Shaw

So... CNY. The actual CNY itself hadn't been super good. Apart form taking some time to play Spyfall with my cousins and brother, I didn't have time to do lots of CNYstuff. I didn't even spend any time sitting there and eating the snacks because I had to rush GAM, just like most of the other groupmates. It was really tense and stressful and most of us were trying our best.

Anyway, that's not the point of the post.

Thanks to my secondary school friends, this Saturday really felt like CNY again. Like usual, we gathered at Wei Jian's house, played cards, boardgames, and Overcooked 2, had steamboat, chatted, lou hei-ed, watched Netflix, etc. It's interesting how many things we managed to squeeze into that one day.

And then yesterday, we went for a tze-char buffet at Chinatown. It was damn nice and kind of worth it.

Yeah.

So, I was expecting this post to be a bit longer but I guess this length is fine. I'm not sad any more as per the previous post but this is the mid-terms week and the workload in general is quite bad. So, I guess that's it.

Labels: things that happened

So, recently, I'd been trying to learn to cook because the Redmond/Japan trip is coming and I really need to be saving money when I'm in Redmond, hence I need to be cooking quite often. Also, I'd always wanted to learn to cook, except that I had been lazy for so many years.

My First Keema

I remember back in my Home Economics days in secondary 2, I tried to cook Keema for the practical exam. It smelled good, but I really had no idea what I was doing, hence everything was overcooked and chao da. My classmate was so enthusiastic about trying it because it was curry, but the moment he tasted it, he kind of just shut up. Another friend had faith in me and took a huge bite but had no choice but to puke it out right after, because it was shit. I wasn't sad because I threw it away too.

My First Breakfast

Fast forward maybe 8 years, I finally took the initiative to cook my own breakfast. It was just a sausage and badly-scrambled eggs, but at least it's something.

My First Dinner

Last week, I shadowed my mum in cooking for the family so that I could cook my own dinner for the family this week. I did a Chicken Piccata with baked potato, broccoli, and scrambled eggs; there were lots of hiccups such as how I accidentally bought the wrong chicken because I didn't check properly, and how I didn't boil the broccoli long enough, but everything turned out fine.

The chicken itself was okay. I thought it was pretty good. The broccoli was saved by my mum when she came home and suggested that I let it simmer in chicken broth. The scrambled eggs was, to be honest, ruined by her because she insisted that I pour more milk in after I felt that it was enough. The baked potato was my favourite, and my mum enhanced it by adding some egg sandwich filling.

Had to crop it so tightly because it was an Instastory and I wrote words lol

The portion was a bit small but my family doesn't eat that much; I think I eat the most...?

I shall try to cook once every two weeks or something, but school work has been super crazy and continues to be. Honestly, being in BAGD, which is supposed to be the least intense course in Digipen, there is no reason for me to even be flooded with so much work; it's just that all the extra time we have compared to the other courses are poured into the game project (GAM) because it's all about implementation and design this semester.

School Stuff (actually, just GAM)

So let's talk/rant about that. I was honestly quite frustrated and burnt out this week because our GAM is in a very unstable state, due to ever-shifting direction and role switches. The role switch was just to adapt to our circumstances and honestly, I felt that it had to be done. The changing game direction was also due to circumstances but it wasn't really my call.

Anyway, I'd done up the level, scrapped it because the metrics was wrong due to miscommunication, and then tried to do some implementation, and ended up doing nothing because I was waiting for the coding side to be ready, and then learnt Spine, and then gave up, and then tried to do art, and then experienced tablet issues, and then met the production lecturer a lot to do production stuff, and then changed direction again, and then tried to do the new level, and then faced difficulties with a new animation pipeline. The whole week was spent on GAM and nothing was really done.

I'm not blaming anybody because everyone had been super helpful and on-the-ball, but it's just annoying how nothing was done. It's kind of my fault for giving up on Spine, but still...

If there was anything I'd learned from Uber back last year (I worked temp there by the way), it's that as "dynamic" and "flexible" a group claims that it is, constant change is bad. There is a reason why so many groups out there strive to be stable.

Food Hunt

And then, on to the "fuel" part of the post (the title is "Food and Fuel"; the fuel could refer to how I'm running out of fuel for school but that's pushing it a little).

Before the new year, Jasmine, Joshua, Zi Xing, and I went for a driving trip/food hunt around Singapore... except that only Jasmine was driving because my license was only one year and I couldn't register for TribeCar and we didn't want to risk Joshua or me driving and getting Jasmine into trouble. Also, the "food hunt" wasn't really a food hunt because everyone got too enthusiastic and bought too much food at the first location, which we were already familiar with. So, they were too full to eat other stuff.

And the fish head soup place I really wanted to try was closed :(

So, Amirah joined us after we completed the "hunt" and we just chilled in a cafe, and then waited for Jasmine to drive us to Bishan Park, chilled more, and headed home.

I kind of want to do it again, with an actual food hunt this time, in which I am driving too (I still need lots of practice). Not sure when that will happen.

Oh, I didn't really take any photo of food but I took a photo of this:

I guess the food hunt was just not meant to be.

Labels: rants, reliving those days, things that happened

Even though I wanted to create a new layout for this blog (especially since Photobucket the image hosting is no longer free, hence the watermark on the images here) but I've been more focused on the other stuff that I had been trying to do this holiday. So, if I have free time after I finish those stuff up, I'll probably do a simple one. It had been so long since I touched HTML/CSS. [Edit] I've done up a quick one. It's almost the same as the previous one except it's simpler. I do like the previous one more but it's time for a change.[/Edit]

Anyway, let's reflect on the things that happened in 2018.

Transitted from year 1 to year 2 student

School always pass really quickly. Just like that, 4 semesters were over. I was just thinking how, in polytechnic, that is pretty much 2 years being over. We would be doing FYP the next semester, but over here, we're not even halfway through. But in just 2 semesters, we would be doing OIP (Overseas Immersion Programme), which sounded like something far off when I first came in.

Anyway, it's great that I managed to learn some game design stuff, do a few games, and practice a lot this year; I also managed to gain a better footing on the gaming scene, although I'm not a hardcore gamer and I'll never be.

It's almost surprising that I seem to be improving on the writing end as well, seeing that, the last I checked/tried, my writing was considered mediocre at best. Now, with English lessons, I have more opportunities to practice.

Failed year goals

It wasn't in this blog, but, among other things, I wanted to get my 2-star kayaking license by the end of this year, but I didn't, because I quit canoeing to join water-polo, which I quit again. I regret quitting Canoe in the first place, but what's done is done and I still intend to go get that 2-star next year.

Improved on my swimming

I can swim freestyle now! Being a novice swimmer in water-polo had put a lot of pressure in me to quickly and miraculously master swimming but I guess that's too much for me. One thing I took away, though, is that my strokes are better. It's surprising to think back to a time when breast stroke required effort.

Took part in my first pitching competition ever

Its not supposed to be a big deal but it kind of is to me. I hope I'm able to do at least one of these every year, which is very little, but considering my packed school schedule and the 100000 things I want to do... yeah.

Had a family trip with a tour package in Vietnam

I'm not a fan of following a tour group but Vietnam was great. It had pretty sceneries, an intriguing lifestyle, and lots of water. Crossing the road was super scary because we had to put a lot of faith on the drivers. Basically, we had to casually walk across the road despite the oncoming cars and we had to expect them to dodge us. Speaking of...

