sigh. blogging after the league cup final.
feeling quite sore, after running on adrenaline for the last 120 mins or so.
you'd expect adrenaline to be followed by either delight or, at the very least, relief. so when neither of these come it's naturally a downer.

the fact that stevie gerrard was the one who put the game into extra time is bound to induce a lot of jibes regarding gerrard's future at the club: i can already hear mark going "haha gerrard has already signed a contract with chelsea for next season right??"
it wasn't his fault though...obviously genuinely trying to clear the ball away. very bad luck.

of course i will think that liverpool deserved better from the game, almost doing what chelsea couldn't do against barca in midweek - defend a 1-0 lead. they held out for a long period of time, long enough to be proud of. i guess - begrudgingly - that chelsea could lay a similarly-weighted claim to the cup on the basis that they stayed focused for longer than the reds did - the reason why chelsea scored the two that they did in extra time - but still.

ah well. at least this will help in my winning $5 from shoujie come the end of the season.

hmm. rj dramafest.
i correctly predicted the winner of best play - not least because they were the only play to make good use of the physical mask.
was abit surprised that artsfac won best script. great witty dialogue, but found it quite tiring. i loved the acting and directing though. very darned slick.
but.
stars of the night: tim and zach. and the fruits and veggies. brill. absolutely brill. and i didn't know huizhen was in the cult. not that we're still in touch or anything, but. i mean, don't you sometimes look out for people you were once classmates or schoolmates with?

bah. went thru dramafest feeling like a bitch inside my head. partly due to some bruises accrued during pe as a result of stray high sticks, and a short heacache i had after lit s, despite grace's best efforts to relieve some of it (thanks mum =]). so as usual i was picking on the plays here and there with my philistine views. i mean, though you're entitled to your own views, when alfian sa'at and emma yong both think (apparently) that the script you didnt really liked but everyone else loved to bits is good, then it's saying sth, right?
but ah well i concede that it was the best of the night.
maybe.

in other news:
read this first
Andrew Marvell - "To His Coy Mistress"
and then this
A. D. Hope - "His Coy Mistress to Mr. Marvell"
=]

p.s. eugene: kele okereke is the name of the frontman of the band bloc party. he's black, has dreads, is comfy with the guitar, writes vaguely political (well, vague most of the time) lyrics and has a beautiful mellow voice, when he decides to sing (which thankfully is most of the time).

spent most of the day out at the temple then in town, the former being a last-minute addition by dad.

we visit the temple at sims drive at least once a year to pay respects to tai sui ye and confucius, among others. it's almost fascinating, all the spirals of incense hanging from bars under the ceiling. the rods of incense in the pots placed everywhere in the temple somehow consipired, like a divine power, to test your keen devotion by way of stinging smoke in your eyes, so that you can do nothing else but bow your head in respect, and to ward off any more smoke.
it's so easy to be so cynical about these things, these elements of the lifestyles of the uncles and ahsohs in the so-called periphery of society. i dunno, once you start thinking about the future - what is going to happen to them? as far as i know they're trying to keep up with the times. the temple i went to had installed a queue system to negotiate the hordes of people coming to pray - you would need these uncles to recite stuff and basically do the praying on your behalf - complete with lcd display. wonder who's going to replace these uncles.

then went off to hmv with the scent of incense thick on me. (i wonder what the people on the mrt were thinking.) blew a fair bit of cash on yiting's and grace's birthday presents on the assumption that people were going to share cost with me =p. (don't ask, the two of you... you'll know in due course. which, of course, is quite soon.) spent also twenty bucks on the bloc party debut, then got some fast food and ate away on the top deck of sbs svc 65.

kele okereke. what a wonderful name.

hwachong dramafest tonight.
i know i can't comment much, not having directed or acted in or produced any play in my life, but i'm just going to stick my head out anyway and give comments. heh.

the first play was... well, amateur at best. nothing much to say really. way too many blackouts. the jock in the brown shirt was so horrendously bad that you had to laugh. plus they had very quick stagehands. very very quick.

i loved the second play. showed lots of potential imo... the acting was solid - for the main chars anyway. stylistically there was a very cool and effective noir factor. always handy for a murder story. and the idea of the roles taking turns was quite good, i think. could have done with less blatant dialogue ("role playing" was repeated lots of times) and a less piercing ending (hurhur.) that left more to the imagination. but yeah nice solid interesting play.

the third one started so well. brilliant physical theatre that really should have been sustained for more of the play (only once more in the play, but that once was even better - "he's everywhere"). acting was good also, nothing ott (except, maybe, the mother). oh - ok maybe the bit after the curtains fell was very cheesy. everything just didn't live up to the start, though. nothing much new in there.

