The Revelations

New joined blog with Eunice

2008-03-18T17:10:00.001+08:00

http://lah-mour.blogspot.com/

yeah, gonna focus on posting there.. maybe i'll post a copy of all my future posts here too ;)

M for Malaysia

2008-03-05T21:42:00.003+08:00

Enough of all the seriousness of the Malaysian Elections, enough of words..
Let's just kick back and enjoy some cheeky while, thoughtful moments and parallels captured in this video clip ripped from the movie V for Vendetta.. Enjoy!

de-BESIH-ed

2008-03-05T02:25:00.004+08:00

As the credibility of Malaysia's general elections take a further dip with the shock announcement to scrap the use of indelible ink with shaky reasons floored by the election committee earlier today, I just wanna say, "GOOD LUCK for Mid-Terms everybody!"

Why read my blog posts? Play this instead

2008-02-28T18:02:00.004+08:00

The Easiest Day was Yesterday

2008-02-25T18:27:00.003+08:00

I guess it's when you are the busiest that you really live life to the fullest.

~The easiest day was yesterday~

Of little lessons in life : Lazybug

2008-01-31T10:42:00.000+08:00

Sunday, 27th Jan

Jo : Surprise! I thought you'd be bored at work, so see what got you^^

Eunice : OMG it's chooooo cute! Thank you! xD

Jo : I'm glad you like it, why don't you take a bite out of it?

Eunice : OK! ^^

*bites, chew chew chew*

*looks at lazybug bread*

Eunice : *sobs* zomg, what have I done? T.T

Jo : OHH NOO...

Moral of the story: Never get your girl a Lazybug bread from Breadtalk. LOL

Of Happy Endings : Memories Off - Sore Kara~

2008-01-25T01:31:00.000+08:00

I guess what really makes love novels so popular is their ability to involve the reader in the plot, in other words, make one feel as though one is experiencing the events in the story first-hand.
But sometimes it is inevitable that what the character does in the story differs from what the reader would actually do when faced with a smilar situation in real life. This gives rise to the many instances where the reader (or even spectators of TV dramas) to sigh in disbelief or even curse out loud at the perceived stupidity or childishness of the characters involved.

Perhaps it was playing on these reasons that we have the advent of games such as Memories Off 3 : Sore Kara after the Memories Off anime series. Some call it interactive story-telling, some refer to it as participative love novels, but they all refer to the same thing - a chance for you to have a say in what the main character does in the plot and hence possibly influence the ending of the story. However, just like the real life decisions that such games try to simulate, these decisions are often marred in shades of grey instead of the ideal clear cut black and white, and yet, they carry very significant consequences ( well, in the game at least =P). I guess this is what gives such game their appeal. Maybe there's some truth afterall in the saying that human beings are not meant to be in utopia, as mentioned by Agent Smith in the Matrix movie - For those who do not remember, the failure of the robot's very 1st version of the matrix where a utopia was simulated was a result of human "crops" were unable to accept their existence in a perfect world.

Ok, back to the topic.

Due to the nature of the game, it's very easy to get sucked into the story as you feel a kind of "ownership" towards your own character(hmm, perhaps there is some link to the job ownership concepts introduced by Byham and Cox in Zapp! The Lightning of Empowerment afterall).

This inevitably results in strong emotional attachment to the characters in the story. Whether this is good or bad is controvertible, and it depends a lot on how you "play-out" the game. I have personally messed up the endings of a few games before like Fantasia Sanguo 2(until now, I'm still in denial and have yet to stop blaming CS for lending me a copy of a pirated version that's full of glitches =P). But luckily for me, I've so far been rather successful with MO3 and have already explored quite a few happy endings already. Maybe I'm more sensitive towards Japanese Schoolgirls' feelings than otherwise xD. Having said that, poooooor CS *gloats*

At any rate, one also wonders if these kind of games might provide a fatalistic perception to gamers about real-life relationships. Forgive my immaturity, but just let me off for this once for stereotyping that most people who play this game generally lean towards "nerdy, semi- antisocial" tendencies(that includes me and CS too i guess =P). More often than not, individuals from this group of people either tend to have "limited" insight into interaction with the opposite gender or they are fed up or are haunted by past experiences with the complexities of boy-girl relationships(BGR). Well, if so is the case, might just make matters worse.

Personally, I admit to being quite distraught at certain points in the game and on one occasion, I even had to take a break from the game to go bug Eunice's neighbor Stephie for advice =P.
OK. So the player is offered unlimited number of game saves, but still I'm not comfortable with using too much of those, as the more I resort to that, the more I would feel myself to be a failure in "life". Perhaps it's the man-being-incompatible-with-the-ideal argument all over again.

At any rate, this game was lots of fun for me, and posed quite a few points about life that I'd spend more time pondering over. I've had my fair share of happy endings from playing the game thus far, and just as the sad parts can really get you down, the happy endings are just.. well.. Happily Ever After*goood mood*. Maybe I'm just lucky, or maybe I'm just have a knack for virtual relationships afterall =P

Let me end this post with a thought that I've gotten while playing this game.

People say that happy endings do not exist in real life. But I feel it's just a problem of the frame of reference people use to view life.

For instance what if we consciously pick when to end a story in real life, like ending the story of your 1st start up company when it earns it's 1st million, or like ending the story to your love life as soon as you manage to woo the most popular girl in school? Then your life will always be filled with happy endings, wouldn't it? Contrast this with the common practice of "Oh, my venture into business was a failure. I had to close down after 3 years in operation". What happened to the story about how he managed to start his business despite all odds? What about the story about how he met and is now going steady with this girl that he met while starting up his business?

Sure, life doesn't end there as they do in novels or computer games such as this one. But..

"Choose your happiest points in life to be the ending to your story. What happens next.. is another story.." -Tan Jo ;)

Of animes - Macross 7 and the power to the music

2008-01-21T21:42:00.000+08:00

Thanks to Eunice's anime-crazed bro, I got my hands on the Macross 7 series.

One of my favourite songs from the anime :

The story follows the journey of Macross 7, a space colony ship whose purpose is to colonize the habitable planets in space.

The hero of the whole series : (you'd be surprised) An aspiring rock band lead singer - Nekki Basara. This is one anime that really caught my attention and my liking. For one, it's not always about fighting in this anime. As a matter of fact, the hero abhors armed conflict and instead tries to reach the enemy's heart and soul with his music. Throughout the series, Basara only fired upon the enemy twice, but even those incidents are followed by feelings of guilt and regret on his part.

This resounds strongly with me, as a citizen of a multi-racial country that is at it's lowest point in decades in terms of mutual trust between different communities. It can be shown and argued that my country's current undesirable state can be attributed to a lot of factors, but one of it is the lack of sharing of culture among the races. If you think about it, it's not too much an overstatement that only the Malays attend Malay cultural performances, like the Dikir Barat, Wayang Kulit, etc. and similarly for the Chinese with their Chinese Orchestra, and Lion Dances, and the Indians with their own activities too.

Credit for this sorry state of affairs should be largely given to the presence of race-politics practiced by majority of the politicians in power. As for the reasons why these politicians behave so, they will be discussed in another post in some other time when I'm really that free.

For now, I feel that a lot more cultural exchange is needed between the races to really bring about a better sense of understanding each other. Pessimists and stubborn nationalists will probably be quick to point out that language remains a barrier for cultural exchange, but I laugh at their futile attempts to try and apply their flawed logic to the low showing of non-Chinese at musical performances like the 龙吟 Chinese Orchestra performance that was held in Penang last year. Even for performances which involve mother tongue languages, there are always the options of translation or even subtitles. I mean, come on, not having the slightest idea on the Japanese language has never stopped the countless number of people like me from enjoying intriguing anime series such as Macross 7, has it? On a related matter, when theatrical studies students from a local university performed a Chinese Opera episode in Malay in Stadium Bukit Jalil a few years back, how is it so that it received, minimal, if not no publicity at all from the local media?

In conclusion, there are many artificial barriers which prevent cultural exchange. But like the story in Macross 7 shows, even these barriers can be overcome, like how Nekki Basara used his songs to eventually touch the hearts of the seemingly heartless Protodeviln. And when there's exchange, it's not only that understanding of different races and culture grows, but the most important part of it is that maybe, just maybe we, Malaysians of all religion and creed, can finally find something that we can all enjoy and share, just like the Zentradi and Humans in SDF Macross and Protodeviln and Humans in Macross 7.

Idealistic thinking, you say?

Have you tried? I ask you.

I tried listening to Spanish, French, Tagalog, Thai, Japanese, Kelantanese and even Tamil songs, and I grew to really like some of them, perhaps music IS a universal language afterall and should be prescribed as the first step to wider cultural sharing. POWER TO THE MUSIC!

Nekki Basara and his red Valkarie.

Nekki Basara and female vocalist Mylene F. Jenius

The hero and his band, Fire Bomber.

Some more prominent character in the series.

