PROCRASTINATION!

This is here only because I feel obliged to follow the herd and post it.

Ok, I mean by posting this and viewing it again I qualify! I realised how much I miss my at home bed and the air-con, despite it being a little cold these few days due to the rain and all. Been sort of caught up with work as well, and otherwise playing this game called RAVING RABBIDS! Ok it's actually Rayman, and it's just senseless mini games such as when you have to throw bunnies for hundreds of metres and play time-crisis against bunnies with plungers.

It's fun, really!

Still burying my head in 207 readings, the part about the Chicago school. Oddly enough 207 readings aren't as boring as I thought, much like history (maybe I'm *gasp* weird) though I still can't grasp how these people are related to what I am studying. TCM has been a nightmare to follow, although after reflection and checking the dictionary the lecture notes are pretty interesting. TV practicum is really interesting, and as a result I sort of got seconded into the Spectrum news team. After just like one story I already feel the strong magnetic field pushing me away from anything with the word "news" in it. I just want to handle the camera and record the sound.

I really want to write a lot more, but my psychological condition and my workload (read: play more games, watch the Arsenal match) forbid me from doing so, so please enjoy your visit and procrastinate by watching the above video and reading this post.

And the one below it,

and the one below it,

and those of the people linked here.

contemplation

Hall life makes me more of a student, which is partly a good/bad thing. Good thing is, for once I find myself being able to stick to the readings given, (except for TCM, which takes a bit longer to read). And I think my modules this sem are going to be quite a lot of fun.

Other news, Sureel's Bola Keranjang won Best Editing in the 2008 8 minute Youth Film competition thing. It was an okay prize but the cash is just $200, while the JURY prize was $500. That's a damn sore point because in our interpretation, best editing was a "top prize", I mean the guest of honor had to come first before they could show it. And jury prize was something like "nice try, too bad cause it's not technically competent so this is to encourage you", which baffles us as to why it merited 500 bucks and we only receive 200 dollars.

Granted, the top 3 films deservingly beat us hands down. And to add to that, I concede (all of us do) that we sacrificed storyline to show action and l33t editing, so in a sense ours was a bit 莫名其妙 as the story wasn't well developed enough over 8 minutes. Probably could extend it with dialogue parts, till about 20 minutes, to develop the story further. Then we have a real chance of winning real prizes.

I have a gig tmr which I am half lazy/excited/not-too-excited to go for. I don't really advertise it but I have a chinese band which is err. Not too shabby, we do originals written by me, or arranged by me, or basically our own compositions. In case some are interested in going it is 7pm on Monday 18th August at MusicDreamer Cafe. It's this little corner between marina square and millenia walk, so please do show me some support so I'll not be an emo kid this week.

In any case it has been really emo few days, which I don't really know the reason why (actually I might, just that I don't feel like sharing)

My grandma came over to Singapore, the last surviving grandma (if it wasn't so macabre a topic it would have made a great film title: THE LAST GRANDMAMA) Yeah anyway I felt so bad beacuse she's going back on Tuesday and I was only around on Sat and Sun morning and didn't really see her. She's really old so she gets a bit naggy and senile sometimes but that makes her a really interesting person, of course when she's not nagging at you to get married/boyfriend/girlfriend and hinting in not-so-subtle ways of faster get married and give her great-grandkids.

Okay, have lesson tmr, sigh.

I feel damn full, and took me a while to figure out why, had macs breakfast at 10 plus, and then went home and had lunch at 12. So... no wonder.

Ok hall has been pretty good, except that I don't really know people who stay around. By circumstance my acrylic guitar and amp are in hall so I don't really get bored, so is my logitech controller. And the ultimate kick in the teeth is, after sharing rooms and having illegal roommates and all, my living space in hall is still bigger than my room at home by twice =[ Sore point of contention for me because my walls are wooden = no privacy. And nosey people snooping around my room which they expect to be unlocked all the time just kills me.

Ok anyway, I have a very bad timetable which can't be improved in any way because I insist on taking Image and Sound Production this sem, in addition to like, Production Management and Comm History. Pretty much decided on going into EBM, or as it's now called, CBS! I mean it is something cool and apparently not many people go for it (contrary to what I believed prior to going CS) so I guess there will be opportunities locally and abroad when we grad... Oh and I am at home for tonight, because I don't have anything else after morning lecture today and tommorow's morning tutorial is non-existent because Ms Draper (Production Management) hasn't yet figured out what to teach us for this week. So I just need to return to school tommorow afternoon, which figures, I might as well sleep at home tonight with nice air con.

