this semester has been slightly different (as with every semester). its almost as if i lost the drive i had last semester. the drive to mug. i'm just a fraction of a pinky's nail away from a different class of degree. but this semester, all i really want is for myself to enjoy the good times and not let them slip by. i'm having a hard time concentrating. i was hoping i'll end up on an exchange next semester. meet some new people. breath a little. then i heard the people in maastricht are more mugger than those in nbs. if that means failing modules there, i hardly know whats best now.

its week four of the semester. i've been playing quite a fair bit of volleyball. the inter-school games, the inter-national games, the inter-hall games, and the upcoming surf and sweat. i guess the last couple of games on the court made me realise there is so much room for improvement. not just in skill, but the other aspects of myself that will follow me no matter where i go and what i do. i'm working on them desperately but some things, i feel, only come innate.

i realise i can't actually defer my ns after a quick phone call. i wonder hows it gonna turn out. in fact i've been wondering about so much lately. i wonder where my internship will bring me. and as usual, how my results for this semester will turn out. i wonder whether the ophir trip will realise. and how the months of may, june and july will come to pass. i've been fairly stumped, but not as much as when i begin thinking of my career.

i felt a good stretch in my head during one of the first few marketing lectures of this semester. slide after slide of demographics and extrapolations, it made me realise how much the future beholds. and yet still we'll always be running out of time. oil reserves are emptying. the maldives is sinking. our knees will grow old. we will retire. the whole world is planning for the future. and that is when i try to see myself 10 years from now.

i'm beginning to believe in friends and family.

stereophonics maybe tomorrow, and newton faulkner's teardrops, sure brings back memories of driving home along the expressway at night.

Labels: life, nbs, volleyball

It was a small bunch of us that went down to Central for the fabulous ramen noodles at Marutama. I believe its the best ramen in town. Then while qx went home to watch 'Friends', the rest of us had a walk down to the Esplanade. We had a good time taking photos of the night.

The next Monday morning I woke up in the early afternoon and joined C and her gang at the Tanjong beach. It was a pretty good day of play and the weather didn't ruin the rest of the day. There is the surf and sweat to look forward to with some of them.

Came Tuesday, the 29th of December, two days before the new year, I made my way to school. The FAL closed on me so I was left at the reading room, unable to print my things. I continue to map out the factory outlets from the google maps in anticipation of the then upcoming Hong Kong trip. At around seven in the evening I made my way down to the hall's volleyball court. T'was the slight drizzle, and a bit of tension when the guys didn't show up punctually. Towards the end I could not really play like how I wanted to (or how I used to). It was frustrating. I blamed it on playing on an empty stomach but I wonder if its something more of an excuse.

I took a quick shower, picked a couple of people up, before driving down to Walt's place where it was another night of poker. I think nights like these are gonna be here to stay. We checked our grades for the semester online. Not too shabby, and I'm pretty close from my target cgpa. To get there, that would be my new years resolution. After the last couple of rounds of poker, we headed down for supper before going over to the airport where we saw Chris off. The early morning drive was smooth. I reached school back at 7 in the morning where jn and I had good old eggs and toast for breakfast.

On the 31st December, New Years Eve, relatives came over to my place. It was a belated Christmas dinner. Gab and his sis, together with my brother and I found ourselves in a bedroom playing poker. At around ten at night, I went over Joce's place where the gess gang was. Friends for a decade. We had a couple of drinks, played cards, and then it was a long tiresome struggle for Sj to go off. My brother came to pick me up at around 8. That was my new years eve.

I stayed home on new years day, to pack for the trip to Hong Kong. I didn't get much sleep that night and then on the 2nd Dec, six in the morning, we flew off. The sun was rising as we took off. The itinerary went something like:

Day one: Night Markets, Victory Peak - The fog was pretty bad we could hardly see the buildings. The weather was chilling. We went on a random spree.

Day two: Disneyland - It was really the best of experiences, especially when tinkerbell flew by... even if its just the 3d goggles.

