Lebensraum

Shucks man, really shutting down the luxury of coming online everyday. I'm going cranky soon! Abstinence from the internet is really dehydrating. I'm at the edge of losing my multi million dollar (weiren: it's weng keong's perfect world again) sanity.

Or maybe I have already lost it. Fhit.

(2E is follong the trend of gofugyourself.typepad.com whose tagphrase is fugly. Thus we replacing the first letter of most words with an F to emphasis what we're saying. Hope you get it.)

Red light. The vehicle stops and my hands suddenly mutate- transforming and moving spherical shapes are dancing across my arm, much to my horror. Has acid destroyed my arm? This is when I calm down, quieten and realise that it is the shadow of the rain drops forming at the front window of the vehicle. Green light. The vehicle starts to move again, driving pass pedestrians, buses and cars the rain suddenly stops. Silence. This is when I calm down, quieten and realise that we have just drove under the award winning Mass Rapid Transit Transport System's line. I relax and enjoy the pitter patter of the raindrops again. Then, as we approach the highway, I notice the cars and lorries are traveling on mist! This is incredible! Has cars gained the ability to float on the mist and let it carry them? This is when I calm down, quieten and realise that it is just but the water being sprung up from the somewhat-flooded floor as the cars speed through the highway.

Oh, the wonderfulness of a drowsy rainy morning. When you're still in Disneyland and can hallucinate about anything.

It's back to school again!

Sometimes, after getting a blogasm (an orgasm is sexual excitement, and thus a blogasm is blogal excitement, as said by kifo) but never really having the energy or interest to blog what you have just experienced, you accumulate. Thus, sometimes, I mention more than one bigger issues in an issue- those having passed down from previous blogasms. Thus, "Birthday" and "Attack" in this entry has no particular reference to each other.

Today, my house,in the heart of Admiralty, was attacked by a hoard of insects from the Phylum Insecta whatever you call it. These little flying ant like creatures, with horrible flying skills , were flying all over the place- over my books, bed, shelves, everything. BUT, their ultimate destination, was the light. Perhaps they might be fans of Thomas Edison? Or the phylum insecta might be starting their own bulb factory but don't know what metal to use? (If you're one of those buggers who bugged me with your bugness today the answer is ALUMINUM! USE ALUMINUM FOR YOUR BULBS! WHATEVER YOU DO DON'T EVEN TRY TUNGSTEN!) Or they may just be infatuated over these spectrum-produced-when-passed-through-the-prism-things.


Whatever it is, it's irritating so stop it. Marry a firefly for all I care, Ms Glowworm is ready to walk the aisle with you too! Go the the BOM (Buggistry of Marriages)! Go! And leave me alone.

And so they have. Hey! What do you expect, if they were still here, my screen would be torn of by these irritating members of the phylum insecta!

So yup, that's the attack part for now.

As for birthday... Have you ever wondered why people celebrated birthdays?

The anniversary of one's birth or the day of one's birth. -Dictionary.com

The day of a person's birth or the anniversary of a birth -Merriam-Webster Online

An anniversary of the day on which a person was born (or the celebration of it) -The Free Dictionary

We celebrate something because something good happened. We celebrate Chinese New Year because Stupid Nian ran away. We celebrate Deepavalli because some baddie died under some hero. We celebrate Hari Raya Haji because it's the Muslim new year. We celebrate Easter because Jesus rose. We celebrate Lantern Festival because someone flew to the moon. We celebrate Nurses' Day because we want to honor the nurses.

See? Everything here has something worth celebrating of!

But what is there to celebrate about your birth? After all, the moment you were born, you had already started to sin. You did all kinds of bad things- you lied (don't tell me you never lied), you stole (maybe not everyone...), you cheated whatever. I'm sure everyone committed sin- however big or small. And even Jesus, had to die for you.

What's worth celebrating about your existence?

But we thank god, because god loves us. He loves us in ways unimaginable, uncontainable, unrestrictable, magnimously, wonderfully, gloriously. We are thus, able to celebrate birthdays.

