the unheard voice

2009-03-22T23:25:00.002+08:00

Hello, long time since the last post. I actually typed something while I was accessing my posting a couple of days back but I gave up halfway and ended up doing other stuff. HAHA.

Okay so if you don't already know, I'm off for my next 9 months in OCS, and while it's the path I wanted to take, I don't exactly look forward to it. Just can't wait for it to be over and get commissioned. Sounds like I've a bleak outlook but nah I'm just looking forward to the light at the end of the tunnel. Sure I know I'll grow as a person, but 9 months go past quick! Haha.

Anyway SALT retreat was awesome. God just blessed it over and over when things looked so disorganised. I wish I had more time to elaborate but yeah. Awesome.

3 week confinement starts tomorrow. Do keep me in your prayers!

2009-02-15T00:07:00.002+08:00

I swear each subsequent book out sucks more and more. First was best, with the Chinese new year break. And then it was 8 plus pm book in and now it's reduced to 5.40pm tomorrow. I'm wistful but oh well.

I don't know when it happened, but somewhere along the way in my NS life I realised that life would never be the same as it was before. Maybe it was during field camp on the 4th day, where after a particularly vigorous (HAHA sounds lame) tekan session we cried when our platoon sergeant sat us down and told us to reflect. And then people cried some more after we got letters from our parents, written and sent to the company and kept specially for field camp. Of course it was all in the plan, to make people cry, and I'm not afraid to admit that I did. Some people will scoff and say if you're a real man you should be in control, and I agree. No it's not soldierly to cry, but soldiers are human too, and that was just a raw moment of humanity. I cried not because I hated NS and that it was going to be my life from now, not because of all the punishment, not wholly because I missed my family and friends. I cried because after 6 years in NPCC, I came to NS jaded and lethargic faced with 2 more years of regimentation. But I guess at that moment I woke up to the fact that just trying to let life in the army pass me by wasn't going to do any good, and I resolved that I wasn't just going to have my time in BMT slide by anymore. I was going to live my life in the army, and I cried because I promised myself that nothing was going to break me no matter what, not any punishment from any officer or if circumstances dictated that I had to do something I hated.

I cried because I missed my friends, the people around me and my old life. But I cried also because it was a part of letting go,of no longer being in denial. Now don't get me wrong, Im not saying I'm not friends with people and that I'm giving everything up for army. I mean that I've come completely to terms with the way things are now, and I'm embracing life as it is, for myself and because I know God wants me to. Some people're in denial, and book outs are times for them to re-become civilians. Me? I'm a soldier now, and weekends are well-earned breaks to catch up with friends and see my parents.

Once you've got the right mindset, I guess NS can get pretty enjoyable. You meet new people, do things that you'll never get to do otherwise and hey, you get stories to tell your kids in future. I mean, it's like 2 years, why waste it by staying at the bottom trying to slack off? I don't like being dirty, as many of my friends will know, but once you get past the inertia of moving out of your comfort zone everything becomes an experience and if I look at it one way I'm being paid to train, so why not get the most out of it yes?

I thank God every day that He sees me through everything and that He allows me to draw strength from Him all the time. It's at times when I'm most uncomfortable that I ask Him for help to persevere, and hey I'm still doing great, so praise the Lord. =)

Anyway Valentine's was pretty good, went out with her and she planned a massage session for both of us! Then we were supposed to go to Sentosa but I wanted to shop and was pretty lazy so we stayed in town. Bought a flower from Mel for her and we had dinner at Wheelock. Pretty good stuff. I'm typing unusually much so I will stop here.

3 more weeks to POP!

2009-01-27T16:22:00.001+08:00

The Chinese New Year break went by so quickly and now I'm booking in again in a couple of hours =(

I wish I had more time.

Field camp when I go in. Do pray for me =)

2009-01-07T19:46:00.002+08:00

Hello everybody, my time is officially running out and i feel sad =( People all ask me if i'm scared of NS and my answer is always 'naaah'. I mean, I'm pretty used to regimented life after six years in Marist NPCC. If you're done with NS and you're reading this and you see the previous line don't scoff and say NPCC is nothing like NS, because everyone says it's more slack but just dirtier. Funny thing is I'd prefer it to be less slack but cleaner hahaha.

But yeah, point is, I'm not really scared of NS, I know I can make it in there and I'll do everyone proud =) I can't help feeling sad though, because I really will miss everyone. I feel so loved from all the messages and emails and stuff, and I guess it's a good thing to feel sad too because it shows I've close friends who I'll dearly miss. Thank you all for being there for me all I'll see you on the other side yeah? This sounds gay but I love all of you back HAHA.

I was debating with myself whether to write dedications (I sound like a DJ) cause I didn't want to leave anyone out. But hey I'm just gonna type some short sentences, if you don't see your name here it's not cause I don't remember you, just that I didn't really think you'd read my blog. So in no order of importance:

To my dear little miss tiny, please take care of yourself ok? I won't be away for long, and I hope you really really enjoyed your birthday. I'll miss you too =)

To Phyllis, you've heard it many times before but I'll say it again before I go in - you're truly an awesome friend, period. Thanks for being there for me, and Happy Birthday in advance!

Farmer De Silva, you're an amazing guy who's always willing to be there to help no matter how inconvenient it is. I mean it when I said I'll be there if you ever need my help for anything at all.

To my two dear Godsisters, thanks for just being who you are, really. You're the sisters I never had, and you made me feel loved as part of this extra family =) Eunice I want to kope more stuff from you when I'm back HAHA. I will give you loads of stuff too! Beat, thanks for the email. Touched much okay. Haha I actually typed you a message after reading your mail but I realised I didn't send out cause my new owning colour phone with polyphonic capability and flashlight didn't have your number. Love you both!

To Henry Louis Velge, you take care too man. Thank you again for that email, I totally wasn't expecting it! You're a good friend and I want to thank you for everything. We should be in a proper band of our own when I get better HAHA.

To Kenneth and Jasper, I've watched you both grow and I thank God for you two. I've passed the baton to you two and I trust you guys. I'm there to help whenever I can but for now it's your show ok? Please take care =)

To Val, Mel and the other shooters, thank you for all your support and encouragement. A part of me will always miss the times we trained together, and I know we'll always be good friends. =)

To the bros, you guys have always been there. Even if we don't hang out every day and stuff I'm thankful for all of you. And the fact that we're all guys means we all have NS as a common topic! Haha we'll meet after BMT and talk k?

To everyone else, if you're going to miss me you're someone I'm going to miss too. Sorry if you didn't see your name up, it's cause I'm rushing off. But thank you anyway and we'll catch up soon!

Signing off,

Recruit Andrew Tay

2009-01-04T22:40:00.002+08:00

I guess it's time I got down to blogging before my time is up and I get conscripted into National Sl*very (must censor in case some government official reads and I get screwed).

Where to start, so many things to say! Basically I'm going in on the 8th and probably the only thing I'm really looking forward to is getting a hot bod from NS HAHA. One pack ----> Six pack please.

Ok I know lotsa people make new year's resolutions but I don't really bother cause most people fail in the end anyway. Haha but I do look back and think about the year that's passed though, and reflecting, I've really a lot to be thankful to God for. For moulding me and instilling that spirit of obedience in me when I served in my first YISS, for making a way for me so many times, for the friends around me. I really will miss everybody so please do keep me in your prayers ok?

I originally wanted to type out a proper testimony for this YISS, but I got lazy and I think this copy-pasted msn convo with Val will do. Hahaha YI truly is amazing. And God makes it amazing, and you know even though the thing that happened was pretty freaky and showed that the devil is real, it only served to strengthen my faith in God that He is all-powerful, and that darkness flees at the sound of His name!

Andrew says:
oh haha you are online!
hello
=)

Jesus take the wheel says:
hi!

Andrew says:
omg yiss was super amazing ok
it's like
80 people who at the start from all walks of life
some haven't been to church in 9 months or more
from just standing ther during pnw
to jumping and raising their hands to God
whoa
haha
and outpouring was amazing too
you should've seen God at work
haha almost all rested in the Spirit and everyone was praying in tongues by the end of it

Jesus take the wheel says:
sounds cool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
thats good to hear (:

Andrew says:
yeah
and it's like
God really worked wonders
people being forced to come to yiss
ended up jumping and praising Him
people who were hurt, held down by sin, guilt were healed
and it was just...
haha wah

Jesus take the wheel says:
(((:

Andrew says:
hahaha omg
but you know
with such powerfully spiritual camps, it also means that spiritual attacks are also more severe
and the devil will try even harder to attack
like on the second night during one of the sessions, even i felt something was wrong la
and like, i'm not the kind who sees visions and all?
i've never seen a vision, i only have tongues
haha
but even i felt something was wrong la

Jesus take the wheel says:
omg i just read yr text abt yr fren

Andrew says:
and after that the service team shared that they felt it too, that they felt distraction and evil
haha that happened just now this afternoon
anw the intercessors
haha they're a subteam whose role during yiss is just to pray
they saw visions throughout la, which is so cool and reaffirming
but during the time that session was held they got the word distraction
but after that they prayed and all was ok again
oh then this afternoon one was scary
during ministering, people were like getting slain super quickly
even some of the facils also
and like some of the participants like immediately when the speaker said 'just receive' they fell
but anw
during end of the session suddenly my friend started shaking uncontrollably
and he couldn't talk anymore
my other friend apparently felt some demonic presence and i saw her crying
and it was kinda scary la
so the leaders brought my shaking friend to the back to pray over him
then after that we brought him to the room where he was still shaking and couldn't talk, like he saw something really really bad
and no matter what people asked him he didn't respond, except to occasionally nod a little
so anyway it was just before mass and our priest came in to say a prayer for him
and then after that one of the adults came in to pray over him

Jesus take the wheel says:
yea

Andrew says:
and cause in the room there were just a few of us by my friend's side
and he asked us to pray spontaneously
then he put his hand on my friend's head and told the devil he had no place here
that in Jesus' name he bound all spirits and cast them out
that Jesus is lord
and then my friend in a really short while started crying louder
and then he was alright!
=)
he was really thankful after that la

Jesus take the wheel says:
omg
abit creepy...
my youth camp not so xiong
but sth like tt also

Andrew says:
yeah cause
yiss is a REALLY intense spiritual camp
honestly i have never felt anything like it
i remember my yi
the moment i stepped in i felt something different
like God's power was there strongly
and participants say the same thing also

Haha I'm not so lazy after all cause I made the effort to neaten it and make it easier to read. But yeah praise God for that!

I think NS is just going to be another time for God to mould me, to sheath me and use that time away from serving to make me something better. I don't want to go for NS, but it's my cup, my cross to bear, and I'll just have to keep praying =)

2009-01-01T22:00:00.004+08:00

Message me if you're interested! Haha. Ok lots to update about, YISS, Christmas etc. Soon soon. =)

2008-11-26T09:25:00.002+08:00

Hello. I am sick. Woke up at 3 plus last night (technically it was just now) with a fever, and I downed two panadol before going back to sleep. Then I woke up again and voila! I'm still sick.

And now I've been transferred over to Logistics for YISS. They said they felt it was better for me and I just went "uh ok, only if you REALLY need to because I much prefer fac-ing". Oh well. Must be God's plan. I dunno if I'm ever gonna serve in YI again though, NS and all.

My dad's com isn't at home and I can't watch Avatar cause that's where I saved all the shows (don't think he knows though). =(

But hey i'm not complaining (much) because I'll be getting the Fender Strat after all zomg yay.

Ok time to go back to bed and die.

2008-11-17T23:31:00.002+08:00

Kay so I really need a hard drive of my own, like 500GB kind to store all of the stuff from other people's hard drives. Haha OMG Ian's hard drive is like some candy palace so full of sweets that you don't know where to start, and there's so much candy that either you die eating it or a mountain of it collapses on you. I opened it and found a whole gazillion tons of stuff, and I HAVE HEROES SEASON 3 NOW HAHA.

If you ever read this, thanks Ian, if you don't I'll thank you when I return your hard drive.

Paintball tomorrow is killing me with excitement, or maybe it's more of the fact that I'm finally done with As. Physics totally sucks please.

So many things to do - getguitargetpromclothesbuyothernewclothesfinallygettosleepinaftersolongmaybegobacktoshootingplayplayplayplayplay.

Then NS. #@$!#%.

2008-10-28T23:06:00.002+08:00

Ok so today (just like many other days at Bishan) after finishing some work, Ky and I decided that we would go have a game or two of Fifa Street up at the Xbox 360 at the computer shop at J8. Yes I know it's no life, seeing I have my own console, but it's times like this that are needed to destress. So anyway we've been getting alot of 'bao tou's from people like Hao Feng and Bai Rong to my tuition teacher saying that we were gaming and not studying, but today was top-class lah.

A couple days ago we were playing and suddenly my tutor JAY CALLED.

Jay: 'Andrew, playing game ah?'

Me: (omgwtfLOL) 'huh no la don't believe the stupid Haofeng, he's cooking up stories again!'

Jay: 'Aiyoo..tell Ker Yu to study ah...'

Me: 'No la not playingg. Going home already don't listen to them!"

HAHAHA.

Guess what happened today?

When we decided to have one game and were playing halfway...all of a sudden,

Jay: (places his arms around our shoulders and laughing) "Hello..."

Me and Ky turned around, I thought it was just Bairong and then OMGWTFBBQJAY?! HAHAHAHA.

