Thursday 31 January 2008

Economies Of Scale

I got my laptop back on Monday only for it to crash again, so I had to send it back to Edwin for another fix. I have no idea what's wrong with it and it's been a real pain to deal with of late, especially when it's an additional burden (both of having to deal with, and of not having a laptop to do work with) amongst other things I have to worry about.

So I'm using my dad's laptop that functions at frikkin' jet fighter speed but it's okay 'cos I really miss being connected to the world from my bed.

Actually, I guess political science seriously takes the cake out of the 'amongst other things' I'm talking about. I'm doing this unofficial jigsaw group thing with Isaac and Angie and others who wanna join and I really hate it because I'm at best a responsible bummer and at worst a vitriolic apathetic. Personally, when I'm not interested, I'm really just not interested and nothing can get me going on it. So when I've read pol science readings to the point where I seriously don't wanna continue, I'd just really forget it and not bother to read.

But in this jigsaw group thing, I can't do that! And it really pisses me off to know that I can't just stop reading when I don't feel like it already because I'm responsible for someone else's knowledge. So far I've had 2 sessions already and each session just kills me. I will be doing this for another week because it's my presentation next week. I'm truly at my production possibilities frontier, after which I guess I'll just allow myself to get into a recession, 'cos honestly I really can't be more bothered about it. I think this is really starting to remind me of the time I decided to unofficially drop social studies in secondary school. Yes I know, "huh can drop meh?" You can't. So I just basically stopped paying attention, stopped studying and after awhile stopped attending classes. Literature saved my humanities component of the 'O' levels.

Anyway I was at NUS on saturday to supposedly catch Sab in action for the inter-hall soccer games but she sprained her ankle last minute and so couldn't be fielded. I had the privilege of watching 2 matches, though she thinks it was embarassing to have me come all the way down to see them lose. Then she was telling me about a life of mediocrity later, but there's a somewhat abstract relation to all this with some other thoughts I had.

I've never really had any real success at soccer myself, though I'd consider myself a 'got pedigree' player, aside from the little juggling competitions I win every now and then but that's really peanuts. There's always a time when you're young and only 15 years old and running circles around the older guys, being the one to look out for. Time passes, and now I'm the older guy. Though I don't let 15 year-old kids run circles around me, there isn't really much in it for me anymore and university will pass without me partaking in any varsity soccer games, arguably the last chance at playing soccer institutionally and meaningfully. I'm still playing competitive street soccer games every now and then, and weekends are still spent at the neighbourhood street soccer courts kickassing, but for how long more? We used to scoff at the oldies who'd hog the court but soon it'll be my turn to start seeing kids 5 years younger than me jump in and takeover.

And this is Sab's last IHG also, so I decided that there's no harm having a look. It's interesting watching girls play soccer anyway. Emo stuff aside, I didn't go there to watch it for the glamour of winning; it was indeed quite warming to see the universalities of emotions pertaining to the sport, and they say that the emotional aspects of the ladies' game can be much higher.

I think there's a lot more I'd probably wanna say but I'm not half done with the stuff I have to prep for tomorrow's pol science meeting and it's bloody 1am already. Anyhooser, I'm gonna put up a post from the past with each new entry I post so yeah y'all can look out for that one. Some of the stuff written's quite g4y but it's for archiving and nostalgia's sake.

Sunday 27 January 2008

The First Single

What's there not to love about Singapore? I just travelled around most of the significant places when I went from home to Queensway to many other places in between and finally back to SMU (yes, on a Sunday, and enough with the asking cos its pissing me off. School is town anyway) and it barely took me 3 hours. Here is a place we honestly do not need proper directions for, and every convenience store really is a convenience store. For those who get mugged or end up in road accidents... Well, you probably took the safety for granted.

Anyway, so marks the first paragraph of Pointless Philosophy, and how better than to kickstart it with... Well, totally pointless random thoughts? Ruminations generated off long bus rides.

