disappointment
let those who cared, fade in opacity

my heart no longer embraces hope, nor faith, nor chance
even fear and trepidity vanished long ago

those who care not, live not
when survival loses meaning, destination, purpose,
wishes are but empty flowers boats on the river
cast for the sake of casting

see my right hand here,
some day you might gaze upon it,
but i will feel it no longer

here ends another week. it's been a long time since i've thought of weeks in 10-week blocks with holidays inbetween. ah well. rather sad to think about that. prob never again. so long.
friends.

Straits Times, 24 July '04, Saturday
'Home' section
last page contains long article on MSG, with remarkably positive comments on the substance. written by a NIE lecturer. surprising.

National Day Parade
Singapore Fireworks Festival 2004


1 August 8pm (US Team)
8 August 8.30pm (SG team)
15 August 8 pm (HK Team)

-Flowers for Algernon-
watched the movie version in GP lesson so many years ago. finally got the book from matthew to read. as nice as it has always been. really really liked it.

-The Giver, by Louis Lowry-
a kiddy book, along the lines of Brave New World. maybe the kid version of it. too similar, but still ultra nice. the ERP/CRP kinda books, for those who know what i'm refering to.

the cynic and pessimist in me surfaced again. couldn't agree with all the stuff said on the show. at least there was jeff chang and wu si kai singing fen xiang, such a wonderful wonderful song, much better than all the crap on radio.
little children and pre-teens debilated with kidney diseases. what quality of life, for a 17 year old to continue another half a decade, under treatment, under duress, under debt. is it prolonging happiness or hardship? would you choose to continue with life, or give up like i would. Life wasn't meant to be lived that way. i do not believe in prolonged suffering. it is an illusion of accomplishment, for them to achieve beyond what they can. the achievement, the struggle, only leads the same path down to death. to the End, where all is nought again, like words in the sand, like sandcastles in the tide. it would also be wrong to have children, and bestow upon them similar hardships and suffering. what life is there to live.
but let it be the permanent remarkable feat of human nature, to Try, to struggle for existence where none exists. as much as evolution resists advancement, conversely we have to try to survive. If, if, the only bet is life itself, and loss would be death, how much harder is there to try.
all our crazy, over-expensive technologies for saving lives that are beyond saving value, all these fanatical efforts, might one day be worth their price, when human population has dwindled down to the last few. maybe. when we cannot risk the death of any single one. perhaps on an expedition to space. ha.

hmm lunch at Pho noodle house at suntec with shanlong and alvin. really queer viet noodles. and drip coffee. and salad rolls. quite worth the $13 for weird food.
listened to shanlong complain alot abt studying in US. wonder if i still try to go.
somehow, after so long apart, these pple still feel closer to me than the people i spend so much time with in camp. it's just amazing what a great bunch of friends i had at that time. common track, common path, common stage in life, common strata, common class i guess. talked talked. i guess being friends can't be forced, or unforced.
saw a bit of liang jing ru at marina square, since alvin wanted to see. nothing particularly fascinating abt that person.

Water-based stains: Like toothpaste splatter. Remove with cold water and ordinary detergent

Protein-based stains: Like sweat, blood and egg stains. Soak the garment in cold water with a bit of biological enzyme detergent, such as Bio-tex or Attack.

Oil Grease Stain: Like make-up, salad dressing, curry gravy. Put talcum powder on the stain to absorb it. Finger wash in washing liquid.

Alcohol stain: Rub salt over stain. Sponge with lukewarm water and wash as usual.

