Bronzage

2010-07-04T19:23:00.003+08:00

Fake Lottery Ticket

2009-09-26T05:24:00.000+08:00

The World's Funniest Videos: Fake Lottery Ticket

MRI scan

2009-09-05T04:44:00.001+08:00

this is quite disturbing. lol

ugly

2009-04-18T08:43:00.010+08:00

ooh, it's been a long time since i last visited this place. sure feels good to have a monologue once again, where no one can contradict anything i say. =)

so, what was the impetus that sparked off this blogging tonight? probably my morbid fascination at finding out how ugly i look in some photos that i happened to be browsing through idly, photos taken during my venice+ski trip by.. surprise surprise, my friends.

ladies and gentlemen, i present to you, the mug shot that flooded venice soon after it was taken:

(in jest):minah who was taking this pic ugly as sin, meee had to close mee slitty eyes

now, if u'd just look past the elaborately girly mask (which incidentally wasn't mine), u might possibly think, what was actually going on when this pic was taken? trust me, i dunno.
wince factor: 90%

now, what's that lumpy michelin-like thingy on the left with those two fat cheeks?!?!
wince factor: 80%

skiing amateur acting pro. on a flat surface. how.. very impressive.
wince factor: 80%

those craggy sides of the mountains.. ah.. i tried my best to avoid them.

at last, some semblance of beauty, courtesy of mother nature.

eeks. i hate slopes like this during the first two days. i tend to accelerate so quickly i feared i wld defy all laws of physics. thankfully, or perhaps unfortunately, i always obeyed the laws of gravity. butt first of course.

i really like this pic. the mountains just look soo august and resplendent with those trees fringing the front.

why did the sky suddenly lour? because ugly boy's out to ski!!

on the subject of ugly, i have to concede that someone outstripped me in this esthetic category. on an unanimous basis no less. i'm talking about susan boyle, a scottish woman who was recently catapulted to fame on Britain's Got Talent. without much further ado, let's see her in her full.. unattractive glory:

Susan Boyle on Britain's Got Talent
Uploaded by dwarthy

i first knew about her on facebook ( amazing how such things get published on fb actually), but when a friend mentioned her this evening, im beginning to think that it wasn't her who was ugly so much as our reaction to her.

to be fair to susan, she isn't all that ugly. she does look slightly squashed and frumpy, especially with her unruly teeth and unkempt hair. but that gold lace dress.. ah that's a different story. she looked like a slab of pork sitting on a doily. and what's with that hip-wiggling?!?!

the british lot isn't exactly known to be blessed in the looks department. look at graham norton. he sure is funny as hell, but he looks like a baboon with mascara. and that chef gordon ramsay.. boy, if only he looked half as appetising as the british foodfare he whips up ( which isn't much). his face reminds me of a dried-up riverbed. go google or wiki him if you don't believe me. God is fair though. for every gordon ramsay he created, he created a nigella lawson.

now that woman really invented food porn. watching her cookshow just makes one feel all funny inside and below. and im sure keira knightley and kate beckinsale are two of e best-looking british actresses ever. oh and emily watson too. smart girl to boot.

oups, ive digressed. but seriously, wasn't it incredulous how the audience reacted to her? that long unpleasant wolf whistle. gawd. i wld prob have died from shame on the spot. and that simon cowell, buffed to e sheen of an ornamental pebble, rolling his eyes so high they threatened to roll down the aisle and onto the stage to gawk at susan more closely. amanda holden ( another rare pretty brit, with the faint snail trails of botox over her perfectly smooth face) had the decency to choose neutrality. brownie points for that. piers morgan winced. just like i did at my pics above.

i like the moment where susan steadied herself, feet apart and sang like a scottish edith piaf. those few seconds where the audience and judges were spellbound and ashamed. ashamed at having misjudged this sad little spinster, beloved only of Pebbles her cat. till the shame gave way to unabashed gasping and involuntary clapping. clapping at how this scottish woman with that cheeky grin dared to aspire to be like elaine paige, and clapping probably at how astounded they were at having to swallow their pride, since susan's having the last laugh now.

amanda sums it up most succinctly i guess, when she said that everyone was against susan. poor little susan. even paul potts, winner of Britain's Got Talent in 2007, had an easier time, even though his face was equally squashed. i dun remember there being any smirking or derision.

now perhaps there is some basis for feminism after all. seems that only women with bright empty beauty get to go on screen. ugly women get their fair share of airtime on the news, where they can weep pitifully because some awful personal tragedy had befallen them, as their fate would have it naturally.

i really hope susan wins this competition. she will probably be the talk of town, and perhaps Toys'R Us would have a miniature toy replica of her.

"look at this! it's ugly, it sings, and best of all, it can wiggle its hips!!" introducing the sexy singing susan.

i feel like susan at times. the freakish exception that becomes very malicious because others grind my very existence into dust. i do not deserve this, but hey, they probably do not deserve me either.

asdfghjkl

2009-01-05T04:20:00.005+08:00

i'm annoyed right now, for reasons inappropriate for expounding on this blog. and to avoid typing an expletive-laden post as im wont to do, ive decided to peek my head out of the hole i've crawled into over the past two months to check in and let everyone know that i'm still alive and squealing like a pig whenever i eat something good, and rave on something insignificant.

i'd actually planned to blog briefly about my trip to california and all the orgiastic festivities that i thought i wld have, and have silly captions below pictures that i'd taken throughout the trip. blame it on laziness or, i don't know, laziness, it's just that sometimes it's so exhausting to watch the card reader transfer all those photos from the memory card to my hard drive. i burn at least a hundred calories just thinking about it. and oh, just the thought of transferring 1gb of photos will positively send me straight into a coma. besides, who wants to see pictures of the golden gate bridge solely when u can see a more 'happening' version?

but i've come to see how wordy this place can be, so here's a token shot from an angle that not many have seen:

isn't it sad that some people choose to take their own lives by leaping off such a majestic bridge? apparently they'd be hurtling towards their deaths at more than 100km/h after a mere 5 seconds..

speaking of suicide, a conversation with an unctuous man in church this morning certainly brought on waves of murderous intents. evil? i know. sinful? definitely. on the 1st sunday of 2009? i think i see the gates of hades there yonder.

plus, my 'good karma' accumulated from having done some good in myanmar is probably all dried up by now. add to that the fact tt i kept forgetting to say grace at the table before some meals when i was at my friend's place, and my tombstone will probably read smth not very pleasant. but if God saw the spread on the table i'm sure He'd understand. =P

basically the conversation with said man transpired roughly like this (we were discussing about my hols in the US, and how unhealthy the food there tends to be):
Mr Unctuous: "so aren't you afraid of eating soo unhealthily? what about your health when u get older?"
me: "coz not, i'm only 24, and i still get hard-ons in math class. "

alright, i jest.

me: " okay, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. good-bye. "

i wished i had the balls to say that, but nope, social niceties dictate that you plaster on a stupid smile while proffering a nicer reply.

me: " nah, my metabolism is very high, and i usually eat very healthily on weekdays to compensate for my weekends and holidays.."

seriously, some people...

so, what struck me about the US this time round?

it's big. it's really big. i know it's big but the interminable flights there slapped me in the face and on my arse real hard. i emerged dishevelled after my 3rd flight with butts sore from getting squished for 14-15hrs.

AMERICA THE BIG. ginormous malls filled with megastores that span a few football fields, malls that will make vivocity look puny in comparison to them. malls so big that there are usually a few exits off freeways/roads that lead to it, and getting off the wrong one could mean a long long walk to the store u want.. and oh, at this mall, this man was driving around looking for parking lots and when he spotted one, he parked head in, but then reversed, and headed straight for another one just a couple of feet away. probably so it wld save him all but 10 additional seconds of walking. how lazy can americans get?

but gosh, i love the way the americans do things. who says good things come in small packages? the bigger the better. especially when it comes to food and shopping. big servings at affordable prices. warehouse factory outlet shopping with massive discounts.

wait. why was i annoyed again?

concerto pour deux voix

2008-11-08T04:55:00.004+08:00

this is beyond magnifique.. i get frissons down my spine each time i listen to this. if only i cld still sing like that. gone are the days where i can sing as a soprano, now i sing like cher getting high on helium. =X

isn't it amazing how clémence pales in comparison to jean baptiste? she lets in so much air when she sings, whereas jean's voice rings out loud and clear. no wonder the vienna boys' choir tried to preserve the incredible voices of some boy singers through castration. the death knell of puberty spells the end of such angelic male voices..

on a totally unrelated note, i took a shower just now and nearly froze to death. there was no hot water and it's 6 degrees out there. i had no idea where all the hot water went. i used to joke with my army friends that all our important bits could freeze and drop off at such frigid temperatures, and i swear that could have happened just now. i was gasping for breath when i put my head under the shower, and soaping, lathering and rinsing off has never been soo painful. the cold was so biting i was half-afraid it cld cause a cardiac arrest. i think i might not shower the next time there's no hot water at night. the caucasians usually do that and shower in the morning. to hell with the dirt and grime of the day. my bits are more important to me.

business management exam tmr. help!! signing out.

i'm alive

2008-11-04T04:07:00.003+08:00

this is just a quick post for memory keepsake, which i hope will be useful decades down the road. i was made to do additional homework in English class (damnit, I can't get exempted from it because of the ECTS credits that I have to earn in order to graduate) because i'm anglophone, and was thus assigned to study Robert Frost's poems. Gosh.. the last time i touched english literature was 10 years ago. boy am i an old man now..

anyway, here's one of which i particularly like:

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth; 5

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same, 10

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back. 15

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 20

nice right.. yea, i think so too. so, reading it brings to mind the fact that, upon hindsight, i'm sure i'll look back on these 6 years here in time to come, at times with jaundice, at times with rose..

sadly that's nothing more i can say about it. at least not until i do some wiki-ing or googling on how the metric pattern works. i can't believe that in prepa i had to churn out rubbish in french philo, only to do the same now in english.. 2 weeks ago, i had to study excerpts of famous American speeches (think JFK, abraham lincoln and dr. matin luther king) and i had to research on it for about 2 hours. grr 2 hrs gone like that!! the time could have been better spent catching up on my american series =P

anyway, just a quick update about moi. school's fun, though really tiring. lessons are lighter than in prepa but it isn't as slack as i fantasised it to be. come end of this week, i'll have taken 6 exams already! and next week, a programming project is due, following which we have a projet d'électronique. outside of sch, im drinking a lot (whee!!!), which makes me very happy. and friends are fantabulously nice (yes!! a bit of redeeming grace for the french after all!), and i've gone out quite a bit with them and crashed at their places after having a red too many.

money gets frittered away really quickly now that im in paris. i told myself that i'll be good and save money by preparing sandwiches for lunch. eating in sch ain't that cheap, let alone those stupid bistros and cafés outside. sadly, i surrendered on the 3rd day. why? because i couldn't stomach another piece of ham anymore. just looking at it makes me retch. and worse, i was dumb enough to put it in wet tupperware once, so when i opened it, the sandwich laid there in its full soggy glory, with a few paltry ham strips lying amongst limp lettuce leaves in a sick shade of green that droop out like... nvm. anyway im eating 2 bananas a day for lunch now, i'm gonna be so slim soon lol.

activity-wise, i've joined the junior entreprise, yacht club and salsa. german lessons take up 3hrs each week, add to that the 1 or 2 dinner outings with friends on weekdays, soirées(parties) and cinema outings, and i can safely say i dun have much time left. but i just wanna say that i'm much happier now than before. and for that im really grateful. you may think it silly that all of the above makes me happy so easily. but it was as if prepa robbed me two years of my rightful happiness. to be meaningfully occupied and enjoy doing things with friends in and outside of school, that's happiness as i once knew it. it is smth that some people take for granted. some find it in the company of friends and/or loved ones, some find it in their work. some find it in shopping, and some in solitude. for me, i think im most content when im kept busy. sure, im happy whenever i have some free time at hand too, but all too quickly i'll find something else to do so i wun waste time.

i wish i can go on rambling, but my statistics assignment's beckoning. à la prochaine.

guidance

2008-08-06T00:28:00.005+08:00

i've been back for 20 days. another 20 odd days to go before i go off again. sigh.. each summer return is getting shorter than ever. only good thing is that my yearning to come back has waned each year. while meeting up with friends has been great, i realised that the initial happiness at having returned sizzles out faster each time.

anyway, i'll be leaving for myanmar tomorrow for a week. funny how i always come here to natter away to my heart's content on the eve of smth eventful. my luggage is all packed, and it's really heavy at 15 kg, what with a huge-ass load of old clothes, used bags and some stationery to give to the people over there; though of coz, nothing beats my 48kg load when i returned from paris. i was heaving and panting like anything when i finally made my way to the check-in counter. if not for my super-kind friend who had volunteered to send me to the airport, i wld prob have splattered blood all my way to my favourite Charles de Gaulle airport as i just had 2 wisdom teeth extracted just the day before. and knowing how things tend to go wrong in that airport, im very sure i wld wind up sitting desolate in some corner after missing my flight.

anyway, back to myanmar. i dun really know what to expect of this humanitarian-missionary trip. teaching is still ok, rebuilding stuff is quite alright (though the thought of strenuous work under the hot sun isn't very tempting), but being in contact with HIV-positive ppl is a whole new ballgame. it's always been smth that we're aware of but have not really come into contact with. owell, there are so many things that we people know, yet are blithely unaware of. i'll just have to be extra careful. anyway,the feelings coursing through me right now are:

excitement-that i'm actually going for such a thing and will for once in my life do smth good to help people. i really hope that it will be as meaningful as i envisioned it to be.

remember those halcyon days of yore, back then in the 1990s where doing flag day seemed to be the bane of most students' existence? well, i dunno about you, but my strategy wld always involve actively thrusting the stupid tin with the fugliest stickers under a lot of people's nose before rushing off somewhere to skive. OUPS. back in jc2, where mandatory CIP hours had to be fulfilled, i was cursed to sell stuffed horses one fine saturday morning. i cant rem the organisation we were trying to help, but i do remember not being able to sell any of those horses at all. we did really try to promote those lovely equine cousins of sarah jessica parker to the generous public at a reasonable price of 5 bucks each, but in the end, my friend and i gave up. we went to a cinema to watch.... powerpuff girls, before getting back to the assembly point to return the tins. and horses of coz. we started off with 20 each, but we ended with 19 coz we decided to be charitable and bought 1 each. we summoned the most rueful look we could when we approached the lady, and she went 'HUH!?!?" when she saw our meagre returns. and i did feel bad, because... they paid us 5 bucks each for the 5-hr work. go do the maths.

the other time i helped someone on such a similar level was when i helped an old lady to cross the road. yea i know it was very civics-and-moral-educational, but what i didn't expect was that she didn't want to cross the road at all. oups.

fear- at not knowing what to expect. spiritual-wise, i dun feel really equipped enough to go for such a thing. evangelism is all about two sides of the same Gospel: loving God and loving our neighbours as ourselves. fair enough, that sounds simple. but how do we actually show it?

relief- that this could be a gd respite from all the eating and catching up that i've been doing. it's come to a point where it becomes a routine and thus meaningless after some time. and to have to nice big plans falling flat on their face each time, that's simply infuriating.

anxiety-at not having found accommodation yet in paris for the next academic year. despite having trawled the net for a gd 5 weeks, ive nothing to show for it except false hopes of finding a gd deal, only to realise that it's the size of 5 storerooms. thinking about this accom shit can give me hernia. and the thought of not being able to house-hunt for a gd one week will prob keep me up each night for the upcoming week.

im beat, and have to go to bed now. here's wishing myself luck, and the mettle in debunking all the silly myths you guys enjoyed coming up with- stuff of my being unable to rough it out and worse, my causing a famine over there. bad bad humour hehe.

godspeed moi!

shizzle and fizzle

2008-07-05T02:41:00.006+08:00

(this post is full of shizz and toilet humour. please go to a more wholesome site if just the mere thought of it sends waves of nauseating odour wafting into your nose.)

i hate using public toilets. i really do. i wld rather control my bladder or squeeze my butt cheeks together for all i'm worth till i reach home and get my rightful claim to the throne. but, as you know, when life doles out a serving of shizz, there's no escaping it. and so that was what happened to me a few days ago, all thanks to overnight curry argh. the churning started when i was on the train. i was willing for it to go away, but the unrelenting rumbling came on stronger; and so there i sat, meek as a mouse, trying to make my impending flatulence as delicate as the fluttering of fairy wings. to cut a long story short, i had to alight at an earlier stop to prevent an implosion in my pants. and there, an amazing race started. quest: to find a toilet. yes, it seems i've accumulated so much toilet karma in life that whenever i need a restroom, there is never one nearby.

anyhow, i was lucky enough to find one just around the corner of the street i was on (in macdonald's, EEKS), and the episode in that restroom will stay indelible in my memory for years to come. seriously guys, i can ignore the putrid stink of unflushed turds, wet farts, and even the polychromatic pubes on the urinal lips. these are, i suppose, unavoidable at times. BUT, what i cannot stand, is the heavy grunting as you strain, the cloistered breathing as you focus, and worse, the final contented sigh as you deliver. a cacophony like this is meant for your own ears only dude. forgive me if i seem uptight. i find inopportune farts totally hilarious (hey there, perpetual farter ND!), but i've had the fortune/misfortune of being exposed to only the rustling of newspapers, or the beeping of phones as smses are sent by businessmen eager to clinch deals even during the most private of moments. oh i almost forgot, i was treated to a symphony of ass trumpets a few times too. such rare treats indeed.

flashback: 6 years ago, prom at the ritz carlton. i mistakenly walked into the ladies, and promptly turned 180°. but that split second was all i needed to take in the gilded vanities and the upholstered canapé. fresh flowers adorned the countertop where eau de toilette and scented hand lotion and soap stood side by side. it could have possibly passed off as kublai khan's pleasure dome.

of coz, i do not expect all toilets to be like that. but seriously, plenty of male restrooms (particularly in some parts of spore) still have stalls that are so dirty you just feel like rushing to the nearest supermarket to grab a can of anti-bacterial spray before you face the onslaught. whenever nature (of the dark kind) calls, i have no choice but to choose the least dirty stall, twist my legs together like a Singapore Girl, maniacally wipe the seat crescent before mummifying it with toilet paper, and last but not least, make sure that i properly insulate that part of porcelain where pubes and piss thrive. PROTECTION my dear, haven't you heard of it?

and now that you're finally ready to do it, you realise that graffiti artists are determined to keep u entertained throughout as you follow the curves of a hairy genital crudely drawn onto the door, more often than not accompanied by a number at the side, which when called promises that you will be kept happy by 'Leonard's/Lisa the bitch's sucking'. -__-

this might be exaggerated, but it isn't too far from the truth: isn't it unfair that while the fairer sex chokes on potpourri in scented xanadus, we men, on the other hand, train our gag reflex or the duration of holding our breaths? there's another thing which floors me: why is it that women are more self-conscious when they fart? while men proudly proclaim it with their ass trumpets as they clear their system, women try to mask it by making theirs as discreet as possible. only the soft purring of a kitten or the faint braying of a unicorn betrays the presence of a woman in a stall. amazing isn't it?

i've seen some fathers bring their daughters into the gents. poor little innocent bluebells slowly rotting in the filth and putrefaction. i think i'd be one of the few fathers who will be late in toilet-training their kids.

"you're sure u dun wanna pee in your diapers? there are big smelly monsters in the toilet waiting to grab you.."

ah.. how my mind strays.

the real thing

2008-05-26T04:11:00.002+08:00

just a quick short post before i go unpack my luggage and then pack my sch bag for tomorrow. ripped this off another friend's blog and laughed my head off soooo many times haha. herein lies the reason why i wanna go back to spore every summer. besides family, food and friends (the 3 big Fs in life, and not forgetting the one and only F in WTF), part of the allure in returning home lies in speaking singlish. it may not manifest itself as sharp pangs for sporean food that set my salivary glands into overdrive, nor does it come in the form of occasional dull aching for the familial comforts back home; but the moment i reach singapore, i know that i'm in my element. anyhow put words together people also can understand. such is the behemoth power of singlish haha. the conversion over the next 2 months from weekend boulevardier to flip-flop heartlander starts right now.

a tediously long post mortem III

2008-05-15T18:37:00.007+08:00

tout cela sent la fin. the end is near: just 6 more papers and i'll be done. for one month at least, till the orals come. no word in any language can convey how thoroughly sickened i am of studying these days. revision has reached a stage where i practically know what stuff is located on which page, and everything that i ought to know is alr up there, knowledge so forcefully crammed that it's only raring to be regurgitated (in the case of philosophy), or applied to the best of my abilities for the e other subjects. thank god i didn't sign up for the école polytechnique concours (knowing full well that the upper academic crust will wrinkle its nose at my bare-faced audacity..), as that will mean i'll have to work on my physical fitness and read all those computing notes that i've gleefully chucked away in the dustiest recesses of my shelf.

basically, the four sets of exams that i'll be done with differ from this one in that the latter comprises an additional physical fitness test, which includes running and swimming, as well as a computing component. computing has never been my forte, but running and swimming competitively against the french will prob seal my fate faster than u can say "boo!". credit, of coz, has to be given to dear napoléon bonaparte, who just had to add a military dimension to this école. word has it that a 2.4km timing of roughly 9.5 mins had earned this guy the 17th position in a pack of god-knows-how-many. when i heard that, i knew i simply stand no chance.

the papers last week were much easier compared to the previous 2 sets, but this was expected as this set only allows entry into 2nd-grade écoles. remind me again why i love this particular elitist system that sifts out the weaker ones. much as i hate the rigour of it, i have to admit that i've learned a lot. granted, i enjoy grumbling and complaining abt schoolwork, especially philosophy and all that anal shizz that comes with it. but it's only on hindsight that i realised that i've unknowingly studied some of the greatest works ever written in the european literary world. authors from the canon of frenc literature include pierre corneille, rené chateaubriand, marcel proust and malebranche. i learned that the classical theatrical period is characterised by a pole of symmetry and equilibrium, be it in the timing e.g the rhythmic pacing in the scenes, or the venue e.g scenes where all the protagonists are present on stage; whereas the baroque era echoed the tumultuous history then, which is marked by a weakening of royal power, violence by duels and a tyrannical control of the arts. as for the Spanish Golden Age, we did Cervantès' Don Quichotte ( or don quixote in english) last year and analysed the power of imagination through the eyes of that spanish errant knight (gawd, i can surely remember those awful dissertations where i have to expound on what imagination does to man, and i remember resisting the urge to conclude that 'too much idle imagination makes one loony'). this year, we studied the edification of the marxist philosophy in the wake of the french revolution, and its links with the class struggles and the misunderstanding that napoléon's nephew would represent the peasants' best interests. what made me vomit blood ten times over however, was the contrast drawn between the ascendant figure of napoleon versus the sham that was his nephew. i rem i was patiently writing the lyrics to an english song for my friend beside me throughout that particular lesson. *shudders* really boring stuff that made my mind wander for a full 2 hours.

in english even, where i have to bi-translate english and french articles, i was somehow able to get a better feel of the nuances in the french language, and i think that sorta helped me in my english as well. engineering physics and chemistry are quite okay, so no comments there. but mathematics, my my my... what can i say about my most revered subject? let's just say i wldn't wanna have anything to do with it in the future if possible. having said all this, it's quite depressing to know that after sitting for so many exams, there's no point aspiring to enter a top-notch grande école as the system is against me. besides, i cannot discount the fact that i'm prob too dumb to beat the french at their own game. dreams wilting even before the seeds are sown. hurray.

thankfully, i had a quick getaway last wkend to visit F in notts. it was a very last-min decision. i was supposed to be studying last tues nite, but i went online instead, saw his mail, decided to try my luck at eurostar.com, and miraculously managed to get my tix at 60 euros!!! and so i was able to meet F after like one year. the train ride there was spent admiring the countryside and reading an excellent novel that was left unfinished from the previous eurostar journey. as the train tore past vast fields of yellow oil-seed flowers, i found it hard to believe that i actually dared to travel during my exam period, and my heart gave a guilty lurch. but i consoled myself with the fact that i'd have bummed my time away even if i had stayed in paris. the weather's so beautiful out there i surely wldnt stay at home to study.

anyway, 4 hours later and i was finally there! hardly any pleasantry was exchanged, and the interaction pretty much cleaved to tradition within 5 mins of meeting him. we were soon catching up and laughing like hyenas throughout that day. nothing much has changed- the slightest thing could set us cackling away like idiots, and i pity whoever crossed our paths in sainsbury's and at broadmarsh; for we found crude humour in the most banal of things, and were positively a social hazard to those around us.

the 3 days passed by in a peaceful blur, and i think this breather did me much good as the past 3 weeks have taken a great deal out of me. a big shout-out definitely goes out to F, for having very graciously hosted me despite this being his exam period, and for all the incessant cooking that he had had to do to satiate this bottomless pit aka moi. it's a pity though, that the summer temperatures are really starting to soar, as it brought about a lull in the conversations in the afternoons, and was prob the cause of his splenetic behaviour. all in all, it was a gd break. on the last morning, i had time to do a bit of shopping. have i mentioned how cheap some books are in england? waterstone's apparently has half-price offers weekly, and W H Smith at st pancras has '3 for 2' offers. i spent a gd full hour in them, and if i weren't already cumbered with 3 bags, i wld prob have gotten myself a few more books. how to find such regular offers in paris, or even in spore u tell me?? and oh, i had a field day at M&S's 'simply food' section as well. i went to notts with 2 bags and a double chin, and came back to paris with extra poundage and a bonus triple choco-fudge chin. looks like i left singapore last august as jevon, and will return back home this summer as jevons. hi mum! hi dad! please get me a new bedframe just in case. im so generously padded at the sides now that i look like a male version of this:

gwen stefani- fantabulously rotund. she cld be an airbag or a trampoline for her kid.

i can't wait to stuff myself silly when i go back to spore. in 2 months' time, hopefully.

i just can't resist putting this up too (after all, this was THE picture at this marvelous photoshop site that made me snort out e water i was drinking):

