strange happenings

my mother told me that my maid recently made a new friend from the neighbourhood. the friend is now working as a maid, but she used to sing for a living in japan (ktv hostess? no idea).

she lost her job after the tsunami and so had to come here to work as a maid. anyway my maid said that her singing is very nice and she would ask the woman to sing to her over the phone.

you think that's strange? after my mother told me this story, something i saw a few days ago finally made sense.

i went into the kitchen and my maid was standing by the window, singing to herself (as usual). but then i saw that she was holding her phone like she was using it.

wtf was she doing? was she singing into the phone?! i rejected that idea on the grounds of pure absurdity.

it seems that she was in fact singing a duet with her friend, over the phone. WTF?

try it

'happy' in chinese is 开心, which means open heart. that's how it works isn't it? if you want to be happy you have to open your heart to the world.

but of course, there wouldn't be happiness without sorrow, and opening your heart leaves you vulnerable to both. too bad there's no way around this, you can't just want the good bits without the bad.

so try opening your heart and maybe you might even like it.

runaway

perhaps some of you might recall my ill-fated attempt at running before i went to ns. i didn't even wear the shoes one time, and i gave them to my father last year. i think he has worn them.

i went to ns and reached my peak fitness level at about late 2008 to early 2009. i could run about 9:40 with relative ease. then i ended my training and got the office job.

there, i went to the gym very often because there wasn't much else to do. i hardly ever ran because i really really hate running. running is just making yourself tired for no damn reason.

instead, i was inspired by this video and decided to train myself to do a one-arm pull-up and also reach 20 normal pull-ups. it worked and i managed to do it, and my pull-ups also increased to over 25.

once i got it, there wasn't much reason for me to continue. i didn't see the point in getting to 30 or to do more one-arm pull-ups. the challenge had been completed and it wasn't interesting to me anymore.

i think that was around april 2010, which was also the last time i pulled on my running shoes. since then i've finished my ns and been living a rather sedentary lifestyle. soccer once a week and that's about it.

i still work out at home but nothing too extreme. the biggest accomplishment i've did was probably doing a pull-up with 23kg of weight on me. i watched as my stomach grew bigger each day.

finally on tuesday i decided that the growth of my stomach had to stop. i would now embark on a training program to regain my ippt gold and the $400 that comes with it.

yesterday morning i went to the stadium to test my running. for the first time in over a year, i ran. i was aiming for 1:45 per round but i ran too fast. first round was 1:30, and each round got progressively slower till i died midway through the 5th.

for the first time in my life, i failed to complete a 2.4 run. i knew i was fucked big time, but i guess at least this means that i have a big challenge ahead. all the more reason to work hard.

this morning i went for a run again. i still really really hate it, but it has to be done... making myself tired for a reason.

devil and god

i walked out of an old gothic-style church with a priest. outside, there was a river winding past the church and into the town. i saw two red demonic humanoids walking into the river.

the larger one i recognised as satan, and the mini version i assumed was his son. "how dare they appear before a church," i thought. i shouted at them without fear as i believed that god would protect us, especially with the priest there with me.

the priest was very afraid and told me to shut up. i shouted at them again. they waded out of the water and headed towards us, and the priest was terrified now.

satan then blasted me away with his powers. he didn't kill me because i was just a nobody. instead, he blasted the priest with his full force and killed him.

i blacked out and when i awoke, 10 years had passed. the place looked very different. i headed home, only to find that most of my neighbours have died in the time when i was away. fortunately my family was still living in the same apartment.

the spirits of my dead neighbours and their pets now haunted the deserted building. the first time i went out, there was a little bird with us that i assumed was our pet. when we passed by one of the apartments, the spirit of my neighbour's dead dog possessed the bird and it flew around crazily.

i went home and the second time i went out, there was a little girl with me. while passing another apartment, the girl got possessed and ran into the apartment. we followed her in and then there was a whole lot of exorcist shit going on.

things were flying about and there were demonic voices and screaming everywhere. i was shouting at the spirit to leave her alone, but there were several powerful spirits in the apartment. finally she ran into the bathroom and we sort of trapped her inside.

i looked up at the ceiling and there was a face of a woman, reflected up there by the bathroom mirror. "I KNOW WHO YOU ARE! LEAVE HER ALONE!" i shouted, and the mirror exploded, sending shards of glass flying everywhere.

i woke up and my heart was pounding. i lay there for a good 10 seconds unable to move, trying to make sense of what had just happened.

idle idol

it's been a month (!) since my exams were over. i still haven't been on holiday with no concrete plans on one. i haven't gotten myself a job like many of my friends have. i think the only major thing i've done was to complete this project, and it looks quite good, hanging on the wall in front of me now. can't get you a picture because my phone died.

what have i been doing? nothing much really, just chilling the fuck out and doing whatever i please. it's really quite sad knowing that this holiday could well be my last one. next year i would be graduating, assuming no major fuck-ups, and possibly have a real full-time job by this time next year.

so yea, not really in any rush to start my working life. just enjoy the last of my freedom before it's all gone.

the world that we live in

so having a laptop means i can finally resume watching the shows that i stopped 3 years ago, when i was so free before enlisting. in the time that's passed, tudou.com stopped being as awesome as it was back then and whatever little shows they had took a shitty long time to load.

i had to resort to other non-streaming methods to watch, but the untimely demise of my old laptop in april 2009 meant that i had to use my family computer. thinking that it was only a temporary measure, i decided not to do any downloading there until i got a new laptop.

