since 2004, my cousin and i have a tradition where during christmas and new year's eve, we'd go hang out in town with anyone else who's up for it, till the next morning.
the first two years we had a big group and all bought party sprays to play with, and everyone was doing it back then, unlike now with all the molesting shit going on. the first christmas we all walked home after midnight and it took about 4-5 hours.
then one year, party sprays suddenly got outlawed. sure there were still people playing, but it wasn't even close to the wars of previous years. besides, it was fine with everyone was doing it but now we didn't wanna become one of those 'idiots' playing.
as we grew older, slowly our numbers dwindled. there were other parties and celebrations to attend, and some just didn't like the idea of staying out overnight anymore. i was guilty of this for several years, usually only going on christmas eve.
last chirstmas, there were only 4 of us. my friend brought santa hats so we all wore them, but when we stepped out of the shopping centre and saw the killer crowd, we unanimously agreed that we should stay away. we spent the night dodging the crowd and kids with party spray.
but my cousin still got attacked by a random fat girl. we were chilling by the side of a road and the fat girl was crossing with some friends, party spray in hand. my cousin thought she looked familiar so we were looking at her. "i'm gonna kick her if she sprays me," i said.
she was a sly one, pretending to walk past us before turning around and spraying my cousin. i was really about to kick her. my leg was already raised for a side kick to the (fat) face, but i figured it would be kind of a big reaction to something we used to do too. so i didn't, and i sometimes feel regretful for that.
that night we left after 1am, the earliest ever. new year's eve was worse. it was only me and my cousin, and we went to mustafa (favourite place to go after midnight) after the countdown to check out the millions of cheap stuff they had.
on the topic of human migrations, last night i was watching a badminton match between china and malaysia when i noticed just how different they looked despite both of them being chinese. and the malaysian player is actually from malaysia, much unlike the sportsmen of singapore.
but even amongst singaporean chinese, we can usually tell the difference between us and those from china. we've only been separated for a couple of generations and already we seem to be diverging genetically.
it also made me wonder how much damage we could be placing upon our bodies by living in an environment that is different from what it is made for. probably not very drastic, but there's bound to be something. and of course, these days changes are happening so rapidly that it's almost impossible for the body to keep up naturally.
i think sometimes turning your thoughts into words would help you see things clearer and from different angles. thoughts in your head are just swimming about and hard to quantify.
this football thing, i've been focusing too much on what i used to do and trying to bring it back. but i failed to realise that the actions only come from my head, and it's still the same head up there.
the difference is in the state of mind. the head is thinking too much and doubting my actions.
so today i tried something different. i thought of the mindset i used to play in: fearless, aggressive, fun. let that mindset take over.
i'd like to think it worked rather well. i think it also helped that i watched some berbatov highlights the night before.
today both my brother and sister are going to change their phones to blackberry. my mother asked me if i wanted to change mine too. what's the use of a blackberry? i thought of my friends who had one...
in lectures, while walking, at lunch, at dinner, on the bus, in the toilet taking a shit, at home, in bed, while taking a shower, everywhere, all the time, pressing on their keypads. they seemed to be married to their phones.
although i was slightly in awe of the brutality and stark realities the show portrayed, i then realised that some people (cunts) might have found it offensive, especially after the part where they didn't allow the cameras to film them shooting the whale.
these people can get on their moral high-horse and claim that such actions are barbaric. why must they kill the poor innocent whale? or spear that cute little walrus? of course it's easy for them to say, when all they have to do to get their meat is to go to the supermarket. now i too can get on my horse and call these people CUNTS.
sometimes i see these animal-people putting up videos online, showing whatever animal getting slaughtered and go... oh look at that poor dolphin, poor whale, poor seal, poor shark. shit seriously, how do they think their meat get to their tables? do they think that the cows and chickens and pigs really die painlessly?
so what the fuck is up with this animal-loving? they're just horse-riders.
following the loss of their walrus colony, the villagers now had to hunt for a whale in order to make ends meet.
whales... i've been disgusted/fascinated (but mostly disgusted, i can't explain why) with them since i saw a feature that said that their closest relative is the hippo. i just couldn't fathom in my head how a land-based mammal could morph into a fishy-thing. part amazing and part disgusting.
so they went out to the sea in several small boats, hoping to spot a whale, and of course they did, or else there wouldn't be a show anymore. it was a 6m long grey whale. i wondered how where they gonna get it, since you know, the whale can just dive deep and like fucking swim away?
