rey's ramblings

Stigma Stigma Stigma Stigma Stigma

Plug-in: Bigger Than My Body - John Mayer

why does everyone follow the bandwagon? i guess perhaps human nature is not
to walk down untrodden paths because maybe deep inside we're afraid that if
we get lost, we get lost alone. i think we all would rather get lost with the crowd
because it looks like an option that's a lot safer.

well, for some reason or another i've landed myself into this dilemma of sorts.
either way, I think i'll regret my decision whether it is to go to poly or stay in jc.
granted that jc does have its perks in career options. for example, science-related
careers like engineering, medicine and also law, would be more suitable if you
studied in a jc. of course this doesn't mean that all the other people studying in jc
that have other careers in mind are wasting their time. admittedly jc's do allow
a faster route to the university but the thing is that it has a greater advantage
compared to a diploma only when used locally because due to our government's
emphasis on a levels, demand and supply dictates that for local universities, more
places have to be opened up for a level graduates.

but once it comes to overseas uni, both poly and jc graduates have equal standing
already. so if i know what i want to do in the future and i really don't intend to
study locally because a)i want to be able to get a taste of what it's like to study overseas
and experience something different. and b) i don't want to spend my entire education
here in singapore because it really feels like the whole 'jing di zhi wa' idiom - like its the
easier route and more comfortable but you'll never get to see what's out there! i know
its not practical especially when it comes to the financial part but this is why i've got
to work really hard no matter where i am now so that at least perhaps i could get
some form of subsidy, grant or scholarship from the uni.

on a sidenote, i dont want to end up just like one of those people who climb up all the
way to a masters but end up not doing what they had in mind initially for the rest of
their lives. that would be the most dreadful thing, to spend the rest of your life doing
something you never had in mind.

poly wasn't like what it was a few years back. people went in because they had no
other choice not because they wanted to. in fact nowadays there are many courses
you can't get into but you can still get into srjc, innova for example. and university
admissions were almost zilch. but it really is very different nowadays contrary to
what some people still think, although university admission still isn't a 100%
guarantee thing, so i'll have to work very hard if I want to get a degree.

but then again, who says taking the jc route is a 100% guarantee for university?
sure, the rates are higher but university admission is one thing and course admission
is another. not all who make it through to university end up doing what they had
in mind originally.

really, there are a whole bunch of other factors that i've considered when comparing
poly to jc. a more flexible curriculum and timetable amongst so many other things.
and plus chinese and math are really taking a toll on me in jc. however, for culture
wise i would actually stick to a jc because admittedly enough it really is nicer there.

i guess if you haven't made up your mind on what you would want to do, jc is definitely
safer but the question is what if you have? is it really still wise to stick to a jc when you
can make it in compared to getting a headstart in your 'real' studies?

my whole life i've always been following the whole "grab the best place you can get"
mentality which has been very strongly nurtured by the society at large. But when
has that ever done any good for me? maybe it's about time I started to stand up and
think on my own two feet for myself instead of just taking the most obvious route.

last sunday was east coast park with lsbc youth and i discovered i'm a complete bozo
when it comes to rollerblading hahaha! my sister tagged along and i think she didn't
have her lunch so she got really dizzy at one point and fell, injuring her arm and then
she complained of severe headaches. so there were a lot of problems in getting her back
and at one point we realised we were late in returning the blades so i had to bike back
at full speed with some of the blades. luckily my sis recovered after a while and we all
decided not to have dinner and bus-ed back then.

after school on wednesday, teresa came back from nj bringing each-a-cup bubble tea
with her! awesome, thanks so much (: oh and by the way, each-a-cup is only 1.20 there.
thats like really really cheap. shucks, why doesn't cjc have sweettalk or something huh.

anyway, after we walked around school with lucille for a while, three of us left for
woodlands library where we actually studied! :O okay, this is a positive development in
my studies!haha, lucille's neighbour johnny(?) came over after a while and he was studying
for his O's which brought back a lot of memories :P but anyway, it was really funny and
also weird because johnny kept pestering teresa to LITERALLY rub off some of her
intelligence on him so she gave him the LOOK. hahaha!

