Today I felt the strongest need to strangle something/scream at something/curse at something - to the point of ridiculous proportions. The strange thing is, I really can't put it down to any single reason. Maybe it's just stupid exams knocking on our doors less than 10 days after the last assignments are due. That's why I'm looking forward to the 3 month breather where I can spend half the time watching new series, meeting friends, playing, and concentrate on improving skills.

But half the time I hope to get some kind of job which I enjoy - maybe work at a guitar shop. In that sense I don't look forward to the 3 month break. I've been through this, it can be ridiculously empty in these three months. I fear emptiness and it sure looks like large pockets of time in the 3 months will be relatively empty. 

Went jamming with Desley's band on Friday - a bit of a 'oh gosh no friggin way' moment when one of his bandmates plugged in my guitar and there was no sound. With the soldering tools in bad condition and it's all in hall anyways, I couldn't afford to have to spend a day to solder everything again. Thankfully it's just a loose tone knob which kind of jerked the wire a little loose. I.e. it's okay now. Some people actually theorize that I play better when I'm stoned (tired, not high) it's kind of strange.

Stranger things have happened and most of the time we don't know why, just know that they do. Been through a couple of those as well, and when you can see it replay in front of your eyes again and again and again you wonder if this time it'll just be the same so just enjoy the moments, or dread them, while they last. 

My head is relatively heavy, my neck hurts, and so does my legs. I hate exams. 

grins :D

cost me a cool 85 bucks but, money well spent

big changes

That has been transformed into this:

thats like $3 worth of duct tape and stuff from a pasar malam. I know it's hideous and that's partly the point :D

for all of you who've seen my tiny miniature room before, it now got bigger (yay) by some miracle of ikea innovations and storage spaces - this could probably be an ikea ad. oh well i forgot what i was gonna say

now back to projects and pretending to do them

hi all

Hi all, this is what I want for my 21st birthday (i'm not really going to celebrate it but i would still accept presents :D)

It retails at $580 dollars so thankewww in advance (lol, yeah right)

ok i'll post otehr stuff you can volunteer to get me

this is my 412561241522th ongoing distraction

Strangely enough, I didn't really do anything much this week... but the fatigue seems to be already hitting in, despite the fact that THIS IS BY FAR MY SLACKEST semester ever.

Maybe we are all just like jaded from each long semester and yet another long semester, till the point we get so tired easily.

Watching this kid play makes me at peace and stuff.

One of my biggest regrets is not picking up the guitar much earlier at say, 8 years old rather than, say... 18.

Apparently you can learn much quicker when you are younger like 10 or 12. So why the hell do MOE make us learn the recorder when it's such a retarded instrument.

what a waste of life...

I'm sure by now you've heard of the poor dude who stabbed a professor in the back and then jumped off the building. In case you live in a cave but happen to have the internet connection to see this blog, the news is here. 

I don't exactly feel too affected, although when I first heard that he was Indo Chinese it did freak me out a bit as I tried to jog my memory whether I knew anyone from Engineering Year 4. I don't, and as a matter of fact I actively try not to know too many Indonesians in NTU (complicated la.). But David Widjaja's situation I can empathize with. I don't condone suicide in any way, neither do I see stabbing a prof to prove anything, but David's situation was apparently so bad it could crush anyone's ego - a top student on course for first class honors and then the 'world class institution' pulls the plug on the scholarship which is all so important for students like David. At YEAR 4, a short distance away from graduating with first class honors, and you tell a student "Hey, we're not going to offer you the scholarship for the 4th year, please pay $22,000 for this year's fees or you can't graduate. By the way, you need to pay us back the money we gave you over the past 3 years or so. Yup, now please continue with your FYP and try not to make us lose face."

Again, I don't see how suicide solves anything but I can't help but to feel a little sense of waste. I don't exactly subscribe to any religion but even I feel that way. So it irks me to see insensitive bastards post this on the ST comments section

Funny how posters come to conclusion is the professor who Intimidate the student first. What a coward way to commit sucide after an attempt to murder his teacher. Either way, he will be charged with a death sentence if the professor was killed. There is no escape for him for his hedinous crime..

On what basis is he a nice young man? Pychopaths may appear to be quite normal and often even charming but according to psychiatrist Hervey Cleckley, the state of adaption was named the "mask of sanity". It is reported the student has a antisocial personality disorder which is a common characteristic trait shared among serial killers.