Got into a car accident

This was in Singapore. I even blogged about it a few posts ago. I'd never trusted traffic lights much but I trust them even less now, although to say that will be funny because there's nothing to distrust about traffic lights; it's more about whether people will obey them.

Got braces

Initially, they hurt. But at this point, they almost feel like a part of my teeth. It's great that I'm almost one year into the braces, but I still have a long way to go. I can't wait for the day when I get to remove them. In the first place, I decided to get them because my teeth were difficult to brush properly and there were edges that would hinder my tongue and it was annoying.

These are probably not all but I'm lazy to continue. On to next year, I also don't have much goals, except more of the same. I've been following a new workout programme and I'd tried to be consistent with it so I hope that yields some result. I also hope to learn a bunch of stuff and have a really fun year and get out and kayak and maybe get that 2-star license, which is unlikely if I am waiting for Joshua and Jasmine to get their 1-star because they have to wait one year before being allowed to progress to 2-star. We'll see.

Labels: reflection, things that happened

So, this is actually the Finals' week, but I only had one paper, which was on Monday. I also decided to finish up my last assignment on Monday. What we didn't fully expect was for us to score so badly in GAM that we had to squeeze marks through appeals and all that to help Jeryl to pass the module, and apparently we did that too late + there were some lack of organisation in the way we did it which kind of seemed to piss Michael and Elie off.

But that's not what I wanted to talk about in this post; I wanted to talk about two unrelated things.

Seeing the DTVM Lecturers (some of them)

To be honest, ever since I got into SIT, I'd been wondering whether I should visit the DTVM lecturers, but I kept telling myself that if I were a lecturer, a student would just be one of my "clients" and once he's gone, I get to take a breather and remove him from my memory. Plus, the lecturers must be super busy and all that which was why I kept deciding against awkwardly visiting them on my own.

But I ran into Ms Gamar, Mark, and a new journalism lecturer on Monday. It was actually pretty nice catching up to them and it reminded me of how different polytechnic and university are. Polytechnic, as Pascal put it, was "playtime", in which we literally stress ourselves out over a 6-page concept paper (to be fair, it's more of the quality rather than the quantity). In university, we easily write a 50-page rule book in a matter of days; we make an entire game in a week (I like to exaggerate this fact; it's not really true but please just let me frame it like that) and we do not treat using photoshop like some super difficult thing (tbh, it's probably just the fact that writing students are generally less software-savvy). Here, we learn illustrator like it's nothing in one day. I'm quite impressed with myself.

No matter what, though, my roots are always in writing. I take my English minor really seriously, I'm always writing, always trying to get writing jobs and I'll join competitions. In GAM, I also try to convince my group to let me write. This is because, as much as I love games, I know that my greatest strength is still in writing and I'm actively working to use that as an edge. Sorry if I sound super serious and career-driven, but we all need thoughts like this sometimes.

So I guess, a theme in my life is that I never really know where to land. I'm not 100% a writer, not 100% a game guy, not 100% a film guy (I think I'm <10% a film guy at this point), and there are still a number of things I want to do: Software development (sometimes I kind of envy the RTIS and their sadistic courses), web design, and teaching.

Which leads to my next point:

Acorn

Between the this-blog-is-dead period and now, a number of things happened. Because I treasure this blog and I want to write everything in it, I'll eventually get to those other things, but for now, I just want to mention that I had a short run with Acorn Training, in which we would go to primary and secondary schools to facilitate workshops about character development, leadership, and stuff like that.

What it made me realise was that my methods had been wrong. I'd always been too soft when put in leadership positions, be it in NS or in Uber or when dealing with kids. I need to be firm. Also, experience can be 10 times more important than whatever principles I have, because everyone has principles.

Anyway, I also realised that I really dislike dealing with kids. They can be cute and innocent and all that but I really dislike having to put on a facade when talking to them. I don't like talking slowly, sugar-coating my words, and speaking in proper English. I guess I have to speak proper English in proper situations and that is okay, but somehow, talking to kids just tire me out.

I'd stopped working in Acorn for now because Digipen was stressful and I didn't feel like I was earning much there. I spent half the time travelling to a project, which usually only lasted for 2 hours, and maybe I got $20+ per project? I can't remember but it's really not a good source of extra cash for me, unfortunately. If I could commit to doing one project after another, it would be great, but maybe not now.

Since Wei Jian is back from Australia, though, maybe we can do one together. We'll see how it goes.

Labels: digipen, dtvm, teaching, things that happened, writing

So, after the week where I said I would try to blog every week, I kind of ran out of time to do anything personal, because there were a number of things I had to do, including assignments, a pitch, and a wedding. Fortunately, I managed to find time to meet with Cx, Avelin, and Stefanie for Crimes of Grindelwald, but I was pretty much left with little enough free time for me to not feel compelled to blog.

Anyway, those things that kept me busy were, for the most part, good things, so let me talk about some of them chronologically.

Participated in SAS's Pitchfest
For the first time ever, I got shortlisted in a writing competition. It is a whole new experience for me to be pitching to a panel for any reason other than an assignment, but I guess there must be a first step somewhere, sometime. I was so out of touch with the whole pitching thing. In Digipen, no one really cares about how well you pitch, but back in DTVM, pitching was a huge focus and there were so many things to take note of. To make matters worse, it was crunch time for the game project in school, so I had very little mental capacity to be doing this.

Still, I recognised that it was completely not worth it to not put effort into this just because there were some assignments, so I gave it my all and survived the day.

There were twelve other finalists whom I was "competing" against, but really, it was more of a networking session. Once again, I have never networked before, so I was pretty bad at it. Two of us ended up sticking to ourselves and chatting, which I guess wasn't a good idea. I guess I'll have to work on stuff like that. Also, I really do need to return to watching some local TV shows if I'm considering writing for them.

The other ideas were of variety. There were some that I really liked. The idea by the person I stuck to the whole time was pretty cool, but I shall not talk about it here because it isn't my idea.

Flora's Wedding
It is my cousin, Flora's, turn to get married. It is the age, or at least it is soon to be the age. I believe the only weddings I ever attended were Chinese ones and they were all my relatives. No one I was close enough to had gotten married and invited me. Heck, the DTVM gang (me included) are still all single. It's quite funny. We even dubbed ourselves the "self-love club".

It's a pretty beautiful wedding. There were the exchange of vows, some preach, some songs, and generally a nice atmosphere. Despite not being a Christian, one thing I like about Christian weddings (or at least the only one I've ever been to) is how significant the day is made to be, complete with the long aisle, confetti, and long speeches. The Chinese ones just care about tea.

GAM Project
The rest of my time were spent doing miscellaneous stuff, assignments, and the game project. To repeat the context, we have a semester or year-long game project every semester. The current one my level is working on is a year-long project in which the team is made of three "departments"; the programmers had to build a game engine, the artist(s) had to draw and animate, and the designers had to design and implement the game.

It was super stressful because a lot needed to be done with very little time. Everyone ended up being really demoralised. I tried my best to stay calm and chill for the most part, but I lost my shit on Jaryl (the producer) once and Min Teck (another guy) multiple times. I'd also been super pessimistic and I regret that. However, to be fair, I didn't lose my shit on Jaryl because of stress, but because of something else which I shouldn't talk about.

So, as of submission, our game wasn't in a super good state. It was quite sad because we were rushing so much that we didn't get to see other people's presentations. The whole thing felt like a huge mess, but we'll probably fix it in the time to come.

