Inspiraci

2010-09-08T12:17:00.003+08:00

What is the true purpose of education?

Is the end product a stimulated mind or life-long skills or values or a gain in knowledge?

What is my role as an educator?

Private or State

2010-09-01T09:37:00.003+08:00

Will education be decentralized and not placed in the hands of the authority?

Do people have the courage to completely believe in private regulation?

Ultimately, is a state-run or private run education system the best option?

What is the role of the state when it concerns education?

2010-01-25T22:49:00.002+08:00

Veronika decides to die (VDTD)

If I had only a week to live, what will I do? This was the question the main character faced after her attempted suicide. Veronika was told by the doctor that she had only a week and Paulo Coelho takes the reader into how she lived the rest of her remaining days. The book was written in a classic Coelho manner, prompting the reader to question life and how one should live and be individualistic and 'mad'.

Reading the book made me realise a lot of missed opportunities that I should have either grabbed or done over my four years at university. If the clock can be turned back, I will live each day with every passing minute in university to the fullest and committing silly mistakes. It was one of the few places where I could have gladly made more mistakes. However, the time is always right to make mistakes and live my life to the fullest.

I should perhaps draw a list and set about achieving the goals before I turn 26 and feel a quiet sense of satisfaction. Hmmm...

Questions that plague my mind

1. In a head on head contest, which outlet will emerge the favourite among Singaporeans: Botak Jones or Astons?

My take on this issue is that it will be a close call as Botak Jones has been in the coffee shop scene for quite sometime and is known for its American servings. Over time, the outlet had apparently downsized its servings. On the other hand, Astons is opening up more branches and serves good food. Botak Jones might seize the lead if they could downsize their prices as well.

2. Will I continue to stay in Singapore?

This issue has been on my mind for a very long time and have taken it up with a few friends. Some have remained silent and others have taken a pastoral approach to my plans to either migrate or work. I wonder where I will gather the leap of faith and jump to another country as I am myself skeptical of such a decision. I will probably go up a few notches in experience and wisdom if I embark on the journey a few years down the road. I will let time be the judge.

(To be continued when the brain is functioning better..)

2010-01-12T10:53:00.002+08:00

Popular Bookstore

My New Year officially started on 11th January as I managed to find a organizer to my liking. It was sleek and not big and heavy. I felt sparks and chemistry when I saw the organizer(although there were quite a number of the same type) To accompany my organizer, I thought a 0.7 pen will be appropriate which was out of stock. I had to eventually settle for the o.5 pens and felt happy with my purchase.

I can finally put my plans, actions and goals into this organizer and make each day seem worthwhile and most importantly, not miss any deadlines. A sleek organizer and appropriate pens can indeed make or start a year.

While I was standing in the long queue, I occupied my mind with the books on the shelf and a get-rich idea occurred to me. I should write a motivational book titled 365 days where I will pen either a random/crazy/deep/motivational act or thought everyday and collate it over the next 350 something days.

There are too many motivational books in the market and most of them are meaningless in my opinion. Perhaps, my motivational book will address some fundamental issues about human's existence over a year and provide answers to a few lost souls on how to take charge of their lives and commit foolish acts before they age another year. I welcome donations in the event my manuscript is rejected and I will have to do it solo to get the message across to the human race.

2009-07-03T14:06:00.002+08:00

A wave of inspiration came over me and it led me to blogger. Perhaps not writing for sometime might have led to a sudden burst of inspiration. It could also be due to my head almost on the verge of explosion due to an accumulation of ideas over the past few weeks. One thing is certain. Prince is back.

Deciphering Songs

A friend of mine told me that it is best the listener deciphers the song on his own rather than reading books and visiting websites to listen to people's interpretation of the song. The people's interpretation might/will greatly differ from the writer's intepretation at the time the song was conceived. It is best left to the imagination of the listener to decipher the song.

Thus, I have tried to decipher all the songs I listen to. Numerous artists have troubled me with their uncomprehendable lyrics and Mr Dylan ranks at the top of these artists. The only song which I claim I could fully understand is his earlier record, "Blowing in the Wind". The problem creeps in when I listen to his other songs. The first 4 verses of "I want you" is so unrelated in my opinion and yet in tune with the music and makes me wonder why will a undertaker, organ grinder and saxophonist have anything to do with the song.

The same confusing theme runs in almost all of his poetic songs where there seems to be some connection between all the verses and a novice listener like myself have trouble deciphering. He was either playing with peoples' mind by adding in random phrases and gaining satisfaction in confusing people. Or he feels a real strong sense of connection and conviction when he writes the song. Till then, I will continue to submit to Dylan's uncomprehendable, poetic torture.

Paul Simon

The curiousity of Dylan led me to a google search of the best song writers of all time and in all of the links I visited, Dylan came out tops but the person to occupy second spot on certain websites shocked me. Paul Simon the half of Simon and Garfunkel duo is supposedly the second best songwriter beating John Lenon and Paul McCartney. I chanced upon the Paul Simon Companion book containing selected interviews of the artist.

The book brought a fresh perspective to how I view music. I began to listen to the rhythm, melody, the different instruments, the lyrics and how these various elements interact to produce a song. All these parts have to be tuned and tweaked to produce a song and arranging a song could take hours and Simon put in a lot of energy into ensuring that no detail is left hanging.

Song writing is indeed tough and I tried my hand at writing but I constantly suffer the common writer's block. Simon discusses about writers block in the book and how he used to suffer from it and what he did to overcome it. He goes on to explain that he employs many different approaches to song writing and does not stick to one. After reading the book, my respect for musicians had risen and made me realise that music is indeed a mixture of science and art.

2009-04-01T22:22:00.004+08:00

The Dark Knight

I created a lengthy post discussing about the merits of the Dark Knight and found that I was not going anywhere with the post. To sum it up in a paragraph, Heath Ledger did a fantastic job as the Joker. Christopher Nolan is one of the best directors of our time and a pity that he did not win the best director award. The screenplay is in a class of its own. In short, the Dark Knight is one of the top ten movies of my all time favourite list. The change in opinion from a over hyped commercial film to an amazing movie is down to the second watch and understanding the complex and brilliant plot and making sense of the story and concept.

I managed to catch the production scenes on the DVD and was blown away by the elaborate set-up and the attempt to make every scene as realistic as possible. It is a shame that Dark Knight did not get as much attention as the other "Oscar worthy" movies but then again, such movies are not meant to be popular.

Bombay

I caught Bombay after my first exam. It has been an exam ritual of mine to watch a movie after an exam and these exams are no exception as my next paper is in ten days. The movie was exceptional. The director had a lot of courage and balls to make such a movie. The movie was about a couple from 2 different religions who eloped to Bombay and married despite their parents objections. The riots and the aftermath were almost lifelike and it made me almost sick. A.R. Rahman's score is excellent and went well with the movie. Watching the movie with the theme music is a hair standing experience. It is a movie which made me further appreciate the importance of religious and racial harmony.

2009-03-23T01:02:00.002+08:00

One can just stare at this for hours and admire the beauty of this piece of art. Lennon is shown to be a colorful and yet serious in his long haired, spectacle wearing pose. The artist deserves the full credit for transforming this portrait into an amazing artwork.

2009-03-20T15:45:00.002+08:00

A classic picture of Dylan in pink and black. Dylan hates to be 'decoded' and defined and this picture is symbolic for what he might stand for.

2009-03-06T01:39:00.004+08:00

Crucial Week

This is a make or break week. I have a FYP final draft due next friday which I am not even halfway through. I have a presentation for my politics module next thursday which I have not even started. I have to submit applications for a few jobs that I have shortlisted by next week which happens to be the deadline.

I had the entire month of February to do both my report and presentation but I chose to take it easy and let things take its course and find myself paying for it. I will be working extra hard for the next few days before the start of next Monday as I do not want to get myself into further trouble and backlog by then. I have been in that situation before and know far too well what happens if I have a backlog of work and face a time crisis. The thought of the circumstances sends shivers to my brain.

Ali

My sister managed to buy the Ali DVD from HMV and I was so elated at seeing the DVD. I watched the movie again and as usual, watched certain scenes repeatedly. Will Smith did an amazing job as potraying the Greatest. I felt that the movie was too short in capturing all the pivotal moments in Ali's life as it could have included a few scenes of him throwing the Olympic medal into the river and being refused entry into a restaurant because of his skin colour and an additional boxing match.

The best scene of the movie was the first boxing scene in the movie which was Ali's first Heavyweight title challenge. The scene managed to capture the essence of Ali's boxing style and the footwork and techniques displayed by Will Smith was incredible.

I do not know how Ali managed to survive the prime of his life by choosing not to be enlisted and subsequently banned and ridiculed by the mass media and public. He was definitely the People's champion for walking the talk and I respect him for that. Few people have the guts to do what he did.

Popularity of self-help books

I do not understand the popularity of self-help books. Why do a large group people subscribe to self-help books? I, once was a sucker for self-help books as I felt it made me see the world in a different perspective and willed me to change. I will try to effect the change and found myself going back to ground zero due to a lack of discipline and will power after a few days. After reading a few books, I realised that it's much harder to change and almost all self-help book authors rehash the same concept over and over again.

This paragraph will summarise almost 99% of self-help books. Most people are not happy either with their life or due to the problems which plague them. The most important thing is that you must yourself identify the problem, find a solution to the problem, be willing to accept the change to your life, habits and problems and have the guts, discipline, will power and determination to see it through.

I suppose reading self-help books or wathing motivational movies helps us to gain the motivation to succeed for the short period of time and we are back to square one. Reading a book or watching a movie will not help unless we see the need in the change and we will do anything to effect the change because we have a mind which is capable of great things.

2009-02-16T21:42:00.002+08:00

The scheme

A year ago, I remember having dinner with my friend at Canteen 1. I recall him mentioning about a terrific investment which he was giving serious consideration. One of our mutual friends had made an investment in the company and he was making good returns on his investment and was advising his family members to seize the opportunity. My friend recommended me the investment and I was very skeptical at that point of time for a number of reasons.

It was too good to be true and I sensed something was amiss about the scheme. The company was Sunshine Empire. When I saw the company in the paper last week, I thought it was the bread company. After a friend told me about the company's name today, it begun to dawn upon me that it was the same company which my friend recommended me a year back.

My 2 friends had invested a bit of money into the scheme and it will be sometime before they might get their money back. I will have flipped if I was in their shoes losing my hard earned money. This is a very important lesson for future investors who should think twice about such easy get rich schemes.

Investment

I have officially begun my education at NTU where I am doing something useful with my time for the first time in 4 years. I felt almost lost wandering aimlessly for the past 4 years until I stumbled upon investment. I am currently reading an investment book written by Peter Lynch and have finished 1 book earlier and gained a considerable amount of knowledge in the space of a month and I still have long long way to go.

I have benefitted tremendously from having a few friends who are more knowledgable than myself in finance and business whom I can clarify with if I have any doubts. Friends do play an important role. I am not sure if this is my true passion as my new found passion has yet to be tested. Only time will be my judge and I will find out. Until then, it is investment time.

To the person who loaned me Rich Pop Poor Pop: Thank you so much.

2009-02-12T01:25:00.002+08:00

The Pursuit of Happyness

I frankly have lost count the number of times I have watched The Pursuit of Happyness. It is a heartwarming story which I still could not bring myself to believe that it is based on a true story because no man should ever live through such problems. Will Smith, his son and Thandie Newtown did an amazing job in the movie.

I will not know how I will have fared if I was in Chris Gardner's shoes. Any ordinary man will have crumbled and gave up with doing numerous sales calls to sell unneccessary bone density scanners to hospitals. On top of that, he had to cope with the demands of internship where the chances of being selected were very slim, fatherhood where he had to take care of the baby after finishing work and homelessness after being thrown out of his rented apartment for not paying his rent.

I went to check out the real Chris Gardner interview online and was surprised to hear that his son at that point of time was only 2 years old. He told in the interview that the son was portrayed as a 5 year old for the sake of dialogue. During the entire interview, one thing which he said stood out: Baby steps do count. As long as you are moving forward, these baby steps add up and will bring you to the desired destination.

Sense of Purpose

The movie is a clear reflection of people who truly want something will get what they want if they put their heart and soul and work hard. I'm still lost and trying to find my direction and sense of purpose. The hardest part is finding your passion and I will not stop until I have attained it. I have begun to immerse myself into a world of finance which could be my passion but I should not be sure until I'm very sure.

2009-02-04T19:32:00.002+08:00

Newspapers

I have been reading the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and The Times for the past 2 weeks and have been impressed with the high level of journalism. The papers do not subscribe to their government and I’m glad for that as the papers will lose their credibility if they did so. I’m particularly impressed with NY Times columnists who offer an insightful opinion on the issues that they write. They have Paul Krugman, the Nobel prize winner, Thomas Friedman, the author of The World is Flat and even the Libyan leader, Gaddafi as their guest columnist.

I was very intrigued by the article written by Gaddafi which touches on the Israel Palestinian issue. He will employ a systematic approach in his article highlighting the problems faced by both sides and will propose a solution which makes perfect sense. This solution will not be accepted by both sides as it seems ridiculous but in my opinion, it is the most logical answer to the Palestinian issue. I shall not reveal the answer on the blog as I will rather want the reader to view the article at NY Times. You will not be disappointed for sure.

Investing

I had the good fortune of being recommended Rich Dad Poor Dad by a friend and I took to the book immediately. The book was written in an informative and simple manner. It discusses the reasons why the Rich gets Richer and the poor gets poorer. Although the book did not give outright tips on how to invest, it did awaken the sleeping ‘investment’ giant within me as I realized that I have simply wasted too much time doing useless things.

Investing takes obscene amounts of patience, intelligence and guts. These qualities are repeated throughout most investment books and it’s not easy to possess all 3 qualities considering the environment that the people are brought up.

It made me realize that I do have a passion for Business and Finance which I silently kept it under wraps as I was lazy to bring it out of the open. I aim to read a few investment books and get a basic understanding of the market in a few months before I begin my investment education proper.

Reflection

The start of 2009 has been pretty good as I’m getting into the flow of good habits which I told myself I should cultivate and continue. I have met with average success on the goals that I set out to achieve as I lost the drive and discipline to continue certain habits like waking up at 7a.m which I did for 1 week before I became lazy(the magic word).I will have to continue working towards to improve on my old and new goals and not slacken on them.

Job Search

It is very depressing not to know the direction that you will be taking after 4 years of university. I thought I will have a better idea when I came into university and told myself that I will eventually find my passion and the job that I will love to work in. I did not spend enough time finding my passion and instead whiled my time.

I have started to give my career a serious thought this semester and told myself not to even think of teaching as it robs my prime years of life. Moreover, I will not enjoy the work after I leave NIE. Although the money is certainly tempting, I shall not give in as learning on the first job is very important and do not want to make the same mistake as I did with CEE. I shall continue the search.

2009-01-14T18:03:00.004+08:00

The Rainmaker

I read the rainmaker when I was in secondary school and borrowed it again last week as I completely forgot the story. It was one of the best John Grisham's books that I have read and the story talks about a newbie lawyer, Rudy representing the parent of a leaukimia patient taking on a insurance company. A classic example of David vs Goliath. As much as I enjoyed the story, I did not like some parts of the story where it was too good to be true. For example, the judge for the trial happens to know Rudy whom he taught for bar exams and he was exceptionally considerate towards Rudy. The final part of the book fizzled out as the verdict was ruled in favour of Rudy's client as I had expected end to end drama and twists and turns and killer lines but Grisham disappointed me.

LTA

To send or not to send? That is the biggest question that I have been trying to answer for the past 2 days. LTA came down to my college for a recruitment talk and there were a lot of job openings. I will be sending my resume to LTA as I want to gain the interview experience but to join the company is another question mark. I am not sure if I can learn a lot on the job. Although the current job market is depressing and a job with LTA will be the best that I can have, I will be no doubt be depressed by the stifling work environment. Signing a contract means a lot of compromising and I'm not keen on. I eventually sent my resume and wondering if it is one of the worst choices that I have made in my life.

Professors

Professors can either make or break the attendance and interest of a subject he is teaching and I truly stand by this statement. The chances of me either not understanding or sleeping through the lecture are high when the professors either do not know what they are saying or boring. One professor whom I had the misfortune to take the elective taught by him put me through 3 hours of depression and boredom until I felt a massive relief when I changed the subject.

Although it was a non-examinable module, I will rather take an examinable module and study useful stuff than to study the mind of a famous strategist. For obvious reasons, I shall not name the Professor in this post as I do not want to run the risk of being Googled by the clown and tracking me down and exacting his revenge(a bit dramatic). He is one professor which NTU should have sacked a long time ago and one of the reasons why they are keeping him is his ability to churn useless research papers.

As long as there are research papers coming in, professors can still keep their jobs. One professor who taught me R.C had her contract terminated as rumours had it that she was not churning out enough research papers. She was one of the best lecturers in my faculty and was able to teach and yet her contract was terminated or not renewed whatever the reason was. Good Job, NTU.

2009-01-05T18:29:00.002+08:00

Denied my rights

Why am I denied my 4th year rights? I'm in my final semester and I have to take a general elective to complete my course requirements. Why didn't my dear university allocate me my first choice and instead my second choice which is non-examinable? I'm willing to drop the non-examinable subject for business finance but almost all the slots for Business Finance have been snapped up even before Add/Drop is to begin. There was 1 slot and that slot was snapped up before I could even breathe.

I'm going to write a reasonable appeal to them through the online appeal system. Something tells me that my appeal will be rejected as it was once rejected and I do not have any faith in the appeal system. I hope my reasonable appeal will allow me to take the 1 subject which I have been unable to take for the past4 years in NTU.

First Day

First Day was almost non-existent as the lectures were pointless and general. I ended up discussing about the bad job market, retrenchments across the country and unemployment among fresh graduates. Both lectures had surprisingly strong attendances considering it's only the first day of school and I expected my batch mates to either give the lectures a miss or spend it in a productive manner. No doubt the lecture attendance will as usual drop as the weeks pass by and I will see less of the lecturer if he does not interest me.

The day just got worse with the meeting with Uncle and the subsequent drafting of fabrication drawing and visit to the Laboratory. The fabrication will take a few working days and I could take a few days off the project before I begin on my experiment. Not a memorable first day but at least I know it's over and tomorrow is my free day.

2008-12-30T16:26:00.002+08:00

Final Year Project

We finally managed to start our first experiment on my steel beam specimen today after going to the lab for the past 2 weeks to do the experimental set-up. Experimental set-up was not an easy affair as we had to adjust the steel frame which took almost a day and wore us out easily from screwing and unscrewing the nuts to hold the frame. Another day was spent on moving the concrete blocks and steel beam and aligning them to ensure that the load cell can sit at the position that we want it to be at. A good 2 days was spent on placing the necessary equipment and making minute changes before we can even start on our experiment proper.

Unfortunately, the screws holding the steel specimen gave way and we couldn't achieve the failure mode that we aimed for and have to do additional fabrication for my second steel specimen. I'm praying that the screws holding the specimen does not give away again in all the experiments as that will mean that we do not get the data that we want and will not be able to come up with a decent final report.

2008

2008 is coming to an end and I am not keen on celebrating the New Year for a few reasons. Firstly, I will have only 1 semester left before I join the workforce. I will also have to do job-hunting during the final semester to ensure that I have a job waiting when I graduate. Lastly, I will miss this place after I graduate. As much as I like to bitch about NTU not being my first choice for university and a bad culture being in place at NTU, I will miss the friends I have made at university as they are a different bunch of people from my Army, JC and secondary days. Some of them have made a far profound impact on me than they have realised and I'm thankful for that.

With the end of 2008 nearing, it is time for a resolution which I'm still working on but the resolution currently which I have in my mind will need a lot of time and planning before I incorporate it as my resolution as I want to go right into tackling the resolution and ensuring it does not fail. Failure will result in me giving up my Saturdays for the army. A thought which I'm unable to come to terms with.

2008-12-29T01:34:00.003+08:00

Held hostage

I'm crafting this post at this time of the day at 1.40am, Monday to be exact because I have been waiting like an idiot since 12am to access the results through D. audit but it is not updated. The administration played me out big time after I dilligently settled my hostel bills and school bill and the payment for school fees was not reflected on my studentlink so I wrote them an email a MONTH ago asking them if they had cashed in the cheque and they wrote yes.

If it is not my school bill, it has to be hostel bill but the payment is reflected but I haven't settled my monthly aircon bill which is at $1.78 ONLY and the payment is due next month. When I access examinations link, I get this message saying that I'm barred from VIEWING THE EXAMS RESULTS AND NEED TO MAKE A PAYMENT. What the hell is happening? It's because of this I wasted 2 hours refreshing the degree audit hoping they will make the change but there has been no change. Exams link will have made my wait less painful. Thank you, SAO.

I'm logging in again at 2am to check my degree audit and if they don't update by then, I'm going to try to sleep and finish my experiment tomorrow and go to the office on the hill and give a piece of my mind.

Tuesdays with Morrie

I read this book when I was in the army. I borrowed it from my bunk mate and finished the book in 2 to 3 days as it was good from start to finish. However, I forgot the story and couldn't remember most of the lessons except the characters' names. I bought the book today and finished a quarter of the book.

My philosophy on books is simple- if you are going to read the book, buy the book as it cuts down your trip to National Library, saves time and helps you to appreciate the finer details of the book. Tuesdays with Morrie is one such book that I knew I have to buy because I know I will re-read the book. Not updated. Why must this happen to me?

2008-12-19T23:42:00.001+08:00

Bad habits

It is hard to change a few bad habits especially when you are so used to it that you feel reluctant to change them. However, the bad habits have to kicked before they become part of my life. I’m still at my beginning stage and have made considerable effort and strides in being aware of these habits and making it a point to change them.

Experience has taught me not to tell people who are not close of what you are trying to achieve or overcome as this might lead to people either passing negative feedback or making you feel uncomfortable. I will rather keep my mouth shut than let the whole world know about what I’m doing.