..and for people who liked the song embeded in this post :

Original / Romaji Lyrics

omae ga kaze ni naru nara
hateshinai sora ni naritai
hageshii amaoto ni
tachisukumu toki wa
GITAA o kakinarashi
kokoro o shizumeyou

* COME ON PEOPLE
kanjite hoshii
ima sugu
wakaranakute ii kara
COME ON PEOPLE
inochi no kagiri
omae o mamoritsudzukeru
MY SOUL FOR YOU

omae ga michi ni mayottara
hohoemi de yami o terasou
omae no kanashimi ga
iyasareru nara
koe ga kareru made
utaitsudzukeyou

** COME ON PEOPLE
shinjite hoshii
itsumademo
kawaranai ore o
COME ON PEOPLE
taiyou no you ni
omae o kagayakaseru
MY SOUL FOR YOU

Repeat *

Repeat **

English Translation

If you become the wind,
I want to become the endless sky
When you're petrified
by the sound of the violent rain
Strumming my guitar,
I'll calm your heart

* Come on people,
I want you to feel it
Because it's all right
if you don't understand right now
Come on people,
I'll go on protecting you
With my life-
my soul for you

If you lose your way,
I'll light the darkness with my smile
If it would heal your sadness
I'd sing until my voice withered away



** Come on people,
I want you to believe it
I'll never change
Come on people,
like the sun
I'll shine on you-
my soul for you


Repeat *

Repeat **

Translated and transliterated by bluepenguin
http://www.freewebs.com/penguinsjlyrics

Beautiful, just beautiful

2007-11-02T21:04:00.000+08:00

Low cost filming aside, don't you think this song is just beautiful?

Busy busy time of the year

2007-11-02T20:59:00.000+08:00

Sorry for the absence of posts.. Singapore River Regatta's this weekend and finals are just around the corner. I promise to post more(and finish all the half-done drafts =P) once finals are over. Below is a screenshot of my desktop and music player - demn cool if you ask me =)

Birthday of a semi-charmed 21 year old and a 50 year old Russian satelite

2007-10-05T09:08:00.000+08:00

Happy Birthday Xtine! For once our birthdays are fall on the same day! Gracias International Date Line <3 style="font-size:130%;">There goes my 21st birthday - technically another juncture in life - adulthood. Ok.. I guess my birthday this year went just the way I wanted - quiet, lovely and meaningful. I received a postcard of Madison, Winconsin's (that's near where Jacob is from.. I quite miss that guy =P) skyline from Xtine just the night before.. So I guess she's right. It really does take a WHOLE month and almost ~S$2 to send a postcard from the States to Singapore, and that I'm gonna feel so guilty about the postage that I'm obliged to reply.. (well, maybe just a little *angelic look* ) xD

Hmm, Eunice and I had a wonderful full-dressed-dining experience at Thai Express that night too (you get that when you know what's good and what's not on the menu *angelic look* OMG, where are my photos!?) I even signed up for a Thai Express Card - you know, the orange card-looking-thing-a-ma-jiggy which entitles one to 10% of the bill for future visits (20% off if it's within the same week), a 15 dollar birthday voucher, and a $10 general purpose voucher. And taking into account the fact that I'm entitled to a bottle of complimentary red wine if I spend more than 40 bucks there on a +/-5 day period around by birthday, I foresee a trip back there very soon *hearts*hearts*

..now if only I can somehow convince Chin Seong to treat me xDDDD

Oh, we dropped by Candy Empire and bought lots of.... *censored due to possibility of Tan Jo's captain reading this particular post, but you get what I meant* *angelic look* xD

I tried to declare 21st Tan Jo Day as a public holiday for everyone, but all I got from it was a missed tutorial on my part because I overslept the night before =P After that it was the way classes are usually - me arriving late every time xD Training was as per normal ~ minus publicity about the special occasion to avoid the need to fish myself out of the SRC pool after land-training. Dinner was at NUH today ~ technically the closest air-conditioned dinning spot to PGP. Ended up reminiscing to eunice about the good old days when I first went to Anderson Junior College - how laid back life in Singapore was for the 1st few months here - 3% GST, daily pilgrimage from college to the nearest town center in AMK, loads of fun hours chatting while digging into AJ Ice in AMK food center. For the uninitiated, AJ Ice or AJ mountain was this specialty 1-foot-tall ice kacang that the dessert stall uncle at AMK food center used to serve, which costs about $3.50 and takes about 3-4 people to finish.

Looking back, it's kinda ironically in contrast how the last few months of JC was so strenuous and tiring when we had so much fun when we first started out as students there. Anyway, as I was pointing out to Eunice, perhaps it's just all in the head - sometimes people tend to forget to go easy on themselves and really savor the experience of the other side of life that's opposite to, and sometimes complimentary to, working hard and pushing one's limits.

I remembered to make a call home to be briefed by dad about voting (>.> hurray?) and asked if mum and dad were planning to get a new dog - for those who don't know yet, my dear dog Barky just passed away a few days after I left Penang due to poisoning. Dad suspects foul play because we maintain a strict/healthy diet for him.. The poor thing.. I wonder who would do such a thing T.T

Anyway, he was a wonderful dog to have, and I was glad we had him since he was just a lil' puppy - refer to my 1st post in this blog for pictures xD I hope he's enjoying himself in his doggy heaven now - prolly a land filled with bones, chew toys, dog food and pairs and pairs of Dad's slippers xD

One last paper for sis who's sitting thru PMR this week - good luck!

Thinking of setting up a stall in one of the campus bazaars one of these days (OMG, the start-up fever is back again *reference to my not-so-successful-business-endeavors in JC. Any takers? xD)

Anyway, here are some recent photos, courtesy of eunice :

If only I could make ex-captain Teddy wear this xD

Vice-cap Joseph during Sava Sprints '07

Eunice on the faithful day she topped the clinic with her 39.5 degrees

Poor pika pika got left behind for our trip back to Penang cuz he couldn't fit into the bag

Stray cats in Singapore are cho fat wans.. Ying Lee would've loved this one xD

Whatcha' looking at?

By the way, I just realised that I've made no mention of Sputnik I in my post, which might lead people to think that I've just refered to poor Xtine as a 50 year old Russian satelite floating in space somewhere. Well, I'm not. Happy birthday to you too you old thing. Although some may see you as the 1st peace of thrash which humans littered in space, most of us still love you XDDD
(i cho eng siu wans >< ) rushing off to class!!!

Time to go home..

2007-09-21T10:32:00.000+08:00

Yup, 10 hours from now, I'll be on my way home. I can only start to describe how much I'm looking forward to this trip home.

Sure, I don't usually go back during recess week since it's usually filled with activities, like make-up lectures, Sava Sprints (an international dragon boat race for the uninitiated), and mid-term exam prep. But somehow all my lecturers this semester apparently cherish their recess week as much as we do, and all of them made it a point to finish their syllabus on schedule; Sava Sprints was last week; and I have NO midterms! YAY! ( courtesy of the slackest department in the whole of the engineering faculty - though it remains to be argued whether this is such a good thing after all : so much weight being put on finals ).

Well, let's just take one victory at a time and let others worry about their future while I'm busy loving my life ;)

Currently listening to Bonnie Tyler's "Holding out for a Hero", while watching clips from "Short Circuit" and "Short Circuit 2".. wonderful, wonderful movies - they really bring back memories of my childhood and how I was, in a sense, inspired by Johnny 5. Perhaps it was then that in my little heart I knew I want to be a hero, a worshiper of courage and defender of ideals.

"Life is not a malfunction"

Managed to stumble upon some clips of the 3rd season of "Ed" - a tv series I've been following for almost 2 seasons. Ed and Carol are finally together..wheee.. I feel like crying already..

"You are right. The girl I fell in love with in high school was that girl in the blue sweater with white criss-crosses down the sides who I've never talked to. That's why I chose to be with Frankie.. but a funny thing happened... Everywhere I looked, I see US, laughing, crying, arguing.. then I realize... I love YOU - everything about you now."

T.T boohooohhooo

Carol Vassey and Ed Stevens

Hopelessly romantic Ed

For all those who has never seen the series before (that's most of you all out there) and have not the faintest idea what I'm talking about -- I'm sorry. You'll never understand. Just let me share in their joy for a bit now... T.T boohooohhooo

Standing in the eyes of the world

2007-09-14T09:14:00.000+08:00

David Gates - Standing in the Eyes of the World

Looking back all the years
all the sacrifice
If you wanna be the best
you've got to pay the price
Learnt it from the very start
just how hard you must try
Cause if you don't spread your wings
then you can't fly

Look at where you are today
Did you ever think that you
would came all this way

(chorus)
Now you're standing in
the eyes of the world
only moments away
from what can be
there's a passion in the
hearts of a few
ever waiting inside to be set free

When the time comes
and your spirit takes flight
and you reach into your soul and
live it with all of your might

And there's no surprise
that you're standing in the eyes of the world

Many have hopes and dreams
that will not come true
And all of them left behind
now they will live in you
Everyone wants to stay
just the day in the sun
But sometimes there is only room for one

Never ever been so near
Now the chance is finally here

(chorus)
Now you're standing in
the eyes of the world
only moments away
from what can be
There's a passion in the
hearts of a few
Ever waiting inside to be set free

When the time comes
and your spirit takes flight
and you reach into your soul and
live it with all of your might

And everyone tries
when you're standing in the eyes of the world

Standing in the eyes of the world

-this is a sister post for the latest post on my team blog. For those who know me well, no doubt you know how long and hard I've been looking for this song. For those who liked the song/never knew an english version of the song existed, enjoy, and I hope you feel as strongly for this song as I do a a sportsman..

Rest well for Sava Sprints.. come saturday we will hunt, my brothers!

Sakura : Queen of Hearts

2007-09-07T11:53:00.000+08:00

Sakura : Queen of Hearts by ~10joules on deviant ART

my new artwork. Will explain later.. late for class ady =P

My New Lappie Top is HERE!!