Manga: A Silent Voice
I just want to point out that the manga I had been reading in pockets of time was really good and made me feel all sorts of things inside. It is about a deaf girl and a reformed bully and how the bully is trying to redeem himself by becoming friends with the deaf girl, falling in love with her as a result. The romance part of it is predictable, but it is the whole idea about the deaf girl and the fact that she really hates herself but is trying her best that gets to me. On one hand, it can be a little annoying; on the other, in a particular scene where she cried and said that she wanted to die, it really dug straight into my heart.

This manga also portrayed suicide and pretty heavy themes without dramatising them. I found it impressive. There is an animated film for it and I'm probably going to find a way to watch it now that I'm almost freed up.

So, yeah. The upcoming holiday is almost 3.5 weeks and a lot can be done. I had been neglecting my body, so it's time to hit the gym again and watch lots of stuff I wanted to watch, play lots of games I wanted to play, go for that Vietnam trip, and do some stuff in preparation of the next semester, such as practicing on C++ and doing a bit of the game project.

On a parting note, I have been pretty moody these few days over some stuff and I hope I get over them soon, but taking some time away from Digipen will probably help. Let's just hope we don't return to a situation where I postpone my unhappiness only to face them in bulk when I am re-exposed to the stimulus.

Labels: digipen, family, things that happened, writing

I'm trying to make the habit of blogging once a week, consistently, especially since it isn't even a difficult thing to do.

To be honest, I felt like I've been overly-emotionally-invested in the game project (GAM) in school, hence I've always been trying to fix things, such as the unfun-ness of the game, the bugs (I mean, I don't really have a choice), the (possibly perceived) disorganised nature of our workflow, etc. It was tiring. So, I decided to take a few steps back and chill. This reflects in life as well, since I tend to worry too much.

So, instead of being intense and overthinking and all that, I want to talk about a few small things that make me happy these few weeks.

Arrow
So, Arrow used to be good back when in seasons 1 and 2. Then, seasons 3 and 4 happened but I persisted through them. Now, this season seems to be going really well, seeing that they're reducing the screen time they give Curtis (he's annoying af), removing the power rangers aspect of the show (a bunch of heroes punching bad guys), and actually creating believable arcs for characters.

In the previous season, Dinah's story had been forced. This season, it was a lot more grounded. One thing that they still refuse to change and probably never will is that they insist on shining the spotlight on Felicity and they insist on making her annoying and they insist on disacknowledging that.

Still, this season is pretty good so far and that makes me happy.

Maplestory 2
I just downloaded and started playing this. Unlike Maple Story itself and Maple M, this isn't all about being ridiculously overpowered and gaining 20000 levels in 5 seconds. It has nice OST, many of them remastered versions of old themes (eg. Lith habour theme, cash shop theme) and they're pretty good!

Upcoming Vietnam Trip
My family is heading to Vietnam during my holiday. Although family trips are not super fun (to be honest), it looks to be a beautiful place and I've always wanted to visit Vietnam.

Upcoming(ish) Overseas Immersion Programme
About 2/3 of a year later, we'll be heading over to Redmond Campus in Washington for an immersion programme where we take classes there. It's expensive af but I heard that the whole trip is really nice and we get to live in apartments rather than dorms and things like that. I hope it'll be fun.

Asian Youth Theatre Festival
To be honest, I included this here just to document what I did recently (aka today) since it's fresh in my mind and I'm used to listing down things I did in this blog. It's not that awesome because I only watched one play. That's not to say it wasn't good. It was. But, I only watched one.

Anyway, it was a play done by hearing-impaired performers from Laos and a puppeteer. It was pretty funny. I don't usually watch many plays, but occasional exposure to elements of it have been nice and I do want to go watch some serious ones some time when I'm less poor.

Others
There are many little pleasures, mostly involving no-life things such as manga, books, and shows. Legend of Tomorrow is great, a new manga that I've been reading has been really entertaining (High-Rise Invasion), etc etc.

Oh, and Game of Thrones finally received an air month! It's about the same period as when we were supposed to fly over to US, so I guess that's two things to look forward to.

On that note, I'm trying to shift from a look-forward mentality to a contentment kind of mentality. I get so negative that sometimes looking forward to things just become an escape. When those things do come, I often just find more stuff to look forward to.

So, I guess that's it for this week. Maybe next week I'll write about something more focused.

Speaking of next week, I forgot to mention that I participated in a pitching competition by the Singapore Writers Association and it makes me happy to learn that I've been shortlisted to pitch to a panel next week. I'm kind of scared, to be honest, but it's just one day so I should survive.

Yeah, so I'll see how things go.

Labels: future, shows, things that happened

For the first time apart from the other time when DTVM brought us, I went to the Singapore Writer's Festival today. I didn't exactly know what to expect but I had planned to attend the following:

Living in Chains: Beyond Taboo (screening)
Some buffer
Short Stories by Migrant Workers (reading)
Many buffers
Worldbuilding in Video Games (panel)

I ended up only attending the first three, including the buffer, because I realised that it was too tiring to just sit there and listen to panels after panels.

However, Living in Chains and Short Stories by Migrant Workers were great.

Living in Chains is a FYP screening by some Wee Kim Wee students about this Indonesian practice known as Pasung, where mental patients are chained up in the name of treatment. It was a pretty sad idea and what the filmmakers did was to present the points of view of both the patients and the staff of the facility.

Apparently, because of their film, Dr Radiah Salim, a physician, is currently leading a project to bring some form of discussion over to some of such facilities in Indonesia, as well as some help in the form of better facilities. It is great and ideal that writing and documentary-making sometimes do make a difference, although it is up to really passionate people to get these things done.

Short Stories by Migrant Workers was a free reading where seven migrant workers out of a number who won in a 300-word story competition read their story to anyone who was there. Out of coincidence, most of them were Indonesian domestic workers.

Their perspectives of how domestic workers' lives work were really interesting; as Singaporeans, there are just some things that do not occur to us. For example, one of them wrote a story about "herself" falling in love with a Singaporean employer, telling herself that she was just a maid, living with him for years, and then watching him get married to a beautiful wife. It was really sad.

Bigger issues regarding how migrant workers are treated aside, it is inspiring that these people have not only demonstrated that they have artistic talents, but that they are willing to do something about it. Even without computers, they write with their phones during their lunch breaks, before they sleep, and so on. They do not just get to write because feel like it; their employers' approval matter. Yet, they managed. And they wrote in a language that they were not comfortable in. Really commendable.

The other day, Min Teck (a friend from school) was reinforcing my opinion that it is important to learn other languages. For people in the game industry, Japanese and Korean were really important. I've always wanted to learn Japanese but learning a foreign language is tough. Maybe I should get to it.

I was honestly expecting SWF to be kind of boring, but the stories were really interesting and some of the stuff were really thought-provoking. Back to the domestic helpers, some employers apparently used "writing" as an excuse to scold the helpers when they screw up. That sucks.

Anyway, I hope to go back there maybe the next weekend and catch some panel discussions and stuff. I've got to make the $25 festival pass worth it.

Labels: reflection, things that happened, writing

So... I got into a car accident. Frankly, I'm kind of tired of talking about it. But let's talk about it anyway! Yay.

It happened a few days ago. I was walking home, happy that Adrian and I have completed my day's goal of GAM progress (GAM = game project; I'm in Digipen now by the way). For once in the entire week, I don't have to do anything after I reach home. So, there was this traffic light in which the green man and the green light light up at the same time. Usually, I'll look at all the possible directions the cars can come from just so I'm safer.