I suppose to address some 'concerns' at hand, let's just say that I'm really past it when it comes to saying I have aspirations of being a web designer (this is analogous, so don't take it literally). So that inherently makes all my anti-blog, pro-HTML efforts quite pointless and to the point where I do get lazy and put off blogging (yes I've officially defected to the army of conforming bloggers now so I shall use that term very indiscriminately from now on) because it's just quite a pain to do so most of the time when I have to activate Dreamweaver (or freakin' notepad when I'm inspired to post without my laptop), work out the code, and then activate more programs to upload it via FTP. I'm through with that.

So from where I last left off, I must say I owe alot of the memorable moments I had last month to everyone who had made the effort to celebrate my birthday. I've always said that it's a quantum leap from 0 to 1 (by this I mean, for example, the difference between 0 and 1 is infinitely more than 1 to 10, which is mathematically true), so it has been absolutely amazing finding that from not expecting anything at all, you end up having 3 birthday celebrations. I did not ask for anything and I couldn't have asked for more.

There was Kee's very trademarked cute surprise of the small cake and impromptu candle(s?) on set at Food For Thought, and I've always liked the simplicity of it all. Thanks for the "practical gifts" (in your own words) and the shirt; you know I always never end up getting down to buying the things I need haha.

There was the RK supper I innocuously organised which was transformed into a total birthday celebration complete with a really nice cake (one of the seriously better ones I've had, which is quite a thing to say since I don't like pastry), and thanks to all who chipped in some way or other to make this happen (including the nice soccer shoes which I just changed for a correct fit and will probably never wear to play soccer in considering my damaging style of play); I'll be repeating this next haha.

And last but not least the BBQ and so-called 'real' celebration at Yitwen's. I doubt I'd wanna recollect and verbalise the debaucherous events of the night (other than stating the obvious fact that the influence of alcohol can be quite potent on group effervescence), but I know all of you enjoy the fact that I puked with my hands in my pocket 'cos I'm cool like that so I'll proudly and publicly announce it here. Hoho.

Thanks once again to everyone. And a special mention to our resident party-planner Yinyin, without whom the brains of all this would've been non-existent and we'd probably end up forcing me to go down to NYDC or something for a boring dinner just for the sake of it.

So there, I've blogged about 'stuff' like you've wanted me too. Haha. On behalf of everyone, stop emo-ing already! You know you deserve more than the shit you put yourself through. :]

This must mildly be what it feels like to be a celebrity, because you just go out there and do your thing while everyone else does the saikang for you. Now that livejournal settles the posting crap for me, it's much less a pain to just blog more regularly I guess. And dispense more pointless philosophy for your pointless reading.

I might continue my stupid say-of-the-days and listenables but not for now.

Saturday 12 January 2008

First-Week-Of-School Typicality

Believe it or not, I played LAN today. It was originally supposed to be a complete noobfest but Mojo Eugene the really g4y camper/sniper pro joined us and duly got 60+ frags while the rest of us lumbered with our decimal kill ratios so it wasn't quite the picture I had in mind, but it was all good clean fun nonetheless. And those endless girly squeals from the ladies who've never played LAN before when they frag the guys will remain memorable indeed.

First week of school, with first-week-of-school typicality flying all around from the people you'd expect it the most - "How's school man", "Who's your prof?" and "First week only and the library is / GSRs are so packed already!" It really does serve to irritate, but I try my best to entertain/patronise. Perhaps I should have a model answer prepped for these questions.

The thing is... Personally, I'm someone who mostly simply isn't interested to know. Know what, well that depends. But the bottomline is that, for example, during the holidays, when I go to school and I meet people along the way, I'm not interested to know why you're there. But it is precisely this apathy that leads to the other party then snatching at the chance to ask me what I am doing in school, and more often than not the last thing I want when I'm out and about is to stop to make small talk that seriously doesn't matter at the end of the day. So I often provide a false answer that enables me to give a reply and get me off any potential conversation. Because the fact of the matter is that saying the truth, which is that I'm in school to use the internet or do my work, simply entails an incredulous "what??" and begs a justification of my reply. And well, this is just the trivial school part. This attitude of mine is sometimes applicable to more important matters but I'll just leave it at this.

