Saturday, April 28, 2007
Sarah and I were browsing through songs to prepare our special item for an important someone's wedding. Out of amusement, I began to come up with a list of songs that we should NEVER EVER play in a wedding. We really got a kick out of it.
List of songs we should never play in a wedding
1) The Pieces Don't Fit Anymore by James Morrison
2) Worlds Apart by Jars of Clay
3) Cold, Cold Heart by Norah Jones
4) I Belong To Me by Jessica Simpson
5) Stick to the Status Quo from High School Musical
6) Bad Day by Daniel Powter
7) Stuck in A Moment You Can't Get Out Of by U2
UCLA here I come!
ntu offers summer studies in ucla! aaahhhhh.
i want to go! for sure. perhaps next year or in year 3. after the virginia tech massacre, i'm definitely not going this year!
KL here I come!
I am going for a short holiday in KL late may. I'll be staying with my grandaunt and I'll probably be chauffeured around town. Cool eh? The last time I went with my sis was 10 years ago and we were like princesses, driven here and there by a chauffeur (and that's all I remember). Pity sarah won't be going cos she'll be away for 2 months for mission trip!
I'll try to enjoy myself before I releasing my FULL FORCE in Youth Camp and possibly World Vision’s Famine Camp (I'll be going as a facilitator!) in June.
Bring on the shopping and the chomping!
HOLIDAYS here I come!!!
Counting down. 1 more paper to go!
Saturday, April 21, 2007
time off from studying
stare at the word "time".
you realise it looks a little weird, isn't it?
ok, that was a spontaneous exercise!
heard about the virginia tech shootout?
it's such a tragic turnout. i have been following this news and even though it's my exam period, i can't help but reflect on the flaws of the american society.
guns are legal in the US. you can easily get ammunition and guns anywhere from supermarkets. yea, it's that common - like buying vegetables.
in the name of self-defence, the US allowed the sale of guns. but in the first place, if they had banned the sale of guns, would so many unnecessary loss and misfortunes have taken place? would you even need arms for protection against others? i guess it boils down to insecurity that modern day individualism has impinged on us.
guns give one the ultimate superiority of control. and with arms, one doesn't have to depend on others to protect oneself.
so you see, the easy access to arms had made violence through guns such a widespread crime in the US.
the gunman was a korean student of the school. he was a lonely guy with unstable and violent tendencies which he displayed in class work.
apparently, many koreans in korea and the US were appalled when they knew that the gunman was of the same ethnicity as them. they rebuked him terribly.
but has anybody thought of what could have happened to this korean guy (he killed himself after shooting everyone) that led him to such an outburst?
could he have been the victim of racial discrimination? perhaps being yellow-skinned, he found it hard to belong among the whites. if the student body of virginia tech had made an initiative to assimilate him (through foreign student support or activities) , the shootout could have been prevented. as you see, the american society, being a multiracial one that seeks to attract migrants, has to make extra efforts to integrate people of different colours.
don't put the blame on the dead killer prematurely. step back and take a look. things could have been better if he had felt welcomed in the society.
another thing.
all those shot dead were known. their names and faces were printed on newpapers in remembrance. and you realise, every week, somalians starve to death, people in iraq bombed but they are merely reported as death statistics, NOT recognised as a person of worth.
see the disparity in the world? as an american, you have a name. as a somalian, you are just another one of the numbers.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
there are many things we cannot afford to be apathetic about and that includes our dear ministers' pay rise. there's so much brouhaha about it.
"wah how can like that? they have so much money already leh!"
"the GAH-MENT is taking our money!!!"
Ok, so the (main) reasons for pay rise, according to PM Lee are:
1) To prevent corruption
2) To retain talents in the civil service
Alrights, the first reason for a pay rise is to prevent corruption. i have misgivings about such a stance. look at durai. he was paid well in nkf but he was still greedy (ie corrupted). come on, big bathrooms and gold taps?! this man is incorrigible! thus it proves that having a high pay doesn't necessarily stop the greed of man. but then again, perhaps,a competitive pay could do the bare minimum of resisting corruption. actually, i'm pretty divided over this reason the State gives.
ok, moving on, the second reason... the government needs to retain talents that can help spur and run the economy that's worth a few hundred billion dollars. minister teo chee hean argued that ministers are paid according to the heavy responsibilites they have to handle to keep the economy booming.
ya, so all you care about is the economy booming.
if we are paying for talents, can you give us a talent who can ensure there is less income disparity in singapore?
rather than have only ministers who can help us have a bigger economy, can we also have ministers who can ensure income distribution is fair ? in other words, the poor do not get poorer.
this is a pressing problem in the force of globalization. ministers and officials cannot afford to be busy earning more and more capital and then neglect the poor and desolate. a restless and dissatisfied society can be detrimental too. look at paris' ghetto chaos - you see youths living in the outskirts of the city burning cars in resentment and the city's image suffered.
if they can stabilize the Gini coefficient (a tool to measure income distribution with a scale of 0 to 1 - 0 being the most equal distribution) at around 0.2, it would be excellent.
show me this talent.if they can produce fair income distribution, their pay, to me, would be justified.