alas, this temporary measure continued for over 2 years until now. i missed the gossip girl craze (thank god), missed how i met your mother (unfortunately), and probably a whole list of other shows that i've never even heard of due to my exile.

i didn't feel much loss over missing out on those stuff. i only felt very uncomfortable in knowing that season 2 of both pushing daisies and dirty sexy money were just there, waiting to be watched. soooo close yet so far.

now i'm at episode 6 of dirty sexy money, catching up on all the lost time. it's still as great as ever, and i really don't understand why BOTH shows got cancelled after season 2 when absolute fucking crap like jersey shore is being produced...

hurts

on saturday morning i went to city harvest church for my cousin's wedding. it was supposed to start at 10.45 but it was not until 11.15 that the emcee came on stage.

prior to that, i noticed a guitar and keyboard and drum set beside the stage and i found it rather odd, but i figured that they were just left there for use if needed.

so the emcee guy started the introductions and stuff, thank you all for coming today we are gathered here for the wedding ceremony etc. now let us stand and...

he started singing christian songs. a guitarist and keyboardist mysteriously appeared and they started playing too. the lyrics were projected onto the screen.

my initial reaction was FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU. i completely forgotten that city harvest tend to sing songs for all occasions. i've been there for a brief period when i was 13 and now that i think of it, all i can remember was sitting around singing songs.

10 minutes into the singing, he was now just repeating the chorus over and over again. each time he finishes, i'm thinking YES it's finally over, but then FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU he starts all over agan.

and when he was really finally finally done, he left the stage and a pastor came up to take over the emcee role. so i guess that guy was really just a singer.

shitty

over the weekend i went to the pc show and got myself a new asus laptop. i spent just under $2000 on it and it seems reasonable for the specs.

i then spent the rest of the weekend getting absolutely pissed off with it. maybe i've raised my expectations too high, but a brand new laptop should not be this slow and shitty.

i don't know if it's the normal standard of the new windows 7 (which is a piece of shit as well) because the most advanced system i've ever used was the good old xp.

it takes forever to start up or shut down, and even opening the 'my computer' page could load for minutes. some of the things like the volume control buttons only work once in a while.

what in the world have i gotten myself into? i was expecting some trouble getting used to the new laptop but this is just... is it really normal to be this shitty?

i should get someone who knows to take a look at it, or just send it back to asus and ask them wtf is wrong with this damn thing. argh.

aside from the laptop, many of the new versions of programs are fucking shit too. the new windows media player is one, absolutely annoying to use. the new msn messenger removed the nickname function WTF?

our falling bombs are her shooting stars

i was in a rebellion with a group of young guys, ready to fight. suddenly 2 of our guys ran over and said that the enemy was approaching. i thought that the 2 of them were spies, but i joined the crowd to get our weapons first, just in case.

i grabbed my rifle and 2 magazines (for bullets, not reading) and prepared myself. we were in sort of a big courtyard, with walls on 3 sides. most of us were standing in the bottom left corner of the walls.

before i could even load my rifle, 2 enemy planes came flying over the trees. they split up and one started dropping bombs in front of us, cutting us off between the wall behind us and the wall of bombs in front.

we ran rightwards in the direction the plane was traveling, hoping to outrun the bombs (lol). i could see the bombs falling and exploding as i ran, but the second plane flew by and cut us off again, dropping bombs all the way.

i was now trapped by walls on 2 sides and bombs on the other 2. i watched as a bomb fell right in front of me and i knew that it was the end. as the bomb exploded and the fire roared towards me and the rest of my doomed comrades, i wondered to myself how death would feel like.

would it hurt or would it just be like waking up from a dream? i woke up right when the flames engulfed me.

to infinity and beyond

sometimes it confuses my tiny brain when i think about the world around me. somehow i just can't seem to grasp the vastness of space, how incredibly huge the universe is and how incredibly insignificant we are, and i am.

in the grand scheme of things, we are all nothing. but i am everything, I am all that i know! i struggle to accept that one day i will be nothing.

for eternity.

love?

all girls are the same. they may be different as individuals, but as girls they are still inherently the same.

so the fun (and trouble) is in finding one that is different, a girl whom you see and know she's not one of them.

and then pray and pray that she will not turn out to be just another imposter.

late night request

it's not that i have nothing to write about, i just haven't been in the mood to turn my thoughts into words.

in fact, my mind has been on a roll lately. i think up such awesome works in my head, everything in perfect clarity the moment they appear, no (mental) editing required.

when i sleep, i dream of awesome dreams. seriously i dreamt i was discussing some stuff with a guy and i said to myself (in my dream) "wow, i'm so awesome." when i woke up i was impressed by the fertility of my mind since i had just created a movie in my head, complete with full dialogue and all.

but yea, everything is in my head. there's nothing for you here.

what would you like to read? i'll write it for you.

it's time

remember the time when i had a new phone? on tuesday the screen decided to stop working, and i had to switch back to my awesome nokia flip phone.

it has no ringtones (not even the one that goes ring-ring), no games (i deleted them all), a shitty camera, zero memory space left... it has nothing but it works despite being 6 years old. new phones have everything but what's the damn point if it gets fucked in less than 2 years?

well one thing i found out was that the nokia phone only reads up to 250 contacts saved on my sim card. that was fine back in the day, but i guess i've gotten a whole shitload of contacts (whom i don't contact) over the past 2 years.

now my contact list only goes up to U, and i can't save any new contacts. think it's time to get me a new phone, a flip phone, because flip phones are just that much cooler to use and only cool people can appreciate it.