Friday, May 15, 2009
Birthday Memoirs
It just seems like yesterday that I was 9. Yet knowing that I am already 19 sobers me to the fact that I am getting older as the days go by. It does, to some extent, feel like I am ageing. Indeed, it does feel like a short period of time when I celebrated my 9th year in the world at 2 Angklong Lane, the condo which I grew up in, and the place where all my childhood memories are.
I feel considerably lucky and blessed to have people who I can call true friends. My classmates are a fantastic bunch of people who have made me treasure the true meaning of friendship, and still keep in constant contact even though Graduation Night was some 6 months back. These people helped me to grow as a person, and perhaps even taught me how to be a better individual. They are the people that you can talk to when you have problems, especially the person who I called at 10.30pm on a melancholic January night the day before results were released, and I was facing some personal problems of my own, and needed someone to confide to. Friends are something you cannot do without with. Even if you have a family around you, without friends, the world feels meaningless and somewhat boring.
Then I have my family. My family that supported me through all my years of academic pursuit, encouraged me to pursue what I wanted to pursue, helped me through thick and thin, when crisis arose, and most importantly, emotional support when me as an individual felt useless after pulling out from the 24km Route March due to an ankle injury, and was subsequently unable to participate in the POP. Without them, I would not be the person I am today.
It has been a rather memorable birthday for me. I spent most of my birthday outfield in Marsiling, getting wet, dirty and smelly. I suppose entering the army is a brand new experience for this birthday boy :D Digging 2 shell scrapes in 2 days (for my friend, mind you..) wasn’t exactly my definition of fun, but this was cancelled out by the many best wishes that was sent to me via facebook and sms, and for that, I thank you guys much! I also received the acceptance letter for my NTU sociology application, which added to this “memorableness”.
This day has ended as quickly as it came, and I await, in anticipation, for this day next year. I just hope I don’t have to spend it outfield :D
Monday, November 03, 2008
hope-dashed-hope-dashed
in all my 9 plus years as a Ferrari supporter, I have never witnessed such a Grand Prix like this, a suitable end to the race calendar, albeit a little disappointing. It was worth my while to watch this race
surely the start promised this, with 2 minutes to start, the race was postponed for 10 minutes due to rain. some background has to be provided here. Hamilton was on 94 points compared to Massa's 87. So for Massa to win the championship he had to be 1st and hope that Hamilton didnt get a position higher than 6th. This is how it works.
Hamilton (if 6th) 94+3
Massa (if 1st) 87+10
Hamilton: Massa
97:97 (Massa wins on more number of track wins)
The resulting 68 laps or so were nothing interesting, although it warmed by heart to see that Massa was first, and Hamilton was like 20 seconds behind, but still 5th. Everything changed in the 69th lap. Kubica in 16th, went mad and interferred with the battle between Vettel and Hamilton for 5th spot. In the ensuing chaos, it seemed that Hamilton reaped the benefit, however a split second later, Kubica's interference actually hindered Hamilton and Vettel moved from 6th to 5th which means:
Hamilton (if 6th) 94+3
Massa (if 1st) 87+10
Massa wins with 5 Grand Prix victories to Hamilton's 4
2 laps left, Hamilton incapable of closing gap. It actually seemed as if Massa had the title. And here I was watching the race, an avid Ferrari supporter, seeing the 2007 season repeat itself all over again. Massa leading from start to finish, Hamilton screwing up.....................
Then Hamiton got real damned lucky. Timo Glock's car running on 4th ran out of gas, which means when Hamilton got to the line he was 5th, just enough to take the Championship. And here were the Brazillians, thinking that Massa had pulled off the ultimate miracle, the Massa family jumping for joy. Hopes dashed.
Although Massa ma have failed due to some fluke of Hamilton's, it was evident that it was an emotional moment for both the drivers. I still hate Hamilton because of that Singapore Grand Prix, and I still dont think he deserved it.
Final result
Hamilton 94+4 (98 pts)
Massa 87+10(97 pts)
So close yet so far, you could see the disappointment and the silence of the crowd. But man, that 30 seconds of madness wwas so miraculous. Yet the miracle was dashed when Glock's Toyota stalled.
I now hate Toyota.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
it's rather amazing.. 2 black swallows just flew into my brother's toilet.. dont know how they do that.. but they are the cutest things i have ever seen :P *awwww..
they are really really really cute!! the only problem is the hunter cat in the house lying somewhere in ambush *arghs! we tried letting them fly away but they just clinged on and refused to let go.. so i suppose they are our pets for the night at least..
pictures soon to follow!
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
christabel - heart-shaped box. says:
*oh dear. i nearly mistyped the "h" in huck with a "f"
hmm.. a sign of things to come...
