the art scene

The local art scene in singapore? cannot make it la


that's what you typically hear from any singaporean
typically

but why?
why do our people feel so bad about our own abilities at something that should be intrinsic, something that should be a part of life?
here's the thing, just because someone is bad at something doesn't mean it cannot make it.

think about it, if we felt that way towards everything that we were bad at, how would our major industries be?

soccer: it's about as much a national sport we will ever have. how many of you agree that local soccer is vibrant and youthful? those who answered no, watch a bit more news and read the new paper more.

then how many of you would agree that its' something we're actually good at? we don't have the capacity to go global, not now, probably not in 20 years. but have faith in that there will be people who are passionate enough to take that chance and push it all the way there.


now back to the art scene. no matter who you ask, people, young, old, student, office worker, they are going to say that our local art scene is boring and/or non-existent. if you ask them why, they will give a variety of reasons, like not enough culture, too much science and tech, not enough exposure, blah blah blah

excuses.

i am a very practical person. if i ever become head of any creative project, i will make sure that everyone is of a different nationality, or culture. i appreciate what other perspectives and viewpoints that only people who have been brought up differently can bring to the table. but under no circumstances will i give any preferential treatment, because then there's no point, might as well give him the director's chair and sit back.

If i could only pick one "artist" for the lack of a better word, i would pick locals, because we share the same heritage and it would do the community a favor to know that it is possible to make it in the art scene


but lets' tackle the reasons one by one,

not enough culture. really? our culture is everywhere from hdb to shopping malls, we just choose not to look because its' nothing fancy to look at. we have many traditions which are unfortunately dying with the previous generation. here's an example, have you considered this to be apart of the singaporean culture, malay weddings in void decks, followed by chinese funerals. or the wet market, selling all sorts of food we don't even know the names of. these are all parts of our heritage and yet the young are choosing to "disown" them. we always complain that they are not interesting, yet we spend hours upon hours googling whether we should call people -chan or -sama. why is it that we are so fascinated by other cultures that we frame them up and romanticize them, while letting our own deteoriate. Are we really helping anyone? we have this very strange attraction towards being high class, like wearing branded lolex and heavy necklaces. because we came from migrants, understandably, our traditions revolve around practicality and family, because that was the only thing that they had in the past. now our "traditions" revolve around materialistic goods and making a good impression. people gradually become somewhat disgusted by the ways of old due to its down and dirty nature and we become 'stuck up'. as a gentle reminder to those still unaware, not all culture is "high" culture

and you're complaining that we don't have enough culture, open your eyes

when has too much focus on science and technology ever been a hindering factor? if an arts-oriented little boy or girl, and by arts i mean fine arts like painting, grows up in a place like silicon valley or bangalore,india and wants to become a great artist, he/she will find no problems other than that which he sets on himself. remember the old adage, if you can believe it, you can achieve it? i don't see why that doesn't apply here. if little johnny likes to cook, he and hopefully his parents will find ways to help him be the best he can be, even if he is surrounded by people who only know how to knit sweaters. if little jane loves making movies, she too can do it, and nobody can tell her otherwise.

so then, why do we still have a "bad local art scene"? people aren't willing to take the leap, but not without a good reason. think about it, considering that he likes both equally, if a person has an equal aptitude in both dance and maths, naturally he will pick maths and take jobs like accountancy, because its more secure. its like if a person had aptitude in both medicine and politics, he will take medicine if assuming that everything else remains constant,(i.e ceteris paribus). our art scene remains shaky because people aren't willing to take that leap of faith. its' kind of like a vicious cycle. initially, the poor art scene makes it difficult and risky to make a good career out of it, then nobody joins due to the risk and it doesn't help the community, then lack of people joining means the scene won't improve and so on.

not enough exposure, another excuse people like to hang around their tongues. since the birth of the internet, this has become an obsolete justification for just about everything. click of the mouse and you will see results in the thousands. so why don't we have a booming art culture?
singaporeans not willing to give other singaporeans a chance. make sense? given the choice between an foreign musician vs a local musician, almost everyone will choose the foreigner, but yet mediacorp did a survey with a "blind" music test and found out that people are equally, if not more receptive of local bands. but yet the moment we realize its from someone from the same land, we suddenly reject it, even without listening to it first. did the chords become mangled the moment you realised that singaporeans produced it? no. are we really so "opposite-of-xenophobic"? ah but author, you must muse, aren't you a little hypocritical to say that since not a single song on your playlist is from a local band. actually that is true. but not for the reason you think? over about 4 years of listening to 987fm, i have quite a small collection of what i find are good local songs, unfortunately, being the rarities that they are, it was impossible to download just 1 single track like the others. and i don't like the idea of purchasing a whole album just for one song i will eventually put on loop.

i'm not really blaming anyone for this predicament that we're in. actually i'm blaming everyone equally so you shouldn't feel too bad about it. our art scene cannot be one where all the initatives are top-down. only when people start to initiate their own brand of art, then it becomes "sustainable" in a sense.

actually after all that, our arts scene isn't as bad as you think it is. aparrently Forbes,(or somebody, i can't really remember) thinks we are among the top 10 locations with a booming arts scene. many world class productions like cirque du soleil and avenue q are coming down to perform here and our artistes are going abroad to act. that's' a tall order for a country with only 40+ years of history.

so the next time you start romanticizing about the fashion scene in milan or the gourmet chefs in paris, why not contribute to your own society. maybe when you grow old and you look back, you can tell your grandkids, i helped to make it happen.


www.lightamillioncandles.com

Investiture

Today marks the day the 21st ends their term

today marks possibly our first ever outing as a council

today is a good day




surprisingly, there was no recounting of good old days, no tears, no memories
everyone was just overjoyed with the sheer joy of it being all over

maybe it's a good thing

it's good to feel this good
right?

anyway, had a great dinner at the end of the day at sakura
feels good to be in the company of friends

www.lightamillioncandles.com

This

this is just an exercise to see who would have cared, anyway while you're here, might as well enjoy and have some fine reading

I am reminded

as i go about my days of typically avoiding homework, among other things, i sometimes forget that where i really want to go is britain. and subconciously, i will always put australia as my top choice when i go about and be exposed to media of many kinds.

and then i get reminded again



Proof there is a benevolent god. hahas

and yes her voice is sexy as hell.




