THE POWER OF DURIANS

Thurs nite i bought 3 durians. Been at least half a year since i ate any. Gorge myself silly and promptly felt unwell. Had a massively disrupted sleep. ( chatted with a fren till 4am, woke up at 630am to give the same fren a wake up call, and woke again at 9am to meet fren at the clinic. )By Friday noon, i was already feeling fairly sick. But went ahead to tzu place. Din play basketball as planned but went for a swim instead. Felt slightly better after that. But Friday night, became seriously unwell. Groggy and dazed. Slept till 10am this morning. slept again at one plus all the way to 7pm or so. Drifted in and out of consciousness in between.

and the highlight of the day ?

At 830pm, decided to buy dinner ( my family abandoned me...) . The grill gates were locked. Took the keys from the table, unlock the gates. place the key back. Stepped out, and close the door.

And instantly realised i had locked myself out.
I am becoming an absent minded foggie at age 24.

WAS RETRENCHED TODAY !!! as of 2pm today. Din expect it to be so soon.
have about 30minutes to break the news to the little darling.

"eh, tmrw i wont be coming liao...."

her response ??

" SEE YOU NEXT YEAR !!!"

??!!!???!!???

*heartbreak*

heheh

A buyer offered $25000 to take over everything in the shop. The boss was obviously very glad to get everything off his hands once and for all.I would jumped ship for $20 000. (Most of his stocks USED to be extremely valuable but now generally close to being seriously redundant. )

What this means is that i would be unemployed as early as next week. Just as i was getting used to life there.

Had banked on this little part time job supplying me with the money needed for the germany trip. My plan was to do part time till the trip, after which i will begin to look for a full time job in earnest. And this was a piece-of-cake part time job. I turned up at 11am every morning, moved certain goods to display along the exterior glass panels, and thats about it for the day. Periodically, customers drift into the shop, be greeted by a friendly "hello, can i help ? " from urs truly, browse around and at times, even actually buy something. At other times, some customers really believed yours truly could answer their technical questions just because i happened to be situated within the context of an IT products shopfront. Invariably would respond by :

1)Maintaining a dignified silence enhanced by a sheepish grin.

2)Taking a look at the product in question and answer by reading off the back of the box.

3)Confidently spouting off the standard answer. ( YEs ! it does happened that occasionally i DO know the answer ! )

"oh, this is a 2.5 inch hard disk enclosure, with firewire and usb compatibility. But it requires an adaptor to power it as this model is of a rather old prototype. "

OR

"Oh no, this is a USB 1.1 hub, not USB 2.0. Perhaps you could take a look at the products over there instead. "

Profund, isn't it ? Dont worry, all ye IT morons out there. You wont get it. *smirk*

hahahah hows that for haughtiness ?

***

There is this 9 year old little girl from the nearby stationary/copier shop that i have become quite attached to in recent days. Would devise games to amuse ourselves in the long hours ahead of us. One of her favourite involve throwing the tennis ball at my slender frame, and laughing hysterically when i yelped in mock pain. We have challenged each other to basketball ( standing a distance from an empty box and taking turns to throw the ball into the box), soccer ( placing the above-said empty box horizontal instead of upright and taking turns kicking the ball in. ) and baseball.(simply throwing the ball across space to one another. each mis-catch earn the other side one point )

Great exercise.

Grinz.

Today we watched 2 Charlie Chaplin Clips ( The Pawnshop, Floor Walker ) and 1 Buster keaton/Fatty Arkbuckle clip ( The Bell Boy ) on my laptop. SHE DID NOT KNOW WHO CHAPLIN WAS !!?!! HOW COULD IT BE ! But now she loves chaplin. No taste. I love Keaton.

Grinz.
And there was this auntie who probably thinks herself quite chio ( a lady boss from other IT shops nearby ). As she strutted into the shop. our dear little darling innocently inquired rather loudly

"Is she your mother ? "

Of cos the lady was not amused. ho ho ho.

Haiz. Well, i probably have till the end of the month.. 3 more days ? So be it. Three more days of fun.