Travelling

I just started on 2 tuition assignments and these assignments restored me back to my usual monthly fee I used to draw 2 years ago and I felt the pinch when I did not have tuition for the entire of this year. By God’s grace, I managed to get 2 assignments for this December and for next year and I’m settled for next semester. Though tuition makes me a richer and happier man, the traveling to the obscure locations can take a toll on me. Although the I-pod makes a good traveling companion and the books help me to get away from staring at aunties engaged in meaningless conversations, the traveling stretches the lesson to 6 hours if the travellng time is factored in.

I should not complain about the traveling as the time traveling is well compensated but time is time and it can never be a good substitute for money no matter how attractive it is. I usually will be tired from my tuition lesson. The best I can do is to make full use of the traveling time and work it to my advantage.

Obama

I borrowed my sister’s Obama book written by a Chicago political journalist who had the chance to monitor and write on the Senate race in which Obama contested. The book was an eye opener as it mentioned a few things about him which I will have glossed over in the mass media or will not have been mentioned in the mass media. Besides learning about how he was once a heavy smoker, stayed in Jakarta and Hawaii for a few years and did voluntary community service in a black neighbourhood, it also helped to deepen my understanding of the American political system.(Though it is still confusing). The book also showcased how naïve politics can be and how far people can go to attain power.

The book provided a few examples of the candidates in Obama’s Senate Race on how they will go to any extent to humiliate and use any words to get themselves noticed and trump their opponents. For example, there was this candidate who made the bad move of continuing to use offensive and strong words against Obama when Obama supported a Bill in favour of abortion and this was at a time when Obama was a crowd favourite and the opponent was soundly beaten in the Senate race.

Another thing I learnt about this book is that being in the public eye is not easy especially if you are popular and you have to make plenty of sacrifices. I wonder if I will have handled the media circus and the people fascination as well as Obama although the man was close to breaking point at times when it overwhelmed him. I will love to talk more about the book but I choose to end my post here as I will rather readers of this blog will read the book themselves firsthand unless you are not an autobiography person.

2008-12-19T02:20:00.002+08:00

The promise

This will be my 160th post and I promised myself to put more thought into my blog posts and do a few rounds of editing before I post the blog entry. To improve, one needs to constantly evaluate and re-evaluate countless times on the task that one undertook so that the person can excel in that task. The standard of my blog posts has dropped considerably by my standards and this is due to the slack attitude I took in crafting blog posts. One of the reasons I started to blog was to improve on my writing style and what started out as a promise turned into a mediocre, pointless task and my writing style has deteriorated and it has to improve before it worsens into uninteresting, boring and aimless posts.

Discipline

Blogging is like any task. It requires discipline to excel in a task. It takes courage to take the first step but discipline to finish the task. Starting on a task is always simple but finishing the task is difficult as finishing the task encompasses encountering setbacks and difficulties and overcoming them. I made the first step to blog 2 years ago and I will have to gather the discipline to constantly improve on my blog posts and this will be the perfect time to work on my discipline.

Bad habits

In the past, I had promised myself to start changing a few bad habits. As always, I usually start out optimistically but will fizzle out shortly due to a lack of mental stamina. I have decided to be more conscious of a few bad habits and constantly remind myself to be aware of the bad habits so that I will make an effort to change the bad habits. I prefer not to talk about these bad habits in my blog as I find it pointless and a waste of time to tell the readers of my blog on my bad habits as some of them are BASIC.

Another reason for my failure in overcoming my bad habits is that I tell myself to change a lot of bad habits and the danger of undertaking many tasks is the loss in mental stamina and will power. I hope that I will not get back to my old habits before new year’s day eve as I do not want them to be part of my resolution. Now, I understand how a drug addict out of rehab feels as he usually finds the easy way out.

Resolution

I suddenly got reminded of my new year’s resolution and I have not come up with one for next year. For some years, I did not bother to come up with a resolution as I felt it was unnecessary and at times told myself not to cheat myself and come up with a resolution for the sake of just that one day. For other years that I came up with a resolution, I simply forgot about the resolution by the first week and will not feel guilty about following up on my resolution and promise. 2009 will be special and I hope to achieve to what I set out to achieve and start to give more thought for my resolution so that I will set my heart to achieve the goals.

2008-10-25T14:47:00.002+08:00

If you ask an average student from my college on what is his definition of education, chances are he/she will tell you or imply that education is simply a matter of chalking up A's and ensuring that you ace every subject. If you were to probe further and ask him why he chose the university track, there are likely to be a few possible answers. An university education is sought after and important in landing a well-paying, decent job. University education is chosen as it betters your chances of employment compared to being a junior college or polytechnic graduate.

I hate to be a doomsday prophet or the person to bring the bad news but the university education in the country or at least in my college is not bringing out the best in students. The education system sure is lauded as one of the best and people do send their kids to Singapore to study but it is not the best for various reasons.

The lecturers play a huge part in the education system and if they are unable to stimulate the interest of the students or not able to effectively communicate well with the students, the system in place is almost a failure. The accent of lecturers can be forgiven as long as they can be understood and if they are going to bore the hell out of the students by not stirring up their interest and talking in a monotonous tone or reading from the slides, the university education will be a total disaster.

Most students in my college have a myopic view of the world and their world revolves around Singapore, studies and television which preaches bullshit. It's hard to have a stimulating and engaging conversation with an average NTU student as they are most likely going to provide childish and immature answers or they will try to engage you in a meaningless gossip talk.

It's no wonder that most exchange students get appalled when they come to our beautiful campus expecting intellectual and interesting people and end up getting disappointed having to communicate with boring and not so engaging locals who come across as immature.

One of the reasons in my opinion in the short-fall of the students' intellect is our lack of exposure to a variety of programmes like music, theater, movies, books and people as we tend to keep to our studying and over worship the mass media which is unable to expose us to the different aspects of culture.

Education should be wholesome and not limited to only reading the theories from your coursework. It involves engaging and discussing with people on any issue from studies to politics and exploring the unknown to gain a deeper insight and perspective and not limiting ourselves to what we know because education should never be limited in anyway.

2008-10-25T01:17:00.002+08:00

There has to be a change and the change has to come now. Something is terribly wrong with the world. We have given too much value to money than it deserves. Our lives are shaped by money and the decisions that we make usually involve money. Why do we attach so much importance to money? Does money have to be a motivation for us to strive? Does money have to be the deciding factor when we choose our job? Does money have to be the factor in chasing our dreams?

Gone are the days when people used to attach importance to integrity, honesty and sincerity. People now feel that money is the only attribute which decides your 'status' In fact, some high society people lack the basic human skills and behave like barbarians.

Many people have told me that money can buy everything but it can never buy love,friendship,trust and honesty. Money attracts people but it is unable to buy the love of your life and the friendship of your comrades because these qualities are priceless. If they are bought off, then these qualities are either fake or cease to exist.I can't imagine using money to buy off my friends and the love of my life because when the money dries up, they will cease to exist in my life.

We have to change now and act now and not dedicate our lives to chasing dollars and cents and making it our sole aim in life.I'm not disputing the fact that money is important but there should be a limit to how much importance we place on the 'paper'. It is not going to follow us to our grave when we reach the ultimate stage of life.

2008-10-13T23:56:00.002+08:00

One of my addictions is books as I can't resist buying a book which is awesome and yet cheap and one such book which I bought on impulse was A Thousand Splendid Suns written by Khaled Hosseni, the same author who wrote Kite Runner. A Thousand Splendid Suns follow 2 female characters and their troubles and worries and it interwines fiction with real events.

The book in my opinion makes the average reader sympathethic to the Afghan women during the Taliban regime who controlled every aspect of a woman. The Taliban rulers were a bunch of wankers for misuing the Qu'ran to their advantage and making women suffer as a result and giving men the upper hand in every issue even when they are in the wrong.

I guess the only foolish thing the Taliban regime did was not to hand Osama over to America as demanded after the 9-11 incident and that launched America into a war against Terrorism. Although the war is debatable and might be considered unethical, the Taliban regime was defeated and the women were finally free from oppression.

The book in my opinion is not as good as the Kite Runner as the Kite runner makes the average reader think about himself and the issues of courage, morality and values which the Thousand spelendid suns is not able to do so but the book is still a must read nonetheless.

2008-10-10T11:39:00.002+08:00

I find myself behaving like a steel member: buckling under compressive load. Just like both the flange and web, my mind or body is either going to buckle under the weight of the FYP. There is no shortcuts to this subject where I can throw smoke bomb and still score a decent grade. It requires painful reading and understanding of steel design and research papers before I can even start on Uncle Chiew's research paper. Just like the steel member, I have to toughen up and increase my compressive strength to withstand the compression load.

2008-09-25T22:00:00.002+08:00

I hope Uncle Chiew is happy with our progress tomorrow. I'm sick of the weekly meetings with him and it always give me and J.M goosebumps when we enter his office. I have been trying to understand the stupid research paper which has 10 examples and I have so far understood only 2 and my concepts have been so-so. It gets confusing with each example and the steps are not for the weak hearted.

I'm addicted to Nirvana and can't get over some of their songs. They are an awesome band led by the charismatic lead singer, Kurt Cobain who led a troubled life. From the lyrics, I can see that much thought has been put into it and his words still echo even after his death. His lyrics can be depressing at times and that is however the hallmark of a great musician if he can make the fan think about his lyrics.

2008-09-23T03:39:00.002+08:00

It was weird. I will usually update my friend on the soccer results but it was the other way around. I can't believe that the New Paper will continue to dedicate 20 pages to sports especially on Sundays and Mondays when soccer is suffering a silent demise.

I was severely tested when the booze was staring at my face. I was prompted, coaxed and encouraged to take a sip but I stood my ground and did not take a single sip of the alcohol. It does more harm than good and I do not want to subject myself to the poison again. I hate to be a slave to the poison. I have begun the battle against alcohol.

2008-09-18T11:27:00.002+08:00

I'm coping well without Soccernet and cable television considering the fact that I love to watch and catch up on soccer. The sport has lost its appeal when money took precedence over passion and more people are making and milking money out of loyal fans. I can't stay loyal to a game which is tainted and have decided to move on.People may say I'm crazy but I remain true to my conviction. These are testing times but I have to remain strong. I can't give in to unneccesary temptations.

Another burning question which has been a puzzle to me is why is John Lennon more loved than Paulie although both are great musicians and amazing song writers? After a few sms replies, I came to a conclusion through a friend that John has always been open with his ideas and is seen as anti-establishment compared to the quieter paulie and it cemented his place when he was assasinated. Think of JFK, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and Ghandi who lived on Earth for a short period of time but made an impact felt around them and the world and their assasination cemented their hero status.

2008-09-17T20:24:00.003+08:00

Greed is the downfall of man. Greed caused the collapse of Lehman Brothers and losses for banks all over the world. It was too good to be true when the investment banks were making record profits a few years ago and the CEO bosses were earning record bonuses. The bust occurred and everyone tried to run for cover but the damage was already done. Why can't man learn from the Great Depression and be contended?

Technology is the new God. I find myself submitting to it all time.

My handphone rules me for the most part of the day. The computer is the machine which I simply cannot live without. TV is my next best companion. What more can I say?

2008-09-16T20:42:00.003+08:00

Quotes from Inspiraci

When Man needs God, he seeks God
When Man doesn't need God, he thinks he is God

Man was made to be simple
but Man want to be complex

2008-09-13T20:46:00.002+08:00

I want to give in to my temptation but I know I should not. It's only 2 floors but I know that trip to the lounge will make me forever addicted to the crazy circus. I couldn't resist the net to check out the live score and it read 1-1. This seems harder than ever but I will survive.

Saturday nights are effectively one of the most unproductive part of the week where it's impossible to do some studying when we are supposed to be good students and catch up on revision and do some reading for next week but what if you hate the modules which you are taking? Bite the bullet and endure the pain or fuck the bullshit and live your life. Option two seems very inviting but it seems very difficult to choose.

Education comes at a price but the education I'm receiving is not worth the price. This education prepares us for tests, quizzes and exams. This education is about those who can adhere to the rules.This education is about those who can mug and those who can't. This education does not prepares us for the school of hard knocks. This education I receive in my opinion is trash. I learned more from the Godfather than from the 4 years that I spent in classes.

2008-09-13T11:38:00.002+08:00

After Sulaiman of Abu Dhabi United bought Man City and pulled off a spectacular transfer coup by buying Robinho, I suddenly lost interest in EPL. Sulaiman also made a bold claim that the club will soon buy the best players in the market to compete for premier league honours.

This news might be good for Man City fans who can finally think of challenging their city rivals but the question of whether Abu Dhabi can stay committed to Man City remains unanswered. It's pretty scary to know that Abu Dhabi can just exit at anytime and leave the club with a mountain of wages to pay.

I have to agree that $$$ is the defining factor between champions and losers. The only clubs whom I think will win the championship are either Chelsea and Man U cos they spent a lot on quality players and the EPL is turning into a stock market where passion and loyalty takes a back seat and $$$ is The factor.

The only likely scenarios which I envision for the next few years is that the transfer wages are going to spiral out of control and the next talented player on the planet will be commanding a staggering $200 000 per week and the subscription fees and ticket prices are going to increase and the rich gets richer and the poor gets poorer.

I'm not going to be a slave of this crazy circus and pay $$$ and going to do something bold which I will have never thought I will do: CANCEL my sports TV subscription.

2008-09-12T03:02:00.002+08:00

Love

You can't explain it
You can't define it
You can't attach a meaning to it

You can savour its sweetness
You can explore its unknown

You can only understand it
if you only experience it.

(Untitled)

Fools have clained you are an imagination
Imbeciles have made money off you
either by proclaiming your prowess
or by lambasting your existence

You are judged more than anyone
You have come to realise that man become delusional
when they can't become you.

Proverbs from Inspiraci

God created imperfect man because a perfect man will be akin to being God.

Technology- the greatest timewaster of our generation.

Technology has brought the world closer and a lot dumber.

2008-09-04T10:19:00.003+08:00

Is there a God?

If million of people pray to you, whose prayers do you answer?
Do you have a yardstick to help you?
Do you do balloting
Or do you simply not answer them?

The Man with a mind

He created trouble
He broke laws
He was unconventional
He was respected not because of the things he did
but because of the unique thing he possessed
A mind of his own

Trouble-makers

Life was simple when God created the world
Life was simple when God beautified the world
Life was still simple when God created the men
Life wasn't simple after God created women

Love-Hate relationship

I long to be free from you
I yearn to break from your clutches
I want to but I can't
I still need you
I still want you
I still love you
cos no matter how much I hate you for snatching away my freedom
I still end up loving you, dear handphone

2008-08-23T22:23:00.002+08:00

Responsibility is a burden. Is it exactly a burden? Who wants to take responsibility? As far as I know, most people will rather shun away from responsibility because of the implications that come attached with it. An example will be the familiar army scenario where most people will rather do their own thing than to venture out because of the responsibility that comes with it if you screw up in the venture.

Why do some people then do not shun away from them? It takes courage to accept responsibility. Some of these courageous people die. Some live to tell the story but all of these people who took responsibility should be given a pat and even applauded for having the courage to take responsibility because they are great in their own right unlike average men.

What constitutes a good friend? What makes the friend special? In my opinion, a true friend is one who will be there for you all the time and will never leave you in your darkest hours. He also accepts you for you are and will never attempt to change you in any way because he will never embark on a mission to change you. If he makes the effort to change you, either he feels that he wants to help you or has started to dislike you for whom you are and try to make you into someone whom he can like. The other qualities are important but the person who cares about you is the best friend in your life.

2008-08-22T13:47:00.002+08:00

I was lunching with a few friends today and the topic shifted to what makes a lasting relationship. One girl mentioned that love is the crucial element to a lasting relationship as only love can make a relationship lasting. That statement made me ponder as I wanted to fully acknowledge the fact and come up with reasonable explanations and counter arguments. The more I thought about it, the more the sentence made sense. If there's no love between two people, there can never be a relationship and the relationship exists either in the physical, sexual or emotional form.

However, after maxing my brain cells, I told the friend that there can be lots of love between two people but the relationship can only work if there's tolerance, understanding and patience from both parties. Males and females both get misunderstood because they think that they are not loved but in actual fact, they love each other and this misunderstanding leads to quarrels and unnecessary fights.

The subject of happiness also cropped up in the conversation where the people who are constantly seeking happiness are the ones who are happy than the people who have found happiness. This statement can be argued both ways because there is no right or wrong answer. However, I will have to go with the first one because I feel that if you have attained happiness, you will have no purpose in your life and you will feel dejected with having no purpose in your life.

One of my army friends told me the story of Ted Turner's dad who once threw a party for everyone when he achieved a big feat and he went to his room after that and shot himself. Ted Turner from this experience had many impossible goals as he didn't want to come to a stage where he has achieved all of his goals and will feel meaningless to lead a life devoid of goals. Thus, the pursuit of happiness rather than the attainment of happiness is what makes a man happy in my opinion.

To all the people who read my blog, I will strongly urge you to listen to The Beatles. The Beatles make their own music, pen their own lyrics and have their own distinctive style. I have listened to most of the Beatles songs and I always feel that this group grew over the years they produced their music. The group which talked about love in the early 60s grew up into one where they talked about social and political issues. Their songs always make me sad because I wonder on why they had to break up and I can relate to the fans at that time on how they will have felt when the Beatles split up. I will leave the fans with the lyrics to a Beatles song to ponder about.

Yesterday

All my troubles seemed so far away
Now it looks as though they're here to stay
Oh, I believe
In yesterday

Suddenly
I'm not half the man I used to be
There's a shadow hanging over me
Oh, yesterday
Came suddenly

Why she
Had to go I don't know
She wouldn't say
I said
Something wrong now I long
For yesterday

Yesterday
Love was such an easy game to play
Now I need a place to hide away
Oh, I believe
In yesterday

Why she
Had to go I don't know
She wouldn't say
I said
Something wrong now I long
For yesterday

Yesterday
Love was such an easy game to play
Now I need a place to hide away
Oh, I believe
In yesterday

2008-07-04T21:17:00.002+08:00

There's only one true religion- The Beatles. I discovered them a few weeks ago and I have to admit that they are the best I have listened to in my entire life. When I first heard of them, I thought they were a boy band but they are not even close to a boy band. They are many times better than a boyband. They write their own songs and compose their songs something which most bands of today do not do today.

Their songs mostly touch on love but their lyrics holds so much of meaning and conviction that it only shows how much of effort, sweat and dedication has gone into their music. Every single Beatle song is unique and the Beatles have even experimented with indian classical instruments and have even incorporated into their songs played by them- a first by a western group.

I sometimes wonder why do they have to break up after 6 glorious years where they have sold a zillion records during that time and they produce good music but like all band break-ups like a certain G N R, ego clashes and personality differences could lead to a break-up. I wasn't born in that era but reading the article of their break-up just saddens me because you never know what could have happened if they had put aside their differences, trashed things out productively and produced good music.

The 4 Beatles did pursue successful solo careers but their group career will always be remembered. There's only one Beatles and nobody can rival or imitate them and this is the time where Liverpool can feel proud of itself of their sons instead of their spanish clowns. To put it simply, they are Britain's best export!!

Another group that I'm very disappointed is Queen who gave us Bohemian Rhaspody, Somebody to Love, We will Rock you and We are the Champions. They were one of the best, energetic, lively and crowd pleasing group who will never fail to rouse up their audience. When people think of Queen, they will think of Freddie Mercury. His stage performance and antics was what made people identify with Queen and I'm not disrespecting the other Queen members but their recent decision to restart the Queen band with a certain Paul Rodgers was not a good decision in my opinion. Freddie died in 91 and Queen was never the same without Freddie but to have Paul ROdgers in the band although under the Queen+ Paul ROdgers music group is not an ethical decision and does not do justice to Freddie. Just like the Beatles, there's only one Freddie Mercury and the remaining members of Queen restarting a band under the band name shows that money talks.

Rap is almost dead!! It is. Gone are the days when people could listen to good beat and lyrics minus the bitches and the fucks. No rapper of today can come close to Tupac, considered an intellectual rapper in my opinion. Only the older players like Kayne West and Jay Z are giving this genre hope but clowns like Souljaboy, Pdiddy(fucker can't rap for nuts), Chris Brown are still in the industry and the industry needs new blood to rejuvenate itself. 50 cents and Snoop are good rappers but not class rappers. Eminem is good but there's a limit to how much I can listen to how much you hate your mum and wife. It has to stop somewhere.

I went to the Esplanade to borrow a few movies over the past few days and the Fugitive is a must- watch. Tommy Lee Jones, one of my fav actors was a wise crack during the show and I don't understand why producers and directors shun him because he's a lovable clown and he has the stage persona!! I don't understand how Syl Stallone, Russel Crowe(besides gladiator) can still act till today. Another must watch is the old Oceans 11 starring the rat pack(Frankie, Dean Martin, Sammy). The plot was similar to the Clooney's Ocean but it was refreshing. This movie had pretty good lines and good cinematography and it had a unique ending and it's certainly better than the new Oceans.

2008-06-17T18:12:00.002+08:00

It's been some weeks since my last post and I have been sick for the past two weeks. My tongstils have been reddish and it has become extremely diffcult for me to swallow my food. I will say that I brought it upon myself as I helped myself to chocalate fondue last last friday when my supervisor gave a treat to my colleague who was finishing his attachment. My throat was already swollen but I couldn't resist the chocalate fondue and helped myself to a few servings of the delicious chocalate fondue.

I paid a visit to the doctor a few days later and he gave me MC for 2 days. The problem still refused to go away and I went to see the doctor again after the MC and he prescribed me more medicine. The problem worsened yesterday and my aunt told my mum that it's better if I go to the hospital near my place. I thought it was a good idea and was hoping that they will do something. Instead, it was the worst experience I had with a doctor and with the hospital staff.