Yeah you are a person with a personality disorder *after* trying to kill your teacher. You just look plain stupid trying to justify attempted murder. The online citizen, blogs and some other resources show even fellow students living in the same block as him are unaware there such a person exist living among them. 

If David had a gun, he most likely turn out to be another Seung-Hui Cho.

People are forgetting that David had a choice. In fact, he had many choices. He even could have asked his family for more choices or help if he ran out of his own ideas for choices. People must be held responsible for their actions.

It's easier to forgive him because he commited sucide. He became a martyr instead of an attempted murderer. Would people have sent him flowers and offered comforting words had he lived and stood trial for the stabbing of his professor? If Cho had lived, would it be so easy to forgive him? Would people be so quick to dismiss his actions as those of an unfortunate victim himself and deem that as having been punishment enough?

In an effort to forgive, there's a big difference between being sympathetic of what happened to him and the almost dismissive "He couldn't help it" attitude that has been happening. It is not okay to try to kill people.

And perhaps it thought it would justify his point, he called himself ROBIN KWANG. This is a man who is truly lacking compassion or feeling of any sort. Maybe he was raped as a child, or maybe he just was born without a heart. I mean what the fuck sort of guy name is ROBIN anyway? No matter what, David was partly the victim here. Again I don't condone David's actions, but at least we can all empathize? What's wrong with some people.

On a little lighter side, a friend told me that her mum called her and told her to stay away from all her Indonesian friends (i.e. me) which is well... you decide for yourself how ridiculous that is. Unfortunately some people (like the abovementioned beast) seem to be able to draw the connection between a troubled Indonesian student and that all Indonesians are suddenly mentally unstable potential murderers. I know I play L4D and I enjoy shooting virtual humans sometimes, but I have no such urges. Now I can begin to feel what Banglas feel when we say "wah more Bangla more crime". Please, I thought Singapore had more educated people. 

this is what i am reading now

I almost didn't buy it cause of the scary cover. (P.S. I am very scared of scary looking dolls, clowns, and some other things which I cannot tell you for the sake of my ego)

cause Barney is just awesome

I haven't updated in a very very very veryyyy long time, blame it on 1) school 2) all the people whose 21sts are making me very broke 3) left 4 dead 4) pro evolution soccer 2009 5) my own very lazy self. I mean, c'mon to update blog I have to go the blogger website, type in a long email address and rack up my memory thinking of the correct password, then when I'm on the dashboard I have to make sure I choose the right blog, and then I get to this page where there are a lot of words to type, and at home the computer screen is like 1 metre away from me and there is no table so I am using flying keys off my keyboard (thats a ficticious thing). So no wonder I'm lazy, and don't judge me!

Okay, updates. School stuff is boring, so it can be summarized in a sentence: It's recess week, the calm before the storm, the deep breath before the roller coaster lurches into oblivion, and after this week it's going to be pure hell until it's a very long break again.

I kind of find myself in a very strange position - maybe it is really true that it is that much harder to break into a new group of friends in Singapore, or maybe just in the highly educated Singaporean context -- we had a new vocalist trying out and despite me not remembering her name ( I know it now, but ) the few of us settled in just fine. Maybe people just are a lot more friendly when the threat of being trashed in grades, and cliques, and avoiding the bitchy daggers that fly around, do not exist anymore. 

Err, and it's a very strange position, like I said... 

And more - well guess what came in the mail when I returned home for the recess week: the most AWESOME BOOK in the world.

I mean, it's really so awesome, when you read it his voice plays in your head. Ok here are some excerpts:

July 4, 1776

The Bro Code 

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for Bros to settle a dispute, decent respect to the opinions of Bro-kind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to argue, though prudence says it's probably a chick. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Bros are created equal - though not necessarily with the same good looks or sense of style - and that they are endowed with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of tail. To secure these rights, we present the Bro code. It is the right of Bros to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new code, but let's face it --- that's a lot of work.

Be it here resolved that, henceforth, when and if two gentlemen covet the company of the same wench, the Bro who first calleth dibs on said wench shall be entitled sefferance for such time as it takes to reasonably strike out, or the time it takes sand to fill one half of an hourglass, whichever comes first. At no point is it permissible for a Bro to violate this right and codpiece block his Bro, even if he hath consumed copious quantities of ale.

And the excerpt that err... gives the history of the Bro code.

While the story of the Bro Code is not nearly as simple and elegant as God handing down some stone tablets to Broses, its origins weave all the way back to the dawn of humanity.