FA Cup Final. place a long shot 5 dollar punt on millwall upsetting man u. Odds were 1 to 8.30

Of course it din happen ! Millwall came nowhere close. Game went very much according to script-- Courageous underdogs holding on for as long as they could, let in a goal, and gave up. Credit to Man U though. They were not brilliant but were efficient. Ronaldo was brilliant. Not VNR. Only the panel knows why VNR was Man Of the Match.

***
Erm..the choreography for the chinese folk song was very embarrasing ! We were coupled up and each "couple" supposed to enact scenes of teasing, mock withholding, submission, etc...sounds fun maybe..but to me its not ! I was like this block of stone, trying my best to look blur and confused. I really dont know how im going to survive !!! My "partner" was quite a natural but just her bad luck to be paired with me. ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

***

Was asked why i wanted to "retire". Din really want to answer much at that moment, so if you are reading this, this is for you ! *Grinz* am touched that you even ask. Din even know u were reading my blog. There are 3 reasons i can pin down.

1) I have not progressed much in these 12 years in choir. (counting from sec 1 ). Worse, I no longer even want to improve. There used to be some satisfaction gleaned from getting the correct note, from making a "jump" cleanly. from blending nicely and all the other nitty-gritty details of polishing a song till its fit for "display".

2) There is nothing i can contribute. If they is nothing i can contribute, why hang around ? It makes no sense.

3) You people have been wonderful but at the end of the day, i still do not really belong. perhaps only Joker and Terr are the remaining few that i feel attached to/can relate to. Even then, Joker and Terr are not really "my group". Mine was Jinghua, Francis, Kok Hoo and perhaps Wei yang and Jiahao. Basically the basses from vj back then.They are all not around in Chorale.

For now, i will try to put in watever effort needed on my part to ensure this olympics thing wont be a disaster lar. ( or at least if it turn out to be quite bad, i wont feel guilty ! ) I still feel very bad about Linz 2000. I was really bumming along for that one. Had a super fun time with jinghua and francis but that was it.



The choreo how.....its really hard...

*blush*

pui !

Went gym again for about the second time in my life ( those compulsory gym sessions in NS not withstanding ) ..hope to make it a regular event..gym every friday that is...and ..guess WAT ?!!

i ran 1.6km in 15 minutes !!
is that outstanding or wat ???!

at this rate, i probably clock 25 minutes for my 2.4km run.

I am seriously out of sorts.

and ive been playing badminton fairly regularly in the past 2 months ! at least once every week on the average :S but badminton is confined to running on a small expanse of space and depend more on short bursts of energy which is relatively my forte.

there is no easy way out..so its jogging and more jogging for now.
need to maintain a basic level of fitness.whether i look like a blob or not is not the main issue.

when i completed my 2.4km in 11min 30 second back then, i was still a hefty 95kg.but i probably was the fittest among the 75 to 100kg range.

haiz. Think i would need to jog twice each week instead of once every week. the very thought petrifies.

ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

hmm...tried fiddling with the blogskin millie set ..but this new skin doesnt seemed to be working well...

arghh..

help

*update*
115am now.
think this is what i want.
pared everything down.

grinz.
yes it took me 2 hours to strip everything bare.

Back to basics
Gone are the frilly cutesy doggies that adorn the previous blog page.

A new function incorporated – the Comments link

“oh wat a jerk ! “

“ Some dumbass u are ! “

“Go fly a kite ! “

All these comments and more are welcome !
Nothing is sacrosanct (I learnt a new big word today *smirk* )

Oh, except that no one is allowed to say anything contrary to the mantra :

“Arsenal is the greatest team ever to grace the English Premier League “

Everything else is permissible * smirk again *

***

Erm..hahah..actually…this blog is entirely the work of my dear dear millie !!!!!! she helped to retrieve the lost template, add elements from my own template into this, and even helped to add the Comments link !!! i messed up my old template till the whole blog became a blank white screen and she miraclously restored it!

U're my hero !

heh..thanks thanks, rather much gratified.if left to my own devices, i dont know when i would get it restored.

