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2012-01-26T02:03:00.003+08:00

Aye, so it's Chinese New Year already!

So, two years back it coincided with Valentine's Day, and I recounted the whole thing about Khar Loo. Last year Sam organized a Chinese New Year drinking session and I ended up drinking a sick mixture of Thai Song and red wine, making out with Kai Ying an completely losing my memory. This year, not so interesting and dramatic, but pretty eventful, in its own way.

On Saturday, I went to 17 Saloon with Justin, James and Wern Hsiang aka Steve. Initially it was just to chill out, but eventually we decided to share a few beers among us. Sherene, the previous bar girl who worked there, has resigned, so a new, prettier, but more timid girl has taken over. Redzuan and Justin have been doing magic tricks there to impress the general public drinking there. So I decided to try my own magic tricks as well. One for a group of people sitting near us, to test my showmanship, and the second on the new bar girl. I said that if I could guess her card, she'd have to give me her number and email. Naturally, I succeeded, and ended up exchanging contacts with Nicole. Although Justin and I had been talking about important religious matters before drinking, somehow we turned the conversations to the sexual fantasies we had. So while drinking beer, we all shared our deepest, darkest, most disturbing or interesting fantasies we've ever had. LMAO. What a disturbing night! Discovered a lot of things of one another. Of the things I shared, miniskirts, Tiffany, Poison Ivy. Haha... take a guess.

Sunday night was Chinese New Year's eve, so it was the typical gathering for relatives. As has been for the last two years, we joined my grandaunt's side of the family, and ate at some fancy restaurant seconds away from Redzuan's family residence in Damansara. Went back home and later ended up agreeing to meet up with Andrew Joel and Redzuan at Red's area, since he was most likely lonely and bored at his family residence. I knew the vicinity of Redzuan's place, but I didn't actually know the place itself, so Andrew and I stopped at the nearest place I remembered. We called Red and realized we were actually really near, so we just waited. While waiting, some drunk guy walked over from across the street. He reeked of alcohol. The guy said he was from Nepal. Okay, fine. Then he asked me whether I was Chinese, to which I said yes. Then he said he loved the Chinese in Malaysia, 'cause only they treated him nice, and were hardworking in an environment that made things difficult for them. Ha. Thanks. Then he asked me whether I was his friend. I said yes, 'cause who knows what would he do if I said no. Then he said thank you and began to cry, saying he missed his mom, he missed Nepal and he was failing at school. Lmao. Geez. I asked if he was okay and he ignored the question, asking me again if I was going to help him. Yeah, I agreed again. Then he shook my hand and said he loved the Chinese. I really didn't know what the hell was his problem. The guy ignored practically every question I asked him, and only responded when I said favourable things to him. Redzuan finally arrived, and thought we had brought a new friend, since I was still shaking hands with the guy and then he began crying on me (oh brother). Redzuan walked up to him, said hello, which distracted the Nepalese guy. I quickly ran up a flight up stairs to escape the guy. Andrew and Redzuan followed, but that drunk Nepalese followed us! We walked into a guardhouse into another block and the moron followed as well. We ran into the carpark to escape and like idiots, we crouched and hid behind the cars, while Mr Drunk Nepalese found another victim and while annoying him, walked past us. Once the coast was clear we got up from the cars and ran off back to the guardhouse. Whew!

Hilarious start to a new year. Lol. We chilled at a mamak and shared about stuff, and Red made a remark that made me remember about the fantasy sharing with Justin, James and Steve the previous day. I laughed, remembering the whole thing, although forgetting a few specific details here and there. They asked what I was laughing about, and told them. Then they laughed and suggested we repeat the topic. Lmao, they asked for it! We all shared our fantasies once again, and it was just as epic as the previous day. I repeated the ones I mentioned, while learning about theirs. Funny as hell. Around 4am, we left and I went to pick up my mom, who had gone to this really famous Buddhist temple beside the MCA building. I stopped by the place and entered. It's my first time entering a temple in many years. Before I became a Christian, I only went to temples once a year or so when my parents brought me. After being a Christian, they were more or less a place I went for Buddhist funerals. There was this huge, gigantic gold statue of the smiling Buddha there, and two smaller rooms, one for this guy who claimed he would not enter Nirvana, or something along those lines, till everyone in hell was freed. The other had a room for the founder of the temple, who's also a very active missionary, especially in the US. They were holding a 24 hour prayer vigil, and anyone could come and go as they liked. I saw some female monks with shaved heads, one chanting out of a sutra, and another leading a few people making rounds around the temple. There was a lady there who had chatted with my mother earlier, and asked me how come I hadn't offered incense to the Buddha(s). My mom told her I was a Christian, and she gave this slightly embarrassed look and a slight twinkling of her fingers to apologize. Then I walked over to a section where they gave out free Buddhist books. I had a few short sutras as a kid, but I never really read them, just a few pages here and there. This was the first time I saw English Buddhist books with texts that looked substantial and perhaps what I was looking for in my thirst for knowledge. Then that lady from before walked over, chatted with my mom a bit and exclaimed something along the lines of "Eh, Christian can also pray to Buddha what." Ha, please. I have respect towards your religion and beliefs in the sense I do not mock or desecrate for intentionally hurtful reasons. But I do not find it necessary to offer nor bow to a statue that I do not believe is a representation of the actual Buddha, which, according to my beliefs is not a deity anyway. Not to mention it'd be doing something the Bible outright forbids anyway, unlike some of its other, more subjective laws. So, no, "Christian cannot also pray to Buddha what".

I took two books, The Shurangama Sutra, along with an outline and supplements. Apparently this is the most important sutra to Chan Buddhism, and a sign of the Dharmic age ending will be this sutra being the first to become extinct. Secondly is Words of Wisdom: Beginning Buddhism, by Hsuan Hua, the founder of the temple. I flipped through a few pages, and it seems like it may offer better explanations of Buddhism than all the other texts I've read online, or from every single Buddhist who tries to explain their beliefs. I have no intention of converting back to Buddhism (and I wasn't much of a Buddhist as a kid anyway, mainly following parents to the temple), but Buddhism is perhaps the religion I see the least evidence of, after Hinduism, and I would like to learn more about it, since most material I read relates to Christian, Jewish, Islamic and atheistic topics. Also, it'd be interesting to know more about Buddhism than the thousands of Buddhists I've met over the years who never knew what they believed.

Monday and Tuesday I visited my grandaunt's place and spent time with my relatives, collecting a few angpaos, and chatting with my cousins, two who are growing older, and thus have more topics in common with me than before. Zhu Xin, my cute cousin, and her brother Zhia Zhen (who's also become damn cute) were entertaining with their kiddy antics. They're a lot more violent in their play-fights, but also cry less, which is a good thing. Lol. I was not hungry at all the entire time I spent there. Arrive in the morning. Eat! Breakfast. Eat! Pre-lunch. Eat! Lunch. Eat! Tea time. Eat! Dinner. Eat! Dessert and more. Eat! HECK, I was bloody full! Tuesday night I went to chill out with Symposium (along with Bruce and Eddie) by having a symposium at Redzuan's house, where we all drank a lot, and instead of playing drinking games as usual, we ended up sharing fantasies (again?!), and learning a lot more! Mostly just drinking and chatting, but had a great time.

Plus, my mom told me that since I'm working, now I have to give angpaos to her. I've never heard of this, and I've asked around; neither have any of my friends or their parents. But heck, I give money to her every month anyway, and it's not like the angpao money she gives will make much of a difference now that I'm working, so I don't mind giving her one. It feels awfully strange, funny, odd but satisfying to give your own mom a red packet.

2012-01-24T23:33:00.000+08:00

Well, I guess I should update about actual events now.

On the 30th of December, Symposium celebrated Andrew Joel's birthday. He had a party at his house so we drove there, ate, chat and drank. And of course, we made Andrew drunk. While he was dropping off Amelia, his girlfriend, we were waiting for him to come back to drink, since he was the birthday boy. He took a freaking long time, so as punishment, we made a concoction. Andrew's sister was asking what we needed all the drinks and stuff for, and his little brother said "I think they want to make 'korkor' die". LOL, so cute! A lot of whiskey, coke, cake, some kind of black sauce, red wine, and a bunch of other stuff I can't quite remember. It smelled BAD and tasted BAD. When he came back we forced him to drink that, and we played some drinking games. Interestingly, he finished it all! (We gave him a 1.5L bottle), but naturally he died. He puked and collapsed in his living room. While we were outside, we later noticed he was drunk as hell and bitching and scolding everything. He also kept whining, crying and yelling for Amelia, while also cursing her as a cow. LMAO. Then he also began quoting Lord of the Rings, Shakespeare, Dragonball Z episodes, Skyrim, and a bunch of other stuff. He basically became a whining, crying retard. Lmao. He also kept continually puking as well, and the stench was horrible. After a number of pukes, he stopped everything and completely fell asleep. Finally.

The next day was the celebration of Michelle and Aaron's engagement. We ate at Samosa, gave them a present representing their engagement. After a fancy dinner, we proceeded to Sunway for drinking, but 17 Saloon was full. 17 Saloon has become our bar of choice for Symposium, and we go there quite regularly. So we went to The Joint, and had our beers there, and went out to watch the fireworks. Ah, was a great time wishing everyone a happy new year and to see a new year come to pass. It just felt intensely optimistic that night for some reason. And to think that I've made it so long, and to see how humans have come so far as well. Later on we went to Justin's house and continued drinking, and had a Truth session. No dares. Just truth. And we found out some disturbing information, as well as a hell lot of funny ones. Of course, the sexual discoveries were the highlight of the night!

We stayed overnight, and chilled till the sun rose. And I went for church that morning, surprisingly wide awake, probably due to the amount of REM sleep I had, as I had not slept well in the last few days before that. Was a great service talking about the new year and our goals for the upcoming year. I came back to sleep a while more and prepare the barbecue with James, Andrew and Sareena, while the rest were on their way. Asri of Kolbenfaust joined us and we just chilled and talked about everything, while enjoying our barbecued food and Justin's sauce. No, not his sauce. Really, as in sauce. Forget it. Had a great time chilling out with them before we headed back and all.

At work, it was quite busy because they wanted a lot of job sheets done before Christmas. Then a lot done before the New Year. Then a lot done before Chinese New Year. Geez. Apparently things should slow down at the conclusion of Chinese New Year. And coinciding with the long holidays, I also took a few days off so I get practically a week off! Finally, a good holiday I can enjoy. Not spending it in Singapore though, because everyone will still be visiting relatives and all that. I'll spend it here with my friends and family. But anyway, I enjoy my new job much more, so no complaints there. I'll give some updates on this new job soon. I realized I totally left the details out.

Also, I've bought a new phone; the HTC Wildfire. At last I've finally gotten a new phone! Been quite pissed with all my phone after my Motorola RAZR V3 died. The 6680 served well for a couple of months, but after that it began to lag to an extent I didn't know phones could achieve. I mean I knew the Nokia generation at that time was horrible, with all the slow OS and stuff, but I didn't think it'd be that bad. Not to mention the battery died, and every new battery I bought didn't change the fact that getting a phonecall would zap the battery in 30 seconds or so. The N73 was a huge improvement, and I was pretty pleased with it, but then it too, started to lag. It may have been useful back in secondary school times when all we wanted was cameras and an mp3 player on the phone, and we'd be happy. However, now Youtube-ing and Google-ing wherever you are are near standard, and web browsing in general, along with video players. Apps was also something I wanted. Some games were ideal time-killers and the bigger screen would mean I could read all my books easier on the go. So I really wanted a smartphone as an ideal replacement to my dying N73. James and Redzuan followed me to get it, and were really helpful in finding one for a good price and questions in general. So yeah, happy with my phone and enjoying it plenty!

Oh, I also went clubbing with Justin, Redzuan, Max C, Stefanie and Red and Stef's friend called Sharon. Went to Zouk where I finally tried my first Graveyard, a drink that everyone's gotten me curious about, saying it kills and stuff, and people bragging about trying 2 or 3 without dying. Meh, I took 2 and a half cups of it and it barely fazed me. The hit is fast, I'll admit, and alcohol/price-wise, it's probably the most worth it, but the legend is way exaggerated. Danced a bit, drank a bit, and just had fun in general. No hitting on chicks or anything that day, haha! My mood was spoiled afterwards though. After the whole thing, we separated and left. Justin, Redzuan and Max C in my car. There was a police roadblock. They flagged us down and asked me to get off, as I was the driver. They used the breathalyzer on me. It's my first time trying, and he told me I wasn't blowing properly. Fine, it was my first time, so maybe there's some magical way to blow that I haven't known before. So he asked me to blow a second time, this time I blew properly. Once again, he said I wasn't blowing properly. What the hell? How do you not blow properly? Geez. By this time I knew they weren't able to catch me over the legal limit, and wanted me to get caught red-handed. I tried up to a fourth time and each freaking time they said I wasn't blowing properly. SERIOUSLY? FOUR FREAKING TIMES, and I'm not blowing properly? Heck, how do you blow improperly? I was getting pissed and said I already four times and I was safe on each try. He insisted I still wasn't blowing properly and said he'd report me to the police station. I said fine! I'm innocent anyway, and there's the fact that he tried four times and failed. However Redzuan was with us, and I couldn't risk it. Crap. I took it the fifth time, and for some reason, this time my reading was just slightly over the legal limit. "Aha" the moronic officer said, now you blow properly. Excuse me? I blew it the same way I did for all four previous times, and for some fluke of luck the fifth try gets over the limit? Am I missing something here? Everyone knows the Malaysian police are corrupted to the core, but I didn't know it could extend to this. Now that he had so-called proof, he asked me how I wanted to settle it. I couldn't risk going to the police station 'cause then we'd be even in more crap, although I'd gladly have gone if it was just myself. I flat out refused to bribe the guy, but the rest helped out. He let us go, and we went back home. I felt bad, because I have never, and will never bribe, but it wasn't fair that the others paid, so I paid them all back. Proxy-wise, this makes it my first bribery. Pfft. I'm still not going to bribe. Bloody cops of Malaysia.

2012-01-23T00:00:00.000+08:00

Aye, so it's almost Chinese New Year. Right after the "International" New Years Day.

Firstly, a new blogskin! Was getting bored of my old skin for a while, but never got around to changing it. Heck, I didn't blog very frequently in recent months, so changing it would feel kinda pointless. I happened to chance upon an article talking about Weeping Angels in a series called Doctor Who, which I don't watch. I checked a few videos on Youtube and the Wiki article, and I found them to be a really interesting creature concept. In addition, Cradle of Filth's song, "The Death of Love" has become one of my favourites, and although the lyrics apply mainly to Joan of Arc, I see that they can be used in other contexts as well, specifically one of a person you love.

I've long wanted to make a blogskin somehow related to the death of love, but it was such a broad thing. I mean there can be a death of love for practically anything. A hobby, a lover, an object, an era. Then somehow I was reminded of Lucifer, and how Christian tradition places him as a fallen angel who rebelled against heaven. Ah, would not that be one of the most epic death of loves? God rejected him from heaven, and has promised that in the End Times, Satan would be bound forever and punished. How it goes, I have no idea. And there's also the paradox that if God forgives anyone, should He not forgive Satan as well? Although it could be argued that God knows Satan will never changed, so hence, he will never be forgiven. Regardless of theological arguments, the fact remains that perhaps Lucifer's fall was one of the ultimate death of loves, and I found extremely intriguing. And it can go both ways. God's love of Satan was dead, but also for Satan, his love for God must've surely died as well.

So I used two images I found online. The main angel you see is credits to tonemhp-d30ydzw of deviantArt. I also realize that I have not had a white-themed background for a long time. It's almost always been black, with maybe 2 exceptions? So I made it white-ish. I kept it minimalistic as well, to try something new. Because of the total reversals of colour, I had to change all the HTML codes to invert the colours so the stuff could be read. I haven't done that in a really long time. Time consuming. But eh, what the hell, it's a new year, try something new.

Also, along with the new year, and while changing the HTML for my blog, I decided to do some spring cleaning as well on my links. I clicked most of my friend's blogs to see who still updated, who's blog died, and who's had been deleted. Not surprisingly, the vast majority of blogs I saw were dead. Most died in 2010 or 2011, while some since 2007 and 2008. As I said before I like keeping memories, and these blogs are their memories. I deleted those who's blogs were deleted, but kept those who either still updated, or hadn't deleted it, just for keepsakes. I read some of the latest updated from different people. One of my friends discovered an illness in her body that would severely affect her life, back in 2009. Another guy broke up with his girlfriend, and he was emo-ing about it, back in 2008. A few people became parents. Apparently a lot of people either quit their studies, or changed course, regretting their first choice. Lots of things I discovered. I've been reading blogs less and less, and even more so when it was people who I wasn't close to begin with. Some people who's blog I expected to die, were still blogging in 2012 though, which was an interesting surprise. The worst part was I had blog links of people I completely don't remember AT ALL. GEEZ! Except for famous bloggers and commercial websites and the such, the people I link are all people I know. And there were many blogs I had linked, who I couldn't remember at all, not even the slightest hint of memory. Oh, geez.

Along with cleaning up my blog links and changing the blogskin, I also updated my Facebook profile. I have a funny About Me section that I change every year or so. Just something witty in case someone bothers to read it, which I find is more interesting than things that typical people put like those likes, dislikes, hobbies, and stuff. I also briefly browsed through my friends list to see how some people were. Chia Sheng has become a father. Quite a number of people I know have graduated. Many have become working adults. Some got attached. Many more broke up. I also deleted a few accounts that I knew to be fake. I accept all friend requests, 'cause who knows whether it may be a funny account, or what. But I'll delete fake accounts later on. I don't delete people though. I added some activity updates, added some people to my list of inspirational people, one of whom was Christopher Hitchens, who apparently none of my friends know died. Geez! One of the four horsemen of atheism and nearly all my friends don't know who he is! Rest in peace Hitchens, you were a brilliant author and debater. Here's one of the last thing I read from him. May you find whether there is truly a God in this world.

2012-01-18T23:43:00.000+08:00

Today, it's very common to hear something along these lines:

"Kids nowadays"

"What's the world coming to?"

"Kids today are so spoiled, with their iPads and iPhones"

"Things were better back then"

"Kids are getting stupider and stupider!"

"Kids today have no respect"

And most of the people I know then give themselves a pat on the back comparing themselves to said kids and saying that they were never like that. I have something to say in defense of the new generation.

I've been hearing this crap for quite a number of years already, and it's only made me realize the ignorance of my generation in comparing themselves with the younger generation.

First, let's compare the modern era we are in now, with the previous generation's (i,e, our parents, grandparents). Back in that time, there was no internet, no cell phones, and computers were primitive. Sounds superficial? The internet has changed things to a whole new level. Businesses can be run solely through a website, people with similar interests can find each other, old friends can find each other, calling people has become a huge convenience, and cell phones have saved countless lives in emergencies. Computers have allowed us an entertainment level never before seen, and it allows us to do our work, play games, listen to music and keep pictures and documents. Sure, they can be abused by people gaming too much, and calling too much. But anything can be abused if used to an extreme.

And that's just technology. People are saying that now kids are superficial, materialistic, complicated, and that things were better back then. Seriously? We had two world wars, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War and the Cold War within our grandparents and parents lifetime. These were a much larger scale than the wars we have today (excluding the Cold War). WWII alone is the deadliest conflict in all of human history. People lived with a fear of global nuclear war. Living conditions, while not horrible, weren't as comfortable as today (aircon and all). Many children were not literate and many also had no formal education. You think racism is bad in Malaysia? It was a lot worse back then, with mobs lynching (Google that, if you don't know what it means) people purely for race. The Ku Klux Klan had the biggest membership in their time. Blacks in America had no equal rights in their time. Heck, women could not vote in most countries back then. You take all this equality we have now for granted. It was a big struggle to get people equalized.

Oh, you say, what about the kids attitudes then? Humans aren't perfect. Far from it. Every generation will have a new set of problems. Our grandparents and parents generations problems have largely been solved or made convenient by our time, and for the generation after us, they have their own set of problems, based on their worldview. I hear constantly that kids today are spoiled, that they have iPads, iPhones, laptops, cellphones and all that, while we didn't. Our parents said the exact same thing about our generation. Excuse me, have you forgotten about the Game Boy? Game Gear? Playstation? Super Nintendo? To our parents, these were the "iPads and iPhones" of their generation. Those kinds of consoles were unheard of in their time. And for us, the iPads and iPhones are on a whole new level. We blast kids now, just as our parents did to us back then.

Then there's people saying "What's wrong with kids nowadays" when they see secondary school kids kissing, having sex and all. You think this stuff didn't happen before? Back in our parents time? Oh please. Heck, in our generation secondary school kids kissing was no big deal already. Sex was hush-hush, but no doubt it was already widespread, even if there was a lack of reporting. And we criticize them today for making out? We were just like them. The only stupid thing they did was record them, post them on the internet, and have news outlets report on them. There's an abundance of cell phones with cameras now. You're going to surely get a few idiots who are stupid enough to record themselves and unleash it to the internet. We are living in a world where news goes all over the world in seconds. Of course we're going to hear more cases. And unfairly, we think its happening more and more, simply because we see it reported more and more. If news was so efficient back in our grandparents and parents time... well, the conclusion is easy to guess.

In general, people are getting wealthier. They can afford more. Naturally you'll buy toys for your kids. People of my generation say "I never had an iPad as a kid". Yeah genius, because it didn't exist back then. If it had, you might just have gotten it. Your Game Boy/Super Nintendo/Sega Genesis was the equivalent. I know some people are going to bring up the case of kids blasting their parents on Twitter and Facebook for not getting them iPads and iPhones. But look carefully, there's 7 billion people in the world. These whining kids are not the majority. They're just some whiny kids who have gotten media attention. And that's only because these kids have social networks. They can express more, whenever they want, at their age. There are adults who get fired because they bitch about their company on Facebook. You think immature kids won't do more damage? I'm sure you said a lot of stupid stuff back when you were a kid. If you had Twitter in that time, you might just have tweeted about it in the spur of the moment. And don't forget, these are kids. We as kids also whined when we didn't get our toys. I'm sure we were pissed off at that age, resenting our parents on the car ride home, and maybe a few hours more after that. What if you could tweet about it in the car, when you were still a kid? You just might have. Kids express themselves all the time, be it throwing tantrums if they don't get their toy, running around the aisle like a maniac or for some of the new generation, tweeting of their anger towards their parents. And because so many of us have Twitter and Facebook now, and because everything can spread so easily, things like this are easily found, spread, and used as an example of kids "nowadays".

My second-last point is on kids being stupid nowadays. I hardly think this is fair, simply because you're comparing yourself to kids! When you were that age, you weren't very bright yourself. You think you were smarter? Well look at the statistics of the IQ of children worldwide. It's gradually increasing every year. Look up the scientific studies if you don't believe me. Sure, you're smarter than many kids here and there, and you might just have been in their age, but as a whole, the kids IQs are getting higher. This perception of them being stupid is simply because of their age. We learn more every year, and we have a 10-20 year headstart on them. Of course you feel smarter. You're most likely somewhere in your 20s. You've more or less matured properly. Let these "kids" reach their 20s, and then you can compare properly with your 20s self. Unfortunately, you'll most likely think you're still smarter or better, because we always assume the worst of others when compared to us or our time. There's a memory theory called "reconsolidation" that shows our memories aren't fixed and static, but rather altered by our perceptions and media over time. This is why every generation thinks theirs was the best and talk blindly on "the good old days". Our minds keep all the good memories and don't focus so much on the bad ones. I'm sure your grandparents have said something alone those lines before, and so have your parents. And now you say it to the the ones after us.

Lastly, on kids having no respect. This is subjective. Respect is taught and earned. If kids have no respect, you only have their educators to blame. This includes, parents, teachers and other various authorities. Wait till they've hit the 20s, then, and only then can you fairly judge their respect. Most of the younger generations are around their teen age. It's the age when they're aloof, rebellious, easily bored. I remember in secondary a lot of school friends would always say they'd go to relatives places on Chinese New Year and sit there and be bored. This attitude changed as they grew up. There's a reason why teens are stereotyped that way. Because, to a certain extent, they are like that. Plus, you think we're much better? Chinese New Year is now about meeting relatives and seeing how much angpao money you get. The amounts we get are insane compared our parents. We get angpaos ranging from 30s to hundreds. And we talk about how little or how much a certain someone gave and compare it with one another. Wanna compare that to our parents generation? We seem like spoiled little kids in their eyes, when they received usually single digit amounts, or even cents.

Every generation says that we have improved from the last generation, calling them traditional, old-fashioned and outdated, and that the one after ours is taking things for granted, spoiled, stupid, or whatever castigating word you want to use. Think about it, how many times have your parents said something like "Back in my time..."? I think our parents had quite a bit of that from their parents as as well. And now we say it to the generation after ours. It's a cycle that repeats. Our parents had no idea why we liked Pokemon, Digimon, Dragonball Z, and that stuff. Neither do we understand why Ben 10 is such a big hit today.

I'm sure that the generation after ours will criticize the ones after them, in time to come. I guarantee it.

2012-01-17T02:29:00.001+08:00

New Years Resolutions.

They are so common and so failed. Every year I hear people making resolutions and 90% (okay... 99% seems more realistic) of them fail. I myself don't take resolutions seriously, and mostly only for fun. The resolutions I make are carefully thought out most of the times, but I've never been really serious in fulfilling them. When I do, however, I'm quite pleased, but they're not really a priority. It's just something to keep in mind, and a nice aim, but not a necessity.

I do have two resolutions this year though, and as with all years, take it with a punch of salt. Uh, I mean pinch. That was an actual typo I kept because it just got me laughing. Lmao. Anyway, since it's only two, I'll go into details on them.

1) Blog at least once a week.

I'm quite proud of being a blogger that has lasted so many years. My blogging is not a matter of trying to entertain people as celebrity bloggers do, and I have no actual contracts that force me to blog. I blog when I want, and when I can. Although in the last few years it's slowed down quite a bit, I still blog. And when I see that all my friend's blogs are dead, it gives me a sense of satisfaction as well.

However, that's not the main point. Previously my blog was opened just because everyone else did it. I went along with the hype. Then it became a place to type in all my daily events, which I still do. It also became a place where I could rant, explode, question, answer and put funny stuff. I did the same with friends, but blogging is your own words, typed in that time frame and mindset. It's very amusing to read back on old entries and see what you were like. And pretty often, how much you've changed. I read back some old entries and I realized that I was a horrible Christian in my very early times. Heck, I was still a Creationist that time, that's 'nuff said. I had a severe lack of knowledge as compared to now, and I was immature in several aspects. All that has changed now. Perhaps 10 years from now, I will read about my current self and laugh again.

So now I see blogging as a place to store my memories. A place to store my views, opinions, happenings, events. As a reader of many apologetic and atheistic works, the historical veracity and accuracy of the Bible is something that always comes up. I realize how important it is to have accurate, verifiable (to a certain extent), and true posts. All my posts involving my daily life are true. Never have I lied in this blog. I might make some mistakes, such as calculating the score of a basketball game wrong by maybe a point or so, or mess up a person's name I met that day itself, but I have never made a post to deceive, without saying it was for that intent later (and they're always for humours sake). If I have successes, I write them down. If I fail at something, I also write them down. I have never shied away when I had lost, or when I felt really pathetic at certain things.

Also, I have arguments with friends, events and discussions which I bring up here, and later on it serves as a very useful tool in finding the accurate date or place something happened. Several times I've had discussions with friends only to mention something we forgot before, and I'd find out on my blog later on the details. Very useful. And also very useful is when you keep arguments and what people have said, and you make them eat their own words when they deny they said something. MSN chat logs? Facebook chats? Email correspondence? All kept. For sentimental value, sure. But also as a record for accuracy on what they said before. And as a weapon to blast them with if they should deny it in the future. Same goes with my blog.

I don't have phobias and the such, of normal or strange things. Not scared of heights, blood, clowns, balloons or peanut butter stuck to the roof of my mouth, a fear of the number 666 or a fear of Friday the 13th's. But I do have worries. I worry about if I ever have a child, if he/she will end up like my sister. I worry that when my parents grow old I need to support them, and how shall I do it while living within my means. These are minor and at the back of my head at this time, but they will be major issues in the future. But there are things I worry about now as well. Chief among them is a worry of—well, I guess fear is a better word here—losing my memories. I have said it many times. Imagine if I lost my memory. What would I forget? What if I forget who I am? What if I forget all the skills and knowledge I've learned so much in recent years? What if I forget my parents, friends and God? There's no guarantee that I will re-learn everything again. That I will become the same person I am now. What if I take a different route in life, and end up somewhere or as someone who I currently would not want to be? That my personality completely changes into somebody that I dread to be?

Blogging would at least keep my memories, my viewpoints, and many little things in life that you just don't remember at the top of your head. Plus, reading it later on might just remind me of something that happened long ago, and provide entertainment. Or it might remind me of a friend I have not seen in ages, and to propose a meet up. Little things. All from my blog.

Plus, I still have friends reading my blog. Surprisingly it still numbers in the 20s on average. I am honoured that people would take the time off to read about my life and views. I can entertain them to an extent, perhaps teach something, and at least give them something to read. All the while storing my own record.

2) Get attached.

I want a girlfriend, simple as that. Lol.

I have been single for 9 years already. And apparently it shocks many people. Ha, I guess I should feel pretty pleased with myself that people find it awkward I'm not attached, and haven't been for so long. It's something that people ask and comment all the time. "How come he's still single?", "When are you going to get attached?", "I thought you're not a virgin already." and stuff like that. Very funny and amusing, but also a constant reminder that I'm still single. Well, can't really blame me (sort of). I moved away from Khar Loo. Tiffany had a boyfriend. Cindy brought Chee Meng along. Kai Yih had a boyfriend without telling me. Shana moved to the US. Sze Ying is still unresolved. Jerrine moved to the UK. Geez.

However, I'm not desperate for a girlfriend. It's not like I'll die not being attached (I've already been single 9 years), but I'm working, I've got finances, and I can manage my time pretty well. I think I'm ready, as I have been thinking for many, many years already. It's just I'm not hard up for it to the extent I'll actively chase somebody and woo her, buy her gifts and stuff. Nah, it'll be more like flirt here, flirt there... if there's chemistry, and we're both attracted, I'll work on it. If not, it doesn't matter.

I remember I once blogged, or typed somewhere the list of qualities in a girlfriend I would like. I found it in my older entry... July 3, 2007.

She must be: Caring, a Christian, empathetic, physical (like doesn't mind holding hands in public), someone I love (duh).

She cannot: smoke, take drugs (HA), be a retard, be stingy, be stuck up, be 4 years older than me, be 5 years younger than me, be 5cm+ taller than me (that'd just be embarassing).

Preferably: Long hair (don't know, I just find they look better), same church, shorter than me, pretty, decent education, independant yet dependant at times, able to teach me what she loves (I like to learn new things).

I don't know how the hell I misspelled dependent. Geez. Anyway, I suppose I've gotten more picky, because that old list seems a bit general. Quite a lot of things still stand though, but I think there's a lot of other things I consider deal-breakers. I shall follow it's style, and update it. And I shall elaborate below.

She must be: Physical, intelligent, funny, caring, empathetic, open-minded, liberal (does not apply to theology though), outgoing, able to drink alcohol, able to hang out and chill, tell me about my faults, logical (but it's a woman, so this is a bit subjective), be able to hang out with my friends, compromising on important matters (it is inevitable on certain matters), be able to take constructive criticism.

She cannot: smoke, take drugs, be a retard (like not knowing who Hitler is), be stingy to an extreme extent, be above 10 years older than me, be below 10 years younger than me, be 5cm and above taller than me, be an extreme introvert, be unable to hang out with my friends, be polyamorous, be conservative, narrow-minded, blindly believe a belief system with no evidence, superstitious, be an annoying whiner.

Preferably: Long hair, a Christian, same church, shorter than me, witty, pretty, able to dress well, likes the same music I do, able to help me learn new things (activities and academically), not sexually active before marriage, a reader, a gamer, well-versed in literature, a heavy drinker, supportive, carefree, wears miniskirts or hot shorts, be able to play sports.

Uh huh... definitely quite a few more points than before. Sure, it's picky, but there's many reasons why I've become more picky. And I'll explain them in the elaborations.

She must be physical. Because if I have a girlfriend, it's someone I want to hold, touch and all. Physical touch may not be her primary love language, but to at least reciprocate and enjoy it is very important to me. I can't imagine a relationship where we're together and we don't touch each other at all in any way. Neither do I want someone who's ashamed to hold hands in public. She must be intelligent, because I cannot stand stupid people, what more my girlfriend. I don't expect her to be an Einstein, but I do expect her to have basic common sense and knowledge in many things, which I understand is subjective, but most people have a general idea of a "smart" person, and I want her to be that. Caring, empathetic and outgoing are basic traits and need no explanation. Able to drink alcohol. I'm not saying she has to be a guzzler of alcohol. I just want her to be able to drink, and hold her own liquor. Drinking has become a very important social activity, and I would be hard-pressed if she would not join in on the fun. Plus its a major activity with tons of friends, and it'll leave her out if she doesn't drink. And if I drink, what's she going to do? Sit there and do nothing? Able to hang out and chill because there was once a girl who liked me but was basically a slave to her parents and wasn't able to go out. I love going out and hanging out. If she can't do that? Then what can I do? Go to her house everyday? Not go on dates? What's that going to lead to? I don't expect her to go out every single night, but at least be a chilling person to hang out outside at times (frequent times, I hope), and with my friends, as they are a big part of my life. I want her to tell me about my faults, because I've seen many relationships where one side has an issue but can't or doesn't want to bring it up to the other half. And thus it causes problems. I don't want that. I want her to tell me my faults, so I know what I do wrong, and how I can change. It's better for me, and it'll be better for the relationship. She must be able to accept this as well from me, and so I want her to be able to handle it. She must also be liberal because I myself am very liberal, and if she was conservative, it'd lead to many, many problems, some of which would have extremely dire consequences in the dynamics of friends, mindsets and such. I also want her to keep an open mind. Basically, someone who knows how to have fun, and doesn't take herself too seriously.

She cannot smoke or take drugs. I am surrounded by smokers daily, and I can't stand the smell. Worse still that the person I want to be with smokes as well. Kissing a mouth like that is going to be bad-tasting for me. Not to mention she'd smell like tobacco. I do not want a girl who smokes. Smoked prior? Fine. Smoked a stick before? Okay. So long she has quit. If she continues to smoke while with me? No thanks. I don't have a problem with smokers. I just don't want my girlfriend to smoke. Drugs for obvious reasons. I don't want an addict who spends all her money to get high and possibly overdose and die. Be a retard because like I said I can't stand unintelligent people. Being with someone constantly, who doesn't even know who Hitler is would severely limit many topics, and drive me insane due to the lack of common knowledge. Yes, there are many people like this in the world, and I can socialize with them very well. However, I do not want my girlfriend to be among them. Be stingy to an extreme extent because I want someone who is capable of generosity. I understand that some people are more open with their money and some less, so I understand if she's a bit more cautious with her money. But to an extreme extent is something bloody hard to change in a person and that would show a lack of generosity, a trait I would like her to have. Cannot be above 10 years older or 10 years younger than me. I changed the age limit because Sze Ying was 5 years older than me, and I liked her, wanting to get together. I put it at 10+ and 10- because that seems like a generous age gap to have. Anything higher than 10+ and I'm quite possibly getting together with someone who's in their midlife, a decade away from menopause. Way too old. And anything younger than 10+ would seem very pedophile-ish to me. That's the limit. Be 5cm taller than me. I state this because I don't want a girl who I need to look up at, and even worse if she wears high heels. I'm not a very tall guy, and most girls don't want someone shorter than them anyway, so for ego sakes and what most girls want, I don't want a taller girlfriend, although this borders on preference. She cannot be polyamorous. I state this because I have a polyamorous friend, and although I know about the many benefits of polyamory, and their rights to love and all, I myself am not polyamorous. Just as I am not gay and won't get into a relationship with a guy, even though I respect gay people and their right to get attached with the same gender, I am not polyamorous and so would not want my girlfriend to be one. Because I would not love another in a relationship with her. It would not be true polyamory anyway, even if I allowed a third person into the relationship. She cannot be narrow-minded because I HATE that, and do not want the person I am with to have a mindset like that. Changing it will be near-impossible so I would just skip her instead, and same goes for being conservative, except theologically. I also don't want her to believe in any faith, religion, or atheism blindly. There are dumb people of religious sides and atheistic sides who blindly accept anything that agrees with their notion, which they themselves have barely looked through. Aside of being unable to have proper dialogue when it comes to sensitive subjects, it shows a stuck up mind that won't change as well, and this applies to superstition. Lastly, I do not want her to be a whiner. I can't stand whining. Bring up a problem. Talk about a situation. Yell or scream if it deserves it. Do not whine.

