NYA, National Day in Little india, Marcus's Grading

First off the inaugural National Youth Assembly organised by Wilson's ECO.

Volunteered as a photographer for the event. As per all events, there was some delay and all I could snap was the first half. Even worse was that the Straits Times reporter needed one of my pics so I gotta stay back and help her download Nikon's ViewNX to convert my raw files and let her select the pics. All my pics was not really the type she was looking for so end up one of my lousier ones (dun even have the opportunity to edit!) was chosen and placed in the next day's papers. End up kinda late meeting Chiu Hsia. Seebeh heng she never tiow me cause she was even more late hahaah!

Akim Enomoto- The Japanese/German hybrd super yan dao kia from ECO. Also known as the Axis of Evil (pls refer to WW2). Too bad for the ladies in ECO, he's moved on to NUS soc science already.

Preping the Old parliament for the event....

Wilson doing what he does best....

Wilson doing what he does 2nd best. Pictured: Lim Wee Kiak

Future leaders giving their takes on env issues... with some more "convincing" than others.

The kiddos having fun during the interval.

The kiddos having fun during the assembly.

Must.... remain... looking ... interested........Zzzzzzz

ECO's venerable Dr Ryal

While walking around with Hsia-jie at The Cathay, bumped into Derrick, William and Joyce with Joyce being super shocked as they were just toking about me before I tapped her arm. The group later saw Christine with that other guy. Not coincidental enuf? Later we bumped into Guoping's KL ex at Plaza Sing.

Finally got to see Public Enemies by Michael Mann. Always a fan of his shows but somehow I dun quite like the feel of digital on period films. Overall still a good show with top names like Depp and Bale(with corny accent), you can't go wrong.

Another National Day's come and gone. Every year I get to shoot the fireworks and airshows from my bedroom window. Too bad the F-16s dun fly my direction this yr.

So what's a bored photo enthusiast gonna do on National Day itself?

Dun tell me to go city area and squeeze with all the thousands of other photographers to take the over-taken pics of fireworks...... It's so cliche and boring......

Time to do something different again! Away from all the glitz and celebration.. time to take a walk on the dark(er) side of things.

As it was a Sunday and with a MOM gazetted public holiday the following day, Little India was as good as the real thing itself. Shipei and I was the only non-east asian in the area..... It's quite intimidating when you are surrounded by thousands of them literally flowing pass you. Lost in a sea of darkness you might say. Many interesting things to see that night from makeshift vegetable stalls to roadside blood-testing, the obligatory alcoholic fights, and even walked through a dark alley with with lotsa erm..... restricted stuff. Too bad Ilyana was unable to join us that night.... I'm sure she would have enjoyed the atmosphere, sights and sounds....heheh...

Speaking of Nat Day, the 1 hr petrol discount from Shell is a surefire way of congestion. All over Singapore, the queue of cars coming outta Shell made it looks like as though Earth finally ran outta crude. Below is the scene at Toh Yi Shell taken from my hp.

The queue is actually many times longer than the limit of what my hp cam can capture.

Over to NP Njd....

A couple of months back:

1 day before the portrait shoot, Xinyu was suppose to send through msn a pic of what she would be wearing for the shoot. She kinda can't find the pic so she drew........ I almost faint siah!

Macham looked like pontianak!! Fortunately the real outfit is more glam......but Xinyu's gotta make all those unglam faces in lke 50% of the pics!

Here's the real dress:

Marcus's black belt grading finally came.

Been awaiting this day for a long time. Even though that week was my mid term week, I still feel obligated to be there and grade him myself. Now if only Amin would hurry up and ascend too.

Marcus did quite well. With all the effort previously placed in, Jinzhou, Ignatius and I have no prob passing him. The Katas, and defences were without incidences, well... up till the sparring section. Shall not describe by words but by picture:

Those in NP Njd will get the idea.. Heheh.....

But dun give up. You would never have gotten here if you did.

You have fought hard and far, and now that you are a black belt. It's time to elevate your training to a different level. Hope you think it through more on that.

David's resignation and more crappy lomo pics

By typical mugger's pearl of wisdom: I should not be blogging in the middle of mid term exam week.
Luckily I'm not the typical mugger.
It keeps my mind fresh for absorbing more dry information from exercise rehabilitation anyway.

Let's see what I can remember from the past month.

Just when I thought there is a limit to SM*'s incompetency, they love to prove me wrong and have outdone themselves yet again... blundering to the point even our favourite tutor Mr David A* had enough of their rubbish and resigned suddenly "with immediate effect" through email. The email came just one day after our first practical lesson with him in his personal clinic at Liat Towers. We were having so much fun throughout the 2 hours and he was at his humorously sacarstic best. Everyone was shocked and disappointed at his sudden departure esp in the middle of the term leaving us high and dry. Fortunately Fiona was able to convince him to stay till the end of this term. So I guess we'll get to hear more of his sacarstic take on the Ren Ci saga for the remainder of the term.

