The End..the end..the end..the end..the end??

why is everybody writing about the end..when it feels just like a new beginning? =D

oh well, i do admit i do feel like it’s an ‘end’ somehow, but only the end of semester one. in the middle of 11.30pm, i would like to say that i have found a new beginning. this shall mark the new beginning of another day, which will occur is like about half an hour.

and in the middle of doing podcast..i came here to type the probably last blog entry here. it feels kinda..sad. but this ‘mistake’ of the last post’s date actually puts it at the right time. lessons have actually finished..more or less…

well, i did learnt a lot of made very good friends and enjoyed my class. i’ve learnt many things:
- one truly enjoys doing what one truly loves
- time really passes fast, especially when you’re enjoying
- no matter how harsh things are, when we are doing something we like or have an interest in, we can still find the will to carry on
- uncertainty still exists, since probably 10,000 BC ago
- global warming is still going on (i guess so, as usual)

THE WORLD DOESN’T STOPS REVOLVING UNTIL GODZILLA OR SOMETHING FLYS OUT OF UNIVERSE. wahahahahaha, what a joke at this time of the day. not even a joke. oh my..it’s super lame, trust me to come out with something worse like this at 11.35pm. if godzilla exists. probably king kong will join in the fight, with the hulk, and ironman, and all our super heroes..blah blah, this is moving towards lamenss..but one thing is that, MIRACLES do occur. of course, not in the sense where monsters come out and take over our world. Superheroes like ironman, etc..though fictional, aren’t they some form of miracle we seem to need in our real lives?

it’s strange how this possible last post here links to superheroes..i did not intend for that to happen. whatever happened it has got to me – the one typing. suddenly, i don’t feel like stopping. well, i shall continue to let the words flow elsewhere, haha – in my podcast =D

To fellow T1B1s out there, our slogan remains: Chocolate IS Chocolate. forever.

Thank you Leslie for reading like 8 times 16 posts plus more… =)

The last ever blogpost here..?

Oh my..have we come to the end of blogging assignments for Storytelling..? It sounds so sad if i were to type my last and final post, and just before some ‘final words’ here..i just saw a piece of good news..that a new AIRCON canteen will be build in BLOCK 51 near end of 2008. woots! so near FMS and it’s the first air-conditioned canteen in campus! (just when i was getting a little sick with Canteen 1..)

some time last year, while i was watching this tvb drama call Fathers and Sons, actor Bobby Au Yeung made an interesting statement in the show, it goes something like “If you don’t have $400million, don’t think about raising a child.” (i remember the amount to be 400 mil, though i dunno which currency he’s referring to..)

and last night, in this ch 8 drama, Ivy Lee said that unless she has $10k, she won’t be willing to give birth again. and later, she increase the amount to $100k.

..which just made me think how EXPENSIVE we actually are…every step we take in this world is probably worth a thousand dollars…haha

perhaps we did not realize the price of bringing us up..the education fees, money spent on food, clothing, etc..till we can finally earn our own money. every cent spent on us was like…investment, though parents still care for us actually…and when u leave secondary education, u really feel the tonnes of school fees u have to pay..

..and in the future, how do we actually ‘pay’ the amount of money that has been spent on us throughout the years? erm, by ‘paying’ them to our children if we happen to have them in the future? i guess most people already contemplate about buying houses and cars.

though our parents don’t verbally demand anything in return from us, we never know, haha. depends of what kind of parents u have though..those selfish and money-minded ones might have something up their sleeves :)

sigh, why are so many things tied to money? why is it that almost every single thing can be linked to money? friendships, love, family..ultimately, our society forces us to think about money, without which we cannot possibly live. when u wanna go to the movies, u feel happy cos there’s special student price. u like the idea of student meals everywhere. but what happens after u are no longer a student? Reality becomes harsher.

in this possible last blog post here…im sorry cos im feeing a little *dead* that i seem to make no valid points in my entry? but i’ll still continue to blog at my own blog in blogger, haha.

well..not to bore u people reading this blog anymore, i shall end of with a few lines from a song i heard yesterday, and quite like it..

