How was dinner last night?

The new caterer was at it again. After 1 semester of lousy food with even lousier service, the hall has decided to give this SCDF meals caterer a try. Talk about conscript army food. I'm not too impressed. True enough, the service has improved but the taste remained the same. Everyone can still remember fondly of how she shrewdly wound her way into our hearts initially, back in the good 'ol days where the birds were healthy and each one of us had HALF a serving of spring chicken coupled with ice cream and pudding. That standard has since regressed severely to a much-less-than-desired mean, this evening consisting of yellowish greens, stale poultry and synthetic tasting jelly.

As per everyday, the fellowship - like that of the ring has weakened tremendously since our freshmen year. Back then, the self proclaimed 'C1 task force' went for dinner in full force and solidarity. Now, we usually come solitarily. Dinner last night was no different. The Gimlies, Legolasses and Aragons were now often either doing their own thing or absent when I trotted down the dining hall, after a failed attempt teaching my childhood friend statistics 2 (Gosh my knowledge IS shallow). So pass the corridors I grabbed Myau, while HS was slated to meet us straight at the dining hall, the last 3 bachelors of that 'task force' still very much single and available and eating (together) regularly.

An average hostelite dinner meal diet consists of the following: A light appetizer of schoolwork, the main course of the latest freshman gossip, and ending off with a who's with who dessert. I started the ball rolling.

"Something's amiss. Everyone else is busy having assignments due and mid terms while I remained in wonderland, blissful and oblivious. I can't be REALLY that lucky to have avoided all that, can I?" (Ironically, the one and only assignment turned out to be this one, which I eventually found out too late due to a string of unfortunate events - but that's another story)

HS opted for the cryptic "if it's there it's there; if not just heck it" reply. Myau, the ravenous eater preferred to ignore it, zooming straight into the main course. Clearly, we weren't very much interested in that appetizer-of-the-day.

Said M, "That babe looks good. I wonder which block she's staying..." HS, the consecrated nice guy disinterested in girls was busy with the 'rag' portion of orientation building the float and naturally had not the faintest clue as to her whereabouts. I, self-styled slacker skipped the zeroth week and thus knew nuts about this latest bunch of hostelite too. The rest of the conversation was devoted to discussing her whereabouts and her friends, whom incidentally did not fair too bad in the looks department as well.

If we had our way, we'd all be sitting like a panel of judges facing the queue for food in the dining hall, mentally scoring the ladies queuing for food on a 1-10 scale. But that would be blatantly obvious and staring. I suppose some things never change - one can never be too grown up or adolescent to appreciate nature's gift of aesthetics to the blessed few who have got it. I would usually be the chivalry one and give up the view and sit opposite them to provide cover, opting to look instead at the people returning their used plates and utensils at the washing area instead.

A simple meal in a halls-of-residence is never really about the meal itself. The mere presence of oneself is sometimes critical in separating the 'in-crowd' with the 'outs'. or an outlet to bitch about the system/people alike - discussing about the credibility of that rumored menage a trios, the supposed romp that happened over the weekend... It never fails to bring out the plebian side in all of us.

So how was dinner yesterday night REALLY? A regular daily catching up with neighbours and friends, it is quite often bland and mundane, with the occasional exotic flavour of the day, but an essential diet nonetheless. And I am not even talking about the food here.

Thought I'd share 3 bloggish pieces of material I wrote as part of my adolescence psych assignment, and it'd be such a waste to just leave it rotting in my room. They're kind of reflective of the current stage in my life that i'm going through right now (since I was tasked to write about myself). Who knows? Maybe blogspot's gonna last forever and next time when I look back at myself then with my family, we'd all be able to get a good laugh. In 3 instalments starting today.

=)

Is but a symbol
that transcends boundaries
of space
time and logic

Of the only time
when my heart touched yours
and made you smiled

From me. To you. For me.

And that to me is worth more than anything in the world.

A picture paints a thousand words.
And my msn nick pens my life story.

Just the other day, an old friend in UK msg me:
"reading ur nicknames through the last 2 months have been highly entertaining and intriguing. Hee! How r u?"

