Happi bdae

More matters from this week.
More pics from the window.
Pretty hot and humid weather.
Even guests at Swissotel got to agree!:


A few nights ago, there was plenty of chain lightning happily flashing in the sky for about an hour. Was not able to get the full effect of what could be the most impressive display of lightning since I can remember. At certain moments it's not just one part of the sky but the entire sky was filled with roots of light. Thought there was finally going to be a storm for a quick relief from the heat. The more you expect the more disappointment you will get.








Heaven's trident just missed my classroom. Damn... they should hit something to wake the SM* staff's idea abit.





Then this morning woke up to see this in the sky: Vader's super star destroyer Executor(click pics to enlarge) just orbited over Bukit Merah! Please direct your turbolasers on the 11th floor of the SP*ING building and finish the job the lightning did not! Rid the scum and villainy within! HehHahahah.... ok enuf nonsense.... Entire sky was clear with the sun so bright just this big patch of dark cloud very extra in the sky.

More of my bo-liao lomography! This time using my beloved LC-A loaded with Redscale film! Shot on the same day as the Kodak EBX in my prev post. From clockwise top left: quaint little seat at Ann Siang Hill; Under the flyover at Esplanade Park; Fa L*n Gong people meditating or sleeping....; Record holder for most number of air-conditioner condenser hanging to the side of a building.

Took my first BEC lesson today with Jeremy and Kester. Had to skip quite a number last week due to date clash with practical test. Somehow the Filipino lecturer kept volunteering the 3 of us out to demo for the class. Dunno if it's cos we skipped the lesson last week or something else. Was damn funny when Jeremy was demoing the PNF stretch on me. Damn of all things stretches.. PNF somemore... Learnt nothing new the entire day except the checking of the posture, which I was one of the demo-ing model yet again. Everything in the lesson was mostly what we have learnt in the first sem or I already researched over the net. Of the 30 odd people in the class.. only like less than 10 are guys. Prob due to the providing centre being Amore. Most of the ladies are of Kester's age group and beyond. Then there's this one guy with one of the worst act cool hairstyle I've ever seen. And he keeps adjusting his hair the entire lesson (the lecture was in a aerobic gym, the entire wall is a mirror)! Jeremy and I really felt like giving him one in the face. In a way he really resembles one of the former junior Zhang pin, only abit more xia lan.... Later we found out he's japanese.... kaoz... I worked with Japanese for a few years now and up till now I'm still not convinced he is one.

Legs. Attempt to shoot the alley foiled by a skinny leg that decided to 'chap ji ka' into the shot; Sandals, slippers, shoes, booties and the feet that wears them(the feeling of the carpet grass was great); more legs....

Finally the BEC lesson ended with an aerobic session(WTF?). Feel damn out of place doing all those aerobics steps but I just went ahead and had fun anyway. At first I assume the instructor will teach some tips on how to conduct a class but turns out it's really just a plain aerobics session which made me wonder why the hell was it incorporated inside the BEC program.

Candid shots of: The juniors at the steps of City Hall; on the carpet grass outside marina sq; Ilyana kanna surprised by sudden pt blank shot; Miss pres & da er long snuggling.

At City Hall: Arranged for Amin to do his vaulting maneuvers; Another leap (of faith.. the ground was wet.. and he's wearing slippers); posing around; lazing around....

Kanna stye this week. According to Wiki, it's caused by Staphylococcus aureus bacterial infection. Must have been hanging out with people that's full of sh*t. Kester insist that it's cos of Lao Lao's saliva during the practical test(I wun rule that out!). Overall it's prob due to the impromptu shaving of my leg(using disposable plastic shavers) in class to demo the ankle taping. Yeah my legs look funny now with the left one without hair. Of cos the stye gotta come on the day of my second presentation (my first one clashed with my reservist range shoot). No luck this sem. Called up Guanghao as the swelling became really bad. Fortunately he's posted temporarily to Queenstown polyclinic instead of IMH. Went to the polyclinic but another doc attended to me since Guanghao is still attending to siao people's cases. Well at least we could meet up for lunch at Margaret drive where also I gave him a brief historical tour of the place.

Contrast of Old and New: I like how the red lantern stands out from the background of old potraits; Designers toys....which I find boring..

