Constructive Deconstruction

A year in reflection

This year has been kind of slow. While people have been celebrating various successes, i feel like i’ve fallen short of my own expectations.

In trying to pursue the things i’ve set out to start, i’ve succeeded in starting most of them but few are worth mentioning. If anything, 2008 should be the year where these projects begin to blossom.

2007 will also pass after leavining me many new discoveries and realisations about myself and the people around me. Now more than before, i’ve begun to treasure family and my close friends. It’s come to the point where despite my insecurities or an inability to help out, i’ve realised that it’s important to at least tell them how much they matter to me. My family has been through a lot this year both as individuals and as a family unit…and more seems to be on the way.

This year has also been the year where I struggled between blogging and diary-writing. Reading back my archives(which still haven’t been fully ported over), i realised that much of my blogging life usually revolves around a girl. It’s been kind of an emo kid phase that i’m trying to break out of. But this year, i’ve been a tad more objective in my blogging. Especially after being part of ping.sg, the blog no longer became a fully personal space anymore - people from the community who read my blog are actually people who will continue to meet me and form judgments of me. This led to the revival of me writing in my diary again. It’s nice to pick up a pen and actually write. The much slower pace of writing allows one’s thoughts to fully form before they manifest themselves physically. I also kind of started to write snail mail letters again which has become something i look forward to doing except that i’m trying not write too often lest it becomes a nuisance…haha

Every chance I get, I ask myself if i’ve lived a good life and although 1st January 2008 is just going to be another day, it’s somehow life’s way of giving people a chance to close chapters and open new ones.

So have I lived a good 2007?

I think I have. If I could have done anything differently, i’d probably spend a bit more effort taking care of me. But right now, i’ve got all the family and friends who did a great job.

I love y’all…and you.
:p

4/2 New Year Gathering Pictures are up

To the 4/2 people, the gathering photos are up…

They’re accessible this link or you can just click the mosaic tile above.

Picture of the day: Alice The Ninja

I spent the remnants of Christmas having coffee with 3 really wonderful people - Alice, Jean and Edmund(who drove us all home after that)…and i’d like to share a piece of the evening with you…I present to you…

Alice The Ninja

…and if you’re wondering why she was in that, she was defending herself against a lone mosquito. Ho ho ho!

How I Spent Christmas 2008

For some reason, today, I woke up early. In fact, I woke up many times. There was a problem though…I had nothing to do. Ok, I have work to do but I refused to do work today - at least not while everyone else is celebrating one of the most popular holidays ever.

Even if you weren’t christian, it’s become such a huge day that it’s a day you can’t escape.

So how did I spend my day?

I slept. And I slept a lot. I woke up just in time to have breakfast with parents afterwhich I turned on the TV and caught some show about 2 kids who had their bodies switched. After 10 minutes, it started to get cliche(although the girls were quite cute) so I switched it off and lay down on my bed. I promptly fell asleep.

When I woke up again, I decided to spend some time trying to ask if anyone would wanna grab a cup of coffee. For a brief moment, I was determined not to sleep my day away. Alas, I’m here blogging at 6.20pm so you can guess how that went.

But I had an interesting dream after I slept once again after that try-to-get-coffeemates session.

I dreamt I rushed to some hotel where Fenghong was having some huge gathering and catered the FishNCo people. I got there just in time after they’ve all packed so I just shook his hand and said, “Thanks for organising.” Then immediately after that, I fell asleep(yes I was even falling asleep in the dream!). There, some other JC Council friend of mine woke me up and was cautioning me against driving home…so guess what I did?

I checked into some kickass hotel. The valet took my car and I was ushered up to some room with a heavenly huge bed! And they served me food too! I was…the biggest, most tasty, crispiest fried chicken ever! It was so big and so nice I just had to share it with someone. But there was no one to share it with. The streets were empty and everyone seemed busy(i think i had this impression in my dream because of the coffee thing) So there I was eating this divine piece of fried chicken when it struck me…”Shit. How much is this one night stay in my own country - just so I could sleep in - cost me?”

I decided to sleep first and in the morning I gave the reception a call on the pretence of wanting to know how much cash to prepare…and she said so matter-of-factly, “$6600″. omfg!

after what seemed like 10 secs of emotional rush, I woke up.

What a dream.