Then she goes on to tell me how I've been going to the gym (a bit dated but true to a certain extent), choir practices, made someone angry such that i had to stand in the corner, and how the latest on on faith was interesting.

It never really occured to me that such can also be a means of keeping in touch. Which kinda reminds me of the oxymoron of blogging in the 1st place. You have a virtual space to pen your deepest thoughts, while wanting it to be for your eyes only, but yet at the same time hoping that there'd be this audience to share your thoughts, joys, and growth.

Or maybe pray really hard that someone that certain prose was meant for would chance upon the composition timely and know what you REALLY want him/her to feel.

Not that it's going to happen in a million years.

Sometimes it really takes a life of its own, so much so that you start to wonder, are you writing all this for readership, or is it really all about yourself? But usually it's a mixture of both.

Remember the magic no. of 3? - Yes, no, dunno.

It doesn't really bother me really. It's like the story of the priest who skipped sermon to play golf and hit an incredible hole-in-one: who's he gonna tell?

Trust

I can still recall a long long time ago, my very FIRST attempt at a pick up line went something along the line of "don't you betray my trust in you alright?" Well, of course, the girl didn't know that was my pick-up line to her then, and neither did it qualify as a pick-up line too since I've known her prior to the conversation. But the moment I said it I had this certain sense of self satisfaction, the kind of feeling u get when u knew u said the right thing at the right time to the right effect.

As young adolescents, I suppose there were always going to be the issue of trust involved - who to trust, how much to trust, whether you yourself can be trusted; in terms of responsibilities, in terms of people, in terms of heart.

I've always pride myself as a trustworthy man, that if everything in your life crumbled and fall apart, u'd still be able to trust me - to be there, to help, to comfort and to care.

And I don't even have to say it. After all, promises were trivialised the moment "promises are meant to be broken" became cliched. You'd just know it.

If not, you just don't know how important you are to me.

For before all that, I'd have to trust myself to go the distance. And I know I'd only do that when you become MY perogative. And because I trust that you are worth it. Every waking minute of my time.

Or maybe you just don't trust me enough. Or maybe I'm just not doing enough to make you trust me more. The argument in itself may be abit circular, but it's not without its logic. If u don't trust me in the first place, no matter what I do would be manipulative. If you did, any little gesture would serve to reinforce that trust.

I mean, If people can believe so wholeheartedly and trust some guy up there that they don't even see, perhaps except only in their own hearts, why not me?

Because,

"The power of trust stems from a leap of faith - in me."
After all, I trust you.

And you wouldn't betray my trust right?

It suddenly dawned upon me today, that -
"having eternity to get it right and taking eternity to make it right makes a world of a difference".

And that's my self-coined personal thought-provoking quote of the day.

Here's an interesting 'mathematical' question:
Would I<3x = x<3me?

Fishing

It struck me how similarly related two arbituary units can be, back when I was using the analogy of fishing for love and courtship. The casting of the net, luring with bait, cliched fishes in the sea, the tugging and relaxing of lines, waiting for the right time to go for the kill...

But all this time nobody reminded me that fish have intelligence too. Or that the average fisherman may very well get overengrossed in the whole fishing process that he loses the fish and everything else that he's suppose to be doing.

Up until now, I never was a fisherman, and I still don't know how to fish in real life.

Overheard:

Q: "Out of sight, out of mind?"
A: "When you're out of my sight, I go out of my mind."

I have a god, and her name is venus

Back when 'agnosticism' wasn't a word and atheist was the closest to what 'free-thinker' meant (everyone's a free thinker! Does that mean that our minds are meant to be constrained by religion once we follow a certain faith?), I've always wondered what it meant to be 'in' a certain religion.

My parents were liberal buddhists who believed but never advocated the faith, and they strongly believed that I should be free to explore and enjoy this religious freedom until I am ready to settle on one - preferably something agreeable, of course.

