[Random thoughts...]
I don't believe I've mentioned that I'm in the middle of my exams. Three down, one to go. This is my fifth semester in NUS and it is the first semester whereby I don't seem to care very much about my exams. Maybe I was burnt out from the wake before the study week, or maybe I'm less anxious because my papers were spaced rather far apart this time round, or maybe because I'm taking only four modules this semester (instead of my usual five). I don't know. Probably a combination of all the factors above.
Today's paper sucked. Of all the exams I've ever sat for in NUS, this has got to be the one whereby I'm the least confident. There isn't a single question where, after writing down my answers, I knew for a fact that I was right.
I don't think I've ever mentioned this before, but the module was also offered to Masters students, one of whom had the largest breasts I've ever seen on an Asian. When other female students are joking/pointing/telling lewd jokes about her with their male friends, you know that that's really huge. One female student today said she wanted to take a photo with her.
I was thinking of a tasteful way to tell the story above. Don't think I did it very well. I guess there's really no tasteful way of saying "hey, you've got big breasts."
This time last year, I talked about losing some friends who were graduating. I'm set to lose more this semester. Practically all the final-year students I know are graduating after this semester. Some of whom I'd miss, some of whom I won't. As of now, three of them sticks out in my mind. Two I'd miss, one I'd piss on.
It is during this time when people start asking around to see if others have found or secured a job after graduation yet. I had a talk with a very distant relative during my grandmother's wake whom I don't remember seeing before (and in all likelihood, will never see again), he's in his 50s, graduated from Ngee Ann Polytechnic. He had a good job in the past, but lost it when he got retrenched and is currently a taxi driver.
What surprised me about him was that his views were very up-to-date. He said young people nowadays are only interested in making the largest amount of money in the shortest amount of time. He also said that money that came easily would go away easily as well. Basically, risk goes both ways.
I could not agree more.
I have friends (read: acquaintances) who ended up working for banks or financial institutions in fields totally unrelated to their work. All because of the promise of easy money. For the rest of them, they were aiming really high, talking about landing jobs in this company or that - all big name companies, usually MNCs.
Sometimes I wonder if they know what it takes to work in those places. The amount of stress they'd be under, how they would be under pressure to deliver/perform. Maybe they're all ready and up for it. Or maybe, it would come as a rude awakening...
Me? I want a good work-life balance. What's all the money in the world if you have no time, worse still, no one to spend it with? When you die, your company will hire someone new, but your family will miss you forever. I just want a job with a decent pay, career advancement be damned.
Am I'm realistic, or am I aiming too low?
Had a rather disturbing dream last night. Had an even more disturbing one this afternoon during my nap, which was a continuation of the one last night. Hope there isn't a part three tonight.
[Router router on the wall...]
I was at BP Plaza today and guess what I saw?
Maybe they are going to offer free wi-fi in BP Plaza...I don't know. They "installed" wireless routers on the display panels at the lift landings.
Personally, I thought it was an absolute joke. Who the hell installs wireless routers like that? The very least they should have done was to mount a box and keep the router in it. Using plastic ties to secure the router on top of what was basically a LCD TV was a really bad idea. It's easy for someone to steal the router, not to mention it's such an eyesore.
[Changing times...]
I remember when I first moved to Bukit Panjang. It was 20 years ago. I was 5 then. I still remember what it was like. It was a new estate, and the "new stuff smell" was everywhere. It was a safe neighbourhood. I thought it was because the flats here were mostly 4 or 5-room flats, hence you get a certain level of "quality" when it came to neighbours.
Fast forward 20 years. Times have changed. Luvgreen lives across the road from me, and while I don't know how it was like for her in the past, things have certainly been exciting for her for the past few years. Excitement she could do without, I'm sure she'd agree.
My side of the road has changed too. Ever so often, I hear the sound of things being knocked over and people laughing at night in the car-park below my block. Just a few minutes ago, some idiots thought it'd be fun to steal the rubbish collector's little electric lorry. The guy in charge of it came out and chased them off, and they went and sat down at the void deck.