Oh, and it's mine this Saturday! Thanks Marc, Calvin, Muyao and parents for being the first few t0 wish =)

I made a fashion faux pas today by wearing my converse sneakers and high VS socks together. It looked pretty weird but I was choiceless because I had already told myself that I would not fold my VS socks in the make-it-an-ankle-sock way in an attempt to hold the reputation of a better (assistant) monitor which till now is zilch. My other trainer was seriously (and pathetically) drenched in Ubin mud and is still drying from its overdose of detergent.

God kindly did not let anyone notice it- either that or I didn't seem to realize the fact that people have been staring at my faux pas feet, my friends are too cool to care, my friends are kindly shutting up to not humiliate me or they simply never really noticed at all.

But a faux pas is still a faux pas whether noticed or not. So here's here. I committed a fashion faux pas today =)

I seem to be always stating the past in every entry I am writing. Perhaps it's because I am behind my blogging time, or maybe I just can't let go of the yesterday and my hands are totally gripped and clenched. So here's a little jigsaw of my yesterday (as in literally yesterday).

Sitting in the midst of over 60ers is no joke. For one, every single one of them either speaks Hokkien, Cantonese or some other Chinese dialect. I don't even speak Hokkien (although I can understand like 30% of it) and my vocal capabilities of Cantonese is like 3/10. My grandfather whom we all affectionately call ye ye was a seat away from me. I really should consider buying the zhen qing (pronounced zan qang in Cantonese) DVD and watching it everyday so my Cantonese can improve. Then I can go to Hong Kong and jabber away.

So yarh, I was sitting amidst the golden years people. It is all part of this event called Care and Share organized by Hope Community Services to bring the elderly together and have a great time listening to Karaoke and letting them not feel left out in our ever metamorphosing society. So yeps, pops tagged along and here he was sitting beside me. Seeing so many old people really makes you feel touched and probably guilty. That these people have been left out from your thoughts blah blah and abandoned in their own little homes. Isolated and captured, they only go out to get their basic necessities daily.

Hey, we're not talking about winners of the Senior Citizens' Award okay.

So after dealing with the nice, friendly ones, the angry, difficult ones, and finally my grandfather, I heaved a sigh of relieved and proceeded to send gramps home.

Meaningful day= yesterday.

Right. I'm here sitting in front of my Acer Aspire (Windows) Computer never thinking that I would like it any better. After being torn out of civilization for 2 days, I have been dumped back into the heart of technology again, resuming the title of "netizen" rather than "rugged bb boy". It was not that bad actually, in fact I quite enjoyed it. The atmosphere, the feeling and the spirit. Except that I'm missing some stuff, perhaps this is a warning for me to treasure my moments around me. So here's to my old squad mates if you're reading: Bryan, Jeremy, Harry, Johnathan, How Kang, Charles and Christopher, it was nice riding through Singapore with you, knocking it down with you and doing all that with you =)

Sitting at that familiar basketball court, looking into the sky. It's a beautiful shade of blue and orange, with silhouette trees and houses sitting at the bottom. All is quiet except for the cricket choir and the chatters of excited boys. The power tower like things you see on Malaysian highways are planted here, and its red light gives a mysterious eeries like grow. Except you probably like it because it's your only contact to civilization. I then pick up a leave in front of me, and silently await my night hike. In the heart of islet Pulau Ubin.

That was something I recited in my heart that very night which I decided was going to be included in my first blog entry right after I the camp. It was quite a poetic moment and definitely photo worthy- except due to the fact that BB focuses more on the physical development of their boys- the spiritedness, togetherness and all the other uniform groupies stuff than the aesthetic values that everyone has tucked in their hearts. Thus, you won't be seeing people painting that memorable moment or trying to snap it down. So here am I reciting this moment for all.

So the night hike was quite exciting. Okay, let me do some justice- it was very exciting. I mean how the hell do you not find hiking in Pulau Ubin like 12am not exciting. The spirit, the darkness, the occasional wildboar incidents, the leaves sometimes brushing in your head without you knowing it because it's so dark, the pontianak (oops not that), the chatting with your seniors, the ghost stories, the star hung sky, the rainforest vegetation, the mangrove, the ghost stories, the innocent sec ones. It's Pulau Ubin baby! Flashback of Singapore!

