do SOMETHINGOOD.
10-24 dec/11am-7pm/orchard
www.somethingood.s5.com

what
a christmas charity drive in aid of the Children’s Cancer Foundation
singing, dancing, performing, BUSKING for charity along Orchard Road this Christmas season

who
PERFORMERS WANTED from all walks of life, all disciplines of the arts
rock bands, chamber ensembles, dance, performance poetry, drama-
busk for the CCF at somethingood!
CANNERS WANTED to work the crowds around the buskers
get people to donate!

where
selected spots along the Orchard shopping belt
orchard pedestrian mall; the underpass from wheelock to shaw house; ngee ann city; plaza singapura
recced for viability- performers stationed at the most appropriate locations

when
10-24 december, 11am-7pm daily-
don’t worry about having to perform for the whole day or repetitive programmes
performing groups can name their own times through out the 2 weeks-
don’t worry about having to schedule around us; we’ll schedule around you.

how
register to either can or busk by downloading the form attached to this email or downloading it from http://www.somethingood.s5.com
registration forms are to be sent to somethingood04reg@yahoo.com or faxed to 4876098
got questions?
check out our site at http://www.somethingood.s5.com
or
send them to somethingood04enq@yahoo.com
even if you can’t help out yourself, do spread the message!

so:
do SOMETHINGOOD.
10-24 dec/11am-7pm/orchard
www.somethingood.s5.com

CALL FOR AN INTERNATIONAL PROTEST GATHERING IN ICELAND SUMMER 2005

The autocratic Icelandic government and corrupted technocrats areturning our pristine country into a third world heavy industry zone.The first step of a monstrously destructive "grand scheme" is a seriesof gigantic dams that are already under construction at Karahnjukar, inthe eastern highlands of Iceland. These dams are designated solely togenerate energy for one massive Alcoa aluminium smelter to be built bywar-profiteers Bechtel in the pristine fjord of Reydarfjordur, due to beoperational in 2007. The national grid will not derive a single kilowattfor domestic use. The natural habitat of many rare and endangered plantsand animals will be submerged, lost, destroyed.

It is an illusion that we cannot stop the construction of the dams atKarahnjukar just as it is that our National Power Company (Landsvirkjun)are a law unto themselves. Other dams have been stopped at various stages of development all over the world. We must compare the costs ofhalting the project with the money that remains to be wasted on thisunprofitable project, the enormous environmental damage and the cost offeeding a dirty giant like Alcoa with our energy and democracy.

Experts concur that 90% of the irreversible environmental damage will bedone only when the water floods the land - projected for 2006 but nowlikely to be later. The longer the construction of the dams goes on theless time the land destroyers have and the more time WE have to stop them.

There is a place in the northeast highlands of Iceland that is unique and extraordinarily beautiful. At its center one of the biggest glacial rivers in Iceland has gorged out a magnificent canyon. The river erodes and brings to tha ocean around 10 million tonns of soil each year. This area is at the heart of the second largest unspoiled wilderness areas in Europe and it is about to be destroyed by a dam and it's reservoir that will sink most of the canyon and one of the most diverse and beautyful highland areas in Iceland. The area that will be affected by the Kárahnjúkar Dam and it's powerplant covers about 1000 square kilometres. ALCOA, National Power Company and the Icelandic Government are about to destroy this land for what they claim will be huge financial benefits for Iceland. They have however not been able to show that the dam will be profitable and if the price for the electricity will be anything close to what the other aluminum smelters in Iceland are getting this dam will lose money, lots of it, all the time.

http://www.inca.is/emailicelandiv.asp

_______________________________________________

sigh. before i get to go there and see it for myself?? goodness.

sigh.
rain delay after rain delay after rain delay.

got up at 5.30 eagerly awaiting the federer-hewitt final of the tennis masters cup, and woke up to see the westside tennis club on tv deserted and under a blanket of rain.
the match started at 8.30 but stopped again at around 9.05 for another rain delay, and now they're showing roddick-henman again for want of matches to show after showing federer-safin AND hewitt-roddick during the first rain break.
bah.

bought five books on my second trip to the booksale today.
though i must admit that buying those were quite far from the purpose of my trip, which was to further chase a lost cause (find more graham greene books).
needless to say i came up empty in that regard. but i did meet someone when i was there (bernasty). pleasant surprise. always nice to meet someone you know when you're out alone.

anyway, the five books -

j.m. coetzee - waiting for the barbarians
manuel rivas - vermeer's milkmaid and other stories
roddy doyle - a star called henry
michael palin - hemingway's chair
ernest hemingway - death in the afternoon

the last of which i quite like because it contains lots of bullfighting photos.

a while ago i was thinking about myself and comparing me this year with me last year.
obviously i've changed - and i was thinking about how and why.
one of the reasons undoubtedly is the fact that i finally am able to enjoy the presence of girls =D haha.
also i've noticed that my musical tastes have changed a fair bit.

i was wondering - which exerts more influence on the other - your character, or the music/books that you listen to/read?

whereas last year i kept on immersing myself in melancholic music that many around me describe as 'depressing', i tend to do less of that this year - i still do, mind - more upbeat, bouncy stuff (like the futureheads) , sometimes even saccharine music (e.g. of montreal).
seeing as to how the changes seemed to have taken root at around the same time, hard to tell which - in my case - was more dominant.

ah well.

follow up to yesterday's post about the maybank robbery -


"A Cisco spokesman said, "Responding to the danger, the Cisco police officer shot the suspect to protect the lives of the bank's customer and staff. All of them are trained to protect lives and assets.

...Former police officers told the Straits Times that the guard's actions would have prevented further bloodshed if the suspect's weapon had been real.

Former Cisco guard S. Maniam, 51, said, 'You wouldn't have time to look closely... you have to assume it's a real weapon.'

