Birthdays

It was a bit of a rush to attend two birthday parties in a single day but thanks to my friends being understanding and people providing transport, it made all the travelling more bearable. I was drenched in my own sweat more than once during the day.

I stopped over at Mitchell's place first and was greeted warmly by the hostess herself. It was kind of weird because I haven't seen her in four years already but she hasn't changed much. And the rest of my female classmates don't look very different either. Strangely (or not) enough, I was the only guy from my Secondary School class to be invited, probably because I was the only one close enough to her. I sat beside her in class for two years. It was a little strange initially because I haven't seen them all in a very very long time, but I was pretty comfortable around them, seeing how I was always closer to them than any of the guys in the class. In fact, I'm not in contact with any of them now.



The food was pretty good, and I enjoyed catching up with all of them again. Of course I didn't know that they were already at her house since 3PM (and I was supposed to have tuition at 5) and I really got a lot of crap for coming late. What was worse was that I was going to leave early.

I got to finish a can of beer. I'm never good at beers and there was once where I felt really unwell after drinking one can of Tiger in camp, when I've drank stuff with much higher alcohol content. So I poured a little bit into the cups of the girls sitting at my table. There was a big fuss of me not being gentlemanly, which I retorted by saying I have no image of myself to uphold in front of them!

It's hard to be close to everyone all of the time. But that's another entry for another time.

Wei Jie was nice enough to drive to Khatib MRT station with Ming Boon and the Mahjong table that we got for Jie Yu as his birthday present. Wee Lee met him there and I kind of got lost looking for them, but managed to in the end with a lot of directions from Wee Lee. I don't know if it was due to the humidity or the mild sun burn from the morning's run, but I was once again sweating like a pig. Ming Boon had some Mothers' Day celebration going on, so Wei Jie dropped her off somewhere in Yishun and we headed for Jie Yu's place.

There was a bit of commotion as we brought in the table.

Wee Lee and I stuffed ourselves with food. For me the highlight was the drink. I absolutely love Rose Syrup. It gives me a sugar rush just like drinking Coke does, except without the bubbly. I must admit that I wasn't feeling too sociable but it was entertaining enough just to listen about Wee Lee's recent escapades.



Yeah, and soon enough it was time for the cake-cutting ceremony. Probably couldn't imagine a birthday party without it.



I forgot to ask him how that crown came about! Haha... It's kinda cool because I've only ever seen tiaras on girls before, and this is a refreshing change! Anyway, it was rather overwhelming when everyone started singing the birthday song, which was kickstarted by his gf Chieh. The accompanying cupcakes beside the main one were made by her too.



And then Jie Yu had a bit of an emo moment when he was making his speech. A moment like this makes the whole thing special. And iconic. The words he said were pretty normal. It was the way he said it, like he meant every word, that got everyone's attention.



But after all of that he was still cool enough to smile for the camera. That was followed by a lot of photo taking, with his family, with the Student Council, with his VS friends and of course, with his classmates.



Us.



After gorging myself on all the sweet stuff, we went down to his room to play some games. I must say Yong Xiang is pretty much the opposite of me, and he really knows how to make everyone feel... a part of the group. Anyway, my favourite game's what is now popularly known as the Pirates of the Carribean game, that involves dices and a good forfeit.

Baileys was good.

I left at 11PM, much the host's disappointment and there were a couple of times on the way back that I felt the urge to go back, but yeah... I was safe and sound at home by 12 and caught Good Charlotte Live in KL. They were brill!

Courtesy - The Safer Policy

If you're taking public transport, you must surely understand how I feel when I say that it's very irritating to have people standing at the door and waiting to squeeze into the train when you're trying to make your way out.

I remember how a friend of mine dealt with the situation. He pretended to answer his phone, oblivious to whoever was in front of him. The second the doors opened, the aunty blocking his way had the honour of getting elbowed in the shoulder. She gasped in pain. Okay, so maybe I should feel a bit of pity for her because of her age, but then again, she knows better to block the exit for people trying to alight from the train.