In younger days, I told myself my life would be my own
And I’d leave the place where sunshine never shone
For my life’s too short for waiting when I see the rising sun
Then I know again that I must carry on
Carry on till tomorow, there’s no reason to look back
Carry on, carry on, carry on..
- Carry On Till Tomorrow, by Badfinger

i decided to just paste the first verse..hmm, cos if i continue..it would make me sound like im sad which isn’t exactly how i’m feeling right now..!

Love our animals

A few days ago, I happened to visit Sentosa, and stopped by at Palawan Amphitheatre. I bumped in at the right time when they were having an animal show and I realized my last one was probably back in primary school during one of those school trips to the zoo or bird park..

As your usual animal shows go, we get to see a variety of animals. Birds of prey, parrots, monitor lizard, snake, monkeys, running peacocks and the Siberian husky were some of the few present on stage that day. But what really touched me that day weren’t the beautiful performances they put up. It was the story the parrot, Nana. (if I didn’t get her name wrong…)

Some years ago, a delighted visitor at Sentosa was amazed by the birds he saw, especially parrots. He wanted to keep one of them as a pet. Hence, he spent thousands of dollars to get little Nana. You might think that with such a rich owner, Nana must live a luxurious life. However, things often seem to go the other way.

In order to ‘keep his investment’, the owner kept Nana in a cage and locked her shut inside. Each day, she can only look through the bars, longing to be one with the birds outside. Flying is part and parcel of a bird’s life, and is crucial to the development of its wing muscles. But with restricted space and movement, Nana cannot spread her wings and fly. Slowly, her wing muscles start to waste away…
Besides being locked, Nana is also deprived of nature’s food. Birds need something more besides nuts – they need tree barks to chew on or sharpen their beaks. Without anything similar to a tree bark, Nana’s beak started to waste away as well…

A bird less like a bird…

It was after quite sometime that the owner realized that his parrot is not doing well, and made the only wise choice by bringing the parrot back to Palawan, where they have certified trainers to nurse the bird back to health.

Today, Nana can fly but is still very unstable. She looks different from the healthy parrot we see, she is quiet and trusts only one trainer. Looking at the 10 or more parrots in a big cage just outside the amphitheater, I felt a sense of irony. Why do they still keep bird in a cage, though it is a huge one? Just because it’s larger and does not restrict the bird’s movement, it doesn’t mean that they are not trapped. Occasionally, the parrots climb up fences, trying to break free.

It’s best when we don’t try to force animals or people into doing things they don’t want to. Not just that, we ought to respect them as well.

And this reminds me of the Pandas…have they become an exhibition already? When animals are near extinction, they have greater value in exhibitions. What if man comes near to extinction one day? Will we then try to exhibit the different types of human beings, or will we even have time to do that…?

Backpack Traveling

Several times I’ve wondered to myself…how nice it would be to just ignore everything you have and embark on a backpacking journey. And I know at times like this, I’m trying to escape the life I’m leading. And I’ve been wondering more about this, which shows that I’m really sick and tired…I need a break.

It’s so wonderful that the couple who produced the Lonely Planet series has backpacked Asia. Who knew that they would start a popular travel guide book series with their experience? And I absolutely love the name of the series, Lonely Planet. How true..

Sometimes, I think of something funny. Nowadays, with budget airlines, a few hundred bucks could probably get you to someplace nice in Asia. I don’t know if it’s possible, but can someone just go there without booking any hotel, and just ‘camp’ at the airport or something when they wanna get some sleep? Better than hanging out in a park, haha. The only problem is probably bathing. But I really wonder if we can just go tour around the country and let the airport be the pit stop. Budget airlines, budget travel. Like say, if I wanna go someplace for 3 days and 2 nights, it can probably work out?? Sorry, I’m a travel idiot…so if I made you laughed like mad at this silly idea of mine, please forgive me…