it was okay after a while and we asked/helped each other on some work so that was good
and productive (: we had dinner at long john silver's afterwards before lucille left with
johnny, then teresa and me train-ed back home. yeah, more study sessions to come in
the future yup!

went for the sajc life concert with charisse and sister on friday night which was fun but i've
got to admit that the music and atmosphere was still eons away from rockefella. the message
was actually good though(:

met up with some new people later on, specifically og7 which consisted of vanessa, john, LL,
sherman, timothy and jane. was introduced to them by tus and mus because they knew
vanessa. so we all trooped down to newton food centre and although initially i thought their
food would be more ex and less worth it than chompchomp, i was quite surprised to find that
their prices were actually more decent than before. shared stingray, fried prawn mee and
oyster omelette! afterwards we played a bit of bridge and i finally learnt how to properly
bid, haha you see i'm such a noob.

we then quickly rushed for the last train so that we wouldn't have to take midnight surchage
taxis and most of us actually dropped off around the same two stops yio chu kang and khatib,
haha! oh yes and vanessa is really funky. she has to travel from yck to acjc every morning
but she's still so bubbly!

anyway, today was youth again then went back with the twins to their house to watch
time machine before playing badminton with eryn and her brother. anyway eryn is now
suffering the toll of the 1 hour plus journey i've taken for 4 years to acsi. haha i wish her
all the best of luck cos it's really really tiring! left for home later on but thankfully i've just
reached back in time before it's started to pour (at midnight for goodness sake!)

and it's the final bell
~reyz

I crossed the bridge at 11:34 PM

Saturday, March 24, 2007

The fine line of rhythm

Plug-in: Ruby - Kaiser Chiefs

school has started again and it really feels nothing like the first two months i've had.
the tutorials, assignments, cca commitments are all piling up and to be honest it's really
tiring me down to the bone. i can barely stay awake in most of the lectures.

i miss so many things about the first two months. our fun-loving ig3, which would go out to
town until the latest hours of the night and which made adjusting to jc life so much easier.
i still remember all the times when we'd constantly make fun and tease each other about
almost everything. and all the times in which we'd talk about anything under the sun.
sometimes i still find it amazing how quickly we bonded in a couple of days. next outing in
june, yeah!(:

the crazy 1t02, which i had apprehensions about at first but as the weeks passed, the people
became more and more a part of life in cjc. there were so many memorable things about the
first two months. the after school truth and dare games, the whole class migrating to the
toilet during math tutorials, bollywood dancing at 7am in the morning, groupwork which we
almost never get anything done, poking fun at the teachers, poking fun at each other, the
class jersey, makan sessions with brownies, chicken wings, mee goreng, passing notes like
"there's a footprint on the ceiling" around the lecture hall and taking turns to laugh while
watching people react, plus all the other countless eccentric, spontaneous behaviour that
could fill out the entire length of this post. <3 you guys and we've gotta plan some more barbeques soon yep!

plus there were so many other people and things about cjc 1st 2 months that made it seem
so special. of course cjc is still fun now but as i said it's nothing like it was. OH WELLS.

my class now is 1t27 and it is quite a fun class so far actually. haha we've already planned pool outings and a class hoodie! so by all right, things are looking up =)

left with nanda when school finished on thursday to meet up with rastus and rasmus for
300. nanda and i went to lido at first but we had second thoughts about trying to sneak
in there after recalling the number of times we've known of people who have been caught
there.

then we bus-sed down and met the twins at the cathay. so we were deciding who to
approach the counter first and i went, but it was really stupid on hindsight because i was wearing uniform. so naturally halfway while i was checking the seats, the woman stared
at my badge and then said "are you sure you're 18?" and before i could even reply she
asked me for my ic so that was endgame. then rasmus went forward after a while and he
got the tickets! after all they were wearing street clothes and a beanie so they didn't look
like they were schooling. but actually both of them aren't really schooling anyway, haha!

got some crispy chicken before watching 300 which was breathtakingly awesome, especially
the visuals. there were some unexpected moments of baring including that oracle scene
which i was more surprised to see than all the gratuitous gory violence! although the story
wasn't exceptional i think everything else about the film was so damn cool and spectacular.