Q.E.D (Check It up). Case In Point


Today 19/7/09, I am reminded of the joy of going to britain, even though i never went there before.

actually, sometimes i feel a little scared. my dad used to tell me that sometimes when you think that you know a certain country is going to be full of gorgeous girls or guys (for the ladies), and then when you go there, all those you seem to meet are always butt ugly. for instance, Japan, any nerd who watches anime will tell you that its their first choice if they ever had to migrate, hell they would even do it if they didn't need to.

but sadly, it's not how the media portrays them. korea is the same, australia is the same, hell even china is the same. and thats' speaking from experience.


so there is still that little inkling of fear, of disappointment really. Keeping my fingers crossed, however that helps.


oh yeah, and i finally finished reading Y: the last man. awesome comic/graphic novel, however you like to call it. it was 60 issue long and took 5 years. it starts off very exciting, then slowing down and then followed by even more excitement with a nice little ending, that's a little bittersweet. anyone who wants to read can ask from me, i have a thumbdrive of the whole set


someday, i'm going to write about why i hate reading novels.



www.lightamillioncandles.com

I've Forgotten What I Want To Write Again

I Started looking at some cool gifts like comics words BAM ZAP wallpaper and then i forgot that i had opened blogger

I Made A Revelation Today, all this time the only characters i really enjoyed watching in those really irritating disney shows were the supporting characters, like that pianist girl from high school musical (she's cute), the black dude with cornrows from that's so raven and every other actor in hannah montana, except anyone who has the last name cyrus and those actors that just show up in 1 show and then subsequently for all the ridiculous renunions


Even when i was young


maybe that's why i prefer shows where there is no real distinct MAIN characters, or more than 4, like friends and even stevens and leverage.

but house is still awesome.


harry potter comes out this week, actually came out. the producers who decided to make the book into a film hit the jackpot of all jackpots.

the harry potter film formula can be broken down into:

3 parts cockney (British) accented kid actors
1 part tween fans who are willing to spend ridiculous amount of said franchise
1 part plot that has already sold millions to said fans
and 2 parts awesome CGI effects only possible thanks to said fans

it's what made twilight popular !! although they skimped on the actors

i keep forgetting what i want to write

Shirt printing day

yesterday marks my third trip to queensway of memory, my second with regards to shirt printing

i went with sam to print some shirts for council. its still a damn long bus trip. met her in school after her lessons and then took the stupid 153 bus.

anyway, we reach there and we go to the shop where we called beforehand, on the phone he quoted 13.50. which i was like, okay not bad. we didn't have any print out of the design, just a soft copy in the thumbdrive. he showed us the catalogue and i saw, easily the most useful catalouge i will ever see in my life, why? it showed the different fabrics and colours with the cardboard over to keep it intact. it was a little weathered, but i would have still offered to buy it from him. anyway, sam wanted to see how it was printed, she wanted silkscreen printing EXACTLY. and i was like, i know a version which sucked but i didn't know the name. the guy said he wanted to see the design, so we had only the thumbdrive and he couldn't see it because the guy with the laptop wasn't here today. so we just looked the shirts he had as samples. sam couldn't find anything nice. so we went somewhere else. we also couldn't see a print sample because most of the shirts he does are for teams, so there are like jerseys and giant block names and numbers.

so went went upstairs and the first shop we saw was, well, professional, professional enough. she had the same sample catalogue, but the thing that probably set her shop apart was that she had shirts for you to try and an actual changing room. so she was talking to sam and i got out my paper with the details and i overheard something like $12.70, i was like ok, we can check it out. so we stayed there for some time trying the size and all that. after what, 45 minutes, we decided on the "right" blue, which on decision, thought, WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE FROM MY ORIGINAL BLUE. anyway, it wasn't even my blue, it was the threadless'ss blue. we had to re-arrange the sizes because the shirt was a bit different from ours. but anyway, we were about to finalize all the details, then we realised one person we forgot, so we scrambled through all the lists and realised that we actually forgot one, and more importantly it was our teachers'. good thing right, lucky. well, we got the numbers down and then at the end, i saw at the price at the receipt, $17, the red light started going off in my head, and i was like giving this look to her, because the auntie was staring at us and it would be embarrassing to just scream out WTF. she also had this look like "i don't know". exactly what she didn't know i was confused. did she not know what i was trying to say without opening my mouth. was she confused about the price like me. was she thinking what in the world could make my face turn like that.

so she signed the receipt and the i paid the deposit. we walked out to the outside of the tattoo shop and i was like, wth so expensive i thought you said $12, then she also didn't know, so i said call her back and ask her about the quote at the start. so she did, and the shopkeeper said she would slash the price by a dollar. i doubt that would cut into her earnings by alot.

anyway, sam wanted to eat at ikea's, so we went there, and basically there were a lot of people. there was a queue where sam conveniently took her apple pie from, because "the queue was for the cooked food, you can just take the food from the counter." so she just took it and paid at the register where there is a significantly shorter queue. she asked me to get some shrimp on a bread, which i then promptly went there, stared at the counter for 5 minutes, while people were looking at me and then found nothing, i went back and she got it herself. and i also dropped a dollar on the floor without knowing, because she apparently gave me 6 dollars while i only took 5.

so i waited while she ate and started to observe the people around ikea. anyone notice that there are a LOT of middle aged people there. the ikea is becoming the one stop place where people go to feel more high class about themselves. its like the sushi restaurants when they opened, where people who go there surprisingly aren't japanese. come to think of it, i have never seen a japanese in a sushi restaurant ever. anyway, we went to subway because i wanted to eat there. i was ordering the sandwich while i realised i had only 2 dollars after paying the deposit, so i said you do take nets right. they didn't, so i panicked and asked sam for money, she didn't. i asked for the nearest atm which was downstairs. i ran down, but it was UOB, so i decided hey man, maybei could take my card and charge me a little for it. i tried twice, both failed. i ran over to ikea using the overhead bridge and finally got my money. i paid the guys from subway and promptly ate my footlong. footlongs are good. sam is quite disgusted by the amount i eat. hahas. anyway, that there was another chapter in my book of goofs, complete with the birthday incident. i bet i could make a killing selling my autobiography as a comedy book. hahas

no one asked me about the donating blood thing yet? what are you waiting for.


www.lightamiliioncandle.com

In The Shower

Got this idea when i was in the shower

to teach politics, let the students run for a presidential election

sounds simple enough

many of my friends has problems in this topic because they lack the necessary jargon or lexicon in the topic, like socialism, liberalism, secularism, etc

a simple and engaging way to let them learn is through an election.

let me explain

a lecture style of half hour before lessons to teach and half hour to discuss.