It's common sense anyway.

The experience related to me was embedded deeply in my mind, so much that everytime I see someone blocking my way, I have the urge to do the same thing. Recently my patience ran thin and I actually rushed out of the train and gave the person blocking me a hard shove. And I'm usually not this mean but it felt good.

Of course I could very possibly be charged for causing bodily harm, but till then, get out of my way.

like.no.other

Because everytime I look at this, it hurts to know what I left behind.

Hectic Week

This is another entry of ranting with not much purpose, in fact none at all till I get to watch Spiderman 3. Everybody's talking about. I'll be watching it tomorrow, so... what the hell.

On Monday I went for lunch with Jie Yu and we couldn't help but notice how the public has been bombarded with advertisements for the new Spiderman 3. We went for lunch at the BK at Raffles Place, and we the cups and the holder for the fries had Spiderman printed on them. And I upsized my meal because I wanted to acquire a Spiderman card. Childish I know, but it's once in awhile! I'm a big fan of Spiderman. Ooh, and we had a drink from Boost. That never fails to make me happy. It tastes so good, yet it's healthy!

At night, I met up with Ryan and Shermaine, who had tickets for a Harmonica performance at the Esplanade Recital Hall. I enjoyed myself a lot. I think it's times when you watch other people perform that you relight your passion for music. I was really stunned at how good the second half of the concert was. The first half was performed by a group which was more interested in being technically challenged than actually making music that touches the heart. Not that they succeeded very well in being technically-challenged either. They had one thing going for them though - the pieces they played were rather famous Mozart pieces. The second-half was packed with unique performances. Harmonica with piano backing, harmonica with CD-"orchestra" backing, amazing solos, and tight, small groups of three, each wielding a different harmonica. It's been a long time since I've seen a harmonica performance, so I really have to thank Shermaine for offering me tickets to watch it.

On Tuesday I went for for a haircut with Guo Fei at Kimage. I kinda like my hair but I thought 30 bucks for the it was a little steep.



After that we met Samuel at Paragon for some top-secret thing that I'm not supposed to reveal. We had our dinner at Lucky Plaza, where I'd used to have lunch so often when I was working at Wisma. I stopped by my former workplace to say hi to a couple of people before heading over to Wheelock place, where Samuel got a laptop case (actually it'll fit A4 papers too) from Crumpler. Our last stop was Lido where we took a chance and actually went to see if there were any Spiderman 3 tickets left. If there were, we'd watch it straightaway. As expected, there wasn't any, and they even had an A4 printout just before the queue for the tickets that said "Spiderman 3 tickets SOLD OUT". Guo Fei left for home while Samuel and I had a chat about his job that I was going to take over.

On Wednesday night I met Wee Lee after tuition for a drink and a little chat. It's also been some time since I stopped by Causeway Point. I suppose it's due to the place being in such close proximity to mine that I've always ignored it. To me it's like heading to the coffee shop downstairs. Anyway, we had iced tea at Mos Burger and talked about lives. Actually more of his, because he was stuck in a rather interesting predicament, but it'm sure it'll be rewarding in the long run.

On Thursday was my first day of work. More on that later! After my tuition at Sengkang which ended at 9PM, my family went to this coffee shop at Merdien LRT station for dinner in celebration of Mothers' Day! Haha, it's really way in advance but it's kind of cool. I enjoyed stuffing myself with black pepper crab. It was amazing.

I met Zhenhui on Friday, when Shuming became MIA all of sudden after informing us of her trip to Sentosa. We went to return the car that was rented at Punggol, took a bus to his place where he went to get his Ikea Friends Card (while I went to use the toilet at Compasspoint and listened to Thnks Fr Th Mmrs on repeat). It was another bus ride to Tampiness Ikea, which I went for the first time. It was very spacious. I guess the land on which it was built was cheap, and this Courts, Ikea and Giant each had their own buildings with lots of free parking lots! The layout made it look a whole lot like Malaysia! The meatballs at Ikea were tasty as usual and we started shopping.