after the movie, we sent nanda off at the bus-stop (the 14 which took forever to come)
before heading back to khatib. then we had dinner at new york pizza because there wasn't
any food at home for either of us. the lasagna was quite overpriced actually but it was
really funny when mus tried feeding me it haha! then it was ramly burger time before
heading home.

had swimming this morning with janice and joel at janice's condo. it felt really good to just
not do anything for once when entering a pool! then it was lunch at subway in j8 before
i headed down to the twins church at hougang, living sanctuary, meeting my sister on the
way. the youth service was really quite good, probably even more charismatic than aog.
and the focus on 17 year olds learning how to lead and organize the youths was something
new for me. there was dinner after cell with the twins, kevin and darryl before heading
back to the church to pick my sister from cell before taking a bus back to the twins place
and watching final destination 2. haha, another gory movie again!

anyway, it's about time i shared something. its really cool how i can discuss a lot of stuff with
the twins and not only do they listen but they also give advice along the way. increasingly
i realise that our backgrounds are actually not very different from each other like our family
heritage for instance is just one out of many things. our mothers are both hakka and their
families stay in johor. then the ccas we joined in secondary school are also the same, heck
we even went to all the same camps and imt practices for ncc. and these are just some of
the things.

okay, so if maybe these could all be just a series of coincidences, maybe they really could
be. but it really is uncanny when we compare and realise the similarities. even our family
structure is the same in terms of order and even age except they have twins where i'm
supposed to be. haha, so cool right?

despite having studied in northview instead of acs, they scored better than me for their O's
so that just goes to show that you don't have to come from a premier institution to do well.
it really is all up to your own discipline and mindset. in a way, it's amazing because initially
i didn't think i would've expected to make such good friends with them but the thing is that
they really don't think and behave someone from a neighbourhood school. haha really i'm
not the only one, this is what even a lot of their friends from cjc and sajc say about them as
well. they have very positive mindsets about a lot of things and it's obvious at times how
deep their faith in God is. haha well i guess this is my perspective but hey, in life we all see
something different in others. another thing also is that i don't feel weird or separate at all
whenever i'm with them. its strange to say but it feels like as if i'm with people i've known
all my life.. ahh i'm really blessed to have found such friends (:

fire from the skies
~reyz

I crossed the bridge at 11:33 PM

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Show me your sunshine

Plug-in: Don't Matter - Akon

these march holidays were one of the laziest i've ever had considering that
there was absolutely no homework to be done because the orientation ended
nicely just before the holidays ended leaving no room for us to get settled into
classes and having teachers pound us with endless tutorials before our break
starts (that will happen once school starts again)

anyway, the hols were really quite fulfilling and it was great that i didn't spend
a lot of time at home because that would have been a major waste of time.

after church on sunday, our cell - joel, charisse, marcus, vanessa, esther, serene
and i headed down to kenny rogers at great world before crossing over to the
opposite complex for bowling because its always fun to watch esther, being the
~~klutz~~ unlucky girl that she is, display newfound ways to strike the longkang
unintentionally. but anyway, the mood's been quite sombre recently because
charisse, marcus and vanessa are migrating overseas. furthermore, joel is
changing church due to parents. basically to sum it up, our cell is splitting up and
i guess we dont really want it this way but its like one of those moments in life
when there's a fork in the road and people go their seperate ways. its just the
part and parcel of life when you cant really expect people to stay rooted in the
same place forever.

the past 5 years or so have been fun and awesome when we hang out together,
worshipping God in church, chilling out and jamming at each other's houses, i
forgot to mention how charisse's party at her house two saturdays ago was really
fun albeit noisy.

hey but im sure we'll definitely meet and catch up in the future soon again though.
i guess we should really see this as less of a split but more of a chance to prove our
unity (: nevertheless, farewell party soon!