That's what I did.

But that's all I did.

So, I walked and looked at one of the oncoming cars, taking for granted that if I look at it, it'll probably stop. And then it didn't! And then I kiiiinda flew, but just a little bit. And these are the first few things that came into my mind:

1. What the fuck how is this possible did I just get knocked down by a car?????
2. I need to stand up, get back to safety, and return everything to normal.
3. Where are my stuff (ie. wallet, phone, and slippers)?

So, strangers helped me and insisted that I went to a hospital. A man helped me to retrieve my wallet, handphone, and left slipper, which flew away. The one who knocked onto me came out and apologised to me profusely. I didn't care about anything they said. All that was in my mind was: WHERE IS MY RIGHT SLIPPER???

And I kept asking them that and they kept telling me that's not important and I kept thinking "no, they're wrong. It's important because I'm wearing my left slipper but not my right slipper."

So the kind stranger told me I need to wait for the ambulance and I just said "I want my slipper!" (I was not thinking clearly due to trauma, I think)

Everyone started going around, trying to find my right slipper. I tried too but this other stranger refused to let me move.

After they retrieved my slipper, I felt that everything was right again. So, my mind allowed my body to register the pain, which was kind of like (getting injured while falling down/running too quickly x 1.5) which is nothing considering that I got knocked by a car. I was so lucky that all my injuries were superficial, the driver was not a dick, nothing spoilt, and so on.

Everything else was even more mundane: Ambulance came, checked up, stayed in the hospital for 4 hours for observation, went home, decided to go to school the next day, got forced to report to the police or face a fine, got told that I need to do some annoying stuff in the days to come, and listening to my mum nag at me for not being careful at the road.

So, yeah. Once in a lifetime, I suppose. Now, I'm even more super careful when crossing the road, though sometimes it doesn't even help.

PS: I love my current layout, but it's about time to change it. Can't wait for free time so I can get to that.

Labels: things that happened

So during today's Fiction Writing class, we were given a short exercise to write about a moment in which we had to make a "critical choice" (it was a lesson about story structure). It kind of reminded me of something that happened at the start of this semester, which isn't super exciting but let's just talk about it anyway.

Before we get there, let's talk about the three most important things to me in university (not in life, just in university):

1. Gaining recognition, forming connections, securing a job - this includes building a network (sigh), scoring well, and gaining skills and experiences.

2. Having an exciting time that goes beyond studying and having dinner. This means having the kind of experience that I will miss when I look back from the future.

3. Fulfilling things that I've always wanted to do, such as having an active lifestyle and doing a sport - having a sport that I can say is "my sport".

Let's just talk about #3. Basically: It didn't/couldn't happen. I couldn't make it.

First, I joined Canoe, but I quit because I got impatient and I felt like I wasn't connecting well with the people there. It's a recurring thing in my life. Then, I thought things would be better after I joined water polo. Unfortunately, despite the fact that I made some great friends there, I just wasn't good enough. Everyone was preparing to go for a competition and my fundamentals remained weak despite weeks of self-training. I had no business being there. So, I got really stressed and quit, possibly disappointing those friends in the process.

I felt kind of bad about it, but I'm at that point (or at least almost) where I don't hate myself and pretend to be who I'm not anymore. It's okay. Maybe I'm just not made for these things. I guess I'm writing this to remind myself that life can be so much simpler if I want less. It's not a sad thing.

Totally not a sad thing.

Labels: digipen, future, reflection, things that happened

It felt like a really long year, but 2016 is finally coming to an end. At the start of the year, there were lots of really ominous things to be said about the fortunes of people born in the year of the dog, and, to an extent, I agree. It wasn't the best year, but it was important because it was the year where I genuinely started to take charge of the direction my life is going... Except that I'm doing a really bad job at it.

I remember spending much of 2015 being miserable because of NS. I couldn't be one of those people who embrace the difficulty and make lemonades out of lemons, so I kind of stumbled and stumbled further and hit rock bottom and realise that it's not really rock bottom and hit rock bottomer. To my defence, I got into freaking infantry (one of the worst vocations, but of course there are worse ones).

It is said that no one can understand how much it sucks to be a soldier in a non-commanding position. I agree. My NS life only started to get better after I became a third sergeant and I cannot imagine not getting that rank. I guess that is why this year was considerably better than the last despite the outfields and the rubbish levels of administration and management in camp.

Buuuut, guess who won the challenge of patience?

This year was also the year of travelling. I've never travelled so much in one year; I went to Thailand (Krabi) with my NS friends, Brunei with my unit, New freaking Zealand (Queenstown) alone, and Hong Kong with my family. Granted, Brunei wasn't really a leisure trip, but at least it's overseas and we got to go to The Mall and eat some kueh.

Before further education, I decided to take a gap year to gain experience as well as do a huge number of things that I'd wanted to do, such as writing a novel, learning guitar, getting a license, learning parkour, travelling, gaining that muscle mass and working in a relevant job. It's halfway successful, I guess. I like to look at the bright side.

My recent struggle which gets me so mad is in trying to find a job. I wanted to change into the education industry but I couldn't make up my mind so I decided to return to the media industry. There were no jobs I could take, probably because I was under-qualified, have a weak portfolio, and can only work for about half a year by now. So, I'm still unemployed, regrettably. My friend did warn me about the economy.

This post is getting so long. Let me just quickly wrap it up in a concised manner.

Fulfilled resolutions/checklist/wishlist from last year:
1. Kept in touch with friends (most of them, not all).
2. Travelled at least three times.
3. Tried out parkour.
4. Started learning the guitar.
5. Built on my relationship with my parents.
6. Became more attentive towards the outflow of my money... for a while.
7. Developed some nutritional habits. At least I keep track of my calories now and make myself eat fruits and vegetables.

Next year's resolutions:
1. Prioritise a healthy, chill emotional state.
2. Stop needing and wanting and start preferring.
3. Reach 75kg.
4. Learn Arnis (a Filipino martial art).
5. Actually get that class 3 license (or start to).

I like that I'm being a lot less ambitious for the next year.

Labels: future, reflection, things that happened

So I just came back from Hong Kong three days ago. It was a trip I went with my family because it had been a long time since we travelled and we failed to book a chalet for Christmas.

Day 1 - Arrival

After watching some Hong Kong shows, I'm sure everyone knows how the country looks like, but for some reason, I was expecting something like Taiwan. So, when reality set in and we arrived at a place that looked kind of similar to Singapore, except without the trees, I was kind of disappointed.

The next few days proved my disappointment unfounded because it's a very nice-to-look-at place with attractive people who care about how they dress. It kind of made me want to dress better too.

Day 2 - Lantau Island

In the morning, my sister and I headed over to a cafe because she wanted to taste their beans and stuff. With the family, we then spent the first half of the day queuing up for the cable car towards Lantau Island. I feel like there is way too much queuing involved in this trip, but the cable car ride was fine, except that I was having some sort of allergy and couldn't stop sneezing.

When on top, we did the touristy stuffs - visiting the big Buddha statue, taking lots of pictures of it, and walking around. My parents and grandma were tired, so they just sat somewhere while my siblings and I walked on what we thought was the Wisdom Path. We took a lot of pretentious photos while we were at it.

The rest of the day was just a walk back to the cable car, more queuing, dinner, and some shopping with my siblings.

Day 3 - Shopping Day

There really isn't much to talk about this day. Basically, we shopped as we could and visited the Temple Street Night Market, which was majorly disappointing. It was the same as Singapore's temporary night markets.