I would want a girl who preferably has long hair. I don't know, I just seem to be attracted to girl's with long hair. Not to say I haven't liked girls with short hair before (Joreen would be a good example, and Soo Wen, and Ho Ching). Preferable shorter than me for the reasons stated above. Preferably pretty because, hey, who doesn't want their girlfriend to be pretty? I would also hope that she's witty because I love that in a girl, and it apparently is a bit rare in Malaysian girls, or at least the ones I've met. I can just imagine the banter... Okay, on with the elaborations. Likes the same music I do, because I have a huge variety of music I like, ranging from metal to Mozart. However, metal is a slightly higher preference, and I would hope that my girlfriend could enjoy that too. Help me learn new things because I like to try out new things, new challenges and dares. If she can introduce me to something she likes, I'm all for it if I can learn something out of it. Also I'd love it if she could teach me something I don't know. Unless it turns to highly specialized topics such as metal, anime or cooking, generally I am the one who shares new things and information with other people. Science, religion, literature, history, geology, space, IT, world affairs, politics... let's just say its a wide spectrum, and I arrogantly can claim that I know a lot more than most people. But there are many things I still do not know as well, and if she can teach me, I would gladly learn. A reader and well-versed in literature because as I love reading, I hope she does too, and I can know more books and stuff from her. Supportive and carefree are basic things. A heavy drinker because, well, I am too, and I'd like to see my girlfriend drink well, I assume it would make things more fun. Be able to play sports because even though my basketball sessions are bloody irregular and much, much less frequent, I'd hope she'd play instead of sitting and watching. I once played basketball with Zhi Xuan as my teammate. We faced off against the couple Adrian and Li Hui, plus Alvin Lim along with them. Needless to say we were horribly trashed, but it was fun. Wears miniskirts and hot shorts. Like I said, these are preferences. I like hot legs, more so than most parts of the body, so this is just a bonus. That attire gets my attention easily, and naturally I'd like it if my girlfriend could wear what I find visually pleasing.

Lastly, the more controversial issues. Sexually active and Christian. I am still a virgin. Thankfully. Even though most guys would not agree. Haha. That's fine. I choose to remain one for religious reasons. As a devout Christian, this is one of the harder things to keep, and it's tempting at times to let loose if there's a chance. So far, I have not had sex, and I want to keep it that way till I am married. For me, it doesn't matter whether my girlfriend is a virgin or not. Doesn't affect me. Past sexual histories are just something I may be curious about, and perhaps a bit of information on her past, but not something to judge her by. If she is adamant on remaining sexually active, I need to worry. I can reject all I want, but what if I get seduced? By my own girlfriend of all people? I assume she'll know what makes me click, and know how to use that, if she's sneaky. Sure, you can say that then she doesn't respect my wishes and pledges, but the same stigma doesn't apply to guys, so nor shall I apply it to girls as well. She may well take sex a lot more lightly than I do. Of course, this is all assumptions, and as I said, preferences. Same church for obvious reasons, as we can attend services together and go out with the cellgroups and church members. Plus we'll share more or less similar religious values and thinking towards the church, so it'll be a lot easier than being with an atheist who thinks its all crap. And of course, to be a Christian. This is the more interesting ones, as I moved it from a must, to a preferable. One reason is that I get more liberal as years go by, and I suppose this affects my religious leanings. Secondly, I am finding it harder to find an open-minded Christian girl who's intelligent and liberal, yet knowledgeable. I know a lot of liberal Christians in church. The vast majority aren't smart. However, I seem to be meeting a lot of smart, liberal, intelligent and attractive girls outside of church, and most of them aren't Christians. Very frustrating -.-. However I want a Christian girlfriend, so that we can complement each other spiritually, that she can understand properly of why I believe, go to church, give to the church, and other things that people outside of church at flat out not going to understand, even if they try. And if I get an atheistic or non-believing girlfriend? What if I explain my reasons for believing (which all my friends do not question anymore after hearing the evidence) and she chooses not to believe? Is that ignorance (which I severely hate) on her part? Sure, I can respect her lack of belief. But that will lead to questions on other things which aren't so easily phased with "respect". Plus, let's say we have children, how are we going to raise them? With two extreme polar opposites in beliefs? If it ever goes that far, I know there's a certain level of compromise. It's just, how far? So I still want a Christian girlfriend, despite it being a longshot, with the qualities I want. Although its not a must as it was a few years back, it's still a very major thing, and borders and dealbreaker.

Well... that was a really long post. To make up for my lack of posts. Anyway, you know what's the worst part? Most people don't end up with someone who fits their list anyway. Lol. Dang.

2012-01-03T00:10:00.000+08:00

So, at last, it's finally a new year. Time seems to fly. In just 4 months it'll have been one year since I graduated and amazingly succeeded with the Spire85 campaign with my batch. But so much has happened as well in this one year. Lots of things tested friendships this year, and I'm glad everything has gone well. It was a big transition to go from college life to working life as well. Not as dramatic as a lot of people made it seem, but it was definitely a huge time for adjustments.

What do I remember from 2011 at the top of my head?

Graduated from The One Academy, the torturous college, with Spire85 as a very proud achievement.

Got a job at Creative Thumbprint. I learned a lot, although I was dissatisfied after a few months. Resigned after half a year.

Got a job at Canvas Art, thanks to Fei Yan. Still here and enjoying it more.

Meeting up with Sze Ying, and still having our status unresolved.

Developing dermatographic urticaria aka dermatographia. I don't know how the hell I got it but apparently from what I've read 4% of the world population has it. It's become a great conversation starter and topic, but it's an annoying thing when you're absent-mindedly scratching yourself and it gets itchier later on.

Paternal grandfather passed away. I now have no grandfathers left, and only my paternal grandmother remains as the sole living grandparent.

Jerrine moved to England. The one girl this year that I found attractive, smart and very easy to talk to, moved. To. Freaking. England. She was the only real person I was considering making a move on, out of all the people I met this year.

Along with Justin, confronting Miki about her extreme lying habits, her lies and our friendship. This was solved, thankfully, at the risk of losing the friendship altogether if things went wrong. This was perhaps one of the most testing moments for friendship this year.

Along with Justin once again, confronting and telling Redzuan about Masayo cheating on him. It was a bloody painful thing to do, but it was the right thing. My heart hurt like hell when telling him.

Met Masayo. Funny how one symposium with Symposium ended up with us meeting her, and her eventual relationship with Redzuan. She caused much drama to the entire Symposium, pissing off nearly everyone at some point in the year, with Nikke as a specific target. The cheating on Redzuan was the last straw, and we finally severed all ties with her. She caused a near-breakdown in certain ways, and occasionally bitches about us on Facebook, while spreading her heavily modified lie of the whole situation to her friends. Despite this, it bonded Symposium in a very, strong way. And she's in a worse position than ever before.

Switched to Sunday services for church. After close to a decade of attending Saturday services, suddenly I'm attending Sunday services. I'm still not used to it and I'm late almost every weekend. Still, its the only time to meet my cellgroup.

Both my churches moved to their new buildings. City Harvest Church KL moved into the new building in mid-2011. After so many years of sowing into the building fund, at last, we moved to our new building. And I'm bloody proud of it. Part of that building was paid for by me in addition to some chairs that I helped manually make. In addition, City Harvest Church Singapore moved into Suntec City as well, finally leaving Expo after half a decade there. Part of the move was also paid by me, and I am extremely proud to have contributed to it. Serves as a great success story, especially after the whole CHC SG scandal last year. God has been faithful.

Got freaking stranded by my cellgroup, because no one could bother dropping me off 5 minutes away, but could drive me 20 minutes away in the opposite direction because they were headed in that direction. Since that day I haven't bothered with the cellgroup providing transport, since they can't be bothered. I borrow the car. If not, I don't bother attending. No point attending and then getting stranded.

Fixed a busted car tyre twice. Once for the Hyundai Accent, and second with the Mercedes C-class. A new skill I learnt which is very practical.

Ryan and Faidhi and Mahdi left Forsake Me Not. Harish and Christian joined in their stead. We also played in Festival of the Tritone 2, which was a great success, albeit smaller in scale, but much more personal and fun.

Went for Eyes Set to Kill gig in Kuala Lumpur. I have supported them since I first heard them, way before they were famous and it's great to see them in such great success. And to finally attend their gig live. Impressed in every way!

Went for MTV World Stage thanks to Wai Kwan having a spare, free ticket. Enjoyed the performances greatly!

Arranged monthly meet ups with Essenism. After finishing college, my times spent sleeping in the library and waiting for a phone call or someone to invite me for lunch and stuff ended. Meeting up with Essenism regularly was superbly easily in college. Most of us would have no classes at a certain hour and we'd meet up almost everyday to eat or hang out. Now that Wai Kwan and I have begun working, arranging a meet up is much harder. Wai Kwan's tired after work on weekdays, and I can't borrow the car as easily on weekdays, making weekends the only time to meet up. So I proposed that we meet up once a month, so that the friendships wouldn't fade. Although keeping the once a month thing is still lagging, we still meet up regularly at least, which maintains the effort. And that's keeping things good.

Met my dad in KL for the first time in my life. And a few times during the year. Half of Symposium met him, thus, meeting all my parents that I currently have, with the exception of my dad's girlfriend, who I just consider a parent by "default" only because she's with him,. I haven't met her yet.

Visited Singapore/Johor Bahru for the first and only time in 2011. It was really nice to meet up with all the friends and hang out. Due to the working life, I'll not be able to go down every holiday as I did in college times. Now I need to carefully combine leave with public holidays to maximize the time I have to go to Singapore.

Had a Symposium trip to Genting, and stayed in Amber Court, just to prove it wasn't haunted. We did a documentary and took many photos. It was a great trip, despite Masayo's constant nagging and slip-up of her affair

These are the things that I remember off the top of my head. I realized I was a horrible blogger in 2011, lol. Not for my posts, but due to the lack of them. I just got lazy. Blogging as a hype as died down, and I'm one of the few bloggers among my group of friends who still maintains their blogs. Compare that to the group of friends I had in secondary school who all started their blogs a few days before I did. It was a big thing that time, and we'd all read one another's blogs. Then over the years they all died, except for mine. And mine's really slow on updates. Partially it's because I'm lazy. Coming back from work, I'm tired, and I read articles and books and go on some funny websites. After this time of unwinding, I'm lazy to blog already, or it's already very late. I don't count blogging as unwinding. It's work; an effort. I need to make the effort to get my thoughts into words, type them all out and do a very casual overview of it and post it. I'd rather enjoy and relax than "work" again after work, so blogging on weekdays is rare, unless I make the effort for some reason. Then on weekends it's the only time to unwind and go out and hang out, especially at night, so I don't get to blog 'cause the time I reach home I'll sleep, or read a bit before sleeping. Hence, the rarity of my posts.

2011 wasn't the most fun year. It tested me on many grounds. Granted, there was much fun, laughter and joy. I met tons of new friends, and had a lot of fun days. But there were many issues and friendships put to the test, and they were not fun at all, despite coming out of it stronger. But 2011 was without a doubt one hell of an interesting year that I enjoyed tremendously. There's a saying in my church(es) at the beginning of every year: "May this year be the best one yet". So far it's followed this pretty well. Best years don't necessarily have to be all fun and games with no hardships. On the contrary, I think they add on to what makes it better.

2011-12-08T22:34:00.001+08:00

Where do I even begin?

So much has happened in the last few weeks.

I'm probably never going to update what I said I would update, so I might as well give a brief summary of what I typed in last time... let's see... on September 29 I wrote "Singapore, Festival of the Tritone, Tyranny of the Eight, Miki, broken hard disk, James' birthday, Khar Loo, Essenism, tarot cards, Kai Yih, Caffeines, work."

Singapore... I went to Singapore for the first time in 2011. Had a great time catching up with the Magic Gang, Debbie, E458 and E507, and a lot of other church members. Koh Wee booked a chalet that's only reserved for army personnel, so we had a huge chalet, huge LCD TV (and he brought his PS3), and couches that were unbelievably comfortable. Magic Gang came over and it was like we were all back in secondary school again, just older, and with smokers in the mix now. Lol. There's a lot I can't remember... don't know why.

Festival of the Tritone. Number 2. Justin organized it, and we had 4 bands. Justin's band, Sacwrath, my band Forsake Me Not, Asri's band Kolbenfaust and lastly, the invited band Unexpected Mercy. Unexpected Mercy was the biggest out of all of us, but let's just say they weren't professional in timing. It was great fun though, and I enjoyed it tremendously. I was the one who designed the poster/flyer too.

Tyranny of the Eight. Maosun, Masayo's band, and Kolbenfaust are both signed to TFHM Records. They organized a gig and we went to support. The place was a gorgeous place perfectly suited for metal gigs, and it was great to see plenty of local bands.

Miki. She called me at 4am one night and I was wondering what the hell was going on. She ran off from home due to some issue I shall not disclose here. Let's just say I am pissed off with her dad. I drove over to her place, brought her back to mine, talked a bit and stuff, and slept and went to work like a zombie the next day. I realize my home is like a refugee house. Ran away from home? Can't stand your parents? Need a place to stay? Want a place to drink with no consequences? Come to my house! LOL. Anyway, she was well taken cared by my mom, and Miki's mom was tearfully grateful to me. No worries.

Broken hard disk. While Redzuan was transferring stuff to me, he accidentally dropped my hard disk from table-height. Needless to say my hard disk DIED and everything inside was lost. Thankfully most of the stuff was already in my laptop, but some pictures were gone forever, such as the Penang trip photos, and several others. Games and movies I didn't keep on my laptop could be downloaded and taken from others at any time, so it didn't concern me too much. Took the stupid company a month and a half to give me my warranty-guaranteed free replacement though. Zzz.

James' birthday. We celebrated! With alcohol. He puked, and made noodles with his puke. I'm not kidding. It looked like a local dish called Wat Tan Hor (I don't know the spelling). Yuck. But job well done.

Khar Loo. No drama here. Just reminded myself and shared the story with a few others. We still haven't spoken since the final email.

Essenism. We finally caught up after so long! We spent more or less the entire day chilling out, watching a movie, playing in the arcade and stuff from early afternoon all the way to night. Great, great time spent with them, especially after so long.

Tarot cards. Justin and I know a person who went to a Taoist tarot card reader who seems to be full of crap, but otherwise convinced this person we know that he had true powers/skills/charlatanism. We went to disprove and expose this guy, but we couldn't, because we hadn't made an appointment, and he had a full schedule. LOL. Craps. Was hoping to be James Randi during that time. Zzz.

Kai Yih. I caught up with her after a long time. She was expelled from Nottingham University due to failing a resit paper so I had to help out with her appeals and admissions to other universities. We're just friends, as it has always been.

Caffeinees. Been going there a lot more than usual in the last few weeks. They'ved moved, and the place is still as awesome (and expensive) as ever. However I love the atmosphere and the food, and with Symposium there its the icing on the cake.

Work. Work. Work. Need I say more?

2011-11-23T02:41:00.001+08:00

My heart hurts like hell. But we did what was right.

2011-11-01T11:22:00.000+08:00

Oh God, I'm getting so sick of my nightmares.

2011-10-28T08:52:00.000+08:00

So, recently my cellgroup pissed me off. Yeah. My cellgroup. W19. Yes, you. I'm not even going to bother to hide it here.

It has been a very, very long time since I have been unhappy with my cellgroup. The last time was back in 2007 with E458, and things turned out for the better after much trouble and confrontation (and anger on my part). From the time that things went great for E458 and up until now I have been pleased with the cellgroup I've been in. Until the recent months. Now it's not unhappiness in the recent months, but some points to note and how it doesn't help this situation.

Last Sunday I went for service. My mom needed the car so it was the first Sunday in quite some time I didn't get to borrow the car. Thankfully, Justin allowed me to stay in his place, and drove me over to church on Sunday morning. It was the weekend Jayesslee was coming to the service, and they performed wonderfully, but they aren't the focus of this post. After service, we went to eat at Piccadilly. As Ai Lee has moved to Kelana Jaya now, that means I'm the only person living in Cheras now, in the cellgroup. I'm the only Cherasian, and I have no car. At least the Sunway people live really near the church, and thus no one has a problem picking them up and dropping them off. The rest who live slightly further (but none are far as me) have their cars. Anyhoo, after eating, and having a discussion on what the cellgroup should do for Deepavali, it was time to go home. Now, my mom was in Malacca, and I had no car. So I couldn't call her to pick me up. So fine, I asked if I could be dropped home. Naturally, everyone said no. It was too far. I understood, even though Piccadilly to my house is about the same distance as Piccadilly to Sunway. Fine. I wasn't really expecting someone to drive me back home anyway I asked for transport to Mid Valley Mega Mall, which was less than 5 minutes away. Nopes... they weren't going that direction. Instead I was told "How about I drop you to Sunway instead?" and "Can I drop you off at Kelana Jaya?" Wait... Mid Valley is less than 5 minutes away... but you're offering to drop me freaking 20 minutes away? At a place further from my house? Am I missing something here?

Yes, I know that as a passenger, it is totally up to the driver. That they do not owe me any transport. They may not owe me, but I think it would be common courtesy (and common sense for a nearer location) to drop your cellgroup member nearby, where it's more convenient to go back home. Nope... nothing of the sort was offered. And I'm not even asking them to go freaking far here. If I was some new member or friend, they'd surely make the effort and go freaking far to drop them off. A regular church member? Nah, he can find his way back. I'd rather they tell me to find my way back instead of dropping me off at Sunway or Kelana. I mean seriously, were brains used when making those statements? You know I live in Cheras. You know my house is relatively near Piccadilly. You know that Mid Valley is freaking near Piccadilly. And you want top drop me back more than thrice the distance away? More than thrice, remember that.

It's funny. I've been in church for 8 years now, coming close to the start of my ninth year, and in every cellgroup I've been in, I've at least bonded with them decently. Even if things did not go well with the cellgroup as a whole, relationships and bonds were forged. I am not feeling much of that here, even before I began working. With certain people, yes, definitely, but not the cellgroup. Is there a movie outing going on? Ask everyone! Except me. Any plans? Tell everyone! Except me. Are we going for Sunday service? Let him find out when he reaches church on Saturday! Thus I joined Issey's cellgroup very often, and it was like I was in two separate cellgroups. And I bonded so well with Issey's cellgroup as well. And much less with my own, despite seeing them in cellgroup meetings as well.

Since I have begun working, I have not attended one cellgroup meeting, due to work ending late. By the time I finished, borrowed the car and driven over, cellgroup would be over, and most likely they'd be in the middle of eating. Yeah, I know I'm making the cellgroup seem horrible. They aren't. Hell, they celebrated m birthday and bought me a very fashionable and a very nice bag. When I represented the cellgroup for the subzone Bible quiz, they supported me very well, and very enthusiastically. Jokes, laughters and all that. But all I asked for was transport to a place really nearby, and suddenly, if it's inconvenient for them even in the slightest (even if it just requires a small U-turn), they can't be bothered. I'm mainly complaining on the events on that day, although bitching here and there about the general picture.

I thought Jesus said if you'll travel with someone one mile, go with him two? Again, like I've said... one of the strongest cases to show how Christianity changes people is the Christians themselves. They are the best and worst "evidences" in the case for Christ. And as if to add insult to injury, today I was asked whether I was free to attend cellgroup. Knowing I had no transport back, I said I'd pass. Ai Lee offered to drive me back home, even though she wasn't going herself. She was going to take the trouble to drive to the cellgroup place, and drive me back home. Why wasn't this offered when I really needed it on Sunday? And I don't mean a ride back home. I just needed a ride to Mid Valley. When I really needed it, it wasn't offered. When I don't need it, it's generously offered. What. The. Hell?

The insult to injury wasn't mainly that though. The cellgroup went for the Deepavali outing at Vintry, and never told me. But if there's a cellgroup meeting, they tell me! Wow, how holy! Geez. Perhaps I am glad that I only see them once a week. Yes, I'm using harsh language here. But seriously, I'm not offended on the fact I wasn't there at the outing with them. I was offended that they didn't bother asking. And I'm not desperate for an outing with them. I have way too many friends, and with plenty of activities, although I try to space them evenly and perhaps interlink them when I can. As cocky and arrogant as it sounds, I don't really lose out too much if I lose a small group of friends, or a few individuals. There have been many friendships I have been prepared to throw away because although I value the friendship tremendously, I know that I have so many other friends of equal value, and thus I hardly worry. The only time I would worry is if I lost all my friends. And that, based on my current score, is never going to happen. And, it would also free up a lot of my time as well.

The less I expect from this cellgroup, the happier I'm going to be. "Dedicated" Christians - They will cross mountains, valleys and a thousand miles for God but won't drive you a mile or two to help you out. No wonder I am amazed by Christ. I am appalled by "Christians".

Yeah, since it was such a trouble and bother to drive me back, I decided to skip the cellgroup meeting. What's the point of being offered something you were denied when you really needed it? It could have been the first one I attended since I began working. I decided to pass on it instead, making it the first cellgroup meeting I've intentionally missed. Honoured?

2011-10-22T05:56:00.000+08:00

Aye, like I said in my previous post, I'm resigning.

I've worked at Creative Thumbprint for almost 5 months now ( two months after my graduation exhibition, which I still brag about, and which I'm very proud of, has been used as an example to other colleges as a great success. In KL and in Singapore. And that adds more to the bragging. Lmao.) as a graphic designer, which seems incredible, as I've had a working life for close to half a year. Throughout these 5 months, I've done a lot of work, relatively few designs I'm extremely proud of, and also, a lot of mistakes. Of course, I've learned from them, but there's a few issues that have driven me to resign this early. My initial plan was to work until the end of December, and resign, unless I was extremely satisfied with the workplace, at which I'd work for one full year. Then I'd leave. That was always my plan. And then a few things started happening...

Firstly, the colleagues. Now, I'm not bitching about them. They are very friendly people, and because it's such a small company, there's no office politics, despite some friends of mine denying that's impossible. Yet it is. There's no tension between anyone, and everyone is generally friendly with each other. They're pleasant people. The thing that annoys me however, is that they aren't very smart. Yeah, it sounds shallow but try enduring retardedness for half a year.

There's a few things... like one time a colleague was showing us a website that claimed it could determine a person's gender by their birthdate and some other minor details. I called bullshit, as I knew it was just as stupid as zodiacs and horoscopes. She said it was true, and a few of us tried it for our birthdays. Every single one was wrong. And she still believed it, because there was a website on it.

Another time they talked about satay. Its a Malay word, and they were claiming satay was of Chinese origin; that it referred to three pieces of meat satay was traditionally known for. I was skeptical, and researched it. In the end I was right for doubting. Traditionally it was four pieces, which throws the 3-piece theory to hell.

One other time it was the Hungry Ghost Festival, and one of my colleagues was wearing red. Another colleague claimed wearing red would attract ghosts to you, and he actually got so scared he went back and changed his shirt. Seriously?

Another time we talked about religion. The bosses are all Christian. The rest of the colleagues are all Buddhists, with me as the exception. One of them is a baby Christian with very messed up theology and strong Buddhist beliefs. I threw a bit of philosophy of evil gods into the topic and no one could answer me. One tried, and failed horribly, claiming evil gods are of fake religions, and only good gods were true religions, with no arguments to back up her claim.

There's a lot of other stuff like this that continually happened, and I realized that they weren't very intelligent. Friendly? Yes, academically smart? Oh definitely. Talented? Sure. Intelligent? No. Philosophically-capable? Nada. All this stuff annoyed me 'cause I can't stand crap, and I get it all the time. It's not aimed towards me (apart from the occasional bitching of Christianity by the colleagues), but hearing it all the time is enough to get anyone annoyed. This was just a minor reason. They're still pleasant people overall.

Another reason is I don't click with them very well. Yes, I know it's a company and as colleagues our priority is not to make friends, but to work with one another. However, friendships are going to form regardless if people click well. And I don't. Yes, there's laughter, jokes, talks, discussions and all that but it's very shallow, very on the surface. Add to the fact that everyone there is a native Chinese-speaker (include the dialects) and pretty often there's nothing much to say unless the conversation suddenly turns to English. I may understand Cantonese and Mandarin, but there's a lot of information lost in translation as I'm not that fluent.

And one more thing that was the main force for me to resign early, and not wait longer. During my fourth month, I was evaluated for confirmation, and whether I passed my probation. It was supposed to be only three months, but they wanted to drag it to five months to evaluate me longer. Okay, their reasons? Firstly, they doubted whether I was passionate in design. Why? Because they said I wasn't very initiative (that word again! Used against me by a lot of people I know) and didn't seem very interested. Firstly, that hardly counts as a lack of passion. And just because someone's passionate about something, does that mean they won't slack at certain points? Especially when you're stuck in an office for 11-12 hours a day? Plus even in college, all the top students; they're passionate and skilled. Do you think they enjoy every single one of their assignments? I highly doubt so. They can take it as a lesson, or training, but I highly doubt that they will be passionate for every single assignment and give it 100% no matter what. Every single one? I don't think so. And for the corporate world, there's a lot of boring jobsheets. I can do them. Does that mean I'll be interested in it? No... I find it really hard to be passionate over a flyer that needs to look cheap and "Giant/Mydin-ish" promoting food for sale prices. I do it differently and I'm told there's no "feel" to it. Some jobs are much more interesting than others, and so I would argue with the so-called observation that I am not interested in work. Perhaps you only observe me when I do boring jobs, and not the more interesting ones. In addition, I freely admit there are days where I do my work slowly, to drag time. But they're not common, and I only do it when it's like Friday, or it's nearing 7pm or 8pm. Not in the middle of the day, when there's still plenty of hours left. Yet this counts as lack of passion. I don't see it equated, but apparently the bosses do.

The bosses also said that for certain jobs I took too long. They could only specify two. I'd been working for 4 months at the time and all they could come up with was two? I've done a lot more jobsheets than that. I think percentage-wise, I'm pretty reasonable. One took really, long, and fine, I admit that one took a while to do, because there were constant amendments, and I began slowing down after a while. Is that my fault? Okay, fine. My fault. The second, it was hardly my fault. I'm only supposed to do amendments when contact reports are made and I change it accordingly. I was accused of not doing this certain job and it took so many days to do one tiny amendment. First of all, only when I was given the contact report, did I make the change and it was within minutes. I was given the contact report late. It's not my fault is it? Why should I be blamed for being slow on that? And I challenged them to bring up a case where I did not do amendments when given contact reports on time. Nothing could be brought up.

One of the last complaints they had was that a certain business card mockup I did was of extremely poor quality and thus, unfit to show to a client. Okay, fine. But let me defend myself. Their complaint was that it was printed on simile paper, with two papers stuck together back to back. It looked flimsy and unpresentable. Eh, okay. I guess if it was supposed to be shown to the client, that would be pretty bad. But I didn't know it was supposed to be shown to the client. Every (yes, EVERY) single mockup I've done had been on simile paper. To show to who? I don't know, I'm just told to do it. The designers have nothing to do with meeting clients anyway, so it doesn't really concern me. Plus I've been doing mockups here and there for the four months I've been there, and there was never a complaint about simile paper. Every mockup, unless specifically specified, used simile paper and it's always been fine. Yet for the namecard, suddenly I'm told it was meant for the client (which was never told to me) and why did I use simile paper, and didn't ask? Well, maybe because it's been fine for a third of a year! No complaints, no nothing. I make one flimsy card, and suddenly I'm asked why am I not inquisitive enough for this, and why don't I question more. If I've been doing something the same way for 4 months, and it's acceptable, I hardly feel the need to question why this particular round would need to be questioned. Especially when the question of asking more was never brought up in previous mockups, and they were all accepted.

I defended myself in every case, and they didn't answer back very thoroughly. I brought up the fact that I avail myself to help out the other designers in things like mockups or Photoshopping stuff or what whenever I'm asked, which explained away their insistence on my lack of initiative. Plus, I challenged them to go ask everyone in the design studio who always asks for the next job the most often. It is me. When I finish my work, I listen to a song or two, refill my cup, rest for a few minutes, maybe load up a song or something on Youtube, and then ask for the next job. And I do this very often. Too often in fact, that I realize many of the other designers don't do this. Regardless of why, I still hold the the fact that I ask "What's the next job?" the most frequently, and I boldly challenged the bosses to ask anyone in the design studio to prove my claims. You know what's the worst part? They said something along the lines of "We weren't aware of that." Great.

A legitimate case they brought against me was the fact that I read articles throughout the day. After a period of hectic designing, or when I'm resting a bit, I'd tend to read news articles from Yahoo!, MSN or other sites. I refrained from checking out comics and that sort of stuff. I openly read articles in front of them, because it didn't ruin my productivity (to me anyway) and it was never "fun" stuff. However they had a problem with it and told me to stop. Okay, I can respect that. I'm wrong for reading articles during work, even if it didn't affect me. So I stopped. Another case they brought up was me arriving at work at 9:30am when I was supposed to be coming in at 9am. I said that everyone's reading newspapers or eating breakfast, and no one really does their work until 9:30am. So slowly I began to use that extra half an hour for sleep, and arrive just in time and start work immediately. Instead of slacking around for half an hour, and doing my work. However, I'm rightfully supposed to arrive at 9am anyway, and for that I'm wrong as well. Very well, I began arriving at 9am, or at least around there since then. A few mistakes I made in previous jobs was also brought up as a reminder, and I duly took note of them, as they were completely of my own fault, and I recognized them as such. This in turn led to comments on my observation, and attention for detail. Another criticism they leveled on me was I was poor at layouts, and interesting colour combinations, which I'd say is subjective, but is still something they have every right to bring up and I may be merely blind to their legitimate constructive criticisms.

So, their complaints were mainly I wasn't passionate and took too long. And they wanted to drag my probation up to 5 months. I wasn't going to stand for it. My pay is only RM1700. I was cut down from my requested amount of 1800, because it was to match a colleague of mine. I initially thought after the supposed 3-month probation that I would get increased pay, and leaving at the end of the year or one year later would be reasonable. But if I get confirmed now? I'll be leaving like in a month or two, right after confirmation. I would feel bad for doing that, so soon. But since my probation was still ongoing, and my pay was still the same, I decided to resign and mentioned it during the evaluation after hearing all they brought against me. If they aren't aware of the contributionss I've made, I might as well resign now than wait. I said it'd be easier. I get to take a break, rest, and re-evaluate myself, while they wouldn't need to worry about confirming me. After all, I lack passion to them right? Why would you want a passionateless guy in a design firm?

A bonus would be that I have working experience now, and can request for higher pay. Even if I'm cut down, it'll still be higher than what I earn now. Plus I'll get a new job, and it'll be something new. Something for better or for worse? I don't know. I'll let the future show me.

Now, I know this post seems like a hate post on the company. It is not. It's merely to explain why I resigned, and some details regarding why. I learned a lot of valuable skills and many minor details to look out for, that I never did back in college. I have no qualms with any of the colleagues. Like I said, they're all friendly. Not intelligent, but friendly, and helpful. If I need help, they'll help, or suggest things to do, for improvements on my designs. It's just hearing crap very often is annoying, and they're also pretty racist as well, which doesn't bode well with me, even though I'm never a victim of their racist remarks. Just hearing it is unpleasant. The last things that pushed me to resign are all mentioned there, with reasons. And so, my final week of work approaches.

Creative Thumbprint and Yellow Thumbprint has been a very interesting time, with much learned, minor friendships forged, income earned, and now, a path for somewhere else... hmmm.

2011-10-21T08:55:00.002+08:00

So, a proper update at last. Lol. Since I've got way too much to cover in the last few weeks, I thought I should blog some more recent events first.

So last Saturday, I woke up at noon to get ready to meet a potential client. As I'm resigning from Creative Thumbprint at the end of the month, I thought I'd seek out a few jobs now. Slowly though... I'm not really in a rush and all. I want to take a short rest as well. My mom thinks otherwise, and is constantly nagging me to hurry up and find another job, telling me it was a big mistake to quit my current job. I have very good reasons though, and I'll mention them later.

I met the client, Jason Tan, at The Curve, and we had a small chat, with two of his partners there as well. Apparently they want some sort of freelance/contractual basis thing for designers. Like within a period of two weeks, or a month, they'll give me some jobs, and I give them what I do, and they pay me. After that if they want to continue hiring me we'll do it again for another two weeks or a month. Pretty tempting. Especially when the work can be done from home, and I only need to meet them twice a week, just to get jobs, and updates. I'll need to convince them first however, with a small job they'll be giving me.

I was extremely tired 'cause the previous night was Halloween Night at TOA, and I went back to support Sacwrath, Justin's band, which I haven't blogged about in here yet 'cause I'm so lagging on updates. Lol. Headbanged, chilled, celebrated David's birthday and went for a drinking session at Justin's place where I ended up falling asleep. Plus I was told that my hands were in prayer as I slept the entire time! In addition to tiredness (and a stuff neck), I was really hungry too so I went to Ikea and got the SWEDISH MEATBALLS. One of the ultimate foods to ever exist! While lining up, I bumped into Julie (aka Jules), who I've been getting to know really well and close, in recent months. We hugged, caught up and had a bit of smalltalk before ordering and going our separate ways.

Went to Subang to meet up with my band members. And because of more lack of updates, Ryan and Hadi have both left the band, and we've recruited Harish, a very passionate guitarist. Still missing a drummer though. did some songwriting and went to eat and chat and get to know Harish better.

I was bloody bored and it's very rare I have a Saturday night free, doing nothing at all. So I decided to go to Sunway and use the Unifi there at one of the restaurants, and lo, I saw Nikke's pink car. I stopped by and saw Nikke and Kevyn at Home Chef Recipe. My initial plan was to chat with them and wait till they went off to use the internet, but eventually I joined them for KFC and later went to chill at Ming Tien, talking and sharing stories and jokes all the way from 9pm to 3am. Geez! And it was just the three of us. Redzuan and Masayo did drive past us while we were at Ming Tien but they didn't notice us, and they eventually drove to KFC (the irony).

I was getting tired so we said our "Nights" and I went home to sleep. I was supposed to wake up for church tne next day, but I ended up waking up at 8pm. This marks the third time I've overslept for church this year, and its getting to be quite an issue. A very big annoyance too 'cause its not intentional, but I just can't wake up with my alarm quite often. Even with sufficient rest. Very awkward. I'm still used to attending Saturday services... *sigh*.

Anyway, like I said, I was resigning from work right? After five months? So fast? Yeah. Read my next post for all the reasons.

2011-09-29T00:14:00.000+08:00

Singapore, Festival of the Tritone, Tyranny of the Eight, Miki, broken hard disk, James' birthday, Khar Loo, Essenism, tarot cards, Kai Yih, Caffeines, work. Oh God, so much to update.

Since I've been back from Singapore, there's been a ton of events and incidents that have happened. Some fun, some great, some sad, and some horrifying. Yeah, I said horrifying. Not to me, but the incident that happened to my friend. Seriously. Who the hell whacks their own daughter?

I'm still FREAKING tired though, so I guess proper updates will need to wait. I fell asleep in the office a few times today. Freaking exhausted. And I have much to catch up on my blog. Lmao.

Nitez people.

2011-08-30T03:58:00.000+08:00

My first day in, and I already met up with the Magic Gang. Woots.