the final one - hmm. everyone around me seemed to love it to bits. guess i can understand why - brilliant entertainment, good fun, damn-near-stellar acting from most of the cast. but somehow i wasn't quite satisfied by the play after the curtains... for one it was bloody long. or it felt so. it felt like at least twice the length of the other plays. it got immensely draggy in the middle (the bobbet+bibi part - were they trying to do a whose-line thing? cos if yes then the effect of the segment didn't come through, and got very longwinded instead). then the gist of the not-entirely-there plot came in far too late for my liking, so the ending had something of a rushed feel. they seemed to try too much in too short a time, so the character development for will was way too compressed and thus not convincing enough in justifying his eventual derangement.

not that i don't like fun plays - the rj artsfac one was simply quite good, better than this - but neuroticism for the sake of neuroticism just doesn't cut it... the physicists was neurotic but very well so (yes i know you shouldn't compare amateurs and professionals, but still...). this one was just all over the place. hm maybe i've read too many problem plays to fully appreciate this?

oh - and the female mc. elgina. SOOOOOOO CUTE. =] and witty. and bubbly. and has a nice voice. she reminds me of someone. can't remember who for now...


on a totally unrelated note the installation of kazaa (finally) has restored my video-downloading capabilities. if you have enough time to negotiate a 37meg file, feel free to contact me - you must watch franz ferdinand's this fffire. i believe i have downloaded what is a virtually perfect music video. i mean, who could possibly not like franz ferdinand?? =]

sigh.
v-day blues. having this air of odd resignation at fate, and tsz san gamely came along for the ride.
or maybe our roads just kinda merged. dunno.

totally mentally drained by the time i got home. took a short nap while watching ireland run the legs out of scotland, then the day got much brightened by ken hirai, the tokyo ska paradise orchestra (both on mtv mandarin), and utt and denise's crazy ditzy antics on most wanted, and the quite unusual brilliance of blur's 13 (especially tender).

so i'm less blue now - turqouise, maybe? - but still had no mood to do any sort of work, so i haven't done anything for my mortal, am three paras into my overdue gp aq, and still have not touched maths.


thought of this last night - sugar, like most other carbon-based material, turns bitter after prolonged exposure to heat.
how defeatist. haha.

tender is the night
lying by your side
tender is the touch
of someone that you love too much
tender is the day
the demons go away
lord i need to find
someone who can heal my mind

come on come on come on, get through it
come on come on come on
love's the greatest thing
come on come on come on, get through it
come on come on come on
love's the greatest thing
that we have

i'm waiting for that feeling
waiting for that feeling
waiting for that feeling to come

(oh my baby, oh my baby, oh why, oh my...)

tender is the ghost
the ghost i love the most
hiding from the sun
waiting for the night to come
tender is my heart
you're screwing up my life
lord i need to find
someone who can heal my mind

come on come on come on
get through it
come on come on come on
love's the greatest thing
come on come on come on
get through it
come on come on come on
love's the greatest thing
that we have

i'm waiting for that feeling
waiting for that feeling
waiting for that feeling to come

(oh my baby, oh my baby, oh why, oh my...)

come on come on come on
get through it
come on come on come on
love's the greatest thing
come on come on come on
get through it
come on come on come on
love's the greatest thing
that we have

i'm waiting for that feeling
waiting for that feeling
waiting for that feeling to come

(oh my baby, oh my baby, oh why, oh my...)

tender is the night
lying by your side
tender is the touch
of someone that you love too much
tender is my heart tonight
you're screwing up my life
oh lord i need to find
someone who can heal my mind

come on come on come on
get through it
come on come on come on
love's the greatest thing
come on come on come on
get through it
come on come on come on
love's the greatest thing
that we have

i'm waiting for that feeling
waiting for that feeling
waiting for that feeling to come

(oh my baby, oh my baby, oh why, oh my...)


--damon albarn, in happier times with graham coxon. gem of a song.

finally changed the song in the status bar. it's now 'in limbo' by radiohead.
pretty much my present state of mind.

i let the atmosphere get to my head too easily, damnit. (even winamp concurs.)
hindsight sucks because it makes you feel so bloody terrible after whatever happened has happened, and it never materialises when you need it the most.

how often do you get feelings of inadequacy?

it's been just over one year and i'll be lying if i said i feel entirely at home where i am now. any look around me gives me a glance at what definitely has to be some of the top talent in singapore. maybe in the world.
and somehow to some people i've made out a reputation that greatly exceeds what i think i know i can achieve now. personally the crowd that i want to be in is that kind of crowd, filled with prodigies and geniuses and people who just do things generally at a higher level. work at a higher level. perform at a higher level. think at a higher level. and it all looks like it just comes oh so naturally to them.

