More love please, we're Singaporean.

Love.

How does one define that mystical term?

The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (International Students Edition) defines the word as: [U] a strong feeling of liking and caring for someone, while our favourite online encyclopedia Wikipedia states that love is a constellation of emotions and experiences related to a sense of strong affection or profound oneness.

Indeed, the fabled L-word is based largely on the feelings both parties in the relationship have of each other. Without feelings, nothing "coupley" can be done. It's like trying to start a fire with a wet box of matches, damp kinder and a gale-force typhoon blowing in your face. Feelings are thus the fundamental building blocks for a relationship built on love, the nucleus of a seed atom which hopefully transpires into something new, exciting and rewarding.

Love, when it comes, arrives on a chariot driven by a quartet of prized steeds, each rivaling the winged horse Pegasus in terms of speed, agility and magnificence. It just slams into you, and before you can pick up your marbles and gather your bearings, you have already fallen too far into the quagmire of affection, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Some people are afraid of such a commitment, and try ways and means to get out of such a situation. They forsake the feelings and opinion of the other party in the relationship, regardless of whether or not they have officially started in the first place. The onus is on the fact that both parties are bound by an invisible, implied and understood contract of obligation right from the get-go when their feelings and instincts take control. Afterall, all of us are hardwired to find our second halves. Such scenarios often result in one party being devastated to the core, some even reaching to the extent of self-destruction, self-mortification or self-hate. The power one party wields over the other is scary, rivaling or even superseding the power of parents or authority. It is thus wise to seek the opinion of the other party before jumping to conclusions and solutions, as the method may sound good to you, but it may not be appropriate for the situation at hand. The results may not be what you have envisioned.

I read an article by Sumiko Tan in the newspapers last night, or rather this morning. She was talking about love and marriage, and I have to say I agree with her to the letter. Love is not about sex, security or sleaze, its about companionship, having someone - a very best friend - by your side 24/7. Knowing that she loves you and you love her, it colors and brings joy to your life, something that cannot be achieved with computer games, comic books or MMORPGs. We are, afterall, human.

Sure the package of love comes with a bewildering plethora of assorted paraphernalia, some downbeat, and some activist. It ultimately boils down to how the individual uses that package for the benefit of both parties, and that same package can be used to both induce pain, and to create extreme pleasure for the two primary variables in the equation of love. Guys out there reading this, please, don’t hurt your girls anymore; they don’t deserve that sort of torture. Seek their opinion, get clearance before attempting anything dire, and do not, under any circumstance coerce her to do something which you know will ultimately obliterate you both. The specter of break-up is shadowy, evil and malevolent to the very core.

Indeed.

In sum, it takes two hands to clap, likewise in a love relationship, there has to be giving before taking can commence, and when that happens you will naturally feel great about it. Why? Well, how would you feel if the girl you love returns the favour of giving by interpreting it in her own way? It is a feeling that falls short of any description by mere words, but it can be roughly described with this statement: the person you love loves you back.

Love is a narrow two-way street, you have to put yourselves into each other’s hands to make it to the end.

Quoteworthy Quotes

The path less trodden is a path rife with treachery, danger and hidden surprises at every turn.

The light at the end of the tunnel may be bright, but the tunnel itself is dark as night, very dark indeed.

Standing vigil by the candlelight for the eventual return of the ship, only to have it delayed yet again, without forewarning or any prior indication.

Tough times demand tougher measures; escape is hardly an option worthy of notable consideration in dire times.

To push the boundaries of endurance, to test the frontiers of tolerance, to tread precariously into the great unknown, such is bravery, yet the intrinsically unique limits must not be forsaken or forgotten.

Reaching for the stars requires more than mere puffery and sweet talk to cajole a nova to descend from the heavens; solid action must be taken to wrench the wretched celestial entity from its perch in the inky sky.

An equation will always be balanced by the presence of a constant variable, yet the entire sequence will be thrown into disarray by the incidence of other factors mutually exclusive of the constant variable.

A single tiny ember of flame is all it takes to spark a wildfire razing several acres of evergreen forest.

One slight miscalculation on the captain’s part will result in the demise of the entire vessel into a maelstrom of gargantuan proportions, into the gaping maw of a kraken or onto a bed of razor sharp rocks like a beached whale.

The wheel of fate constantly turns, the engine of destiny relentlessly runs, and the monolith of time persistently surges ahead.

Focus is a double-edged sword. Control and discipline is the key to wielding the weapon as though it was an extension of the arm.

Absolution comes at the cost of dissolution.

Sunlight, however abundant, will expire one day.

Nothing is forever.

Team Players

Team Players

The following is a non-exhaustive list of personality types that characterize an individual’s team performance. Some individuals may be a combination of two or more types. This is only a guide, and individual results may vary upon comparison.

Worker Bee
Description: The best team mate to have in a group. Does his assigned work diligently and seldom with complaints. Submits said work in advance most of the time. Tend to suffer when presenting arguments or doing pitches, which can be circumvented with practice.
Countermeasure: Why do you want to counter such a gem?

Intrepid Hero
Description: Good leadership qualities coupled with good interpersonal skills make this team member an invaluable asset. Will be the liaison between the group and authority, and will take initiative to seek out the best deals for the team. May be overcome with arrogance if not careful.
Countermeasure: Keep him in check, and do not let his own ideas go to his head.

Houdini
Description: Team member who mysteriously vanishes from the face of the earth, usually during crucial times. Unable to reach during said emergencies as all communicative devices and outlets will be severed from the source. Usually reappears in the nick of time or after the deadline.
Countermeasure: Keep track of his movements, and obtain proof of his performance. During critical periods, monitor his activity closer, make him stay with the group to complete his task, or threaten using lethal force. Tie to a leash if necessary.

Drifter
Description: Team member who moves away from the main discussion. Usually goes from the discussed topic to another topic of an alternate interest, like dinner. Severe cases may have multiple occurrences during a single meeting. Drifting is contagious.
Countermeasure: Keep him focused on the task at hand. Silence any semblance of drifting at the first opportunity with authority. Use force when necessary.

Sleeper
Description: Team member who sleeps, literally, at any meeting place under any circumstance. Sleep periods range from a few minutes to multiple hours. During said sleep periods, he is close to impossible to wake up unless sufficient force is applied. Extreme cases may have snoring instances and sleep talking occurrences attached.
Countermeasure: Ensure sleeper has something to do. If he nods off to dreamland, wake him up at the first opportunity. Apply force as needed. Specialised waking tools recommended.

Nocturnal
Description: Team member who frequently hands in assigned work in the wee hours of the morning. Typically turns in work between 1am to 7am, regardless of deadlines or interests of other team members. Can usually be found with numerous excuses for their lateness, citing family issues, health problems or equipment malfunction.
Countermeasure: Force him to submit work before stipulated time, else face dire ramifications. Blackmail if necessary, and keep proof of his lateness for future consideration.

Glutton
Description: Team member who self-imposes a break, usually lunch, on himself and returns hours later. Breaks can range from 2 to 4 hours. Often cites long queues and convenient accidents as excuses. Communication efforts to locate him also curiously come up to a brick wall.
Countermeasure: Attach another team member to follow him for breaks, and have both of them return at a stipulated time. Exercise caution: gluttony is contagious. Bombard with communication efforts or send out a search party if necessary.

Bootlicker
Description: Team member who agrees with everything and anything that is being said, even if the subject matter is totally irrelevant or impractical. Does not seem to possess a mind of his own, let alone opinion. Will change his mind at every turn, or when a new fact that is of general or major consensus appears.
Countermeasure: Shut him up. Seal his vocal canal if necessary.

Opposition Party
Description: Team member who is the opposite of a Bootlicker, and disagrees with anything that the team leader or majority of the team members put forth. Finds fault with everyone at every turn. Can be an utter annoyance. Similar to Bootlickers, he has no mind of his own, although he possesses limited opinion.
Countermeasure: As with Bootlickers, the best way to counter is to shut him up and do not be affected by his words.