Things grew little more exciting when the guided tour came- that was after the devotion. Fortunately/Unfortunately we had Officer s>Wyeth Calvin bringing us on the guided tour. Apparently we took a shortcut in an attempt to frighten another squad. Bryan told me we all the same road but now I kinda doubt it cause we saw another squad when we came out of that less developed roads. That road was really freaky really- I clung on to the person-in-front-of-me's bag. Frightened. The road in front of us was weirdly misty and Officer Wyeth Calvin was spurting nonsense.

It was quite fun and I would say the highlight of the camp. I slept at 3 am=)

Oh yarh, I got the idea of the new blog and everything already. Might be moving anytime...

today is the last day before I lose my freedom for like 48 hours. Before I will be a slave to officers and seniors. Before I am unsafe and will be at the mercy of my officers. Before I am to exhaust myself unwillingly and undesirably. Before I lose my dignity and ability to talk back. Before I face death penalty. Before I lose my life. Before I can no longer smile again... *shudders*

Okay, I'm definitely exaggerating. I'm going for the Boys' Brigade 2nd Singapore Company March Enrichment Camp 2006 tomorrow and that's it. It's going to be fun! Hehehehe...

You should have noticed a large number of links being removed. This is because...

1) Why should I care about your blog when you don't even care about your blog? (that is, meaning, that your blog is no longer consistently updated, or is no longer existing)

2) Why should you care about what you see on my blog when you don't even care what you see on your blog? (that is, meaning, that you care to see your link on my blog when you don't update your blog)

3) Why should I care about your blog when you don't even care about my blog? (that is if you didn't link me on your blog)

So should you not see your link there, please post your link and your name on my tag and make the necessary changes. Oh god, I feel so bossy.

I went to the doctors' today to get my medical certificate for exemplifying myself from today's Adventure Quest training. Saw this huge bunch of Chinese Nationals (That is, the nicer way of saying. Should I be feeling mean today it would be cheena girls.) crowding around the counter. I was thinking, shit, should have gone to the other clinic, now I'm going to have to sit here for who-knows-how-long. Weirdly, I got in before every one of them. And they were giving me this look.

I don't know, it just seems weird to see so many foreigners as Singaporeans living amongst us. And just when I got out, I witnessed a seen where a Chinese Male National (not nice= cheena boy) cycling at an average speed and while approaching a middle aged man, shouted "Ei!" and the man shouted "Ei What?!".

There is a reason why Alexandra Graham Bell invented the Bell okay.

Oh, he didn't invent the bell? Oh, it was the telephone?

Fine, there was a reason why so and so invented the bell okay. Just use it.

And onto the thing with cyclist cycling on walking paths. No. 1 I think these paths aren't even for cyclists, more for walkers in the first place (please correct me if I'm wrong). And even should you need to cycle, you're on a bicycle, not on a motorcycle! There's no need to go so fast and letting insurance companies lose money. You'll have to pay a higher premium after that you know.

Well, those are my rants. I might be moving out of Big Fat Smiles soon.

Sian has crossed the border to Wordpress. What I define as a more pro blogger kinda status. This is my weird mentality larh, but I'm quite sure many more people out here agree with me, I mean maybe a quarter of Blogger bloggers are more concerned about their HTMLs and their blogskins than what they actually write. All the evidence is exposed at BlogSkins.com where every designer emphasizes more on the design than the content. I mean isn't the content the main issue in a blog? Isn't the blog the content?

My walk with blogging is hopelessly dwindling I start to think that I might give up blogging some time some day. Which is quite a frustrating thought actually. Because blogging is very much a un-give-up-able drug. You can go to rehabilitation centres for cocaine, or ecstasy blah blah but blogging pretty much stays with you for the rest of your netizen life. I mean a perfect example would be jeremi.ho who has so called given up on blogging only to return with a new blog months later. Blogging is a dig deeper hole. That is, if you are a blogger that focuses more on your content then your HTML code.