anyway, went out to for pool with the 1st intake ig. met up with bernice, oriana, lanz,
wei chun, rastus and rasmus at ps bk before heading down to paradiz. the pool tables
there were quite okay but they were a bit old. after some arcade-ing lanz left and the
rest of us headed across the street over to the rochor beancurd stall, which the twins
recommended. it was really quite the sex ~~estrogen not included~~, plus dipping golden,
crispy yu char kway in the tau huey was heavenly heavenly.

tuesday was dinner with janice at sushi tei vivo and then we walked around quite
aimlessly, window shopping etc. wanted to catch a movie but there wasn't anything
particularly interesting at the moment so in the end we just bought smoothies and
hung out around the boardwalk talking about all things under the sun. sometimes i
think that can be the most fun thing to do.

class lunch was on wednesday at breeks in taka. i miss 1t02 and all the goofiness,
random-ness that came along with it. was slightly late because i had to go for an x-ray
appointment to check my back which was experiencing some sharp pain for the past
couple of days.

the lunch was great but since rebecca and erin bought their boyfriends along it wasn't as
fun as it could have been. still, we headed down afterwards to the basement for gelato.
then it was a really funny bidding farewell to the couples before we headed to lucky plaza
for pool where no one believed it when crenshaw and audrey said that they hadn't played
pool for "very long". eh, i don't think getting to the magic 8 ball in 6-7 turns is anything short
of pure skill. tsk guys!

woke up slightly earlier on thursday and packed before meeting rastus & rasmus then
taking a train down to bedok to meet up with lanz, teresa, terence, sheryl and dong xing
at macs. i then proceeded to devour my packet of beehoon in a somewhat discreet
manner. took a bus down to east coast and we spent the rest of the day biking, kayaking
and getting a mega sunburn. it was quite unfortunate we didn't have a camera
if not there would have been lots of ~~camwhoring~~ fun moments to capture, haha.
we tried to bike to changi village but had no idea it was so damn far, so we gave up
somewhere very near changi airport. headed over to parkway parade where general
george (dong), abandoned us for his 7 o' clock ch8 show.

and to quote teresa "zomg, you are a guy and you watch THAT?"

ended with dinner at pastamania which was like a super cheese overload. played a very
short session of pool in parkway centre and the air-con there was so freaking cold (i was
wearing shorts! because of a rather big graze on my knee from a bicycle collision with
some kid earlier) but the tables were really good plus there was television to keep us
entertained, besides pool of course. took a very long bus ride back home with the twins
afterwards. i don't mind coming to east coast often but its seriously far away. almost any
mode of transport takes about an hour or more.

met up with javier on friday for lunch at vivo and tried out superdog for the first time.
the dogs there were so-so but i think the chilli cheese was good enough. then went to gv
to meet mingli for music&lyrics. which i didn't expect much from at all initially, but boy
it was really quite entertaining despite the rather formulaic rom-com plot. i think the
original songs were really good and the scenes with the shakira pop-queen-alike were
laughoutloud funny. not bad altogether.

yesterday was serene's birthday party and it was actually partially a farewell thing as
well. so it wasn't really fair to serene that we were all quite emo/moody throughout.
so sorry! but the food catered was good and we left for some kboxing afterwards at
cine. kbox isn't really my kind of recreation but it was worth trying out to watch
esther and charisse attempt songs with really high notes xD

came home first before heading out for chomps at serangoon gardens with xinru,
rastus and rasmus. it would have been even more fun if xinya came, and then my
attempt at matchmaking twins would have come to fruition HAHA but we still had fun.
bumped into many many cj people there. talked to diana, heather, eddie and ben before
we finally found a seat. after dinner was haato. GOD ITS LIKE CHEAP, GOOD GELATO
FINALLY! then we walked back to ru's place where we attempted to build sparkler rockets,
to much failure of course and then talked about jc/poly and the whole future plans kind of
discussion.

and then of course it was another long bus ride back with tus and mus. haha, i should
really record the number of times i say this.

had lunch today with family at ivins after church, which has really good peranakan food by
the way. got back home and the twins came over after a while and we watched the prestige,
one of the best movies i wanted to catch last year but didn't because of the o's. the plot was
really good and the way the whole thing played out including the ending was super cool.
we had dinner before hanging out at the computer again listening to music, watching videos
and then my sis came in the room and started talking to them and asking questions. eventually
they left after giving up trying to find out more about my sister's love life, hahaha.