But the thought of backpack traveling itself is just too nice…I don’t like seeing myself in large suitcases and checking in to hotels, ‘touring’ the country only to shop..NONONONONONO I don’t like this…unless I’m like with parents or something, then I probably have no choice but I LOVE SIGHTSEEING AND TAKING PICTURES. Argh, I don’t wanna get trapped with a shopping group…at least, give me some time to myself…I don’t mind not visiting Disney land, etc. BUT GIVE ME THE NICE VIEWS AND SCENERIES OF THE COUNTRY!! I wanna like really explore the place…and of course, enjoy my journey. And ya, buy some stuff and souvenirs haha. But shopping shall not top my list of activities…

Photographing a place you’ve visited is great…but I feel that having been there and experience everything is much, much better…but of course, we take pictures for memories…

Haha, typed so much…I wonder if it will even happen. Right now, let’s concentrate on FSV and not forget to escape once in awhile too..hehe. And don’t ever try swimming across the causeway just to get to our neighbour Malaysia just because you wanna escape…

LOL – the retarded comment

lol – the word that appears a million times in a day. in your SMSes, messenger conversations, and recently, the worse of all: IN DAILY CONVERSATIONS.

I remembered when I first used MSN Messenger some years ago, I started out by tying ‘haha’ to express any humour i felt. and very soon, a friend came along and kept using ‘lol’ to me. there was a time i didn’t know what it means, and hence didn’t use it. and when i came to know of it, i wonder why should we use ‘lol’ when we can just type ‘haha’. but online influences are great that i soon became a LOL user, it’s victim in today’s funny msn conversations.

we type LOL almost a thousand times in a year. how many times do we actually Laughed Out Loud?

nowadays, LOL has been misused. we type it for the sake of typing:
- to acknowledge that we’ve read something in a conversation, be it attention has been give or not to what the person said
- someone says Hi, and we reply them with Lol – makes no sense! same goes when we say bye..and some even say Hi lol – to make it sound more cheerful and lighten the tension? so LOL is like a decorative word when u include them in your SMSes as well to sound less intimidating.
- and a million more scenarios each day when we misuse Lol..

i’ve been using Lol too much that now, when i really feel that something is funny, i type Haha. and i type hahahahaha and so on to indicate real laughter..or to things that really made me felt very happy/elated/funny etc.

and nothing much has changed until sometime ago, while i was watching CJ7, this boy-girl pair sitting somewhere infront of me started giving stupid comments. “Na Li Ke Nen?” (It’s impossible!), “Kua Zhang lor!” (It’s too exaggerated!). i was very fed up with them, just keep those comments to yourselves! they were spoiling the show for me. and suddenly, the guy broked out and say “LOL lor.” to the girl beside him. what the…!? and ever since that day, i hear people around me saying out Lol. is it even meant to be said out…if u wanna laugh, then just laugh off your heads! u don’t go saying lololololol monotonously as if u’re some robot..

If not for teletubbies, I wonder what we would have typed when we see ‘lala’ appear in our conversations. (or even ‘lalala’.) Po is a complement to Lala, but never a substitute. it sounds more retard to say Po-po. and i hope i didn’t just start a new Msn word..who knows it might be in use already!

The 140 steps to Sinema Old School

the cinema located at 11B Mount Sophia (a mountain, indeed) with less than 10 people during screening…

watching a screening at Sinema was a new experience..it all began sometime last year where i read about Sinema being opened, and i had wanted to visit it but not done so till recently. Sinema appeared to me as a new concept..they will showcase any local films, and no matter how many people turn up, they will go ahead and show u the film..

i think i met the bosses of the place..but i forgot their names, haha. but what struck me most was this one line i caught during the various comments i heard, he say crazy ah, why invest in film? from what i gathered, they are grumbling about someone who must have denied their interest in film.

which made me ponder once again, how many people actually understand the true meaning behind film? film is not just pure entertainment..people who have never studied film can never fully understand its meaning. throw back the question to them, why you wanna do business/accounts/etc? and the answers would be Big money. We have money in our pockets. in short, materialism.

and why we wanna do film/audio/photography, out of all other areas we can choose from? WE REALIZED OUR PASSION. just like why a boy wants to become a pilot. let him fly a plane, and he’s probably the happiest man on earth. take his plane away from him, and tears flow his heart. the boy loves to fly, but when flying becomes his job we wonder if he will enjoy it that much. but he still gets to fly, that’s the point =) he’s doing something he likes, something he never regret choosing.

so i went into the theatre and watch a very pixelized movie during the zoomed in parts…there were only 6 people: 2 were munching away, 2 were malay, 2 were chinese. and the film they are playing is a mandarin production. if i were the filmmaker of this film, i would feel most touched to see malays come and watch my show..and that these 6 people actually went into Sinema website and chose my film..despite the location is situated at quite an ulu place..