Amongst some interesting sights in my dream:-

1. Orchard was devoid of people. Not a single soul except me.
2. The hotel I stayed in had like 8 elevators servicing my level. And when you pressed the button, it only calls for the ones to its immediate left and right. So I had to walk down the corridor and press 7 buttons…although pressing 4 would have sufficed.
3. There some old angmoh guy in my dream. He smiled when I came for Fenghong’s party. I have no idea who he is
4. The bellhop at my hotel was this Indian fellow…superbly nice guy. If anything in the dream was worth that $6600 fee, it would have been him.
5. There was no Internet anywhere in my dream. Haha
6. There was a genuine fear of not having enough money to pay.

So there, That was how I spent my xmas day….Dreaming.

When A Prime Minister Goes on Leave…

I never noticed it until now that when the PM goes on leave, it makes the news. It must really suck to have the world watching your every move…but I guess it comes with the territory.

…I wonder if, just like movies and storybooks, the acting PM will pull off some surprise…haha

SINGAPORE: Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong will be on overseas leave from Monday (December 24) to Sunday (January 6).
A statement from the Prime Minister’s Office said Deputy Prime Minister S Jayakumar will be the Acting Prime Minister during Mr Lee’s absence. - CNA/ac

( Source : ChannelNewsAsia )

An evening with Elton

*This was written before I went for ICT but I forgot to publish it.*

Elton and Me

After a long week, I ended it off with coffee at Millenia Walk Coffee Bean with Elton. Elton’s a buddy of mine that I met while pursuing the Minor in Entrepreneurship course over at NTU. Needless to say, he’s one of the few that still tries to keep in touch. For most of the participants, the fire died as soon as the final grades were released.

Anyway, he’s interested in marketing and HR and is heading over to his newfound love in January - India. We spoke about everything from business practices, to personal beliefs and girls. Heh.

It’s a pity that we don’t get to hang out more often. Oh, to those who were in the programme, he’s planning to have a coffee session of sorts with Mr Koh later on in the month so if you’re interested, just drop a shoutout to either himself or me(i’ll be on reservist from the 10th to 21st though).

I think among the things that struck me most talking to him was when he talked about attending some conference earlier that morning. He was telling me how he met someone from Haw Par Group who didn’t even bother to give his name(And instead just intoduced himself as "I’m from Haw Par Group") after Elton introduced himself as a student. I find that odd because I think it’s basic courtesy to introduce oneself when someone makes that gesture. Is this arrogance amongst the rich(and presumable successful)? Of course maybe that guy could just be having a bad day and in the mood to be anti-social.

Putting business intentions aside, I doubt i’d ever want to work with arrogant people who sit on very high horses. The horse might fall you know?

Have a good weekend guys!

GoogleTalk and Windows Live Messenger will Finally Talk

Windows Live Messenger 9(in testing) is finally able to communicate with gTalk. Apparently, they’re also trying to integrate AIM and ICQ (yes. ICQ! ).

It’ll be awesome when the day comes where I just need one IM to rule em all.

Apparently Microsoft has succeeded in getting Live Messenger 9 (currently in private testing) to communicate with Google Talk, and they are working on integration with AIM and ICQ also.  Seeing as how Live Messenger 8 already talks with Yahoo Messenger, we could be getting very close to a polished, officially released, messenger hub.

( Source : Mashable! )

I’m back!

Ok. So i’ve been back for a few days now. But i’ve been so tired that i spent most of my time either sleeping or trying to clean the equipment and uniforms that I used. I never knew I had THAT much stuff!

How was ICT? It was full of nonsense. While I may never get the experience of running an ICT the way I want to run it, I think the leadership could do with some new command philosophies. Perhaps they should read a bit more into millitary history or something.

I won’t comment much here because I’d have to bring up specifics for it to be meaningful to the readers…and of course, that would be a breach.

So…yeah…I just wanted to say I’m back. Oh…and for all the complaints I spew about reservist…I got a letter of commendation for what I think must be good service. Haha

Merry Xmas y’all!

Off for ICT

I am off for ICT and will return on the 21st November 2007. I might be able to pop by on the 20th since it’s a public holiday.

This is the suckiest time ever comforted only by a phone call last night. Thanks. 

No Blogging about ICT

I just noticed a piece of instruction that was coupled with the "No Camera Phones" instruction for this year’s ICT. It reads:-

"…Also, no Blogging of the ICT and its activities are allowed."

I don’t know why ‘blogging’ had a capital ‘B’ but I guess bloggers have now positioned themselves as a force to be reckoned with. I wonder if the security branch now has a blogging intelligence division. If have, can I join? Lol