damnnnnnnn blardi cute

Well my second session of "on-the-job-training" (read: you'll work and we won't pay you! muahahaha!) as an usher and the event turned out to be some primary school musical! I could barely keep from laughing out loud as all these little kids pranced around on stage in fairytale costumes and sang cutesy pie songs! Everything was just so.....erm....cute? The fairytale names, the frilly costumes and overdone makeup, the pri 1 little boy trying to pull a mariah carey and not being all that successful and of course the super ultra cheesy plot that could only be pulled off by a bunch of 7 year olds. Cinderella, Sleeping Betty, Ruby the Red Riding Hood and Goofy the big bad wolf's son go save FairyGodmother and Fairyland! HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA! As one of the other ushers put it

"SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO CUTEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!"

And as if to remind everyone that this was in fact a government school production there had to be the standard multi-racial song and dance sequence. So we have the male lead and a fairy singing and dancing about how wonderful it is that there are Malays, Indians and Chinese all living happily together....in Fairyland. And when they started rattling off names of dishes in the song I had to put a hand to my chin to keep my jaw from dropping. Eh we Singaporeans really one kind..

Laksa, chee cheong fan, roti prata, satay, orh luat, fried rice, hor fun, hokkien mee, char kway teow......

Tear

For everything You've done for me
Hung yourself upon that tree
I'd like to say, I bow my knee
Lift my voice and worship Thee
But I know if I should try
I'd be telling, one big lie

Lord I'm weak and I'm broken
I've lost my devotion to You
And I'm tumbling down
Being tossed all around
I can't seem to find my home....

And then I see you standing there
My burdens, sorrows, my sins to bear
I know I've lost my way somewhere
Jesus I need you to help me mend this tear

You showed me how to be someone
Eyes on heaven, praise be the Son
I tried my best, I tried so hard
Took one step, crumbled apart
Now I know, I understand
After all, I'm only a man

Lord I'm weak and I'm broken
I've lost my devotion to You
And I'm tumbling down
Being tossed all around
I can't seem to find my home....

And then I see you standing there
My burdens, sorrows, my sins to bear
I know I've lost my way somewhere
Jesus I need you to help me mend this tear

I know I've lost my way somewhere
Jesus I need you to help me mend this tear

bank account blues

How come its like so damn difficult for me to earn money?

Some people coach sailing earn oodles.

I can't even pry myself out of bed to train for ippt.

Some people get free tenehneh speakers.

I get free small pack of super-ring from arts club when I show my matric card.

Some people stand around wear clothes for a couple of hours get 200 bucks.

I become guinea pig, wear funny attachments on my chest, blood pressure clasp on my arm, take readings and fill up journal every half an hour and cannot bathe for 24 hours, get $150.

tamade :(

exodus

This is it I think.

I'm sitting here on a Sunday morning and service starts in 7 minutes and I realise that I just really don't want to go. I can't muster any enthusiasm for it at all. Honestly going to service and cell group these past few weeks have been nothing short of a chore. To tell you the truth, I dread going to cell group every Saturday because it means I'll have to put on a facade again. Pretend I'm actually learning something or being 'refreshed' when I'm not. I try to arrive after they're done singing songs of praise because I know that I wouldn't mean a single one of those lyrics. You're supposed to feel refreshed and good after worship, and God knows I did in the past, but now I just feel like the world's biggest liar. Ditto for service on Sundays. Why am I sitting here typing this? Because I really really don't want to go all the way to that tired old room and watch the fiction unfold. I'm not sure how many of those kids really know what they're there for. I think I used to know but I don't now and I'm tired of saying I do.

I need to leave.

The hardest part is how to tell my friends about this. Friends whom I've known for just about all of my life and who are in leadership positions all over the shop, including leading my cell group. I've got to attend disciple group with jh and Nelson later and honestly I'm dreading it. I can't see it as anything other than a waste of time right now. This session has somehow managed to keep getting postponed and to tell you the truth, I've been so relieved everytime. I can truthfully say I was actually relieved to get the recall order a couple of Saturdays back and head all the way back to camp because it meant I wouldn't have to sit through disciple group.

I need to leave. I wish it hadn't come to this after all these years but I need to leave.

here's where i pretend i know something

While not-trying-very-hard to study psychology yesterday I came across this bit about an undergraduate's stress scale. The chapter was Stress and Health. You can just hear Alanis Morrisette singing in the background can't you?

But anyway this scale gave 'stress units' to different kinds of things that could happen to an undergrad in the past 12 months like having 2 exams on the same day (80units), financial difficulties (84 units) and even being raped (100 units!). You're supposed to add the scores of all the stuff that applies to you together and then you get a measure of how stressed you are. Supposedly if you get a score below 150 you're fine and dandy and if you get something above 300 chances are you might be in for a visit to the madhouse sometime in the near future.

I got 744

Bloody hell....

the heat is onnn

Just handed up my final assignment of the semester and sitting in the library in a drowsy stupor. I have 13 days to go through about the facets of the Korean, Vietnam and Gulf Wars, 500 pages of psychology and aboout 3000 years of fucking Chinese imperial history. I'm really really tempted to write some anti-chinaman statement right now but ok I'll exercise some restraint. Suffice to say that in my almost 23 years of existence I've yet to meet a chinaman worth anything more than a lump of donkey poo.

Ok rant over.

On a completely different note, I just found out (to my immense chagrin) that two seperate groups of my friends just happen to be going to Thailand at the exact same time so they're gonna be meeting up and having a whale of a time! Aw crap! And here I am going with Mark and Grace, who just have to insist on getting the king size bed and not the two twins.