Laggard
Description: Team member who is slow to comprehend and understand facts presented during a discussion. Limited sentience present, facts have to be slowly brought across to him in a slow, child-like fashion. Frustration and anger will follow in most cases. Usually performs to standard provided that standard has been thoroughly explained in detail.
Countermeasure: No known countermeasure, explain slowly at the expense of your temper.

Nazi
Description: Team member who refuses to accept any other idea other than his own. Usually subsists in leaders. Tends to think of all other ideas as inferior, and will try ways and means to impose his will upon the group. May use force to get his way.
Countermeasure: Make him see the error of his ways by showing him the impracticality of his idea through examples. Consult authority if needed, or threaten with lethal force.

Hider
Description: Team member who blends in with the scenery using a laptop to shield his presence from the group. Appears to be furiously typing away on his laptop, but in actuality he is surfing the net, playing a game or chatting on MSN. Disregards whatever has been said during the meeting and usually requires guidance when performing his bit of the work.
Countermeasure: Use physical force to bring him back into reality. Slam down laptop cover or yank off power adaptor. More subtle means include emailing him and approaching him on MSN even if he is within close proximity.

Gangster
Description: Team member who uses threats of violence to worm out of work assignments. Usually applies such duress in crucial times. May cite stress and personal problems as reasons for non-commitment. More often than not, the threats are usually empty.
Countermeasure: Be firm, counter-threaten with force or authority if necessary.

Puppet Master
Description: Team member excelling at personnel manipulation. Often gets others to perform his tasks. Victims are usually Worker Bees. May use force, threats of force, favours, sweet talk, or monetary consideration to get their way. Often slips by undetected by the team leader. May edit done work to pass off as his own.
Countermeasure: Warn group of consequences prior to beginning of project, and constantly monitor and check turned in work for crass similarities.

Copycat
Description: Team member who is exceptionally lazy and copies and pastes whole chunks of information from a website without proper paraphrasing or referencing. Source is usually Wikipedia or any encyclopedia websites. Extreme cases may have plagiarized portions still in their original forms in terms of text style, font and size.
Countermeasure: Assign work like research that can only be done through print media. Minimise or totally exclude the assignment of online work.

Overlord

Description: Team member, usually leader, who is extremely domineering and most often possess a superiority complex. Usually moves around the group getting people to do stuff, while not doing anything himself. In short: all talk and no action. Tend to be loud and boisterous in an attempt to instill fear in the other team members. May turn violent if his instructions fall on deaf ears.

Countermeasure: Do not give in to his threats, reason with him and threaten to go on strike if needed. Get the support of the other team members and organise an efficient strike force against the oppressor.

Disclaimer: This does not represent the interests of any authority related to me, and it purely a leisurely pursuit of my literary interests as well as for entertainment. Parental guidance advised.

The Melancholy of School, School, School

Hello people.

Yes, yes I’m back to my trusty blog to write about issues I’ve faced during the endless quest of life. Be prepared for a long and wordy post, I don’t blame you if you click the “Back” button at the top left hand corner of your browser halfway (or even quarter-way) through. Then again, if you’re a reader of this site you should be aware of my love for words, and more-or-less enjoy how I string them together into an anecdote of my peculiar life. Let’s begin shall we?

First a recap: we’ve been together for exactly three months and seventeen days as of 29th August 2007. It’s a long and perilous journey I must say, but nonetheless exciting, refreshing and downright rewarding. I mean, it feels so good to shower care and concern over someone you care about, and she (I emphasize SHE, in case some newer readers get any funny ideas) reciprocates by letting you shower your care and concern over her, and sometimes returns the effort. It’s more than enough for me, I don’t really ask for much, just the willingness to allow my care and concern to seep through into her life is more than sufficient. Being brought up in an environment where myself is secondary to everything else, couple that with my innate nature to be nice and you get a guy who is looking out for his girl at every turn.

Her academic year has begun, and she is busy, real busy, trying to transit smoothly from one: JC life to Uni life; two: from slack holiday life to uber-unslack Uni life; and three: from schooling while still single to schooling while attached. Thus, she’s having quite the time preparing herself for the newest chapter in her life. Well my friends, if you’re one of my poly classmates or schoolmates (Yo dudes), you guys should know what I’m talking about. From what I’ve gathered, poly life is somewhat similar to Uni life, although its one degree slacker. Still, the gist of the fact is that poly people have an advantage over JC peeps (no offense to JC-goers) when both education models converge in university. A number of factors justify this, and each will be discussed in turn (MASINA essay, minus the Social, Political and Economical impacts).

First and foremost, the curriculum in university is strikingly similar to that in poly. I can draw comparisons cause my sister is in a JC and some of my closer friends hail from a university. I myself, am proud to be from Ngee Ann Polytechnic, therefore, with information from all three educational systems, I can safely say that I’m equipped to make a comment(s) (fair comment in the name of public interest) on this issue. Sorry, I digressed, back to the initial issue.

When we first started poly, on the very first day, we were bombarded with at least seven projects and assignments from all seven modules we were taking, and some of them were due in like week 3. The first, and most natural reaction was of course, shock (Insert soundbite: Halo_Covenant_Grunt:SFX#23 – “We’re all gonna die!”). Seven assignments is alright, if all of them were individual reports of 1000 words each. But no, they had to be GROUP assignments, and major ones at that, accounting for up to 40% of the module grade. I mean, we’re only in our first year, first DAY at that, and they expect us to form efficient teams with people who we’ve only met like twice. Madness. Plus, we have to do that seven times. Utter madness.

Let’s jump to a JC. Well, my sister started out school well, and ended her first year well: no wall-banging, head-smashing or premature surfacing of self-mortification, depressional or latent suicidal tendencies. Everything was spoon-fed to her. Textbooks? None, the tutors got them to get photocopied notes from their bookstore, where everything and anything on the subject can be found. Homework? Close to none, even if there were, she could hand them up late and still get promoted, not that she did so anyway.

For us poly dudes, its like we had to queue like crazy to get hold of one stupid textbook that we only used for like one bloody semester, and its only the tip of the iceberg if a project - which also counts as our homework - demands information on that particular topic. The rest of the information has to be sourced either electronically online (a poly-goer’s best friend apart from the laptop) or manually through the school library. The latter is too comfy a place to do some serious research, and the materials there are limited if you’re not looking for textbooks. Therefore, the next best place to head to is the mother of all book-keeping facilities: the National Library. You can imagine the utter madness sourcing for information for seven god-damned modules.

The subject matter per se of the projects themselves didn’t help matters, picture going through a proverbial mountain of 10-inch thick monoliths on the principles of marketing only to find one or two chapters which are relevant to the project, like say advertising. Then, when we want to zap the pages we required we’re slapped with a warning: 10% of a book or one chapter and that’s it, any further and you will be charged in court. Bummer. The Copyright Act has struck again. Thanks Mr. Law, thanks for screwing up the already screwed-up public domain.

In Uni, the aforementioned comes charging into the face of the freshie as soon as he/she steps into the classroom, with no space and no room for consultation, consolation or condescension. One word describes this nicely: boom.

Next, JC peeps don’t really need to go online all the time to get study materials, as all of their materials are in hard copy provided by the school. My sister’s JC has an online portal, where her tutors upload work for them to do. You can think of it as the caveman version of Ngee Ann Poly’s Mobile E-Learning platform, affectionately shortened to MeL. If we want notes, we have to log on to retrieve them, and print them out for ourselves. Course outlines, assignment briefs (not undergarments but instructions) and whatnot are all uploaded by our diligent lecturers the day before their lessons begin. They expect us to be ready with our material and read up or prepare any work prior to attending the lesson. To not be ready is to be marked down for the fabled class participation, and as the years progress, that fable will not be so mystical indeed (hint hint).

Also, assignments are handed in through the web portal, in forms of discussion board entries to essays turned-in through the annoying system of Turnitin. The school wastes money on that irritating system to combat plagiarism throughout the school, more so in our faculty, as the media industry demands originality and accuracy. Even so, I personally know a few people who successfully circumvented the system, and still wound up with good grades.