Thus began my exploration for spiritual wellness. The evangelists and hollywood exposed me to Juda and friends, the library to the quran, chinese culture to taoism and chinese mystics, 6pm weekdays (back then) to hinduism and then of course, my parents. At one point of time, I was even intrigued by this new age wave of scientology - well, at least until LRH's Battlefield Earth came out.

I have since come to realise - I have a god and her name is venus.

She'd be the most beautiful (in all senses) and enshrined within a mere mortal, somewhere out there. And even though the shrine may not be of a great architecture, I'd worship her nonetheless, precisely because she is my god, my faith, my support. And because she is MY god, I am her only disciple, and she'd love me only and all.

I suppose that's what they mean by inner beauty.

But you know what they say about God and his/her mysterious ways, and the path to enlightenment is often shroudded in uncertainty and secrecy. Everyday, I pass by different shrines, temples and churches, but I couldn't find her. Other times, I'd find myself praying to the wrong deities, playful gods or playful me.

And because this is MY religion, it doesn't really have a name, because the name doesn't really give any added meaning to it. Except that her name is venus.

But praying and thinking about her each day leads me closer. And I suppose that's how the soul speaks to god.

The days time stood still

When the self gets reduced to faceless identities forged in front of virtual screens, with character personified by and as words, what does that make of time? Time exists because the things change. When things change, they develop a past. When things have the potential to change, they eventually become the future. As a dimension in itself, the 3 components define this layman's concept.

Hence my friends are the present and my archives the past. Random clicks around the links would have given the paranoid the impression that my friends are dead. My cyber-space was more or less vacant. Is everyone really THAT busy to shun away from this relm of the infinite?

Except me. Been putting off work for as long as I can remember, and before I knew it, *poof!* 1 more month to exams!

The Myth Of Love

The average (not the really poor ones who don't study) psych students would by now have realised the simple laws of attraction revolves around the tripartite relationship between similarity, proximity, and familiarity.

However, no one really said that being attracted means falling in love.

Too much similarity and she may end up being another one of yourself. Now, one copy of you is already bad enough. Are you really sure u can stand another irritating you?

Too much proximity and it would just be - quote Rachel, Friends - "senseless animal sex". It's like you may have beautiful eyes, but when you put them too close together, u end up looking cock-eyed.

Too much familiarity and well, you don't really wanna know that your husband/wife digs his/her nose while watching TV until AFTER you are married rite?

Simply put, because
"Too Much of Something is bad enough,
But something's coming over me to make me wonder,
Too Much of nothing is just as tough,
I need to know the way to feel to keep me satisfied"

Inane Ramblings

The conclusion is that - Sgreans don't listen to radio anytime outside the breakfast hours and weekdays primetime. I mean, HTF can stupid 95fm play lousy CHEESY retro 80s shit that even clubs won't play on mambo nights and STILL have the mandate to call themselves the most popular local english station?!

And Mark RichM is just so damn BAD! He's like a J. Yeo with brains! He tries very hard to say funny stuff that violates our expectations alright, but most of the times it just ends up being INAPPROPRIATE.

And lousy 933 just yaks non-stop nowadays. Whatever happened to the "more music less talk" policy back when it started out in 1988? So now my radio is a white-turned-grey elephant. Gathering dust and infrequently used.

A social fox paws

So anyway, there I was manning one of the bazaar booths when Madame P-IN-P walked across exclaming, "Oh mine! Are you selling THESE?! They're SOO UGLY!"

Only for me to walk over to her at some other corner sometime later, discreetly telling her, "Unnoe wat? The guy sitting next to me just now is the boss."

Hilarious!

I feel exceptionally accomplished today, having printed out my lecture notes for my 815am class on monday - instead of doing so during the break, and arriving for the 815 class (which AYE requested to be shifted back from 8am to 815) AHEAD OF TIME. Without the help of anyone waking me up too. Well, ok, so I came in at 810, but still, considering my 'glorious' track record on punctuality (Quote from moi: "The virtues of punctuality is grossly overrated") that's a HUGE achievement in itself.