Ballpoint pen stain: Sponge with glycerine, which you can buy from pharmacies. THen wash normally with detergent

Iron rust: Spread salt on the stain, moisten with lemon juice, sun-dry it and then wash in cold water.

there ends Stage 13 of Tour de France. shown Live on tv. heh. really fun to watch. such a crazy race. cars, campervans, chairs all lining the roads. endless lines of people. all sorta flags. people cheering them on all the way. people running with them. people snapping away on their cameras. people standing in the middle of the road and jumping aside at the last minute. motorbikes and cars following the cyclists. cameramen standing on motorbikes. madness. saw the butt of one naked streaker. saw another one wearing a fluorescent swimming float around his waist.
appears like utter mayhem lah. dunno how the ride through the crowd. there's like a whole campsite on the mountain. fanatical, these supporters. one guy running with a huge american flag too.
cool

Picasa: Automated Digital Photo Organizer software, instant photo albums, sharing & printing: Download

Google / Blogger has now acquired Picasa.
and now that it can be integrated with the Hello software thingy. posting pictures to blogs has never been easier. wonderful.
and Picasa does a truly absolutely wonderful job of albuming your pictures. it has handled my thousand or so photos without fuss. it arranges folders by year, category. it works fast too. everyone should use it
=]

met Mrs. Koh in the orchard underpass just now. glad she still recognises me and josh. have never met her on the streets before. [budden on thurs i met Mr. Ho (not myself) at the entrance to underpass to Wheellock Place. somehow he recognised me too, but i waved first] so Mrs Koh was going for ze GEP dinner thingy at whatever hotel icr e name, the one beside Far East Plaza. not Marriot. quite amused at the dinner thing, forgot it was today, no wonder there were pple mingling at the lobby. josh n I toyed with the idea of walking back to see if we knew anyone around, but were too tired to go back. interesting.

as i suppose, backdating again after so many days of not being online.

Wednesday. .. frown. boring. noon swim. again. many people went
swimming, so it was abit more fun. i guess only matthew and i swim
alot.

Thurs. wanted to go running in the morning, but there was a
thunderstorm, guess i wasn't fated to. but just as well, had a really
slack and bo-zheng-hu morning in med ctr, and i did run at 10am. i
really wanted to run a little, so i did. sigh.
went orchard by myself. saw Origin of Species - Charles Darwin, at
Borders. and a ton of useless Dan Brown books. walked abit in Kino. the
only place i'm in peace in orchard. went take a look at the Food
Festival thingy at somerset. it's ridiculously small and pathetic and
crowded and boring and overhyped and typical of news reports. sian.
bought chocolate milk to drink. i still can't decide which brand is nicer, don't remember much difference, other than price.

Friday. frown. shrug. not a particularly nice day at all. at least
dinner was nice. sigh. didn't know why i was feeling so tired. shrug.

Saturday. okay morning. watched Matrix 3 again. sufficiently
entertaining. liked watching the battle of the Dug again. but the
Oracle parts were horrendously slow/draggy/boring.
had a nice but short phonecall today from jx.
pool with zerafiel, wasn't that bad, but i kept losing. and i kept
getting the wrong things in. and i was madly unlucky and lucky at the
same time..
sigh.
days have just disappeared in a whirl of Passe Compose, Flowers for
Algernon, black-grey rain, and insistent lethargy. meaningless.

hello

matthew loaned this VCD, watched it on sunday and monday. am really intrigued by Audrey Tautou ze actress. she has such a freaky facial expression: silly, smirky, demented, obsessed, maniacal, scheming, deep in thought, mime-like.
is it the director, or is it coz it's a french film, the style of the movie is so veird yet adorable. but it's a comedy/romance. such a weird storyline, so many surprises. it just feels like it's suc a different culture that you can't predict what's going to happen coz u dun know anything.
It’s light, lighter in feel than those blockbuster megamovies, those celebrity comedies, those action features. It has CHARM. Simple affective effective charm, that gets to you, that makes you feel something, that touches you, that means something. So interesting. It’s the kind that makes the smile creep slowly from the side of your lips and breaks out before you realise that you’re smiling. Like an embarrassed smile.

fun.

incidentally, the film was orginally R(A). hm.