Day three: Shenzhen - The Lowu Commercial Building was an eye opener; the vendors and fake watches... Deeper in, to dong men was more pleasant to walk around. I crossed the immigrations back to hk empty handed though. Back in hk we visited the stretch of outlets at the camel building where I managed to grab a nice jacket. It was the one of the few buys from hk. I was quite convinced its hard to get a good bargain these days...

Day four: Citygate outlets - I walked out empty handed, though they really had every outlet housed in a building. And bid cw and kl farewell.

Day five: The Dragon's Back of Hong Kong's trail - It never got this cold although at first refreshing. The view was breath taking. If I had the time I would bring up some hot cocoa and sit there the entire day. I really would.

On the 6th Jan, midnight, I touched down back in sg. I had a casual chat with the cabby on my way back. Never felt better when I dropped my bags. I was exhausted and deep down glad that the IH volleyball match on the next day was postponed.

On the 7th evening, my family had dinner at the Long Beach restaurant off the east coast park. It was good to have dinner with the entire family every now and then.

The next day I had two of my wisdom tooth removed. The process was sort of nerve wrecking I admit. I wasn't in much pain but spitting blood in the sink didn't make me feel any better. The bleeding has stopped but not the lethargy.

Before the surgery I ended up buying a siamese fighting fish. I call him Mr B (for barracuda). I can't stop watching him swim around in his tank.

I watched the guys game on saturday and spent a good portion of sunday out gallivanting with my parents, from the hawker center at amoy street to the flea market at china square central, to the marina square and then to clementi. In the last few hours of the night I watched episodes of 'That 70s Show' which made me have some good laughs. Its been a long time since I had good laughs.

School starts tomorrow. December I should say was rather well spent. Sure, there weren't many days of laze and rest. That is how I know I was out having a kick ass time. I sure hope its a good semester ahead. A good internship ahead. And a couple of good trips ahead...

Labels: december, gess, nbs, travel, vacation, volleyball

wmp: dave matthews band; crash into me.

wednesday - the casper gang came over to my place to bake. the cookies were burnt. both batches, in fact, though the roosties and other dishes turned out swell. my feet and left ankle weren't feeling too good still.


thursday - leo helped out with my guitar. the elixir poly web strings gave my guitar a new lease of life. i popped by chin bee cresent on my way back to grab a kilo of ribeye right after. it was a good dinner.

friday - we were going back and forth about poker that night. it was called off (to my disappointment). and then all of a sudden in the early night, we managed to arrange for a night. jean, andy, walt, jer and myself. we kicked off the night at jeans place at around midnight. it was quite a night. around something around 4am we had supper at thompson. i've always enjoyed taking the night out with friends. it was seven in the morning when i conked out on bed.


saturday - damn i can't remember what went on. i probably slept most of the day away before visiting my grandma in the evening. it was depressing. thereafter my parents and i went down to the runninglabs at velocity. i grab a new pair of shoes and hopefully it will be the end of my feet problems.

sunday - i hand washed both the latio and 200e. my brother would have helped but i was in debt to him already. thereafter, i went to the gym for some ten to fifteen minutes. i haven't quite have the time and energy for a full workout, tragically.

monday - i made my own way down to town. to be honest, after stepping out of the orchard mrt gates, i stood in the area, stunned for a quite a moment. i almost had problem recognising the immediate area. it must have been quite a while since i popped by town. i hardly make it there these days. ky, chris, daoy, cas, zhiyun, km, walt and i had dinner at relax bistro at new 313 somerset. it was a surprise dinner of sorts. the pasta were at 50% and was not too bad. we ended off with ice cream at cold rock on the same floor.


tuesday - walt, jean, jn, chris and i made another one of those day trips to jb. we had lunch at stonegrill, hung out at the arcade, did some brief shopping, sung k at the 'neway' at city square, and the seafood was glorious as usual. we each got a superman tee which was uber awesome. the plan was to wear it together at the upcoming xmas gathering.















