Thoughts Unlimited

Happy New Year everyone who is reading this.

The new year starts tomorrow and that is just really, really bad. Because it's going to bring with it 2 years of JC with guys and lectures and tutorials and staying in school until 4pm everyday.

Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... *dead*

Ack. The past 3 posts have been nonsense. And this one isn't.

School starts in less than a week, and I don't know what to think, or not to think.

In a sense, I'm a little happy that school's starting again, because my brain has been rotting for the past 2 months and it's about to enter the final stages of decomposition.

Then again, once school starts and orientation is over, I'm going to start wishing that it was holidays again. It happens every year.

This year, like the year 2001, is a year of no end-of-year holiday homework. But I suppose on retrospect, I could have made slightly better use of my time instead of sitting at the computer and making myself a self-proclaimed expert on minesweeper and solitaire. I think I've probably played those 2 games more in the past 2 months than I have ever played in my life.

And then, I read newspaper, spending inordinate amounts of time reading it everyday, and also digging out year-old newspaper, pouring over it, and cutting it to ribbons.

So that's been my holiday, and I also watched a couple of movies, went to Taiwan for a few days, and made (largely unsuccessful) attempts at reading Pride and Prejudice.

I hope next year's better.

Another present. This time from Ling.

Rules:
1. Post the top 20 OR 30 OR 50 most frequently played songs in your player for the past one year.
2. Name five victims to pass the game on.

In no particular order:

1. Angels - Robbie Williams
2. Beautiful Soul - Jesse McCartney
3. Numb - Linkin Park
4. Les Choristes - Les Petits Chanteurs de Saint-Marc
5. Shiver - Maroon 5
6. Say It Isn't So - Gareth Gates
7. I Believe I Can Fly - R Kelly
8. Eternity - Robbie Williams
9. Words - Ronan Keating
10.Make Me Pure - Robbie Williams
11. Don't Tell Me - Avril Lavigne
12. Tangled - Maroon 5
13. Because You Live - Jesse McCartney
14. Come Undone - Robbie Williams
15. Where Is The Love - Black Eye Peas
16. A View To Kill - Duran Duran
17.Better Man - Robbie Williams
18. Feel - Robbie Williams
19. The Sun - Maroon 5
20. Caresse sur l'Ocean - Les Petits Chanteurs de Saint-Marc
21. Tripping - Robbie Williams
22. When You Say Nothing At All - Ronan Keating
23. Live And Let Die - Paul McCartney & Wings
24. Summer Sunshine - The Corrs
25. Lost For Words - Ronan Keating
26. Mandy - Westlife
27. Strong - Robbie Williams
28. La Nuit - Les Petits Chanteurs de Saint-Marc
29. Tears In Heaven - Eric Clapton
30. The Road To Mandalay - Robbie Williams

The 5 victims:

1. Yimei
2. yx (again)
3. Hamsie
4. Neeti
5. Gerald

Present from Yimei.

Read the rules and play the game.

Rules of the game:

Post 5 weird and random facts about yourself and list down 5 victims at the end of your list who has to play this game. Please leave a tag at the blog of the 5 victims that goes: " You have been tagged! Read my blog and Play the game!"

Five weird and random facts about myself:

1. I HATE pink. (but I bet you already knew that)

2. I have scored super high for physics before.

3. I dislike phone ring tones which are bought from those services selling ring tones.

4. I get food cravings at weird times.

5. Nike shoes don't fit my feet at all.

The 5 victims:

1. Ling
2. yx
3. M
4. J10
5. Yi Qing

I just realised that Pierce Brosnan was nominated for a Golden Globe award for best actor in a comedy.

And, yx, we are so gonna watch Seraphim Falls when it comes out in the distant future. Finally, a show we can watch together for similar reasons.

Got this from Hamsie's blog who got it from Daph who...... blah.


1. Start time?
1.32am

2. Were you named after anyone?
No.

3. Do you wish on stars?
No.

4. When did you last cry?
Don't remember.

5. What is your favourite meat?
Don't know. Depends how it's cooked...

6. What is your most embarrassing CD on your shelf?
Britney Spears.

7. If you were another person, would YOU be friends with you?
I'd like to think so.

8. Are you a daredevil?
Depends on the situation. Sometimes when I'm in the correct mood I'll do anything.

9. How do you release anger?
Pillow, bolster, blanket, mattress has got to absorb the initial shock. After that, if it's still there, then probably the floor kena.

