Oh Ho!

Seriously if you want hot breaking news about Edison Chen click here! It's not safe for work so don't say I didn't warn you! If you can read Chinese and are looking for a safer version of what the fuck happened I suggest you go here instead.

Woohoo! Let's go with this freakshow it's - OUTRAGEOUS!

Getting Balance

I've been kind of busy with all sorts of rubbish ever since cheerleading ended. In fact I've been trying to get back my balance in life. I was just a little bit lost after that but Beachout kept me really busy. And so are the other events in hall. And studies. Grrr... I actually have assignments. I don't even remember doing this much in Sem 1!

Anyway I have a bit of a side project going on that's taking a bit too much of my time but I'm rather proud of it. The number of people who visit it everyday has been rather encouraging so let me introduce everybody to the Hall 12 Unofficial Photo Collection! It's great stuff and I don't know why I suddenly got the idea to get something like this done. In a way it's my way of experimenting with content, putting stuff out there and seeing if the fish will bite. It's a learning experience and an extension of my blogging "career". I also get to put a lot of things that I've learnt into practice. As of now it's visited by more than 50 pairs of eyes daily and I'd like to thank Wei Fang and Daniel for putting the website on their MSN nicks! I hope this little project of mine will go a long way.

Britney Spears has a lot of drama in her life.

Doing work is boring, so boring that when I have baby rabbits to play with I just cannot get down to doing work. I've never played with animals before and this I felt so attached to the little thing! I love animals but I've always been a bit scared of them - sharp nails and teeth and all. I've taken a couple of photos with the furry thing and I think I want to buy one for keeps!

Tuition and school is getting a little hard to balance. Sigh.

Playwriting is the most exciting elective. It's scary and new and unpredictable but it's fun. I get hit by major inferiority complex when I'm there all the time. It's not a very... helpful feeling to be feeling but it's too late to do anything than soldier on!

I dyed my hair yesterday but the colour isn't very obvious.

I need help from NUS students once I've got my survey done! Thanks for the tip Carrie!

Friendship should be easy.

Beachout '08

I have Santana featuring Michelle Branch playing and for some reason it makes me feel peaceful, calm and contented. It's not my usual genre. Slowly but surely I'm moving away from dance-pop to more soothing sounds although for everyday this past month the first song I play when I turn on the laptop is Piece of Me. Then there's stuff by Vanessa Carlton. How great it would be to spend an entire morning lazing by the beach with music like this and a good read in hand...

I've had a rather sleep-deprived week and waking up at 630AM yesterday was... wow. Yue Shan had only half an hour of sleep though. I don't know how she does it but she did! She wasn't really sleepy either, so maybe it's the adrenaline! She managed to drive us (Daniel me and Kel) safely to Sentosa under Kel's directions.



I was actually quite tempted to fall asleep. We listened to her cruising CD as we cruised down the expressway to songs like Apologize and Torn. I sang along a little softly, feeling a bit tender for some reason. I guess I'm just tired from doing so much in so little time. I've been quite emo recently!



Anyway, we made our way down to Tanjong beach and started setting up all our stuff. Daniel managed all the more hardcore stuff with help from Kelvin. I think I was only useful in setting up the court with rafia and plastic bottles filled with sand! I also filled a lot of water bombs with Yue Shan. It was cool to be the first ones at the beach with no disruptions from other people. I quite enjoyed setting up the entire thing - a beach volleyball court (made with a badminton net), frisbee court, captain's ball court and beach soccer court. Kel also did a great job of moulding the words "Beachout" over where we hid the water bombs. Because that game was later cancelled, I tried to dig out a couple of water bombs so I could launch an attack on some people, but I didn't manage to find any despite over 40 being buried in there. Bleargh.



The advance party takes a cam-whoring break. The sun was blazing in the morning and by the time we finished our stuff, we were sweating like mad. It turned cloudy later on (which explains the slightly blue tinge on the rest of the photos as compared to the sun-kissed tone in this one). I have no idea why my eyes are getting smaller and smaller, but I think I'll getting a lot more sleep in the future. Bleargh.



Before long the bus-full of participants arrived from Hall and the mood became totally different. There was sound of excited chatter in the air and I was trying to feed off their energy being a bit shagged out from setting up!