COUPLE PORTRAIT- when horses unite

come may 30th, sex and the city will be released in the US. if i were to be on the french cinematic board that does the translation for movie titles, i think id come up with 'horse and the city', 'sex at the farm' , or 'Mr. Big and horse' etc. gosh, it will be so much fun horsing around with the titles, bad pun fully intended. =)

post mortem II

2008-05-03T03:04:00.006+08:00

dear internet,

how i have missed the smell of your morning breath, your company in the afternoon when my brain goes on screensaver-mode, and your loving embrace in the evening just before i leave. ive missed u so badly it feels so right to be back here banging away at the keyboard, and having you, my dear receptacle, accept all my rubbish and yet not judge me for it. i promise u'll never go hungry for as long as i can help it.

and so, this week has seen me taking the second series of exams. 2 more weeks, 50 more hours of brain-wringing, and i'll be done with this first stage. yippee! i counted the no. of exam hours for these 4 torturous weeks, and guess what's the grand total? NINETY NINE hours. now that's more than just an A-star. that's a frigging one point shy of a perfect score. ive written so much my right middle finger is callused from all the writing. and it's an all-too-familiar scenario as the last minutes tick away before we're to put our pens down: id look at my watch and go 'alamak!' before scribbling away madly. i always start off writing neatly and underlining the answers, labeling the diagrams blablah but as time slips away ever so quickly, whatever gd intention i have will be thrown out the window as i wld rather solve as many questions as possible.

for my econs A-levels essay, i rem each line usually had about 10 words at the start, but for the last page, i think there were about 5 words max for each. i wrote like an illiterate person wielding a pen for the very first time in his life. my words were large, cursive (read: squiggly) and were downright an eyesore to read haha. history's gonna repeat itself these 4 wks. and god bless the soul of the person who's gonna mark my organic chemistry scripts. i think my crude drawing of dinitrophenylhydrazone at the end has to be the largest and most lopsided version he has ever come across in his entire chemistry career. that's no mean feat im telling u. the benzene ring i drew occupied about 8 lines haha. i had no choice as i knew i was down to the very last minute and my pencil was racing across the paper. lets just hope his red pen doesn't race across it too.

recounting such fiascoes hardly seems to be heartening, so i shall move on to something else. i went out earlier this afternoon alone for a jaunt, and i took a bus to velizy. the journey's about half an hour, so i was sitting there listening to my ipod for abt 10 mins into my ride, when this mum and her baby girl boarded and planted themselves 2 seats in front of me. the baby girl was a real-life mascot for disney, everything on her was disney-related. shoes,socks, skirt, top, jacket, bag and water battle. and oh my gawd, i dun think ive ever heard a baby emit that kind of noise. she wasn't screaming or throwing tantrums, she was singing. and by singing, im not referring to melodic warbling that will keep u enchanted and spellbound. spellbound i was indeed, but for the wrong reasons. i couldn't tell what was making this weird sound at first, so i removed my earphones and boy was i shocked to see that it came from the baby. she's 3 years old at most, a cute cuddly bundle of joy who, if observed thru a silent movie, cld possibly make adults go for reverse vasectomy. tufts of golden-brown hair, a sweet smile and chubby fists clenched and held high above her head. but oh my gawd, the sound she made.. it's like a cat was being raped or some sick cow fell over in mud. i watched in morbid fascination as she was presumably play-acting some disney female role. never underestimate the power of imagination in babies or toddlers, for these young things have an uncanny ability of portraying themselves as anyone they fancy. now, this little girl (let's just name her.. Mélodie hah), i thought she was trying to be jasmine from aladdin as i thought i recognised some parts of e 'song' despite her best efforts at butchering it. but nope, i dun remember any moaning EH-EHH-EEHHH parts from jasmine in the movie. it was only a few minutes later that i realised that she might be trying to be Ariel the mermaid. and i think the part she was imitating must have been the part where ariel met the bad witch or smth, because nothing else could have explained the EH-EHH parts. as for the hands held high above the head, i guess she must have been awestruck by ariel's long red tresses floating in the water. her mum was nodding her head from side to side to the rhythm of the song (if u can even consider it a rhythm in the first place), and it was really painful, yet amusing to watch. either the girl has yet to develop a musical ear, or she'll never have one. that's the harsh reality of it.

i can see her parents 2 years down the road already, with their musical jukebox of a progeny playing her role as Ariel as dutifully as ever in the living room while they are busy somewhere else in the house. and while their little girl's singing with much gusto (dun forget she's 2 years older now), replete with mops as hair-props at the side, her dad would just sidle up ever so discreetly near her mum and ask, "is that our daughter, or is someone fondling a llama in our living room?"

in other news, i'll be going to scotland right after my exams! i'm so happy that i can finally travel. ive not traveled since december, all because i had to stay in to study during my winter and easter hols, and it might all very well be in vain as i dun think i've aced any paper. anyhow, im still gonna have a blast in scotland. id be sure to buy myself a kilt and wear it au naturel, get bagpipes to serenade my dear nessie in loch mond, and... what else? hmm, thats as far as my scottish knowledge goes. oh, maybe i can rival mélodie with my bagpipes if i ever meet her again. let's see who can be more jarring now lol.

i just reread what ive typed and im shocked by how much i crap. sadly, yours truely do not really have any pearls of wisdom to dispense, so here's a feeble attempt:

(i humbly christen it)
le théorème du téléphone- when you dial a wrong number, you never get an engaged tone.

and it is my due honour to say that it's been proven right twice this week. my precious credits argh.

post mortem I

2008-04-27T01:31:00.008+08:00

and 3 more to go. sigh, if theres anyone in this world who cld go through mental rigor mortis and still be perfectly sane at e end of it, that will be me. the first series is over, all 22 1/2 hours of it. i wonder why the A levels seemed so difficult back then. this is infinitely worse.

i thought God turned my brain off halfway through my paper on thursday. i was so friggin' bushed at 4pm-ish, after 6 hrs of writing, that i had to reread this particular question 4 times, and still catch no ball after that damnit.

anw i've already planned how i'd celeb the end of my written exams come 20th may. when the invigilator comes to collect my very last paper, id be sitting there with this beatific smile on my face, not unlike those u see in post-coital scenes in movies where the actress looks so happy you cld prob throw rubbish at her and she'd thank you for that. then.. once e exam hall doors open, id do this:

of coz, i hope the french will do it together with me. it wld be awful to be so ecstatic.. ALONE. now, if only going to the loo can be so much fun.. no one will need therapists and prozac anymore.

WTF

2008-03-31T01:36:00.006+08:00

warning: this post might startle. ribald language used.

now, now, now, before any of you start wondering why i used the acronym for an expletive as a title, let me make myself clear: WTF stands for 'Welcome to France'; though of coz, the double entendre and allusion to that famous cuss expression play its role brilliantly here. i initially thought of 'moments of magic', but then decided against it as the only magic i can think of is of the dark kind that i wld happily summon to make metro doors clamp unforgivingly on the 'nads and nuts of both french men and women alike, especially those who have crossed me.

i've spent many a post in e past waxing lyrical about paris, or about france in general, and have also learnt to accept odd incongruities as très normal (very normal). throughout the course of my three years here, i've had so many wonderful WTF moments, some of which are so stupendously dumb you just cock your head to the side, raise an eyebrow and roll your eyes back in disbelief. now, whenever such casse-noix (nutcracker) incidents occur, you just look away from your interlocutor, and mutter under your breath the three magic words : "WTF...". and of coz, you have to let the F-end trail off into a decrescendo, so that you can truely HEAR your own anguish dissolve away magically.

on the average, i have about 5 WTF moments per fortnight. they come about when u least expect them. like nasty traps awaiting you around the corner, they attack you when u're unaware, and are at ur most vulnerable. long given to the minutia of bureaucracy, i have done all the paperasserie (paperwork) that this country, which seems to have such a genuine affinity for all things past (and backward), just adores. ive used more than 20 stamps this academic year alone to get my residency permit, my health insurance, accomodation subsidy, social security and transport card. the list goes on and on. like seriously, the internet exists for a goddamn reason u dingbats. embrace it, not ignore it. snail mail is called such precisely because they dun get delivered at concorde speeds.

**cues in pyrotechnical display of french brilliance**

yes, let me get back to my WTF moments. you remember the day when u opened your fridge to see broccoli fluids flowing out of the freezer and turning everything into a lovely shade of green? and how, with a sheer stroke of genius you finally concluded that there's something wrong with the compressor as your freezer completely froze over and busted the plastic door apart? and how you eagerly checked the french word for compressor to make sure that it is indeed 'compresseur' before going down to the admin office and telling them triumphantly that even though uve miraculously managed to spoil the freezer, u've pinpointed it to a malfunction of the compressor? and oh, im sure u will always remember the fateful day when the saviour of a maintenance man came sauntering into your room, EMPTY-HANDED. 'i'm here just to have a quick look', he deadpanned.

and now, everyone says, at the count of three: 'WTF!!!'

or how after your colle (oral test) in the afternoon, you rushed all the way to the dining hall as u only had 1/2 hr to eat before lessons start, only to find to your dismay that e doors were closed as they had alr stopped serving? and how you pleaded with the matronly swine that oversees the order in the hall that you'd just ended your colle and were so hungry you wld get gastric if u didnt eat anything soon? and how, without missing a beat, she told you that there wasn't any food left, even though you could see the plates of food right behind her?

WTF.

and just when you think that ure settling comfortably into your WTF lifestyle, another, even more magical WTF moment just comes and takes your breath away.

oh, that saturday afternoon when u just finished your four-hour exam and were raring to go home, but had to do some grocery-shopping as usual. u braved the crowd on the bus, and finally reached the supermarket. half an hour later, you were at the only counter lane that was open as all the other cashiers went for their interminable lunch break. the queue stretched ahead of you and u knew that you were in for a long wait as everyone in front had trolleys filled to the brim while all you had was a basket. finally, you were just before the cashier. the woman before you was in e midst of putting everything back into her trolley, and by everything, u mean copious amounts of provender that could sustain a family of five for a week. by then u were suppressing the urge to just, in what u thought would have been a magnanimous demonstration of civic-mindedness, help her throw everything into her trolley. in the meantime, the cashier, who had already swiped everything and was waiting extremely patiently for the skank to pay, was beaming at you sunnily. u swear u cld have erupted from the mounting impatience in u. said skank finally finished arranging her stuff, and then proceeded to pay by cash. oops, not sufficient cash. by card then. oops. cant remember the PIN. she decided to pay by cheque then, and so it began: the long process of checking of ID, then the cheque, and then at last the writing of it. she was finally gone, and u heaved a sigh of relief. u got all ur stuff out of the basket, and everything went smoothly, till the cashier delivered the coup de grâce: she didn't have any change.

WTF.

now, seeing that i spend an inordinate amt of time in sch weekly, it only follows that most of the WTF moments were spent there. i must have mentioned my classmate maxime at least once. now this guy is a rare breed of virtuoso that you cant just find anywhere. he's in the same colle group as me, and so i just relish each time he does smth wrong.

magical maxime WTF moment 1:
(maxime was doing a thermodynamics qn on the board, and had to solve a differential equation of second degree)
our young descartes here gave the general solution for a diff. eqn of 1st degree!! after two years of prepa math, he was obtuse enough to give such an answer.

WTF.

like, earth to you dude. you dumb or smth? it's a goddamn 2nd deg eqn, u screwed it up and u tried to argue. anw, for that colle, i was so busy simpering away at maxime that i screwed up part of my fick's law, and so was brought back to earth with a hugely disagreeable jolt of hubris by my prof. =(

MM WTF moment 2:
(we had pork ribs for lunch one day, those that looked exactly like how pork ribs look like: a rack of thick long angular bones with not that much meat actually. we found a table, sat down and i tucked in. maxime was busy inspecting his pork ribs.)

maxime, after much pondering: what meat is this?
me: WTF!!!!

i could go on reminiscing about the many WTF moments that whiz kid magical maxime has provided me with. his shocking discovery that when u integrate and then differentiate a function f, u get back f; and how could i forget! that priceless WTF moment when he asked me if i knew soccer star ronaldinho and mickey mouse.. woah, these oh-so-painful WTF moments i surely wldn't miss.

so there you go, some of the sweetest WTF episodes in my life here. the next time someone dishes out something that is unfair/doesn't make any sense to u, all u have to do is give the gallic shrug, think to yourself 'WTF!', smack that jackass squarely in his bijoux de famille (crown jewels), and then look at him bend over and scream 'WTF!!!'

who says you can't have your own WTF moment too?

the toilet break star

2008-03-12T02:26:00.008+08:00

S'poreans get A+ for response on Mas Selamat's escape: Swee Say

THE response of Singaporeans to the escape of Mas Selamat Kastari, a Jemaah Islamiah (JI) leader, received an A+ on Tuesday.

Minister Lim Swee Say, who described the escape as a test in inter-racial cohesion, said Singaporeans passed it 'with flying colours'.

He said people worked as one, without any finger-pointing, to search for the former chief of the Singapore JI cell.

'Did they take a position based on their racial or religious groups and draw the line? They did not,' he pointed out.

Mr Lim, Minister in the Prime Minister's Office, was speaking to about 250 grassroots and community leaders at an event that underlines Singapore's unrelenting effort to maintain racial harmony.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the above article in the straits times is just too tantalising to pass on, and as such warrants another errant post on an insanely blustery tuesday evening.

isnt it amazing how our leaders can see the silver lining in every grey looming cloud? and how our conduct could be rated at times like this, and be given an outstanding academic grade at that? and tell me if this isn't the quintessential thing e gahmen excels best at: skirt the burning questions on everyone's mouth, bask in the prolonged glory of hosting the youth olympics, take time out to commend the citizens on their exemplary behaviour (presumably to fill the newspaper void that shld have long been occupied by headlines lauding the successful capture of mas selamat by our armed forces), all while acting blissfully oblivious to the slamming by newspapers all over the world.

oh come on, give me a break. flying colours, A+. reading that made me cringe like anything. dun get me wrong. i sure am worried for everyone's safety for as long as that guy remains uncaught. and i do recognise e fact that racial cohesion is something that has helped preserve the current status quo in e country, which might otherwise have escalated into smth far worse and uncontrollable elsewhere. but to go tis far in patting oneself on the back is just something that doesnt seem to be of much use (especially since e govt admits not being sure about how he got away), and might draw more ire from e ppl and presses instead.

on a side and somewhat-impertinent note, 'selamat' means 'safe' in malay, so let's just pray that no one's safety is compromised while that fugitive is lurking around .

evil angelina bean

2008-03-05T05:45:00.010+08:00

i was mugging over this for the past hour till i started seeing stars, so here i am breaking a supposedly-impending post drought, once again due to a dire need to do something more light-hearted and search for something entertaining before i go crazy from all that deep, dry marx crap. and look what i've found! 3 ingeniously photoshopped pics of celebs immortalised as... figures in religious art. great stuff haha.

went to grenoble over the wkend to visit M. apart from some scenic snow-capped mountains and an immense fortress on a hilltop, the town has nothing much to boast of, and is far from spectacular. i guess it's only good if ure there for skiing. but anyway the stellar company more than made up for it. after a few days of staying in last week to revise, i was totally starved for gd conversation and human interaction. and as it turned out, i was sated in the end. hung over from a tad too much vodka, and a menu gastronomique lunch prepared by the chef himself (heureusement pas sur papier hygiénique lol), i was revitalised over the weekend. comfort food and company, a winning combination always. =)

and oh, throw in the internet as well. with every sec that i spend online, i get more alert. alas and aleck, marx's text is beckoning.. that guy wld prob flip in his grave if he knew how bone-achingly boring his works can be. to me at least haha. okay, am out.

steed

2008-02-27T03:17:00.013+08:00

lalala, its my hols now, so im considerably freer and am thus able to come here and prattle.ok, not that free actually, considering that ive to start revision in earnest. but sadly, it's really hard to get the engine started. im putting in about 8 hours a day, but not all of it's productive.. anw, there u go ppl, one glorious pic of ju-on and me in times square! doesn't she look absolutely stunning in it? haha. gosh i miss goofing around with her. that girl waiting to get slapped only, 2 months on and she's yet to send me all her photos. =P

so. updates. yawn, theres nothing particularly interesting going on in my life right now. what with all the studying to clear this goddamn hugeass of an exam called concours. my only occasional breather? watching desperate housewives and grey's anatomy. there's something so captivating about these series that just makes me watch one episode after another. and sometimes, it's really amazing how some of them just have to end on a cliffhanger note tt segues nicely into the next episode, thereby forcing me to chain-watch for hours on end. and there goes my good intention of turning in early each nite. i once resisted the temptation and went to bed, only to be back at my lappie 1/2 an hr later. had that show been replaced by studying, id be conked out in bed. gladly. >.<

watching movies and these series late into the nite makes me go stupidly maudlin, especially at those scenes with john williams-esque music. it reminds me of those rare times in spore when i actually paid to watch a japanese tearjerker film. knn, pay to make myself cry and go all sentimental, only to emerge at the end of the film into either a freaking big crowd or a garish neon-lit place. so not worth it. it's made even worse when u hear some ppl engage in post-movie discussions in those grating voices of theirs. one moment you feel like you're melting in love and e next, u feel as if some dementor just descended in e midst of everyone.

okay, breather's over. back to grey's. =)

bored

2008-01-28T01:29:00.000+08:00

83 words

Touch Typing

ripped this off a friend's blog. now, if only i could type at the same speed in french.

a certain mariah fan is prob not gonna be pleased after watching this video, but i just had to post this! i howled in laughter when she did the crazy vocal-gymnastics thing, and at the end of it, when simon went 'OH. MY. GAWD.'i positively shrieked out loud haha. and listen to what she had to say about herself at the start! gosh what a riot.

shorn

2008-01-16T01:37:00.000+08:00

you know, they say at times u need to slow down in life to smell the roses. for me, i think mine's so excruciatingly slow-moving i could get hay fever. if only life could be like a huge fire-truck careening down the street. all i do is study/doodle/surf the net/eat/sleep/go out on wkends, and that isn't exciting enough for me. i crave for something more. i hate the routine, and i hate the fact that while pining away for change, im actually beleaguered by worries over my final exams in april. they cost a whopping 1k + euros (at which i nearly passed out while doing the application), before i realised that i'm a boursier du gouvernement français (french govt scholar), which cuts down the cost considerably. anw, ive just submitted the application and im worried sick just by looking at the timetable. this is the first time (and i certainly hope the last) i'll be sitting for so many goddamn papers.

23rd-25th apr: 1st set
28th-30th apr, 2nd may: 2nd set
5th-7th, 9th may:3rd set
16th,17th,19-20th may:4th set

and thats just the written part. the orals will constitute part deux, tragically of the same cosmic duration. and ive so many 2 4-hr papers on a single day. argh, i so hope id have the energy to last thru these 8-hr exams days.

i just had an epiphany 2 wkends ago in a bar while having a heart-to-heart talk with M**a. to go through the rough and tumble, to get emotionally calloused, just so as to sit back in years to come in a suffused glow that would make of it seem worthwhile. this is surely something i can do. i certainly hope i wouldnt find myself in gray chill instead. *shudders* anyhow, theres no denying that the odds are highly against me. sigh.

on a more upbeat note, i had a blast in NY during xmas-NY day!! the food, the sights, the buzzing electricity in the air, the excitement, and most importantly, the shopping! OH MY GAWD racks and rows of designer wear at non-designer prices. i nearly passed out at that as well haha. and e mad laughter!! i was back to my spastic cranky self and had the crazy giggles whole day long, esp in ju's coy lol. i camwhored like there's no tomorrow and i must say, frittered far too much far too liberally. but owell, it all made for good fun. i need to put up pics, which is an immensely troublesome task. but first i need to get those from the others. oh bother.

dum dee dum

2007-12-04T02:09:00.000+08:00

feels like ive not blogged for ages. and so im here once again to drone on about everything unimportant yet important to me. hardly anything really newsworthy has happened of late, save for the goddamn strikes, which saw me walking about 400 mins to and from sch over e span of a wk. i thought to myself, the very first morning when i walked in sub-zero temperatures, that i really needed more swear words in other languages to fully express my discontentment with the french. seriously, they need to wake up and open their eyes wide to see what's ailing their goddamn economy. all thanks to them, i nearly missed my eurostar to london. i got thru the custom gates 2 minutes before they closed. and i was panting like a mad dog and cldnt get any gifts at the waiting lounge as the train was about to leave when i entered the lounge. to D: paiseh leh! and thanks once again for hosting me. =)

u know they say a rolling stone gathers no moss? i feel as if e cogwheels in my brain are gathering moss by the second, even though they are turning madly everyday with the bounteous influx of info. sadly, not everything gets processed that ideally, especially for analysis and algebra, which really abase me. all i can say is that there isnt much btwn me and mathematical oblivion. the wkend trip to london revealed that im studying exactly the same type, and close to e same amount of math as a math major in 2nd yr of uni. *boggles at the thought* shldnt we be doing less math than a math major?? they ought to realise how uncongenial abstract math is to engineers, when we shld really be dabbling in something far more rooted in the practical. and talking about abstract, my crapping skills in philo have improved tremendously. now, at least when the prof parts the smoke in my work, theres far more substance masquerading as deep analysis lol. and hell, i even make less grammar mistakes than e french themselves, so kudos to myself for that hah. sadly, such a healthy report cld not be said for e rest of my work. i need smth to galvanise me into action. im still lolling and piddling away some afternoons, and nights even, so i really have to buck up.

and i dunno whats wrong with my knees, but my kneecaps feel as if they are slowly getting dislodged. i hardly do any strenuous sports now, and all the leg action i do, besides a fair amount of walking, is running like a mad dog at e last min to catch my train/bus, or climbing the stairs, so ive no idea why they're like that. and whats uncanny about this condition is that it harks back to my summer hols in spore when i went to a shopping centre to have some foot reflexology. it was really good, except that it was extremely painful and ticklish. and so there i was, reclined in this armchair, expecting a nice relaxing massage when the torture began. i think i wld very much have preferred the iron maiden treatment as opposed to the cracking of all my ten toes and some very rigorous knuckling-down of my soles. no, then again maybe not. because after the whole session, i felt as if ive danced ballet my whole life. my legs felt light, not that they were ever heavy... but anw, he did a whole rojak of feet-kneading and some other rubbing actions that made me scream and giggle like an idiot in the reflex. centre. everyone turned and looked at me, and i tried my best to smother my laughter and moans of pain. but it was in vain. i stretched out my arm to my cousin who was seated beside me and pleaded for mercy, and i squirmed and twisted from side to side in my armchair thru out the entire 1 1/2-hr session. and at the end, e masseur told me ive very weak knees. at that time, all I cld think of was: okay... owell, looks like his words have some truth in it.

e dec hols are approaching fast, and ive no concrete plans yet. sigh. is it too much to ask to be happy and tide thru xmas merrily like a ding dong bell? history sure repeats itself doesnt it? i nearly flew off the handle with a friend, as i cldnt understand where the reluctance came from. and oh, the chagrin of it all, the expectant waiting while the prices of tix soar happily into the stratosphere. i feel like a vicious meld of ebenezer scrooge and the grinch right now, and am ready to steal xmas away from those basking in warmth of their fam and frenz' company. grrh. and ive just received this magazine in my mail screaming 'Noël ensemble' and 'Joyeuses Fêtes'. KAAAPPUUII.

and well, since e tinsels and xmas trees and other cheesy decor are already up in sch (why do i only see either guys or fugly girls under those wretched mistletoes?), and people are swarming the shops to buy presents, it wldnt do to be such a spoilsport. and so, just as the year draws to a close, i wld like to share a song i particularly like. as e composer leonard cohen puts it so succinctly: an affirmation of life. 2007 has seen a fair load of shit. let's hope 2008 will be a less shitty year for everyone. =)

back

2007-11-07T07:19:00.001+08:00

and true to my word, and to what i had expected, im here blogging on the last nite of hols despite being freighted with loads of work left undone. it's amazing how i dawdle time away. i wld start off the day with e lofty intention of working hard, and i wld fail miserably. chatting aside, im ashamed to say that i cldnt resist the urge and finished 7 episodes of Heroes 2 in two sessions.

anyway, this hols has been immensely enjoyable. i jabbered and joked so much in switz that my sore throat got better only upon returning to paris ( and after eating some very gd manuka honey, courtesy of chère pote =P). yeap, me and my perpetual sore throat. JOY.

and now let's start on the pics. i took quite a lot of pics and so had to select just a few. uploading them was such a pain.

here goes..

zurich:

the prettiest pic i took of the city. it was a little bit of a let-down, partly due to gloomy weather on the first day. zurich can be covered in 3 hours on foot. lonely planet says that the city buzzes with an electricity found nowhere else in the country, and i quote: 'sedated'. what gentle euphemisms, or lies even. quite a joke if u ask me. given the gargantuan mountain vistas and tiny hamlets that litter all over the jungfrau region, its little wonder theres little electricity in e air in e latter. the no. of ppl on the streets of zurich on wkends rivals that of paris on a wkday, so it feels kinda weird. but no doubt there that the quality of life in switz is amazing.

one of my favourite sightings! haha. i sure hope the swiss who frequent this boutique have a very limited english vocab.

and the saving grace of zurich: sprüngli! they sell absolutely lovely macarons which look too gd to be eaten. see how regal they look all stacked up so neatly! i bought 2 boxes. =)

and now for the interlaken region:

the map of the various train routes that take u up the moody alpine slopes. beware: the rides cost all my limbs!

the doyenne of cam-whoring: WK. lol

and moi. i cant stand how pallid i look in this pic. but owell, the other pics of me taken on this trip are hideous. Other people are well-endowed in various parts of their body.me? the blessing goes to my lips. thick full luscious lips. angelina jolie. denise richards. pout up, sweetie. fish lips. shu qi. jokes abound along the lines that i shld be happy im not a girl, coz if i were, i will finish a tube of lipstick in a month. bullshit i tell u. i take 3 months to finish my lipbalm okay... anw,these jibes
ive heard them all. now imagine these thick lips turning blue up on the ski slopes. not very healthy-looking eh?

lauterbrunnen:

the main (sole) street that leads up to our hostel,which was quite decent.

taken from our room.

now the above picture wld be complete if heidi's there frolicking with her sheep.

my fav pic. mother nature at her most majestic. i dunno why, but i can very well imagine scenes of kungfu-fighting taking place among the wispy strands of fog near the peaks.