In the beginning there was no Bro Code... which was unfortunate for the world's first Bros -- Cain and Abel. Lacking an agreed-upon set of social principles, Cain killed Abel and commited history's first Broicide. As punishment Cain was doomed to walk the earth alone. Why? Because without a wingman, he had absolutely no chance of meeting chicks.

Centuries later a Bro from Sparta and a Bro from Troy got in a fight over a chick named Helen. I know, "Helen" doesn't sound hot, but allegedly she had a "face that launched a thousang ships," so you can just imagine what her rack was like. The two bros waged a terrible war over this chick - a war that could have been avoided had the Bros been familiar with the most basic Bro code (Article 1): Bros before ho's. Troy put up a good fight, but the Spartan navy was very powerful. Soon hordes of Spartan seamen burst through the Trojan barrier, and Helen got half the gold for the next eighteen years.

Hundreds of years later, appropriately in Philadelphia (the city of Bro Love), a little known delegate names Baranabas Stinson scratched on parchment what is now considered the earliest attempt to record the Bro Code. Over the years Bros have amended and added rules, but Stinson's elegant words remain as the glorious preamble to the Bro Code.

While the original document is housed two stories beneath sea level in an undisclosed, vacuum-sealed, bullet-proof chamber, I was able to gain access long enough to manufacture this replica.

Now tell me if you didn't at least LOL on those two chunks. Okay it's so awesome some of the articles are obvious, like Bros before ho's, and some are just downright hilarious. Like this one...

Article 4: A Bro never divulges the existence of the Bro Code to a woman. It is a sacred document not to be shared with chicks for any reason... no, not even that reason.

NOTE: If you are a woman reading this, first, let me apologize; it was never my intention for this book to contain so much math.

Second, I urge you to look at this document for what it is - a piece of fiction meant to entertain a broad audience throught he prism of stereotypical gender differences. I mean, sometimes it really is like we're from different planets! Clearly, no real person would actually believe or adhere to the vulgar rules contained within*. Those boots are adorable, b-t-dub.

*Psst - hey, guys! I put this in really small type at the bottom since we all know men have much better vision than women. Ignore the above --- the Bro Code is definitely not a piece of fiction. I was simply lying to uphold this very article.

Article 40: Should a Bro become stricken with engagement, his Bros shall stage an intervention and attempt to heal him. This is more commonly known as a 'Bachelor Party'.

and...

Article 28: A Bro will, in a timely manner, alert his Bro to the existence of a girl fight.

*A Bro must, in a timely manner, communicate the possibility of fisticuffs between two humans of the female variety (Henceforth "girl fight"), in an effort to make possible and probable that another Bro or Bros can partake in observation. A "timely manner" is open to interpretation based on the initial Bro's viewing and processing of the potential feminine conflagaration. Said Bro must use any and all methods of media distribution at his disposal, including but not limited to: telepathy. If an informed Bro is unable to witness the girl fight firsthand, the spotter Bro is responsible for documenting and relating details of the girl fight via pictures, video, or barring any other reasonable method, interpretive dance and/or pantomime.

This one is so true it's funny:

Article 33: When in a public restroom, a Bro (1) stares straight ahead when using the urinal; (2) makes the obligatory comment, "What is this, a chicks' restroom?" if there are more than two dudes waiting to pee; and (3) attempts to shoot his used paper towel into the trash can like a basketball... rebounding is optional.

Article 41: A Bro never cries.

EXCEPTIONS: Watching Field of Dreams, E.T., or a sports legend retire**

**Applies only to the first time he retires.

And some very strange ones, one of which actually appeared in the bro code episode of HIMYM:

Article 34: Bros cannot make eye contact during a devil's threeway. 

Article 44: A Bro never applies sunscreen to another Bro

EXCEPTION: If the Bros are within 7 degrees latitude of the equator.

Article 53: Even in a drought, a Bro flushes twice.

Article 54: A Bro is required to go out with his Bros on St. Patty's Day and other official Bro holidays, including Halloween, New Year's Eve, and Desperation Day (Febuary 13).

Article 69: DUH.

Ok, typing the stuff out is actually quite tiring. Like I said, some had illustrations!

Ok I know quoting from the book is kind of cheating, but it is after all a rather long update, so... yup. 

How I'm going to spend recess week, I suppose I got like 4 new novels, a term paper and catching up on readings to do in addition to.. meet ups, gaming, meet up to game, and jams. 

Then all hell will arrive in the last parts of sem. Sigh.

Oh and yes, after some heavy work last week my living room is now much more spacious!!!