Random musing #1: Why is it we feel that there is a need to have some sort of official association with another person before being able to talk to them and "know" them officially? What happened to meeting random people at bus-stops and becoming good friends? Is that really impossible? It is as though, if I do not, in one way or another, know someone else through an official capacity, like for example being in the same tutorial, the same OG, the same CCA and so on, there is a sort of invisible wall that is like "hmmm that guy/gal seems pretty cool but it'll be weird if I go and make friends, because there is no official connection" So does that mean we must all wait until there is some form of connection before we can get to know someone? What if that connection never comes? Would we sacrifice that ONE chance of getting to know said person? Hmmm. Interesting, would make a nice short film script.

Random musing #2: Sometimes I get on the train (read: on my way home today) and I put on my music at the normal level (read: so I don't hear what's going on around me) and weird things happen. Ok first, I fell asleep on 179 until the uncle had to shout at me to get off his f***ing bus. Ok, maybe he did say that, maybe he said it in hokkien or something, but sorry, ok? I fell asleep and he could be nice. What happened to the bus captain spirit?? Ok. Anyway I fell asleep on the train only to be woken up by some guy who crashed into me cause he couldn't sit down in time before the train moved. Ok, like, common mistake, we acted on social scripts (HAH, HXM I still remember what you teach) and he apologized and I accepted his apology. Then I realised my sandals was in a pool of like wetness. First thought was "OH NO DID I FRIGGIN PEE ON MYSELF I HAVENT DONE THAT SINCE XXXX (put in year of last happening here)" so I checked. Don't worry I didn't. Ok so next thought was "IS MY BAG LEAKING, F***, MY LAPTOP AND CHARGER!", and I realised I didn't carry any sort of liquid with me, so that thought passed. And the real reason for the wetness was some uncle who carried frozen foodstuff into the train in an NTUC plastic bag, and the laws of simple physics (or is it biology?) something about temperature means there was condensation and well, it was a shit load of water vapor-turned-water which flowed in my direction. Ok, fine. So I woke up and gave said man a disapproving stare. Returned with a sheepish expression of "oh well, I'm sorry but I have a right to be on this train too" so fine, not much of a big deal anyway. So I went back to sleep. Only to be woken up rudely by a very loud and shrill female voice in Chinese talking on the phone. Ok, I thought, some auntie. But I looked up in my cabin and I can't see anyone who are opening their mouths. So I looked over to the next cabin, no. The voice came from the NEXT NEXT cabin, and it was LOUD, okay. LADY, IF I CAN HEAR YOU OVER MY HEADPHONES YOU ARE WAY TO FUCKING LOUD. Not to mention from two carriages away. And the train was pretty crowded, so I was wondering why nobody, while everyone was visibly bothered, thought of asking the slut to shut the fuck up. Tsk, inconsiderate people.

I feel like I might or might not join SPECTRUM. Sounds interesting but really requires a lot of commitment and effort. Maybe yes. At the very least help to redesign the opening theme? After all I won't really have a CCA anymore, I have a hall room and nothing much to do other than to study (ok that's alot of work)

Oh well..

you are soooo cute!

I'm referring to the amp, please. Hur hur.

thunderSTRUCK

Wow I really haven't updated in a long time... it's been a really great July, I mean apart from FOC, there was Kukup, and coming up is another 8 minute film competition which Team WKWHA is joining (maybe with a name change, but I don't know that) I am starting to find memories of these particular happenings a little bit hazy, so I owe it to myself and everyone else to keep an actual update of what had been happening.

FOC!
WKWSCI FOC2008 for me was really great, despite the tired zombie-fiedness at the end of it all, and already at the end of the first day. Fusilli were great, though I kind of regret not being able to talk to certain groups of people on a more personal basis, as Home Center (go figure) and the rest of the admin duties required really kept my hands tied. I'm not an especially extroverted person so I guess part of it was I just didn't know what to talk to the freshies about. Anyway, this is where I go into the day by day narration mode and bore the crap of everyone who actually comes to read this blog.