Owe you a treat when u are back !

(the kopi in the kopitiam below is quite good...)

Fare thee well, nus ! i missed you not !
Like national service, you have been a "compulsory" part of my life, yet not one that i necesarily enjoy. hence...good riddance !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ho ho ho ho ho
now i can continue on with my life.
NS took up 2and half years
NUS a further 3 years

NS is solitary confinement
NUS is rehabilitation back to society..

now i am free !

no more no more...

now to the serious business of earning a living !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho

The only thing i missed is the excellent collection of videos in your media resource facilities but i can live with that.

***
have never been so nervy about my results.
Could not sleep last night, was flitting about
The last few seconds before i click on the PROCEED button... it was as if my whole live depended on this one click....

im not afraid of dying..but im afraid of losing you...
baby im addicted, im out of control, you're the drug that keep me from dying.
baby im a liar, but the only thing i know, you're the reason im trying...

everything is clear to me, till i hear reality...then i lose it all..i lose it all....

relief.
regrets ?
none.
its time to move on.

this has been a bad week.

firstly sabo-ed by a fren into going all the way to choa chua kang , only for the meeting to be cancelled at the very last minute when i was 10 minutes away from the destination. the reason ? she has to meet her bf. Lost my temper briefly over tat. Dont know if any harm done to the friendship.

secondly. ruffled a good lady fren and perhaps will lose her friendship.i stand by what i said though. Just that i should not have said it. !_)@(!)@( all the thirty over year olds who lust after young early twenties ladies. Pick on someone ur own age, uncles ! low life ! go geylang if u are horny ~! u uncles could well afford it.

kk. shall stop it. The topic of oldies after nubile young women is to me as infuriating as a red rug to the bull. My knee-jerk reaction would be to go into a rant. Not that they dont deserve all the curses. Just that out of diplomacy i should refrain from cussing. arghh

im so juvenile. but then this is my blog, i should cuss whoever i like. wat the !@_)!@) _!) do i care if anyone is offended ?

***

arse kept their unbeaten record.
Deservedly. Leicester made them work hard but anything less than a victory would be an insult to the near total domination of the match by Arsenal.

arse end epl on 90 pts
if not for the _))@!_@) lehmann who gifted away 2 pts by pushing robbie keane into the net, arse would have broken manure all time record high of 91 pts as well.
wat a keeper.have not forgiven him yet.

***

its 2 am and its the nth consecutive day tat i attempted to sleep early, failed, then came online and try to find things to do...hence this blog.

***
Choir pract was good today. If toh chai came and teach us every week, i would not have to "retire" cos there will be many things i/we will be able to learn. And have fun learning them too.

actually ENJOYED pract today.
Which is more than i could say for the past few months ?

think chorale is doing ok considering tat we are more or less "Self-taught" and left to our own devices. dont think we will do great for olympics 2004 but i dont really think can fault the effort of most pple ( myself excluded ). This current batch are relatively raw and the few experienced/solid "old" singers that are still around (excluding myself again ) are too few to make too much of a difference. the Linz 2004 batch have much talent/technique but was too lazy/slack (myself excluded once again ! im too lazy/slack but i have neither talent nor technique ), hence the sucky result. This batch is different. They are keen to learn and are happy learning. And considering the circumstance, i think we as a choir has progressed reasonably well.

Any chance of TC become our permanent ( in the near future at least ) resident conductor ? haiz..

Ive decided the Germany 2004 trip would be my last involvement as a chorister in any choral related activities. Sad to say, im "retiring" without having achieved any professional satisatisfaction. 12 years in choir and i had hardly improved on a personal level. There is no point going on. I think at some point the passion died out and the love is gone, just that i did not really notice it and hung on without really knowing why i bothered.

Of course there were a few memorable highlights from this musical journey, just not any from the past few years ?

