st. patty's

let the celebrations begin! drink it up then puke it all out, massive hangovers in the works! cheers!

st pat's day parade in BEIJING!!!

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updates

time for some updates of some interesting turns of events over the past 24 hours.

first and foremost, NUS open house sucked. it totally lacked any life even though they seemed to have spent loads of money on the signs and such. case in point: the arts and social sciences faculty talk was the MOST boring one i have ever attended of this sort, and the speaker just droned on and on without regards for the audience's well-being. i can only imagine what the engineering talk must be like... and the food tent they set up was a complete rip off, i regretted every single cent i spent there, not to mention the cca exhibition looked like a primary school fun fare. ludicrous...

so onward to harbour front we go after the open house, with every intention of catching 10,000 BC but... we didn't. the movie schedule was all screwed up and the earliest show was at 7, so out of desperation and exhaustion, we walked/sat around aimlessly. looking at all the random cosplayers who seem to show up just as randomly all over the place.

view of sentosa from vivocity

lots of random cosplayers and photographers

more random cosplayers

the bookstore with the best view, period!

yesterday also saw the RBS 6 Nations concluded. i was overjoyed at being able to watch it via online streaming. it just feels so different watching a match live rather than days later. but the thing is, you can't really bat an eyelid, or else you'll miss the action. i'm embarrased to say that i fell asleep for wales vs france, but i knew they were gonna win anyways so it doesn't really matter. really great to see wales winning the grand slam. and italy beat scotland, which is no small feat.

also on a slightly disappointing note, the luck o' the irish ran out as they bowed out of the 6 nations on a low - a defeat against england, in which danny cipriani played a vital role in my humble opinion. he is definitely THE next player to watch. so much better at open play, adept at making the break, clinical at the kicking game, good vision, ambitious: everything you'd want in a world class flyhalf, and half of which wilkinson can't supply.

it's high time for a regime change in the england number 10 shirt. they need to stop building their game around an uninspiring wilko. he's good at kicking, so what? a world class flyhalf is a COMPLETE player and commands the game. i bet we'll be seeing a lot of young cipriani in the days to come for sure. england might just again become a world cup contender.

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3 days till St. Patty's day!

Well, here we are once again, that time of the year the shamrocks take to the lime-light (pardon the pun), when no matter who you are, where you are in the world and what creed you were born into, everyone can feel proud to be an irish!


and not surprisingly i've always had a thing for Éire, not just because it's a proud and noble rugby worshiping nation, with players whom i revere greatly, such as brian o'driscoll and ronan o'gara. more so, you simply cannot talk about ireland without throwing a "guinness" into a sentence (it would be akin to eating a plate of chicken rice without the chicken). that thick black liquid gold with the signature luscious layer of rich froth in that signature half-hourglass shaped pint glass, i say "ahoy!"



it's become more than just a brand of beer around the world, it can proudly be termed an institution in its own right. it has spawned household names such as the guinness world records, and even more strangely it's been inducted into quite a few dictionaries and made a proper noun. such is the allure of this godly good stuff.

and most of all it inspires unwavering passion, even if it's just a seemingly random bar brawl somewhere in dublin incited over a pint of guinness, or the tens of thousands of guinness wielding, rugby loving pub champions who would turn up at Landsdowne Road to watch their home team battle it out with their age old rivals - the english, scotts and the welsh.

so, here's a most sincere salute to the irish - you give the world a reason to be proud and not give a shit, even if it's just 1 day of the year.

p.s. ireland is playing england tomorrow (btw england is without wilkinson)! keep your fingers crossed. LUCK O' THE IRISH!

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take the time

it takes...