Bairong went to tell him that we were playing and JAY CAME OUT OF HIS HOUSE AND WALKED TO J8 TO SEE US.

CHEEE. Ok freaking funny la. I have bastard friends.

2008-10-25T22:51:00.000+08:00

Is anyone enlisting on 8 Jan? =(

2008-10-19T22:16:00.000+08:00

I am trapped in a cycle of sin, shame, sadness and fear.
Is there a way out? I want my life to be happy and meaningful.
What should I do?
If God is perfect, can He love a mess like me?

Amplify Ministry invites all youths and young adults to the 20th Youth in the Spirit Seminar. This unique encounter has been a defining moment in the lives of many. The YISS is a 4-day stay-in retreat where, through reverent worship, insightful talks and introspective sharings, many young people have revived their relationship with God and refreshed their lives in Him.

Come.
"Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, There is freedom." - 2 Corinthians 3:17

"So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed." - John 8:36

The YISS is for youths aged between 16 to 30,
held from 11-14 December 2008,
at Catholic Spirituality Centre (CSC),
1261 Upper Serangoon Road S534769

For more details, please contact either:
Eunice: 96672382
Keith: 9320 2850
or email us at youthinthespiritseminar@gmail.com

IF YOU WANNA SIGN UP.. LEAVE ME A TEXT, COMMENT OR WHATSOEVER.. JUST LET ME KNOW! :D

copied directly from Phyllis's blog. But you can let me know too. Haha.

2008-09-24T21:41:00.002+08:00

Ok so A levels are 40 days away zomg, and my prelim grades are EEEEE. HAHA no as in seriously 5Es, which is like 'Eeeee' please. Ok lame, I'm rather disappointed with GP because I failed my essay with 22/50 which shouldn't be the case, and Chem and Maths were horrible screwups. All the same I think it's pretty cool to get the same grade for everything, unless it's 5 Us. Haha. Now to bring everything up a few notches and make it cooler by having all As.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

2008-09-10T22:59:00.002+08:00

V is for victory. Though it's not a sharp V, almost a U even. Shit getting a U is not good. Hahaha. Didn't want to have a sharp one cause I wanna leave it long, and if I left it any longer there'd have been a tail.

I'm talking about my hair. HAHA.

2008-09-10T22:10:00.003+08:00

ZOMG THE NEW NANO IS DAMN COOL SIA I WANT. AND ZOMG THIS IS LIKE THE FIRST PICTURE I'VE UPLOADED IN 24324592384 YEARS.

HAHA. Ok I've decided I want this and not anything else. It's cheaper, smaller and almost the same price as the previous Nano. With more cool faeatures that I'm lazy to talk about here. And besides, no money for iPod Touch please. If you back up your suggestions to get the Touch with cold hard cash I don't mind though =D Haha but I so want this, I'd scrimp on money to buy food to buy it. Haha can lose weight also.

Tomorrow's Chem MCQ, Physics MCQ the day after. Tried a few Chem questions just now and I'm panicking because I've seen them before and I forgot how to do them. Ha. But I'm tired and am going to sleep soon, so leave the worrying till tomorrow because it's an afternoon paper.

2008-08-28T19:48:00.000+08:00

I NEED AN IPOD NANO.

$313. Saving starts now!

2008-08-07T23:39:00.002+08:00

This is a late post, as with almost all of my posts (or lack thereof) nowadays. It's just really hard to take time out to type something out, but I thought this was one of the occasions I'd do a post before stopping for a while.

I gave the keys to the SALT room and the cabinet containing all the music equipment and guitars to Kenneth last Sunday. That means I'm stepping down as a facilitator and band leader because I'm putting things in perspective right now and as a student, the best way I can serve God at the moment is, well to study. And God knows I haven't been doing much of that. So I officially stepped down on 2 August after the performance for Father Kenny's farewell - in a sense it was also mine too.

I really will miss SALT. Only six months here and I'll miss the times the jamming flowed, the times facilitating sessions, the times I spent around friends. While it isn't goodbye, it's still, I don't know, sigh-inducing? This is a part of me I'm giving up for the time being, and I can't wait to get it back.

Meanwhile it's back to studying.

2008-07-21T23:05:00.002+08:00

"Be my servant, and I will give you rest."

"Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness. And all these things shall be added on to you"

That's what I got during last Friday's Amplify session, when we prayed in pairs to see what word God had for us. My partner said this to me, and I guess God's telling me something here. That He'll give me relief, welcome relief. During pray-over one of the team came to me and said he sensed I felt lost, and I didn't think I was at first, but now pondering over it, I guess I am. My studies are a mess, I'm stressed out over the band, school, everything. It's like an emotional roller coaster, and I can't wait for 'A's to be over too. It's a relief in itself that God's telling me He knows.

On another note, my new tuition teacher is like damn owning please! He knows everything zomg.

2008-07-03T23:01:00.001+08:00

Let now our hearts burn with a flame

A fire consuming all for your Son's holy name

And with the heavens we declare

You are our king

2008-06-30T22:54:00.002+08:00

Sucks:

1) MY MEDICAL CHECKUP CLASHES WITH THE DAY I CAN PON SCHOOL CAUSE OF NATIONALS.

2) I shot 542 for monthly shoot. 84 for first series and I couldn't really be bothered with the rest.

3) School starts tomorrow.

4) I dropped a bunch of my albums on the floor and 4 of the covers broke.

5) I am still damn fat.

2008-06-28T00:04:00.003+08:00

Yeah so midyears were screwed, period. Haha but I'll just add on that Chem was ________ (fill in with suitable word you would use when you're uberly frustrated). I'm so glad I can finally take a breather.

Training tomorrow morning, then off to have meatballs at IKEA with the most important person in my life =)

2008-06-21T22:05:00.003+08:00

Monthly shoot tomorrow! Hopefully I'll get another PB. Been hitting 550s during training, 550 two days ago and 554 today. I do hope I've finally gotten rid of being plagued with 540s. Haha ok if you're reading this you're probably bored. I'm lazy to make things sound more interesting because I'm watching LOTR on channel 5 right now. Oh I have exams on Wednesday! Brilliant.

Note to self: Andrew you are screwed for midyears. Why aren't you panicking?

560 tomorrow! =D

Edit: MONTHLY SHOOT IS NOT TOMORROW IT'S NEXT SUNDAY. -_-

2008-06-17T21:54:00.003+08:00

Call it a recent obsession with numbers, seeing that there're figures in both this post and the previous one, but:

561.

My last 6 series for today's training. 23 more days to go. 570 here I come.

2008-06-17T02:16:00.002+08:00

2.4km:

9:54.38

Woo! But that was on the track of the park next to my house. It's supposedly 400m per round, but give or take I guess. Plus it was at 1 plus am when it's cool and all so. Still, not too bad.

BUT I AM STILL FAT :(

2008-06-15T22:46:00.003+08:00

9 months!

The Case of the Missing Movie Tickets and the Power of Prayer

Right so the other day Gen and I went to watch Kung Fu Panda, 5pm show, two tickets in the 3rd row. We went to the toilet at 4.50pm, came back and bought popcorn and a drink and....the tickets were missing! Which totally got us both searching everywhere, I scoured the toilet twice, walked back and forth and things looked really screwed. So I went to the ticketing counter and asked if the guy could print us another set of tickets. And...I prayed.

I prayed that things wouldn't be so screwed, I prayed that there'd be a way for us to catch the movie even without tickets, that the management could just overlook the tickets and still let us watch the movie in the same seats.

And you know what? After talking on his walkie talkie for a bit, the guy wrote seat numbers on a small piece of paper and told us that we were going to be given the house seats for the movie, courtesy of the manager. I had no idea such a thing existed beforehand, but yes from 3rd row to VIP seats that were separate from the rest of the rows!

Thank you Golden Village, and thank you God =)

2008-06-09T23:56:00.002+08:00

Hello, Con Camp was pretty good fun, even though it was tiring and stressful and all. Serving in camp was rewarding, and I kinda miss it cause now it's back to studying which I haven't done much of at all and everything else too. Guess we all have to get back to reality. Haha.

Er I'm too lazy to like upload photos or anything, so check out Lizzie Mcfizzie's blog cause she saved us all the trouble already anyway =D

2008-05-28T21:44:00.002+08:00

Was just looking through the email my shooting teacher in charge, Mr Tan sent, and I found this:

Singapore Schools’ Sports Council
Shooting Championships Record

Air Pistol Team Event

A Div Boys Air Pistol
Meridian Junior College
2007
1628

We can beat that. For HTNS Invitational 2008 our air pistol team score was 1635.

Air Pistol Individual Event
A Div Boys Air Pistol
Toh Zhi Wei Jasper
MJC
2007
552

I can beat that. As long as I don't screw up I should be able to hit a 560. Hopefully more. And I hope I'll be able to make good on what I say here. Hahaha.

Now don't get me wrong, whatever talent I have is God given, and there should be no room for complacency. This is just a reminder of what CJC Air Pistol should be getting this year. Team 1st and it'd be pretty sweet if the individual 1st, 2nd and 3rd places all went to us, eh? =D

2008-05-18T21:11:00.002+08:00

It's pretty strange really. Artists I wouldn't really have listened to in the past are catching on with me. Damien Rice, John Mayer and Jack Johnson - odd. Jack Johnson's music is so...happy Hawaii. It makes you want to forget the world and just listen to him singing about making banana pancakes on a rainy day, or of love and other happy things.

I think we all deserve to be happy. =)

Better Together

There's no combination of words
I could put on the back of a postcard
No song that I could sing
But I can try for your heart
Our dreams, and they are made out of real things
Like a, shoebox of photographs
With sepiatone loving
Love is the answer,
At least for most of the questions in my heart
Like why are we here? And where do we go?
And how come it's so hard?
It's not always easy and
Sometimes life can be deceiving
I'll tell you one thing it's always better when we're together

[Chorus:]
MMM it's always better when we're together
Yeah, we'll look at the stars when we're together
Well, it's always better when we're together
Yeah, it's always better when we're together

And all of these moments
Just might find their way into my dreams tonight
But I know that they'll be gone
When the morning light sings
And brings new things
For tomorrow night you see
That they'll be gone too
Too many things I have to do
But if all of these dreams might find their way
Into my day to day scene
I'd be under the impression
I was somewhere in between
With only two
Just me and you
Not so many things we got to do
Or places we got to be
We'll Sit beneath the mango tree now

It's always better when we're together
Mmmm, we're somewhere in between together
Well, it's always better when we're together
Yeah, it's always better when we're together

MMmmmm MMMmmmm Mmmmmm
I believe in memories
They look so, so pretty when I sleep
Hey now, and when I wake up,
You look so pretty sleeping next to me
But there is not enough time,
And there is no, no song I could sing
And there is no, combination of words I could say
But I will still tell you one thing
We're better together.

2008-05-11T22:06:00.002+08:00

Hello, Andrew finally got round to changing his blogskin. He's been really busy so he hasn't had the time to update on anything much anytime often, and right now he's buried in overdue homework and lagging behind in everything cause he's always sleeping in lectures. Oh, and mid years are in two weeks. Uh oh.

Ok update soon, but don't take my word for it just this once. Haha.

2008-04-15T22:43:00.002+08:00

It's been a REALLY long time since I posted, and it wasn't so much of an itchy hand to restart a blogging habit but rather a feeling of obligation to post this and give credit where it's due =)

First of all, I hit 550 for HTNS Invitational! We got team 1st and I managed to clinch the individual champion. It's a pretty big win, and hitting 550 and getting a double gold meant a lot. Okay there's no real way to add on to this without making it sound like I'm bragging, which isn't my intention, so I'll leave the result to speak for itself.

My point for this post is that it mightn't have happened, if not for God. I'd prayed in faith that He'd let me win the competition and he rewarded my trust. It seemed like it wasn't going to happen when my 3rd series was a 87, but then I prayed for calm and focus and you know the rest. In short this wasn't just my victory but a testimony to God as well =)) So Amen to that. Thank you, Lord Jesus.

I'm a little lazy to update on anything else, except that today's our 7th month together. =D

Bye for now.

2008-03-10T23:26:00.002+08:00

While walking past a Western food stall today,

What was said:

Me: Eh, garlic bread! (random comment)

Ling: Ya my sole is cramping too.

Me: HUH?

What she thought I said:

Me: Eh my sole is cramping.

Ling: Ya my sole is cramping too.

Garlic bread = my sole is cramping? HAHA.

P.S. CTs were shit. Oh well.

2008-02-25T16:12:00.002+08:00

Hi, updating from the school computer again while waiting for Muthu to be done studying with his friend.

Common tests are a week away and I can't fail or Brother Paul'll ban me from competitions. I don't think he'll do that for the nationals, but there're still all those invitationals I want medals in. So I can't fail, period. Haha.

My attention span has now dropped to half a period every lesson. At the half an hour mark I'll start drifting off, and my amazing capability to fall asleep during lessons extends to even tutorials, and, get this, student development periods. Every single lesson. Brilliant, eh? If there were a job in this world that required someone who's always tired (theoretical job, of course), I'd be the prime candidate.

NTUIS is this Friday, and I'm risking being banned by joining cause I don't have much of a choice - there's nobody else to put in. And what sucks is that I'm risking this for something there's no chance of winning the team event in. Ugh. And it's not really possible to win an individual medal either. Unless I happen to shoot a miraculous 560, which isn't going to happen because my shooting skill is dropping too. I think it's a consequence of being too tired.