Usually when I came down I would take a bus in the afternoon or evening, and arrive extremely late in Singapore, go to whichever friend's house I was staying in, and just casually catch up and chill, rest and go out the next day. Rarely have I ever had an actual event on the day I came down itself. I remember the last time this happened was clubbing with Gary and Darren and Double O, After arriving from KL, I dropped my stuff at Koh Wee's place, and went off clubbing. On the same day. Needless to say I was exhausted, and with the amount I drank that night, for the first time I actually lost my memory and woke up on the MRT with no idea how I got there. This kind of alcoholic memory loss would occur in the future, but at that time it was the first time, and I was freaked by how I couldn't recall ANYTHING. I've wondered at times how it felt to lose your memory, and I experienced it firsthand. Yeah. Yu En, ever the doctor, later explained it was due to the alcohol affecting thalamine, something involved in the storage of memories. Gee whiz.

Anyway, some of them weren't free Sunday, when I came down. Seong Voon and Joel weren't able to make it, but thankfully, the rest were available. The moment I reached Woodlands, I went straight to Koh Wee's place, changed (travelling 5 hours works up a sweat) and off we went to Causeway Point! And well... it didn't look like Causeway Point anymore, lol. It looked so different, so much more modern, and a lot more aesthetically pleasing. the outside hasn't changed at all, but the interiors all looked really Orchard-ish. There's still plenty of construction, and like 75% of all the shops have moved locations. Several stores I'd been seeing for the last 10 years have gone. Everything was so different. And the Magic Gang that showed up was also different. Heh, for one thing, Nicholas and Wei Yu now smoke! Lmao. The first smokers of the Magic Gang, Nicholas also had a shaved head. Zameer's in army, Wei Yu's working in Yahoo! and Wilson and Koh Wee have more or less remained the same. We ate in Hot Tomato catching up on many things, and later walked around while chatting and crapping around. It was a great time to catch up, and Koh Wee's opened a chalet for the weekend, so I hope that'll lead to some fun as well later on during the week.

Anyhoo, meeting up my dad in JB. He's moved from the old place in Bukit Mewah, to somewhere I don't know... so let's see where my new address is in JB. Great. Now my 12th address of my life, in a sense.

2011-08-29T15:20:00.000+08:00

So, I'm finally in Singapore. For the first time this year. It's been way too long. You can blame TOA and work for that. I visit Singapore/JB about 3-4 times a year, normally spending 10 days down. Every holiday I'd get in Singapore, I'd make the effort, to catch up with friends here, as well as visit my dad. This year was total hell though, and I had no chance to visit at all. After November, my next planned visit was to be in April, but that was the time of my graduation exhibition. Fine, after that my mom told me she was tight and couldn't give me any money to spend in Singapore. What's the point of visiting with no money? So after a month's break, I finally got a job, and since jobs don't offer holidays like school, I haven't had the chance to visit till now. Thanks to convenience of timing, Hari Raya and National Day are on the same week/day. Combined with my leave and the weekends, I could finally get an entire week off. Woots! Smart usage yes, but it reminds me how you need really convenient timings to get longer stretches of days off.

The last time I came down was in November, for Chee Kiong and Gwyn's wedding. And I sort of made that into a Singapore trip as well. Time well spent. The previous visit before that was in freaking April. I met up with Ashleigh, for the first time since she visited KL that time. Had a simple meal with her and her cellgroup member Georgina, and had a hell of a great time with jokes and all. As we neared our stops, I told her the story of Zhi Xuan and I, and it was hilarious. I also met up with Sebastian and Ryan, who I now call Yusiang and Zhi Wen, since they don't use their English names anymore since leaving church, haha. They're still as funny as ever, and despite not seeing them for years, it feels like nothing much had changed between us. It was still so easy to chat, and we just hung out and stuff like in previous years. I also met up with Xin Mei, after not seeing her for like 3 years. It was really random, because I saw her online (she's online maybe once every year) and chatted her up, leading to a date. Lol, I use that word very lightly here, as she's got her boyfriend, who apparently still remembers me as the guy who only wears black. I went out with her to Orchard Ion, and later Plaza Singapura, just catching up and sharing A LOT of stories. I shared mainly about my dramatic love life, and she told me about her and Bao Long, and all the hell she went through, as well as some details on some people who've made me lose even more respect than they've previously lost. I still find it hard to believe we could chat and talk for nearly 5 hours during meals, drinks and just walking around. Was a great time spent.

This time round, I'm determined to meet more people than spending quality time with them. I've always tried to have a balance when it comes to meeting friends everytime I visit. If I meet more friends, naturally I'll spend less time with them, meeting maybe 2 or 3 groups or individuals in a day, a meal each or so, just to catch up. Other times I've met up with much less people, but instead spent hours and days with them, enjoying quality time, at the cost of not meeting more people. The last visit in November was supreme quality time, and due to not visiting Singapore the entire year until now, I still owe quite a lot of people a time to catch up. I've not met a lot of people I had promised before the meet up with. My time in Singapore is always very impromptu, just the way I like it, 'cause it allows more flexibility in my activities, but at the same time due to the lack of planning I end up not meeting certain people.

So this time round I spread the news a week early to the people I planned to meet up with: The Magic Gang, Joycelyn, Jonathan Lim, Xin Mei, Chia Sheng and Ms Koeh (lol), so yeah. I picked some out because I really had not seen them in way too long. And now I feel the time is due. As for the Magic Gang and church members, they are always a given, so its just regular. And I'll be meeting up with Juswin, Eleanore and Jeffrey too. Quite a packed schedule, but one I think I'll enjoy. I just hope I can fit everyone in nicely, and have enough money to spare. I may be working, but its the end of the month, and due to the extremely long holidays, I'm worried my cheque won't be processed in time while I'm still here. I need the money here a lot more than when I'm just doing my daily job at work.

Time to enjoy my first "holiday" of working life!

2011-08-15T23:51:00.001+08:00

So, like I said, there's a stupid issue with the car. For the better part of 3 years, I've always borrowed the Hyundai Accent, my mom's car, while Uncle Ben drives his Mercedes. Normally I'd borrow it only at night a few times, and certain days that I needed it. When I began working, this didn't change much. In the morning, I would drive the car to the office, park it, and my mom would come over, pick up the car and drive it off for her own use. At night when work ended, she'd pick me up. In fact, I could borrow the car quite often because my hours ended so late. My mom didn't need it anymore that late, so I'd borrow it, visit whatever friends I was meeting up, and come home. Sometimes she didn't need the car, so I would drive home, or go out, straight from the office.

When Uncle Ben got a third car, a Toyota Harrier, I thought that would make life even easier, and for a week, it was. Uncle Ben drove the Harrier, mom drove the Merc, and I had the Accent to myself. Then suddenly that all changed. The Accent was lent to Uncle Ben's business partner so that he could use it to transport goods and stuff. Mom had the Merc still, and Uncle Ben still used the Harrier. Fine. I just needed to borrow the car from my mom right? No. Apparently Uncle Ben thinks I drink every time I go out, and doesn't want me to drive the Merc drunk. Even though I'm not drinking every time I go down to Sunway during the weekdays. Seriously? What the hell? I'm not allowed to drive it because he thinks I drive home drunk, EVERY SINGLE NIGHT? What the hell? Why am I allowed to drive with the Accent all I want, but not the Merc? Is it because if I get into an accident, the cost of the Accent is less? I'm still accident-free till now. And I don't drink that often anyway, and certainly not on the weekdays. Most drinking happens in my own house anyway. Geez. Freaking pissed off.

This is causing a load of trouble for hanging out and for band jamming. It could all be easily solved. Just let Uncle Ben drive the Merc, that partner drive the Harrier (he needs to transport stuff right? A Harrier's pretty big), and let my mom drive the Accent, so that'll let me borrow it whenever I need to. There, everyone happy. Right? No, apparently the Merc has a few technical problems (that I haven't experienced yet) and that's why Uncle Ben's not driving it, as its safer for short distances. Then FIX THE CAR. SIMPLE. Sheesh! I mean we're not that tight to the point of dying. It's a simple solution. But no, because of this stupid arrangement, I'm stuck without a viable means of transport. I'm not being selfish here. I only borrow the car like twice a week, and maybe 3 times, at night when no one else is using it. And it could've continued too, if not for the fact that I'm not allowed to drive the Merc, despite driving it over 10 times already in the last few days. Geez. I'm actually considering getting a motorcycle license so I don't need to deal with idiotic crap like this. Only downsides are my hair will be flattened, rain will be a major bitch, and dying will be a lot less harder. Still, let's see how all this goes.

Okay, enough of ranting. I spent 400 bucks last week. I bought an external hard disk with 1TB space, which feels damn good. I've been suffering with 320GB for 2 years now, having to delete a lot of stuff that isn't essential, but would be nice to have, like certain movies, games and the such. Aiks. Having 1000 gigs feels great, and now I can finally back up all my stuff in peace, and still have more than enough space. Plus I can finally reformat my computer. It's been giving me trouble the last few months, but I had no storage device big enough to store everything. Not anymore though... ho ho. Part of that 400 spent was also an the Apologetics Study Bible. I love apologetics, and I've been wanting to get this Bible for a year or so. Finally, with my own money, I finally bought it. There's a lot of info inside, several from authors I'm already familiar with, and who's arguments I know very well. However, there's a lot of other authors' inputs as well, and it'd be nice to learn more. Plus, one thing that truly makes it valuable is that on practically every page, below the footnotes there's another section of footnotes that describes the historical setting of the Bible and gives archaeological evidence, or some other input that gives more clarity and context to the verses. Very, very useful, especially for the more troubling sections of the Bible.

Aye... I had a weird day today. I woke up at 5am, then 7am, and finally at 8am, when my alarm woke me up. I was DEAD sleepy at work today, although thankfully, it was very productive in terms of quality... whew. Hope that makes up for lack of quantity, heh.

2011-08-09T02:03:00.000+08:00

It's hard to believe that it's August already.

Yes, yes, I know time flies. I also know that it was mere months ago that I said I couldn't believe 3 years had passed, and that I was done with TOA. Yet now I'm surprised that I've entered my third month of working, nearing one quarter of a year. So this is going to be my life for perhaps the next 30-40 years? Going to work 5 or 6 days a week, doing things, chatting small talk, enjoying a few laughs here and there, chill out a few times a week after work, make the most of the weekends, get pay, spend it on necessities, and repeat. For the next few decades. I'm beginning to know why a lot of working adults commit suicide now. It all seems very, very redundant. Work hard, get paid, buy necessities, buy things you like, go out once in a while, repeat, as the stresses of marriage, bills, children and retirement add on to this redundant lifestyle. At the end, you die. I'm beginning to see things from the perspective of people who say life is meaningless.

Of course, I'm not bitching about work. Nor life. Nor do I think its meaningless. I'm just saying I'm starting to see (experience, more like) the perspectives of those I didn't quite understand before. But anyhoo, while I'm working 11 hour days most of the time, its a must to keep myself entertained (and awake) so normally I listen to music. I previously used my phone, but there's only so much space and the quality from the speakers isn't brilliant. So I began Youtubing things to listen to. First it was the bands and music I had in my own playlists. Then songs I hadn't listened to, from the artists I knew. Then I slowly began checking out other bands and music, and now I've come to know much more bands than before, all thanks to random Youtube suggestions when I listen to songs. I've discovered God is an Astronaut, Rosetta, Isis, Draconian and a hell lot of other bands I can't quite remember at the moment. After a while though, I began listening to other stuff, like comedians. Yeah... since most of the humour is from what is said, I could enjoy the jokes while doing my work. Allowed me to catch up on a lot of things I hadn't heard previously. Made me look stupid because I was giggling while doing my work, and due to the earphones, no one knew what I was laughing about. And also, since I had such long hours, I also listened to long videos. I've been intently listening to entire debates of Christians with atheists, Muslims and the such. Watching lots of atheistic videos and documentaries also helps keep my apologetics sharp as well as keeping me open to the different views of other beliefs (or unbeliefs).

Anyway, the last 3 weekends, my dad has come to KL. Naturally, I went to meet him, and also was re-introduced to Uncle Winston and Aunty Felice, both family friends that I can't quite recall -.-, despite them claiming I met them several years ago. I'm doing a favour for Winston by designing his new company's logo, and he's "paid" by paying for my food and drinks whenever we meet. That means he's paying for free flowing alcohol. Yeah. I actually got drunk three weeks back because of the free flow. When I met up Symposium, apparently they said I was a complete moron. Lol, sorry. Last week though, he asked me to bring along some friends at Lake View Club, some club that's mostly for the middle-aged. I brought along Justin, Redzuan, Kevyn, David and Masayo, as they were free. And we all got free flow beer, thanks to Winston and my dad. So much thanks!

The club had a small band singing a variety of songs, and sometimes they would get the crowd involved by singing a few lines. Interestingly for us, they saw Masayo singing along with them for "Bad Romance" and let her sing the chorus a few times. Then Justin and Redzuan nudged her to try growling the chorus instead, which she kept refusing until the singers came back again and let her sing the last few lines, and Masayo growled. LOL. Freaked everyone in the club. Later on, Justin even went up onstage to sing 2 songs, and was dancing with one of the singers. The words we used to describe it were "What a waist". LOL.

A few weeks later, we also celebrated Kevyn's birthday by giving him a shisha bong! Heh, had a heavy drinking session at Justin's house, despite idiotic troubles with the issue of borrowing a car. More on that in my next post.

2011-07-31T01:07:00.000+08:00

I guess I missed out on a lot, lol, in my supposed catch-up post.

Let's see... what else did I miss out on? Well, almost two months back, there was a special combined subzone cellgroup, and one of the highlights was a quiz about the zone, the church, and the Bible. I had no worries whatsoever on the Bible section, but the church and zone questions got me worried because I didn't really know that much about the church and zone. So when I had free time I studied a bit about the zone history, Heng, Keith and some of their backgrounds, and learned a lot about the church and stuff. I wasn't worried about biblical issues because I was that cocky. I mean, uh, confident.

The quiz was actually kind of like a game show. Question on screen, the top scorers of each cellgroup would represent their cellgroup and compete for a cash prize. There was a first segment, and the top 3 (or 4, if tied) would go on to the final segment. For the first segment, I got quite a few questions on the zone and church wrong but when it came to the Bible section, I practically ruled and killed everyone, eventually becoming the top scorer for the first round, after trailing pretty bad due to the questions on the zone and church.

The second round though, had 4 people. The scores from the previous round don't add on. I lost in this section, because of a question I really did not know. I studied a lot on the church and zone, and even for the previous questions I got wrong, I studied for them, but forgot the answer in the moment. For the one question I got wrong in the final round though, I had no idea whatsoever. The question was the age of Pastor Kevin when he began working full time in a church. Ranges were 15-18. I picked 16, and was wrong. The answer was 17. The remaining questions were easy, but due to this one mistake, I didn't get the top prize. One girl who guessed it luckily ended up winning. If final section had been longer, with more Bible questions, I would've undoubtedly reached the top and won. But funny thing was that the final segment was shorter. With much less Bible questions. Zzz. So they gave her the prize, and announced the value, which I previously had no idea about. It was RM500! 500! Like, almost 1/3 of my current paycheck! Aw man, that hurt. That money would've been really useful, and would've made things a lot easier. Aiks. However, she did win anyway, so what can I do? She earned it.

Didn't help that the cellgroup was supporting me really tremendously, and that a lot of people in the subzone thought I would win, as I was the smartest (sorry to brag, but I was). Felt like I let them down in a way. Due to one fluke question on Pastor kevin's age I lost. Sobs! The only solace I have is that I KO'ed everyone when it came to the Bible sections. Ah well... respect to her, once again. She won, I didn't.

Another thing I missed out was attending three birthdays in a row a month back. Aaron's, Wai Kwan's and Fei Yan's. It was really tiring but fun, as I attended each birthday in succession. Aaron held his on Friday night at his house, and I came after work. It was a barbecue/buffet kind of thing, and Symposium attended, as well as a bunch of Aaron's other friends and relatives. After much meat (lol), we began having our drinking games. Symposium plus Aaron's other group of friends. It was pretty fun, and I even got to drive a guy's Celica because he was drunk. Pretty fun to observe the drunkards, and we made a few new friends as well. Pretty cool.

The next day, I went for Wai Kwan's birthday. It was a buffet kinda thing. Lol. She invited her college friends, which was mostly her class, and some of the previous classmates, as well as her high school friends. Kinda interesting as there were three main groups there sitting in their respective tables. High school friends sat in one table, Essenism and the ones closer to us sat with us, and the rest sat among themselves. After the meals, it was basically chatting and chatting. First among the people we were sitting with, but later the high school friends left pretty early, and it was basically TOA people left, combining our groups. Had a great time chatting with everyone there, and catching up with those whom we hadn't seen in a long time. Later on, it was mainly the English speakers left late in the night. Haha... got to know a few key details in some of their lives before everyone left, except for Neal and I. We stayed with Wai Kwan, chilling out for many hours until like 4am, and just chatting about life and all.

Then the last birthday came on Sunday, the day after Wai Kwan's. Feiyan also held it at her house, where I met a lot of people I briefly met the year before at Souled Out, and also got to catch up with a lot of people whom I was closer to. In addition, I met A LOT of new people, and kept in contact with plenty of them. There was a guy who looked like Taylor Lautner (no, seriously... just Asia-fy him) and some hot chick as well. There was also a guy I met who studies in Canada, in England, who was back for the holidays. We exchanged much words and plenty of conversation in our talks about how our respective lives were too. The most interesting person I met though was Evelyn, who everyone called Evie. She was actually the first stranger in the party to come over and introduce herself, within a few minutes of me sitting down. We hit it off from there, and chatted very, very well. We had a drinking session later with games, and I learned a few new games from Ajeet and his drinking group, one which I taught my own drinking group of Symposium. Anyhoo, this got us a bit high, and the conversations came even more easier later on with Evie, and we shared quite a bit with each other. Was a pleasure. Later on only Ajeet's drinking group remained, and we played Spin The Bottle. Yeah. Old-school.

I guess I can say I missed out on Bersih also. At least, in my blog. I think the news covered that well. Seriously, screw the current government. I've lost what remaining shred of respect I had for Najib. I was pretty pleased with Badawi for his entire tenure (plus he slept in meetings, that just made me laugh because I do the same), but geez. The jams surrounding that night were insane with all the roadblocks. That caused an insane jam for the day I was to meet up with Lucas and Angela after work, with Suli being the main organizer. Was good to catch up with my classmates after a while. Sure, I did tutor Lucas in English for his IELTS exam, but to just chat and not have anything work or education related was a pleasant change.

These are the kind of things that helps keep me sane in the working world. Lol.

2011-07-26T00:51:00.001+08:00

Aye, I'm tired.

Actually, I'm quite tired most of the week. Five day work week, averaging 11 hours of work a day? Yeah, I think that can exhaust anyone easily. But then again, that's the art industry. I asked for it (figuratively... I had no idea it was like this till much later). But yeah, aside from tiredness, working life's affected my life quite a lot now.

For one thing, I actually need to start sleeping earlier now. For my entire life I've more or less slept whenever I wanted to, and it was always late. Whether it be reading books, studying, chatting, calling or what, I always had something to make me sleep late. Even in the torturous time in TOA, I still slept late 'cause of all the freaking assignments and staying up just to use the net for whatever reasons. It could always be solved easily by sleeping in class. Or, if I couldn't, then just last the few hours of class and find a place (usually the library) to sleep. Now that I'm working, and spend 11 hours in the office, I can't sleep in the office. Not to mention the stakes are much higher in the workforce, than in school. So I have to force myself to sleep earlier on weekdays. That's not too difficult, thanks to me being tired all the time. 'Cause although I sleep earlier, I still sleep as late as I can, still chatting, or reading, or whatever. I push the limit, although cautiously and carefully. Rarely do I overdo it.

Either way, working life is fine. I mean I'm doing creative work everyday, so its not stale and boring like some typical office job. However, it does get repetitive doing Photoshop and Illustrator stuff everyday. To kill the monotony I go out till late maybe twice or so during the weekdays to hang out with friends, more often with Symposium. It's pretty good as I get social variety differing from the office guys, and some variation in my activities too. Yeah, so it's basically my typical work week. Work 5 days a week with freaking long hours, and hang out till like 2am or 4am with Symposium, or other friends, twice during the workweek.

Nikke said it well, when we hung out till 6am on Saturday about a month ago. The following was copied from her Facebook status.

Epic chilling balls session with the nearly ideal lepak gang. Hunches and sentiments that we felt all along were affirmed and as for the dilemmas plaguing our little symposium circle, we can only hope for the best. Rest well guys, we shall convene in the near future \o/

Yeah. It's really nice to just hang out, chat and share about everything, including the current problems we're having with some people. And it was very interesting when Nikke brought up the topic of me having a crush on her last time, and both of us discussing it so easily and simply.

Of course, besides my friends and groups outside, working life's also severely affected my church life as well. Due to the crazy hours, I haven't attended even one cellgroup meeting since working. Mostly 'cause my working hours are a bit unpredictable. Sure, it's usually 11 hours, but sometimes it drags 'cause of last-minute given job sheets, or finishing up something. And to get the car from my mom and to drive over to the place, by that time they're either finished, or midway eating their supper. I think the cellgroup's in quite a delicate situation now, 'cause I really felt that the cellgroup was getting to know one another much better in recent months, and we were getting to be a lot more comfortable and united. Considering that a while back I felt that everything was on the surface, the way things are getting better had me pretty pleased. But now I'm unable to attend the cellgroup meeting regularly, which cuts off one day that I can meet and fellowship with the cellgroup.

And not to mention that's changing my weekend services too. Since I've become a Christian, I've only been a member of City Harvest Church Singapore, and City Harvest Church Kuala Lumpur. And since I've been a Christian, I've always attended Saturday services, 'cause that's the day all my cellgroups have been assigned to. Even my friends outside of church knew my Saturday afternoons and evenings were off limits because of church. Anything done on Saturday that wasn't church related had to be in the morning or night. And it's been this way for nearly a decade. Yet now my cellgroup goes to Sunday services every week, even though we're officially assigned to Saturday. For a few months, it even came to the point where I'd attend Saturday service and wonder if the cellgroup was coming on Saturday or Sunday. If they were there on Saturday, I'd fellowship with them. If not, I'd join Issey's cellgroup, and he'd drive me home at night. I've been extremely grateful to Issey for this, and due to his subzone combining their fellowships pretty often, I've met a lot of people in their zone, expanding my friend base and knowing more people in church. And I've made quite a lot of good friends this way.

Sure, it's nice to meet and know more people in church, but this isn't quite the setting I imagined. So in recent weeks I've begun to attend Sunday services. Partly its because Symposium hangs out on Saturdays, and I join them, and we have a great time chilling out till late at night. Like 6am for example. But another reason is because I want to bond with the cellgroup. What's the point of us multiplying and being a cellgroup when we aren't even below the surface as a cellgroup, as a whole? As the cellgroup gets closer, slowly, and bonds, I need to be a part of that. There's really no point of me being in the cellgroup if they all bond but I don't, but am a member of the cellgroup officially. That does nothing for the true relations. Nothing for the unity and bonding (at least, on my part). So I attend Sunday services now, but because of all the hanging out late at night, I tend to oversleep and arrive for service late. I've been late for every single service since I've began working. Sure, it could all be solved by sleeping earlier on Saturday, but then my weekend is spoiled. Saturday is the only full day I can proper rest, relax and not worry about anything the next day. If I'm going to sacrifice that, and lose out on some quality time for hanging out, then my weekend isn't much of a time to unwind then, is it? See what working life does? And because of having little sleep on Saturday night, I'm tired and exhausted on Sunday, making me sleepy for the sermons. I lose out in every way. Sure, I get to fellowship with my cellgroup, and it helps in the unity, but a cellgroup meeting is far more bonding in the long run, and I'm missing out on that. But to at least maintain an effort, I still go for Sunday services.

Also, now on Sundays, a few hours after the services, Daniel Chiam's been organizing basketball sessions for the zone. It's fun, it's fruitful and I meet and catch up with a lot of people I normally wouldn't catch up with very regularly. Providing me with exercise and showing me how bad my skills have become after years of absence, it's great and fun. But I get even more exhausted, and when I reach home, when I sleep soon after, it's not enough to recuperate for the next day. I personally need 12 hours of sleep to feel well rested and satisfied. It's not enough, and it hasn't been since I began working, with the exceptions of waking up late on Saturdays.

So yeah. I knew I'd need to adjust when I began working life. All the nagging, reminders, talks and stuff from tons of people I've known have all told me that working life will be different. I knew that, and I braced myself for that. And now I'm going through it. Took me by surprise? No. Making me have no time for a social life? Nope. Making me really, really tired everyday? Yes, and this is going to go on.

2011-07-14T01:31:00.000+08:00

Geez. It's been a month since I've blogged. I haven't had this kinda lapse in quite some time. Well... blame working life! Either way, it's been a very, very interesting and fun past month.

I guess this'll be more like a catch up post. More detailed posts coming up after this I guess? Assuming I don't die down in my blogging again. Haha.

Three weeks back, I helped Justin act in his video; an assignment of his. Called Contract of the Pentagrams, it's about a guy (played by Redzuan) who kills himself. He gets a second chance by Lucifer to get a second try at life, but he must pass tests by the demons of the 7 deadly sins. He fails, and I'm there to claim his soul. Yeah. I'm Lucifer. LMAO. He said I fit the role. Great, I fit Lucifer! Haha! I had to dress superbly formal and act for the whole afternoon. Anyway, the end result was pretty cool and I liked the short film a lot. Well done.

A few weeks back I also gained a new colleague. Chloe, who's actually a TOA senior of mine. But she joined in 2006, so that's two years before I joined TOA. So there's like no friends in between us or anything. Regardless, she's a good addition to the company. You know why? 'Cause she's the most attractive looking! Lol yeah! There's a lack of females in the company, and well, although they're friendly, there's nothing much to see. So yeah -.-. Chloe is pretty cute so at least there's someone to look at for a difference. Either way, not interested, lol... just aesthetics.

Speaking of work, I had a terrible week two weeks back. I was doing an Annual Report for EIG, and made numerous mistakes in it. That was not an enjoyable time as I had to stay to midnight to fix up certain portions while Tham had to stay back on account of me to help fix the stuff too. So yeah. As if that wasn't bad enough the next day as I was driving off to meet Uncle Winston (a friend of my parents) to meet up on designing his logo, my car tyre suddenly ripped off the hubcap. I was stuck in the Kesas jam when I realized that the road was very bumpy. Later on I realized the bumps were very regular, occurring after a number of wheel rotations. Add to the fact that the steering wheel kept tilting to the right. When I finally was within reach of a gas station, it was bumpy as HELL and extremely loud as I heard metal scrape the ground. When I got off the gas station, this was the result:

Holy crap, right?

I called up Michelle and Aaron as they were the nearest people to me. Aaron brought along his mom too, and we helped put on the spare tyre. I didn't know all the equipment and stuff was in the trunk, located in the same compartment as the spare tyre. So it was quite an experience as Aaron and I got to take off the busted tyre and fix on the new one. We felt MANLY! LOL. But once again, thanks guys, and sorry for the trouble.

I also went for the Magical Musicals at Sunway Lagoon a few weeks back too. The storyline was extremely choppy jumping from here to there very suddenly, but then again, its a musical... a storyline isn't exactly it's strong point. However, the performances were superb! The singing and showmanship was very impressive, and the lighting effects as well (even though the lasers kept flashing in my eyes, but yeah). The dancers were extremely good as well, and there was one cute chick that caught my attention! I enjoyed myself plenty, and apparently it surprised some people 'cause they thought I would only attend metal gigs and stuff, and not things related to pop. Lmao, remember, I listen to all kinds of music -.-. Just that metal is a slightly higher preference.

And to end it off, Sze Ying came back to KL for the weekends a few weeks back. I visited her. I still don't quite know what's the condition of our relationship now. Lol. But I think we had a very good time spent together, just the two of us. Hmmm... like I've said, my love life is very complicated. Lol.

2011-06-12T23:07:00.003+08:00

Last week, I finally had my graduation ceremony.

Heh, held in the Sunway Resort Hotel ballroom. It's the same place that CHCKL held their gala dinner a few years back. Going there once again was weird, because apart from these 2 events, I'd never step foot into the ballroom floor. However, it's a beautiful place, and at least the college bothered to book the place for us, showing one of their rare displays of generosity. The graduation ceremony was combined, with batch 81, and batch 85, mine.

First we had to get our robes and mortar board (that stupid graduation hat) and wear them. I actually had to wear that stupid hat over my head. My hair. Seriously -.-. Lmao. It was suffering for my hair to fit into that. Anyway, we had the procession into the hall, where we went to the right side of the stage, sat down, listened to a few speeches and went up on stage to collect our diplomas from Tatsun Hoi while shaking his hand. After sitting down on the left side of the stage, there was an awards presentation to Edmond, the top student, and a few other winners of various awards. After that, there was a mass photo-taking session and we had our dinner, with a few songs sang by Gavin, Leonard, Lucas, and last and definitely least, a terrible band. Yeah. Apart from the band (called Band-age, no that's not a joke), the individual singers were pretty good. Gavin was pure awesome.

Anyway, so this was our final, last association with TOA, apart from those that got hired in certain TOA departments. Although I felt that the graduation exhibition was a more "fitting" end to our studies. That was all our blood, sweat and tears, and the opening night was really something we were all insane about. This ceremony felt more like just simple formalities. Most of us had found jobs or found further places to study already. But regardless, catching up with everyone was great, and would quite possibly be the last time we ever saw any of them, for whatever reasons. Only those close and regular around us would continue to be seen on a regular basis. And realistically, even that may not be the case some time in the future.

However, I thought I'd reflect a bit on my time with The One Academy. Okay, not a bit. This following portion is going to be a super-long recollection.

Back when I finished secondary school, I really had no idea where I wanted to go, or what to do. I randomly selected my future courses, along with a bit of guidance with Koh Wee, and picked out a bunch of random choices that I really had no interest in. I simply picked the various course choices to just continue with something. I ended up in Dover ITE, and took IT, specializing in Multimedia later on. This led to my first experience with Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Flash and the such. And it got me interested in the designing aspect. So when my mom asked whether I wanted to go to Kuala Lumpur to continue my studies, I took it. I did have the options of Singapore and Toronto too, but Toronto wasn't very realistic, although I really hoped that it could hold as a viable option. Singapore was pretty unrealistic too. I didn't quite know where to go on from there, even though there were avenues I could take, but they were not ones that would be good, nor was I that assured anyway.

So I took the chance of checking out places when I visited KL. I asked around for art schools, and everyone told me about TOA and Lim Kok Wing. After doing a little research and finding all the negative associations of Lim Kok Wing (ironically, quite a portion came from students and graduates themselves), I made the choice of TOA. Even then, I didn't quite know which specific course I wanted. Although majoring would be done after two foundation semesters, I didn't quite know what I wanted anyway. Should I take Multimedia and expand on what I learnt back in ITE? It'd be nice to have some previous experience, but did I really want to continue it? To relearn a lot of stuff I did before? And what about continual upgrades to software, coding and all? I hate to continually have my lessons being outdated in a short span of a few years. Interior Design and Illustration were completely out of the selection as I had no interest in them. Digital Animation sounded cool, and I did work with 3ds Max back in ITE. I would have some experience there. But it didn't appeal. All that was left was Advertising and Graphics Design. I did want to take graphics design after graduating from ITE, but that was still tentative, and reading more in depth about it showed that what I initially pictured as graphics design was severely over-simplified. But I still chose it anyway, because it was the closest to what I think I wanted. Even then, my choice still wasn't that assured.

I ended up joining very late. During their freaking orientation, I was doing the entrance exam. That's how late I joined. I actually wanted to enter into the August intake, because I wanted to spend more time with my friends in Singapore, but the staff suggested May intake, as there were more people, which would mean knowing more friends, and having more help in assignments. My mom also told me to join the May intake, so I could start sooner. So I did, and I'm glad. The friendships forged later on were unforgettable.

I remember my first day very well. I got lost, ended up in the wrong classroom because class started on Tuesday, and I was looking at Monday's timetable. I went to class half an hour late, and awkwardly walked into a class full of strangers, late, sweaty, and slightly out of breath. To make things worse there was a fly buzzing around the room, and as I walked towards my seat, it fly into my hair, embarrassing me in front of the entire class, in their first few minutes of seeing me. Great first impression. I attended the second subject later, which had me talking a bit, with half the class, because that subject was split into 2 groups. I made my friend friend, Lim Chek Yen, who's known as Olaf Yen on Facebook.

The next day I ended up being lost, again, and was in the lobby wondering where to go. A girl called out my name and asked me whether I was looking for the classroom. I was, and I made my second friend, Wai Kwan. She remembered my name somehow. The following week, I ended up in a group with Ruz and Miki, along with Zhi Ling and I've forgotten the remaining person(s). Ruz was still a narrow-minded guy during this time, and Miki was an annoying brat. Due to drawing class I also ended up being friends with Alexander John Baptist. The first few weeks of school were awkward, because everyone didn't know each other, so the lunches were made up of larger groups of people who didn't really know each other. Small talk was prevalent, and some people were just totally quiet. We were slowly getting to know each other. These large lunch groups was how I got to know the rest of the classmates. Not well, but at least I knew who they were. The funny thing was that during these first few weeks, some people still weren't entirely sure on which classrooms to go to. So there'd be lots of people peeking through doors, glasses and the such, to see a familiar face; then they'd know it was the correct classroom. I learned later on, that due to my spiky hair, I was the reference man for quite a lot of my classmates. Haha!

Then one day Ruz asked a bunch of the classmates to see whether they would want to attend a firedance performance he was doing in Sedaya Secondary. Most weren't free or interested, and only Wai Kwan, Kok Kin and I followed. The walk there, followed by the meal and the chats we had and all the humour really led to us knowing each other a lot more than before. Although we hung out a bit here and there before this, the time spent that day led us to becoming really, really close, and we continued to hang out together as a group from that day on. Incidentally, the others started finding their own groups too. Miki, Wai Yern, Mei Linn and Ashley were one group, and Chin Yau, Kin Yaw, Chris, Kwok Yong and Ka Long were also one group. Gavin had Hua Yuan, Chun How, Leonard, and Hon Wai. See Jek, Elaine, Zhi Ling, Mark. And there was also Henry, Licia, Cynthia, Chui Jean, Ivan. Kok Jing, Shafiq and a few others were not really "classified", lol, but they were good friends anyway.

Later on, as people quit TOA, or failed and dropped to a lower semester, the friendships started changing. Miki ended up being hated and "kick out" from her group, and joined my group. Henry and Ivan began hanging out with my group a lot more too. And after Leonard got together with Wai Kwan, we eventually called ourselves Essenism, from an inside joke. Ashley quit the class to join another class, accusing our class in the process, despite everyone hating her attitude. The groups reformed here and there, and we ended up with 4 major groups of people in the class. Then we majored, and split up into our respective courses. I ended up in AD085-1, but changed to AD085-2, because class 2 had no Saturday classes! And because most the classes ended earlier than class 1's.

During this time, I got to know a lot more people, especially in the AD section. But funny thing was for the first one or two semesters of majoring, a lot of our classes were still split in half. And these subjects where we split in half were combined with half of class 1. And for some reason, these combined subjects were classes where it involved a lot of discussion, dialogue or mixing around. Thus, we ended up knowing half of class 1 better than the remaining half of our own class. And to make things worse, the subjects that involved no combining were quiet subjects that didn't have us mixing a lot. So that led to an interesting mix. Neal was the first person I didn't know to talk to me, and we clicked immediately. Later on, Ash and Zi Yuan would become my closer friends in class. At this point in time, people already knew their friends, and they tended to stick with the people they knew. The friendships developing between the people who didn't know each other wasn't that great.

Also, I got to know Justin better. Previously, we had met due to him congratulating Ruz for his impromptu firedancing performance at the Mid-Autmn Festival, and I was beside him. Apart from that, apart from a few hi's here and there, we never spoke. Later on, after a lunch invitation, we ended up hanging out a lot more and ended up being great friends. Through him I met Jonas, Eddie, James, Thaiianna. Through Faith Station, the college's Christian fellowship, I also became good friends with Andrew Yan, who is a member of Mensa. And he introduced me (on Facebook) to Nikke, who I added, and met in real life, becoming friends later on. Redzuan met us later on, through the introduction of Thaiianna, and we met Kevyn later on through him. And now we form most of Symposium.