:)
Friday, August 08, 2008
080808!
very slack day.. and of course.. a day where we remember the amount of brainwash.. erm I mean.. contributions, that our Minister Mentor has done for this nation. I still cant help but feel a sense of epic cynicism for whatever we have done today..
connect singapore= joke, not even in the singapore shape
singapore songs.. bah.. just brainwashing attempts..
joke day. this will go down in my memory as a fun day, but an epic failure to brainwash us. should have worn a white shirt with a red armband.. shite.
Monday, August 04, 2008
lol just because i write pentatonicim does not mean it is a Chinese piece!
Thursday, July 10, 2008
The Permanent Secretary of MCYS gave an extremely debatable and questionable speech on principles of governance today, of which some points gave rise to remarkable contradictions within themselves and the general dialogue session as a whole.
Of course, what they deemed as a dialogue session was not really a dialogue session. Remarkably, it consisted of a one man show, the Permanent Secretary, “engaging” in dialogue with 400 students when the student body neither had representatives nor had a mike to voice their opinions in the process of the session. As such, it seemed rather pointless to have such a session when the student body neither had much time to voice their opinions nor the means of making their opinions heard through the process of the dialogue session.
One can also point out to the questionable qualifications that the Permanent Secretary had while giving this questionable speech. The Permanent Secretary’s “Principles of Government” talk, of which some part was based around foreign affairs, seemed rather biased and uncomprehendable. The Permanent Secretary whose specialty lay in the community, youth, development and sports, actually gave a lecture on foreign affairs! There were 2 consequences as a result of this. Firstly, one could point out to the fact that he made Singapore look like the “Centre of the Universe”, just like Mussolini did, and that whatever Singapore was doing, in relation to the Western Countries, was unswervingly right and morally correct on comparison with the Western countries. The Permanent Secretary tried to justify what was justifiably wrong. He pointed out the “Licensing Act”, and mentioned that although the Western Countries condemned this act where Singapore tried to regulate the information on the Internet, they eventually made a U turn, and somewhat approved of the act later. PM pointed out countries such as Israel and Germany, who introduced the act to regulate anti-seministic websites and pro Nazi information respectively.
The PM’s argument failed on 2 grounds. Firstly, PM quoted a phrase from The Economist on the Licensing Act, “.. not a matter of should but how”, suggesting that Singapore was right in introducing this act. He conveniently ignored the fact that this phrase could be intentionally modified by the Singapore government, or this phrase could have been referring to a different subject altogether, as Daryl puts it, it could well be “The overthrowing of Singapore’s government is not a matter of should but how”. Secondly, the context of this argument that the Licensing Act is necessary is completely different when comparing Israel and Germany, with Singapore. The very reason for Israel and Germany doing that is for purely historical reasons, while in Singapore, the sole intention is possibly to restrict Singaporeans from getting “ideas” from the web that might possibly spell the end of PAP’s 43 year reign.
The other consequence that I referred to in the second paragraph was that people started to question his expertise in Foreign Affairs. An MCYS Permanent Secretary giving a foreign affairs lecture is tentamount to the audience assuming that since the PM really isn’t a specialist in Foreign Affairs, hence the Permanent Secretary is merely a mouthpiece for the Singapore government in trying to brainwash 18 year old kids and trying to convince them that the Singapore government is right. It is beyond a reasonable doubt that the message eventually seemed to justify the Singapore government’s actions in Foreign affairs, rather than showing us “The Principles of Governance, What Makes Singapore tick”, as the above quote was the supposed topic of the day.
One more remarkable contradiction in PM’s speech, although countless, I would have to point out to the one that I saw as most damaging to the PM’s speech. PM pointed out that the need for censorship was necessary, since there are dangerous elements out there in the internet that may damage Singapore’s religious and racial harmony. Prior to that statement, PM said that Singapore’s racial policies were successful. Now the remarkable contradiction is seen here. If Singapore’s racial policies were really that successful, is there a need for the Singapore government to introduce censorship for the sole purpose of maintaining religious and racial policies? The PM seemed to be contradicting himself, saying that Singapore’s policies were successful, then admitting that the racial policies did not have much effect since censorship was required to promote racial harmony in addition to Singapore’s racial policies. Therefore the contradiction was not explicit but implied.
There are many other contradictions that one can bring up, but I won’t, but most definitely, the PM deserved we ACSians taking potshots at him during the Q&A. The most genius of all questions “Why, were the cameras able to show James Gomez putting the election papers into his bag during GE 2006 when they failed to prevent Mas Selamat from escaping from Whitely Road Detention Barracks on the 29th Feb 2008?”
A well deserved question.