They were swearing. It was easy to hear because it was quiet. It was, after all, midnight.
Don't they have anything else better to do? I wonder where they'd be in 10 years' time. Prison, dead, or both?
People who can't control their children shouldn't be allowed to have kids.
[Weirdo...]
I went to school to run a few errands today, then went to SLS and got myself a new hard disk. I replaced one of my 80GB ATA disks with a 500GB SATA. Seagate was sold out, so I tried Western Digital for the first time. Hope it wouldn't be a disappointment.
There was this totally creepy guy at the bus-stop...
He's the one in the blue shirt. He was actually seated at this ledge thingy at the back of the bus-stop, outside camera range. Two rather attractive ladies alighted from a bus and was standing at the left side of the picture. They're both in black, but you can only see one of them in the above picture. The woman in blue decided to play tourist just as I whipped my phone out and started checking out bus routes.
So anyway, once the ladies alighted, the guy in blue jumped up and walked to where he was and began checking them out.
No big deal, right? I mean, everyone checks out someone else every once in a while. Perfectly natural.
But must he be *so* obvious?
To top it off, as he got on his bus, he turned around and gave them one last look before going on his way. I was standing less than 1 metre away from him at the time (my bus was behind his), and I saw where his eyes were and everything. Geez....
[Blockages...]
This is Reading Week, the week just before the exams start in NUS. I haven't done much revision so far, mainly because I'm still battling a virus. My fever's long gone, but my nose's still semi-blocked and there's a lot of mucus. The whole "blocked head" feeling makes me feel very sleepy...
I'm not all that worried, though. I have only four papers this semester, and three of them are spaced pretty far apart. To top it off, all of them are open-book exams. I've even gone and booked IPT during this period.
I've been meaning to mention an incident that happened during the wake last week that embarrassed me to no end. It kept slipping my mind...
Without going into the specifics, I was seated on the ground. Everyone's looking for space to park themselves, and I noticed that my cousin couldn't seem to find enough space. I moved over a little, then used my hand and whacked him on his ass (he was standing, I was seated on the floor) to get his attention.
At this point, I must mention that due to the lack of sleep the whole week, I was pretty stoned at that point. Some people (like my 59-year old Dad) could get by with 4 hours of sleep everyday, but if I don't get my 7 to 8 hours, I fall apart pretty quickly. So yeah, I was stoned.
Back to my story. My cousin turned around, and I was instantly jolted awake. No, it's not some scary monster or anything. It was my cousin...
But it was one of my FEMALE cousins.
I think my brain short-circuited for about a second when I saw her shocked face. I apologised, telling her I thought she was someone else. Good thing that was the penultimate day because it was pretty awkward after that.
Moral of the story: Look before you whack someone's ass. Don't whack anyone on their ass.
[Do you believe?]
Spooky stories abound every funeral or wake. My grandmother's was no different.
My grandmother passed away one week ago today. Her mother, my great-grandmother, is still alive. Her mind isn't all there anymore. Not surprising, as she was approaching 100. She lives down the street from my grandmother.
Last Monday, my great-grandmother asked her children to open the door, because her daughter (my grandmother) was there. At the time, they haven't been told that she has passed away. They figured it was the dementia talking.
Or was it?
When we visited my grandmother this Chinese New Year, she revealed that she saw a dark shadow darting about the apartment. She lives with her son, and they moved in earlier this year. My Dad told her not to worry about it, and that it was probably nothing. Just a trick of light or reflection or something.
After my grandmother passed away, neighbours told my uncle that she was the fourth person to pass away in that apartment. And as it turned out, the quickest to go too (only 3-4 months). My uncles engaged a medium to take a look at the apartment.
I wasn't there, but apparently, the medium's faced changed the moment he entered the apartment. One of my uncles who was there said he looked like an angry lion with his tongue sticking out and face going all psycho.
He told them there was someone else there.
He gave them his name and told them he was a wandering spirit and came in to seek shelter one day. And then he stayed on.