Step 1: make sure you have at least 5 weeks, preferably 10 weeks, to play around with the syllabus.since it can be used to encompass many topics like ethics, science, politics, government, singapore identity, blah blah blah, it is justifiable to use that much time, i think. i dunno

step 2: split the class up into 2 halves, preferably 10 on each side. either simply use just split them into halves by their seating arrangement, or let them do a questionnaire on political ideology, like abortion, pro or anti, that kind of thing, which i think is better.

Step 3: nominate a presidential candidate, among other positions. this can be done by students completely or to speed things up, the teacher nominate 3, ask for any additional volunteers then the individual groups, hereby called parties, vote for their own candidate.

Step 4: choose the other positions, obviously the other students also need to do some work. so they could either decide themselves or let the teachers decide.

they will preferably have jobs that either suit their personality or strengths OR clashes with them, putting them outside their comfort zone. jobs include,

(i'm avoiding the departments so that the individual students do not further segregate themselves.)
Campaign Manager- basically a leader, inconsistencies or problems will be referred to him
Organizer- Any event, i.e rallies, fundraiser, speeches, explained later, will be planned by this guy. justifies each and any event that the party wants to organize.
Press secretary- writes and monitors public reaction through the media.
Account manager- writes any justifications for spending or earning
Publicist- separated into 2 different forms of campaigning, getting the message across and negative campaigning, such as smears.

each job is taken by 2 people. for most writing exercises, what they need to do is write up on various campaigning that the party plans to do. so essentially, each person write around 1-2 page as to why certain actions should be taken when things happen, which as the teacher, you make happen, using the simple AREEC structure, as a guideline.

and for added fun, you can compile all the write ups and make it a report!

so naturally things must happen throughout the election to keep things interesting. for the US 2008 elections, the economy crashed, so that was interesting to watch. i think the teacher can "organize" several interesting things to happen like maybe radical teens riots across western states, for example. so each candidate must think of ways to tackle the problem without compromising the votes.

i think the natural way that it should end is with a "televised" presidential debate. send out an open invitation to anyone who is remotely interested to watch. write several questions and watch the presidential candidates argue it out. let the team prepare for maybe a week, but then again can you ever really prepare for anything televised.

There should only be a population of 1 person, who is the teacher who ultimately decides who wins, based on thier performance and/or policies. of course the teacher can make up statistics on the fly to reflect an actual voter base, just to give the students an idea of how and who to target for more votes.

just the overview, not very simple but hey its' cool.

for the actual lessons, as an average, if each class is given 3 hours per week, in 1 hour lessons, the first lesson can be a lecture of a particular topic, followed by certain probing questions like, should any government act like this? for example. the 2nd lesson should be a fake newspaper article that shows like certain trends or events that has happened, like the israel conflict, along with the aftermath of the actions they took last week, and then give them time to work out what actions they want to take. the 3rd lesson can be handing up of the report at the start of the lessons, and then a comprehension practice, preferably on the same topic. then corrections will be gone through the 3rd lesson of next week and so on.

i think many questions that they will ask themselves during the discussion will be AQ like questions, but thats just my guess.

this is a rough idea whiteboard that i have. obviously there are many loopholes and problems that i, due to tiredness and lack of will to write, failed to recognize. to the future me, if i ever become a teacher, keep this in mind.




In my future home, there will definitely be a giant whiteboard for me to put my ideas.


oh yeah, and some people from my school went to shave HER head for charity. i quite respect her for that even though i don't really know who she is. i like to think i would have gone if i had some friends to do it with me. i realised that many or the moral decisions i make depends on whether it's convenient for me or not, even though i REALLY REALLY want to do it. for example, i want to donate my organs when i die and i want to donate blood now when i'm still young. i never really found like any event or like roadshow promoting it, ever, just a lot of flag days and tin cans.

i'm gonna tell jelena now.



www.lightamillioncandles.com

PhD

see more Funny Graphs

getting to call yourself a doctor is probably the most compelling reason, for me, srsly


i need a new blog where i can post pictures more easily, blogger sucks at that.

anyway, i was a chomp chomp with my family jus now, jelena smsed me to say that she saw me and called my name but i din hear. note to future people who may do that, FUCKING DON"T. i spent the whole meal looking for her, i was like looking up every time someone with longer than shoulders hair was around.

i was looking back everytime i took 2 steps.

i even goddamned looked around the whole hawker centre looking, even at the corner where there's nothing but people minding their business and looking at you.

what's worse was that she took bloody forever to respond. so i was like anticipating , and then i looked at my phone, then i looked at it again, then i looked at it again, then i set to to general profile, then when i shifted my seat i thought it vibrated and looked at it, AND THEN she responded.


its incredibly irritating, especially when i was eating. its' like if people told you a riddle but didn't tell you the answer. you keep thinking about it and didn't even know that you got it right.


anyway the college day celebrations was just now.
i know its the 20th college day and its supposed to be a big ceremony. but i think there was too much commotion over one day. i mean i could understand if it was for some big sponsorship or donation, but i doubt whatever they are giving can't be worth more than what you're shelling out.

i think its very much a thing about image. it's like a formality kind of thing. it's hard to ignore this event completely and you don't want to look like a kind of cheapo in front of guests even though it's ok to deprive other areas of funding, like ava. but its my opinion anyway.

and to be very very objective about it. it was not very interesting. it wasn't so much a celebration as it was a large scale gathering of people to tell them about our history and achievements, and that getting this principal was not a completely bad idea. the only really interesting part was when uncle henry and the drinks stall auntie got the service award. and of course some of the teachers as well, some more than others. but henry and the auntie got the loudest of it i think.