2 seconds to close the windows in my room
30 seconds to clip my nails
.5 seconds for each clipped nail to fall to the floor
1.5 seconds to bend down and pick it up
1 second to lift up the rubbish bin lid and dispose of the nails
23 seconds to soap up and wash my hands
5 seconds to dry them
1 second to take my glasses off
.5 seconds to scoop up the contacts case from the table
1.5 seconds to open the cap
5 seconds to rinse the lens
7 seconds to put it in the eye
53 seconds to get dressed
18 seconds to put some gunk in my hair
3 seconds to lock the door
1 min to wait for the elevator
12 seconds on the ride down
4 min to walk to the traffic junction
2 min for the light to turn green
4 seconds to walk across the pedestrian crossing
14 seconds to ride the escalator up to the mrt station

i'm not going crazy, i just like to keep the time...

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雨

the absolutely dreadful time of year - the biannual monsoon season. i might be wrong, but it seems like it's started, though it did come a bit early this time.


It's been pissing the entire day today (to me at least. for those who wake up before 11 am: talk to the hand or go cry about it for half an hour. for those who wake up later than 12 pm: you're a pig), and it shows no sign of easing up at this time. the sky was already dark out at around 6 o'clock, and thanks to the wonderful timing of the heaviest onslaught of the day, i got a healthy dose of soggy clothes right before i got to my tuition (i'm the tutor). and to rub salt in the wound, i've just been told by a friend from down under that he hasn't heard thunder for over 2 years now.

as if that's not enough, i have a particularly persistent pet-peeve. yup, you've guessed it, it's rainy days. i guess it's a spill-over effect from my football madness days because you see, if it rains it usually means no football. and no football makes for a very agitated and destructive me. maybe i ought to do some growing up. but come on. where's the fun in being a grown up if you can't behave like an 8-year-old.

so the entire day was effectively ruined because of the morbid rain. uninspiring and lethargic. i need to wake up to sunshine, not dark skies - that's why i go to sleep damn it.


p.s. in the ultimate irony, the chinese character in the title of this post is the word that no matter what, my student can't seem to remember... bloody hell, look around, circumspice!

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on writing

the writing disease struck again. as i woke up this morning i just had this urge to pickup my guitar. after doodling around with a bunch of nonsensical licks i made up which sound pretty damn funny by the way, i settled in that rare nostalgic mood again. that feeling is hard to come by, even harder to describe. it's like you're filled with a sense of purpose, yet you have no idea where you're going so you just let go and let it (whatever it might be) lead you somewhere else...


anyways here's the work in progress, still not quite polished yet. the first verse as of now anyhow:

It's a wayward journey
that has no end
We hitch a ride from where-
ever we can
The winding road - oh
seems endless ahead
Sanctuary for the
homeless man
Sanctity to a
helpless friend

i don't have a name for this song yet, but i have this feverish desire to call it endless road, like the tommy emannuel album of the same name. oh well, maybe something else... i'm open to suggestions as always.

anyways i realised i haven't posted any of my songs before, so here is the last one that i worked on called Take Me Away

There are places in my memories
where things('ve) gone astray
Scorning the silver lining
beginning to lose my faiths
I ain't got no future, child
ain't gone the mile
How I wish you were here
to take me away

Stuck in that dreamy haze
the day of days
Walkin down fate's aisles
with a frown on my face
Images of my tender years
flashes by my hazel eyes
I stand alone, hoping
you'd take me away

I hear the boat a-coming
has the captain lost his way
He ain't got no bearing
that life beckons of him
Is it paradise city
or that folsom prison place
So have you stopped by
to take me away

There's no obvious chorus in this song and that's the way i intended it to be, well maybe the last line take me away from every verse. anyhow it's a novice attempt, not quite finished yet. i think it begs for a killer outro or something, still to me it sounds pretty good as is.