2nd day at Grindelwald:

due to inclement weather, we spent most of our day either indoors or huddled in our coats exploring watever grindelwald has to offer. much to wk's bemusement/annoyance, i combed thru COOP, the swiss version of NTUC, twice.

a huge COOP that i wld love going into. haha

i dun think i need to step into the equinox after eating at 'the top of europe'.

spastica no. 1

spastica no. 2: a feeble attempt at hiding my hair that was cut so short by a numbskull 2-3 weeks ago. that retard continued snipping away even though i told him to stop THRICE. i was panicking as the fringe and the sides were disappearing at an alarming fast rate, but the deaf fool was happily cutting away still. i was so consumed by my own bile and vitriol the whole evening after that.

geneva: nothing spectacular. the geyser wasnt turned on. grrh. but thankfully, they have the Red Cross and the UN.

we had a guided tour inside the UN. and it was very informative.

all the art pieces that adorn the corridors of the buildings were donated by various countries. so, the tour guide was happily pointing out the various pieces/artefacts originating from say, poland, and the polish lady in the grp will give this sickening beatific smile. but when the tour guide asked where we were from, she was stymied as she couldnt remember anything coming from singapore. she said smth like 'you have me there! there's nothing from singapore and namibia'. OMG i think the others were trying their best to smother their laughter. so much for spore and her accolades.

some adam-and-eve door donated by france

inside the spanish room, where everything, even the railings, tables, carpet etc came from spain. the paintings around the room depicted some story that i cant recall.

and on the ceiling: 5 men representing the 5 continents coming together as one.

the whole tour was quite inspiring and edifying i must say. but sadly it only makes me realise how painfully ignorant i am of current affairs, among many other things. time to read up more. for now, it's time for bed.

toussaint holidays

2007-10-27T22:29:00.000+08:00

yippee, e hols are upon us, spiritual lassitude no more! =) at long last, theres a short break after 8 arduous weeks. sadly, theres a shocking paucity of hols in e french academic calendar ; even spore uni students enjoy longer hols than us. alamak, how can like that you tell me? arent the french supposed to be e laziest creatures ever to roam the earth?

anw, here's just a quick ditzy post before i leave for switz to join la sale pute haha. im always dilly-dallying when packing up, and add to that some maid chores that absolutely have to be done, im always just in e nick of time to catch a train/flight.

today's exam was terrible beyond words. they shldnt have a paper just before e hols. i cldnt concentrate at all last nite and did very superficial revision. if einstein were alive and if he were to read my exam scripts, im very sure they are capable of knocking out the frizzy kinks in his hair. talk about instantaneous electrifying rebonding of hair. =)

tschüss!

ça me soule

2007-10-18T01:40:00.000+08:00

ça me soûle quand il fait nuit tôt le soir et quand il caille autant.

ça me soûle de savoir qu'il y aura des mvmts de grève demain et je risque fort de ne pas pouvoir aller a l'école comme dhab à cause de tous les connards et connasses qui travaillent chez RATP. non, excuse-moi. c'est grâce aux français les paresseux salauds qui ont rien mieux à faire.

ca me soûle pourtant de savoir que jkiffe tant la france que je pardonne tt ce qui se passe ici, mm si parfois g limpression que je me trompe.

ça me soûle de broyer du noir de temps en temps et de ne pouvoir rien faire.

ça me soûle de devoir tt dire en franç là, et de manquer un débouché en forme dun véritable pote.

ça me soûle de faire défiler la liste de chat et de découvrir que la plupart du monde sont 'débarrassables'.

ça me soûle de me retrouver tout seul sans personne à m'épauler si besoin est.

ça me soûle de savoir qu'aucun jour ne peut se passer sans anicroches.

ça me soûle de penser que tte l'expérience peut etre gâchée à cause de ça.

ça me soûle de devoir m'arrêter là.

ça me soûle de devoir me remettre au travail et de ne pas pouvoir continuer à tempêter.

ça me soûle de deviner si quelqu'un saurait.

jai vraiment jamais de veine.

anyhow, anytime, anywhere

2007-10-08T01:23:00.000+08:00

SO. a 3-week lull in blogging has made me feel obliged to come pay a visit to Bronzage and post something, no matter how nonsensical or trivial the post may turn out to be (hell, i dunno why disclaimers will always follow, even though im fully aware that we are entitled to post whatever crap we want). fifth week into school and at last im much better settled in, and getting into the groove of things. and so, im very much thankful for that. it has been slower and much more difficult than i had anticipated. now, my weekends are usually quite meaningfully spent, since more people have shifted up to paris. sadly, some of them here ought to head south, or better, to the polar opposite end of the world. im sure you've heard of people having faces only their mothers would love. never seen any of this rare breed? there's a whole menagerie here in paris. some of the species here bear testimony to that. and they have especially endearing characters to boot.

school has been kinder to me thus far, at least when academics arent concerned. in that respect, school's a real bitch.. but at least, perhaps thanks to my supreme talking-cock skills that have finally dared to rear its head, ive managed to coax some of the people in class to open up more. and boy does talking cock lighten up most things. it's beyond my comprehension how they can queue up for lunch and study english vocabulary all the time. granted, most of them have quite a dismal grasp of the lang, but studying it just like that aint gonna make them proficient anyway, so why not wile away the time by watching people and talking cock? just look ahead at the snaking queue, and you see a motley crew of people with clothes so fanciful, and at times so garish u cant help but stifle your laughter if your eyes ever meet. so far, ive met an alizée look-alike (a joy to look at), a KAREN MOK look-alike ( right down to the very big mouth that swallows bananas whole sideways), a scary spice (horror has never been this real and upclose) and some aspiring manga-character wannabes (err.. i think some of them have added a gothic touch, so i really dunno wat to say). apparently, france is the 2nd country after japan with the largest no. of manga fans. weird isnt it? anyway, let's not digress. my favourite sighting so far must have been this girl who looks exactly like a scarecrow. she has big permed hair and some weird hat not unlike those of samsui women. her glasses are of a weird shape and her earrings are small chinese crackers (pao4 zhu2 in chinese if im not wrong) that extend all the way to her shoulders. pass me a lighter and id make sure they combust spectacularly haha. and to complete the très chic ensemble, she has a big green cloak that could certainly earn her a cameo in LOTR as gimli's bride maybe, and gypsy clothes that ... really make me at a loss of words. im usually able to find things to say, no matter how absurd, so if she managed to make me tongue-tied, u can imagine how 'awe-struck' i was.

moi à maxime, en lui indiquant de mater la fille pas loin d'où on était: c'est quoi ça? un épouvantail?
maxime, en tournant pour la voir : se mettre à glousser

currently, the talking-cock topics bandied back and forth tend to revolve around schoolwork. how awfully boring. i shall try to get them to talk about more light-hearted things. =) who needs further discussion on homework when you already have 8 hours of lessons on most days?

right now, my head is spinning and my throat is so raw it feels as if someone has maliciously grated it with sandpaper. i hate falling sick. it's one thing feeling so ethereal and light-headed, it's another having to complete assignments and revise for exams. how terribly heartening. god speed my much-welcomed respite in 3 weeks.

anyway, being down and out has made me more... religious. well, somewhat. at least that's what i wld like to think hah. but it's especially hard seeing that i've just bitched about some people in e paragraphs above. nonetheless, i would just like to share with you ppl, in this rare moment of unadulterated feverish sobriety, some brief points that ive gleaned while doing my Quiet Time. hasty as it usually is in the morning, i dun have much time to ponder over and reflect on the deeper significance of the verses quoted/anecdotes illustrated when i read them. yet it is as if some of them were specially tailored to suit the situation that i was in.

2 Chronicles 20:17-Do not fear or be dismayed, for the Lord is with you.

Mark 11:22- Jesus answered and said to them, "Have faith in God".

Ephesians 3:16- That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His spirit in the inner man.

John 10:3- The sheep hear His voice, and He calls His own sheep by name and leads them out.

my confidence in people was, is, and will continue to be misplaced. friends can fail us. life is not always fair, but God is always faithful. I need to think of His words when i grapple with fear. some of Jesus' words to His disciples about having faith in God leave me wondering if i can ever exercise that level of trust and confidence in prayer. i cant recall telling a mountain to relocate itself into the ocean and watching it happen.

i quote:
faith is holding onto the faithfulness of God and, as long as you do that, you cannot go wrong. faith does not look at the difficulties. faith does not look at itself or at the person who is exercising it. faith looks at God. faith is interested in God only, and it talks about God and it praises God and it extols the virtues of God. the measure of the strength of a man's faith, always, is ultimately the measure of his knowledge of God. he knows God so well that he can rest on the knowledge. and it is the prayers of such a man that are answered.

how often have we stubbornly tried to rely on ourselves when we're trying to serve God? instead of self-effort, we shld try to find strength in 'Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us'. and on a more personal note, doesnt it feel good to be acknowledged as an individual? all of us have a desire to be known; be it by our friends, family, colleagues or by our neighbours next door. it's especially sad to know that friends, either fair-weathered or subscribers to the 'out of sight,out of mind' mentality, dun bother to know each winding path we take, and every sorrow, pain and ache. but God will not forsake us, He knows and loves His own. He knows our every thought, sees each tear that falls, and hears us when we call. To rest on the knowledge that God loves us immensely, and thinks about us all the time, is definitely a comfort we can luxuriate in when the going gets tough.

florence foresti as madonna

2007-09-17T02:07:00.000+08:00

here's my favourite french comédienne florence foresti doing a very spastic imitation of madonna. it's so silly, but i still manage to smile every time i watch it. and the translation is awful as well haha, but at least it provides the gist for u anglophones. bon appétit =)

bkgd info: the host's name is laurent ruquier. 'on n'est pas couché' (we're not in bed-according to that translation) is the name of his late night show. kinda dumb for a name eh? the ending is slightly clipped when she suddenly launched into the 'cochon' (pig) thing again.

back, with a chockful of nonsense

2007-09-02T17:20:00.000+08:00

am finally back in france, and once again, with renewed and exaggerated tortured-soul angst to draw on (as a chère pote puts it so aptly hah), i have an impetus to blog now. no prizes for guessing why im blogging at this time of the nite again- im waiting for my hair to dry lol. anyway, to you painfully few secret voyeurs who have ~~faithfully~~ foolishly followed this series of mostly-banal verbal diarrhoea (all without leaving a trace), i thank you for your patience. i can foresee that for this academic year, this blog will be nothing short of a treasure trove full of despondent articles. how..appealing hah. still, i must clarify that most of them are not at all spurious.

anyhow, a big thank you goes out to those who had bothered to come send me off. to T and secret-sharer especially, i really appreciate the effort taken. considering that this is my 3rd year, i seriously can't be bothered with send-offs and all that jazz. still, it was a sweet gesture tt really pleased me. =) and so the flight was great, there was ample space, and even though i cldnt get those sacred seats ive always loved, i still managed to stretch my legs quite a bit in that aisle seat of mine. e krisworld program was fantastic, there were so many gd movies i wanna watch, but i only caught 3 of it, as i caught forty winks in between them too. thankfully i had the foresight to get some sleep, else i wld have been even more flat out last nite. anyway, a stray thought just crossed my mind-if only we could club mid-flight, that wld be beyond awesome! it's definitely not feasible of coz, but still its quite an entertaining thought, albeit a very stupid one haha. imagine what tricks an errant air stewardess high on alcohol cld pull in the cockpit with the pilot. grinz. goes to show how much i miss clubbing, and all the other wednesday nite jaunts i cld have gone for if not for this annoying thing called 'school'. * grrh. think delayed gratification.*

on a more sober note, re-settling in is terrible. it might be my 3rd year already, but it doesnt make me any less vulnerable to those emotional turbulences i face from time to time. and being alone seems to make me more given to histrionics. i feel like i'm languishing everytime i'm free and my mind starts wandering towards friends and family back home. and theres a continual sense of foreboding and gloom in everything imminent this year. i really hope this feeling will go away soon enough. i dun wanna start sch with such an unhealthy mindset, yet i think all of it is due to the upcoming academic burden and the game of socialising. its such a stark contrast from just a few weeks ago, when i got to meet new ppl, 'feel the vibes' when interacting with them and start gravitating towards those who have a common wavelength. here, my lack of confidence and fear make me slightly socially impaired, and i hate that. sigh, i guess ive to work on it.

my bed's beckoning to me now. loads of administrative stuff to settle tmr. and i need to start shopping for a cabinet. just inherited about 25 guide books to help supplement my notes for this final year, and they are all lying around in plastic bags begging to be neatly displayed on shelves. sigh. i cld pass out faster than the speed of light at the sight of them. and id better start reading the manual for my new phone. just tis afternoon i was wearing my socks and i swore my phone 'spoke to me'. there was a beep sound and then this gruffy male voice spoke for about 3 seconds. it cld have been a divine message from up above lol, but whatever it was it was totally unintelligible. i was startled at first, and then i checked my phone. it had to come from it as i felt the vibration during the beep; but when i took it out to check, there was nothing displayed. i checked for any reminders, voice alerts and any other crap that cld have possibly triggered the 'prophecy'. the search yielded nothing. the hunt shall continue tomorrow, and may i muster the discipline to upload pictures taken from my phone, and in the event that i blog, post them.

zonking out.

ready or not

2007-08-22T00:51:00.000+08:00

ready or not, the new academic year is drawing near. the ticking of the clock is getting louder; the hourglass has almost run out; the bell is about to ring; i'm about to moan louder than a banshee and my parents are about to rejoice at my departure. it's time for france again. =(

dun get me wrong. i totally adore france. for all that negative feeling tt i harbor towards her, the lingering anger over french policy on many things, and the other bagatelles that piss the living foie gras out of me, i still grow to love this city with each passing year. my love affair with paris specifically, and france generally has had its sour moments and even its periods of disenchantment; but the pull tt paris exercises on me, which goes beyond the lure of lafayette and the eiffel tower (arguably the most disdained of icons in francophobic sentiments) , has charmed/deluded me sufficiently to see the vast mythological edifice that has been constructed around the world's most beautiful, elegant and alluring city.

BUT, studying in france is an entirely different matter. some ppl are excited about returning to school, if only for the social aspect. they mark the first day of school on their calendar as if it were a birthday or Christmas. for me, im glad that i'll have structure once more and the scramble to keep myself occupied all day is over. sadly, along with that compartmentalisation comes a whole new host of storms to weather through, alongside a strict regiment so militaire-esque that it's bound to take the pounds off me, and add the lines to my face. BIG SIGH. im filled with a mix of renewed enthusiasm over a fresh start with a new group of students, as well as trepidation that my summer break is over so soon. and i get a lot of grief from friends and relatives about my summer break, which is only two months long. frankly, i think i cld go on whining about this epic tragic tale of mine lol, but i shan't end my splendid summer hols on such a blue funk note. it wldnt do justice to the immense fun ive had these short yet meaningful eight weeks. all i can do now, is to pray for scholarly nous for this extremely crucial year, as well as for the gumption to succeed.

summer, for all intents and purposes, has ended for me. everyone please take your seats and quieten down - especially you mummy and daddy, who are cheering in the back.

let the pictures do the talking

2007-07-04T14:56:00.000+08:00

have received feedback that my blog is too wordy, so here's a super-gargantuan deluge of photos for you ppl to gawk at/retch over. all these were randomly chosen and were taken over the period of dec 06 to the last few days of jun just before i returned to spore, so enjoy! ive posted them in reverse chronological order, and they recount (in grosso modo of coz) the various hols that ive had this past academic year. anw, does anyone know of a good photo host website with unlimited storage which allows me to upload my 1.5k pics all at a go, all without compromising on the photo quality?? pls recommend some to me!! seems like a pretty tall order though, as most of them allow uploads of, at best, 20 at a go, which means i wld take like forever to upload 1.5k pics!

and oh, some demarcation now to dispel those tongue-wagging about some of my exceedingly long posts. i write to de-stress when im highly strung; and seeing that i write only about proper strait-laced topics in weekly english assignments, and that i hardly ever get to write in english, this is naturally the only medium through which i can bang out any whimscal stuff that comes to mind, not to mention avoid losing touch with the english language. =) and as for posting pictures, dun get me started on my problematic ISP in france.

anyhow, let's begin. first with southern france.

our host family in Bordeaux. fantastic ppl, v warm and hospitable. can u see a drew barrymore look-alike? haha

thomas and me sand-surfing on a 117-m high sand dune in arcachon

kelly and me

yvonne 'la catastrophe'!

saint-émilion, a wine-growing region near bordeaux

clémence, daughter of our host family. she was our tour guide in bordeaux, and in this pic, we christened her jeanne d'arc (joan of arc). doesnt she look slightly like drew barrymore?

l'opéra de Bordeaux

art. HIDEOUS art (to my undiscerning eye of coz)

and now for copenhagen. i cant rem a lot of the names of the places,save the more prominent ones. anyway, it was in early april when i went over and the weather was really gd (according to erik, i must have brought the weather from paris over with me hah).

erik! caught in the act of having some cybersex, haha. kiddin.

his bed

see his shisha waterpipe in the corner? it lost its novelty this time round as it was my 2nd time.

his guest bed, which is wider than my own one in france.

Christiana, the bohemian squatters in copenhagen. very colourful and charming. one of my fav places in e city.

e plush seats in the metro.

i was so excited when i saw this orange tree! my first time ever haha, so suaku.

the louvre pyramids' cousins relegated to a less imposing position-- outside the metro station near erik's place

private yachts moored right outside their owners' places, how shiok is that!

if memory serves me right, this building on e waterfront is called 'Black Diamond' and is the Danish Royal Library

On to Prague.

i realised a lot of the prague pictures have this gossamer feel, which is totally different from copen.

vlatva river.

my cannabis tea, beer and my crab salad =)

ive always loved opera houses, which is why i post pics of them instead of churches and cathedrals, tho i have shots of e latter as well.

lots of classical concerts thru'out the city. liangsi and I managed to catch a mini one.

that's dvorak immortalised in marble, and in time, just for you

the Prague coat of arms

a jewish synagogue in the jewish town

my piggity-porkity meal with my czech beer

LS and me!

my impression of bata was irrevocably glammed up when i saw this bata departmental store. blame it on our white school shoes and the unglam name which, at the back of every kid's mind back during those pri sch days, seemed to be associated with our dear neighbouring country located upnorth.

more camwhore moments

the impressive ornate clock tower

'great wall' of prague haha

Charles Bridge

prague chicks

our hotel toilet, the most impt criterion when assessing a hotel's cleanliness. this one passed with flying colours.

some river in the loire valley, france. the pictures below were taken during this châteaux trip as well.

my phobia of visiting castles definitely worsened at the end of the trip.

ice-skating in front of hôtel de ville, paris. v proud that i didnt fall at all during e 2 hours i was there, despite it being my first time ice-skating!

we've now reached the part where zhiheng and i were in transit at zurich airport after our spain and portugal tour. for a meal for 2 at BK, it cost us a WHOPPING 30 EUROS. WTH, that could have paid for a meal for 3-4 ppl in singapore!!!

look what we saw! a SIA showcase!

first class

geisha chocolates at DFS

some disappting soup in lisbon. the bread looked like soaked tissue paper. i smiled so broadly because i had yet to taste the soup.

some back alley in lisbon, very backward for a european capital city no?

i like this postcard, cute! haha

taken in sepia mode in a tram, the above pic cldnt possibly be more befitting of a country trapped in the 70s of a time-space continuum.

i had fun spinning around on this 'ride' at some 'amusement park' we saw in belem, outside lisbon.

my annual study visa, which is due to expire in a few months' time.

alright, ive to go pack for my trip tomorrow. just realised that ive spent almost 1 wk in spore, which means ive only 7 wks left. if only time could be rewound. funny how i pined a little when i first touched down in spore, to be physically here, yet emotionally there in france; only to wish that i had more time to spend in singapore as the departure date approaches.. it's such a terrible destabilising feeling..

part deux coming up soon if patience doesnt wane with incoming workload.

out of e pan and into the fire

2007-06-28T21:27:00.000+08:00

im finally back in spore! was quite happy to return, though e short-lived excitement only set in e night before e flight. was quite sad to leave france as e southern france trip was incredibly fun, all thanks to the ' big catastrophic ' company heh, and also becoz it's destabilising to know that i wldnt be speaking french for e coming 8 wks (which isnt gonna bode v well for me since i'll be dealing with some dreary karl marx text for philo next yr BOO HOO), not to mention the fact that T will not be in france come next acad yr. nonetheless, im glad as ive scaled an all-new apogee by talking lotsa cock in french for hours on end during e trip. hah, it feels different to talk cock in different languages, and there's an extra kick i get out of finding e right equivalent expression. btw, im keeping my fingers crossed that i'll be able to get my return SIA flight back to paris. called to book one month ago yet all the flights for that period are already fully booked. thats a whole 3 months in advance and apparently its still not early enough.TSK. anw, e reason why im so hard-up to fly with SIA is that her bevy of new boeing 777-300 ERs is just like WOAAH!! e seat pitch and width, e space in e toilet, and e kickass wide screens!! WAH! and as i always try to, and usually manage to get seats beside the emergency exits, i can spread and move my legs like no one's business. if not for the unusually nondescript movies available onboard this time round, i think i wld have been much better entertained. and oh, those ppl flying raffles and business cls ought to help us economic ppl by sending feedback that its high time to change the menu across the board. its still e same since last summer.

e sporean furnace heat is just enervating beyond words, and it totally kills whatever joy there is to have over food and going out. have been dripping like a salty faucet whenever im out of the blowing range of an aircon/fan, and tts making me lazy to go out. even stoning seems like a hot, sweaty and sticky affair now. hmm.. anw its time for supper and some entertainment, but first, a shower.

p/s: a few words of gratitude for divine intervention in:

1) academics, for allowing me to do surprisingly well, very well indeed; though greedy me was still crestfallen at first at the partiality practised.

2) my social sphere, for allowing me to foster some very nice friendships in and outside of school, e former of which i couldnt even remotely imagine at the very beginning, so much so that i was kinda shocked when i felt sharp pangs of loss when school ended, and the sweet relief tt flooded thru me when i knew that at least some of the ones i hang out with are streamed into the same class as me next year. as for those i love hanging out with on wkends, they are beyond awesome.

Also, i must thank God for:

3)my over-hearty appetite haha, and my ability to lose weight quickly, and sadly, gain it back just as quickly. FOR, in just a span of 10 hours after touching down, ive wolfed down food sufficient for 2 ppl for a day. going at this rate, id be.. i dun wanna imagine.

4)my immunity to jetlag and getting drunk; for as such, i can play to e max!

5)my friends, esp those who care!!

6)last but not least, my family. for e gd-intentioned nagging and the sibling bickering tt helps sharpen my wit. and also for e macau/china/hk trip next wk, yippee!!! portuguese egg tarts and dimsum and shopping!!

i realised i left my uob mini-debit card back in france , and ive forgotten my PINs for my two spore cards YET AGAIN after 10 months of not using it. GREAT.

into the shower.

greetings from minnie!

