In the search of the meaning of Life...

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

It isnt as easy as mario carts...

15:11

After taking few days of break after my written exam, i went on with my driving hands-on these 2 days.

At first, i thought the first few lesson would be very slack, as in just sit down beside the coach and watch him drive and see how he manoeuvres the car... But that kind of things only happen in Wonderland and it only happens on Alice... For me, my first lesson was to immediately practise driving on a highway, a highway!!! (wth)

There is another student with me on the car, as well as the coach, giving us instructions while either one of us is driving. So, the other student went on first, with the coach constantly giving out detailed instructions while he is at the wheel. It was my turn after his. i was totally unprepared for this. I didn't expect things happen this fast.

So i alighted, walked to the front door, opened that door, seated myself down, closed the door, adjusted my seat, and then... my mind was totally blank. What to do now? i tried to recall the things i was tested for written exam, but i was not taught on how to start an engine. then i tried to recall if there was anything the coach had told me, but there wasn't any, since that was only our very first lesson. Then i was quite stunned.

Fortunately, the coach didn't scold me for stoning there. He then told me the steps one by one and i followed the instructions with extremely meticulous movements. WIth that, the car began to shake and moved forward and there it went with my first driving experience... Throughout the whole process, i really had a hard time controlling the car. It is equally hard to fan off the fear of having car crashes, accidents, knocking down of pedestrians because i was really scared that accidents might happen since i was still a brand new newbie. So, receiving barks from the coach at times was inevitable because it matters life and death for 3 of us in the car, haha. I didn't even dare to wipe the sweat off my palms fearing that it would affect the steadiness of the wheel and then might get another bark from the coach again...

So on my first day, i have basically learnt most of what is needed for driving, the key point is to familiarize with them (and it is not easy). I went again this morning, and i felt much better with the car, and the frequency of the coach's barking had been decreased.

Haiz, why my father wants me to learn to drive with manual catch and not automatic catch? Without that stupid clutch, driving will be less complicated and a lot easier. Anyway, going somewhere (i also duno where) for a tour tmr, that means i will have a break... yay...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Since i cant view all your blogs, which includes my own blog, here, i cannot get access to the tagboard, so i shall type my replies here:

zacwai: still duno who is XXX? continue wondering ba :)

gyx: i will of course drive you around, provided that u give me a car :)

lyn: elbow isnt bad, quite emo, some songs suite my taste. why not you recommend more nice songs to me? :)

Fangy: i cant view any foreign blogs here, so no point giving me the url of ur blog.. :(

Thursday, November 22, 2007

what an exam

14:53

Its been a long time since i blog. ah, yes, 5 whole days... The reason for not blogging lately is that i have been mugging for the past 3 days. yes, MUGGING. mugging for my driving exam(written part only)... it is so easy and yet so difficult. It is easy because the test only consists of MCQs, 100 MCQs, with 100 marks in total, so all you need to do is just to click click click.

It is difficult (in fact, it is damn difficult, i feel) because you need to get at least 90% to pass the exam. Failing to do so will need to retake the exam until you get 90, and you have to make further arrangements and pay extra fees each time you retake. Another thing is that, the 90+ MCQs are randomly chosen from the 1300+ sample questions given before hand, and the rest will be questions that you have never encountered before.

So, i went to take the exam this morning, with only 1 day for me to familiarize with all the contents in the textbook, 2 days for practising the 1300+ sample questions. I was really not very confident for this.

The whole atmosphere of the exam just wasn't right for me. First, the majority of the candidates is adults, mainly middle-age men and women, only a handful teenagers like me. Second, the exam hall is quite big, with around 100 candidates. Third, the exam environment is not very proper, with the examiner shouting at random times, and smells of cigarretes kept on disturbing my respiratory system.

I have no choice but to bear with all these distractions and try to concentrate to remember whatever that i have read or learnt. With 45 mins for 100 MCQs, i finished them in 25 mins, meaning that i have 20 min for checking. After i have checked the 100 questions and corrected a few, i counted that i have 16 questions which i am unsure of and this would most likely mean failure for me. I was left with only 5 mins then, with the timer blinking, urging me to submit the score.

Under the timer's pressure and thinking that i could do nothing much to change my fate at that point of time, i submitted my score. I held my breath and waited... unexpectedly, another window poped up, wth, i thought that there was virus and i had to redo or something... but no, the window was there to make further confirmation to submit my score.

I clicked, "是". and for this time, i don't have to wait any time, my score just appeared immediately on the next page.

冼智彬先生, 你的分数是:92

TYCO!!!

I feel damn tyco, but i don't care, i just stood up and left. YAY!

Saturday, November 17, 2007

home sweet home

22:12

It is the familiar sight of hazy sky, familiar smell of pollution, familiar surroundings, familiar people.... Quite glad to be back home.