The nurse was rude and was very impatient. No doubt, the hospital looked under staffed but I believe there is a certain conduct on how to behave towards the patient. The worst was the doctor as he first pressed for my number and I entered while he was talking to another patient and he asked me to wait outside. While I was outside, I saw a 'clown' in a wheelchair making rude remarks and hurling vulgarties and he was escorted by 4 policemen and I was amused by the entire scene which was a welcome relief from my current pain. When I went inside, the doctor started to talk for me and assumed that my fever was the critical issue when my tongstils was.

I had to repeatedly cut him off and tell him about my tongstils and he took a look at it and perscribed me some generic antibiotics. I bet he didnt have a clue when I showed him my anti-biotics from my family doctor as he didn't offer me an opinion and didn't offer me any suggestions on how to treat the tongstils like a proper doctor should and just told me he will prescribe me medicine and give me MC.My mum was pissed off with the doctor's attitude. After the horrible experience, I told myself to avoid this hospital at all costs even if I'm on my deathbed as the service is pathethic and 2 of my friends have told me that the hospital is bad.

I started my internship a few weeks ago and I have been on a clockwork basis- waking up at 6.30am, leaving my house at 7.30am and having lunch at 1pm and leaving work at 6.15pm. I welcome this internship as it offered me a sneak preview of what my working life will be like and I have learnt a great deal about RC and steel- 2 subjects which I used to loathe during term time but 2 subjects which I have grown to appreciate. My supervisor has also played an important role in my internship as he's very knowledgable and able to answer my questions as simply as possible and been patient with me and guided me when I have made mistakes instead of being harsh with me and putting me down.

Internship has also allowed me to find out more about the good food outlets in Bugis and I can safely say that where to find the best mee pok and fish cutlet though it has little bearing on my internship but lunch is one of the few things I look forward during my course of work.

Classic

2008-05-23T22:41:00.002+08:00

It's the classic post with the classic statement. It's been a long time since my last post or it's almost a month since I blogged. I might offer a few reasons for my absence but there's truly only reason- I'm pretty lazy. I guess it all boils down to perseverance and dedication to blog but my laziness has a major part to play in me not being able to blog for the past few weeks.

I caught the Champions League Finals between Chelsea and Manchester United and my gut feeling told me that Man U will win the title as their football this season is second to none and they have been playing well for the past few months and though Chelsea has caught up with Man U, they just didn't have the edge over Man U. I saw the delayed telecast and I was pissed off with myself for not watching the live telecast as the game was very entertaining as both sides had equal number of opportunities and there was plenty of drama such as Ronnie scoring and then Lampard equalising.

If I had wanted Chelsea to win, it will have been for Lampard as his mother passed away and I felt that he went into this game wanting to win the champions league more than any Chelsea player. However, the goal was a fluke as it took 2 deflections but Chelsea could have killed off the game IF ONLY they had not hit the woodwork and I will say that Man U were very lucky in the 2nd half and in the penalty shootout when things seemed not to go their way and Terry of all players missed the spotkick. It's sad to know that people will always associate this final with Terry's miss rather than Anelka's miss which sealed the trophy for Man U. It's just the irony of football. It was heart- breaking to see John Terry to cry uncontrollably but that's the cruel fate of penalties.

There were plenty of clowns in the match, particularly Tevez who started a stupid controntation, followed by Drogba who slapped Vidic. I didn't know what went through Drogba's mind but what were you thinking when you raised your hand? Sure, it was a pretty tense affair but you are a professional football player who's earning thousands of pounds and you should have ocnducted yourself in a civilised manner instead of being a barbarian. I hope that he does not move to Milan as Milan do not need trouble makers at the moment.

Talking about Milan makes me very upset. This was the team which won the Champions League title last season and they failed to qualify for Champs League and will be playing in the UEFA CUP of all tournaments. This club is fit for the Champions League and it's been some time since I can recall Milan playing in the UEFA cup. A look at the squad will show that the average age of their players is around 30. I have a strong feeling that the coach is going to replace half the squad as this season has been simply disatrous and forgettable. What Milan needs is young and hungry players.

I borrowed a book which features letters written in the capacity of P.M to world leaders by Dr M and it's pretty interesting. The book claims that the letters are personally written by Dr M as most leaders do not draft their letters. Although I admire his command of the language and his fearlessness to speak up, not all of the comments and viewpoints should be taken seriously as some of them in my opinion are not true like the fact that how he stepped aside giving an impression that he's not power hungry but HELLO. A prime minister who has been in power for more than 15 years!!I do not know what to classify him and the episode of Anwar is another indication of how power crazy one can get.

2008-04-26T00:55:00.003+08:00

The late Heath Ledger who got noticed in 1999 with the hit teen movie 'Ten things I hate about you' had it tough as he received movie offers which he felt will not advance his career and he refused them at a time when he was short of cash and apparently survived on instant noodles to sustain himself when he ran out of cash. He felt strongly that the roles he chooses now for the monetary gain will be doomsday and his patience eventually paid off when he received good movie roles like Brokeback mountain and Dark Knight.

The late Tupac Amaru Shakur strongly believed in himself and his ideals and refused to compromise on them so much so that I would say he died at a young age due to his unwillingness to compromise on his beliefs. There's a beautiful quote in one of my favourite 'Only God can Judge Me' song by Tupac which sums up his entire life which is 'I rather die like a man than live like a coward' He stayed true to this quote by living life on the edge and never held back his words and I truly respected him for staying true to his ideals.

These two men are some of the people whom I hold in high regard as they believed in something and never let go of them even when their ideals or beliefs were against their advancement but if they did not believe in themselves, I don't think they will have risen to such a great level.

Many people have doubted me. Many people have cast their reservations about the decision. Some people may be skeptical. Some people may not be down with my decision but all I can say is that I believe that the decision that I have undertaken was made with the strongest intention and I will stick to it through thick and thin. I have never felt strongly about an issue and this is the first issue that I have such strong feelings. I know that this decision is going to impact my life in one way or another but if the Godfather did not make the decision to enter into Mafia, I don't think he will have become the Godfather and realised his potential. I believe in what I'm doing and do not give a fuck about what people might say because they have to first respect my decision before I can bring myself to hear them out. As Tupac said, I rather die like a man than live like a coward.

2008-04-25T01:29:00.002+08:00

When you are living in a room full of dirt and filth without cleaning it for a month or so and this does not include mopping the floor, you are bound to be in for a shock as my roomie and I decided to clean the room randomly and we were faced with massive amounts of dirt. The fan was dirty. The floor was dirty. The windows were dusty. The walls had small insects residing on the surface. It was basically a room nobody wants to stay but after a hour of sweeping and mopping, it feels DARN GOOD to let your feet touch the clean floor.

On the exam front, it has been madness as I had 3 papers in 3 days with the first of all papers-Computing. Nobody likes Computing. If you like computing, either you love it or you must be lying as I feel that it's a waste of my time and I do not mind taking 2 G.Es to make up for the stupid subject. My seniors who have taken the subject numerous times will rather take 2 G.Es because it's a stupid subject but fortunately, I had a senior friend to teach me and my friends and I completely understood the stupid User defined functions in a hour. The 40 something page was condensed in a hour lecture given by friend and with me practising the questions, I can safely say that I can clear the subject but I hope that i do not count my eggs too early or the chickens or whatever..

The 2nd paper was R.C and this paper was surprisingly OK as the questions were not very difficult but I made a mistake with the first question and I'm hoping that this does not cost me dearly. The third was another stupid subject-CE Management which I studied intensively with my friend over 2 days and covered the entire syllabus skipping a stupid chapter which our gamble paid off when it didnt come out.

A few words of advice- do not take multiple exams or back to back exams within a few days as it's exhausting and can fuck up your mind when you finish the last exam because you badly want to sleep after the paper or you will crack under pressure. I may sound profound or bullshitty but my situation will be an example to people who want to do heroic things to think twice unless it's your FINAL semester.

After my last paper, I caught the 2nd installment of Bourne trilogy. I had to force myself to watch the movie as the first 10mins was not intriguing and felt that it could not match up to Identity but I was so wrong when the car scenes came up and it was so engaging. The 2nd installment in my opinion was good and it's a pity that I caught onto Bourne very late as it's a cinema movie. I will be watching the last installment when I'm taking a break from studies.

On the soccer front, I can't describe what I'm feeling because a season which promised so much for Arsenal went up in smoke when they self desructed due to lack of mental stamina. However, I can't stand clowns like captain Gallas for being emotional, Eboue for being happy go lucky with his tackles and giving me a heart attack, Fabregas for not showing effort. The only person whom I respect is Walcott. He gives his best in the Arsenal shirt. The team have to raise their performance for next season.

The only thing which we possess is our mind and we need to have a mind of our own. We should never let anyone take control of our mind as that is what we have and what makes us unique. I believe that we have a mind for a reason. I'm zonking out. Goodnight, Singapore.

2008-04-06T20:49:00.002+08:00

I'm pissed with Arsenal for failing to play catch up with Manchester United as they have lost a lot of points over the past few weeks. I'm pissed with Fabregas for his excessive recent showboating and immaturity which is costing the team as he's the man who makes the team tick. I'm pissed with Gallas for not leading by example and showing his emotions unneccessarily. I'm pissed with Arsenal for not having committed players who can carry the team on the shoulders and do wonders when called upon. Manchester have Rooney and Ronnie. Liverpool have Gerrard and Carragher. Chelsea have Terry and Drogba. Arsenal:>>>>>>>> I rest my case.

I'm pissed with myself for falling sick at the crucial time when I'm supposed to be fit and fighting to the finish line. I'm pissed with myself for not being able to complete the required chapters for today as my body seem to be ailing and my mind zonking out. I'm pissed with myself for being behind time. I'm pissed with myself for being addicted to Godfather again. I'm pissed with myself now that I'm wasting my time crafting this silly post.

Classic

2008-03-19T16:00:00.002+08:00

The time has come for me to craft my CLASSIC long and overdue post due to a number of commitments which made me avoid blogspot for a good 2 months. This semester has been pretty Ok but lately the killer subjects such as R.C and structures 2 have shown me how difficult life can get. R.C is one subject that I wish I had not taken. The start was good but the journey is beginning to get tougher and tougher with each passing day. Structures seemed simple but I guess the phrase Do not judge a book by its cover is very apt as the concepts seem to be a bit tricky and abstract but managable. The only modules which I enjoy at the moment is HRM and the film module. Although HRM is similar to the management module which I took last semester, the tutor makes the subject come alive in class and he's one of the tutors I will highly recommend for this subject as he's simply passionate and knowledgable and does not believe in reading from the slides and the lecturer who prefers to substantiate with examples to reinforce the concepts. However, his dramatism might put people off if it's not appreciated.

Films has always been my passion and the film module has made me appreciate the finer art of movies. The lecturer is very good and explains every single concept well and her choice of movies tie in with the chapters she had just lectured which shows that she has put a lot of effort into her choice of movies. It has also exposed me to a few good movies like Crouching Tiger, Chunking Express and Monsoon Wedding which I will not have seen on my own accord. It's another must-take module for those film enthusiasts.

On a serious note, the Malaysian elections has made me realise how lucky I am to be a Singaporean. I didn't know that politics can be so dirty with candidates slamming each other shamelessly, politicians threatening voters of the consequences directly and candidates using underhanded tactics to win the elections and in your face corruption. It was pure entertainment for the average Singaporean who was not used to such things as we are protected from such crap and it allowed me to reflect and made me appreciate of the importance of good governence and low corruption. I can't wait for May as Anwar will be contesting in a by-elections and him being elected into Parliament will mean more spectacle and mud-slinging and dirty linen being displayed in public will make my entertainment for the month of May.

Jumping to books: I'm currently hooked on the Tupac book written by his middle school friend who had a chance to get to know Tupac. I can only say that Tupac's death was too tragic as he was in his prime and he had already a number of songs under his belt and he's known for his lyrics calling out for action and attention to social problems but his first shooting made his subsequent songs very thuggish. Tupac was also known to be a voracious reader who reads almost everything and his musical tastes might shock the average reader and he's known to be very interested in acting. I guess his Gemini roots has a lot to play in his music and books taste!!

2008-02-05T10:52:00.000+08:00

It's a month since my last entry and I have been busy with my toastmasters commitment and school work so much that I only went onto sharescan last Sunday. Sharescan pretty much offers the same old serials and movies with the exception of a few new movies. I managed to get wallstreet which I heard was supposed to be good and will be watching it during the festive period. I would strongly recommend the movie Before Sunset, a love story and the entire movie featured just 2 people having a deep, insightful talk. The movie was set in France and I would say the director managed to showcase and portray France well in the movie as it acted as the perfect backdrop for the movie. I can't dare say that the back alley in Deskar or Geylang can be comparable to the French back alleys.

Another movie which I caught at the cinema would be the new Johnny Depp movie, Sweeny Todd. Johnny's acting was superb and unique but the plot was disappointing to the point of being stupid. Our lead character was imprisoned for a wrongdoing which he did not commit and he would come back to London to seek his vengence. It reminds the viewers of a typical Count of MOnte Cristo except in this case , it's a barber and he would kill his customers by slashing his customers' throats after giving them a perfect shave and using their flesh to make meat pies. I can understand the vengence but I can't understand why would he want to kill all his customers. Hello!! Just because you are wronged does not mean that you have to hate the entire human population.

I'm sad that Heath Ledger died 2 weeks ago. For the uninitiated, he was nominated for the supporting actor for Brokeback mountain and he would be playing the Joker in Dark Knight. He was one actor who has gained my respect by playing unconventional roles and does not play the same role more than once,afraid of being streotyped. I read the article on him a week ago and found out that he used to survive on ramen noodles and water and he turned down the offers which he felt would be detrimental and streotypical at a time when he needed the cash. You have earned my respect, Heath. May your soul rest in peace and I would pay tribute to you by watching Dark Knight once it comes out.

2008-01-20T10:30:00.000+08:00

It's 3 weeks into the new year and I can safely say that the resolutions or goals that I promised to undertook are on the verge of being broken. I guess it requires a lot of discipline to stay true to the goals. Issues like fitness seem to have been forgotten but I would be given a grim reminder when May comes when I have to take my IPPT.

The new semester started 2 weeks ago and it seems that 2 months have passed as I had to juggle studies, toastmasters and an investment competition which ended yesterday. I would say that the competition was an eye-opener as I did not know pretty much anything about mutual funds and I had to read up on mutual funds. I thought our group sucked at the prelim rounds as we gave a bad presentation but we were shocked to hear that we qualified for the finals.

We worked harder at our presentation for the past week and kept improving our speeches. When we finished our presentation, we got one of the loudest applauses and we did pretty well for our Q and A except for the first question which I fumbled. When the results was announced, we were disappointed to learn that we did not get the top 3 and the reason was a certain percentage was allocated to how well your stocks performed and the stockes I picked performed badly for the past 2 weeks.

That important component overided our presentation component and effectively gave us 4th place. I could understand if I lost to a good team or if I had performed badly but if we gave a good performance and we lost out on the decisions we made 3 weeks ago, it just seems to unacceptable but LIFE has to go on.

After the competition, I rushed off to COT and was just in time for the event. I would say it's the best COT I have attended as the speakers were good and the content was good on which they spoke on and I took home a few pointers to ponder on.It pretty much sums up my Saturday.

2008-01-02T23:50:00.000+08:00

I met up with some of my friends for drinks at Orchard Starbucks and I was queuing up for my drinks when I saw a very attractive woman with shades on standing behind me. I figured out she must be Eurasian. What irritated me was that the service staff bothered to ask her how was the day and did not ask and felt that they were discriminating. When I sat down with my friends and was having drink, my friend remarked that the attractive woman was Andrea Fonseka when she took off her shades. Upon closer examination, I realised that it was indeed her. She still looked hot without any makeup and I couldn't keep my eyes off her during the entire time she was there with her friend. When she went off, she lighted up and I guess that's one of the reason she cannot be advertising for any smoking campaigns. Ha.

I just caught Warlords on the recommendation of a friend and it was very good. Jet Li's role suited him very well and Andy Lau was good as usual but Takashi's role suited him well but did not have much scope as Andy Lau's or Jet Li's. This movie was an eye-opener as it was my first Chinese war movie and though it's still behind its hollywood couterparts in terms of war cinematography, it was still pretty decent and it had a pretty good plot where Jet Li would pull in Andy Lau's bandits into the army to fight the enemy. After watching the movie, I still have a hard time deciding whether is Jet Li a bad or good character due to the complexity of the character but I shall not spoil it for those who have not caught it.

It's certainly much better than I am Legend where Will Smith is starring in it and the movie raised my hopes at the start but the ending let me down. For those yet to catch the movie, please do not watch the movie or else you would regret spending $8 on the movie. The only saving grace of the movie was the german sheperd dog.

It boils down just to a few more days before school starts and I better clear watching my movies on my computer before the new semester starts as I'm sure I would not have much time this semester as it would be a pretty loaded semester and the horror stories of R.C are beginning scare me. December simply flew without any warning and I felt that it was too short but at least it did give me some breathing space and catching up on the stuff which I wasn't able to do during semester and I hope next week would not be diffcult for me to kick start my 6th semester in NTU. It only seems like yesterday I went through my 1st semester. Time really flies.

2007-12-14T14:21:00.000+08:00

This week was pretty fun as I started off with a training session on Monday which lasted only for 30mins due to the lack of players and the floorball training session ended off with a practice match against EEE and they soundly beat us by a huge margin. The training session was too tiresome for me as I could only last for five minutes. As my team lacked a keeper, I volunteered to be the keeper as I did not want to run myself and tire myself out but trouble was our first match was against NIE who have a few national players in their team and are the tournament favourites and I had no experience in being a keeper. My friend gave me a few basic tips on how to be keeper and a 15 min practice session was all I had before my maiden match with NIE.

As always, I have nightmares before crunch time and dreamt that they were going to put 5 or 6 goals past me. However, our first match against NIE was a pretty close affair as we managed a water tight defence and their players couldn't get a easy shot at goal thanks to my defence who made my workload easier in the first half. In the second half, they came back with a vengence to put a goal past me and eventually, they broke their duck. I was pretty disappointed with the goal but nevertheless we managed to keep the scoreline to a respectable level and we only knew that we have to beat SCI to qualify for the quarters and we did beat although the goal was a bit of gay but who cares as long as we win the match.

We beat HSS in the quarters via another gay goal but lost to MAE in the semis as the match was again a pretty close affair as I was hoping that we would score in normal time as I did not want to face the prospect of penalty shootout where I had zero experience but the fact our make shift team made it to the semis was instead commendable and my stint as a first time keeper was good as I tried my level best at keeping a low scoreline and was worried that I would let in some gay goals. Perhaps, I would be more experienced and be a keeper for my school again.

Mr Kopi drafted me into the volleyball team at the last minute and I agreed as I was free in the afternoon but trouble was that it has been a long time since I played volleyball and was having a bad feeling about it and rightfully, I played a horrible match where half my serves went off court and my layups were pretty aweful and I basically made a fool of myself on court. The fact that I was slotted in at the last minute and we almost had a walkover showed that our team was certainly inexperienced.

Saturday Night Fever

2007-12-09T17:31:00.000+08:00

My Saturday night pretty much consisted of watching television and reading books. It has been a long time since I saw a Tamil movie as they seem to be full of crap these days but the movie on Central was pretty decent but the ending was stupid which consisted of the lead character giving back the $$ to the kidnapper who has clearly been defeated at the end and the $$$ was given so that the kidnappers won't bother him again. What a stupid ending and the kidnapper looks and acts like a clown which is even more that the lead character took the clown more seriously was a joke.

Soccer seems to be pretty standard as Chelsea and Man Utd posted wins over teams which they are expected to win and this season was pretty much shaping up to be a 4 way race and of course, Liverpool choked by losing 3-1 and Rafa is under increasing pressure as he has lost his unbeaten record in EPL but I guess fans are seeing a familiar scenario. Liverpool spends big to get good players, fans get hyped up and talk about the title going to Anfield, Liverpool wins the first few games and convinces their fans that this is their season and they managed to beat big teams but could not beat minnows in their later stages, conceding the title yet again to either Chelsea, Man Utd or Arsenal. I guess there's always next season.

I'm currently reading the Count of Monte Cristo and I'm just halfway through the book having covered some 600 odd pages and this book has been a test of patience as it has been a long time since I read a 1000 page odd book but I guess I got to savour the book slowly before it gets terrifyingly good. I would recommend it for those interested in knowing more about French History and it's a must read for those who love classics.

I'm waiting for my friend to pick me up to go to Chomp Chomp now and I hope time flies. Ciao.

Updates

2007-12-05T12:01:00.000+08:00

I guess this is the perfect time to provide updates as I'm waiting for 1.30pm to strike for me to start registering for subjects for next semester. There are 3 instances of stress during a student's semester- during exams, getting results and registering for subjects. Registering for subjects is pretty stressful as you would want the best time table and you need to have pretty fast fingers to get the slots which you want as you do not certainly want tutorial slots on friday afternoon unless you have gone crazy to want such slots. I pray that I get the slots which will free up my fridays as I would be having a almost 4 day week as I have only one lecture on friday and that is computing.

Computing is one subject which is a nightmare for most Singapore students as it does not make sense to us and most of us would be happy to just clear it as we don't understand of what's being taught and I would be more than happy to just get a pass as I can't put myself again through the torture of cheating myself and the agonizing 2 hours spent in laboratory trying to solve something which I have no idea and just hope to get some working or method marks. I hope next semester will be the semester in which I will get to see computing for the last time.

However, I'm kind of worried about the choice of electives which I will get as I do not want to make the mistake of taking essay based electives as it's harder to score and SU will be the only option to ensure the elective does not bring your GPA down. However, the GEs seem to be scary as the modules are core modules for some schools and I don't want to be at the losing end. It's very important that I make the right choice.