both the speeches were way too long and uninteresting. thorough out the speech i was thinking about what kind of face i should give next time i take a picture. it looks something like this :O and i also thought about how close a person has to be to be violating your "personal" space. generally if you were to stretch out your hand, from the tip of your fingers to the bottom of your palm is where most people whould be if they were talking to you 1 on 1. from that point to your elbow is if that person is talking about something very serious and for some reason wants to tell only you, like you have been blacklisted by the terrorists and he should be telling you about it. from your elbow all the way to your person is when a person i hugging you, if he/she is not, you are legally allowed to kick him in the groin or slap him/her. ok i made up the legal part, its more like socially tolerated.


i can't remember what else i have been thinking about for the past week. but i know it was quite a good week for me. i slept only like twice during all the lessons of the week. for some reason, i feel very confident and scared at the same time. its quite contradicting.

i also debated with elizabeth yesterday about religion, well it was more like i was invalidating her religion in particular. i find that i have to say different things to different people to convince them. that's why people are never fully convinced when they debate. because when they debate, they are only fact checking their own arguments. meaning, if pro and anti-abortion people debate, they always argue on the basis that they are correct as opposed to why the other side is wrong. so you can't ever fully convince the other side that they are wrong. this fact becomes more obvious when it comes to religion because priests already have an assumption that the bible is absolute, its' not possible to even hypothetically argue on the grounds that it is not, that's why its all from quoted from the bible. while scientists or atheists argue on the merit that it is POSSIBLE that it may be wrong and we should look for other sources for evidence, priests can't really do that. and worse still there is no real compromise for that assumption, its not like saying, it is possible to both earn money in a capitalistic way AND reduce pollution at the same time. you can't say you have believe in a bible.

anyway i have 2 very simple theories about the world, but it's incredibly difficult to convince people of it

Faith is irrational and
Either be happy or constantly try to improve, you can't have both. in order words, if you keep trying to improve, you will never be happy for a long enough period of time. i had a better phrasing in my head but i couldnt get it out.


faith is irrational is surprisingly hard to explain for some reason.
annyway, think about both of them, it's interesting to read the responses even though i know no one will bother, like all the past post pleaing for a reply.



www.lightamillioncandles.com

Jun Hols: An Epilogue

Today is the last day of the june holidays
if we want to be incredibly precise, i did an infinite times more work than i had in previous holidays. if you understand any basic math, you would realise that that is only possible if i did nothing in the past and i actually DID something this time. i actually did do 2 practices on my own, not that it is actually a homework assignment, i just needed to brush up on some maths and remembered that the topics where i suck at, i lost the entire tutorial booklet. so i ended up doing what i was good at, relatively because i suck at everything else, if i merely write more than 3 lines, its considered good.

so this holidays i made an attempt to do some kind of work. unfortunately, cambridge does not accept attempts. feeling really guilty over this. every night before i go to sleep, i keep telling myself tomorrow, first thing in the morning, i'm gonna finish blah blah blah before i switch on the computer. and never has that actually happened, except the 2 times. to the future me, whom i know will read this. The moment something good happens, don't break the flow, don't say, i'm gonna take a break and then come back the next day. the breaks never gonna end. ever. EVAR!!!


ok. wow


writing that did not make me feel any better. at all.

i decided to break my 4 weeks of holidays to review them more carefully.
week 1: 1/6 to 7/6
this is probably the week with the most promise of actually doing anything, because we had to come back for 2 or 3 days for tutorials and lectures. I did not sleep, i think. i rushed mass effect with the hopes of finally starting on actual work, which i promptly did after i finished. i was proud of myself for that. but sadly the streak only lasted for 2 days, i went back to gaming.

week 2 : 8/6 to 14/6
this was probably marked by the start of my downward spiral. i discovered bob.com.sg, which was an singapore xbox forum. so i went on to the marketplace, bought a second hand game, prototype, at slightly cheaper than retail, then hoping to sell it quickly back so to minimise losses. i did, and in my rush, i had already forgotten about school. i also bought 2 months worth of online time at around $17, which further fueled my descent.

week 3: 15/6 to 22/6
the descent basically continued, i woke up, played, ate or skipped lunch, play somemore, dinner, play, sleep. at this point, the only things going through my mind was very basic, i wanted to get to the end of my game, and not end up late where i meeting my next seller to deal. i got fallout 3 and too human, on 21st.

week 4: 23/6 to today, 29/6
technically i went to penang from 22nd to the 24th. it was a great trip, ate great food. visited my grandma, who is slowly getting hard of hearing and seeing. visited my aunt who just suffered a stroke. they shaved her head, and now she has 2 big scars on her forehead. one of her doctors doesn't even speak english or chinese or any other language they understand, he just speaks malay. and there's some kind of drama going on in my extended family, my aunts' immediate family members, that i don't know about, and my mom's not telling me. funny how a tragedy brings out the best in us. and before you say you busybody, not you or your mom business go and mess up. it actually is my mom's business, because it involves and my mom and her husband, my dad paying for her sister, my aunt's hospital bills. so yeah, it involvoes my mom.

penang food is really great, any random stall you pick out in the street is going to taste awesomer(ya, i went there) than any stall in your vicinity, even those kind where you have to go out of your way to locate, because the shop owner decided to park his shop at some weirdass location, penang has about 1 stall per coffee shop of those quality of food. so you kind just about imagine the kind of food even penang-ians consider good, and the best part is i tasted them before.


so i came back on the 25th, got jet lagged and rested up, on the 26th, gt a headache and my left eye started twitching. after that i don't really have an excuse for not doing work. this is also the time i started to feel guilty and reflected. i started to think, among other things, that is the a levels path, the way i want to. don't ask me, i haven't yet come to any meaningful conclusion.

i also kept skipping lunch throughout the holidays, not because i was overwhelmed with work, my maid just sucks at cooking plus i wake up late so i end up eating lunch at 3 and dinner with my parents at 9, which apparently is not healthy. so to avoid scolding, i skip lunch and eat dinner at 7. but now my stomach doesn't feel so good. i'm probably just a few years away from getting some kind of gastric related illness like my father.


the season 5 finale of house was awesome!!!

i actually thought episode 23 was the last episode, but it was the second last, so the cliffhanger ended with one major character sexing up another. which i guess was ok for a season finale because then you have something to build on for the next season. then i went to surf around and only then did i realised there was another episode after that. i felt stupid. so i couldn't wait, and i torrented as quickly as i could. so there's a tale of how stupid i was. but anyway THE SEASON FINALE OF HOUSE WAS AWESOME!!!


www.lightamillioncandles.com

Twitch

My Left Eye Has Been Twitching Since This Morning, Does That Mean Something?