(but then, all the foreign blog websites have been blocked here, i cant view all my friends' blogs... for one and half months... not even my own blog... interestingly enough, i can still go blogger to WRITE my blogs, write only, haha. oh yea, pls don't stop tagging on my tagboard just because i cant go to my own blog, because i can still view them by logging to my cbox, yay!)

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Dramatic change of mood: disappointment to gratitude

21:36

Just as i am leaving singapore for one and a half months tomorrow morning (which means i am not gonna see my friends for one and half months), one of my friends did something which had greatly disappointed me.

We were discussing on our project's members today, and my friend, XXX, is unhappy that i am getting Tag in. After arguing for a while, he gave in, but with a condition, which is: he must be the leader of the group.

I said no, and tag said no too. i suggested a vote to decide on the leader and we voted. In the end, it is 2 to 1, i became the leader. Having thought that everything is settled, i went offline.

when i came back online later, what i received from him is this: anyway you have fun with tag, I booked libo for the thing. (let me provide some contextual knowledge here, libo is our IT technician for the project, though i havent approached him to join our grp yet, the chances of him joining my group is very high). And now that he has approached libo first, he it setting up another group with libo.

I feel betrayed. In the first place, he didn't even inform me that he is quiting my group. Secondly, contacting libo secretly and getting libo to his group is something i find very (erm, how to say... to say it in an ugly way) 卑鄙. I didn't know that he can do this kind of thing. And of course, i am not always right...

But it is good that he has revealed his the other side to me now, if not, i will always be left in the dark and think that He is such a good man...

I must thank him for that. I will be feeling grateful for him, at least for the next one and half months...

guys, see you when school reopens, good luck to all of you...

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

how i wish i could own the night

00:21

Just took my bath after coming back from jindao's house. I feel a strong urge to record down what i have done and have been thinking on the way back. (and so i purposely on my com for this)

As usual, every free moment is always reflection time for me, and of course these include mrt rides. As i am leaning my head against the side glass on the train, listening to my favourite songs, i have been thinking about my life (as usual), and realised that some of my behaviours and thinkings have been very different from other people.

Like, at this age, i find that i m thinking things that is far beyond my age, just to name one example: (erm... better not reveal too much...)

On my way from the mrt station to home, all the shops in bugis have already been closed, there were very few people on the street. This is really a stark contrast to the hustle and bustle of bugis during the day. Walking on the street in the middle of the night alone, probably with a handful of ah bengs or indians lurking around on the street, most people may feel insecure and uneasy. But to me, it feels like i am in a tranquil world. All the noises on the streets are gone, all the activities of the day have been terminated. Walking down the street alone at this hour makes me feel like i own the street, i own the night. The street and the night are designed for me to walk on and to spend. i really have a strong desire to stroll around the city all night, or to sit down in a quiet place to observe the presence of the night, to enjoy the serenity of the night, to treasure the only tranquil moments of singapore in the night...

However, i dismissed the idea immediately, being afraid that mum would worry about me coming home late. But at this very moment, i did a very strange thing: i went to the 7-eleven nearby and bought an ice-cream. (for those who know me well, i rarely eat ice-cream because i avoid eating it. I think this is the very first ice-cream that i have bought for myself.) How strange! In the end, (to my surprise) i enjoyed the ice-cream very much and could finally manage to pick myself up for home...

So, these are the strange little things and thoughts which compel me to pen them down despite being so late. Now, i can finally turn in with an empty mind (since my thoughts haven already been deposited here).

but before that, i should finish my mum's soup first...

Monday, November 12, 2007

4 days of

00:27

intensive training as a curator has finally ended. just kidding, not curator, just a receptionist for my teacher's exhibition. Four days, from 11 am to 6 pm, only 30 mins of lunch break, that was really quite a daunting task for me. The most challenging task was to put a hard fight against my sleepy mind (especially at around 2 - 3pm, which is my normal napping time)

anw, it is a very invaluable experience for me though it is tiring at times. i met many different types of people (majority is old folks, lol), and learnt a lot of things.

Having to spend 7 hours in the gallery everyday, most of my time has been spent 'patroling' around the gallery. and meanwhile, i can while away my time by appreciating the art pieces one by one. Though i have been looking at the art pieces for 4 days, i don't feel bored with them. Instead, new ideas and feelings pop up when i view them in different times. This is the power of real art man...

look at how "young" my teacher's students are, i am so extra...

静

wangzhuo, jindao and I

my favourite art piece

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Boy vs Girl

23:05

Mum just threw me a very random question today, which really put me off-guard. She asked, "You prefer to be a boy, or a girl?" "Eh... wadde..." i thought to myself, "What is her intention in asking me this question?"

"Why do you ask?" I answered her question with another question.

"Nothing much, just asking." That is all she replied, and she looked at me, waiting for her answer.

