iphone

so my brother broke his iphone and its' my fault because i wanted to use the fan, which outlet he was using to charge his iphone, to clear up the air which smelled of fried things and smelly smelly things. it took sometime and a very peculiar position to charge his iphone because of what initially simply appears to be the ports being too loose or something like that. so i took it out and plugged it in.

which ultimately led to a chain of events which resembled plugging in and removing the iphone charger into the phone repeatedly and then it somehow becoming my fault that i just didn't LET him charge in the first place. for one thing, upon closer inspection, there was quite extensive damage done to the phone already. the home button was a bitch and the volume control button was no longer there. now you iphone owners out there must be thinking, how the hell can you remove the volume control on the side. apparently you could, and the inside is all rubbery, like the old nokia phones when you stripped the number pad. the silver casing was also shifted apart from the bottom piece, which was white for him with the stress mark visible from the screws at the bottom. the dock also show signs of damage, since it repeatedly shows the device is not optimized and charging is not supported when nothing is plugged in.

anyway, now its my fault he can't even switch on his phone. which on normal occassion already sucks because he does this whole routine where he basically tries to get me guilty for doing something that i allegedly did while at the same time showing disdain for so much as breathing the same air as him. now factor in the fact that he's pretty much addicted to his iphone, he literally uses it until he falls asleep, you have one hell of a problem.

just for fun, i would try to describe his addiction to his iphone. now something you need to know about my brother is that he is a pretty social animal. by the age of 8 he was using the house phone, land line phone so often i had to squeeze in to get space to use the conjoined tables. by comparison, the first time i had a meaningful conversation over the phone that lasted more than half an hour was between sec 3 and jc 1. i may be 5 years older than him biologically, but he is 5 years ahead of me socially. now you see why my fears of him getting a girlfriend before me may actually come true.

anyway, describing his iphone antics. he is pretty much wired to his iphone. he uses msn facebook sms voice calls on his iphone. and his (along with his just as bored friends) comment threads on facebook are 30 plus long. with one commenting over the next within seconds. that is how wired he is, and yet he is still able to ignore and be ignored by the same bunch of people at the same time. so understanding how connected he is, i am actually more interested to see him without an iphone for at least a day or 2, preferably with me out of the way, just to see if he could cope. i mean he is suffering from pretty serious withdrawal symptoms, only minutes into not using his phone. literally minutes.

normally, i would put this on facebook in 140 or less characters, trying to sound funny. but i figured, according to the way he (and most people for that fact) already would complain about me for what i allegedly did, i guess i shouldn't add fuel to the fire. according to his friends, i'm just adding iphone destroyer and social network wrecker onto my long list of evil deeds and accomplishments like have a megalomanical ego and hogger of computers.

then again, 2 more isn't so bad.

also, i found a dog, whitish grayish brown, has an ava dog tag 208977. probably a maltese or a shih tzu, i can't really tell. and male apparently.

Mortality

so i went to the funeral of a friend's father. i was pretty sure what or rather why i was there. i didn't know his father personally or even in a passing manner. i never heard of him talk about his father so i had no idea what kind of a person he was. so for a while there was a little identity crisis.

why was i going to the wake of a man i did not know?

i figured the answer pretty quickly. i was going to be there to support a good friend of mine who has experienced a loss.

so it was pretty different from the other funerals i have been to. the one where i felt down because my friend who had so much potential had to go so soon or the ones i could feel my parents' loss even though i was not close to the deceased.

it was also the first time i went to a wake where people talked about the deceased's life and the relationships the people around them had. so going there with the expectation of being a friend for support as opposed to being a mourner is a little different.

i learnt a few things that day.

1) most of the 20 year olds i know havent been to more than 1 funeral or less even though they have lost someone, usually a grandparent.