Everything's a mess, and hopefully tonight I'll make it less of that by staying for night study in school. I'm not dead, at least maybe not yet. Heh.

2008-01-24T13:41:00.001+08:00

Hello.

Here's blog revival attempt number #2. Oh wait, I shouldn't call it that cause it makes it sound like my blog was dead and I'm trying to resurrect it. Okay let's try again.

Hello.

Here's Infrequent update #2. Haha. Sounds better.

I'm typing this from the school library computer because I'm going to do a little work here before going for training and then meeting Ling to study. Gosh I've been so busy I swear. Not that I'm breaking down just yet, but like, I don't even read the newspapers anymore. And that's sad, because that probably means I won't get my only A which is for Current Affairs anymore for the common tests. How sad. That there's no A for that, and more so that I don't get As for anything else. I try to watch one hour of TV a week. Heroes may be 235490238 times slower on television than online, but hey I still get that dose of relaxation eh. But then again I'm not into the habit of watching much TV, so that's no indication of the lack of life I have.

I'm trying to take things slowly right now, because it's a pretty stupendous task, planning a couple of days ahead an managing my time already. Procrastination's always a lure, and the consequences of that'll probably screw everything up. So I simply can't afford to screw my time up. No doubt things are taking their toll; I'm always sleepy and can't help but make feeble tries at making up for that tiredness by sleeping in lectures. I really do try to pay attention, but I can't help it if the lecturer's boring and I'm already so sleepy. Which adds on to the workload after that.

On another note, I'm now shooting both air rifle and pistol for the school team. Not that I'm really good at the air rifle, but it's pretty cool in a sense. None of that means crap if I don't win anything of course, so I've to buck up my pistol training if I want to leave a legacy.

If you look at it one way I'm in a mess; always tired and everything's suffering. My pistol score is staying stagnant at a high 540+ to 550, which isn't good enough to win, I'm falling behind in work and there's so much to cope with. But it's like being thrown in the deep end of the pool right from the start. So I was a total slob before and suddenly I'm flooded with responsibilties and things which require disciplined time management. So either I learn how to swim or I drown, simple as that.

Luckily there's her and God I can turn to to stay afloat. And I'll be kicking and paddling all the way, of course.

2008-01-14T22:40:00.000+08:00

Ok so here's an attempt, albeit going to be an infrequent one to clear the cobwebs off my blog.

I'm really busy this year. Like really really busy. So much so that sometimes the only way I can take a breather is to procrastinate, and we all know the problems that come with that. I don't really have much time for myself anymore, and I'm spread out rather thinly over a bunch of things. NYT trainings are supposed to be 3 times a week and it's almost impossible to fulfil that for me. On top of that I'm supposed to go down for school trainings as often as I can. Annd I've to go back for NPCC activities and it's hard to. Plus I just took over the band in church, and I'm now a facil. Did I mention I have A levels this year? I wish there were 3 of me. because time management is one thing, burning out is another. Right now I'm just going to try my best to cope, and who knows, I might pull it all off.

I need lots of new stuff, but I'm way broke. New jeans, shoes, pants and clothes in general are just going to have to remain in the stores much longer. Ha.

Thus ends feeble attempt #1 to resurrect my blog. Hahahaha. Update soon/sometime.

2008-01-01T02:00:00.000+08:00

Happy New Year pull your ear! Hahaha for some reason that's rather funny...in an inane sorta way.

Right so year 2007, *poof* just like that. You know how we all always, at the end of each year just look back and it seems like it went away so fast? Of course the year didn't go by that quick because you can remember everything that happened, it just seems that way.

And just like that, it's 2008, and with it comes many new responsibilities. Shooting with training 3 times a week in addition to school trainings which I've to go have a look sometimes, responsibilities as a cadet inspector, my new roles in church as a facil and in the music ministry, and of course, it's A level year. It's going to be absolutely stress-packed, and I'm going to need to, for the first time in my life get everything organised, or it'll all fall apart. I'll need to pray, hard and regularly that I'll have the discipline to do things right all the way, and of course I'll have to do it too.

Anyway with every new year comes resolutions!

I resolve to:

1) Lose weight, starting with whatever I gained during the holidays. It's even harder or me to lose weight now, because 10km runs are really boring and that's the minimum I've to run, I think for anything to be effective.

2) Juggle everything well. Speaks for itself.

3) Start cultivating a proper studying habit. Mine is nonexistent.

4) Do God's work to the best of my ability.

And God help me with everything I do. =) Amen please. Okay this was going to be a longer post but I decided I'm going to be lazy and not type anymore. Hahaha.

2007-12-20T00:09:00.000+08:00

Right so spiderwebs are forming and I'd like to give the illusion that that wasn't the case, so I'm doing this short post. Been really busy and stuff. Besides, Christmas is coming! There's loads of stuff I want, and I'll list them here for the fun of it. Not that I'm hinting anyone to get it, cause it's too expensive, but it's doesn't hurt, no?

1) A Bible. I'm looking for those really nice ones like the Christian type, but I want the Catholic version cause it's complete. Can't find it anywhere in Singapore and it's so hard to find it online too. Blah.

2) A new guitar. I want an electric, but a new acoustic with a cutout'd be really sweet too.

3) Plain black Volcom slipons. Like the design.

4) New clothes. My wardrobe's really limited and repetitive, which starts to suck really fast.

5) Xbox 360 controllers.

Ok that was just to add on some words. Hahahaha. Bye for now. Merry Christmas and God bless. =)

2007-12-11T09:52:00.001+08:00

Hello, YISS was simply amazing. I felt God during the camp! Will update about it soon =)

Went for training yesterday and hit 553. Woo! Haha. Okay that's all at the moment.

2007-12-05T23:43:00.000+08:00

Shot a 542 today, thanks to that stupid 88 and 85 (wth!) series. Damn. I know I can hit 550, it's just taking a long time to come.

YISS IS TOMORROW. I just really really want it to be awesome and be able to grow much closer to God. If you're reading this do pray for me and the rest of the participants yeah, that we'll go to this with an open heart and just experience His love personally =)

Back on Sunday.

2007-12-04T23:03:00.000+08:00

Long day today. Gymmed in the morning after a long period of sloth and gorging on food, and boy did it feel good. Trained at SAFRA in the afternoon with Sean, Mel and Val - things are looking up in terms of my form, and hopefully it'll be 550 really really soon. I think I can. =)

Anyway Mr Pang, one of the two teachers who went with me and the others for the India trip asked me to share about the experience with his charismatic prayer group tonight, and I agreed. It went pretty well, I guess, and I'm glad I had the opportunity.

YISS is in 2 days!

2007-12-01T22:45:00.000+08:00

Right so I'm finally dusting off the keyboard to update. Haven't been blogging cause I've been lazy and cause my com was down so I had to send it for repair. The whole thing's reformatted and all my stuff's gone. Oh, all the PW stuff. =/ People please send me nice musics to add life to my computer k. Thank you.

Was extremely touched this week by what that special someone did for me this week. I'll always cherish her =)

I'm not sure if this other thing is yet another one of God's blessings to me, which started ever since I took the first step afer confirmation in deciding I wanted to know Him better. But I do know it's an opportunity, and yet there's going to be risk involved. I know I'm being vague about everything here. But at least I updated! Heh.

StanChart run is tomorrow! Going to run the 10km route, and I'm a little nervous cause I haven't run in ages, since before the India trip. I definitely can pull it off, but whether it's going to be as easy as when I trained is an obvious no. I'm feeling rather unprepared now. Going to have to rush home to bathe and then to church for session after that.

Rights. It's 11pm and I'm going to stop here cause I need to run tomorrow. But I'm not going to sleep. Hahaha.

2007-11-25T02:10:00.000+08:00

The experience in India was amazing, but I really don't have time to relate it here, so I'm just going to paste the article I wrote for the college magazine.

Missionary, tourist or celebrity? That was the question Mr. Pang posed to us during our reflection session on the 5th night. Did we come for this 9-day OCIP trip to Tamil Nadu with the mentality and true spirit of missionaries, putting in all effort to touch the lives of those we encountered and persevering under sickness and hardship, or were we simply tourists or celebrities, going to see the sights or expecting to have first-class treatment and bask in fame?

We believe the results speak for themselves. From the 14th to the 22nd of November 2007, a group of 16 students and 2 teachers from CJC set off on what would be an absolutely unforgettable experience to Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu, India. Trepidation and nervousness about what would be in store for us was in our minds as we assembled at Changi airport on the morning of the 14th, but at the same time there was a palpable sense of excitement as well.

Our trip to Tamil Nadu was hardly a sightseeing touristy one, with a sense of purpose etched deep into the fully-packed schedule we had almost every day in Tuticorin. Over there, our main activities were to teach two English-medium classes of 7th and 8th standard students lessons on English, Mathematics, Physics and Biology, the syllabus for which was among the many preparations made before we embarked on our trip, and alongside such pedagogic activities we visited various slums, tuition centres, a home for physically disabled children and an old age home.

During the 5 days we were in Tamil Nadu we were positively swarmed by children who were simply so happy to see us, and the welcome we received from the students and staff, in addition to that from the community was a truly a heart-warming one. Despite the language barrier for many both sides never ceased trying to communicate, soon finding that the most effective way of simple communication was just through a smile or wave.

The living standards of the people would be deemed by Singaporeans as substandard, and yet they never failed to always try and give us the best they had, pulling out the stops in their hospitality towards us. Although classroom were sparsely equipped and classes were often as large as 60 students each, such conditions failed to dampen the enthusiasm for learning and curiosity of the students was overwhelming, a dearth of which can be found in our country in spite of everything we have. During our visits to the old age and handicapped children homes, our interaction with the old folks and the handicapped children allowed us to understand their situation, and being able to bring joy to them through our games, performances and activities brought smiles to our faces. Through our visits to the slums and tuition centres, we discovered how the people in the slums still have a sense of purpose and satisfaction in life, and although poor, they did not fail to extend their warmth and hospitality to us. The eagerness to learn, and the value the children and students at both the tuition centres and school placed on education was truly an eye opener for us.

Part of the experience we had was also illness. By the 6th day, almost all of us had fallen ill, with fever, vomiting and diarrhoea being the order of the day. Through it all, however, it was mind over matter as we persevered, taking everything that was thrown at us with gritted teeth but without battered spirits. Sickness was a challenge, surely, but it was something that we were prepared to face going for this trip.

Simply put, this trip was a truly amazing experience, quite impossible to put down in words to have the reader truly understand, and it made us realise the reality of what it was like in poor places, helping us to appreciate what we have while at the same time allowing us to realise that love, peace and joy can exist and are independent of the place and material comforts. Missionary, tourist or celebrity? Perhaps some of us went for the trip with differing mentalities than those of altruistic nature, but at the end of it, touching the lives of those we encountered and having our lives changed in return – missionaries, that’s what we were.

2007-11-13T07:48:00.000+08:00

Hello. I will be away in India for OCIP from tomorrow till the 22nd November. I just know it'll be an awesome experience, but at the same time there's someone I'll miss really bad. That's my only regret, really.

See ya soon. =)

2007-11-09T23:48:00.000+08:00

OCIP meeting today was pretty fruitful, I guess. Delegated the content segments for everything and once everybody does up their parts, the handbook for all the lessons'll be complete. It felt like something was achieved today, so that can't be bad. And Sunday's fundraising at St. Anne's! Loads of stuff to do, loads not done, too. I haven't even gotten my immunisation jabs for the trip la. Die.

Okay off to do something productive now, namely doing up whatever I can of the lesson handbook.

2007-11-09T08:25:00.000+08:00

My financial status now is infinitely screwed. I have a little money in my wallet, but my net worth is currently into negative figures because I owe Aaron a hundred bucks. Sorry bro, I'll pay you soon =)

Normally if I owe people money...wait. I don't normally owe people money, but on the occasions that I do, it doesn't take long for me to repay what I owe. Unfortunately my dad decided to cut my allowance. Normally I get money when he sends me out and all, but nowadays I get half or less of what I normally get, or sometimes nothing at all. If what I get now's only enough to cover a meal, at the rate I'm going I'll probably take 412091425235 years to save 2 bucks. Oh. I don't have that many years. I guess I'll starve to save money then. NOT. Hahaha.

Hard times, I guess. And I think my parents weren't happy with the way I was spending. Still, the peanuts I get now aren't nearly enough. Oh well.

2007-11-07T00:16:00.000+08:00

Intellectual conversations occur all the time when you talk to me. Here's one example.

phyllis: do you want me to screaaaaaaaaaaammmmmmmmmmmmmm at my laptop screen till i vomit blood?

phyllis: then die

andrew: haha

phyllis: then you'd have to attend my funeral

andrew: too bad

phyllis: hahahaa

andrew: HAHAHA

andrew: ya

andrew: then

phyllis: ): ): ):

andrew: i'd be attending

andrew: FUNERAL FOR A FRIEND

andrew: HAHAHAHAHA

phyllis: HAHAHAHA

Brilliance is often mistaken for retardness. HAHA.

2007-11-05T10:09:00.000+08:00

YES PHYLLIS I AM SORRY I PASSED THE FLU TO YOU LAAAA.

AND I ALREADY SAID I'LL TREAT YOU TO ICE CREAM RIGHT. =)

Sorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorry!

And thanks for the tissue. Hahahaha.

2007-11-03T21:54:00.000+08:00

It sucks to be sick. Session this morning at the St. Anne's hall made the flu worse cause the aircon was just so cold. Now my nose feels horrid, my throat feels scratchier and there's the occasional coughing. Blah.

