Sick.

I've been hit pretty hard with the flu bug in recent days, spending the past two days just downing medicinal pills and sleeping with the hope of recovering faster that way. It really stinks to be feeling this sick, simply because there are a ton of things I can't do properly while being so sick.

Guess this weekend is purely for resting and recovering from flu.

Electrico's latest album titled " We Satellities" is a rather good album. A good album for people who are into indie rock, this local band is really worth listening to :)

Back to resting I guess, the medicine's really good at making anyone drowsy and tired.

BB Old Boys Reunion In A Long While.

Watched the Batman movie on sunday at the Shaw House, and felt that the movie was absolutely awesome! I've never expected the movie to be that engaging, but the actors really put a lot of intensity into portraying their characters in the movie. I particularly liked the scene where Batman was interrogating the Joker in the interrogation room as the scene was so intense! Kudos to the makers of the film, it's going to be an uphill task producing the 3rd movie simply because of the massive standards that were raised by The Dark Knight. I think everyone, regardless of age or preference, should watch the movie. It is definitely worth your time :)

I headed over to Holland Village yesterday evening to meet up with the BB guys. It's been a real long time since we hanged out, but there were still so much to talk about when we came together as a group. Miss Chai was treating us to dinner, so we headed to Sushi Tei for our dinner. I just can't get enough of the restaurant. Too bad for Sy, who can't eat beef and crab, and that takes away a sizable proportion of the good food experience in Sushi Tei for him. After that we headed down to Haggen-Daz for Chocolate Fondue. It was really good, but that also meant that the fondue was gobbled and finished at an exponential rate. The guys started discussing about having a soccer match with the current BB boys, and decided that the best date to have it was during the National day weekend..

Darn.

That means I can't be a part of the game because I'll be at Cambodia for missions during that weekend. Never mind then, I guess there's a reason why there are 2 legs in soccer matches. Hopefully I would be able to make it for the next one.

Now that I've mentioned about the Cambodia Missions, I better look up on the internet and books to prepare myself for the trip. It would totally stink if I were to go to the country and not be able to speak their native tongue, as that would totally ruin my chances of being in a position to understand their needs and their cultures and what have you. Time to buck up on the preparations.

Anyways, my friend of 7 years, Ze Hao is finally enlisting this friday! I know this sounds sadistic and self-deprecating, but welcome to my life soon to be recruit haha! :)

(Btw: check out Shirlyn Tan's music, she is a local musician, and she is really good.)

Sushi and Haagen-Daz

Went to Vivo City to meet up with my cousins, about 5 of us. Kor Damien wanted to treat us to dinner to thank us for the help that we provided on his wedding day, so we went to Sushi Tei. When I first got to the entrance of the restaurant, the queue that was forming up to enter the the restaurant was insanely long!! I've never seen such a long queue for Sushi Tei, especially it was a weekday and the general idea was that everyone would be at home being totally exhausted from a long day at work, meaning to say the restaurant would not be so crowded..

Wrong opinion this time, dude.

Anyways, we began ordering food from the menu like crazy. Initially I found it awkward to be ordering anything at all from the menu since the prices were rather steep, but after Kor Damien continually insisted that we just order whatever we wanted, I began to order more food as requested from him. The food was REALLY GOOD!! It's probably the best sushi restaurant I've been to in quite a while, and the best thing's that you don't have to wait long for the food to be served! I'll probably make more trips to the resturant in future, even though it means burning more money to good food yet again.

After dinner we headed to Haagen-Daz, which was just beside Sushi Tei. Kor Damien and Magdeline ordered sccops of ice cream on waffle and brownie. I've never thought that strawberry cheesecake ice cream would ever be such an awesome combination!! Really good, cheesey choc lovers should really take note :)

Ok, seems like Daniel's getting prepared to lock the office. Time to go home.