Day Zero: Sunday 6th July
I set off for NTU in the evening time, and left my stuff in Mel's hall. I really sort of over-packed, and the bag was a killer. Though to be fair I was also carrying all the bandanas (40 bandanas take up a lot of space), medication and random stuff I brought for the OG. Then we went off to Jurong Point where we could hardly see anything because of the crowd of foreign talent who were all doing Sunday shopping at NTUC Fairprice. Grabbed loads of random foodstuff, paid and met up with Sara Jean and Cameron, after which we cabbed to school to be 1 hour late for the start of the official last minute briefing before FOC. In desperation they had to teach everyone the mass dance, and we thought of a couple of musically-inclined cheers. Okay, nothing much else really happened, but day zero and I was already lacking sleep. Not helped by the fact I went jamming on Sunday to a really bad session where I was really shagged out already and the rest weren't helping by being off form as well. Besides the point. Me and Cam camped out at Jeanette's ex-room and all of us almost overslept.

Day One: Mcgirdles, NTU Games, Sentosa


























Okay, the very first early bird who arrived was Maryam, which kind of threw us off because it was around 8 am and the freshies weren't expected till 8.30. More because me and Mel were still eating our Mcgirdles breakfast (or however you spell it), and following that we had 30 freshies on Day One which was a real headache cause there were about 5 of us including AGL and OGLs, and half the OG have chinese names (sorry but you know it's hard to remember Chinese names) and the programme was way too packed such that we didn't even get to play a group game like Whacko or what. Taught 3 cheers and had to be diverted to the mass dance session thing, which was pretty interesting. See, I took like 3 hours to learn the first part of the mass dance, but other people seem to only need 20 minutes -.-""















Karyn, Maryam, Jiang Shuang, Marie, Si Min, Florence














Audrey, Melissa (Lin), Vanessa. With me captured in the background.

So after that was lunch where the OGLs had to undertake Hungry Chimpanzee, and the following I am not allowed to disclose, and for that note neither should anyone in CS do so, since it's something we all hold very dear to us only. And after some stoning and camwhoring by the OG on my camera it was NTU games time, and oh well shit this is getting boring, even for me as a writer. Ok the games themselves aren't really important. But basically Fusilli lost almost all of the time, though I really admire the way the guys don't really give a damn about the result of NTU games (neither did I, honestly) and just got about enjoying themselves.

This is the cabbage captain's ball game, which was WAYYY more fun during seniors' camp with like 1/8 of the people on the field and the same amount of cabbage.










Okay well, so there was the telematch thing, which was the same last year except the OGLs didn't get themselves splashed seriously with soapy water (I did that last year) for which I am eternally thankful. I wouldn't have brought enough underwear to camp. Okay, and washup and washup and we found ourselves travelling to Sentosa, and on the way we of course did the customary Hula Cola thing and tried to instill seeds of suspicion and mistrust in our clueless young charges. Which to a degree failed because ALL OF THEM ARE SO NICE THEY DON'T GOSSIP. Which is indeed a great failure because CS is a gossip school whether you like it or not. It's like the culture! Ok. Then went to Sentosa and we made them play that animal game, where we make them each some weird animal and they are supposed to find each other blindfolded. Really, it's WAYYY more fun as a senior, cause you get to mess around freshie's brains and tell them they are Kung Fu Panda, Water Horse, or Earthworm etc (one of each) and then go in and make them chase after you in circles (blindfolded). Okay I'm evil that way. But it was definitely memorable. The night scene was way lame, really. Wheeeere got all stand one side let the freshies watch a staged play one. Okay anyways some of Fusilli's people flew off to make merry at the merlion and came back uber late, which was kind of worrying but I don't remember anything much else.
Day Two: Sentosa, Initiation