it just gets you down sometimes, you know, looking at these people then having the realisation that you will never be in their league dawn on you. you're not them no matter how you want to be them. or be with them.
you're a mere plebeian. better off in science.
this constant battle between what i want to be doing and what i sometimes feel i ought to be doing.
it's not so much the grades i get - i never cared that much for them anyway - it's just...i don't know. cannot find the word for it.

bleh. my mortal asked me a couple of weeks ago for advice about fitting in and stuff like that. i had to think really long to be able to put down something. and even when i did put down something it looked quite vulgarly shiny like a coat of veneer over a rotting parquet floor.

maybe it's just me. self-centric egomaniac that i am.

and things are happening to everyone. nothing is like it was in feb last year. all us innocent people.
reminds me of a line in the quiet american: "one has to take sides. if one is to remain human."
i don't know why. it just popped into my mind.

weeghee was a Beloved Lunatic in a past life. http://quizme.stvlive.com/pastlife/quiz.php

heehee.

whee. feeling kinda rich now after counting out my angbow money, which ensures some degree of spending on stuff i've wanted to spend on for a long time, including mark's earphones and chutes too narrow and some books. not as rich as my brother though, who has the lucky honour of having been born on the first day of the lunar new year in 1990. which means his angbows include additional ones for his birthday. lucky shite.

very fun day today. rushed to serangoon mrt this morning to receive a fairly good turnout to visit tan's place, then - as usual - proceeded to turn his place into a gambling den of sorts, some playing blackjack and others playing hearts while eating some very good fried beehoon presumably prepared by mrs tan.
(and chee two is soooo cute haha.)
then managed, somehow, to get most of the people there to go over to rosie's place, where we gossipped lots and talked about random stuff and suanned eldon over pizza and tidbits. great feeling to see bai eldon yongxi and soh again.

sometimes i wonder why actually i'm doing all these planning. how much of it is because i like the class, and how much because of that dirty word "duty"?
as with most other dirty words it is a reality. something like the feeling that if i don't do it no one else will. surely the cec has to do something - and if the monitor is always busy (i think the treasurer is also ;p), then of course the secretary has to take responsibility...lol.
and rosie was very nice. she basically paid for the pizzas (maybe she knew that it'd be quite impossible to get everyone to pay their share, us being us). and thanked me at the last for organising everything. small gesture, but sweet nonetheless. if you were never in her class and went to visit her with us you'd probably wonder how she warrants all that bad "press" about her. unless, maybe, if you're a girl. just maybe. just.

then the a13a party at mark's place. 1 bottle of vodka to go around so many people was way too little for us spirit-guzzlers, hehe.
but yeah i think at the start it could almost have turned out like our a13a "party" last year. not to say there weren't general senior/junior cliques this time round - i was guilty, i think, of sticking too much to 2a13a and not mixing around - but thankfully our little ones are a gregarious bunch. only hoping that the shy ones in the class don't get the feeling of being shunted somewhat by the more exuberant ones. but a very good prospect indeed =].

school begins soon. time to go back and conquer our demons. i have some i should take care of, i think.


oh. the second of my new mixtape. a pretty slick one, i may add, chocablok with bass and grooves.
or what sounds like grooves to me. dubious, right? hee. =]
tried to keep it around an hour, but it ran to 69mins in the end. ah well.

01. spoon - the way we get by
02. prefuse 73 - one word extinguisher
03. !!! - me and giuliani down by the schoolyard (a true story)
04. blur - i got law
05. the rapture - house of jealous lovers
06. boards of canada - roygbiv
07. black mountain - druganaut
08. radiohead - paperbag writer
09. four tet - she moves she
10. broken social scene - stars and sons
11. sigur rós - fönklagið
12. doves - darker
13. supergrass - moving
14. nachlader - an die wand
15. my bloody valentine - soon

happy new year! here's wishing everyone the best for the year of the rooster - xin xiang shi cheng, wan shi ru yi =]
my face is now near-caked with grease from all the butter i used cooking beef at the dinner table (my aunty bought a hotplate-thingy). haven't been such a carnivore for such a long time - beef, sukiyaki pork, chicken, shrimps etc etc. my brother had a field day grilling abalone on the hotplate. apparently it tasted very good - won't know, i don't eat abalone.
best thing about cny is my grandma's chicken curry. always perfect.