Ah, the partiality of life.

I forgot to warn my girl about the abovementioned, but then again I wasn’t aware of the existence of SMUVista, the SMU version of MeL. Still, I should have warned her, drats. As a result, she was totally lost on her first day of school, as with her other JC friends, all like lost sheep milling about in a new pasture, unsure of where to go, or whether or not the grass beneath their feet is edible or not. According to her, she said that the poly-grads were freakishly prepared before the lesson, and participated with an almost fanatical zealotry in class. I don’t blame them, as in poly, class participation amounted to a mere 10% of the module grade, the difference between a grade, like a C and a C+. In Uni however, that 10% is multiplied fourfold, into EXAM weightage of 40% (exasperated gasp alert). Therefore, knowing the magnitude of said class participation, the poly peeps naturally prepared beforehand to take advantage of the somewhat “free” marks to get a good grade. My poor little girl on the other hand, wasn’t prepared in the least for that, but she’s learning day by day, and I’m proud of her.

Right, time for a benchmark. We’ve discussed the issue of textbooks and homework and compared that of a JC-goer to those of poly and Uni students and we’ve also looked at the double-edged usefulness of online learning portals. Before I go on, I would like to say that my fellow mass commers are really in for a treat by coming to my blog as the whole post is saturated with Easter eggs that can only be understood by way of true innuendo.

At last, we’ve come to the touchiest topic of this blog post: groups. Groups are the norm in a poly and Uni, and almost every module has at least one major group project due during the course of study. Take for example one of my first-year modules: Written Communication. On first glance it seems to be a module that doesn’t include any teamwork, and I thought so as well, until the assignment brief for the Proposal assignment came along. We had to work in groups of at least two, and the worst part was (wait for it), we got ASSIGNED partners. We didn’t even get to choose who we wanted to work with, we just got thrown into a contract. There was no acceptance whatsoever and neither was there valuable consideration. We could have brought an action against the lecturer for void of the contract, but then we were Year Ones who didn’t know a thing about media law. Vinod came too late. In case you’re wondering, I got an A for that module, and the group assignment garnered a B+ grade. Luck.

That said, someone approached me on MSN one fine day after Semester Two began and said she agreed totally with my MSN display name. It read: Another semester of trickery, hypocrisy and backstabbing has begun. How true. In group projects, there’s always the specter(s) of sleeping (literally) members, teammates who suddenly just vanish like Houdini, people who turn in delegated work like three in the morning, guys who go for day-long lunch breaks during group meetings and of course the fan-favourite team member who agrees with whatever is being said, even if it is false, weird or totally irrelevant to the subject matter. There are also the laptop hiders, dudes who hide behind a virtual wall of privacy and anonymity granted by their laptops, and the only way to reach them is through MSN (even if they’re just directly in front of you) or by yanking their power adaptors from their portable computers. Evil, yes, but it gets the job done. That’s the trickery bit of my display name.

Then there’s the omnipresent threat of hypocrisy and backstabbing, which can be condensed together. Usually, from experience, hypocrisy gives way to backstabbing, and if one isn’t careful, he/she could be stabbed by the same person numerous times for multiple modules. Some people are really two-faced: sure they can be your friend outside of school, joking and laughing with you as though the both of you were long lost friends, but throw in a work setting and witness the stark transformation (Insert soundeffect: Transformers_Misc:SFX#001 – Transformation_effect). One little flaw in your proposal, one minor detail overlooked, one little error in your bit of the work and the negative pejorative comments rush in like a towering tsunami. By word-of-mouth, that one comment spawns a host of other comments, some ridiculous, some ludicrous, but all utterly believable to the ears of a third party. Even confidential information can be floated around as though it cost the price of a peppercorn, and some extreme cases had the victim’s personal information being used against them, to force or coerce them to perform a task against their will (academic-related mind you).

Scary? Definitely.

In a JC, you don’t really have to work in teams all the time. There’s only the Project Work (PW) subject that’s A Level examinable in year one, apart from that there’s really no other chance to work in teams if you were not in a CCA. In poly and Uni, we were thrown (notice the usage of the term thrown) into groups, and given limited freedom in choosing who we want to work with. Also, we don’t know the individual capabilities of people until we got to know them better, and that comes only after a year of scrapping through projects with people who initially proved capable, only to fail you when it comes to crunch time.

With that, I’ve come to the end of my rare post. The purpose of this post is to allow my thoughts about this subject to be penned down, as my girl’s going to Uni has made me think about this issue a bit more as compared to the past. It also helps me to vent frustration, sort of. Nonetheless, thanks for reading another of my wordy posts.

Cheers.

How We began for Dummies

Yo peepos.

First of all, I would like to ask all of you not to kill me.I'm sorry for the utter lack of updates, but really, I didn't feel like writing.

That said, its time now for a major update, yes yes its about that.

Its July 12, 2007 today, exactly 2 months since I've held my beloved's little hand. Before that has been really an experimental stage, as both of us are unsure of what we want, and what the other person wants or feels. I received her vibes, weakly at first, during the first few months of this year. But those vibes were overshadowed by the calling of my heart for another girl during that time. It was only a temporal infatuation.

This however, is not.

Since March, during our first "date" (note the inverted commas), the vibes started to get real strong, and I found myself being pulled into the quagmire that was her. Is this the fabled love? Or was it just a passing crush, a fad like Beyblade?

It was the former. As we went out more often the feeling started to increase in strength, intensity, frequency. It was at this time that I did something unfair to her: I sneaked in stuff usually reserved for couples during our "dates". Really, if people see us on the streets they will mistake us for a couple. For that I sincerely apologise: sumimasen! Its no wonder the poor girl felt confused and lost, as we were really sitting on the fence, neither here nor there. That phrase was a hot buzzword between us during April - May 2007.

The relationship got strained a couple of times. The first was over MSN. Her deep thinking process started and she began to question the validity and sustainability of our relationship. She was tired of loitering, she wanted to be somewhere, either HERE or THERE. As my mum puts it, women want results. The hint was pretty obvious then, but I still withheld myself, as 19 years of singlehood made me think of the worst-case scenario of advancing further rather than the good side(s) of it. Money was one thing, my parents were another. But my worries are for naught, as I'll explain later in this post.

So after that nasty episode which fell on a Thursday, I felt tremendously sucky the next day. I don't know why. My stomach was churning over and over and over and it felt like it was dissolving itself. That is when I mustered up enough courage to approach her on MSN, something unprecendented in the history of James (insert Applause). We thrashed things out and came to a temporary but viable solution courtesy of me: let nature run its course and give each other more time.

And yes indeed, it was but a temporary solution to a much long term problem.

I shall cut to the chase. The date was 10th May, 2007. We were supposed to go watch Spiderman 3 at VivoCity. For the first time in the relationship I was late (boohoo), and she waited an hour for me. However, she didn't complain much, and still gave me her signature smile. She was decked in this absolutely cute one piece garment, with a matching bag (which I had to carry in exchange for courier service of my sweater) and (gasp!) 3-inch heels! Its not everyday that a girl could come up to around my nose level, I mean some girls in my course wear 4-inch heels and I still can't see them if they are directly infront of me. Sorry I'm just being evil.

Anyway, the day went on smoothly at first, the movie was great, her company was great, dinner was great, her company was great, her gift to me was great, her company was great, the walk we had after dinner was great, her company was great. You get the idea. It was at the end of that walk that the reality of the situation sank into her. It hit her like a sledgehammer. Wham! Her mood immediately turned 180 degrees into the negative zone. I tried my best to turn it around, but I failed. My status wasn't appropriate for that at that point in time.

After we parted ways, I felt sick again. The stomach-churning was back, this time more than before. I went online, hoping to catch a glimpse of her, and she was! We conversed and the hint appeared again, this time it was super duper impossible-to-miss obvious. Well, being the passive shy fool that I was I tried popping the question over MSN, but I failed, terribly.