Reality Bites

i don't why or whatever compulsion i have for marking this
but for some reason i feel like there's a need to write this down

today i saw a link on a contact of msn. it said a sale.
first thing i thought of was that it was some clothing blogshop but i clicked anyway trying to click links and get to somewhere with more interesting things, maybe gadgets or funny shirts.

so i click on it, and saw a rather polished shopping site, not like the typical blog shops with different entries as their shopfront, a sidebar with tagbox for ads and arbitrary stuff like that.

anyway, it was a shop selling clothes for ladies. and more importantly, i saw an old schoolmate as the model for most of their products.



what struck me was that, for possibly the first time in my life, i saw someone use their natural gift to help themselves out, by natural gift, i meant looks and by help themselves out, i meant earn free money and merchandise.

i mean of course, i've heard of people using looks or talking to get their boyfriends to buy them stuff, but that was always from word of mouth, there was never any real confirmation that they explicitly did reveal a little skin and got a branded bag in return.

so, i felt high for who knows what reason and decided to blog it down. anyway, at least she's pretty. it would definitely help her business that she didn't have a camwhore-y look, which ot me is definitely a deal breaker. she does have the potential to be a model, or something. but that's her own gig, i mean i never even talked to her back in school, so i guess i don't stand to gain anything.


as per my to-do list, i decided to break down the average singaporean salary and show how i would splurge on it.

based on MOM stats, the average salary for 2008 was $3977 per month.

without doing any math prior, i will try to break that down to see how much i would spend.

looking at the CPF rates, i would have to give up 20% to the government, that's $795.40

and then there's food. If i spent an average of $4.50 per meal ($3-$4 for the food itself and $1 for drinks, give or take) so i would spend $13.50 per day. Assuming i eat everyday, i would spend $405 on food per 30-day month

For transport, if i take public transport and i travel to work 6 days out of 7, assuming i spend 70 cents per trip, if i'm lucky enough to work close to home. i would work 26 days and spend $1.40 per day, hence, $36.40 per month. plus trips i take on my off day, so around maybe $15 for all 4 days if i were to take taxi once per month, plus buses for the rest. so around $51.40 per month for travel

and then for rent and utilities bills, just as a projection or a target ( meaning by 25, i want to stop living with my parents), i would want to live in a 3 room apartment, if i'm still single. for electricity, i'm guessing 55 to 60 and maybe another 5-10 for water, so around $70 i guess. for rent, i'm guessing around $1500 from all the classified ads i'm getting on the net.

For phone and online bills, my phone plan now is around, $20-$30, but i'm thinking more people will call me when i grow up HOPEFULLY, so maybe $40 for phone. And for my internet plan, if i had the choice, i would go for the fastest net service plan, so around $90.

and then for different small little funds, where i keep my money for a rainy day, or when playstation 4 comes out.

i'm thinking around $80 per month for games.
$150 per month for medical and other emergency bills, if i don't use it, just save for next time.
$1000 per month for my parents, preferably



so after all that, adding them all up, i would get



$4181.80
i exceeded my salary by about $200. which is quite reasonable because i could just scale back a little on internet and games and whatnot.

but don't forget, there are probably other fees i haven't took into consideration like insurance, paying off debts, and romance, because girls are more or less high-maintenance. so i'm guessing probably $1000-$2000 over my salary.

so yeah, that's a lot of money.


on to other news, we had a 2s10,2s11 combined barbeque. OMGWTFBBQ. Quite fun, at least people didn't separate into their own separate cliques like my past experiences. the food was good, not much gigantic wastages. so great job i guess. thanks to samuel and everyone else i don't really now was involved in organising the bbq.


woohoo.

www.lightamillioncandles.com
they have 2 million already

It Took 30 Hours.

I completed mass effect
in 5 days
30 goddamned, repetitive, bloody long, too many motherf***ing words, long hours

but don't get me wrong
it was a good game, worth every penny
good plot, good gameplay, but it was really really long

you can shorten it significantly by skipping sidequests
but your game will be significantly affected, in other words, you will suck more, and suck harder.
the sidequests are so damned repetitive, and you have to talk to so many retarded people who actually thinks your opinion matters. for example. you can talk a person out of "gene therapy" for her unborn child. when you only know her for 2 seconds.

anyway, going to replay the game to get achievements. so, at least i'll be busy


onto other news, i can't remember which days i need to go back to school
and i need to find/make a blogskin because i want to put some to-do lists and i'm too awesome to use a pen to write them down

i actually have 3 to-do lists
Work To-Do List:
revise past work
- Finish the yellow book for maths
- Do the questions in that chem paper and that weird yellow book called the ten year series
- Read up on Economics tutorials and lectures and draw mind map on my bedroom wall, just kidding, tattoo it on my forearm so i can bring it to the exam hall
- Do the physics night study worksheets


Game To-Do List:
Finish Mass Effect [check]
get money to buy assasins creed
get money to buy team fortress 2
get elite license on burnout paradise
help my bro buy MS points
I cant remember the rest


Blog To-Do List:
get a new blog skin
write a post on stereotypes of players of certain instruments
break down the diferent things i would and have to spend money on with an average singaporean salary
write something about interest, how is it that something can be interesting to one but not the other
write about that pro-gun argument i heard from a podcast
write about how to sound smart
save the world from utter destruction, or just downtown tokyo


time to get cracking


www.lightamillioncandles.com
help end it

I have a lot more enemies than i thought

or you know, that 1, measly enemy likes to visit my blog, who knows?