I actually bought clothes hangers again. They were going for 5 at $1.50, when I discinctly remember getting them for a tad more money. So according to a certain warped logic of mine of averages, I just had to get them. (After a quick search on my blog I just realised that I got them for the same price! Oops!)

Saturday was a KBox session with Ryan. It was one of the best sessions I've had, probably because we went crazier this time around, and there weren't any expectations of what we were going to sing. I'm wondering whether I should put up my version of Everytime. It does sound a bit forced at some places though. Hmmm.

I should really cut down on meeting people because it seems like it's the only way to save money! I don't know yet, but I've only got 2 more months to save for Uni and I've only got a measly amount of money in the bank. To add to that, I've got a trip to Taiwan in July. Gosh. It's quite a headache. I'm considering working at the upcoming PC show, but it starts on a Thursday, which I have work commitments. I've just been struck by the painful realisation that it's probably never going to be enough.

Alright, time for tuition!

Night Cycling II

I'm thankful that the bus driver let us up the bus and got us to Marina, although he could probably have let us stop at the end instead of throwing us at the end of this trashy route. You could probably make out the hotel and Marina just behind. The rain was freezing cold, and hit us really hard. Anyway, we braved the rain and made it to shelter and bought some stuff to eat at 7-11. There were a lot of people just outside the place, drinking, playing truth-or-dare, and basically getting wasted. Young punks. We decided to go to a place with a better environment. It was still raining and we were cycling a little bit, and Jie Yu almost slipped when he made a sharp turn. The floor was freaking wet.



I've just realised that this photo is a tad blur. Anyway, we sat where the Esplanade was in view (I've taken a stand - it's an artistic and cool structure) and had our curry puffs and other stuff that we got from 7-11. We were thinking of what our options would be if it rained, but as it turned out, it didn't stop raining. So we just sat there... and waited.



And listened to music from his mp3 player. There's a mix of a whole lot of good stuff, songs that were old and new. Finally it was about 6 and the buses had started their services already. We decided not to wait any more and take our chances to get back to his place. I had tuition at 1045 and work at Sony, so I wanted a few hours of shut eye, no matter how measly.



We went to the Esplanade for the toilet (the last proper photo I took). After that we got rejected by buses, trains and cabs.

So we had the tough job of cycling all the way back at 633AM. It was rather insane because we knew we were going to be wet, the visiblity was a tad poor, and we were a little tired. Okay, it is kind of hard to feel tired when you're wet and shivering, so I was really very motivated to get back as soon as possible. We had to cycle at the side of the road, obviously, which was where all the puddles were. So as we did that, we created mini fountains with water splashing from the front wheel, and from the back wheel to my back, and of course all around my feet. My camera was still in my pocket, and I feared for its safety, but it was already too late. We just wanted to get back and rest, and take advantage of the fact that it was still early and that there weren't too many vehicles on the road.

Did I mention the amount of water actually coming from the sky?

It wasn't a thunderstorm but it was crappy enough to be cycling. The only up side about the whole thing was that it that the temperature was cold. That, I can handle. We made it past Little India and from then on, it seemed like the whole place was called Serangoon. I actually thought we'd be back soon, but there was Pasir Panjang and all the other weird places on the NEL line, before we actually reached back, dripping, but happy to be in one piece.

Something similar to the feeling after the 24km route march.

We took two photos of our wet selves, but they didn't turn out well, so I'll leave it to your imagination. Ooh, and my shoes were wet. I didn't have time to go home to change because of my work commitments so I wore them for the entire day, which is why my feet still stink faintly.

A harder scrub of dettol today should do the trick.

PS - A huge thank you to Chris who bought me the Levi's from Taiwan!