so i'm blogging right now and yes, school starts again tomorrow ahh!

you can take the boy out of philly, but you can't take philly out of the boy
~rey

I crossed the bridge at 10:25 PM

Saturday, March 10, 2007

March to a new beat

Plug-in: I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor - Arctic Monkeys

well, orientation two's over and it wasn't much of a blast compared to o1 to
be honest. everything, the games and finale night were not as enthu, exciting
and memorable as the ones we had in the first couple of weeks in january, plus
orientation this time round was squeezed into two days due to time constraints.
of course its a lot better than say nj or aj's orientation still but i guess we can't
go around expecting magic to repeat itself.

my ig was not bad though, had cool leaders - eileen, mich and lester haha and
plus some familiar faces around like eddie and inez although there were a number
of first intakers that i couldn't recognise at all and i think elsewhere people were
equally stunned too when their igmates announced they were first intakers. i think
we just get taken aback when we realise that we think we know roughly who everyone
is but we actually don't. anyway i think i would have died of boredom during orientation
if not for xinru, eddie, terence and a couple others haha!

anyway, post-finale night on thursday, some members of our ig went out together
along with our igl's eileen, mich and lester who we waited a crazy 20 minutes for while
they were debriefing. haha, but i guess it was worth the wait and we were one of the
handful of igs who went out that night. xinru, hongzhou, daniel, samantha, zi jian, jia
yi and nicole came along too and we went to subway at far east. and it was ~~annoying~~
great to hear lester's long and pointless stories along with the hilarious aunty at the counter
who kept telling us really funny things.

yesterday after some lame class orientation classes, it was the cca fair where i just slacked
around at the pa pool before coming back to school and talking to some people like felicia,
prema etc. then bathed in school and changed before heading down to taka with terence to
meet tus&mus for dinner at yoshinoya. haha, terence was very amused seeing the twins
break out into singing occasionally (not the first time for anyone) hahaha! then we took a
bus back to school for rockefella! wanted to sit with the class initially but they couldn't get
all the front row seats so decided to sit with terence and the twins a couple rows back.

rockefella was awesome stuff, from the very first performance where there was a 'father'
rocking on bass, brother paul wearing t-shirt and jeans, laughing at the Vacuum Cleaners
and all the hot hot acts like ben's band, hot monks and faq but most of all, getting to see
tan jek suan our vp getting tossed around in the mosh pit. priceless stuff. had supper at
khatib market, prawn mee, char kway teow etc before we walked back to home. its
really cool how they stay nearby, can always have late night suppers haha

well, to be honest, i'm really quite contended to stay in cjc. the student culture here
seriously rocks. all the first intakers who left for other schools like aj and nj are
complaining about how dead and socially ~~retarded~~ inept the people there are. even
those who went ac and sa find their discipline systems annoyingly strict and not to
forget that ac is more chinese than anglo these days. some of them even crashed our
orientation instead of going for theirs. and cj's academics are getting better every year.
these two years are going to be awesome yep.

can't wait for the march holidays to begin! (:

euphoria en masse
~reyz

I crossed the bridge at 2:43 PM

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Slipped Up

Plug-in: Through Glass - Stone Sour

i'm really quite a fool for not realising that my cca grade was put down as ungraded.
guess it was complacency more than anything but really, how was I to know that such
an error could happen?

anyway now because of this error i couldn't get into either acjc or sajc but i have to fall
back to cjc. at least i should be slightly thankful that i didn't end up in one of the choices
after cjc, that would have been really bad. but i'm really quite upset at the system but
i think more than anything, it was my own carelessness that made me forget to double
check form a thoroughly.

called up the form teacher yesterday about this problem and she said that the only option
is to send in an appeal with relevant cca documents, records and proof of the grade. so
now i have to go and get this cca grade fixed before sending in appeals. but appeals only
go by raw points and it's not going to be easy.