Old and New Structures: Dried goods guild at Ann Siang; low angle skyline of Marina Mandarin

Also met up Ch*u Hs*a for lunch on Wed after delivering Lasik gas to SN*C. It seems nowadays due to the packed study/work schedule, I'm actually meeting up more frens in the middle of my working day! Hah! Haven met up since we left NUS wushu and I moved outta Teck Whye, where she still is. Still haven changed abit. Same old Hsia jie I knew from the manner of speech and the ultimate ability to tiow me to death whenever I suan her! Ate at the houseman canteen near the new Duke building besides the original(now demolished) KE VII. Now she's redoing her honors in Psychology to go into a Masters program next time. Why re-doing? Surprisingly cos her batch can choose to NOT do a thesis paper for honors previously in NUS and now it's a requirement! Another surprise was that on contrary to what I heard a few yrs back, she remained unattached since the GH incident(well that wasn't counted as attached anyway).

The devil up to her usual antics again. Bollywood tree frolicking; having melted B&J ice cream in KFC Funan Centre; lamppost dancing at city hall; small enuf to fit onto a kiddy horse ride.

Ilyana and Amin posing with the umbrella... in different sort of ways. Somehow this collage arrangement makes Ilynana looks kinda patriotic.


Other than meeting up old frens, I also dropped by NP's CCA fiesta this week. Saw NP wus*u's performance which was lacklustre to say the least. Even the jiu jie bian, which was suppose to be the easiest crowd pleaser, failed to shine. They did try to perform some zhi xuan movements but only the taiji routine was watchable. Maybe they were not on form cos Joshua, Shipei and Clarice sat so close to the performance area and hindered abit of their movement! If I was not in formal working attire, I would have drag them all out! Erm sorry..... drag Clarice and Joshua... and ask Shipei to move herself.....heh...
Looking at the sign up list at the Njd booth, I kinda got worried as the response was significantly greater than the last few years. Gave a pre-warning to the comm regarding the first training but at the same time I knew they also have no experience in handing such a big group.
According to them, the first intro training did not turn out well due to latecomers and troublemakers.
I probably can help with the situation but instead chose to study my journals at KAP Mac. Other than the fact that I need to rush abit on my written report, these reasons apply as well:
1) This overwhelming situation is one of the best experience for the new comm. Esp with the training camp coming up, it's time to let them see how serious it can be WHEN I mentioned it's serious.
2) So far my plan to slowly let go of the club and let it run autonomously is working well. Finally the comm is beginning to show ownership of the club. Things are not running as efficiently as I would prefer but it's a start.
3) Sometimes when a senior takes too much control and say, the juniors feel constricted and will not volunteer to churn out ideas and action. So less of my input and suggs might do more good for the club.

When I proceeded to brief and advice them during dinner after the so called "disasterious" first day intro training, Xinyu expected a dressing down session. She said she will feel better if I did that. Well that's not the way I do things. Maybe in sec sch uniformed groups, but not here. There's a long list of reasons why I wun do that but essentially, they are not kids that require shouting anymore. Dun prove me wrong during the Training Camp please.

My first attempt to experiment with a double exposure..... which made Xinyu and Clarice looks like a human imprint on the wall after a nuclear explosion.

Alley showdown: I shot the Da Er Long so she bueh song and shot me back at the same time(Diana+ loaded with Velvia 100) .

Colin mesg-ed me over MSN yesterday night, concerned over my nick. Well I truly appreciate it bro. You heard stuff which you were priviledged enuf to hear. Prob wun be repeated again to anyone else. I think the mesg today was clear enuf.

One of my fav. They wanted a CD cover"band" pose. And so they got it.

Luv this shot. Found a small rose with bunch of sad love letters on the floor. I think the mood of this pic is really there ...esp if you read through the contents of those letters.

Happy bdae.
5 yrs ago should I have prep the salmon and pocket watch?
you are rite. It was so fun in the past.
Really glad to hear you have moved on.
I wish I could too.

What I can remember recently.....

One thing irritating about blogging is that you can never remember what you wanna blog about. Interesting things might happen everyday then you think: I must blog this down! Fast forward a few days later when you finally got the time: What was that I wanna note down?

Let's see...
Finally passed my BCLS CPR course. I do not know of anyone who has failed this course yet. One cert that will lead to 3 other I will be getting this year. Abit unlucky that the NRC auditors chose that day to audit AH. End up everything is more strict. The mannequin used to test our pumping action broke down on me too... even the dummy can die one kaoz. And I get to disassemble it to see the mechanical innards!

So far in sch:
This term seems to be moving very fast. Either that or I am getting used to the pace. Admittedly it is a very relaxing term sprinkled with very heart stopping events like the Super-Rushed- Sociology-Presentation-while-I'm-reservist thing. Another one would be yesterday when we found out on the day of deadline that our Care and Prev presentation was done wrongly. Had to rush home halfway through work and correct everything last min. Tomorrow will be the practical lesson followed by the test itself on sunday. Taping and TOTAPS. Can't wait to try out the tapings on the Njd kiddos. Heheheheh.....