shrug. my 'duty week'.
finally went swimming again today. did a brief 500m to find out how bad my stamina has gone after a few weeks of no intensive aerobic exercise. not good. but was superb to get into cool water at noon, with the stuffy weather around, hmph. good ole matthew swam with me. at least there's someone who can swim properly, and enough distance.
days are getting more relaxing. doing covers for PTP/BMT is a great way to get away from medical centre. there's fresh air, relaxation, zuo bo. but no aircon. it's still nice to sit somewhere for 2 hrs and not have to do anything. today was in the hall, spent about an hour reading my book, with no one to disturb me. just read in peace. finished book, did my stretching exercises. still had time, so went to canteen, which is just behind the hall, bought some bread, went back to eat stealthily, and paced around a little. what a wonderful way to spend the morning. after the cover, it was also lunch time, just slack slack abit, then lunch lo. so useless. National Service...haiz.

my keychain(s) =p

Live

14 H 33 - Guesdon Races Ahead Of Peloton
Frederic Guesdon (FDJ) has attacked the peloton, but it's not in an attempt to catch Dekker and Marichal, rather it's to say hello to his family who live 10km away from today's race route.

14 H 35 - A Kiss & A Hug... And Back To The Peloton
Guesdon has stopped to say hello to his wife and kids and has now clicked into his pedals again and rejoined the peloton. Oh, ain't life in Brittany sweet?

14 H 36 - Average Speed For 2nd Hour
The average speed for the 2nd hour of racing in stage seven is 45.0km/h. The first two hours combined were raced at an average speed of 47.6km/h.

14 H 37 - Peloton At 91km
The peloton is now in Becherel (at the 91km mark). It is 7'50" behind Dekker and Marichal.

14 H 43 - Simoni Almost Quit...
Gilberto Simoni was dropped early in today's stage. The Saeco team leader has stated that he hasn't got good form at this year's Tour. And today he almost quit the race. He unclicked from his pedals, dismounted his bike and climbed into the team car at the 22km mark. After a brief discussion with his director, however, he got back out of the car (which was idle) and got back on the bike.
It took the two-time Giro d'Italia champion 27km to rejoin the peloton but, at this point in time, he's still part of the 2004 Tour.

this is so interesting. stage 7. a 204.5km stage. this people does such funny things. go 10km off the route to meet family, so sweet. the 20 stage tour will end up in Paris-Champs Elysees on 25th July.

British - Silverstone Grand Prix tomorrow

oh by the way, the pics uploaded today are all from my motorola C650 phone. =] quite nice right. but have to find proper lighting before i can take nice pictures, no flash. damn good that the phone-computer USB connection is working finally. $68 for the phone is really a good deal. all other phones are like so utterly expensive. too bad i dun have bluetooth or infrared. so sad. that can wait till after army, dun get to use it much nowadays anyway. no point spending so much money and watching the price value plummet like all phones do.

after a year of dormancy, i've played another round of proper carrom today. yay, after months of procrastination, finally got people to come my house and play with me. zhenyu and joshua came, surprisingly they were free, since i only asked on friday. lewis overslept and couldn't come. weiwen didn't have time.
well, not bad, at least we can still play somewhat. even though our skills are somewhat eroded, it's still of some standard. and we were playing on a hard board.

other than that, not much done today. hm. days pass just like that. come to think of it, the frequency and amount which i played carrom in JC was astounding, never again will i do that, unless it's after retirement age.

terminal 2 has this display of blooming sunflowers and orchids, lots and lots of them, rather pretty

my long fingernails... the background turned out quite nice, surprisingly

the rich doctor's Lamborghini in camp, amongst his Ferrari, Lexus, etc...

two spideys cuddling up to each other

just Toblerone, shrug

piece of Obsidian rock from New Zealand [with thanks to Jax]

Air France Flight AF257 to Paris

argh, my knee x-ray looks horrid. so slanted to one side. anterior knee pain syndrome. CMP.
shall attempt to rid myself of it.
had to wait so bloody long for the doctor. appointment at 4pm. he had a 1hr30 backlog. terrible. and he was using two consultation rooms, running back and forth while the assistant does prepares the next one.