I actually am getting sort of lazy to put up pictures so if you really want to see you can troll around on Facebook to find them, don't worry there are probably tons of it. Okay so we were at Sentosa, and in the morning I woke up with a very bad headache and muscle ache (cause I had to give up my sleeping bag to freshies who didn't bring theirs, I happened to only bring shorts and basically I slept on the hard floor and froze to death in the early morning) Trekked to the 7 eleven outlet for some coffee and snack, where some of Fusilli's girls also came to find food (honestly, cup noodles beat bread and jam anyday). Played like ONE round of polar bear before we were called off to play the station games. We didn't really lose much that day, but somehow when calculated we ended up being the worst OG points-wise. Of course, none of us really cared and it really brightened my day (and Mel's, probably) that nobody among the freshies were really THAT competitive to spoil the whole meaning of FOC. Okay, I got dunked, and Mel got dunked, nobody really had the balls to dunk Cameron or Xiaoken or Sara Jean so I had to change underwear, something which I thankfully envisioned, and prepared for. I frankly don't remember much of the games except that Sentosa was really fun and we didn't lose that many to be last placed. Okay, there was wash up, lunch, some deja-vu seeing MTM people doing their (and our pirated version) of the banana cheer and MPok doing theirs too. Err some MSuaers tried to get our version going, but sadly we're so loserish that none of us remembered any significant cheer from last year. So... lunch. Yah, so there was a disgusting err... cross dressing segment in between us trying to sow more discord for the Hungry Cheetah thing, and I remember going EWW when I saw the models go up. But never mind, it was sort of fun watching them go at it. And there was the battlefield thing where water bombs flew everywhere and there was more Hit Card snippets for everyone to gossip about. Okay, then packed up and left for school where we took them to Hall 13, their official residence for FOC in NTU. Which was sort of dumb cause it is all the way on the other end of NTU, but thankfully nobody really complained about the distance (other than the seniors, and partiularly, me.) There was initiation, which was really fun (as a senior) I mean to see freshies being decorated with egg, soap, tomato sauce and whatever they brought ( I really don't know ), drink from a toilet bowl and do all sorts of nonsense on flooded toilets, and be blindfolded all the time, feel like foreign workers sitting on the back of a truck while going to the storm drain, and actually going through like 200 metres of a real, dark storm drain with weird crawling things everywhere and smelt funny. Okay, much tiredness, but OGLs had it worse as we slept only at like 4 am onwards. Those who were major Hot Cakes had it worse at like 5.30 am or later. Yes we had to wake at 8 the next day.
Day Three: Amazing Race! Nothing much amazing happened other than the fact we won only once out of 4 stations we fought with Ravioli. Okay, obviously a 10 minute penalty for losing the first station sort of meant that we will be late for the next one, and so on, and somehow we were so unlucky that we didn't win more stations. But once again, that's not important. Probably the penultimate High Chew moment that day as even I had to be involved in some Handyplast vs Guardian plasters "heated argument" with Jason, which you can find me for more details. I think some Ravioli people hate me/find me damn lame or something, for which I apologise. Okay, and there was like paper mache which failed to scare anyone, and some very interesting skits on display. Okay you can tell I'm like summarizing like mad. I've been typing for half an hour already and I'm only on day three, you see. Okay so the stuff ended and oh by the way at Tanjong Pagar we saw an awesome SHIT truck. Really, it's probably a real business dealing with sewage disposal. By the end of it all, everyone had to make the impossibly long trek towards hall 13 from CS and even then, Fusilli seemed to still have the energy and enthusiasm to actually play cards. When I was really trying desperately to put on a brave and strong and energetic front and join in the card games. But well... Okay I dropped in for a bit.
Day Four: Raffles Marina, Finding Nemo