...Former officers noted that Lance Cpl Mohamed Ghazali was using the new Taurus M85 pistol with a laser sighting device that gives greater accuracy."

the officer has a laser sight and opts to go for the shoulder AND head. and NOT the arm or hand to just take the "gun" out.
if our officers are trained to kill at first shot then i'm not sure i really want to stay in this place.

thank goodness the man regained consciousness. i don't know how ghazali's conscience would have taken it.

booksale!
happy. this is more satisfying than shopping for cds, because the books (at the sale) are cheap and you can leave knowing you've bought all that you want, while cds cost (at least) $20 each and so whenever you leave hmv you are bound to feel that you could have/should have bought some other album or something.

i bought:

philip roth - i married a communist.
ernest hemingway - for whom the bell tolls; a farewell to arms.
graham greene - our man in havana (sadly, the only greene book i could find there, aside from brighton rock which i've already read and don't really like that much.)
jeff noon - pollen.
j.m. coetzee - dusklands.
martin amis - heavy water (and other stories).

all for just $28.

whee~

yesterday there was an attempted hold-up at the maybank branch in bukit timah. the robber, a chinese man in his forties, went into the bank, pulled out a gun and shouted "robbery!" (presumably in chinese or hokkien.) apparently the security guard pulled out a pistol and shot the man in his head and shoulder. after a while it turned out that the "gun" the robber was using to threaten the people was, in fact, a toy gun. last i heard, the robber was in critical condition in nuh.

it's quite scary what a climate of fear can do to a society where love is not abound, replaced by an air of frostiness and apathy, sometimes even hostility. apathy not in the "i don't care about politics" sense, but more of not caring about those around you. behind closed doors it's much easier to get paranoid.

a while ago while channel surfing i saw on mtv a street interview segment where the vjs went around what appeared to be orchard road asking people whether they felt singapore was a violent society. one of those asked said that "under the surface there most probably is violence", and to "fear your neighbours".
that from someone who couldn't have been older than 23.

i wonder which is scarier - a scared and active society or a scared and frosty society.

it seems to me that after a certain amount of time spent wallowing in melancholia, every "sweet" uttered or written bears the unsaid but emphatically felt prefix of "bitter".

oh - and borges is absolutely fascinating.

hm.

my dad was watching the fear factor family special on axn in the living room just now.
there was this father-son pair (the son couldn't have been older than ten) who kept saying that they were thankful to this program and the "quality time" they spent on this show.
apparently, from what they said, their relationship wasn't very good.

i was just thinking, i recognise the bonding element in it (think ri orientation, obs etc etc.), but honestly, if you saw dipping heads in tanks of gunk and worms as a very good way in which to build up strong father-son relationships, then you must be pretty desperate.
or quite insane. or have watched too much tv.

america is a very interesting place.

WAHAHAHAHA. finally the dell is back up.
after i formatted the hdd and shifted all my mp3s, videos and vital documents back in.
am very happy about it. =]
plus the fact that pw is over, we've miraculously made our file look pretty impressive, had a very smooth oral pres which prince surprisingly seemed to like.
and the last hurdle of the year is there to be jumped over tomorrow.
and i'll be going to bintan to slack off the three days before christmas.


this has been a very hectic year for me, much like for most of the rest of us.
with three ccas and still helping out in a few other major events, i wonder sometimes if i shouldn't have let some of these tasks pass me by instead of gamely agreeing to hop on and help out for those events.
but it's all been pretty fruitful for the mind and soul. and definitely i gained much pleasure from watching it all go quite smoothly, with everyone involved working in tandem and giving their utmost all.
all this has been very heartening.

i still have some priorities to sort out. living life like a child o'th'time isn't going to work out in the long run.
and i have to say that it's taken me on something of an emotional roller coaster.
though i have always seen myself as more of an emotional being rather than a rational one, i've felt much deeper emotions this year than i could ever have imagined i would have for some people around me.
but again i'm grateful for all those involved - the way you guys have handled things, they've turned out much better than i could possibly have hoped for.
it all could have turned the wrong way, but it didn't - thanks for keeping me sane. =]

but since i've forged all these ties, the looming holidays present an entirely different challenge, that of having to live with diluted versions of these ties for the next two months or so. my financial capabilities do not allow me to solve this issue like some other people would. so i guess i'll just have to find more stuff to fill my plate with.

as a parting shot, and until i think of more stuff to write and more people to thank, this is a song that i find very apt for end-of-school-years.
somehow for the last 8 years or so i've ended up in motley-crew classes which seem to never cease driving teachers up the proverbial walls.
someone as guai1 as me...haha.
anyway. hopefully we won't wilt for the forseeable future. -- dedicated to all those who have made this year the way it is.


Travis - Flowers In The Window

when i first held you i was cold
a melting snowman i was told
but there was no one there to hold
before i swore
that i would be alone forevermore

wow, look at you now
flowers in the window
it's such a lovely day
and i'm glad you feel the same
'cos you stand up
out in the crowd
you are one in a million
and i love you so
let's watch the flowers grow

there is no reason to feel bad
but there are many seasons to feel glad/sad/mad
it's just a bunch feelings that we have to hold
but i am here
to help you with the load

wow, look at you now
flowers in the window
it's such a lovely day
and i'm glad you feel the same
'cos to stand up
out in the crowd
you are one in a million
and i love you so
let's watch the flowers grow

so now we're here and now is fine
so far away from there and there is time, time
time to plant new seeds and watch them grow
so there'll be flowers in the window when we go

wow, look at us now
flowers in the window
it's such a lovely day
and i'm glad you feel the same
'cos to stand up
out in the crowd
you are one in a million
and i love you so
let's watch the flowers grow...



haha that was very saccharine and soppy.