Just came back from dinner at this coffee shop selling crab bee hoon at Ang Mo Kio. The famous one somewhere near avenue 1, where the waiting time's supposedly usually one and a half hours long. Luckily we only waited for about half an hour and there were other dishes to occupy my attention first. Haha. It probably would've tasted better if my nose didn't feel like crap, but who's complaining? 77 bucks for the crab beehoon alone, and yes it was fairly good I guess.

OCIP fundraising tomorrow at Holy Spirit church, I hope we do well. Going to rush back to St. Anne's before session starts cause it's by some outside speaker and I wouldn't want to miss it.

Yeah that's all for now I guess. My posts are getting more mundane and boring cause I'm too lazy to think of interesting topics to talk about. Haha. Oh well.

2007-11-01T22:33:00.000+08:00

Today was a super lazy day. Woke up at 8 plus, went back to sleep till 10 plus. Then had breakfast and originally wanted to use the com, but my dad was using the internet connection and there wasn't anything to do. So I went back to sleep. Had lunch at 12 plus after waking up, saw that my dad was still using the internet and then went back to sleep again. Slept till 3 plus, dad STILL using the computer, read a little and then took another nap till 4 plus, when I got ready for church. Mass at 6.15, dinner and then came home to play some Halo 3. Haha so the only productive thing was going to church, I guess.

Anyway in short, today I:

Woke up
Went back to sleep
Woke up
Ate breakfast
Went back to sleep
Woke up
Ate lunch
Slept again
Woke up
Read
Slept yet again
Woke up
Went to church
Dinner
Home

Fun-filled itinerary as you can see. Haha.

OCIP meeting tomorrow at 2. Wished it could early in the morning, cause the fact that it's right smack in the middle of the afternoon just spoiled any plans I'd wanted to make. I'm still excited about the trip though.

Haven't run in quite a bit now, off I go later. Gosh I need the exercise.

2007-10-30T21:38:00.000+08:00

Had our third ever and final PW meeting as a group today, and everything looks to be all set. It's rather funny how my group started off like total crap, putting in minimal effort and all, but ended up with a fairly good presentation in my opinion. Haha. Tomorrow's the oral presentation, and I think my group has a pretty good show lined up. Our 5 minute group presentation segment was super last minute, and the ideas just popped into my head during our second meeting. Everything was done up in a couple of days. Awesome la.

Went to Chinatown today and searched for glutinous rice balls. Yeah, tangyuan. Eventually had it at the a-balling stall on Food Street. Pretty good stuff. Walked from Chinatown to Far East Square near Raffles Place for the fun of it, and then a long bus ride back. Doesn't seem like much, now that I put it here, but it was rather enjoyable.

Countdown to India OCIP trip: 15 days. I'm excited over the trip, but at the same time there's just one regret. I've no doubt it'll be an excellent experience, though.

I'm still the luckiest guy on this planet, and the feeling doesn't feel like it's ever going to fade.

Okay I'm feeling sleepy now. Bye.

2007-10-23T20:54:00.000+08:00

Today was the last official day of school. Yeah I still need to go back for OP dry runs before the actual thing, OCIP meetings, that damned Chinese exam and all that. But the significance of the end of one entire school year isn't lost on me, and this year held some of the most awesome times in my life. When we were clearing up the classroom and Lanz was next to me, he remarked that one year had gone by so fast. And yeah so it has. So it has. This is the part where I, as well as you, the reader get all nostalgic and think of all that's happened the past year. Haha.

The day's program started off with a home tutorial period where we were given envelopes with our names to be written on them and pieces of paper. Then we were supposed to pass the envelopes around and have everyone write something about you on a piece of paper that was to be placed into your envelope, which was then passed on to the next person to do the same. So at the end of it you were to get your envelope back, now filled with notes from all your classmates. Anyway I thought it was a pretty interesting activity, so I guess I didn't spare the effort in writing notes to my classmates. Ended up holding up a whole bunch of envelopes at my desk cause I took so long to write the notes, but I'm not sorry for it cause I'm at least satisfied that some thought went into what I wrote. Some heartfelt notes from my classmates to me too, and the envelope with all the pieces of paper is something I'll always keep. =)

Friendship. Something that I hold so close to my heart.

2007-10-22T21:31:00.000+08:00

I am feeling fucked up over PW. I'm supposed to be doing it now instead of blogging but what the hell.

What I need now, if nothing else, is more time.

I haven't exactly been a good leader because I've always been last minute in finishing stuff. PI, GPP, EoM and then WR were all done with the minimal possible effort because, well I could. I guess being fairly proficient at the language helps. But it's just really frustrating when your group members don't participate. Yeah it's great that two actually put in diligent effort to do up stuff, but I'm just so tired of attempting to delegate and then finding that things don't get done, even if I try to follow up. And there's no possibilty of not delegating and having a group discussion. Because when I try I have to keep pushing for responses and I feel like an idiot.

I'm just so tired of this.

2007-10-22T00:10:00.000+08:00

Right so the session in CJC went alright, except for one part where I super zaoxia-ed and kept laughing along with everyone cause it really was super off. But a good experience, and I'm thankful for the opportunity. Haha I've many things to be thankful for.

And I've agreed to lead worship back at St. Anne's. I was asked to do it and I was just a little hesitant again for some reason. So I asked for a sign that God wanted me to try again and I got it in the form of Daniel, who said he'd heard about what I did on Thursday's session and asked if I would be doing the one for St. Anne's. I guess if you look at it like that it doesn't seem like much of a sign, but then again it would've been so easy that we wouldn't have met and the conversation would never have happened, no?

Anyway I registered with the National Youth Team already, so I'll be getting a weapon assigned to me and starting training proper soon.

I'm sick and tired of PW, and I can't be bothered to elaborate why here. I'm sorry if my posts seem boring nowadays, it's just that I'm busy and tired and all that, so yeah. I guess I've been neglecting some committments as well.

2007-10-17T21:43:00.000+08:00

Been either really busy or too tired to find time to update, but I didn't want this blog to rot, so here's one.

Monday was absolutely awesome, every single moment of it.

I was asked by Matthias on behalf of the Catholic Activities people in the student council to help plan and lead a short praise and worship session as part of a follow up to the JC1 retreat, and I was a little hesitant initially because I'd never done it before, I'd be (zomg) singing, and I wasn't sure I was up to it. But I guess God has His way with everything and as it is, I'm going to lead tomorrow. Yesterday was the first time the band practised together, and it looked to be really screwed at first, because the amps and mikes and stuff were locked up somewhere and we couldn't get the keys because the OM was off somewhere. That meant that (we were told) we couldn't have the bass, and only one guitar had an amp. Things were looking pretty bad and increasingly worse and I was seriously thinking about dropping to acoustics for a while when all of a sudden, when all looked lost, the stuff came in! So Amen to that because it was pretty awesome =)

And everything came together the first practice we had. We've had just two practices together, and the teachers said they were impressed today when they came to have a look-see. I'm relieved, I guess, and I think it's going to go fine tomorrow. Haha.

Okay I'm just gonna end here cause I'm really tired even though it's only 10.30pm.

2007-10-11T22:27:00.000+08:00

It's been a bit of time since I last updated, partly cause I've been busy, partly cause I didn't have much of a mood to blog for some reason, and perennially cause I've been lazy.

I'm quite sad that Ben's gone back. For those of you who don't know, Ben Wong's my classmate, who left this morning to go back to Australia, and a couple of us classmates went to see him off, along with a large group of his friends. I wasn't particularly close to him, and I'm a little sorry for that, but I'll seriously miss him anyway, because he's just this really great guy to be around, and he brought life to the class. Sure there's still Hao Feng and everyone else, but it won't ever be the same.

I'm definitely going to promote after all, but I still can't really get over Econs. There was Econs lect the other day and we went through the paper, and when I saw the question I knew how to do it when I got stumped in the exam. Which was crap cause I studied, expected an A and then not being able to think straight in the exam made me flunk. Effed up, but I'm not going to cry over spilt milk, so yeah what's done's done.

And I hit 550 for training already! Haha. Looking to make it something that's consistent and reproducible in a competition situation.

I can't wait for Monday to come.

2007-10-05T23:20:00.000+08:00

Okay so yesterday was a shambles cause Econs was so fucked up.

Was feeling rather emo cause I ironically screwed up for the subject that I was the most prepared for, not in terms of hours put into studying but in thorough understanding. And I did understand the concepts, but when I attempted the essay question...eh well I'm not going to bother to explain here. I was kinda scared that I might really retain so I was rather stoned throughout the day.

But no use crying over spilt milk, and I practice what I preach, so I'm feeling loads better now =) Bought HALO 3 and a new polo tee, and I'm totally broke at the moment. Well into negative figures cause I owe Hao Feng money, in fact. Not good.

Okay I'm just going to end here cause I can't think of anything else to say.

2007-09-30T16:58:00.000+08:00

Was going to type something else until I saw this, and thought it'd be a waste of all that damned time coming up with the story if nobody ever saw it. Haha. This was one of my submissions for the school's creative writing competition some time back. It's really long, so read only if you have loads of time. If you don't read that's okay too, at least I had a giant filler for a post.

Redemption

Some say that death comes to a person in the form of his most powerful memory; that one gets to experience the moments that have had the most tremendous impact, even to the extent of sometimes defining one’s life, one final time before all consciousness fades into oblivion. Others say that in death, a coruscating shaft of white light emanating from above illuminates a way into the distance, and going forth into this brilliance allows one to go to heaven. That is, at least what most non-atheists could hope for in the end – living an upright life and moving on into paradise after death. After all, the prospect of one’s soul being swallowed into a flaming abyss of unfathomable depth as retribution for sins committed in the material world is rather horrifying. Still others believe in reincarnation, that a person’s essence remains on but comes into the world once again in a different form.

Mr. John Ambrose Lee, CEO of Apex Technologies Pte Ltd, the largest electronics company in Singapore, was not a religious man. A baptised Catholic – his parents were devout church-goers – his middle Christian name was truncated to a simple “A.” on his name cards, which he left there simply because ‘it looked more sophisticated with the full name like that’. Unlike his faith-driven parents, however, John preferred to spend his Sundays at his country club, for which the hundred thousand dollar membership he was determined to put to maximum use, at a bar, his usual haunt on Saturday nights as well or just simply in bed, sometimes with a woman he’d picked up from the bar the night before. John begrudged the hour or so spent in church with his parents when he was younger, and now that he was free to do whatever he liked he saw no reason to continue to do something against his will. Someday, he told himself, when he settled down, had a family, he’d attend Mass every week, just so the kids would grow up with the right idea. Until then he’d leave things as they were. He’d worked, slogged to bring himself to the level at which he was now – very rich, highly eligible – and held the firm belief that it was his own effort alone that was the reason for his success, It would only be right, then that weekends were for his own leisure and enjoyment, to savour the taste of relaxation as means of a reward for the effort put in during weekdays, wouldn’t it?

Like most people of his status and level of achievements, John was immensely busy. After all, the chief executive officer of a large company could hardly be idle, and he prided himself on being a master of managing his extremely hectic schedule effectively. It brought money, and he had no reason to complain. Gainfully occupied John was so busy he hardly had much time to sit back and think; he lived fully in the moment. Sure he planned ahead, but what he was doing at the moment he would fully concentrate on. Someday, like a once well-oiled machine that was worn out he knew he’d stop because he would no longer be able to carry on, but had the time to think about what would happen then. Probably retire even more filthy rich than before, with a bigger car and house, things like that. One day, like everyone else, he would die. Like everybody else John sometimes thought about what would happen when he died. What would happen then? He never allowed himself more than a fleeting moment to ponder over such things, though. As it was, John was a busy man, who never thought about anything else but work during weekdays and leisure during weekends, and death, or at least thinking about it, as he so convinced himself, could wait.

And then one day, something rather unusual happened.

Rain pounded hard on the roof of the bungalow he lived in that fateful morning, and John, woken by his alarm clock, his essential instrument for punctuality briefly considered staying in bed that morning. But CEOs of large companies had to have more discipline than that, and he dragged himself into the shower, emerging in a crisp suit, ready for the day. Plunging his car keys into the ignition of his rather flashy sports car, he started the engine and drove off on what was supposed to be the routine journey to his office.

It occurred at the exit ramp of the expressway, the one which he took every morning out into the roads in the vicinity of his office. He was anxious to get to the office early as he had a meeting at ten. That meant he had to be there at nine-thirty, a personal principle of his to always be in a meeting room half an hour before it started so he could go through any final details. He didn’t like coming into a meeting at the last minute all flustered and looking for his notes, that was what a CEO didn’t do. He glanced at his watch. Fifteen minutes to go. Subconsciously, his foot buried itself deeper into the acceleration pedal. Visibility was rather poor, but he was confident that he was a good driver.

A deafening crash. The scatter of debris as the car ploughed into the road divider, all hundred and ten kilometres of it. Stabbing pain everywhere. A vague sense of serenity and calm as he flew through the air, thrown through the windscreen like a giant ragdoll. At that instant, for some strange reason John remembered that he’d just wrecked his nine hundred thousand dollar car, and the feeling of calm vanished as he hit the ground with a loud thud. More pain. And then the world went black.