Cambodia

Had a briefing about Cambodia today in the afternoon by Canon Wong Tak Meng. The briefing were for those who were either going for the Cambodia Mission trip in august or had the desire to support the Mission trip either through prayer or future trips there as well. Canon Wong shared with us that Cambodia was a country whereby time had stopped, and the conditions in the country had only improved slightly in recent years. The reason for the dismal living conditions were because it was a war plagued country in the 70's and 80's, and the political instability faced in the country after that promptly ensured that only slight improvements were made. It seems that there are a minority of people in the country who are well to do, while the vast majority are still poverty stricken. Things got worse for the Cambodians especially during the global food price increases that took place this year. The general increase in the price of rice would mean that many more Cambodian families would not be able to afford the same amount of rice for their meals, and this is bad news since rice is their staple food.

Darn.

On a lighter note, Brother Elijah, a man of God who had been serving in Cambodia for 4 years now began teaching us some of the basic Cambodian phrases. It was really interesting because you really had to do some tongue twisting to produce the pronunciation required to make it sound cambodian. It was really an eyeopener session, to also learn about the various traditions that the Cambodians adhere to, such as greeting one another with a bow and having your palms closed together with the bow. I really hoped that with all this knowledge, I would be able to be in better position to be a blessing to the Cambodians when August comes :)

After the briefing, some of us made our way down to Dhoby Ghaut Station. Rachel had to go to SMU to study with the rest, so Naomi and I decided to chill at the Starbucks in Cathay. We kinda began crapping about many random stuff, like exotic locations to retire and the exotic nationalities that our future spouses would be. I think retiring as a farmer in a place like Canada or New Zealand would be totally cool, like you could really take care of your animals/vegetation while basking in the cooling weather and the beautiful scenaries around you at the same time! Talk about killing 3 birds in one stone, now that's my idea way of retiring, but that's another 30 years later i guess..

I'm actually suffering from flu right now, with the exception of the fever. Think I'm gonna be resting the whole day tomorrow, and hope things get better for me.

Public Transports, Ipod, Waterman

Bad news. Firstly, I'm pretty positive that my ipod headphones is gonna self destruct really soon. I've only been able to hear some creaking sounds on the headphones recently, which most probably is a result of a very bad personal compulsive usage disorder that I've been subjecting my Ipod to ever since I got it. I mean, not many people that I know can summon the extraordinary determination not to whip out their Ipods whenever they are travelling by themselves or when they are just plain bored at that moment of time. Secondly, my left ear has become more sensitive in recent days, and that means less music for my ears simply because my left ear can't take the heat. Darn, what i just mentioned simply meant I have to cut down on the music. :(

Went down to the airport to receive Dad in the evening. I was only able to reach the budget terminal after a long journey that spanned closed to 2 hours, and the fact that the shuttle bus left right in front of me as I was walking to the stop didn't exactly help much as well. Talk about a mega bummer! It was only another 15 minutes later when the shuttle bus showed up again at the bus stop, and this time I totally made sure I was the first to enter the bus. Met up with Dad and Mom and had Dinner at Han's. Soon after we decided to take the train back instead of the usual cab back home, with the idea of spending more on supper later on. True enough, we had supper at one of the many food courts in Jurong central, and sis joined us as well.

When we finally got home, Sis and I decided to suprise our Dad with a birthday present. The present was a fountain pen from Waterman, something both of us thought would be a very practical present for Dad, so we got it for him. I was both glad and relieved that Dad really liked it, because it was my first time shopping for something like that, so i wasn't sure what kind of a design he would had like. It took me 2 WHOLE DAYS to kinda shop for the fountain pen, so I'm really glad he liked it since it meant all my efforts were worth it. And I hope he will really use it. I'm sure there's a reason why the brand's called WATERman and not DRYman. :)

Sentosa's coming tommorrow, I hope the weather's gonna be good. Not that I'm interested in sun tanning; I have probably maxed out on the tannometer of my skin already. Hope it's gonna be fun!