On a lighter note, I have been catching up on football for the past week and caught the Manchester United match and was impressed with Ronaldo's performance. He just seems to get better and better each season and I won't be surprised if he can eclipse his last season's goal tally. I guess Ferguson will be off-loading Saha as I seriously feel he's injury prone and becoming more of a liablity but in the event of either Rooney or Tevey getting injured, he might come in handy but I'm glad that Arsenal are playing sublime football this season and this team has impressed me especially they went on to win the match from a goal down. Previous Arsenal team would have given up or settled for a draw if they were in such a position and I hope their unbeaten record continues today against Newcastle.Sorry Sammy. Although I would like you to win to ensure that you are in job, I hope miracles are not performed today against Arsenal.

This morning's AC Milan match would have certainly increased the transfer fee of Kaka. That guy is simply phenomenal. Although he did not score, his gameplay was simply superb and he can read the game well and his acceleration is second to none as there was one instance he received the ball from the halfway mark and his first touch and acceleration left the defender chasing after him but he wasn't able to finish. That would have capped off a superb Kaka performace. Credit has to be given to Inzaghi who rescued Milan.

I'm also catching up on the 70s show. It's one hell of a funny show and thought that it would be a lame show but the show turned out to be good with interesting characters such as Eric Foreman- the lead character, Stven Adler- the guy against establishment, Fezz-the horny exchange student, Michael- the dumb bloke who likes to silly stuff, Jackie-Michael's on and off bimbo girlfriend, Donna- Eric's girlfriend, Red-Eric's strict, no nonense, skeptical father and Kiddy- Eric's funny cute mother and of course Donna's crazy parents. I would highly recommend this show as the show takes place during the 70s and gives the viewer of how people dress and how they think and what was hot and what was not.

Speaking of the 70s, I'm currently hooked onto stairway to heaven by Led Zepplin. I guess it's never too late once again as I should have discovered Led during secondary school but it's pretty cool stuff as the music is good. I guess I have to move on to Jimmy as he's pretty good stuff. I'm waiting for American gangster to come out as I can't wait for the movie to be released. My friend told me that it's oscar worthy and I hope Denzel bags the best actor again as he's a very talented actor. Hallmark channel does screen some decent shows but you have to be very selective and wise in your choice of movies as it's mostly B-grade movies.

What the hell is happening to the Malaysia Indians? The group leading the protest accused the government of ethnic cleansing. What the hell. Rwanda is an example of ethnic cleansing. Kosovo is an example of ethnic cleansing. What is happening in Malaysia is discrimination. The plight of the Indians over there is very bad and it was time that their grievances were aired but if they are planning to skive and not do anything to raise their standard of living or education, I guess no matter how much help is provided, they will still remain stagnant. Being poor in India is one thing but being poor in another man's land is really really bad.

Mistakes

2007-11-23T13:02:00.000+08:00

It was a mistake that I failed to study one particular tutorial thinking that it would not come out for the exam but I got a huge shock when I saw the similar question for today's exam and Murphy's quote was simply on my mind all the time during the entire exam.

It was a mistake that I focused on the past year exam papers thinking that similar questions would be set and hoping that easier questions would be asked but the paper which I took was mostly theoractical and one which I was unprepared for and ended up smoking my way through all the theory questions.

It was a mistake to have planned my exam timetable where I had to endure the torture of 4 exams in 5 days as it simply took a toll on me and I felt very sian after the 2nd paper for this week and which made me realise to plan my timetable properly for future exams to avoid a repeat of this semester as I simply lost track of the days. It was that bad.

It was a mistake to have taken up engineering as these exams show that I'm simply not cut out for the enginnering lifestyle and I'm not very keen on an engineering career where I have to sit at my desk and do meaningless paperwork and basically lead a boring and unsatisfying career.

It was a mistake of NBS to have not considered me for their business or accountancy programme as I love the subjects which my friends in these faculties are doing as it's interesting and more real-life and would not have minded the heavy workload and could have gotten good grades in the process.

It was a mistake to neglect Physics in Junior College when that particular subject was the main stickler in my course choices as I was flatly rejected by most non-engin and science courses though I did get a decent grade for my Econs and thought this would have been enough to secure my place in the Arts programme in NUS and it backfired. The feelig of seeing someone who does not deserve to be in NBS or Arts programme can make your blood boil.

It was a mistake that I did not act to recitify the mistakes that I have been making for the past two semesters which is not starting early as the exams clearly showed that my last minute exam preparation was simply useless as consistent hard work would have gotten me decent grades. Mistakes!!!!I hate the word of mistakes!!

The final post

2007-10-31T13:33:00.000+08:00

I caught Deathnote, the anime a few months ago and the anime is much better than the movie as it explains certain parts which the movie was unable to explain as the movie was only 3 hours and could not simply compress the information overload. I was impressed with the way the plot took shape on how a student started to play God when he was given a notebook and he used it to kill criminals by writing their names on the deathnote book and soon misused it when he wrote down the names of the officers who were investigating the case to deter the police force from continuing their investigation. The fact that he went to the extent of killing his own father showed that he was already playing God.

Although the lead character, Kira had good intentions of wiping out evil, he soon misused it and I felt nobody has the right to judge a person unless he's God. Many people would argue that Kira had made the world a better place as there were no crimes taking place but he has also created a climate of fear where people do not dare do anything that might get them killed. Free will is one important quality which is given to every human being and if we do not possess that one quality, we are worse than animals.

Sad but true. The majority of people I know do not possess the free will as they are afraid to lose out. When your life is decided by other people's decisions, that's the start of the slow journey. The very few who possess the free will do not give in easily and easily have enemies all over the place but they earn the admiration and respect of others and their respect.

I guess humilation is another quality which most people do not have. The difficult part of attaining success is not maintaing it but rather being humble about it. When you are humble about your achievements, you are on the path to greatness as people will respect you. People will remember a certain Hitler and even Axl Rose who let fame be their undoing and I guess this quality is one defining mark of a great man.

Sleep!!!

Random Post

2007-10-12T00:57:00.000+08:00

I suppose this post will be another of my famous random post where I will be bitching about everything under the sun as too many things have occured within the space of a month starting with the Rugby World Cup where the heavyweights, New Zealand and Australia got knocked out as I expected at least one of them to last till the finals but it was a case of deja vu when I did a little research on the All Blacks when they impressed in the early stages of the 2003 world cup but fizzled out during the last few stages of the tournament when they met heavyweights. I suppose the All Blacks were not fated to win the world cup but on paper, they were too strong for the French team and it will be another 4 years for the All Blacks to try their hand at the world cup.

I hope England loses badly to France in the semis as they are known to play crappy rugby due to their conservative nature of not taking risks and going for tries and depending on Johnny to save the day and this team reminds me of the England soccer team where they depend entirely on one player like Beckham and Rooney to save the day and would play crappy football if they are not on the team. The country which invented soccer has a tough time coming to grips with the modern game. What a irony. I just hope those jokers do not qualify for the world cup or the Euro as they had raised my hopes during last year's world cup when I backed them to win it and they totally lost the plot.Some say that it was overconfidence but I say that it was the WAGS who took away the bulk of the attention.

Sir Alf Ramsey banned the wives and girlfriends for the entire duration of the World Cup and that was England's only World Cup triumph. Wives and girlfriends can be distraction to the task at hand and although it might seem to be a breather, I'm afraid that they might distract the footballers who needs to be focused on their mission.

I just caught a few movies over the past month, namely the Prestige where 2 magicians engage in a battle of wits and the Bourne Identity where an ex- CIA agent tries to rediscover his identity after he lost his identity and I would strongly recommend these movies as they have a good storyline and keeps the viewer on the edge and you would not be disappointed and I'm strongly urged by one of my friends to watch K-Pax which sounds like a B-grade movie but I will try to catch it if I have the time as the new season of Prison Break is very interesting although the kind of jail portrayed in the new season seems to be very fictious. One of my favourite funny characters, Haywire gets killed in the first episode as he adds colour to the season but Mr T-Bag's one liners and smart ass comments and Scofield's ingenious tricks and a few hot girls in the show makes this season worth the watch.

I'm trying to keep to my schedule of reading a book every 2 weeks and I hope I can keep to my plan and hope that I do not fail due to my lax attitude and my schedule. With proper time management, I believe it's possible to achieve this attainable goal. I miss Borders as it's been a while since I went to Orchard. Time to sleep...

What a week

2007-09-20T14:20:00.000+08:00

After the madness of 3 back to back quizzes, I can finally take a breather before embarking on a study marathon to catch up on most of my modules which have been back-breaking and mind-boggling during the 1 week study break before I get sucker-punched by more abstract and difficult concepts. If I can get past this semester, I can get past anything for the next 3 semesters. One thing I do not understand is the planning management of the faculty when it comes to year 3 subjects. Some of my friends who would be doing I.A next semester have to do 6 freaking subjects this semester and these subjects are no joke and it's difficult to cope with 6 core modules plus electives for those who want a 20 plus AU semester. I hope the school will consider dropping a few modules so that students can spread out their subjects especially for those doing I.A.

Headline of the day: Mourinho got sacked apparently by Roman as they couldn't get along well. This reminds me of the Axl Rose and Slash saga as both men refuse to compromise on their beliefs and rather part than depart from their beliefs. Though Mr Mourinho has always been arrogant, I love his pre-match, post match commetns and during match antics as he adds colour to EPL and revive some interest in Chelsea who were doing badly at one point of time after Gullit's departure. I wish him success in his future endeavours and hope he returns to management with arch-rivals Spurs to spark the intense rivalry or perhaps manage England and teach the Man U boys a lesson...Woooohh..

Another issue which has been troubling me or rather making my mind occupied is women. I feel that the men of our generation are falling prey to women whose power is unlimited as she has the final say in matters pertaining to sex. It's a known fact that men need women for psychological, emotional and sexual needs and most women use this to their full advantage and most guys will give in to everything just to get their final third of the package. Just look at the number of guys carrying their girlfriends' handbags and becoming like more like Mr LA galaxy instead of Eric Bana. It's time that I influence these men to pick up the Godfather and empower them with self-respect before they lose that last bit.I do not blame women to use their sex appeal to their maximun advantage to get what they want but men should know about this but I guess being men, they will rather let their big brother than than their brain dictate them although they know about this.

I have been treating the Godfather book as my sleeping material and can't seem to let go of it.The more I read it, the more difficult to let go of it. I think I need to go for anti-obsessive counselling session.

A random post

2007-09-17T17:10:00.000+08:00

I just finished one of the toughest subjects I'm taking this semester, Steel quiz and I finally realised why seniors and my batch mates asked me to go for CSP's class as the quiz was almost a piece of cake and I'm glad that I made the right choice in changing to his class. I was such a nervous wreck before the quiz and couldn't focus and get my thoughts back on track but after the quiz, I just felt so relieved and made me realise that I have to work triple hard for this subject which I'm putting off due to the level of difficulty of the concepts.

This semester is akin to my team Arsenal's season where it's one of the toughest semesters to date with difficult subjects and my semester can either make or break if I don't focus enough and time is running short and I have only 7 weeks max to make this semester worthwhile and the thoughts of my 1.2 semester is still fresh as I do not want to go through another repeat.

I'm currently hooked onto Don't you cry by Guns and Roses, one of my favourite songs in Primary school and can't seem to get it off my head at the moment as I keep replaying the track. Arghhh..

Disappointed

2007-09-06T23:36:00.000+08:00

I'm disappointed with a few problems in the world currently. The first one would be Guns N Roses, my first foray into heavy metal group, my one and only heavy metal group which I loved and recently rekindled my love for that group after getting hold of their live in Tokyo concert and it brought back fresh memories of their cult songs. However, the one word to describe them will be self-destruction as they couldn't handle their fame well and sought solace in drugs and alcohol. The front man, Axl Rose started to place importance in himself after he realised that he has to share the limelight with his band mates especially SLASH, the lead gitarist who in my eyes is GOD when it comes to playing guitar sometimes stole the show from Axl.

I guess that didnt sit well with Axl and he started to dismiss almost his entire band group including SLASH and the great breakup of the 90s begun. I guess human being human beings will let their arrogance dominate themselves and impair their judgement. Another issue will be a certain club in NTU where democracy should not be practised as the winner of the elections was not the better candidate or rather they had the support of their friends. This is one prime example of the failure of democracy where the best candidate failed to win on merit and lost out on votes. That's life, I guess.

Freedom and Self-Respect

2007-08-27T16:32:00.000+08:00

I had the good fortune of reading the Godfather a few months ago when my friend gave me the book as a christmas present but what I didn't understand in the book was why did Don Corleone went into the Mafia business and the reason cited was the way of Sicilian life which had a great impact on him. After reading the Sicilian, I began to understand why some men went into Mafia. The Sicilian system back then did not reward the hardworking people and it favours the rich and the rich is by default when you are born. That is if you are born a farmer's son, you will be a farmer in your later life and the vicious cycle continues.

I truly understood the reasons why Don Corleone became the Godfather and one of the many things the system in Sicily took away was their freedom and respect. Freedom is priceless and he truly believed that he did not owe anyone anything if he can 'make his own bones' and with his vision, charisma and intelligence, he became the feared and yet respected 'Godfather'. Another thing the Sicilian system back then took away was their self-respect and the Godfather realised that no one should never take away his self-respect as that's one of the most defining virtues of a man.

As I was sitting in my steel tutorial class, I began to feel disgusted with myself as I was not able to understand a single 'shit' about the module and I'm putting myself in a position where I have to take down notes of the answers as I went to the class unprepared. The same goes for some of my modules where I'm totally lost in some of my modules.

I realised that you should never owe anyone a living as that would make you complacent and dependant. The army made me realise the value of self-respect and freedom and I told myself that I would never let go of the 2 things. However,due to my attitute in recent years, I'm starting to feel contented with almost anything which comes my way which is a dangerous one as I'm struggling to hold on to my freedom.

I then realised that I should not let this attitude be my own downfall in the exams and told myself that I had to do something about it. For me to earn the freedom from the Singaporean system, I need to 'make my bones'. It's very important that I do not become a product of the education and society where I will be swimming with the many fishes hoping for a lucky break. It's perhaps time to discard the complacent attitude within me and start to buck up and think real hard about the future and make plans before I even have time to wake up from my slumber and realise that I have wasted 25 years of my life at the end of my 4 year degree and become a slave to the system for the rest of my life by doing something worthless to get by in life.

Never Did I Expect

2007-08-22T14:58:00.000+08:00

I never expected myself to like Frankie Sinatra. I always tried to steer of the oldies for a good 15 years as I felt that Hip Hop was the best music genre. After a few semesters in NTU, I was exposed to people who listens to interesting music and I began to slowly change and soon, Blondie, Barbara S, Elvis and Johnny Cash began to invade my computer and my MP3 player. I'm glad that I started to appreciate other music genres as I might have been living in a disillusioned world listening to Emmy, Jay Z, R.Kelly. Hip Hop is great but not all the time.

Frankie is a legend of the legends for giving the world unforgettable hits. I did a wiki search on him and realised that his music is not a fixed genre and covers a variety of genres. His songs though mostly sentimental does not fade with time. I made a stupid mistake of buying his CD which featured songs when he started out and I realised that the songs were not very popular. I realised I should buy only the essential or the best hits of a particular artist to maximise my dollar.

I'm trying to break into the French music genre as I believe the Frenchies have a lot of diamonds in their music scene. I'm sure I can get beyond the knowledge of Napolean, Eric Cantona, the French National team and my basic French. It might prove to be handy when you are interacting with a French chick. Maybe Brazilian music considering Adriana Lima. Cant't seem to decide.

Heart-Pumping

2007-08-14T13:46:00.001+08:00

When I managed to find out about football being screened on Ch27, Arsenal was already a goal down and I was cursing furiously at Arsenal for not holding on to former main man, Henry and sticking with their youth. I was wondering if Arsenal were going to slip into oblivion this season and the thoughts were quickly dispelled when Arsenal was awarded a penalty and V.Persie scored from the spot. I cheered at the moment when the ball hit the roof of the net and I could hear the Gooners fans cheering loudly. When the second goal came, I went crazy. From pessisim to optimism in under 30 mins was what I had experienced in the game.

However, reflecting on the game, Arsenal's passing was still fluid and they have not lost the touch but they need a hardman badly and Mr Fabby though young is sort of a playmaker and not like in the mould of Roy Keane or Viera. The Arsenal team has potential although I have yet to see the Brazilian boy in action. I once wondered why did Arsenal buy Henry and I was silenced when he started to score like it's normal to do it and in no time, he broke Ian's record. I hope the Brazilian boy can manage at least 20 goals a season to give us a chance of battling for Premiership honours.

I still feel that it was a bad mistake by Fernando Torry to move to Liverpool. The examples of good strikers flopping at Liverpool are plenty- Hesky,Morientes,Cisse and many more. The boy is Arsenal material and I won't be surprised if he leaves Liverpool at the end of the season when Liverpool might finish 4th place again just to qualify for the Champions League again. What's new? Them winning the Premiership? Dream On!!!!

The Kite Runner

2007-08-08T18:40:00.000+08:00

Amazing is the word to describe the latest novel I read. When I stumbled upon the movel a few years ago, I thought it will be another novel and decided to give it a miss. Another reason was that I thought new writers would not be able to drum up interest. After hearing rave reviews about the book, I decided to borrow the book and it's a page-turner. It narrates the story of a Afghan boy of Pashtun origin who enjoys an unique friendship with an Hazara boy and the story takes off from there and I loved the historical events unfolding in the book as it gives readers a taste of History.

From the details given in the book, I have never felt so much of hatred towards the Taliban. I have heard of how demonic and ruthless they can be and they are the scum-bags of the earth by forcing people under their control through the use of religion. Adultery- stoned to death, Shouting loudly at public places- Flogging and men must cover up when they are playing soccer and women are not allowed to work. I do not understand some of these rules as it does not make sense to me at all. The rules and punishment are so draconian and barbaric and these scum-bags even banned music and the arts- a pleasure to many.

In the book, beggers and street children are common-place in Kabul,Afghanistan and it's a far cry from the old days of Kabul where it was much better. I guess from past experience wars serve only a few peoples' agenda whose lust for power is uncontrollable and they will go to any extent to make it happen and once they have achieved power, they will go to even greater lengths to ensure their power is unshakeable and if it means, killing people to strike fear in the masses, these people will not hesitate to do it. A certain Hitler rings bells in our mind.

Thw world is ridden with civil wars and the rest of the world has to sit up and take attention and not let the incident just pass by as ethnic cleansing and the loss of lives should simply come to a stop as the world should not regret later for what it should have done.

1st Day of School

2007-08-06T17:49:00.000+08:00

When Edventure is down, things get screwed up for a typical NTU student especially on the first day of school when the students need to use Edventure to print lecture notes which are not sold at the bookshop. The unspeakable horror happened this morning when the website was down in the morning and I was unsucessful in logging onto the website and I gave up after a few attempts. If the school knew or had anticipated the problem of heavy traffic on the 1st day of school, they should have done something about it as it was inconvenient for me and especially all the students who couldn't log in.Things did get better later in the afternoon when edventure was up and running.

It seems the Dragon babies this year are making their presence felt when I saw Canteen A flooded with students during lunch hour and it's just unsightly to see many students in a overcrowded and small canteen. Perhaps, that was why they are halfway through in building a bigger and spacious Canteen A and I hope it opens soon so that there can be at least be some breathing space for students having their lunch during peak hour.

The icing of the cake has to go to my elective's lecturer who literally drove away half the students taking the subject as the lecturer failed to inspire and was lacking in charisma and thus unable to convince people to stay on for the rest of the lecture and I was one of the many students who left a bit after the halfway mark as I always believe in the adage that Time is money and it cannot be bought and I wasn't doing anything productive during the lecture and decided to make an exit. I can perhaps excuse his behaviour as it is only the first lecture but I seriously hope the next 12 lectures do not turn out to be boring.

I just read an article in the Nanyang chronicle that the supermarket in NTU has stopped selling condoms.WTF. The reasons given largely border on the moral and I suspect religious and ethical reasons which were not brought up. The rise of STD cases are a cause for concern and humans are sexual creatures and can't be avoided and by not selling condoms because of a few people's dispproval is totally UNACCEPTABLE. This is IRRESPONSIBLE behaviour. However, if the ban continue to persist, I have a few recommendations for those who need one- EIther buy a pack before you come to school or order online.

In this time and age, it is very difficult to adopt a moralistic and ethical approach to sex. Sex is inevitable especially in our generation and if the use of contraceptives is not actively promoted and society tend to view sex outside marriage as unacceptable, we would no doubt witness a rise in STD and HIV cases where youth are misinformed about sex and do foolish stuff without realising the consequences of their actions. Let's face it- Sex is here to stay.

Africa

2007-07-31T11:15:00.000+08:00

Africa is a god-forsaken continent. These were the words uttered by Di Caprio in Blood Diamond and it simply sums up the continent. Africa is a continent known for its breathtaking beauty and raw materials and western powers are not ashamed to do buisness with corrupt regimes knowing that their $$$ is well taken care of and in some cases it's used against their own citizens. I can understand the situation. Corrupt regime or group of rebels crave for power and they need $$$ to buy arms and they sell raw materials to western powers to buy arms which in turn is used in their civil wars. Some of the western countries can simply stop the civil if they press the right buttons but they refuse to do it as money is always the key issue.

Africa is in such a bad shape after many years of conflict within the continent and famine seems to be their friend in some parts of the continent. Aids is spreading rapidly like wild fire and the number of educated people in Africa seems to be joke. EVERYBODY knows what AFRICA needs and that is constructive aid from the United States and the UN. Constructive aid is $$$ spent on healthcare, education and public programmes than on financing the civil wars and feeding corrupt regimes. The best way the constructive aid can be implemented if the developed nations could send a small team of educated professionals to develop Africa. It makes me wonder why hasn't Africa developed substantially over the past 50 years and the number of reasons seem to be plenty ranging from corrupt regimes to countless civil war. The western powers are not stingy with their $$$ over the past few decades but is the $$$ simply given for the sake of giving?