John opened his eyes and blinked. He felt alright; much better than he’d felt in many years, in fact. There wasn’t any pain at all, and he had this feeling of weightlessness about him. Nothing had happened after all, he thought. All of that, the accident, the horrible crunch of his bones hitting the asphalt was a dr-

And then he saw it. The wreckage of his car., twisted and almost unrecognisable as something that was once the king of the roads with its ability to roar from zero to one hundred and twenty in seven seconds. The deformed railings in the area around where his car had struck the road divider separating the ramp, culminating in a section where the metal had been wholly torn off its groundings lent an ominous backdrop under the downpour. His mind now in a confused flurry, John sought for answers in a world which now seemed to be impossible, but before he had time to collect himself, there was a bright flash of light, and this time the world was white.

As his searing irises cleared, John realised that he was no longer at the scene where his accident had occurred. He looked about, and an unspeakable sense of familiarity and déjà vu overwhelmed him.

He was nine, and he was at a theme park. He’d always wanted to try one of those roller coaster rides, but he’d been too young before. Today, on his ninth birthday, he was finally going to get to ride one. He was excited. He’d begged his parents to take him to the theme park as a birthday present, but they weren’t so sure that he could cope at first. His persistence made them give in, though. Now here he was, staring wide-eyed as he stood in the queue for the ride. He wasn’t going to do it alone, of course. His dad would take the ride with him. As he and his dad climbed into the seats while the attendant pulled the cushioned metal bar that would keep them in during the ride, John watched his adolescent self from afar. What was this? A travesty of his fondest memory? As the cars of the ride came one full round and his dad hoisted his small frame out of the seat, the adult John went over to himself and leaned in to listen. If this was truly one of his memories, surely its defining aspect would be there. “Wow, Dad, that was great!” exclaimed the young John, the joy evident on his face. Dad smiled serenely, gave John a deep look which he remembered all throughout his life - and even now, as he stood beside himself – and messed up his hair with the palm of his hand. “You’ll go far in life, John.”

He had no idea what had spurred his dad to say that. As it was, those words he kept in his heart all these years, a target set for him by his father that gave him motivation when he felt that things were hopeless. No, it wasn’t just a goal, it was his father’s wish and prediction that John would have a bright future, and somehow it always gave him assurance. As John reminisced with the scene of his memory playing right before his eyes, something suddenly caught his attention. A shaft of white light giving off a soft glow had appeared to his left, and intuitively John knew that he was supposed to walk into the light. A step forward, then another. Was this the clichéd light that was going to bring him to heaven? He didn’t exactly believe in heaven, but he didn’t know what to believe now. He hesitated. If this was what it was, did he really want to go just like that? He’d worked so hard to get where he was today, and it would all be taken away so quickly? No, he told himself. Not yet. He didn’t know if the choice was his, but there were so many things he had to do. Turning his back on the light, he took one step away, and he promptly felt himself falling, falling into a pitch black abyss, and someway along the way he slipped into an unconsciousness that was a welcome respite from the feeling of leaving his stomach behind.

Pain flooded John’s body as he opened his eyes. He tried moving, but stopped trying almost immediately from the pain. He groaned. Where was he? Swivelling his eyeballs, he surveyed the plain white ceiling. His face and most of his body seemed to be wrapped in bandages. A hospital, then. “Ah, Mr. Lee, I see that you are awake.” If John hadn’t been so immobile he would have jumped, but he only gritted his teeth. “How are you feeling?” came the voice again, as the face of a man clad in a white coat swam into view. When no reply came, the doctor continued. “You’re a very lucky man to be alive, Mr. Lee. You were thrown clean out of your car from the impact of your accident, and you survived. Don’t worry, I fully expect you to make a full recovery.” “Th-thank you.” And then the doctor was gone. John thought hard. Two weeks later after he was discharged he was still thinking. Had all of that he’d seen, his third-person experience of that memory, the light and then the fall, been real, or nothing but a figment of his subconscious? He didn’t have the answers, and he didn’t know what to believe.

Soon enough, John got back to work. It wasn’t because he was a workaholic, but rather that the constant pondering without fruition made him want to go back just so he could take his mind off it. It did not work. He was distracted; lunch hours were spent grabbing a quick bite before settling down at the nearby café to his office with a cup of coffee and the day’s newspaper in hand, but he only found his mind wandering back to the incident. He couldn’t concentrate while in the office, and was listless when he wasn’t. This went on for a few months until it became almost unbearable.

And then one day, John finally found the answer to the strange near-death phenomenon he had experienced. He was driving along Thomson Road en route back home in his new convertible with the top down. Oddly enough, the new car gave him no satisfaction although it should have. It was about six in the evening on a Sunday, and as he drove past the church there the bells started tolling. Suddenly, he knew. It was a calling, for him to finally believe in something he never really believed in. Something he know knew to be true. His hands slightly trembling, John made the U-turn which would take him back towards the church he had driven past. He could barely contain his excitement as he pulled the handbrake and stopped the car in the parking lot. Almost jumping out of the car, John picked up the one essential item he knew to be the key to the answer and practically ran towards the church building. That day, John Ambrose Lee found his calling to go back to church.

The next Sunday, John was back as his country club, the one-time visit and donation of one million dollars written on a single cheque from his chequebook, the key to his answer - with his request to remain anonymous, of course - putting his mind finally at ease.

2007-09-26T23:11:00.001+08:00

Gee, where to start?

I went to Kovan mac today with Muthu with the intention of covering maths up to differentiation. And by 'covering' I mean revising and then doing questions from the revision practice questions booklet I have. Ended up only reading through up to system of linear equations because I started feeling really sick and couldn't concentrate.

I think smokers in general can be absolutely the most inconsiderate bastards. We were sitting outside mac cause there weren't any seats inside, and tonight was horrible. The large sign says "No Smoking AREA" and not "No Smoking TABLE", but those people obviously have comprehension abilities of a 3 year-old because some either chose to ignore the sign and smoke AT the tables, and others smoked at the metal bench NEXT to the tables which was the same thing really. And the smokers who came to the benches never stopped coming. First it was this old butch with two women , then it was two guys, then another group, then this bunch of delinquents whose girlfriends came after that and smoked with them. Then there were those few at the end who were there throughout. When the two guys came I started sweating and feeling sick, so I went for a walk to the 7-11 nearby. Then I came back and it was alright for all of two minutes before more smokers came. The smoke kept coming and then I was sweating nonstop with the sweat literally flowing down my face and soaking my shirt. Managed to find a seat inside at about 10 plus, about 3 hours after I met Muthu. I felt sick and I'd only done two questions of maths, both of which I had to call Hao Feng just to ask him because I didn't know how to do them.

Okay I'm sorry if that was really boring, but I had to get it off my chest somehow, and there wasn't a more interesting way to put it across because it was so effed up.

It was scary that throughout all of that, I almost forgot about Him, and it was Gen who really cheered me up when I felt seriously pissed and stressed and reminded me that I should talk to God. So I said a short prayer and felt better after that.

And God provided! The moment after I prayed I was thinking to myself that I needed happy food, and up till now the thing I like at McCafe is the apple crumble. The thing is that up till when I asked for something to help calm me down there weren't any apple crumbles, and then after that short prayer I went to have a look and THERE WAS ONE. That cheered me up a bit more too. I know I sound overly religious but I really think it was awesome, so amen to that.

So yeah today was total crap in terms of revision, but I guess I gained stuff too eh.

2007-09-25T13:43:00.000+08:00

Twisted my ankle this morning while I was out for a run. Yes tomorrow's Physics. Yes I was out running. I've got skinnies to look good in, you know.

It was all that damn papaya tree's fault.

I was running along Bartley Road near Maris Stella, some random route I picked cause I was tired of running on a damn track at the park, and was planning to run for about half an hour or so like I did on Sunday night (38 min 40s), when I saw this papaya tree outside this terrace house. I was looking at it and observing that the bottom fruit were covered in black plastic bags when I tripped. Effing retarded la. So damn lame, both literally and figuratively cause then I had to walk all the way home with a slight limp instead of running. Ended up running only for about 14 minutes or so, which was really a waste.

When I buy over Bartley Road when I grow up, I'm going to burn that damn tree down.

2007-09-23T18:23:00.001+08:00

Retail therapy today was pretty shiok, but burnt an uber hole in my pocket.

Lunch at Fish and Co $14+
T- shirt $14.50
Skinny jeans $103
Thousand Foot Krutch's new album $30

Do the math yourself, but it's quite frightening to see what I can spend at one shot. And I was out STUDYING today. Eh I did study okay. Hahaha.

The next salient argument that would arise is that I won't look good in skinnies. And $103 for them, too. Well I don't look good in anything so I'll leave the worrying till after promos when I get serious about the exercise eh. And obviously my mom'd kill me if I told her the jeans cost a hundred bucks. If a $29.90 T shirt's too expensive, or a $59 pair of jeans for that matter, a hundred bucks is a giant donation to the clothing company. So when I show them to her there'll be a fabulous discount on the price of course.

Okay off to take a nap.

2007-09-21T13:45:00.001+08:00

GP today went suprisingly well, partly because I wasn't feeling worried about stuff here and there like for midyears =) Finished both the essay and compre components with time to spare. I hope I'll get an A this time around.

Thank you God. I prayed He'd let me finish and He did, with time to spare. Cool or what.

My forearm is peeling. Gross la.

Note to self:

Must chiong exercising after promos.

2007-09-20T08:42:00.000+08:00

One more day to promos, and surprisingly what I'm worried about is ironically not being worried.

In the past:

'OMG EXAMS IN THREE DAYS, SHIT SHIT SHIT BETTER START CHIONGING'

Now:

"Eh promos tomorrow start ah, aiya ok lor"

And it's not that I'm really prepared so I'm sure I can get good grades and all. BECAUSE I'M NOT. That's the truth here, I'm not one of those closet muggers who keep saying they don't study but actually do whole closetfuls of it. I'm stuck at functions (hi sec4 topic) for Maths, have only revised 2 chapters of Chem and totally suck at Physics cause I've no idea how to do most questions I see. Oh the joy of feeling screwed for exams.

Of course, I'll have to wait till promos actually START tomorrow when I realise after the first paper how everything's so screwed to actually panic.

2007-09-18T23:15:00.000+08:00

I'm going to skip school tomorrow to study! I'm still really far behind in revision, so I hope it'll be really productive tomorrow for me.

I super need to exercise because I've been eating loads of stuff the past few days. Earle Swensens on Sunday, lots of snacking on Monday and today. I keep eating even when I'm not hungry. Not good, not good.

I still can't believe I'm so lucky. Hahaha.

2007-09-17T23:45:00.000+08:00

I need new stuffs!

A pair of jeans (black)
New shoes (slip-ons)
Slippers
A T shirt
A long sleeved shirt

Okay I'm damn tired. Bye.

2007-09-15T00:53:00.000+08:00

Hello. Andrew is the happiest guy on Earth right now. 15 September marks the day.

=)))

Okay off to continue practising mass ordinaries for tomorrow's (later's) youth mass.

2007-09-14T01:37:00.000+08:00

It's 1.40 am on a school night and I was feeling so damn stressed out. Been doing PW written report for two hours and forty minutes and it's no joke when you have to do most of the stuff yourself. There was one point where I drifted off and accidentally deleted some stuff (which I undid, duh) before the caffeine from the coffee I drank kicked in. Kudos to Hao Feng and Yi Tong for the help though. I'd have dropped dead without the support =)

I'm still feeling stressed out because:

1) I need to study

2) I've got mass ordinaries to practice and I'm playing this Saturday

3) I have no time to do (2)

4) I'm tired

HELP.

2007-09-12T22:26:00.000+08:00

Okay so the past few days have been really unproductive. I tried to study, I did. But I just couldn't concentrate. Today was cause I was so tired I was falling asleep while reading a single paragraph, so I went home to sleep. Yesterday there was totally no time because there was PW to be done. The day before I was stoning, and only managed to do 2 questions in as many hours.

Had a short training after school for an hour plus today. It was supposed to be mainly maintenance of weapons but I decided it'd be good to practice a little bit. If anything my skills still remain, so that can't be bad.

Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day. Otherwise I'm screwed.

2007-09-09T08:23:00.000+08:00

Funeral for a Friend was pretty awesome stuff. Didn't stick downstairs with the mosh pit though; watched the entire thing from the balcony upstairs where the view was better and, well where we didn't have to mosh. Haha. They definitely can play live. Sure, some parts were dubbed but that doesn't change the fact the the lead vocalist can still sing live. And their lead guitarist is zomg. His fingers were crawling all over the fretboard like an overexcited spider. Really cool stuff, the band is. And they played loads of hits in addition to their new album's songs too!

While we're talking about bands performing and stuff, let's talk about moshing. Haha. I for one don't mosh, and people who do say that it's the music that allows them to lose control, be really free blablabla. In short they're trying to say that it's a tribute to the music, because they let themselves go fully along with it. What I don't understand is that how letting oneself go could mean crouching and flailing your arms around so that you hit people. Or shoving and punching people, all of which happened last night. I've seen it before, yeah, but to see people doing stuff like that is always somewhat eye-opening. If you decide to get all excited and jump and raise your hands in the air, fine, but I don't think 'letting yourself go' is a good excuse to lose your humanity. The guy flailing his arms about ended up having a small circle about him because people obviously didn't want to get hit. He could've been possessed for all I knew, and maybe a good kick to his balls would've done him good. If it was a girl doing it, that'd be more disturbing, and maybe putting her in a corner to quiet down might help. You can't hit girls, you see.

