Dear T: Get well soon...

For those not in the know, T has broken up with her bf of 5 years. FYI, T was a major catalyst in enabling me to get to know HER. I will not mourn the passing of their relationship, and that's cos I know she deserves much better treatment than this callous 'You are too sticky' crap that the guy came up with.

T, I sincerely hope that you are able to tide this over ASAP, and there's no point shedding tears on someone that is unable to appreciate the absolute intensity of emotion as it was.

Tears that fall
Borne of sorrow.
Bear no guilt
For you gave your all.

Hush now.
_________________________

BABY's been under much stress lately, and this has translated to HER lack of patience and raised voices. HER harsh tones have grated somewhat on my nerve, which has been somewhat highly-strung following the events of the week just past, but SHE'd been apologetic and all is still well. SHE knows that this has been a difficult period for me, and for that, I am grateful.

Life ain't simple no more...

Halcyon rays
Through the window
Hopes that a better day
Might come to pass.

Black despair
That clouds my heart
To whom do I confide
Supposed bastion of strength.

Purple courage
The noblest of men
To face, to endure
To see through it all.

Red anger
Angst and sorrow
Set in stone
The fears of the morrow.

Why.

Why?!?!?!?!

My sis was flipping thru photos, and she chanced upon my ONLY shots of my BMT days. My 19th birthday.

I feel so fat...


Bwahaha...

A mind-blowing 6 days of fun!

There's been so much happening these few days that I've got no idea where to begin!

First up was the SMU Orientation camp! Met some great guys and gals, and Group 61 had some serious team-bonding done. Hopefully, photos will be coming right up, but here's an appetizer for my rabid brudders out there. There ain't no lookers, but seriously, NOTHING beats personality!



Though we didn't win anything in the end, the experience was thoroughly enjoyable.

61 rawks!

__________________________

What was your impression of the Circle Xperience before the camp?
I was told that it would be the experience of a lifetime.

What was your impression of the Circle Xperience after the camp?
It was.
__________________________

After the Circle Xperience and a short 6-hour hiatus spent in the company of my BABY, off to KL I went with Ra. It was overall an enjoyable experience, but the clubbing could've been better and more people could've stayed.

Well, here goes:

Happiness is:

-Having a foodie haven situated right outside your hotel!


-Best spent in the company of
Brudders

and Babes


-Both having your cake, AND eating it!


-Having Secret Recipe billed in RM!


-Being tau-poked by ur brudders


-The undisguised bliss of sleeping throughout the bus journey
Near Puduraya,KL

Near Yong Peng,Malacca

Near Larkin,Johor Bahru

Grad Pix!

Not mine... HERS!


Family Pic! ------------------------------------------------- DARL's onstage!

Her NTU Buddies! ------------------------------------ Our JC Classmates!
Gail,DARL,Shirley ----------------------------------- Tracy, LL and May2
and Ruping

And silly me adores HER so!

Tidied up my desktop...

I understand some guys' affinity to their laptops, but certainly, my allegiance still lies with my ever-faithful desktop. Its functionality, its number-crunching ability is still the most important factor for me. And being a gaming centre, television and music player all in one, I got myself down to cleaning up the tangled mess of cables that lie behind my computer. Pardon the *PINK* cup that found its way onto my desk courtesy of SFH. And my ageing CRT monitor sits there, unaware that its master has bought a sleek 15"LCD to take its place.

Plucked out all the connecting cables and power lines... Gawd I hate wires... Hope that wireless power will become a reality soon.

After an hour or so, I managed to finish everything up using twisties(the little green wire loops la! Not everything I think about is food leh.... -_-)...


And my CRT has been relegated to the corner...

SMUving into an incomplete shell!

Pardon the poor picture quality, but as I and Zhihong headed down SMU's long passageway, what struck us the most was the sheer untidiness of all the fixtures. The ground was covered in a sheen of dust and the walls were devoid of any decor, contributing to the overall unfinished feel of the place.

This pic reminds me of National Treasure...


The exterior of School of Econs & Social Sciences... Pretty nice glass facade...