For a country of immense potential, I don't see why they cannot get out of their shit-hole and start to get back on track but then again,I'm not saying this can be achieved in a short period. It takes time and if western leaders and the world do not care about Africa, it will forever be a god-forsaken continent.

Metro Sale!!!

2007-07-30T08:47:00.000+08:00

Garang Boy gave me a ring and asked me if I wanted to have dinner at Tampines and I agreed. When I reached Metro in Century Square, it was chaotic. Singaporeans were pratically swarming all over the place and turning Metro into a pasar malam.It was the closing sale of Metro and the discount was close to 70%.I decided to do some quick shopping for my hostel room and men's accessories knowing that I won't get another shot at such a huge discount.

I was disgusted with the men's sections as all the pants and shirts were strewn all over the place and it will be a hassle to look through them and try them on in the midst of the crowd. I avoided that section and went to the 'home' section where I helped myself to a pillow, pillowcase and a bolster. Another thing about sale is that you tend to go weak when items are priced at ridiculous prices and I couldn't resist buying a pair.

Sale also exposes another side of Singaporeans- their ugly side. People will just push you aside without saying Excuse me and some of them do not find the time to even finish Excuse me due to their impatience with you moving out of their way. The worst part was when familes arrived with toddlers in prams making it difficult for traffic movement. The gracious, courteous campaigns can take a backseat when there are sales as $$ wins at the end of the day

The shopping experience in shopping centres is bad as almost every square inch in a shopping centre is taken up by a tenant. I do not mind more tenants in a shopping centre as they offer consumers more choices but traffic can become chaotic when it gets crowded. Century Square was one such example when the MEtro Sale brought the crowds and level one was too crowded as there was only a tiny weeny space for people to move around due to the overwhelming number of shops on the level. I rather have few quality shops and more space than more average shops with lesser space.

Wages

2007-07-22T21:35:00.000+08:00

I'm puzzled by the wages which footballers receive today. The average wage a Premiership player can earn today is at least $30 ooo a figure I came up with as the highest earner is at a staggering 130 000 pounds a week. How can these clubs manage such a huge wage bill? It does not make any sense to me. For big clubs like Man U and Chelsea, the wage bill can hit close to a million or even more than that PER WEEK. It can be argued that big clubs can sustain such huge wage bills due to their match-day receipts and sale of merchandise largely due to their trophy-laden cupboard and branding of the club. What about the small clubs? They have to get by with what they have and give their youth a career in the Premiership by offering him a measly contract compared to his Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and Man U comrades or the small clubs will start to pray that they are bought by a Russian or American tycoon interested in boosting his income or simply treating it like a past time. I wish sports writers or someone in the industry could enlighten me and millions of fans out there on how clubs sustain themselves and even make a profit when the wage bill seems to be getting out of control. I suspect something fishy.

O-Leary book made me think about today's managers. Their job scope is not simple anymore. They need to explain their chairmen and even their board their transfer signings but he was lucky to have a chairman willing to fork out 18 million pounds on Rio and managers have to get the best out of their team of 11 who must do the job on match day and this is a tricky situation as each manager needs to understand each player. One method which works for one player might not work for another player. I can't imagine taking control of a team where I have 11 players like Wayne Rooney, Lee Bowyer and Roy Keane who are great professionals but have a BAD, BAD temper. I respect O-Leary for taking the approach of punishing his players when they have done something wrong as managers today can't afford to take the decision as it could prove costly.

Arcade, Pool and Starbucks

2007-07-19T12:34:00.000+08:00

It's been sometime since I paid a visit to Starbucks and I enjoyed yesterday's visit as I got to chill out with chocalate frappacino and lounging in their confortable sofas and having a chat with Rosy,Jeff and Esther. It's been a while since we got together and we were trading horror and fun stories of our coaching jobs in Primary schools and these experiences has made me realise that you have to be firm with kids right from the start. It also feels good when the service staff goes the extra mile by smiling at you as such intangible service matters to me and it can uplift my mood.

After Starbucks, we decided to pay the arcade a visit and we got hooked onto the basketball game as I couldn't stop myself from playing the game as I felt that I could have done better and Jeffrey was scoring an average of 100 per game and I could only manage a pathetic 70 something and I was disappointed with my performance but that game is a money sucker and it nearly emptied my wallet and it made me think twice of going there regularly to play the game.

I returned to Bugis after my tuition and we went to play pool at one of this classy places where the per hour charge was close to $13 but the atmosphere was worth it but they started to play crap mandopop and techno music after midnight. I started my usual MCP bullshit when I was paired with Jeffrey and I asked the girls to concede the game before they even hit their first shot and they were quite flabbargasted when they heard that. It feels good to play the role of a MCP once in a while.

The main highlight of our pool game was the entry of two ang moh men and a white chick. The white chick was wearing a low cut top until u can see her assests in full view and Jeffrey was speculating that she's from Poland and I wondered how the hell did he manage to come up with the nationality of the girl at first sight and I was thinking she must be a Eastern European. The best moment of the night has to go to Esther when she told me that she was distracted by her and I couldn't control my laughter. Uncalled for. Midnight fare is a money sucker!!

Autobiographies, Transformers and Bus Drivers

2007-07-17T10:29:00.000+08:00

I have been catching up on footballers' autobiographies partly to Kopi and mostly to my interest. I'm impressed with Rio Ferdinand's book as it narrates the tough background he comes from and how he still keeps in touch with his roots and gives back to his community. Rio Ferdinand though a Man U player has gained my respect as he's hungry for success and he never lets it get to his head and he has one hell of a fashion sense but I still wonder why did he miss the drugs test even though the answers in his book is damn vague and wishy washy and I seriously hope he's not taking DRUGS. The respect he earned will be lost overnight but the same cannot go for Maradona who has not lost the respect despite taking drugs in World Cup 1994.

Another must read autobiography is Mr Ashley Cole as he told his story on the tapping scandal and I expected this book to be whiny and bitchy but I felt that this was the best autobio. book I have ever read as he spilled the beans on the Arsenal Board and Mr Dein and some of the Arsenal players esecially younger players who do not show respect to the senior players and also talk about his popstar wife- Cheryl. This book also gave me an idea of how celeb couples have to cope with the extra attention and the rumours that comes with them. I'm disappointed with the younger players for not having the same team spirit as of Team 2004 known as Invincibles and I'm starting to dread the new season where the big players have left for big clubs and the only name who can strike terror in other teams is Van Persie. PATHETIC.

I do not understand why Mr Torres had to go to Liverpool when he could have chosen Arsenal as the strikers at LIverpool somehow become duds. Think of Heskey, Morientes and the list goes on. I suspect the Spanish influence at Liverpool might have played a decision. Heck. I don't mind Torres going to Man U but I frankly think that he's wasting his time at Liverpool and I hope to be proven right so that he can go to Arsenal(yeah right) or to Ac Milan(help Gilardino in attack).

Do not reaad Thierry Henry's biography as it's damn boring as each chapter is about each season and the chapters will be on almost every single match and no juicy details. I guess it's not exactly his biography as this was written on Henry and not one where he was sharing his views like Ashely Cole and Ferdinand.

I caught Transformers yesterday and the movie was average. The first hour was a drag save for a few scenes where there were some fighting scenes. I expected end to end action between the robots from start to end like Lord Of the Rings where your hair will stand when the war scenes start but I had perhaps expected too much when my friend said it was good. The second hour was redemption as the robots began to showcase their 'acting' and it was fun to see Robots displaying such emotions. I felt that if Pixar had handled the project , they could have made it into a bigger blockbuster as their animation movies like Toy Story and Incredibles are hits and their man Man,John Lasseter would have made it a better movie but this is all theoratical mumbo jumbo and I might be proven wrong. Another distraction was the lead female in low cut, dirty tank top and it was a good one. If you cannot up the action, up the sex quotient.

I managed to catch the last train and was quite happy when I took the last bus and after the bus driver took off, he stopped and asked the 2 passengers who boarded if they wanted to take the green 291 bus. There are two 291 bus services and the one I take is the green colour. I was quite pissed with him as he talked in Mandarain to the 2 passengers without considering that I was there. However, I managed to understand what he was saying and walked out of the bus and back to the same place where I was waiting for my 'genuine' bus and my bus arrived promptly at 0035 and I took the bus back home.

The trouble with most humans including myself at times was that they are very inconsiderate. I learnt this lesson at army when being a minority, your friends just converse in Mandarin as they don't give a flying fuck about if you don't understand or not and subtle or in your face messages to them won't work. Languages creates boundaries and exclusion. I managed to learn some Mandarin phrases and words and could comprehend what they could say after sometime. Secondary school was also bad as I was mixing with Malays- the hardworking ones and I learnt some Malay words. Perhaps, there should be a Speak English Campaign as I know people some people having problems speaking the language and will rather talk in their mother tongue.

A Lesson Well Learnt

2007-07-14T21:00:00.000+08:00

My friends couldn't reach me on my hp most of the times when I'm in hostel as the reception in my Hall sucks to the core and I was toying with the idea of changing my service provider. My phone was also problematic as people calling me couldn't hear me but I can hear them as I dropped my phone too many times and it was another signal to change my phone as well. I decided to do it today since I had two hours to kill.

I settled on a red-colour Ericsson Phone as I love red colour and love a change of colour since I have been using dull colours. Wrong..I bought it because I deserved it. I intially planned to buy a walkman phone and thought that the plan was only $19. When I went to the cashier to purchase the phone, I forked out $199 and I was shocked. I was thinking what went wrong and looked at the promotion again and the assholes conveniently made after $100 trade in in small letters. I was pissed with them and myself for disregarding such vital information. I asked the service staff if I can change the phone and she was kind enough to let me change to another phone which I chose in a hurry(mistake again) and agreed to pay back the remainder in cash to me after she told me that she can only let me take gift vouchers.

Then, the staff said that there was no black and only RED. I agreed to take it as I didn't want to bother the staff again and got my Red Phone. I never thought that by not doing your research, you will end up in a bad deal and I did get a bad deal and I'm surprised as I will always do my research before any electronic purchase. Looking at the handphone will make me think twice about doing something rash again. I can console myself that it's not PINK.

The 4th Estate

2007-07-11T23:35:00.000+08:00

I just finished the 4th Estate and the book was damn good. I read this book when I was in secondary school and didn't appreciate the book at that time as my main aim in secondary school when it comes to reading books was to race to the last page of every book and that took the joy of reading and I ended up forgetting the plot and the lessons behind every story. With new found knowledge due to my increasing exposure to news media, I began to understand the problems and the nitty gritty stuff of newspapers. Lester however told me that one of the character potrayal was actually Rubert Murdouch and when I did a wiki search and read his profile, the resemblance was too good to be true right to the detail where the character, Keith Townsend(Note that Keith is Rubert first name) will become American citizen and introduce the concept of Page 3 of the Globe Newspaper(Recall the Sun?).

That book made me wonder the different possiblities of the CEO, directors and chairman as I couldn't exactly understand why some of these characters had to behave in a certain manner and this made me realise how little I know about company law and it's time I start to read some boring company law books to widen my knowledge as I want to know what are the duties and responsibilites Mr Durai as CEO and Richard as chairman.

I don't understand how did Richard Yong got caught so easily. He was smart enough to leave the country before he was barred from doing so but the man should have plannned his trip to a country preferable Czech Republic according to Kopi where there are no extradition laws or some fucko countries like Bolivia where he can live like a king or even Indonesia as he has so much money from the sale of his apartments and properties and he should have chosen a country where it's not Singapore friendly but I suspect he did not expect HK to extradit him back to Singapore.

The little red dot is really becoming boring as life seems to be approaching a full stop for everybody. I'm starting to dread MRT rides especially on weekday mornings where people literally drag their asses out to work and you can see their 'sian' faces and it makes you wonder if you are going to join them in 2 years and worse become like them. Work can really take the fun out of life in Singapore as people are expected to clock long hours and slog. The next 2 years are a critical part in shaping my Destiny. As my sister always say, it's very important to have a vision.

Questions Unanswered

2007-07-11T09:48:00.000+08:00

I still do not get the logic behind the DVD codes. I borrowed a few DVDs from the Esplanade library and was very excited as these movies are classics and hard to find in the DVD shops. When I popped one DVD into my laptop drive, they prompted me to change the DVD region. I thought it was a one-off thing and unfortunately, the same thing happened to my other 3 DVDs. I will like to know which smartie came up with this ingenious idea of DVD coding.Is it because they want to restrict the market or they want to restrict the content in the movie since Asian countries are more stricter on censorship.I suppose there must be some logic behind it but can't they make all DVDs universal since we are living in the age of globalisation. I believe some DVDs are universal and I hope that future DVDs are universal.

I had a chance to read Sophie's world and the book requires loads of patience and mental strength as every page requires the reader to put the book down and think about what he has just read. However, there was one question which left me stumped. If God created the world, who created God? I thought of a million possiblities to the question but I still could not come up with the answer of who created God as there must be a start for everything and God himself is so powerful that I suddenly began to realise that maybe someone could have created him and the creator of God if any, would be more powerful than God himself.

I just happened to know sometime back that Lucifer commonly known as Satan was an angel. If he or she was an angel, I wonder why the movies depict Satan as a ugly duckling as angels are supposed to be goodlooking and charming. Perhaps, his good looks have deserted him after he was banished to hell but I have a very strong feeling or call it conspiracy that HUMANS, YES HUMANS like to attach an ugly tag to bad boys. Look at the countless movies that we have seen. In only a few movies, they will use actors who look very dependable to play the bad role. I won't be surprised if Mr Lucifer turns out to be very goodlooking as he can always use him charm to entice people to visit hell cos bad looks put people off and they will be reluctant to visit HELL. Now, that's more like Satan.

Tennis and Soccer

2007-07-05T23:12:00.000+08:00

My knowledge of tennis is very limited as I got to know the rules of the game when I was in secondary and my interest was heightened when the French Open came and went and the Wimbeldon tournament is currently ongoing. Tennis offers guys one important benefit- eyecandy. You can get loads of eyecandy from watching Wimbeldon. You can bet to your last dollar that the girls' attire will always be above their knees and I simply love to watch Venus and Serena Williams as they are known for their 'crazy' attire and they have not disappointed me so far as Venus is always attired in a tank top and hot shorts and Serena is always attired in a dress showing off her well-toned body for this tournament. Of course, Maria Sharapova has not disappointed me one bit although I wish that she could tone down on her grunting as it can get irritating at times to hear a woman grunt loudly. I pity the guy who's with her if she brings the grunting to the bedroom. The girls have learnt to use the art of sex appeal to maximum effect and that gives me more encouragement to tune in to Wimbeldon.

Of course, the men's matches are also interesting as I find the matches to be of higher standard than that of females(I have nothing against them) but I will recommend my readers to watch the male matches as they are more entertaining in terms of game play. When you see Federrer play, you will understand why he's DARN good in that game. He just brings tennis to a whole new level.

Although Copa America is currently ongoing, I do not have the interest to follow the tournament though South Americans play an eterprising and entertaining brand of football as I do not feel the same excitement as watching World Cup or European Championships or perhaps it could be the fact that my knowledge of S.American teams could be zilch. Perhaps, it's time to brush up my knowledge on these teams as the Holidays will be coming to an end and I won't get another chance of doing this again for another 4 months.

An exceptional Day

2007-06-27T23:18:00.000+08:00

My holidays seemed to lack a certain intensity and was stagnant as I'm in the midst of job hunting and did not fancy staying at home catching up on movies and tv shows all day and giving tuition though breaks the monotony still does not make my holiday an eventful one. Perhaps, that was the reason why I took on an assignment recommended by Rosy. I went for a briefing for an assignment which involves teaching at a pri school for 1 hour and the programme is about learning oneself and others and I was to basically lead them in this wonderful relevation(yeah right).

It wasn't enticing at first as the hours were not long enough to tempt me but it was the certain experience which I was looking for and I readily agreed to it in the briefing yesterday. After the briefing, I went out with Esther, Jeffrey, Emma and another girl who was in the briefing and we ended up at IKEA Queensway having lunch and I nearly spent close to $10 just on food and we went to Queensway shopping centre to shop. I had expected myself to spend just on a nice polo shirt but I couldn't resist the Teva sandals and bought it as I needed a cool pair of sandals and the current pair at home is CRAP but the time to make a decision was rather long as I trust girls-the right girls to make the call in the fashion department and I thankfully have no ah lian or minah as my friends.

I began to discover myself once I went to Borders and I couldn't resist the 3 CDs in one boxset promotion of Vanessa Mae and bought it and was on the verge of buying Desperate Housewifes season box set and the Fresh Prince of Belair but my friends had to pull me away but Zara did tempt me with its nice range of clothes but the huge hole that I burnt at Queenstown was stuck in my memory and I have to start saving up for HK trip.

However, the next day took the cake as I started the new teaching assignment. Pri school methods stil has not changed as students blindly follow the rules and raise their hands when they are crossing a zebra crossing and the canteen sells pretty cheap food. The real test began once I entered the classroom with the class that I had to handle and although it was only 24 students, it was a real challenge as some of the students were quite hyper and the boys were brat. Although there were a few students who were quiet and reserved, the class was brattish and I shouted at the class a few times. It taught me a valuable experience that you need to talk their language and keep the class engaged and be FIRM.

I went to Orchard TMC in Singapore tourism board and the meeting room, toilet and the atmostphere was exceptional and I had a great time being TTM. As I was walking back to Orchard MRT station after the meeting, I passed by Hilton Hotel and suddenly realised that there were a number of lady boys near and I immediately turned my attention to the building opposite the road, ORCHARD TOWERS and saw that there were a number of lady boys and females and cab drivers. I was impressed with the ladyboys' hourglass figure but No thanks, anyway. However, I witnessed an Indian gang which was basically doing nothing as usual minus the drinks which was surprising and a group of mat boys who were walking aimlessly.

I just do not understand the concept of gangs as they are basically a waste of time and prey on innocent people who are bored and need attention and gangs offer these false sense of protection and attention. The incident of the day has to go to the couple on the train trying to be lovey dovey like harmless fighting and not the real action and it was beginning to put me off and I caught an old man shooting them disapproving looks. Haha..Let's pray for another exceptional DAY!!

Not Contented!!

2007-06-21T12:29:00.000+08:00

Roy Keane, former Manchester United player was mercifully released from the club by Alex Ferguson a year ago as Ferguson felt that Keane was having a negative influence on his team mates by criticizing them in public about their performance on the field. I was shocked as I did not expect Ferguson to be ruthless to his fiery yet loyal servant and I had expected Roy Keane to fire a few parting words and retire. Instead, he took on the managerial position at Sunderland and led them to Premiership league once again.

The one incident which made me respect Keane even a lot was when he won the Manager of the Month and he felt that it was a waste of time giving him such awards as he had not won anything with Sunderland and the FA should not give him credit for his slew of match wins as it does not gives him any satisfaction. This incident made me realise how hungry Keane is despite the fact that he has won numerous trophies with Man U. Sir Alex himself could have passed on some of this characteristics to his former captain but there is no doubt that Keane is hungrier for success than ever and he desperately wants to win a championship or a trophy with Sunderland.

Although Keane can be a hot head and scheming at times, nobody can fault with his dedication to the game and the passion he has and he will never hesitate to 'boil' his players if they step over the line and he wants them to share his hunger and passion. This man is a living example of success can only be achieved if you have the hunger for it and willing to get your socks dirty and get a job done. He leads by example on the field and would never hesitate to protect his team mates. Although he is a Man U player, I respect him along with Eric Cantona for his style and Rio Ferdinand for coming through a rough backgroud.

We have seen and heard of many successful people and even read books about them but the one thing which these people have is hunger and they are never contented even if they have achieved success as they want to progress further and that's what separates winners from losers!!!

Super Sunday

2007-06-18T11:31:00.001+08:00

Yesterday turned out to be super sunday as I caught some good movies and good tv programmes. I watched 'Kalyug' a surprisingly good hindi movie on the Porn buisness and the storyline was unique as no hindi film has been done on a touchy subject and there were a few new faces instead of the producer going for the tried and tested like Mr Shah Rukh, Amitabh Bachan or even Aishwarya. NO doubt, these people are successful in Bollywood and the fans would have loved them but to tell the truth, I'm sick of these celebrities. The 'Kalyug' DVD was a good investment by my sister yet again and I suppose it will take some time to find another good Hindi DVD.

The second movie that I caught on DVD was secret window as I had to borrow that DVD as I spotted Goodfellas in the DVD shop and had to pick out two other movies. I had expected secret window to be unique and Mr Depp to deliver an outstanding performance and the movie and the actor did not disappoint me as the storyline was unique and Mr Depp once again delivered an exceptional performance in yet another unusual character. I would strongly encourage people reading this blog to catch the movie as it's worth the money.

My day was not just filled with movies. I also managed to catch the US Grand Prix in bits and pieces and I will usually catch the starting where the cars wil take off as it's amazing to witness drivers trying to get the better of the other by overtaking and you can simply witness the battle of the wits at the start and throughout the race and the ending is also a must-watch as you will get to see the reaction of the podium finishers. As some of you might know, Alonso, the former 2 time world champion is not happy that Lewis Hamilton, the rookie F1 driver is stealing the limelight by winning some races as in F1, the second lesser known driver is supposed to play second fiddle to the famous driver in the team but the reversal of roles is clearly unsettling and I hope Fernando does not do anything stupid by taking out his team mate's car in future races as I support Maclaren and the support goes to a time when Ferrari and Schumacher was dominating F1 and it became so boring that I supported Maclaren hoping they can challenge Ferrari and glad that they are beating Ferrari at the moment.