Day 4 - Ocean Park

Ocean Park was nice. There wasn't a super long queue and theme parks are generally nice places. We spent half the day on the calmer stuff like the aquarium, panda enclosure, and otter show. For the next half of the day, which ended up being only three measly hours, my siblings and I tried the theme park rides. We only managed to sit on three - one was chill(ish), one was super fast and fun and not scary, and one was super scary.

Day 5 - Miscellaneous Day
We wanted to spend this day in Shen Zhen, but my mum was worried that we wouldn't be able to haggle and the shops would exploit our money, so we didn't. Instead, we kind of walked around Tsim Sha Tsui instead. It was a lot of window shopping.

As it was Hong Kong and we hadn't had full dim sum meals yet, we headed to One Dim Sum at Prince Edward. It was nice dim sum. We returned to the apartment early to let my grandma rest up before finishing our trip with Victoria Peak, which was simply a place to view the skyscrapers from on top of a mountain.

The queue was the worst, so were the tourists from a certain country who cut 80% of the queue, push, barge, separate people, and get annoyed when we barge and cut back the portion where they cut us. Tourists from this country seem to really love embarrassing themselves.

Day 6 - Homeward Day
Simply put, we returned to Singapore.

Labels: family, overseas, things that happened

I have a whole list of blogging topics and I'd intended to pre-write most of my stuff so I can schedule them, but I just had no motivation to blog nowadays. A part of me realises that no one really reads this thing so it's kind of like talking to myself, which is why I tried to create another blog so I could get people to read it, but I lost interest in it two months later. Of course, I still want to be blogging but sometimes I just feel stupid.

Buuut, let's just put that aside and blog anyway. At some point, I'm intending to learn xhtml and all that so I can actually use Blogger's "new" template, because currently, I'm still stuck at the super old "classic template".

Anyway, recently, I've been pretty addicted to different things. For two weeks, I was obsessed with Dark Souls 3, so there were days when I just needed to be doing productive stuff but I just kind of decided to play Dark Souls 3 instead. Luckily, it's a very challenging game and I got stuck at a certain boss so my interest just faded away.

Then, somehow, I stumbled upon a youtuber called Marcus Butler, and from there, I got introduced to some British youtubers. Before this year, I never watched and followed youtubers and I hardly subscribed to anything, but I just figured that youtubers who post random sketches and all that are actually really entertaining, so I started following Connor Franta (I googled "good-looking youtubers"). Being the sort of person who rarely commits to any entertainment, I didn't watch much of his videos after subscribing. But this month, I decided to, and from one of his collaborations with Marcus Butler, I realised that Marcus is really funny and went to subscribe his to channel.

I've been addicted since. It's kind of scary.

Being addicted to shows, animes, and games have always felt normal to me, but being addicted to people is scary. Soon, I wasn't just addicted to him; via his vlogs, I got addicted to his friends too, along with the life he portrays.

The truth is, there's something underlying every addiction. In fact, there's something underlying every behaviour. This isn't the first time I got addicted to watching fictional lifestyles (although you could say youtube vloggers' lifestyles are not exactly fictional); I remember becoming obsessed with How I Met Your Mother and the group of characters hanging out in the bar.

So, I did some googling and learned that addiction to things is really about helplessness, and each addiction isn't separate. In other words, it will be a mistake to view my addiction to Dark Souls 3 as an unrelated issue to my addiction to these youtubers.

This leads me to the question: What is so helpless about me?

Without a doubt, I can say I'm not a person who's always in control of myself. I've always had emotional issues, anxiety, identity issues, etc, so I guess my mind is just using addiction to cope with it all.

Of course, addictions are common. Everyone feels helpless over different things. By spending too much time away from my own life, I was able to "live" in another world (nothing new, right?). I don't have to think about how I'm wasting my life away while I'm finding a job (I'm done with my 2.5-month break / attempt at writing a novel), I don't have to think about how I haven't been writing my novel, and I don't have to think about healing/fixing myself (one of my goals during this gap year). It's a major distraction from really important stuff. The way to fix it is probably to deal with the root of the issue.

I really don't know why I'm blogging about this. I guess through this post, I kind of talked about what I've been up to ever since New Zealand, although not completely, as well as give some insight about myself without spelling it out. It's just a rambling post, I guess.

Labels: personality, rants, things that happened

A trip to a beautiful place alone
I just came back from my solo trip to Queenstown, New Zealand, two days ago, and I'm pretty excited to share my experience here. Actually, I'm pretty excited to blog when I have a topic most of the time, although I realise that I haven't done my mandatory ORD post yet.

Let's begin by a confession that I regret only going to Queenstown for the entire duration of six days, because it got boring. A quick Google about Christchurch, which is I think a seven hours train ride away, fuels that regret because it looks like such a nice place as well. But what's done is done. I've made a lot of mistakes during (and before) this trip, but I guess that's just a part of solo travelling.

I'll leave the reflections to another post. For now, let's just talk about the trip itself. It's going to be a really long post, so I decided to use a Facebook photo album to complement the blog entry in places where I skip.

Day 1 - Arrival Day
Starting on a positive note, after arriving at Sydney International Airport (where I waited four hours to transit to another plane to get to Queenstown), I got to watch the sun rise from the beautiful windows, half-asleep. It must have party been the super long flights, but by the time I reached Queenstown Airport, I was worn out and wished that I was with company - anyone would do.

I'm glad that the taxi driver I met was really friendly. He chose routes that let me see nice sceneries (and possibly costed more) so I'm glad that he offered a taxi tour because that tour gave me the most exposure to Queenstown as a whole.

After arriving at my accommodation in the evening, rested a while before spending the next few hours getting acquainted with the surroundings, realising that there's no one else at all who was alone, and doubting myself and the idea of a solo trip.

Day 2 - Exploration Day
This is one of my favourite days. I scheduled air balloon on this day but it got cancelled because of wind. Instead, I slept in and then went exploring for real for the first part of the day.

For the second part of the day, Brent, the taxi driver, came and gave me the taxi tour as planned. He is a pretty sincere guy who tried to ensure that I got the most out of the tour as possible. Knowing that I've never touched snow before, he brought me up to Coronet Peak, where there's still snow, to let me touch it (although I kind of expected it to just feel like ice). He also brought me to a number of other places.

The Shotover River
^ This is where there was a really fun tourist attraction where a group sits on a boat and the driver speeds up and down the river.

Arrow Town (I should've taken a pretentious photo here)
^ This is a nice, quaint town that was a lot more peaceful than Queenstown central. Apparently, there is a movie theatre here whose environment was more of a couch setting rather than the typical movie seating.

The photo at the top of this post is Windy Peak, where you get to see the entire Lake Wakatipu, which spans along and, I would say, defines Queenstown. Unfortunately, the picture hardly shows anything because everything was so micro.

By the time the tour ended, I've learned quite a bit about Queenstown geography, lifestyle, history, and its tourist culture.

Day 3 - Animal Day

These sheeps are the main attraction of Walter Peak Farm
Started the day on the steamboat, which brought us to the Walter Peak Farm to watch a sheep sheering demonstration, have breakfast, and feed animals. Although shepherd dogs and wild ducks are not farm animals, I like them the most.

For the second part of the day, I did a lot of window shopping and then took a walk in Queenstown Garden. I've got to say, Frisbee is a really big thing there.

