rey's ramblings

I crossed the bridge at 10:07 PM

Monday, May 14, 2007

Solace is not found by ourselves

Plug-in: Sophia - Nerina Pallot

i find that the poly lifestyle really suits me. the customization of your own
individual schedule allows you to whereas in jc, there really wasn't room
for anything else. this isn't saying that everything is a breeze in poly. of
course academic-wise, it can become rather hectic at times. like for example,
you could be thrown 2 or 3 projects to be completed in a week's time and
everyone in the group has to readjust their schedules so that meetings can be
organized, even still, in the tightest of timeslots. contrary to what most people
believe, there aren't really huge chunks of free time in the poly timetable.

there is really A LOT to do, both academic and admin matters alike. all the
breaks are usually spent finishing up non-academic tasks or meeting in groups
to rush projects before the deadline. but great satisfaction comes about by
planning well and ahead, because when everything falls into place, it just feels
awesome. that's what i've found and still find attractive about studying in a
poly.

anyway, last wednesday after the couple of lectures, i went back to cj! this time
it was because verin was dropping by as well and she wanted to give me the
sa t-shirt. a big thanks to her(: had fun talking with diana and fiona, both of
who were having suspension for something so trivial as skirt length. i really pity
cj girls, haha! fengheng came by after a while as well and then both of us roamed
around the school. really funny at one point because we happened to pass by
the piano near the hall and there was this quite pro guy who was playing and
fengheng was kinda harassing him about his skills! and oh yeah, i miss the cj
yong tau foo. if there's one motivation to come back, its having that(:

took a bus to church for prayer meeting later in the night but not before having
dinner with kevin and his older friends, yup. prayer meeting was really quite
powerful and i think the purpose was very urgent and clearly laid out. had
supper at the prata place in upper thomson later on with youth pastor and
some other youth cell leaders. the food there is good and cheap, besides their
prata is not the only yummy thing there!

went back to cj on friday as well! wednesday's was actually quite unintended
and impromptu but this time it was planned quite a while ago! met with teresa
at the canteen and suying came after a while. so we just talked and talked, along
with jack snap! haha, it was loads of fun just chilling out there.

then it was almost 7, so we left. met with cherie and went to island creamery
for a while to meet timo, jonathan, stella and yuxing. bumped into andrew wang
and talked about ib for a while. i also met xinru as well! there are a lot of people
you can bump into on a friday night at island creamery, trust me. left with cherie
and jonathan for paradiz and for the first time in a very long while, i actually
lan-ed! all the pool tables were occupied anyway.. played some cs maps for a while
until we got quite bored of it, so we switched to classic starcraft! haha, it was fun.
the last time i remember playing that game was even way before being in secondary
school. managed to rush back to dhoby ghaut mrt for the last train at 12:11, phew!

saturday, after youth, had dinner at s11 before returning to church playing a
modified version of truth and dare with rastus, rasmus and russell in the middle
of the empty carpark whilst waiting for grace and her father to come and unlock
one of the rooms upstairs which the twins left their blades in. then we bladed for
awhile in the very spacious carpark space. and i was really quite bad, haha but
definitely improving over the other time at east coast, which was my virgin blading
experience! (see how deprived i am, lol)

then it was almost 10 so the twins left for grace's house to prepare for darryl's
birthday surprise, while i bus-ed home with russell.

next morning woke up early and took a bus to darryl's place at sengkang. had an
early morning jog around 4km? and it was really quite tiring not only because it
was like only 9am but also because i hardly run these days without pe in poly! haha
but i should actually set aside some time for running. guess i don't want to slack off
and deteriorate into a state of no return!

anyway, the twins, darryl and i left for second church service and then we had lunch
with stefanie, grace and kevin at the prata place next to s11. anyway to cut the long
story short, after going from place to place, including back to darryl's house to get
some of our stuff, we finally got to climbasia at farrer park, which is this indoor
rockclimbing gym. met with sheila and ju er, a couple of the twins friends as well.
tried some interesting and rather tricky routes, one of which i could not complete,
a 90-degree inclined upside down maneuvre needed! oh, and i met mr terry
tan, my primary school maths teacher (who i'm extremely grateful to for helping
me with that a-star (: ) whom i couldn't recognise at first! has it been that long?
hmm.

parents came later and had mothers day dinner at boon tong kee hainanese
cuisine restaurant and the food was really good! plus our rice was the fragant
kind found in their famous chicken rice :D yeah, plus jessie and i sneaked off
later on for the mothers day surprise. and even though its not done everyday,
its great to see your mother smile.

laughin' to her favorite song
~reyz

I crossed the bridge at 10:21 AM

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Letting things take their course