Alternative mediums

I saw a great video "lecturer" if you can call him that. Daniel Floyd, *Character Animator (in training)* . He did a few great pieces regarding video games which make quite a few good arguments to push video games as an art form. While most (3 out of 4) of his videos typically have more relevance for media students or game developers, his one piece make a lot of sense to me, us or basically all students.



he talks about tangential learning, first introduced to me by Randy Pausch, lecturer of The Last Lecture, as he calls "head fakes".

tangential learning or Self-motivated learning is a much greater way of learning because, for the teachers and parents, it results in greater absorption of the knowledge, meaning when you understood differentiation, you can remember it longer than a week if you did it through tangential learning.

but what is it exactly, lets' use an example to illustrate. say you watched a movie about da vinci, called the Da Vinci Code (subtle right), and you got really interested and you googled da vinci, just for the heck of it. you could have just learnt about the vitruvian man and his other great works, and probably a bit about the renaissance in Italy or the history of the bible and all that. now you must be wondering, hey man not everyone does that, but just think about it, if only 10% of the audience googled, 57,600 people would have benefitted, and thats only counting the people who bought the book itself.

a lot of times, alternative mediums of learning are being overlooked simply because it wasn't direct. Turns out, according to scientific research, indirect learning is better. sometimes, i feel quite disappointed that such alternative means are not being used in the classroom more often. the suits always say that we are trying to expand your horizons by teaching outside the classroom" you mean it never occurred to anyone that the location doesn't make as big an impact as the cost suggests. i enjoyed the video lectures that are used in our GP lectures, not because the teacher is boring, but because they help people remember facts better.

if you watched the video, which some of you may while some of you won't, i'm not surprised, i myself am tired of looking at videos of korean boy bands and girl bands dancing and lip synching in my friends blogs also. anyway, i do reccomend watching them, great wealth of information in delightful animated format.

i am a fan of animation, and comedy. thats why i found this video to be so appealing. because i enjoyed being fed new information in a refreshing context. if you have any idea what kind of person i am, you would realize that i don't study for the sake of a piece of paper. i study because i want to know more about the rest of the world. that's why i don't mug, per se.

i'm not asking the gp teachers to go nuts and attend animation courses,(though i wouldn't mind spending MOE's money on something useful) but you may be wondering what other ways of transfering information is there besides the awesome animated shorts.

well, there's debate. i find it quite sad that this isn't used much this year, i really enjoyed them last year in miss ni's classes, even though they are more like presentations. i think underestimating debates is quite a big mistake. first of all researching for the materials and argueing, you already have one layer of information in the students' heads already, and for those who are arguing for the opposition, because you have to argue, you actually have to listen and you can't switch off and hibernate. and then there's the rebuttals and coounter and counter counters and ........ but you say, its too much stuff for one person, and if i set them up in groups, people slack off. well, its not really too much for one person, if you help the group split it up or "facilitate" the delegation of work, without giving away any answers. so everyone actually needs to work, and if need be the teacher can decide who to be the next to argue so people again cannot slack off.


and then there's the problem of people not doing work at home. well, torture is always an option. hahas. i really really understand this problem because i am guilty. heck i am so guilty that . well, its not a pretty solution, but there's the stress on CA marks or that seeing parents after prelims or something like that, should CA marks not work. i think a very good solution would be to use an interesting topic to start with. and strangely, you don't need an inherently interesting topic to start with. it doesn't need to be something likely debating the use of abortion or even something more local like whether Direct School Admission is good for Singapore. Heck it could be as boring as the canteen aunties. it simply needs to be "packaged" as something interesting like debating the need for staff and workers vs the alternatives (eg robots or vending machines). we are the Internet generation, the Japan-ised generation, we want instant gratification and nice packaging at that. we don't want big words and retarded statistics. ever.


and then there's the problem that it doesn't help you directly. well, content is most obvious. but the researching itself allows students to exercise the skills in considering all levels or PERMS or SPERM or whatever MREPS. As for presenting and arguing itself, students can be "reminded" to organize their arguments and present using AREEC or they are disqualified and punished to write an essay or something like that. if getting good grades for MYE meant less work, i would have gotten an A, trust me.


i know that teaching is a tough job. and i know that you guys out there are or know a lot of great teachers. its a stressful job as well. i'm just offering a simple manner to help you help us. hell, criticise this as much as you want for all i care, but let me know. i'd rather get insulted but improved, than insult you back and not benefit from anything. i hereby extend an invitation to anyone to criticise my plans in my tagbox.

i should be studying for economics, but this is actual economics at work, affecting workers all around me.
i finally know what subprime mortgages mean

http://www.crisisofcredit.com/




help them light a candle
www.lightamillioncandles.com

i got a lot of things i want to say, but i forgot

from an old friend and seniors blog.

before you go to sleep tonight, ask yourself this question. would you rather have a dream or a nightmare?
before you dismiss this, think about it. very carefully

when you have a dream, sure its nice and awesome and all that, but you still have to wake up some time and realize its not there.
but if you had a nightmare, there's always the amazing relief to wake up and say HOLYWTFOMGBBQ.

that was really food for thought.

and she went on to explain about not being able to realize the dream of going to Delaware, USA.
i'm not going to elaborate here

so i thought about it myself
i don't really have any really life altering or traumatic nightmares before yet so i can't say much about that.
about dreams,

for a really long time, i have made a small but true observation about myself.
i have no endgame. If you watch any action movie or anything where a plan is involved (particularly one where they rob a bank), its how you make the escape and then spend all that cash you so dirtily attained on a beach with some hot babes in bikinis around your arms.

but i digress, anyway, i don't know what i want out of life, i have no plans whatsoever. i don't even have a really legitimate reason for studying, at least i can't convince myself that it is true. for that matter, i don't even have a passion to pursue. at least for some people, if they left school, they could go on to be photographers and drummers and artists and all that. i don't have that. i don't have any "real" passion. what i have are "pastimes" or extended sessions where my hands are kept busy. the only reason i do any of the stuff i do is so that when the internet crashes or i'm in an mrt, i wont go nuts. i have an incredibly short attention span, and if i'm not interested anymore , i move on. and these extended sessions do not get me anywhere. i can't set up a magic show and be a professional magician. i can't barely juggle for nuts. i suck at pool. and i barely play games long enough for me to go pro.