Of course, they then wondered if my grandmother's death had anything to do with this spirit. They went down and the medium "talked" to my grandmother. She said no, her time was up, and that was it. She said she was happy to have had a good life, and that all was fine. She could see the dark shadow (that wandering spirit) and was afraid, but other than that, all was well.
They're going to do something about that wandering spirit after the wake has been concluded. My uncle worships several Taoist deities in his apartment and they were now wondering if he did it right, if they were "in" at all. He may have to "invite" them in again or something.
[Man of Science, man of Faith...]
Which one are you? Science or Faith?
A man of Science would think that it's all a waste of time. Nothing of that sort happens anyway. Even if they did, there was probably a scientific way of explaining it.
For a man of Faith, every small detail mattered. And because they believed, they saw it. Experienced it. They don't look to Science for an explanation. They just believe.
Me, I'm a man of Science. Although sometimes, I wonder. Are we so conceited as to think that Science can explain everything?
No mystery is closed to an open mind.
When I was in secondary school, I bought The New Paper religiously. The articles were "interesting". Or at least at that age, I thought it was. Then one day, I suddenly realised what a crapper TNP was. Lousy grammar, spelling mistakes, and they were really reporting tabloids rather than news.
During the wake, I was so bored I decided to pick up a copy of TNP that was lying around. I turned to the Sports section, and what I read really shocked me.
Their "match reports" were copied wholesale from Soccernet.com!
All they did was add a sentence or two here and there, and they called it their own. I can't remember if they gave credit. Don't think they did.
I wonder if they had permission. If not, ESPN could sue their asses off.
The lines of division were...shocking.
I wonder what it's going to be like for the next generation. My generation, specifically.
To each his own.
One week ago, they visited her and all was well. One week later, they put her into the ground.
Life is short. Life can end tomorrow. Play hard. Live it to the fullest. Treasure your family. These words took on a whole new meaning for me the last couple of days.
If things seemed neither-here-nor-there, I guess it reflected my state of mind. I'm dealing with what's happened in the past 7 days, catching up on what happened in my "normal world" and making a list of things I need to do, as well as dealing with the fact that exams are coming and I'm haven't revised a word.
[And life goes on...]
First up, I'd like to thank everyone for their kind words. Don't worry, I'm fine. To be honest, right now I have more of a scheduling conflict/problem than anything else. I guess that's probably not the politically-correct thing to say, but I think it's important for us to remember that the reality of the situation is that life goes on.
The late nights spent at the wake is taking a toll on my mental alertness. I was pretty beat in school today, and had to struggle to understand some of the things said during a brief project discussion. That's not good.
Enough of that. Time for what you came for (I hope).
Received this in my Youtube account.
What an ass. The things he know about pro-wrestling, he read off some silly newsboard. And these days, newsboards copy from one another, so there's really only a few people really "in the know". So basically, he visits some newsboards and think he knows all about the business. What a punk. (Keith: He's like that other guy you showed me on Youtube)
I've seen this before, but didn't have a chance to take a photo of it until today.
If you don't know why this is funny, I can't help you.
[A million thoughts in my mind...]
I woke up early today to accompany my parents to the hospital. My Mum's having her cataracts removed. It's a routine procedure for the doctors, and it was just day surgery so it was considered a very minor operation. But I think there's no such thing as a "minor operation" when your family members are involved.
While waiting for her to be wheeled out from the OR, I walked around the corridors a bit. My Mum was in this cluster of ORs where the minor operations were performed, and there was no drama in the waiting area. In fact, one of the people waiting there was the proud father of new-born twins.
However, some way down the corridor, it was a different story. That was where the very serious operations were performed, and each patient's family had one "waiting area". There were people crying, hugging, etc. Just like on TV. Except that when you see it in person, it's a lot more real. I didn't stay long there.
So my Mum came out and everything was fine. The procedure took longer than expected because one of the doctors was late. We reached home without much fanfare at about 4pm. After a shower, I took a nap because I was really tired, having slept rather late the night before and woke up rather early to accompany my parents to the hospital. I planned to get started on some remaining project work after that.