10. Where is your second home?
School, when it's not holidays...

11. Do you trust others easily?
No. I will think and think and think before I make up my mind about trust.

12. What was your favourite toy as a child?
HAMLEY!! I still like him a lot.

13. What class in school do you think is totally useless?
Morning assembly. Is that counted as a class?

14. Do you use sarcasm a lot?
It depends on my mood, and I tend to like using it on MSN, and it's bound to fail, because you can't really see sarcasm.

15. Have you ever been in a mosh pit?
No. I'm a sad case person. I got close to being in one once, then I decided not to.

16. What do you look for in a guy/girl?
Personality? Character? Anything?

17. Would you bungee jump?
I won't pay to do it. You have to pay me.

18. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off?
No. Just kick off and squeeze my feet in the next time. Laces can stay tied for months. Hehe.

19. What's your favourite ice cream flavour?
Mint Chocolate Chip. Yes. I love it.

20. What is your favourite colour(S)?
Usually black, but I can be persuaded.

21. What is your least favourite thing?
Hamsie said cigarettes. But I think I dislike drugs more.

22. What do you miss most right now?
411. And also Paris. And Switzerland.

23. What are you listening to right now?
Numb by Linkin Park. Are you surprised it's not Les Choristes or Robbie Williams? Hey, I do have a 2000+ playlist.

24. If you were a crayon, what colour would you be?
WHITE! Ahhahahhaha.

25. What is the weather like right now?
Normal Singapore weather at night. About 30 degrees Celcius, humidity at about 80 something percent.

26. Last person you talked to on the phone?
I usually talk to yx and Manori. But both of them are overseas. So the last person I talked to on the phone was.. my mummy.

27. The first thing you notice about the opposite sex?
I don't care.

28. Do you like the person who sent you this?
I stole it. From Hamsie's blog. And Hamsie stole it from Daphane's blog. And yeah, you could say I like her.

29. How are you today?
Fine. (Usual answer everyone gives, so I should give it too!)

30. Favourite drink?
Got lots. For one, it would be Fanta Orange. FANTA only. F&N and all the rest are not as nice. Too bad they don't have it here.
And I like MILO!

31. Favourite alcoholic drink?
I should just totally disregard the fact that I am only legally allowed to drink a sad excuse of an alcoholic drink called shandy, which contains something like 1% alcohol.
So, just for the heck of it, I shall say, a vodlka martini, shaken, not stirred.

32. Natural hair colour?
Black. Like you didn't know.

33. Eye colour?
It differs in different light, ranging from this to this.

34. Wear contacts?
Yes.

35. Siblings?
Yes. 1 younger brother.

36. Favourite month?
July. I WONDER WHY. Hmmmm....

37. Favourite food?
A lot.

38. Last movie you watched?
Last entire movie I watched? Because I watched Amilie and Die Another Day partially today, and I was about to do the same to To Kill A Mockingbird, but bro won't let me switch off Amilie.
Last entire movie? Probably Encrypt.

39. Favourite day of the year?
My birthday. And all holidays.

40. Have you ever been too shy to ask someone out?
Never ask before. Never thought of asking before. So I can't tell you whether I was shy a not.

41. Scary movies or happy endings?
Can a scary movie have a happy ending?

42. Summer or winter?
WINTER. Obviously. SNOW!!!

43. Hugs or kisses?
Do you really want to know?

44. Do you want your friends to write back?
Uh-huh.

45. Who is most likely to respond?
No one.

46. Who is least likely to respond?
Someone.

47. What book/magazine are you reading?
A lot. I always start reading several at the same time.
So right now the books would be:
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
The Great Escape Screenplay
Phantoms of the Card Table
Magazines:
The current issue of LIME

48. What's on your mouse pad?
Don't use a mouse pad.

49. What did you watch on TV last night?
Whose Line Is It Anyway?

50. Favourite smell?
Don't ask can?

51. Do you regret ever breaking up with someone?
Never. Because I've never had someone.

52. Time of finishing?
2.01am

Am I bored?

Go figure.

Last week I came back from Taiwan, and it was colder than expected.

I think the whole world is experiencing a cold spell. Everywhere is snowing earlier than it should, and temperatures are dropping really low and really fast.

I guess it might be fun for people like me who live in places like Singapore where it is just hot and humid and nothing else the whole year round.

Snow thrills me, and I love it.