anyway, orientation today was quite okay but it paled way in comparison to the one for
the first intake and i think it's not just cjc. everyone's so much less enthu when it comes
to the second intake because you can't just pretend to feel the same way all over again.

tripped over myself
~reyz

I crossed the bridge at 10:59 PM

Friday, March 02, 2007

Catch you with arms wide open

Plug-in: Starlight - Muse

i ponned school on monday to watch the oscars. haha okay seriously i was sick but it
just so happened to be oscars day la. anyway, it was my first time catching the oscars
live and man, there is so much you will miss out on when you watch the encore telecast
aside from the red carpet which is actually kinda boring but a lot of stuff is censored or
edited throughout the ceremony, especially the funnier, dirtier jokes and skits etc.

this year's ceremony was not bad, i think the departed really deserved to get best picture.
I HAVE STILL YET TO WATCH IT, QUICK, MOVIE TIME DURING THE MARCH HOLS.
best actor and actress, forest whitake and helen mirren (king & queen) were like shoo-ins
and all the rest was fine, dandy stuff. you know, there's just something about the oscars to
me that makes it easy to sit through every year, even all the boring technical categories. i
think besides the wonderful wonderful movies nominated (okay maybe not all), another
reason is that its presented differently every year, the gags never fail to crack me up and
it has this alluring sense of formality without being too dry. mm.

anyway, went down to the cathay in the evening to watch dreamgirls with sister and janice.
the show was quite okay, i guess the audience was quite annoyed and irritated with the
never-ending breaking out into song but honestly, they should have known it was a musical
even though there was way more singing than chicago and moulin rouge combined. i also
expected the story to be a bit darker but the drama turned out to be rather fluffy and
family-friendly in the end. although all in all, the music was good stuff.

after school on tuesday (a fabulous day btw, almost all lectures (; ) went to Borders
with gillian, joy, crenshaw and debbie to browse arty farty literature before we met up
with bernice at shaw house and had lunch, long john silvers, whilst delightfully watching
joy and debbie scamper off towards the escalator before they realised it was the wrong
one. it happens to EVERYONE i swear!

wednesday was stoning in school after curriculum because it was raining elephants and
whales, training was cancelled. so i took the time to get to know residents of the canteen
(the students not the stallowners) before bus-ed home via orchard with sylvie and kai an.

thursday was tres fun as a lot of people (like the whole arts stream) decided to pon the
last period of school, which was chinese for most of us haha. anyway, our whole class left
for prata house in annoying weather, which was like drizzling on and off. had a good time,
cheese prata, teh chino and all (:

then i took a bus down to the cathay to meet bernice and tus/mus. the ride was bloody
long and i just realised how hopeless long-haul bus rides are when you have the mrt in
singapore. a train ride down from khatib, my place, to dhoby ghaut = duration of bus ride
from thomson to same place x2. and thomson is like how much more near in terms of
actual distance la. anyway, was just in time and we watched letters from iwo jima which
was really good.

its very different from flags of our fathers and saving private ryan because those have a
perspective that is deliberately in favour of the US. i think what caught my attention the
most was the sound effects which were brilliant, especially when felt in a cinema. the story
was good but at the end of the film, i still couldn't understand the conclusion and whether
it was more of a political commentary or just simply a narrative set in a war. anyway,
bernice kept covering her ears/eyes whenever the gory scenes came on, haha.

ig lunch today at far east plaza with our igl jon lauw along with sheryl, oriana, bernice,
nick, lanz, joey and i had the chicken rice upstairs which was a lot better than eating
fast food. jon left for his CL a level results and we met xavier, jasmine, tus/mus, angeline
and philip at the basement. discussed a bit about possible march hols gathering before
sheryl/oriana/bernice/joey/tus/mus and i left to lucky plaza to pool. my first time there
and the place was kinda shady with its obscene drawings on the wall but its far cheaper
than monster cue plus people playing there were decent. haha, i need to practice more
often not irregularly if not ill never improve and i think that's how pool works lo. finished
about 6 and then train-ed back with the twins.

nice summary of the week's events eh.

take it to the back
~reyz

I crossed the bridge at 8:02 PM

Recent Bridges I Crossed

Archived Bridges