Then it went nuts from there.
I was woken up by my Dad a while later. My paternal grandmother had passed away.
It came as a shock to all of us. She was fine, fit, and had no illness. She basically took a nap and never woke up. Her day was totally normal. In fact, she went out to buy bread and bought Toto in the morning. There were no signs that it was coming. Her mind was clear and her voice was loud and very strong.
We went over immediately. Personally, I've never been close to her, so it didn't really affect me a lot. I was sad, sure, but I wasn't about to lose it and cry or anything. The adults, especially some of the daughters (my aunts), were badly affected as they just visited her yesterday and everything was fine.
Now there's a hundred and one things on my mind. The wake, my outstanding project work, and my impending exams. I don't know how am I going to sleep tonight.
When I got home, I saw that the AJ Styles DVD I ordered arrived today. I was really looking forward to it.
[Unexplained behaviour...]
My bus passes by Assumption English School/Vocational Institute on my way to school. There's a bus-stop right outside AES, and today, a student from AVI was at the bus-stop. Instead of sitting on the beach like a normal person, he squatted on it. Like he was taking a dump. Oh yes, that's rebellious and doesn't make you look like a monkey at all.
As my journey continued, I saw this middle-aged woman at another bus-stop. I've seen people covered their mouth and nose with their hands when they're standing next to a road. I thought it was ridiculous, because carbon monoxide has no odour, so you honestly wouldn't know if your hand was "working" or not. Not to mention the fact that I don't think your hand/palm could filter carbon monoxide.
Back to this woman. She went one better. She stuck her index and middle finger into her nostrils.
Oh yeah, you're safe from carbon monoxide now. Plus, you look cool.
When the bus stopped and this (other) woman wanted to alight, the card reader at the exit had trouble reading her EZ-link card. Guess what she did?
She started shaking it.
Yes, cause that would work. Shake the evil out of the card. Yeah, there you go.
I realised I haven't taken much photos recently. To be honest, there hasn't been that many instances of rude behaviour on public transport. And it's harder to take photos now with my phone. I don't want to go into the boring details, but basically, it's more obvious. Way more obvious. For the three incidents I described above, I couldn't take photos because the subjects were outside of the moving bus on two occasions, with the woman who shook the evil out of her card gone in a flash.
Had dinner at Dover today. I ordered the Mee Goreng. I've ordered Mee Goreng from two different Chinese stalls in the past and they both prepared a "sweet" version of it, as opposed to the spicy version usually made by the Malay stalls.
As it turns out, this Chinese stall prepared it in the Malay fashion, and it was extremely spicy. I love my stuff spicy, so if I tell you it's extremely spicy, it really is extremely spicy. I couldn't finish it.
Took this photo on my way home. No thanks. Just thank will do.
[Lowest of the low...To highest of the high...]
In case you haven't figured it out, I was in a lousy mood yesterday. Hence that emo-like rant/question-fest two entries ago. What bugged me...Still bugs me. But I'm dealing.
Compared to yesterday, today was a much better day. We made a lot of progress with our CS4255 project, even more than I would have hoped for in a 2-hr discussion session. I found out that I got a "bye" for my tutor module, which was pretty cool. Lightens my workload a lot.
No use worrying or feeling lousy about the past. Look to the future and mould it whichever way you want, for tomorrow's another day, and it's up to you what to do with it.
[Why wrestling?]
Earlier today, I was at the bus-stop, chatting with an acquaintance. For one reason or another, he asked me about my interests, outside of school. I said I liked pro-wrestling, and he gave me a bewildered look. I don't blame him. Now that wrestling is not shown on free-to-air TV stations here, some people may not remember that it still exists. And anyway, that was a pretty typical response.
I went on to tell him that for most people who are really into something (anything), it's usually not something people around them could understand. My Dad spent $30 on two pieces of calligraphy during the Chinese New Year. Apparently, the guy who did the calligraphy in The Curse of the Golden Flower was selling his art in Singapore at the time and my parents ran into him. I don't understand why he would buy two pieces of (extremely) thin, flimsy paper which he would display for only about a week every year, but to him, it's money well-spent. Just as he doesn't understand why I spent so much on my fish-tank, buying fertilisers, setting up the CO2 injection systems, etc. Just like I don't understand why YQ wants to buy that $900+ sound card, but it's really important to him.