On Monday, SMa suddenly SMS us in the AFTERNOON saying that the medical lecture will be today instead of Friday! WTF!!!!!! and it will be till 10 instead of the usual 9pm. This is not the first time( more times then I can bother to keep track) that SMa screwed up big time. Others incidents are bad but this one really takes the murther f*cking cake. Assuming if they cannot get the original lecturer to come and had to change the date, they could have informed us earlier. NOT on the day itself!! And they had to wait till the AFTERNOON to do it. Just a few hours before the lecture! Damian had to miss the lecture because of this sudden change.

The previous provider TES never screwed up this badly. I can understand all this problems back in term 1 when they are still getting the hang of this but this is term 2 already. Does this mean that all our feedback forms and also Barry's(the dean of the faculty) personal visit to collect our feedback on the provider's performance mean absolutely ziltch??? Fortunately a few of us got early warning from Kester(thank u!). Can't imagine missing out a lecture by B*nedict Tan of C*H whom I heard sooooo much about. For his reputation, he seems much less imposing in built than I originally thought. Edmund was so tense that night... his own boss presenting the lecture in front of him.. hahahah..

Wednesday afternoon:
Peilei suddenly jio me for lunch, which I am more than happy to go. It's been a dreary week and someone to tok kok with is nice. Went to CityVibe which was the former Clementi Cinema building facing the MRT. It's now a brand new buidling built from scratch in record time. It's not fully completed at the top storey which will be Peilei's highly anticipated Party World. I still miss the MacDonalds at the ground floor though. Not the food(bleahhhh.. i eat mac almost every week!) but the place. Have some memories there. Lotsa F&B outlets but in the end settled for sushi (forgot the name but it's not sakae which is also there) cos it's having an opening sale of 99cents for the cheaper variety. Eat not only sushi but tons of snake too... tok all the way till 230. Forgot my nalgene bottle and had to drive back again!.
Next Wed, lunch with Chiu Hsia, really looong time no see!

Upped my running intensity this week. Partly thanks to recurrence of an old injury, should be a strain to the extensor pollicis longus or brevis. So since I can't do upper body might as well take care of the bottom. It will be beneficial for the 10k run coming up anyway.
Ran a bloody long distance on Tues evening at the Southern Ridge (the pain under the patella seems to be improving, yes!), which takes care of the stamina portion.
Thurs at Njd:
sprinted a bloody hell lot on the new artificial pitch at NP while playing some new game that the juniors came up with. It's good. At least these things motivate them to run at higher intensity instead of the usual slow jogs. Always wanted to train them in sprinting. Now that's taken care of. Not really specific enuf to train the energy system for a sparring match but it's a start.
Found that a new artificial soccer pitch can be a very relaxing place to slack and that wat we did after all that sprinting. And I found that I lost my touch at scissors, paper, stone. Hah....
2 big laughs for that night:
1)Jianyang collapsing after the 3 girls weight proved too much for him. It's beyond words so I shall not describe it here. But as marcus said: it's one of those moments which you wish there was a video cam.
2) Xinyu's jelly like movements when learning the flip up. Also indescribable. But when she was trying to flip up, people were sent flipping sideways laughing.
Xinyu: dun get discouraged if you are reading this, u are progressing well. The was also improvement in the rest too. It's probably the fear on injury on the concrete floor that's stopping them from showing their true potential previously.

Been doing way too much thinking recently. It's been emotionally and psychologically challenging week (actually longer than that). But....Dug myself out again! Back on form for more challenges! I just hope tomorrow situation wun place me back to square one again. I am myself and a slave to no one. Pray hard & hope for the best.

After so many posts of BnW photos.. it's time to get outta mono... into colour Lomography!!
Camera: original Russian LC-A.
Film: Kodak Elitechrome extracolour (X-processed of cos!)
Was quite scared of the results cos of the low ISO of 100 and shooting at night. Sure the pics will be blurry. But then again... Lomography are somewhat of an abstract art... so heck care and shoot....luv the shifts in hue and enhanced yellow and blue due to the cross processing using C41 instead of E6 chemicals.




long exposure with deliberate shakes...turns out nice!

Clarice was into pianos that night....

reflection from the 'pond' in front of the esplanade

self cam whore again... Ilyana was cut off except some of her weed...hehe....

a failed 'dramatic' run....

Sticker of Kang Xi's head(from the nearby ACM) was pasted over the cyclist.....whoever pasted it got it wrong...bicycles was not invented yet in his era! Hah!

Relaxing at Cavenagh Bridge....





signs of economic downturn... child prostitution....tsk tsk....