"Eh... I don't know. Very hard to say. I haven't been a woman before, so eh, it is really hard to say."

"Why it is very hard to say? Can see one what. Like men can go around the house with their upper body naked." (well, i was wiping the sweats on my naked upper body at that time, after my Air Alert training...)Then, she looked at me and i looked at her, and we both laughed.

"Well, this kind of things i really cannot say one la..." I still refused to take a stand.

Later on, i tried to digress and wandered off to another topic...

To be honest, it is equally difficult being either Men or Women. Both genders have their own troubles and problems. For us, men, we might look very confident of ourselves, we take things very easy, we look very strong and can withstand heavy burdens, BUT that is how we look. Sometimes we might be so weak that we are more fragile than any glasses. It is just that most men know how to hide their emotions, some of us only reveal them to ourselves in a quiet and undisturbed place, where we moan, complain, cry, wail, or vent our feelings in any forms of abreaction(hope i got the correct vocab) to ourselves...

And if you really really want me to take a stand on whether i want to be a boy or a girl, my answer to you is: Girl.

Why?

Because i have tasted what it is like being a boy already, i am just curious and want to find out what it is like being a girl, or a woman. Just out of curiosity la...

Btw, what about you?

Monday, November 5, 2007

A phenomenon that is bothering me...

15:37

Read emb yesterday and saw kevin cheng's message. He is leaving. Then i went to ask one ispark friend and found that he is leaving for xinmin...

Well, as far as i can remember, there are already like 7 teachers leaving/have left our school this year. Let's count: wangwy, hojw, janeysim, fooxc, tanhy, edmundteo and now, kevincheng. And these are only the teachers whom i know who are leaving, there might be some other teachers whom i don't know, who will be leaving next year too. This is really a scary trend. What does this tell us about our school? about the school's policy and its education system?

I think the answer is very obvious.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Just sent Tag off to USA this morning (best wishes to him) and after that, i had to rush to my cali teacher's house and then had to rush to NAFA with him to help out in his exhibition's preparation.

After everything, we proceeded to Orchard for lunch. It was at the lunch which had set me thinking about myself again. There were four of us, my teacher (a senior citizen), my teacher's friend (another senior citizen), my teacher's student (should be aged at around 40+) and me (a secondary school student who is also the youngest student of my teacher).

It was rather awkward for me to have lunch with them. During the lunch, i was like basically stoning there, listening to their conversations, smiling to their jokes which i don't feel funny, and then trying hard to join into the conversation just for the sake of making myself not to be the odd one out. In the end, i still could not blend myself in. Maybe it is the age difference, or maybe it is the difference in interests. But all these are just excuses, i could have 'performed' better...

Next time when i encounter with this kind of situation again, i will not make myself so awkward again.. because it is just so awkward to be in such situation... so awkward that i don't know how to describe my awkwardness...

Anw, there is an orchestra performance at NAFA (nanyang academy of find arts) at 8pm tomorrow, anyone? Come with me and i will treat you for the ticket (because admission is free).

Friday, November 2, 2007

During one of the very rare occasions...

21:19

Sister is away in Malaysia, this left mother and i living alone with each other, which is an extremely rare occasion for both of us. The last time that both of us lived together was like how long? maybe about 14 years ago...???

Anyway, we went out and had dinner together and later on went shopping with her (i bet most of you will feel pretty weird, so old already still go shopping with mum, somemore it is 2 of us ONLY), but then, i don't feel anything wrong, actually i quite enjoyed it. Come to think of it, there isn't many opportunities in our lifetime that we can shop with our mums together...

While we were strolling along bugis street, the ways some people walked, dressed, the image they were presenting to the public somewhat reminded me of one quote that i read recently in "The meaning of life" by Bradley Trevor Greive.

It says, "Why do we go on and on about individuality being the very essence of who we are, and then accept a degrading level of conformity in virtually every facet of our lives?"

Yeah, why so?

Why people have to dress themselves up or act in such a way that they must attract other people's attention? Is this the correct way to interpret the word "individualism"?

What i feel is that so many people nowadays are so obsessed in TRYING to make themselves stand out from the rest that they have created a very interesting phenomenon here: there are too many of those, who want to attract attentions, that it makes them look insignificant, and to most people, they have already become a norm. On the other hand, those who do not have any intent to show off themselves have become the "endangered", and ironically, they can attract more attention with their indifference to fashion and societal perception. It is so good for them that they are not affected in anyway by societal perception and this is the attitude which i admire...

Anyway, appearance is just a thin and flimsy piece of paper. Time will tear it apart and boils people down to their true self, to their ugly side... For me, i just wana be myself, do the right things and work hard to achieve the ultimate goal of my life. Yeah!

Found some interesting pics today, just share with you guys (wink):