Funny thing was in my class, all my close friends either failed or quit, so I didn't have close friends in class anymore. Ironic thing was that Angela's friends all quit TOA, and that led to us talking, and becoming quite good friends. Lucas failed and dropped down, and he became one of the slightly closer classmates. Esther Sim was also a good friend (whenever we talked), and Yew Terng also asked me random, but very interesting questions, that would lead to quite an interesting talk, or stories. Suli and Vanessa weren't close friends, but people I could easily talk to in class. Kok Chun was also a really good buddy kind of friend, although we rarely hung out. From class 1, I also got to be close with Fei Yan, Lih Ting, quite close with Ween Lin, Xiao Qing. Not to mention during the graduation campaign, I met a lot of other friends from the other majors, and it was nice knowing so much more people.

During this time, I really learnt a lot in TOA. However, I really hated the figures; the drawing subjects. I really found them annoying, mostly 'cause I barely passed them everytime, and they dropped my GPA pretty low. I ended up with 2.8, when it would've been higher without the stupid figures-related subjects. And sure, I think they're partially necessary, but to take them for almost 3 whole years?! That's a bit much. I've learned that many people use stick figures in their work places to show concepts and storyboards, only using detailed drawings when necessary. And apart from storyboards, I don't think it's that relevant to the course anyway. However, I did like the graphics related subjects, and branding things. Despite hating the torture I went through under Leon and his corporate subjects, I learnt the most from him. I didn't like the advertising subjects that much, but they were fine. Not hated or loved. Interesting thing was that I would know more and do better for something I previously did. Like my drawings got better after I stopped taking the figure subjects. And my typography improved after the typography subjects and CI2. I seemed to "get it" after it was done, not when I was doing it. Now that I'm working, it seems to be fine. For now.

So yeah. TOA was quite an experience. No one ever told me about the kind of workload we had in TOA. Foundation was a nightmare with so many subjects and assignments from each. When it came to majoring, coming up with quality things was tough, although we had less subjects, the standards were higher, and we had to work hard either way. I definitely don't like the amount of workloads we get. It maddening, sickening, but I must admit we do learn. We may hate it, but it worked. At least, for the majority of subjects. There were times I really didn't think I learned anything. TOA's amount of assignments is legendary in KL, that plenty of other people outside the college know what kind of suffering we go through. And yet our parents think its a typical college, with the same amount of assignments as other normal colleges. One thing I hated though, was that the college was simply a row of shoplots. Not a proper campus. Having a campus while doing what we did in TOA would've been really nice. Yet its a pathetic shoplot, with horrible parking around us. Sure, the quality of education was good. But the building itself was not. The stress we went through was insane. I was a huge slacker back in secondary school, and a bit less so during ITE, but still I didn't work hard. But come TOA, everyone's scared to fail, and that had me working hard for 3 bloody years. Was it pleasant? No. Did I learn? Yes.

Due to the nature of so much work, it ended up forming 3 kinds of students. There were the zombies. Students who did their work so much so that they completely ignored their social life and would ignore all forms of entertainment, rest and socializing to do their work. They may have done well, but these were mood spoilers of friendships. I called the student lounge the "Zombie lounge" accidentally one time, due to the previous topic being Left4Dead, but I soon realized it was quite an accurate description of the majority of students who went there: zombies. Then there are the slackers. The people that don't do their work, pass it up really late, and go out and party and have fun everyday, neglecting their assignments. They're fun people to hang out with, but reminders to them don't do much on their responsibilities. They tend to fail and drop down to lower semesters. Then there are the balanced group. People who do their work, but know how to have a life. I'm in this group, and I'm proud that I have have a very active social life and still graduate on time and do my work. I know when to cut down on going out, and I know when I can go out and do my assignments later. Sad thing is that this isn't the majority. We tend to be the smallest of the 3 kinds of students. I can't stand the zombies the most though, because I've seen friendships fade due to their zombie-life. They put their work over people, every single time. It may get you higher marks, but it won't help your social skills.

Speaking of social skills, the vast majority here are Chinese. There's a few foreigners, and a small minority of people who speak English regularly, but Cantonese and Mandarin speakers rule numerically with an iron fist. And a lot of them have pretty bad social skills. Their art skills are good, but they can't present or talk very well. Or they can, but end up sounding like morons instead. I had pretty good social skills, and got to make a lot of friends in TOA. I was pretty famous too, it seems. A lot of my friends have told me juniors, or people who I don't know; know who I am because of my hair. Haha! And that I tended to sleep in the library a lot also led to a lot of people knowing who I was. That spiky hair guy who sleeps in the library. I was stunned when my friends revealed the amount of people who knew who I was. When I reposted the TOA note on Facebook, it ended up getting over 400 likes, and almost a hundred comments. And turns out the vast majority knew me as the spiky hair guy. They didn't know me personally of course, but they knew who I was. And that TOA note? It spread so far that the lecturers printed it and put a copy in the staff room. Awesomeness. I really have left my mark here. And I'm pretty pleased. Not to mention being known by so many people. It's a nice feeling. Plus a lot of people remember me. There are a lot of people that say hi to me, and I have no remembrance of them. I feel totally guilty, and say hi, but I never remember how I know them. But they still recognize me and remember my name. I feel bad. Haha.

Of course, it'll all die down after a few semesters of students join, and slowly forget. But I'm pretty proud of what I've done now. And of the lecturers, I have the utmost respect, either for teaching well, or being fun, social to students, or somehow just leaving an impression on me: Chongsern, Fadzilah, Pinky, May Ann, I Ching, Lisa Lee, Jun Mei, Christopher, Leon, Gabriel, Stephen, Sioyean, Darren, Joel, Helena, Vincent, Kins Lee, Henry, Marion. Maybe I've left out some people I can't quite recall at the moment. And of course, there's the lecturer's I really have no respect for, for various reasons, and who continually pissed me off: Lily, Debby, Boontiong, Irwin, Ban Lee, Chik Ying (I can't recall her name, she was the previous AD head of department before Debby took over), LCK. Then there are staff members who don't teach, but I still got to know anyway. Jimmy, Jolie, Chia Nam Pang, Mee Shan and Li Wan were pleasant people I easily spoke and made jokes to. That new worker in the SRA is also pretty cute.

I really have no idea what else to cover. I wrote this on a whim to just talk about my graduation ceremony, but I eventually talked about a lot more than just that. All in all, TOA taught me a lot, and I'm glad I picked it over Lim Kok Wing. I did not enjoy a lot of aspects there, such as the workload, the shoplots, some crappy lecturers, and some terrible management of events. But overall I made more friends than I can remember, and had so many deep friendships and events. Little gatherings, meals, talks, outings, staying overnight for assignments, discussions and all. All these little things were aspects I enjoyed tremendously, and I enjoyed my time. Yes, the college has its shortcomings and faults, which number many. But I still went through it, and I survived.

Like it says in the graduation letter we received "Congratulations for making it."

Oh yeah, we went through hell and made it out alive. So to end, here's my updated TOA note I posted a while back.

You know you go to The One Academy when...

1) You’re bad at math, but that seems to be the norm. You are in an art school after all.

2) You have at least 3 kinds of tape. They are all completely different, and they all serve completely different functions. But you know what they're for.

3) The naked picture on the screen for figures class does not arouse or disgust you because you’re too busy trying to get an ‘A’ in the class.

4) Your lecturers almost never give A’s in figures because (and they repeat it often) it's not 3D enough, or your strokes are wrong.

5) You're not as surprised by crazy fasion senses anymore.

6) Black is your worst enemy when the results are out. Before the TOA Portal was made.

7) You're surrounded by restaurants that serve all kinds of food.

8) Yet you don't know where and what to eat after class. Everyday. It's an eternal question.

9) You know the difference between violet and purple. And you blast people who don't know the difference.

10) You tried cleaning your pallette used for acrylic paint the first few times.

11) But you got lazy after a while and now its now hardened with acrylic paint all over it.

12) Your friends don't know what the hell putty rubber is when they first see it. Some refuse to believe its an eraser.

13) You’ve pulled an all-nighter on a project and still could not see any progress in the morning.

14) You’ve exploded at your friends for belittling the amount of work you receive.

15) The girl that you thought was a guy at the beginning of the year isn’t so bad.

16) Your friends not from your school do not understand #14 in the slightest.

17) The ideas that come from your mind don't quite seem the same on paper.

18) You know everyone in Vision Art.

19) The people you go to school with do not ask you to draw anything for them (excluding doing their assignments for them).

20) Ctrl-Z has been Ctrl-S into your system.

21) Despite your best efforts, you still manage to get paint, pencil or charcoal on some part of your body, somehow.

22) Your parents assume that TOA is like any other college, with the "normal" amount of assignments.

23) Your lecturer is a moron, but he is excused because he's an industry professional.

24) One of the first things to say to someone when you see them: "Have you done your assignments yet?"

25) Art school has possibly made you hate art.

26) Ming Tien's food sucks but makes a hell lot more money than you'll ever have.

27) You begin to criticize advertisements and designs that aren't designed well, in the real world.

28) Your pencils and erasers beside you go missing but other stuff you leave in the open are still there.

29) Sleep is a privilege, a rarity.

30) You get tired climbing up 3 flights of stairs, even though you do that almost everyday.

31) They consistently call a row of shoplots a "campus".

32) You're given 4 weeks for a project, and everyone starts a few days before the due date.

33) You have sat in a classroom and discussed, in great detail, the significance of an ad in which a woman with soap is considered romantic and sexy.

34) Your figures2 sketchbook would qualify to be censored in the Malaysian public domain.

35) Alcohol is easily obtainable around your campus. That's understandable.

36) Your main topics outside of school are still about the school (assignments and all).

37) Out of the 30 people in your class, at least 27 of them are Chinese, and at least one of them wears the same clothes all the time.

38) You are verbally assualted for not paying attention while watching Byzantium, or Incognito. Or that flick about a transexual.

39) Waiting in line to print things is second-nature.

40) Lousy English is extremely common.

41) Your relationships with your ex-girlfriend/boyfriend are more stable than the school's wifi.

42) You are told to "invest" in books and media, even when you're broke.

43) You can easily point out one point, two point and three point perspectives to anyone who cares to listen.

44) You notice that the circles under your eyes are a near permanent fixture.

45) It's impossible for you not to have problems with your student tag.

46) You get demoralized from seeing a drawing god do his work beside you.

47) Everyone has a laptop. If not, you're (almost) dead.

48) Guys wearing nail polish aren't a big deal anymore.

49) Your textbooks are full of pictures. Even the typography ones.

50) Your total school fees is enough to buy a small house.

51) Sunway Pyramid is now boring for you.

52) A world class school has third-world parking spaces.

53) You take smoke-breaks every chance you get.

54) Wikipedia is actually allowed as a source.

55. You actually start recognising different fonts, and remember their names too.

56. You know that the initials TOA stand for "Thousands of Assignments". Or, one of the following:
Tons of Assignments.
Totally Ownage Assignments.
Total Overload Assignments.
Too Overwhelming Artworks.
Time Over Already.
Takes Over Alertness.
Torture of Aesthetics.
Tonight Overnight Again.
The OhMyGod Academy.

Hell yeah.

2011-06-08T02:45:00.002+08:00

I feel really honoured to make a difference in someone's life. I know we all make some impact on other's lives, but when that person shows it, or speaks openly about it, you feel even better, and I personally feel privileged that I would have mention. I've helped countless people before (and have been helped countless times too), and have been mentioned plenty of times. But everytime, it still feels like an honour.

And that leads me to being quite pissed off when people are snatched from me. I'm really, really getting tired of it. I've moved way too much, and have lost contact with many friends through this process. Visiting is a traveling nightmare. And still people are taken from me continually. God, it's annoying. I may get used to it, due to the frequency, but it's still not something I like to go through anyway.

It makes it worse that it's close friends of mine. Why aren't the people I dislike going away?

Zzz. I shall end with the words of Isabella I of Castile, who's life I just read about. She's quite an inspiration. “The Lord gave him to me, the Lord hath taken him from me, glory be His holy name.”

2011-06-03T02:15:00.003+08:00

Lol, I've started my working life.

The next step of life, after the education phase. And the most tiring, consuming, hectic and stressful for perhaps the remainder of your life, up till retirement. I started on 1 June. And while working on my first day, I suddenly had a split second thought come into my head that said "I'll be doing something like this for the rest of my life? What about bills? Cars? Expenses? I can't survive. I understand a few more reasons why people commit suicide now."

Yeah. On my first day of work, I thought of committing suicide. Okay, that's not the correct way to put it. More like I had flashes of new reasons of why people commit suicide. Thoughts like "I'm going to be doing this for the rest of my life?" More relevant reasons, along with the whole bunch I know well and some of which I've gone through. Great. Everyone tells me working life is more stressful than school life. That's true, for a bunch of obvious factors. First, you can't fail. You get FIRED. And unless you have insane savings and/or rich parents, your work pay is going to be your livelihood. In school days, unless you're one of the rare people who pays for your own education in its entirety, you'll be having your parents support you financially. But, at least I get paid =p.

First day was fine. The co-workers were really nice and introduced themselves easily. Creative Thumbprint has 4 graphic designers, which are made up of Suli, my TOA classmate, Yang Yang, a Lim Kok Wing graduate, and Tham, the head designer. I'm the newest addition. Then there's 5 account executives who help with admin work. There's Keith, Rachel, Wai Mun and Ka Wee (I swear people are calling me everytime they say his name). A copywriter, Jerome, just left a week ago. Then there's 3 big bosses; Terrence, the BIG BOSS, Wong and Steven, the art directors or something. They use a house that's been modified into an office, and it's pretty nice so far. The admins are downstairs, and designers are upstairs. I feel weird calling myself a graphic designer. I mean, its my job, but referring to myself as one... sounds pretty cool =p.

Each designer gets their own iMac, so that's pretty sweet. Using it practically is another thing though. I'm such a Windows guy that a lot of the commands and keys are hard to get used to. Especially in Photoshop and Illustrator. The "command" key basically replaces everything the "Ctrl" key does in Windows, but my fingers are so adept and familiar with the PC keyboards that I mess up my shortcuts pretty often. Not to mention I hate the Apple mouse. Zzz. Not the newest wireless mouse though; that's cool (I don't have that), but its the wire mouse with a little rollerball that doesn't work. That mouse is a nuisance. I'm glad Apple FINALLY gave their mouse 2 button clicks, instead of the retarded one. That would make my productivity even worse. However, it is a powerful piece of equipment, and it does the job well, especially when it comes to gigantic file sizes, so I'm fine with it.

It feels an awful lot like TOA though, in joking terms. I get a job brief with a set deadline, do my job, and once that's done, next assignment! Just like TOA! Lmao! There's a filing system, and of course clientele amendments should they be dissatisfied with certain things. Basically designers design, and admin takes care of the clients exchanges and meetings. Interesting system.

Of course, I just started, so there's a lot more to experience in the coming months. A lot more to do also. But for now, I am now officially a graphic designer. Okay, that sounds pretty cool when you're introducing yourself =D.

2011-05-30T03:26:00.003+08:00

Aye, I said previously that I couldn't sleep properly.

That was true. Now I'm trying to sleep at the proper time. "Proper" meaning I don't sleep at 8am and wake up at 8pm. Yeah, that's been my "sleep schedule" for the past month, when I don't go out. So I've been trying to get my bodyclock back to normal by sleeping earlier, waking up earlier, and avoiding naps in the middle of the day. This led me to being extremely tired in the day, but its slowly working. Although I have failed in skipping midday naps. Otherwise, Sleepiness at 3am is progress.

Anyway, its been quite a good week as I watched Pirates of the Carribean 4 with Ruz and Henry. Before that, we had lunch with the addition of Wai Kwan, just talking, catching up and joking around. And since Wendy's had the addition of free refills (proudly displayed now), we stayed there long after our meals were finished to continue the conversations we had. They fooled me too! When I met up with them they told me the line for the tickets was freaking long, and so we'd just eat and see what to do. Bloody hell, lol, as we were in the arcades later Wai Kwan accidentally spoiled their prank and I realized they actually bought the tickets before the line became insanely long.

Good movie! Very funny. I thought the removal of Will and Elizabeth was good, because their storyline is more or less finished. Pushing it wouldn't be nice. I thought the 3rd movie dragged their story a bit long already. But yeah. The mermaid and Penelope Cruz were hot, so that's no loss =p.

Had cellgroup meetings with James cellgroup, and it was a great time to catch up with everyone I hadn't talked to properly in quite a long time. James preached a great message. A few points I really liked were "The best use of your life is to invest in something that will outlast it" and in regards to Paul "Death didn't put him into a cemetery, it put him into a sanctuary". Faith and Ai Lee didn't go that day so I had no driver back home. Fortunately James was nice enough to drop me back home, saying that we hadn't had a good catch up in a long time anyway, and that he didn't mind. Much thanks!

Church service was also good. Pastor Kevin has been speaking on Big People vs Small People, in which it relates to ur mindset, not size. Open mindedness and narrow mindedness. The comparisons of the two, and how we should have a big heart when it comes to situations that we come into conflict with. Some points in his sermon I liked "Do not let those who do no work with you interfere in your work" and "To practice patience in life requires bleeding of the heart"

After service and fellowship with Andrew Tham's cellgroup, I watched Kungfu Panda 2 with kean Hoong, Joshua and Adam. It is HILARIOUS. There are so many scenes that'll make you laugh, and yet the story is pretty nice. The comedy is just brilliant. And Po as a baby is like freaking cute. Argh! Haha!

2011-05-25T03:18:00.001+08:00

I've been having a hard time sleeping.

In fact, most of this year I've had a hard time sleeping. Not when it comes to TOA of course. I mean, like, when you're just naturally tired, and you want to go to sleep. I can't. The only way I've been dropping to sleep was simply to wait for exhaustion to hit and I'd fall asleep.

Starting December last year, I've been having trouble sleeping due to a friend that lied. The repercussions, the thoughts, what to do. They kept me awake for three bloody months. I had insomnia for a really, really long time. The only times I slept were because I was simply so tired I dropped to sleep. During my final months in TOA, that was really apparent too. On the rare days I'd get to have proper rest, I couldn't sleep of my own accord. Again I had to wait for that exhausting feeling to come and I'd sleep.

Even now that I've graduated, I'm still having trouble falling asleep naturally. Again I need to wait for that exhaustion to come in and I sleep. Granted, because I've got no school and my job hasn't started yet, that's not a big deal. I can just wait or do something till I fall asleep. But it's been quite annoying because when I want to go out, hang out and all, I need to wake up relatively early. And so I try to sleep earlier. sure, because I woke up late naturally I'll feel tired later in the night. But even on days where I wake up earlier, I still fall asleep really late. And when I go out, I'm tired, despite having no school or work. I go out, have fun, come back home tired and fall asleep.

When I try to sleep properly, I just lie down in bed, waiting to fall asleep. I don't. Not immediately anyway. I exagerrate not when I say that it takes me hours to fall asleep just lying down there. But my mind isn't a blank. I know what's keeping me awake. Its memories, thoughts, flashbacks and the such. On replay, for freaking hours. It's weird really. When I lie down on my bed, there's no games, books, or distractions. It's like my mind gets to unwind, but it rarely reviews the day's actitivities. Normally I end up having thoughts about many previous incidents. And there's no common theme. It's just really random. Some memories are funny situations that happened before, some are embarassing moments that happened, some are conversations among friends that replay in my head. Sometimes its just a quick reminisce of someone I haven't talked to in a long time. And a few memories of my time with that person, in whatever capacity. Over and over again. When I'm dead tired, I don't get any of this. But when I've been well-rested, and I'm just lying in bed, it happens alot. And it keeps me awake. I try focusing on other things, a few times I've tried getting up and doing something (makes it worse), but nothing seems to stop it from happening.

Very peculiar. Very peculiar indeed. I'm blogging this because I'm going out tomorrow and I'm freaking wide awake now. Same memory thingy is happening. So I thought I'd blog about it.

Pfft. Even when I graduate I don't sleep well. Lol.

2011-05-24T00:18:00.001+08:00

So, like I said, I got hired on the 16 of May, which also happened to be International Metalheads Day. It's not official, but its a pretty informal commemoration of Ronnie James Dio's death. Regardless, Symposium filmed a metal video to celebrate. They went around different places showing a placard of metal, and headbanged all over Sunway. The video will explain it all.

Anyway, with metal, alcohol was a must! We had our symposium for that day. Interestingly, this drinking session of ours was different from the usuals we had. The general rule of what we have in symposiums is normally I Have Never, followed by Ping Pang Wah, and finally The King and I. Then after we're all sick (literally) of the dares and such, we'll just chat, drink and share stories. That night, it was different. We needed some new drinking games, and came up with a few. Since it was a commemoration of metal, the theme of the games would revolve around metal. One would be a game where we needed to name a band, or a song and the last letter of the band or song would be the letter of the next band or song someone needed to come up with. If there was no answer, everyone would drink. Second was a game I modified from one of the church's cellgroup games, where we could use a maximum of three words to describe anything. The number of words you used to describe would be the number of shots you take. Despite the games being fresh and new, we still had plenty of fun.

After this we chilled and ate and later just started talking about theoretical questions. Out of Symposium, which 2 would you take on a zombie apocalypse? Which 3 people would you bring to a shelter from the end of the world? Who would you personally want to have sex with? Which two people would you choose to die? Which 2 people would you want to change aspects of? Let's just say the answers were really, really interesting.

Anyway, later on that week I also had a very unique cellgroup meeting also. Instead of Faith preaching to us, each one of the cellgroup members would preach; on a verse in the book of Proverbs. I spoke on Proverbs 11:9 "The hypocrite with his mouth destroys his neighbor, but through knowledge the righteous will be delivered." I spoke about how hypocrisy is the biggest deterrent to unbelievers. When it comes to Christianity, the general people surprisingly don't tend to argue as much on the historical reliability, or whether what it teaches is valid. However, when they see a Christian acting in a way he shouldn't, or has is the victim of a Christian not acting in the way he should, that hurts and reflects on the religion as a whole.

So I spoke about three groups of people that showed how strong hypocrisy is, as a deterrent to Christianity. First were certain Christians who were involved in the Crusades. When the Muslims invaded and took over the Holy Land, the Muslims treated the Christian prisoners a lot better than many Christian feudal lords. To think that your invaders treat you better than your own lords who have the same belief system. Granted, this was in the earlier days of the Crusades, when the Caliphates were a lot more tolerant. And they did put heavier taxes on Christians, while lighter ones on Muslims. Thus nominal Christians converted, and left their faith, because apart from financial convenience, they at least saw what was sorely lacking in their own previous lords. And don't forget the Fourth Crusade, where Western Christians ended up killing Eastern Christians, when they were supposed to be fighting the Muslims invaders. Thousands of followers were lost through simple hypocrisy.

Secondly, was Gandhi. One thing Gandhi said was "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ". Considering Gandhi is like one of the most peaceful and non-violent people ever, his words hold a lot of weight when it comes to this. Gandhi was even rejected entry from a church because he didn't seem civilized enough to attend their church. What if Gandhi had been accepted
into the church and became a Christian? His life and example would be a great way for people to get to know Christ. But because of what he experienced, and what he saw, he turned to Hinduism. And thus millions of Hindus can lay claim that one of the greatest promoters of peace was a Hindu, and also losing potentially, millions of followers who could've become Christians.

Third was about Satanism. I spoke on Laveyan Satanism. While Anton Lavey played the organ for his circus/carnival, he saw the hypocrisies of Christians every single week. He said he saw Christian men going to strip shows, then going to church the next day, repenting, and repeating the entire cycle. This disgusted him, and he realized then that the Christian church strives on hypocrisy, and even came up with a very funny statement, the 9th Satanic Statement "Satan has been the best friend the church has ever had, as he has kept it in business all these years!" Thus as he got interested in occult things, he founded his own religion as an antithesis to Christianity, standing in opposition to nearly everything Christianity stood for. And with the millions of Satanists around the world, again, there is the loss of potential believers.

And so, I highlighted how hypocrisy affects so many people. And the interesting fact that people will observe you, and how your faith affects what you're like. If it's contrary to your beliefs, people may not condemn you, but people will see, and it'll make an impression on them, big or small. For the remaining part of the verse I spoke how through knowledge the righteous will be delivered. People need knowledge. To know why they believe, and not to just blindly follow religions. To not pick and choose what they want to follow, and ignoring other things that seem inconvenient. To read and really learn what their belief is all about, and to follow it to the best you can, not blindly.

Yeah. After that I took a Bible quiz and ended up tied in the top with Jee Kit. 26.5 out of 30. I would've got the highest if I didn't mess up questions involving CHCKL. When it came to the Bible though, I scored perfect. But I'll be representing the cellgroup for a zone-wide Bible quiz. So I hope I do well. And please have less questions of the church, and more on the Bible. Through the quiz, I realized I don't know the official address of the church!

2011-05-21T03:31:00.002+08:00

Aye, so today, around 1700 years ago, the first Council of Nicea began. That's pretty interesting, the first ecumenical council that established a lot of foundations of Christianity as we know it. The first synods of Christianity are the most interesting to me, and the most agreed within all of Christianity. Later on, with more and more denominations, well... you know how history went.

Anyhoo, I was reading Cracked the other day and saw an article. Here's a small excerpt:

"Humans tend to see the world through something called the actor/observer bias: The more we know a person, the less we blame their actions on their personality and the more we blame outside circumstances."

I find it really interesting that the more we know someone, we will tend to gloss over their faults. Especially when it comes to defending them from accusations and lies. And more so if they're especially close to you. After all, isn't that what good friends will do? Defend their friends all the way? The worst thing is finding out that you defended them for nothing, and that all accusations were true. There's a short list of facts on more about this, and other human interactions. This is the link.

So when it comes to faults, personality and stuff, our friends will defend us. Others will say its ourselves. And this holds pretty major importance when it comes to job interviews. You need to make a good impression, show off your capabilities, your attitude, and in a very cliched line "sell yourself". Anything you say and do reflect you. Not your circumstances, which they won't know. It all reflects on you. So the last two months, I went for three job interviews. And I realized I didn't blog about any of them. Lmao. Here's the details.

The first was in Batu Caves. This was back in early April. I frequently join Issey's cellgroup for fellowship on Saturday's because my cellgroup seems to like going for Sunday services. So one time there was a guy Vinson, who was having dinner with Issey's cellgroup too. I was talking with Denise Wong, who's also from TOA, and Vinson, noticed that we were art students. He said he needed a graphics designer, and I said I was studying advertising and graphics design. He asked me to send some works to him and he'd take a look and send it to his boss; if accepted, I would help with some freelance designs. It was accepted, and I did some packaging designs. His boss also asked me to come for an interview.

That interview day, it was a disaster. First, partly my fault, I didn't clarify the address. Vinson and I had corresponded through email many times to confirm certain things. In his email, he had an address listed as his company's address. He did say his boss wanted to see me. And I assumed that he would be in the same office as his boss. So I went on Google Maps, located the place and took it to Kepong KTM Station. I took a cab to the address and found that it wasn't occupied by a design firm, or an office firm. It was some restaurant. I called to confirm the place, and it turns out that the office had moved. Ages ago. The place was in Batu Caves. The cab driver was nice enough to drive me over, saying public transport would be insane. Well, he said "very troublesome". I translated it as "insane".

I finally reached the place after much trouble, and met the boss. His name is Daniel. Nice fellow, probably 50s or 60s. He was very kind in his words, and spoke very gently, but firmly. He'd already seen my artwork already, so I didn't bring my portfolio. My interview ended up being a chat on how my life was like. Ended up talking about how I moved here, how my family was like, and even my divorce. He applauded me for my honesty to talk about such a sensitive subject. Also, we talked about the terms of the company, how I needed to dress formally, not spike my hair and would need to meet clients. In addition to doing designing work, I would also need to take care of some admin things. I agreed to all these things and he was pretty pleased with my flexibility (his own words). The only issue I brought up to him was distance. Batu Caves is BLOODY far from my place, and I'd only been here once in my life, for the rock climbing the previous year. He said that I was more or less hired, but that he was still open to other designers, just in case. So we spoke on which days I would come down to start taking over and learning from his previous designer. I left, and took a bus that lasted a freaking hour, to Puduraya area.

In the end, I didn't get the job, because he gave it to someone else. Heh, I called him up and asked how was the status of the job. He said that because I had mentioned a few times that transport was an issue, he didn't want me to travel so far, and had found someone that lived in Batu Caves to work. I was fine with that, because although the pay was RM1900, the transport was a big issue. However, he did tell me that all the employees there tended to work for a few years, as they were happy with the environment. So I might have missed out on that. Plus he told me that the timings were officially 9am-6pm, and would almost never go past that unless he really needed to.

Secondly was at World Wide Web Domination. After the graduation campaign I received 2 emails from prospective employers asking for an interview. For some reason I ignored the first. The 2nd came from World Wide Web Domination. It was located at Cyberjaya. Another bloody far location. Geez. I checked the address they gave (didn't wanna repeat the first mistake) and realized it was on the same row as Lim Kok Wing. Yeah. The rival art school. Seriously? My mom was free so she drove me there, and I was seriously impressed with the campus. I mean, sure, the education quality is bad, and no graduate from Lim Kok Wing I know has ever mentioned anything good about it, apart from its fashion design course and architecture. But the campus itself looked really nice. The centre atrium was also really nice. It was a campus. A proper one, not the shoplot of TOA. Chock full of students walking all around, and with a lot of foreigners, made up of mostly African and Middle Easterners. It really looked lively.

So I went inside and was interviewed. The interviewer was called Kevin. Nice dude. Possibly 30 or younger? He was pretty nice as well. He told me that WWWD was actually not part of Lim Kok Wing (oh goodie), but that Lim Kok Wing was their biggest and most frequent client, so they housed the WWWD office inside to do things for them, for convenience. However, they had a heavy focus on web design. Only rarely did they need things print or graphics related. Things like logos, brochures and all were not major things in the company. I told them honestly, that I had some experience in the past in web design as I took IT specializing in multimedia back in Singapore. However, I was severely outdated, but I wouldn't mind learning again to catch up. It was not as personal as my previous interview, although the topics here were more on the lifestyle of the workers. Official timing was 9:30am-6pm, but unofficially it was 10am-7pm. He also said that there was a lack of females, and apart from that, the colleagues were mainly fun people. In addition, I would have to dress semi-formal, and I would have to have a black top everyday. I was perfectly fine with that. I wear black everyday anyway. My hairstyle and earrings would be allowed. Bonus!

Pay was RM1800, but with an extra 200 allowance for travel. Thats actually a pretty good deal. It's bloody far also, but I technically got RM2000 as my pay. Batu Caves was bloody far (further than Cyberjaya), and the pay was lesser. Cyberjaya at least was a bit nearer, and WWWD gave a travel allowance. However, I didn't know the public transport routes to Cyberjaya, so most likely a car would be better. The road to Cyberjaya is a very straight and long road thats clear of any jams at all, so that was also a bonus.

In the end, I also didn't get the job. Haha. For this I was a little disappointed, because it was still in the campus environment, and I would have my friends who study in Lim Kok Wing to be in the university to meet up and all. Not to mention the general environment was really nice, and having students all around just made it nicer. Plus it allowed me a lot of freedom with my dressing anyway, which I've been told by a lot of people will be a lot harder to have in certain workplaces. Anyway, their receptionist didn't call me in the time frame given, so when I called and asked Kevin about it, he said they decided that they didn't want to give me the job because I had studied advertising and graphics, and what they wanted was more in line with web design. I may have had prior experience, but it was almost 4 years outdated, and my current skills were more suited to graphics, not web. So yeah. That was true.

At this point in time I was seriously considering the first email I had received after my graduation exhibition; the one I ignored. I was also starting to take a more proactive part in searching for contacts. I had been quite slack in job-hunting after graduation, only taking interviews I'd been selected for, not hunted for. After graduation I wanted to take a break of around 3 months, to rest, and visit Singapore, my dad and stuff. However, my mom said she was tight on finances so I wouldn't be able to visit Singapore. So this break involved me mainly resting at home a lot, blogging more than my last few months, and going out here and there to hang out and stuff. Sure, I finally got proper regular rest, after a lack of it for 3 years. I had total freedom in what to do. But I also started thinking that I needed a job since I wanted to spend more myself, and if my mom was tight, getting a job would help a bit. Not to mention with income, I would actually have enough to regularly go and club, instead of having it only once in a while because of money. Yeah. Shaun from church said that he goes clubbing every week to de-stress from his everyday work, and that since we have similar mindsets, I'd do something along the lines. Hmmm... true. I'm not complaining. Anyway, a lot of the AD people have been really friendly and considerate, and have been posting job opportunities in the Facebook group, and I took a bunch of their contacts. Wai Kwan also told me to call Yellow Thumbprint because their boss Terrance, needed people. So I went back to the student lounge of TOA, thinking of making calls the entire morning to all the companies, preparing to arrange a date for an interview with each. After I called Yellow Thumbprint first, and Terrance set up an interview on the 16th May at 4pm. I proceeded to call Butter and Bread Advertising, who told me to send my portfolio and my resume, before they'd call me up for an interview. The person who picked up my call was a total bitch though, seriously. She spoke with a very arrogant voice and interrupted me a lot of times. Her tone was just pissing off. That got me annoyed, so I decided to start the string of calls later. Then I received a phone call and met up with some of Symposium, and I totally forgot to send my resume/portfolio and call up the remaining contacts I took. Geez.

So I got lazy to call once I reached home, and also got lazy the next day. The day after that though, it was already the interview with Yellow Thumbprint. I woke up at 2pm, and just ate, read a bit and got showered, changed and drove off to the place. Everyone told me it was near the Carrefour building beside Kesas highway, so I knew it was really near. I looked at the map they had and saw it was a pretty easy route. I left my house at 3:45pm and reached Carrefour at 3:50pm. I followed the map's directions, and... got lost. Gee whiz. I actually couldn't find the place. According to the map, it was on my left, but everything on my left was houses, and on the right side were all shoplots, with offices, restaurants and all the places I'd expect an office to be. I drove along the whole road, not finding anything close to it. It was 4pm and it began to rain. Great. I called Yellow Thumbprint up and they gave me the same directions I followed on the map. I U-turned, and realized that the "office" was actually along the row of houses. They had converted the house into an office for the business. Ah... no wonder. I never expected it to be on the houses lane, and I easily drove passed it while focusing on the shoplots on the right.

I went inside, filled out a form, and waited for around 15 minutes. I was already late (great first impression) so it was around 4:30pm when Terrance came to meet me. Terrance reminded me a bit of Daniel. Around his 50s, and nice and friendly. This interview was perhaps the most formal of my interviews, even though it wasn't that formal itself. But it was easily the longest interview I had as well. It ended at around 6:15pm. Yeah. Almost 2 hours. Anyway, it started off pretty informally. We just spoke about casual things for a few minutes, and I proceeded to show him my portfolio. Some of the AD guys were pretty insane and printed very impressive portfolios. They staple-binded them, made it extremely presentable, and organized. I actually wanted to do something similar, but since I had a lack of time in going for the Lim Kok Wing inerview, I merely printed each work on a pieces of paper and put them all in a manila envelope. I printed out two copies of everything under my mom's suggestion, in case I'd need one urgently again. I had confirmed the interview on a Friday, and I hadn't bothered to make an impressive looking portfolio on Saturday. Printing shop's closed on Sunday and Monday was the interview. So I stuck with the second copy of my portfolio. Well, once I took them out of the envelope and showed it to him he immediately said "You haven't designed your portfolio that nicely eh? A lot of your friends made them extremely nice." Great, shot down before I even start. I proceeded to show him all my artwork. He looked through each, and asked me to explain the rationale of every design I had shown. So I did, one by one, and slowly explained how each concept went, how I started the ideas and designs and all. He seemed fine with this, and asked more on some of the artworks.