Sandar and I got to referee the volleyball matches, which was really entertaining. There was a match that she got to play because the team was lacking people, thus I was left to referee myself! There were a few tricky situations (the seniors kept on saying referee kayu lo!) but the seniors won in the end so Kyon came over to shake my hand. Damn funny. And every group had some funny antics up their sleeve, be it a highly nonsensical cheer, fierce competitiveness or tight teamwork. All of them were memorable in their own way.



After the lunch break I teamed up with Sandar again for mini-games. Ours was Hunter and Prey and there were other games like pulling pegs off people's clothes, human table soccer and using water to splash away whipped cream on the participants' bodies.



A lot of people mentioned that my game was lame but I thought it was quite hilarious. It was fun for me to see them chase each other into the water. When we were trying the game we didn't expect that the "prey" would run when the "hunter" didn't. In fact, even when there was no one chasing them, the entire team of "prey" would just head straight for the sea and the subsequent sight of huge splashes was fun to watch.

I think they enjoyed cooling off in the sea too! Sandar and I got "punished" for being in-charge of the game so the both of us got dunk during the first two matches. After that Chin Teck managed to fireman lift me into the sea as well. Rawr.



Dan, Yue Shan and I went back to the car to get the prizes, and I saw Samuel Low YY acting cool in his shades, still busy playing volleyball. I snapped this photo of him before he gave me the finger, so I flipped mine back at him. I thought it was really hilarious though Yue Shan was quite stunned!

When we got back we had the prize presentation ceremony where Leon kissed Peijun. Haha! After had we had what Lao Na calls the Hall 12 tradition - the photo formation.



I had no idea there were that many people on top of me! I could feel my left thigh being crushed and that feeling totally blew my mind! I had the urge to crawl out from underneath but that would've been quite impossible too. Luckily I managed to force a smile for the photo! The photos of us after that included one of Daniel with a pained expression. Priceless.



Presenting the committee for Beachout 08! Everybody's in there except Daniel (Miffy). After that we went back to a dunking session as everyone hung out by the beach. I took my camera with me so no one would try anything funny but...



For some reason everyone wanted to take another big group photo.



Me and the friendliest seniors in hall - Leon, Cyndi and Kevin!

It was more fun than I expected and my first time being in-charge of such an event. It's kind of crazy to be talking and having people listen to what you've got to say. It was all rather new to me. Also I enjoyed having all the Hall 12ers out and interacting with each other. It's almost impossible to know everybody fantastically well but I think as a community we're really good together, looking out for each other in small ways and most importantly having fun with one another. It's one of the things that makes Uni life one of the best times, ever.

Go Fight Win

T-W-E-L-V-E

Me and Hall Buddy! Hahaha... More HO photos (and blogging about HO) to come!

Building

My character sucks. Seriously.

Two O Eight

I know there's no use complaining about things you have absolutely no control over. Worse still, it's putting the blame on everything else and not making the most of what you have that's really childish and irresponsible.

BUT SERIOUSLY WHY THE FUCK DO I HAVE TO BE SO SUAY TO HAVE A LECTURE AT 830AM AND TUTORIAL AT 330PM?

28 Trainings

It's 3:17AM and I'm not asleep yet because I believe that if there's timeliness in news writing, there should be timeliness in blog writing as well.

We've been through 28 trainings and today we had our very last one before the opening of the Hall Olympiad which happens tomorrow. I'm kind of freaked out because there'd be an audience that big that I've never performed for. I've only had a couple of eyes on me today and yesterday and it felt weird! I think as my roomie says I've just got to smile more and everything'll be fine.

I have 830AM lesson tomorrow. That's not fine.

Speaking of fine, Fabian greeted me on MSN today with "OH MICKEY UR SO FINE".

Yeah, it does seem that until it ends tomorrow, I'll be blogging about nothing else except cheerleading!



Stretching...



And goofing around in between rehearsals...



And our standard whoosh!

It's going to be really crazy tomorrow. Really, I can't find the words to describe it. I'll get a video of the event posted up as soon as possible so you guys will have an idea what I'm talking about. Finally. It's been a crazy ride and the climax is tomorrow! I just can't wait to see how it turns out!

I'm not going to write any emo or sad stuff because... there's still tomorrow. And because I need to sleep.



And thank you for the written support... Really appreciate it!