Plug-in: Makes Me Wonder - Maroon 5

had my first formal presentation yesterday, which was for fundamentals of
marketing. but before i go further, i must comment on the sometimes dire
state of the mrt system here in the morning. wearing a long-sleeved shirt
and a laptop in tow, i ran to khatib mrt only to have not 3 or 4 but FIVE trains
with "do not board" notice passing by. and the 6th train was so crowded, it was
impossible to enter! i finally got onto the 8th train that reached the station and
even then i had to stand throughout the jam-packed journey, which was slightly
under an hour!

i'm really thankful however that our group was going last, so i still had time to
settle down and finalise the presentation agreements. and as it turned out, our
teacher victor joe judged us as the best even though we were all super nervous
and rather worried when we were the only group not to be asked questions by him!

serene, sophia and jun hao! fun-loving people. here's to our next PBL project (:

as for today, after school rockclimbing was really fun. and i think rockclimbing
is really quite something unique because its both a physical and mental sport.
in a way, its not just all brawns and no brain because especially for bouldering
since it does not involve any harness and you have to think very carefully
about the way you have to tackle a certain designated route.

had dinner with poo xiang, marcus liang, wei xue and zhen hui at clementi's
sumo house. the japanese food there is really cheap but still at least above
foodcourt standards.. anyway, i never realised poo xiang and marcus were in
acsp for six years as well! but i guess you don't really remember many people
from primary school. haha, the longest part of your education yet the least
memorable.. strange isn't it? anyway, i always knew there were a pair of liang
twins in my batch during my years in acsp, but i didn't know there were ANOTHER
pair of liang twins as well (although they weren't blood-related to the other pair).
and all 4 of them went to barker as well! haha, thats really cool.

something uncanny and also incredibly interesting to note is that since 2007 began,
i've been meeting so many twins! back in acsi, i only knew one pair of twins in our
level and they were indon scholars. and for some strange reason, since i was young,
i've hardly got to know any twins besides just by name alone. its something that's
really intriguing on hindsight! maybe its some kind of 'twin karma' year in the
dunno-what-ancient-philosophical cycle thing.

anyway, zhen hui kept questioning the reasons why i want to go to poly with my
points. i think she completely forgot that weixue got 8 points?! hahaha.

this time we'll take it slow
~reyz

I crossed the bridge at 10:56 PM

Saturday, May 05, 2007

Why do we keep going around in circles?

Plug-in: Love It When You Call - The Feeling

i think from now on, i'm going to blog once a week, most likely at the end of it.
reason why is being that i'm starting to get more and more busy everyday with
an increasing pile of projects and assignments along with a seemingly neverending
number of errands to run. plus ccas! even when i finally manage to get in front of the
computer and turn on blogger, my mind is usually a blank space and i seriously don't
want to waste blogspace just talking about random subjects, although i'd dearly love
to once i start to regain free time during term break holidays in which i'm not either half
dead or exhausted. but of course besides just going on in a monotone about what's
happened for the week, i'll try to sidetrack a bit and add interesting "sidenotes?"

actually, part of the reason why studying in poly is exhausting for me, is having to lug
my laptop around almost everyday (besides sp's sadistic layout which makes you climb
at least 5 flights of staircases to get to every class) unlike other classes or polys where
the "timetable people" are nice enough to arrange lessons in such a way that you don't have
to bring your notebook for entire days, i have the utter misfortune of having to bring my
laptop almost every day (except for wednesdays) and i'm seriously trying to find
alternatives instead of having to drag a 2.5kg slab of metal around. it is really NOT cool
contrary to popular belief, especially when the journey to sp from my house is an hour
(another reason why i don't go to school in little bundles of energy) and the thing really
limits your mobility and movement. and you're always inclined to rushing straight back
home after lessons instead of going out, because going out with this 2.5 kg piece of
junk lappy is super inconvenient.

really though, i like my laptop and everything. and i think it's fun to feed off wireless
networks in public and SP, along with draining public sources of power but i must
emphasize again that it really isn't economical(?) to carry a notebook around everyday.
hence, i might want to start thinking of ways to limit laptop usage to IT apps and stats
software lessons. i'm even going to ask teachers whether i can do my online tutorials at
home, hah!

okay, thats about my tirade on cumbersome notebooks! haven't had one in ages.

anyway, the week's been great. had ben&jerry's on monday night with stefanie, julia,
garey, grace and darryl at the cathay along with the twins, both of whom came halfway
through. we are thinking of performing at b&j sometime soon but nothing's confirmed
yet, everyone's really packed even for the june holidays.

slept late on labour day. felt really great to just wake up super late and laze around for
the rest of the day. i highly doubt i'll get to do this at all til our 6 week september holidays,
which i really look forward to (: anyway i'm glad i've got some things settled and resolved
out!