The following days were pure agony. My bodily systems slowed to a crawl, my reflexes dumbed down, and I couldn’t muster that speed that never fails to amaze her. I just can’t function. In school, I tried my darndest to pull myself together and try to suppress the negative feeling. My stomach was practically imploding. To add fuel to fire, my messages were replied with utmost frankness devoid of any emotion, totally different from the situation just a day ago. Come to think of it now, its scary, but I can’t blame her. I acted as if nothing happened and hoped naively that things will go back the way it was before 10th May, 2007.

At night, as I prepared to turn in for the night after receiving a rejection from her. I thought of all the fun times we shared, the random videos, the disturbing of each other at work, the harmless teasing, her smile. Tears rolled down my cheeks. That was when I made my steely resolve.

The next day at work, both of us tried our best to make it seem like nothing has happened. Nobody at our workplace knew of our solo outings, much less the situation that we’re in. However, she felt distant, as if she was deliberately shunning me. After work, at the bus stop, she maintained minimal conversation with me and when her bus came, she did the thing that I was most afraid.

She returned my sock to me.

At that instant, as she boarded the bus, I felt my strength go out with her. She was gone. That statement played back in my head over and over. I sat down on the cold metal seat of the bus stop, and contemplated. Ten minutes later, I reached a decision. I slid up my phone, and found a number.

I hit the call button.

The phone rang for a while, then someone over the other line said “Hello.”

Relief flooded through me. She hasn’t cut me off completely. Yet. There’s still time to turn the situation around.

I fired a wild shot, asking her to wait for me at her place’s park. Well, that shot found its mark, and she agreed. Thrilled, I quickly boarded the bus and sprinted to her place.

There she was, sitting solemnly on a bench, awaiting my arrival, awaiting closure. I spent the next hour talking things through, and trying my absolute best to pop that question, but I just can’t seem to get it out of my mouth. During that time, both of us teared, and it pains me to see her tear. So henceforth, I swore never to make her cry.

Anyway, I was beating about the bush like mad, as she said later, I beat the bush until there wasn’t any bushes left. Practically leveled the entire garden. I can’t help it, I’m just not accustomed to saying such things – that’s what four years in a boy’s school does to you. But in the end, I finally got it out, and got the desired result. I asked if I could hold her hand, she meekly extended it after some thought and I quickly grabbed it. Her soft, delicate and strangely small hand now rested in mine, and has been like that ever since.

That, folks, is how we got together.

The following months were eventful to say the least. The money issue I mentioned previously came up a few times, but I got over it. It’s a guy’s perogative to offer to pay for most things when we go out. But then she’s cute, she offers to pay for certain items from time to time. She wants to be independent she says.

Then there’s the parent’s issue. She told her parents first, and got some rather serious feedback. However, after several visits to her place, most notably first month and for lunch, her parents kinda got to know me better, and I think (keyword: think) that they find me harmless, harmless enough to allow their smallest daughter to continue dating me. I even helped her mom translate a short paragraph of words and came up with letter replies. Into their good books I go!

My parents were easier to handle. They have long suspected something fishy was going on between their son and this girl he’s talking to almost everyday. Why, the last time he talked to someone else over the phone for such a long period of time daily (1~3 hours) was during Secondary 1, and it was his guy classmate. So one fine day my sis asked me if it was true, I didn’t say yes or no, I gave a grey answer. Then she asked if we held hands already. To that, I gave another grey answer, but my sis, being the nosey parker she was, didn’t give in. She pressed me again and again during dinner, until finally I had enough and said, “Have la!” There, cat out of the bag.

Triumphant, she told my dad, who heard every word as he was with us. My dad didn’t say anything much, just said that my mum and him held hands on their second date, and sounded mighty proud while saying that. To think my parents are so liberal. My mom found out about it soon enough, and told me not to take it so seriously, seeing it as my first time. But then I thought, if you wanna do something, do it well, else you’ll regret later. If this relationship is a dream, I so don’t wanna wake up from it. My parents are now more or less in favour of her, after lunch on Sunday. Cheerful, friendly, chatty – that’s how my family described her. My dad told me to “carry on”. I think that’s their way of saying “PASS!”.

Two months have whizzed by in a flash, in retrospect, it really is a perilous journey less travelled.

Indeed.

The times spent with her can never be replaced: unique, special and downright memorable. It always seems that we can't have enough of each other, can't seem to spend enough time with each other.

Yes there's this episode that really threatened to sink this ship - we went out consecutively for 4 days, and at the end of it, both of us felt a sensation of overdose, too much of each other. By reflex, both of us went through our cyclical thinking processes, and it was starkly clear that the relationship could end there and then, before our first month. However, we got through it unscathed, and I think we advanced one step further. A happy ending.

That was pretty much the one major maelstrom in our sea of happiness. Things have been really smooth sailing for the both of us, smooth to the point that it feels like a dream. If I told you guys that we've never EVER quarrelled would you guys believe me? Guess not. Believe what you like fellas, that's the truth. I can argue justification defense.

Now, when I think back, I feel that I've changed a little. I now make noise whenever she doesn't give me her 100% attention, online or otherwise. Not really angry-pissed-incensed kind of noise, just more or less whining, like taxi drivers who complain about the PAP. Before we officially began, I usually tolerated that without question. Maybe the past has caught up with me. Then again, its in me to tolerate people, they say I have a high endurance level. How else would I survive one year plus (insert Shocked Gasp) in the hellish F&B industry? It's difficult for one to change his/her habit that has been with him/her for his life so soon and so suddenly, it's like asking for the sky, or asking for the events of 9-11 to be reversed. I think a little compromise here and there never hurt anyone. Plus, now that I know how she functions, I understand the lapses in her responses better. I'll do my darndest to make sure I don't see her sad or angry face again (scary).

Our first month benchmark was really great. I enjoyed myself tremendously, but made sure she enjoyed herself more than I did. It was the first time I bought a girl flowers and gave a girl gifts, she also gave me one: a really cute stuffed cat that i fancied the moment I saw it. She actually went to get it (touched). Actually, she broke a number of first-time records in my books, but thats another story to be told another time. Although we had to shop for some items she needed, I accepted it unquestioningly: her company was more than enough. That day was also the first time I met her parents. I walked into the house like I was walking in for Radio Heatwave interview. No sweat.

She's gonna start school real soon, and the reality of it is slowly but surely manifesting. Being the active girl girl she is, she has already signed up for at least 2 events that requires a lot of her time. That plus her CIP tutoring, her driving lessons, her school camps, her school workshops, etc. Sometimes I wonder how the heck she manages so many things at the same time but can't multitask. Its one of the many mysteries of the universe.

Oh well, all good things have to end some time. Thing is, its not gonna end for good. Yeah we'll be meeting up lesser, and the duration could be cut shorter, but the important gist of it is that we are still meeting up. Thats enough. For me at least.

Her first camp is underway, glad she dropped me a mesage this morning before she went off (so sweet). I know she's safe, hopefully her gastrointestinal condition doesn't act up again. Yes yes I know what you nosey parkers are thinking, but no, this is a fiduciary relationship, and if something like that will happen, that means there's a major tear in the relationship's fabric. I have every confidence in my girl.

In sum, it has been a really happy journey down this untrodden path with my beloved.

Happy 2nd month.

Love my dear. :D

:D

Cellular Chapter 2

Chapter 2 - Decisions

Sally Perkins lay huddled in a dank corner of her room, a prisoner in her own home. Outside the mahogany wooden door were her brothers, crazed, ravaged, driven insane by the Pulse. Making awfully sickening noises while sowing widespread indiscriminate destruction to their own home, the two males loitered and prowled along the narrow corridor just outside Sally’s refuge. They sensed her presence, but they could not discern her exact position. Given time however, they would tear the door down and after that, quite possibly tear Sally limb from limb. Sally buried her head into her tear-drenched hands. John, she mentally cried, where are you?