The walkway to SESS from Li Ka Shing Library... LI KA SHING LIBRARY WOR! Got sell dim sum mou?


Inside the lift of SESS, we look at the gardens, 3 storeys below...


Some map of the place... the plastic was so coated with dust that I had to wipe it off first! Yes I wiped liao still lidat!!!


Come on guys... Finish the damn place!!!!

SHE's Graduated!

My BABY's graduated liao! Blinked back a tear... NOT! Anyway pix will be uploaded this Saturday... My camera's still with HER...

To leave you all with a cliffhanger,

Who is the she in question?

-WATCH THIS SPACE-

Hypocrisy Personified...

By his evasive answers and unflattering picture in the Straits Times, Durai is a veritable snake.


Mebbe he'll head to Hongkong after this

Kidneys should stay down there...

Channelnewsasia.com
It was a public scrutiny of how the NKF is administered and run, the travel patterns of its senior executives and the chief executive officer, and what salaries were paid to the CEO in the last three years.

The court heard that CEO Durai got a twelve month bonus last year. And between 2002 and 2004, he would have earned close to S$1.8 million.

From the outset, Senior Counsel Davinder Singh who is acting for SPH, emphasized the importance of transparency and public accountability on NKF's part as every cent which NKF spent came from public donations.


I feel strongly about the NKF. By consuming so much of the charity pie, NKF has inadvertently reduced the share of other charities. Right, NKF may be professionally run and so on, but by employing corporate tactics in the fight for obtaining a bigger share of funds, it has to pay enormous sums to attract the best brains in the business. In fact, the figure that T.T. Durai got would be enough for many other charities to survive on for at least a year. Hell, by the exemptions that most charitable organizations get, NKF is not even required to disclose its spendings. So much for 'being a corporation as well as a charity'.

The Singapore Cancer Society has recently seen the National KIDNEY Foundation intrude into its niche of fund raising, namely, that of cancer patients *duh*. Donor fatigue will inevitably set in, and even more so when it becomes clear that both charities are competing on the same grounds for donors' dollars. Why do so, I must say. Yes, the NKF has guaranteed its long-term existence. But does this mean that it has to do so at the expense of eliminating the means of survival for the numerous other charities? Indeed, the NKF has become the Microsoft of the charity world.

My discontent stems in part from their refusal to help my paternal grandma- "Sorry Auntie, your kids can support you liao!"
Their impassioned pleas for donations often stoke up my inner rage. "Who were we to choose whom to take off dialysis support?", they say. And who are YOU ALL to know what's with my family. To see my grandma waste away, with the family barely able to cope with the numerous bills that came along-with little support from kin. And so my Grandma died. And I'll never forget that.

The charity shows have indeed raised the level of social consciousness amongst the general public. However, Mediacorpse has limited its coverage to only that of the NKF itself. WHY SO? Why not introduce a rotation of the various notable charities in Singapore? Had MediaWorks not included Ren Ci Hospital, the NKF would be the only 'charity' that has such massive media attention. And does anyone remember the times when a charity show was singular? One off? Satu keping? This edition of the NKF CANCER show consists of 3 parts. Will there be a weekly event next up?



I just realised. There was another set of NKF shows back in April this year.

Bye Zhong!

Oh well. Today's gonna be a hive of activity...
First up: Zhong's 饯行 lunch... Venue is at Novena Square... Attendance: All the bros save Meng...
Next: Sim Lim Square. Gotta build a new comp with budget < $600 for my uncle. Threw in a Geforce FX 5200 (exchanged my beloved Ti 4200 with Nick) and a pair of Kingston CL2.5 dual channel RAMs... Tentatively, the specs are as follows...