..and these people bothered to sit through the full credits. they were not like those idiots who brush they asses off the seat immediately after the movie ends…they deserve it hahaha, they might just miss the scene after the credits

the credits are interesting anyway..u see what type of people are employed to produce a movie..even Drivers and Chefs.

anyway, Sinema reminds me of the past singapore..they issue tickets on a pink piece of paper, and i think this is how the cinemas in the 1960s used to function..

we once had Three Great Worlds: Great World, New World and Gay World amusement park.which many youngsters are unaware of. though i do not live in that era..i still feel nostlagic whenever i think of them..i always hoped that someone would bring back those memories from the past again, like build a theme park (cleaner one, of course) that reflects the 3 worlds back then..what we see today are the two IRs coming up, and yeah..casinos.

and i hope iceballs make a comeback again in the streets instead of just in that whatever hotel who has it in their buffet..

almost every singaporean out there feels sentimental about their past. we have evolved from a small fishing village to what we are today. a hub of so many things – medical, tourism, etc, etc..and we are the only country in this world (who have produced movies before) to have a blackout history in filmmaking for like more than 10 years.

i used to hate it whenever i think how Singapore focused on its economy more than the arts back in the 1960s. we totally stopped producting local films. funds were like all chanelled into finance, tourism, medical, housing, education and filmmaking is seen as “something which does not contribute to your GDP”. and this has more or less generated a mindset in people that filmmaking earns you nothing. you can’t possibly feed yourself on passion and interests but i can’t deny that there is no truth in it BUT HECK IT, i enjoy what i’m studying. i do not know what lies in the future..the more i wonder about it now, the more i tell myself i should just concentrate on the present..who knows if we have a world war 3 or not, CHOY!!

back on the ‘blackout period’, i now feel glad that we have such a great economy and well, we have become quite a rich country from our efforts. BECAUSE if we have not become rich, hehe, mebbe we won’t even enjoy funding for movie projects and so on. well, at least now we’re back into producing films and developing the Arts, but yet, i’m sad that people still see it as an economic tool only, as well as something that makes this little red dot shine further – fame to let the world know that uhh, we are SINGAPORE, for a hundred and one time, we are not located in China…and no, we don’t have a nickname call Chinapore..

err, back to Sinema Old School which i diverted from. if anyone wants to go there to catch City Sharks (looks interesting and funny, with some casts from Under One Roof like Zaibo and Nicholas) or something, it’s 4 bucks for full time students =D. AND IF U EVER WANT TO GO TO SINEMA: jolly well climb the awful long flight of stairs with 140 steps and u see the place. don’t ever try wandering into Peace Centre and then turn in and walk like dunno what..if u have a car, feel free to drive in by all means!

sorry la yang guo brother, cheap movie tix comes with a price to pay okie, hahaha

The Apple Syndrome

You move your mouse pointer towards the top left corner when you want to close/maximise/minimise your window.

You hate the Windows buttons, especially the big red one at the top, and you wonder why is it so big anyway. (windows’ buttons are disgusting!)

You search for a round button on your keyboard to press when u wanna shut down ur computer, only to find none.

It’s a chore to have to press buttons on your monitor if you ever want to adjust the contrast/brightness and volume, etc.

The Start button is totally meaningless. Start what? Star the engine?

Windows is so boring. You cannot do a invisible lightsaber fight with your friends with MacSaber.

You hate the virus A, virus B, virus C, virus D (and all other viruses with stupid names) spayware, adware and so many stupid things that attack Windows. Hooray for Apple!

You keep wondering who took the bite of that delicious Apple logo.