Supper Hop And A Day

Hall 12 had its annual Supper Hop event yesterday where we took a bus and went on a crazy trip around Singapore eating good stuff!















The next day there was the track meet and I think we did pretty well! Also, there was cheerleading where we had to find our positions at SRC itself. Since we hadn't taken a team photo before, we took one right there and then after the 15 mins walk-through.









My BMT platoonmate giving it his best in the race!

After that I made my way down to Sentosa with Kelvin and Victor to meet the rest of the Beachout committee. I enjoyed the rest of my day at the beach.



Life's good. (Until I came back to hall to finish the 208 assignment.)

School, Britney, CL

I wanted to start this entry talking about cheerleading but I thought that would be very predictable, so, maybe I'll move on to something less predictable, like school.

I hate talking about school. It's been a nasty piece of work recently, and it gets worse when you're struggling to understand how what you're learning relates to you. I'm really quite lost during Info Lit & Interpretation as well as Fundamentals of Research. In fact, after last sem's Fundamentals of Maths, I feel a strong sense of repulsion when I see modules that begin with the word "Fundamental". However the tutor is rather good, so that's something to be thankful for. I'm quite sianified by the assignments because I have no idea what I'm supposed to do exactly (and most of my school mates concur). I don't feel that I have enough time to do it so... yeah I'm so screwed. The only thing I did right was taking Visual Literacy & Comm because that is a hell lot of fun. Although it does seem like a lot of work, I guess it'll be a lot of fun too. We spent our 2 hour tutorial today fiddling with videocameras. Ooh yeah and they don't seem to be plagued by endless readings too.

During that tutorial today I was also asked to introduce myself and then tell the class something interesting to remember me by. The only thing that I could think of was that I liked Britney, but being a wreck as she is (I'm still proud of her) I didn't think she'd do wonders for my first impression (which obviously doesn't matter because your first impression of her was dancing in sexy school uniform in ...Baby One More Time than Gimme More at VMAs), so I ended up revealing the fact that I got my name Jason from the Power Rangers. The Red Ranger, anybody? It's something that never fails to amaze.

Speaking of Britney Spears, the other song that have playing everyday other than Janet's Feedback, is Piece of Me. James Masterton of http://www.launch.co.uk/ accurately points out the singer's current situation as her current single slams itself into #2 on the UK Singles Charts this week.

By way of no small coincidence, it is a team of Swedish songwriters who are behind the success of the surprise Number 2 single of the week, a single which just so happens to feature Robyn on backing vocals. The track in question is 'Piece Of Me' from Britney Spears for whom it seems there is no such publicity as bad publicity. The followup to Top 3 hit 'Gimmie More', the ability of Britney Spears to sell pop records in the face of what is becoming an increasingly disturbing tabloid-fuelled meltdown is something at which we can only marvel. Whereas once she was feted for her looks, her personality and her talent as a performer, virtually all her media coverage at the present time is focused on her declining health, her fractured personal life and her deteriorating state of mind. Her promotional work for her music is precisely zero, yet for all of this her records are selling in such a way that chart books of the future will record this period as one of her most artistically fruitful ever whilst the newspapers tell a story that is quite the reverse. 'Piece Of Me' is now her biggest hit since 'Everytime' topped the singles chart in 2004 and at this point I'd normally make some comment about how the track compares musically to past endeavours. On the face of it however, it hardly seems to matter.

Britters went out for shopping at 2:20AM yesterday in torn fishnet stockings and no underwear.

I went to JB to get my hair cut yesterday. I like how it is now, although I guess everyone else has to get used to it. I've always had my hair short, and last semester was probably the only time in my life I had my fringe covering my forehead! Well, you certainly can't please everyone and it's definitely easier to deal with so... no regrets! Oh, and it was only 12 bucks cos I had 30% off. I was quite disappointed that my stylist didn't work there anymore and they got someone else to cut my hair. It's good, but the other guy was much, much better. Going to JB was also therapeutic. It's been some time since I've been there and the atmosphere is just different there. It's like a great escape from hectic studying schedules and all!