Okay, day four was very fun for them and very relaxing (relatively) for me. I remember going all the way there and lying on the pier with my feet in the water, which was really sort of nice. Didn't go on the banana boat and kayak since I didn't bring enough underwear to change into (sorry I can't stand saltwater within my ____ ) so well... maybe next year if you guys would still have me. Okay we were like the only OG to have awesome lunch at the staff canteen. Really great Lor Mee there and it was like air-conditioned. Everyone else ate like bread with water. Okay, the bread was pretty nice. But bread. Okay. So everyone really didn't do anything much. Was on the same bus back as Ravioli as Fusilli was finally split to take 3 different buses. Jason and Ness were doing horrible things to male freshies which I filmed down with my n00bish 3 megapixel camera, and honestly, well it was kind of interesting. More icy daggers and stares from some of Ravioli's less friendly friends, but I don't really care. So there. Okay went back to school for more relaxing stuff, and REVEALED our fake freshie! Which was really great fun, the incredulous look on everyone's faces were really awesome. Yiting really pulled it off. Sorry to Jigglypuff though, we really really never thought you'd get so close to her so fast. And credit to Kenneth who knew but didn't say anything, and Hendrick who tried to mess up more minds by telling everyone he is the fake freshie. Ok more lies. We told everyone that we were going to CS for a movie marathon (yeah right) of works by CS graduates (partly true). But oh well, the fright night video, by Chee Harn and company, was sort of awesome. But the sound... well... who ask me to choose to be a sound person. And the fake hair in the toilet cubicle was -_-"""". In any case it was even more relaxing cause while waiting for them to complete the NBS station I just lied down there and sleep (and had a super unglam picture taken). Kenneth was probably the only casualty of any kind throughout FOC so he has my congratulations for that dubious honor =D kidding. Yeah so we went to the CI Club 5th Floor station next, which to me was really an awesome station until they had to send in three people at once, by which it isn't as scary anymore. Oh yes, Audrey and Trixie and Si Min... Haiz....

Okay, for the last one me and Mel were already so stoned we decided to go to the end point and wait instead. Had some pretty nice Boon Lay nasi lemak and Fusilli got to go back and rest. The OGLs had to stay and clean up the mess :( It was really a mess. Please next year don't play with weird things okay... hard to clean. And the OGLs went back as though we were all sleepwalking, saying incoherent things. At one point I was walking with my eyes closed. Miracle we all got there safely.

Day Five: FINALE!

I don't know what Fusilli did on day five precisely. I heard they went to ADM to prepare for their skit. Me and Mel and the other OGLs were camped out at Jason's and Wenxu's rooms busy preparing presents. To Fusilli please note it is VERY VERY difficult to write stuff on a slipper. You can try it. Okay and we rushed out a 5 minute rehearsal of the OGLs' finale skit which was memorable for the wrong reasons.... tsk. I guess that's why there are more girls in CS. Masking tape and leg hair is funny until you are the person suffering from it. Okay, it wasn't that painful :) and more importantly everyone had a good laugh. I thought the skits were really awesome, even ours! Too bad there were other way more raunchy and worthy ones, but I'm still very tickled by Fusilli's performane still. There was a bit of a KNNCCB moment with the main comm right before Finale, as they asked me to come down at a very last minute to set up their sound system for them when I specifically told the comm to bring the backup system just in case because hall 7 is not known for spanking new (or working) equipment. But okay, if you decide not to listen to my advice, the least one can do is set up the sound system like 2 or 3 hours ahead of time which appears to me as a very logical thing to do. And to be honest, though I know the bands who came were nice enough to do so and all, I think they kind of suck. Coming from me, I don't really give a shit what people think of me, but about bands and music standard I know a thing or two. Song choice really tried to put everyone to sleep. Ok Alarice was kind of sexy, all girls with Martin acoustics are sexy mah. See I told you I know a thing or two. Her guitarist was kind of lame but he had a Gibson Hummingbird so I forgive him. Our limited 4 channel sound system too was really lame but that's what happens when you don't listen to the sound man about sound.

Okay, ermm can't really remember much else. There was a lame taxi driver who complained to me Nanyang Drive was hard to find. Yeahh. When it's like the big circle surrounding NTU's schools and all. And got home, concussed, slept the next two days away.

Sorry for the no pictures, I have them, but it really is troublesome sorting them out day by day and posting them in the right places, so maybe next time.

Okay, next, Kukup.













Kukup is a really beautiful and relaxed place, where you can REALLY recharge your batteries, and all you do is eat, sleep, and eat more, then sleep more. In between you can hit mahjong, watch the sunrise/sunset and take really great pictures. BUT I will forever remember this trip as the one were I was really dumb. I brought a DSLR camera without the charger. It's like bring a car without fuel, or a Gibson LP without a decent amp. Ok so I took pictures from Johor all the way to Kukup, and a few at Kukup, and then the camera went flat, the spare battery wasn't charged, and I was stranded with deadweight in my bag. :( Yes laugh all you want.

This is what I missed out on:







































































and I had to contend with a commercial mini camera:















Oh wells... anyway it was really fun, and we did really stupid stuff. Okay for one in Kukup there is no such thing as a trash bin, everything goes out of the window into the mud. Really takes some time getting used to, but trust me it's sort of therauputic.