Back on my walk with blogging. Somehow my life seems to be getting lesser and lesser interesting and worthy blogging about. Sure, I mean it's the writer that makes the piece of writing interesting and not really the events that happened to the writer right? But still theres this weird gap that I'm getting. Perhaps I becoming more of a literature appreciator like Adrian in the Weapons of Mass Destruction rather than the creater in Cappuccino years and all the other books in the series. Would that be something good? Or bad? I won't want to be stuck in a second hand bookstore and I bet there won't be any nice gentlemen around like Carlton-Hayes to be my boss.

Perhaps I should cut a fresh start in blogging. Start a new blog and give no one the URL. Be a anonymous blogger that would be found out only by people that never knew me. Perhaps I would be embraced? Or maybe no one would ever arrive at my unknown blog. Or perhaps I should just give up Big Fat Smiles with all its sub-standard entries and just start a new blog? Or perhaps stop blogging altogether- although that would be virtually impossible for a writing freak like me. Although I skip days not blogging and blah blah, my hands will always find itself to somewhere to write and type. Oh well.

Spent part of my morning reading The Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew. Very deep book, spent quite a lot of time reading through the pages. It's not like other books where you can speed read or what, it's really quite tough to understand all the political stuff and all that. I bet Mr Lee has already tried to skim as much as he could when he was writing this book since it was meant for the general public. Apparently, LKY and friends have also called S. Rajaratnam Raja (affectionately) as Mdm Taz did when we were in discussion for the articles of the first issue of the Victoriana. Haha, guess everyone is calling him that secretly.

Oh yarh, I'm fed up with Blogger's spell checker. I mean how can the blogger spell checker be a blogger spell checker when it doesn't even recognize the word blog?

What I have read since 2 weeks ago...

Surprisingly, out of the three books I have been reading at the end of the previous square thursday's Thursday Spine, I was only able to complete one. Which is quite pathetic. However, I have read other books which are not in that list =)

The Blues of Resurrection
Resurrection Blues by Mike Tanner

(Link to Amazon.com page from illustration)

This book brings forth to non-musicians what the life of an American guitarist in a rock band is. As a Singaporean, I am blind towards how drugs and [premarital] sex are brought forth in American lifestyle. I, thus, through this book know a little bit more on how the situation of morality in America is. Not that everyone is behaving like this, I hope (and believe), but after reading this, I further understand why young American teenagers are subjected to these acts.

I have since, taken a liking to rock music after reading this book, strangely. Playing the few rock albums I have in my iPod again and again (including Simple Plan, SonicFlood, Coldplay, Avril etc.) Interestingly, while reading the book I was able to visualize the band playing and hear the music in my imagination, despite not knowing most of the songs mentioned.

The book focuses a lot on the emotions of a young musician faced by pressure from his family. Interesting to see from a point of view that I have never seen before- after all, I have never really been in to making and playing music but rather more of listening to it.

A good read to understand American culture, and tastefully different from my usual reads.

Rating of 6.5 our of 10.


Thy story that never ends
The Neverending Story by Michael Ende, translated by Ralph Manheim

(Link to Amazon.com page from illustration)

I have been affected when I read Narnia after reading this book. The two worlds (Fantastica here) have somehow have major differences. Narnia is very proper and ruled by good kings over the watchful eye of Aslan whereas Fantastica is ruled by no one but the Childlike Empress who does not use her powers at all. Thus, there are more wrong commited in Fantastica.

I would prefer Narnia to Fantastica. Narnia has a major magical world element to it. More innocence, more sense of right and wrong (probably because of religious background of both authors). Fantastica, on the other hand, is more of a do-whatever-you-want approach. Bastian was able to wish anything he wanted with the AURYN and everything he wanted thus came through. On other fantasy-genre fiction, The Lord of the Rings is more violent- thus is a different genre from these books. Harry Potter on the other hand has a real connection which any wizard can use to the real modern world. Whereas Narnia and Fantastica are completely different from other fantasies mentioned.