2007-09-05T10:26:00.000+08:00

a new fujitsu tablet!! *heeeeeeeeeeeeeeearts* looks looks looks forward to collection time *drools* will post some photos of it later ;)

Some photo updates

2007-08-30T19:50:00.000+08:00

Yeah. I is have not posted in like ages. Here's some photos of what I did while I was away.. and some never been seen before, top secret footage from dear old Oldham Hall days xD :

Oh, that's just me and Eunice fooling around with these publicity man-shaped-board-statue-thingys scattered across campus.

Pikachu Pau..
Sushi Pig..That's Ben releasing his stress and frustration on poor alex's droopy-eared dog

Who would've thought that love can be so caffeinated?

2007-08-07T11:32:00.001+08:00

It's the unhappiness with module bidding again =(

2007-08-07T10:51:00.000+08:00

And here I go again. These views are by no means representative of the views of all engin faculty students. They are at best a sign of how mean and cynical this friendly neighbourhood blogger can be.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[10J] Who would've thought that love can be so caffeinated? says:
sian ady

[10J] says:
suddenly this sem so hard to bid for modules

[10J] says:
zzz

Nick says:
why?

Nick says:
cannot get meh?

[10J] says:
i think prospects not very good ler

[10J] says:
i'm trying to go for ss this sem

Nick says:
oh, should be ok what

[10J] says:
but the spaces are so limited

[10J] says:
arts ad biz students just throw in their g points like nothing

[10J] says:
how to fight

[10J] says:
><

Nick says:
aiyah, which one are you taking?

[10J] says:
i wanted tbe global dimensions sthg sthg one

[10J] says:
but bid points too high ady

Nick says:
oh, interesting

[10J] says:
then i turned my sights to employee management..

Nick says:
never heard of that one before

[10J] says:
also very higg

[10J] says:
high

Nick says:
how many points?

[10J] says:
then i checked singapore studies.. also very high

[10J] says:
employee management is at 250+ now ler

[10J] says:
singapore studies also nearing 150+ ady

Nick says:
hm, ok what

Nick says:
we got nearly 800

[10J] says:
but still not worth it ma

[10J] says:
our g points very precious ler

[10J] says:
even chin seong agrees that the budget for this sem should be around 150 g points only

[10J] says:
=P

Nick says:
whoa

Nick says:
got budget some more

[10J] says:
if this round ady to hard to bid, imagine what we'd do with our GEMs in the future

Nick says:
yeah, I plan to keep mine too

[10J] says:
so silly one

Nick says:
so how?

[10J] says:
i dun get it why we need so many p points

[10J] says:
since we are only bidding against engin students

[10J] says:
for what purpose that they give so many p points? it only serves to deflate the value of p points

Nick says:
maybe for the technical electives

Nick says:
right now p points worthless

[10J] says:
what's the difference if we just give every engin student less p points?

[10J] says:
let's say.. 100 p points per sem

[10J] says:
then the rest all go into g account

[10J] says:
the technical electives would still be fiecely contested over ma

[10J] says:
albeit with lower gross value of the bids placed, the real value of the modules would still be retained

Nick says:
yeah, hyperinflation

Nick says:
go complain liaoz

Nick says:
haha!

[10J] says:
that's why, i always feel that we are shortchanged la

[10J] says:
dunno why the engin dept ppl so stupid wans

[10J] says:
it's prolly all a conspiracy

Nick says:
maybe

[10J] says:
cuz they know that statistics have shown that engin students can potentially provide very stiff competition other fac students for in their lv1000 modules

[10J] says:
that's why they must control the amount of cross-facs that we can take, control the influx of cross fac students.

[10J] says:
..it kinda reminds me of the pro-bumi policies that we have back home. You don't want to have it, and yet.. we HAVE to have it,

Nick says:
cos nobody wanna take engine level one modules

[10J] says:
so that the other facs can still safely maintain their share of 1st class and 2nd class graduates, which bring stature to each fac and the university as a whole.. and we all know that university reputation is everything in a degree, resume and job-seeking-wise

Nick says:
really or not

Nick says:
engine students so geng meh

[10J] says:
u go ask around the business fac and see

[10J] says:
usually for the lower level modules, engin students tend to score wan

[10J] says:
even my mno lecturer admits that

Nick says:
hm, interesting

Nick says:
FNA?

[10J] says:
they are smarter with fna

[10J] says:
they introduce a seperate module, FNA1002X to seperate the business students from the other fac students

[10J] says:
protectionism

[10J] says:
grade protectionism

[10J] says:
xD

Nick says:
haha!

Nick says:
yeah true

Nick says:
so very little modules we can take what

Nick says:
from biz fac

[10J] says:
got quite alot

[10J] says:
because of the british association of engineers standard

Nick says:
hm?

Nick says:
SARTOR stuff?

[10J] says:
yeah

Nick says:
a lot meh?

Nick says:
MNO only what

Nick says:
FNA not counted

Nick says:
sociology and the econs modules are arts

[10J] says:
got lv2000 one lor

[10J] says:
hahah

Nick says:
oh, haha!

Nick says:
that one we cannot own liaoz

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Spiderman Trilogy : The real mastermind who never got caught

2007-07-15T09:36:00.000+08:00

Welcome everyone to the very 1st of Tan Jo's "movie-bashing : so you think you've seen it all" series of posts.

Now the 1st movie, or rather movies that I just have to address is non-other than the Spiderman trilogy.

The Greatest Battle indeed lies within~

Sorry my dears, for we have all been fooled -- in-movie characters and spiderman fans alike. Reason for this is that so much focus has been put on the secondary, and proven-to-be-short-lived super villians that the real mastermind pulling all the strings behind the whole plot throughout the trilogy got away with minimal blame.

So, who are the real bad guys in the movies? If you answered Dr. Octavious, the Green Goblin, Sandman and Enigma, then you are probably only half right(but you still get your brownie points^^). No my friend, the REAL, most cunning villian behing the whole spiderman trilogy is none other than - jeng jeng jeng

~the Osbourne family butler~

No doubt by now, many would have one eye-brow raised in a manner which I just love, but I ask you to first consider the facts carefully 1st.

1st movie :

-Family butler kept Harry in the dark about his crazed-father being gradually corrupted by the elixer made by Oscorp, turning him into the Green Goblin. <-- By the time, he had the perfect excuse of "Not wanting to meddle in my masters personal affairs.." But the reason he kept to himself was because he wanted old man Osbourne dead and out of the way, and the best way to let someone else do it for him was to let Osbourne turn into a supervillian.

2nd movie :

-Despite knowing that old man Osbourne died at his own hand, he kept mum about it, so that Harry would get the impression that Spiderman murdered his father and hence attempt to avenge him. <-- again, he cooked up the same pitiful excuse that personal affairs and butlers do not mix. But what he was trying to do is that, after putting daddy out of the way, it's time to remove his son. And since hunting Spiders was demonstrated by old man Osbourne to be very fatal to flying goblins, all he had to do was to keep quiet to frame spiderman, and mislead Harry into thinking that his best friend Peter Parker, aka Spiderman, killed his father.

3rd movie :

-Playing with spiders almost killed Harry (it destroyed half his face, if you remember).. but somehow, by fate perhaps, Harry was spared death. This does not fit nicely into the butler's plans at all.. so he just had to resort to Plan B to ensure Harry's death - by telling him NOW that spiderman wasn't his father's murderer. This is because he knows that, Harry, being a good man, would be tortured by conscience after knowing that all that he did to hurt his best friend, Peter Parker was not justified. So the outcome was as he had planned - overcomed with guilt, Harry is playing with spiders again, this time a more powerful black spider - Enigma, trying to save his wronged best friend. And this time, the butler succeeded. Harry was killed in the end, trying to save Spiderman and Mary Jane; and all the blame was on Enigma. Mission accomplished!

..and the perfect alibi..

-The butler wants to inherit Oscorp. Think about it : lone parent, dead mum, only son.. and the only other person that can be called "family" is himself, the butler. Only two people stand in his way to inheriting a whole business empire. Besides, old man Osbourne doesn't look like the perfect employer anyway.. and I'll bet green wasn't the butler's favourtie colour anyway.

poor Harry never knew what happened~

So think about it. It all makes sense, and yet, nobody notices his wicked ambitions because everyone is so caught up with the other, short-lived supervillians. People have the misconception that if you do not have wicked laughter, robotic tentacles protruding from your back or a face with too many teeth that one forgot to brush properly, then you do not qualify as a villian in a movie.

Perceptions. Stereotypes. Discrimination.

Anyway, that's it for my first Movie-basher post. Stay tuned for my next one, which will probably be on Transformers which I just saw last week ;)

Special thanks to Eunice for suggesting that both of us go film another spiderman movie to expose the butler's evil deeds - "Spiderman 2 and 1/2 : The Threat behind the Tux" xD

Just when you think you've seen it all..

2007-07-10T11:23:00.000+08:00

nusDB goes blogger!