My favourite part of the day was having this very popular burger called Ferg Burger by the shore. A duck wanted to eat my burger and kept pestering me. Then, a man came and played fetch with his dog in the cold water, and it was really impressive. The dog was smart enough to gauge whether it should enter the water or not when the owner threw the stick too far.

Day 4 - Mountain Day
This is the highlight of the trip - taking an unprepared trek in the Ben Lomond Track. It was really nice because I was surrounded by so many mountains, all alone and so high up. I just kept walking and never stopped being impressed and the weather was perfect and I could tell myself, "This is why I came to New Zealand."

The early parts of the trek
I didn't really want to get down but the weather app said that it was going to rain (it didn't in the end) and I didn't want to be stuck up there, freezing and alone. So, I had to. En route down, I had a genius idea to meditate in the middle of the mountain. Knowing that it was about to rain, I kept it short and I will say it wasn't a stupid decision. It kind of opened my heart up, if you care.

I guess the other good thing of the day was watching a Maori performance. Maori is the tribe that used to live in New Zealand, until the government bought the land over from them.

Day 5 - Balloon Day

Rising into the air in an air balloon
To be honest, I had mixed feelings about finally taking an air balloon, which I was so looking forward to. Maybe it's the cost of the flight or maybe it's the fact that I overhyped myself, I felt empty throughout the flight. It was not particularly exciting or peaceful (though it would've been more more peaceful had two particular tourists not kept squeezing about trying to take photos and sending videos to their friends). Though the view was spectacular, I went more of like "nice" than "OMG" inside.

This leads me to believe that by this time, I was starting to take Queenstown sceneries for granted. I'll talk about that next time.

I had a lot of things planned to fill up the rest of the day so that I would not get too bored; as I had mentioned, I shouldn't have spent the whole trip in Queenstown.

They say good and bad things come in clusters - in this case, disappointments. Apart from the air balloon, the "underwater observatory" was a joke and I didn't get to see any kiwi for real in the Kiwi Bird Park.

But let me just defend the bird park because I just went at the wrong time. There are kiwi feedings, but I couldn't get myself to be patient enough to wait so long just to feed some kiwis. The bird park by itself was quite impressive, especially their conservation show. It was educational and entertaining and I'll recommend it to whoever visits Queenstown, especially if you're alone.

Day 6 - Walking Day
This being the last day, I was honestly pretty worn out and missed home and friends and family. Still, I was looking forward to this day because I planned to get out of the central area. So, I took a bus to Remarkable Town Park Center, where the internet told me I could find "cheap shopping". Turns out, "cheap shopping" means "cheap grocery shopping". The place was nice, though. Actually, being away from the main touristy area after so long was nice.

For some reason, when planning the trip, I had wanted to go swimming. So, I did.

After that, it was just a loooooooong walk back to Queenstown central, then my accommodation.

Day 7 - Homeward Day
I sat in the plane the whole day.

Just a picture of ducks to end off, because I like ducks
You can click here to have a look at the Facebook photo album... if you want... Please? :(

Labels: overseas, solidarity, things that happened

Walking along a water village on our last day
It feels a little disorienting to be back in Singapore after our 20-day "mission" in Brunei. I would call it Exercise Laying (on the Bed), but that's used before in one of our previous outfields. So, I shall call this Exercise Maggi, because a lot of my memory of these 20 days involve cooking instant maggi noodles outfield.

By right, Brunei was meant for the other three companies as well as my company's recce and pioneer guys, but because they needed us to role-play as the enemies, plus it won't be very nice if everyone came but mortar and signals, we went as well. As a result, there wasn't much we were required to do. Most of our time was spent in the bunk, reading, talking, watching movies, etc. I've watched more movies and read more in these twenty days than in the past two months.

There were three main things that we participated in, though.

Navigation Exercise
Our navigation exercise was a highly toned down version as compared to the other companies. We just had to find a minimum of one checkpoint in the forest, habour for a night, and we were done. So, we started habouring at 10am when the actual habouring time was meant to be 5pm. For the first time out of many subsequent ones in Brunei, we dedicated a lot of time to doing up our shelter, collecting logs, building a fire, and cooking maggi. It was nice at night, after a rain (it rained every evening), when we sat by the fire and just talked.

Opposition Force
The finale of the entire Brunei "mission" was a long march, followed by two fights. Mortar got deployed at the final objective as enemies. Generally, it was a lot of waiting, maggi, fire, climbing up and down a hill in the middle of the sector I was in charge of, and some fighting. Certain points of the whole process were quite entertaining, but I think I'm not supposed to talk about it.

Rest and Relaxation
For the first portion of R&R, we went to a water village to eat kueh and use the toilet. Immediately after that, we were brought to the only shopping mall in Brunei, creatively named 'The Mall'. Most of the mortar people wanted to play lan, but I didn't want to, so a minority of us decided to watch a movie called 'Lights Out'. We spent the rest of the time walking around, exploring, playing with some explosive kids' toy thing, and playing at the arcade. Although we were given eight tedious hours to spend the time at a relatively boring place, I thought it was quite nicely spent time.

We reached Singapore at around 2am, but had to wait till 4am to get our duffel bags back because the airport sent them to the wrong terminal. That's more or less how the whole Brunei trip went for us.

Labels: NS, overseas, things that happened

Me, Michael, Kent, Gabriel, Clement, Jaryl, Lai
As usual, I'm still suffering from post-anything blues, something I realise I always experience (eg. post-Taiwan, post-production, post-decent-weekend-in-a-while). This time, I'm missing Krabi, where I recently went with my army friends, and our adventures there. Let's just begin recapping those five days in Krabi.

Day 1
Let me begin by saying that this is the most spontaneous overseas trip I've been to - no tours booked beforehand, no plans, no idea of what we're going to do besides some vague feel-like-doings, and no idea how. The only things we've booked were the plane tickets and the accommodation.

The driver bringing us from the airport to the villa got lost but refused to let us know, so he pretended to stop by his agency for a toilet break when he was really there to ask for directions.

The villa is amazing. It has a pool, big beds, and the best housekeeping service ever. Part of that is thanks to Michael's natural charisma and his ability to accidentally flirt with Thai ladies, which happens a lot in the trip.

For the first night, we headed to Aonang Beach (the only place nearby / a touristy shopping street) to walk around, have dinner, book a tour, and go to some bars for drinks and girls - some of their primary goal. It's unsurprisingly my first time drinking in the company of women whose job scopes are mostly to flirt with customers. The night didn't last too long because it was day one and we had an early morning the next day.

Day 2

Us with the tour guide, Mr Cho, whom I'll talk more about "It's about the heart," - look at how many fucks Jaryl gives
The awesome housekeepers of the villa made breakfast for us before most of us even woke up. After that, a tut tut arrived to fetch us from our doorstep to the start point of the tour, all part of the package.

Our tour guide, Mr Cho, is a reggae man, full of energy, spice, passion, fun and nonsense. To sum the tour up, a speed boat brought us around to look at different bays, beaches, caves, and stuff. We got to dive head in into the bay for swimming, hang around in a beach with really violent waves, snorkel in another, and had free cookhouse-esque lunch. Made friends with some of the other tourists in the process.

When the tour ended, the tourists were all dispatched based on their accommodations. We and a family were the last and we all had to wait really long, so they got really pissed and provoked a fight with Mr Cho. It was quite entertaining because nobody was taking them seriously and Mr Cho wasn't even in charge of the transport; he just happened to be there.