Six kilometers away John Nielsen was fighting for his life once more. After abandoning his car a short distance away from his home because of the debris choking the road along with the sheer number of phone-mad people, John ran nearly all the way to his destination. Well, as close to his destination was he possibly could, given the resistance dogging him the whole time. A woman in a power suit tried to disembowel him with a shovel (where did she get that from?) while a blue-uniformed junior college student swiped at him with her fingernails. Normally, John would not even hurt a fly, but today ‘normal’ just did not apply.

One-on-one, John would have at least stood a chance against JC Girl, but Shovel Lady was also trying to end his life. So it was a little bit unfair in that regard. He had to think out of this one, and not meet the threat head on, for if he did, he would see his head on the ground, along with the rest of his body. Just as JC Girl swiped at his head for the sixth time since the beginning of the attack, John saw an opportunity to reverse the sands. Standing motionless, JC Girl’s bloodsoaked fingers cut through the air like a deadly claw, whistling John’s death knell. In the spilt second before her fingers made contact, John ducked, and the fingers swung past his head by a hair’s breadth, and right into the stomach of Shovel Lady.

Shocked and in severe pain, Shovel Lady let out a guttural cross between a roar and a groan, and lashed out at her attacker. Her shovel found a nice spot on JC Girl’s scalp to land on, sending her crashing to the pavement. Relentless, Shovel Lady raised her weapon and brought it down onto the prone body of JC Girl, again and again and again. John suddenly felt sick: what was left of JC Girl was a jumbled mass of blood, flesh and nylon threads, worlds apart from what it originally was.

The threat eradicated, Shovel Lady now returned her attention to John. She raised her now-very-bloody shovel again, and swung it down in John’s general direction. As with Mr Lee previously, most, if not all, of the phone-crazies suffer horribly in the aiming department, and John easily sidestepped Shovel Lady’s falling spade of doom. Eager to continue moving on, John grabbed Shovel Lady’s namesake and tugged.

To his absolute horror and amazement, her arms came off – skin, muscle, bones and all. Despite being detached from the parent organism, Shovel Lady’s arms held on to the shovel like huge, bulging and bleeding leeches. Oh crap, John thought, someone could really lend her a hand now. Shovel Lady rocked back and forth, struggling to maintain balance as blood gushed out in torrents from the sides of her torso where her arms had been. With one final coarse cry, Shovel Lady dropped to her knees, then fell head first into JC Girl’s pulpy mess.

The irony.

John hurriedly disposed of the shovel and the accessories that came free with it, and quickly resumed his journey to Sally’s house. His gut had been wrenching in upon itself, twisting and turning and generally making a huge din in his abdomen. From past experiences, such feelings meant something bad was going to happen, and John kind of had an idea just what that might be.

Sally.

He brushed away the thought and continued to maneuver his way through the mindless hordes of crazed people, wrecked vehicles and assorted debris strewn all over the road, sidewalks and any visible surface. All around John, chaos ensued. People were killing each other – more than ever before - and stuff was burning in an uncountable number of places simultaneously. Horns blared, metal clashed, bones broke.

It was a bad day to be out.

At last, John arrived at his terminal destination: Sally’s semi-detached terrace house, or what was left of it. The place looked like it had been hit by a typhoon, a hurricane and a tornado attack all at once. All of its windows were shattered; the front door was lying on the ground filled with miscellaneous items of every sort; the lawn had several landings from unidentified flying objects, most probably coming from the second floor. Not to mention the couple of bodies lying in a pool of maroon blood outside the main gate. In all, the place was a mess, and Sally was right smack in the middle of that mess.

John took a deep breath, swallowed then advanced forward. He picked by a bent golf club from the floor, amazed himself by straightening it, and entered the front door of Sally’s residence, literally Hell’s Gate.

Although it was three in the afternoon, Sally’s place was unusually dark. Counting the fact that her house faced the east, it was hardly a surprise. But even so, they should be a little light streaming in. Today however, there was hardly a ray of sunshine in these desolate quarters. John’s visibility was reduced to a mere index-finger’s length from his face.

I have got to find me a flashlight, John decided, this is worse than wallowing in my own misery. Adding a chuckle for comic effect, John felt his way through the sprawling premises, his club raised in an attack position.

Without further incident, John reached what seemed to be the kitchen. There should be a flashlight around here, he thought. He lay his weapon down onto the washing area near a sink, and then proceeded to rummage through the drawers and cabinets to find what he was looking for. After a while, John fished out a long black torch from one of the utility cabinets. The batteries were still there: the thing was as heavy as a brick. He felt for the switch. Light flooded the kitchen with an audible click.

And Sally’s elder brother was there before him.

Completely taken by surprise, John stumbled and fell on his butt. He looked up at his aggressor: Sally’s brother was wounded in several places, and his clothes were in dire need of change. John’s eyes instinctively moved to the hands, and found what they were looking for: a cell phone. That pretty much cemented Sally’s theory of ‘people going mad when they were using cell phones’. All of John’s previous attackers carried cell phones, from Mr Lee to Shovel Lady. Now Sally’s brother joined their ranks.

At first, John tried to reason with him.

“Hey dude!” He started,” Remember me?”

No response. Sally’s brother looked at him with bloodshot eyes filled with eager anticipation.

“Erm,” John tried again, this time with a desperate tone in his voice, “Aren’t you gonna get me a drink? Well I’m a guest aren’t I?” He let out a small laugh, and that was all that Sally’s brother needed to make his move.

With one forceful lunge, Sally’s brother pinned John to the floor, squeezing him between his powerful, toned, bloodstained arms. John cried in pain, but his attacker was relentless. John could feel the life being squeezed out of him in short sharp gasps.

“Hey!” John muttered in between gasps and wheezes, “Let me go! I have to get to Sally you dimwit!” He threw punches at Sally’s brother’s cranial cavity, but that did not seem to have any effect. John screamed again, this time for Sally.

At the mention of his sister’s name, Sally’s brother loosened his hold on John, as if he remembered something. Seizing this opportune moment, John swung out hard with the flashlight, and the sleek black pole connected with his attacker’s skull with a sickening crack. Sally’s brother collapsed like a rag doll, unconscious but alive. John sighed a tremendous sign of relief.

“I never liked you anyway,” John uttered as he picked himself up.


Two floors above, Sally Perkins remained huddled in her cornered sanctuary. Outside her room, just separated by a ten centimeter wide concrete wall was her now-insane brother. Tommy, as he was known before his brain matter got wasted, was crashing into the wall again and again, much like a cat constantly biting a can of tuna to get to the succulent meat inside. Only this time, that succulent meat is his sister’s. Tommy himself was but a cadaver of his former self: multiple lacerations aligned his pale-skinned forearms, many festering steadily in the dank and humid conditions of the house. His head was cratered with pockmarks, most likely from burns, and a wide gash the size of a match stick decorated his solar plexus. He was limping on his right foot, using the weight of his body to smash his body into the wall repeatedly, seemingly oblivious to the pain and damage being done to his already desecrated body.

Sally could hear her brother groan as he ran into the wall for the forty-seventh time, shaking the loose fortification as well as her sanity. One more forceful blow would bring the wall crashing down. Tears rolled down her dust-covered cheeks as Tommy reared up for another ram.

Sally waited for the inevitable impact.

It did not come.


John calibrated the exact trajectory and force of impact before bringing the tip of his heavy-duty flashlight down onto the head of the phone-crazy ramming into the wall of Sally’s room. He looked pitiful, with multiple injuries adorning his pale skin. That flashlight blow shook his fragile frame like it was no denser than paper and sent him crumpling into a heap on the cold hard floor.

I ended your misery pal, John thought, now be on your way and don’t wake up.

John raced to the door of Sally’s room and opening it with such force that could very well rip the door from its hinges.

“Sally!” He screamed as his eyes scanned frantically for her presence. Sally, visibly surprised, immediately stood up, tears in her eyes.

“John!” She leapt into his arms and embraced him tightly, the dams holding back her tears fully broken.

“It’s OK now, Sally,” John assured as he brushed her hair, “Everything’s OK.” They spent the next minute locked in that warm cuddle, oblivious to the hell that was raging outside.

It was then that Sally asked him a question, to which he had no answer.

