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.

MSN conversation about moobs

R says:
i know you wouldnt go anyway
kc says:
whys
R says:
because i do not have breasts and lots of money
kc says:
how abt moobs
R says:
moobs?
R says:
boobs la
R says:
dont worry
R says:
you is not the only one
R says:
many of my friends have prerequisites for outings

==

R says:
i know what i need now
R says:
man boobs
kc says:
why moobs
R says:
no mani for rolex
R says:
use fake rolex
R says:
same thing
kc says:
.
kc says:
can i put this on my blog

Today

Since I've run out of blogging ideas, I was thinking, why not do a plain running commentary of today? well, it soothes the voyueristic desires of my audience, at least. So here it goes.

Morning. Woke up reluctantly. Today is test day. Rushed to get a quick breakfast, a quick shower and got everything in order. The tools of the trade - stethoscope, tendon tapper, measuring tape, pentorch, the works.

It ain't good. I've been slacking so much this posting it ain't even funny. Well, maybe not slacking. More like an unshakable fatigue from all the previous big postings in big hospitals, in addition to having to be group representative (big distraction) this time around. My mood could've been better too. Just too much on my mind the past weeks.

So I was planning to cram in some last minute revision on the bus, reading that dreaded orange textbook one last time before this clinical test. Read a little on the hip, then ended up slumped forwards, asleep, then jolted awake by the book falling onto the floor. Dead. Dead. So freaking dead.

Reported to the place. Well, this clinical test goes like this. It's an orthopaedics test. Orthopaedics is the field of surgery pertaining to bones, joints, muscles, limbs and such. 1 long case. That means, talk to the patient, do a physical examination, present the case, come up with a diagnosis, discuss the case. And 3 short cases, i.e. 'name this medical equipment' 'what is it used for?' 'list the complications when you use it on a patient'.



Actually it went quite alright in the end. I mean, me being me, I'm not even thinking of aceing the test or anything, but it wasn't in any way a disaster. Somehow after doing a number of clinical tests so far, the anxiety and the panic sorta disappears.

==

Went to Clementi MRT with QY as he had something to do there, so just took a look around that area just for the hell of it. I don't like Clementi central cause the whole place's a mess of construction and busy people rushing everywhere, getting sideswiped and rammed on your shoulders in the crowd is no fun! And no bookshops, no CD shop.



Shopping list: Sugarbabes' greatest hits album, Madeline L'Engle's young peoples' novel A Wrinkle in Time.

So went to Orchard in a slow and rattling doubledecker. Got my CD for cheap (Singapore edition again) but couldn't find the book at a good price.



Borrowed books from the library. Nowadays, I key in into my phone an alphabetical booklist, then I'd just refer to my phone while going through the shelves. It really saves alot of time I swear!



Slowly getting the hang of enjoying the time by myself in Orchard again, the way I did when I was younger and less bogged down by school and all. Those days, I could just laze around for hours browsing magazines, sampling music at the listening areas in CD shops, then go back happy like a kid.

There's this G2000 sale at Isetan Shaw, with quite a good variety of work shirts. I forgot my size though. So resourceful me had a brainwave. I whipped out the camera phone, went to the toilet and:



Bought half a size smaller cause current one is a little baggy. Oh and it's a deep blue-violet to contrast with the usual drab colours I wear.

Decided to call it a day, and took the bus back amidst the rain.



Rain rain depressing rain. Just slacked the rest of the afternoon away, listening to that CD I had bought, reading Baby Blues from the library, poring thru the newspapers. Well, keping occupied means keeping that messed-up feeling hidden in the back.

After dinner, and somehow feeling jittery and hyperactive and restless and all, so went for a quick run. It being dark and quiet with the exception of croaking frogs, whining insects and occasional moving shadows. Sorta freaky when I let my mind wander. Old Upper Thomson Road looked extra creepy in the dark. Haunted at night, some people say. Would I dare venture there by myself (my usual daytime route) now that it's at night? No way, jose.



And in the humid air, I could see steam rising from my body in the harsh artificial lighting, which sorta amused me. So it's not just some comical figure-of-speech when steam emanates from a human being!



Made it back safe and sound!