Here, I was trying to see if I could trap a fly which would be dumb enough to buzz around our coconuts. Apparently either I'm way too slow or flies fly too fast, I kind of failed.



























For that matter, so did Xavier.





<-- the boat trip to the Kelong







<--- at the Kelong. And that is a very icky little thing called a Horseshoe crab which was still alive. Because it looked so much like something from Alien vs Predator I didn't want to be near it, much less take a picture with it. Okay I am loserish that way but. Oh well...


Okay, I've been typing for over an hour, and hence i am going to sleep. Until next time yahhh.

Oh, and anyway my band, Xclef, is having a little performance at this place called the MusicDreamer Cafe 爱琴海, it's a little cafe place in between Marina Square and Millenia Walk on the second floor, next to Kenko reflexology center if you are interested in going. There is a cover charge of $11.90 I think which gets you a free drink or something. Details are always hazy coming from me. Anyway apart from some covers we will also be playing, for the first time, our songs, aka my arrangements, compositions, so on. In any case you get to see me play so if you are curious as to my level of skill you can come and see and then times two that amount to get my real level of skill. Haha. Okay don't stone me. Anyway it will be on the 18th of August at around 7 pm to 10 pm, a sad Monday so let me drive the blues away from you. Come on, you get to hear my compositions! Okay never mind. Tell me if you are interested yahhh.

I can't forgive myself for forgetting about this particular song... But I shall make up for it by posting it again!

Kizutsuke-atta kotoba mo kasaneta namida mo
Itsuka wa omoi naru yo Dakara... togireta melody
Mune ni dakishimete - ashita mo ikiru darou
- Anata ni aenakute mo

Sing without you I'll sing without you
Can't you feel my heart, falling through the rain
I sing without you I'll sing without you
Can't you hold my tears Cause, still I love you
I can't face the thought of being alone
I sing for the song still carries on

Mune ni dakishimete - omoi o utawasete koe ni naranakute mo
Sing without you I'll sing without you
Can't you feel my pain There's nothing I can do
I still have a longing for your memory
Kizutsuku dake demo kokoro o tsuetai yo
Ima wa... hitori ni shinaide furi-sasogu me ni kowaresou na yume
Ashita mo kanaderu kara

Sing without you, I'll sing without you,
can't you feel my heart, falling through the rain.
I sing without you, I'II sing without you,
can't you hold my tears, cause still I love you.
Sing without you, I'll sing without you,
can't you feel my heart, falling through the rain.
I sing without you, I sing without you,
can't you hold my tears, cause still I love you.

ENGLISH TRANSLATION:

Even pain is seen in words, even tears gather.
Someday, memories will flourish.
That's why it's an unchained melody, hold my heart
I will still be alive tomorrow, even if I can no longer meet you.

Sing without you, I'II sing without you,
can't you feel my heart, falling through the rain.
I sing without you, I'II sing with out you,
can't you hold me tears, cause still I love you.
I cant face the thought of being alone,
I sing for the song still carries on.

Hold my heart, memories are still singing, even if i have no voice.
Sing without you, I'll sing without you,
can't you feel my pain, there's nothing I can do.
I still have a longing for your memory, even if the memory is only pain.
I won't let my feelings show.
Now, I don't want to be alone.
In the pouring rain, it all must be a dream, from tomorrow on...

Sing without you, I'll sing without you,
can't you feel my heart, falling through the rain.
I sing without you, I'II sing without you,
can't you hold my tears, cause still I love you.
Sing without you, I'll sing without you,
can't you feel my heart, falling through the rain.
I sing without you, I sing without you,
can't you hold my tears, cause still I love you.

wohooo, no more werkk! =D

It is strange how I am so happy now that work is temporarily over, when it means I am now again without a job. Well, a month ago I was utterly depressed to be without work, but I guess fatigue (plus an early paycheck) can do wonders to morale!

Double happiness is that FOC is finally coming soon. Really looking forward to it, like a lot of other people, at the same time a little bit apprehensive about what will happen in the camp...

What else can I actually blog about? Can't seem to remember...