wednesday - casper gang came over to bake once more. this time round the chocolate chip cookies were much of a success. i went back to hall seven for some vball in the evening. it was ages since i last played; my last game was weeks before the examinations. it was just two sets as i was late but they were good still, mainly because of two reasons. one, i played pretty well i guess. two, my feet didn't quite hurt. it was liberating. i was worried about recovery but that night was a sign for more to come. its a pity i'll be missing two out of three inter hall matches because of the clash with my hong kong trip. the inter hall games are important to me as they are one of the last few school competitions of my life.

thursday - i woke up early to grab two sets of the 'stacked poker' chips from bluegate in anticipation of friday's poker night. since i was in the area, c and i managed to arrange to have lunch together. i brought bah kut teh to my grandma's place on my way back to the west. with what was left of the afternoon, i baked 50 cookies & 2 cookie man with the leftover batter from yesterday. i decided to do the cookiemen after the two batches of 25 cookies when it began to get boring. they were great fun to do.


friday - it's gonna be another early morning because of the course registration.

Labels: bbq, food, friends, hall 7, nbs, poker, travel, volleyball

(i will endeavor to be more detailed in my entries 'cause some of my past entries don't make sense to me anymore and it feels like i've lost something that i might never quite recover)

wmp: black eyed peas, meet me half ways

thursday - astro paper, the last of the papers. i was bursting with joy at the end of it though the people around me didn't quite feel the same. i am keeping my fingers crossed especially for the aa203 paper (God knows what the heck i was doing). after pondering our next move for awhile, we canceled the trip down to the sitex and leo zy & i had dinner at olive & fig. the wait was long. the kebabs were big on the portions. a tad too much garlic on the pasta, but i liked it anyway.



friday - t'was the morning run with jn. its a long while since i last ran. two rounds round the campus. i ran of out gas somewhere near the 10km mark. we had breakfast at the hall two canteen. after a nap at home i ran out again to grab my new phone. the SE w705 had dropped to $0. the timing was oh so fine and i didn't have much second thoughts about it. i was in fact quite pleased after toying with it... i had a couple of episodes of everybody loves raymond before i headed to bed. its nice, to have a few laughs before dozing off and i've been doing it almost every night.

saturday - at 630am i reached toa payoh and met leo & his friends. we hopped on the coach and made our way across the causeway. we spent a fair bit of time travelling on the coach and i napped whenver i could. t'was the kota tinggi falls which wasn't much of a sight. we didn't even bother to get ourselves wet. the seafood lunch and dinner weren't top notch either. t'was much to diss about. somethings were so atrocious that its almost hilarious. of all the stopovers, the ostrich farm was an eye-opener. the ostrich egg, the ostrich chicks, the ostrich satays,... the ostriches that roamed around were so calm, gentle and at ease with us humans around that its almost sad to know that at some point of time they'll all eventually end up at the slaughterhouse...




















sunday - beach with gess mates. i dumped my guitar in the latio before driving out. i got the sun burns even with the sunblock. honestly, the beach has somewhat lost its appeal. maybe i'm just getting lazy cause i had thought the best thing that could have happened then was not a good game of volleyball but a nice hammock. i wonder if i'll find the motivation to head back to the gym this month. showering at one degree fifteen has always been something of a sumptuous life, thanks to jo. we eventually found ourselves at the red dot at dempsey hill. with a glass of green beer each. and dish after dish of glorious food. at the end of the night i made my way to leo's place where he checked on my trashy guitar. i can't wait for the new strings to arrive.




















monday - i accompanied a friend to the dentist for a tooth extraction. did a check up while i was there. it seems like i've got some extracting to do myself but i'm rather reluctant to do it during this holidays (hmmm). i got back home for a quick nap before running off again to tabita's new place off the west coast. it was nostalgic driving around the area having lived there before myself. i didn't do much while the gang had their go at tennis, table tennis and pool. i really am getting lazy. some of us parted and the small bunch of us(marc, melo, leo & myself) had dinner at karu's curry, before finally heading back home after being unable to settle down for a night of poker.