But I digress. We both agreed that it was difficult for others not having the same interest/hobby to understand why or what's so great about that particular interest/hobby. Which made me wonder, why did I like wrestling so much?
At one point, I was actually about to stop watching wrestling altogether. WWE's getting insanely boring. Most of their wrestlers can't put on a decent match. All they know was how to punch and kick. Insanely boring.
Then two friends of mine urged me to try watching TNA, specifically, their X-Division. I did, and I was hooked. The guys in the X-Division were terrific. They weren't the pumped up steroid type of wrestlers you see on WWE, and the way they performed those moves in the ring...It was like watching a Jackie Chan movie live. It's not a bunch of talent-less fucks walking around trying to look mean (The Great Khali, anyone?) and know less than five moves. For the guys in the X-Division, they need to co-ordinate with each other, or none of the moves would come off and someone could get seriously injured. They would need to trust their opponents with their lives, to protect them while at the same time making their moves look good.
And yes, it's "fake". The results are planned in advance. But it's not fair to call wrestling fake, because the risks they take are very real. You want real? Watch UFC or MMA. It's real, but it's boring (to me anyway). I'd pick the X-Division over them any day.
That said, I'm particularly interested in the older X-Division matches. I don't know what the hell the bookers are smoking in TNA, but their X-Division has gone to hell recently. The guys were not being booked right, and the focus was shifting to their heavyweight division, which sucked because the guys over there were...ordinary. Sting, Christian, Abyss, Rhino, etc...Those guys are nothing fancy. And don't get me started on Scott Steiner. Who the hell gave him a contract? He pulled off a grand total of four moves in his match last year.
And putting AJ Styles against Rhino is an absolute waste of talent. There's no way Rhino could keep up if Styles unleashed his full arsenal, so he had to tone it down and kept to a lot of punches/kicks/chokes. I never thought I'd say this, but some of Styles' matches with Rhino actually...Sucked.
Put Styles back in the X-Division. Let him feud with Petey Williams. Put Samoa Joe back in. He's 280-pounds and he can jump and kick your head from a standing position and easily clear the top-rope while running and fly over onto his opponents (if someone like him's charging at me, I'd probably shit myself). He is so X-Division. Put him back, let him feud with Chris Sabin. Put Christopher Daniels back in, instead of letting him feud with Sting (please, it's time to pack it in).
Anyway, someone uploaded an old (2005) X-Division match on Youtube recently. If you have 14 minutes, check it out. It's a pretty good match, and you'll see what I mean.
Listen to the audience. Listen how into it they were. And the thing about X-Division matches...There isn't really any faces or heels. The fans cheer for them both, because they know and appreciate both parties' skill and showmanship.
EDIT: To think I forgot the Ultimate X match...Silly me.
Couldn't find a decent compilation video. Most of them had a stupid song in the background inserted by the person who made the compilation.
Broken for now. :( If anyone knows of a good way to display tweets without using Twitter's awful looking widgets, please let me know. Preferably something that allows me to retrieve my tweets in plain-text format.
What's this about?
Anything and everything under the sun. I write about my day, my thoughts, things I see in public, things to get off my chest, or sometimes just some senseless rants that make sense only to me.
About Me
30 year old male. Always with too many ideas in his head and too little time. For my 15 minutes of fame, I want to be a guest on the Late Show with David Letterman.
Interests
Movies, TV, cycling, computers, planted tanks, cherry shrimps, P2P legal issues, Manchester United, WWE, TNA, UFC, etc...
Disclaimer
Best viewed @ 1280*1024 or above. Views are expressed are mine and mine only, and are not meant to offend or influence anyone. Designed for readers with a sense of humour. If you can't laugh at yourself, you probably won't like my style of humour.