Night Cycling I

I was just saying how much I hate writing (and you thought blogging was supposed to be natural and an easy art of self-expression) but I've got to do it anyway because it would be such a waste not to note down the experience that's causing my feet to stink till today.



On Saturday night I went to Jie Yu's place after work ie standing for 10 hours for the night cycling trip we planned. It was kind of ambitious as we wanted to make it to most parts of Singapore in the course of the night. The initial plan was to head to Clementi, and then to Choa Chu Kang, Woodlands, Pasir Ris, the Esplanade and then back to Serangoon. Jie Yu had already planned the route. Streetdirectory.com is amazingly helpful. The planned route was about 120km.



Jie Yu took a lot of effort to plan for the trip, which included borrowing really good bikes. This was the better one that I was supposed to be using, but I felt more comfortable with the other one instead! Guess I'm not tall enough for it! Most of the stuff that we needed to bring were packed in his bag, while I carried my camera, handphone and wallet in my berms. They were irritating to cycle in because they came below the knees. I'll remember to wear shorts the next time!



And so we headed to Toa Payoh from Serangoon, which was a rather short route, and one that we've travelled a couple of times before. However as we crossed the overhead bridge, we had an episode of misplaced contact lenses! Okay, so maybe misplaced isn't the right word, but somehow Jie Yu's contact lens dropped out from his eye. Luckily enough he saw where it landed, and due to our amazing foresight, we had the solution with us and so he put it back where it belonged, and we carried on like it didn't happen.



Our first stop was at the void deck of a mystery girl whose identity I've decided to keep a secret. Anyway, she passed Jie Yu a bottle of Gatorade and helped us take this photo. Cool stuff. We continued and made our way to Clementi. We passed by Mount Avernia (sp?) hospital and the entrance of Macritchie reservoir. After that we came across a place where there were quite a few people waiting for cabs at the main road.



Jie Yu kept telling me I should take a photo with the place that I might probably be working for next time! Which reminds me - we passed by SPH earlier as well. We decided to head inside to take a photo with the very famous Mediacorp sign.



It was kind of difficult to hold the camera steady after cycling so intensely. We weren't exactly panting but I could feel the blood being pumped a little harder through my veins, and that really doesn't help when you're trying to take a good photo at night. The other option was to set it to 2 sec timer so as to reduce the movement from actually pressing the shutter button, but the best bet would've been to get a tripod, which is just too bloody heavy to carry along on a cycling trip. After that, we made our way out of there and pedalled furiously towards Clementi.



We were on the road that was headed to Holland V and Queestown. We were actually toying with the idea of going to Holland V. I've never been there before actually. But I decided that I was not really hungry, probably because of the adrenaline rush, while Jie Yu had his dinner just while ago, so we continued cycling till we reached Clementi MRT station. I felt that it was the thrilling and exciting cycling terrain, with plenty of slopes which allowed us to cruise through without doing any actual cycling. We went up to about 27 km/h, while our average speed on normal roads would've been about 17km/h.



Eventually we stopped at the coffeeshop situated just beside Clementi MRT station for supper. I like my ba chor mee dry. Haha... It's amazing how many people were having their meals despite how late it was. By then it was already 1245AM. The meal really re-energised me, since my last one was more than 6 hours ago. Half an hour later, we were ready to go. We were supposed to head for Jurong which would in turn lead us to Choa Chu Kang.



For some strange, unplanned reason, we went pass The Chevrons. Weirdly enough, the only time I ever went there was with Bryan, Charles and Chia Keat, people from my platoon whom I later realised I couldn't really click with. We did catch War of the Worlds because we couldn't get in to the KTV at Chevrons. Ooh yeah, travelling around Singapore really brings a lot memories attached to all the different places I've visited.