This is all part of out matriculation '07 recruitment drive :D

http://nusDb.blogspot.com/

if you are a defacto rower, or if you think you have something that will be worth posting on the blog.. please contact me to arrange for posting rights ;)

2007-07-09T11:32:00.001+08:00

Finally a follow-up to the semi-charmed life

Ah.. It's almost been a month since it happened. I should've blogged about it ages ago, when it was still fresh, but I wanted to save it for my personal show-tell-sessions with a few of my closest friends 1st before making it public on this blog of mine. Real-time story-telling sessions are way more fun and dramatic than a dry blog post right? OK LAH, I admit that I was desperate to enjoy the full extent of gloating rights before I disclose my experience to all my friends here(at least those who frequent my blog). But sadly, I realised that, not many have the patience to sit through such a long-winded story when there's so much that one can possibly do when faced with the PC/laptop. That was possibly why most of my buddies only heard half of the story and lost interest just before the climax comes in :( oh well~ not like good listeners are a dime a dozen..

But perhaps the amusing part was how some people whom I tried to tell this to on msn, just jumped to their own conclusions about the rest of the story from the title and think that there's no need for me to narrate the rest of it. (I DID NOT get a new girlfriend! ><) Anyway, this just serves to demonstrate how people tend to hear the things that they want to hear, instead of being a good listener who sits through the story till the curtains finally comes down. So, drawing from the lessons learnt over my failed story-telling sessions, I urge you, dear reader to not be fooled by the interesting title of the story that I'm about to share below. Take time to read through it, cause there's "more than what meets the eye". (TRANSFORMERS!baybeh! xD)

The Korean girl who fell out of the sky and I

It was Tuesday morning, two days after the Penang Dragonboat Festival in which my varsity dragonboat team just took part in (yeah, yeah.. the one with the ridiculous disqualification over "dispirited" drumming). I could've taken the coach with the guys back to Singapore the day before, but I felt that I wanted to stay one more day with my family (I only had a weeks' time to spend home in a freaking 3 months semester break, of course I must treasure every single day I have =P). So I travelled alone by bus the next night, which ended me up at the Woodlands Checkpoint early that morning. Then a girl whom I noticed to be quite fair the night before started to inquire the other passengers about immigration procedures. It was then that I realised(from her limited command of english) that she was actually Korean.

Failling which to brief her on the forms she has to fill up at the checkpoint, that and the eager and innocent look on her face, I offered to accompany her through immigrations - training wasn't due till late evening that day afterall.

OMG, you should've seen the amount of time the poor girl spent just to have her passport cleared. I seriously considered just dumping her and go on my way.. but a promise is a promise la, so I waited for her at the exit. When she finally came out, I knew that the bus that we took probably left because there's no way the driver could've waited so long for her. That was okay for me, since my initial plan was to just take a public bus from the checkpoint straight to my uncle's place in Bukit Timah. Somehow, I managed to communicate to her of her predicament, and found, to my disbelief that she had not a single Singaporean cent on her! Upon further inquiry, I found out that she wanted to go to Orchard Road, which my uncle's place is on the way from, so I spared her some coins(in fact, all my 20 cents coins that were supposed to be used for laundry at PGP for the next sem T.T) and asked her along.

Anyway, as I was giving her intructions on how to get to Orchard Road once I dropped off at my uncle's place, we chatted.. I found out that she's a kindergarten teacher in Seoul, and she was touring Penang with some friends. Surprisingly, none of them wanted to visit Singapore except herself, so out of an incredible act of bravery, there she was, travelling solo on her one-day incursion into the Lion City. On a side note, she said that I looked like Korean footballer Lee Dong Gook^^ and she awas all praise for Penang's hospitality ^^

Anyway, the more we talked, the more I was certain that, with her limited English capabilities(and her Korean-to-English traveller's guide), she's definitely gonna get into trouble finding Orchard Road. I imagined how terrible it would be for her if she used up all my coins and was lost somewhere in the city, and out of impulse I told her to sit tight, cause I'm gonna accompany her to Orchard. I sorta lied that my place is very close to Orchard(about 15-20mins bus ride la) and that I always wanted to see Orchard Road early in the mornings before it "wakes up". And it was a good thing too, because when we got there, I took her to an atm in Paragon so that she could use her ONE visa card. And SOMEHOW, by some tremendous slip of fate (or perhaps a joke of God if you'll have it), the blur girl actually managed to key in the wrong 4-digit PIN 7 times such that her visa card got barred. -__-'''

So I guess you guys will be able to guess what happened la -- PANIC, frantically-trying-her-card-on-every-single-atm-machine-she-could-find-PANIC. Good thing I never left her when she told me she'd be alright on her own just now, lol. I knew what to do straight away(from watching too much tv) - she would have to call back to her visa card provider in Seoul to unblock her card. But I had quite a hard time trying to make that clear to her in as simple english as I can conjure up. There was even one point where she exasperately exclaimed that how she wished she could talk to someone who knows Korean at that moment. Eventually, the message got through, but herein lies the 2nd problem : where the hell do we find coinphones in Orchard Road? (Singaporeans would be able to emphatise with this). So.. my Tuesday morning became a coinphone hunt along Orchard Road.. cool right^^

Finally, we found some coinphones in Lucky Plaza and we spent 15mins there trying to figure out how to dial Seoul, lol. (btw, Korean operators sound so sweet xD) When she finally got through to the visa provider, she was estatic! Lol. And after 10mins on the phone, her visa card was ready for another try. And to our relief, it worked. Btw, her name was Yoon Hee, and she offered to pay me 50 bucks for my trouble but I refused, so she asked me to at least let her treat me breakfast, which we had at Paragon, and shw commented that Singaporean tea tastes weird^^. Anyway, now that she's gotten to her source of cash, I was finally relieved to leave her with some tourist spots that she might wanna visit during her stay here along with some intructions on how to pruchase tickets back to Penang. Then it's back to bed for me.. gotta prepare for training later in the evening.. as Chin Seong puts it, too bad I have training that day HOR.. xD I will always remember the way she looked at me in disbelief and said, "You. Right. You. Right" after hanging up the payphone.. and smiled:)

btw, here's some photos of the korean footballer whom I'm supposed to resemble.. lol.. you are welcome to make your comparisons with some of my photos in my earlier posts :)

Lee Dong Gook

..yet another one of my hmm-so-free-at-work-maybe-i-should-blog-again post.. ciao~

2007-06-13T10:41:00.000+08:00

Semi-charmed : part I

When you live a semi-charmed kind of life like mine, angels fall out of the sky into your arms, parking tickets disappear.. well, you get the point.

So let's start with last week shall we?

Last last Sunday was the day I was supposed to return to Penang, that is, till I thought I misplaced my passport at the watersport center when i actually didn't. I spent 17 bucks for the cab rides to and back from the watersport center and did nothing there but give the fat cat which always lingered around the center during the late evening a few pats on the head.

Thank goodness everything went according to plan on Monday night as I faithfully drag myh bags and paddle accross the causeway to the Larkin Bus Terminal. I bought my ticket on the spot as usual, and turned quite a few heads and got some rather approving nods from the employees at the bus terminal who, given my dark complexion and paddle, probably thought that I was some malay fisherman from one of the costal villages nearby.

I don't quite remember what I did on Wednesday, but as promised, Chin Seong took me to the Bella Italia for pizza, which were wonderful.. and the manager was totally intrigued by the comic book "The Difference between Singaporeans and Malaysians" which I had with me at that moment. I had half a mind to just give him the book, but I had another special person in mind, so too bad la ;)

I managed to find eunice's house despite the incredibly simplistic map she drew for me. WE went for ice cream.. she complained about my driving.. and I attributed it to the pretty-girl-in-front-seat-stress-syndrome.. yada yada..

Just for your info, my teammates were actually quite impresed with my driving(altho for mostly wrong reasons like breaking the traffic rules and illegal parking xD)

So i was late for the trial session at the Teluk Bahang dam on Friday morning. I had a scary experience driving the car all the way up to the dam along the narrow coastal roads, given how little milage i've clocked since i got my license. So don't be too surprised if my teammates call me "Sul-tan Jo" for the next couple of months =P)

Lets see.. I did alot of delivery and restocking errands throughout the race, including clearing out stocks of redbull and Toast'em bread from a few minimarts near my house, about 125 boxes of Tau Sar Pneah and other biscuits from Ghee Hiang(imagine up to the neck in a car filled with Tau Sar Pneah:D) and yeah, I did get ppl into trouble by fetching them to buy some beer and chips from 7-eleven.. my bad ><

GAH.. IE ate my post... noooooooooooooo T.T

(retyped portion ><)

IF you've read the papers lately and noticed this article abt some nus dragonboat team being disqualified over "dispirited" drumming... that would be us. Apparently, drumming with one hand is not considered "actively drumming". Naz was totally heartbroken(he did make an effort to drum throughout the race, as requested by the umpires). Ridiculous? Maybe. But nothing beats the way the organisers tried to hush hush our disqualification and carry on with the prize presentation to other teams without even informing Sean, our team manager 1st. That coupled with the nonchalant way the Tanjung Club Restaurant handled our orders, depressed me in that my beloved Penang is mistreating my beloved team so.

Well, at least we had fun and are more closely bonded then before. :) my my, long post.. better take a break 1st la.. blog again when i'm free.. ciao~

some photos courtesy of Mengchuan:

Believe it or not, this is our Teluk Bahang dam..

Captain~

My immediate Lao Ban : Nazri

Coxswain : Vijay

Briefing~

and then there's Jacob, our imported powerhouse, and a hit with the girls from the other teams :)

Sashi and Andrew moving to the beat~ yeah, it was raining hard then.

and lastly, here's our guide to Penang food xD

2007-06-05T23:59:00.000+08:00

It just turned 12 midnight, and I'm lying on my good old bed back in Penang, reminiscing about my 1st 24hours in Malaysia since my return. Well, that and waiting impatiently for ET to get her pretty little ass online. The weather's cool, food's intense, I'm sleepy and craving for alcohol at the moment for some reason.. maybe i should just go to bed..

if religion is but carrot and stick, i'll pass..