tuesday - the run with jn & ky from the macrichie reservoir to the bukit timah nature reserve to the bukit batok nature reserve. it was refreshing. i was reminded of the cross country days back in gess.




















wednesday - i woke up and rushed down to the cathay to meet leo & zy. we caught 2012. not too bad a film. i'm quite keen still on renting the bunch of dvds of films i've yet to catch because of the tight semester. cw joined us after the show for a little while before we went on our own ways. i met up with the rest of the casper gang at chinatown for steamboat. it was quite a feast. zouk was tiring business. the casual chat with j over supper was depressing.

thursday - i woke up at around noon before heading down to the nlb at bugis where ky, jn & jo were. they were busy looking up for recipes for a good time in the kitchen come next week. we wandered around a bit for some food around the area before ky jn and myself headed down to the expo to collect our race packs for the coming standard charter marathon.

friday - rest. i hand washed the merc 200e & the nissan latio. i had dinner at imm with alvin, hj & kk. my ankle hurts so i wonder how the marathon will turn out... with regards to 'other matters', i guess i shouldn't be as hopeful.

Labels: beach, gessvball, nbs, post exams, run, travel, vacation, volleyball

i can't remember when it was exactly now, but somewhere along the way, between the days of the three blissful months of absolute getaways and nothingness, and those of waking up to the routines of the five minutes rush to morning classes(God bless the nissan latio), i decided, on a subconscious level, to run, swim, gym and play like i've never had. i decided to get every i could, from signing up for the standard charter marathon to the mini biathlon at ntu.

the best part was, i wasn't quite alone; t'were a good bunch of them who lost their minds too and signed their souls to the big marathon as well. we had a good plan together, to chalk up distances and cover good ground with each passing month, until at least the commencement of the mug for the final examinations. i made everything i was in for count. for me at least, it was almost a human experiment of sorts. to see how fast, how strong, how good i could get. its been something more of a month and so far, i felt i've grown from this all. its addictive. i'm not talking about the feel good in terms of esteem or the sense of accomplishment and what nots, but there have been nights when i felt fresh enough to read FRSes and textbooks till the mornings and i guess i realise i must be onto something good.

then came the night i went back to hall seven for a night of volleyball(it was nostalgic being back) right before joining the guys at the other side of the campus for ten kilometers worth of run. its the second day now after the run and theres a pain in my left foot that makes every step i take feel like a hard kick into a brick wall. it didn't quite frustrate me at first but now i'm rather convinced that its highly probable that it's stress fracture and that can mean six to eight weeks of laying off the track and everything else. it feels like crap and i haven't even reached the real implications of the disruptions 'cause i haven't quite the slightest idea how long this foot will take and how hard the month of october will be.

gg, truly.

Labels: hall 7, nbs, run, volleyball

wmp: Keri Hilson, Knock You Down

the coughs are finally going away. i hate crowds for such reasons. apart from the lack of space, you get that whiff of air after someone sneezed or coughed or made some funny noise and you're screwed.

after an eleven hour sleep, my body now aches possibly from the sudden trauma of volleyball after lying on bed for the whole week.

the games were pretty short being only fifteen points each. winning two games out of four wasn't enough to see us coming back on sunday. in between the games we talked about our lives, talked a load of crap, laughed, fiddled with the stikfas that came in the goodie bag and then marveled at its awesomeness. t'was a sumptuous lunch then wii at C's place. oh wait. haha. i think thats probably the reason for my aching arms. C's place is so awesome its like a palace.





the last couple of days has been much of crap for a multitude of reasons but i actually think next week will be good.


"There's a black crow sitting across from me; his wiry legs are crossed
And he's dangling my keys, he even fakes a toss
Whatever could it be
That has brought me to this loss?"
- Bon Iver, Stacks.

Labels: hall 7, volleyball