Our tut tut never came so Mr Cho's friend drove us back in a lorry just when it was starting to pour icy needle-like rain. The journey back was painful; we were cowering and shivering, so we decided to play games of scissor-paper-stone and the losers would have to take off their shirt first, and when he loses again, he has to stand and embrace the rain. It was a ride filled with screams and sadistic laughter.

The moment we got back to the villa, we jumped into the warm pool and refused to get out and open the door, because we remember not having turned the air-con off. So, we just kind of skinny-dipped a while, until we decided to play another scissor-paper-stone of death to determine the tribute who would open the door and turn the air-con off, but the housekeepers came and save us just in time. Still, some of us refused to leave the warm comfort of the pool.

Look at those seafood
That was the dinner prepared for us. Needless to say, it was really great. I shall leave the details of the rest of the night out.

Day 3
The previous night was long. Under the influence of alcoholic courage, I said some stuff that I would've regretted not saying, but I had to face the aftermath, which turned out to be okay. Anyway, the day started late because everyone was tired. By the time I woke up, the breakfast was gone, along with electricity because the whole of Aonang got cut off.

We booked a car and two bikes and went on a journey to find the Western Union because Jaryl ran out of money already. To his defense, we all severely underestimated our spendings, because "how much money can you spend on a beach," right?

It was entertaining being a passenger in a car driven by Kent and navigated by Gabriel, because Gabriel's navigation sucked and Kent was all about safety. Imagine how he felt watching Michael on his bike - speeding, going crazy on his own, and making senseless maneuvers.

But we arrived at Krabi Town - our destination - in one piece.

Krabi Town
Did some exploring, had a meal, and went for a full-body Thai massage that felt good at first but meh when it was done. I'm not complaining though, because it wasn't very expensive.

That night, we headed out and I decided that it would be waste not to be a pillion, and yup, it would've been a waste not to be a pillion. Also, I made a yolo decision to have trust in Michael's biking despite what we saw earlier in the day :')

I decided to skip the drinking for the night, a decision I regretted.

Day 4
Everyone was mostly dead except Gabriel and me because Gabriel came back early the previous night and I didn't go at all. We went for a kayaking tour through some mangroves. It was nice to watch the surroundings. As expected, Gabriel and Lai's boat was filled with funny angst. We dubbed it the 笨船。It means 'stupid boat'.

Kayaking was a half-day activity, so we returned to the villa right after. For the rest of the day, we mostly chilled and slept and woke up again in the evening to get to Krabi Town again for the night market.

There was a fire dance show, some other shows, a lot of food, souvenir shops, etc. I just kind of soaked in the mood and enjoyed the last touristy things we do while it lasted.

The night market
Even later that night, we returned to the bar we went in day one and apparently day three and drank and watched Clement get drunk and stuff and by the time we returned, it was two hours before we had to wake up again.

Day 5

I really like this picture
Basically, we returned to Singapore.

I miss this trip. It's here that I got myself to do things I never would've done had I not met these people as well as things I've always intended to do but never did. Now I'm just looking forward to my solo ORD trip but hoping that it won't be too lonely.

Labels: overseas, places, things that happened

SAF Dragon Boat Regatta
Yesterday was a day when several divisions from SAF came together to compete in Dragon Boat and my platoon competed in it. It is somewhere in this photo. I don't have much to say about it because SAF likes to come up with these competitions and it's good and could've been fun and all, but when it is compulsory and, say, every company is forced to send a team, they just create additional stuff to do and it can get annoying. Then again, I wasn't involved so I shouldn't complain too much - something I've been getting into the habit of once again.

Other than cheering on our own company, there wasn't much to do, so a group of us spent 20 minutes walking to Kallang Wave Mall to search for breakfast. It was early in the morning so half the shops weren't open. I settled for some toast and half-boiled egg. Afterwards, I went to find Amos (from my internship), who was taking photos for Army News, and caught up a little.

Backtrack a little - recently, the company 2IC, mortar platoon commander, and specialist cadets got posted into our company. Stuff are starting to feel like they're ending because there are people preparing to take over and 3rd September is finally in sight and it feels like our NS route has went one round, with us going through BMT again, redoing all the infantry weapon systems and stuff, and going through mortar course another time, except this time as specialists guiding the new batch through.

Speaking of which, mortar course is over and I am sad because Khatib Camp is a nice camp and I miss waking up to the sunrise beaming through my window and drinking a mug of coffee as I prepare for the day. I also miss the abundance of shops outside the camp, the proximity to my home, and the lack of unnecessary procedures involving randomly stomping our feet on the ground just to report strength, although I'm no longer the one doing it back in 4SIR. Still.

A few things to list pertaining to these two months:

I strained my leg and shoulder but finally managed to recover after more than a month.
Despite the strain, I stupidly participated in a SAFSA track event, in which I obviously didn't do well in. As a bonus, my strain even earned a time extension for its existence.
I went for an interesting meet-up with people I didn't know regarding a niche but let's not talk about that.
And the usual stuffs.

That's about it for these two months.

Labels: NS, things that happened

From time to time, I look at my Muchilludes and think to myself what the hell I'm doing with it. It's not really anything. It's just all over the place. That is the same issue I have with my life, because my life and my blogging habits are connected. I blog because, somehow, it's meant to be beneficial to my life.

Right now, I just feel like I'm waiting to make up for lost time. Isn't it ironic? I have so many plans for what I want to do, sometimes it feels like I'm postponing happiness. This is especially so when I keep working on something, being productive, and then realising that I'm not owning the moment.

On the other hand, instead of passively awaiting ORD, I'm putting in much more thought, effort, and soul into my job as a third sergeant in camp.

Soooo, my point is that I'm going to work less hard because I tend to overwork. For the last few weeks, I tried to make my weekends so productive that when I returned to camp, all I wanted to do was to melt into my bed.

To conclude, here's a list of things that happened this month:

Not participating in CSB (a phase in army I can't be bothered to explain about) because I overworked my legs.
Chinese New Year
Started on Mortar course with the troopers.
Watched a few movies.
Sent Wei Jian off in the airport.
Met with Guo Shen and Jocelyn (from 'Scrum!' and 'Koji Cooks') to tell them about army as well as chat.
...
Insert something here.
Hi.

Bye.

Labels: things that happened

When we were told to smile
To be honest, Chinese New Year this year had been kind of disappointing, but it was this disappointment that made me remember certain things.

Ever since I started the habit of buying clothes whenever I felt like it instead of buying them right before Chinese New Year, this festival had lost some of its magic. When I was in secondary school, and actually, even in primary school, I would always look forward to wearing new clothes, because they would be lying in the cupboard, untouched, until the first day. The same went for CNY cookies and the sweet drinks. We would bug my mother when we could open them up and she would make us wait till the reunion dinner. Now, we've lost all these "rules". It's just different.

I also miss eating reunion dinner with my family at home without the relatives. When my grandparents were alive, that would be what we do. Now, we always head to some restaurant that my uncle really likes and eat with all my uncles and aunties and cousins. I guess it's nice in its own way, but I miss the older days.

The worst is the attitude we now have. At least till last year, I think I actually looked forward to meeting my cousins and going to Hougang Green or the neighbourhood with them doing nothing in particular. As years pass, we start deeming those things as pointless and boring, which they are. This year, I felt nothing.

To me, Chinese New Year used to be magical, and I can't wait for it to be magical again. It's funny how I realise that I miss my family when my family is right here with me. And when we're physically together, we're still apart.