Then he blasted me again. Lol. On my publication design, where I had a designed a book about my journey to the graveyard, he said he loved my cover, and certain pages inside which reflected the same look, but not the majority of the pages as they were plain and didn't show that kind of design in the minority of the pages and the cover. Lol, geez. Then we spoke on the application of the pictures onto the real world, and said which of my artworks would be allowed in the newspapers as a printed ad. I pointed to a few, and he said I was wrong, because of various reasons. Oh man. Then he said if I had a project, what would be my first few steps in establishing what to do for the design? I answered through my process of work, and he told me that 9 out of 10 people he previously interviewed said the same things. And that also it works, its not a very good process. Great. More mistakes from me. This was getting from bad to worse. He proceeded to use a tissue box on the table to explain certain things on why things were done in this way, and for what purpose, and the steps that he would take. He took some of my artworks and showed me how my rationales related to the design and stuff and how it worked well. Oh goodie. We then spoke on my language skills. Obviously, I said I was superb in English, but only able to converse very basically in Mandarin and Cantonese. Malay was a few simple words here and there. This led to the topic of my journey from Canada, to Singapore, to Kuala Lumpur and yeah. After a bit more on this he suddenly he said "I'm very tempted to hire you on the spot right now" which meant I must've done something right in my interview, despite all the occasions he blasted me.

We spoke a bit more, and then came a funny part. He asked me I were a person trying to sell my attitude, what would be my best trait? I told him that one thing I'm very proud of is my ability to balance. I spoke on how in TOA, there are the zombies, the people who do all the work but have no life, and the slackers, who party all the time but fail to do their work. I said that I maintained a balance, that I did my assignments, but I also managed to do have a very active social life as well. Then I continued on and said I also have a very varied musical taste, in that I listen to music ranging from Mozart to metal. The following is our conversation:
"So if I give you the choice to listen between Mozart and metal right now, which would you pick?"
"Uh, metal."
"I see. You're a Christian right?"
"Yup"
"And you listen to metal?"
"Yeaps. I'm a Christian and I listen to metal. Funny thing is I also listen to Christian songs alongside metal songs in my playlists."
"Christian songs and metal songs together?"
"Yeah. There's even Christian metal songs too"
"Huh? How does that work..."

LMAO. Later on when I mentioned I played keyboards in a band, he's like what kind of band is it? And I said... "Uh, metal". LOL. I didn't specify metalcore as i didn't think it was necessary, but still, it was pretty funny anyway. As we talked a bit more, he decided that he would hire me. Whew! So I was basically hired on the spot! After confirming some questions and terms (my pay is 1700, less than the rest but considering travel expenses, which is basically none, I was fine), he told me that I was actually the very last in a series of people he planned to interview. He mentioned that for all the previous people, he hadn't confirmed them yet, but he was impressed enough with me. Woots!

I shook his hand, thanked him and proceeded to go out after a bit more of small talk. Not too bad. I was pretty pleased with myself. That day was also International Heavy Metal Day, which was ironic considering the topic of metal in the interview. I met up with Symposium and had a symposium with them. Considering the length of this post, I think I'll post the details on the next post.

So yeah. Hell yeah! I am hired. I start 1 June.

Oh, one last thing, this picture just made me LOL.

2011-05-10T22:49:00.004+08:00

Aye, I've long had opinions about how inconsistent Malaysia is with their religious plurality. Click here and here for two different articles on the same blog. One is on the recent case of the so-called plot to Christianize Malaysia, and the second speaks about the "correctness" of the so-called Islam practiced in Malaysia and elsewhere. More ridiculousness.

Also, another thing that's inconsistent... the answer to 6/2(1+2). There's camps of people saying its 1, and another camp of people saying its 9. I say its 1 because of obvious reasons. However, the various answers depend how you solve the equation. People who say its 9 say that finish the left side equations first, and then multiply. However, I don't see it that way. Technically, this equation can also be a fraction. 6 over 2(1+2). 6 is the numerator, 2(1+2) is the denominator. Finish the equation on the bottom and what you have is 6/6 = 1. Simple. And if that wasn't obvious enough, I went online (where people were literally having a war of who was right) and found this equation put into algebraic form, which solves it:

6 ÷ 2(2+1)=
If 2 = y
6÷y(y+1)=
6÷[(yxy) + (yx1)]=
6÷[y²+y]=
Replace y = 2
6÷(2²+2)=
6÷(4+2)=
6÷6=1

If it is 9 then 6/x(1+2)=9 would yield x=2 right? well It doesn't, however 6/x(1+2)=1 yields x=2. Doesn't this prove the answer is 1?

Anyhoo, one thing that wasn't ridiculous, nor inconsistent was my birthday. Heh. With the exception of 2001, which was my final year in Orde St, as well as my final year in Canada, I have never organized a birthday celebration for myself. Partly, because I'm too lazy, partly because I don't have the finances for a huge bash, and partly because I don't find my birthday that big of a deal. I know some people who go crazy on their birthday, worrying about every little detail, who to invite, how to dodge those they don't want to invite but not hurt their feelings... geez. It's a birthday! It's meant to be enjoyed, not stressed about. So anyway, my friends have always celebrated with me, or organized something for me, be it a meal, gathering, prank, or in the case a few days ago, a drinking session. Yeah, celebrating my birthday with a symposium. Ironic that my 21st birthday had no alcohol whatsoever, and my 22nd was chock full of it. However, I didn't see it coming at first.

I'd been staying at home for a number of days because I didn't have much to do, and unless I had a reason, I simply didn't see the point of going out. Of course, on my birthday, I was told to come out and meet up with Symposium for a meal for a celebration for my birthday. It was actually pretty fun. Had a meal at McDonald's, followed by going to the cybercafe for a few hours of Left4Dead2, which I have not played in ages. Chilled out, went to Ming Tien to chill and later on headed to Anggerik to shisha. While I wasn't paying attention they brought a cake, sang me the birthday song and gave a small bottle of Moskovi vodka, saying that they were broke, had no money and thus had to budget themselves by doing small things for me that day. Naturally I was perfectly fine with it. The fact that they bothered to go through with this was good enough. However, Miki needed to go back home early, and the rest had some excuses that they couldn't make it for tonight, so they'd organize another symposium for another day. And I believed them. Lol.

Miki dropped me off and Justin said he'd come over my house later, just to chill with me, since no one else was free. When Justin arrived, we talked in my room for a while and he said he needed to get something from his car. So I hung around in my room, wondering why his mom would tell him to get something from the car. But what the hell. Later I received a knock on my door with him saying he needed a hand. I opened the door and saw almost all of Symposium with a real cake, and they sang Happy Birthday. Hahaha... that was awesome, seriously. I seriously did not expect this. Of course I found a few things odd, such as getting the thing from the car, and a loud bang I heard outside my door, but I did not expect anything like this. Whew... what a surprise. And I greatly enjoyed it.

The next day the cellgroup celebrated for me too, after the cellgroup meeting ended.

So I ended up with a lot of presents. From Symposium: a book "Veronika Decides to Die", 2 shirts, and a hell lot of alcohol. From the cellgroup: a Padini bag meant for work use, which looks extremely classy and nice. From my mom: new belts, new shoes, new jeans, and new shirts. Plus a meal at Rakuzen, a Japanese restaurant. Tell me that wasn't awesome? I enjoyed all the presents, all the celebrations and the such tremendously. The fact that people will wish you happy birthday means they at least bother to make the effort to say it to you, even if it is through a Facebook reminder. But at least they bother. That shows some effort, even if it is minimal. If they did not want to wish you, then wouldn't bother clicking to your page and telling you. But when friends go to this extent, you know that you are truly blessed.

So, like I said, I don't organize my own birthdays right? Along with the above reasons, another reason is that it'll be celebrated by some group, somehow. Always. Be it church friends, school friends or what. Like I mentioned in my previous post, the fact that I don't call friends out, or in this case, organize my own birthday can be seen as extremely arrogant because I know that others will. Sure, you can see it that way, but I don't. I know that friends will celebrate with me only because they are some of the greatest people I have ever known, and when you're that good of a friend, you will do something. That's why you're so good. And that's why I'm so blessed.

Thank you, God.

2011-05-03T04:19:00.001+08:00

So, I attended Masayo's first gig with her band Maosun, went to Genting with half of Symposium, Prince William gets married, went for Neal's late birthday party, I've got a job interview in a few hours, and Osama bin Laden was just killed a while ago. What a week.

Yeah. Since I've been lagging on life updates, might as well post up everything here in one shot. So, Masayo's first gig, was last Sunday. On Easter. I attended church for Good Friday and Holy Saturday, and I attended a heavy metal gig for Easter Sunday. LMAO. After getting a bit lost on where to go, we ended up at One Cafe, which seems to be KL's top spot for heavy metal gigs and functions. It's not a very impressive place, but its got food, booze and space for performances, so eh, I guess its alright.

Maosun.

Masayo was awesome. A female growler. Well done.

I was quite impressed by most of the bands. Most did pretty well. Two bands I could not stand were a punk rock band, and a grindcore band. The punk rock band was so dull that I actually fell asleep while they were playing. Like, really, sleep! I was tired, but to make my eyes close is quite an effort. And the grindcore was bloody annoying. They would play for a minute or so, and stop. Then the guy would say some stuff, bitch about the crowd, and then start with another song that lasted a minute. Granted, its how grindcore is like, having short songs, but I felt it really killed the flow. Plus the guy's "speeches" were obnoxious and a nuisance. Not to mention they played over 10 songs, overstaying their time limit by way too much. Zzz.

On Tuesday the same week, I went to Genting with Justin, Redzuan, Masayo, Miki and Henry. It rained, so we didn't go to the theme park, and mostly just chilled out, talking and hanging out, enjoying the cold weather, while the smokers went insane there.

Lol. That lady didn't want to move out of the way.

Also, Justin and I had long wanted to go to Amber Court.

The Bleeding Hotel. Hell yeah.

After hearing stories after stories, we decided to explore the place; once in the morning, and once at night. In the morning, Justin, Redzuan and I checked out the place. Upclose, we realized that the blood-looking stuff was actually red moss that was slowly overtaking the whole place. The carpark had the worst of it, being covered virtually EVERYWHERE. We explored a bit, took pictures, went inside. Nothing happened. We returned at night, minus Redzuan (due to Masayo's concern), and explored again, going to more areas this time. Justin and I took pictures, and tried some cool long exposure shots. Even then, we saw absolutely nothing to show the place was haunted. I checked nearly all my pictures, upclose for any signs... NOTHING. Nada. Zilch. Even the security guard confirmed that nothing haunted the place. Of course, we need to stay there to really put the nail in the coffin, but otherwise, this is more or less proof that nothing scary happened there. In fact, the place is actually very serene. Very awe-inspiring. Nothing scary whatsoever. It is beauty.

This picture was the closest thing that would be odd. it's merely my shadow, in a position that seems impossible. And even then its probably the effect of the lights. Nothing out of the ordinary regardless.

And on Saturday, I had church service with Peter J. Daniels, a godly businessman who's got insane reputations for doing business and making tons of money. There was a guy who paid 1 million just to speak with him for an hour. And afterward, that guy ended up making millions more, because of Peter J. Daniel's solutions. That day though, he spoke mainly about our potentials in God, as well as a few stories. Highly charismatic and entertaining.

I went to Neal's house afterward to celebrate his birthday, a few days late. Met with his friends, some I vague remember from last year. Wai Kwan and Fei Yan were with me as the only TOA students there, lol. The rest were his secondary friends, or connected through them. While there, I met Jehad's girlfriend, named Lizzie. I had a GREAT conversation with her. At first, it was just small talk between a few of us, and it went silent. Then it all began once she said "I like your pentagram". And that started a long and deep conversation into the occult, left-hand path and gays, lesbians, David Reimer and stuff. Apparently she's practices the occult too, following along the lines of The Temple of Set. Pretty cool meeting someone who actually practices this. I read up on it, heard of stories, heard of people, but actually personally knowing a person who practices occult religions is much more interesting, especially when they can hold a good conversation. And she's got a tattoo, and is polyamorous. Basically she's a combination of a lot of factors that I've always been interested in. Awesome person to meet. Anyway, the food and alcohol were was aplenty. We had way too much food, barbecued beautifully, and had a good time talking with Neal as well. Since he's dropped to later semesters, we haven't been chatting and meeting up as much, so it was a good time. Talked a lot on friendships and what they mean to us. Interestingly, he said that Wai Kwan, Fei Yan and I were his closest friends in TOA. And we also spoke about the friends we would die for.

One last thing that's on my mind. Osama's finally been killed, after such a long time. I really think its awesome, that after such a long time, finally he's paid for his crimes. Sure, some people aren't impressed that he's killed 10 damn years after the 9/11 attacks, but then again, he was well protected, and well-hidden. Assassinations aren't that easy. Israel should know, considering how many assassinations they've done. I remember when I first moved to Malaysia, a mere weeks after, the news of the 9/11 attacks were shown one morning when I woke up. One thing that creeped me out was that they used United Airlines flights. It was the same airline I used to travel to Malaysia. Who knows if I had left to Malaysia a few weeks late instead. Also, I was shocked, because I had been there before, and it felt weird that a building I had been in had been destroyed by terrorists. You know that feeling of how when you visit a place again after many years, it still looks the same? I would never have that again, for the World Trade Centre. Then later, as it became apparent that Osama was a major part of it, I read the Canadian news on how Canada was taking a more offensive role in Kandahar. About how many Canadians were killed by roadside bombings, and the many pessimistic articles about how NATO wasn't having much success when it came to finding Osama. Yet their day has come, and justice delayed is not necessarily justice denied. I find it funny that so many countries are congratulating the US for their job well done, and saying its a step against terrorism and stuff, while most don't do as much militarily. A lot of the countries in NATO offer humanitarian, technological and financial aid, but when it comes to the actual deployed forces, only USA, Canada and Britain actually contribute anything really worthy. They're the ones who risk their lives on foreign soil, who actually die. All that "moral support" by the other nations won't help kill terrorists. You really need to give credit to these countries, and others that contribute troops. They risk lives, the most valuable of all.

I read so much on the history of the world, and most tyrants were dead long before I was born. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot (recent, but I was still young), Mao Zedong. The classics. I read about what they did, their rationales, and know that they died long ago. Yet when it came to Osama, his death happened when I was grown up, mature enough to understand world politics and all. And it just seems like "whoa", knowing that he's finally dead. Like I'm living through history. Yeah, sure, I've lived through hearing about the Georgian war, the Israel-Lebanon wars, the Libyan invasion, Afghan and Iraqi invasions, but they've always been more on "countries". This is about a person, who had great influence to create Al Qaeda, a group which has caused untold suffering on its victims. They're still alive despite the death of their leader, but at least its a major blow to terrorism. I'm actually living at a time that I know a major tyrant is dead.

And despite such a hallmark in world history, I am amazed at the idiots who don't know what the hell is going on. Click here to see some Facebook posts that put retardedness to a whole new level.

2011-05-02T00:36:00.001+08:00

One of the weirdest tests I've ever taken in my life. Not direct, not obvious. Just weird. And mostly accurate. Click here if you wanna try it.

Your power comes from an ability to sense how things might be and to proclaim this possibility with a great force and willingness to act. You have a tendency to be romantic, and can be an idealist. This sense of how the world can be is often expressed with self-deprecatory humor. Because of your need to address the immediacy of the moment, you may not think things through to their logical end, relying instead on a feeling for how a situation SHOULD end. You need to be liked and appreciated by others, although your attention often wanders. Sometimes you neglect old friends in favor of a new or exciting acquaintance. You have a real difficulty being alone. Often you will seem to know how to handle a situation without exactly knowing HOW you know this. Your thoughts are often shallow. While in the excitement of the moment you can obsess about a task at hand. If it should become rote and unexciting, however, it can be dropped just as quickly.

2011-04-30T06:57:00.000+08:00

Spire85 Official Video from Spire85 on Vimeo.

SPIRE85 : PROJECTION from Spire85 on Vimeo.

Above are the remaining videos that weren't up when I blogged about the graduation night. First video is the video that shows the whole thing from start to end, and the second is the Spire projection. Watch it and be impressed.

Anyway, I'm playing American McGee's Alice now. I just got it from Redzuan a few days back, and I'm 4 chapters from the end. I'm loving it like hell, despite this game being a decade old. Still, I'm enjoying the crazy and morbid reimagination from it, and how the places are bloody beautiful. As its a fantasy world, basically anything is possible, and with no logic and limits, I think its gorgeous. Not to mention I love the Cheshire Cat's voice and words. Damn nice; the things he says.

I've been reading into it quite a bit, and one of the theories of the whole thing is that although the whole thing is undoubtedly in her imagination, the different characters in her mind are based on emotions, feelings, and friends. The characters that help her are whats left of her sanity (apart from her good self) that helps to fight and keep her sane.

That's gotten me thinking because since I've began my holidays, I've been going out pretty often. However, I've also been staying at home aplenty. Now during my time in college (which only ended weeks ago, lol), and actually, all the years of my life, I've always been pretty slack when it comes to organizing things. I'm never the one to call someone out for a meal, I'm never the one to organize a hang out, and stuff. Heck, I'm even too lazy to organize my own birthday, and yet I have great friends who do it for me. This stems partly from the fact that its because I am all too assured that someone in the day will ask me out for a meal, or I'll be joining my classmates, or something would be planned in advance. During the last few weeks in college, I would skip on having meals with my classmates, go straight to the library and sleep while using my laptop. I did this here and there all the time, but I started doing it a lot more frequently in the last weeks because I was just so damn tired from all the finals. And even in the library, even when I intentionally passed on meals with my classmates, I'd still get a call from someone asking for a meal, or a chillout (usually with Symposium), or I'd bump into someone in the library and we'd have a good conversation there. Call it arrogance on my part, or whatever, but I'm just that damn assured I will hangout. On the extremely rare days that I am called up by no one, or hang out with no one I bump into, it allows me a bit of my alone time. Everyone needs a bit of alone time, and I get my alone time pretty rarely, but its enough. I undoubtedly enjoy the company of others far better. A good conversation is one of life's greatest pleasures. Chilling out is also among the top. And although it sounds pretty cocky that I have such assurance that someone will ask me out, there is also much appreciation, and gratitude that I am of enough importance to be asked out continuously, almost every single day. People who dislike you are not going to ask you out intentionally. And it humbles me (ironic, that the assurance reeks of arrogance) that I am a friend enough to many.

So, the thing that's gotten me thinking, in relation to Alice? During the holidays, definitely its a time to hang out, chill out and rest. And since I've graduated, even more so. Thing is, the days at home are pretty dull. Sure, I get rest and play games. I also need my alone time. But it's also reminding me about college days where despite the fact that I have to attend classes, that compulsory travel to Sunway also allowed the time to mix with all my friends and the assurance of getting asked out for something, or having a good chat with someone. While in Alice, the companions are the manifestations that keep her sane, I think I can apply this to myself as well. Maybe I'm reading (uh, playing, I guess) too much into it, or I'm making connections that don't stand up to intense scrutiny, but I definitely think that my friends are what's kept me sane.

Sure, I didn't wind up in a mental institution (Zoe did, ironically), but considering all things I've gone through, it's not too much to say that I could've gone (figuratively) insane. Like I said, ironic thing is that a major source of all that hell did end up going to a mental hospital. There's lots of things I did, and could've gone through, and through it all, friends have been the pillars of support. What's kept me sane, what's kept me living. How God played His part is another thing, but friends are the "manifestations" of my own sanity. Manifestations isn't the best word. But in both cases, what they did was keep the person intact. Living. That, specifically, is how I feel American McGee's Alice relates to me. Like I said, maybe I'm looking too deeply into it, making a connection.

But there's one thing that cannot be denied. They kept me sane, figuratively. Or maybe literally. Who knows how I might have ended up if things went worse.

But unlike Alice, I don't go around with a butcher knife killing everything around me. Oh the ironies of Zoe and her.

2011-04-23T04:24:00.003+08:00

Church service was good. I liked it tremendously.

Call it tradition, or whatever, but every Easter, I've grown accustomed to seeing a drama with a storyline that'll somehow involve the crucifixion, and Jesus eventually being raised from the dead. I've been in church for almost 9 years. And year after year, in CHC SG and CHCKL, the crucifixion has always been an integral part of Easter dramas.

This year was different. Very different. This year, it was a screening of a short film, called "Sixteen" about a boy with autism, and the challenges of living with it. They called it a short film, but I was honestly surprised by how short it really was. When the lights were on, and Pastor Kevin came on stage, I was like "What? That's it?". The film was decently done, and it did show the hardships of autistics, but I thought it was way too short.

Anyway, there was no Jesus, no crucifixion, no resurrection. Instead, it was inspired by what Jesus said; that if we ever helped anyone in need, we did it to Him. And for Easter, the focus was on the kids with autism. Our offerings would go towards an organization for children with autism. Pastor Kevin also told us about one guy's birthday. On his birthday, he decided to visit an orphanage with some friends, buy KFC for all of them, and donate a few thousand to the orphanage, which miraculously was the exact amount the orphanage needed to survive that month. Imagine on your birthday, instead of celebrating for yourself, you spend time, money and effort on making some children happier just for one day. That is an awesome and selfless birthday. I think Pastor Kevin spoke for nearly everyone when he said "I think through his actions, I feel like a sinner."

That is really inspiring. But to think whether I could do it, I honestly cannot answer. Can I be that selfless? I don't quite know right now. And what would be my intentions? To really bless the kids, or because I want to compare to that selfless guy? I have gone to charitable organizations and helped myself. Interesting that I never had any blog posts recording most of them. I visited Metta Home back in Singapore, which was a place for the mentally-handicapped. I helped out for JAMs church in CHC SG, which is a special service for mentally-handicapped people as well. I also visited an orphanage in Klang, and also helped out in United Voice before. I've done several visitations and the such. And it's a nice feeling. I remember in the orphanages the kids there enjoy any kind of company. They're so generous with their food (even though we're the ones who buy it for them, lol). The younger kids are obsessed with my hair, flattening it, climbing on me, asking whether I'm "Dragonball". It's cute. The older kids hold pretty good conversations, and appreciate the effort to visit.

Patience is also a factor. Mentally-handicapped people aren't the easiest to work with. Kids are easier and more fun, but they go crazy at times. Old folks often have language and topical barriers. Attending today's service reminded me of how much I've done before. But it also reminded me of how little it's been compared with other people. Like that selfless guy who shelled out his money and time. Like Khar Loo, who even till now, continues to visit YMCA to help disabled children. Granted our friendship is dead, but her dedication towards helping them cannot be denied.

And I hope it reminded everyone that whatever we did to someone, Jesus said we did it to Him.

2011-04-22T15:05:00.001+08:00

Crucifiction.

Haha. I saw that on Youtube today, as a mockery of Christianity. I must say that's pretty creative of whoever came up with that. I've seen people type crucification, crucifixtion, crucifixation (that might actually be a cool portmanteau of crucifix and fixation). But I've never seen crucifiction, despite it being the exact same as crucifixion, pronunciation wise.

But thats something that several critics charge today, that the crucifixion of Jesus is fiction. That it never happened, that Jesus never existed. It's funny because although scholars question if he is God, they don't deny He existed. They accept that He taught, that He performed what the people considered miracles, and that He was crucified and died. Whether He stayed dead or rose from the dead is what divides Christians from the rest of the world. The resurrection is what Christianity hinges upon. It's so important, that in the Bible, Paul has several lines that underscore it:

1 Corinthians 15:14 "And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty"

1 Corinthians 15:17 "And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins!"

1 Corinthians 15:18 "Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished."

It is the foundation on which the entire Christian belief stands. If the resurrection is proven false, then you destroy Christianity. The funny thing is, if you look back on history, no one ever denied the body went missing. Ancient Roman, Jewish and Christian sources all claimed the tomb was empty. However, it's how the tomb ended up being empty that they differ upon. Theories such as the body went missing, or Jesus never died, or the disciples stole the body have all been thoroughly abandoned.

The thing is that no one ever denied the tomb was empty. If the body was still inside, all the authorities would need to do was show the body, and disprove Christianity days after it "started".

Also notable is that women discovered the empty tomb. Back in those days, women's testimony were considered worthless, to the extent that they could not testify in Jewish courts. And yet they were the ones reported to discover the empty tomb. Getting women to witness something this important isn't what a 1st century man would want. If they wanted to lie, they would've surely had males discover the empty tomb instead. Yet it has been faithfully recorded that women discovered the empty tomb, despite the embarassment to the 1st century church.

And people in this day and age still want to call it fiction? Despite the fact that 2000 years ago nobody denied the tomb was empty?

We may disagree on how the tomb ended up being empty. But that's something you cannot deny; it was empty.

And crucifixion was what put Jesus in there in the first place. It's Good Friday.

2011-04-21T21:43:00.004+08:00

I'm officially on holidays now. Unofficially. Sort of.

The graduation exhibition is complete, so all thats left is to wait for my confirmation call for my job interview, and go for my graduation ceremony to collect my diploma in June. Technically I've graduated, and am just awaiting the formal procedures.

So what was a fitting way for us to blow off the whole exhibition and celebrate? Clubbing!

I went to Mist, with half of my class, and 2 people from AD085-1, Yee Chuan, and Wee Hian. Yes, the Wee Hian who pissed me off 2 years ago. You'll see why I'm emphasizing his name later. Interesting exchanges happened that night, thanks to alcohol. I got inside, and we had a couch, courtesy of Kin Yaw's booking. 3/4 of my class is female, so somehow this ratio remained in the club, and most of the people in my class who came were girls. There was Pauline, Wai Wai, Mei Linn, Wai Yern, Chuan Ying, Su Li, Bee Khian and Bell, Sze Keong's girlfriend who's not from our class. And the guys were Kin Yaw, Yew Terng, Kok Chun, Lucas, Soon Chit, Sze Keong, Wai Yern's boyfriend, and I. Plus, the two guys I mentioned earlier on.

I can't blog quite that much about this night because I lost my memory. Yeah. Again. Geez. Lol... I ended up forgetting half the night. What I remember are like in bits and pieces. I know that I didn't dance because it still wasn't very crowded on the dance floor, so while the rest went and danced, I was chatting with Sze Keong or whoever remained behind. I remember I confirmed the sexual orientations of 2 of the guys because hey, they were gay. I'm not judging them, but there was alcohol. You know what alcohol does. Anyway, I remember I drank a lot. Like continuously, since I was at the couch the entire time while others were going off and dancing at intervals. And there was a lot of bottoms-up among the guys, plus the pouring straight from the bottle into my mouth thingy. And I hadn't eaten since noon. Empty stomach and alcohol? Works way too fast!

But, while I was still sober, there was a cute girl who was selling tequila shots from test tubes. She approached Sze Keong first, since he was sitting nearer to her, and he said no thanks. Then she came over to me and asked to buy some too. I was broke, so I said no thanks. She leaned closer and asked again. I still wasn't going to buy, but I thought I'd try flirting with her instead. Heavily. With some new stuff I've been wanting to try for a while.

I've learned about digit ratio theory a long time ago, and its something I've used as an opener to conversations, and sometimes, when the topic is getting dull. Everyone is always interested when people tell you that they can learn something about you from certain traits, physical or mental. So I asked to check her fingers, and saw that she had a longer ring finger, typical of more testosterone. I checked in a more sensual way than I usually do with friends. I looked deeply, caressed her fingers, held them in my hand, ran over them gently and smoothly, and yeah. Bragging rights.

So anyway, I was in a club. It's hard to hear people over the loud music and beats. So I had to go nearer to her. She was already leaning in, so that already made things easier for me. I reached over to her hair, moved it behind her ear, and spoke into her ear, at times having my lips touch her ear. I told her that with more male hormones, she would have slightly noticeable traits of normally male signs, relating to sexual urges, emotions and the such. Then she told me she didn't know English very well. Meh. Fine, so I told her in Mandarin that my Chinese wasn't very good. Then I asked her to give me her email, so we could talk in the future. And I could tell her about what I found out too. I passed her my phone, and she typed in her email. I didn't get her number because I'm not interested to progress things further.

She typed it in, I said thanks, and she gave me one last look before walking off and taking her tequila shots with her. I got her email without buying her drinks. And I could've easily asked for her number while she was typing on my phone. Bragging rights, ahem. Lol... I had the attention of all the guys who were there, staring at me like what the hell just happened. For some reason none of the girls were there, but I was fine with that. I still impressed.

Then the night gets fuzzy after that. I was very sleepy, 'cause I only had 3 hours of sleep the night before, and I had been awake for 19 hours. The only incident I remember after that was I was outside Mist, puking outside the gates of a neighbouring factory. Then we went to a mamak to eat, and I was so tired I slept, and took a few sips of my teh ais. I have never left a drink unfinished before -.-. Then Wee Hian drove me back to my car. I don't know why, or how, but I ended up in his car, where I ended up apologizing for what started our animosity 2 years back. I was pissed off at him a few years ago because he had no opinions for himself, and that pissed me off. He overheard me mentioning that, and that led to 2 whole years of hating and ignoring each other's existence. Then I ended up in the same group with him for the practical project subject, and things eased up as we interacted more. And that I got closer to Lih Ting (his girlfriend) means I ended up inadvertently talking to him more sometimes as well. Clubbing at Mist was the cherry on top.

He dropped me off at my car, and I drove home. Without any accidents (bragging rights). I also tried something stupid, which shouldn't be done, especially under my condition. I tried to break my previous driving speed of 150km/h, and reached 160km/h. That's good enough for me now. Just 21km/h away from reaching the top speed. I'll try that next time. When I find a longer highway.

When I woke up the next morning, I found a bunch of email addresses from my classmates stored in my phone, along with the girl I flirted with. I have no memory about the other emails. Geez.

But she is cute. Tequila shots anyone?

2011-04-15T11:39:00.003+08:00

At last. Spire85, my graduation exhibition is over.

After three years of torture, and quite a grueling graduation campaign. All is said, and at long last, all is done.

The graduation exhibition was no easy job. We ended up raising almost RM60k. We went through hell raising money, doing fundraisers, and for me personally, the proposals for the marketing team, and sponsorships from corporations. Don't forget to add in all the committee meetings, which lasted like 4 hours each time. The discussions, arguments, brainstorming.

Then came the prelaunch events, to help gain awareness for Spire85. We went crazy on Facebook, by changing everyone's names and pictures to Spire. Then there was the stick 'n run on, where people would write what inspires them, and stick this sticker on somebody's back or what. As well as the Spire wave, a kind of "flash mob" where a line of the students would produce a wave motion of their hands when people walked by.

Spire Wave from Spire85 on Vimeo.

Stick n' RUN! from Spire85 on Vimeo.

Spire for Hire from Spire85 on Vimeo.

It finally all boiled down to this. The graduation exhibition finally launched on Tuesday. And it was epic. Brilliant and awesomely fun. I reached there half past 6pm, where I was to do duties as an usher, guiding in cars and helping them navigate a bit, since Solaris Dutamas, where MapKL is located, has some of the worst parking in existence. After 2 hours of ushering in cars, and chatting with Chee How (Jeff), all the ushers finally went up to attend the official opening.

Spire 85 Official Teaser from Spire85 on Vimeo.

There were the usual speeches of course, followed by a very awesome projection onto our Spire85 logo sculpture. I was honestly shocked at the amount of people there. White Box, the specific gallery we used from MapKL, isn't very big, but the crowd of people was INSANE. I seriously did not expect this amount of people. Not in my dreams. You could barely walk around, and during the opening speeches and presentations, everyone was just standing there listening, some from a far distance, because we just couldn't pack the place anymore. Apart from a slight technical error, everything went perfect.

The night just felt brilliant. I remember when I was doing my internship attachment at Pluto Tech, back in Dover ITE, I once had to attend a gallery exhibition, which was also a competition, except it was for digital media and all. It was called the Asian Interactive Awards. My job there was to promote Granado Espada, as it was new that time. However, I also got to watch the different entries and all. After the formalities were over, it was pure drinking, eating and socializing for the artists. At that time, I was only starting to be involved with the arts more, so what I saw were my impressions of the contemporary artists and designers. Dressed outlandishly, smoking, profanities, open-mindedness, and very great charisma and humour. I was seeing artists all around being congratulated, shaking hands, meeting new people, being flattered and the such. As an audience (sort of), I thought it was pretty cool.

As the recipient however, now I finally know how it feels: awesome. Like, totally. Graduating as a designer myself, I guess I'm also considered an artist as well, in a broad sense. After the formalities were over, I was being congratulated everywhere. People who had come to visit and support were shaking hands, congratulating me, catching up, asking questions on my future. All that attention that night felt great. Everyone's focus was on the graduates (naturally), and I was part of that. When I was congratulated, strangers around me would look at me and give a look that was like "Wow" or "He's one of them". Did it feel good? Very. The mood was just so uplifting, and I was just chatting away with tons of people I knew. Chat here, someone would bump into me, or tap me, and talk to me. It was a continuous cycle that just felt great. With a crowd like that, it just brought up the mood more. Plus, you would surely see someone you'd know with such a huge amount of people. The compliments kept coming and coming.

Of course, the purpose of this gallery exhibition was to promote and showcase our artwork. For potential employers, for friends and the public to see, as well as for ourselves. In TOA, the only sense of satisfaction you get from your art is when your classmates or lecturers are impressed. And granted, their attention and feedback is very important. However, it doesn't compare to a complete stranger looking impressed at your artwork. You get a thrill when someone innocently walks over, and stops at your particular area, and takes a look at your art. And for those with physical manifestations, such as books, brochures and stuff, there's a bonus when they pick it up and flip through it. Another rush when they look impressed. And the icing on the cake is when they take your namecard from the holder.

This was my set. Woots.

The row of artworks, on my lane.

The interior design section.

The other half of the AD tunnel. Tunnel. Lmao.

Walking in to the gallery. The immediate left section houses multimedia. The immediate right holds illustration.

View from the stage.

The digital animation section.

As a designer, artist, or anything related to the art industry, the point of what you do is to show something. To communicate something. How your art fares is very important, for your career as well as your ego. Having them all in a school setting is fine, but having them in the public brings things to a whole new level. And seeing them impress the public is also a rush of feelings to a whole new level. And it feels great. Simply awesome.

On a side note, I was told my namecard was well done, and that several people recognized it as mine before even seeing my name. Lmao. Also, due to my logo, a lot of people also recognized it easily once they knew it was mine. My name card has done what its supposed to do, give information, give an impression, and have people remember it. The stocks also ran out pretty fast. And that's saying something because I went everyday to the gallery. There were quite a number of students who went around and took people's name cards, collecting them. Even then, the people with more noticeable name cards ended up having their cards taken more often than those who had a very generic or duller design. And considering how many times I had to refill, I'd take that as a bragging right (lol), and a compliment.

Without the name, does this obviously look like mine? Lol.

The exhibition lasted 3 full days. I went everyday, because well, its my graduation exhibition. I wanted to. Not to mention it would be the last few times I would see my classmates and batch regularly. It feels good, and very relaxing to just stand around, looking at your batch's artworks and read about their art, with nothing to worry about. Plus it was also nice to see the public check out your artwork, as I mentioned earlier. Also, its a great time to just chill with your friends, chatting on random or relevant things. It was also a good time to meet new people from the batch who I never knew before. Just chilling, just enjoying the view, the environment, the art, your friends, your batch, along with all the humour, jokes, and bonds. It was brilliance.

My class, AD085-2.

And it was fun. We dismantled (destroyed actually) the wooden frames used to hold our artwork. Three years worth of stress, released on the wood!

www.spire85.com

2011-04-10T22:12:00.003+08:00

Heh, my graduation exhibition starts tomorrow!

All that blood (red paint actually), sweat and tears (due to me yawning) will finally be showcased along with all our artwork and stuff. Aye. I swear, with all that work the last few days, I should get a diploma in carpentry. Lawls.

And I overslept for church this morning. I was supposed to go yesterday but my cellgroup told me that they were going on Sunday, so I decided to go along. And then I stayed up till 6am. Why? Because I was chatting with a very experienced and well-versed Satanist. Venus Satanas is one of the more recognizable Satanists on Youtube, who regularly posts up videos on rituals, books, spells, magick, and stuff. She also does tarot reading, dances and stuff. I don't quite remember how I stumbled onto her videos on Youtube, but there were links to her website, and I checked it out. Lots of information there. And she's a heavy reader, which is a plus, 'cause I've encountered way too many Satanists who didn't really know what they were believing.