so there. i'm really stuck. heck i don't even know what job i'm gonna take in the future. i don't wanna be a soldier, i can't run a friggin 2.4 km in 15 mins, and girls break that regularly. i don't wanna be an engineer, i just wanna play with a newton's cradle and some magnets. i don't wanna be an architect, i just like looking at buildings, i don't even have a portfolio. i don't wanna be a teacher, i just fancy the idea of saying things and people listening.

and all this i'm just talking about my career prospects. i don't have a girlfriend. heck i don't even know if i can get one within the next five years.
and then there's the other people, the poor and the less fortunate. all my life, i knew deep down i was lucky, and i knew i had to pay someone back. but i don't know whether that day will ever come where i pick up the courage to lend a hand. i knew i wanted to change the world, but thats just a rough hazy idea just floating around. i need solid concrete plans.



holy crap, wake me up.



i think i just bummed myself out writing this post.. anyway, that was not how i intended to write this. the post above is separated so i have a non-bummed out version

From Plato,

Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils - no, nor the human race, as I believe - and then only will this our State have a possibility of life and behold the light of day

from wikiquote

quite an awesome quote

the only reason i can remember it was because i was introduced to it in the from of "plato believed that the government should be run by a small group of "philosopher kings""

philosopher kings is the awesomest phrase i have ever heard.

i could say it all day and never get bored of it.


without me, its just aweso

Superpowers

after watching heroes

i started to think about superpowers

woohoo. a little bit about my choices and the history behind it.

when i was in primary school, which was like the power rangers era and the still watching channel 8 drama and don't worry be happy era.

boys would always ask, if you can choose one superpower, what would it be, super intelligence or super strength. the answer would always be super intelligence, and the explanation is that if you had super intelligence to create other superpowers and give yourself. simple right.

and then i went through my secondary school years, trying to be some kind of loner because that was what i thought was cool, which now sounds stupid, but still cool.
at that time i wanted to be invisible. because that would totally blend in with my loner persona and i was totally not trying to conceal the fact that i suck or anything. SERIOUS!! (jkjk)

but ever since i saw the flash, which i cannot remember when exactly, but it is most likely justice league.
anyway, i wanted to and still want to have super speed. part of the reason is probably because the flash is funny, i've always liked certain superheroes for that 1 reason, like spiderman, the flash and deadpool a bit.

but super speed would still be on top of my list, along with electricity manipulation, i don't really think i have an explanation for that force lightning is just cool.

but still there are definitely some powers i would put as low priority

like:
super strength
flight
laser eyes
high tech suit (which isnt really a power)

anyway, tts all i have been doing for the weekend instead of studying.
oh ya and finding old tcs shows songs like 我爱精灵 2 福满人间 and 敢敢做个开心人
still gt some others but you can find them by yourself.

www.lightamillioncandles.com

Where to study

I used to think Australia would be the best place to study, after hearing all the cool stories from other people who studied there.
but now it has achieved 2nd place, but a close second nonetheless.

i now want to study in London, or anywhere in Civilised parts of the European Union.

firstly, its a relatively cold country, compared to australia which is dry and uv light is burning through

then there are the chio bu(s), i think people from both country are beautiful, though not as beautiful as brazilians, drools... But still, think of the accent.

and then there's the different atmosphere. Australia is the more outdoor kind of people compared to UK, which in my book is a good thing, until i realise i'm not even half as fit as them.

these are just some reasons i can think of off the top of my head. i still want to go to LA, California or New York to work or live some day, but not as a tourist, as part of the culture.

Euthanasia

There are two Hindu points of view on euthanasia. By helping to end a painful life a person is performing a good deed and so fulfilling their moral obligations. On the other hand, by helping to end a life, even one filled with suffering, a person is disturbing the timing of the cycle of death and rebirth. This is a bad thing to do, and those involved in the euthanasia will take on the remaining karma of the patient. However, the same argument suggests that keeping a person artificially alive on a life-support machines would also be a bad thing to do.
-Wikipedia

moral conflict

post 151

woohoo post 151


been a bad week
but trying to keep positive
succeeded a little bit until like about 10 seconds ago
when i read my tagbox

i write like a few posts a month for the last month, a few tags start trickling in
then the moment i start to point fingers, everyone starts to get defensive and say hey man frog in well, myopic, short sighted, biased, self centered.

that kind of comments

and ya i have had my share of really really nasty comments
every year
except 08, which was lucky

controversy generates publicity. in 7 days i generated like 34 hits or less whereas it took me around a month to get the same. its kind of unfair
it sort of satisfies the attention whore in me. just so you know

anyway, i am going to read their responses, so i don't end up being so myopic, you know. must learn from mistake. THINK FLEXIBLY.

and now i'm back

caixin doesnt have a blog so i can't like say much, and weijie did not grace me with a blog reply, so i aso cannot say much, and most importantly, my friend Eugene who is not from SR wants you guys to forgive me, strange


ok, so i need sort of like a response to respond to such responses to me responding to them, taking a goddamn photo.

wow

what a responsibility. and to be absolutely clear, i treat them as my friends, if they no longer do so after seeing what i write, i can't really blame them. but i write this way because i am blunt. stubborn maybe, but i'm definitely not trying to make any enemies here.

unlike 2 years ago


so caixin and weijie comes from 2 different perspectives.
lets' address weijie first because it is like easier. what i understand is that, if i work hard enough to achieve what i want, and enough glory has been bestowed upon me, i need not pick up litter, or some minute things like that. that view is what my mother has been trying to tell me all these years, and she's not wrong. the only reason we work hard is so that we need not do crap work. but the your focus of working hard is not to improve, it becomes to get out of this shithole, which to me is the wrong attitude. (again understand that from it is from this train of thought, not necessarily your own personality or mentality, wei jie.) so ya it kind of is wrong not to help. pele and zidane both made tremendous contributions to social situations in their own country, despite their success because they remembered that it was their country and their families and their people who supported them and gave them what it took to succeed on an international stage.