What A Long Day

Kinda began my day doing T trail first thing in the morning at 2plus in the morning. We began to move out to do Sai kang ( meaning odd job work for those who are seeing this word for the first time). What do i mean by this? Basically it means feeling jerry cans to the brim with water as well feeling some water dispenser with ice for safety reasons, it's kinda some proper procedure to follow so that we can be prepared for anyone who get injured in the midst of the trail thingy. The whole thing lasted till about 9 in the morning, and most of us who were involved in the working party were exhausted by then. I mean, being caught in the middle of a rain storm in the wee hours of the morning totally stinks to the max capacity! The guys started bumming around around after that; some went to canteen for food, some were playing their PSPs, and others were just dozing off in all the possible places that you can think of. The bus that were supposed to fetch us back only came at 11, but generally the mood was high because news had already spreaded that there would be an off day tomorrow! Haha, the perfect way to boost the morale of the men i guess :)

Went to take out the stitches on my finger in the afternoon today. I found it rather amusing to see the little holes left on my finger after the stitches were taken out, and the doc suggested i continue to cover the wound so as to prevent any infection at this point of time. Despite the fact that the stitches were now removed, certain parts of my finger were still numb even to this point of time. Wonder whether this would be a permanent condition, but I guess it ain't so bad since I'm able to retain the majority of my finger. I can't really imagine how it would be if I was one finger down, but then again, I probably wouldn't want to think it anyway. Probably too gruesome a prospect for me i guess..

I was dumbfounded when the news came last night. I was expecting it for some time already, had the hope that it wouldn't come so soon, but it came and smacked me straight in the face when it came. I really don't know how to react after hearing it, so i simply shrugged it off for the moment. What am i supposed to do? Am i supposed to be happy and supportive? Yet my heart was not for it, rather it was against it. I guess.. it didn't come at the right time. Perhaps it would be better to take the next few days pondering over it..

This sentence is dedicated to a girl who's probably still outfield as I'm typing this. You know who you are, so endure through it! I'll see ya on friday haha, perhaps you can share more about yr outfield experiences :)


This movie's worth the wait :)

That Pair Of Jeans

It was quite an enjoyable day today. I had the luxury of sharing with the rest of the cell peeps regarding the cut on my finger. Even though the cut was already old news, some of the dudes were still in a state of disgust, much to my suprise. Anyway, it's been a long while since i saw that many cell group peeps on the same bus heading to Marina Square, wonder whether we can continue to do so on a weekly basis.

After lunch, we kinda bum around in Marina until we reached Times Bookshop. One book caught my attention, i think it was entitled "Do Ants Have Arseholes?" Both Clarissa and I were swiped off our feet reading the many lame answers to stupid questions. For instance, how many naked people does it take to kill one elephant? Ans: 100, 1 to lay the bait for the elephant, 2 to entice the elephant to take the bait and 97 others to jump and bite the elephant until it bleeds to death. I mean, what kind of a stupid answer is this to a stupid question? I rest my case.

Shortly after that we head to Gloria's Cafe for a short chillaxing session, and kinda stared at the many pictures of baby shannon. I kinda think that there are too many pictures of her on everyone's hp, but I guess the reason's simply cos she is cute :) Haha, I'm still one of the privellage few to have shannon call me by my name, so that's still way awesome in my opinion.

It was roughly 5 plus in the evening when everyone kinda left for home or concerts, and the only ones left were kinda Cristal and myself. We started scouting and hunting for a pair of grey jeans that I've been thinking of getting for a while now. Most of the shops didn't have what I want, and we were beginning to lose sight of our objective until we entered the fox outlet. Right in front of me was the ideal pair of jeans that I had in mind. Guess what, it totally fitted! I was gonna buy it, until I saw the frigging price tag and that kinda slapped me in the face. Haha, better think twice before trying any jeans huh Jerome :/

Well, I'm in the office with the rest of the branch dudes, and amazing enough everyone is in the branch on a sunday night! Haha, I guess everyone's feeling real sian, but the guy who deserves the Award for "Best Consistent Complainer" goes to none other than PAY LEON KHEE!! The guy's still complaining to us even as I'm typing this blog down, and I think the dude's brought the art of complaining to a whole new level haha..

Tiring Day

For some reason, i feel really drained out and tired today. It might have been the amount of work i did the day before, but in any case i felt really jaded today.