In short, it's totally fine with me to go with the flow of the music played by the band that's up on stage, but is it that hard to play nice? And Funeral for a Friend was the shizz (again).

That's all =)

2007-09-08T08:23:00.000+08:00

Avalon - Testify To Love

For as long as I shall live
I will testify to love
I'll be a witness in the silences when words are not enough
With every breath I take I will give thanks to God above
For as long as I shall live
I will testify to love

Hello. This is just a chorus of a song which I keep listening to lately. The first time I heard the song I sorta groaned inside because the music was so bubblegum, but I guess it grew on me. Won't post the entire song lyrics because you'd probably just skim past the whole thing without reading anything. Haha. This song reminds me of that sign in the school audi, a quotation by St Iranaeus which says 'The Glory of God is the human person fully alive'. Interesting, and I definitely want to be a testament and witness to God's love no matter what =)

Yesterday was both productive and really fun. Met Gen to go study; I decided I'd be half an hour early and she half and hour late because she couldn't find her atm card which turned out to be in her wallet. Hahaha. Self-jack. We were supposed to go to the national library to study, but the place was like saturated with people (hello RJC) so we ended up walking along the streets to see if Miss Clarity Cafe was open (it wasn't). Ended up over at Suntec City. Ha.

Talked quite a bit over lunch at Pastamania, then went back to study over at a foodcourt table, which surprisingly was rather conducive. We left at about five plus cause I wanted to go over to the Comex show and take a few photos for PW (no I haven't forgotten, just no time and too lazy, heh) and then we were supposed to go for Amplify. Ended up not going because we'd walked all over the place looking for the right bus stop, even asking the galleria service counter lady where to go. After more than half an hour of waiting for bus 107 we realised we would definitely be really really late if we went, so we didn't go. Decided to catch a movie at Marina Square where I saw Keith and Hui Xin instead, and Evan Almighty was really cheesy and unbelievable and all, but I guess it left a kinda warm fuzzy feeling inside at the end of it. And some of the stuff said in the movie was really true, too. If we ask something from God, he doesn't give us the stuff we ask for straight, does he? He gives us the opportunities to get them. How true.

Chased fireworks and ran all over the place looking for a place to get a cab after that, but ended up taking a train to AMK to get one instead. It's like impossible getting a cab at the Marina area at night, I tell you. Haha.

Loads of fun, and it didn't feel ill-deserved cause we studied! So yes, thanks for everything Gen =)

I haven't figured out a way to tell my mom exactly that I'm going for Funeral for a Friend's concert tonight. Ahhhhhh.

2007-09-06T23:02:00.000+08:00

God, help me to be a better friend. I couldn't do anything to help.

2007-09-05T21:50:00.000+08:00

The Jeweler's Shop was....well I don't know how to describe it in so many words. The play itself which offered food for thought in many ways, there was the cultured arty-farty feeling you get when you watch such stuff, and of course the great company =)

Ah, I know how to describe it now. It was a brilliant way to spend an evening.

If you asked me what the play's about, I might have a little difficulty answering you. It's about relationships, about love, about how marriage is a union where two become one, and yet the one remains two. It is about how insouciance and apathy, and non admission and denial can ruin a relationship. It is about how love is the true weight of man.

Pardon me but I do think I'm describing it rather superficially. But it was pretty cool, and at Raffles Hotel Jubilee Hall, which positively connoted high class. Haha. But that's not the point. The point is that the play, written by Pope John Paul II who passed away is definitely worth watching.

I've now got a rather glowing disposition. Because I'm sunburnt and my face is oily. That's what happens when you're in full uniform taking your cadets for a drill test for 4 hours. All of that yelling and scolding. I guess it'd be a side of me people don't usually see. But I do it if I need to. And I needed to today. So yeah, all in a day's work I guess. Though I'd much have preferred an all round-tan and not just a face and forearm burn.

A bunch of new albums but no way to put the songs into my mp3 player cause my CD drive's screwed and I can't rip the songs into my computer. That totally sucks.

Anyway. Peekchers!

Photos of my Bintan trip. Long time coming, I guess. The sandcastles you see weren't made by me. It just so happened that there was this ongoing competition or something then, so I took a few photos. There were other nicer sand structures though.

Here's a photo of a Teacher's Day card which I made. This one was for Mr Li. I made 3 different cards in total, but this is the only photo I have now.

Some random old pic of some of my classmates.

2007-09-01T19:14:00.000+08:00

Note: This is a freakishly long post about lots of stuff.

I believe I speak for everyone except the ah bengs and ah lians who love pink and express their liking for each other in horribly idiotic and act-cute ways, when I say that they're quite cringe-inducing. I had some random person view me on Friendster just now, and when I checked the person's profile to see if she was someone I knew, I got this in her shoutout:

"miissyybbabiipiinkelement# l0veees bbabii caTcaTtx miia0miia0oo =x me0wwx~ =.=* Zzz sshhZzz ... kuukuuluux =x :::ddawndawnn::: muaiii h3arTtx iishhzx menddx furhhhx sUm1 whuux karrex ferrx miiex tuux rec0verrx ..."

WHAT THE HELL IS THAT.

1) Nobody damn bloody well talks like that. I can't type like that even if I tried. It'd just come out fake. And nobody wants to be an ah lian, much less a fake one. Okay maybe not ah lian, just absolutely...ugh.

2) Why would anyone type like that? Is making things harder to read for people remotely interesting? It's not cute, not cool, and extremely excruciating. I don't understand.

3) To type such a long cryptic message is worthy of a pat on the back. With a ten foot pole covered with a glove at the end of it.

Anyway.

Today was rather eventful. Let's start off with what happened in the morning. I was SUPPOSED to meet the other officers at 9am over at Toa Payoh Mac's. I ended up meeting them at 10.15am because of some very valid reasons. I'll carry on by first saying I reached Toa Payoh at slightly before nine. There, nice and slow.

Okay. Then I went over to the Mac's at HDB Hub. They weren't there, so because I knew there were 2 Mac's at TP (there are actually THREE), I thought maybe it'd be the other one. So on the way to see if they were at the Mac's in front of TP Library, I got myself a prepaid card. I wanted to call them, and the inconvenience of not being able to message was unbearable already. Walked over to the other Macdonald's and ound nobody there. Which I found absolutely weird because it was already 9.20. Walked back to the HDB Hub one again, and still couldn't find them. Was feeling frustrated so I walked out into the bus interchange and decided to set up my phone and call them. Savvy so far?

I'd just slotted the prepaid card into my phone when suddenly this dishrevelled guy came up to me and asked me if I could spare him a few bucks for food in Chinese. When somebody just comes up to you like that and immediately asks you for money without saying anything else, well I said no. So this guy asks if he could borrow my phone for a phone call. I looked at the phone with the new card, looked at him and thought that it was all pretty screwed up. I didn't begrudge him the phone call and lent it to him at first because I thought it'd be a quick 20-second call. The call took 25 minutes. I'm serious.

But now let me explain why I'm not angry. I was rather pissed at first, because past the 2 minute mark he obviously had no regard that he was using somebody else's handphone, and this somebody was in a rush and using a new prepaid card for which calls were expensive. Proceeded to argue with his mother on the phone, I got more and more angry by the second. I could hear that he had lots of problems from everything he said, but still, what bullshit luck right?

At the ten-minute mark I tapped him on the shoulder and asked him if he could make it a little quicker. I think I'll mention that all throughout the 25 minutes he talked, he spoke rather loudly and gestured wildly with his hands when talking.

And then it occured to me after a while. Maybe God was the one who sent him to me. Let me explain.

Throughout his conversation I learnt some things about this man. He'd just been released from prison, where he spent the last three years. He'd spent some years in the mental hospital before that. He was angry with his mom because she told the judge stuff that apparently made it so long, and he didn't want to go home. He talked about getting treatment at IMH, and that he had the right not to go home, it wasn't against the law and his mother, or the police or government if she called them up couldn't do anything about it. He could bathe and settle things himself; he'd taken a bath already. He wouldn't go home, because he'd argue with her at home until there was the possibilty he'd kill her. He didn't want that. He mentioned something about a weapon that could kill. A wooden stick, that when filled with mercury could kill if it broke while hitting someone with it (not feasible in my opinion, but that doesn't matter). He told her to go to work. The judge that sentenced him, the police and anyone else couldn't make him go home because it wasn't against the law. His sentence was done, and he wasn't doing anything illegal. Told his mom to pretend as if he were still in mental hospital or prison where she wouldn't be afraid that he'd do anything. Said he wouldn't. His mom didn't believe him. And they argued about many things. And the clock ticked away. Frustration until that moment of realisation.

I think God sent him to me because. This was obviously a man who had a pretty shitty life. What if he went up to someone else to ask for that phone call? I'm not saying I'm some saint here. But maybe God knew that I wasn't the type of person to begrudge someone a phone call if he really needed it. And slowly that frustration gave way to acceptance. At the end of the phone call he told his mother he still wouldn't go home, but he would call her twice a day to show he wasn't getting into any trouble in society. At the end of the incident he gave me my phone back, muttered a thank you and turned to walk away. I called after him and gave him 2 bucks. It was the right thing to do, you see.

I gave someone in trouble an opportunity to lessen his problems slightly without doing much, and in return God taught me patience and greater sympathy, and created the chance for me to do actually do something about this sympathy. And thr more I think about it the more awesome it becomes. Killing two birds with one stone! More than fair exchange I suppose. Though it was rather expensive. The guy used up the 20 bucks of my card value. Haha. So I bought a top-up. And then realised there was actually another 20 bucks bonus value in the present card. Oh well.

Right anyway so I went for the meeting one hour plus late. I don't regret it though. And I had to leave early to meet Aaron and the others for lunch to commemorate my birthday. I can't say celebrate because it's been too long since my birthday already. Kuishinbo japanese buffet. Good food. Big bill. What more to say? Oh and thanks for the presents, guys. I've only received one of them cause the rest are with Eugene but it doesn't matter. Haha.

Was supposed to go for Wei-Lyn's church barbecue. Didn't in the end cause I was feeling tired and my mom called me up and asked why I wasn't back. I didn't tell her about the thing cause it's a Christian church and she's a bit against Christians cause of some misconceptions. But that's another story. I feel bad cause I said I'd go and in the end I didn't.

Yay I can finally start studying tomorrow!

2007-09-01T06:08:00.000+08:00

I'm getting more and more screwed by the day. Almost everybody has started studying for promos. Ben, Lanz and the rest have been going for 3 hour night study sessions in school for a pretty long time, and I'm getting this urgent feeling of trepidation because I'm being left behind.

I was supposed to start studying on Thursday no matter what, and of course I didn't. Then I told myself it'd surely be Friday. It's Saturday today and I'm not free to study because I've got a meeting later on with the officers, then I'll be out the rest of the day. It's nobody's fault but my own, of course. I'm just to lazy to start studying on my own, you see.

Shit la 3 weeks or less to promos. How.

2007-08-30T16:45:00.000+08:00

I'm feeling bored at the moment cause I was originally supposed to go to PS and then study after that, but I'm not going anymore so I'm just waiting till 5.30 for this guy to come and interview me for 50 bucks. I get the fifty bucks, not pay him, obviously. It's some survey on how teens think.

My guitar's in school, so I can't practice to while away some time. Oh well.

Tomorrow's teacher's day celebrations in school. I'm still undecided if I want to go back to Maris Stella. I'll think about it later. The main issue now to settle though are the cards I'm going to make for my present teachers. Yes I make cards. My art sucks but I still do it anyway. Most guys don't do it cause they probably think it's faggoty or something. But I say it's about showing appreciation. So I'm emo. Shoot me. The problem though is that I still have no clue how I'm going to design the cards. I'll think about that later too.

Damn I need to start studying la.

2007-08-29T19:54:00.000+08:00

I am officially on the run from Michael Tan, my school DM.

Was late for morning assembly today, along with quite a few people because, well I dallied around too much in class after the bell rang for us to assemble at the quadrangle. Got caught and was made to stand behind to wait till after the thing. As the rule, I was supposed to give my EZ link card to the DM and collect it from it at 5pm. That obviously didn't go too well with me at all. My wallet withe the card was upstairs in class, so I went up to take it......and sat around for about ten minutes till he'd gone off. Eh well not my fault I was looking for lecture notes so I took a bit longer, and when I went down he wasn't there right? Okay so I wasn't looking for my notes. I didn't even bring them in the first place. But still.

I shall complete my Applications of Differentiation tutorial tonight (I hope), which was due more than 2 weeks ago. Maclaurin's Series tutorial was due a week ago, and there's small angle approximations (no idea what that is) to do too. Yippee.

I'm a disaster. And I'm experiencing withdrawal symptoms from not messaging. Stupid China made phone.

2007-08-28T21:53:00.000+08:00

It was going to happen one day, but my phone decided to screw me up today. It happened on the train home from Plaza Sing. The stupid thing kept turning itself off after a few seconds and then ater I smacked it as usual the message prompt for my PIN1 code came up. I had no idea what it was so I tried a couple of times, and my SIM card got disabled. Brilliant. I talked to someone from M1 over the phone (house phone, obviously) and she came to the conclusion my card was a goner. Now I've no means by which I can contact people and have people contact me conveniently. And I can't message people. I really must stress the importance of sms-ing during Chinese. Keeps you sane.

