Music

I remember a week back when i was in the train, idly sitting beside a young but plain looking lady with an iPod nano plugged to her ears. She looked just like any typical harassed commuter on the train, eager to get where she wants to go and leave in a jiffy.

Out of curiosity I peered at what she had in her collection and I saw Aqualung. I fell in love immediately. With her musical choices I mean. Not her. It's strange how you can immediately feel like you know someone just by peering into his music collection and seeing all those favourites you have in common.

Just a peer at her music, and she's no longer another faceless commuter but someone unique, someone special. Well of course I couldn't approach here abut this, because it'd be like eavesdropping on her, then repeating what she had said to herself.

Most of my closest friends agree somewhat with my music tastes. From those i've known since i was a kid. If a friend has too different music tastes it'd be weird. It'll be so irritating to have to explain myself each time, who the hell is the Guns and Roses, what does punk mean, how come I'm not familiar with whatever singer they love and I don't.

Meeting friends who share the same favourite musiciand and musical styles, it's like meeting a familiar face who speaks your tongue in a strange land. Immediately there's something to talk about, something to feel something for, to stand up for. And every time you leave such a conversation, you'd know of a couple more songs you should take a listen to.

Music's so lovely. It brings people together, no kidding.

Singapore Garden Festival 2006 (Monday)

Singapore Garden Festival 2006. Not worth the $6 (weekdays) or $12 (weekends) admission, but heck I got to go in for free! Crowded with senior citizens and pushy tourists though, so didn't really get to enjoy the exhibits.

Let the photos speak for themselves!

Thunderstorm - a quick entry

If artillery fire and lightning crashes sound the same
Then how do we stay sane?
Do we crouch low and run to the bunker
Or do we cover our ears and brace for the thunder?

The weather's been crazy the past few days. THe past weeks have been rainy, yeah, but at least we still had mostly-sunny mornings.

Foolish me expected the rain to keep a regular 11am-to-6pm schedule like usual, but it seems that the thunderstorms have been taking all morning, afternoon and night shifts.

I've always had this aversion to loud noises, so thunderstorms are no fun. I'd rather have the soft patter of rain on the ground, the white noise that drowns everything else out, but thunder sucks.

Every time lightning strikes, there's always the chance the power will go out, the computer will get fried, etc.

I've heard of enough stories of computers being fried by lightning already. My friend's PC, which I had spent the trouble choosing all the components for, had its motherboard fried for that very reason. I keep the computer off and unplugged when them pesky thunderstorms arrive.

Thunderstorms = no computer, no outdoor activities and having to close the windows and breathe in my own recycled air. I'm literally doing nothing and cultivating new fat cells here!

5 songs no one can possibly not like!

(Youtube links)

Lightning Seeds - Pure

U2 - With or Without You

Green Day - Basket Case

Oasis - Songbird

The Cure - Friday I'm In Love

Musings after a weekend

Well, nothing happened. I did absolutely nothing. The books I tried to read, I ended up hating them. Saturday's run was a mess cause somehow I wasn't feeling very well. Sunday, and computer acted up and I had to spend the whole morning jury-rigging 2 spare fans of the wrong size to replace the dead CPU fan.

I wish my life has more action and more purpose!

WTF - Wednesday/Thursday/Friday

3 days to blog about, all in 1 entry, and it has to be snappy enough for your attention span!

Wednesday was errand day. Woke up all groggy and dazed after tiring Tuesday, and just lazed the morning away in blissful slowness. Popped out to Ang Mo Kio to run some errands and all.

Went to Sportslink along the way to scout out running shoes. Weird sign in the lift.



Had my mind set on one of the lower-end 'serious' running shoes, which happened to be $156 before discount. Yowch. Nike's higher-end stuff comes in 3 broad categories - cushioning for higher-arched feet, motion control for flatfeet and lightweight for the race days (they look so poorly-cushioned I'd bet one would ruin their feet running long-term in them.)

Went on to Junction 8 next to rent some DVDs. Ice Age 2, Munich, X-Men 3.



Home, and decided to start on that Neon Genesis Evangelion manga I borrowed from the library. It's volume 7 but I've only read 1-3, but I didn't mind cause I already knew the whole plot from the anime. This is the American version rather than the local Chaungyi press, which means 3 things: 1. higher-quality paper, 2. lack of the 4 full-colour pages 3. double the price if you buy it.

1 and 2 are mine, 7 is from the library.





The manga's not half as interesting as the anime - the fight scenes simply don't translate well to paper. But being a diehard Evangelion freak, I just can't resist reading it, to lap up every morsel of the story I had not picked up while watching the anime. Still tempted to try my luck out at the Evangelion Swimsuit toy vending machine at $3 a pop!



Rest of the day's a blur. Heh.

==

Thursday is gonococcus's big day out!