2007-05-30T10:38:00.000+08:00

Day and day and day

And there goes the last week of May, and hence my vacation attachment at my sponsoring company - for now.
Today is my very last day at the company before I get the whole of the month June off so that I can concentrate on training with my dragonboat teammates for the dragonboat festival come the 30th. Looking back, these 3 weeks has its fair share of exciting, and yet sometimes hilariously unfortunate events which I'm starting to accept as a part of my perhaps semi-charmed life.

Let's see. I met a lot of nice friendly people at the company, and not to mention machines which were 2-3 times my age. You'd be surprised to know that despite being old, they've almost never broke down before in their many years of service. No wonder the company which produced these machines went bust - there were no orders for new machines since the old ones seem to last forever xD

I got the chance to indulge myself in the super hot, and dust-filled, sauna-like atmosphere near the plant furnaces. As mentioned to a fellow staff on the orientation tour, it was more of a pore-opener than an eye-opener to us; and the guys were just grinning away at the girls from HR dept, with expressions which say, "NOW, you know what work is like for us xD ".

I met two charming young ladies from the HR department. One of which probably was either disgusted or extremely amused by my attempt to ask her to help me to fill in my feedback form for last week's staff orientation according the answer key ("54553554454434544545" "wonderful" "magnific" "Tan Jo" "QA/QC" "28/5/07") that I sent her through email. The other one was either irresistibly cute or was totally in love with "Milo" when she knocked her own head against a Milo tin she was playing with when she was little, making a tiny crescent-shaped scar in between her eyes.

Tan Jo probably made his own name known to the CEO of the company when he accidentally emailed a print request to his big big boss instead of to his colleague in the same room. *shudders in horror at the thought of being called to the CEO's office to pick up the printed documents that I requested* Good thing he was out of town when I sent out the email, so that I had time to recall the contents of the email through the mail system (WELL, I honestly hope that it worked) =P .

Frustration was the word to describe how my colleague and I felt during our attempts to mark out a 6m x 2.4m perfect triangle on the plant floor using nothing but chalk, a 60cm ruler and a measuring triangle. Oh my poor legs and back >< . I can't believe that I totally overlooked the fact that it could've been faster had I used a piece of string and chalk as a protractor to sweep out the sides and diagonals of the rectangle I was supposed to draw -- feeling stupid (this is reinforced by the fact that I did badly in my results of semester 2 which just came out last Saturday). You should've seen my black-as-coal fingers when I was done.. heck, even the chalk I was using turned black.

"If you have but one wish, what would you wish for?" was the question that I posed to people around me, ever since I overheard this pair of aunties chatting on the company bus about how a Miss Universe contestant wished to be able to take 2nd helpings without putting on weight. The responses are varied. A young friend of mine wished for a girlfriend. Another friend in NZ wished that his 2 assignment papers are done. An undergraduate in medical school wished that she would get her wings and halo soon and become a full-fledged 'angel', while another drama queen kind of girl wished that she'd know how to be herself better. My best friend wishes to be reincarnated as a girl, while my cousin and this other girl wished to have "endless wishes". It's interesting how one's response tell so much about their character and personality.. my conclusion? I have a lot of weird friends -- and I love them all xD

She agrees with my postulate that horoscopes are a kind of personality brainwashing, and she paints her own room while chatting online in the middle of the night. Yay, another addition to my pool of crazy aquaintances! ^^ AND she's coming. Look out Singapore! xxxDDD

2007-05-24T21:38:00.000+08:00

What are blogs for anyway?

I wonder.. what are blogs for? An avenue to update your friends and family about your life or is it just an lot in cyberspace for you to rant about your life and other's lives in a bid to elicit attention and sympathy from your readers?

ET showed me her ex-boyfriend's rather disturbing blog-- aside from being filled with obscenities which tend to distract the reader due to his limited vocabulary of obscenities(not that I like reading posts filled with them anyway), the author was also quick to slap bad labels onto his ex, and the groups that he was affiliated to, like his school's prefectorial board. In short, throughout his meagre 6 posts on his blog, I found it disgusting that his tone was one where it was as if the world owes him a good life and that all the undesirable things that happened to him was that of other people's doing - he would first blame his enemies, and if that were not possible, he would proceed on to blame his friends, and eventually fate and the supernatural - Not once did he put the blame on himself. Everybody is wrong except o' noble he.

Have I ever told you about how much I hate people who claim that life sucks, especially those who are not ripe enough to have strands of white in their hair? No? In that case, look me up on msn if you really have the time to burn xD

Anyway, sometimes I wonder if the purpose of my blogs resemble more of the latter than former as mentioned at the start of this post. Somehow, I find that I seem to feel less inclined to post here whenever I am feeling very happy and contented with my life. Take the last two weeks for instance, the sudden surge of optimism which I obtained through studying various religious doctrines and philosophy has left my poor blog deprived of updates..

OK larh! I admit that leaving for work at 6.30am and reaching home at 7.00pm and the intensified dragonboat trainings that I have to attend has often left me too tired and lazy to post updates, since I know myself to not be able to resist making long posts once I started typing. =P

Hah! Enough of that. Some updates:

ET is coming to NUS! Crop-circles and abductions aside, I'm really excited that she's coming over! I hope we have lots of fun together^^

I have my own workstation despite being just an intern^^

My colleagues at the department that I'm attached too maybe mostly ah peks, but they are demn cute, funny and friendly^^ you gotta love 'em.

Half the machines in the lab are at least twice my age >< style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold" size="4">I just sat thru staff orientation today. Met alot of other young colleages there.

I've been told that it might be arranged for me such that I'm to get interviewed by some scholarship publication. Sounds fun huh^^

MSN is demn sucky. It's been like that for days ady. I can't even have a proper chat with ET. =/

And some pics..

That´s me in my goggles

And that´s Stitch feeling blue

2007-05-13T22:42:00.000+08:00

1st day at work, 1st in dragonboat race and the death of a friend

And thus, it came to be that these 3 events all took place on the same weekend - quite an eventful one it was.

Friday was my first day of attachment at my sponsoring company. Didn't do much on the 1st day, except for chit chatting with collegues and supervisors to aquaint myself with the company. After my safety briefing, I even got a pair of goggles, ear plugs, boots and a matching helmet to go with them^^ WELL, the serious stuff starts tomorrow I am told.. no more slacking around =/

News of the Taiwanese fighter jet crash which killed two SAF soldiers got to my attention that day, but I contented myself with the fact that none of my ex-classmates were serving in Taiwan in this period in time. ( even Babykun came back about a month ago)

Sunday morning was when I got a rude shock when Babykun told me that Isz was one of the unfortunate soldiers who lost their lives. I couldn't bring myself to believe it until Ah Rong showed me his copy of Newpaper which had an article decidated to his demise. Oh boy.

Went for a dragonboat race in the evening under the banner of Teck Ghee CSC. Came in first for our category.

Way tired now, and I have to work till 5.33pm tmr. Time to turn in. Rest in peace Isz. You were marvelous and I'm glad to have known you when you were alive.

2007-05-07T23:24:00.000+08:00

Some recent additions to the family of gadgets living on my desk :

Member 1:

Nope, it's not an mp3 player; It's actually an FM transmitter! and it's mine xD

Although it's supposed to be used in a car, this lil' baby saved me from having to buy a subwoofer system just to aid my laptop's failing speakers. Finally! A means of communication between lappie and mini hifi(you can almost say that they think on the same wavelength now xD)

Member 2:

HEHEH. What can I say? I love computer mice which gradually change colours from time to time =P

By the way, I'm so sunburnt now from the 3 hour row under the scorching sun. It hurts to even stand in the sun's rays today as I went down to the Kuan Yin temple to say a prayer of thanks for everything. Surprisingly, I met two of my teammates at bugis today, and a girl from hostel whom I thought rather well of.. and I got a very special phonecall right after, on my way back, bringing news my teammates will be glad to hear at training tomorrow ;)

so stay tuned.. ^^

2007-05-03T21:59:00.000+08:00

Now that's a post-exam day for ya

Ahhh.. A perfectly enjoyable post-exam day out today was.

It all started off with me and Chin Seong going back to school - AJ in good ol' Ang Mo Kio to see some of our tutors. We stated off our tour of AJ with a very excited Malay-stall aunty who was keen to show off the new look and decor of her stall. She even remembered that we were loyal fans of her 'nasi-lemak' back then ;)

After that, we bumped into Mr. Chan CM along one of the corridor who was on his way to "scare the h1 arts students into dropping physics". And he remembered my name! It was done by refering to Ms. Joy Tan's name though.. I wonder if that's a good thing, lol.

We met Mdm Khoo, our Chemistry tutor who've jst finished one of her consultation sessions with some students. She was quite surpised that a lot of our class girls opted to take courses in the Arts and Social Sciences Dept when our class was one of the better performers in Science in our cohort.

To our delight, Mdm Khoo invited us into the staffroom, which was off limits to students. Embarassingly, i've never been into the staffroom before( I was a good boy, ok? xD), so this trip was turning out to be quite an exciting one for me.