2007-06-09T06:56:00.001+08:00

(caution: verbal diarrhoea ahead)

hey guys!

im finally back after a long absence! and with good news too: im done with my offical last paper today!!! OMG can u sense my blardy excitement? its not even bubbling within me, it's overflowed and making me so thrilled im smiling nonstop as im typing this. after taking 27 exams this whole year, excluding lab tests, programming tests and bi-weekly oral tests, im finally done!!!! well, almost at least. that annoying cunt of a math prof of mine decided to have another paper the following monday, so thats freaking annoying. thats what u get when u have a young prof thats full of verve- plenty of assignments, and notes littered with ridiculous words like 'powerful' and 'handsome' and 'meditation'. powerful formulae yes, but 'de beaux théorèmes' and 'méditer sur les corollaires suivants' just made me roll my eyes. anyway i doubt id have the time to study for that stupid paper as i will return from brittany with my cls on friday, so screw it. anyway im so delirious with joy right now i decided to post the above pic that i took last year when i went to disneyland. its so befitting of my mood right now: cranky, high on nothing in particular and positively spastic.

just went out to paris just now, and forgot that i had a zone 2-3 pass that doesnt allow me to travel in zone 1 on wkdays. as a result, i got caught and kenna a huge 45-euro fine from those freaking two-bit bastards of a train conductor that gave me a long spiel about cheating. i tried pleading for amnesty at first, but seeing that they took great pleasure in fining poor souls like me, i adopted a rude and curt tone. oh my heart bleeds over the 45 euros =( its so painful!! but owell, its an expensive lesson learnt.

and yes, before i forget, my new spore hp no is: 90817364. so pls sms/call me at that no. from 28th jun onwards =) i will only be back for about 8 weeks, so for those who bother, mutually speaking of coz, let's meet up. anyway, isnt my new no. so easy to rem? 9=0+8+1 and 7+3=6+4=10. ok, lame math humour aside, lets engage in some philosophy. i just got to know of the theme for the philosophy syllabus next year: l'histoire de pensée. OH MY GAWD, if this year's power of imagination is bad enough, i cant imagine how 'the history of thoughts/thinking' is gonna be like. now, philo cum history to me is like oil and water, and never the twain shall meet. worse, i once read some prof of philo mentioning succinctly: 'la philosophie est à la mode', which means "philo is the 'in' thing." *vomits blood*

now, what could be more quintessentially eurotrash than a philosophical debate, in english, in a french café? esp when its the café de flore, home to existential tourism and e most exp chocolat chaud on the left bank. here, in this cradle of pretentious glittery, paris's finest expat thinkers meet once a month to dissect topics such as : does fate exist? is maturity necessary? as well as completely mind-boggling qns like 'are beliefs borne out of e limitations of our intelligence?. was researching online desperately for help in my philo dissertations about 2 mths ago, and chanced upon the philo paper for the bacalauréat exams ( e equiv. of our A levels). scary. is the value of a theory dependent on its practical efficacy? is man by nature neither morally good or bad? can u describe an act as inhuman? these questions deflate me in a nano-second, and yet, apparently the average 17-yr old can answer these with reference to comte, hegal, kant or aristotle rather than say, natalie imbruglia. so where does e french adolescent get to grips with great minds? im telling u its in the VOGUE magazine. lol, kiddin. but yea, for e uninitiated, i heard VOGUE has a monthly philo page (OMG wat on earth is it doing in a fashion spread?!?!?), proving high heels and dapper suits dun mean low intelligence. he/she may look like a fashion victim, but inside, the VOGUE reader is perhaps wondering 'what gender is la philo? male or female??'. it seems the qn remains as difficult as defining e sex of angels.

btw, i just bought a baguette last sun for bfast this wk. u know, this is my very first time buying a baguette for bfast, as im usually v lazy and just eat cereals/ bread/ madeleines/ pastries/ muffins blah blah, and i finish eating in less than 5 mins so i can chop chop wash up and run to catch e bus. usually i cant be bothered to tear the baguette apart into smaller bite-size pieces and worse, risk leaving crumbs all over the table which wld then mean i have to wipe up. im just lazy beyond redemption. but, i finally gave in to temptation as i melted in front of the boulangerie last sun, e fragrance that wafted in the air being too strong for me to resist. and so i bought 1 whole baguette, and had it sliced into half so that its easier to bring home. gosh, they dun give proper bags, and just wrap it around e middle with a miserable piece of paper. what if people around me cough and sneeze how? all e germs and bacteria in e air will infect it. then if it accidentally brush against smth how?? so wasted to cut and throw that portion away. anyway, the baguette was good only for monday! its initially delicious, but i think at the end of the day, it develops a granite-like resistance to a knife. it reminds me of that roald dahl story where a wife kills her errant husband with the frozen sunday joint, and then cooks the blunt instrument and serves it to e investigating policemen. my 1-day old baguette was equally promising. and on e topic of food, ive decided that im not a glutton, nor a gourmet, but a gastrophilosophe! haha, doesnt it sound so regal? anw, a fren once mentioned that e essence of every french resto is to be found in its crème brûlée. if e dessert is eggy and soggy, e top not suff. caramelised and crunchy, then e entire establishment has failed in his books. i think i have to concur partially as i personally value the main dish more, and besides, crème brûlée is but one of the various desserts available. anw, i eat lunch in sch everyday and have lighted upon gd desserts and puked at the dégueulasse ones. this tues, my over-ambitious kitchen staff has decided to be adventurous and embarked on a quest to make crème brûlée, all at e expense of us victims. they shld have just bought those readily available off-shelf, and thus spare my taste buds the torture of eating some weird curdly mix with inconsistent texture. ive eaten tis dessert about say 30 over times, and have come to e conclusion that e version in a wide dish with more surface area, which thus improves e ratio of crisp top to cream, is e best. =) u guys shld certainly try it, and e desserts as well!

today, my prof was dressed in a polo-tee and jeans. one of my classmates was decked out in a suit, replete with leather shoes and briefcase. i cant stand that siao ding dong, who is always so extra, overdressed and over-expansive with his gestures. anyway, after i blogged in my last post abt summer coming early, i had to eat my words; coz the weather turned really grey and cold for about 3-4 weeks following that. it was awful, and e sun only came back since last wk, and in full force tis time. as a result, in e poorly ventilated classroom this morn, where e heat was starting to get soporific, mr flamboyant decided to lay his head down on the table and got promptly told off by the prof. HAHAHAHA. its so evil of me, but i thought he deserved it. luckily, not all of my classmates dress like that, else id def be the worst-dressed in cls. ive a sneaking suspicion that some dress mostly from kind donations, and the occasional Gap sale, which in itself is perfectly fine, but not when they look like rappers and junkies just released from prison. tsk, what is this attitude man? it doesnt conform to the cross-Channel snobbery that ive read about at all! when i first came to france, i thought i wld nv make the social and sartorial grade in paris. but thank god for the somewhat numerous guys in sch that dress as if they have a wardrobe time-table, or better still, dress as if their ensemble du jour is their mandatory uniform for school whole year round (read:they dun change clothes at all). thankfully im in e suburbs, as if i were studying in paris itself, id prob think twice about re-wearing a pair of jeans to sch. on sundays in jardin du luxembourg ( the luxembourg gardens in paris), after an enormous family lunch, parisians parade their children there in outfits the british wld reserve for weddings and funerals; in summer there are sailor suits, in winter wool coats with velvet collars and shoes designed for dancing, not playing. ok i made that british part up.

gah, my hair's long dry by now, so i shall stop here, tho its kinda abrupt. till when im back in spore.

random

2007-05-01T05:26:00.000+08:00

argh im so freaking pissed with my spastic msn. its annoying the hell out of me with its constant self-disconnection. worse still, i cant figure out what the friggin prob is. i think i must have re-installed several versions at least 5 times, and yet e prob persists. and im irritated coz its past midnite and im soo sleepy from studying, but still, i have to persevere as i wanna go out tmr evening. after all, labour day is meant for poor overworked souls like us to have a gd break isnt it? theres no way im gonna stay at home the whole day, id prob melt from e heat. mother nature has decided to skip spring in paris, and has sprung summer 1 month early upon the hapless city. OMG. e heat is unbearable at times, and i totally hate lab periods now as 4 hrs in some stuffy lab really makes my labcoat stink even more than it already does. and besides, it feels weird to just go out in tees and jeans without having to bring a jacket along; not to mention tt its a waste not being able to wear those thin jackets for autumn/spring.

more grouses about early summer. i wake up in the morning at 5 plus now coz e sun is already up by then and i have to shield my eyes like some cuckoo vampire, and my heart always skips a beat becoz i wld think that ive overslept, only to groan upon looking at my clock and then go back to sleep. i shldnt have spoilt my blinds last year. i rem i came back from clubbing at around 5 am, showered and then went online before gg to bed at about 6-7. was trying to sleep but the sun shone so brightly i got fed up and yanked the blinds string so hard it snapped. real smart of me. so here i am, 1 yr on and still suffering the aftermath of groggy impatience. right now, am trying to be as alert as possible with e pile of notes beside me, but a voice at e back of my head keeps tempting me to go search for food. and so ive finished my choco meringues in just 2 days. holy shit, im always so fungry these days.. as for my work, i guess id get back to it later, or i'll wake up early tmr to continue.

seems like the studying never stops. 23/4,30/4,5/5,10/5,11/5,14/5,2/6,4/6, so many freaking exams, and still there are 4 more to fit into those available dates. ARGH.. and on top of that there are still assignments and a particular 2-yr long mega project that requires soo much effort. sickening is the word. and in not-so-recent news, 2 of my classmates have quitted school. they cant take it any longer. pretty dumb if u ask me, considering that they've already weathered thru 90% of the 1st year. if they had continued, they cld have gotten a direct transfer into 2nd yr of university. but apparently they got sooo sick of it they just decided to stop. well, gd luck to them then. it only means one thing now: less competitors. gosh i hate the feeling of such stiff competition, but its here to stay, and its tacitly lurking around and making some ppl selfish. boo to them.

i really feel like slapping my prof. e paper today could have turned out significantly better had he kept his word and tested us on thermodynamics. i studied so hard for it, and was really confident. but no, he had to test us on fluid dynamics that i didnt revise for, and as e 3-hr paper had 3 qns, i spent abt a gd one hr raking my brains and only succeeded in coming up with scraps of meaningless fluff. thank god im about to reach the half-way mark. just 2 more months and id be back in spore. this yr is def e most challenging ever, academically speaking of coz. and i think next yr wld be far worse. * shudders* shall take care of it when e time comes.

and yes, my denmark trip. i enjoyed myself so much and had lotsa fun, all thanks to e stellar company of erik and his grp of frenz. copenhagen as a whole is nice, but a lil' sterile, esp when compared to paris nad london where its really more happening. did many 'firsts' there as well. i went swimming, and dived for the first time ever. the virginal plunge still went pretty ok, as i emulated the actions of the others, and entered the water rather 'streamlined-ly'. haha so proud of myself. on hindsight, its total beginners' luck im telling u. i got emboldened with each dive and went on to dive from e highest board, e hard one that u cldnt bounce on before diving off. its the one where mr bean became mr jelly and clinged onto the handle-bar like anything. anyway, that was alright still, tho it was slightly painful as i didnt enter the water cleanly enough. but the ultimate was the very last dive, from the medium-height board. now, there was this grp of children who was beside the diving pool, listening to their instructor teach. i was vaguely aware of their presence but it was only after my final dive that i cringed so hard from daring to dive in their presence. see, i was bouncing merrily on that medium-height board and jumped off on the wrong 'rhythm', and so i made the most 'spectacular' dive ever tat those lucky danish ppl had the fortune to see/hear. i think i must have entered the water at 70 degrees to the normal, and in the split-second when i was air-borne, i knew that all was gone. with a mighty splash and a muffled 'OWW!!', i created such a thunderous, and obviously painful splash that erik and a few ppl came rushing over to the other end of e pool where i was about to surface to enquire if i was ok. my chest was bright red after that, and erik told me many of the children winced in pain upon seeing my dazzling dive. i nearly died from shame then. and to make things worse, that stupid coach of theirs kept using his hands to do the 'PIIAAKKK' action to represent my big splash when i walked in his direction. damn it. after i had showered, i was on the way out when i saw those little children in action. i think the oldest must be around 7-yr old or smth, but the way they dove just had me standing there for about 5 mins, watching in pure fascination. imagine 5/6-yr olds walking up confidently to the edge of the board, raising their arms up high, springing a few times on the board before leaping off and executing a few flips and somersaults before diving cleanly into the water. i was soooo impressed. TILL, i caught their instructor's eye. he did the PIIAAKKK action again, and off i went. GRRHH.

ok, blogging is not only cathartic and therapeutic, its able to induce magical caffeine in my system as well. on to my revision. ciao.

enjoy!

2007-04-08T06:48:00.000+08:00

Americans are NOT stupid - WITH SUBTITLE
Uploaded by antoinetheone

impressive indeed lol, the last one was REALLY tough.. i must say though, that i dun think i got every question right.
hope to be able to blog properly during this hols, so stay tuned!

oops! i did it again

2007-03-18T22:22:00.000+08:00

once again, when im supposed to be mugging along with my fellow brethren for my exams next week, im distracted online by youtube and msn (ok, msn doesnt really count, since im distracted only by its constant self-disconnection..). i should have known better than to allow myself brief respites like this, becoz they always just drag on and on, all at the expense of my results... still, im happy to present to you horny philistines, my greatest find of the day: melissa theuriau.

OMG isnt she just so chio?? and doesnt she just make mundane news seem so much more interesting? turning on my tv while having breakfast just to watch the morning news doesnt seem like such a bad idea afterall. however , i realised that she looks like kim cattrall from certain angles. EEYER. suddenly the yum factor drops exponentially.

out.

Thank God!

2007-03-06T23:42:00.000+08:00

wow im so happy today, all thanks to the Lord's grace!! i had devoir surveillé de physique (physics exam) just before my two-week winter hols, and i thought i bombed it very badly. 'fiasco' wouldnt even begin to describe la catastrophe that particular sat morn. 4 hours, just 4 questions, and i couldnt even finish it (not that i have ever managed to finish any of the 5 physics exams i have had so far...). worse, i had to go to the toilet during the paper!! needless to say, i was hopping mad in the cubicle ( literally of coz).

memories of my GP paper during e A levels came flooding back.. i sat at the back of the class, and all thanks to my stupid surname 'TAN', and due to the stupid seating arrangement that always had to be done according to alphabetical order, i was seated right in front the wall at the back of the class, with an aircon blowing at me from behind. with GP being e first paper that kicked off the series to follow, i was nervous. so nervous i had butterflies in my stomach. now, with cold wind blowing right at me, it only made things worse. each cold stream of air that tickled my nape would normally have sent frissons of pleasure down my spine, but that particular day, each blast was a long drawn-out affair that only served to coax my diarrhoea out. and so the cold butterflies knotted my intestines so badly i had a stomachache, not once, but TWICE in less than 4 hours, once during paper 1 and once during paper 2!!! when i was in the loo for the second time, i was cursing and swearing like crazy. and i pitied those who sat close to me in class that day haha. i must have let out at least 5 mini puffs of scented chocolates from my arse when i clutched at my stomach and rocked slowly, and oh-so-painfully in my chair, all in a feeble bid to control the tide-gates from opening. i vaguely recall eugene, who was seated on my right, looking suspiciously at me with his nose wrinkled up. under normal circumstances, i would have burst out luffing and gamely admitted that i was the farter; BUT, my pain and frustration then equipped me with such phenomenal 'tactics' that even ninjalzg, our resident 3rd guards king of farts, would love to emulate.

anw lets fast-forward 4 years: 0810 on that fateful sat morn. 10 mins into the paper and i was lost in the world of millmann, and i couldnt on earth figure out which stupid amplifcateur opérationnel was a décaleur. also, i was constantly distracted by e pain, and so i went. i returned, feeling considerably lighter of coz , as i must have conveniently emptied my brains together with the dump. i was stumped at e following 3 mécanique questions that seemed endless to me, and so i moaned for the rest of the day. worse, i had CNY dinner that day, and couldnt get myself into e festive mood..

anyhow, im so blessed that things turned out fine now!! surprisingly fine indeed! the only thing im wary about now is my gut feeling for exams (pun unintended), should i trust it or not? time and time again, how i fared was how i thought i would fare, and yet, there are happy->sad/sad->happy episodes like this that prove me wrong. perhaps, its best to just heck care about the paper once its done, tho its really hard to.. no, its best to study really hard for a paper, give ur all, and dun look back.

ok, back to studying.

dobrý den

2007-02-28T09:20:00.000+08:00

dear bronzage,

do you know e above title means 'hello' in czech? sadly, tts e only czech word i can rem. i just came back from prague earlier this evening and im so shagged, but ive decided to come update you on e latest happenings in my tragic life. you ought to feel honoured that i have a passing whim to blog now at an ungodly 3am in e morning, if not you would most probably stagnate for a gd month or so once school reopens next mon.

let me start in reverse chronological order.

prague. magic, golden, mystical prague. city of a thousand spires. lonely planet went into overload when describing e czech capital, but luckily e city lives up to e hype. e city's architecture is mostly gothic, renaissance and baroque ( or so ive read, seeing that i cld only identify e gothic one most easily); and with a maze of medieval lanes nestled on both banks of e Vlatva river, all set against an imposing Prague Castle as a backdrop overlooking e city centre, id say prague is definitely a must-see. and see we did. we walked, or rather, trudged our way in the city throughout the trip without taking any tram or metro. why no sprightly gait, u may ask, seeing that yours truely has such immense power built into those slim yet powerful legs. the answer lies in the hotel's breakfast, which was so satisfying each morn, so much so that i felt sleepy after eating. its a feeling of pure unadulterated bliss, when my tummy goes into high-gear to digest all e food ive eaten, and i feel at total ease with e world. at the risk of sounding like a greedy gourmand/discerning gourmet (i think im a hybrid of e 2, despite wat many of u may think), i have to say that the traditional czech cuisine is disappointing. it is strong on meat, dumplings and gravy, and weak on fresh vegetables. e first dinner i had was so hardcoredly-piggity-porkity that i ate white meat for the rest of e trip. both ls and i were terribly amused by the fact that we were constantly eating every 2/3 hours. well, it couldnt be helped. the weak crown only made food and everything else seem cheaper, and tell me, who can resist gd cheap food (non-czech of coz)? as a result, my pants button kept bursting each time i breathe out heavily, (which was all too often); but i'd like to think that the workmanship of e sewing wasnt fantastic. =P

attraction-wise, Prague packs quite a bit in an area 10% of Paris. id say we covered more than just the essentials, tho many of them were cursorily done. and im ashamed to say that im no good at appreciating all the museums and castles bit, which i shall elaborate on further in my account of e loire valley trip. i was glad to be able to let my hair down during the trip and be my crazy cranky self (aided by some lubrication of Pilsner czech beer), but im afraid that, upon hindsight, unbridled candour and cheeky impudence might not go down as well as i had assumed.

nonetheless, this was a fun trip (which ls attested to as well, thankfully), though im always glad to return back to paris, where i can understand whats being said and whats on the signboards etc. i would upload the pics once i have the time. meanwhile, im afraid u shall just be a wordy blog. its astonishing how easy i find it to connect my hard-disk and earphones to my lappie whenever i wanna watch a movie/series, and yet find it truely difficult to connect a USB cable to my camera to transfer pics. and ive realised on overseas hols in non-english speaking countries that it really is quite hard to be in a country where u dun speak e language, and where communication becomes a problem. i think ive come a long way thus far, from worrying about not being able to understand anything in class to being able to listen and understand what clsmates are saying in the background, process whatever shit im copying down, all while listening to whatever e prof is saying. its akin to absorbing in info when ure talking on e phone and e tv's on, all while ur parents are talking in the background. it was hard, but slowly it became easier. and so it is, that i found myself feeling more at ease in france. sadly however, it takes more than just comprehension to feel at home in, and beat the education system. what comes into play here, is a mindset and approach that is so different it makes the learning curve infinitely steeper. i yearn for e days of applied mathematics, instead of dealing with it as a true discipline with those yucky abstract concepts that require seemingly redundant proofs. in a nutshell, i was once buoyed with confidence and hope, only to wake up to the harsh reality that the world of prépa is, indeed, as bad as people have made it out to be. and so i become contemptuous whenever i read/hear of people dramatising their lives overseas as battles fraught with e difficulties of interaction and academics. socially-speaking, only my wkends are decent, and im studying everything in french, from quantum mechanics and philo to computer programming, so shove it.

ok, i think i shall stop here. too much negative emotions wouldnt result in upbeat entries. need to hit the sack too. i guess i shall see you again when i feel like it.

novej

joke

2007-01-30T19:59:00.000+08:00

lunch break. surfing in laboratory block. checked mail. received a forwarded joke. funny as hell, inappropriate pun fully intended. copy and paste=>new blog entry in just 1 min. enjoy!

HELL EXPLAINED BY A CHEMISTRY STUDENT (this was just too funny not to

share)

The following is an actual question given on a University of Washington

chemistry mid-term. The answer by one student was so "profound" that

the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of

course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well :

Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic

(absorbs heat)?

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law

(gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some

variant.

One student, however, wrote the following:

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we

need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate

at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a

soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving.

As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different

religions that exist in the world today. Most of these religions state

that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell.

Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not

belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to

Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number

of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of

change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order

for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of

Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.

This gives two possibilities:

1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls

enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase

until all Hell breaks loose.

2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in

Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes

over.

So which is it?

If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year

that, "It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you," and take

into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two

must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already

frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen

over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is

therefore, extinct......leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the

existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept

shouting "Oh my God."

THIS STUDENT RECEIVED THE ONLY "A".

voilà!

2007-01-08T22:24:00.000+08:00

at long last, this retarded ISP of mine allowed me to upload pics. sadly, i can only upload some. gah, looks like i wld have to go over to a friend's place to upload the rest. gosh this residence's ISP is so mind-numbingly dumb and restrictive it hurts just to think of it. i realised i took over 500 pics on my spain and portugal trip. plus the 200 odd pics i took in UK and paris, there are 800+ pics clogging up precious disk space, which cld have been 2+ GB better used for storing movies/lost/prison break/desperate instead of pics.. thank gdness i dun set my camera to a super-high resolution mode when taking pics. i really need to get cracking on uploading all of them fast, as well as getting those spain and portugal pics from pam. anyway, here are some of the more interesting pics. have filtered it down to abt 50 at most, and this first post wld have some random ones as not all the pics are with me. anyhow, thats a staggering 90% reduction, which means that ive taken a lot of boliao pics, tho looking back at some of them now does make me luff, heh. blogger seems to upload the pics in a haphazard manner, at times it's back to front, at times it's all jumbled. as such, i think i shall just comment a little on some of them. its too bothersome to rearrange all of them chronologically.

erik with his danish friends and i at a café having desperados and beaujolais wine. this was taken when he came to paris to visit some friends. btw, that was e fateful nite i blogged as yati incarnate upon my returning home.

tim and I in oxford! oxford has such a beautiful blend of old and new, sure beats cambridge flat! and yes, TIM TAY, are u confirmed coming to paris this easter? hurry come!

at king's cross station in london with the harry potter trolley

bibi, me, and cheryl. taken last september. loved it when cheryl came to paris to 2 months for her dunno wat bio-genetics research. it was pure hedonism every wkend haha.

cheryl and moi, at an italian restaurant. gosh this girl loves food more than i do. it was really quite scary to see the way she hunted down good food. the 2 months when she was here was perfect bliss, every wkend was spent walking around paris, soaking in the sights and sounds of e city, as well as trawling thru guides and finding the restaurants haha.

and now for spain.

'pamela' watching tv in our hotel room in barcelona.

.

moi taking a pic of e toilet. it was a 3 star one but was good enough for me. the toilet was spanking clean, and the room was more than decent by my standards. absolutely perfect. i think i led the high life for this trip haha, imagine flying 7 times in total, 2 of them being transit flights; as well as staying in hotels instead of hostels, and thus we didnt have to share toilets with others at all! little wonder therefore that i spent a bomb.

the 1st pic was taken with the mirador de colom rising majestically behind me. the column marks the southern end of La Rambla (above), the most happening touristic artery in barcelona. this street is a colourful smorgasbord of buskers, food, noise and art that u guys must definitely see for urselves when u go to barcelona.

doesnt the weather look awesome here at the barcelona port? in winter no less.

this reminds me of that FINDING NEMO scene with all the seagulls making that din.

e FC barcelona stadium. sure looks as lousy as our national stadium.

e megastore which was quite interesting. they even have bedroom slippers, pyjamas, and umbrellas with e FC name emblazoned on it.

what caught my attention though, was the above 'attraction': ppl standing in front of a blue screen to have their mug shots taken and superimposed beside their fav soccer stars.

asian boy: look at me!!! im beside ronaldinho!!! omg im so thrilled i can faint. nvm that the colours on him and the stadium look faded, nvm e fact that my fav idol has the worst teeth in the world, whats matters most is that ive only forked out 15 euros for this picture and it looks soo real!!!

tweeze-sign woman: hey there biatches! come envy me! i have arms around my dear ronnie, and look at him in that bandana!! doesnt he look soo cute?? here's a big victory sign to you girls for not being able to pose with him haha!

girl in pink in pic at bottom right: hooray!! we've won the trophy and they've allowed a young irritating tot like me to come onto the pitch to cheer with them!! yippee!!

i was then harshly told to keep my camera away, and so i gleefully went into the megastore where i next saw this:

g-strings! wow. their marketing strategy even extends into the lingerie market. maybe they shld start selling underwear worn by the soccer players themselves. post-match of coz. soggy and wet in sweat. yummy for some fans im sure.

one of gaudi's buildings in barce. manueline and gaudian architecture are found exclusively in barcelona i think . it was quite refreshing for a while, tho i think i still prefer e victorian and gothic styles found here in paris.

view of barce from atop parc guëll, a park which gaudi designed.

plaza catalunya, the very central point of barcelona.

parc guëll.

uve guessed it! more gaudi houses. dun they remind u of hansel and gretel?

i cldnt figure out wat the fascination was with this gaudi creature. yet people were queuing and were so eager to take pics with it. i gladly snapped a pic of this ugly reptile and some fools who posed adoringly with it.

place reial, one of the nicer squares in barcelona designed by antonio gaudi. pam, who was one of my 2 kakis for this trip, mused that the eng word 'gaudy' must have been derived from his name as his architecture is indeed quite gaudy.

this is rather out of point but im still going ahead with it. i think hanging that spastic santa out there gives me e creeps instead of adding festive cheer to xmas. ive seen it in paris and in barcelona and have always wondered why ppl actually buy them. i can imagine that ugly midget come to life at nite, climb over the balcony into my place and then raid everything beneath the xmas tree. i wld enter the living room, only to see the scruffy thing getting himself tangled with all the tinsel, upon which i wld promptly rush and bowl him over before throwing him over the balcony back to where he belongs.

in some park in barcelona. isnt this quite a romantic spot to kiss?

shit! kenna caught.

some black rice paella, cant rem e name. saw it on the menu and cajoled eric to take it just so i can try haha. it actually tasted quite good, lucky for him. obviously i stuck to a safer choice: seafood paella, which had quite a few big succulent prawns that made pam and eric jealous haha. i dug in before i realised ive not taken a pic of it.

pam and i in front of the vueling counter in the barcelona airport. while waiting for our flight to madrid, we played around with this trolley. really childish, but was great fun haha.

touchdown! madrid's terminal 4 is even better than barcelona's, which had already impressed us. looks like paris CDG "alien colony in disguise" is one of the worst in the western europe. even heathrow wasnt as bad as far as i cld remember; it was ugly, but far easier to navigate within. we nearly missed our swissair flight to barcelona that morning because of the stupid shuttle bus driver. thats the irritating thing, the terminals are huge and we cldnt get from one terminal to another w/o taking e shuttle buses provided (due to the insane distance). i think we were supposed to go to terminal 2C, but that goon of a driver made a detour and we passed by all the other terminals twice before we arrived at ours past the take-off time. we were quite panicky by then, yet that wasnt all. once again, due to the french brilliance in doing things, we cldnt find where to check in our luggages, which was really easy at all the other airports. the signs were so confusing. USE MORE ALPHABETS my dear french retards. i know u guys are wonderful math geniuses, but to use only numbers to distinguish between check-in counters and boarding gates wld only serve to confuse. and nah, we dun wanna miss our flights as that wld entail having to be stuck in your alien colony while waiting for our next flight, and that is humanely impossible. luckily, thanks to the french efficiency (paradoxically enough), we were able to catch our flight as scores of other passengers were held back at the check-in counters. those idiots at the gates ought to be fired. they made checking-in such a pain, and such a slow process that many others cldnt check in on time.

ok time for work now. phew, blogging sure takes a long time, esp with pics. shall continue once i get e rest of e pics. out.

bonnes fetes

2006-12-25T09:24:00.000+08:00

(english translation below)

l 'année 2006 a été abondante de défis, de récompenses et de vie sous la bénédiction de Dieu, au-delà de ce que nous avions connu auparavant. je veux remercier mes potes, au moins ceux qui m'importent, et suis confiant que vous aviez passé un joyeux et relaxant noël en famille et avec des amis.

par impulsion, j'ai décidé de blogger en français. ce sera une des fois rares que je le fais. mais bon, je vais le traduire par le biais de babel fish. c'est pas la peine de le faire moi-même. au fait, je blog car je viens de prendre ma douche et je suis pas encore prêt à me coucher (encore!). je voulais poster les photos que j'ai prises depuis longtemps, mais cette putaine de serveur chez moi est tellement bête que ça va me rendre fou. et bon voilà, pas de photos.tant pis. bah, ma télé est allumée maintenant après deux mois de repos, et il y a justin timberlake à la télé, et franchement ça me fait chier, mais bon, jai pas de choix. il est déjà 3 heures du matin et il ny a pas grande chose à régarder. je viens de passer une très bonne journée aujourd'hui, la veille de noël. jsuis allé à deux églises, la première étant celle à laquelle je vais comme d'hab, et l'autre est celle de mon ami. il m'a invité à dîner chez une famille de cette église qui a très gentiment ouvert sa maison aux personnes comme moi qui nont pas nos familles ici pour fêter le noel ensemble, alors cétait vachement sympa. ils étaient très accueillants, il y avait de la bonne chère, et la compagnie des enfants des hôtes était juste nickel. cest pas souvent que je me sens à l'aise chez des étrangers, mais cette fois-ci, tout était parfait. et alors, c'est vraiment grâce à l'invitation de mon ami que je puisse passer une soirée aussi marrante. et je suis reconnaissant à Dieu pour cet ami, car je pense que c'est un des ceux ici qui a la fréquence à peu près similaire à la mienne. les autres personnes sont dispensables haha.

or, ce qui m'enerve c'est le fait que demain je sais pas quoi faire! et la pire des choses c'est que c'est le noël-même! ça craint d'avoir passé un bon reveillon et n'avoir rien à faire le jour-J! certains de mes amis sont déjà partis en vacances, et pour ceux qui restent, soit ils ont des activités que je peux pas rejoindre, soit je suis pas intéressé à sortir avec eux. bah, tant pis pour moi alors. c'est ça le problème auquel je fais face très souvent, le manque de compagnie fiable. si cetait comme à singapour où on a plusieurs groupes d'amis et on peut les alterner quand on sort.. ici, cest guere pareil... que c'est triste. mais bon, de toute façon, il faut que je m'avance dans mon travail. il y a un gros tas à terminer avant que je parte.. quelle horreur. et à propos de ça, je vais juste dire la suite en anglais.

its just so much easier to rant and rave in english. i really have to pull up my socks for the next 2 trimesters. have been resting on my laurels, which, upon second thought, hardly exist. i totally detest math and french/philo/lit. i must really try a different study approach this time round. and psych myself up to have the determination, perseverance, industry, unwavering concentration, and the willpower to succeed. and i realised that having the embryonic concepts and being able to expound on them isnt sufficient. it takes so much more than that, haiz.. and talking cock in molière's language is just impossible. i cant even think of any crap to write. those pathetic notes that i laboriously took, only to find that they are horrendously elliptical when i come home.. simply a waste of time.

anw, here's un petit apéritif for you guys back home to vomit blood over, loosely translated of coz:

<<"Imagination is no longer just participation in the world. Its the haunting of its own image under the infinitely variable appearances that it can take on. The imaginative faculty is intricately linked with the myth to Narcissus."