I suppose that I love it only because it is a rarity, a novelty of sorts, and as a result I find it special.

However, I think that this year might just be a bad year for an early and colder winter. Because 2005 has been a year of natural disasters, and there are lots of people out there who are suffering because of the early onset of winter. I think that in their case they'd rather be in Singapore feeling hot than freezing to death.

Snow is fun, when it's light and fluffy and there's not too much of it. It's fun when it first snows, when the flakes first hit the grass. The snow is fresh. After that the snow gets stale. And overnight it turns to ice and frost and it isn't fun anymore.

But of course, snow is only fun when you have warm, waterproof clothes on, good sturdy shoes which keep the cold and the damp out, and it's only fun if you have the knowledge that there will be a warm meal and a warm bed to look forward to at the end of the day.

Maybe one day if I have the chance to experience snow again, I should try camping outside in the cold and miss dinner. I don't think it'll be a nice feeling and I'll probably give up halfway through the night and retire to the heated room.

But what about those who don't have a choice? They have to do that every night in the cold and the worst of winter hasn't even hit yet. I don't want to think about it further.

Eeeek. It's been a week since I actually went for that tour, and since I came back, I've been too sian to type anything out. Oh no, the window is behaving weirdly and I shall take that as a hint that this window is going to crash anytime. I'd better open Word and type it there instead. Okay, I’m in Word now. The thing about the tour was that it was better than I had expected. I had expected something terrible, and I suppose that that bolstered by expectations and as a result most things would have seemed to be better than I thought they would be. (Did that make any sense? I don’t think so, but who cares) I bought the $33 thing which had a 2 day pass, and there were 6 possible tours and I outdid myself and emulated the kiasu Singaporean by successfully taking 7. That means that I took one of them twice. On Thursday last week I woke up late, and thereby missed taking the 10am first tour, and ended up with the 10.30 one instead. Just as well, because by doing so I met this Hungarian girl by the name of Angie. Maybe she should not be called ‘girl’ because she said that she was 30, but I swear that she looked like she was in her (early) twenties. Good genes. Damn. And I should say, good genes in more ways than one. Besides the age thing, there was the looks thing. She has blond hair, and bluish-green eyes. She is by all means pretty. As for a photo of her… it’s with her. In her camera. She said she’s send it to me (I gave her my email) but she can only do so after she gets home. Which will be about Christmas or New Year, so I’ll just have to wait. I have some photos she wants too, so I guess that’s a bargaining factor. She’s here for a property show at the Singapore Expo with her husband, who is still in Bangkok. I think the show is like touring the world or something. Yeah, and normally she lives in Kent, England, and that is like super cool already. And she mentioned that she goes to Paris very often, as it is ‘very nearby’. Lucky! I also want. And not to mention I’m also particularly jealous of a junior named Ada who is already in Switzerland and will be there for 1 week followed by a trip to Paris. Just the 2 places I’m dying to revisit. I took the Heritage Tour (that’s what they called it) first. And I expected it to be a la an NE tour in primary school. Which was pretty accurate, but I must admit that I did learn something. You know in primary school for SS when you lean about all the different races and religions, you concentrate on the Chinese, the Indians, and the Malays, with a bit of Eurasians? They never ever mention anyone else, they just call them ‘minority races’. And so I have always wondered where they stayed, since Raffles’ Town Plan didn’t exactly take them into consideration. So during that tour I found out where the former Jewish quarters was, and it was particularly surprising to me, as I actually pass that place everyday on the way to school, but I have never noticed it before. The tour guide, Gareth, pointed out the Star of David emblazoned at the top, and I was amused. With 4 years of passing that junction and those buildings, I had never once looked up and saw anything. The rest of the tour was quite expected, the usual stuff. The only other thing which shocked me was Istana Kampong Glam’s transformation. Me, being ancient by now, first saw the Istana at Kampong Glam when I was in either P3 or P4. And at that time, it was falling down, old, lousy, and I wondered who in the right sense of mind would stay there. But when I passed it, it had changed completely, they had obviously repaired it and repainted it, and it actually looked livable. But it looked fake too. It just didn’t look the way it used to, the aura, the atmosphere, was gone, and it had become ‘just another building’ in the landscape. There was no longer a contrast. I wonder if this change, in the name of progress, was really progress at all, or a step backward. What’s lost can’t be easily replaced and recreated, and they successfully managed to rid the place of what was important. Whether they realise what they did or not, I do not know, but I do know that I feel the place was better previously. The next tour