We met Mr. Tan and exchanged hurried greetings to him because he was rushing off to class, and spent what seemed like hours chatting with Ms. Joy Tan, reminisicing about her campus life. She was, afterall, our NUS senior ;) Mrs. Ip, our econs tutor joined us at the staff lounge as well and we chatted happily away. Too bad Ms. Usha and Mrs Law weren't around that day.

Mdm Normah the librarian kindly alllowed us to use the library coms for a while too when went and see her. She's such a dear. Even the bookshop owners remembers us^^.

After that, Chin Seong and I went down to Marina Square, because he wanted dinner at Thai Express, and I have $60 worth of 2-year-old Times Bookshop vouchers to cash in.

Forgive my suaku-ness, but I have no idea buying books with a generous budget could be sooooo gratifying*blisses out* I bought 3 books for myself and one for Chin Seong.. hehe.. they're gonna make Tan Jo a very happy guy for a long time^^.

Which reminds me, me and Chin Seong bought Fantasia Sanguo 3, a chinese RPG, from Funan IT mall yesterday. And we spent an hour trying to figure out how to "activate" the stupid game from the inaccurate instructions given in chinese. And people wonder why pirated games are prefered over the originals.. geez.

The 2nd game of this series totally broke my heart last time.. and 2 hours into the game, I'm pretty sure that this one's gonna be more a heartbreaker than the rest. ><

And oh.. i've finally time to draw again.. so happy. and Ms. Tan added me to MSN! woots! xD

ciao~ ;)

some recent photos on my phone :

*Drools*

Like... WOW?! I want one of those! *.*

2007-04-21T18:17:00.000+08:00

《临江仙·滚滚长江东逝水》- 杨慎

滚滚长江东逝水，浪花淘尽英雄。是非成败转头空。青山依旧在，几度夕阳红。白发渔樵江渚上，惯看秋月春风。一壶浊酒喜相逢。古今多少事，都付笑谈中。

2007-04-18T13:42:00.000+08:00

The current ME

I don't usually do this(taking pics of myself and making myself look super vain), but words really cannot start to discribe my new haircut(see for yourself =P). Call it an accident, call it miscommunication with the hairstylist or just me exploring a new unknown part of who I am, but this is ME in the flash.

Laugh your hearts out ;) (to ppl like shin hung and huei ming)

I just realised that the singlet that I'm wearing looks like a tunic from here, but what the heck. Back to studying. I think i'll just show mum the pics tonight and make her flip xD

2007-04-18T13:05:00.000+08:00

Some people being shot up on some campus

In some morning at some campus of an institute of higher education in some country somewhere in world, a person, of certain gender, age, race and religion, armed with a certain firearm manufactured by some firearms company, went on a killing spree and shot dead 29 of his fellow students before taking his/her own life.

........................

Bah, too much speculation and finger pointing has already been done anyway..
No point slapping on a dark and permanent mark on the affected communities, be it to always be condemned as the PLACE where IT happened, or as the community from which HE came from. Let's just keep the victim count to 30, shall we?

Does it really matter who did and where he did it? Does knowing these things serve to make any one of out lives better/safer? Does it change the very fact that, irregardless of the details, it is still a social problem that the whole world has to address?

I think not.

To whoever's been hurt or scarred by this incident, you have my condolences. Hopefully this too shall pass for you.

2007-04-10T01:25:00.000+08:00

Placed a midi which I made in the background, which should be audible to those people using IE to browse. Rather cute ain't it?^^

2007-04-06T18:26:00.000+08:00

Coruption, oppression and self-obsession

Taking a break from studying for finals. As I fumbled through my collection of songs, I came across this song which I feel, holds particular meaning to me. This song is sung by Johor-born Artist Zainal Abidin in his 1st solo album I think. For those who have never heard the song before, it calls out to the listeners to really rethink their own role in the gradual destruction of mother nature. Coupled with the unique Afro-Asian style of Zainalabidin, it is no wonder that this song is one of my all time favourite - definitely recommended if you've never heard it before.

For the benefit of those illiterate in the Malay Language. Included here is an attempted translation on my part of the lyrics, with some reference from The I'mPerfect Mum, of the song. Correct me if there are any mistakes.

Hijau
- Zainal Abidin

Bumi yang tiada rimba
Seumpama hamba
Dia dicemar manusia
Yang jahil ketawa

Bumi yang tiada udara
Bagai tiada nyawa
Pasti hilang suatu hari
Tanpa disedari

Bumi tanpa lautan
Akan kehausan
Pasti lambat laun hilang
Duniaku yang malang

Dewasa ini kita saling merayakan
Kejayaan yang akhirnya membinasakan
Apalah gunanya kematangan fikiran
Bila di jiwa kita masih lagi muda
Dan mentah
Ku lihat hijau

Bumiku yang kian pudar
Siapa yang melihat
Di kala kita tersedar
Mungkinkah terlewat

Korupsi,opresi,obsesi diri
Polusi,depressi,di bumi,kini

Oh..anok-anok
tokleh meghaso mandi laok
Besaing,maing ghama-ghama
Ale lo ni tuo umurnyo bejuto
Kito usoho
Jauhke dari malapetako
Ozon lo ni koho nipih nak nak aghi
Keno make asak
Hok biso wei,pasa maknusio
Seghemo bendo-bendo di dunio
Tokleh tehe
Sapa bilo-bilo

Green
-Zainal Abidin

Mother Earth without it's forrests,
is just like a slave.
Corrupted by us humans,
who are still foolishly laughing it away.

Mother Earth without it's (clean)air,
is like a dead planet.
Bound to disappear some day,
before we even know it.

Mother Earth without it's oceans,
will dry up in thrist.
It WILL, sooner or later, vanish.
Oh my unfortune Earth.

In recent years, we kept celebrating,
the successes which will eventually destroy us all.
What's the use of maturity of thought,
when in our souls we are still so young,
and inexperienced.
I envisage a green(world).

My dear Earth is fading,
but who sees(pays attention to) it?
By the time we finally realise it,
it might already be too late.

Corruption, opression, self-obsession,
(is the cause of)Pollution, depression in our world now.

Oh.. children
will not feel how it is to swim in the sea
and play in it together
this earth is millions of years old
we (should) work
to keep it away from disaster
the ozone is thinning and yet we still
keep burning.
Poisoned by humans,
all the things in this world,
will not last
foverever.

Somebody should do something. And that somebody is you and I. People who know me well would be able to recall the number of times I kept harping to them about going green. It's as easy as not wasting our precious resources for a start, but how many of us actually bother to make that extra effort to switch off that phone charger/appliance when not in use? How many lights and computers are left running in empty office blocks at night? Recently the city of Sydney held a city-wide awareness campaign during World Earth Hour to make people seriously view the impacts of their style of living, but critics on the ground report that a large portion of the Sydneyians just went on with their lives as if it's none of their business(BBC NEWS, 2007). They just don't care.

The white sails of the Opera House were darkened during
Earth Hour(picture obtained from BBC News,2007)

Xtine's words resonate once and again in my head, "Mankind is charging towards its own destruction.".. and the worst part is, most of us just don't care.

One incident which interests me is this tv programme by BBC which features BBC Panorama reporter Justin Rowlatt sharing his experience of going green for a whole year(BBC NEWS, 2007). Although the stint smells of commercialisation, nevertheless, it shows that going green is possible, and I envisage that I will be able to live just like him in the near future.

Hope this has induced some thought on your part. Back to studying for me~ ciao

2007-04-04T13:21:00.000+08:00

Hmm, feeling rather free today.. probably gonna do some mugging and then go have lunch at the Terrace@Business School later.. I have a strange feeling that something good's gonna happen today ;) (free food perhaps? xD) Well, in view of my good mood, here's a treat for y'all :

Cliched quotes from TeamNUS Dragon Boat(that we all grew to love) :

1) "..8, ..9, ..10, ..long pullll..." xD

2) "Sui orh?" -Ah Fu. Hokkien. Which kinda means - "beautiful! Let's do it!"

3) "来啊 NUS !"

4) "Kiyah!"

5) ..and all types of grunts and groan of effort that you can possibly imagine :D

6) "Come. Let's do a whoosh to end the day" - Captain Teddy

7) "1 heart, 1 soul, 1 stroke" -Team Motto

8) "NUS dragonboaters row with their hearts." - Teddy

9) "The heart is your strongest muscle." - Jeffrey

10) "Come on! How much do you want it?!" -Guo Bing, Johnny

11) "Ba-ik NUS! " -Nazri

12) "Sashi ! Stealth mode!" -purely a joke reserved for our beloved Indian rower during night trainings

13) "Start small, think big." - Vincent

14) "When I was a junior, the big-sized and hunky rowers from the other teams looked like lions to me and I felt scared cuz teamNUS rowers look like tiny wolves compared to the lions.. It's only now that I realised that, when lions come together, they just eat,sleep and have sex. We wolves however, are different - we hunt as a unit, as a pack. And that race course out there, my brothers, is our hunting ground. Let's go hunt some lions.. " -Jeffrey (sorry for the long one, but this is one of my favourites ;))

15) "we play a little bit~" -coach Nazirman

16) "Wei Ming! Front double biceps.. and flex!" *followed by humming of Rocky theme* -in memory of our own body-builder's stunning performance at Muscle War this year.