So yeah. She has this live chat thingy where anyone can come into her chatroom and she'll be on her webcam, replying to questions, and just chatting in general. Its was my first time on her live chat thing, 'cause she's not on it everytime. I asked a few questions on her materials, e-books, and stuff. She showed what she puts on her Satanic altar, her pole for pole dancing, and a lot of books. One of the things I asked was "What do you think of a Christian who's honestly interested in Satanism?" and she talked about how most Christians didn't treat her very nicely after finding out she was a Satanist, but that quite a few Christians talked openly and nicely about it too. And the people in the chatroom were impressed that I wear a reversse pentagram to church every week with no qualms or issues.

I had a very fun and enriching time learning about a lot of new material, and discussing certain issues, plus meeting quite a few people who were Satanists, or very interested in it. I spent hours chatting, so that when I woke up, it was 3pm. Waaaaay after church. Aiks. Ironic, that as I learned more about Satanism, I ended up oversleeping for church. HA.

Anyway, she gave a few links to websites. You can check my links for her website, and the link she posted. And you can click here for one website that collects a bunch of so-called prophecies about the end of the world. Really lol'ed at all those failures for prediction. It was one of the topics that night too. And you can also click here for a very interesting article on why the typical claims on Satanic crimes don't make sense even from a Christian point of view. Very accurate and true!

Anyhoo, a to catch up a bit on my previous weeks. I did say that Tiffany came over right? I actually hadn't seen her for a very, very long time prior. The last time I saw her was when we went clubbing at Dolce during my holidays. After that, we never met up. Until my last visit to Singapore in November (which... I still haven't blogged about! Lol =x). I was in Bugis Junction's J.Co, hanging around and wasting time for something I can't quite remember. Suddenly some girl came up to me and said "What the fuc* are you doing here?" Wow, what a way to say hi, lmao! It was Tiffany. We chatted for a while and agreed to have lunch a few days from then, which we did. Had a good catch up.

So when she told me she was coming up to KL for her American visa, it took me by surprise. But it was alright. She stayed at Muru's place, and a hotel, and for the remaining 3 days was at my place. So basically I brought her around Sunway Pyramid, eating and hanging around. We even went ice skating, which for some reason Miki tagged along. Between Tiffany and I, we said that whoever fell first would have to treat the other a meal. On! So we skated. I haven't skated since my first year at college with Wai Kwan, Adib (yeah, the porn addict moron), Ruz and Tarik. My legs were quite easily tired this time round though, but I managed to survive. Miki fell first, and later on, right in front of me, Tiffany fell face first. With a huge impact. LMAO. Luckily for her, she used her elbows to brace herself, but from the back, it really looked as if she fell and had her face shredded on the ice floor. Thankfully, no major injuries. Just bruises. And free dinner for me! We shisha-ed at Shiok with most of Symposium (we had lunch with Essenism earlier), and that got her to know some of my friends at least. Yeah, good time spent chatting and just chilling out. Plus I had my free dinner. Mee goreng -.-.

As we got home, I got to strip Tiffany, really slowly. From her arms all the way to her legs, I was a mean, dirty boy, stripping her down all the way to her bare skin.

With wax strips.

Lmao. Yeah... I didn't do anything carnal. Chill. Tiffany needed to look presentable for her interview with the American embassy, so we went shopping, and she picked out a dress that I said looked really nice. Pity the heels that looked great on her didn't fit well. Regardless, she also wanted to get rid of some hair, so she got some wax strips. And I helped out. Its my first time, so it took a while to get used to. It really sounded painful for her, and the wax strips were covered in her hair. After we finished with her, she let me try by sticking a small portion onto my leg. I was like EH. It was stuck on though, so I was like, oh well, there's gotta be a first time for everything. Maybe its not so bad. Then she pulled.

Muru was supposed to pick her up from my place and drive her to the embassy, but the morning jam at Federal Highway was so insane that I ended up needing to take public transport to bring Tiffany over there. I didn't drive 'cause if the jam was that bad at Federal, there'd be no point driving to the embassy at that state. Luckily I'm pretty well versed in public transport here, so I brought her just in time as her interview was supposed to start. Whew.

She went back to JB the day after, so I was all alone at home again. With no one to strip. LOL. Jokes aside, it was great to have her over. Had some great conversations till the early mornings, and got to catch up after quite a number of years.

2011-04-08T03:37:00.000+08:00

So, my last classes are officially done. My time in TOA is officially done. All I have left is a graduation exhibition. And it'll finally, be all over. So, I need to cover some ground. Let's start with my last few subjects.

The third week of March was one hell of a week because it was the final week of Practical Project, which is the subject that we had to redesign a client's packaging, as well as come up with their SMP, taglines, marketing, and all that. It's literally like a real life job here, for an actual client, BioEnergy Technology, that produces enzymes for consumption and health. The team members in class were chosen randomly, so I ended up with Kin Yaw, Mei Linn, Hui Han, Soon Chit and Wee Hian (yes, the very same one I had a problem with last time). It was actually quite an average team. We didn't have any insane gods or goddesses in our team, and no slackers either. It was pretty well balanced.

Over the weeks of the semester, we did our work as planned, and did work so efficiently that pretty often we had nothing to do once our respective jobs were done. This, plus a pretty good design with everyone's contribution, led to us not being all too worried when it came to showing stuff. Our first meeting with the client went well, and I had to present. And for the final presentation, I had to present too. The time leading up to the final presentation was funny though.

First, I was in college since 11am. Then all of us were in the classroom F3 (or F4), till 10:30pm, when we were shoo-ed. We still wanted to record the radio ad, and we needed a quiet place, so we snuck into the AVH and waited for the staff to close the doors and stuff. What we didn't realize was that he actually locked certain portions of the building, which were inaccessible through the main hallway. Luckily for us, the AVH connects to the main building thats still open, and to the section that's locked. God knows what we'd do if we were really stuck. Lol. So basically, we had free reign in the AVH!

Yeah. Awesomeness.

We continued our work, and around 5am, most of it was done. I was finished with my portion, so I had to rehearse the presentation. The presentation would be in the AVH itself, so I had some early experience to see what it would be like. Heh. Originally we thought of having three people present; Kin Yaw, Mei Linn and I. Kin Yaw said he couldn't, wasn't confident, and backed out. Then while rehearsing, Mei Linn kept messing up, so she asked me to try her part. So I did. And I did better, so they ended up shoving the entire presentation to me. Great. My first presentation to an actual client and I end up being the sole presenter. Hell, it was pretty nerve-wracking! And since I was so tired, I messed up my lines a bit, and memorization wasn't that good. Either way, I went home at 5:30am, and woke up at 7am to go back to college. I dressed super formally, and went to school. With less than 2 hours sleep. Ho ho.

After settling down and getting all the slides in proper order and stuff, we listened to all the groups present. The designer for Petronas, Malaysian Airlines and a few other major brands was present, so it didn't help when it came to nervousness. Here was a legitimate bigshot with plenty of experience. Aside from him, were some other staff from BioEnergy. The first few groups didn't impress the bigshot at all. In fact, he seemed pretty disappointed, and he barely gave any comments, except for negative ones. Lol. So when it was my group's turn, I was wary of having him say negative things at the end of my presentation too. When I began, I was really nervous, 'cause it was a freaking client. Plus a bigshot. Naturally, I spoke too fast, and my group mates whispered to me to slow down. After the first introduction, I managed to slow down, catch my breath, and present more slowly, and chilled out. I kept myself pretty casual in words, and spoke clearly, loudly, and yeah. I was pretty proud. At the very end we had quite an applause and the bigshot stood up and said "Congratulations!". I was like what? He congratulated us for being the only group so far to bring across BioEnergy's products well, and that our group's ideas were superb, well designed, and made very good sense, especially with our tagline "Renew. Refresh. Reborn". The only issue he had was a slight differed opinion on the print ads, but other than that, he was very pleased and happy. And the staff with him were too, as were the guest lecturer's who were present. Even a number of my classmates said that the deal would go to my group. Whew!

As the groups finished one by one, it slowly began to dawn on us that no other group apart from mine, and Edmond's, had any chance of impressing the clients. Edmond's was done extremely beautifully as well (he is the god of the major... so yeah) and his group's presentation was very professional. It was very obvious that apart from these two groups, the bigshot didn't like any of the other groups works at all. I felt pretty pleased. My group, made up of averages, manages to compete with the gods' group? Hell, that's quite an achievement. Later on I overheard from the lecturers and some students that my group's design was very friendly-based, and my presentation style was very casual and chilled. Edmond's group was very professional and crisp in presentation. So it depended on whether they wanted to make their direction of their enzymes friendly, or professional. Like I said, to think that my group could compete with Edmond's, is awesomeness.

A few weeks later, I had Leon's final class in corporate literature, where I ended up with a C , and henry's advertising campaign class, where I had to make a TV commercial for Mentos. All these were completed, and that just leaves my graduation exhibition. I've been helping out in the carpentry and painting for the set ups, the last few days, from late night to around 4-5am. Add to the fact that I'm in the marketing team for the committee, and you'd think I'd go nuts. But TOA's already made me insane, so this isn't such a big deal.

I have a job interview in a few more hours. Lmao. Nitez.

2011-03-29T01:53:00.002+08:00

My last official class in TOA starts in 8 hours.

After our graduation exhibition, I'm totally done, and will just need to await the graduation ceremony. Three years has gone so fast.

Tiffany stayed over at my place for a few days... so yeah.

I have way too much to add in my blog once I'm done with TOA.

2011-03-14T23:18:00.003+08:00

At first, I was going to blog about myself.

Yes, I realize I still owe like 10 posts on various subjects, which I said I'd blog about long ago, but I'm graduating soon, so cut me some slack =p. I was going to blog about myself, because of the beacon of attention I've been getting lately from all sources. I've said it before, that wherever I go, I will make an impression, be it negative or positive, but I will make one. Fine, so attention comes with this, but its been a little more unique in the last few months, and I thought I wanted to pen (um... type) down my thoughts about it, as well as what I thought of myself.

Then, this week had to happen. One of my pet peeves has long been stupid questions. I understand that people will say stupid things once in a while, be it jokes, or blurness. But I've also realized that total nonsense comes from people who virtually have no intelligence! I mean seriously! This week has been testing my patience on stupidity tolerance. I'm quite proud to say that my tolerance when it comes to anger is pretty good (although several events the last few weeks have been questioning that, more on those in another post. I owe, again. Lol). Not to mention I am surrounded by people with low IQs. Sure, some are great friends, loyal friends, true friends, but they're not smart in any sense. And that gets sickening when their stupidity hits high levels.

Oh, but what could push your patience when it comes to stupidity? I'll list them down, one by one, each paragraph explaining the details.

Firstly, with all the hype of Japan's earthquake, let's start there! Granted, I know plenty of people who hate the Japanese and their culture. Even then, I think it's a bit much to actually wish upon a natural disaster to wipe them out. Hating a culture does not mean you hate the entire population that is associated with that culture. Or else, I, living in Malaysia, could easily be cast as a racial bigot as I'm of the population here. Anyway, the last 2 days, messages have been coming from countless sources that the nuclear fallout from the explosions from the nuclear power plants in Japan will actually travel all the way here by way of weather. That thought alone is enough to make me pissed off at whoever started off this crap. Can radiation affect water and clouds? Of course. Can it travel distances? Sure. Will it reach Malaysia in a matter of hours? No, and especially not with the quantity we're talking about. It's a few nuclear power plants. Not an atomic bomb. When USA bombed Japan with two (yes, TWO) freaking atomic bombs, did the whole world worry about rain soaked with radiation? No. It severely affected the cities and surrounding areas for years to come, but it did not affect the world, and not even the neighbouring countries. So when a tiny (compared to the bombs) power plant explodes, where's the rationale for believing that this will affect the rain all the way here when the nearest countries to Japan aren't even affected? Or to hit my point home even more, the cities surrounding them? Pure moronic idiots.

All these natural disasters have been leading to talks on the end of the world and stuff. This of course, is talking about 2012. Quite a surprising amount of people actually believe a planet is colliding towards earth and will hit it in 2012. Venus is millions of miles away, and can be seen with the naked eye at night. This supposed planet is going to hit our planet in less than one year, and yet we can't see it in the sky? Wow, that must be one sneaky planet. I had a friend (Tracy) who posted a status update in Facebook asking whether people believed in 2012. 20 or so people replied. You know what's the sad thing? Only I said I didn't believe in it, because there was no proof whatsoever from the scientific community, and that all this crap came from misinterpretations of the Maya calendar. EVERY other single person who commented said they believed it. That they believed God would do it, that there were various signs around the world (oh please, earthquakes are hardly proof. I'll shake your table and say its the end of the world), and blah blah blah. Even the person who posted the status said she believed it. They believe the world will end in slightly over a year, and what are they doing about it? Are they helping the poor? Changing their lifestyles? Making the most of their remaining 400 days? No. They're living as everyone else is, that the world is not ending anytime soon. Yet they believe in all that crap with no backings at all.

Thirdly, and I'll end with this, since just remembering all these stupid events is ticking me off as I'm typing. Just two days ago on Saturday, I was eating dinner with Issey's cellgroup and Rachael (yes, the mood spoiler, lol) joined us for dinner. So, there was the usual chatting and stuff, and Rachael got annoyed by my teasing her. She said that my personality was one that was very curious, accurate and smart (I'll take that as a compliment). I was like okay, and? And she said that she was very surprised I had a sense of humour because intelligent people normally didn't. Um, since when? Many of the greatest minds of human kind have had brilliant senses of humour! Mark Twain, anybody? Richard Dawkins? Bertrand Russell? Hell, the writings of these guys are some of the funniest yet offensive and thought-provoking things you will ever see. Their intelligence is unsurpassed by many, and yet I love their sense of humour. Fine. This wasn't the main issue. She then proceeded to say that temperament was a mix of personality and character. Temperament is according to the dictionary we used, emotional state, irritability and excitability. Which totally described Rachael. She's 2 years older than me, but she's got the size, voice and mindset of a 9 year old. I wish that was an exaggeration, but it isn't. She kept trying to argue that temperament was character. That temperament was personality. And she said spoke about 4 special types. I honestly think she was talking about the four personality types of sanguine, choleric, melancholy and phlegmatic, which granted, were called temperaments, but I don't think she was really trying to bring this across. She was trying to tell me that my temperament is like my soul.

*Sigh*. I don't like to claim I'm smart, because it makes me sound arrogant, when I proclaim it myself. However, friends all around me have agreed with that, with no offence. And I have an IQ of 145. Sure, I'm not correct 100% of the time, but I really can't stand it when I encounter all this bull.

2011-03-07T00:53:00.005+08:00

Aye... sleeping 17 hours feels so damn good. Especially when you haven't slept well for a week.

Seriously. I was dead, dead, dead exhausted last night. It's been one hell of a week too, anyway.

But, it's been fun and great. The only drawback has been the lack of sleep due to all the activities.

Firstly, the classes on Monday and Tuesday. I stayed over at Fei Yan's house on Tuesday night, so that we could do up the marketing and corporate proposals and we spent quite a lot of time at night to do that. Then on Wednesday I had a 3 hour graduation campaign committee meeting. After that I rested in the library for a while before having a symposium at my house! I realize that a lot of my recent posts are about drinking -.-, but yeah, its been some of the fun highlights that I remember when I blog. So yeah, a symposium. This time, there were quite a few noticeable differences. There were 4 new people invited by Azlan, who we met the previous week (because of another drinking session, lol). They were Jason, Ashok, Max (from Germany) and Masayo (half Japanese). And they're all metalheads! All heavy metal people. Dang! After getting to know each other, and buying all the alcohol minutes before they were closing, we went off to my home! From the usual gang was Justin, Redzuan, Jonas, Andrew, Aaron and Miki. Had rounds of I Have Never, Ping Pang Wah, and The King and I. I Have Never was a great way to know one another better (and we learned way too much), plus King and I provided plenty of laughters. For the first time in my "King and I life", I avoided all the worst dares, and only had minor stuff. Heh.

Everyone else left pretty early at 5am, leaving only Justin, Redzuan, Jonas and Masayo to chill in my house. After more drinks and plenty of laughs and chatting, we finally got some rest at 8am. I had to wake up at 11am to go for a group meeting... that began at 11am -.-. So on Federal highway, on the way back to Sunway, Justin was driving and speeding. In front of us, a car stopped quite suddenly, and Justin stopped just in time, with a forceful, hard brake. The car behind us wasn't quite so lucky. The car behind us rammed into us, which in turn led us to ramming the car in front. Great. Threesome anyone? All of us except Masayo got off to take a look. Justin was pissed off really badly because this was like another accident in his long list of accidents, and his parents weren't going to be happy. The guy in front was actually pissed off, but once he saw 4 big people in black who looked fierce, he immediately softened and said it was okay, once he realized what had happened. But I think our looks intimidated him a bit! Haha! As for the person behind, it was a middle aged woman who seemed totally apologetic, yet when she saw Justin hit his car in frustration, she jumped back into her car. LMAO. The rest of us had to persuade her to slowly come out and talk, saying it was okay, that Justin wasn't going to hurt her and stuff. Hahaha... geez. The benefits of looking fierce -.-. Justin let her off though, and she continually apologized and said thank you profusely. So no one paid for the damages, despite the car in front getting quite damaged, and the lady's car getting dented in the front. Justin's suffered minor damage, but it caused his hazard lights to light up at random times.

I was late of course, but I reached college and did some work with the rest before taking a break and going for Redzuan's drama. Well, I have to say that most of the other groups were pretty bad, but Redzuan's was HILARIOUS. Not impressive technically, and a bit hard to hear at parts, but it was just funny. I went back for the group work and after a while of more work, I promptly fell asleep. Lmao. Sorry guys, I was really dead exhausted. Then the next day I had to go early to help the group do up the bottle mockup, and after a critique that ended very well for us (Gabriel was pissed off at the rest of the class), I proceeded to have lunch and hang out with Miki, Ruz, Henry, CJ, Thaiianna, Redzuan, Sareena, and later on, Justin and Masayo and the rest for dinner. We chilled out a while before I went for cellgroup meeting, and had a good time playing I Have Never with the cellgroup. Lmao, no drinks involved here. It was just drawing on ourselves if we lost.

I stayed up till 6am to do as much of Leon's work as I could, and woke up at 7am so that I could open the photography studio for a photoshoot I was having with Symposium and Essenism. I had long suggested a photoshoot for these two groups of friends, and finally, this weekend was it. Headed to school, and continued my work of Leon's, before going to the studio with Ruz and Ivan, and then I headed off to go for my critique with Leon. Luckily, he was in a good mood, so it was quite pleasant. There was lots of things he told me to change, but more or less, he was alright with my work. I went back to the studio, and waited for all the others (every single person was late). So, we had the photoshoot! Since everyone was late, we had to rush the shoot, and didn't manage to take as much shots as we could've. However, the full shots of Essenism were taken, finally giving an update to our pictures from years ago (and finally getting rid of Leonard from our pictures) and Symposium also had our first full group shot ever, with everyone present, and the addition of Masayo.

We had lunch, and chilled out at Redzuan's place while I rested for a while, before going to church service later on, where the topic was the "Importance of Fellowship", which was superbly awesome and very in season, especially after a photoshoot with close friends. Pastor Kevin spoke on the importance of meeting up and socializing with our friends, as well as for the right reasons, and with mutual benefits, as we are all social creatures. Very useful sermon. Afterward, I had to pass on the fellowship with my cellgroup (yes, I know, the irony), because for this week only, my band had jamming on Saturday night. We jammed and tried getting familiar with the songs we planned to have for the upcoming gig, as well as touching up our newest song, which is still in progress. Afterward, I went to chill out again with Justin, Redzuan, Jonas, Andrew and Masayo for a while, before I headed back home at 2am.

This post was in a way, an explanation of why I was SO DAMN TIRED. Haha... the exhaustion of all these events continuously day after day kept adding up. But I enjoyed every minute of it, and it was a brilliant week. Now... to sleep.

Nitez all.

2011-02-14T15:31:00.003+08:00

Valentine's, Valentine's, Valentine's.

The 14th of February, which also happens to be my paternal grandmother's birthday. It's a day that couples love, and singles hate. I remember watching the movie "Valentine's Day", the one with the huge star-studded cast. In it, there was a part where Jessica Biel organizes an anti-Valentine's Day party and has a pinata that people can whack. I'd so love that right now. Haha.

I always make jokes about Valentine's, 'cause I've never properly celebrated it. Back in kindergarten and primary school, we'd make cards and give them to everyone in the class. It was a cute thing we did, and since none of us hit puberty yet, it wasn't a big deal. Some people went "ewww" at the thought of giving the opposite gender something. Lmao. As we grow older, more people want to celebrate valentine's with their other half. Or at least, the person they love.

My Valentine's Days have been weird. Most of the time. A few years back, there were two Valentine's where I actually celebrated with a couple. Yeah. A couple celebrated and I joined them. What the hell right? I felt like a big lightbulb, and it makes me puke seeing them so lovey dovey in front of me. They were good times spent though. I thoroughly enjoyed the time hanging out with them, even though I felt like an interruption on their special day. Yet they had no problem, and were the ones who invited me along. Two years back, I spent Valentine's Day with two girls, and had a good time hanging out. We were all single, but hey, I had two girls =p. Last year it was on the same day as the first day of Chinese New Year, so I visited relatives. My cute little cousin Zhu Xin, who was 5, held my hands, kissed me, hugged me and basically was a girlfriend. No, I am not a pedophile. Lol. I also blogged about the entire Khar Loo saga, and that led to a series of emails between us, where we defined what our friendship was. Despite half a year of exchanges, we never solved it. Now, we don't talk anymore. We don't even wave.

I know Valentine's can also be for friendship love and all that. But seriously? I know that it sounds logical and stuff, but no one seriously wants to celebrate Valentine's Day with their friends. They want it with their lovers. People will say it can be for friendship, and doubtlessly, it can. But I can speak for the vast majority when I say that its not what they prefer. The people who truly believe it can be for friendship are the people who already have a lover to celebrate with, or a very small minority who actually believe the friendship-ish part of it. We will celebrate with our friends if we have no other person to celebrate with, but I can be sure that if you had someone to celebrate with, friends would take a backseat just for this day.

I recently had a talk with my friend who said she believes I'll never get a girlfriend again. Haha. I don't quite blame her. She's got pathetic intelligence and is extremely immature. However, she's a good friend, so credits to that. I've liked 4 people since moving to Kuala Lumpur. Firstly, was Cindy. We know how that ended, when she brought two guys for a movie I asked her out for. So, I gave up, 'cause she likes Chee Meng. Then I liked Kai Yih, and I found out she had a boyfriend. Great. So I liked Shana, and she moved to USA. Then I liked Sze Ying, and till now, there's been no proper closure. Even after seeing her again last week. Just 4 people and my friend judges so easily. Heh... I didn't even woo these girls much anyway. I kept it natural and friendly. And I guess that's a good thing, considering all the circumstances that happened. So I only failed when it came to Cindy, and my friend believes I'll never get attached again. Of course, she was never in my situation, so I don't blame her. And again, she's got pathetic intelligence, so again, more grace.

However, I must admit I was a little annoyed at that remark. Wouldn't people get offended if they told you something that basically meant "Hey you suck with girls!"? Granted, I know she's really stupid and immature, but even then, obviously I wasn't pleased with that statement. Why? Because I'm pretty good at flirting. Socially, and casually. Not the manipulating with emotions kind. I meet new people all the time, and hang out all the time as well, with many, many groups of friends. Along the way, I meet many new people as well. There's always a very fun interaction when both parties casually flirt. And I've done plenty of that. And I still do, when I meet new girls. When it comes to guys, of course I don't flirt; but its good to chat and know them better as friends as well. I've gotten very accustomed to flirting around with anyone I want to, and enjoying drinking games and physical interactions with anyone I want to, wherever I want to, without having a worry of my other half. My social skills are great, if I do say so myself, and it only keeps improving with all the socializing I do and the process of meeting new people all the time. Plus, I've found out that a few people liked me before anyway, so I guess I must be doing something right.

Haha... I guess my previous paragraph was more like defending myself. I'm famous for blasting people (and at many times, it goes over the limit) so yeah. Anyhoo, people always have a list of what they want their future spouse to be. One thing that Pastor Kevin said on the Valentine's service was "Don't fall in love with your list". I know way too many people who are picky because some guy or girl doesn't match up to their expectations. They love their list of qualities so much they forget about real human beings. I mean, sure, you want a guy who can cook, considerate, tall, dark handsome, whatever. But then again, what makes you think that you deserve a person of such high quality? Do you think you match up to their list? People only think of what they want for themselves. Same for friendships. Sure, you met a great group of people. You say to yourself this is a group of people who are worthy to be my friends. Excuse me? Worthy? What makes you think you're worthy enough to be their friend?

So yeah, here's my Valentine's post. I came up with all this in like half an hour. A bit of ranting in the last part I guess? Haha.

And one last bit, anyone who says everyday should be Valentine's Day has no brains whatsoever.

Best picture on this day.

2011-02-13T19:17:00.002+08:00

Aye... Good rest. And Happy Chinese New Year.

Been a few weeks since I last posted, and mainly, its been going out with friends and stuff. Hell yeah. A few weeks back there was a symposium organized by Sam. Justin, Redzuan, Michelle and Aaron came for it, and we met up with the others who came, which included Winky, Kai Ying, Xiao Gui, Gavin, Chun How, a guy called Hundredplus, his girlfriend, Joey, C, a beatboxer who happens to know my frens Shawn and Koujee, and a few others I can't quite remember. Actually, there's quite a lot I can't quite remember that night.

Yeah. Really. First, all of us sat in a circle, and we played some drinking game that involves a deck of cards. Each number or letter, and sometimes depending on the colour, will make you do some drinking thing or something. There's way too many actions, so I'm not going to say it here,, but it was a good ice breaker, and it got 4 people who sucked at drinking heavily drunk. Hell. The highlight of this game was Gavin, who ended up having to drink a sick mixture of Thai Song and red wine in those containers that store Chinese New Year tidbits. And it was no small amount. Respect!

After that there was another drinking game. 3 teams would try to drink out of the same tubs that Gavin drank, in the quickest speed. The slowest loses. Obviously, Justin, Redzuan and I decided to be one team, but they said we couldn't. Why? Because we're too good! HAHA! TOO GOOD! LMAO. So we ended up having to be the leaders of the three teams and pick our teams. I picked Joey and Bruce, who was already on the verge of puking, while the others had their own members. So, me and Joey had to drink (through straws) out of a tub that tasted like crap. And then we lost. Yeah. The other two teams sucked up that mixture damn fast! So now the losers had to drink the same thing using spoons to scoop and drink it. Someone took over for Bruce, and Joey and I ended up losing. Again. And guess what? The losers had to drink. AGAIN. Aw hell. Again with that sick mixture. This time Joey and i just drink from the tubs straight. I drank it, and again, I lost. LMAO. I lost three rounds straight! What the hell. I lost to a girl -.-. But respect to her, 'cause she took it very well. The alcohol I mean.

Now I pride myself on drinking a lot. A lot. I guess not in the fastest speed, but in the long run, definitely. However, with all that pride, I must say drinking Thai Song and red wine was the worst thing I have ever tasted in my life. You know when you go to a public washroom and there's this bad smell that smells toilet-dirty but with disinfectant? The mixture smelled (and tasted) that bad. Geez. So I had three tubs of that sick mixture. That explains my gagging and slow drinking speed. It was horrible. Geez.

We chilled out for a while and stuff chatting with one another. Particularly for me, I caught up with everyone, 'cause I haven't seen quite a number of them in a long time. Gavin and Chun How were foundation classmates, and I hadn't talked properly with them for a year, just hi's and bye's. Winky, who was a classmate after majoring, also chatted with me catching up on what happened after she quit TOA. Plus I was quite a bitch and asked Ephraim "Hey, so what's the reason you broke up with your girlfriend?" Sorry dude, alcohol does things.

Anyway, after that we drank and played Ping Pang Wah and The King and I. Except... I don't remember playing them. Out of all the things after that, I only remember making out with Kai Ying. Everything else after that, I really, really, don't remember. Even till now. It was so bad, that I didn't even remember we played Ping Pang Wah. Everything else I "remember" was told by other people. Redzuan said we played Ping Pang Wah, which I can't remember one bit. He also said that while I was kissing Kai Ying I caressed her. What the hell. Even I don't remember that. So yeah. I basically lost my memory of nearly everything after the three tubs. Awesome.

Nothing like this has happened since I went clubbing at Double O, and woke up on the MRT going back to Marsiling, with no memory of how I got on the train in the first place.

Chinese New Year was spent at my grandaunt's place. It was a good time spent. More and more, I'm sitting at the adult's table talking about different matters, instead of playing with cousins and stuff like last time. All the cousins here were tiny kids anyway, except for 3 of them. One's older than me, and the other two have just hit puberty. I had a funny conversation with one of the cousins. It went like this:

So I was drinking beer today, when my little cousin asked me a few questions...
Cousin: Have you ever been drunk before?
Me: Yeah, a few times.
Cousin: What's the most recent time you were drunk?
Me: Last week
Cousin: What did you do?
Me: Kiss a girl, and forget about practically everything that night.
Cousin: Ewww~!
Me: Wait till you hit puberty

I met up with Symposium a few days after, to catch up and celebrate CNY at Miki's place, and Andrew joined us. We went for karaoke, which ripped us off and watched Monga and Pulp Fiction at Redzuan's place, after chilling out a bit at Gilly Cafe.

Days later, Andrew asked me to go for a drink. I was free, so I went and joined him. He brought along his friends Valerie, Kelvin and one more dude. So drinking very expensive beer, and in a bar/club, conversation was pretty good, and I was pleased to meet them. Plus, Valerie was cute. Ahem.

And I also met a few more people after that. Just a few days back Fei Yan asked me to join her and Ajeet with a few friends to hang out in Hartamas. I was free, so I came along. I met another Justin, Wei Qi and some dude I can't remember, but has the hots for Wei Qi, who's also pretty cute. We shisha-ed and ate an awesome burger, amongst hilarious jokes and conversations. So yeah, a good time spent hanging out again.

And just last night, there was a Valentine's church service by Pastor Kevin. Hilarious message on the differences between guys and girls, and what young couples and older couples should do. Afterward, I joined Issey's cellgroup for dinner, since only Angelica came for service, the rest coming the next day. The fellowship was just awesome, extremely funny, and I got to meet a few new people again, one of them was a guy called Vincent, who might just be able to hook me up for a job once I graduate. Interesting. Regardless, it was a very fun time with way too much laughter!

And then since Symposium was only a few minutes away from where the cellgroup ate, I walked over to meet up with them at Shiok. Once again, a great time spent there, just chatting and catching up. Later on, we watched Crow Zero 2 at Redzuan's place again, and chilled out till 6am. Redzuan accidentally locked himself out of his room, so lols to him.

So yeah. Since CNY, it's been a great socializing time, meeting tons of new people, and enjoying time with the friends I already have. Awesomeness.

2011-01-27T22:16:00.003+08:00

Happy new year! Long post! To start off, here's two comics I happened to see recently.

I think that's a pretty unique and realistic way of seeing the new year.

And this is pretty cute too.

Okay, so its almost the end of January already. But technically this is my first proper post of the new year. Heck. I owe so much posts and this is my first proper post? Hell yeah.

So, my new year's was pretty alright. I went clubbing at Mist with Andrew (not the Mensa one), and two of his friends. Yeah, four guys in a club with one Black Label. Good odds for drinking, but not exactly the most happening group. I mean, we had no females! Lol. Went dancing a bit and got to dance with some girls, and I met Estee on the dance floor. Quite a surprise, knowing her. Anyhoo, countdown was done in there, so basically I spent my last and first day of the year in Mist. Not my favourite club, but oh well.

Anyway, I ended up passing all my subjects, which is the norm for me, since I only failed Corporate Identity 2, which stands as the only thing I've ever failed in TOA. I'm still amazed, that I was one of the biggest slackers in secondary school, and in Dover ITE, yet I ended up in possibly the toughest college in KL. And I only failed one subject, by 3 marks -.-. Not bad for a slacker, I'd say =p.

So what's been up lately? Well, school's back on! And it's my final semester. I graduate from college after this. It's pretty tiring. I've got another advertising campaign subject, a project that involves designing and marketing for an actual client, corporate literature (basically corporate identity 3), and graduation campaign. I've been recruited as part of the marketing team while helping the copywriting a bit. Lots of exhaustion on my part. Just yesterday I had a four hour graduation campaign meeting, followed by a group meeting for the client, then a video workshop (I kept falling asleep), and finally again with the graduation stuff as I typed and completed the marketing letter. I haven't been this tired in quite some time! All the subjects are pretty tough. And important. Great. I have so much to do. A lot of people are telling me I shouldn't have helped the graduation committee, as I'm already busy enough with the final semester projects. Haha... I'll do what I promise to do, not what others think I should do. Plus, if I can never test how much I can take and do, it's not going to help me much when I start to work.

And as for church, we're gearing up for a new year and hoping to grow the cellgroup in numbers, as well as spiritually. This will be a challenge as it's going to take time and effort to know all the members; W31 have already known each other for years. For me, Ai Lee and Faith and the remainder of W19, to get to know them better is going to take time too. Things are going very well and it's been a pleasure getting to know all of them, but there's much more that it can grow to.

Also, two weeks back a pastor called Ron Choong came over to preach, and to share about apologetics. Yes, apologetics. This is the first time in my life I've attended anything church-related about apologetics. All my material and knowledge has always come from books, books, books and a few online websites. At long last, a subject and a specialist in the field I most enjoy in Christianity in church. It was two days, and I enjoyed the entire two sessions. There was lots of stuff I learned, much stuff reminded, and a few things that were extremely controversial. And I loved it. A few facts I learned: Baghdad was actually a major centre for Christianity. Imagine that. One thing he spoke quite long about was about Christian philosophy. About how it was derived from the Greeks, and their gods, and how Christianity adopted and adapted it to suit the Christian theology. Like the Greeks projected all their gods as in human form. Christianity took this and adapted that we project deities in this way because we believe that we project God's image. He discussed how despite having a pagan origin, it did not mean that our own philosophy was also pagan. He said that our own philosophy will shape our interpretation of things. Doctrines were not derived from philosophy but from revelation. However, philosophy was convenient to explain it well. Interesting stuff. He didn't mince words on the terrible stuff Christians did, but reminded about how much the world has benefited from Christianity as well. He also spoke about how the study of science can lead towards God, and how more and more scientists were finding God while being in professions that usually try and discredit God. After all, he said, The more people tried to disprove the Bible, the bigger the church grew. He also spoke about theistic evolution and how it was controversial only because many churches think it will discredit the Bible, but it in fact doesn't. Anyhoo, Here's a few notes from the sermon I copied down:

What is imperfect can come from the perfect, but the perfect can never come from something imperfect.

If you are not puzzled, you can't learn.

Real belief comes from doubting.

The best teacher is not one who knows the most. It is the one who asks the most questions.

It is so easy for theology to be corrupted.

God is more majestic than we dare imagine.

Also, while talking about the Greeks, he spoke about symposiums, and how they helped to forge strong friendships, social life and discussions of importance. In this current age, symposiums are like talks and the such. But back then, symposiums were actually drinking sessions. Hell yeah you read that right. Drinking sessions, regular and a strong aspect of Greek culture that helped to bond, and even discuss important things. Awesome. We need more symposiums!

As for friends, things are the usual: good. Yes, all my friendships wherever I go are always good. That's one thing I can be always thankful for. I make countless friends everywhere and have so many true friends. Friends I know I can die for. And vice versa. As I've said many times before, I always find it surprising that people say they have a small number of true friends, or that they never had any true friends till now, and that sort of stuff. Essenism has continued to be the only group that's still left and regularly hanging out from CD085-3. Slightly scattered here and there but the friendships are still strong. Symposium (its what I call the drinking gang, for now) continues to regularly go out all the time and chill out. One thing I remember that Ron Choong mentioned. He said that everyone needs a 3am friend. What's a 3am friend? Basically, its a friend that you can call up at 3am to accompany or help you if you're ever in a situation that needs it. One that you know for sure will be there. Basically true friends. But I find the term "3am friend" much more interesting.