My super sunday finally ended when I caught the Real Madrid game where they had to win the game to confirm their league title and their title aspirations took a blow when they were down to a goal and Barcelona was romping to a 3-0 scoreline by 30 mins and many people wondered if Read could ever come back. I thought the manager made a mistake of substituting Beckham with Reyes and that was a brilliant tactical move as Reyes proved to be a supersub by scoring 2 goals and the entire stadium went wild with celebration. Real deserved to win the title due to their consistency over the past 12 games and with a bit of luck though, I was a bit upset when Barca could not win the title even though they won their other match 4-0 and had to expect Real to slip. As they say, anything goes in football and I have to entertain myself with some activity for the next 2 months as football season is over. DAMN!

Frenched!!

2007-06-01T14:26:00.000+08:00

My male friends raised an eyebrow when I told them that I'm taking French for intersem one as language modules are very difficult to score and you can even fail if you cannot cope with the subject. My female friends were happy for me when they knew that I was taking French as they felt it was good exposure. I'm currently experiencing both waves of emotion as I'm struggling with the language as conjugation and vocab can be a real bitch but it's an experience as I got to know more about the language, culture and place through my French teacher and she's a very good teacher as she's patient and will not put you off by scolding. Next week is exams and I hope I can clear the subject.

The French lessons have also taught me something. My travels are pathetic as I will be shell shocked and dumbstruck when the teacher asks us about the places in the textbook and most of my classmates have no clue about the places. I guess the only places we are most likely to know outside Singapore is Malaysia and at most Bangkok and this has made my resolve to travel once I start work as I do not want to die without experiencing the magic of the world.

They are an enigma

2007-05-28T20:27:00.000+08:00

I have a hard time understanding the female species. Take for instance, Britney Spears. She was a smashing success in the late 90s and early 2000. Although she continued to make stupid and irrerelevant comments like stating that she was a virgin although we know that Justin was doing her every day at that time, her songs were deniably catchy and was a guilty pleasure and she became the pop princess. Suddenly, she ventured into dangerous territory and started showing more skin and suddenly became more bad-ass. The clincher was that she went to a drive-through wedding agency and got married on the spur of the moment with her childhood sweetheart and divorced him some hours later. The icing of the cake has to go to her marrying Kevin Federline who's basically white trash and was riding on her literally and figuratively for cash and fame as he was going to launch an album which bombed. My point was that the once pop princess could have gotten a better and responsible husband and more goodlooking one but she chose to screw her life by choosing a white trash for her husband. Her case is not a isolated one though.

Pammy or Pamela Anderson was the famous pin-up girl of Baywatch whose fame is legendary and it even went higher after her home-made sex video was leaked onto the internet. I'm not criticising her for making a home video as it is her own business and i'm not even angry that she was either stupid enough not to keep the video in a secure place or wanted the world to know of her existence again. I just do not understand why she keeps dating bad ass boys who get a kick out of bashing her up. That lady whose knockers are amazingly huge and would make an average guy just stop in his tracks can have her pick of guys but she chose to choose Tommy Lee who loves to beat her up and let's not even start about Kid Rock. I guess rockers are the luckiest people on earth who can get away with bashing women. I just hate violence against women and some Indian women are the subject of some amazing bashing by their drunk husbands but they continue to live for the sake of their husbands. I can understand the situation but if the situation was to happen to my close friends or relatives(touchwood),I would love to give them a dose of Santino Corleone violence and tell these women to divorce their husbands and start life afresh instead of hoping for things to change.

Another lady whom I'm puzzled by is Jennifer Lopez who has great curves and a body to die for. I can understand her reasons for hooking up with P.Diddy as it was strictly buisness but Marc Anthony!!!What the hell was she thinking? I do not have a doubt that Markie is loaded but there are thousands of loaded men out there. Other than the reason that both are Latino and both can sing together, I can't imagine why would Mdm Lopez do herself grave injustice by marrying Markie. Perhaps, she can see the charm in him which I can't see.They might be a great and loving couple but I still don't understand.

I can understand if gorgeous girls were to fall for 5ocent, Akon, P.diddy or Ice Cube but I can't understand why successful and gorgeous girls fall in love with ugly guys. Perhaps, LOVE IS BLIND and WOMEN ARE BLIND!!!

Movies Galore

2007-05-25T14:11:00.000+08:00

I managed to catch up on some good movies over the past two weeks, notably The Untouchables which was touted as the best movie since 'The Godfather'. The movie was about the life of Al Capone and how Al played by Robert De Niro will try to outwit the law enforcement officer in charge of Al Capone's arrest played by Kevin Costner. The movie was above average as Robert De Niro shined in the role and the untouchables gang which had Sean Connery was unpredictable and funny.

I also caught The Exorcist, the 1973 version which was touted as the best horror movie. After watching the movie, I felt cheated as I couldn't feel goosebumps while watching the movie. I watched it alone in my hostel room but I still did not feel fear engulfing me. I will perhaps watch the movie with the lights off to create the atmosphere the next time around. After the movie, it suddenly began to hit me that the Devil can possess anyone anytime if the story is true as claimed to be and that's a very scary thought. I began to wonder why should the Devil prey on an innocent girl when it should have preyed on fucked up men but then again, these fucked men have already fulfilled their purpose and the devil needs more good people to come to its side. It also exposes the devil's brutal nature as it does not leave children who in my opinion should not be touched as I feel that they should be protected from the harsh realities to a certain extent until a certain age.

It makes me wonder if the Devil actually exists or it's a concept coined by humans to induce fear in human. As I was telling one of my friends, hot vs cold, left vs right and lots of opposites exist so there could be a possibility of Satan to oppose God. I strongly believe that God is the cause of both good, bad and ugly and I won't be surprised if God if indeed created Satan so that people will realise and appreciate the good things in life.

Nobody is perfect and I have made some horrible mistakes in the past and did not feel good about making those mistakes but if you do not make the mistakes, you will not know it's a mistake. That experience have strengthened my resolve to not commit the same mistake and I'm glad to have made the mistake and learnt from it and continued with my life. Living a mistake free-lifestyle is a mistake. Making mistakes and learning from it is what makes life!!

A normal weekend

2007-05-20T23:55:00.000+08:00

My saturday started off with a trip to Bedok camp and I happened to meet Chung Hei, one of my army friends over there and went to take the IPPT. I wasn't exactly in the best physical shape as my running schedules were irregular and the last time I attempted the IPPT was some 3 years. I was just aiming for a decent pass in all the stations so that I could at least pocket the $100. I was suprised to see that all the test stations including the 2.4km run was electronic and it was quite impossible to cheat as a PTI will be there at the stations to ensure that nobody tries anything 'funny'.

I failed the pull-up station as I managed to do a pathetic 5 pull-ups and I completely gave up for the 2.4km as I had no motivation to run and I clocked in a miserable 13.30. Lesson learnt: Do not expect shortcuts from last minute trainings and be consistent in your training regime and the results will tell and choose a camp where the 2.4km run is not done on the track. The running track saps up my mental and physical energy at a faster rate compared to non-track routes. It's time to hit the gym and do some serious running.

I went to have dinner with Chung Hei at the food centre near the camp and the food was better than most food centres but there was one drink stall whose service appalled me. I went to order my drinks at the drink stall and they completely forgot about my order and I didn't bother telling them. One of the stall assistants gave the family head a piece of paper so that he can write them down. It's the first time that I'm witnessing such crap and I will be completly pissed off if a stall assistant were to ask me to write my order down and pass it to him. This is bullshit!! The stall conveniently forgets that there are 3 other drinks stall in the food centre and they might end up losing buisness.

I was totally bored by the FA Cup Final between Man U and Chelsea as both teams played cautiously and the match was such a bore that I was changing channels to watch the ATP Masters Semifinals matches featuring Federer and Nadal. I expected those two teams to play till penalty shootout and out of the blue, Drogba scored and gave Chelsea the FA Cup denying Man U the double but I couldn't be bothered with who won the FA cup as I had expected some good football and Rooney and Drogba provided the only excitement of the match.

I can't wait for next thursday as it will be the champions league final rematch between Liverpool and Ac Milan. I still strongly believe that the 2005 match was rigged as I still find it impossible to hit 3 goals within 15 mins against AC Milan and the only possible reason for that could be corruption. I can't wait for Kaka and company to slay their opponents who likes to bask in past glory. I hope the final would not be a total bore as the FA Cup final match.

Intersem One

2007-05-11T13:13:00.000+08:00

Exams ended last friday and I did some catching up with movies for the past two weeks and just realised how many good movies I have missed out. The holidays will be a great time to catch up on good classics and meet up with friends and earn some cash before I officially become a Year 3 student. Time really flies and I didn't expect the 2 years of Uni Life to pass so quickly and there is still 2 more years left before I become a job-seeker.

Anyway, I'm taking intersem one and I'm doing French. Some of my friends were skeptical of my choice of module as they felt that it's very difficult to score in a language subject and you need time to get accustomed to the language. I had to totally agree with them in the first lesson as I had trouble getting used to the grammer and the masculine and feminine part of every word. English seemed suddenly simple but then again, I have been speaking and writing in English for 20 odd years so I guess starting out in French where I tend to use the English pronunciation and spelling was difficult.

The teacher is however good and patient as she does not mind repeating herself even though she had went through the same part five minutes ago and she's quite amusing as she tends to be animated quite a number of times and make cracko jokes. She's totally different from my engineering tutors who are DAMN BORING and PREDICTABLE. She asked us to call her by her first name but then again it's common for westerners to address each other by first names where in Asian countries, we address them sir or madam as a form of respect.

Yesterday's lesson was pretty good as Clarisse gave me a headstart in the langugage as she had taken French in secondary and I'm glad for the help as my pronunciation is slightly better. There were two separate incidents in my French class. My handphone was out of battery and I brought my charger as I was expecting an important message from my tuition kid. As I was sitting in the front of my class, the only power points I found was at the back of the class. I stood up and walked to the back of the class and plugged in my charger.When I turned around, the entire class including the teacher was looking at me as if I was weird and my friend told me later that the teacher was puzzled initially when I went to the back of the class. It was as if I was going to give a presentation.

The handphone was also my enemy later on as many people started calling me and Kangli smsed me a few times and as I was smsing him, my French teacher told me in a nice manner that she would gladly exchange my phone for hers and I got the hint and sheepishly put away my handphone. I guess it's a form of respect by paying attention and not using your handphone. As a whole, it is the only class where I ask questions as I'm interested in the subject and even Chiew Y.M could not tempt me with class participation to ask questions in water resource class. I seriously hope NTU overhauls its teaching staff with ang moh lecturers and keep a few good Asian professors.I wish!!

FORZA Milan

2007-05-03T05:50:00.000+08:00

As mentioned in my earlier post, I wished for a Milan victory in the second leg of the champions league at the San Siro and it did indeed came true. Milan beat Manchester United 3-0 courtesy of goals from Kaka, Seedorf and Gilardino. Watching the first few minutes was simply nerve-wrecking for me as Milan had to get the early goal as fast as possible so that they can get into the rhythm and play flowing football. One of my hall friends predicted that the rainy weather will be an advantage for Ronaldo who will have to evade sliding tackles and might earn a penalty. The first goal was simply a stroke of a genius by Kaka who simply has a knack for scoring goals against Manchester and he did it again for the 10th time in 12 games of Champions League and that is a great feat considering it's the champions league and you don't get to score that many goals in one season and for a midfielder, it's simply amazing.

I began to relax after Seedorf scored the second and the famed Manchester defence without their Ferdinand played sucidal football and they deserved to concede the goal. The old man still refuses to bid his time and proves me wrong from time to time as he was the spark behind the victory over Bayern. Manchester continued to press on but their attacting duo, Rooney Boy and Ronaldo were subdued and were not their usual selves.

The third goal was simply a giveaway as the entire defence was engrossed in pushing up and getting a goal back to kill the game but Gillardino had other plans and scored. I was secretly hoping that Milan should buy Heinze for next season and I think they should as he's a damn good defender besides the performance he gave today. He's hardworking and makes good runs and will be the perfect man to replace the legendary Paulo Maldini. If they could get hold of Ronaldo, that will be AWESOME!!Ronaldo, Gattuso,Ambroshini, Seedorf, Kaka and Gillardino..Mouthwatering. It can achieve further success next season if such a dream is possible but Ronaldo had to sign the stupid papers to contract him for another few years.

I'm also glad that the talk of the treble is finally over for Manchester United as they can finally concentrate on the EPL where they are king and continue to play their flowing football against the English teams. They can acheive the double for all I care as their hopes of winning the Holy Grail is dashed by my favourite team!!!If only Chelsea could de me a favour and perform a treble. Awesome!!!

I have to stop wasting my time and choose my movies wisely as I feel that there are quite a number of good movies out there which I should watch and I should not watch movies for the sake of watching movies. Year One was a painful lesson for me as I watched movies for the sake of watching and I began to catch random movies including good movies and it suddenly hit me that I should be choosy about movies as 2 hours of your life is spent on the screen and I should treat myself to good movies and the bad movies have virtually no effect on me and it only wasted my precious time. I still have a long way to go in terms of movies as I have to catch some of De Niro's classics like Raging Bull and Good Fellas and some of Al Pacino, Joe Pesice, Denzel, Natalie,Samuel L.J,Guy Pearce and good old Triad Hongkong movies(Infernal Affairs). The month of May promises to be one full of good movies and I better captialise on the free time.

It's also time to broaden my intellectual horizons by buying good books from Borders or Kinokuniya. I love to buy good books recommended by friends as I always end up making bad choices when it comes to buying music cds and books. Though each book is likely to set me back by 30 dollars, a good book is always worth the buy especially when it's a classic.

I'm kind of glad to have made new friends over the past 2 years in NTU who have exposed me to good movies, music and books and have broadened my horizons. My Toastmasters friends are one of the first few friends and they are simply amazing as their knowledge of good food, good books and good music are breath-taking and my music taste has widened by a lot when the only music I used to listen to was Tamil music when I was 16 and it had improved by leaps and bounds. I was initially sad of getting Hall 3 as I have made some great friends over at Hall 15 but my knowledge and insight into soccer has improved to a higher level after I met two Indian nationals in my block and it's quite surprising for a fact to see them watch soccer as I had expected those jokers to love cricket. I was initally depressed to have entered a faculty which I was not keen as I felt that the faculty would have typical 933 but I have made some good friends who have introduced me to the fine things in life and they still continue to do so and enrich my day. I guess I might not be the same person who could have missed out on such stuff if I had not met these people. Perhaps, it's F.A.T.E!!!

Next Match:: Champions League Final AC Milan VS Liverpool

It's a repeat of the champions league final 2 seasons ago and I hope that Milan avenge that defeat where they conceded 3 goals in a space of 20 minutes!!I hope Mr Dida will be on top form for that particular match and we simply have to make a dull season a bit brighter by winning the cup for the seventh time and play catch-up with Real to win them on the trophy count. Their Galatico policy seems to be put on hold adter their last major purchase-D.Beckham who is heading to America and they seem to have won nothing at all ever since he has arrived besides the occasional cups. They have to win the league at least for Beckham's sake before he leaves Real. It will be a shame if they do not win the league but I hope Barca retains the league although their tailsman Ronaldinho seems to be quiet by his high standards and the other Brazilian, Kaka is making waves at the Italian coast.

The System!!

2007-04-26T14:39:00.000+08:00

I mentioned in my earlier post some of the demerits of the education system and the recommendations that I had proposed. While I do give my latest post some thought while I was studying, I realised that there are more demerits to the system. As mentioned earlier, the PSLE exam is one of the turning point of a child. Though I like the system's efficiency in despatching students to different schools based on their score, it also attaches a permanent number to every student. The higher the number, the better you are. Many people will repeatedly ask you your PSLE score over and over again as it's easier for people to guage how smart you are but I will like beg to differ.

Some of the good friends that I have made in JC and NTU have PSLE scores not more than 220 including myself and we have made into university through hard work. I'm not glorifing or boasting about neighbourhood kids as comeback kids but I just felt that the PSLE score is just a number aimed at distinguishing a person's academic capabilities based on only 4 subjects. Some of the poly friends that I have made in Army have crap PSLE scores but I have learnt a lot from them as they are one of the street smart people that I have ever known. PSLE score does not determine how smart you are.

The system does not offer students second chance unless you are strong-willed. When a student goes to EM3, he will most likely end up in NT and ITE. The path is basically set for him and this is the main reason why parents want their children to avoid the EM3 track as it's the most despised and least favoured track. Many parents will want to avoid this track as they are also afraid their children will end up with the wrong company and they end up not studying and their lives basically becomes shit. I came from a neighbourhood school where there were 2 NT classes and half the class are gang members. I can understand parents' reactions but the other half are not gang members. The pace of the NT education is slow compared to express and many people including elite students, teachers and society have condenmed NT students.

It's very unreasonable to expect an overhaul of the education system but the system should learn to incorporate children talented in other non-academic areas and I believe there are steps taken to place lesser emphasis on grades and I hope the system eventually changes for the better.

On a Lighter Note....

My exams are coming to an end this friday and I can't wait for it to end as the subjects this semester are pretty heavy and the only consolation is that I had attained a better grade than expected for tech com for the amount of work we put in considering the last minute work. I'm taking an exam on Friday which many people would take it in their final year but I really enjoy reading the notes and relieving the history for a strange reason.

I can't also wait for tomorrow night as it is the second leg of the champions league final between AC Milan and Man U with Man U leading 3-2 and having a upper hand but the match is set at the San Siro and I hope Milan wins this match as I want them to lift the European Trophy for the last time before their beloved and loyal Maldini retires as I feel he should leave with a bang considering this season to be his last. However, I have to pay tribute Man U for the outstanding performances they deliver week in week out and all of their players except a certain Richardson have hit top form and this team reminds me of the treble team. I do hope they could exit the Champions League so that AC Milan could win the Champions League.

The System!!

2007-04-23T16:35:00.000+08:00

The education in Singapore is very systematic, efficient and brutally simple. A child enters pre-schooling at the age of five and learns simple addition and subtraction and basic English and his mother tongue. Once he reaches the age of seven, he enters Primary school. For the next 4 years, he takes 4 subjects which are English,Maths, Science and Mother Tongue and goes on to take the streaming in Primary 4 which was scrapped some years ago. If he does well, he will go on to EM1 where he can take higher mother tongue and mix with other smart children. If he does average, he will be streamed to EM2 and if he fares badly in the streaming, he will be dumped to EM3. Students begin life afresh again at Primary 5 and work their way to Primary 6 where they take the PSLE exam. This is one exam which can alter the path of your life. A higher aggregate score will guarantee you a good school while a mediocre or average score will land you in a neighbourhood school.

After the PSLE, students will undergo secondary school where there are 3 levels- Express, Normal and Normal technical where the students at Express learn more subjects at a faster pace compared to the students in N and NT level and they will study for another 4 years before the N and NT students take their N-Levels and the Express students take their O-levels. After these exams, the NT students will most likely end up in a ITE and soon start work after their ITE studies. Some of the express students will go on to Junior College where they will study to get in a university and some do not get into University and the rest of the express students go on to polytechnic.

Some of you might be wondering why I am explaining the Singapore education system when we all know about it from top to bottom having gone through the system. If you take a closer look at the system, it emphasises on the survival of the fittest principle where the weaker ones who have not done well are dumped to one corner where they slug it out with their "weak" peers and the stronger ones progress further and competing with the better ones. As the level gets harder and harder, the better ones are eventually identified through their grades and go on to secure good jobs and get sought after by scholorship boards.

Some of you might cry foul and say that the education system is systematic and efficient. I do agree that it is systematic and efficient but the people who say this are likely to be the ones who have excelled well in the education system and sing praises of the education system when it is actually flawed. I know it is very difficult to come up with an education system which can take years to change but the change has to be made now. There are minor changes such as the abolition of streaming at Primary school. More needs to be done right from Primary school.

The entire education needs a complete revamp as the grades one gets in a exam are mostly or solely based on a single exam he takes. I believe that the understanding of biology and physics cannot be solely understood without experiencing it. Though there are lab sessions and field trips, the number of such activites pale in comparison with the number of hours spent in the classroom understanding these wonderful things.

The next thing is to place more emphasis on personal development and introduce courses meant to improve the student as a whole. I believe the students at independant schools are exposed to such courses as their hefty monthly school fees justify their courses. Neighbourhood schools should not be denied the opportunity to experience such courses although the neighbourhood school I studied did have such courses but it paled in comparison with the indepedant school's number. I understand it is difficult for the goverment to subsidise every single government school's programme as the budget is very limited but I strongly believe that no compromise should be made on a child's well being and education.

(To be continued..)

Finger Licking Food

2007-04-18T16:53:00.000+08:00

After weeks of stale hostel food, I decided to treat myself to some good finger licking food- the grand old Kentucky Fried Chicken(KFC). I will perhaps research a bit about KFC after my exams since I know nuts about it and will like to know if it really originated from Kentucky. If it had, things could have been different if it had originated from Washington or New York. As I was queuing up, I decided to treat myself to a shroom's set meal and 2 piece original chicken. When I ordered the food, I was told by the counter staff that it will be better if I purchase the 2 piece chicken set meal as I could have a drink and whipped potato for an additional $2 compared to purchasing 2 separate chicken. I reluctantly purchased 2 set meals and was fuming at the practice of fast food restaurants to make their set meals look cheap when it is not. A whole chicken costs $6 to $10 from a wet market and KFC charges almost $5 for 2 piece chicken. I guess I will limit myself to my KFC feasts to a minimum.

I love my hall facilities as all the rooms have air-con and it's new especially the toilets where we can actually sleep in it. A few weeks ago, two guys moved in to my level and the state of the toilet has become bad. I noticed on a few occasions that the outer part of the toilet bowl have shit stains and used to wonder how can their crap possibly reach that part of the seat when they are hitting and it suddenly hit me that the jokers were squatting on the toilet seat and thus couldn't hit the target. I know it's hard for people to change their position. If they think, they are not used to the position, they should either go to another hall to take a dump where there are squat toilet cubicles or shift to another hall instead of making it inconvenient for others. I just hope those jokers do not stay in my hall next semester.