2) when people talk about things and events and emotions, it is only natural that you will put yourself in that situation. in a funeral, people talk about loss and you immediately think about losing the ones closest to you. when people talk about the fun times they had with the guy, you laugh with them even though you haven't the slightest clue of anything they just said. when they talk about how fortunate the family is to have him, you think of your own family, whether or not you've been with them recently.

and yet, all throughout this time, i could only feel guilty for thinking about myself when this is a funeral about somebody else.

the last weekend was pretty fucked up because 2 people lost family members at roughly the same time, albeit under vastly different circumstances.

many of the people who spoke had great stories of the deceased. i wondered what story i would tell if my own father had passed on. when my grandmother passed, i didn't really know much about her. on the car ride my father told me a few stories, of a man who insulted his ability to do anything decent with his life, and of another who gave him a chance.

someday im going to sit down with them and ask them the story of how they came to be who they are.

had a pretty good conversation with a cab driver when i went to camp last week. he had this great voice like a old wise man, and he looked like the sensei from the old karate kid movies.

celebrated yangs birthday this weekend.

to build a secret hallway

you don't really need to carve a hole in the wall. just get a door that's placed semi-hidden and along the side. preferably a room to another room. then place a big wardrobe over it and cut a hole through wood.

TRIP CHANGE TO EUROPE!!

so because of air tickets and the like, we have decided to change our backpacking trip from USA back to europe

so some things remain untouched like this

to note down here is that the university vacation days are as follows
SMU
30nov to 3 jan for term 1
19 april to 15 aug for term 2

NUS
5 dec to 9 jan term 1
8 may to 1 august term 2

NTU
27 dec to 21 jan term 1
23 may to 29 jul term 2

Locations for now:

London

Cambridge

Manchester (old trafford)

Paris

Venice

Milan

Florence

Vatican City

Rome

england 3 weeks

France

Netherlands bicycle travel

Germany

Italy 1 month

Weather conditions:

for reference sake:

Singapore:

June 88F/76F

Today(jan) 86F/75F

All in June

Berlin, Germany: 72F/54F

London, England: 68F/52F

Madrid, Spain: 81F/59F

Paris, France: 73F/55F

Rome, Italy: 82F/63F

Stockholm, Sweden: 66F/52F

in other words, expect temperatures colder than the coldest aircon in singapore, probably for nights and rains. the sun should prove sufficient with just a tshirt. its warmest in spain and rome and coldest in sweden and england.

Railway Information:

Significantly cheaper to get a 8 days in 2 months trip and just use about 1 month, in other words, make 8 "cross country" trips, generally long ones, as opposed to small ones around the city itself. within the city itself, possible to go by bike or bus or walking.

UK: BritRail England pass works with eurail pass holder discount 50% or youth discount 20%, only one applicable because we are not going to scotland/wales/ireland plus BritRail London Pass does not get us to Manchester.

The Rest Of Europe: Eurail 5 country prices at €480 15 days in 2 months, group saver price not as applicable because it is at €627 per person.

Get a 5 country pass for france-germany-netherlands-denmark-sweden. then Boat ride to poland/ukraine for Euro then fly to Italy then boat ride again to spain or train or fly.

Things to do:

Bungee jump (more info: most probably going to Verzasca Dam, 007 Jump, price roughly 170 Euro, http://www.trekking.ch/eng/buchung.asp website for more details.)

Skydive england ( Aff course deemed too expensive, SG price 4k, going for either AFF level 1, or some other alternative, preferably no tandem.)

kitesurfing

roller coaster

Visit sistine chapel in vatican

visit st peter's basilica vatican

watch euro poland

eat fish and chips in england

pizza and pasta in italy

Amsterdam markets + flower auction (get more info)

france lourve, versailles

go language school german preferably (change to spain, roughly 700+ SGD for 1 week home stay)

bike tour around amsterdam free and easy follow book

go university cambridge

nazi sites germany

watch euro 2012 in poland/ukraine (FIND OUT DATES OF MATCH AND GET TICKETS) Qualifying Match Starts from 8 june to finals in 1 July In Kiev, Semis in 27,28 June Warsaw,PO and Donetsk, UK

In other words, most likely mid part of the trip.

OLYMPICS tickets open on MARCH 15

Packlist stuff

Camera

video camera

shades

jacket/windbreaker

weather appropriate clothes

credit card

money belt

map

plug adaptors

To Do list:

Sim cards/ Communication

Hostels

Activity List

get more info on working small jobs

TBC

Budget:per person

Airtickets: Msia airlines 700+ SG-KL-LDN (stansted airport) paris -kl(269E) ONEWAYONLY

Accomodation: Couchsurf as much as possible.

Insurance:

Discount Card: 25 ISE discount card, HI youth card 22,

Transport: Britrail Pass 318E, eurostar 42.50E, Eurail (US 672)ita (169)
Food

Backpack: 100-120