Speaking of friendships, there's still a matter of solving the matter of a very good friend, after learning a very disturbing truth, that only continues to get weirder, and deeper, the more I delve into it. This isn't going to be easy.

Anyway, let's talk about resolutions! How did I do? Pretty bad. I utterly failed all my resolutions. Let me copy and paste my resolutions from last year.

1) Get a girlfriend. LOL, yes, serious! I've been single long enough. It's annoying. But it's beyond annoying when the girl you like already has a boyfriend. This is one resolution that's going to be among the most complicated.

2) Repair two friendships. I was looking back on a few blog posts and saw this was one of my previous resolutions that I actually managed to keep. The thing is, I can't think of any broken friendship at the moment. I'm on good terms with everyone, apart from certain people that weren't even friends to start with. I really can't remember anyone who's not a friend now but was previously. I hope this is a good sign.

3) Pass all my subjects. So far, I haven't failed any subjects yet, so just keep it up this year.

4) Finish reading the Satanic Bible and the Qur'an. Since I've finished reading the Bible long ago, I haven't finished reading any other scriptural books. It's just been bits and pieces here and there. These books aren't even close to the length of the Bible so I think finishing 2 is reasonable.

5) Improve on my apologetics. Eh, no, this isn't about apologizing. For those who don't know, apologetics is the defense of the faith. Um... like through verbal, intellectual, rational means. Giving evidence and proof and the such. How do I explain it properly?

6) Lift my 20kg weights every other day. I've finally brought my dumbells up from JB. Carrying it halfway through the country is no easy task with all my luggage you know. I tried lifting the weights the other day and found it was much harder than before. Heck, I need to train up again. I think it'll help for basketball too.

7) Play a sport once a month. Back in secondary and ITE days, I would've put this way higher -.-. Playing basketball every day was the norm. But in KL, with a serious lack of basketball courts and time, and with so much school assignments, it's not feasible anymore. I think once a month is pretty good, considering I played practically almost no basketball at all last year except for Emerge.

8) Go for a photoshoot once a month. Photography has become something I really like. I don't want the completion of the photography subject to be the end of my photography. I'm extremely good at dark and night shots, so I need to try other subjects. I don't know where I'll go or how, but like I said, I don't plan.

9) Clean up my room twice. Since I can remember, I clean up my room only once a year. It's very, very messy, but very clean. No dust, no dirt, but a fair amount of hair (my hair drops a lot) which gathers in one place because for some reason when I turn on the fan the hairs start grouping in a sort of circular shape, and it's very easy to pick them up and throw them away. So yeah. Twice a year. Start slow =x.

10) Pray somewhere exotic. Before I moved up here, I would always have the chance to pray somewhere apart from the usuals like church, home or some cellgroup gathering place. Like I've prayed at East Coast Park's beach. At Saint Andrews Cathedral. In Punggol, during a thunderstorm (I was outside, drenched). I haven't done that sinced I moved here; it's always been in church or home. So I'd like to try it somewhere new.

1) I haven't gotten a girlfriend yet. Last year it was very complicated involving 3 girls, boyfriends, moving to a far away place and incomplete stories. Heck. I've got prospects now, but that's about it. There still hasn't been proper closure yet.

2) I probably ended up having one friendship gone. With Khar Loo. We never solved it. I couldn't think of any friends to properly fix my friendship with. That's how good I've become at getting friends. So yeah. The only people I can think of fixing friendships with are people back in secondary school who weren't on good terms with me. Let's see how this goes. Last year was the first year I didn't fulfill this resolution since I started it.

3) The irony. I posted that, and I ended up failing my first subject. Thankfully, its only been one subject.

4) My reading has been totally irregular. I've been reading many, many e-books. I initially found them very hard to read, as it was so different from reading a normal paper book. Last year I re-read a lot of books I finished before, such as half the Animorph books, and a few other individual books here and there. I only finished one paper book last year, with 4 still unread and on my table (somewhere). I didn't get to read the Satanic Bible and Qur'an except for a few pages each.

5) I think success in this one. I continued to read in depth about it, and kept reviewing and reading the books I finished on apologetics. Not to mention chats here and there with skeptics, and it's helped.

6) Fail. I lifted weights like once a month. Lmao.

7) Utter fail. I only played basketball three times last year. All friendly matches, none involving strangers and challenges.

8) Utter fail. I only went for a few photoshoots, and thats because I brought my camera along for other purposes. Penang was probably the only proper shooting I did.

9) I cleaned it up once, and moved to my sister's room, since her room is more cooling than mine. If you count moving to her room, then I've succeeded.

10) Done. Prayed in Penang. Kinda short though, wasn't a very strong prayer.

So yeah. Pretty bad track record. I'm not making any resolutions until later. And that's only if I'm told to.

Alright. I think this can cover a bit for a while. I'm having a symposium tomorrow. Woots!

2011-01-18T03:15:00.001+08:00

Been obsessed with Far East Movement's "Rocketeer".

Here we go, come with me
There's a world out there that we should see
Take my hand, close your eyes
With you right here, I'm a rocketeer,

Let's fly
Up, up here we go
Up, up here we go
Let's fly
Up, up here we go, go
Where we stop nobody knows, knows

I'm really loving these lyrics. Mainly because they're so suiting to something I felt last time. When you're stressed, with emotional problems, with financial problems, with family problems. Whatever the cause, so long as something causes you a lot of issues, people will either deal with it, or ignore it. I deal with them, nearly every single time, but I must admit there's times where I just wish I could fly away from it all. Just get away from all your problems, leaving them behind. Very, very few problems can be solved by running away from them. And normally, they're only solved due to ignorance on the other side. But how easy it is for us to just ignore it and hope it'd go away! We wish we didn't need to deal with things. We wish that things would go our way, making things so much easier. Yet as we have learned in life... things don't always go your way. Frankly, they rarely do.

I hear so many people saying that they loved life as a kid. Where everything was provided, and they never had to worry. All they did was play, get in trouble, make friends and eat and sleep. So simple, no responsibilities. You went to school just to play games and learn simple things. You learned how to share, how to deal with other kids, and how to manipulate your parents and teachers. No, wait. That last part is totally self-taught. Kids have a freedom that we all enjoy, that we all would like. That we all used to have, and for countless people that have brought it up, it's something they want again. Where they could just live life any way they wanted with no responsibilities. It's how we were raised, and its how we would like things to be. Yet we can never go back to that stage. But the fact that we all want to, shows how much we want to get away from all our problems, all our responsibilities, everything that we have to take care of. We want to be little kids again, doing anything we want without a worry.

Suicide is one way of running away. You end your life, you have no problems to deal with anymore. Yet, as I mentioned in a previous post, it is selfish and stupid. But temptations do come, and I empathize. But then again, I have to make a case that flying away from all your problems does help, if its not done eternally. Ignoring issues forever isn't going to help, but I think getting away from it all for a while helps. And trust me, I've gone through that before.

I remember when I had a really bad time with the whole ignorance era of E458, I took a break from Singapore, and came up to Kuala Lumpur to visit my mom. It was mainly to visit, but a strong factor was to just get a break. To get away from it all. That was also a factor that led me to staying in Kuala Lumpur for much longer than I planned to. I did feel so much better getting away from it. But yet I had to deal with it when I came back. But the rest, the break from it all, allowed me to deal with it much better. We all need sabbaticals. We all need rest. We need to know that we aren't machines who can continually deal with crap over and over again. Can we deal with it for a long time? Sure. Can we deal with it eternally? No. There's a limit, no matter how small or how big, your capacity is. No one's got infinite patience. And I need my rest too. Trips. Outings. Chill outs. Days just sleeping. Resting. Enjoying. Little things in life that are so essential but so often ignored.

There's a reason why Jesus said He would give us rest. Because He knows we need it, sometime in our lives. Some of us need it more. Some of us need it less. But no one can deny they'll need it somehow, somewhere, sometime. And during those times, we'll take a break, and fly away from all our problems. Just to get away from it all. Perhaps, truly, somewhere where nobody knows.

At least... for a while, anyway.

2011-01-04T02:53:00.003+08:00

Ever wondered what it would be like if the Scourge were in a chatroom?

Yeah, random. I know. But click on the following links and take a look at these "chat logs". They're freaking hilarious!

First, second, third.

Lmao. Here's one more thing to make you laugh.

2010-12-31T14:26:00.003+08:00

Aye, the last day of 2010. Heh... and I still owe a lot of posts. LOL.

Craps. There's much to be blogged that I haven't posted yet. And it's already the end of the year.

2010 was a year full of events. Seriously. My friend once said "Something interesting always happens to Howe." And I have to agree with that. My life is never a dull one, fortunately. At least things happen. Better than having a dull life all the time. And thankfully, 2010 was no different.

There were also a lot of firsts this year. Let's see... some of the major things that happened this year:

I went to Genting three times, with two groups of friends.

I went to Malacca for the first time in about 10 years.

Started having drinking sessions in my house.

I went to Penang for the first time in my life.

Had three gigs for my band. Later, Kai left the band.

Zoe left to go back to Canada. God knows what bitching she'll do about my family there.

Had a Marsiling Secondary School reunion.

My cellgroup W19 merged with W31.

Attended Asia Conference 2010.

City Harvest Church was investigated by the police.

Stopped liking Kai Yih. Started liking Shana. She moved to USA. Ouch.

Sze Ying moved to Penang for good. But she's moving to Seremban now. Don't know about closure.

Failed my first subject in TOA. Ended up getting a B after retaking the subject.

Went through a crappy Kancil Awards time. Learned a lot about my groupmates. Not pleasant.

Attended two weddings. Faith and Heng's, and Chee Kiong and Gwyn's. Both weddings of leaders over my life in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, respectively.

A guy I knew (sort of) committed suicide.

Had Gary, Seong Voon and Ashleigh come up to KL for a visit. Honoured, really. Well, Ashleigh was up here for Zoe, but we became friends anyway.

Discovered a very disturbing truth. All the lies.

Yeah. These are the ones that come up to the top of my head at the moment. A lot of new experiences this year.

Plus, in addition to all that, I made a hell lot of new friends this year. Well, I make a hell lot of new friends every year, but let's just say that this year, quite a number of them became really good friends of mine, and I had the pleasure of introducing my friends to my other friends.

Yeah. So this year has been a very fun year for me. Kinda dramatic too on my friends part. I've had to be a friend to all my friends, with additional effort put in 'cause there were so many issues this year among them. But well... I think I helped alright. Decent at least.

So yeah. It's the end of 2010. And I still haven't blogged about so many posts I said I would -.-. Wait for them in the new year. Ha!

Time flies (as usual), and another year is gone faster than I'd expected.

I'd like to end with a quote I saw in a book. Maybe two, since it's the end of the year.

"I don't care what your problems are. You deal with this, right now."

"Deal with what "is", things as they are, and not how you wished they were."

2010-12-22T02:54:00.000+08:00

Click here to read a one of the best articles I've read online, in quite a while.

Although I know and do the stuff it says, seeing it all compiled in one article just impresses me.

2010-12-21T02:12:00.000+08:00

I am disappointed beyond all measure.

2010-12-11T00:42:00.004+08:00

I owe a lot of updates (and I haven't finished my Singapore post either!)

And guess what? It's still going to drag for now. Lol, the holidays were supposed to start today, but I've got to resubmit my book design (read more on the upcoming updates, lol), so I'm technically not on holiday yet. In fact, I didn't even plan to blog, but I'm feeling pissed off and having a hell of a remembrance due to a guy committing suicide. Yeah, you know who I'm talking about. Alviss Kong.

Long story short. This guy committed suicide because his girlfriend of 4 months dumped him. He still loves her, and says she gave him the strength and courage to actually kill himself. I'd like to take this opportunity to say "SCREW YOU" because suicide isn't courageous at all. It's freaking cowardly. It's bloody selfish. And it's undoubtedly retarded. It's an easy way out. I mean, seriously? A few reasons why people want to commit suicide is because they think its a way to solve their problems. Nothing left for them to deal with. Yeah, but they give a hell lot of additional problems for their family and friends to deal with. Your family's gotta pay thousands of bucks to do up your funeral. And Chinese religions, their funerals aren't cheap. They're well known to charge extravagant amounts, basically ripping people off. Regardless, you put financial constraints on your family. Plus, you give everyone around you more emotional baggage and depression than you ever had while you were alive. Less problems? Yeah, for you. Not for everyone else. Plus, if you end up in hell, that's a problem you'll never solve.

This guy also said that if the future boyfriend ever hurt her in any way, he'd haunt the guy as a spirit. Of course, being a Christian, I know he won't haunt the guy 'cause he's dead. And even if I did believe people end up as ghosts, I seriously doubt he'd be able to haunt the future boyfriend. There have been lots of morons who've died. You think haunting is so easy? Why is it only in precious few places? Why aren't all the morons of the living being haunting ghosts as the dead? You forget that there are people much worse in this world who've died and never haunted. Do you see a ghost that only haunts Jews? Ummm... that was a Hitler joke =/. Where are all the tyrants and evil people? Why aren't they haunting people? Several of them died violently too, the "pre-requisite" of becoming a ghost. Unfinished business? There are still Jews around! Hitler hasn't done his job yet! Okay, enough with the Hitler jokes. And what's the worst part? You don't want her to be hurt and stuff? Well, unless she's an emotionless ice queen or into necrophilia, she would probably be the most hurt person here. Do you know how guilty she'd be? That she was the reason behind your death? Don't hurt her? You hurt her the worst yourself. Hypocrite!

And lastly, the issue that irks me the most. Because of one girl, you end your life. Is your life that worthless? Did you have to suffer through an earthquake? Did you starve and forage for food? Did you see the horrors of war in person? Were you born with no arms and no legs? Did you suffer from a painful disease and have it slowly eat your body? If you went through any of these, suicide would be more understandable (stupid, but we'd symphathize). You led a life better than half the human population. Hell, you went clubbing! I actually saw you in Maison before. You dyed your hair. You had a pretty hot chick as your girlfriend (for a while), and you tossed your life away. God knows how many people would give much more than life to be in your position. And you threw it all away. Is this one girl worth that much? Sure, lives are priceless. But just one girl. You never gave a damn about your family and friends. Apparently the love from your parents was nothing. All the effort and time spent raising you into the person you are. Were. You're dead. And that means you didn't value the friendships you had around you at all. They're all worth so little that you'd throw them away so easily. Pricey things are hard to give away. That's why people are selfish, and being generous is hard. Giving a million dollars is hard. Giving a diamond is hard. It's hard because its valuable, and its pricey. We don't like to lose valuable things. Suicide means you throw every single one of them out the window. It means your friends weren't even valuable, 'cause you tossed them away so easily. They weren't hard to let go. They meant nothing. You said you didn't want anyone to hurt your ex-girlfriend. What about your friends and family? How come you didn't mention for people not to hurt them? Hurting them is fine?

You got rejected five times by her before she accepted you. You persisted and persisted till she accepted you. She broke up with you once and you commit suicide. What the hell happened to all that persistence? How come you didn't kill yourself the first time she rejected you? One breakup and you die? There's something called patch-ups. And they have happy endings sometimes. You wasted your life. Granted, you didn't choose to come into this life, but you sure as hell had no good reasons for ending it.

Hmmm... looks like I ended up typing in first person to him. Now here's the thing. I totally understand how he feels like. If anyone has valid attempts on suicide, I'm totally guilty of it. Poisons, knives, thrashing. I know what it feels like when you're thinking about suicide. How everything would be so easy if you just left the earth. No problems. Just silence. Death. Very welcoming. Inviting. You think about how people would react to your death, how people would talk about you. But they don't have as much of an impact as your friends would like to believe. It's deafened, extremely muffed. You just apologize to them in your head, but don't think of what they actually go through. Just a brief idea that is only a fraction of what they will actually feel. You think about how you'll be missed and remembered. And when the time comes, your heart beats nervously as you prepare to commit suicide. Want to jump off a building like Alviss? Your heart thumps like mad. You reconsider a bit. You imagine what it'll be like to fall past all those floors. How your body will end up. Wanna cut your wrist? You think about it. How it'll hurt even more than those previous cuts last time. You think how the blood will flow. How fast your blood will spurt. I know all this, 'cause I tried before. Some methods I even managed to do, and thankfully I didn't die.

That's why I can't stand it when people talk about suicide so easily. People that say they're going to end their life. They talk morbidly about how they're going to do it. Or when. Or that its actually not such a bad idea after all. Idiots. You have no idea how much effort it takes to actually do it. You think its so easy? It takes a hell lot of effort to get up and do it. Thinking about it is very, very easy. That's why people talk or think about doing it. They don't know how it feels. Getting the necessary preparations or awaiting the moment to die. Lots of people chicken out in this stage. That would be a good thing or our suicide rates would go through the roof. It's freaking hard to be on the edge of your life. The tip. I can't stand people that talk about suicide as if its something they can do anytime, whenever they want. They don't know crap about it. Talking about suicide like that shows they have no idea what suicide is really like. Posers. Fakers. Attention seekers. It's definitive proof that they've never even attempted suicide before. And its highly likely they will never have the guts to do it ever. People who actually attempt and/or succeed in committing suicide don't talk about it as if its very easy to do. They know what its like. I know what its like.

You might be thinking, hey, didn't your friend commit suicide too? Nicklaus? Why aren't you blasting him? Because we have no idea why he committed suicide. He cooked a meal for the cellgroup a mere 2 weeks before the died. We chatted quite a lot. He had lots of friends. No one really knew why. He never mentioned it, he never said he was depressed or unhappy. At least for Alviss, I know the reason why. And it's not a good reason. I'm not calling Alviss an idiot (well, I am, but go on) like everyone else on the internet, saying its stupid, his family will be sad, and blah blah. Not just that. I've been depressed before. I know what it feels like so I can empathize on why he'd want to do it. However, a girl (of only 4 months) is not a good reason. There are good reasons for suicide. A lot of them. Although I don't support suicide, I don't deny there are cases where suicide is actually a rational option. Like dying of a terminal disease that causes you unbearable pain. Like being bankrupt and ending up on the streets. Like scraping for food just to barely survive each day, knowing you'll die hungry in a short time anyway. Ending a life in these kind of situations is very rational, even if I don't support it. Suicide for such a simple relationship issue is pathetic. I had a breakup with my girlfriend of 6 months and I came out of it. Was I depressed? Oh yeah. Did I try to commit suicide? Definitely. I am guilty as charged. That's why I say I understand. That's why I can describe all the little emotions. I know how blind you are to what will happen to your friends and family when you die. But coming out of it, I know how stupid it is. Emotional hell plays hell on your mind.

This marks the end of my post/rant. I just really needed to get this off of me. Like I said, I know how it feels to be in that frame of mind. It screws with your head. But at the same time, I feel that Alviss' reasons and words were extremely retarded. Haunt the person who hurts her? He'd be haunting himself. Plus, all the other factors I mentioned, apply to everyone else who tries it. And the posers who talk about it as if its some easy thing. That's also retarded.

You have a good reason for suicide? I highly doubt it. Go chicken out and live your life fully. Three billion people in poverty who have every reason to die live more fulfilling lives than you.

2010-12-01T16:09:00.001+08:00

Proverbs 18:24

"One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother."

A bit of rationale on why I don't use the words "Brother" and "Sister" to my closest friends.

2010-11-26T20:28:00.001+08:00

Yawn. I went back in Singapore! For a while anyway.

It's pretty random. I was invited to Chee Kiong and Gwyn's wedding a few weeks back. It clashes with State of the Arts though, so too bad I can't attend SOTA. Regardless, I was invited, and I ended up being the doorman of the wedding. Haha.

Well, my trip down to Singapore this time was pretty messy as compared to last time. First, I had class on the day I went to Singapore. That's not good. My class ended at 3pm. After, I had a meal with Justin, Miki, Redzuan and a few others, since I wouldn't be seeing them for a week. Around 3:30 I left, and lo, there was a thunderstorm. Great. I got soaked and reached back home, where I packed my stuff. I needed to get to Bukit Jalil, and I took a cab, but it was super jammed, so the cab dropped me off at the LRT near my house, which basically wasted my time and money. Walking there would've been faster. I arrived at the bus terminal and got a bus to Johor Bahru, and according to the guy who sold me the ticket, I was very lucky as it was the last bus to JB that day, since the next day was a public holiday. Okay, fine, lucky me. I then got on the bus, and the North-South Highway was jammed like hell! I've never seen it so jammed before! After an hour or two traffic eased up and the bus finally went faster. Not fast enough though, 'cause I ended up reaching Larkin terminal at 12:30am. I took the last 170 to the checkpoint, but I missed the 170 to get to Singapore. So I had to pay extra for a coach to drive me across. Then, there were no buses left, so I had to take a cab to Juswin's house. Plus, I hadn't changed my money yet, it was still in ringgit, so I had to borrow money from Juswin and pay for the cab. Geez!

Anyway, the wedding was pretty sweet. The ushers and decorators of the wedding had to reach by 8am, to set up and help out. So it was pretty tiring 'cause Juswin and I slept at 5am due to chatting and playing Dead Rising 2. The wedding was held at the Arts House at Old Parliament, and I got to sit on Lee Kuan Yew's chair. AWESOME! LOL.

Lao Lee's chair. Imagine if you sat on Obama's chair?

The guys helped carry things while the girls helped out in decorations. Later the guys helped out the decorations by way of tying up helium-filled balloons. Haha! Imagine tying like 50 ballons! It hurts your fingers like hell after a while! So after that some of us were divided into different sections and stuff; Juswin and I ended up being the doormen. Keeping the doors open, and later, keeping them closed, and opening them when the time came to bring in the bride. There were quite a lot of people who kept moving in and out, so it was quite annoying. So once the procession began, Juswin and I were waiting for the songs and video montages to finish. Once they were done, we opened up the doors for a very beautifully dressed Gwyn to walk in! After this, we were allowed to go in and attend the matrimony. It was the usual, exchanging of vows, giving the wedding ring, and instead of two candles lighting up one, they did something different with something called unity sand. There was a cup of blue sand and another cup of pink sand. Then they'd pour it into some kind of glass vial or something. It would turn to be a pretty nice mixture, looking almost purplish in a few sections.

So after they kissed, there was a short sharing session by Ming Jin. He shared a joke with us: One day there was a young priest who would officiate a wedding for the first time. He was nervous, and the high priest told him "Don't worry. If you forget any lines, just quote scripture. You can't go wrong with scripture." The priest kept this in mind. During the wedding itself, when it was his turn to speak, he totally forgot his lines! So he remembered what he was told; quote scripture. Thinking about Jesus, he blurted out "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." LOL! Awesome joke! But Ming Jin shared that that's exactly what a lot of couples do. They get married without really thinking through on the consequences and future. So he reminded us that marriage is not to be taken lightly. And he also shared a quote that was really amazing, but simple at the same time. He said "Sometimes it is better to be kind, than to be right." That's something I personally need to listen to.

After that, Juswin and I did our door duties again, for the bride and groom to come out, and for the rest of the people to exit the court (yeah, it was in a courthouse. Lol). Then it was time to eat! I ate, and ate and ate... chicken, lol, 'cause most of the other food was done after helping with the duties and waiting for the line to shrink. I managed to catch up with a lot of people. I caught up with Gary (again, lol), Cedric Koh and finally met his girlfriend, and Jace, and even Sylvia. Yeah. I haven't seen Sylvia in years, like since I last went for her performance she invited me to. We chatted normally and happily, as if nothing sour had ever happened to us before. It was so ironic, funny, but yet pleasing to see that after 3 or 4 years, there was no hint of her being an ice queen anymore. And we chatted just like we did, before I liked her and our friendship got screwed. Good times. Plus, I also saw and briefly greeted a lot of people that I haven't seen in years, like since my first few years in church. Back then there were a lot of people that I just said hi to and talked to briefly, but never really remembered them. I mean I was new that time, and I was bombarded with hundreds of names and people in the span of weeks. I could never remember all of them, yet, I recalled their faces when I saw them that day, even though we never said anything to each other.

Anyhoo, dinner that night was also interesting. I didn't have a proper table, so I was put at another table beside my cellgroup's table, and far from Juswin and Eleanore's table. Basically, I was alone, haha. In a zone where they all knew one another. I only knew the GT zone people who transferred to MJ zone when GT disbanded. Fortunately for me, a girl called Felicia was sitting beside me, and she provided some conversation, and so did some people from the table, although Felicia kept the effort. Thanks! The food was pretty good. Drank like 20 cups of cokes. Lol, sorry to the waiters!

After the wedding ceremony, I still had other actitvities. Which I'll post up next.

I'm back in KL at the time of this typing. Lmao. School. Yawnz.

2010-11-23T05:24:00.001+08:00

How the hell do you google that and end up on my blog?!

2010-11-20T15:57:00.001+08:00

Last week Gary came up to Kuala Lumpur. He's on a sort of self-journey to learn more, experience more and meet different kinds of people. So his first stop was his next door neighbour's capital. And as I'm living here, I played host a bit. The first night he came over I brought my friends along, the drinking group. This time, Nikke, Redzuan and David didn't come for various reasons, and instead, Rachael, a new cellgroup member of mine, joined us instead.

We brought plenty of alcohol to Gary's hotel room. There was still the Remy Martin XO left from the last drinking session, a 21 year aged Chivas Regal that was Ruz's Christmas present last year, and two bottles of Moskovi Vodka.

So off we played! And off we dared! And off we did things! I wasn't so fortunate this time, as I had to make out with guys much more than girls. Hell. I did get to make out with Michelle (sorry Aaron, lmao) and was supposed to with Rachael, but she wasn't so sporty. In fact, she pretty much spoiled the mood for the entire night, and didn't make much sense in her logic. We didn't force her of course, but she wasn't really open-minded anyway. And I had to kiss Gary too. Aiks. I haven't seen him since the beginning of the year, and making out was not the welcoming I planned. Lmao. Rachael and Gary didn't enjoy the session much. Rachael was busy covering her eyes half the game. She's 23, but she's got the voice and a mindset of a 9 year old. Geez.

Anyhoo, after whole session we ate a bit and talked about some issues till 7am. They went back while I stayed in Gary's hotel room 'cause we were hanging out the next day.

Oh, and by the way? He stayed in Prescott Inn. The service there sucks. Seriously. We asked for ice, and they didn't have ice. What kind of hotel doesn't have ice? That's forgivable. Then we asked for some cups, and we ended up with cheap paper cups. Fine, they're still cups. When Thaiianna and I went downstairs to buy ice they said they'd pass the cups to us so we could bring it up when we went back to the room. What ever happened to service? We had asked for it a while back too. And worst, the next morning we asked for a fan 'cause the aircon was spoiled, and it took them 3 hours to deliver the fan. I got so sick of waiting (plus I was dead tired) I called them up to cancel the fan, since waiting 3 hours for a fan was ridiculous. So I slept. An hour later someone knocked on the door, giving us the fan. What the hell?! Are you serious?! Four hours for a fan that was cancelled? Geez. I took it anyway, 'cause the aircon really sucked. My opinion? Don't stay here unless there are no other options. It's almost in the middle of nowhere too. Maison and Asian Heritage Row are quite a walk. Bottom line: it sucks.

The next day we woke up in the late afternoon and headed out. Took the monorail to Bukit Bintang area, and explored the 3 main malls there, namely Pavilion, Sungei Wang and Berjaya Times Square. He seemed to like Pavilion, and Sungei Wang was oddly empty of the "lala's". Times Square was just to explore a bit, 'cause we were both tired and I needed to head back home after this anyway. Well, it was a good time to catch up, and do a little bit of shooting. My food photography sucks. No matter, 'cause I've never seriously considered food photography anyway.

And this week? I had band jamming, after an absence of like a month. We messed up a bit, but got back on track after a while. Not happy with the keyboards though. Two keys in very convenient places were very inconveniently spoiled. It was a good time to catch up on our music anyway.

And the weekend that just passed was a great time spent. After service, Justin, Redzuan and I joined Michelle and Aaron at Starlight. For like the last month, I've been hanging out with Michelle and Aaron at Starlight every weekend till the early morning. So I'm pretty familiar with the place. We had a great time chatting and catching up, and had great conversations since there was no dare games involved. Lmao. But it was a great time sharing a lot and opening up deeply. We talked about quite a few diverse, serious subjects too. And lot of focus on life, and the future of our actions.

2010-11-18T15:50:00.002+08:00

Aye, about time I updated, lol.

Well, a month back, I had a drinking session at my house. After eating a potluck organized by the cellgroup (W19 has merged with W31 now), Justin, Redzuan, David, Nikke, Michelle, Aaron and Thaiianna came over to my place to have a drinking session.

This time we had more girls! LOL... that meant better odds for the games. Wee! Anyhoo, they had dinner with Miki earlier, and she couldn't come over due to her parents, so to make up for it, she gave us the remainder of her Sapphire Bombay. I still had some whiskey left over from the Genting trip with Justin, Miki and Bruce. And, Michelle brought Remy Martin XO. Hell man.

Well... let's just keep the details sparse, and have them more of bragging instead. Practically everyone made out with each other. Heck, I had to french kiss Aaron and David. And I had to kick Justin in the balls too. And I got a lap dance from Redzuan. On the plus side, I did get to french kiss Nikke and Michelle too. Much better! And you know what they said? That I have very soft lips, like "marshmallows". Yeah, seriously. They said that. My lips were soft. Like marshmallows. They said marshmallows. I'm like what the hell? I never realized lips were hard or soft. I mean, I never really bothered with that bit of knowledge. In addition, they did say I was a good kisser. This comes from two girls, both (I presume, with good reason) widely experienced. So yeah, bragging rights!

And you know what? so far my kissing experience has only come from dare games and clubs. I surmise that's enough to "train"?

On the sad part, Justin only got to kiss guys. He was like dying to get some female action (everyone got heterosexual action, with the exception of Justin). But alas, too bad. Lmao.

Anyhoo, did had great conversations and sharing stories after all the drinking. We drank from like midnight to 8am. Geez. Insane~~~

Awesome time!

2010-11-11T03:59:00.000+08:00

Lol, okay, I seriously owe updates. And I'm seriously procrastinating.

There's quite a bit that's occurred since I last blogged. Hmmm... And I'm STILL lazy to blog. Actually, its saved in a notepad file, incomplete. Lol.

So I'll leave you with a Calvin and Hobbes comic strip. It's a classic!

Hilarious!

2010-10-23T16:37:00.000+08:00

Had an AWESOME night last night. Hell lotta fun and crazy antics. Haha... details coming up!

2010-10-13T19:55:00.003+08:00

Lol, okay updates!

Three weeks back Jonas had told us that G6 in MidValley was having their offical opening, and was having free flow alcohol for two hours! Woots! Justin and James were supposed to come also. However, everyone ditched last minute, and I didn't want to go alone. Zzz. So yeah, I just joined my cellgroup for fellowship instead. Later on, Zoe told me her friend was at Mist and it was free flow VSOP. I was like, sure, why not. I already got screwed over anyway. We were then told that her friend could only get us into the club guest list after 2 hours, and even then, it might not be assured. Aye, we said forget about it also. So yeah, two chances for FREE free flow alcohol, and I missed both! What a total bummer!

We also celebrated Stephanie's birthday after the bummer incident. A friend of James; Justin, Jonas Redzuan and I went to sing at a midnight karaoke with her. Of course, I was the worst at singing, but I enjoyed myself plenty. We sang plenty of heavy metal songs, whilst a number of pop songs too. And piggyback rides pwn.

Speaking of alcohol, on Saturday, Zoe's friend Ashleigh came up from Singapore. I met her before, briefly, but we never got to keep in contact. Regardless, we met up after service ended. Supposedly, we were supposed to fellowship with W31 at Murni's in SS2. But, they told me that they were going to Murni Discovery, which is the new branch at Taipan. So, Zoe, Ashleigh and Calvin followed my car to the Taipan branch, and later on, nobody had reached, which was weird 'cause they left before us. We even ordered for Faith and Heng, who were coming late. After calling them we found out they were at the SS2 branch, which doesn't have the word "Discovery" on their signboard -.-. Zzz. So it was just a small-time fellowship! With four people.

Even though it was just four people, it was pretty alright. I had plans to meet Michelle Moy and Aaron, and introduce them to Redzuan. Miki and Justin weren't free, so it was just us. Zoe wanted to bring Ashleigh to Bangsar, but that'd require me driving them, and I was supposed to drive us to Damai for drinks and shisha. Of course, priority goes to the tourist, and I asked Ashleigh to join us instead, and all hang out together, to which she agreed. So we got ready and I drove them to Damai.

We drank and shisha-ed at Damai, at a place called Starlight or something like that. It's this little cottage restaurant in the middle of nowhere. Seriously. But the place is damn chilling. It's an awesome environment, excluding the mosquitoes (who only bit the girls). After having beers and shisha, we wanted to get more alcohol involved, but they had no liquor at Starlight. We were thinking of buying cheap booze from a nearby shop and bring it over, but we somehow got into the conversation of drinking games instead, and along with my comment of "I've still got whiskey at home", the choice was obvious. We drove back to Cheras, and bought some mixers and ice, and went back to my place where we played I Have Never, Ping Pang Wa and The King and I.

Firstly, to get all of us drinking, we played I Have Never. Basically each person takes turns to say "I have never..." and something. Whoever has done that something must drink. So one of Ashleigh's turns was like "I have never had sex". And no one drank. So I was like "Are we all virgins?!" LOL!

Later on we played Ping Pang Wa, a game taught to us by Redzuan. It's basically a passing on an action game of sorts, and whoever messes up drinks. After a few rounds to sufficiently have everyone slightly intoxicated, we moved onto The King and I.

I am no stranger to The King and I. In fact, I'm often a victim of it. After learning the game in Debbie's birthday chalet a few years back, it's been my favourite dare game, although I end up doing crazy stuff. And lucky me, I often get the worst -.-. And unfortunately (except for gays and girls watching) they often involve guys. And this time round, history repears itself. Throughout the entire night from 3am-6am, we did unspeakable things! LOL. Dang. Lots of guy on guy action, and very little girl on girl action. The only guy on girl action was with the couple, Aaron and Michelle. So yeah. Fun and entertaining as hell. I need an assurance of manhood.

Gimme some hot chicks!

I'm doing males (and lesbians) everywhere a public service. She's hot! (And I have no idea who she is)

2010-10-13T16:34:00.003+08:00

Interesting fact: William Shakespeare was the first recorded person to use insults about people's mothers.

"Yo' mother's so fat, that when she walked across the TV, the movie ended."

Okay, I owe updates. Lots of them!

And the last few days, my mouth has come into contact with waaaaay too many things/people.

Lmao.

2010-09-22T03:50:00.001+08:00

I was supposed to have the car for one month right? Well... now its under servicing.

Lol, no it's not my fault. The car hasn't been serviced in years, so now's the best time (when I'm driving it... zzz). I'll needa stick with public transport again. It's been so nice driving myself everywhere and driving friends back home. It's a little service that makes me feel better as well as allowing awesome conversations.

One thing I liked about not driving was that when people graciously drove me back home, it allowed me two things. One, if I was very tired, a place to just doze off and sleep. When you drive, you have to stay awake. And on two separate occasions, I've fallen asleep while driving, miraculously accident free, especially when I fell asleep 10 times during one of those occasions. Another thing is that it forces conversation. A car that's silent is very awkward, when the two people have nothing to say to each other. So during these times in the car, it's allowed me a great number of opportunities to chat with people and get closer. Every week after church when Ai Lee drives me back home, we have great conversations (and debates), and it's thanks to these trips back that we've gotten so close. We would've never chatted so much if it weren't for the fact I had to sit in her car. And when Issey used to drive me back home every week from church, again, it also allowed me to have great chats with him as well. And Miki, always driving me to-and-fro school when we have convenient clashes in our timetables, and occasionally staying back later than normal to drive me back. Without these trips, I would also have missed out a great deal on our friendship. And with these three people, sometimes we'd just sit in the car after they've reached my place, just to chat. Sometimes up to a few hours. It's allowed a great deal of relationships to develop.

One thing driving a car will rob me of is the continuation of these "car conversations" I've gotten so used to. Sure, now that our relationships are so strong there'll be other ways to maintain it. But not with the car anymore, unless for certain occasions (like when my car is under servicing...). But it allows me to have great conversations too, with people I drive, as in the case of Michelle Moy and Aaron Tan, two great new friends I just made last week.