I've received my cheerleading uniform and I think it looks a bit big on me. Not that it's going to affect my performance. I'm now confident of most of the stunts that I have to do except the cartwheel which I've got to do in front of everybody! I'm just not consistent with it - sometimes it looks passable and sometimes it sucks. I have just 3 more trainings to get it right though, and I'm sure that's more than enough time. It's also kinda sian that people are getting injured because aside from the fact that we can't do the stunts (which basically relies on teamwork), it's kind of painful to see your teammates in pain. All of us have our little injuries here and there so we don't feel wonderful and perfectly alright, but for those who are injured that badly, I think we've got a pretty good picture of what they must be undergoing to keep them out of action. Whatever it is, we're going down to have an on-site rehearsal this Saturday morning, and Wednesday is the day that we'll be having our competition.

I still cannot get over the fact that there's only 3 more trainings! Ahh!

Cheerleading

It's pretty much my life these days.

Hold On

I spent quite a bit of time writing that piece last night. I look back at it now and I must say I'm not quite satisfied. I suppose I'm a bit rusty. I've included details that were meant to grab attention but were irrelevant and served only to break the momentum and mood of the story. Also it started off as a descriptive thing of relaxing at the patio (which is obviously fiction because I don't own a place with a patio) but I got caught up and felt compelled to inject some of my inner most feelings and thoughts that I've been running away from. That's not to say that I've just spilled out how I feel exactly, just that I've been inspired my some of these unhappy thoughts. Ooh, and I'm disgusted that I used the word "force" and its other forms at least thrice. I haven't written in a long time so it was a welcomed warm-up for me. I acknowledge its crappiness but I'll work harder on it.

I had one session of tuition in the morning and I've got two more later. After that I'll be heading back to hall for Cheerleading practice. It sort of reminds me of the time that I was involved in preparing for last year's Dnd, except this time round it's much more intense.

School starts tomorrow! Like officially, with tutorials and everything. BOO.



This photo was taken a couple of weeks ago as Angeline organised a class get-together lunch for Puay Leng who's leaving for an exchange to Suzhou. It was nice to hang out with them again. In fact I was hoping we'd have this kind of gathering more often. However, as with every huge group, there's conflicting schedules and all of that to coordinate. The next time we'll meet up is probably during CNY, which is coming soon! I can feel it in the air already!

I'm going to take more initiative asking people out. I've got no money though (don't give me the you-don't-need-money-to-go-out crap). There're textbooks to acquire for this semester. Argh! And I'll try to be more spontaneous and get rid of the "book me a week in advance" nonsense. Although truth me told I am very very busy. Shuming's coming back from Amsterdaam (land of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll) on Saturday! Can't wait!

"Understand that friends come and go,but for the precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young."
-Baz Luhrmann, Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)

Solitude

I laid comfortably on the deck chair and set my eyes on the Orion belt sparkling in the night sky. The stars weren't shining as brightly as I would've liked, but it isn't eveyday that the stars were visible anyway. The patio was slightly wet from the light shower that occurred just a couple of hours ago. Thankfully the sky looked clear as I opened my book and submerged myself in the complicated lives of holiday representatives in Ibiza and their crazy sex lives.

No wonder the book's described as 'a contemporary trash classic'.

In the background, softly playing on my laptop that was hooked up to the simple 2.1 sound system of my jet black Creative speakers, was Jolin crooning 懷念. I hummed distractedly along to it for awhile until it ended. In its place was a track whose lyrics seemed to impart worldly knowledge when it proclaimed, "沒有一個人 非要另一個人 才能過一生". Subconsciously, I nodded my head in agreement before flipping the page and reading about Brad's scandalous romp with Patricia.

The cool breeze felt great as it rustled the hairs of my sideburn and swirled past my ears. After awhile, my eyes felt a little tired so I dropped the book lightly on the floor and reached out to the sidetable and gripped the ear of my Coffee Bean cup. Slowly, I tipped the cup till its warm contents reached my lips. The delicious-smelling mocha was intoxicating. I couldn't help myself and gulped it down greedily.

The beverage cheered me up and brought a little respite. However unsettling thoughts forced their way back into my mind as I thought of the mistakes I'd made and all the relationships that I'd ripped apart with my own hands.

I like to receive, but never give enough in return.

I thought of the words I'd read on Amos' blog awhile ago and was surprised with the realisation at how apt it was at describing how I felt. I shuddered at the coincidence, but nonetheless forced myself to revisit those words.