Well, I suppose that's it for now, although I'm sure the list still extends a long long way..
back to studies, and hoping that something good happens today ;) taa~

2007-03-31T22:24:00.000+08:00

Dead man's Chest

*hurts*

I feel dead. Napping for more than 4 hours is probably why I feel so now. Remind me not to do that again. Gosh, I've overslept the food court business time in PGP.. that can't be good. I don't think I keep a spare store of food in the fridge nowadays, since that incident. =P

Man, I must've been demn tired , courtesy of the hour-long rowing session we had just now with the girls, and not to mention this opening ceremony of some water sports center that we had to attend to so-called "perform" a race for the audience(now that's a first, ain't it? just wait till you see the colour of the water in the river we raced in, as GuoBing put it, we were literally rowing in milo 'peng'). xD

Will probably start to feel hungry soon. Hopefully I can elicit some instant noodles from Chik Mei.. taa!

2007-03-29T23:47:00.000+08:00

Some random photos

2007-03-29T22:21:00.000+08:00

Personal Profile (as deduced by http://www.paulgoldinresearch.com/cg/)

You appear to others around you as a person who is simply 'laid back'. From time to time you shelve your ambitions and forgo the desire for prestige and recognition and you are often considered as mentally lazy. You have the ability and you are the first to know this, but you prefer to take things easy and indulge your longing for comfort and security.

In the past there have been - and maybe there still are - many things that you have had to do without. You have now decided to set your sights on a position or situation that could give you greater prestige and which will afford you considerable self esteem.

You are feeling under considerable pressure and you are being forced to make concessions. You are not particularly happy with this state of affairs but you feel that you have no alternative. If you were to force issues you would be left out or completely ignored by one and all.

All of your stress arises from lack of mutual understanding. The existing situation is unsatisfactory and you feel that you are unable to improve it without the help and co-operation of others. The need for understanding and for affectionate 'give and take' remains unsatisfied. You are experiencing the feeling of being 'handcuffed' - 'tied down' - 'hindered' - 'restrained' and this untenable situation is giving rise to impatience, irritability and the desire to escape from it all.

You really would like to be completely uninhibited - to let your hair down - but you are held back by your sense of logic and rationalilty, since you realise that by simple stupidity you could lose everything - whatever that may be.

2007-03-26T21:45:00.000+08:00

How do you want your life to be?

Ah yes.. that cheeky catch phrase used by the Singapore Armed Forces(SAF) adverts which proliferated throughout the island nation's mainstream media was used again at the starting line of our final dragonboat race for the season -- at the grand finals for the Singapore Dragon Boat Association(SDBA) Masters' Series .

Indeed, our lives are really how we want it to be, whether we give our best and stay in sync with the team throughout the race sets, bringing glory and fostering the notion of family within the team. Though I have to admit that it was extremely tactful of team captain Teddy to point out that irregardless of the outcome of the race, we would still be heroes of the morning, and once we retire to our homes, it's studying all over again.

*imitates book flipping motion*

*flip flip flip*

"TAN JO! Push TEN!! READY!"

"READY!"

"GO!!"

"3.. 2.. 1.. and,"

"ONE" "TWO" "THREE" "FOUR" ....... well, you get the point ^^

Anyway, we only managed to come out a modest 2nd for the race, losing to the excellent performance of the team from NJC.

I wouldn't say that there was alot to talk about for the race, as in, the whole race was really a 'budget' race. Organiser SDBA really outdone themselves this time -- no drum, no dragon head, no dragon tails were attached to the boats. Addtionally, the competitors actually do not need to have a drummer. For the uninformed, dragon boat drummers functions as the control center of any dragon boat, calling out orders for changes in stroke styles and strategy, additionally, he is also the one who will be holding on to what we fondly refer to as "The Sausage", a small white, cocktail-shaped bouy anchored to the bottom of the lake which is used to align all the boats at the starting point for a particular race. Basically, TeamNUS was the only team to have rowed in the heats with a drummer(partly because we found out too late that we didn't one, and we couldn't possibly ask our dear Vincent to jump overboard right? xD)

Well, perhaps one thing worth mentioning was the unsportsmanly behavior shown by the team from the Australian Chamber of Commerce(AUSCHAM) during our semifinals, in which they took the lane next to ours. Because we chose to row with a drummer, they were threatening to make complaints against us to the officials for cheating. Technically, putting one extra, non-rowing person on the boat seems to be more of a handicap than an unfair advantage to me, but of course we clarified with the official starter on this, but not before the jeers and sneers from the AUSCHAM boat.

"H'mate, sure, you guys go ahead and row with your drummer, so that we can make complaints about you to the officials so that you guys will get a 5 sec addition to your race timing later so that we will beat you for sure.." well.. something along those lines..

So you can imagine how it spoiled the mood of the team for that race.. good thing we still managed to scrape thru into finals dspite the distractions. Despite being Australians, civilised white men, yada yada, their behavior really lack sportsmanship, not to mention class and stature. Just a friendly reminder would've been more than sufficient. Their actions are really a big contrast from the usual warm and friendly treatment that our team has received over the past from the Canadian and German teams. Perhaps it is a fallacy to stereotype against a whole nation's countrymen, through the actions of a mere few, which I shall not commit, but this incident will certainly make me think twice about setting my impression of Australians in the future.

2007-03-24T13:01:00.000+08:00

It's 7.30am in the morning, you only just managed to drag your sleepy self to campus, despite having just reluctantly woke up from your sleep less than 30 minutes ago, after working at insanely hours last night on your almost overdue assignment. And you ask your friend:

Well, that's a dose of campus life for ya ;)

2007-03-23T13:33:00.000+08:00

Kind of depressed dammit

I have to admit that life can really suck sometimes. I'm sure quite a few of you out there would be quite surprised to hear this coming from the usually optimistic me, but all I can manage now is a wan smile and to give you a quote from AJ's favourite physics tutor, Chan C. M., "Well, that's life al'rite!" =/

One could probably expect what is to come next in this post -- my lamenting about my bad week. So for those who would rather not hear about them and spoil their moods, I suggest that you just stick with the summarised version - "... it was just a bad week.. but all in a week's work larh.. "

Well, it all started last weekend when the NUS Dragon Boat team did not do very well in the Mr500 race at Lower Seletar Park. Only one out of two of the NUS men's teams got into the finals, but even so, we lost by breath to a bunch of canoeists from NTU. I admit that perhaps being too sure of winning was perhaps why I was rather stunned inside, despite me not showing it on the outside. Time to work harder ;)

The 2nd blow came when I realised that I've wasted 3 days trying to figure out how to solve a physics question in my online assignment, all because there was a typo in the question which asked for a numerical answer when actually one in terms of unknowns would have sufficed. The worst part was, there wasn't any announcements from the Physics Dept abt this mistake. AND(yes. AND).. 2 stupid idiots(who probably have no idea what they are doing) were posting in the physics forums telling everyone that there's nothing wrong with the question mentioned. Those 2 were the reason why I spent so much time trying to figure out what I did wrong. Have I not read their posts , I would've eventually came to the conclusion that there was a typo in the question. At least, long before Li Hui enlightened me just minutes before the submission date. Give me back my 3 days! omg, all the homework that I could've done instead.. but then again, this incident did spur me to really read up on the topic and scrutinise the lecture notes inside-out again and again -- something that I wouldn't have done normally.. so maybe it is something that I should be thankful for? xD

Perhaps the most dissapointing thing which happened this week was find out that I would not be able to row with my team during the dragon boat festival, a race which pits long time rivals, NTU and NUS in a all or nothing race for glory, this June. This is so because as a scholar, I am obliged to go for attachment at my company during the vaction period. I mean like, work always comes before play, but but, it's like THE race for the team, and I would like so much to be be on the same boat with my brothers as we charge towards victory. I feel so much like I've let them down. Sigh. How should I ever start breaking it to them?

This morning after waking up, I went to the kitchen to get some breakfast, only to find that my frying pan was on the stove and filled with oil. Shocked, I opened the fridge, only to find my whole packet of chicken nuggets(save the packaging) was gone form the fridge.. Intuition prompted me to feel the sides of the pan.. cold. So someone was cooking MY nuggets using MY frying pan sometime last night from 3-6am probably! Someone from my own cluster no doubt. WTH. He took the whole packet, which costs about 7 bucks! And there I was, planning to eat it throughout the month T-T. OMG, I HATE THIEVES. I'm so sure that whoever took it, must've had a friend along, i mean like, who in the world would eat 20 plus nuggets in one go?! WHY T.T WHY T.T how I wish I have some means of dusting for fingerprints on my pan to catch the culprit T.T Food has always been a soft spot of mine, and this has done it -- sunk me into deep depression, at least for the next couple of days. Drats, just thinking about it makes me wanna cry again.. Good thing Poh Sun and Kean Siong came to visit me from Malaysia last Wednesday, or else, this week would have been completely lost. Thanks you guys. Some of the happier moments in the week.. Come to think of it, my room looks quite clean from here^^

Gonna go pizza hut with CS this Sunday and stuff ourselves silly.. hopefully that'll make me feel better ;) till then.. ciao~

2007-03-15T10:58:00.000+08:00

Ah, it's certainly has been sometime since I've posted here. I could probably blame it on midterms, and perhaps the fact that the MR500 race is looming(in fact, heats starts this weekend =P), but I guess I shall just be truthful to myself and admit to being just lazy.