I would never forgot the first choir concert i was involved in in sec 2. Could still remember the lyrics to most of the songs we sang in that concert---streets of london, the sound of silence, For all the saints, All in the April Evening, As Fair as morn...( on the other hand, i could not remember the lyrics to any single song from linz 2000 ) I remember peering from behind the back stage curtains of Siglap CC watching in awe at Vedeeraj, Audrey and Shikang singing Stranger in Paradise ( Take my hand ! Im a stranger in paradise.... )

1997 SYF was unforgettable of course.
At the peak of my infatuation with choir.

but i think 1998 Mikado was my most memorable experience, although i played but a small part in the euphoria of that night. Cos the audience truly loved our performances and our performances were truely deserving of their accolades. ( unlike 99% of all performances whereby the "kelong crowd" goes wild regardless we dazzle or stunk ) Was utterly bowed over by Jinghua tat night. He shrugged off his personal problems plaguin him then to put in an outstanding performance as that guniang evil scheming dunno-wat-his-name official in mikado court. Xuhao and Jane was solid as usual. And of course, su lynn, was simply beautiful that night. ( erm, actually most of the time, nvm ) The suns whose rays are all ablaze with ever (dont know wat ) glory...who can deny its majesty and yearn to tell its story ? ( something like that ! i remember the tune but not the words ~! )I put in an adequate performance, if only barely, in the short time i was actually on stage. ( 5 minutes i think...:P )

It went downhill after 98 i think.
I enjoyed linz 2000 for all the wrong reasons. It was fun roaming around in linz with francis, jinghua, xuhao, perf, huimin but thats about it. The choir part was embarrasing. We were worse than a secondary sch choir ( and of course i was one of the main culprits... )

I think i dont love choir music per se. I just love the applause and the stage. but lack the talent and determination to take the stage and applause alone.

Wouldnt mind involving myself in other aspects of the choir scene though. As a teacher in charge perhaps ? or some other administrative capacity ? Anything but a singing member would do. Its time to move on. I have nothing to offer as a singing member.

My apologies, dudes, if this feels like a betrayal of sorts. This is not a denoucement of all our shared memories and struggles. I really appreciate those times we had together. It was fun while it lasted and i will always cherish those memories, even the bad ones ? :P yupz.

to terr and joker ( if u are reading this ), both of you surprised me with the speed of your progress. Then again i shouldnt be, cos the talent was always there. Am very proud of you two somehow. I dont know how to put it. It is not as if ive any part to play in ur successes but im still very proud of both of you.

sorry if it sound condescending *smirk* not meant to be at all !

erm, and hey, the very few choir friends that actually read my blog, dont spread the news of my "retirement" ! its not anything worth spreading anyway ! :P

and I still cant !@( !*@(*# $@ sleep ! much calmer now though.

Perhaps love is like a resting place
A shelter from the storm
It exists to give you comfort
It is there to keep you warm
And in those times of trouble
When you are most alone
The memory of love will bring you home

Perhaps love is like a window
Perhaps an open door
It invites you to come closer
It wants to show you more
And even if you lose yourself
And don`t know what to do
The memory of love will see you through

Oh, love to some is like a cloud
To some as strong as steel
For some a way of living
For some a way to feel
And some say love is holding on
And some say letting go
And some say love is everything
And some say they don`t know

Perhaps love is like the ocean
Full of conflict, full of pain
Like a fire when it`s cold outside
Or thunder when it rains
If I should live forever
And all my dreams come true
My memories of love will be of you

I picked up the pen..and then realised i had no one to write to. No one that i wanted to write to would care to receive a letter from me ( not that i would sent the letter anyway ) it was an incredibly lonely feeling. Another long night ahead. Somehow before the end of this night, i would managed to quell all the self doubts and loneliness and by the first light of dawn, everything is all rightagain and the emotions of yesternight seemed so hollow, and ridiculous even. The problems are never resolved. Just shelved away and hope for the morning to come. It all seems so clear in the morning. It doesnt matter in what state my condition the night before is. By just gritting and bearing through night till dawn, it doesnt matter anymore the next day. Until the next wave comes.i need help

ive never known another 24 year who is so obssessed with death.
Not that i wish to die.
Just that i cant shake off the idea that i will be dead any moment.
And what will happen after that frightens me.