but they have been hunting whales for centuries, and they will not be denied their dinner! they stalked it, and when it surfaced to breathe, harpooned it and attached it to a bouy for easy spotting and so it couldn't dive deep. kinda like what the guy did in Jaws.
after about 5 more harpoons, they managed to control the whale and were about to shoot it in the head with a rifle, but they wouldn't allow the cameras to film this, as they were aware that many people (cunts) were against the hunting of whales.
shots were fired, and they towed the whale back to shore. when they were cutting open the whale, they showed some stuff that made me even more disgusted with whales (not their fault, i know, but i can't help it). the body of the whale was like a mini-ecosystem of sorts, with critters living in and about its body.
barnacles growing on its skin, and what seemed like an entire colony of coin-sized, crab-like parasites somewhere inside. they then proceeded to skin the whale with the help of a TRACTOR, and then cut it up and distributed the pieces to the entire village. nothing was wasted, not even the barnacle-clad skin.
a few days ago i watched a documentary on tv. the episode was focused on a small village on the coast of arctic russia, showing their way of life and also how they get food in their remote village. the people there were russians but they looked mogolian/chinese and it was kinda weird for a while.
summer was coming to an end, so they had to stock up on food before it got too cold and all the animals went away. most of their food came from the sea as agriculture was near impossible in the freezing temperatures, even in summer. fish, whales, walruses.
when i turned on the tv, the hunter was already sharpening his spear for the walrus hunt. it looked like a 15cm blade attached to a long, thin stick. how the heck is he supposed to hunt a walrus with that? walruses are big as fuck, in case you didn't know.
they later explained that they need to get at least 15 good sized walruses for the village of 400, and they prefer to use the spears rather than guns because the loud bang would frighten other walruses and cause a stampede, killing many, especially the young.
there was news that 2 walruses had strayed from the herd and were chilling out on a deserted part of the beach. what followed was one of the most brutal things i've seen on tv. normally when i see people 'hunt' on tv, it's either on man vs wild or in some rainforest tribe where the biggest thing they can get are little critters, easily dispatched within seconds.
this, however, was a huge animal well over 2m in length and fat as hell. maybe it was the size or the difficulty it took to kill, but this time it really felt like something died. weird?
the walrus was sleeping and the man tapped it on the head with his spear to wake it up. he said it was wrong to kill it while it was sleeping. the walrus woke up and was like wtf? looking at the guy as he circled it to the back.
then suddenly, he jammed the whole damn spear into the walrus from the lower back, through the stomach to the chest, aiming for the heart. obviously he missed the heart, and the walrus was thrashing about. the man then pulled and plunged the spear in a few more times, probably mashing up its entire insides while trying to hit the heart, until the walrus finally stopped moving.
it took only about 30 seconds and after that the man knelt by the dead walrus and stroked its head. he said "thank you for being my prey. sorry i had to kill you but i need to feed myself and my dogs."
they then dragged the walruses back to cut up and distribute. the next day, a few russian fighter planes flew very low and near to the walrus colony, frightening them and causing a stampede. lots of dead walruses washed up the shore, but they couldn't be eaten because of bacteria in the stomachs.
the villages felt that they had failed in their duty, as they viewed themselves as the guardians of the walruses. they protect them but also use them for food. the rest of the walruses had swam away and began their migration early due to the fright, leaving behind a few weaker and smaller ones.
this caused a great problem because the village only had 2 out of the 15 they needed, and the smaller sized ones wouldn't be enough. so, they had to hunt for a whale...
i've been playing football since i was 10, and i'd like to think i managed to get somewhat good at it. then i went to ns and hardly touched a ball for the duration.
now i've forgotten how to play, or more specifically i've forgotten how to be good at it. and i dunno if it's because i suck so bad now, performing well is now a big issue to me. i don't recall ever being really affected by a poor performance in the past, maybe because i never had one, or i didn't care even if i did.
nowadays i get very frustrated when i play badly (often) and from there it's a downward spiral. football doesn't feel fun anymore. i no longer play for fun, i play to play well and to prove to myself that i still got it. nothing hits me worse than when i play like shit.
i used to scoff when they say that a player's performing badly because of low confidence or other psychological issues. what difference does it make? the ball is still the same and you kick it as you do every week. that's the way it was for me at least.
now i begin to understand. last week i read an article about rooney's return to form. can't recall the exact words, but it went something like "he's finally stopped trying to remember what it was like to be world-class and actually started playing."
that was exactly what i have been doing, trying to remember how it felt. now i just need to work with what i have, learn to go with the flow instead of thinking all the time. let's see where this takes me.