Work has been pretty okay, I mean the event day we spent like 3 hours stoning waiting for the courier to deliver the seminar materials and goodie bags for us to re-pack... so it was like a free 21 dollars. And the event itself was pretty alright, just the usual misfortune of seeing ugly SME owners doing all sorts of little actions to get an advantage over the others. Disgusting manners and social etiquette, so on and so forth. But it was at least much better than the MOE seminar the last time round, which really made me eyeball those parents with disgust. If you don't teach your kids properly by acting in a proper manner yourself, who is going to?

And the first thing I did when I got my pay in was... order something online (again) sigh... Unlimited wants, limited pay. Ok I am so going to control.

Looks like Genting trip is off, I really really hope Kukup still goes ahead, not only haven't I seen those guys in foreverlong, but it will certainly be a much well-needed breather from work/school/stoning.

Going to be away next week for the FOC, so it is unlikely that I can blog anythime within the next two weeks.

fuck slash, neal schon is my new hero

There are many second-rate guitarists who people like to say that they are "awesome" maybe cause they appear to be mildly good looking, or can play 200 notes in a minute, or they are very flashy, et cetera.

Few can make the guitar sing...

He makes me want to mod a guitar, with a sustainer unit, onboard distortion, onboard delay and OFR whammy. Pure genius, the way he modded his LP - having the sustainer switches at the top/behind the bridge makes it much easier to switch modes in the middle of playing solos, and contoured neck joint really makes it very easy to hit the 22nd fret on a les paul, add the higher octave harmonic ability of the sustainer and he is able to really make the guitar sing.

It's not the most technical of songs, but it's the way he plays it...

let me tell you a story

One day, I felt inspired so i opened up my acrylic red mockingbird and decided in a whim to change out all the parts. So i simply cut (yes, cut) the wires and stuff, thinking i am able to solder them back again. Well so I dismantled the parts and stuff, and here is what was left of it:
















So i happily went and shopped for parts, ordering some online, so here's what I saw when I opened the box. Basically I ordered a gold tuneomatic bridge, stop tailpiece, gold 3-way toggle switch, orange capacitators, 1 giant sized pot, 1 Dream P-90 pickup (GFS) and 1 Dream 180 Pickup (GFS). Not that I expect people to understand what those mean but well, just note that they are all gold.
















So I actually happily put it together and all, and thought I was so smart I saw the diagrams and tried to solder them, so I did, and put everything together, so here was the result:

JENG JENG JENG JENG! Chio right?












































Very big change from when I first got it:
















So of course you would expect me to be like, the happiest kid in Singapore today right?

HELL NO, apparently something is wrong with my wiring, plus the wires which I try to solder with end up being frayed and all, well i TRIED my best and rewired it twice over, but alas when I plugged it into the amp THERE WAS NO SOUND! Not even a signal of any sort.

So something somewhere must have blown... means I still have to lug it down to Peninsula to get someone to wire for me, apparently at least another 30 bucks gone =/

I'm like how depressed can, for all the skillzors of guitar playing cannot even solder stuff myself... Haiz. I can envision my forthcoming conversation with shop owner of doom...

Me: Err, hey, you do rewiring here right?

Him/her: Yes, of course, what can I do for you?

Me: Err, I tried to DIY and somehow it doesn't work, can you fix for me?

Him/her: Ok, sure let me take a look... (opens back cavity, which he doesn't really need to cause the cover is clear plastic) WAH LAO EH.

Me: Yeah, messy right... I want to keep the tone knob and gold 3-way switch, cause those are new.. and the orange drop cap too! Err so how much...

Him/her: Wah, must change out both volume pots, like $5 each for the pots and $20 each for the wiring, so I think like $50 bucks ah.

Me: Wah, can cheaper anot?

Him/her: Very cheap already. Some more your wiring so messy.

Me: Hai, bo bian also lah. So when can I get it back, today?

Him/her: Definitely cannot lah, come back next week.

Me: Haaaah, then must lug back home again....

Okay, never mind I am depressed already, so I shall wait till I get my pay before I get it fixed (or not) For now it sits pretty in its beat up hardcase in all its newfound glory but i STILL don't know how it sounds.