CPU: Socket 754 AMD Sempron 3000+
Mobo: Abit NF8 nForce3/Gigabyte K8NS nForce3
RAM: PC3200 2x256MB Kingston CL2.5 DCK DT-D48
GFX: OEM(Dell) Geforce FX 5200 DDR128MB
HDD: Seagate 80.0GB 8MB Buffer SATA
ODD: BenQ DW1640 16x DVD+-RW Dual Layer

Total Estimated Price: SGD$597

Compare this to my own specs



CPU: Socket A AMD Sempron 2800+
Mobo: MSI K7N2 Delta-ILSR
RAM: PC3200 2x512MB Twinmos CL2.5 DCK
GFX: XpertVision Geforce 6600GT 128MB
HDD: Seagate 40.0GB 2MB Buffer PATA
ODD: Iomega Dual DVD+-RW 4x
PCI: Leadtek Winfast PVR-TV Deluxe
PSU: Coolermaster RealPower 450W

Mine's like Takumi's AE86 compared to Ryosuke's FC or Jordan Chan's EVO lor... Cos the casing is fugly but the internals are pretty good... Save for the CPU of course...

I'm probably meeting up with Duan after that to fix his external HDD problem... And some acquaintance of mine just messaged me asking if I am free today to fix his comp. Having planned for today's events well ahead, I replied "Nope, sorry... gonna build a new comp today. :)".

-SILENCE-

No courtesy message like "Oh it's ok! Another day then." or something to that effect. Hell even if my bros ask me for IT help they'll ask courteously leh! Dammit... I dun owe YOU anything alrite! It happened the first time he asked me too. Can I go down to Tanah Merah following my trip to Toa Payoh to help him fix his comp? It's a pretty distance, my *erm* friend. And you're not Koof. Nor Meng. Nor anyone else in the brotherhood for that matter. I replied saying that I'd love to help him format over the phone, but after waiting an hour for a call, I just went to sleep.

I'd like to just restrict my services to my immediate circle of friends, and whomever they wish to extend it to.. I must say that although fixing up others' comp always provides me with new stuff to learn, I do have certain people whose sole motivation to dial my number is when something crops up on their computer.

Relationships et al..

One word... COMPROMISE...
______________________________

Some guy came up to me at Bedok and asked me to do a survey. As my bus was some 15 minutes away, I agreed. It helped that he was wearing a Newcastle jersey though...

He'd set me thinking: "What do you consider the most important in life?"

Now... If this had been me a year back, I'd probably have answered: Money! Make loads of it and retire at 35.

Instead, I found myself saying, "Relationships. Without the people that have graced my life with their presence, I'd be a very different person today. They've imparted me valuable advice, good-naturedly allowed my constant jibes and lent a helping hand in times of need. Looking back, I've made major decisions with the sole consolation that there'll always be someone to fall back on, to back me up if such a decision were to backfire on me."

I abhor superficiality.. I believe relationships are what you make of it. Time spent engaged in enjoying each others' company is definitely superior to squabbling over the might-have-beens or the what-ifs... Time spent in inanity is time wasted.

Lengths are never a good measure. Of anything.

Of Mitre and MyGal..

Dun feel like blogging but here's some pics... One for Meng to do some comparison and one for my own lack of thrift... Broke liao still spend... Ma de...





Meng... there's a world of difference even with grainy peektures... CHEER UP ALL! (including me)

I know what you're going to do this summer...

I've been thinking of another girl... Ever since I saw her on Oasis, I've been thinking about what she's gonna do...

Beware, for when the freshmen aren't really that fresh, you will get psychopaths like YOURS TRULY! Bwahahaha!!

I am the terror that flaps in the night, I am the headache in the Facilitator mind...



You ain't in my circle of trust... So LYS...



Let's get dangerous...

Last day of work at CSCDC...

Today was the final day of my Central Singapore CDC stint. An eye opener, certainly, and it's with a tinge of sadness that I leave the great people down there... Especially Jason, Brenda, Doreen, Sharon and Joanne, who've all made me feel part of the family, despite the short tenure of my services.. It's really a great departure from the days of politicking and backstabbing, and a lucrative one at that!



Jason took me out to lunch (sounds gay) at Swensen's... Didn't learn that much more about the enigma himself, 'cept that he's older than he actually looks... and that he's really the wonderful person that everyone makes him out to be... _____________________________________________

Over a meal of pasta, despite the obvious unease, the tension that so plagued that night was no more. And so ends the interlude, with their story continuing as it was meant to be.
_____________________________________________

Did I say that I miss HER?