It started with a bicycle ride, which sorta didn't go too well because the derailleur cables were probably gunked up since I've been lazy to keep them clean the past few months. Shifting gears was still reliable, but it no longer had the crisp feel to it. Gotta clean them up soon!



Was all raring to go to IKEA with Ferret and Ryan when Ferret called to say she's not feeling well. Oops, decided to go to Vivocity with Ryan instead.

I'm not going to overload this entry with details, neither am I going to further clutter up cyberspace with duplicated bytes, so you can read Ryan's take on it.

A summary:
1. Samsung Gallery. Samsung i320N is amazingly cheap at $700 for a QWERTY Smartphone. It runs on Windows Mobile 5 and the 1.3 megapixel camera didn't look too shabby when I tested it at the gallery with good fluoroscent lighting. So much for the pros, how about the cons? No fatal flaws yet, but well, it's a Samsung and you know its terrible reputation.

That Samsung K5 MP3 player with built-in speakers that you see being advertised all the time lately? The price's really quite hefty and the user interface sorta sucks. But the cool factor's still there.

2. Pageone's this cool bookstore with sorta reasonable prices and a good variety of books. Gotta check it out again next time.

3. Weird product placement in Toys 'R Us makes for sadako-esque horror scenes.



4. Walked into this gift shop - Action City - and one of the sales assistants asked 'Are the 2 of you from STOMP?'. Freaky. She said she isn't from STOMP. Does it mean that the 2 of us are, like, famous already? This is absolutely freaky. It's one thing to be famous, but it feels totally weird to be recognised for one's online persona rather than for myself! The line between my online persona and the real-me is slowly being chipped at, erased, obliterated and in time, even real-life family and friends would know everything I say online. Creepy huh.

Got this really cool caged piggy along with a piggy mug for Twinkie.



5. Read the sign before entering the toilet, lest you get a shock



Went to Toa Payoh MRT to meet up with the rest of the STOMP people to go to Casuarina Curry, was early so just popped by Popular for a while. Saw True Singapore Ghost Stories book 15 being displayed, and was musing about how all the local ghost stories (not just TSGS but anything and everything you hear or read from a Singaporean) always revolves the same few predictable themes - guy prays at temple for wish, guy gets wish, guy didn't go back to the temple to show his gratitude, bad things happen to guy. Or play audio tape of dubious origin backwards, hear satanic messages. Or one of the many zillion stories from the army, such as the mysterious extra person when doing a head-count in the middle of the jungle.

Retold one of the stories I heard from army, supposedly happened in Pulau Tekong. Middle of the night. One guy in the bunk needed to pee. Woke up guy in the next bed cause he was afraid to go alone. (I swear this doesn't normally happen.) Second guy waited vigilantly outside toilet while first guy went to pee. Waited really long. Still no sign of first guy. Got bored and went back to the bunk, only to see the first guy asleep in his bed, as though he never went to the toilet at all.

Met up with the rest of the people. 7 people, most are familiar faces, so it was a really informal (therefore nice and friendly) thing. Went to Casuarina Curry in Upper Thomson, the food was great like always, and servings are large and yummy-looking. Some pictures.





After dinner no one wanted to part that early, so Junction 8 Cafe Cartel it was. Got drinks. I got an Oreo frappe to try to perk myself up after the cumulative fatigue and sleep deprivation - sugar + caffeine works wonders.



Reluctantly had to part eventually, after an extended camwhoring session that made the waitress stare at us with a frown of impatience. (The place was about to close, and well, like any normal human being, she does want to knock off on time)

It was a lovely day.

==

Friday is end-of-posting-test, MCQ and OSCE paper, OSCEs are like, you look at an X-ray or a photo and answer 3 short questions on the paper in 3 minutes. I didn't die or anything, but the test was rather nasty.

Went solo to Queensway to get a pair of shorts and do a quick look-see. Since M was going to Alexandra Hospital (to get some school project done, stop making me feel so guilty!) we took the same bus and reminisced on how we actually used to get proper school holidays, sigh.

Most of the shops were still closed so decided to explore the area. Made a quick recce of IKEA to decide if my room needs anything new (not really) and a recce of Anchorpoint to see what was there. Walked around aimlessly in Cold Storage for a long while, looking at all the weird Japanese products, then left with just a 90-cent packet of chocolate milk.

Went back to Queensway, bought a pair of cheapish shorts, and saw the pair of shoes I fell in love with. $140 after discount. Well. If I decide to pull the trigger on new shoes I know exactly what to get.



Went home, shoes felt weird, looked at the sole and saw that a rubber part was missing. Is that a sign that I ought to get new shoes? Was pretty mad as that pair of shoes in question are rather new and barely worn-in yet. Luckily, an old disused pair of shoes I have have a sole that looks exactly the same so I pried it off from there and glued and clamped it to the shoe with the missing sole ruber. (The alignment was sorta bad but at least I guess it works.)