Compare these definitions of jean starobinski ( the living eye, critical relation, tome II Paris, Gallimard edition 1970) with relation to the 3 books in the syllabus. >>

when i woke up from my dead faint, i know that im gonna ACE this dissertation. AGAIN. its so freaking abstract. what on earth has narcissus got to do with imagination??? i only know that hes a blardy vainpot, that ive a 3rd guards fren called SWH who cld jolly well be him in modern times, and that its a brand of canned buttom mushrooms found in NTUC. thats it. no more. zilch. and the only haunting done here wld be on poor me. im so gonna lose sleep over this. and whats worse is that all e french are gonna merrily step on me as a launching pad to stellar grades when this is concerned. grrhh. its amazing how they can think so much more out-ofta-box than sporeans in math, and then excel in such weird philo crap like this. wish me luck in creating some fluff that could hopefully pass off as credible analyses, even tho i have this sinking suspicion that with a swift glance at my dissertation, my prof wld prob part the smoke immediately and realise that theres nothing behind it...

ok i have to go sleep now. theres still research to be done tmr on spain and portugal (yippee i cant wait to leave for my tapas and my eggtarts!!), as well as actual hmwk.. boohoo.

Bises,
Jevon
_________________________________________________________

and now, for the fantastic translation by babel fish:

the year 2006 was abundant challenges, rewards and of life under the blessing of God, beyond what we had known before. I want to thank my pals, at least those which are essential me, and am trustful that you had passed merry and releasing Christmas in family and with friends. by impulse, I decided French blogger. it will be one of the rare times that I do it but good, I will translate it by the means of Babel fish. it is not the sorrow to do it myself. to the fact, I blog because I come to take my shower and I am not yet ready to lay down me (still!). I wanted poster the photographs that I took for a long time, but this putaine of waiter at home is so stupid that that will return to me insane and good here, not of photos.tant bah worse, my tele is lit now after two months of rest, and there is Justin timberlake with tele, and frankly that makes me shit, but good, jai not choice they is already 3 hours of the morning and it ny does not have large thing with régarder. I have just spent a very good day today, the day before of Christmas jsuis gone to two churches, the first being that to which I go like hab, and the other is that of my friend he invited me to dine at a family on this church which very nicely opened its house with the people like me which nont not our families to celebrate Christmas here together, then cétait bloody sympathetic they were very accessible, there was the good expensive one, and the company of the children of the hosts was right nickel cest not often that I feel at ease among foreigners, but this time, and then, it is really thanks to the invitation of my friend that I can pass one evening so funny. and I am grateful to God for this friend, because I think that it is here one as of those which has the about similar frequency with the mienne. the others are dispensable haha. however, which menerve it is the fact that tomorrow I cannot what make! and the worst of the things it is than it is Christmas-even! that fears to have passed a good reveillon and not to have anything to make the day-J! some of my friends already left on holiday, and for those which remain, is they have activities which I cannot join, that is to say I am not interested to leave with them bah, so much worse for me then it is that the problem to which I very often face, lack of reliable company. if as in Singapore where one cetait has several groups of friends and one can hardly alternate them when one leaves. here, cest similar... that it is sad but good, in any event, it is necessary that I advance in my work. there is a large heap to finish before I leave. which horror. and in connection with that, I go right statement the English continuation.

"insert parts in english here"

kisses,
jevon

singing the yati blues

2006-11-19T08:33:00.000+08:00

poor yati is back home at last. shes feeling happy high and particularly impudent, and has decided to blog as shes waiting for her freshly shampoo-ed hair to dry. shes nursing a slight headache as well after having downed 5 pints of beer and shared 2 bottles of beaujolais earlier in e evening. she realised that the beaujolais red wine has just hit all e bars, restaurants and pubs in paris!! hooray for that wonderful season!! yati sure did enjoy herself today after meeting up with her norwegian fren and having a good chat; even tho it was marred by additional math lessons in e morn and some stupid forum that she had to attend after that. poor yati has to wake up at 0630am almost every damned sat morn to go to school while e rest of e world is still sound asleep. and she wld love to slap every bigot who dares to disparage e french edu system. to those idiots who gallivant in their disillusioned grandeur of supreme anglo-saxon domination: wake up!! shes cramming her deg in two years, and PSC scholars have been exiled back to spore in shame as they couldnt make it here. have u ever heard of anything else other than scholars sweeping the top positions in varsities elsewhere? speaking of waking up, yati wld wriggle her toes when she rouses every morn to see if shes still alive, and then she wld think about how 'sian' it is to have a full tiring day in front of her. but then, her christian sense wld kick in and she wld bless the day that the Lord has made. =)

yati particularly dreads saturdays as thats when she wld be a full-time maid, and being how fussy she is about cleanliness, she takes about an hour to clean a room about 14m^2 in area. its ridiculous she knows, but she cant help but sweep the same spot for 5 mins so that not a single strand of hair/speck of dirt remains. and then she gets down on all fours to wet-wipe stubborn spots. and laundry is another horror for her. yati simply hates e cold because she has to start donning thick jackets and those horrible cumbersome things are just too big and thick when it comes to stuffing it in e miserable hole they call a washing machine. moreover, at lunch in e dining hall, she wld have to remove them and 'hang' it on e back of e chair; and then some big clumsy jackass wld squeeze by from behind and conveniently drag her coat down. she now balks at the thought of hanging her coat, but well, she has no choice unless she wants to look like some blubbered mini whale trying to eat her lunch as elegantly as possible with her coat in e way. she is now on her third jacket already, e first two having dropped on e floor with tiles tts just too disgusting for words. and boy, she dreads e day when she has to do laundry. and oh, the laundry bill tts gonna rise!!

yati had originally planned to blog a nice long post replete with pictures that she had taken over the 3 months here. BUT, her stupid residence has this really annoying internet service provider that auto-disconnects every 45 mins or so. worse still, e firewall is so powerful she cant have a video conversation on msn, nor can she add ppl to her address book as the retarded netnanny (whos probably verging on senility) thinks that its too racy. that is absolutely ridiculous!!! its not as if yati wld wanna search for bangala porn wld she? and to cap it all off, she cant upload pics onto blogger as it seems she has already exceeded e upload limit for e month, even though in actual fact she hasnt even uploaded anything. * faints in maid-like distress* and so, u guys out there cannot see yati the beautiful maiden after all. yea its a pity she knows. fret not, however. yati eagerly awaits the day when she rents her own appartment, and thanks to this wonderful offer by non-retarded commercial ISPs here, she wld have cable tv, broadband, and free calls to fixed lines in countries like spore china, uk, us etc, and all for just a very reasonable sum of 30 euros per month. and then, u guys wld have a blast of a time when she becomes a full-blown camwhore.

yati wld also like to take this opportunity to thank all of her frenz who remembered her birthday. those wonderful memories of lazing around on e grass patch behind orchard mrt, and running for shelter shld there be sudden inclement weather..aww.. they do really pay off. and oh, the occasional jaunts on sundays (when mam is feeling particularly benevolent and grants her a day off) with her fellow maidens at her favourite haunt, lucky plaza. yes.. yati is very touched indeed and waves a big hi to all of her maidens out there, and asks of them to patiently await her return next summer. she cant promise souvenirs for everyone as she has to remit part of her salary faithfully back home every month so that her son can play with proper toys instead of rusted tin cans.. but, she has good faith that her return alone wld suffice.

in later news, yati was terribly upset last week as she was no longer the top in her group for colles ( the stressful oral tests in grps of 3 in front of a board with a prof). she has been leading e pack since september, but last wk was an exception. oh, the anguish, and the abject disappointment was just too hard for poor yati to bear. she had no mood to cook that evening and so had to content with just a bowl of instant noodles. yati is however, ever gleeful now as she has regained her rightful position this wk; and she aims for fairer shores, e latter being aplenty in this microcosm of a class, where there exists quite a handful of pure geniuses, some of whom are only 16 yrs old but skipped 2 yrs of sch. in all frankness, yati thinks that these ppl ought to banished elsewhere.

its late, and yati's beat. also, the alcohol's breaking down fast and yati realises that even tho she blogs in good jest, she might inevitably offend some ppl with some of her mindless drivel. still, she couldnt care less. HMPF. shes off to catch up on some beauty sleep now.

bonnes vacances!

2006-10-26T17:09:00.000+08:00

stupid tagboard has been down for gdness how long already. have no choice but to switch to another one. and finally i have the time to blog. ok not really as im not done with my packing and my train leaves in 2 hours' time!!

am so happy that the holidays are finally here! a gd time to take a breather and have a short overseas trip. if only they were longer, i could have gone to further countries. nvm, id leave that for december. for this break, im gonna visit frenz in london and oxbridge. it wld be nice to speak rapidly in singlish on a daily basis, instead of speaking mostly proper french at a slower pace haha =) MOE should really review their 3rd lang syllabus. there's not much use in drilling so much grammar in areas like e gerundive and subjunctive mood, as well as the awful past participle and conditional tense for hypothetical situations. as if in daily life, i wld be going on and on about "if i WERE bill gates, i WOULD donate 50% of my fortune to charity" or "if it IS sunny tomorrow, we WILL go to the beach", or "if the train driver HAD SLOWED down, the collision WOULD HAVE BEEN avoided". u get my drift. granted, grammar is important, but colloquial usage and slang are just as crucial. they add vibrant nuances to the language and bring it to life! yet they are sorely lacking. tsk tsk. u know how important that is? im catching up on it now. imagine dear mr lee issuing a mandate that everyone in spore is to speak BBC english all the time, and that speaking singlish is a criminal offence that warrants flogging. theres goes my talkingcock.com and mrbrown show, and all the comedic acts that rely so much on singlish to deliver the punch in the jokes. and sporeans wld become sad, stiff-lipped and staid ppl..

in school, things are getting better, which is gd. im only bogged down by math and philo, which ive plenty to bitch about, possibly when i return and after finishing my 7 horrendous assignments that EVERY prof handed out with glee. IRRITATING. and i even plan to study in the train itself as i have an exam on e mon that school reopens.. boo hoo, come to think of it, id prefer a final-year assessment style to a continual evaluation one.. at least then i dun need to mug daily and can afford myself a lot more slack.

and interaction-wise, the dynamics are improving! and for that im really grateful. rem how we used to have PRC or indian or even msian and indonesian scholars back then in the days of yore of sec sch? and how we sporeans used to just hi-bye them and then keep to our very own singaporean clique? the tables are turned on me this time round, and its really tough. on one hand it makes u aware of how it wld be like to be their position, on the other, it makes u vexed at the injustice of it all. but when push comes to a shove, ud just emerge a survivor. AMEN! haha

and i just remembered this incident in sec 3. we had an orientation camp at jalan bahtera(sp?) and my class had an influx of about 10 indonesian and msian scholars. and on one of the campfire nites, we had to get into a circle and do this stupid dance that goes:

as we walk to the left, as we walk to the right
as we walk, as we walk, as we walk all night
with a heel and a toe, and a half turn-around
with a heel and a toe and a new friend found!

the tune is nice, tho the lyrics are cheesy. but can u imagine 15-yr old guys wearing PT kits doing that in a muddy field? it was quite funny, as the dance movements included doing the half turn-around behind ur partner, and then jumping in front on the guy behind ur partner on the beat "FOUND". now, that was in 1999 where BM2000, yonex and bata white shoes ruled the day, and sports shoes like nikes and reebok( quite big then i think, since adidas wasnt really in sight) could only be found in indept shoes like acs. and so i carefully treaded here and there on e field in my second pair of painfully white shoes, e 1st being caked in mud already from e day's earlier activities. all went well as i think most of e guys were careful not to splash too much. BUT. this goon of an indonesian called mark (i will nv forget his name haha) was super gungho. he was trampling around in e mud as if it were water from a baby's rose-scented bath or smth. and i knew all was gone as i slowly advanced forward in the circle when he moved backwards. and so the tragic moment came when he did e half turn-around behind his partner, and den JUMPED RIGHT INTO A MUD PATCH right in front of me. the rest was history as i cld only remember getting irritated with him for having jumped so hard e mud spashed right up to my thighs and shorts. hmm.. i think ive digressed yet again. backtrack.

ok, one gd thing is that i only do not understand slang well (moe has done its job well after all), and that in no way hinders me in my studies; and so by e grace of god, i understand everything that the teachers say and do farely well in my studies. to those french idiots who have been treating me like an invisible ghost and get frightful grades, just 4 words: vous êtes vachement minables! oh dear.. im so vindictive. but i dun really care. hah.

yesterday afternoon saw my classmates and i playing baseball and rugby in the park beside school. it was awesome, my retarded psycho-motor skills managed to serve me so well in baseball i made 5 consecutive homeruns! so proud of myself hah. and wat made it sweeter was that the weather was cool, so even with my being decked out in 3 layers, i didnt even break into a single sweat. but for rugby its a different story. now, im not one garang guy who enjoys tough 'ruggedy' sports that involve jostling and getting muddy etc. and so i played 'tactically' without getting dirty (read avoiding all the muddy patches on e field when possible lol). the jostling part couldnt be avoided of coz, and my arms still hurt from getting rammed by 1 of e guys. i wish i were much bigger-sized like them.

and im playing sports more often now than in singapore. amazing. my tubby lardy self is slowly evolving into a lean mean machine. haha yea rite. as i have a 1 1/2 hour lunch break everyday, i have lotsa time, and fats as well, to burn after lunch. and esp after ingesting dessert and cheese and a mini bread loaf daily, i feel esp unhealthy. im usually not a cheese person but e dining hall usually serves gd mild cheese tt goes v well with e soft bread, so i cant help but wipe everything out. the same thing goes for desserts. omg e cakes and eclairs and pastries and chocolate and caramel cream etc. i feel so light-headed from e sugar overload i can float above the table . oh my the irony of that statement.

and so i usually play either soccer, volleyball or basketball after lunch. i shldnt have actually. coz its so damn paiseh. for one, im like almost always the shortest guy amongst them, and secondly, they dun have retarded coordination skills that im so sadly blessed with. and so u can imagine e catastrophe when i play. i once aimed at e basket such a lousy throw my team mate stopped talking to another guy and said 'quelle chute!!' to me. i shant bother to translate that haha. till now, i wonder how i managed to be so thick-skinned and 'parade my skills' in front of them. but well, no harm done rite? ive moved on to the gym eversince, haha, its safer. and i can at least haolian about my pull-ups, coz for all their beefiness is worth, they cld only do a quarter of e no. i do haha.

one of e guys in my cls generously opened up his place for us to party last nite. and it was damn gd. he had 2 garages, so 1 of them is assigned for partying. my god. and i thought setting aside a room for theatre and ktv purposes is gd enough. in it, he has 3 couches, 2 fridges and a huge table on which e food is laid. but wat is even better is that there's a room beside e garage where he has the disc-spinning equipment, replete with shelfs of discs of all e clubbing music. he even has this disco ball hanging from e ceiling and spot lights aligned along the ceiling that throb. and by throb i really mean throb like how they do in clubs. it was fantastic. and there was free flow of champagne. shiok. i wish i can have such a place like tt. add a pool table and it wld be perfect. and all thanks to e alcohol, im much closer to my clsmates now. To clubbing, the international activity that transcends culture, language and colour! Vive l'alcool!!!

ok i betta go now. damn late!!

shalala

2006-10-06T22:52:00.000+08:00

i feel so happy today. lessons ended early at 4, and so i can afford to come back home and slack around for a while online!! and at dear ZG's behest, ive decided to blog, though theres nothing substantial to blog about save for schwork.

that idiot was so terribly excited at the thought of having someone stalk me i wish he cld be in my shoes for just that episode. because after that fatty bom bom's squeezing, my shoes wldnt fit anymore, ok lame joke. back to last sun, it was nothing short of harrowing there and then. upon second thought, i think he would have been thrilled at the thought of having someone actually interested in stalking him. i can foresee our dear ZG beckoning the stalker over to the filthiest smelliest corner of the train interchange with that IRRESISTIBLE come-hiterto look of his; and with just a salacious licking of his lips, he would set the stalker's loins on fire...

and the same goes for shaz: yoohoo girl! how have u been? i miss ur ceaseless prattling so much! im placing u on the bloggers' pedestal by replying to ur tag here! arent you honoured? ;) c'mon, dun be shy lah, i know u cant wait to do more than just dropping of pencil boxes haha. thats so juvenile isnt it? perhaps its high time to start dropping your boxers instead. =)

ok. back to blogging proper, or rather, rubbish-accounting. lets see... what has been interesting so far? i handed e mooncakes to my prof a few wks ago and she treated me to lunch! not bad rite, e effort wasted in lunging my heavy luggage around was worth it. just 2 exotic (read: westernised flavours to suit their palates) mooncakes and i get a meal haha. of coz i offered to pay my share SEVERAL times, but well, she declined. anw she was like how suaku when i told her what mooncakes were. i hope she didnt expect to find anything moon-related inside. and how she ooh-ed and aah-ed over the box, the plastic knife that came with it, and the whole packaging. i think she needs to go over to japan, where she would be bowled over by e impressive and super-nice packaging that the jap are so renowned for. and boy would she gasp in pain/joy when she discover that toilet bowl with that water jet that shoots at where the sun doesnt shine.

ok back to topic. she brought me to this french restaurant tt looks quite posh, with gilded walls and full-length mirrors, high ceilings, and scantily-clad chubby cherubs staring out from their picture frames everywhere. ive nothing to complain about save for e price, but that isnt relevant since she paid. anyway, the moment the waiter welcomed us in and showed us the coat-hanger, i cld feel the eyes riveted on me everywhere. i dunno wassup with the goons dining there. sure, a middle-aged female caucasian walking in with a young asian boy is not a very common sight, but theres no need to care so much about it. and no need to stare so hard rite? but stared they did, from the ordering to the meal itself. and the blardy kpo couple beside us kept trying to eavesdrop. seriously ah, at times these ppl can be even more kpo than singaporeans, and that IS saying a lot.

and... theres nothing i can think about. ok just one, dun watch miami vice if u havent. my gdness, that was one lousy shitass of a film. i dozed off twice in my comfy seat watching it. tt film really CMI despite starring gong li and colin ferrell. the former really sounded gong like anything when she spoke so feebly in english. thankfully she didnt mangle up e english words as badly as my favourite zhang ziyi in tt advert when she complained that the soup was too salty. omg, tt moment was classic. it ought to be immortalized in 15 seconds of fame or smth to that effect. that zhang girl is a comedian in e making im telling you. in e event that she decides to retire from acting, she wld seriously make it big as a comedienne. just cast her in any show tt requires her to speak english and i wld crack up big time. ok lah, in all fairness she spoke quite decently in that geisha movie. and colin ferrell is just.. him. unkempt trying to pass off as cool. PUI.

oh dear, i wld have loved to continue on with my rubbish. alas, theres something even more rubbishy playing from my speakers: ZG's singing on msn. in an woeful attempt to sing soul music, he has so successfully massacred the song and my urge to blog that ive decided to go cook dinner now instead. if ive managed to sustain your interest to this very last statement, thank you and ciao!

n'importe quoi

2006-10-02T00:43:00.000+08:00

having dinner break now. aimless surfing on youtube has yielded a bountiful harvest once again.

first video: even better than blaine and copperfield! MUST watch! faint-hearted ones beware!!

2nd one: in a streak of nationalistic pride, hossan leong croaked his sporean version of 'we didnt start e fire'. in it were some very funny lyrics tt brought out some idiosyncrasies which really identify us as true blue sporeans; tho whether thats smth to be proud of or not is debatable.

i came back from paris this afternoon after lunch and was stalked by a crazy old man (com) at the train platform. it was a nightmare. as i usually board the train at the last carriage for immediate access to the exit upon alighting at my station, i walked all the way to that one end of the platform where there's usually not many ppl. and there was this stupid com who followed me. at first, i didnt think anything about it. but i realised that he kept staring at me, and so i moved away. he tailed, came abreast of me, and then planted himself in front of me smiling, or rather, smirking like some dork. he was clad in a denim jacket, grey pants, and had a rolled-up newspaper in his left hand. i gathered he was 60-ish with his tufts of white hair, and thought he could possibly pass off as the nice grandpa guy in that advert for that shiok toffee caramel sweet whose name i forgot. and that was till he started rubbing his crotch with his right hand. i was like 'wth', and immediately walked away from him.

that idiot tagged along and stopped whenever i slowed down, and continued when i started zig-zagging again. i was at first irritated and turned to stare at him. he seemed dazed at first, but then he started putting on that sick expression of a smile/smirk again. i looked around, and realised that no one noticed him or me. and then he did it again; this time however, he was fingering with his zipper. and so the hide-and-seek game started. i walked briskly over to the middle, where there was a crowd, and stood beside them. that com had the cheek to follow, and stand right beside me. WTF. and whenever i looked at him, he wld repeat e whole motion of smiling and stroking. pukez. i hurried off behind the huge beefiest guy in sight and 'sought refuge' in his shadow. spastic dirty old man trailed and stood within 2m of my radius.

i started panicking a little and wondered what to do. all this while e twerp was being shifty-eyed whenever i tried to stare at him, and then when we made eye contact, he wld smile, and then start fingering himself again. i was thoroughly grossed out.

and thankfully my train came just then. i purposely chose the carriage where most people were entering, and then as the door was about to close, i sped off to the neighbouring one. i thought i managed to evade com, but as luck wld have it, he turned out to be sickeningly agile and quick on his feet. i wld have loved to see him squashed by e closing doors, but sadly, he came sailing in unharmed, smiled BROADLY this time, and of all e other vacant seats, chose to sit right in front of me.

by then, i didnt know wat to do. this time his knees were almost touching mine, and there was no mistaking his stroking, nor his expression. and the stupid lady seated beside him also blur like f**k, cannot see out of e corner of her eye that theres a pervert rubbing his crotch all e time meh? i stood up when e next station approached, and he followed suit. when he came up beside me, he said 'bonjour'. i was like, bon your fucking balls lah bonjour. i wanted to shake him off and pretended to alight last after everyone, including him, and then jumped back on at the last minute. fortunately, spastic didnt have e brains to wait for me to alight before him, or else i wldnt have managed to shake him off, and could possibly find myself in a tougher situation. shudder. wat a thought... am glad im safe and sound.

ok, break is over. revision for exam tmr round 3!

hold your breath

2006-09-23T20:56:00.000+08:00

benz in chrome. simply breathtaking eh?

now that your eyes are enticed by e beauty, here's some random ramblings to change things around.

i just came back from school. sat for a 4hr math exam. its one of e toughest paper that ive sat for. could have saved the time last nite by not studying for it, since it didnt help much. and the 4 hrs were damn long. requires a good bladder control and efficient pacing. haiz.. shall just hope for e best. thankfully, most of e ppl found it hard too.