"i'm leaving this place, but there's nothing i'm planning to take. just you." no one would riot for less - bright eyes
you know when you watch post-apocalyptic movies, sometimes at the beginning there's a montage of shots showing how the world ended up at its current state?
disease, famine, riots, wars, natural disasters.
maybe it's just me, but i saw all of that in the newspapers.
i made this for my room because the walls were too bare. i've been meaning to make a frame around the edges but until now it's still not done, and my walls are still bare. that's how a lot of my projects end up. good enough for me to envision the outcome, but not quite completely finished.
when i bring it up to a certain point, i feel that it's at an acceptable level, and any further work is not quite worth my effort. i just don't see the fun in carrying on. my room's like that, my bike, lots of things. usually if i can finish it in one session, it will definitely be completed. the more sittings it takes, the lesser chance it'll be completed.
these things i do, i think it's more to see how far my ideas translate into reality than to achieve perfection. once i see that it's there, i guess that's when i feel my work is done.
i've been studying for my exams since january, and that's really totally completely unheard of. me studying 5 months in advance? i'd be laughing at myself if i didn't know any better. what i need to do though, is to avoid seeing this studying thing as another project, because it's definitely starting to take that shape.
"are you praying to the same god that made this happen?" - comment on a youtube video of the japan tsunami
religion to me is something that my grandparents do, or used to do. when i was young we would all go to the temple during the times that we were supposed to go to the temple and make offerings to my grandfather or great grandparents. sometimes my grandmother would burn offerings in the corridor.
i wasn't brought up on any one religion. my grandparents were taoists, although not particularly devout, i think. there was an altar in my house and my grandmother would light joss sticks everyday. no one ever taught me anything about taoism. it was just something they do, like they have been doing all their lives, picked up from their parents and their grandparents. i wonder if my grandparents ever asked 'why' when they were younger.
when i asked, my mother taught me a more christian-orientated version of god, although she wasn't ever christian. god made the world. when people die, they go to heaven. if you're bad, god will punish you. we burn paper money and cars and houses and those in heaven will recieve them. that's just the way it was to me, and i didn't question much.
as i got older, i started to question. if god loves us, why does he make us suffer? if every religion has different gods, which one is the real one? and as i got even older, i asked even more. man created religion, but did god create man? if every religion we have today is drastically different from what they were centuries ago, how authentic are they? how about aliens? do they go to heaven too?
this generation has to be one of the most un-religious in the history of the world. we have too much knowledge available. we want the facts, we want concrete evidence. show me god and i'll believe in him, we say. but the problem is, religion is based on faith. faith is invisible, and we don't have time for that. we can question god and religion, but he's not around to answer them, and so we dismiss it.
i think humans cannot really survive without religion, because otherwise it wouldn't have been created in the first place. we need it, a blind faith, something to believe in, something to bring us through the darkest of nights. it may or may not be real, but as long as you truly believe in it, that makes it real, right? after all there is a lie in every belief.
me though, i think i have too many questions unanswered to be able to allow myself to believe in anything. i do want there to be a god though, because i want all my questions to be answered when i die. i don't wanna die and not know. aliens? sea monsters? big foot? ghosts? god? i wish i could know everything.
looking at the couples around, i get very confused by what it means to be a 'boyfriend' or a 'girlfriend.' for simplicity's sake, i shall concentrate on the former, since it also applies more to myself. so i look at all the boyfriends, i struggle to find a common point from which to begin.
there are nice ones who treat the girls well, bastard ones who do what they do best, noob ones who buy flowers during valentine's, and stupid ones who believe the girls when they say valentine's is totally lame and not important.
some are around their girls 24/7, while others only meet once a week. then there are the loyal ones, the cheating ones, the violent ones and the emotional ones. there are even those who deserve to be chokeslammed through a table for allowing the girls to walk all over their heads.
if ALL of them are boyfriends, then what does it really mean to be one? and following that point, what good does it bring to be 'in a relationship?'
a boyfriend is like a big question-mark, an ambiguous label that they put on. so why do people find it so important to be part of this mess? jump into the giant question-mark shaped hole. cage themselves in something that exists only in their imagination, define themselves with this ambiguity.