I took was the city tour, and I got off lots of times. The first time was for the Singapore River Boat Cruise. I got off at Liang Court, and waited for the boat. I got on, discovered that the Singapore River was pretty bad and just not a sight, it would probably be more accurately described as a longkang than a river. Because that is what it looks like, albeit it was a rather large drain. The river boat cruise was totally un-spectacular. It was just a boat cruising, no, actually, floating, down a river or rather large drain. And there were these commentaries playing, recorded, of course, with an European-accented guy telling about the places, and putting them in a better light than they were, obviously, an obvious example being the Esplanade. None of its shortcomings, naturally, after all, it was supposed to be a great arts centre, and emulate the Sydney Opera House, (which I think is sadly not the case). And the amount of money spent was ‘for a good cause’. But how much good it actually did I don’t know. Because this is my point of view: If I am interested in the arts (and in my case, I actually am), I would have bugged my parents years and years ago to bring me to performances at the Indoor Stadium, Kallang Theatre, etc. Which I did. The arts scene was there, just not as noticed by the government who was more interested in nation building. Which was probably a good thing too. Maybe it was less eventful, but vibrant, it definitely was. Right now, it looks manufactured and, again, fake. It’s forced, it’s no longer natural. But of course there are the good bits too, because with the government taking note now and all, there is more money, and once you have money, you can have practically anything. This sad invention has become one of the most important ones, and that’s just too bad. So after the floating down the longkang on this bumboat which reeked of tourism, I boarded the bus with Angie again and carried on the tour, this time getting off at the Botanical Gardens. The place has sure changed a lot since the last time I was there, which was probably sometime in P3 or 4 while I had to do this Young Botanist thing. I have still yet to see the point of such a thing, because the entire objective seems to be getting 20 stars and getting a small metal badge. I don’t see the point, because I’m not dying to get that badge. And Young Botanist, Young Environmentalist, Young Whatever, they just don’t show what real life entails. It is just a task, and it’s sometimes not even related to what the card claims to be. If I was less guai in primary school, I would have simply been a defiant kid who refused to do a lot of stuff because it was just so pointless. But unfortunately, I was very, very guai and good and listened to the teacher. So I did the pointless stuff. To me, most of the stuff I did in primary school was easy and as a result I never actually spent time or effort. I just kind of bo liao-ed my way through PSLE and got to where I am. Back to the Botanical Gardens. There has been a major facelift, and there were water features and all sorts of things which made the garden look super well-maintained. Which it was. Hung around there a while and went to the Orchid Garden for the first time, and just as well because admission was free for students for that day. I wouldn’t have paid. Following that went to Raffles Hotel, and walked inside for the first time in my life. I had expected more, because I’ve heard the musings of many a tourist, who claim that it is fantastic. It was rather, ordinary. And I have to say that the Christmas decorations made the hotel look worse than it already did on the outside. Went back to Suntec, went to the Esplanade, and waited for a while for the night tour. It was supposed to go to Sentosa for the musical fountain show and dinner and then go to places like Chinatown and Orchard Road. At Sentosa, the guide told us to seat a long time before the show. And when we first seated, there were not many people, but within the next few minutes, the entire place really filled up. I didn’t know that Singapore hotels were capable of accommodating that many tourists. It was at least 3 times the size of RGS. And finally at long last, the show started. It started with the fountain, but quickly morphed into a laser show, not a water show. It should have been called the Sentosa Laser Fountain show. That would have been more accurate, as more than half the time was spent on the lasers. The rest of the night was rather uneventful, and I went home and slept soundly. Being a tourist is tiring. The following day I timed my waking up to be rather late as I only wanted to take a few tours. I took 2 and then got bored, so I got off at Orchard MRT (which they kindly called Marriott) and decided to meet Ling at Sengkang instead. That evening I took the other night tour to, guess where? Parkway Parade. Now, that place is somewhere I go practically everyday, and I am already pretty sick of it. So of course I had no problems navigating my way around, and I even bought breakfast and other stuff. Went to Geylang, and after walking around for a while, I decided that it wasn’t exactly the best idea so I went back to the bus and drank Milo with Gareth and the captain. After that, saw the Christmas light-up for the second night in a row, and was officially sick of it. And since then, I’ve been bored as usual, except that I went to the Botanical Gardens again yesterday, which is a clear indicator of the extent of my boredom. You have just read 1824 words.