It's Sad

2007-04-12T22:31:00.000+08:00

I was quite skeptical of Ac Milan's chances of progressing past the quarter final stage although Bayern had some players injured. AC Milan produced one of their finest games of this season as they scored two goals in the first half to set up a titanic battle against Manchester United. I was quite impressed with the ageing C.Seedorf as I felt that he was beyond his due date and he proved me wrong by scoring one and assisting in the other. One of my hall friend commented that they play like Manchester U where I have to grudgingly agree as some of AC Milan's footwork and passing reminded me of Manchester United. I can't wait for them to slay Man U as the talk of the treble is getting louder and louder and the old arrogant banter and bullshit from their dear Alex and players seem to be making a comeback.

I was earlier thinking of Liverpool and felt that they have nothing except past glory to boast about and I suddenly thought about a few of my acquaintences who completely behave like Liverpool. I used to be surrounded by people from good sec school and some of them will indulge in conversation like how they were better off in their secondary school and now, they are in a shit hole. The purpose of their conversation is to make themselves feel good and relieve their glory days. I feel that some of them do not have respect for people from neighbourhood schools just because they happen to do well in an exam 10 years ago as their conversation alienates some of us including myself. It can get worse if the same topic surfaces again and I have to put up with such bullcrap for the next 30 mins. I have to admit that some of these guys and girls are brilliant but they are completely let down by their trash talk.

I know of guys from a certain school are very proud to be associated with their school and will address each other as brothers and are proud to hang out together under the banter of their alma mater but they end up bitching and back-stabbing behind their so called friends' back right in front of me. The worst part was I felt that these guys were cool at the beginning and started to dislike their behaviour when I learnt of their true colours and I am so ashamed of myself for thinking so highly of them.

I have great respect for people from the gifted secondary schools as some of my closest friends are from these school and I have learnt a great deal from them as well and they happen to be very nice as well. However, some of the people I know who indulge in such bullshit talk and past glory give these schools a bad impression and should perhaps learn that humility goes a long way and being intelligent does not earn you any respect when you are arrogant.

We Need A Striker!!

2007-04-09T14:51:00.000+08:00

Every club has its own tailsman. When you think of Man U, Chelsea and Liverpool, the first player to come to your mind will be Ronaldo, Lampard and Gerrard respectively because without them, the clubs are nothing. Their clubs seem to function very well with them and if they get injured, we can see the void left by them. In the case of Chelsea, they have billions of rubles to get themselves a new player if their players gets injured. However, clubs like Arsenal(though rich to a certain extent) have to contend themselves with fringe players when key players get injured.

I applaud Wenger's decision to stick to his youth policy which has paid divendends in the case of Patrick Viera, Kolo Toure and Fabregas but almost everyone knows that Arsenal without their prolific striker, Mr Vava voom , Thierry Henry is nothing. Although Adebayor is good, he's not in the same class as Thierry Henry. Dennis Bergkamp used to give other teams a run for their money with his slick passing and vision and Arsenal clearly needs another striker to complement Henry when Henry comes back from injury if they want to continue challenging for top honours.

Some might say that Van Persie is good and he will offer Arsenal awesome striking options but I seriously hope that he does not get injured frequently and spend more time on the bench than on the field. Another striker will solve the striker crisis issue and we can continue challenging for top honours like we used to do over the past few seasons and not let the Chelsea and Man U clowns challenging for them only and we do not have to worry about lower-rung teams beating us.

I badly need to work on my fitness as it is in a atrocious shape. I used to run the NTU route with little difficulty but now, the situation is so bad that I will stop at almost every up-slope. I do not know how I am going to pass my IPPT but I seriously hope that it's not beyond hope and my twice-weekly runs will pay off in a month's time.

I'm Confused!!!

2007-04-07T17:29:00.000+08:00

A year ago, it was reported in the papers that Jose Mourinho, the current manager of Chelsea and ex-manager of Porto preferred average players(think of Drogba) than ego-inflated superstars as he was able to control his players. His signings seem to reflect that and with a huge war chest, people expected him to sign superstars to justify Chelsea's backing. True enough, Chelsea signed Shevchenko and Ballack in the August summer window.

However, some people felt that the signings were hugely due to Roman Abramovich who wanted superstars to be in his team and make his team invincible. I was not surprised by the rumours because Roman apparently wanted Ronaldo(the fat one) and Morinho advised him against from buying Ronaldo. In the first half of the season, Mourinho was not happy with Sheva's performance and it was rumoured that Mourinho was not happy with Shevchenko moving to Chelsea as Sheva was a close friend of Roman and it might complicate matters in the dressing room.

This became a talking point when Mourinho and Sheva seemed not to be on talking terms and Roman seemed to offload the Portuguese over Sheva when the Portuguese steered Chelsea to two successive league titles. Now, things have suddenly changed as Sheva has started scoring on a regular basis and Mourinho has openly declared that it was he who made the decision to sign Sheva and Ballack. I can't help suspecting that Mourinho would have kissed and made up with Roman and Sheva and tried to make the unsuspecting public believe that everything is fine. Mourinho could have said right from the start that it was his decision. Why now? One can only wonder.

Being a late-bloomer, I managed to catch Constantine and it was quite good as there are some dark elements to the movie. I didn't know that the followers of the Catholic faith will be condemned to hell which is stated in the bible if they commit suicide. There were also some funny elements when Satan tried to take Constantine and Constantine showed him the middle finger. It has also made me respect Keanu Reeves for choosing his movie roles well and not just choosing for the sake of attaining mass appeal. The movie has made me realise how little I knew about Christianity although I have asked Lester lots of questions. It also reignited the curiousity streak in me to know more about the Catholic faith as my knowledge is bare minimal. I guess it's time to consult my Catholic friends once again over the holidays.

Another Classic Long Post

2007-04-03T16:12:00.000+08:00

I guess it's going to be another of my classic long post after a long hiatus. Some people have messaged me on my tagboard asking me to blog as they could not get enough of me but I guess I was too lazy to even reply to their message and I should cut back on my lazy streak and start blogging more often as blogging works on my English and a good way to keep up with friends whom I do not get to see that often.

As some of you might know, I enjoy reading blogs especially my friends' blogs as I find their blogs intriguing and engaging and I find some of their blogs damn funny. As I was reading my friend's blog, I happen to stumble upon a link on his website and the comment beside the link was must read. That worked up my curiousity and I clicked on the link. The blog was basically about a girl's adventure, mostly erotic fantasies and sex escapades with her boyfriend. However, one entry of hers remained etched in my mind. She claims that she likes to go braless and in certain cases commando(without the panties) and she enjoys the feeling. When I read the rest of her entries, all of them were about her erotic fantasies and how she loves sex.

I was initially skeptical of the 'sex' blog as it felt too good to be true and I couldn't think of any rational person who could have done all the thing she mentioned in broad daylight but I guess some Singaporean girls have pent-up sexual energy and they need an outlet to release that overwhelming sexual fustration which seems to consume them. For myself, I enjoy reading her blog as she writes well(hmmm..) and blogs about stuff which no one will blog about. Perhaps, this blog could be my answer on how to understand the sexual framework of a female.

I just realised that travelling might not be a bad idea after all. I earlier had a chat with my friend and I told him that I missed travelling to school as that travelling time gave me ample time to catch up over newspaper and ponder about the world issues and life's greatest mysteries. Although staying in hall does have its benefits like the convenience of a room to go back to for free breaks and no travelling time, I find myself not doing the stuff which I used to do when I travel. Perhaps, it's high time that I set some time for myself to think as I strongly believe that the time set aside for thinking will really benefit me in one way or another.

As I set aside time for thinking one day, I once pondered about the girls in NTU. There are a few posts dedicated to this subject and that is the phenomena of girls in NTU wearing micro shorts. I used to wonder why do these girls wear such shorts to NTU and I began to search for a number of reasons and I settled on two main reasons. Firstly, Singapore is a tropical country and the weather could show no mercy where going out in the afternoon would be disastrous and staying indoors in the comfort of the aircon would be the best choice. These girls do have a responsibility of attending school and the need to attire appropriately for the weather arises as they do not want to face the prospect of sweating it out when travelling from one end of the campus to the other. Therefore, comfort is the first criteria for their choice of bottoms and what other way to air those legs than to wear micro shorts. I do not have any complaints with their choice of attire but I do hope they should realise that wearing a jacket and shorts in the library is not going to make them feel warm.

The second reason for their choice of bottoms is to show off their well-toned legs and up their sex appeal. If you got it, you should flaunt it. That's the mantra of these girls and I applaud them for taking these daring approach and making our university a vibrant and colourful one. I will not want a university where all the girls are covered up and that will not be a talking point for lunch time chat.

While gazing at girls, exams seem to be around the corner with officially 14 days to go before the daggers start flying in. The school seeem to be in muggers' mode although I wonder whether some people in my hall are still in lala land as I could see them playing and enjoying themselves at night. They might be taking a break from studying and I seriously hope that they are. This semester seems to fly and the weeks are just ending as fast as I could even breathe. I seriously hope that this semester ends well for me. My friend told me that we are required to wear formal attire for techcom presentation. Although I'm fine with formal attire, I'm quite pissed that I only got to know about the tutor's strict guidelines for dressing only today as my formal clothes are at home. I might have to borrow clothes as I couldn't fanthom making the trip to Tampines but it could allow for some thoughts.

I might not be blogging for the next few days in a frantic attempt to catch up on tutorials and studies but I seriously hope for my readers and for myself that it will not be another month's time.

A Long Post!!

2007-02-23T10:26:00.000+08:00

It's been a month since I last blogged and it's due to a number of commitments. The NTU-NIE speech contest was the number one huge commitment as it took up huge chunks of my valuable time and being the co-chair, I had to do loads of planning and coordination with my other co-chair,exco and external visitors. The event took place last thursday with a few minor hiccups but I would say the event was quite a success considering the fact that there were quite a number of last minute changes. Esther filled in the MC slot at the last minute and I was relieved that she agreed to be the MC at the last minute.

Another major commitment is my studies as I had 3 quizzes last week and I was frantically studying for the quizzes as I was lagging behind in my subjects and I'm glad that the quizzes are finally over as I took a break over the Chinese New Year Period. I love CNY as the holidays are usually long and since I had no visiting to do, I just relaxed at home.

It seems most of my classmates and I are suffering from post-CNY celebrations as they couldn't shake off the visible CNY hangover from their visitng and gambling. I can't wait for the one week holiday to start as I have huge plans for the one week break where my first priority is to catch up on work and secondly do some catching up with friends over the one week break before studies take a toll on me and my social lifestyle after the one week break.

Lastly, I hate technical communication as the subject is so boring and I do not have an ounce of interest in that subject. I prefer my other core subjects(surprisingly) to technical communication as the subject itself is monotonous and the case studies are damn boring. I wish this semester ends as quickly as possible...

Ugly Singaporeans

2007-01-24T10:27:00.000+08:00

I'm sure many of us would have faced this situation- a bus stop overflowing with people. The tricky part is when the bus arrives, who gets left out? I faced this situation last Sunday after my tuition at Chai Chee and was waiting for the bus when suddenly, I saw a crowd approaching the bus stop. I figured out that they must have either attended a function or classes in Bedok ITE.There was only one bus plying that route and I was beginning to get worried. There were more and more people coming out of the ITE and I was secretly hoping the bus will come as soon as possible as I didn't want to face the prospect of being left behind at the bus stop. Once I caught sight of the bus, I began to reposition myself and when the bus stopped, I moved to a lesser crowd route where I can easily board the bus. Once I tapped my Ezy Link card, I felt a sigh of relief and proceeded to take my seat.

However, I observed that some people were not moving to the back of the bus to let more people enter the bus. There was a huge gap at the back of the bus and many people were packed like sardines at the entrance. This scene is repeated day in day out in many parts of Singapore but I cannot help but wonder why are some Singaporeans so inconsiderate towards others? I have experienced the feeling of being left out due to some of my incosiderate Singaporean mates who obviously don't give two hoots about others. This selfish attitude should be condemned and I can't forsee a change in their attitude. The government could and have spent perhaps millions of dollars on courtesy campaign but I feel that the money could be channeled towards offering rewards to Singaporeans who are considerate. That might work considering that we go to extreme lengths to make an enquiry about the 4D numbers to get rich!!

I can't help but wonder what takes a person to say Thank You. Over the past few days, I made it a point to hold the lift door and lecture thearter door if need be and on some occassions, some people have said thank you and some people will give you the blank look and walk off. Once I was in the lift with two women but I can't help but listen to them conversing in Mandarin on where to go for lunch. I was wondering if food was their only topic of conversation. When the lift door opened, I pressed the lift door as I was close to the button panel and the well-dressed ladies didn't even bother to say a thank you. This incident will not stop me from being a civic conscious citizen(I will try my best) just because some people are screwed up!!

1 hour break

2007-01-15T15:02:00.000+08:00

I guess i'm starting to hate the one hour breaks in between my lessons which occurs at odd timings as I couldn't possibly study during the 1 hour break and my effective study period will be at most 40mins after I have settled down and once I start to pick up pace, it's time's up and I have to go for my next lecuture or tutorial. The worst part is not to have friends who share the same break time as you as I'm doing some weird subjects and it could get irritating at times. Tomorrow, I have three 1 hour break slots one after the other and I will rather finish those lessons at one go but I guess the breaks can sometimes be a blessing in duiguise as I could do other productive things besides studying.

I'm currently blogging to fill up my 1 hour break and surfing so that I do not have to do these stuff when I go back to my hostel room and I could study at night which I feel it's the most productive time for me to study. My core subjects seem to be pissing me off as the lecturers seem to get more boring and the concepts are harder to grasp compared to last semester. The worst thing about my lecturers are that they can get monotonous and dry and it's worst when it's a core module where the lecturers have to be enthusiastic and drum up the student's interest and instead, they fail miserably.

I'm glad that Arsenal is making some progress in the Premier League by winning their latest match and at the rate they are playing, they should be able to grasp third place and if the two top clubs would slip up, Arsenal will even be crowned champions and as they say: IN YOUR DREAMS!!

A week of Drama

2007-01-12T09:55:00.000+08:00

School started a few days ago and it feels as if I have been in school for weeks. The week started off with Monday Blues as I couldn't shake off the weekend mood and had to attend lectures with half a mind. The lecturers in my faculty are so good at putting people to sleep even though it's introductory lectures and it's meant to be light. I also did some catching up with my faculty friends and exchanging the New Year pleasantries and holiday stories. Being a co-chair of the NTU-NIE speech contest, I have to do loads of planning together with Wahyu, my other co-chair and by the time I come back to my hostel, it will around 12am.

The worst highlight was misplacing my pencil box as it contained my stationary for the entire year and the thought of replacing it really put me off. I somehow managed to find it in a lecture theatre when I had to travel the places I visited around my huge campus. Lesson learnt: I began to check for my pencil before I leave a place.

After my tuition, there was a sudden downpour and I had to borrow an umbrella from my tuition kid. The rain was so bad and the wind kept changing direction that my entire shoe was drenched and my jeans was soaked and while I was in the chapter meeting, I was freezing my ass off and coughing so bad that I went to the toilet to take off my socks. It was an experience and it made me realise that I should perhaps carry an extra pair of socks in my bag in case of a sudden downpour.

I'm glad that Arsenal handed Liverpool a 6-3 trashing in their own backyard. The result is even more signifacnt as it's their second meeting in four days and I expected Liverpool to exact revenge in the league cup tie after the 3-1 defeat and half of Arsenal team is made of youngsters and unknowns and that makes it even sweeter. Liverpool specialises in cup competitions and they now have the Champions League to work on as the league title seem a distant dream for them. I have a bad feeling that Arsenal is likely to lose their next game as they have played two games in a span of four days and I hope to be proven wrong of course

Another Food Mishap

2007-01-05T12:21:00.000+08:00

2007 seems to be a year of food mishaps. I recently had a brush with the ill fated Changi Village Chendol which gave me a stomach ache and yesterday it was the beriyani. Let me recollect the unfateful event. I met Megan at National Library at bugis as we felt bored staying at home and watching the same old programmes on television and decided to break away from the monotony of our lives by enriching our brains. The National Library is the best library in Singapore as it boasts a huge collection of books and I do not get disappointed when I pay a visit to my favourite library. After the eventful outing, we waited for Prakash to pick us up and we went to Vivo City, a huge shopping centre at Harbourfront which recently opened its doors and boasts an unhealthy attendance almost every day to put people like me off who hates crowds.

True enough, Vivo City was big enough and we spent time in one wing. After all the walking, we went to Long John Silvers for its economical food and I was put off by the counter girl who asked me in a Singlish tone to upgrade my drink to medium. I have noticed that at some fast food outlets, the couter staff will usually suggest a medium drink to make the staff buy medium but I'm not a heavy drinker unlike my friend Prakash who drinks to his heart's content.

After filling our stomachs, we went to Serangoon for dessert and I was not really keen on dessert as I felt that I had space for some heavy food. I suggested Karai Kudi and my friends agreed to my request. I ordered chicken beriyani and Prakash couldn't resist ordering the beriyani. After eating the beriyani and downing a glass of tea where Megan had to make a joke about the English colonial times when I drank my tea too slow as I was feeling full, we were pondering on our next destination as it was only 9pm.

Prakash suggested going to Mustafa on the spur of the moment as he drove past Mustafa. When we got to Mustafa, we took a stroll around the Mustafa shopping centre commenting on sunglasses to docker shoes. Trouble started to brew when my stomach started to feel uneasy. i decided to take a risk but my stomach began to feel funnier by the minute due to the beriyani. We were on our way to the old Mustafa shopping centre and I was thinking of a place with a decent toilet. I was brainstorming a few places in my head and I felt that the Farrer Park mrt station was the best place as it was clean and there would be more toilet cubicles. After paying a visit to the toilet, I chanced upon another cubicle where there was an act of vandalism on the wall. Upon closer examination, there was a picture of a naked lady drawn on the cubicle with the words in Tamil, don't trust a woman. I felt that it was quite funny and I was not happy as I wasted money on beriyani which went down the toilet bowl.

After walking around in old Mustafa, we decided to go back home and we parted ways at eleven. It was an eventful day with unforgettable experiences.

Chendol

2007-01-03T15:22:00.000+08:00

What can a harmless bowl of chendol do, one may ask? I would have replied it tastes good and what possibly can it do besides filling your stomach until last night. I went to Katong to have dinner with my friends and we tucked into a bowl of laksa. The katong laksa is one of the best I have ever tasted as the soup is very tasty and it seems the recipe is kept a secret. After the laksa dinner, my friends decided to go to Changi Village to eat Nasi Lemak and we went there and one of our good friend has still not made an appearance as he was always late and we asked him to come there straight.

In the mean time, we chatted on the way to Changi Village and we bought Chendol. The chendol was better than average and I was relishing every single spoonful of the delicious chendol. Trouble started to brew when my stomach started to rumble and tumble and I decided to stop as I felt that the chendol was the main reason for my uneasy stomach. I even contemplated buying the famous Nasi Lemak but stopped myself short as I knew that I would not enjoy the food.

When I got back home, my stomach started to rumble and tumble again and the pain made it more difficult for me to sleep. I tried all kinds of ways to make myself tired but I just couldn't sleep. I took some water(suupposedly to treat an upset stomach) but the pain refused to go away. I finally managed to fall asleep at six in the morning and woke up to a less painful stomach. I guess I shouldn't have taken too much of food containing coconut oil suddenly especially chendol as I couldn't contain my sweet tongue and it led me to suffer for one whole night and made me realise to choose my food wisely instead of blindly.

New Year's Day Eve

2007-01-01T18:45:00.000+08:00

Every year, my friends and I will think of spectacular ways to celebrate the NYE and this year was no different as we wanted something different to kick-start 2007. Some of my friends love clubbing which I have totally lost interest in as I feel that it's a waste of time to spend time with all those smoke blowing in your face and it will be the same old music which the clubs love to play over and over again. The usual nightspots like MoS, Gotham Penthouse and Double O were suggested as the crowd going to these clubs will be happening. Until the final day, the venue was not confirmed as I wasn't keen on clubbing and was more for pubbing and my friends were unsure about the venue as they were indecisive.

My friends were roaming around for a club to enter and the clubs in Clarke Quay were totally packed and my friends decided to pay Mohd. Sultan a visit as they wanted to check the clubs in that area. As for me, I came late and had to meet them in Clarke Quay and later Mohd Sultan as I was only familiar with Boat Quay and it took me a hour to reach M.S but the walk made me very familiar with the terrain which I should have known years ago but I guess the walk was worth it. I called them up and they told me that they are in Cheeky Monkeys.

For starters, Cheeky Monkeys is a small club with a clientele usually consisting of Indian, Malay and Cauasian clubbers as the club usually plays hip hop and R N B and it recently opened its door again after going through a renovation and shifting to another location down Mohd Sultan. I was annoyed with the choice of the club as I feel the clubbers there are usually immature and they love to play mainstream hip-hop. I couldn't voice my opinion as I felt bad about making them wait for me and giving me directions and I reluctanly parted with my $20 for the cover charge.

When I entered the club, the first thing that struck me was the club was almost empty save for a few clubbers as it was only 10pm. I couldn't see my friends sitting in a dark spot as it was too dark and Param had to come and get me when I strayed over to the other side of the club. I took my Vodka Lime and sat with them and saw the gloom on my friends' faces knowing that it's going to be a long night. There were only a few clubbers and we saw an interesting couple, an Indian chap and a cauasian chick kissing infrequently and the only people on the dance floor and leaving after that, depriving us of a source of entertainment. The music was our only companion and I went to see the pool action at the other end of the club and those guys were simply amazing probably due to the fact they play on a regular basis.