Which brings me to another point about today. For today's Chinese lesson, Hao Feng, Clarence and I decided we needed to look up the teacher in charge of CIP during lesson time. More productive you see. So we went out of class when Chinese was supposed to begin and returned fifteen minutes later. We were made to stand at a corner for a bit, and I ended up at another corner, Clarence at the far end where he hid behind the wall so he could squat and Hao Feng outside cause we kept talking and kicking this mouse ball we found on the floor. Hao Feng's the Home Tutorial Councillor and Clarence's the Discipline Councillor, by the way. I absolutely can't ask for more in a corrupt position holder. HAHA. Seeing I'm only a GP Rep, it's not so much of a stain on my credibilty ^_^

I now owe 3 Maths tutorials and am totally screwed for studies. Which is why I shall start studying proper very very soon. Oh, and Chem test today was a waste of paper.

2007-08-27T22:16:00.000+08:00

Finally found some time to update.

These few days have been rather eventful. Catholic retreat wasn't anything fantastic, but I wouldn't have missed it for the world anyway. I wasn't allowed to go actually. It was like people were trying to find ways to excuse themselves but couldn't because it was compulsory? There I was not being allowed to go and trying to convince my VP to let me.

Long story cut short: The retreat was to be from Friday afternoon till Saturday night, and I'd needed to be excused on Saturday morning for the .38 revolver shooting finals. Talked to my VP and he told me to skip the competition which I of course couldn't, and after some more talking he told me to not go for the retreat as a special case because he didn't want to compromise any of the sessions as they were connected. I might get left hanging without an answer, he said. Tried and tried myself but couldn't persuade him. He wanted me to go too, but it was for the best. Then my mom called him up and he couldn't say no. Haha. Anyway made friends with people some of whose names I already knew but didn't know personally. So yeah, pretty cool. Wouldn't have mised it.

.38 finals went really shitty. Team 2nd and Individual 9th but my scores were absolutely horrible because, well let's just say aiming the .38 is weird for me. The shots had a nice cluster, sure. But they were all 2s or 4s. Too lazy to say anymore.

Monthly shoot yesterday was a 540. Can't say much except that I think they counted wrongly and it's supposed to be lower. My skills are really rusty after not touching a gun for a whole month.

Anyway here's a group photo of my retreat group members =D

2007-08-22T20:42:00.000+08:00

Okay I better do this before I forget or get too damn lazy. This somewhat of a lag but better late then never.

Bintan was pretty fun, but because I'm lazy as usual to type out one whole account of what happened, here's a concise checklist of what I did there:

1) Took a ferry twice (to and fro, duh).

2) Drove the buggy that was for our villa everywhere.

3) Tried golf at the driving range.

4) Dropped the damn golf club on my foot.

5) Had buffet every day. Stuffed myself full of desserts. Blueberry cheese tart? *drool*

6) Went swimming at the pool. Not very big, and I tried to get a tan, but the weather absolutely sucked.

7) Drove an all terrain vehicle, and managed to ram the thing into the bushes.

8) Archery. It's pretty fun, but it started raining halfway through and the arrows were blown about by the wind -_-ll

9) Went to the beach even though the weather was crap like I said. It started to rain after a while, and I didn't get to walk on nice white sand that makes squeaky sounds when you step on it cause it was slightly wet =/ Walked out into the sea though. You know how at normal beaches you go waist deep in water after going in about 2 metres? In Bintan you can walk pretty far out. Haha. Cool.

Okay I'll probably upload photos soon.

2007-08-20T22:55:00.000+08:00

I'd originally wanted to blog some stuff about Bintan in this post and put some pictures, but I'll leave that to another time cause I'm quite pissed off right now.

The school's Catholic retreat this Friday is something I'm looking forward to, but a ton of problems are making it just so damn frustrating. Firstly it was cancelling the birthday celebration with the 4C guys Yi He had originally planned, which was my fault cause I remembered a bit too late. Fine.

Then it got more screwed. The NPCC .38 revolver shooting competition final is on Saturday morning. The retreat is from Friday afternoon to Saturday night. Argh. How? I can't skip the competition because I'm part of the team, and it's the FINALS. And I can't skip the retreat and I don't want to either. Brilliant.

Did I mention that due to the retreat I won't be able to go for the Serangoon Youth District Rally on Saturday, or Amplify on Friday? Seems the retreat's brought a whole lot of inconveniences for me.

Crap la.

2007-08-17T23:28:00.000+08:00

On my birthday, I:

1) Went to school and got a lot of well wishes, in person and from smses, all of which I'm really appreciative of because people care

2) Started sleeping during the first lesson (Econs)

3) Celebrated with another cake with 1T33 people (that's 4 in one week)

EDIT:

4) Got taupok-ed twice in school. Once by my classmates, another by the shooting guys. Happy birthday. Haha.

5) Played chess in class after school to while away time till 3pm, when we were supposed to go to the range for a briefing by Mr Tan

6) Was supposed to go meet Brother Paul at 4pm, but it became 6pm cause he was busy

7) Probably would've gone for Amplify, except that I finished at almost 8 and reached home at 9 plus

Anyway the meeting with Brother Paul went pretty okay. I was a bit nervous when talking to him at first, but then it was all right after that. I fully understand where he's coming from, I guess we were looking at things from different perspectives. Nonetheless, I agree with his stand on everything, and it seems there aren't going to be any much problems after all.

Going to Bintan tomorrow, have no idea what I'm going to do there. Maybe I'll start studying. I hope.

2007-08-16T23:56:00.000+08:00

Right. About 3 more minutes or so and I will be SEVENTEEN.

3 cakes in 5 days. One at Clarence's BBQ, one yesterday and one today with my parents. Omg the fatness. More next week. Haha. That was just some random observation. It's pretty cool though, cause it's a bit like birthday week or something for me.

Okay I'm seventeen already, and it didn't feel any different to when I was sixteen just a few seconds ago. Hahaha ok I'm a bit cranky now. Stupid written report sapped my brain power.

Tired. Goodnight world.

2007-08-15T23:13:00.000+08:00

Okay I finally finished my story for submission for the creative writing competition. It got a bit draggy along the way, but it's okay I guess. Now I'm left with my homework essay which I'm going to type out. HAHA.

Got smacked twice in the face with cake today. Black forest. Nicholas slammed it rather hard, and when I gently decided to lubricate his face with cream, he did it again. Dinner-ed with the shooting people at KFC after that.

There's a Maths CA tomorrow, on inequalities, system of linear equations and applications of differentiation. I'm feeling too damn lazy after completing my story, so I guess it's going to be a single digit mark as usual. I hope I sit next to Hao Feng or something so I can do some reference though.

SO MANY THINGS TO DO NOW.

1) WRITTEN REPORT (omg 3000 words)

2) Type out essay

3) Econs Project (due tomorrow, haven't started, no idea what it's about. Probably will get zero)

4) CCA Training Plan (due Friday)

5) Maths Post-exam paper (due last week, it's a 3 hour paper)

6) Applications of Differentiation tutorial (due last week)

SIAN. I think I'll go sleep. Got a runny nose. Irritating.

2007-08-13T22:18:00.000+08:00

My blog was getting a bit dereft of colour, so here's just one random pic:

Anyway I was bored so I ran my name through one of those quiz thingeys and this is what I came up with:

Tay Kai Yi Andrew --

[noun]:

An immortal

'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Andrew Tay --

[noun]:

A human transformer (Robot in disguise)

'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

That's all.

2007-08-12T13:59:00.000+08:00

Yesterday's BBQ was pretty fun, I guess. It started off rather boringly, because the food hadn't come yet or something and I just sat on the floor stoning in Clarence's room while Tingwei was gaming and the others watched. Then the thing started and it was all right. Barbecued stuff throughout the thing, and at the end we had a birthday celebration for me =D. The cake was pretty good stuff.

Val said she's bringing the other cake (there were two) on Wednesday so we can celebrate again. And Friday too. Haha.

Lazy to type more.

2007-08-11T14:33:00.000+08:00

Was supposed to study yesterday. Ended up going to play pool before meeting Gen, and only managed to do 2 questions cause we kept talking. Oh dear. Hahaha.

I'm blogging right now cause I'm waiting for Bleach to load. The link Lanz sent me's pretty good I guess. Shooting BBQ later and I hope it'll be fun. About half the J1s are going, but I guess the main purpose for me going is to see the J2s and get to sit down and talk to them again =D

Anyway. Thursday was National Day, and we pooled before going to the Padang for this thing where we were supposed to open umbrellas to form a giant Singapore flag. Quite cool la, and there's this thing called an assembly bag which they gave which I think is a rather uber concept. It's like strips that are detachable using zippers in which you can interchange colours and add more strips to form a bigger bag. Maybe I don't make sense. But it's still nice. Went for dinner at Miss Clarity Cafe, and then played pool. Again. Haha so I played pool 3 times in 2 days.

Okay the video's streamed somewhat ahead already so I'll go watch.

2007-08-09T01:26:00.000+08:00

Just came back from supper with the gang.

I'm rather addicted to Bleach now. I used to think that anime was crap until I started watching it last week on Clarence's iPod Video, after Lanz passed it to me for a taste, and since then I've been hooked. Just today alone I watched 22 episodes, and that's some effing scary shit man. On average each episode is about 20 minutes or so, and that all adds up to about 7 and a half hours of anime. Here's how I chalked up the hours:

- Watched it from the moment I left school and told Clarence I wanted to borrow the iPod all the way home. That meant a 35 minute bus trip and 15 minute walk home.

-Watched it while having lunch.

-The guys in class decided to go for some water fun at Jurong East Swimming Complex today, where there're Wild Wild Wet type water features. Watched some more from my house to the MRT station, where I went all the way to Jurong East to meet the guys at the swimming complex.

-Watched Bleach on the bus to the swimming complex.

-More of that while eating at KFC with the rest.

-We decided to play a bit of pool and LAN after that. The trip was spent with eyes transfixed on the iPod screen.

-Watched even more from Jurong East all the way to Paya Lebar and on the bus home.

-Brought the iPod out to supper and watched a couple of episodes while walking to meet the gang.

Gee, I scare myself. The only reason why I stopped then was cause the iPod was totally out of battery. Oh well I'm at episode 42 now, so this frenzy will come to an end after another 90 or so episodes.

2007-08-04T18:37:00.000+08:00

Went for the CJC Gymnastics concert yesterday. Yes you heard right, a gym concert, which basically consisted of the gymnasts doing stuff to music, with support from some dancers too. It was pretty cool, and I'm rather glad I went. There were quite a number of screw-ups along the way, but it didn't matter. The routines were still nice la.

Which brings me to another point. I'm in JC1 and 17 this year, but all along it's never really hit me that we've all actually grown up so much. It's like, wah go JC already, mature young men and women, but you never really view it that way at first. For most people, it's probably just a continuation of secondary school, with perhaps the opportunity to mix with the other sex. For some it's a harrowing experience - some people just remain all clammed up. For others it's just plain fun. Suffice to say I didn't clam up. But anyway.

The signs that we've all come a long way are there, but nobody really notices them. Until something which gives you an opportunity to see how you or your friends have grown comes along. CJC's gym concert was one of those things. Ben looked so handsome and mature in those costumes, and that's saying a lot because I'm not in the slightest inclined towards being gay. Cheerin and Wei-lyn were graceful and, dare I say it - beautiful exacting their routines. Those were pretty eye-opening moments, times when we got to see other sides of our classmates we never really got to see. Yeah of course I knew Ben was in trampoline, Cheerin was in rhythmic and Wei-lyn was in artistic gym, but seeing them actually doing stuff, now that gave real depth to what they were doing. It wasn't a sudden realisation, but my friends are all young adults now.

Suppered at Newton Circus after that, ate a hell lot of good stuff - char kway teow, fried oyster, chicken wings, murtabak, stingray. Shiok but sinful.

My class is like the best. So many talented (there's a national fencer in my class =D) and fun people. And I'm sure the eye-opening will continue.

2007-07-31T22:49:00.001+08:00

Did some retail therapy today, courtesy of the hundred bucks in the form of a Borders gift card for winning that Creative Writing Competition thingey. Not so much 'creative' on my part, like I said before, I just handed in a homework essay. But then again the 3rd prize winner, some J2 girl did that too so all's fair. I'm left with a balance of 58 dollars plus - bought two books and a Warped Tour 2007 CD.

Chem test today probably won't be single digit after all, seeing how I basically copied the whole thing. It's not for a lack of trying, I did do a few multiple choice questions on my own okay. The rest, eh well don't know how to do la. So it was just handwriting practice, then.

I like getting free cash, so much so that I'm actually going to particpate again in the second round of a new creative writing competition. The magazine society seems to have too much money to give away, so I reckon why not try to get hold of as much of it as I can right. So this time, in addition to another homework essay which I'm actually going to bother to improve on instead of just handing it up straight, I'm going to try my hand at a narrative *gasp*(meaning I'll submit two entries). Stay tuned.

2007-07-29T16:24:00.000+08:00

80-82-90-91-92-89 ----524

SIAN. Screwed up the first two series magnificently because the distance between the rear sights was so damn big, so it was hard to judge where to place the front sight between them. You probably won't know what I'm talking about here, but never mind. 3rd series onwards wasn't too bad, except that I couldn't really be bothered to push myself anymore, seeing how fked the first two were.

When the scores came out, the chief jury Mr Eddie Lim came round and asked what ours were. I told him 524 and he said 'Good'. I felt like telling him to shove a gun up his arse. Hahaha. He obviously doesn't know what I normally shoot la.