3rd wk of sch just ended. and its sooo tiring. lessons end at 530pm on most days. and after that, i have 'colles', which are oral tests conducted in groups of 3 with one professor, and a board. such a mode of assessment is said to be common thru'out europe. they shld adopt this method in singapore. so the teachers can watch the students falter and fumble awkwardly in front of the board.

basically, we 3 are each given different sheets of paper with different questions on it. and then we solve it real time on the board with the prof eyeing us like a hawk. and e moment a person writes a single mistake, he wld swoop down upon e poor soul and start grilling him with additional questions.

its capable of making u sweat like a pig despite e ambient temperature of 15 degrees. if ure using e blackboard, the chalk powder becomes sludgy in your hands as u shuffle ur feet and try your best to answer the questions posed; or if youre using a marker on a whiteboard, ure suddenly aware of it becoming very slippery in your hands. also, u silently thank god when the prof moves on to the other 2 ppl and leaves u in peace. and this lasts for an hour. ive twice of that weekly. so i have to be on my toes and revise my work every nite. boohoo.. i miss gg to paris to club and play on wkdays.

other than that, classmates are alright, though theres far too few girls. well i guess i cant complain much. shld be thankful that the atmosphere has warmed up considerably since the first week, where everyone was particularly autarkic and cold. and as with last yr, you know things are improving when the girls come up to u and do the cheek-kissing thing (la bise), and the guys wld come for handshakes.

i cant stand the handshakes at times. when u arrive in sch and chance upon a whole gang of them, u begin the ritual, and, starting from one end, you shake hands all the way till the other end. at times im too shy to do that so i wld go to some other place hah. same thing with girls, and for e latter its more tiring. u still have to pucker up ur lips and do the 'muakz' sound. but its nice all the same, esp in contrast to spore or any other asian society where theres minimal physical contact. then again, i wldnt fancy doing the cheek-kissing thing with sticky sweaty cheeks, esp in hot sunny spore.

and ive started talking to more of them, especially during lab periods. speaking of which, i must master lab talk. more technical jargon to learn. and i must improve on my comprehension. whispering comprehension that is. its really amazing, the french that e youths speak isnt tt heard on radio or tv, theirs is a completely new breed of french tt requires u to throw in as many words as possible in a minute. and when they speak in hushed tones to avoid e prof from hearing, i really find it inaudible and incomprehensible.

ok i have to go buy groceries now, cook and then clean up my place. i feel like part-time maid. till e next post.

eve

2006-09-04T04:22:00.000+08:00

im so excited! school starts tomorrow and this time round i wld be formally and properly inducted into e system. wld no longer be the pseudo-freshie that had the luxury of attending only some lectures and having a lighter timetable. and i cant wait to explore e campus and meet new people. okay, actually im not that excited. its very daunting and scary having to make new friends all over again while grappling with schwork. and philo. gdness, i hope i can crap out something decent for those abominable essays. still, its fun knowing that i dunno whats in store, haha, and then handling them the best i can. i wish myself lotsa luck.

its fun to be back, though the initial pangs of 'adjustment syndrome' set in on the first day while unpacking. but all was well once i went to sch to photocopy some stuff before going out to meet friends. have been going out everyday and spending too much, oops. but i reasoned that once sch starts, i wldnt be going out so often heh.

flight back was uneventful. krisworld sucked this time round, i only watched ~3 movies, compared to e 6 on my return trip to spore earlier in jun. and so i slept for about 5-6 hours, which was good as it was actually much needed. had planned to take a taxi back to my place, but T wanted to take e train instead; which was ok, considering that i would save about 40 to 50 euros, even after splitting e fare. but the luggage was soooooo heavy i nearly died dragging them around and up to my room. my profs had better appreciate the mooncakes i bought for them. TEN SILLY INTRICATELY CRAFTED MOONCAKES WITH PRETTY BOXES TO HOUSE THEM IN. so damn heavy. ok i exaggerate.

i noticed that all the trains are spruced up over summer, which is good. they even managed to remove all the graffiti and introduced several new trains. i just hope they stay that way. paris looked much cleaner to me too on the first day, which was surprising as tourists were everywhere. however, i changed my mind when i went to chatelet les-halles, the central interchange in zone 1, where the black people seem to like to congregate. i certainly dun mean to be racist, but seeing scores of blacks congregating together and talking so loudly in their loud clothing and dreadlocks just dun make me feel good. and some of them love to stare or shout out 'ni hao' or 'konichiwa'. i felt like shouting 'mandela!!' or 'kumbaya' back at them. irritating trouble-makers..

bah, im turning in now. hopefully i can blog soon.

i am ready

2006-08-24T14:53:00.000+08:00

and so it is, that the 10 weeks of respite have come to a close (well, almost, with just 5 more days); and that im almost packed and all ready, and i daresay, even, raring to go.

truth be spoken, life to me can be quite vagabondish in more ways than one. i get all excited about returning home, and then once the initial excitement and hype die down, i start craving for something new. new places to be in, new sights to take in, new things to do, and new people to meet.

yet, despite my constant yearnings, im very happy to have gotten my rest, and am fully recharged for a new academic year ahead. to feel that all challenges are surmountable, that nothing can intimidate me anymore and that solitude is just but a mental battle that can be easily won is something that i couldnt even remotely feel back there and then. such is the amazing power of coming home, the strengthening and the feeling of invincibility.

it may sound slightly masochistic, but im looking forward to being alone again. yes, and by 'alone' i dun mean that kind of 'overseas alone' whereby u can just slip on your slippers, shuffle along the corridor, climb some flights of stairs, walk to a particular door, knock and you shall find your comfort gang of singaporeans/asians (ie of coz, if you're not already housing with them). what im talking about here is a vacuum that cannot be filled so conveniently and cheaply. but what is good is that i have more breathing space, and less trouble too. for living with people brings into play some politics and compromise, and theres always treading of toes somehow. sure, i enjoy company and certainly value the importance of sharing a gd laugh over crass humour, and helping each other in times of need, but i think i treasure my personal space just as much; and above all, i think it wld serve as a greater impetus for me to socialise more.

i realised that ive changed. that the freedom and independence ive enjoyed overseas has led to me wanting things done in a certain manner; and as such i wouldnt give in so easily. my territory is therefore now more easily encroached upon. and dealing with ppl is not an easy business. even within the family, parents can be belligerent, and bro can be so incalcitrant i wanna drown them all with e vitriol and risen bile in me. some friends alike, have left me feeling quite disenchanted with their attitudes and behaviour. so much for professing to do this and that, when they are the 'out of sight, out of mind' kinda ppl. owell, i shant be affected anymore by it. for now, im just glad to return to my second home where, though theres a lack of company on weekdays, i have friends to meet up with on weekends, and certain routines i hope to get into. and that, for me is sufficient.

it wldnt be fair to entirely discount the fun tt ive had this summer, with the numerous jaunts and gatherings i had with some gangs. for those who made e effort to plan and organise, heres a big shout out to them. the harsh reality of friendship is that most ppl come and go, and that few are able to fully progress with you in every stage of your life. what matters most is then treasuring those who have accompanied you thru e important and formative chapters of your life, and keeping those u deem worthy. this yr overseas has functioned as a sieve for me to sift out - to put it bluntly - rejects from those whom i wanna stay in contact with. there is simply no point in keeping acquaintances and having once-in-a-blue-moon meet-ups and meals, is there?

ah...who can truly understand the mixed feeling of conflict at every turn i make? and who can stay free of judgement?

at times, i rely too much on my strength when i shld have relied on His. and where my understanding fails me, i still try to grope thru e darkness instead of turning to Him. i fail terribly in this aspect. its time to commit myself into His hands. hands that flung stars into space, to cruel nails surrendered.

the big pain

2006-08-01T22:07:00.000+08:00

after reaching home from work, i usually go for a 3km run unless im too lazy. and so this evening was no different. i donned my dua dua faculty tshirt and my guards running shorts tts really short with those super-high slits at the sides. i changed to my heavyset metal frames and put on those old chucked-in-one-corner school socks. i was all set to go and left for e park tts a 5min walk away. i must really have been a frumpy-looking sight to behold. and since i thought i wouldnt meet anyone i know, i ruffled my hair while strolling over. i turned a sharp right at this corner, walked into the playground and then i saw her. she was with another guy. i gave a silent yelp and knew tt there was no way i could turn around and pretend that i never see them. worse, there was no buffer time to 'tidy myself up'. she waved and gave a cheery 'hi', i offered an awkward one in return. after that, e 5 min chatter felt like eternity. part of it was due to the mandatory exchange of greetings and e small talk tt ensued. but it was further exacerbated by my over self-consciousness. and e ironic thing was tt i thought of her while passing by her place, and wondered how it wld be like to meet her.

having 'disposed off' them, i reached e starting point and began my warm-ups. they were basically e stretching exercises tt were so firmly ingrained in my head, courtesy of SAF.

and then, i made my move.

as i start pounding the tarmac, i start my stopwatch. i seem to have a mysterious force pushing me ahead today. was it due to e chance encounter earlier on? for once, i move with an easy, almost effortless stride. i seem to glide above e running path, my mouth limp and relaxed, and my arms swing half-circles against e side of my ribs; all while my feet easily eat up the distance.

yea rite. the path still loomed before me as a vision from hell— blackened and raw, rolling endlessly and thus blotting out the end point. thru out e run, my leg muscles pleaded with me to abort, but i persevered. i was really dying in e racing sense when i finished. i could hear my sharp gasps of breath loud and clear as if i was sucking in air through a rusted grate.i panted so hard it almost hurt. and my thunder thighs must have pounded the tarmac really hard. my colossal calves burned so badly. i was the portrait of utmost exhaustion, with sweat beading across my entire beetroot-red face, eyes lolling; and even my tongue, which sought refuge from the parched interior of my mouth, was beginning to dangle. and thats when i met another fren, a guy this time.

omg. that was such a fantastic moment. why do ppl have to pop out of e blue when i least expect them, and why do they always talk to me at the most inconvenient of moment? i shld have won an oscar for the smiling expression i put on when i talked to him. oh.. the pain tt belied inside..

and oh, the joy of SERENDIPITOUS encounters with friends in your neighbourhood.

meme

2006-07-12T22:51:00.000+08:00

high time to do this meme. was tagged by FORFEIT tan jh (lol) to do it. but first of all, to jh: wat on earth is a meme?

3 blogs because of their pictures.

1. venus in fur nice snazzy pics of architecture, places, and cool interesting things. at times it reads like a thrashy celebs' bible haha. sorry CW!

2. gluttonism makansutra brought online by JY. funny to see e camwhoring, and to know e gd places to eat at in spore, tho ive nv tried like 90% of e recommendations. i love e ratings by tongues!

3. interesting
this is hard.. i seldom surf for pictures, let alone pictures on blogs. anw a fren just sent me this link really recently, so enjoy! some shots are really creative.

3 blogs because they really make you think or seek information.

1. i speak a highly articulate girl with exceptionally perceptive insights on issues in spore. am quite impressed by it. refreshing in tt shes so different from all e girly vainpots tt pervade singapore like a plague. so kudos to her.

2. jackson einstein who has always painstakingly condensed most of e latest political/social happenings in spore and in e scientific arena into bite-size posts, much to e benefit of lazy ppl like me who prefer to read news reported by someone (credible of coz) rather than by e ST and other news websites.

3. forum a one-stop station for most, if not all of e technical info, gossip, and tons of other stuff that i might seek whenever im bored online.

3 blogs because they make you laugh

1. lancerlord this lord, who occasionally blogs on his kid, aptly christened lancerkid, has random links on really fascinating and funny stuff. like there was this wet t-shirt game during e heat of WC, and i once laughed so hard over this stupid 'ha ha song' that he recommended:

e gong gong girls shaking their heads from side to side is just so freaking hilarious!

2. rockson this one needs no introduction. i love the chummy way he calls our political leaders, and i admire his impudence and cheek...

3. mr brown i love e way he and mr miyagi talk on e podcasts. e moment they start talking in their affected nasal voices, i start laughing already.

4. ive one more!

harosingapore

i especially love the 'haro' word. it reminds me of this sec 3-4 clsmate who's from msia and cldnt pronounce my name properly and called me as JEWON. i tried correcting him at first, but i realised that in his world of geog and bio, there are only WOLCANOES AND WAGINAS. and so i contented with wincing each time he called me.

haha, tis is mean, but imagine if i were to talk like him:

HARO ERYONE!! MY NAME IS JEWON. I RIKE TO EAT RORRYPOP!

yux.

And tag 3 blogs!

1. wk
2. tim tay
3. jyanli

time

2006-07-11T22:27:00.000+08:00

another week has gone by just like that, with hardly any significant occasion to remember it by. its plain annoying that the moments i wanna hold onto are the ones that slip away swiftly, while the ones i wanna put on 'fast-forward' appear to expressly play themselves out in slow mo.

i groused in my previous post about some changes that ive observed, and not liked. but upon further reflection, i realised that i might have expected changes to occur when they need not have to. who am i to say that people are to change for the better or worse? and what right do i have in dictating that things should not stagnate after 9 months? while having a certain expectation of things means no harm, demanding that u get wat u want is another matter entirely. on e other hand, to just take things as they come strikes me as being too lackadaisical. owell...

and ive just started working, wld be at it for 4 weeks. i cant take the bumming around anymore. it feels gd to just while e time away and idle for all im worth, but i just get restless after some time and yearn for something proper to do. the only drawback is that i can only go out in e evenings. hopefully this stint wld help embellish my CV tho.

au fait, france has lost to italy. italy truely deserved to win as she has a much stronger team with better, tighter teamwork. zidane is stupid to have lost his cool, but that conniving bastard of an italian had sunk to such low depths by provoking zizou.. i curse that he wld have more headbutts coming his way, butts that wld knock more than just the breath out of him..

in 1282, e french had a strong hold on sicily and a secret society arose to defeat this oppression. the battle cry of this rebellious group was: "Morte Alla Francia Italia Anelia" (italian for "death to the french is italy's cry"), and thus e acronym MAFIA was coined. close to a century later, the battle cry resurfaced to haunt e french, this time in berlin on a soccer field haha. i officially coin a new acronym now: MAIFA. no prizes for guessing wat it stands for; but MAFIA looks and sounds more stylo than MAIFA, which looks really ugly and reminds me of hanyu pinyin.

and GSS was really a big joke. the sales are pathetic beyond words. price slashes are like 30% at best,and they are mostly on old fugly stock that would look better folded neatly on the racks.

ok, im happy with blabbering for now, so its time for bed! have to wake up early for these 4 weeks haiz.

enfin, chez moi

2006-06-30T01:17:00.000+08:00

holy shit!! ive already spent 2 weeks in singapore!! * wails loudly* that means ive only abt 8 more weeks here, boo hoo. it just feels so gd and comfy to be at home; not having a thing to worry about, not a weight on ur shoulders, just pure concentration on having fun. how shiok is that?

i still can remember the excitement as i boarded the plane 2 fris ago; i was so excited i cldnt sleep. i watched 6 movies in total, and upon landing, cleared customs as quickly as i could. thankfully they have this counter for sporeans that had quite a short queue. changi airport is really so bright, warm and cheery. e carpets, sofas, plants etc just make me feel gd, but the paris charles de gaulle terminal 1 has this exterior that reminds me of some alien colony. clean yet sterile, modern yet dull.

and contrary to those who felt that there are a lot of changes in spore upon their return, i found almost none. only some ppl have changed. sadly, those things that ought to change seem destined to stay forever e same. im constantly struck by ambivalence in lotsa situations these days, and occasionally its not easy to deal with them.

but it has really been fantastic to meet up with friends and having fun like before. it was as if the past 9 months just melted away amidst all the mirth and banter. i was surprised by one thing, however. before i returned, i expected myself to wax lyrical over every dish i eat, but that exquisite moment has yet to arrive. i gleefully await that day.

for now, its time for bed.

of licking and X-men

2006-06-26T19:45:00.000+08:00

cameron diaz and christina applegate in this movie whose title i forgot, but that scene was so funny haha..

another fake trailer??

homebound

2006-06-13T06:45:00.000+08:00

phew, am finally done with the initial packing. managed to squeeze everything in without making the luggage look obscenely lumpy.

just 2 more days and i wld be on sporean soil, thereby bringing an end to my being overseas for exactly 9 months. the excitement of returning home only surfaced now; before, i felt numbed abt it all, and i dare say a little sad. sad because ive grown accustomed to the way of life here, and sorry that it wld be here no longer once i return. its inexplicable, this feeling of having settled down, yet being fully aware that upon returning to a familiar place after a mere 2 months, things wld be different. familiar people wld have gone, and new faces wld take their place. a completely new environment to adapt to, and a whole new host of storms to weather through. change cld indeed be very destabilising.

and as this post wld be the last for this academic yr, i think it right to be thankful for having got through it all. it wasnt easy at the beginning, rather it was a downright ball-breaker. whenever i am given to occasional bouts of self-pity, it isnt any more different from agatha christie's fabrication of grieving widows trudging through howling snowstorms. i dun think i can proclaim myself to be invariably stronger on every occasion, but i do know that where my strength ends, the power of God brings me through. 2 Corinthians 12:9 says that "And He said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Mostly gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me." it was therefore with an eager heart that i attended my last service last week. what made it even better was that united band came to perform. thank god for hillsong australia, who expanded her reach to kiev and london, and to london for starting services in paris. a mighty spiritual revolution is gg thru this city right now as attendance figures soar consistently over the months. hundreds of souls were saved since the doors opened in sept last year, and i await the day when 'the world becomes peripheral to the church'.

lessons and papers have all been wrapped up, and so its a pity to know that i wld no longer have the luxury of having personal profs, nor the chance to cultivate close prof-student relationships. even sadder still is the fact that when i return, lotsa ppl wld no longer be here. my dutch friend's exchange stint is ending soon and he too, wld return home. and as for my norwegian friend, he had long gone back to denmark... wish they cld be around.

edwin! the dutch-french whom i meet weekly to go out and try new clubs. there goes my kaki for going out on weekdays; be it to club, eat, chill, or watch movies.. this guy just refuses to get onto msn, how annoying. id pester him further hah.

erik! the norwegian-danish fella who can provide for good soul food despite his tender age. haha, and as a side-bonus, i know who to find when i wanna go to scandinavian countries!

and this crazy bunch of americans, italians and mexicans whom i try to go out with on thursdays after lessons. they like doing crazy things like rolling down this hill near my residence, and they taught it each other the word 'wedgie' in their mother tongues. and since my chinese CMI, i told them its 'pi4 gu3 shu3 tiao2'. Hah! they wld be none the wiser. shu3 tiao2 simply becoz wedgies remind me of potato wedges, but that i cldnt name in chinese either, so i settled for french fries instead.

and my profs! i can remember the times when i just spaced out temporarily and feigned absolute attention.. or just nod like an idiot even though i was still slightly overwhelmed with all the info overload. and the perennial horror that gripped me as i stare blankly at the questions tt i had difficulty doing, all while they wld be hmpf-ing and sighing in impatience in e backgrd...

my math prof: Monsieur Jean-Phillipe Nicou. this guy gushes over the elegance of solutions to really complex problems, while i wld be slightly stunned with my mind still in a crazy whirl. he reminds me of ben stiller haha.

my physics/elect prof: Monsieur Xavier Llop, the nicest of the lot. he dresses in haute couture all the time from head to toe, my gawd. gucci, dior, lv, boss blah blah. if teachers can earn that much, i dun mind migrating here just to teach. whenever im bored i wld like to kaypoh look see what brand he's wearing. nv fails to impress me.

my french prof: Mademoiselle Isabelle Irace. argh bad lighting again! i hve absolutely zilch knowledge in photo-taking. anw she shared with me lotsa invaluable insight into the french cartesian mindset, which is interesting. but her immense passion for philosophy, and her weekly hmwk of essays expounding on how it has shaped man's landscape just scare me. shes gonna go to spore soon to teach at NUS high for 6 yrs, as NUS high is recruiting french and japanese teachers. ironic isnt it? she wld be in spore while i wld be here.

last but not least: the sporeans who have mostly been good company. it just feels so natural to speak singlish with them and talk about local issues, as well as regaling each other with racist/phua chu kang dig-nose humour etc.. its a pity i dun have a picture with all e sporeans as there are plenty of cliques again as usual. but at least we're bounded by the common interest in food haha. its really so chinese to have gatherings over a meal, bbq, buffet, potluck, picnic etc.

alright, last min errands to run. and spore in less than 48 hrs, yay!!!

singapore girl, what a great way to fly...

2006-06-02T18:07:00.000+08:00

argh this is so maddening!! i hate SIA answering machines and recorded messages. i really cld kill the ppl that transferred me non-stop barely 10 secs into the conversation. wld be put on hold for eternity while aware of my money tick-tocking away. and im getting this aria-esque song stuck in my head after hearing it for several mins. my precious 10 euros of credit blown for just FREAKING EIGHT mins of talktime, and half of it was spent listening to MUSIC and this stupid female-recorded message tt punctuated occasionally with false promises of an agent getting to me SOON. worse still, after wasting so much money, i didnt get a chance to ask for additional luggage allowance; thankfully tho, my seat shld be safely reserved.

it was really 'murder she wrote' each time i hear that voice; that same one voice you hear each time u get to an answering machine. that unmistakable warm yet mechanical tone that tells u to mind the gap between the train and the platform and warns you of closing doors. that unique timbre thats ubiquitous in the world of automated voice mail. and that ineluctable exasperation you get each time u hear it. the woman (prob e one and only) who had seemingly loaned her voice to voice systems worldwide must probably be laughing all the way to the bank with all tt she've earned, and getting kicks out of telling the bank counter person "i wld like to deposit some money please" in that exact recording tone.

in just a fortnight, i wld be back to a land where a sms costs just 5cents instead of 30cents, where a min on hp costs less than $2, and where transport, food and entertainment becomes half-price wahahha. i think e uk ppl wld even be more pleased.

patience.

titanic's back!

2006-05-21T22:13:00.000+08:00

not. that was just a fake trailer sequel to titanic. but isnt it amazing? i think still quite a bit of effort went into filming it, and they even had a cameo role for john cusack!

anyway, its really exciting at the cinema this month with so many cool movies coming out. MI 3 was really gd. not too much of a solid storyline, but in my opinion at least the action more than compensated for it. it mustnt have been easy for tom cruise doing those stunts at his age, really. his silly dance moves that started the evil critics' tongues wagging cld be due to an over-exertion during the filming of MI lol. maggie q and her side kick of an orange lamborghini in e vatican city made for gd eye candy, and so its a real pity the car had to be blown up in e end.. last but not least, im finally inspired to pick up my chinese again after seeing how shanghai looks like! haha, after letting it lie dormant for a long long time, perhaps my chinese writing skills cld be resurrected online. i cringe at the thought myself, and on everyone's behalf as well at having to read my mangled chinese. sadly, i think my chinese has stagnated at o level and has never progressed eversince; but thankfully, i am gd enough to get by..

and da vinci was such a let down. it cld be due to the fact tt e book was so well-written (by general consensus) that as a result, everyone has freakingly high expectations. granted, a lot of the history and interesting facts in the book cld not be translated onto screen, but the goddamn-forsaken screenwriter had to bastardise the book in such a way that it was far from being true to it. the drama developed so slowly and so unexcitingly it was little wonder ppl boo-ed at its screening in cannes. whoever adapted it for e screen ought to be more than just shot. and i disagree totally with e choice of some of e cast. andre vernet, the bank manager at e swiss bank, was supposed to be refined and well-groomed, or at least tts the impression i get when i read e book. but hey,surprise!! =) e andre tt was in e movie looked like some lao ti ko, he cld earn himself a stable income by starring on crimewatch. i dunno the guy's name, but he certainly reminded of a hybrid betweeen mark lee of tv8 and one of spores ministers, mah bow tan. *faints*

and the dynamics between inspector collet and fache in e movie werent at all close to wat was written in e book. in e former, there were some hints of collet standing up to fache and fache's superiority cracking a little; yet i dun recall reading anything remotely related. and sophie was supposed to take down this painting and pressed her knee behind it so tt e guard wld let robert go!! why ron howard nv film this scene??? i wld so love to watch it, but the louvre must have forbidden such a violation, so tts pardonable. next, why did howard allowed the riddle-solving process in e louvre take place so quickly?? it turned out so underwhelming as a result. sophie was degraded from a smart cryptologist to some useless brunette who managed to come up with stupid platitudes like 'you self-righteous bastard'...

and where on earth did dan brown mention a come-lets-meet-up-and-embrace session at rosslyn church? only sophie's grandmum and bro were supposed to be present, not any tom, dick and harry summoned by her bro just because he saw 2 strangers going to the basement near the church's closing time. what on earth was going thru the crew's mind???

the only laudable comments i have include bettany's fantastic portrayal of silas ( ronnie dear, i think albinos only have red irises, not bluish-tinged ones), and ian as leigh. they played the role of villains so well, whereas robert and sophie practically had their essence snuffed out entirely. its tragic, e whole film. in a sympathetic homage to ron howard for endeavouring to bring e da vinci code to life, and having to brave the world's rage at butchering up one of the most phenomenal books ever, i shall throw in another token word of praise. i kinda like the way leigh manipulated the last supper using his high tech com stuff such that mary magdalene's angle of inclination results in her reclining perfectly on jesus' shoulder upon juxtaposing both of them. i also like the way the words 'gleamed' to robert when he was trying to crack the anagrams.

the audience was so disappted im sure. when the movie started, all rustling and talking stopped and i was hushed up when i opened my can drink, can u imagine that? ive never sat amidst such a well-behaved audience. these are the ppl who are capable of laughing non-stop and clapping even at the sight of e two blondes getting burnt in their suntanning booths in final destination 3. yet, not a single sound was emitted at all throughout this movie. i had to sip my drink soundlessly all the time. the first rupture was 'aahs' of shock when silas lunged at robert at leigh's place. the second one was laughter at robert telling sophie tt she's the direct descendant of christ. how much more anticlimax cld it get?

ok, breather's over, back to mugging now. x men 3 awaits next wed!!