But anyway yes, first week of school has been alright because both the excitements and disappointments have neutralised themselves to a nullified okay la. It could've been a lot better, especially with Creative Thinking, but it could've been a lot worse with modules such as Econs. But it's still too early to say anyway. Let's just say that Angie's hottie prof Rahul Sagar gives me the feeling that it's gonna be a very uptight term with him in charge, and an introduction to BGS has left me feeling a bit inadequate especially with the stuff on investments, dividends, shareholders etc.

Having wednesday and thursday off is pretty swell because I'll have solid days off to complete readings and regain sleep.

Went for mambo night on wednesday during the final week of the holidays because it was somewhat criminal not to do so when even Yitwen was onz about going. With any random turnout, a pub date would've been possible but it's always hard to get such a good turnout for clubbing, so I went. The crazy thing was that I took my IPPT the very next day. I think I've pissed enough people off trying to say that I have indeed deproved when I'm still getting the gold, so I'll just leave it at that (I really believe age is a factor in my fitness decline). $400 for myself for my birthday swee.

They're incorporating olympics technology into the fitness test now though, which is pretty cool 'cos it just is. Shuttle run, in my opinion, is a lot easier now because the timer starts only when you start running, which discounts your reaction time. The sit up machine even stoicly counts for you. The funk and the works.




Don't steal; the government hates competition.

Today's Listenables:
Take That - Rule The World

Tuesday 1 January 2008

Holidays In A Nutshell

Getting my blog-lazy ass moving in the aftermath of a new year's eve celebratory gathering and about 6 or 7 taupoks. Old school stuff! And Yitwen has got to be the joke of the day for missing in a taupok. Yes, one can be in such a wrong state of mind that you can miss.

About a week ago, it's been 3 years of being in a relationship and I've found myself suddenly in the (possible) predicament of perhaps not doing/having any plans on days such as Christmas and New Year's Eve and for a moment the feeling sank in. Not that it would've really bothered me much in the end but the fact that this sensation/emotion/whatcamacallit has surfaced has left me mildly pensive and amused somewhat.

Christmas was salvaged with a last minute gathering at Mikaela's really ulu abode where we watched White Chicks and Borat and played some really cool alternative party games that Jacq brought, one of which is called Secret Agenda and was a hit that night. Then we tried to play it again on booze yesterday night at Jacq's and I think it got distorted out of proportion. But the gathering at Jacq's was pretty fun and I really think everyone more or less enjoyed themselves practically on a non-existent plan/schedule. Alcohol saves the day yet again!

Went to Klang, a town a little off Kuala Lumpur for 4 days, which was actually very much like a long-distance stayover at Yin's place with Richard, Angie and Mikaela where we did away with all the touristy stuff and basically enjoyed good food and company at ridiculously low prices. Like seriously, at RM60 for rice with dishes for 5 people, that's about a little less than S$6 per head and here in Singapore you can't even get a small stingray at some places. And I think we Kbox-ed for what seemed like nothing, and their music selection even includes Rammstein, Black Sabbath, 30 Seconds to Mars and Korn. wtf man Singapore Kbox is shit.

And not forgetting the Enchanted movie for around S$3.

The whole trip just felt like one whole long day punctuated by little naps in between cos 4 days flew by in a breeze. There were nights we watched movies like Shutter and Stardust and others just having supper, and every night without fail we'd stay up really late either watching stupid Girly Man videos or talking. Every night we had our 'nap' later and later, and because Klang is the town famous for bah kut teh and they only serve that in the morning, in order to savour the local delicacy we skipped sleep just to have some at 8am on the last day. Crazy stuff but great memories nonetheless.



He early on let her know who is the boss. He looked her right in the eye and clearly said, "You're the boss."


Today's Listenables:
By The Wayside - Long Time Waiting