Old friend/Earphones/ Deja Vu

One line synopsis: Deja Vu is a movie about a police investigaor trying this best to reverse tragic happennings when he chanced upon a method to look back into the past, and to possibly change it.

==

Met up with secondary school pal F, talking about movies and music and stuff like it was year 2000 all over again. Thank goodness for friendships that never change! Too bad most everyone we knew were either busy or overseas, so it was only me and him splitting my free GV voucher 2 ways (too evil to keep that voucher all for myself yeah. How did I get my voucher? I paid for it with my own blood. Blood donation drive, that is.)Just hung around for a while and after that it was like, earphone-shopping to replace F's recently-deceased earphones.

A quick word on earphones. Usually when it comes to audio equipment, the most commonly asked question is: How do you tell if the product is good? Answer: by listening to how good it sounds!

However, the thing about earphones is that sampling booths are hard to come by (Sennheiser and Creative sometimes have listening areas at various fairs and roadshows, Sony has sampling booths in some of their showrooms.) and even if you find one, would you really plop an earphone that'd been in the ears of hundred people into your own ears? I've had 2 bouts of outer ear infections myself from in-canal earphones - and I don't even share my earphones.

To be honest, there's no good way to determine if any pair of earphones sound good. Online reviews help alot, but make sure you read a few such that you can eliminate the bias. For the lower-end market price is also one major determining factor - you can be sure that $50 earphones would sound better than a $20 pair.

Look at the size and form of the earphones for good fitting. For earbud type: big ears, big earbuds and vice versa.

Don't bother to look at the technical specifications on the back of the box, they mean nothing.

KC's recommended list for portable usage:
Foldable headphone: Sennheiser PX100 - $99
In-canal earphone: either Creative EP630 (price varies from $40 to $70) or Panasonic HJE50 $55
Plain earbuds: Almost any from the $20-$40 price range
Clip-ons: no idea, any recommendations from the readers?

F eventually got a $17 pair of earphones (against my advise!) but then he's no audio fanatic like me. I currently have 3 different sets of earphones in use - huge expensive Sennheiser headphones for home use, cheaper Creative EP630 in-canal earphones and Sony clip-ons from my MP3 player for comfort. Not to mention other earphones that're dead now or have been retired. Don't ask why! They might sound all the same to you, but it really matters to me if I can get to hear every bass note clearly, the sizzle of every hit of the hi-hat, and the breath sounds of the vocalist.

==

Back to Deja Vu. It's sort of a weird movie. The pacing's quite slow and irregular, but it's no immediate-fail. If you'd watched the 1998 action flick Enemy of the State you'd like this movie by the same director, done with similar themes and style.

However, the idea of going back and forth time, while being explored in many movies so far, was quite originally done this time around. While most time-travel movies of the past focused on the 'cool' factor of time travel, this one explores the logical implications with a more sombre tone. Can we really change destiny? Will we really travelling through time, or merely travelling through alternate universes? Will changing the future or past do any good?

All in all, after watching the movie, I can't help but to feel that while the protagonist tries to save the lives of the people who died in the first reality, all he really could do after all that effort was to transport himself into another reality where those people didn't die. The people who died in the original reality, still died in that reality - what's the point?

Even if you don't dig all these pseudocientific mumbo jumbo it's probably still worth a watch, for all that action, gadgetry and twists.

Grade is 3.75 stars out of 5.

Frentic Friday

School's a mad rush. As compared to the other days in the posting, Friday, and I hardly got to rest my poor bum or even grab a bite, since there was so much to settle and so much going on in the lessons.

Made it through without any major boo-boos, but then, that's obviously pushing the definition of 'major'. I'd whine and moan about it more, but then that's what the blog archives are for yup.

Was unbelievably bushed (in the days of Dubya and blatant sexual innuendo, this might be a BAD adjective to use) and just had to go home for a breather and a shower and a change of clothes before heading out again to meet up with the friends. Wasn't expecting to be able to make it, but hey I even have some time to freshen up!

Ended up having a long chat with a friend on the way back, so was behind schedule again. Somehow time just warps and distorts when having an interesting conversation with someone, and when it ends, it's a total shocker how much time was actually spent talking about just one thing.

Had to take a taxi all the way to Tampines to reach there at a reasonable time. Ouch. Traffic's sort of a mad frenzy today so I'm sorta glad I don't have to squeeze into crowded buses and trains for yet another hour.