My favourite part of this book would be the tagline of Ende which is

This is another story and shall be told another time

. Another time never seems to come though, because it never came. This book has also been made into a movie in 1984. It has been featured on Channel 5 several times although I have not watched it because I have not read that book then. For some weird reason I believe that you have to read the book before watching the movie in the past. Now I would very much like to watch it =)

Rating of 7.5 out of 10

All right, think I might have said enough for today. Both books have been borrowed from the National Library Board (Singapore). Not sure about Singaporean book retailers, but should you wish to purchase them online, you can check out Amazon.com. It only accepts American credit cards thus you can purchase it via vPOST of the Singapore Post.

I am currently reading:
February 2006 Issue of The Readers' Digest
The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis
Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew by MM Lee Kuan Yew

Reads these two weeks but not featured are:
March 2006 Issue of The Readers' Digest

And have also recently purchased, and should be proceeding to read:
Adrian Mole: The Wilderness Years by Sue Townsend

Hey! Look who just sent me an email! It's Singapore's very own pathetic Taufik Batisah! He's doing a fantastic job with his career now! Modelling for Singapore Polytechnic, 7 Eleven and sending his fans (and non-fans) emails to inform them that he has quit smoking! Wow, what an exciting life that's lined right in front of him! I want to be a Singapore Idol too!






As if.

Life has been pretty hectic. I have been studying hard or in secondary school speak, mugging rather on Algebra. Never thought I would actually be mugging. Never thought my mathematical degree of understanding was that weak. Perhaps I might try to drop A Maths or something next year. I mean I can't even cope with simple factorisation and expansion of Algebraic equations and you want me to take Advanced mathematics?! You crazy or what?!

Sorry for the lack of updates on the Thursday Spine. I will conbine tw0o and three into tomorrow's issue. That is, if I don't do last minute mugging for the last Algebra test of Term One on Friday.

My Chinese Teacher is leaving! Ahhh! I know I have flamed (my god, I never thought I could flame) her in one of my entries but I finally knew the (cliche and preachy) value of not judging by first impressions. A male, China-born teacher will take her place and before I know it I have already judged him. So much for learning a new value.

epSITE hosted by Epson at Wheelock yesterday. There were fancy food and liquor served. Never thought that they would splurge so much on a exhibition. Oh, then I realized it was a by invitation only exhibition and I was supposedly invited.

Thanks to Miao for my first B*dae present!

NO! I am NOT looking for sex in Singapore thank you very much. I am sick of Microsoft and its idiotic virus prevention programs that don't prevent anything. I am sick of stupid Sygate which decided to start charging for their firewall. I am sick of algebra. And it's not like I didn't try. Spending 30minutes on 2 BASIC questions and still not getting it done is frustrating. Let's face it, I'll never be a mathematician. Why do I care.

Sigh, crap shit. There's the algebra test this Friday! That's like how many days away? I'm dead.


Cool vid Muyao emailed.

Thursday Spine #2 will return at the next entry.

March has always been a very good month, it is a time where sun and beautiful clouds do exist yet we have breezy whenevers. Best of all, it is the month whereby I started BFS and when I was born.

Time passes so quickly, and 366 days have just passed in what seemed to be in a wink of an eye. And it has been one year- one revolution round the sun, since I have started blogging on this blog. It has been a terrific experience so far, thanks to all the people there who have supported me by continually reading and hitting.

So thus, I shall once again start the line of thank yous. I always start this shit by thanking Marilyn. Though you might not be reading this now, I always have to include you. Thanks for introducing me to this wonderful blogosphere and everything else (although my earlier blogs were full of crap).

I would also like to thank various readers who have been dwelling on the tags of BFS since who knows when. Kifo, Oswin, Sian, Mu Yao, Terence. People who have been frequenting my blog more recently Mark, Wendy. And all the anonymous people who have been so cleverly loitering that StatCounter.com was not able to detect you =P

I would also like to thank Officer Calvin, Kifo, Terence, Jeremy, Marilyn and everyone else whom I have accidentally missed out for all the design and HTML advices, hence putting forth the product of my numerous templates.

And everyone else who is reading- old timer or BFS noob, for coming to my blog.

So yea, that was pretty boring wasn't it? Every September first, March second there will be these boring thank you stuff. Guess I'll never be able to plan commenmorative events- Speech Days, National Days blah blah.

Haha, thanks everybody, it has been a great year =)

A great video.