"hey this is my boyfriend!" it really doesn't mean a thing. or does it? maybe one day i'll try it and let you know. now, should i be the violent one or the cheating one? definitely not the one getting chokeslammed, that's for sure.
there was a time when i wondered how it feels to be a caucasian living in america or australia, knowing that the land does not really belong to them and that they're invaders of sorts. it must feel kinda weird, right?
then it suddenly came to me that i'm one of them too. this country is made up of invaders from china, and that's me. second or third generation singaporean. before this it felt so natural that i didn't even realise it, but now that it's in my head, yes i do feel kinda weird.
recently i caught a bit of the incredible human journey on tv and spent the past week fascinated by humans and their origins. what makes us the only human species to survive? would there be new humanoid species in the future? wiki to the rescue.
i imagined some of the pioneer groups of humans when they first moved out of africa and slowly took over the world, and also how it would be like to interact with some of the earlier human species that had long been spread across the world before modern humans.
i think these people, our forefathers, deserve a pat on their backs for their sheer inability to die off and one day turn into the most dominant species on earth. as the other human species slowly died off, they instead grew and expanded their population.
one of the more famous early human species, the neanderthals, is said to still live on. genetic tests estimates that 1-4% of european and asian (ME?) DNA is shared with neanderthal DNA, and at least one other species of DNA is still extant.
now i feel more weird knowing that i'm probably 1-4% neanderthal.
recently bright eyes released a new album, said to be their final one.
i heard my first bright eyes song in 2004. it was the calendar hung itself. i listened to it and i didn't understand the sound. it was messy and crazy.
after a few days and a few more listens, it started to get in my head. then, i looked up the lyrics and was blown away. messy and crazy, but there was something keeping it together.
now 7 years and 7 albums later i've probably listened to it a few thousand times and still can't get enough.
they won't be around much longer, leaving me with lots of good (and painful) memories. perhaps the worst part of this is that i haven't got the chance to see them live.
here's a playlist of songs from the albums i have, following the album listings. (eg for the first song i have to choose from track 1 of the albums)
1. clairaudients (kill or be killed) 2. padraic my prince 3. the calendar hung itself... 4. lua 5. lover i don't have to love 6. arienette 7. june on the west coast 8. haligh, haligh, a lie, haligh 9. a poetic retelling of an unfortunate seduction 10. no one would riot for less 11. from a balance beam
bonus a perfect sonnet i will be grateful for this day something vague a new arrangement drunk kid catholic
sometimes when i see a tourist's photographs of singapore, i realise that this place may not be quite as boring as i think it is. things that we find mundane through the years is very much an eye-opener to them.
looking at their photos, there are often many details that i've never noticed before but they've managed to capture because it's something new and interesting.
next time you're out, try playing the role of a tourist. look around you and notice all the details that you've been blocking away for all these years. you might be surprised by what you see.
i went on a trip to bandung, indonesia with 3 friends i knew from ns. this was taken outside the airport after we spent over an hour in immigration.
yes, that's the airport.
when we got off the plane and saw the airport, we all agreed that the sheng shiong opposite our station looks better. "welcome to sheng shiong," we said.
interesting looking airport aside, it was quite a fun trip. for starters, i didn't know it was going to be kinda cold until i checked wiki. who would have known that an indonesian city could have an average low temperature of 18 degrees in october? it was, because bandung is actually over 700m above sea level. it came as quite a relief since i was expecting to be sweating it out in the tropical heat.
i think because of the elevation, there was a lot of condensation on the roads at night. the roads were always wet and hilly, and yet the motorbikes there still zipped around with wild abandon. i feared for my life at times, but they all seemed to be very good at it.
the bad ones are all dead, i suppose.
bandung is well known for its factory outlet stores (wiki says), but i didn't expect factory outlets to be all there was there, or at least they were where we spent all our time at. my friends were on a crazy hunt for g-star clothing, and so we hit outlet after outlet looking for that elusive brand.
there was really a whole lot of stuff to buy, but too bad i wasn't terribly excited by any of that. i ended up flipping through the racks looking for their beloved g-star while hoping there was something that would catch my eye too.
we were supposed to go see some volcanoes on one of the days, but it rained so we went to see stars instead. i mean g-star.
at the end, it was quite a good trip. great food, fun company, although i suspect i might have been so happy if i had to go g-star hunting in 35 degree heat.