Thought the Word shared by John really brought a new mindset of thoughts to me. John shared about "Laziness", and it really got me thinking, what do we spend most of our time doing? Are we taking control and ownership of our lives by serving God and reaching out to people around us through love and concern, or are we getting too comfortable in our lives to make a difference for God? On a personal note, there are times in my life when I knew something needs to be done or said, but somehow i don't do it in the end. Could it be because I did not want to be put in an uncomfortable position by doing so, or am i just simply being lazy about it? All those thoughts came rushing through my mind when the topic was being discussed during buddy group, and perhaps it's time to really DO SOMETHING instead of just waiting for something to happen.

Oh anyway, I guess my buddy group were totally grossed out by the details about the deep cut in my finger. Everytime I mention the word 'blood' to them, all of them would cring at the sound of that word, and by the time i wanted to share about the stitching process to them, they were too affected to hear about it! Hmm, I guess the mention of blood and things of the same nature don't really go well with certain people, but I kinda think the stitches looked cool on my finger. The only thing is that it still hurts if i press the stitches, so that's the only downfall i guess haha..

I'm still wondering about the possible reasons that could attract a lady towards signing on in the army. Can't really figure it out simply because 2 years in the army is already unbearable, what more 10, 20 years of it? I should probably ask Vivien about it since she's kinda hanging out in the unit, I'm sure the reason will be interesting :)

Talk about being awake at the wrong time. Seems like it's gonna be a long night for me :/

Moments of insanity

Felt the mood in the office was generally high today. It might have been the stress of work, or perhaps it could have been the kinda food we were eating, but for some reason everyone went totally bonkers in the afternoon. We started blasting really ancient 70's music from Wyatt's Ipod, songs that range from cheesy "there's a kind of hush" by The Carpenters to just partying "staying alive" by The Bee Gees. We started doing really weird dance moves in the office that probably were the coolest actions at that time, and Wyatt really showed us just how much he knew about such groovy moves haha! It was at this point that i suddenly thought that Mdm judy was probably exposed to such music more than any of us, and it was really hilarious simply thinking of how Mdm would had grooved to such music on the dance floor in her time haha [she claims that she's not that old (:]

Come to think about it, I wonder how my parents would have looked during the 70's era. I'll probably check the old pictures out and see just how cool my parents were in the past! They should look totally trendy and colourful i think :)

A new OCT joined us today btw, i think her name's Vivien. She would probably be around for a couple of months, so thought the guys should kinda get her involved in our branch activities. The Lady deserves respect though, there ain't many girls out there who dare to be different from the social norm kind of girls in society these days, and that is simply coolness and independance in its own right :) Kudos to her, i think she'll probably go far in this career that she has chosen.

Btw, i still can't rmb what kind of noodles it was on sunday, think i better ask Vincent before even he forgets about it as well :) Maybe supper tmr would be a good time to ask i guess..

And I still think Bjork's a good singer, mind you Daniel :) You should probably listen to more of her music man bro haha!

first things first

I know tat its really horribly late to start on this, but this is a blog about my not so colourful life. Just got my finger cut real badly 2 days ago, like blood was literally squirting out of my wound. Didn't really thought much about it till Daniel yelled, " oh man dude, your hand's FRIGGING BLEEDING!!!!" I've never really seen my finger being so messed up before, like the skin was really shrinking with blood continually oozing out of it. The peeps at the medical centre could not stop the bleeding, so i ended up going to NUH for treatment at 1 a.m in the wee hrs of the morning. Didn't really get treated immediately though, the hospital was amazingly crowded at that time, and other situations/cases considered more importantly promptly resulted in my rotting on the treatment bed for 1 hour!! when it finally got to my turn, the doc clean my wound up and up to my 20yrs of life experience, was the MOST PAINFUL thing i've ever been subjected to!! The stitching of my wound was not so bad though, mostly cuz of the two injection of painkillers of some sort, and at the end of it, i could see three blue ends of the stitches ( for some weird reason the doc chose blue) sticking out of my hand like they were cactus growing on my finger or something. Sounds really eventful, but i kinda thought tat even though the whole stitching experience was way cool, i probably would not want to go through it again :)

So all the many rehearsals that gone by were for nothing in the end, mostly due to the one moment where someone thought it'll be good to use a nice knife to adjust something, and ended up adjusting his own finger instead. Shame on the dude.. :(

What a way to start the first entry of ze blog.