Mr. TJ says bring it to Standard Value. Which is like a zillion miles away in Woodlands, so I guess no, I won't. I'd bring it to either Dan's or Maestro though it might cost more and not end up in the same clean cutesy way Standard Value does soldering jobs.

In other news, didn't go to work today because of an FOC main comm meeting, which was a bit strange cause I was so out of their wavelength (no offense, really) and attempts to dabble in gossip was not met with very friendly-ly (broken english alert, don't learn from me) and though it was a valiant attempt, there was really too much info to be shared over verbally without any reference documents for us and stuff. And only 4 out of 8 OGLs were there so.... God bless us, Melissa.

Anyhow it does sound to be a very interesting WKWSCIFOC2008 so all those who are attending as freshmen, get ready to hear your OG's awesome name: -XXXXXXX-! I didn't come up with it, if you want to blame someone, blame JASON who happily ganged up with newfound special friend to kope the last ever sensible name from me.

Ok lah, come to think of it Ravioli is much worse. Haha.

In some more other news, I spent the weekend (Sunday evening, really) trying to learn "Cliffs of Dover" by Eric Johnson (You'd know if you play Guitar Hero 3) and I must say that guy must have a zillion fingers. So far I've only learned about the first minute of the song, since it's such a hassle to remember it. But it's really fun and nice to play (like I was literally swaying along to it...)

And Marvel Straploks are kind of awesome.

I still want to watch Kung Fu Panda, anyone wants to watch?

Got to work tmr... haiz. At least it means cash hahahahaha.

work work werk warrrkk!

Ah finally found some work! Been working for the past few days (5 days into the job already). It's a telemarketing job, not very nice as in the sit there and slack and still can collect money per hour job (referring to Cameron and his pit stop comfy plushy job) but it is not as evil as my previous telemarketing place. The full time staff are very nice people, very friendly and understand that telemarketing is a really god forsaken job, so they do not pressure you with unreasonable-ness.

I mean, if an uncle can't really speak English properly, what is the point of asking him to attend a seminar which is entirely in English? Well it's really a lot more relaxing to not be put under a quota for the day, so on and so forth. And some people are also very rude, even those (especially those) from so-called big MNCs. There was one German MNC which was so rude I had to put down the phone immediately to stop myself from raising my voice at her. And another finding: usually guy receptionists are more friendly than female ones, somehow. Haha.

Work again tommorow, at least the money is going to come in :/

Results aren't as good as I'd hoped, made worse by the fact that all my subjects are 4AU courses, which brings my GPA for this sem to a lowly 3.9/5. Everyone else seems to be getting above 4, which is a depressing thing really. COM230 got myself a mere B, which I suspect was because of the projects (I so nailed the exam, I swear) I'm not going to say any more, because it is pointless. Suffice to say, next sem I am only doing group projects with people who actually have a clue as to what's happening. 208 was kind of expected, I mean, Communication Research, seriously? 202 was screwed up, that bastard of a tutor really screwed us ALL up very badly. It is really sad that your grade in university relies highly on your tutor. Doubly sad that an incompetent bastard who isn't even qualified - a graduate student - is asked to grade the tutorial class. I mean this is a joker who tells us that the lecturer is talking rubbish, and constantly treats everyone like little children, thinking he's so damn smarty pants we all must kowtow to him and all, when really he's just a bullshit pretender of a graduate student who is just interested in completing his own course and doing his own research.

Who else grades a full scale term paper with just a pencil grade and no breakdown/comments/feedback/marks of approval/disapproval in the entire 20 page booklet? In contrast the other tutor was a lot more constructive, and obviously those people are the lucky lot to get better grades for COM202.

I think I just lost it in the ranting for a moment there. Well I'm quite depressed with results.

When is the stupid rat race going to end? It ends when I can successfully convince myself that I am already competing in the elite, so B grades are pretty okay. It will end when my parents finally realise that grades are not everything. It ends when I stop caring about the grade and start enjoying the process. It ends when I start doing SOMETHING REAL in uni.

But first year is finally over.

On the bright side I got my Hall 2 room (yay =D) and stuff, so am really looking forward to next sem in that sense. Of course, had to endure the customary parents' nagging about how not to piss off your neighbor and roommate and stuff. I mean seriously, I am a very docile and pacifist person, why don't they go look at the friggin mirror?

Like seriously.

I feel like eating satay