went to lavender a few days ago for a last-minute haircut - lavender because my grandmother used to stay there before she moved to sengkang. lavender/beach road (the golden mile area) is one of the few places i've experienced in my life where memories do not clash with the changes it has gone through. maybe it's because i've been in more-or-less constant touch with the area, going there for haircuts and the occasional lunch/dinner. but somehow the upgrading programmes in that area which cleaned up the place and gave it coats of pink and blue haven't made it alien or identical with many of the other housing estates in singapore, while for others who saw the place in 1995 then 2005 would find the estate looking much like an all-too-clean kitchen wall without the endearing grime marks. perhaps it's the people there... not that i know them personally. it's more like their presence is reassuring, evoking memories of me as a botak little boy holding my grandmother's hand and wading through the fish and vegetables in the wet air of the market, lifting pots and pans off the racks in the crockery shop in the block just behind the one my grandma used to live in, squirming in the barber's chair under the firm friendly grip of the uncle (i didn't think it was friendly then; i've changed hairdressers since much younger anyway)...
or perhaps it's just that living the most part of my life now in a company and atmosphere that, truth be told, is nothing like singapore at the grassroots level, these sojourns to the spots that we read about in some poems, spots that will not even ever make it to postcards or brochures, accord you a sense of warmth. some real alternative to the high troubled lives that we lead vicariously through clym yeobright or silas marner or thomas fowler et al.
i don't really like the direction that local culture is taking. sure chinese is well, alive and kicking - yes it is, look at, for example, the dunman high programme - a behemoth of chinese culture - but we kinda lose affection for places like beach road. the way you do when such a place is relegated to yellowed photos in a textbook. i wonder what's going to happen to the temple at sims avenue that we go to every year ten or twenty years down the road, when - i'm almost certain - we won't go and burn offerings and clean the tablet and change the flowers at mount vernon, or go to the temple and pray for blessings and good grades (- i mean, who's going to do that in the future? the blessing, i mean.), or burn incense on my granddad's death anniversary.

ah well. i'll just live on and maybe learn a little more the next time grandma sets the table for the incense and the offerings. would i carry on these customs in the future? i don't know...


whee. income. i think i've got like ten-plus angbows already. not bad considering i only visited one house today.

am on a compilation frenzy! well, sort of.
put together two cds worth of music in the last two days, one bass-/groove-oriented one, and one full of urgent uptempo rockers (other than four tet).

1. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Maps (3:35)
2. The Organ - Sinking Hearts (2:09)
3. Queens of the Stone Age - Go With The Flow (3:02)
4. Franz Ferdinand - This Fffire (3:36)
5. Mew - Am I Wry? No (4:52)
6. Doves - Black and White Town (4:18)
7. Idlewild - A Modern Way Of Letting Go (2:22)
8. The Departure - Be My Enemy (3:23)
9. Bloc Party - Helicopter (3:40)
10. Coldplay - 1.36 (2:05)
11. Secret Machines - Nowhere Again (4:16)
12. Four Tet - Spirit Fingers (3:22)
13. ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead - Another Morning Stoner (4:33)
14. Lovedrug - In Red (4:10)
15. Trans AM - Idea Machine (1:55)
16. The Fall - Contraflow (4:05)
17. Fiver - They Hardly Know (3:24)
18. The Strokes - Reptilia (3:41)

i'm especially proud of this one. flows perfectly and doesn't lose energy once through the whole playlist. partly because it's (relatively) short, clocking in at only just over an hour.
the other one swings along with a bold swagger. waiting for one more song off soulseek to complete the playlist.


sigh...taking on two s papers for the first three months was my own idea, so i guess i shouldn't whine about it. but it's not the fact that i'm taking two s papers, it's that they're both on the same day, back to back, that's making me very weary. plus they come after pe. and i usually don't get to go home until nine-plus because of photog. but because i cannot realistically put full faith in my ability (or lack thereof) to score in lit, i cannot risk not having a backup in case i need to move on to geog. i never took both and intended to take both through to november.
ah well.

hotel rwanda is a very heavy movie.
of course you'd expect that given the subject matter, even though it only got rated pg. but it doesn't hit home because of gore and explicit violence - not that the movie wanted it - it tugs at your conscience by contrast. contrast between the stark reality of diplomacy and non-engagement and the seemingly oblivious innocence of the refugee kids. common tearjerker tactic for such films, yes, but it hits nonetheless.
when you watch the violence in the film you can feel yourself getting surely desensitised with every slash of the machete. so in that sense thank goodness for the human element.
was wondering, would it be better for films of such subject matter to end on a starker note, some sort of an unhappy ending or one, at least, with a dark side? i know most of them are based on real life accounts and persons, and the fact that their stories get told inevitably means that they had the luck on their side when they needed it, much like paul. but when theatregoers walk out of the cinema what most of them will bring with them out of the cinema will be the ending. if you have a message, why not put it where it hits hardest, and lingers longer? granted it'll be heavier and more uncomfortable, but at least there is less chance of people just treating it as another story where the mode of closure is an acceptable one.