Sunshine after the storm?

Dim Sum buffet today
Buffet participants included Meng, Me, Changqi, Ra and Jing... Today wuz an accomplishment lor... Look at this man... It's page 2 of our order chit...



Impressive ok! 42 笼 and a few plates of beef, sweet and sour pork, shrimp paste chicken, shrimp balls and then some! *burp*

Ra engaged in his favourite post-brunch pastime before popping the yummy morsel into his mouth for a quick fix of sodium gelatine. GPGT!!


Went to Peninsula Plaza for some shopping after that, and then Celest called Meng... She'd fallen down, and Meng looked worried... (I interpret that as a positive sign) And so, we left the place hurriedly and headed for City Hall MRT. Meng dashed into the station and left...

Update: I'd just called him, and everything seems alrite...
________________________________

We headed for Suntec and watched Batman Begins... The start of the movie seemed oddly unrelated to the Batman that we know of, but in all, it wuz a great movie! Went shopping around for long-sleeved shirts but couldn't find anything that was cost-worthy, and after some aimless wandering, Ra went home to his tuition kid...

Jing and I went to Raffles City to shop, and with so many people milling around waiting for the results of the IOC deliberations, we found the enthusiasm infectious and so we stopped around for a bit...
Jing had to leave, and we left just a few minutes before the results were announced.

So I went back to Sengkang, and I spotted this bag that looked pretty cute (to me at least) and I bought it...

I know... It's a cheap ripoff of Ra's Crumpler... But I'm really flat on the financial side now, and so I am only 19 bucks worse off for this...

Tomorrow's a workday, and so off I am, to sleep... SHE's finally beginning to make friends there... Oh BABE I miss YOU so...

Relieved, I am... though...

There's no replacement for love...

What a tumultous night. Meng and Celest.. I feel so cui.. Why dun I feel the same way about their relationship as I did for Koof? I've got no idea... It just seemed so right.

Please let things right themselves. Obstinacy on either's part will never do.

Please...

There she goes....

And off SHE went, on ValuAir Flight XXX (I forgot the number liao).. And now that I'm back home, figured that I'd might as well blog about it... SHE'll be back come Friday, and I'll try to make the most of these few days without HER... I'm planning to dimsum buffet on Wed with Ra and co... and go back to CSCDC on Thurs and possibly Friday... I didn't mean to pang seh yesterday lor... Stupiaks Meng no say Babayaro going, else I wud not be paiseh in hitching a ride to TP post-supper.

And so, the car was sent for repairs... They did an impressive job(It'd better be, cos it cost some 160 buckaroos...) Uncle Richard refused any form of payment from me, and I feel so guilty...



So concludes my encounter with the Camry, and damn, I'm missing HER already!

Initial D and a dented bumper....

Well... I don't know what to say... I dented the Camry that I wuz driving today... Guess where? At A FREAKING MSCP!!!... WTF.... Anyway... the dent wuzn't too bad... But the documentary evidence as shown below suggests otherwise... Hell man... It wuz an expensive delivery of prata for me... And so we took it to an auto workshop along Ubi.. The quotation was about a hundred bucks... So I guess It wuzn't a VERY painful lesson...



Moral of the story? It does not pay to underestimate the length of your car bonnet...

And to let your nephew aged 22 1/2 with barely any experience of driving large saloon cars with delusions of grandeur and aloofness (think Jay in Initial) drive your car... Well, so much for an easy mode of transport... It wuz pretty fun 'cept for this incident...

Disclaimer: The pic taken with K700i makes it worse than wat it really looks like... Suxor.....
__________________________________________

Anyway, Initial D wuz ok la... better than War of the Worlds, which had a predictable storyline a la Independence Day and numerous CGI-ed scenes... I even fell asleep at the initial part of the movie... So Darren found Initial D interesting as well, and I was amazed by the speed at which they turned the steering wheel... Jay's wooden acting suited his character to a 'T'... Hey.. can I drift in a MSCP?