Scene at Boat quay



The frolicking pair as frolicky as ever....



Lost at the junction.

Maxwell market is a totally different place at night.

Redscale film in next post!

Time

A couple of months back found this place that's near to where I'm staying.
In order to finish off the remainder of the roll of bnw that's stuck with me for so long, below pics would be the result. Quaint little neighbourhood really, but not one special enuf that one could notice anything worth their time to take a little walk through these parts. Seriously I also didn't know what I was doing. Dun think I'm suppose to be snooping around these parts. After all, I suppose this area of land does not belong to Singapore. Yes, it's me. I do these sorta things all the time and sometimes I do wonder till how old when I finally stop all these nonsense. The same imprudence that kept my soul alive.
Just like any other neighbourhood..... back in the 90s that is. Time stood still here in this small piece of land. Just 2 blocks of flats. 8 storeys high. Place reeks nostalgia. Quite literally. The stench of rubbish, rats running everywhere, in other words, the good ol' days when I was living at C'wealth Cres.

Most of the units were already vacated. Some filled with old furniture and rubbish from the former occupants. The population I assume are all or predominantly Malays since this should be a domitory for *TM workers. All the kids playing on the grass patch outside were also Malay. I was the only "alien" walking around.
Children playing outside.....that's some sight you haven seen in a while. Perhaps they don't have PSPs and internet to keep them pinned down at home.

Some small building prob used to oversee the trains arriving in the area but abandoned now. Lotsa human sized holes in the fence which means......

a little stroll on the gravel.... you dun get to do this everyday. SO....

You take pics...

pics ....


And more pics!!!

Heheheh........

This playground is unlike any others I seen in my childhood. Same steel beam stress members, but of a different config. All the kids in the neighbourhood did not seem to take a interest in it. I wonder why.

Cat lazing around. Prob tired from chasing the rats around. Saw the same cat when I went back there a second time. Can't be 2nd time lucky though. One of the *TM workers was spooked by my camera and I had to convinced him I'm just a nostalgic guy not a security thread. He seems amused with the pics I've taken(I was using the D300 instead of F50 on the second trip so can preview the pics).

And the last shot of the roll would be the *TM office before I leave. Peering inside, one can also tell that time also stood still in there. The architecture of the stairs seems like from the earlier half of the 1900s. There's also a chimney at the back of the house. Somehow I can't tell which era this building belong to as I can't connect this architecture to any others in Singapore's past. Maybe cos it ain't Singapore's anyway.


Finally my first assignment, a presentation on Sports Sociology is complete. I was fortunate to be released from my reservist range much earlier. I heard the rest stayed at the range all the way till close to 7. Near the end of the range, the officers decided to cut short and asked everyone to empty their rounds on the targets that will be stationary instead of timed targets. Finally got to handle and shoot a SAR 21. Service side people is always the last to handle new technology. Heard so much about the pro and cons of it. Not as heavy as I imagined it to be. Definitely easier to handle(bullpup design and length) and aim(nice quality lens coating on the scope).

I cocked up the presentation. Panicked too much and voice quivered alot. I do know the information I was presenting and could have even done it without my flash card but due to the lack of time, I had to compromise some of my pts and rearrange my speech right as I was presenting. I'm already lucky to be able to go through it all with just a quivering voice. I just hope Dr. Ed*ar dun rip my presentation marks to shreds. Overall my group was praised as setting the benchmark. So I guessed even though I crashed in my personal score, but as a group, things are still swell.

It seems that since I have decided to get a diving cert this yr, one by one the people around me are going diving too. Colin and Guanghao/Peilei are going for their dives in May, albeit on different weekends. So tempted to join them but May is exam week for both my degree and BEC. It's always a timing issue.

Spent the entire March thinking through alot of things. Things that you will only think about when you are too free. Perhaps this sem is really too slack after all. One week of super low-key reservist contributes too. Usually idle thoughts only leads to more questions due to inaction. This time it's abit different though. I found answers and relief. Not to everything but every small bit is always welcome. If only I can think so clearly a year back. Ironically it was idle lifestyle and thoughts that sent me here today. What happened is meant to happen and couldn't have happened any other way. It was a sobering experience but one I really dun relish on going through with in my life EVER again.

April is here and the stupid Cat's bdae is just a couple of days away. Got a chock load of presents to get. 3 of them I not too sure what to get while 2 of them not sure if I should get.

Sick of bnw?
LOMOgraphy pics with weird coloured cross-processed films will be on next post!



Test of time
or purely penance?
Ultimately,
Fate says Bull or Archer?
or just
precious remembrance?