had lunch after school with janice at j8's ajisen ramen on wednesday, then bought a pair
of leather sandals at the leather atrium because i only have a simple pair of slippers that
are a size too small for my feet now.

thursday ran overtime, one of the first times a lesson actually ran overtime by almost 15
minutes! train-ed with weichong and ruiling. one thing cool about sp is that almost
everyone here takes trains as the main mode of transport so you'll always have people
going in the same direction that you can talk with. got down at orchard and met cherie
at far east for a quick lunch at subway. then she had to leave for school again so i spent
my time at borders (i've not abandoned reading books... yet) waiting for elaine to come
and she finally did just in time for our bioskin appointments..

which turned out to be not bad. i realise though that facials are heavy marketing machines
because they don't really do much to improve your skin. in fact, there isn't actually any
definite way to get rid of pimple-prone skin though, you just have to clean your face
regularly and wait it out.. but the thing about it was that the experience felt really good!
plus they give you massages as well. so at the end it was more of a relaxing thing than
helping my skin to get better, haha. i definitely wouldn't have gone for it, if it was at the
original price though. had dinner at sakae with elaine before going home.

today was fun, fridays are my kick-back-and-relax days man. left after school to meet
rastus at the ngee ann bus-stop, then we took a bus back to cj. we were slightly worried
about getting caught since we were wearing casual. but it turned out to be okay, because
the security guard didn't say anything when we walked past and michael tan went past
us countless times when we were there! went to the canteen and met the ex-1T02 people
plus sonia. i really miss these people, they never fail to make me smile! walked around
with rastus for a while and talked to many people, mostly answering "where have you
been??"s and "why'd you want to leave cj?!"s. and it wasn't very easy to explain the
same reason over and over again to different people because after a while, my explanation
became increasingly less passionate and i realise that some part of me still questions why
i left cjc even though at one point, i was quite 100% sure that i didn't want to do the jc
curriculum anymore. i really miss all the people i've got to know over the past 3-4 months
in cj! =/

we walked over to the grandstand and waved to bev and diane, who were having
volleyball training before returning to the canteen. had a light lunch before lucille came
over with fengheng. and then both of them actually tricked us into believing that they
were a couple since january! wahaha but the giveaway was when lucille didn't want to
share food with fengheng. that was SO obvious already! then eddie, mingxuan came over
and we talked for a bit more before they left except for lucille who waited with us til
teresa and michelle came over from their softball match vs rj and then we bridged, jack
snapped and daidee-ed. some of their ijtp-cjc friends dropped over to play for a while,
wanyu and rachel tan. jack snap was super hilarious! rastus had to go back to ngee ann
after a while and by 6 i had to leave too. met erika at the bus-stop and whilst on the way
to orchard, we talked about how much we all missed 1t02! =( your best memories in life
are always the shortest, sigh..

some photos taken with laptop cam at the canteen together with
joel, lucille, erika and cherie!

cherie has a thing for pinching heads (esp erika's)

dropped by joel's place at novena for a while because i wouldn't have enough time to go
back home and reach vivo in time for spider-man 3 later on. but unfortunately, i accidentally
fell asleep! and by the time i woke up it was already 8. so i rushed down but made it in
time to vivo for dinner with kevin and darryl before we met up with grace, julia and garey.
after much hassle, we finally made it into gvmax.

spider-man 3 was to be honest, good. it wasn't exactly the best blockbuster in years but
it certainly was one heckuva extravaganza with brilliant special effects. i'd agree that one
flaw was that its characterization was stretched thin due to its multiple main leads all
having their own story and competing for screen time, even though if they tied up
everything in the end. it was visually spectacular but even though it didn't feel as
refreshing and original as the first two, i thought it was more of an enjoyable ride and
the themes of friendship were good. the last part was kinda sad and also a bit surprising
because i thought there were very strong hints that ____ ____ was going to die instead.

so all in all it was really quite good, better than the 2nd instalment at least which i felt
could have been done away with: the whole doc ock sideplot.

after the movie ended, kevin took a bus back and the rest of us went to the mrt station
only to be told that we would be taking the last train and there were no more northbound
trains from dhoby ghaut anymore. but still wanting to get as near to home as possible, i
decided to follow julia, grace, garey and darryl northeast-wards. however, the train
stopped at clarke quay and they told everyone that there was some kind of malfunction
and the train would be going back to harbourfront and that we would have to take shuttle
buses to dhoby ghaut for THE last train. it was all very confusing at first because the
announcement wasn't clear initially either. but after much trouble, we finally got on to
the ACTUAL last train. dropped off with darryl at sengkang and thankfully my dad was
feeling very charitable and most importantly, awake, so that he could pick me from
opposite the station.

and that's about all, nights!

all i wanted, was to find a way back into love
~reyz

I crossed the bridge at 1:16 AM

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