Watched Munich on DVD after fiddling with a wonky remote control and wires that had gotten loose from the hifi speakers. While it's a polished Spielberg movie, I just couldn't appreciate it due to too much talk and too little action. The typical themes of 'is revenge ethical?' and 'what's right and what's wrong?'.

Spent the evening reading stuff online about running shoes. Since I have a highish arch and had had a mild case of plantar fasciitis (a specific kind of heel pain from tendon strain) before, the medical experts tend to advise cushioned shoes, and that pair of shoes I've been eyeing sorta fits the bill. Was searching some running discussion forums for shoe advise, particularly the technicalities and specifics, but didn't learn much.

It seems that cycling communities have people who are more technically and academically inclined, somehow. Cyclists can gush for pages about bicycle tyres and different characteristics of different tyres and even how the design and materials contribute to the characteristics, while you simply don't get that kind of obsession elsewhere. And if you're looking for sports physiology and nutrition, bicycling forums are definitely the best place to go to. Discussions can lead into biochemical pathways and organic chemistry, stuff that's beyond me even though I'm a medical student. Yeah, bicycling communities tend to have a disproportionate ratio of medical professionals and I don't know why.

==

Whew. Finally, 3 days of events all compressed into 1 entry. Had to look at past messages on my phone, read Ryan's blog, search STOMP archives, look at photos from my camera phone, to rebuild the hazy recollection of events since 3 days ago. I really ought to blog at a more regular pace!

Memories

(The reason why I have not blogged for a while was that this entry is so complex and emotionally triggerring enough such that I had to take all that time to plan and type it out.)

It's the time of the year again. The time when 18 and 19 year-olds reluctantly tote their bags up to the ferry with their families, en route to Pulau Tekong. Pretend to be strong, try to convince oneself that it's inevitable.

But nothing can hide the truth that the first day of 2 years of bring subservient to a military is going to be painful. I've been through it and I ought to know.

It was 3 years back. After make some final checks, I lugged the bag of belongings with me and went with my parents to Pasir Ris MRT where a bus would bring me to that island of doom.

I felt queasy. It was a horrible feeling of dread, a feeling that made me feel woozy and morose at the same time, a feeling that sent my heart thumping and my hands cold. It was a feeling I slow got accquainted with further into conscription. It was the feeling that came every Sunday night when I had to report back to camp, it was the feeling that came right before standard obstacle courses and any other tight situations.

I don't recall why, but on that fateful enlistment day, I was totally hating the presence of my parents around me, and I really couldn't wait to shake them off. I was displacing my feelings of dread and sadness with hate, and that sorta prevented me from wallowing too much in my self pity.

I tried to convince myself that I wanted to get away from my parents right there and then, to lead my own life. I hated every single bit about them then. Their nagging. The way they keep on complaining about things, the way they expect me to just be a man and suck it up.

Perhaps that did help to blunt the blow. The military took away my identity, they took away my freedom, they took away the most basic things one usually takes for granted - access to clean water that doesn't reek of chlorine, sufficient free time to get a proper shower, the right to say no. But there was this flame in me that screams that it's all worth it, that it's all inevitable. I recall hardly having called home throughout - that senseless hatred for my home and family was a crutch I didn't want to let go. I had to convince myself that there was some good in being in conscription (I later realised that there wasn't any good to me at all.)

I soldiered on. I did my best to fit in, but it's so damn hard. Some birds simply aren't meant to be caged. All I wanted to do in my free time was to sit in the corner of the bunk, back on the cold metal cupboard door, earphones jammed in ears. I'm a loner. Everyone has his way of coping. Being a loner is mine. I simply couldn't imagine mingling with the rest of the bunkmates like good friends when I was so damned morose and lost at the same time. The only thing that remains the same, no matter what, is the music playing on the Discman, the soothing and upbeat voices of my favourite singers accompany me the same way, no matter who or how I am.

Hazy and painful memories. It was a painfully long blur.
Memories of the little things like the creaking metal shades along the corridors in the morning.
Memories of being made to do push-ups in the soggy mud.
Memories of the sunset along the island coast.
Memories of being ruthlessly shouted at for that defiant look in my eye.
Memories of being physically and emotionally pushed nearly to tears.
Memories of forcing myself to run with the platoon while having a nasty fever, just so as to not sabotage my booking out for the weekend for that week.
Memories of painful knees and painful feet.
Memories of being so frustrated at everything I was punching the walls until my knuckles were sore and red.
Memories of losing touch with old friends.
Memories of hearing of the tragic death of an ex-teacher's husband, and not being able to go to the funeral.

I gotta admit, most people cope much better than I did, but this is my story, and there is no way that I can deny having experienced all these. 3 years on. And I haven't really got to come to terms with all these bad experiences yet. I looked back at my blog entries from that time 3 years back, and well, I sorta saw that I got quite messed-up emotionally along the way, but I sorta refused to blog about it. Now that I've come to terms with it, let this be the final nail into this box of memories I do not want to uncover anymore.