Maybe it did helped that I was feeling a bout of self-defeatedness and built up tension (/stress) the night before, hence making me turn in early and not in the mood to laze in bed more. Thank goodness for hidden agendas, great support, added motivation and relentless enthusiasm.

So now i'm damn bloody proud of myself!

What would Peter-pan feel like at 23, out of neverneverland, without his wings of flight, and feeling alone, with neither tinkerbell nor wendy by his side?

Back in the days when we all had to write those "What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up" kind of essays, I'd usually write about things that don't mind doing, like pilot, policeman, chinese teacher, etc... Of course, pragmatic prissy-proper edu climate here doesn't allow creativity 'outside the box' (there's just this other bigger container waiting to encompass you), it's always about asking you to consider the kinds of jobs that you'd wanna pursue in future. I suppose that's why they use "what" - for "what kind of job you'd want" rather than "who".

I've always wanted to be Peter Pan. I mean which kid doesn't? Swashbuckling and suave with the ability to fly, having (not ONE but TWO!) sexy and smart sidekicks battling by your side against marauding pirates, but most importantly, the inability to grow o-l-d.

By 5, I knew my childhood was blessed. I didn't really have branded toys more than having fingers - most of the time it's just rough paper and colour pencils, and my playmates visted the apt outside the metal grills while I did time inside. Who needs all the sex and worldly pleasures in the world when you had the most prized asset of time - youth?

I've told this to a few people a few times, and it's probably true today, but I really thought/wished that I'd be dead by 21. And that was when I was 7. Well, my kiddie logic was really simple - I really couldn't see myself living beyond that.I knew I was going to a good sec sch, I knew I was going to JC, I knew I was going to survive NS, and I knew I was going to U. But what goes on after that I haven't the faintest clue. And when u've come to the end of a road that you can't go back to, I suppose that's when you die.

Another part of kiddie braniac trivia (then) told me that world people have a general life expectancy of around 74(m)/76(f). So that sort of hinted to me that my logic prolly wasn't gonna be true either, but what the hell, people grow old anyway, so there's no point debating what's right or wrong when you wouldn't really know until the time comes.

Now that I'm 23, I suppose I'm 2 yr past my life expectancy of 21. So what now? I can't fly, and the only Wendy I know belongs to a franchise that fries sq burgers.

So how would Peter Pan feel once he's realised he's son of father time? I guess he would be depressed.

Because I am too.

inspired:

The Theist says, "Fuck you! There's a God!"
The Atheist says, "Fuck God"
The Agnostic says, "Fuck who?

Me? Of course I'd say, "Fuck the fucking fuckers." What does that make me then?

nada surf - If You Leave

It's a great track. But it's not in their albums anywhere. The original sux but this one is giving me great peace now.

Well alright. I'm a sucker. This is for anyone out there searching for the name - I LOVE MORITA SENSEI!!! Just the sight of her is enough to brighten up my day. Somehow. Saw her today at F.arts canteen today and said hi. Didn't really dared to say anything more 'cos my jap has deteriorated to a state where I can't tell left from right (hidari/migi - well ok, at least THAT i can still remember, but the rest...) But she's SO DAMN beautiful! And nice! And friendly! For a tutor at least. Someday, JUST someday i'm definitely gonna ask her out! That is, if I have the balls or if I brush up on my jap to a proficient level. Whichever one that comes faster.

And since we're on the topic of babes in school, here's the:
TOP 3 MOST JUDE CANTEEN VENDORS OF aNUS!
3: Grandmama auntie in F.Arts chicken rice/noodles stall with siamese parent/grandparent parentage! (She may be on but u can bet your balls off that she would have been 1 great beauty in the past...)
2: Tai tai biz-ad fruits/dessert stall auntie with make up the colours of her fruits! (call her xiao jie and she JUST might give u free nata!)
1: Mysterious malaysian-slang lady at vegan stall... (She exists even?!! Her simplistic chic tempts even the most pious monk!)

And there you have it. Note that the list is inexhaustive and uncomprehensive though, 'cos I don't really go down to science for meals, and mac-d's underaged cashier girls don't count.