“What shall we do?” She asked, “Where shall we go?”

To be continued...

Cellular Chapter 1

Chapter 1 – Apocalypse

The Pulse struck on October 1^st at 3:03 P.M. Without warning, without remorse and utterly without mercy, it tore through the world like a plague, throwing aside all the petty barriers that humans have been battling over since time immemorial, and brought civilization to its knees.

John Nielsen had been a cheerful nineteen-year-old, on his computer finishing up his endless schoolwork when the Pulse hit. As the clock struck 3:03, John immediately heard a series of loud, disturbing crashes below his apartment block, metal on metal, metal on asphalt. Curious and shocked (more shocked), he got up and went to his window. And for a spilt second he was juxtaposed to war-torn Iraq.

The scene could very well be directly taken from a Michael Bay action movie, with lots of explosions, flames and flying vehicles. On the road just adjacent to his apartment block, John saw a heap of automobiles stacked on top of on another like a mound of flapjacks, flimsy yet stable at the same time, ringed by a circle (or close to a circular shape) of flames ignited by sparks of leaked gasoline. The top most vehicle – a white Mercedes Benz Kompressor 2000 – tottered precariously on the peak of that artificial summit, and its driver was trying his best to escape his displaced vehicle. From his perch on the 16^th floor of his apartment block, John felt something odd about the bloodied man squirming out of his damaged car: the man’s eyes were fixated on a woman standing around ten metres away from the mountain of cars, and they never left that woman even for a second. This is a bad time to be thinking about picking up girls, John thought, he can barely pick himself up. He allowed himself a small giggle.

At this point, another car came in to join the fray. As it neared the accident area, John expected to hear the screeching of its brakes, but those did not come. Instead, what he heard were screams of agony and shouts of panic as the red Mitubishi Lancer tore into the crowd of onlookers around the hill of vehicles, mowing many of them down as if they were grass. John witnessed all of this from the relative safety of his home, and stood there gaping in shock, horror, fear. He reached out for his cell phone, just as the driver of the Mercedes Benz lunged towards the woman he had been eyeing and ripped out her throat.

Now utterly speechless, John felt the blood in his hand withdraw, letting his cell phone fall to the tiled floor. “This is Singapore!” John thought aloud, “Whatever happened to safe and secure!” Much as he wanted to divert his gaze to somewhere less frightening and gruesome, he could not. His eyes were fixed on the violence unfolding right before them, as the people below his block attacked one another in impossibly crude and painful fashions. A yellow-shirted man who would have fit into an office environment bit into the arm of a Mohawk-sporting teenager while the latter haplessly screamed for aid. A typical housewife swung her metal trolley crashing into the head of a middle-aged man carrying a birdcage, shattering cage and neck alike. All around people were running like ants from water, only to be cut down by the insane (it is the most logical way to describe their behavior at this point of time) people attacking them with near impunity. Resistance towards the seemingly mindless violence was minimal, although a motorcycle-riding Malay man was able to use his helmet as a club to drive off a few of the insane motorists and then drive off himself.

It was then John recalled someone. He raced for his cell phone.

Then he remembered he had dropped his cell phone earlier, his sleek black Samsung SGH-820D now lay in two parts, hardly of any use. John cursed. He had to contact her soon, to ascertain her safety, or her life. Then, as if she heard him, the home phone rang. He ran towards it like a bullet train and plucked up the receiver.

“Hello?” John asked anxiously.

“John! I’m so glad to have gotten through to you!” Sally Perkins screamed in a voice rife with fear and anxiety.

“Are you alright?” John inquired, “People are going crazy on the streets! I’m telling you don’t go out on the streets! You hear me?” In the background John could hear the shattering of glass and the banging of furniture, so maybe staying at home was not the safest bet either.

“It’s my brothers!” Sally screeched, seemingly oblivious to what John had just said, “Something must have fried their circuitry up there, they are acting all crazy and violent and…and…” Her sentence was left hanging in the air for several agonizing moments.

Now really worried, John shouted into the phone, “Sally! Sally! Are you OK?!” Her response came two painful seconds later, “John I think it’s the cell phones. My brothers were using them when they just went bonkers. You gotta help me John! I don’t know when they’ll bust down the door and get to me! Come quickly! I’m -”

The phone line went dead.

“Sally! Sally!” John screamed into the phone despite knowing his effort was futile. Cell phones, he thought, whatever the case he had to get to Sally’s place, and fast. He grabbed his car keys and headed out the front door, only to run into his neighbor Mr. Lee, or rather, a warped, violent version of Mr. Lee, fists clenched and drenched in a dark red liquid.

Blood.

John decided he did not intend to find out whose blood that was and how it got there. All he wanted to do now was to get to Sally, and this Chinese man was in the way.

“Er, Mr. Lee”, John tried, “You mind letting me over? I’m kinda in an emergency”. To this he got a toothy grin and a lunge towards his waist. A second late in dodging and John would have been looking at his severed torso from the ground up. Violent Mr. Lee roared, a primitive instinctual roar that reminded John of wounded lions, and charged forward to try and bisect John again, only this time John was standing in front of a wall. The Asian man’s attack, although full of force and brute strength, suffered in the strategy department, and soon Mr. Lee found his own blood staining the wall he had just ran into. Then his world turned black.

John stood rooted to the ground. Mr. Lee, his neighbor for six years, had tried to kill him. For whatever the reason, he would never know, for the man was lying in a heap on the ground before him, body twisted in a painful angle. As John’s eyes scanned the lifeless pile, he saw something that made his blood run cold.

A cell phone.

Mr. Lee’s right hand held a shiny blue Motorola Krzer, one of the more aesthically-pleasing cell phones in society’s heyday. Right now, its reflective surface was cracked in six different places, and the ear piece was dangling on a wire, snapped shut by the lid of the cell phone, which also seemed to be coming off as well. Sally was right, John thought, the cell phones must have something to do with this crazy mess.

Sally! He remembered his original course of action, and hurriedly ran down the stairs and into the carpark.

After four minutes of running and seven near-death encounters with the phone-crazies, or so he refers to them as now, he arrived panting and bloodsoaked on the bonnet of his little silver Hyundai Getz. He had been attacked by a variety of different people: a bunch of uniformed teenagers, a Malay woman complete with a baju kurung, an Indian man brandishing a tuning spanner and a Chinese construction worker who seemed to be in need of some sleep. All of them had been holding cell phones when they attacked John, and all of them had done so in the savage, primitive way that Mr. Lee had done so only a short while ago. It took all of John’s mastery and knowledge of his block’s layout to avoid and lose the phone-crazies. Even if he wanted to defend himself, he was simply no match for the brutality and savagery of the insane people. All he could do now was to run away, and get to Sally as soon as possible.

Once in the relative safety of his little car, John locked the doors and tried his door to make sure the locks were working. He did not want to be caught in a tussle with a phone-crazy with his seatbelt on and both hands on the steering wheel. He looked around him once more and inserted the key into the ignition, turned it, and changed to the driving gear. If it were a normal day, John would have waited for the engine to warm up a little before moving off. But so far the day had been pretty abnormal, how often do you see people killing each other on the streets in broad daylight in safe Singapore? Pretty strange to me, John thought as he looked at the bloodstains on his shirt, the Laundromat would have a huge job on their hands, provided that its still there when this shit blows over. Switching on his headlights, John tore out of the carpark and into a world where the obliteration of a moribund capitalist society has heralded the renaissance of a chaotic, unruly anarchy of global proportions.

Final Leg of the Race

Yo people.

A huge boulder has been removed from my shoulders today. Web-D is over! Rejoice! Honestly speaking, I'm really impressed by what Nisha did alone for the website, I mean, if it was me I may not have been able to do it. For that, I say a big ARIGATO GOZAIMASU.