Anyway we're having this farewell dinner for Ms. Lim who's leaving for Japan to teach English. She was pretty good, and it's sad to have people not able to make it because they've got something else on already. Disappointing really. Oh well. It'll be fun with the rest though.

Off to church.

2007-07-27T23:34:00.000+08:00

Something pretty shocking happened just now.

Was at Northpoint with Muthu, Val and Jolene because we'd gone to SAFRA to bring the riflers' suits over for storage in the lockers, and we all had to take buses from the interchange at Northpoint. We'd dropped at the bus stop next the the mall and were walking towards the interchange when suddenly this man came running straight past with blood running down his face, trying to get away from two other people who were behind him. Come to think of it they could've been trying to get away together, but it seemed like the two behind were chasing the guy in front.

Anyway, one of the men chasing the guy in front was carrying this crowbar thing that was being held in a plastic bag. A weapon, no doubt. At the bus stop area, the guy in front dashed to the right and ran off while for some reason the other two disappeared to the left. Obviously we were all left stunned there for a bit. You don't ever get to see this happen much, if at all, and it was definitely rather shocking. There were drops of blood in a short trail leading from the snack kiosk in the interchange where the thing had apparently started onwards. Pretty freaky, no? After a really short while the police and ambulance service came and that was pretty much end of it.

I'm falling asleep at the computer now, so I think I'll just end here.

2007-07-25T23:14:00.000+08:00

Yeah so prize presentation was today. Amidst all the collection of medals though, I still remember one thing coach said. He'd gone to RJC to have a look and he told us after that,

"RJC said that they were only scared of us."

We lost to them by 1 point after our disastrous screw-up, but I'm not bitching here. It's just a reminder of how even though things can go horribly wrong in a competition, and nothing is guaranteed. The only way you can try and to up your chances is to train. Harder and better than others. Even then. Nothing is guaranteed.

It's not easy to keep one's feet on the ground after being lauded so much, but I think I'm doing fairly well at it. Sure it's nice to have all those medals to keep in that display case, but I constantly think to myself, 'Wouldn't it be even better if those things were all for first place?' I'm still a 540+ shooter, which I concede is something, but it's not good enough. You see, I'm ONLY a 540+ shooter.

Coach asked me to participate for the Singapore Open with Chris Chia and Mark Lee under his company's name. I've got two months to train and be even better than them, because I'm ONLY a 540+ shooter, who hopes to become a 550+ only shooter for monthly shoot this Sunday.

It gets easier with practice to remain humble amidst all of this. God gave a gift, and I'm looking to develop it as well as I can.

2007-07-23T21:21:00.000+08:00

School prize presentation for all the competitions from June to the nationals was supposed to be this morning, but after we'd all brought the trophies and lined up on the second floor, Michael Tan suddenly announced that morning assembly was canceled. How retarded. Haha. So prize presentation's postponed to tomorrow.

Hao Feng, Clarence and I went SWIMMING today. At Singapore Swimming Club where Clarence's dad's a member. Left school pretty late at about 3.30pm even though we'd finished lessons at 3pm, and reached the place only at about 5? It hardly takes a hour and a half to get there on bus, but here's what happened:

1) we dropped WAY too early. Haofeng said there was a 154 at this bus stop. There wasn't. That was some pretty funny shit, now that I look back at it, but walking a distance of about 10 bus stops is hardly any fun.

2) After walking all that damned distance we realised we walked the wrong way.

Ended up taking a cab there. Problem solved. First time I wore trunks since forever, and I can't emphasise that I need quite a bit of work. HAHA. Anyway we wanted to do like 15 laps, but I did only 7 cause my knee hurt so I stopped. Got out, went into the sauna for a bit, showered and ate. SSC's a pretty cool place I guess.

Oh, and I finished Harry Potter already! I think it's brilliant, I've heard some people talking about how the epilogue was lame and all, but what'd they expect, some action packed chapter? It's an epilogue, mind you, so the proper ending was already before that. Awesome narrative la JK Rowling.

Tired. Shall go sleep.

P.S. I was informed today that I'd won that writing competition thingey for CJC, which I found pretty funny, seeing as I handed in an essay that I'd used for submission as homework. The teacher kept telling us that she wanted a submission from my class, so just take and use lor. It wasn't like cheating or what la, sure the essay scored top marks, but I didn't know what it got for a long while after I submitted them.

2007-07-22T21:42:00.000+08:00

Heh yes I have Deathly Hallows already. Bought it on opening day for $48.05 at Orchard Popular. Was going to buy it from Borders with its brilliantly long queue while getting presents for Cheerin and Wei-Lyn when I suddenly saw TINGWEI. Haha that was some funny shit.

Me: "Hey why don't we get this one?" *points to Chicken Soup for the Singapore Soul*

....*notices a familiar guy browsing the shelf directly in front of me*

Me: "EH?! TINGWEI?!"

LOL and then he told me he'd gotten his copy of Harry Potter at Popular with no queue time at all. So we went there, bought the book and I'm now halfway through it. Woo!

Mizuno Wave Run today was pretty cool. Didn't stop at all, though my knee gave me problems. Damn pain, but surprisingly my sprained ankle wasn't a problem. It wasn't tiring cause I guess I was talking with Wei Bin and listening to music all the way, so I was preoccupied with stuff other than being tired. Haha. 10km in 1h 38 sec. Nothing fantastic, but I'm satisfied with it.

The piece of apparel they gave out this year was a singlet, and I don't look good in singlets cause I've nothing to show and stuff to hide. That means I need to train more.

Need to study for Econs test tomorrow, and I'm only at quesion 2 of my system of linear equations tutorial which was due the start of last week. But I think I'll continue with some adventures of Mr. Potter before I do anything else.

DAMN TIRED LA. Argh. Okay that's random, but true.

2007-07-21T13:45:00.001+08:00

Mizuno wave run is tomorrow!

The swelling on my sprained ankle isn't so bad now - it's gone from the size of a small grapefruit to a slight bloat on the left side of my ankle. Oh if you don't know what happened, I was playing soccer and then I fell. Scraped the skin off my right knee pretty good too. The sprain hurt so bad yesterday morning that I limped like hell, taking far longer to climb stairs and all la. The cuts on my knee were far worse yesterday too. I didn't bother covering up the wound and just wore m uniform trousers after dabbing the wound clean, and after a while i could see brown patches on my trousers where the blood had seeped through. HAHA OKAY I SHALL STOP GIVING GROSS DETAILS.

Anyway. Went to the Home Team Academy this morning for the officers' .38 revolver shooting competition. Results wise it was okay, nothing fantastic cause I wasted like 5 bullets shooting too low cause didn't know how to align the sights, so ended up aiming wrongly. How superb. Corrected my aim after that la, but the damage was done. Still it was pretty fun. Okay I'm ranting here.

I'm still shit shagged la, and I've no time to recover that lost sleep. Looks like lectures will have to do. Hahaha.

2007-07-20T23:05:00.000+08:00

We had this farewell party thing for the J2s today. Gave out the note card thingeys and chocolates to them; nothing that big in terms of monetary cost, but I hope they appreciate the sincerity.

Damn tired now la. Slept during lecture today. Worst thing is I can't go to sleep yet cause I've got a lot of stuff to do =/

Harry Potter 7 is out tomorrow! I'd better cough the book up somehow soon.

2007-07-18T22:12:00.000+08:00

Succumbed to the urge of compulsive buying today. I bought an mp3 player, the new Creative Zen Stone Plus which cost $99 and which was one of the players I'd been eyeing for a while. I really needed one - I've been using that ancient square discman that would probably fetch 5 bucks if I brought it to sell at a pawnshop, not exactly something I'd bring out when I go running. It's not really a discman to play music either; it's supposed to be a VCD player which I appropriated temporarily for my purposes. It's got the words 'Karaoke' on a sticker pasted on it. How's that for retro, eh?

So we were at Heartland Mall when we walked past the computer hardware shop and I saw it. Went back after a short while and just plonked the money down. Oh well I'll take it as an early birthday present for myself la.

It's all well and good, I guess, except for the fact that I was already spending way outside my means and I'm now into negative figures in terms of moolah. I've got like 4 bucks in my wallet, but I owe 60 bucks for a concert ticket, need 60 bucks for that new Harry Potter book (because I told my dad I wanted it, he gave me the money and I happily used it on the new mp3 player. meaning the book has to turn up somehow or he'll get suspicious), and need another 25 for a knee support cause my knee is so screwed and I'm running 10km on Sunday. Oh and I need quite a bit more for something else too. Just won't say what it is here =)

And yeah my parents don't know I bought it. Haha.

2007-07-16T23:51:00.000+08:00

33rd Student Council Installation Ceremony at St. Ignatius Church! I was there =D

I wasn't originally scheduled to go, but Hao Feng asked me today if I was interested and I said okay cause I could congratulate friends after the thing. So yeah, photos. Only got 2 at the moment, Matthias and Liselle if you please, send me the others yep?

Will update soon. Partly cause it's damn late already and I don't have all the photos yet.

2007-07-15T08:01:00.000+08:00

Harry Potter was.....well, rather disappointing compared to the book. They cut out a whole ton and changed the story somewhat, which was expected because they had to fit the whole book into 138 minutes, but still it could've been more exciting. I guess only people who haven't read the book'll say it's not bad (not talking about you, Aaron), because it was more of trying to recognise familiar scenes from the book in the movie and spotting all the differences for me. Haha. The fight scene was tame, and possibly the most interesting part was the kissing scene with Cho Chang. I'd still have watched the movie nonetheless though.

I must say I'm no Harry Potter freak, but you'll definitely agree with me that what we have here is possibly what our kids will be reading twenty or thirty years down the road. What we have are seven books of modern literature.

I can't wait for the seventh book to come out. But I'm broke, so I probably won't get my copy so soon. Oh well.

2007-07-13T21:29:00.000+08:00

Today is Friday the 13th, and things went bad. Very long story, but cut short it seems that Brother Paul misunderstood my mail to Mr Tan, my shooting teacher-in-charge and totally took it the wrong way.

And instead of helping us, another teacher decided to shoot me down on all the suggestions I made, making matters worse. Thanks a lot. Mr Tan and all the rest of the teachers have always been trying their best to help us - they've always been on our side, something which he obviously didn't realise, and he did the opposite by attempting to put down everything I said. Mind you it was Mr Tan who asked me for the email so he could have a better understanding of what was happening. I'm really touched by everything he has done for us la. He already has so much to do, and yet seeks to do everything he can for the club. Now that's what I call unwavering commitment.

Hope the misunderstanding with Brother Paul clears soon.

2007-07-12T21:02:00.000+08:00

I don't fucking believe this.

I spent the whole past hour typing this long (obviously, seeing I took a full hour to type it) email to Mr. Tan, my shooting teacher-in-charge regarding some issues and hotmail decided to screw with me. I'd typed out everything so damn nicely and then clicked 'save to drafts' so I could go to my inbox to see what his email address is. And when I went back to my draft, which wasn't one already cause it was the fucking final copy I was going to send out, IT WAS BLANK.

Pardon the profanities, I'm just SO DAMN FRUSTRATED AT THE MOMENT. This is bullshit. ONE HOUR SPENT NOT DOING MY EOM WHICH IS DUE TOMORROW FOR NOTHING.

Wanted to talk about some other random stuff but I'm just not in the mood now.

2007-07-11T20:13:00.000+08:00

In somewhat high spirits now, because I tried out my new LP2 today and it's absolutely shiok. It's not the best gun around, we can't afford LP10s, but hey it's still pretty cool. And shiny. It's so much easier to create a single hole from the shots now. The clumsy manual Bobby was supposedly more stable, but it was a little unwieldy and my grip didn't fit my hand. I expect a jump in my score now. Heh.

I've decided to name him Bobby Jr.

Failed Chem with an Ultrafantastic (ya la Ungraded la) grade, Chinese was a D and I got a B for Physics. Only left with GP now. I'm praying I still can get that A. A bit unlikely though. Oh well at least it wasn't as bad as it could be; didn't fail two of my H2s or something.

I've got quite a bit of homework which is happily stacking up. I'd do it, except that I don't know how. That's what you get for not paying attention in lectures. Bah, I need to study before I can do my homework, and it's after exams already. Maybe I just won't do it.

2007-07-09T20:52:00.000+08:00

Shit my right knee is so bloody screwed. It hurts like hell whenever I go up or down any steps. Ran 15 rounds in school today and it positively throbbed after that, and when I tried doing a couple of grandstands I think my leg almost snapped. I don't usually classify my legs as twigly (yeah no such word but my blog, so.) but it hurt la.

I PASSED MATHS. THANK YOU GOD.

Econs was kinda disappointing cause I was expecting an A but got a B instead. Oh well.

Chem is a probable fail grade. Should be able to pass Physics. GP is a sure B and up la, but the marks just won't be pretty. My A for Chinese is a goner because I fell asleep while reading the passage and couldn't finish, so I gave away 7 marks.

I'm still sorta in the holiday mood at the moment. Oh shit.

Finally getting a new gun on Wednesday! Don't have to use a hand-cranked one anymore. Haha. Though Bobby'll always hold memories for me, LP2 (or P40, depending on which I take in the end) here I come =D

Aaaaand I might get an electric guitar after all! Hehe my Mom was super inclined to say no. And then I asked my Dad, who said some stuff about 'later studies how' and all, but I think he'll still give the okay. Yay Dad. And hey, my birthday's coming so *fingers crossed*