OUEP

2006-04-27T19:05:00.000+08:00

wah.. i just spent 3 hours translating 5 yrs of aeronautical engr syllabus for admin purposes.. cant think properly anymore. suddenly, i dunno if aero engr wld be e thing for me afterall. theres so much mechanics involved, and having seen them already and not really liking them this yr, i cant imagine wat it wld be like to be doing it for all 5 yrs, eeek..looks like i had better decide properly.

have u ever been caught in a dilemma, or in such a situation where u have to choose btwn 2 things that u take days or even weeks to decide? wldnt it be great if u were to go to bed, without having it possess ur dreams, and then wake up e next morn knowing wat to do/choose? i really hate being in such a position, whereby my choice cld affect the rest of my life. more accurately, i hate myself for being such a drifter, for not knowing exactly what i really want, and not knowing where my strength lies and what my goals are...

and i miss rice so much!! my gdness, fried rice, steamed rice, glutinous rice, bak chang rice, rice pudding.. etc. i crave for anything that has rice! ive a hand-me-down rice cooker since jan, and it is perched nicely on top of my microwave, collecting dust dutifully for e past 4 months. this is despite my having bought my 1st packet of rice last nov, my gdness.. the 1kg pack has been lying somewhere for e past few months. i cant believe that i could last so long on pasta and noodles, argh.. i think ive tried most types of pasta already, watever shape,length,thickness, colour, except the black one tt ive seen in italy. egg noodles also eat until can puke. i wish i have yellow hokkien mee and kway teow. now, i didnt touch e rice cooker all this while as i thought it wld be troublesome to wash it after that. moreover, cooking pasta/noodles is faster, easier and i can eat straight from the pot without having to transfer it to a bowl or plate. haha, just so i could save time by washing one less plate/bowl. i know its silly; so last wkend, i decided to cook rice for my first time. wah, they say the first time is never what u expect it to be, how true man. i was studying while the rice was merrily cooking in it till the cover rattled like it was alive!! i got a shock and hurriedly took it off, only to see lotsa bubbles and even foam floating to the surface. i didnt noe what to do, so when e foam subsided, i covered it back. this happened for a few times till i got fed up, so i took the rice stirrer, stirred thoroughly, and then left the cover 'ajar'. tadaa, no risk of spilling over now. but the damned cooker just kept cooking and cooking for over 20 mins even tho i just added one cupful, so i had no choice but to switch it to 'keep warm' mode. i didnt want my rice burnt. turned out tt i didnt get rice, i got some horrible porridge thats so pasty and dry even oliver twist wld have turned his nose up at it. at first, i dismissed e whole incident as an oversight of adding to much water. but the 2nd round proved me wrong. I cooked rice again yesterday for the grand total of 2 times. it felt like an culinary adventure, albeit a really pathetic and stupid one where no one has ever failed except me. this time i took care to add e right amount of water.. but to no avail again. its really sickening, the cover rattled like anything and i had porridge yet again. the prob doesnt lie with me does it? shldnt all rice cookers do their job properly, which is to cook the rice without any human interference, and then switch automatically to 'keep warm' mode when its done? why doesnt mine do that?

just 1 hr away to philo and french cls boo hoo. i didnt finish my hmwk on purpose because i think its ridiculous to expect me to summarise 3 freaking story books on philo. think of sophie's world, with less of the fiction component. how to summarise u tell me? on e other hand, i think its amazing how i can go into cls feeling 100% alert, and then the moment ive to take notes/listen to e lecture/solve e prob, my brain slowly comes to a standstill, and this nice feeling of heavy eyelids and drowsiness wld just overcome me. its a pity then that when its time to sleep at nite, my mind's always buzzing with activity, im constantly thinking of stuff and have to turn and toss till i drift off..

and next wkend im gg to disneyland yay! but theres a catch: ive 4 papers on monday to sit for, great. things always crop up in the end to spoil the nice rosy picture. nvm, id see how it goes. anyway, thankfully they should be fairly easy papers save for 2 of them. and ive finally booked my air hooray! if all goes well, i shld be back in spore by mid-jun! im praying really hard that all dossier-transferring, shifting, and admin procedures go smoothly. *keeps fingers crossed*

overload

2006-04-21T05:08:00.000+08:00

just a few more days before i head back to sch. sigh, how exciting. after just two weeks of idling around and not speaking much french, i think i have degenerated in most senses of e word.

isnt it amazing how time flies when ure having fun, or rather, when ure on hols? i hate the fact that all too soon, i wld have to get back to studying. argh, its just loathsome beyond words. and to make things worse, i cant seem to find e discipline to mug as hard as i ought to.

i thought that i cld put e hols to gd use, during which i planned to cram and mull over stuff tt require attention; but i ended up having more activities than expected. when e 3rd grp of sporeans left early last week, i cleared up some work and studied a little. thankfully so, as after that , i didnt touch my notes for 1 whole week. i had a blast of a time tho, so theres no regret. it was sybaritic to watch a french play and final dest 3 ( 10 euros down e drain wth), club, shop, booze and eat well for 7 days straight. but now, as i feel the need to tighten the purse strings, and the need to loosen the jeans, its all i cld do to counter the hollow empty feeling and the woeful realisation that its time to plummet back to earth again.

it was just 4 months ago when i pined away for e comforts of home,family and friends. and by divine intervention, i must say that ive settled down so much better now that i begin to appreciate studying here. sure, the lazy bastards of the french can annoy e hell out of me with their retarded penchant for strikes, and of coz, the lack of constant (sporean) company can really drain me emotionally at times. but when push comes to a shove, u wld just kick and keep ur head above the water, unless ure made of tofu or smth. i recall commenting months ago that no matter what, sporeans wld always be e ppl to fall back on when ure overseas, or smth to that effect. of course, its comforting to know tat they wld always be there when u need to speak singlish, and wat can beat the tacit understanding that all sporeans love, and are willing to go in search of gd food? i dunno if im any closer to eating my words now, but having gone out a lot more with a french/dutch friend recently and another norwegian/danish friend the past few days, i realise that e foreigners/caucasians are not that bad after all. ive not had much serious heart-to-heart talk over here, and thus i was very surprised and gratified that i cld engage in intellectual stimulation till e wee hours of e morn when e danish guy stayed over. it felt surreal to chat about everything, ranging from issues in the spiritual and social arena to mental, emotional and personal spheres. somehow, it makes me relook at circumstances from a different angle, and i appreciate at times, the advantages of taking the road less travelled. i think id be more willing to hang out more with the american/italian/mexican bunch now, instead of coming up with excuses not to go out with them. sadly, all these ppl wld not be staying here as long as i do.

ive actually meant for this post to be a mild one, but just chatting with this asshole at the same time on msn has managed to draw my ire and made me so fucking mad rite now. and so im gunning for a no-holds-barred diatribe rite here. simmer in heat silently? forget it.

bloody pharquer, you have quite some cheek i must say. firstly, i think im doing u a favour by putting u up when u wanna come to paris. but dun think i do not notice that tts e only reason why u sent ur 1st virginal msg to me. message me only when u want me to help u eh? balls to u understand. now, im not one who wld reject u outright, no matter how inconvenienced i wld be. but, bearing in mind the fact that ure one huge lumbering jackass who's asking to impose upon me, you shld jolly well have the decency to play e niceties game at least, even tho i can see thru your pathetic efforts at making small talk and enquiring about my well-being here. fuck u understand. i wasnt born yesterday, and u, cheapskate of a cuntface, shld have known better than to run me down with talk of your superior london education. so you think that that all tt ive mentioned was just a rehash of being sour-fruits at not being able to study in e uk? fine by me, u dickhead of an anglophile. if u wanna be so blindly loyal, go ahead. and if france is so pathetic in ur eyes, why bother to come visit? just stay in ur london,with ur eyesore of a big ben, ur krispy kremes and harrods, ur picadilly circus, westminster abbey, leicester square and oxford street and bond street and watever fuck shit u have. go fuckternise with ur whole gang of red-haired freckled british yobs with that fugly pallor and just stuff urself silly with ur high tea and scones,fish and chips and pork pies. and oh, dun forget the stiff upper lip alrite? while ure at it, enrobe urself in burberry's and gambol around ur oh-so-high-and-mighty fuckingham palace. perhaps u might be knighted by queenie eliz herself!! oooh, isnt it exciting to be among the ranks of sir elton john and mick jagger?? but pls, do remember to switch ur sporean accent to that phony british one tt positively reminds me of poseurs of yesteryears.

and yes, u do think the world of IC and UOLs. sure, go ahead and think that, no one's stopping u.but i draw the line when u keep comparing the french and english system. sure, the uk's education system is reknown and 'cool' by ur own words, but while e french counterpart might pale in comparison in the popularity charts, it doesnt translate into a lack of academic rigour. getting into IC doesnt mean ure so smart or anything ok? its not difficult to gain entry into top uk unis save for oxbridge. going by statistics, in e history of psc and other scholars studyin in france since e 1970s, only abt 5 managed to gain entry into the top grandes ecoles. compare that to the truckloads of sporeans gaining entry into IC and other UOLs, surely that says smth? u may say that the french system is old and too difficult, fine by me, but bring a uk-trained engineer and french one to the test, wld e latter necessarily lose out? and if spore weren't formerly a britsh colony, and if we hadnt adopt the british education system, we might be talking abt another playing field entirely. that english is increasingly becoming the lingua franca is just an opportune wave that comes along now, and one that english-speaking countries have the luck to ride on... know ur limits, asshole, if not u can start looking around for cheap accom. i do not owe u anything..

in search of lost stable times

2006-04-06T02:22:00.000+08:00

yesterday marked the fifth day of country-wide protests over the CPE, talk about indomitable spirit... sorta participated for a short 15 mins as an onlooker on the 3rd day of protests abt 3-4 weeks ago; and i tot it was quite fun and happening at first, since the people had balloons and colourful hats. they had their faces painted, and with music playing and them marching along while singing a catchy chant, it could almost pass off as a carnival. things, however, turned ugly that nite, with cars overturned and set on fire, and clashes with the police force. i guess i could never understand why the french feel so strongly about this new employment contract, nor wld i ever grasp the significance of going on strike. nonetheless, its a shame that the fifth biggest economy in the world has lost imagination to instill hope in its youth. this new bill, the CPE, has triggered social unrest thru'out the country. this law allows employers to fire young workers (people under 26) anytime within two years without having to state a reason, and its all in a bid to lower the umemployment rate of youths which currently stands at 23%. without going into lengthy detail of both sides of the argument, suffice to say that the earlier the general assembly reaches an agreement with the unions, the better. however, one stark fact stands out: the mindset of the french, and particularly the youths, needs to be radically changed in order for reforms to be easily made by the govt. in all a herculean task lies ahead esp in e face of tough competition from rising economies like tt of china and india...

more grouses about philo. its just like a mental cold shower. all the blood seems to stop flowing to my brain and it goes on screen-saver mode. thankfully spring break is up next week, which signals a gd time to take a breather and chill out on novels, movies and gg out. and yea, thank god my elect paper wasnt such a fiasco afterall, phew..

e london ppl came over last week to visit, and they were 'timely enough' to get affected by the strike haha. a grp cld only see the castles of versailles from the outside as they were closed that day, and another had their transfer train to another city canceled (which indirectly led to fortunate me having to walk 45 mins at 1am in e morn to go pick them up at the station, before trudging back for slightly more than an hr, in all sleeping at 4 am and not having my revision done for e mecanics test e next day, not tt i really cared tho lol). but i do hope that they enjoyed themselves immensely, since they ate very very well when they were here, went to disneyland, did some shopping, and managed to cover most of the essential touristy sites. on my part, i burned a large hole in entertaining them, and picked up a man jiang hong as well, but i think its worth it since i had lotsa lotsa fun hehe..

haiz, its late, ought to hit the books now, or should i hit the sack instead?

I will survive

2006-03-27T07:31:00.000+08:00

i wasnt planning to blog so soon, but im just so consumed by math ive to get away from it. slogging thru it for e whole sunday, what joy! elect exam last week was bombed big time, and french classes are getting so much more erudite in nature, boo hoo.. from playing games like taboo and learning fun words like 'silent fart' and 'loud fartbomb' in french (LZG, i dedicate these words specially to u!), im tackling on philo, and have to learn abt 16th to 20th century literature, theatre and prose. i spent 3 hours just learning about existentialism and baudelaire, and other schs of thought/writers. i cldnt have been more detached.

at times i wonder, has such deep pondering brought us any nearer to what we're searching for? or for that matter, have we even defined our goals clearly? Philo seems just like a didactic approach in seeking and reasoning out anything and everything; with hardly any concrete results to show. i can puke more than just blood this time round. countries all over the world emphasising on broad-based education. arts complementing science. what a mockery. i certainly dun give two fishes abt those circuitous discussions that expounded boring issues like happiness at length. i really did try to be interested but failed miserably. its nothing but idealistic qualities and utopian states that we've been trying to attain (without much success) since eons ago. quixotic and just won't fly.

and so in between my breaks yesterday, i started surfing on youtube, one of e sites i go to whenever im bored. wah this is really a portal to gd entertainment man. i can just watch video after video w/o feeling sian at all. i present to u my fav of the day:

omg, i luffed like crazy over this clip too, esp e part when he flung his cloak off. its so spastic! yet it cleared away my sunday blues haha . amazing what Jesus does for me! =)

on e other hand, spring is upon us! temperature's hitting above 10 deg at last yay!! dun have to wear so much when gg out now, but i can foresee higher laundry expenditure. shall think ways to economise, since my 'skills' have enabled me to do laundry once a month, or even once in 6 weeks, amazing isnt it? hahaa, the pile's always mountain-high, and i perpetually have a tough time squeezing it into the washing machine...

and e nite before, i caught crazy horse paris! not exactly what i expected. i enjoyed it, and i found it really colourful and artistic, but i left feeling a bit short-changed. how so, i cldnt place my finger on. its like watching a thai-girl show in thailand. i tot e latter wld be entertaining, since ive heard so much abt e feats the perfomers can do. however, it was more of a crude freak show that served as nothing more than a sobering reminder of the 'plight' those ppl were in, and how they must have felt while doing those acts. ok, i digressed. i tot initially tt a cabaret is all about sleaze masquerading as a more cultured form; with slow/catchy music and muted,coloured lights to make the lolitas look better, and also throwing in some nice glitzy costumes and cliché dance moves to complete the picture. i wasnt entirely wrong on this whole aspect, but still it didnt exactly fit e bill either. hmm i dunno also. watever it is, i urge u guys to go watch it in spore. i wld wanna noe the difference between the shows here and there. last but not least, i wonder if rockson's horse wld go crazy after watching it haha...

pop porn (sic.)

2006-03-04T02:38:00.000+08:00

just a quick nonsensical post not unlike my others just before i head to sch at midnite for the weekend 'sch excursion' to amsterdam. am too restless to study. now, before you all skim further down in search of the titillating paragraph that wld render e cheeky title of this post appropriate, bask with me first in my joy. my results for last sem were quite gd!!! yay, my average is surprisingly high despite my not understanding profs'french completely, and i even topped my cohort for chemistry, yay!!

ok, moving on to sleazier fields, lets just say i was wondering how on earth NYP tammy sex video scandal managed to create such an uproar in spore. it wasnt till i caught it (courtesy of a 'resident columnist' heh) that i finally comprehended why tammy was on e tip of everyone's tongue, if not screen. for the typical sporean sexual climate is so deprived, that even with carnal gratification, he/she wld gleefully hope onto the bandwagon and fuel the talk/help pass the video on. the poor girl. imagine the humiliation she has to endure. unless she has a screw loose in the head like annabel chong, she must have been gg thru hell knowing that she had just been heir to the throne of e notorious porn queen.

speaking of annabel, lets feast our eyes on her now (warning: pictures are small for easier consumption. oversized ones may result in nausea). presenting the fugly girl, who became the world's first female ever to become human swiss cheese (wait, make that an extra-holey cheese) after a 251-medals, 10-hr marathon of its kind:

and here is a watered-down yet more 'palatable' form of her:

managed to watch the annabel chong documentary ( a fren here has it on tape) abt 2 months ago, and am deducing that it was shown in germany as it has german subtitles; but given that her feat was performed in the US, it has to be a US production. it explains the callous nature of the credits (below). the US surely has to have a finger in the pie for such matters. afterall, the magnanimous girl has graciously declined any profits that the US porn industry reaped, claiming that she did not do it for the money. my gdness. how charitable and dumb can she get?

in it, they described how annabel chong (whose real name is grace ng) came about aspiring to do such a crazy thing. as most of you wld have known, she was gang-raped by a grp of black men when she was a student in london. when she went over to US for further studies (loony her did not go thru psychological sessions at all to help herself), she was basically overcome by the noble aim of 'wanting to revolutionise the way women were subjugated by men sexually'; and thereby a brainchild was formed.

she wld help pump big bucks into the US porno industry by going on tv and cavort around in the most ludicrous advert ever: asking men to come for a big-time gangbang with her.

the few scenes of the scores of men all eagerly waiting to mount her (some of whom were so grotesque-looking you prob wld faint just from the thought of coming into communion with them) only pale in comparison to the one where her mum broke down. its amazing how she managed to keep her family oblivious to her newfound fame; and this is despite the whole production team taking her spore house by storm, filming her in her daily life like meeting up with frenz and gg back to hcjc to meet teachers... etc. till now, i have no idea how the mother found out abt her daughter's deed back in the US as no one was supposed to let e parents know (i guess all mothers' intuition has the uncanny ability of being right most of the time) but that scene of her breaking down was sobering in the fact that it shook grace out of her 'madness'. at least the cameraman had the decency to allow the mother and daughter some privacy as they both sat down in a room and cried, with grace finally promising her mum that she would do the latter proud at the end of the day (entirety of conversation in mandarin). all this while, i was thinking that grace cld have risen to heights in other more respectable fields if she had wanted to. instead she soared to heights that brought her nowhere. tough luck. you shld have seen the way she participated in the US classes and lectures, her wit and intelligence, coupled with her eloquence certainly made her a top-notch student. and her graduation ceremony saw her giving an exceptionally well-articulated speech that resulted in a standing ovation. humble grace made a dig at herself by some reference to her 'prowess', and the americans obviously lapped it all up.

when the credits started rolling, i thought that was the end of the doc. and tat was till i heard the plaintive strains of 'amazing grace' starting to play. i cldnt believe my ears. the director really has a great sense of humour eh? and add to that, he has blasphemised religion by using it in such a prog!

lets just examine the first line of the hymn. the first stanza:

Amazing Grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found
Was blind, but now I see.

tt seemed to me like a deliberate pun on grace's name, and worse still, they qualified it as 'amazing'. amazing indeed. and what sound are they talking about? tts really hinting of smth else; and as for the rest of the lines, i guess i have no choice but to concur with the significance of it.

ok, time for some last-min packing, till then folks.

st valentin

2006-02-15T07:52:00.000+08:00

CHOUPINETTE

Le ciel est bleu,
les oiseaux volent...
Tes yeux sont bleus,
tes fesses sont molles...

Mister m.

waterbed

2006-02-12T18:18:00.000+08:00

watch this,its such a wicked prank and yet its soooooo funny! hahaha. a fren emailed it to me abt 2 months ago and i have to search for it on youtube to share with u guys.

am having my 2 weeks winter hols now, and the first one is just over. sadly, my physics prof wanna continue with lessons, thereby resulting in my not being able to go visit tim in oxford grrrhh.. thank gdness im heading over to belgium for a short wkend getaway. thats the thing with this particular prof of mine. it seems tt he's teaching in another sch as well and tt sch has doesnt have hols coinciding with mine, and so he insisted on continuing with lessons, how sickening. during his lesson this week, i was spacing out periodically as his thick southern france accent and my perpetual afternoon languor came together to induce a really strong stupor in me. and then i suddenly remembered the above video, and just had to break into a smile. now, beaming suddenly in the face of complex numbers, diff eqns and fresnel and bode in electrical circuits must have looked quite silly to him as he was instructing while seated beside me. and so it was all i cld muster to prevent myself from grinning. i bit my lips hard, and furrowed my eyebrows in a bid to appear focused. i hope i managed to do so convincingly. but recalling the shell-shocked look on those plus-sized aunties as they fall backwards spread-eagle style onto the waterbed is simply too priceless for words, lol. still, i really have to give credit to the caucasians, they have such a great sense of humour and they're so ready to laugh at themselves; even when the practical joke's on them. now, if this 'stunt' were to be pulled in spore, i think a lot of hot-tempered sporeans wld COMPLAIN as usual!!!

am quite pleased with myself for accomplishing most of wat i intended to cover over this holiday, tho finally having my own internet access in my room really serves as more than just a distraction as ive this addiction to just go online the whole day. many a times ive yielded to this temptation and as a result, had to burn e midnite oil till abt 2-3 am in e morning just to complete the day's self-assigned work. but not before watchign a movie or two of coz, haha. well, at least i can do so under e pretext of improving my french since some of e movies are dubbed and have no subtitles.

and here's the 'quiz' tt tim has tagged me to play:

(foreword: i practise selective counting)

Four Jobs you've had in your life:

1)student
2)soldier
3)giving tuition
4)admin asst at Old Victorians' Association (aka OVA, how dignified a name...)

Four Movies you could watch over and over:

1)Kill Bill, Charlie's Angels, (vengeance-themed, and female kickass movies are interesting haha)
2)spoofs like scary movie and stephen chow goofball comedies (slapstick humour is an opiate for the soul at times)
3)Horror! asian ones like ring, the eye, long-haired-creepy -women-in-white type and ancient western horrors like nightmare on elm street, exorcist
4)Final Destination, Jaws and other thrillers
5)sucker for romantic films as well, latest one caught on dvd was wicker park. enjoyed it immensely.

Four Places you've lived in:

1)bedok
2)guards at bedok camp II
3)chatenay malabry, my first residence in france
4)fontenay aux roses, my present one

Four TV shows you love to watch:

1)desperate housewives
2)the pracice, ally mcbeal (david e kelley is a genius, i wanna watch all e other brainchilds of his)
3)charmed
4)sex and the city

Four Places you've been on vacation:

1)asia: msia, indonesia, thailand, hongkong
2)australia
3)uk
4)europe: france, italy, morocco, san marino, switzerland, germany

sadly, i can never cover every place in depth, but still, am thankful to be able to travel =)

Four websites you visit daily:

1)emails
2)straitstimes
3)blogs
4)movies/cheap flights and holiday deals sites/forums

four of your favourite food:

i think i can hit forty easily but lets keep it simple

1)chinese cuisine is fantastic, its evenly balanced with heaty, spicy dishes tempered with equal servings of vegetables and cooling soups. but i hate veges like brinjal and lady's finger (god has a sense of humour afterall, he created a vege that produces phlegm and mucus). amongst those i like include orluak, char kway teow, hokkien mee, laksa, bak kut teh, kway chap, fishball and minced meat noodles, hongkong noodles, wanton mee, fried rice, carrot cake, duck, chicken and char siew rice, paus, ham cheen pang, popiah, horfun, chinese new yr goodies like bagua and love letters and kok zais and the tiny spring rolls with hay bee hiam inside, snowskin and traditional mooncake, bak zhang, dim sum, gong gong, la la, black pepper crab, bbq stingray, curry fishhead, shark's fin, bird's nest, pork ribs, hot plates, tau huay, cheng tng, chendol, ice kachang and honeydew sago and to expedite my entry, EVERYTHING on the menus of decent can-make-it hawker centres/coffee shops'zhi chars, and ding tai fengs and crystal jades and any other gd chinese restaurants worth their weight in gold. not to forget jap food, with all e sushi and sashimi and tempura and green tea ice cream.

2)malay food and indian food! wah, spicy and shiok, and confirm get sore throat if eat too much. got indian rojak, prata, roti john, curry puffs, satay, mee goreng, beef rendang,this burger thingy tts sold at pasar malams (i forgot e name), sayur something, some ikan and ayam thing and all the nonya/traditional kuehs during hari raya that can make you a diabetic straight after a meal

3)western. anything and everything thats rich and sinful and guaranteed to balloon u up into a dua pui. french, italian, american, mexique and grecque and blah blah, i eat it all haha. the french boulangeries, creperies and patisseries and italian pasta and pizzas and american staples like fries and burgers and onion rings and sundaes and desserts and sweet stuff like cheesecakes and brownies and shortcakes and english scones and eclairs and profiteroles and ice cream and milkshakes and chocolates and cookies and grec pitas and mexican falafals... all i like.

4)perhaps im not sucha foodie person afterall. ive only got 3 points.

Four places you would rather be right now:

1)singapore
2)taking a cruise down e nile river in egypt
3)greece
4)space exploration

Four words I wanna say right now:

1)i
2)am
3)so
4)bored

Four tagged :

1)kelvin
2)william
3)shaz
4)faliq

ok, ive to get back to studying, how sian. 2 units of french vocab and proverbs and idiomatic phrases that i most prob wldnt put into pracice, 1 freaking thick chapter on entire matrices and 1 on abstract incomprehensible vectorial spaces and kers.

till e next distant post.

free

2006-01-19T23:27:00.000+08:00

yay, my papers have just ended! I’m on cloud nine rite now! So freaking relieved and pleased. And finally, after a long wait, I can come here at last and spew some mindless rubbish. Sem 2 wld start next week, so I can afford to play damn hard for e time being! And wat a timely end to exams. with 4/5 weeks of country-wide 30%-50% winter sales now on, its time to go hunting for gd deals. Was told that as the sales weeks progress, the prices wld be slashed further. Fantastic, and add to that I can get clothes from the kids dept, all of which translate into more savings!

it feels so cathartic to just ramble on and on about nothing in particular. Seeing tt it has been a long time since e last entry, and now tt ive e luxury of time to surf freely, im gonna blog a very long and banal post. Lets kick off with my recent shocking discovery of myself: I think im putting on weight. Gonna balloon into a big fat pig not unlike those ive seen at bmt swimming pools filled with gargantuan whales of obese recruits. whenever they do aqua gymnastics, so much water lapped over the edges into the ‘drains’ im sure a refilling must have been necessary after each of these sessions in order for the next batch of ppl to have sufficient water to swim in. anyway, my face seems fuller, and my clothes are tighter. Boo hoo, ever since the italy trip, during which I stuffed myself silly with cheap yet extraordinary Italian cuisine like whopper-size pizzas, different types of pasta, bread, and not forgetting desserts, im close to putting on an additional 5kg since arrival… I want so much to believe that the clothes have shrunk in the wash/dryer, but their length remains the same, except the width. damn it. and so, unless im getting bustier (which is ridiculous), it can only mean one thing: im indeed fleshier and getting fatter. And tts not all, my metabolism rate increases during winter, and with practically no exercise and going out covered 95% from head to toe all e time, im getting fairer on top of getting fatter. Great. Imagine huge expanses of white thunder-thighs…

and now its time for e game that KS has ‘tagged me to play’.