Midterms was, well, midterms as always. Never was able to kick the habit of making careless mistakes in any paper. I'd reckon current careless mistake ratio stands at 1 in every 10 questions><. Dad hinted that it's not so easy to correct this kind of inhernet tendency to screw up at my age (I feel so old T_T). Well, doesn't hurt to keep my fingers crossed, does it ;)

Been rowing quite a lot lately, probably by virtue of the fact that MR500 happens this coming weekend. To those who may have any minute interest at all, be it to come watch the race, or just to checkout hunky-half-naked men with sexy looking paddles, the race site is at Lower Seletar Park, and will probably start about 9-10am.

Speaking of half-naked men Sashi and I agreed that being around half-naked men too often and too long is not doing wonders to our interest and attraction towards the opposite gender. Perhaps it's time to go stay in halls and get to meet more girls to try and get back what is lost? hahaha.

Speaking of which, I shall declare last Tuesday as "Lihui day", by virtue of the fact that I kept bumping into her throughout the whole day, even twice in my dreams. It's funny the circumstances under which people appear in my dreams, but that was just beautiful la.. another person to be added to the list of people that I've dreamt about =)

Recently, stories about a girl going completely head-over-heels over this male lecturer has been brought to my attention through a mutual friend. For the uninitiated, any form of dating, personal relationships between lecturer and student are prohibited. And yet this girl is literally stalking him, showering him with gifts and spending nights in school just so that she could catch a few moments with him after he finishes work. Sigh. As Yinglee puts it, there is NO way she'll listen to any advice offered by anyone on the matter, so I should probably just mind my own business. But I guess I just feel sad for the girl that it has come to this - a charge towards certain sad ending without anyway to stop her. I guess we can just hope that her good friends who will be there to pick up the pieces when it's over.

2007-02-28T17:30:00.000+08:00

So not my day

and thus.. by the 17th hour of 28th day of the 2nd month of the 7th year of the millenia, I conclude that today is a 'not so good day' for the following reasons :-

1) It rained.
2) I was refused entry to the engineering lab for wearing sandals.
3) Discovered the perils of having lab teaching assistants who speaks with a heavy accent and lacks fluency when conversing in English.

Rainy days are cool and an enjoyable contrast to the hot scorching weather near the equator. However, such enjoyment comes with a condition that one's self is safely out of the rain with access to a warm and cosy bed contributing to a multiplier effect. Unfortunately, tis' not so today. I was rushing around campus in the 'hustle-bustly' pace we call Singapore, getting my clothes wet and my toes cold. A trusty umbrella can only provide THIS much protection from the rain.

Credit has to given to my terrible sense of judgement for being refused entry into the engineering lab. Not wanting to get my shoes wet, I chose instead to wear a pair of sandals to lab, despite knowing that I may get into trouble if the lab assistants are trying to be difficult. Unfortunately for me, they are. Since no amount of pleading and begging would help, I had to go all the way back to fetch my shoes and join the lab session 30 minutes late. AND, would you believe it, out of my anger at the assistant for being so difficult, I actually left my umbrella inside the lab before I went to collect my shoes, which meant a fully-drenched and extremely miserable Tan Jo. Tis' a bad emotion, anger is*nods nods*.

Ahh.. and now, for the knockout punch of the day :-

Lab Teaching Assistant(TA) : (accented English) When u pick... resistors... don't pick... same resistor... with friend... not all resistors(five were required in our experiment for that day) can be.. the same... at most one is same as "RL"(name of a resistor)... like both u choose.. hundred.. the rest have to.. different, or you will get redundant answer... and u get confused with other resistor....

So what is he actually talking about? That we are not doing pair work this time and we should not share our data? Or is he saying that we should pick 3 resistors with values that are different from the one labelled "RL" or both?

*Confused and thinking it's wise to seek clarification*

Tan Jo : So are you saying that each one of us should get one set of lab equipment for ourselves instead of say... doing together?

Lab TA : (with accent) No... two of you can... share computer outside to plot.. graph later.

ahhh.. so here is where the problem arose.

What he meant was, " No, you guys cannot do this experiment together, but you can share a computer with one other to plot your graphs in the later part of the experiment."

But I'm pretty sure that, judging from the number of people doing pair work, most of us thought that he meant, " No, you don't each get a set of equipment to do the experiment by yourself. Later when you guys are done, you and your partner might want to go over to the PCs in the lab to plot your graphs."

So 3 hours later the TA was frowning and shaking his head at Varjeet and I for having the same data for our experiment(we were the unlucky enough pair to get nabbed T.T), saying that he will have to deduct our marks since "copying" other people's data is an offense in NUS. What the hell! This incident, and the fact that it happened despite an effort to clarify my doubts left me feeling so helpless and indignant. Just for the record, the lab TA involved was of People's Republic of China origin, although I am not about to point fingers at staff of any nationality in particular.

Although it is true that communication problems will always exist between people from different cultures despite using the same lingua franca, this experience has just proved that even if an effort is made to seek clarification on the matter, it may not solve the misunderstanding at all.

My suggestion? Write them down. Write all of those important instructions down in black and white. Especially if you know that you may have some problems communicating with your students. A parallel to the working world would be how safety guidelines in power plants and factories are in print instead of just being verbally put across, like this one over here.

Now, although being deducted of marks hardly counts as a safety risk, but I shudder to think what perils a simple mis-communication would cause in our later years of studies when we are exposed to more dangerous substances and machinery. I'm sure nobody would like to see NUS go "boom" one day because of some silly mis-communication between professor and undergraduate/graduate. So I suggest that NUS should start this good practice of writing instructions down across all levels on campus. Provide each lab a whiteboard and more marker pens(or even give each lab TA, professor a cute mini-whiteboard to hang around their necks if you'll have it xD) or it could be just as easy as encouraging the staff to write out their instructions. A simple gesture to show everyone that NUS lives up to a truly a globalised University that build bridges across cultures; and at the same time, I'm sure we undergrads wouldn't mind not losing marks unnecessarily in the future. ;)

2007-02-26T23:40:00.000+08:00

Guess who's back in Singapore?(used with permission from victor-sama^^)

2007-02-25T22:44:00.000+08:00

Back to Singapore and a New Beginning

Well, at least so can be said about my bloggie. Due to the complaints about the comments-unfriendliness of my old blog on multiply, I'm gonna give blogger here another try(I rejected it once becuz it won't let me put a number as the 1st character to my username back then^^). Even so, I still very much like the file-storage system they have back there, so I guess I'll still use it for my multimedia posts. For those who miss the old thing, here's the link http://10joules.multiply.com/

I'll probably work on the design later when I have time ;)

And to inaugurate my switching to blogger for most of my posts from now on, I give you "Bah Kee". The newest member of the family. Coincidentally, his name sounds like "Barky" or "Bucky" as in Bucky Ball, C60, which looks something like

Yeah, he officially became part of the family on the very day I went back home for Chinese New Year this time around. Ah, month old puppy dog which needs to be syringe-fed. I'll miss the little guy now that I'm back. I shall always think back fondly on how we had to run out of the house with him peeing/shitting along the way(and especially with that guilty look it always gives prior to his.. ekhm.. "eruptions").

Sigh. The trip back to Singapore after a prolonged stay back in Penang is always a moody one. As much as I enjoyed the trip back with all the Penangites on our chartered bus, personally I prefer to have made the trip back alone and with strangers. Perhaps it's just my inner-self trying to maintain a sense of solemnity on these return trips which has become sort of ritualistic to me. this no doubt sounds weird to most people - thus the reason why I prefer such trips to be made alone. Besides, no point making the trip less enjoyable for those who are happy to be travelling back with a bunch of friends.

Well, enough of that. I arrived back in hostel with my neighbour, Dat, pumping his Hi-fi system to full early Sunday morning.*Groans* You pracitcally hear him through the thick walls and sound proff doors :S . For 10 minutes I was knocking and banging on his door but got no answer. He must've set his Hi-fi to go off as an alarm clock. "Man," I thought. "If my dear ex-roommate Shin Hung slept like a log, this guy must be from the trunk of the El Arbol de Tule"

Exasperated and deprived of sleep, I had but one trick left up my sleeve -- to climb out to the ledge outside my window and access his room through HIS window to wake his lazy ass up so that he can shut the freaking Hi-fi down. And that was exactly what I did, much to the excitement of a certain Indian staying in the block facing my room window, except that when I peered into Dat's room, he wasn't there, much to my disgust. So I just climbed in a turned off his Hi-fi, probably dirtying his bed with my bare feet before climbing back to my room(although come to think of it, I could've just opened his door from inside his room xD must be too tired from the bus ride to think properly).

Hm, mid term maths test is tomorrow, and I'm soo behind in my work. I should probably cut this post short. Well, someone stole all my cutlery from the custer kitchen. Sigh. Guess it's not safe to leave my stuff in the common areas anymore this semester around.

I have a new ang moh clustermate who walks around the cluster stark naked(yes~, 100% naked). Well, I guess some people just like to air their 'little brother' or in this case 'LITTLE BROTHER' xD ; Though I have to point out, my cluster corridor opens up to one of the busiest walkways in my hostel. But then, at least now I understand why they say Western guys have cute and hairy butts, as mentioned in the Yellow Fever Video which, to those who has never seen or heard of it before, pokes fun at the reasons why Asian girls date Western guys and not the other way around. Server's rather slow, but I'd say it's worth the wait ;) go watch it somtime if you haven't.

That's it for starters. Ah Seong is starting to make me feel guilty about not studying enough- so off I go! See you guys around!