On Thursday last week, Justin, Miki, Bruce, Sam and I were going for a karaoke session, and Miki brought along her good friend Michelle Moy. I'd heard of Michelle many times from Miki, but this was my first time meeting her. After waiting obscenely long for Sam and Bruce, we finally went to Neway to karaoke.

Well, they mostly sang Chinese songs, so I was just listening. Lol... everyone sang very well except me! Lmao! I was the worst singer there. During the few English songs we sang, I think I was outta tune for a few of them, and I didn't know the lyrics for a lot of them. Sure they were on the screen, but it took a while to get used to singing them. Aiks. Oh well.

Miki, Justin, Michelle and I went to Bukit Jalil to pick up Michelle's boyfriend, Aaron, and we ate and shisha-ed at Sinbad. It was a pretty good time hanging out and getting to know them better. Had such a great time in fact, that I was even invited to their engagement party next year. Wow. Lol... Justin and Miki went back home while Aaron, Michelle and I hung out at a mamak near Aaron's home. We chilled from midnight to almost 4am, just sharing about our lives and getting to know one another better. Some things shared that night were things that the couple didn't know about each other! Haha! Had an awesome time, each of us sharing about our own life stories, and certain things about ourselves. All in all, it was a briliant time knowing them.

2010-09-20T23:49:00.003+08:00

Lol... I'm sleepy. Zzz. Dead tired.

Aye... well, my mom's gone to India for a month to settle some business stuff, so I get the car for one month! And you what's the first thing I do? Run out of gas -.-. No, seriously. Lmao.

You see, now as the guy with the car, my sister treats me as if I'm her driver. She expects me to pick her up to her liking whenever and to wherever she wants. My mom was at home much more often than me and was nicer to Zoe, so my mom would often pick her up and drop her off at places. For me, I have my own life, and my life isn't to drive her around whenever she wants. When I first got the car, she would message me saying she wants to be picked up at so-and-so place at what time. Excuse me? Just 'cause you treated mom like that doesn't mean you can treat me like that. Of course, if its very important, on the way, I'm free, or its not too inconvenient, I will (and have done many times this past week already). She's learned that the hard way, having to find her own transport 'cause I'm out most of the time. She even accused me of being selfish for having the car all to myself. Well, if I didn't have the car all to myself, she still wouldn't be getting driven around anyway. She can't drive, and uncle Ben is out for work all the time. And she's got the balls to call me selfish? Lol.

Anyway, that's not the point. The point is that I ran out of gas! I previously drove to pick her up from work last week and was running low on gas. I knew it could last two trips or so, considering the distance from home to school. So when I got home I thought of pumping gas the next day on the way to school. I woke up late, so I had to rush. I knew that I really needed to pump it once school ended. After watching Resident Evil: Afterlife with Ruz and Henry (the movie is pretty good by the way... much better than Resident Evil: Extinction. They've redeemed themselves. And the Executioner can RUN!) I walked to my car at PJS9 beside the college, and started my car. I drove for less than two seconds when I felt a mild, abrupt jerk and my car didn't move. Crap. I was outta gas.

I asked a few people who happened to be walking nearby where the nearest gas station was. Apparently it was a gas station on the way to Federal Highway. Screw that. The PJS9 fence made it a hassle to walk around and get gas, so I walked al the way to the Caltex across Sunway Pyramid and asked if they had a container or something to fill gas in. It would cost Rm5 just to use, and I had to return it in proper condition. Zzz. What choice did I have? While everyone was pumping gas into their cars, I was the only idiot pumping petrol into my container. It looked pretty stupid (and funny, lol).

So I was sweaty, looking kinda annoyed and pissed, walking with a tin of gasoline in hand. People looked at me as if I was some arsonist or something. I mean seriously, geez. It was freaking amusing though! I walked back to my car and realized something. The tin wasn't very user-friendly. It was impossible to pour the gasoline into my car properly without it spilling.

I expected something like this.

But I ended up with something like this. With a hole near the corner at the top.

How do I pour gas like that?

So I tried my luck. I tried to see if I could magically pour it in with a steady stream. That ended up with my hands covered in gasoline (any idiot who'd flick an ember at me would die).

So I found a small cup and poked a hole at the end, thinking of using it as a funnel. It worked for a few seconds. Thing is, it may keep coke and water in, but not gasoline. It poured properly the first few seconds, but it got soiled extremely fast and began leaking through the paper. Great. Now what?

Pauline lived a few seconds walk from where my car was parked, so I asked if she had anything that could be used as a tube or funnel. She managed to find me an empty dishwashing soap bottle, that was funnel shaped. Woots! Thank God for garbage. I sliced off the bottom part, and she offered to help me provide light 'cause it was bloody dark. Slowly, but surely, it worked, and at last, I poured all the gas from the tin. Whew! We washed our hands, and thanked her profusely, while she made fun of me by saying that I was the reason Zi Yuan quit TOA. Lmao. What the.

2010-09-20T04:06:00.001+08:00

It takes a lot of energy to be the friend each person in my life needs.

2010-09-12T16:55:00.003+08:00

Aye... the first week of school has ended. It seems okay for now. Lol...

The subjects I've got are publication design, advertising campaign 2, business and client management and portfolio presentation. And add the retaking of Corporate Identity 2. I haven't taken portfolio presentation yet because it was on Hari Raya, a public holiday (that made all the major roads in KL free of jams, lol).

Well, advertising campaign 2 seems the usual, except stricter on certain things. Publication design seems the most challenging, we need to create an actual book, and things like cover, texture and all that are considered. Zzz. Business and client management seems easy. And CI2 is going to be slightly different. For one, I'm classmates with Miki again after almost 2 entire years. Heh, at least I've got some company apart from the other failures and retaking students. Plus I can look after her in a sense. I'm also classmates with plenty of people I've heard about, although never interacted with directly. Sure to be interesting -.-. I was quite a pain to Leon in the first lesson. Lol. I kept talking back to him and making snide remarks about him failing me, although in good humour. He paid it back -.-. And I found out that it was indeed the logo that made me fail. In addition, to add salt to the wound, I found out that I failed by just 3 marks. I got 47%. Geez. I was the "top failure" and wasn't supposed to fail if it weren't for my logo. What the.

The only benefits I see are that I can refine and heavily improve my previous semester's work for CI2 and use it in my portfolio. And a bonus, there's a tutor (the staff assistants for the lecturers) called Shi Wei that's like super cute! And I've been accused of flirting with her in the first minute I met her. Well...

On Thursday after CI2, Miki was supposed to go back home and I had another lesson (its from 7pm-9pm, zzz). Surprisingly, Justin and Miki stayed back just so she could drive me back home. Aww, much appreciated and touched! She came over my place for a while to chat some evaluations before heading off.

And the next day, Miki, Justin, Bruce and I were supposed to go to sing at a karaoke with Ephraim, Jia Xiang and Dominic, three people I've recently been introduced to. However, Bruce was stressed over things and asked not to join, Jia Xiang said he was going back to his hometown later on (despite agreeing to come for the karaoke the previous day, so what the hell), and Dominic wanted to sleep. Ephraim overslept. Lol. So it was just the three of us. As a karaoke with just us didn't seem that fun, we decided to go somewhere to eat. We found out in CI2 that Leon actually designed the logo and business cards for Alexis, some posh, high class bistro. It's located in Bangsar, another high class place. And its inside Bangsar Shopping Centre, which is like a high class mall. Geez.

We went inside and ate some kind of cake. It's made up mainly of some egg thingy. I forgot what it's called. It's created by continuously whipping egg whites until they're foamy. And with some kind of custard or bread thing. Heck, I've got no idea when it comes to cooking and food. Let's just say it tasted awesome and literally melts in your mouth. And we had passionfruit tea in addition to it. It was great just chilling out there enjoying the food and drinks, while enjoying the very high class atmosphere (we were probably the most out of place with our dressing). During the course of hanging out there we were sharing about one another's positives and negatives, and suggesting things to improve on and praising the positives. Nothing we off limits (as it has been for some time now), so it was a good sharing session.

Later on Miki's mom joined us and brought us to some lam mee place, and OldTown White Coffee to eat, treating us all the way. And we went to KLCC for a while too. And we had a good time chatting the entire time! Later on, Justin and I were planning to have dinner, but I had no idea of the good places to eat in Cheras, so I went back home to ask my mom. She decided to eat with us too, and brought us to some place that had typical Chinese food. Interestingly again, we all had a good chat about various things, especially our bad encounters with maids. Lmao. The entire day spent with one another and our mothers! If we had spent some time with Justin's mother too, it would've been a complete set. Haha!

All in all, it was an awesome and deep time.

And seeing Justin line up for cotton candy is the image of the century.

Without a doubt.

2010-09-11T00:45:00.001+08:00

Lol. I had a very interesting prayer meeting on Tuesday.

After the usual songs and prayers, Pastor Kevin decided to try something new after a short sermon. First, he asked the right half of the church to turn their chairs towards the left, and asked the left to do the same to the right. Then he asked all the females to go to the right and all the males to go to the left. You just know something's going to be interesting when you see this kinda setting. Lol.

Then Pastor Kevin asked us to get into groups of 5 or so and the guys needed to discuss what were major female turn-offs. And the ladies needed to discuss the rude things guys did. Now you definitely now there's going to be conflict. After a period of discussion with my group, we decided that ladies saying "Guys are all the same" was quite a turn off. After a while Pastor asked anybody to stand up and start it off. And guess what? I started the war! HAHAHA. The moment Pastor Kevin asked somebody to start the ball rolling I stood up immediately and was passed a microphone. And before I could speak he asked me not to swear -.-. Lmao. Do I look like the kind of guy who swears? Uhh... based on the responses I got in Facebook. I guess yeah, I do. I said out loud what my group decided on was a turn off, and I got a roaring ovation from the guys. HAHA! Woots! The ladies came back with another response, and it was a back and forth kinda thing till each side had a list of 10 turn offs/rude things.

I can't quite remember all of them, but here's a few turn offs I remember: Saying all guys are the same, nagging, not giving us guys nights out, not giving us alone time, hairy female armpits, over sensitive and a few others. And of course, the things that girls considered rude: Guys farting, burping and scratching their stomachs in front of them, not listening, not sensitive enough and a few others. There was quite a lot of tension in the hall! Lol... later we were told to discuss the things that were ladylike and attractive to guys, and gentlemanly things to girls. Obviously it was a much more relaxed time to hear the things that we liked from the other side.

Then Pastor Kevin shared the lesson of this little exercise. In friendships and especially relationships, there will be conflicts and things we don't like about each other, but we should always focus on the good and positive sides, while improving the negatives over time, without ignoring them. Wow. Deep. And a very fun prayer meeting too!

2010-09-06T22:08:00.006+08:00

First day of school. Sort of. Lol. College has officially started again, although I have no classes today.

Where should I start? Well, for one thing, I finally failed my first subject in TOA. And surprise, surprise, it's Corporate Identity 2. What a bitch right? I spent hundreds on printing the stuff and had sleepless nights over it. You see, during the last few weeks of CI2, Leon had kept rejecting every single damn thing I'd been giving, and he even told me "Would you consider retaking this subject?" which basically meant "You're going to fail." So I did feel pretty hopeless on the subject. However, later on he told Fei Yan to tell me to call him. I did, and he said he would help me a bit, by telling me what things I needed to change on my design, the typefaces, the font sizes, and all that. The following week he said my designs were much better, and he even said certain things were "pretty good". I was like "I didn't pay you a million bucks right? You said that of your own free will right?" I mean, getting the word "good" out of him is like striking the lottery (excluding the times he says "not good"). So after everything and the final presentation, I ended up getting an F, C and C. F for the logo, C for the idea and C for the design. I thought that was good enough to pass. I guess not. Because of the logo, I failed. What the hell. During that phone call and the subsequent weeks he never once mentioned anything about the logo. Nothing! I thought it wouldn't be too big of a deal since he mentioned every single design error I had apart from the logo. Turns out the logo is 25% of your entire marks for CI2. And because of that, I failed. Dang. What a bitch. I had stayed over at Fei Yan's home, Wai Kwan's home and Zi Yuan's home over different days countless times in the last few months of CI2, just to do the work together, and it would've all paid off if it wasn't for the logo. Pfft.

Luckily for me, the timetable fits just nicely. I can take CI2 over again while continuing as per normal with the rest of the subjects without any problem. And it's really thanks to God. On Thursday, CI2 ends at 7pm. The next subject begins at 7pm. If there was any clash, I'd be stuck and have to fall behind one semester. So its like pure dumb luck. Whew.

Anyway, updates! Robenz and Jessica have left the cellgroup. Robenz time as a worker in Malaysia is over and he's forced to move back to Indonesia. Jessica's finally finished her time in college and graduated, so she's gone back to Indonesia as well. Linna, Linda and Vonny have all left church. So basically my cellgroup is only Faith, Ai Lee, Kai Yih, Zoe, Andre and I. Zoe's leaving back to Canada at the end of the year, and Kai Yih is gone from KL half the time anyway. So basically there's only this much people left. Lmao. That's the thing about CHCKL. A large number of the members in church are foreigners who come here just to study and leave after they complete them. Very rarely do they stay behind to live their life here. Kuala Lumpur's a very "intermediate city" where people come and go very regularly. Add to the fact that Malaysia makes it a pain to become PRs and citizens. So yeah. As a much smaller cellgroup, it does kind of force an opportunity to get even more united, in quality than quantity, so I'm thankful for that at least.

Speaking of leaving church, Pastor Kevin spoke a really honest message last weekend. He spoke about restoration. Of how we fall away from God, how we disappoint, and how our friends, and even some pastors and leaders leave church. This last point was a very honest one. He talked about how when people leave church and come back much later, people give them a look that says "What are you doing here?" or "What do you want from us?". We rarely give them the benefit of the doubt that they have really come back to God. We judge them so much on the fact that they left church that we forget they made the effort to come back as well. It was a very deep and heartfelt sermon by Pastor Kevin, and it touched on a very vital issue, especially in this season of the church, as growth is starting to slow.

Oh, one more thing! Last week on the 30th, because Miki couldn't make it for the Festival of the Tritone gig, to compensate we had a drinking session at her home. Me, Justin and Bruce. We did a small celebration for Justin's upcoming birthday by switching off the lights and producing a glow in the dark t-shirt with a glow in the dark skull in front. Heh. He said he was so touched and all that. Glad you like it! For the drinking session, thing is, I hadn't eaten for 15 hours that time. And I took a hell lot of dry gin shots, with countless cans of beer and instant noodles a bit later on. So you know what? I threw up. LOL! Yeah! Craps man. I haven't thrown up in ages. Zzz. I felt bad, 'cause I had the urge to throw up downstairs. I rushed to the washroom upstairs while vomiting. So part of the stairs and quite a portion of the second floor was covered in my puke. Miki's mom and sister was teasing me and saying it was okay, but even so, I still felt bad! Horrible, that I threw up and everyone helped me clean up. The process was probably made faster due to the fact that all of us were heavily intoxicated, and so no one really gave a crap they were cleaning and slightly touching the vomit. Lmao. Heck, Miki's sister even joked that we should go drink together some time. Yeah, geez. I just felt terrible that I threw up in her house, with her mom and sister there. Again, deepest apologies!

On better news, the day after that, which also happened to be National Day, we had our gig! The Festival of the Tritone, organized by Justin's band, Ashes of Pain. Kai left ANK to join their band, so we had one less person this time. As of this typing, I still have no idea why no pictures or videos have been uploaded yet -.-, for any of the bands! Can't even take pictures from Facebook.

Here's the poster Justin made.

Banbodo actually ditched the gig. They were a total no-show, which really pisses me off 'cause that's just unprofessional and very what the hell for an entire band, with no excuses. So forget about them. There were 4 bands remaining. My band, As Naive Killer, Justin's Ashes of Pain (previously called Oneirometal), One Inch Closer and The Metaphor. We played with One Inch Closer before, and they specialized in pop songs, even Japanese ones. They were the starting band in the previous gig, and for Tritone, they were also the opening act! Haha. We also played with The Metaphor in my first gig, and they were again, totally awesome. Purely melodic.

Anyhoo, due to the lack of pictures, apologies! You'll have to read about all the bands. One Inch Closer began the act, with a few songs, and a special finale song that included a guest female vocalist singing instead. It was one of their heavier songs. The song was actually written by the main vocalist for the girl who sang, lol. They were a good start to everything, and yeah. Well done!

Next up was The Metaphor. Out of all the bands that day, they were the most experienced and most talented. Officially formed in May 2009, they've gone on to become very well recognized all over the local music scene. And they are my favourite local band in Malaysia, without a doubt. They're that good. I'd have loved for them to be the finishing act, but Justin wanted his band to be the finale, as they were the organizers and the such. The Metaphor wowed everyone, and their music made everyone high. Like seriously high, like on drugs or something. Their music is very melodic, yet heavy at the same time. They just made the entire audience transfixed on them. It's seriously beautiful. Everyone was just totally stunned. And they played the longest out of all the bands too! They easily connected all their songs together and it was as if they never stopped to start the next song. It was just pure awesomeness.

AsNaiveKiller was the next band. We were the first heavy metal band to play (Ashes of Pain being the next). We did our first song pretty well, and played the metal version of Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" pretty well too since we'd played these previously. Our next two songs were new songs, which we made in the span of just a few weeks. One pretty heavy song, and another faster paced one that we came up with a mere days before the gig. The heavier one we titled "RnB" (Raw and Brutal, inspired by the local band Xerpent) and the faster paced one was called "In My Memories". We did RnB pretty well, but messed up In My Memories pretty badly. The breakdown was cut in half and my timing was off for a lot of parts. Zzz. However, we did have headbanging support! Haha, thank you Ashes of Pain and a few other people. I'd say this was our best performance yet.

And next, Ashes of Pain, the organizers of this gig! Justin finally formed his band in its entirety and the first thing they did was organize the gig. Kai brought a hell lot of people so there were tons of people headbanging in support. Even I joined in. My first time headbanging. And I headbanged for every single song. Ashes of Pain played mostly cover songs and self-composed songs (which I think were better than their covers). Their own song Betrayal was my favourite. As they finished with an outro, my neck ached like hell (and continued to hurt for nearly a week). They were very impressive with their showmanship, compared to all the other bands, talent aside. We all chilled out at Asia Cafe later to eat and chat a bit, before heading back. Although all the bands were plagued by technical difficulties and/or mistakes, overall it was a success! And the crowd was much better than the previous gigs. And thank you Ruz and Andrew for making the effort to support us!

I think that covers the recent events. I've still got stuff in drafts still unposted. Lol... needa get typing on them soon.

Okay, to end this, here's a picture I thought was hilarious. Click to see clearly!

2010-09-02T12:21:00.002+08:00

My neck STILL hurts! LOL!

More details on that soon! The Festival of the Tritone was just plain awesome.

2010-08-23T03:01:00.002+08:00

I hope you like my new blogskin? There's actually a lot of symbolism for this. I think you can thank corporate identity 2 for that; it's probably getting to my head. If you're too dumb to find out what this symbolizes, think fallen angel =).

Anyhoo, I'm finally on my holidays! After suffering so much, especially under the torture of CI2, I'm free! I owe like a hell lot of posts, a hell lot of updates, and my payment of sleep has finally been paid. I slept at 11pm on Saturday. That's early as hell for me.

Although I owe so much in typing, I thought I'd start off with something recent. On Tuesday, we had a churchwide prayer meeting, and Pastor Kevin was back after 7 weeks! He thought of the situation our church was in, with the stagnant growth and price increases for the new building, and told us that spending 7 weeks in New York helped him clear up his mind and think from outside the box. And he also made some extremely drastic changes to the entire CHCKL system while sharing with us his word.

Pastor Kevin began by telling us growth is natural, and it cannot be induced. You can try to force it, and try manipulating it, but it will not be the way it was intended. And the same goes for church growth. It must happen naturally. Even if you paid people to go to church, it would not be of their own free will.

Then Pastor Kevin shared with us the main 4 criteria people outside of church use to gauge the church's status:
First, praise and worship. Are the singers pretty? Are they handsome? Is the choir impressive? Are the musicians good in their skills?
Second, preaching. Most people would rather listen to something positive and feel-good, even if it may not be relevant or theological, so long people like it, they'll listen to it.
Third, the facilities. Are they orderly? Are there enough? Is it in good condition?
And lastly, effectiveness. Is the church effective in reaching out, helping others out and all?

The thing is, these things are the things people see on the outside, the external. If we build our church just to please everyone's opinions on what the church shows, it's only external. Pastor Kevin said he didn't want that, but instead, he wanted to build the church inside out, changing each person from the inside to reflect on the outside.

If showing off was so important, we could easily have better musicians for praise and worship. There are people with much more talented skills than our current musicians and singers in church. However, talented as they may be, they may not be as spiritual, or their attitudes may be bad. So we compromise, by putting spirituality over talent, and attitude over skill. Musically, we'll progress slower, but at least in church we can bring down the presence of God, which is the main point of praise and worship anyway.

So starting with the idea of building people inside out, Tuesday onwards, forecast and attendance would totally be scrapped. Attendance for prayer meeting? No more. Attendance for cellgroup meeting? Scrapped. Attendance and forecast for the service? Nada. All gone. If people want to come, let them come. There's services on Saturday and Sunday. Take it or leave it. Having no attendance doesn't mean not communicating with them at all of course. Give them a call, see how they're doing, pray for them, have a cup of coffee and just hang out. Be a good friend know them better. If they want to come for service, they'll come. There's no need to pressure or force them. Because if all you do is contact them for attendance every week only, after a while they won't respond anymore, or they'll grudgingly come.

Pastor continued to explain that we have been the fastest growing church in KL for the last 6-7 years despite having no formal evangelism training given to the members. It is simply through relationship that we have been bringing friends. It's part of City Harvest culture to ask our friends to come, and to invite them naturally, without pressure or coercion. As pastor said "Where they is spirituality, they come, and we grow."

As a church, we shouldn't pressure, for that's not natural. We're a church, no pressure. People take time to learn things, and we help that by giving them an environment to fail. It's okay for them to make mistakes, it's okay to learn and improve. Of course, they can't be making mistakes for their entire lives and all, or be a leader and continually make mistakes over and over again, but the point is we give people a chance to do and learn things.

There must be a balance between excellence and opportunity. We must give new people the chance to try things, but we need to keep a standard of excellence in the church as well. A mistake or two won't kill, and they'll learn from their mistakes.

Pastor then stressed that we must develop relationships with each other in church and learn about one another, building a foundation. People with different backgrounds must be dealt with and treated differently. Those with a difficult background may have a harder time and need different ways to be communicated with than those from normal backgrounds. There's no one size fits all.

And in a profound quote, Pastor Kevin also said "If your intention is to build relationships, ministry will naturally follow. If your intention is to build a ministry, you won't have any friends." If they come, they come, if they don't come, they don't come. Let them decide whether they want to follow Jesus, they don't need you to force them. This is why you can see the atmosphere is different between church services and prayer meetings. Prayer meetings are always attended by those who want to come, usually the more faithful, the more spiritual. For services, there's people who were pressured in some way to come, and new friends.

The leaders and staff may worry and ask "Won't attendance drop?" Won't it be difficult for the ushers to arrange chairs without any forecast? But Pastor Kevin said to not worry, as he wouldn't get angry or upset. If we can build people inside out, there will be a spirituality that will bring people, and we'll have true disciples of Christ.

In church, our growth and life in God is a journey, not a process. There's no point getting stressed over numbers and attendance, since people get so stressed over it. It ends up with stress being our companion of our ministry instead of joy. Then what's the point?

Basically, that sums up everything Pastor Kevin shared that night. It was quite a shock, as well as a relief, for me. I've been in City Harvest Church for my entire Christian life, and they've always been superbly systematic. They get attendances, forecasts, numbers of decisions and all that very efficiently. This system has been part of City Harvest for a very, very long time. And I've grown up with it all my Christian life. For me, I understand the importance of it. It's needed so that the person making the songsheets knows how many to print. It's important so that the ushers will know the best way to arrange the chairs and guide the people coming in. However, it comes into danger as well, as sometimes the people getting attendance will only ask you for attendance, maybe a reminder to bring friends and nothing else. That becomes extremely routine and superficial. And trust me, I've dealt with plenty of that before, mostly in CHC SG.

Now you might be thinking, if I was so aware of this and all, why didn't I speak up and all? And heck, I'm a helper, part of my job was to get attendance from certain people. Wouldn't I be a hypocrite? Actually, no. I was very aware of superficial relationships and the such, and spoke up on it on many occasions. Many posts I wrote before talking about people in church were part of it. The ignorance era, the whole helper issue back in E458 and a lot of other stuff. And it's gotten me into trouble a few times as well. I'm too outspoken according to some people I'm not going to mention by name. Back then, and up till now, I realized how annoying it was to get a call just to get attendance, and see if I brought any friends. Week after week after week. As a Christian, one thing I do to keep a proper perspective is to see things from an unbelievers point of view. Is that certain message hard for the unchurched to understand? Is it possibly offensive? Is it annoying? I keep that in check, so that when I began doing the duties, I avoided them, and based on how many great relationships and friendships I've made, I think I did quite a good job. Maybe I did too good of a job, as I've had a few leaders tell me "stop equating yourself with the new members".

I must be doing it really obviously to have that said to me several times by leaders in CHC SG and CHCKL. It's also why (I suspect, but with good reason) it took me quite a while to be raised up as a helper in CHC SG, despite knowing more than all the helpers having a better relationship with most of the members than any of them. However, I did realize the importance of the forecasts and the such, and my outspokenness was only on issues that were clearly negative. And when I began my own duties as a helper, I always avoided what I thought was negative when I wasn't a helper. I would contact people and have a decent conversation, and in the midst of it, ask if they were coming for service. I kept it natural and if they couldn't come, I simply asked why and said it was alright. Of course I wasn't perfect in this. At times attendance would slip from my mind, and minutes before I needed to pass up the forecast, I'd simply contact the person purely for attendance. This happened quite a few times, although my track record of asking naturally was much better. But I always thought to myself that if the person really wanted to come, they would of their own free will. Encouragements and all that were fine, but often, these encouragements turned out to be guilt-trips that pressured new friends to come.

I've always believed that if people really didn't want to come, they shouldn't be pressured (or as the church says "strongly encourage"). This explains why I've never really given a damn if people are adamant they don't want to come and I'm told by certain leaders or helpers to try and keep bringing them. I realize that a number of committed people originally only came to church because of people constantly asking and reminding them. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's wrong, but it's simply never been for me. I've always had the insistence that I should focus on building up the people currently attending church and cellgroup. After all, they are the ones making the effort to come. Plus add to the fact I've never been much of an evangelist, bringing friends regularly to church, and you can see how this focus and belief stems. In all my years in church I've rarely brought friends to service, but instead building relationships with those who already come, and helping them and getting to know them better. Yes, I know everyone has the capacity to bring friends (it's one of the lines one of my previous leaders said almost weekly), but understand that some have a larger capacity and some have a smaller capacity, and I've got a tiny capacity. It's not my specialty. One thing I said was that what's the point if we've got large numbers of people but they aren't committed? I'd rather have the small number of people spiritually stronger instead.

Anyhoo, I'm pleased with what Pastor Kevin shared. He's begun to have things become more "fresh", such as starting service with Keith sitting with the members, instead of on stage, and rearranging certain segments of service, so they aren't so predictable. What he shared was the exact thoughts I've always had for a long time, and I've butted heads with much of church authority because of it. Coming to church doesn't mean you believe in God, but coming of your own free will does show your commitment. Sure, you can believe in God without going to church, and you can still learn without attending services, but you'll be missing out on the church happenings, you'll miss great opportunities for building great friendships and you'll lose out on fellowshipping with all kinds of people. Not going to church simply shows your commitment level. Believing in all the right stuff doesn't mean crap if you don't act it out in your life honestly. Missing a few services because of weddings, holidays, family stuff and all that is perfectly fine. But if there's no excuse, and you don't want to come, that simply shows your commitment. Commitment doesn't mean coming if you feel like it. A commitment to marriage means going through it with your other half even when things might not be easy. Same goes to church. Christianity is a relationship with God after all. Will I force you to come to church? Nopes. If you want to come, come, if not, then don't come.

I've learned the importance of fellowship a long time ago. Spending time with friends and members is extremely important, and that's why I never miss fellowship if I can. And on days when I can't make it to service, if possible I still come over to join for fellowship too. Do I take the initiative to start every friendship? No, not really. But I do make an effort and have my fair share of fellowship, and mind you, it's a big portion.

All in all, kudos to Pastor Kevin for his honesty and bravery. I don't think it's easy to share of such major changes the church will go through. Salute! This marks a big change for the church. And it's a change I'm pleased with and wanted, although it may take a while to get used to, since I've been so used to the systematic formula. The attendance may drop, especially in CHCKL, since a large number of members are foreigners who go back to their home countries after their studies in KL are completed. But spiritually, I think we'll grow stronger than ever before. And thus, growth will follow soon after.

2010-08-20T14:02:00.001+08:00

I seriously need to clean up my desktop during the holidays -.-.

2010-08-10T16:48:00.001+08:00

As if anymore evidence was needed, I'd like to quote my cellgroup leader, Faith.

One thing I realize is that we mustn't take for granted the people around us, which we easily slip into that due to busy schedule. There's a lot that can come forth from a relationship and we miss the dynamics of it by keeping it superficial & surface. Time doesn't strengthen relationship, efforts do.

2010-08-02T04:29:00.000+08:00

Aye... the last few weeks of school are killing me. I'm hating Corporate Identity 2 with a vengeance. Seriously. Corporate Identity 1 was fun, I actually liked it, even though the comments I received from the lecturer were "Not passionate in this subject" so yeah. Lmao. I owe quite a few posts, which are still in drafts, but thanks to all the work I'm doing, they're still going to be drafts for now.

Anyway, I thought I'd write about something spontaneous instead. Something that just crossed my mind as I was looking at the old pictures of Essenism; love languages. Lmao, yeah, I know as Essenism we're not lovers, but there's this love of friends and what we expect. That reminded me of romantic love, and how we express it. As I remember, there were 5 main love languages people use to show love to others: Physical touch, giving of gifts, words of affirmation, acts of service and quality time. My main love language is physical touch (no surprise there) and secondary one is quality time. Although it's extremely secondary, if that's even a proper term -.-.

Why? Because physical touch triggers me the most. The others, not so much. But also because to me, they're not as "honest". Let me explain. For giving of gifts, I don't find that a love language I can be attuned with, because it's just gifts. If they have some meaning to them, it's something else (slightly), but if not, then I feel they're just gifts. I'll like it, appreciate it, but love? Not really. If I was rich, I could give all the gifts ever and there'd be no love to it. It wouldn't mean anything to me because gifts can be bought with money. It feels very cheap on my part. As for acts of service, it feels numbed to me as a love language. Cleaning tables? wiping the dishes? These are things that parents expect you to do for house chores. And for holding girl's bags or opening doors? That's just plain courtesy. You can do that without love. Doing that for love doesn't feel right for me, personally. I help girl's carry their bags all the time. I keep doors open all the time. I drive people around back when I can. Doesn't have any lovey connotations of any sort. Just chivalry. And what about words of affirmation? I'm brilliant at socializing, and words are extremely important after the aspects of body language and tone and pitch. But for love? Body language and tone aren't that important to lovers. Words however, can manipulate and kill. I'm extremely good with words (boy, this post suddenly feels like a bragging post), and even more so in Malaysia, where English standards aren't all that high. Pretty and dressed up words have an even bigger effect. Words of affirmation would totally be too easy to show love on my part, because it'd be so easy to say the correct words. Sweet talking would be all too easy. Way too easy to manipulate.

And of quality time, this is one of the honest ones I feel. You spending time with the one you love? Isn't that what helps forge a bond in a relationship? Spending time with each other? How can there be a proper relationship with no time is spent together? I understand the issues of a long distance relationship, or one that's meant to be a secret from others, but these instances aside, quality time is very important. And it is almost intertwined (almost, I repeat) with physical touch. After all, how can you hug, kiss or just hold someone without spending time with them? Physical touch is essential for me, because apart from quality time, all the other languages are superficial for me. They're all cheap ways of expression I can easily manipulate and not be honest with. With physical touch, not so much, because the girl's gotta be comfortable with you to allow you to touch her. To have achieved that, unless highly under the influence of alcohol (and even then, no assurance), you must've made a good impression or been attractive. Something done right, normally done in honesty, clubbing circumstances aside. Besides, don't you feel really good when you hug or kiss the person you love? And studies have shown that around 10% of a relationship is made up of sex. Sex isn't love, and neither is money equated to love, but they're both important aspects of a relationship, regardless.

Much more so for me. For certain people, when they put a hand or something on me, there'll be this kind of jolt of some sort that's comfortable in a weird way. This only happens with people I'm physically attracted to or the person I like. If some old-geezer molester touches me I'll get a jolt too. A jolt of disgust and horror! Okay, jokes, aside, this was why I liked Tiffany after just one night. She was very pretty, with a witty and funny personality, and some touchy touchy moments too at the chalet. Perfect combo. Same thing with Sze Ying when she put her hand on my thigh, among other stuff. I may show love through physical touch, but how we perceive the other party's affections is usually favoured to how we show love. Very rarely do you find somebody who shows love in one way but prefers to receive it in a different way. So if I show love through physical touch, physical touch will be the one that scores the most points with me too. If my other half (hypothetically speaking, at the moment) shows love through another method, I won't be feeling as much love as they might be showing through it. Keep it up after a while and there might be disappointments in the relationship. This makes relationships all the more interesting eh?

I do realize that physical touch can be superficial too, for others. People may kiss, have sex and all that without any emotional attachments. But it's very rare for either party to feel absolutely nothing at all, unless they're regular to one night stands or friends with benefits, and even then it happens sometimes. But for me, I won't be able to do that, since its my primary love language. I also realize that some people may wonder how that works with my regular clubbing. In the club, part of the fun is dancing and getting to know other people right? Usually, it's very physical in the club too. I do know the difference though. I do get that jolt feeling from the people (aka girls) I meet when there's something physical, and I guess that helps with the attraction, but there's nothing more after that anyway. Most of the time.

Yeah. Actually, it wasn't just the Essenism pictures that got me thinking on this. I was also thinking of certain "could-have-beens" with some people. What got me thinking? There was a small bottle of whiskey left over from the Groove in Motion performance months ago. Yeah. That long. I just drank all of it in neat, so I'm writing this post under the influence of alcohol. Heh. I might be writing more honestly, subconsciously, or something. Or maybe my grammar's worse off than usual. Meh. I'll see when I wake up.

Nitez all.

2010-07-31T03:26:00.004+08:00

Corporate Identity 2 is the toughest subject this semester, and I'm quite worried about failing. Zzz. It's driving me nuts! The whole thing is madness. I need to rebrand the Annexe Gallery, which displays various art genres, such as paintings, photography, sculptures and even theatre. Leon's been a pain by rejecting almost everything from half the class since this semester started.

One of the things I needa do is come up with a booklet that talks about the gallery, the art or the artists. Just for fun, I've used the names of friends to be used as artists.

Initially, I was in a rush to show things for the critique session, so I just threw in the names of people that'd been on my mind lately. Later on, I realized that the names of the people I put actually had something to do with the art form I randomly put them in. Weird eh? But cool.

The people aren't actually involved with the art forms, but they remind me of it for various reasons. Christabel is Khar Loo. She owed me a hundred pictures, and Vonny loves to take pictures of herself. Joseph loves wearing Ed Hardy shirts and band shirts where I regularly see interesting typography. While at Genting, Shana accompanied me to talk all night about things while I was rushing my digital painting work, and provided visual assistance on what needed improvements. The very first picture I saw of Samantha was of her in painting class. Aaron's interested in engineering, and sculpture for some weird reasons reminds me of engineering. Something precise that needs skill and calculation. Issey's an architect and that's kind of sculpting buildings in a sense. Marion's got her own theatre company and Anna is a regular in church dramas.

You see how randomness creates order? Impressive!