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lions for lambs

sure, a handful of movies have touched on the theme of the american war on terror, and politics, but none did so as directly and with such candor. neither is this one a call for anti-war sentiments in essence, because that's not the message it sends out. robert redford did a good job in threading the stories and intertwining them in a cause-and-effect sort of way reminiscent of crash and (maybe a little bit) babel but still made it look refreshing, mostly through snippets and flashbacks that slowly lead the audience to the subtle connections, not what you'd usually expect from a stereotypical hollywood flick of this nature. too bad it didn't do too well in the box office, i guess people are either all apathetic about the political landscape or too disillusioned to give a damn. either way it's their loss.


the characters and events may be fictional, but the issues at heart and the big pictures aren't. redford, tom cruise and meryl streep all did an incredible job in presenting the debate about the war (with a hint of over-acting from tom cruise), albeit being quite 'dry' at times which may annoy certain individuals who see it as 'for the sake of the argument'. it doesn't necessarily contain the action/suspense you'd expect from a hollywood production, but what it lacked in fanfare it made up in depth of characters. but somehow the plot makes you feel that it just maybe underutilized the characters by restricting the scale of the plot and could have done more with them, because the whole thing seemed just a tad like a glorified high school debate.

nevertheless, the moment for me came when the political science professor was in the restaurant having a discussion with two of his most gifted students about their decisions to go to war in afganistan in an effort to "do something now". and in reply to their justification that they could "still go to grad school and do greather things when they come back", the prof simply said "if ". that was it for me. that simple one-syllable word is in my opinion THE most powerful thing spoken in the entire film.

sometimes there is just so much more in the things that were left unsaid.


oh and by the way: the title is from a german general’s world war I observation of english soldiers bravely sacrificing themselves by the tens of thousands, which redford solemnly quotes to the unengaged student at the climax of his argument: “Never have I seen such lions led by such lambs”.

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a micro photo-journey

after rugby (coaching) i waited around to pass some stuff to a friend. and right then and there i decided i couldn't possibly go to the dinner gathering and face all those inevitable, harsh stares. so i boarded the first bus that headed away from school (now my alma mater) and alighted at city hall. i had no idea where i was going, and i didn't care. it was fine with me.

after some strolling around, half heartedly looking to pick out a birthday present for a friend, i gave up. so i decided to just walk. it is actually a very soothing experience. makes you forget all your worries. and i ended up here:

i realised that i've never actually been to the city hall building during the day. it looks pretty amazing

here's another one, the sky looked pretty sweet, considering it's taken with a cam phone

the skyline

when i saw the banner i was thrilled, but upon checking my calender i realised it was today, and looking at the empty pitch in front of me, i guess it's over

oh well, an empty pitch for consolation

then i ended up at the esplanade. from this side of the river the skyline looks pretty good too

and for the second day in a row, i showed up at the mosaic music festival, i dunno, it just attracted me in a strange sort of way so i had to go back. and today's act was really sweet, an acoustic set with a female singer. didn't catch her name, but her song "desperate", and "clutch" got me hooked. it was very appropriate for the frame of mind at that instant, i felt moved

after that i continued walking to marina square, where i did a little snooping around and shopping and bought the present

and here i was walking along city hall

lady with the balloons: it just stuck out in the middle of all the dullness

view of peninsula from the bus stop

5 mins... still no bus

10 mins... still no bus

15 mins... still no sign of a single bloody bus

damn it's not my bus

finally on the bus home...

maybe this subconscious need for a little soul searching journey has a deeper underlying meaning? i wouldn't know. i'm spent, and ambivalent towards what the future may hold. why do people keep telling me i know myself best? the absolute honest truth is i don't. i don't know myself at all. i don't know what i'm capable of. i don't know the limits of my potential. i've always thought i was different, all i want to be is different. but once in a while i feel lonely being and trying to be different, so i try my hardest to fit in, only to find that i can't. is it such a sin to fail to conform? i don't know. i feel like it's just me up against the whole world. would something nice please come my way in the near future; i don't know how long this self motivation bullshit could go on. i need something good to happen to keep my sanity, because it seems that nothing i do turns out the way i want. i'm waiting on the world to change...

peace.

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