"Maybe its time to stop disappearing, stop being so high and lofty. We should be like a falling star, coming down to Earth. Although we can see everything from up above, you will never know anything observing all the time. You have to be one with the people to know and to feel.

A falling star that will illuminate the night sky for a brilliant moment before being one with the Earth. to announce that you are indeed here and that you have come to stake your place on this world too."

I put my hands on my head and rubbed my temples forcefully for what seemed like a long time.

I picked up the book again and tossed the nasty thoughts to the back of my mind. I can't change past, I can only learn and hope to do better in the future. There's only so many times I can apologise to the people that I've let down...

I rested the book on my chest and closed my eyes. The cool wind caressed me all over, like a sweet embrace. The music seemed to get softer and softer as I drifted into deep, dreamless slumber.

Gold Blue White

Something's terribly wrong. I don't look as young as I used to. I thought I looked 18. But now I definitely don't. Age is catching up with me. I don't know if I'm not catching enough sleep, or not drinking enough water. I'm definitely not feeling stressed because the holiday has been rather enjoyable (and it doesn't stop till add/drop stops). Now I'm beginning to think that it might just be the hair. I'll blame it on everything else other than the fact that I'm beginning to see all the terrible age-lines around my eyes. I'll get my hair cut by next week. It would probably look nicer with my cheerleading costume.

Cheerleading. I've been at practice everyday since Monday, and there're 9 more practices to go in the next 11 days. I've improved vastly since the first time I joined, and I actually regretted not going for the sessions before the exams. Nevertheless despite the lack of experience and strength, I've managed to perform stunts that I'm growing more confident of daily. Teaching and practising the dance has been great fun too! I'm nervous yet really looking forward to the 23rd where we get to perform in front of everyone, especially our own hall, to show them that the effort that we've put in has paid off, and for them to be proud of us.

That reminds me of Zhi Wei's words at the waterpolo's team last meeting at 60 benches this week where he said that no matter our standard we should be proud to get the chance to represent the hall. It was a great get-together and it provided closure for the team's efforts for this IH. I did think that our exit from the games was a tad premature considering the time and energy that was invested, but I wasn't there to see the final game so I don't think my comments are that valid. Anyway, there's always next year and with Daniel and Kelvin around, I think next year's team would be good. Initially I had my reservations about joining polo again but I'm going to start training up my stamina now whenever I have the time this semester so I'll be ready for the next IH. It's still 11 months away!

Speaking of hall activities, there seems to be no end to them. Next Friday is Supper Hop and my roomie's one of the people who had a pivotal role in organising it! Hall 12 peeps, if you haven't gotten your tickets yet, get them now! I think all you've got to do is approach any of the Social Sumbcomm people and they'd be able to help you get them. It's only 4 dollars for a night long of journeying to all corners of Singapore to enjoy good food. (Yeah, I'm blatantly advertising.) I'm so glad that there's no cheerleading on that day so we can go for an entire night of feasting! Surf n Sweat is coming up and it looks really exciting. Okay, so that isn't a hall activity, but I feel like joining. Then there's Beach Out which will happen mid-Feb. I've already missed 2 consecutive meetings and not contributed as much as I'd like, for which I'm really apologetic. There's still some time for me to get the logistical stuff done and I hope it'll be a great success. Ooh, and there's PNP for DND too, which I was hoping would be my biggest contribution to hall this year... just that I need to put in a lot more time and effort into it - the kind that I put in for stuff like Waterpolo and Cheerleading.

It's been a rather retarded week at school today and I think add/drop is kind of sucky. I haven't got what I wanted and I'm disappointed at some of the very retarded timings of my tutorial. My Wednesday is currently 830AM-10AM lecture followed by a tutorial at 330PM. Like... WTF. I tried to swop but an earlier tutorial slot got snatched almost the very second STARS came online. Rawr.

One more last thing - I'd like to thank Andy for being such an inspiration, himself being a great example of what he believes in and sharing his knowledge with me. Now I'm really motivated (okay, at least a bit more than I was before Monday) to improve my fitness because as you said, people are pushing themselves to the limits and breaking barriers all the time. It is just not enough to be merely satisfied with mediocrity and staying stagnant. This is the semester. I'll set goals, push myself harder and see some results. Including academic results. Dammit.