Shit man Mark. I'm sleeping in the bathtub.

vocab

The plural of moose is NOT meese.

bike theft project

My dad really ought to see this considering how he keeps giving me a hard time over my insistence on keeping the bikes in the house. Given this was in NYC but really, the situation in Singapore isn't much different.

sigh

Well at least I'll never walk alone...

say huuuh?

Wow, as if its not enough that they haven't exactly got a reputation for being the brightest people about, Americans have found themselves a new cause to campaign for.

To ABOLISH HOMEWORK on the grounds that:

"There is nothing that shows that kids will be smarter or better educated...if they do homework. So kids are spending a lot of time doing work that nobody has really been able to say is beneficial"

Well at least so says the co-author of some anti-homework book.

Um...well...ok lady, whatever floats your boat...

above the wreckage

Its 0125 in the morning and I really should be sleeping considering I pulled yet another all nighter trying to finish some project report. Thank goodness thats one of the last assignments I have left so I can get down to studying proper. Now its just one more essay and that damned exchange application. Hungary here I come!

Hmm... I'm supposed to go join jh and company for the 2nd Link run tomorrow but looks like I'm gonna pass. But then again it'd be nice to know whether I can still pull 10 km. Can't believe the last RealRun I took part in was more than a year ago already. Shucks really need to get training again. Problem is, I need people to motivate me. Any volunteers?

Aimless surfing got me flicking through a whole bunch of food blogs and got me thinking what the hell happened to my cooking aspirations? Thats it, once the exams are over I'm getting my hands dirty again. Hmm.. ok I meant that purely as a figure of speech..

On another note I found the blog of the guy who's doing the Friday night gig at Ben n Jerry's Cathay now. Used to be Mark's band taking it up but they're kinda on a hiatus because of the exams. *shudder* Anyway, I don't often tell people this but seeing them up there really just makes me wish it could me performing. I think singing and playing in a band has been something I've dreamed of since God knows when but somehow I've just never managed to find the people and sometimes even the courage to pursue it. I'll admit it, when I watch any band play, especially covers, I get more than a few 'hey i could do that' moments, be it EIC or 7-in-a-Car. Ah well what the hell. Rallying call people. Essential ingredients: 1 electric guitarist, 1 bassist, 1 drummer. Hmm, a keyboard wouldn't hurt either. Haha especially not if you look like Amanda Ling....oooh...Amanda Ling...

And on a final and totally unrelated note. Thought it'd be interesting to find out what a club's official media writes about itself when its all the bottom of the table so I went and took a look at Newcastle's webbie. Now that is truly a classic exercise in positivity. No talk at all about the dismal state of the club and the terrible way they've been playing. Just talk about what a great job Glen Roeder's doing and his always positive outlook for the next match. God I hope that never happens to the Reds.

Herald to the faithful. Arsenal tomorrow boys. YOU'LL NEVER WALK ALONE!!

zhong fucking guo

Right now, the words "goddamn motherfucking pissed off and want to burn all of beijing down" would just barely cut it to describe what I'm feeling.

Finally get back this research paper on imperial chinese history back and lo and behold, it heralds a first in the personal history of Isaac Tan. For the first time in my life I've been told that my 'english needs more work'!

Now normally I wouldn't be very much offended, if at all. But the dog that tells me that my english needs work is a goddamn motherfucking cheebye CHINAMAN!! And not just any chinaman.A chinaman who wouldn't be able to pass the QET (qualifying english test) if you held a gun to the collective heads of all his family and friends. And to make it worse he lambasts the whole class for crappy english, proclaiming his right to condemn us. This, from a guy who pronounces 'chariots' as 'choice' and 'infantry' as 'iffy'.

Yeah I know he might speak bad but write good. But an examination of my paper shows him penalizing me not because I had utilised bad grammar or vocabulary, but simply because he could not understand the way I was putting things. I know I'm usually a culprit of using more words than is strictly necessary but then Shakespeare didn't get where he was by being particularly concise did he?

Ok rant over. Temper's draining out. I'm just really really sore about being robbed a grade because my school would rather save money and buy one of these 'budget phds'. Why should students be expected to pass a qualifying english test when their english is deemed not good enough when there are lecturers running around who can barely even make themselves understood?

fuck

endurance

This marks the my 38th straight hour of being awake.

Well ok not counting occasionally collapsing briefly in front of my computer.

I should be in the Impreza challenge then at least got car to show for and chase za bo.

Oh well at least I got to see the sunrise.

zzzzzzzzzz

no face already

So the ride on Thursday was going pretty well. Managed to maintain bout 34-36 km/h all the way and stuck with at least some of the pack though we all chickened out of going the Raffles Marina route.

And then on the way back it happened.

Was pushing off at a traffic light when the whole £)%£($%£)$*"£ saddle just happily FELL OFF the bike. And along with a whole bundle of parts. Onto the MAIN ROAD. So there I am in the middle of a busy road still half clipped in with bike parts strewn all over the road, and about 20 cars barrelling down towards me with their horns blasting and headlights flashing like mad. Think
split-second-before-becoming-roadkill deer.

Luckily there are some subtle differences between humans and deers so I try desperately to make my way to the pavement. And this about the time I realise my bibshorts have somehow managed to get themselves hooked on one of the screws that used to hold the saddle in place.And what better place for them to get hooked at but at (you guessed it) my frikkin arse. And so you have an orange clad deer with his bike parts all over the floor and dancing around trying to detach his bum from his bike.

Shit.