So today was pretty straightforward, went to school early to finish - or attempt to - finish off as much web-D as possible so we could present something presentable to Shan. Hit school grounds around 8:55 A.M, first to arrive as usual. Saw the first class awaiting their turn for their presentation, and what shock awaited me when I saw all of them decked in formal garb. I wore jeans plus a shirt, with my Adidas Tie Break sneakers. But I convinced myself that no formal wear is needed, since it was not mentioned in the brief. However, Ben and Co. said otherwise. It was like a decree passed on from top command down, and I had missed it. So off I went back home, to get my formal wear and get back from school. Total elapsed time: 40 mins. Remarkable.

After all the funny stuff we have to do with Avril screaming stress and Benjamin being a joker in the background, the presentation went well. And guess what? Formal wear wasn't needed.

-_______________________-

Oh well.

Okays, people, I'm really tired because of dunno what so I shall end this post.

Good night people, its almost over.

The Quick, the Fast and the Dead

Yo.

It's weird seeing other people doing all the stuff that needs to be done, be it for Feature Writing, the more pressing Web Design, or even PR. I mean I should also be doing those stuff, but I am not. Maybe it's because I've finished what I've to do, way in advance.

You see, doing work early means you have a lot of spare time to edit your stuff or just hang loose in the late game, giving your plenty of time to rest so you can think logically and plan your next move with tripping over all those projects hanging all over the place. But then, most, and I must emphasise MOST, in case I offend anyone, Mass Commers are procrastinators. Seriously. How many times have you seen them submit their work way before its due? The answer is sadly seldom. Most leave their work to the eleventh hour, working their butts off to complete that assignment that should have already been done - to a certain completed extent - previously. But no, they leave it till the last minute, when they start to panic and seek aid. And the best part is, they actually pass and get decent grades for them. Life is so unfair.

We just had a briefing today for choosing our third year electives. Initially, this briefing was supposed to cement my decisions, but as I left LT 20, my feelings were mixed. Previously, the choices I laid out for myself were Presentation Skills in Chinese, Documentary Production, and Book Writing and Publishing. But through some inexplicable reason, Book Writing got canned. So that leaves me with one elective short. Fair enough, there were still 12 other modules for me to choose from. So I wanted to take something that I had a passion for, with lots of writing and minimal contact with other people. I hate interviews. The next best thing in this section was Print Journalism, but I'm not really keen. Long story.

Therefore, as of 9:14 P.M on the 30th of January 2007, I have only one confirmed elective - Presentation Skills in Chinese. I'm beginning to have second thoughts for DocPro, as although I loved LOCVDP, it ain't really something that I would wanna do for a whole semester. Paperwork is fine, its the prospect of filming something that is of utmost boringness to me. And a lot of things bore me. A lot.

So I have from now till 16th February to make two choices, two choices which would determine my life from henceforth. And I'm 80% confirmed to be taking IBP next next sem, I don't wanna leave school that soon.

Thats it for today, leave a comment if you have anything to say.

Goodnight people.

Day-to-Day

Hello everybody.

Just felt like writing something for you my eager readers to read. Ha ha. Sorry I'm going cranky from all the work I've been rushing. Speaking of which, contrary to what most people believe - that Mass Commers have it hard this final week - I'm kinda free this week. Why? Read on.

1. PR Planning Process for NEA - Done on Friday, after minor edits, all thats left is the formatting.
2. On-going Case Study for ACRES - Finished after 1.
3. Web-D e-zine - content on my side is 85% complete, since I ain't designer-in-chief.
4. Radio Talkshow - Its on Thursday, and my script is done, guest confirmed (I hope), and song loaded.

See? Now you know why I'm so free. And people say I'm kiasu. Well, kiasu people have more free time, and they sleep early.

So today was rather fun, I would say. Went to school in the morning to get back our newspaper project from Mrs. Sng after what seems like eternity. But I can't blame her, she's been through a lot. Faye was late (what's new, haha), got stuck near school to let a Malaysian train pass. Damn funny. Waited for again what seemed like eternity and then when Evon came, all three of us went up to the office, only to come down again cause the place was so darn crowded. It's a Monday damn it! Mondays are days without classes. Maybe thats wishful thinking on my part. Oh well.

So after the mini-lecture, I bid the two farewell and went off to the Atrium to pass stuff to people doing Advertising, namely Madeline, Gel and Huiqi, but not after being called heartless by Evon. I didn't wanna do Radio today, so she didn't have a guest. I'm heartless cause of that. Damn sad.

Alright, enough of that encounter. The Atrium was bloody crowded today. Perhaps its because what I've just said - final week for mass commers. And I was right, to my left I saw mass commers, to my right I saw more mass commers, to my front even more mass commers, and to my back, well, a couple of engineers, the cacti amongst the sand. Most of them were from the other cohort, so they were rushing our their advertising stuff. The same is said for Madeline's group, they were rushing the stuff out like dunno what. Oh yeah, I came to the Atrium to accomplish two objectives. The first being to pass Madeline my used Advertising textbook and MRM notes, so they could be put to better use rather than just rotting away in some deep dark corner of the house. Plus, the MRM notes hold compressed handwritten chapters from the textbook, pages that took me a whole week to write. But it wasn't for naught, an A I got. Thats the thing with me, I have to study harder cause I ain't that brilliant.

Moving on, the second objective was to finish up some content for my e-zine's designer-in-chief: Nisha. Since she was tackling the gargantuan task of fabricating the entire website herself, we all decided to chip in and offer help regarding her content. And her content was music, English music if I might add. Music is so not my forte. So I had to slog through it, read up the albums on websites and try as best as possible to string the information together into a readable, interesting passage. Avril just told me that it was good, so I guess I've succeeded. My writing skills hasn't failed me. Yet.

So there I was, crashing Madeline's group discussion and doing my work while they stressed themselves over their report. Being someone who's been through it all, they turned to me to clarify some doubts, which I did to the best of my ability. You gotta give me credit, its been an entire semester, and Mass Commers don't really have good memories for such stuff, or so I heard. Never mind about that, Madeline left at 2 to practise her Jap, her test is tomorrow. Ganbatte! So that leaves Gel, Huiqi and me at the table. They said someone else was coming in a while. They didn't seem very enthusiastic, or even concerned for that matter. I sense a sleeping member.

The day went out without much event, Gel was being exceptionally cheerful today, a stark contrast to his cold, dark side almost 2 weeks ago. That guy sure likes to sing. Jia Wei also came around to ask me what I want, being the typical evil-twin he is. Damn joker. Got a free ride from Madeline at the end of the day, saved bus fare and got some exercise walking back from Junction 8. NAPFA's coming, time to beef up.

That concludes another boring day in my life. Check back for more! Bye people!

Elation

I am happy.

Why? You ask.

Cause' I have finished all of my PR work for this sem. Yeah. ALL OF THEM.
PR Planning Project for NEA - Done
On-going Case Study - Completed

Now what's left is just the e-zine (-.-), the magazine and the radio talkshow, pieces of cake.
Oh plus the exams are close to two weeks away, guess I'd better start mugging.

Alright, my hands are sore from 4-whole hours of typing non-stop, no strength left.

One last thing, that feel is slowly diminishing, but will it return when the variable appears?
Its still an unsolved equation.

Goodnight people.

Feelings - A Fluttering Butterfly

Hi folks.

Yeah I'm back for another entry on this blog of mine. Time to give it a little activity to prevent it from fading into obscurity.

Alright, today was a total waste of time. For one, school was BORING. Had radio in the morning, but my test slot for the Talkshow is next week, so today I'm the caller/producer for a classmate. Got up early and arrived in school earlier than I needed to be, and saw the studio rife with people, dancing mass commers from the previous class. Felix was there too, grading Year One Stereo Assignments while nodding off to some 1970s music called Saturday Night Fever if memory hasn't failed me. To be fair, the song was catchy, but I'm a Mandarin music kinda guy, so I don't like it. To my dancing cohort-mates, I gave them the what-the-hell-there-are-people-outside look.