You absolutely love the cool webcam in your Mac! And of course, PhotoBooth, etc. It feels so stupid to plug in a mic and webcame into your CPU when u can just turn on your Mac and enjoy both =D

…and I wonder why am I on my Windows PC typing this blog post..

Oh well, mi MacBook is low on power, hahaha. Apple IS COOL.

Speaking about Apple, there is this MP3 player by the brand of LEmon. though they like to capitalise it this way, it’s still: Lemon. And they really have an MP3 by the shape of a Lemon…during the IT Show at Suntec this year, me and my friend were crapping about having an Orange MP3 player and we saw a booth for Orange there! Apple has made fruits famous. For brands.

what you know or don’t know about me

From what I gathered, I’m the second oldest in class (lovely T1B1). Thanks to Wee Kiat for saving me…

The JC route to poly often leaves questions in people’s minds:

“why do you come poly? why don’t you go to U or…?”

eh, why you go back to poly, huh?

sadly, most people seems to classify the JC to Poly route as a backward one. probably they feel it’s only reasonable for O level grads to enter poly and the A level grads to move on. (in case u wonder, i took literature, econs and geog in JC. and of course GP is a must..none can evade, muwahahahaha)

However, i see it as a Forward path leading to where I want to be, eventually. You can always take the road that people believe to be less travelled (but actually, there are quite a lot of people who go to Poly from JC too). Moreover, in education, there’s no one definite route you have to stick to.

perhaps u might wonder, why did I chose poly in the first place? well, one reason is because FSV here in NP rocks =) and there’s only a few schools to choose from if one wants to do film (in Singapore)..we have like:
- ADM (Art, Design & Media) in NTU
- Mass Comm in NTU (they have a film/tv broadcast related module, but harsh entrance requirements)
- Tisch Asia
- Lasalle
- ..and of course, FSV!

those are a few of what we have..i think the total is within calculations of our fingers.

education is supposed to be a fun yet learning experience. but so many a times we see St Nichs’s students cry on results day, reason being “mama, because i didn’t score 7 A1s!!! i only have 5!!”(sorry, i forgot how many A1s u can actually score in total) and kindergarten actually children needs private tuition…

i can understand why u expose ur foetus to mozart, etc…but when ur kid is below 8 years old and he is having tuition already..i dare not wonder wonder what the 3 year olds get to do next time..and instead of saying PAPA and MAMA, parents would want their kids to be saying “A for apple, B for Boy!” by the first 3 months.

c’mon, if ur child just goes out into the streets and yell “A FOR APPLE, B FOR BOY!” i can tell u, he’s just a NORMAL KID. if u bring him to the marketplace and have him recite his 6 word story “A FOR APPLE, B FOR BOY!” “wah, your child very smart leh! next time can become english teacher already!” and they toss him an apple for his unusual brightness at such a young age. please stop building up the poor boy’s ego and have him thinking that he ought to be proud of his reward. ask every Singaporean kid by the age of 5 and they can tell u that A stands for Apple and B for Boy. dosen’t that just make ur child a typical citizen of the education system we have in place currently? stare at him sternly and ask, “Boy, what does Z stands for?” and he stares at u blankly, thinking where in the world does that exists on his alphabet chart, if he ever has one.

even as adults, how many words beginning with the alphabet Y and Z can we come up with? your kid will probably just shout “Zoo” in your face (thanks for the famous and limited places of interests we have in Singapore, every kid has a chance to enter the zoo on school trips at least once) if that term decides to revist his head for awhile. and “Zero”, the first and beginning of all numbers. Why didn’t you teach your child that Z stands for zero as well when u started to teach him how to count? He knows all numbers begins with 0, but has no idea it is spelt with a Z. gosh.

for goodness sake, bring in some creativity and give the boy something else besides apples! the letter ‘A’ is probably angry at being stucked with an apple for so long. and ‘Z’ is probably fuming because he doesn’t gets mentions at all!

for those who have read the longer blog entry, haha congrats, you got my A level grades =P. i was having some html problems hence this shorter post now, lols. and sigh, i lost all of ur earlier comments -_-