It is a dreary day today. The sun never really shone at all. It grew progressively overcast. light rain fell. puddles formed. soft swishing sounds from the road, vehicle noises, occassional passer-by and the dull luminescence of the white clouds completed the silence.

Not much happened.

Wednesday.
went to airport to send jiaxin off. fell in love with being in the airport again, such a nice and soothing place compared to the nonsensical army camps. peaceful night, echoey elevator music. pretty aeroplanes.
the viewing mall is such an interesting place. looking out the dark glass panels, it feels like the outside is such a far off place. it's like Out-There, international space, it doesn't feel like singapore land. all the wishes to go, to move, to travel, "Not all who wander are lost".
the Terminal 2 foodcourt has died. the new one has opened. the new one sux. it looks like a new-style Food Junction thingy, white and clean and gleaming and bright and glaring and spotless and boring and expensive. ugh. totally detested it. but there's Sakae Sushi open beside it. and Crystal Jade is going to open soon. yup. and the old lousy chinese restaurant seems to have closed down. nodz.
airport airport airport.

also, previously in the day, more gossipy events in the medical centre.
atypical report sick cases:

1.
recruit attempted to jump from bed to bed.
fell and banged his upper arm against the bedframe.
?fracture.
sent to TTSH for X-ray.
MC 9 days.
idiot.

2.
recruit complains of withdrawal symptoms from perevious drug abuse.
occassionally feels like blacking out.
weak.
craving for drug.
last drug abuse was day before enlistment, approx 2 weeks.
no one knows correct procedure.
KIV refer to SAF Counselling Centre, monitoring if unstable.

3.
Chicken Pox outbreak in 24SA. so far 5 people this week.
oops.

4.
post-consultation
recruit queries whether he is given any status.
doctor replies: you take the medicine, you'll be okay, can go back to training.
aw...

5.
person with Osgood Schlatter Disease
supposed to be sent for Medical Board when in Tekong. Statement of Case prepared.
then docket went missing, untraceable.
some time later, docket replaced with new one. specialist's reports reproduced.
somehow, docket lost again.
one year on, still PES B.
hmm...

French Grand Prix
Circuit de Nevers Magny Cours

my little spidey from IKEA. one of the twins.

Life, a constant strain on reason.
it torments those who know of life and yet can't live it. those who glimpse the oasis yet never reaches it. it eludes those who have never seen the silver planes and soaring towers. it bears no further meaning to those who flaunt it, other than to contemplate the lack of time for entertainment.
who lives life the truest? living life has it's moments in joy, in happiness, in hardship, in depression. it has it's triumphs in victory, in hard work, in accomplishment.
Living, seems like a silly struggle against death.
Growing up in this idiotic Singapore is like being born into this large business family where u're supposed to take over the reins and keep on bringing money. it is saddening, and bad for the mental health. a lot of life here is about winning, about succeeding, about being. perhaps modern life in most countries is like that. it's just so irritating to keep seeing business news and disaster news in the newspapers. the heck i care about those. perhaps those bloody sentimental activists out there ought to get used to the idea of death and competition. we only got to where we are because we fought for ourselves. i suppse it's in-bred. we can't help competing and fighting. of course things can always be done in a peaceful manner. i don't subscribe to religious laws, and i don't believe, anywhere in the universe are there rules regarding peaceful behaviour towards enemies other than in the human race. how many people are peaceful for the sake of being peaceful. how many do so because it is in the interest of themselves for mutual peace. there is a fine line between those two. it will never stop. people think we're so very civilised and high up because we don't lauch jihads and wars and terrorist attacks and chop off innocents' heads. but our wars are just transfered over to schools, to education, to work, to careers, to money, to positions, to properties. it's just a different war. people are being starved to death, sick to death. and yet there are so many rich and peaceful people who just am content to keep their wealth and splurge on it. our fighting urges are manifested when necessary in movies, TV shows, comics, computer games, arcade games, entertainment games. even entertainment. entertainment is just competition which doesn't have real risks involved.