It was here that we started to get a little lost. According to Jie Yu's plan we weren't suppose to go pass Jurong MRT station (my favourite interchange) which looks brilliantly lit in the middle of the night, and neither were we supposed to be at the Science Centre (I think they're having a dinosaur exhibit) and the last photo over there would be of the Discovery Centre. We continued cycling because apparently we were on the right road (Jurong Town Hall Rd), but once we saw Chinese Garden MRT station, we freaked out and was convinced that we were going the wrong way. On hindsight, it was the right path, but of course we didn't know it then! We then went in the opposite direction (which now you know lead us further down the wrong way) and travelled cluelessly until I saw the back of a school that looked strangely familiar to me.

I felt as if I had just seen a ghost. I knew the place was coming up but since we were going by the back of it, I was caught by surprise. It's been 6 years since I've been there, because frankly there was no reason for me to go back. Much has changed though. It was no longer River Valley High School. Instead it was a newer-looking building, and has become Commonwealth Secondary School. The structure was still more or less the same. It was crazy but I didn't know how deeply I've buried my memories till I saw the school compound again. The hair on my arms were standing on their ends. The feeling of going to school there came back to haunt me.



This is the reservoir which faces the school. When there were 2.4km runs, we would take a left turn, run 1.2km of the circumference and turn back. I used to run to the midpoint and walk back. It was perfect imagery of my life in lower secondary - half-fucked in everything I tried to do (totally-fucked up my studies, which was why they kicked me out after that), low on self-worth... basically I was a screwed up kid. Of course without him, there wouldn't be me. What would I have given to give that kid some identity. Growing up was so awkward and different from primary school. He was the kind who'd stick to the people he'd want to befriend, although he wasn't exactly lonely and had his own small clique (which was basically formed from the outcast of the rowdier, crazier guys in class). Of course I'd be the complete opposite. Still as awkward as ever that's for certain, but I've actually been called dao a couple of times. I wait for people to approach me, to ask me out - I take don't take initiative, yeah, that's probably because I fear rejection. And sitting on this side of the fence actually allows me to dish it out instead of taking it.



Looking back, I don't quite understand how he managed to fail more than half the subjects in Sec 2 (my average was about 46.7%). The guy who got A B B for As is still in a bit of disbelief. But getting out of there was probably the best thing that happened since getting in. For so long I've been pretending it's okay, and that I've moved on and put it behind me. It's good for times when I need to do a bit of storytelling (one of the things I related to the prof at the interview for SCI) though.

Just facing the reservoir and the deserted school flooded me with so many memories. On a more light-hearted note, Xiaxue lives at Teban Gardens (which was where we were, more or less) and went to RV too. Anyway, after being confronted with so much pain, all I wanted to do was to get out of there ASAP, and being somewhat familiar with the place I led the way back to Jurong MRT station. In my haste I pushed a bit too much and ended getting a major cramp. At the time we were close to a traffic junction so I stopped there and literally threw myself on the floor for a stretch. By the time we reached the station it was 220AM and we'd already wasted an hour.



After orientating ourselves, we managed to get to Bukit Batok MRT station. I was quite frustrated with the fact that I didn't get it right away, that the centre track was the on which would lead us to BB and ended up following a general direction that got us lost in the first place. So that sucked big time. The photo above is one of the Macdonalds at the station. I kind of like the place. It's cosy and all. I used to live in Bukit Batok.

We decided that instead of going North, we'd make our way to Harbourfront instead. Earlier when we were at the reservoir, the thunder had started rolling. When we left BB train station, the wind was starting to gain momentum and we tried desperately to cover as much distance as we could, in hope that we would actually be able to get to another part of Singapore where it wasn't raining.



Of course, as luck would have it, it started raining. The drizzle progressed to become a torrential rain and we were stuck at the bus stop outside this incinerator at Toh Tuck Lane. Descriptions just don't cut it. Here's one of the few videos that we took (we were stuck at a bus stop at 317AM, waddya expect!) of our situation. I sound horrible in the rest, so there.