By the time I returned to the table, I saw an improvement in the club's attendance as we saw a group of chinese clubbers and one of them reminded me and Megan of our mutual friend and we ended up having a laugh about it at the expense of the chinese clubber. We also saw an influx of bargirls attired skimply to basically flash their skin to get the hot young blooded male clubbers to purchase shots but I guess I was too pissed to consider even buying shots. I then saw a group of Indian clubbers in their late twenties and this put my friends off totally as they had expected another crowd. Suddenly, there was an inflow of Cauasian clubbers and they totally lifted the mood except that these people looked underage to me. Some of them started to dance on the bar tops and the rest on the dance floor and on the podium. My favourite song by Nelly Furtado, Man Eater was also played at the exact time.

I wondered if the people at the door were lenient to let the suspect underaged clubbers enter the club to boost the pathetic attendance and atmosphere. The worst thing that could happen to us was that we counted down to NY at a rotten club and I felt damn disgusted but it was an experience which would not be forgotten for a long time. We hung around for some time before we went to the nearby hawker centre to fill our hungry stomachs. The Mee Pok was better than average and Sara joined us later. My friends went to check out the crowd at Cheekys and were not keen on going back again except for Param who loved the music.

We headed down to Plaza Singapura and on our way, we saw clubbers sprawled on the sidewalks puking to their heart's content after getting drunk and boyfriends helping their girlfriends and police officers in full force to maintain the peace and ensure that the celebration goes on smoothly without any fights and commotion. There were loads of eye candy moments with gals dressed in figure hugging jeans and in low-cut tops flauting their assests and offering the world a peek of their fabulous body. I wonder if these girls wear the tops out of necessity as it shows more skin and it's attention grabbing.

We reached Plaza Singapura in one piece and we chilled out at Starbucks and we saw our junior batch also there and we exchanged the usual happy new year handshakes before we started to embark on an intellectual debate if Sadaam was alive or not and our talk was full of name callings and coining of new nicknames. We soon got bored and walked down to Tekka where the three friends decided that they want to take a cab from there as it was nearer for them when we planned to stay on till the first train or bus starts service. Suddenly, we saw 2 transvestites walking and some of our dear friends felt a surge of homophobia surging through them and hiding behind me and I was unhappy as I felt that those people didn't pose a threat to us and it was rude of them to behave in such a manner. The 3 muskeeters left and Prakash and I embarked on a journey to Lavender to kill time.

We ended up walking to Kallang Macdonalds and we caught up on current issues and people. When we reached the Macdonalds, there was a long queue and there was a group of Indians who were rude with the service staff who were obviously pissing the hell out of me as it was New Year and they should have taken a resolution to be more nice to the service staff in future and they let their stomach control their minds. We spent another hour in Macdonalds before we went to take bus 12 to home sweet home.

It was not exactly the best NYE party but it was well spent in the company of friends as I feel that it's the best way to celebrate.

A Brand New Year

2006-12-31T13:12:00.000+08:00

In a few hours, I will be ushering in a brand new year with six billion people and waving goodbye to 2006 and making resolutions in time for 2007 and making sure I keep up with them. The funny thing about resolutions is that it's easy to make one but hard to stick to one as you need loads of perseverance and willpower to stick to those resolutions which often are made in a jest to make the first day of the new year meaningful but it ends up almost forgotten after a matter of weeks as we tend to revert back to our usual self. I hope the resolutions I make will last me through the entire year. It's difficult but impossible.

Arsenal lost once again to of all teams Sheffield United, a team languishing in the lower part of the table and destined for relegation. The defeat clearly highlights that Arsenal needs their main man, captain Thierry Henry to come back from injury asap and score goals on a regular basis as Arsenal have a hard time finding the back of the net. Their passing is almost flawless and their gameplay is a joy to watch but it all ends up to waste if they don't take their chances in goal. I have mentioned in my previous posts that they need to sign a world class player, at least two to ensure that the team is challenging for honours with Man U and Chelsea. I'm hoping to see some action in the transfer market in the coming weeks when the transfer window open.

I had to break the news to my tuition kid's mum that I couldn't coach her younger son next year as I will be taking heavier modules next semester and I was afraid that I couldn't cope with the assignment. It was a joy to teach the two elder siblings as they were both smart and hardworking and they rarely give me trouble. The family also treated me well by giving refreshments and understood my situation when I couldn't make it on some days as some families would have made a big fuss. Both parents are very nice and not fussy. I guess I was lucky as I had heard horror stories from my other friends complaning of their kids' parents who are demanding and I hope the younger sibling finds a good tutor.

It seems that I couldn't get enough of Godfather as I keep reading the book and watching the movie countless times and being fascinated with Marlon Brando and Al Pacino. Their acting was flawless and the book was a masterpiece. The first Puzo book I read was the fourth K and I thought that was his best book until I read the Godfather and since then, I believed that his other books which I have not read would not equal the Godfather. Lester told me that it seems that Puzo has not been to Sicily and it's surprising as Puzo wrote about Sicily in great detail in the Godfather. I guess it's another round of Godfather again.

Christmas!!

2006-12-25T00:20:00.000+08:00

It's been a long time since I received a Christmas present and that was when I was about 10 years. I remembered that I was very excited about going for the Christmas lunch as I knew that I would receive a present and true enough, I received a present from the host and the present turned out to be checkers which got my attention for two weeks perhaps before it started to collect dust as I was not good at it and I lost interest gradually in a game where I couldn't win most of the time.

I was pleasantly surprised when Lester brought a bag full of presents for the exco meeting and I was touched by his sincerity as he took the trouble to choose the presents and he wrapped the presents all by himself though he requested the help of his maid with the price tag who nicely bungled up the price tag. Lester was shocked when he saw Guanying take out a Paulo Cohelo book which he bought as a Christmas present for her and I was wondering what book he gave me. I was expecting a Jeffrey Archer book as he knew that I love Kane and Abel and he dropped a clue that the book is a classic which everyone should have it.

When I opened the package, I was elated to see the Godfather as I had seen the movie which I was not impressed with but I heard the book was good. I got hooked when I started to read as it was engaging and the book discussed the Godfather's lifestyle and his past in detail which the movie did not and Michael entering the Family buisness. I got to like the movie after reading the book. It was basically the Christmas present as I would definitely read the book again and again as it's an ageless classic.

I also met up with my Army friends over dinner at Marina Bay and the turnout was less than what I had expected and it was nice to see those guys again and catching up with them and their new found lifestlyes. I was surprised to see that the popular restaurant was packed to the brim as the buffet was only 12 dollars and I was not surprised as it was the holiday season and what better way to spend your holidays with a buffet dinner. I was not really excited about the food as I know the same old food will be served and true enough, the same meat were served and the same fried items. It's basically Seoul Garden style except with substandard food and sitting in the open. I believe the 12 dollars buffet was the drawing point for families and my army friends to choose the place but it was definitely not a good place to have a talk as we were pre-occupied with cooking the food and we spent minimal time interacting although I got to know what the other guys were doing and it was good to see some of the jokers as well who made a grand appearance at the last min. The night went well and I returned home early as I was feeling tired..

Random Stuff

2006-12-17T01:04:00.000+08:00

I just caught the Arsenal-Porthsmouth game which Arsenal was expected to win although they lacked a few key players considering the fact that they are playing with a small squad this season due to the financial constraint which was due to the building of the new stadium. Arsenal dominated possession and Porthsmouth stunned them with two goals and Arsenal recovered well and hit two back and were trying to find the winner but it proved to be futile as all their attempts at goal did not find the net. It was a hugely entertaining match but I would have loved Arsenal to win the match instead of losing 2 crucial points and falling further behind in the championship race which is shaping up to be a two horse way between the most hated club in England, Chelsea and the once most hated club, Man U and I hope to see a 3 way race although it looks bleak.

I just won the Best speaker for the first time in the history as I had always fell short of the mark but i felt that i hit the mark last thursday. Term it confidence or plain arrogance but I was feeling damn confident of my chances of winning the best speaker and I was glad that I won although I could have done much better at evaluation, another department which needs rapid improvement as I feel i'm bad at judging a speech as I tend to be swayed by emotion when I evaluate and I should let my mind and not my heart decide the course of my evaluation.

Jeffrey and Lester pulled out of the last minute leaving me, Rosy and Esther and we ended up watching the commercials on my computer. I seem to like the Jap songs which Esther sent to me as they are way way better than Mandarin songs I have realised that Esther's crap level seems to be widening as I'm alarmed at the remarkable lame jokes she's making but it's kind of entertaining as I sadly love my friends' bullshit and Rosy is ever entertaining me with her exaggerated facial expressions and interesting truckload of stories.

Movies!!!

2006-12-08T00:43:00.000+08:00

I'm a late bloomer as everyone who have read my blog should have realised it by now and the same goes for movies as I tend to be skeptical of my friends' movie choices and tend to change my opinion(sometimes) after I have seen the movie. When Esther asked me to watch Deathnote with her and Jeffrey, I was very wary of her choice as I expected the movie to be another lame Jap movie and the poster with two weirdos didn't help. Chen Hoay told me the gist of the movie and I got pretty interested in the movie. I went to his room to watch the movie as the movie had Chinese subtitles and I needed him to translate for me. Despite the language handicap, my translator was pretty decent and the plot was interesting.

I never expected the detective(L) to be a lollipop sucking, chocalate loving guy with a weird hairdo and scary eyes as his analysis of the crimes commited were simply amazing and he narrowed it down to a suspect-Keira who was the culprit. Keira is this guy who will write the names of criminals or people on a book(the so called deathbook) and the person will die within 40 seconds. I was surprised to see the Angel of Death behaving like a clown and eating apples all the time when I expected him to be more serious and eating dark items like chocalate to suit his image. I will not let in on the rest of the plot as that would be a spoiler for those who have not watched the movie but I will definitely watch Deathnote 2 on the big screen when it's released in late December.

Another movie which I enjoyed watching was Snakes On A Plane. Although the story was stupid with a plane full of poisonous snakes and Samuel L Jackson trying to save the passengers on board, it was hilarious to watch Samuel cursing as the curse scenes looked out of place but he did a decent job for S.O.A.P. I couldn't expect him to save the movie as the plot was predictable and stupid and the snakes looked freaking huge and hyperactive. I read that the fans of this movie wanted the storyline to be tweaked when it was in production as the inital storyline was crappy!! I'm sure the tweaking of the plot did little to enhance its standing at the box office and the movie will have been a massive flop if not for Sam!!

Screwed Up Bio Clock

2006-12-03T14:46:00.000+08:00

My exams ended a few days ago and it was such a huge relief as it was a horrible semester taking horrible subjects this semester and I expected sleep to hit me latest by two but I realised that I couldn't fall asleep at two for the past few days due to the wretched exam period where i had to burn the midnight oil on certain occasions and it was irritating not to fall asleep by then. I had to entertain myself by watching MTV and I have to say that they have some good music videos in the wee hours.

Pussycat Dolls, the sultry, sexy,bitchy and hot girl group came up with another music video 'I don't need a man' which is bound to be a hit although I won't rank it alongside Don't Cha. Their sex appeal seem to be working well as they are well-liked (generally, I think) and it seems the lead singer is planning to launch her own album which might be a bad move as she's successful with PCD and the move might not be a good one. Victoria beckham and Geri Halliwell tried but they failed to match their Spice Girls' streak. Beyonce Knowles was successful initally and she is producing mediocre songs. I will rather see 6 hot girls in a video than one hot girl in a video. More eye candy!!!

Another diva who can't seem to stop singing is Madonna with her new single, Jump which is quite catchy but not an instant hit!!i guess being a mother has mellowed her as her choice of clothes seem to be decent..haha and the world is waiting if she were to adopt another baby from another Third world country following in the footsteps on Angie!!!I hope not as that will be plain publicity for Madonna!!!!

Britney Again

2006-11-30T22:49:00.000+08:00

In the space of two days, it's remarkable to see me with two posts but hey..i'm Mr Unpredictable and people do get stunned by my eccentric behaviour and shall I say It's partly due to my Gemini horoscope and people out there will be going "Not another horoscope trait entry" Not to worry, I will be touching on the once again single Britney Spears. I just saw a picture of our dear Britney Spears exposing her garmentless bottom and nether region to the entire world in her car. With her was another of our friend, the sultry Paris Hilton.

I can't sympathise with Britney this time as nobody forgets to wear their underwear and if you forgot to wear,Britney, either you are lying or you were spaced out by the booze to even care about wearing underwear or you simply needed the attention after you have dumped K.Fed. The whole world sympathises with you for making a rash and crappy decision to marry K.Fed but don't you think it's time to take a step back and think rationally about your future instead of partying away with of all people, Paris Hilton. Was it Paris Hilton who influenced you to go commando? Good friends will watch out for each other and I'm sure Paris Hilton will be of great help to comfort you.

Paris Hilton could perhaps help you make a home porn movie with the guy you could have picked up at the club if any or better still, you, Paris and Nicole could feature together in the next reality series of The Simple Life. I will like you guys to do a documentary or even a serial on the Rich Lifestyle as that's what interests me and I will rather see you girls drunk and having random sex than see you doing meaningless things like appreciating nature's beauty and the simple things in life as I believe you don't, Paris.

I may be getting a overdose of Britney and Paris over the past few days but it makes for entertaining reading and I hope Britney seeks better publicity to revitalise her rocky career. Are you listening Britney???

Back With A Bang!!!

2006-11-28T14:09:00.000+08:00

After a month of non-activity, I'm finally back blogging about my exciting life if you consider fluid mech, soil mech and M.O.M(the modules which I'm taking this semester and M.O.M is not mother for the uninitiated) exciting. This semester has been pretty tough as the modules were much tougher than last semester's modules. I wasn't expecting a walk in the park as I'm a Year 2 student and I should have expected the modules to be tougher than my first year subjects besides the most hated computing module but the pace was crazy especially for M.O.M as the lecturers were rushing to finish the coursework as there were 17(fuck yeah) chapters to be finished in 12 weeks. Half the students in the lecture theatre will either be staring in blank space trying to comprehend the M.O.M concepts or talking to their friends. I don't blame them as the third and last lecturer was hardly engaging and he had to explain the most mind-boggling concepts of the final part of M.O.M. M.O.M is a pre-requisite for Structures 1 and I hope structures 1 is not that hard. Wishful thinking on my part but hope is all that I have got for my next semester's subjects as I heard from my senior and friends that next semester's subjects is going to be pretty heavy.

This semester had been pretty tough for my team, Arsenal as they couldn't string consistent results and the only highlight of their season so far had been their win against arch-rivals Man United but the result did anything to soothe the fans as Arsenal draw or lose at the Emirates stadium when they should be turning it into a fortress where teams will be scared to play against them at their home ground. Some people have said the pitch at the Emirates stadium is much bigger and Arsenal have not gotten used to playing on a bigger playing surface but that excuse cannot be used all the time as these dudes are paid thousands of pounds every week to put on a good show and the playing surface should not be an excuse. I will say the team lacks some big-signings this season and I hope Arsene will bring in a big-signing next season to bolster the squad and start fighting with the likes of Man United and Chelsea for top honours. I'm glad Arsenal is not like Liverpool which is a super dull and unpredictable team.

Although I'm not a big fan of Britney Spears, I'm glad that she did the right thing by dumping the loser K.Fed who was just with her cos he needed the publicity badly for his new album and people will be wondering who is K.Fed when he releases the albulm and the tag of Britney Spears husband will work in his favour.Kevin Federline, stop being an opportunist and try to work hard instead of living off yr wife or shall i say or yr ex-wife. I heard your album sucked and what did you expect? Platinum Status!!!My Foot!! You were worse than Vanilla Ice and Eminem was in a class of his own!! I suggest you either get your act straight or leave the buisness!!Simple as that and don't try to hook another unsuspecting ex-teen sensation again!!

Steve Jobs

2006-10-15T10:19:00.000+08:00

A few weeks ago, I saw Lester carrying a library book and being the inquisitive me, I asked him to let me browse through the book and he graciously agreed. On the cover page was a picture of a balding Steve Jobs. For starters, Steve Jobs is the Apple CEO who started Apple and gave the world Ipod and Itunes. I wanted to know more about him as I have little knowledge about him and I have heard stories about him. From the first sentence, I got hooked onto the book and I asked Lester if I could borrow the book. He asked me to return the book. It was not fated for me to borrow the book later on as I couldn't renew the book through the counter.

Being the compulsive shopper, I decided to buy the book as i felt that I needed to have the book and I have not regretted my purchase ever since. The book talks about Steve Jobs childhood on how he was a loner and he wasn't a people person. Steve Jobs was fascinated with electronics when he was young. He went to one of the most expensive college and dropped out soon as he felt he wasn't getting anything out of it. He started a company, Apple with his engineer friend in a garage and their first product, the Apple 1 was a success for a fledgling company. Soon, Apple 2 was a hit and Macintosh arrived with much fanfare and hype but it failed to live up to its predecessor.

Steve Jobs was stripped of executive powers(boardroom politics to cut a long story short) and he left Apple to start a company named NeXT which did not do well and he purchased Pixar and Pixar collaborated with Disney to produce Toy Story which was a smash hit and Pixar went on to produce hit movies. NeXT was purchased by Apple(talk about irony) and Steve Jobs somehow managed to become Apple CEO and he led Apple to greater success and the rest they say is history.

It's very hard not to admire Steve Jobs as he came back from a setback and established himself at Pixar and though he had limited success with NeXT and Pixar was close to closing down, he managed to lead Pixar to greater heights. Very few people have guts as deep as Jobs to quit college and travel to India and start up a company and to start up another company after becoming redundant at his own company and coming back and rewriting history with his first company. I salute you, Steve!!!

Service!!!!

2006-10-01T10:59:00.000+08:00

As some of you might know, I recently got a hostel room in Hall 3 and my classmates and friends will be full of envy whenever I tell them that I stay in Hall 3 as Hall 3 is one of the two halls which is new and all the rooms have air-con and the facilities are good and these amenities make the other halls look bad. There's also a downside to living in Hall 3-the canteen. The canteen is like a normal foodcourt and the decor is pretty good and I'm not complaining about these stuff. It's the service at the drink stall(the other stalls are pretty ok) which puts me off and makes me stay away from the canteen.

I love to start my day with breakfast and as Hall 15 canteen(the place I used to have breakfast in Yr1) was a distance away, I went to my Hall canteen to have breakfast on the first day. There will be two aunties at the drink stall, one making drinks and the other making toast. The drink aunty made bad milo and the toast aunty though made good toast was grumpy.I'n not expecting royal service treatment but a simple smile and thank you and no grumpyness!! I tried to persuade my roomate to go to hall 15 but he was used to going to hall 3 canteen.

The aunty once grumpled when i gave her 4 5cents coins and it's not as if I gave her 20 coins of 5 cents. The final straw came when the toast aunty served an old man behind me and I was furious and I told my roomate that we should go to canteen 15. After much persuasion, he relented and we had breakfast the following day at canteen 15. The drink aunty remembered my face and told me that she hasn't seen me around for some time and I told her that I'm staying in hall 3 and I will come to the canteen just for her. She laughed at my suggestion and brightened my day with a huge smile. The milo was tasty and sweet and the toast was good. The service and food made me a satisfied man and has made my resolve stronger by not going to the drink stall in my canteen for breakfast!!

Gosh

2006-09-08T21:35:00.000+08:00

Gosh!!!!!It's been a long time since I was off the blogging scene and I suddenly felt the itch to write a post to update my small number of loyal and dedicated readers as i felt they have the right to know what happened to me!! School started last month and I'm startled to discover that four weeks just FLEW and suddenly I'm buried under quizzes, tutorials and assignments!! Therefore, my mind couldn't conjur up of any interesting post as my brain was overfilled with M.O.M, FLUIDS and insane formulas to keep me awake.

On the good side, I managed to get a hostel and I'm glad that I got a hall as the journey from Tampines to Boon Lay is just too insane and my body wasn't used to waking up at six and the real nightmare begins once I reach Boon Lay Interchange as the 179 queue can stretch up all the way to the mrt station. However, Glenn and FLying Dutchman from Class 95 kept me entertained for the 2 hour journey and the journey was bearable.

I guess travelling has made me realise the importance of having a hostel and it has made me appreciate my hostel and my neighbours even more. !!!!!!

Ms Vasantham

2006-08-14T10:57:00.000+08:00

I spent my Sunday fruitfully by watching television programmes and catching up on Ms Vasantham, a beauty pagent show where Indian females will vie for the Ms Vasantham show. I was expecting to see only ten Indian females on the show as Indian females tend to be shy and try to avoid the limelight of beauty pagent due to mostly parental disapproval. I was surprised to see more than 40 females on the show and the show format was similar to Singapore Idol where there will be three judges and the contestants have to go through the preliminary stages.

Every beauty pagent has some controversies and this beauty pagent was no different as some contestants who were attired in traditional gear were booted out of the competition and they felt that the judges were too narrow-minded in their choice of attire as they felt the judges prefer the contestants in modern attire. Firstly, I felt that the traditional attired females would not have pulled off the modern look if she had worn a skirt as I strongly feel that Ms Vasantham should be someone who is versatile and comfortable in wearing both traditional and modern clothes and there were some females who wore traditional attire who got to the next round as the judges and I felt that they can carry off the modern look!!

The judges also gave the thumbs down to skinny and big sized contestants and some of the contestants were unhappy with the judges for judging them based on their appearance. I will agree with the judges that some of the contestants are either thin or big sized and the beauty pagent needed meaty contestants. I wouldn't want to watch a beauty pagent where the females are dull and not attractive but I will appreciate if the judges were more direct with their comments and instead give dubious comments as I felt the judges' comments made the contestants feel uncomfortable. It's never easy to dish out constructive criticism especially when it's going to hurt but I hope to see the judges being more direct(yet sensitive) and constructive with their comments!!

I will be looking forward to the next episode of Ms Vasantham to catch up on some eye-candy, humour, elegance and intelligence from the contestants and I hope the contestants will not disaapoint me!!