Actually from what I could see, it's just a ruse to get SM* to wake up (even though David can just resign without a care. It's EC* and SM* who needs him, not the other way round). Someone had to ring the bell other than the students, as it seems like our words have no effect on the staff. Heard Barry flew up from down under just to rectify the situation. Hopefully something is done this time round. Sadly I'm sure that even with all the unhappiness around, all the students will still tiam tiam when Barry's here again next sem for the appraisal. Typical Singaporean as what Tiffany said.

Dunno if SM* had this planned all along or just an effort to somewhat neutralise the situation (maybe as a show to Barry). For this month, we can have 40% discount for new balance shoes if we show our student pass. Hah! This particular pacifying effort can be considered oxymoronic and totally blows in their face. One of the things we are totally displeased with them is because 1 year into this course (out of a 2 yr course), we still have not gotten our student pass! Even after countless efforts at hounding them. This discount offer actually fuels the fire. One of the administrators, Titan (yes that's his real name!), even actually tired to emphasize this offer to us last week. If only he knew how irritating he is with his "salesman" antics. Edmund, Jeremy, Damien, Kester and the rest of them conveniently ignored him all the way to the lift leaving me to give him the occasional glance of acknowledgement.

Sometimes I wonder was our Pri and Sec so screwed up and we did not notice just cos we were too young to?

Latest update insert: Esther and Kelvin quit SM*. Seems like David's little stunt has more collateral effect then expected. That means SM* only have (irri)Titan left as lao jiao admin! It also means Kester's second attempt at sending all our photos for our student pass is probably gone together with Esther's exit! Ironically when we thought of this problem, we laughed out loud instead of cursing. The provider of our education has successfully de-sensitized us to their incompetency! Proves that there's nothing you cannot do wrong. Just do it often enuf until it feels like the norm! Hahah!

Alright spamming some lomography pics.
Had to clear out some film due to the expiry date closing in and others, cos I wanna see how's the new film emulsion going to perform.

Can't believe I actually spammed like 2.5 rolls of 135 format and 1 roll of 120 format film in one day. Maybe that's what lomography is about(ok that's just an excuse)....

Film: Velvia 50 (almost expired!)
Camera: Nikon F80
Spammed it on all the floral next to my lift lobby. Did not expect the colour temperature to be so cool. Velvia is suppose to be warm.


Next...
Film: LOMO 200 X-process
Camera: LOMO LC-A
Even after cross processing it, it still looks very much like it was a C-41 processed negative with a bit more contrast. No weird tint and hue shifts. 

Locations: Portsdown, Labrador, Hort Park, Jalan Kukup

And Day and Night testing on:

Film: Fuji Superia 800 

Camera: Nikon FM2.

Pic is underexposed even on a 800 iso film. Gives you an idea of actually how dark it really is, Tried my best to keep the shot steady from an extra long exposure of around 1 sec. No tripod so got to use my natural born organic bipods. Turned out pretty ok. Silhouette of swan is there and reflections from the lightsticks of NUS Law fac student orientation camp can be seen in the water.

Not-so-wilderness of punggol.

Got jio-ed by Junxiang to one of FHM's Bikini Beach Bongo threesome party at Sentosa, Cafe Del Ma. Here's the winner from FHM's girl next door contest 2009 (the contest name itself is a misnomer. If all girls next door is like that, all the guys would grow hair on their palm and go blind. Heheh...) Junxiang referred to her as my "relative" as she has the not so common surname as me. Hah. Funnily enough, this "relative" of mine got contact me through friendster a few years back. But looking at all her cutesy and pretty pics, I thought it's prob one of those scam from Ch*na (for all you know, it's prob a "he"). Only later through Welna's blog page then I realized she's for real. 

Portraits of the pair of NUS wushu bandits.

Next up:

Film: Agfa Precisa CT 100 (x-processed)

Camera: LOMO LC-A

Had a bit of a tip off from my manager cos he knows about my hobby of archiving vanishing places in Singapore. So it's off to his childhood neighbourhood of Merpati Rd. 

So it's off to archive via ECP.....

then KPE.... remember kids dun ride and shoot at the same time.....

The condition of the neighbourhood leaves much to be desired. The ceiling light pictured here was flickering and crackling damn loudly. But the place is already in the process of upgrading so it's fortunate I was able to capture the look that has been there since the 1950s. 

 

Canal that separates Merpati and Circuit road.

The remaining 3 SIT flats was separated from a neighbourhood of posh private housing by a stretch of grass patch behind. Even this cat from the neighbourhood prefer to laze on the "classier" side. 

Haven seen paw prints on concrete for quite a while.

While searching for more info on Merpati Rd, came across another interesting abandoned location, but it was not stated clearly where it was. Sooooo...... went ahead to search out the location. Along the way made a pit stop at Saint George's church which is a rather scenic colonial era styled architecture.

In the end.... no place is too hard to find in Singapore.... hehehe.....more pics next time.