And true enough there were. When I went out to thaw myself, out came Year Ones from the lifts, and amongst them was Joanna, fellow FMSA, newer friend made this year. Pleasantries aside, she went to discuss something with her friends, while I made my way back into the studio, well not really inside it, but just outside, so I could see whether there were any more mad mass commers before I went back in. While I was loitering behind the double-glassed window, Joanna walked past and asked if that was where I would be having my class, to which I replied. At this moment, Mal gave me that OMG-WHO-IS-SHE look before rushing out. What the.

Apart from those, radio class was rather uneventful. Better still, we ended early, so I had something like a 3-hour break before PR began. But I had plans, there was a PR quiz to study for, and I preferred to study alone rather than in packs, so off I went to the Atrium after bidding Faye and her guest Vickram bye-bye.

I got a pack of creampuffs and found myself a secluded spot to study in. Madeline said she would be in the Atrium, so I scanned around. It wasn't that hard to spot her, afterall, she just had her MRM presentation today. So I dropped her a message telling her I can see her. It was funny watching her rotate her head around like the rotor blades of a helicopter trying to find me. Precious. In the end, she still found me while going to collect her laptop from the MEL centre I guess. She was doing Advertising with another girl, a girl who calls me Oreo Boy (-_-), and a boy whose name I mistook for Joel. Oh well. Better not bother them, important project. So I went to bug Joachim and gang instead, who were doing PR. But I soon grew bored, so I whipped out the iPod and tried to catch a nap. No success, the bloody Atrium was so noisy.

The day went on rather slowly and soon it was time for PR. Had the quiz, which I got 16/19 for and we got back our Media Kit Assignment. WE GOT AN 'A'. All that hard work was not for nothing. I'm glad. If all goes well, PR may be on its way to becoming an 'A' module. The thought of it makes me chuckle: I understand Advertising better than PR. Must be the assessments.

Thats what the day brought me, nothing but utter boredom. I swear I was gonna die of boredom if not for the Media Kit. When we got it back, we all went kinda hyper, like we were on steroids or something. It was hilarious.

Just some things on my mind before I end off this entry. Feelings are a funny thing, they can make you sad as quickly as it can make you happy. And flying high may mean falling hard. Very, very hard. And given my height, its a long way down to the ground. Hopefully, what I think I'm feeling will come to fruition, and that its the correct feeling, and not a false one once again.

I don't know how many more false hopes I can endure. I'm not getting any younger. So I really wish that I won't be flying too high and falling too hard. Alas, only time will tell. Time - the ultimate test. And time is really of the essence.

Just let it be true, just this time.

SitRep

Well, well, well.

Look who's finally here to remove the coat of dust from http://installationo4.blogspot.com.

Its none other than its owner, Mr James Tan Jie Wei myself.

Hello all after a very, very, very long lapse.

Just felt like penning down my thoughts, since I have quite a lot running through my mind right now at this very moment when I'm typing these words.

Alright, where shall I begin? Ah, yes, I shall use the Compare and Contrast Paragraph Structure to write this blog entry.

Nah, just kidding. =D

To kick things off, plenty of things have changed ever since the last blog entry, which was what, like a century ago? But before you start spewing all manner of vulgarities and expletives at me, allow me a chance to redeem myself. I'm just too lazy (ok, maybe this is why you wanna attack me). But hey, "I am only human~", so I grow bored with fads, and blogging IS a fad for me, joining the likes of Beyblade, Tamiya Cars, Gundam models, Crush Gear, Yoyos, etc.

Enough of the historical lesson, its time to move on. Its no use staying in one's shadow all the time. You need to see the light. And I certainly hope I have.

OK, so this is what's happening this couple of months: I've been working part-time on weekends for some extra income to burn, which proved very useful during the last semester break. And this semester is ending soon, another week of school plus two examination papers more and I'm done with Year 2 of Mass Communication. Pretty darn fast if you ask me. I haven't even found anyone I like, yet. Bummer. But recently, I've become more involved in school activities, particularly Open House 2007. I don't know why but I feel at ease and fun when I'm doing such things, like taking groups of students on tours. Ok maybe I like to man the reception desk more but hey, I'm not a speech person, I'm a word-dude.

OPEN HOUSE 2007
FMSA not only gave me CCA points, it also gave me new friends! I made a whole bunch of friends, Year Ones and Twos alike. I even got to know some of my cohort-mates within the same cohort whom I previously didn't know. How cool is that? Plus, I made more new friends with the other Mass Comm-ers of the other cohort, particularly KL and Madeline. Well, KL can't really be considered new, as he was in my SOCPSYCH class during Year One. We didn't talk much though, I was rather quiet and introverted then. But Mass Comm doesn't want that kind of attitude, so I strove to change, and look where the heck I am now. The pen is mightier than the sword. Ha ha ha.

Sorry for the digressing. Anyway the other new friend made was Madeline. She was complaining about sore feet and fatigue on Day 2 of the War, and didn't help out on the Final Day, leaving me alone to fend for myself against the hordes of merciless secondary school kids. However, by a stroke of luck, I got posted to reception duty, for 4 hours at least. Those were 4 very good hours.
After that I kinda tagged along other tour groups, like Mark's, a Year One friend made. I joined my group with his several times, and he didn't seem to mind. He told me not to slack and to speak to those kids, but I argued that since he liked to speak so much, he could be my guest, and that if he's stuck or anything I'll give him a hand. He relented. Nice guy.

So there we went, leading tours up and down through the by-now-memorised-tour-route. I passed by the TV Studio and guess who I saw? Ya, it was Madeline, doing some stuff inside, but mainly slacking. And since I'm slacking as well, I might as well join her. So off I went, after telling Mark that he's on his own. He didn't sound too happy. Oh well.

So I hung around in the TV Studio, which brought back a lot of good memories, and I also did some explaining of the facilities when some Year Ones brought in a tour group and didn't know what to say. I can't deny my membership of the FMSA, since I was wearing the requisite polo-tee. You win some, you lose some. After that, Madeline said she wanna go swipe some cookies from the FMSA store, and despite my protests, she didn't give in. Strong gal.

The day ended at 4:45p.m, when I had to go to work. Given a choice, I would have stayed till 7, but alas, work calls. Damn.

Alright, thats enough for Open House 07. On to more recent events. I found myself very free these few weeks, for some weird, inexplicable reason. My assignments have all been either completed or pending completion, and the exams are a good 2 weeks away, with one whole week for me to mug at Bishan CC. So I spend my weeknights spamming SMSes, waiting for people to chat with me on MSN, or just reading articles off Wikipedia. Yesterday I just found out about the Butterfly Effect and about giant squid. Did you know that if you swing your arm, you may cause a hurricane to happen some time in the future? And do you know that there's a species of squid called Colossal Squid, which are well, colossal. Fascinating, ain't it?

Also, I'm up to my Mr. Nice Guy routine once again. Just today, I stayed back in school after a one hour class for the day helping newer friends Diyanah and Joycelyn with their radio. They needed someone to guide them through, and I was the one to do it, since I had already done so with the previous two assignments. Then Shawn and Yan Yi came, and I had to be Shawn's guest, THRICE. Daniel also came over, and I was his guest once before I grew too bored to stay in the studio for a even a minute longer. So I left for home, took a long detour to the bus stop, and then got home and revised for a PR quiz tomorrow. Some people have always said I'm being too nice, but what the heck, being nice is better than being bad in any permutation. So to those people, sorry, being nice is just being me, you either like it or don't, its your choice and I live the way I want to.

Further, some people also commented that passion doesn't get you far in modern society. Well, to a certain extent its true, since the materialistic world that is modern society demands just mindless droning and earning money. But still, its passion that will ultimately keep one going. Just look at all those successful people out there. Do you think after all these years of slogging away they are doing it just for money? No. Its the passion that keeps them at their jobs day after day, year after year, decade after decade. Money is but a mere bonus that you can't carry to your grave, passion will remain with you even in death. Therefore, to those insensitive people out there who do not believe in passion, don't let me catch you doing something for incentives other than money. I will personally make you eat your words, literally.

Hmm, I guess I'm done. Well my entries are few and far between, so please, enjoy your stay here at The Silent Cartographer.

Arigato Gozaimasu.