*****
phew i finally have the time to say a big hello to all of you in my blog!
i havent been updating my blog because i was sick. down with a persistent evil flu for a week and i only feel better this morning.
i watched a wind instrumentental concert at esplanade's concert hall today. FREE. FREE. haha!
and the music's good with the likes of medleys from beauty and the beast, the little mermaid, prince of egypt and spirited away. brings back fond memories of me watching walt disney movies.
most of my childhood is made up of walt disney stuff. my mom would buy cassette tapes that recite walt disney stories and i would MEMORIZE and read out the stories just like the voice in the tape. young children always have a lot of time to do such stuff, i guess.
i am now preparing for my end year exams and this marks The END of me being a freshie. yay!!!
Life is short, especially when i am in varsity.
Saturday, April 07, 2007
long long day
i went to church early in the morning to play the keyboard for our church's memorial/good friday service. followed by that, moses was kind enough to give me a lift to mcritchie to meet the girls for our thanksgiving picnic. wah i nearly passed out in his car. when he is immersed in his self-produced music (yup he cut his own album years back and it sounds jamie-cullumish), he actually drives without his hands on the steering wheel! harrowing experience man.
moving on... prata lunch after our sweet and encouraging thanksgiving picnic! well, prata at thomson rd's prata place is horribly OILY and LIMP. that place is just overhyped.
casuarina's prata is still the best! :P
but anyways, cheerios to sihui who organized the picnic!
later, i trooped to my favourite place - bras basah to hunt for a dictionary for my sec2 tuition boy.
gave tuition. said bye to him and i was off to dinner & grocery shopping with mom, sarah, angie and lydia.
the day was tiring but well-spent!
a blessed Good Friday to all :D
On Good Friday
There was a man
Who walked through
The dusty roads of Jerusalem,
Knowing well
His pride will be trampled;
His face spat on;
His body torn.
There was a man
Human, yet God in essence
But yet, was stripped,
Shoved,
Whipped
And wore a crown of thorns,
Merely to reach the unwanted and the forlorn.
i wrote this piece during one of the prayer meetings about 2-3 months ago.
couldn't exactly complete it and it seems to be hanging there without an apt ending.
inspiration has yet to struck but i know when i wrote this, i could feel that Jesus Christ was very personal to me, wearing his dusty sandals, extending His hand with a warm smile as he walked through the streets of Jerusalem as a mere mortal.
i hope i managed to reveal a small part of Good Friday through this bit. This is the day to remember His road to the Cross.
Monday, April 02, 2007
Free ride on the police car
Sometimes, i would joke with my friends when i see a police car zoom by.
If you want a free ride in the police car, pretend to be lost and hitchhike.
Well, i got one. Not because i'm lost.
But i was robbed last night. on april's fool.
YES robbed it's not a joke. It was traumatizing, really. seriously, being in a police car is NOT FUN. AT ALL.
i realised if you're in a police car, it means you are either the victim or the suspect, and neither are desirable.
I was doing my assignment, using my laptop in mcdonald's at admiralty place. suddenly, this indian man in his 30s (feel like cursing him but i shall refrain) outside mcdonald's started gesturing to me nonsensically. being too nice (which was my pitfall), i turned my head towards him and tried to figure out what he was trying to say. and that was when his accomplice striked. he snatched my handphone which was beside my laptop and on the table and scooted off.
URGH!!!!!!
I tried to run after him but i remembered, my laptop is still in mcdonald's! what if that indian guy went in to take my laptop? So i went back and borrowed a patron's hp to call the police. i was dumbfounded and just broke down into tears. i felt so helpless and weak.
i was shaken to the core. come on, it's the first crime that's committed against me, right before my eyes!
i knew the 2 of them were in cahoots cos some patrons saw them together, walking around mcdonald's, staring at me. i couldn't see them cos my back was against the crowd.
sickening.
minutes later (which felt like a million years),the police came and i managed to get sarah to come down to mcdonald's. though i was the unfortunate victim, we felt like teenage delinquints as the police officers escorted us to the car. many people were looking at us. it seems so strange.
i mean, whenever there's police officers around, people would be curious to look on, wouldnt they? so i can't blame them.
thank God my mom didn't blame me whatsoever, which made me feel a lot more better.
i am not mourning the loss of hp.
just afraid that they may use the pictures i have inside, doctor them and post it online in some disgusting websites. really must pray hard! well, bless those people who stole my hp. let them have it but please, don't do anything to the pictures!
anyway, i am now officially contact-less. so please, do message me if you see this blog entry and give me your numbers. don't try to call me too cos i'm not getting my sim card back until wednesday.
my comfort for today: a B+ for my screwed-up presentation (the class average was B-/B). hmm not bad, considering it was the presentation where my tongue tripped :P
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