but, and i shall contradict myself, should we then let war continue freely. perhaps the way we have gone is the better alternative. no matter how hypocritical and unobvious to some.

and there was a joke which goes:
"if you think we descended from the animals which defeated the dinosaurs, you're wrong. we came from the ones who ran like hell."
obviously it's wrong, since we only came after the dinosaurs were spectacularly killed, so we did not have to content with the dinosaurs. nevertheless.
im sick of typing incoherent nonsense. apologies if you actually read through the whole thing.

further PTP excitements in camp. friday afternoon they had a 2.6km run, coz the morning one got postponed. alright, run, rather slowly. then one guy collapsed. hyperventilating and semi-conscious. wow. too bad i wasn't there to see it, i was off having dinner. and no doctor around by that time. so he was put on oxygen and sent to Nee Soon, IV en route. later was sent down to TTSH frm there. what a bad state he got in after just such a short run. gosh. no wonder we have to provide cover for every bloody thing they do. they are So weak. so much trouble too.

then evening one of the guys got charged. this infamous Nicolas Tan, some idiotic guy, bossy haughty attitude. history of Secret Society. somehow was going to start fighting with another recruit. pushed the guy. sergeant intervened, got pushed too. another one came to help and got pushed too. so he kenna DB liao lor. simple. was just waiting for something like this to happen. amazingly, at lunch time, we spotted that guy at cookhouse, being his typical self, and i remarked to the rest that quite soon he'll go DB, just a matter of time. and we joked that we should prepare his FFI documents and get MO to sign it first. within half a day of saying that, he went. tsk tsk. there, his ORD just got extended. it's only been 10 days enlisted. it's this sorta people who really need the 2 years of NS.
just stupid. maybe he's lacking a leader to tell him when to fight and when not to. to tell him when to keep low and when to strike. to teach him discretion, intelligence, cunning. the other recruits are already disliking him, from the general feeling. i'm sure this is a good move for both the recruits and the instructors.

.
when people say they dislike a particular companion, friend, classmate, acquaintance of theirs, do they actually think of this kinda people. those far removed from our social circle. so far and so distant that it takes some thinking to try to figure out what they're doing. it was a blessing to grow up with those who i grew up with.

went East Coast to cycle again yesterday. i'm getting hooked on cycling. so fun. really tempted to buy my own bike. but what's the use of a bike that's stuck in Sengkang with nowhere nice to cycle. sigh. i wish.
yesterday's cycling trip met with some trouble though. as we were returning westwards, the wind whipped up to a strength 5 monster or something. the nimbus clouds that were hanging out beyond the ships were finally blown over. it's really hard to move against a wind headed northeast. took monstrous effort to try to make it back on time. really tired out my legs. it's like going Bukit Timah for a few kilometres. finally it rained when we reach the Food Centre (the recently renovated one). good thing there was shelter. Met FQ there. we hanged out till the rain slackened. apparently FQ and companion went on, not believing the rain will let up. after 5-10mins, the rain sortof stopped. yay. so me continued back to return bike 15mins late. wind also slackened abit, thankfully. later met up with FQ again, too bad they were rather wet while we were still quite dry. lala. found out from her that we were left out of a recent class gathering, how idiotic. never thought i'll bump into her in singapore, since she's usually away in London. so interesting, and i don't often bump into people.

went to watch Spiderman 2 at Suntec-Eng Wah. another amazing incidence. somehow ended up watching their first show of the day 4pm, on opening day. well, it wasn't intentional. just happened. these things happen ya know, like how i watched LOTR:Fellowship on the opening day too. weird. and Spiderman 1 two years ago was also an impulse decision. ah well. Eng Wah's digital screening looks real sharp. but cost $7.50 on a wed. Spidey 2 is real nice. 2 hours of swinging banging action. great choreography. nice fighting scenes. doesn't feel lame too. everyone should go watch it.

Parkway foodcourt has tons of nice and cheap food. superb. Suntec's 'new' foodcourt is not bad too. Marina Square and Raffles City too. lala.