On a brighter note, Wei Jian returned from Brunei for these two weeks, and on the day of his arrival, we met up because we wanted to throw him a surprise, which he already suspected. I dug out my PS4 box, Joshua and Jessica got some vegetables and luncheon meat and stuff, and then we filled the box with those things as a present for him.

Obviously, he didn't believe it when we showed him the box.

Then on Saturday, we met to go to Wei Jian's house, and I'm glad we did because this was the only day I felt like it was Chinese New Year.

It was the usuals: Cards, mahjong, steamboat, watching Youtube videos, watching embarrassing videos some of us made during secondary school (such as Joshua's singing and a crappy vlog we did during a chalet), and chatting with Wei Jian's mum.

Today, I took half a day off because I did duty on Sunday, and for some reason, I just miss home. Sometimes I have days like this.

Labels: emo, family, mehmeh, reliving those days, things that happened

Recently, I've been describing the things that happen day by day in more details because I've come to appreciate them more. Sometimes the things we want to remember are the smaller moments, such as trying to find pinwheels to put in my house and actually finding one I'm satisfied with one night when Guang Yi, Joshua, and I were on our way to Ru Wen's store in Tiong Bahru.

I've been reading about feng shui, though I've paused for a while because I also started reading a novel halfway through and I prefer reading one thing at a time. This has been something I'd wanted to study since last year, and I bought a book at a book fair during a night's out from camp. The book had been sitting in my shelf for half a year before I started on it.

What triggered me to start reading it was the new year, when Jt and I headed to Ru Wen's store and we chatted about how Ru Wen felt that this year, her luck had been ridiculously bad so far. Jt's dad knows about these things (ba zi / feng shui) and Ru Wen asked whether Jt could ask her dad to do a reading for her. It turned out to be quite accurate and thus interesting.

It's just nice that this month, I finally moved into my brother's room, so we share it now and I can apply feng shui cures to it.

So, those things above are some of those small things that happened in my life, except the last paragraph, because so-called getting my own room had been something I want for a very long time. Can you believe I've been sleeping in a temporary position in my parents' room ever since secondary school?

Other small moments that I want to remember from this month (and I haven't blogged about) includes...

eating a really nice chocolate tart from Crusty Oven, a shop behind the library near Junction 8. Crusty Oven used to sponsor Scrum!, the show I helped with during internship.
actually working out in a fitness corner because the "machines" there can be adjusted to increase difficulty. It was unintentional. Joshua, Jt, and I were just hanging around and the machines just happened to be there.
finding out more about my friends.
more disillusion; I always believe that everyone's life is filtered by perceptions and these lenses that rearrange how they see things. These lenses blinds us to certain things and create false image of what we see, so the less we let these lenses affect us, the closer we are to seeing things as what they are. This month, I realise I pay too little attention and I exclude too many people in my personal stuff - and the unhealthy thing is that 70% of my life is personal.
my third 24km-route march, which I just completed.
attending a parade, of which we spent a lot of time doing nothing. My army friends were addicted to this phone game called Colour Switch, and I still don't understand why.
continuing to work on Muchilludes, which I'm going to keep working on. (shameless plug: I'm quite happy with my latest post about failure)
starting a poetry Tumblr with Joshua, Zi Xing and Jessica. Visit The Adjunct Wordsmiths here.

I guess I'm progressing okay on my new year's resolution, and I'm seeing the results. The bad part is me regressing into not eating a lot and still not moving on after I complete something (eg. reanalysing episodes of shows I've watched which I've realised was really pointless).

This has been a good month. Supposedly, it's a bad year for people born in the year of Dog, but I choose not to care because I know we can overcome that and make our own good. To the rest of the year!

Labels: things that happened

Me (winking beautifully), Jasper, Kok Pin, and Clement - some of the Mortar commanders
Just a recap on the things that happened these two weeks:

Most of last week, we've been moving towards the end of the current phase for the troopers, but as I've already mentioned, the phase is really boring and I refuse to talk about it. We had also been trying to select our permanent troopers for our Mortar platoon, but there were so many considerations, including the men other platoons wanted, administrative concerns, etc.

Last Thursday, we stayed up late (till 2am) to finalise the distribution of the men as well as prepare for this Monday's navigation exercise.

Last Friday was Support company's first cohesion as a whole. We had a few with commanders before, but they were usually small stuff like steamboat or organised event in the mess. This time, we brought all the troopers to Wave House, Sentosa. While waiting for our turn, we just played around at the beach - swimming, lariato-ing (it was mostly Jaryl, one of the Mortar commanders), and challenging one another to do lame stuff like asking two girls who were suntanning whether they could take a photo together. It rained halfway through the cohesion but we carried on. The "surfing" itself was pretty fun. I tried both the small and the big one, and I managed to last one second unsupported on the small one.

After the cohesion, we split up and the mortar commanders and the sergeant major went to eat at Carl's Junior. We ran into our men as well as Kok Pin, who separated with us earlier on to meet with his girlfriend. Sergeant major asked Kok Pin's girlfriend how old she thought he was, and she more or less guessed his age. After they left, he said he was heartbroken that she didn't guess a younger age. Funny guy.

I forgot what I did last Saturday, but seeing that I'm quite a boring person, I probably didn't do anything interesting.

Sunday, I did guard duty.

On Monday, tired and drained, Clement and I rushed to join our company's Navigation Exercise, and because we were so rushed and we missed the briefing and we didn't bother to think about what we needed, we went without our waterbag and ration. The good thing is, I've come to learn that the waterbag is unnecessary for now. Some of us didn't eat for the whole day, until we returned at night to 20+ packets of noodles which our dearest COS helped us to buy.

Anyway, about the exercise itself, most detachments had experienced interesting things, including climbing downhill so much that they could not go uphill, being shat on by a monkey, or giving up and sitting in the middle of the path, literally. In my detachment, Jasper did most of the navigating because he was clearer and our methods were very different, and I was a lazy fuck. For the night portion, we actually finished so early that we just sat somewhere to just chat. The troopers cooked maggie and it was a pretty chill session.

Aaand, of course, it rained halfway through, because it always rains during outfield. So we were wet and dirty. Strangely, it was liberating to go "fuck the raincoat" and let the rainwater do its thing.

Let's skip the rest of the week and jump to Friday.

Yesterday, we had our water obstacle practice, where we had to - duh - cross a water obstacle, also known as a river. It was quite fun, although I guess it won't be when we have to do it in the middle of a route march. I was the duty sergeant for the day, and it was more tiring than usual because our platoon was all over the place, with the people with medical statuses, people involved in redoing navigation exercise, people involved in the actual programme, people involved in guard duty, people with medical appointments, etc. Meh. I'm not exactly a very capable sergeant.

After booking out, my parents used my dad's expired contract to get me a new phone, which I'm grateful for, so now, I'm using Sony Experia Z5. I also began sharing a room with my brother now. I'd been sleeping on a mattress "temporarily" in my parents' room for years, something I'm not proud of.

Today, my poly friends and I met to celebrate Matin's birthday at Nando's. It was a simple day, just hanging out, getting judged for eating ilao ilao, revealing secrets, standing in circles (it's our thing) in the middle of nowhere, and talking about future plans. I guess many of them are going overseas for studies, but I'm not because I've decided that home is where my heart lies.

And for the next 30+ weeks, I'll be looking forward to home, and before I know it, this army thing will be over. As much as I hate it now, I'm pretty sure it will turn into sweet memories and funny conversations, like what happens all the time.

Labels: NS, things that happened