Fun time in IKEA with Ryan and Ferret: Twinkie can't make it, working. The 3 of us and Twinkie are like this incredible bunch of friends who can just be ourselves when with each other! No need to pretend, no need to hide, everyone's just as they are. I gotta retract that statement about how one hardly makes good friends anymore after age 16, because exceptions do happen.



Chicken wings and meatballs and chocolate moouse were great, fish and chips, not so. (No food porn, read next paragraph.) Just went around looking at the food and furniture and all sorts of strange stuff they sell. The Swedes have a very different idea of both food and furniture, evidently - some stuff's dead practical, others are just so weird I can't imagine anyone wanting one in their homes. They love rocking chairs, rocking couches and rocking toys, and I have no idea why.

A note on the gradual reduction of the number of photos on this blog: More and more I realise candid photography distracts me from enjoying the moments I'm in. Being a photography enthusiast, I simply have to get all that exposure, white balance and stuff correct and get a razor focus. Stuff that takes time and detracts from everything else. I can't simply just snap like that anymore, it feels like I'd be doing all my photography training and experience a great injustice. Especially on the camera phone where the focus is sometimes wonky in low-lighting.



Spent hours there. Lovely. Then went on to Suntec (oops, very very late!) to meet Twinkie, with the other bunch of people from STOMP. They're the 3rd generation joiners, and somehow the few of us can't really hang around with them well. I guess for me it's like, I've got my pals around already, so I'd rather be with them than to trod into unknown waters YET again to get to know more people.

Carrefour. Carl's Jr. Immersing selves in glitzy commercial consumerism. Colourful lights, people swarming, it sorta gets one in a trance. It's all a blur, but a sweet sweet blur!



Finally just hung around Esplanade for a while with the IKEA bunch again, and had to part ways again! Nightrider buses are agonisingly slow cause they go in circles every area they serve. Managed to get home eventually though.

The Perfect MP3 Ringtone

Now with the advent of phones that are able to use MP3 (or AMR or AAC or WMA, whatever floats your boat) ringtones, people are starting to get creative with their ringtones, letting their phones pelt out the latest beats whenever someone calls.

It's easier said than done. So often, the ringtones simply fall flat. A song that sounds great on radio ends up being totally inappropriate as a ringtone. Ringtones that simply don't capture one's attention, or even worse, start with a 1-minute piano intro so soft you hardly notice it.

Here are some tips to creating your dream ringtone:

1. Face it, your favourite song is more likely than not to be a bad ringtone
When I choose a new ringtone from my playlist, it's usual that out of 30 songs I screen through, only 1 meets my criteria for being a good ringtone.

The criteria:
a. extremely catchy and perky
b. reasonably fast - no Dido or Celine Dion here for sure
c. easily recognisable even in a noisy area
d. the song should start fast and loud; if not, at least part of the song (then you trim to that part)



2. Don't irritate the hell outta your friends. That's not too hard. Just don't use some over-used, corny song like that Chinese-language Mice Love Rice, badly-recorded songs where you can hardly hear anything sensible, vulgar songs like Super Furry Animals's The Man Don't Give A Fuck or some dated somg you'd catch your parents cha-chaing to. And no, not everyone shares your taste for Vivaldi's Four Seasons.



3. Don't be afraid to trim down the song file on your computer first. What I usually do is to use Audacity or Goldwave to cut out the intro to the song, so that the ringtone jumps straight into the verse or the chorus. It takes some practice and mouse dexterity, bit it's worth it.

A ringtone that starts right at the climax of a memorable song catches one's attention quicker than anything.

If you're more technically inclined, you can add subtle fade-ins and fade-outs at the beginning and the end to make the transition less abrupt. Even more technically inclined? Run it through the equaliser to remove some of the volume from beyond 8KHz to reduce distortion in the puny phone ringer.

Cut the file into a snappy clip of about 1 minute's length. Really, phones hardly ring longer than that so save your memory space in the phone for better stuff. 10 seconds for a message tone. Save it as a 64kbps file in mono, because with small phone ringers it makes no difference if you go higher.



4. "And don't wear it out!" Green Day - St. Jimmy

Change your ringtone periodically. You'll get sick of it otherwise. So will your friends!