Here are the rules:
Rule 1: List 5 weird or random things about myself.

Beware, some of them may strike as gross and exaggerated, and may see u changing your impression abt me. but then again, je m’en fiche. So goes …

1) I like cutting toe nails. It gives me a lot of satisfaction in cutting them haha. I always start off by using my fingernails to dig out the dirt/sock fabric that’s trapped underneath them, and as always, the greatest harvest wld be reaped at the biggest toe nail; after which I wld roll them between my thumb and index finger, smell them, and then chuck them away. I wld clip them next, and clip them in sucha way that theres no white part of e nail left. Cant rem the scientific name for it, but u get e picture: i trim it so short that only the pink part is left. lol, i feel 'cleansed' after removing them. maybe toe nails have more keratin than fingernails, and are thus harder. But they are really uglier than fingernails too. They seem to turn yellow at the edges, and can be really tough, so much tt i wld have to apply extra force to clip them. Ok… i think I better stop, on to

2) im given to the physical pleasures of the human body. before dirty minds start straying, lets make it clear tat im talking about non-sexual ones. I used to have a list of ‘5 greatest pleasures in daily life’, and I wld list those I remember/deem suitable for onscreen reading. The list was ‘drawn up’ during NS, and the very first one wld be easing an itch. There wld be countless hot sweaty nites in e bunk with 1-2 hardcore hogs snoring all around me; while I wld be awake, trying desperately to sleep but failing, thanks to pathetic whirling ceiling fans that did nothing to improve the air circulation of the room. Worse, the mosquitoes wld attack. And I wld be scratching away till the wee hours of e morning against the rough fabric of the blanket, dozing off only when it gets cooler, only to have to wake up 2 hours later for reveillé. Sandflies bites after outfield exercises were the worst, as they were often in huge patches of red tiny horribly itchy dots that you just long to scratch and scratch all day long, and I wldnt heed wat the others say of scratching only resulting in them getting worse. For me, the momentary shiokness was all tat mattered. And I rem longing to have an iron wool at that time just so I can scratch more efficiently. I wld only stop when the itching subsides, but by then, the damage wld have been done: bleeding. The same result occurs for the second pleasure: digging ears. The cotton bud wld be stained slightly with blood as a result of too-deep and too-vigorous scouring. But wat to do? Sometimes its as if theres an ant running up and down the ear canal, and it itches so badly im tempted to pour dilute acid into my ear just to relieve it. Of coz, I wldnt do such a thing, tho I wish theres a safer yet as-effective method of relieving e itch. Doing urgent business wld be number three. Who can describe in words the relief of unleashing all the load u have? Even your body wld respond by sending frissons of pleasure running down your spine, either tt or u wld have a slight spasm-like reaction upon completing the deal.

3) Im afraid of cats and rodents. never liked them since I was young. Used to hate going coffee shops as there are always cats there. Remember being stricken by panic once when i was young and had a meal there, with a cat sitting right below my chair. Couldn’t eat properly at all since I had to peer over every few minutes to check if it was still there, and had to prop my legs up against the pillar of the table just so my legs wldnt brush against it. *shudders* one of my nightmares wld be sitting on a stool and having a cat’s upright tail tickling my arse thru the middle hole in the stool as it goes by underneath. Now, I just steer clear of their path. This cat thing is bordering on paranoia tho. I wld come across one of the street, walk past it and still inadvertently turn my head back a few times after tt just to see if its tailing me. and rats are really the ultimate. Fond memories come flooding back now as I recall doing prowl duty on jurong island at night; and there wld be several rats either scurrying all around the prowl or rummaging thru some rubbish a few feet away from us. It was worse than supernatural activities. I tried not to sleep at all during nite duties lest some pesty rodent come and take me by surprise. Had to thank SQ tho for graciously helping me clean my helmet as I refused to touch it after the rodents brushed around it. Yucks. They were actually daring enough to come rite up to where we put our stuff and sniff around them.

4) Im super-prone to sore throats. This is really my Achilles heel as I get them really easily. Even rite now as im typing this, im having a sore throat. Before, it wld be due to excess spicy or heaty food, or too much throat exertion. but now, its amazing. I didn’t noe cold winds can result in you getting sore throats. I know better now and try to wrap a scarf around my neck or zip up higher when the wind is too strong/its too cold.

5) I cant think of anymore quirky stuff, so theres just this: I am tireless when having a gd chat, tho often at an inconvenient timing. Nothing pleases me more than a long meaningful conversation, or even idle wacky chatter, with friends. an eg wld be tt of doing guard duties at graveyard shifts. That wld often see me being wide alert and being unable to sleep. Skive we did, but I cant fall asleep at all and thus had to cajole e other buddy to stay awake. Else id be stoning away for 2 hrs straight.

Rule 2: List 5 ppl whom u want to do the quiz.

I wld like wengkeong, ANGry, timothy tay , lim zhiguo and Charlene ng to play too =) of coz theres no obligation whatsoever.

Rule 3: Next, leave a comment "you are tagged" on their blog and ask them to read your blog for rules.

Ok, some photos of italy up next, as well as of my new place. Sadly, I cant rem the names of some of e sites/monuments tt we visited as it was such a whirlwind of e trip. Went to lyon, nice, cannes ( all in france), followed by Monaco, pisa, florence, rome, Vatican city, Venice, san marino, verona, and finally Milan. All in a short span of 7 days. Take away the time spent on traveling from place to place and u have a rough idea of e balance time for sightseeing. Still, it was a fun trip. I realized that my Chinese is really pathetic and that my French wld be better than it anytime soon; and also, e ppl whom you’re traveling with is very impt. A week of close constant interaction wld surely see u getting to know e rest better, but some wrong buttons might get pressed, and if one doesn’t know how to maintain the harmony, tts it... Know better now which traveling kaki to call along.

the grp whom i went with. i was red again due to wine.

in monaco. look at e bevy of ships of luxury yachts!

against the backdrop

i was wondering wat on earth is indonesia's flag doing in monaco till i asked a shop-owner and realised that it IS monaco's national flag.

bentley!

wat cars they have here..

e casino

in florence

statue of david as proudly proclaimed by e graffiti

a scenic view of e river

e over-rated tower of pisa

vatican city!

when u stand inside this circle that this cheena piang had been hoarding for ages, you wld see that the 4 row of columns in e above pic wld all 'line up' one behind another

inside st peter's basilica

another façade of e basilica

swiss vatican guards. all of them are to be swiss to honour a swiss guard who died while trying to protect the pope during an assassination attempt yrs ago. seems a bit silly to me tho.

list of popes

wats tt???

i dun mean to be disrespectful, but this body of some papal staff reminds me of jim carrey in the grinch...

outside e metro of e coliseum. roman guard to play with tourists haha.

inside e coliseum in rome

being a gladiator then must have taken lotsa guts. to stand before the crowds with a lion to overcome..

ruins of e ancient city

off to venice!

look at e beautiful buildings from inside e fast craft! compare this to e sights when inside e fast craft to tekong haha...

gondola rides!!

some corridor

e main square!! absolutely breathtaking!

our gondolier against e sunset

the river by twilight. venice is really really scenic.

the gondola ride costs 120€, imagine how much they earn during sunny spells...

on to milan!

streets of milan

one of e shopping belts

View this clip on Vimeo

listen to these amazing buskers.. really good

my new place

all-functional table

foodstores

spanking clean bathroom, and best of all...

my personal super-clean throne!!!!! =))) no complaints!

Im so pleased with my new room. Its bigger, so much nicer, newer, cleaner; and best of all, has everything in it. But I think I need a study lamp and an additional chair. Alright, this is really taking longer than I thought, high time to stop here and go off to play!

last post of 2005!

2005-12-21T20:03:00.000+08:00

at last sch has ended, on a tuesday no less, with two papers on tt day. BUT, on Jour-J itself, i HAD to forget to switch on my alarm clock (which was the first time ever), and that resulted in me waking up at 0930 instead of 0630. never scrambled so quickly before, and was out in less than 15 mins instead of the usual 1/2 hr. after a mad rush to sch; i was on time for the second paper. thankfully... the first was mercifully administered after the second, but only after some sheepish explanation. being a single student helps too haha.

and with that, im on hols now!! altho its only for a mere 2 weeks, i have not felt so elated over sch breaks. not for a long long time. sec sch and jc ones were greeted with jaded nonchalance, and even my ORD was underwhelming. just went back to S1 to collect IC and some other stuff. without even the slightest modicum of excitement or jubilance.

it only hit me recently that i've been studying here for ~3 months, and that im happier now. i notice how my french varies with the person im talking to. impatient, intimidating teachers and clsmates who speak slang laced with thick french accents get to witness my half-baked french, while with others, generally people whom i feel more comfy with, i speak with more confidence. i wonder when i would be able to speak fully-fledged french. and i realise that my memory,diligence and discipline were left behind in spore. gone are the days where i can just rattle the points away or sit down and mug conscientiously. now procrastination and dilly-dallying took its place. i wld take ages just to settle down to study, only to get distracted by the magazine/my music box and there i wld be, either reading stuff other than my work or turning the handle of e music box like some prat, willing myself to stop after the 3rd round but ending up stopping only after the umpteenth one. and so my results could be more spectacular... got to buck up. the pedagogic approach here is so different, they throw definitions of theorems at you and then you're off to solving exam questions. what is this?? and they still have the cheek to sigh non-stop when i couldnt solve the whole question...grrgh. i really miss spore's spoon-feeding, whereby theres a nice little intro to set ur cogs in motion, plenty of explanations to oil ur wheels and progressive examples to ignite the spark plug. worse, studying in french seems to make the facts more impenetrable. portent of a tough ride ahead. come jan, i wld have to choose my next school to go to, which region to go to, and the course i wanna take. just thinking of it makes me wanna space out. meanwhile, save for the sporeans, the social landscape remains lamentable and needs to be sculpted further. like the french said, "ça va venir", which means 'it would come', but come when??? their 'take-it-easy, easy-come-easy-go ' mentality doesnt really go down well with everything, does it?

some people yearn so much to study overseas. i was like that too before, but now, i cant help but wonder if i would have chosen another path given this hindsight. i acknowledge the boons of studying overseas, what with being exposed to a different culture, becoming stronger in person, gaining independence blah blah. and with a recent short weekend trip to strasbourg and colmar in eastern france, freiburg in germany and basel and biel in switzerland, studying in e heart of europe has never been better. but all these could have been easily done and gained with a SEP isnt it? a semester or two would suffice to give you the opportunities to travel (albeit covering each place superficially only), see the world beyond the microcosm of spore and feel what its like to study overseas; and all this while u can play so hard with not much concern over your studies. moreover the duration isnt long enough to set u pining away for home or friends. its quite the best of both worlds, and chances are you wld be so happy overseas you dread going back home. students in spore wld beg to differ, but for all that studying overseas is worth, nothing beats going back spore at the end of the day, esp once the initial hype and thrill die down... just have your fair share of fun and wat-not during 1/2-semester sejour overseas and then go home. all that being said, human beings are never satisfied with wat they have, pastures will forever be greener on the other side of the fence; and so to whoever's on e cusp of making such a huge decision, i say deliberate long and hard.. follow your heart and dun jump on the bandwagon just because.

2005 seems to be such a short yr, with the first 3 months spent vegetating thru out the rest of NSF liability, followed by bumming around and getaways with platoon mates, on to much revelry with e dsta bunch and finally getting down to serious studies. my beliefs have changed, and paradigm shifts have occurred as a result of the many phantasmagorias of highlights and downs, but all that dun seem to matter now. i'd just live for the present. 2006 looks all set to start on the right note. i would be shifting to another residence on 2nd jan, this time with a fridge and kitchenette,wc and shower, and internet access all in my own room!! and the icing on the cake is that the rent might even be lower than my present one!!! *waves bye to my present shithole*

ok, this is abrupt but it looks like the sch com lab needs to be closed now, so in all gd festive cheer, here's wishing everyone a merry xmas and a happy new yr! =)

perspicacity or naivete?

2005-12-05T01:15:00.000+08:00

Qui a le droit - Patrick Bruel

"Te pose pas trop de question,
Tu sais petit c'est la vie qui t'repond,
A quoi ca sert de vouloir tout savoir?
Regarde en l'air et vois ce que tu peux voir"

On m'avait dit:
"Faut ecouter son pere"
Le mien a rien dit quand il s'est fait la paire
Maman m'a dit: "t'es trop ptit pour comprendre"
Et j'ai grandi avec une place � prendre

Qui a le droit
Qui a le droit
Qui a le droit de faire ca
A un enfant qui croit vraiment
C'que dise les grands
On passe sa vie � dire merci
Merci � qui? � quoi?
A faire la pluie et le beau temps
Pour des enfants � qui l'on ment

On m'avait dit:
"les hommes sont tous pareils
Y'a plusieurs dieu mais y'a qu'un seul soleil"
Oui mais le soleil il brille ou bien il brule
Tu meurs de soif ou bien tu bois des bulles

A toi aussi j'suis sur qu'on t'en a dit
De belles histoires et pas que des conneries
Alors maintenant on se retrouve sur la route
Avec nos peurs nos angoisses et nos doutes

Qui a le droit
Qui a le droit
Qui a le droit d'faire ca
A des enfants qui croient vraiment ce que disent les grands
On passe sa vie a dire merci
Merci � qui? � quoi?
A faire la pluie et le beau temps
Pour des enfants � qui l'on ment

Who has the right?

I had been told : Don't ask yourself too many questions
You know, young boy, life will answer you
What's the use of wanting to know everything ?
Look up and see what you can see
I had been told : Fathers are to be listened to
Mine said nothing when he left us
Mum told me : You're too young to understand
And I grew up with a place to take

Who has the right, who has the right ?
Who has the right to do that ?
To a child who really believes
What grown-ups tell him
You spend your life saying 'thank you'
Thanking who, and what ?
Deciding on the weather
For children you lie to

I was told : Men are all the same
There are several gods but just one sun
Yes but the sun shines or burns
You die of thirst or you drink bubbles
For you as well, you have been told
Of fantasy stories and tall tales
So we're on the road now
With our fears, our anguish and our doubts

i really like the song above. the lyrics are quite meaningful but once translated, they become crap.some say that drinking keeps you warm; not only does it keep me warm, it keeps me happy all nite long and i forget whatever gloom there was during the week. fantastic. a quintessential solution for low spirits. looks like ive found a solution to boredom during weekends. with beaujolais wine, hougaarden beer, 1664 and drafts, and hopefully more frequent gatherings with the others, my deprivation of gd fun during the week gets an outlet. and i must resolve not to let all the surrounding situations get to me. hard as it may be, it wld be a pity if all the verve dies out just because things dun get moving the way i want them to. im gonna sublimate whatever despondency i have into a positive attitude, its not gonna be easy, but i guess i have to do it..

some of the better times i have had..

red and high with drinking buddies

one of the few dinners that we had

and another

snowing again

the morning after it snowed

my 'favourite' italian chef deciding to play with snow. watch it! your pasta's getting burnt!

a new week ahead. 3 weeks more of sch. 5 weeks to second semester. 6 more months to spore!

flat

2005-12-01T03:45:00.000+08:00

this post isnt gonna be a happy one; id be griping and ranting non-stop so those who arent interested read no further. people who are gonna downplay my complaints here can go www.flykite.com. it has been more than 2 weeks since i last blogged, and while there are certainly occasions that marked the 'crests' of this 'undulating' period, they're really rare. the doldrums, on the other hand, seem to be the status quo of the day.

now, to those people who are studying overseas in the UK, US, or Australia, please do count your lucky stars if you have firm friends, particularly singaporeans, around u. your workload might be horribly heavy, and ur academics may be in the shittiest state ever in ur whole life; or hell, your room-mate may stink to high-heavens, and the toilet is dirty like chibong, but remember: if you have friends to hang around with, be it during meal times, or in sch, or to go out with, be goddamn grateful! for the very presence of friends helps to temper the storms of overseas studies, and simply, render the ride smoother and more meaningful. those who beg to differ can go away. youre probably one of those that like to oppose whatever others say.

im fully aware of wat im in for when i came over here, and believe me, im handling the plunge as well as i could. im revising my work whenever i can, and flipping thru the dictionary ever so often for all the bloody technical terms and jargons even my usual neatness fails to prevent dog-ears from forming in it. i listen to the french radio everyday and while aural comprehension and oral expression have improved, its all still in vain as besides being able to converse with the ppl here comfortably, wat i need at the end of the day is still a constant grp of kakis i can hang out with. you may very well say that ive chosen this path and so ive to stick to it. grin and bear it. trust me, come over here and and i'd see how u bear it. wats the point of being in paris when im mostly alone? fancy going to restaurants of cafes alone? what about a stroll by the seine? exploring the catacombs? the latin quarters? the royal palais? being the newest sporean in france sucks at times, most of the others have already seen most of the sights, and are less inclined towards visiting them again.

in sch, fortunately, ive managed to find a handful of people in my class whom i can seek out when i first enter the lecture theatre, whom i can idle-chatter on msn with and even go out occasionally with. but pray tell, who wld u gravitate towards or inevitably flock to when ure in need of help/bored/feeling chatty and wanna joke around with someone? certainly not that unbearable jock or that sunkissed girl from houston. and eew, that freckled-face ass whos so irritating!?!? and that proud japanese bitch? haha thanks but no thanks. u get my drift. perhaps its an innate nature of us humans to tend to group together by homogeneity. regardless of how well u integrate in with society anywhere, unless u are 100% capable of assimilating into the whole culture and are able to partake of their mentality and mores, chances are you wld stick out like a sore thumb, and probably feel like one too from time to time. and lets see how much small talk or solitude you can tahan before you get really sick of it.

in my residence, ive managed to find an italian girl who i always cook with. now, in all fairness, im very happy to have someone to cook with, somehow it just feels better to cook with someone than alone. but, herein lies the problem. shes over-punctilious about every single thing, and thats when i really feel like smacking her real hard. she can go on bobbing her head and spewing strings of unintelliglible italian words at me, i dun care. my dear italia girl, i know pasta and accompanying sauces are your fields of expertise, so by all means go ahead and instruct me how to go about mixing and cooking them. but, i draw the line when u get annoyed that i stir the goddamn pot of pasta in the exact manner you instructed me to! if u wanna do all the cooking, fine by me. and you stupid pathophobe, im as fussy over cleanliness as you are, so if you insist on doing the dishes, go ahead. id just sit and eat and watch and smile while you do the dishes. and if i wanna eat my vegetables and meat along with the pasta, its my blardy business, buzz off! i dun give a damn about how italians wld raise their eyebrows if i eat their beloved pasta/pizza alongside with other dishes. dominatrix indeed. thankfully, i dun cook much or else id probably go mad soon.

i tell myself that all wld get better. but seriously it wld be best if there were more sporeans here. its ok even if i stick around with sporeans whole day long, hang out with them during lessons and in my free time and when hols come, whee! go traveling together. its ok not to mix around with the caucasians and natives that much. the friendships forged wld stagnate at some superficial level anyway as compared to those with fellow sporeans. id content with just touring around, looking at all the attractions and having fun, and then leave when its time to leave, go back to spore contended with my sejour overseas as a student-tourist.

and the ppl back in spore, i share your pains and agonies over the exams and all else, so take heart! i face them here too and this time its worse as im all alone, thus when i encounter difficulties, i dun have 'ready access' to ppl who can help, and theres no home to go to at the end of the week/everyday for that matter. hot weather is bad at times, but at least it isnt painful! and the food, language, friends and all else that ive overlooked before i came over! dun take them for granted. this winter period is really awful. my skin cracks and bleeds like hell above the knuckles despite slathering loads of moisturising lotion and oil. and when the wind blows, its as if ure asphyxiating from all the cold air that gets trapped in your throat and threatened not to go down. cheeks get numbed and ears hurt. fingers bend as if you have arthritis and your toes feel like trotters. and when alls so freaking cold its as if your most important bits wld just freeze and drop off... add to that being lonely and tackling impossible maths, thats when you really feel like you could just die..

god speed my return.

A Perfect Day

2005-11-12T22:18:00.001+08:00

this tues, i did my laundry and swept my room (while waiting for the washing and drying to be done) in prep for a sporean girl who wld be putting up at my room from wed to sun. i was feeling terribly tired and sian of everything till i went to open my letter box. in it there was a slip of paper saying that i've got a parcel from spore!! my enervated being immed sprang into full gear as i went to the administrative block to collect it. upon looking at the squiggly handwriting, i immed knew it was from 'kelly' lim from VS haha. i was very excited back in my room as i tore the parcel apart. kelly just had to use duct tape with strength sufficient to bind mummies, and so i tugged like no one's business. at last i succeeded in tearing it open, BUT AT ONCE, i regretted it. and this i have to specially thank kelly for her sense of humour. who on earth wld be crazy enough to cushion the letter and other stuff with 'paper puncher fillings'?? half of my room's floor and table were covered by a mad kaleidoscope of countless mini pieces of circular paper. and mind u i just swept the floor!!! grrh.. but kelly was promptly pardoned, for her sense of humour has always been morbid and unique. =) and moreover, its a prezzie all the way from spore!! i went on to read the letter and im really very touched by the effort u fellas put in. a big MERCI to u VS ppl, with special appreciation going out to kelly for the additional effort she incurred at my expense. still, i must thank her for taking the initiative of passing me additional songs and dvds. hint: i miss desperate housewives 2 and other series too =)

and last nite i went for my second hillsong service. it was very upbeat as usual, and i thoroughly enjoyed myself. it felt gd to be singing familiar songs for praise and worship, and i get to improve my french at the same time thanks to interpretation done.

a video taken during P and W:

View this clip on Vimeo

another one of the service itself:

View this clip on Vimeo

it looks like my dec holiday plans are heading nowhere, how irritating. this is partly due to my ending sch on 20th dec, a tues of all days. some of the others end on the friday before and have made plans to leave on that weekend itself. italy, spain, morocco, greece, turkey, portugal, sweden, belgium, amsterdam, prague are some of the places i wanna visit. lets just hope i'll manage to go somewhere in the end, if not i'd prob go for some volunteering program thru' out the entire 2 weeks.

and next, some of the pics taken in london, in the museum george pompidou, and some random pics taken at cite universitaire de paris.

in west end

in leicester square

street leading to covent garden, fierce guy haha

charlene and i in her room at linstead hall, imperial college

with cy, gm and his housemates and nando's

covent garden, fantastic place, i like it lots

view from the top of george pompidou museum, montmartre can be seen on the right.

another view

art i cant understand

this 'art piece' is really weird. its just this metallic guy thats seated placidly near the bell, and when curious onlookers keep looking, there wld be a mechanism below the board that periodically propels him forward so his forehead strikes the bell

this restaurant on the roof of the museum reminds me of the one which carrie had lunch at, when she came to paris and met up with petrovsky's ex in SATC.

universite de paris, international hall

entrance

some street outside

one of the rarest signs in english

cite Uni has their very own theatre.. lucky.

ok, its time to go out now, till next week.

sans titre

2005-11-07T04:23:00.000+08:00

yet another weekend has passed. came back from london a few kgs heavier i think. ate very well, thanks to the sporeans who either whipped up feasts/ brought me around to stuff myself silly at restaurants/ accompanied me to throng oxford street and the likes of it. i enjoyed myself very much indeed, and to these fantastic ppl who have graciously hosted me with such hospitality, je vous remercie encore une fois. a special thank-you goes out to jas for having introduced me to hillsong london. tho i didnt get to attend the service, im sooo immensely glad that i had the sense of mind to come back and search for a branch in paris, and voila! they DO have one in paris, and im glad to make it my home church. best of all, the service is conducted in both english and french with the help of interpreters, and with songs of hillsong that ive been listening to all this while back in spore, praise and worship has never been better. they even have french lyrics, wah!! i was so happy that nite i attended my first service. im definitely gonna join a connect grp and attend whatever additional activities they organise.

this time round in london, the touristy options were less attractive than meeting up with ppl, tho i managed to cover covent garden, campden, south kensington, gloucester, leicester square, trafalgar, strand, west end ( and watched a musical too!!), and oxford street all the same during this short trip; and so im pretty much satisfied. comparisons between paris and london are inevitably made mentally to self, and overall i think i still prefer paris, tho theres so many things i feel can be made better. take the transport system for one: the tube is like so much better than the RER/Metro here anytime. the former is cleaner, more well-lit and has a much higher frequency than the later! not only that, its so easy to navigate with descriptions like 'north/south bound' its practically idiot-proof. i got a shock when i first got off at chatelet-les halles in zone 1 paris 6-7 weeks back. there are crowds everywhere and with 3 basements and 4 metro lines and 4 RER lines, i was more than overwhelmed. and there were so many overhead signs pointing to everywhere i wld have gotten lost had i been alone. also, the way the streets/ buildings in london are arranged in a clear manner(read: almost grid-like for those afore-mentioned areas) not unlike spore, so its quite easy to navigate on ur own, even for a newcomer like me. over here in paris, the roads curve and straighten anyhow like nobody's business, and therefore its quite easy to get lost. when i first took the bus here, i was standing and looking to the right for the bus all the while when suddenly, it pulled up from my left. crossing the road also requires a change of reflex, as now u have to look left first instead of to the right before crossing.

but london is much more drab as compared to paris, in terms of weather, architecture and people. there were only 1-2 days of nice weather when i went over there, on the other days its just grey gloomy skies/drizzles. ive been there only twice, but personally, i feel that the people here really dress better and with an almost inimitable elegant style; and theres a lot more sights, attractions and greater architectural wows here as well as compared to london. there is just this certain parisian charm that you feel while walking in paris, be it beside the seine or along the streets of montparnasse. its doesnt manifest itself in the form of haute couture that some of the parisians are dressed in, neither does it exude from the cafes and patisseries with their customers basking seemingly whole-day long in the sun. i cannot place my finger on it, but theres this subtle quality that embodies paris for what she is, and the same cant be said for london. perhaps it takes a longer sejour there than just 5/6 days to experience the british version of it.

for now, i think i need to improve my french further still and settle my academic stuff, before going on to break down more social barriers and make more real fast friends. only then wld i say that ive truely settled down.