then theres the what makes me so certain they didnt help. i'm not, everything i understand comes from what i perceive, so if i had not perceived that you help, naturally i would have had the general understanding that you did not, UNTIL someone tells me otherwise, (does that make sense? it sounds kind of ok in my head) if i didnt see a tree get struck by lightning and that's why it's on fire, i would have thought some punks or dry weather, UNTIL someone told me otherwise, in a condescending manner or not.

and there kind of is nothing wrong with the photo, now that i think about it. i think

and then comes the frog in the well. Aren't we all. the only way not to be one is to know exactly what is going on with everyone in the world, so tell me, do you know what i do for council everyday, also no right, so that kind of makes you and me equal, (except that you didn't judge me or just that i don't know of it.) so now we're officially not equal. i'm the frog who made a noise, but you're the one who didn't

so thats' about it for weijie's comments, now for caixin.

he said they did, so now i know, kind of. and it kind of wasn't possible to help me because i was not in need of help, kind of, they were. " don't base you assumptions on me" "*base it on yourself" kind of did not make sense to me. what i think it means is that i shouldn't base my"assumptions" on other people, probably the stuff about pride and stuff, which still doesn't make sense.if gp teaches one thing, its that never ASSUME, and theres no absolute in this world.

so i cleared it up with caixin, he says that if i assume something and once it offends someone, its called accusing. which i now am guilty of. but that knid of wasn't the point of what i wrote. what i wanted to say was that when people work hard to attain glory, they will forget about the "little people", which based on my assumption is correct, but it is a biased view because i did not make sure that they were absolutely not helping them before i implied that they did not help others.
so that was kind of the falw he pointed out. i hate losing an argument

but the loser bodoh thing was absolutely true, because i absolutely heard it with my absolute ears. absolutely

when i talk negatively about myself, i think room for improvement, people think emo kia. when i talk negatively about people in general, people think i gt too much time. when i talke negatively about certain people specifically, they think im finger pointing and start to become defensive. all people are like that. me you bush obama track team councillors teachers principals staff canteen aunties. everyone.

in hindsight if i had not "finger pointed" maybe people would not have responded. if i had used the word sportsman or competitors people may just skip on through them and pass it by. but that was not the point. theres not point in being politically correct if you are just saying things that people already know. i have a unique style of writing and speaking in that i want to use words that provoke thought, make people think, make them reflect on why the world sucks and whether or not it is really their fault.

I live in an unfair world because everyone in that unfair world is being unfair to someone else. including me. that is why i remain pessimistic about everything and it generally hasn't let me down. or up, or whatever. i cannot understand the rationalization for being optimistic, like its ok you'll score that A next time or at least you tried your best. know that you tried your best merely gives you an upper limit. if you know you tried your best but failed, are you supposed to feel good, because i wouldn't. i would say this is not my best, i could have worked even harder and gotten that gold. trying your best becomes like an excuse rather than an encouragement.

oh ya and theres the mysterious Eugene who is supposedly in poly now and doesnt know much about my sr life. i just spoke to the only eugene i know and he just thinks sr people english powerful. so i don't know what your trying to do, but i unknowingly scolded my friend because i thought it was him. so congratulations.

go there now
www.lightamillioncandles.com
NOW

number 150

p0st number 15o

sr olympics was yesterday
gd job to all the organizers
now they know how hard our job is
hahas

all i did tt day was watch people run and then play upwords with michael desheng and sihao

but 2 things happened that day that really made me think

firstly, cheerleaders
no doubt, everyone was talking about them, i was telling a few of my friends we wont be seeing them anymore next year.
they did quite a "sexy" (close to being slutty) dances. and i was sitting next to my friend adam, who was once a cheerleader and i told him, that's not cheerleading, thats dance. he agreed. firstly, you had to give them credit for taking iniative to things like that, purely voluntary. so with that out of the way, they did mostly dances to pop or hip hop music dancing with their asses. there was 1 move where they just, in slow motion pointed their ass into the air swayed their asses across for like 5 seconds. so obviously, a problem in conservative singapore. lots of girls i talked to immediately mentioned slutty out right, no arguments there.

but then again,


it made me think, who or what made such "slutty" moves slutty in a negative sense. im not trying to defend it. it was stupid to do it in a school environment, it would have been better in a bar or something. what i'm pondering about, and inviting you to think about as well, is why is putting yourself out there, and attracting the opposite sex, such a taboo and looked down upon kind of behaviour. people tend to retort by saying, it cheapens them. but think about it, it is the person or persons who see them cheapening them, rather than they cheapening themselves. the difference is that their actions are the guilty party, but the people who perceive it and jump to conclusions. thats' my philosophical viewpoint at least, if you can call it that.

if i can speak for all guys, (which i probably can depending on how much u think of me as a guy) i would say that i am not very disturbed by this, but some will probably find it very attractive. For me particularly, i feel that it was a change of pace, not the best one, but changes should be appreciated for they are refreshing,( i don't know how much sense that made, but anyway) to me those girls are putting themselves out there and flaunting what they have, i would see them as the ones guys and lesbians target first in a bar, bang them and leave. and i think its going to be on a regular basis. i'm not saying that i may never meet someone like that and have them as a potential life partner, but who knows.

after that much talk about cheerleaders.
lets talk about something else. afthe sr olympics, i went looking for some friends to have lunch as we had a meeting later. so i went down to look for them. naturally or instinctively, i had this compelling urge to help them, even though i didn't want to help them. so i went to clear out the torch holding thing which had a lot of oil and hot water. thats not really the point. the point is that many competitors passed by us and the "official" helpers, those organizers and their volunteers, very very few volunteered to lend a hand. and more strikingly, because they were all wearing the same attire, the track team did not offer to help. so what i saw was them walking around the pe office with their medals and their jackets and their pride just walking around and posing outside for a group photo at the field. it really strikes a chord because you,(or just me) got this really strong vibe that they are the ones who are going to win but they dont spare a thought for those who helped them there, those who gave them the stage to do what they do best. this little line floated into my head that day. "in life there a winners and workers. winners put in all their effort and they either win or lose. workers put in all their effort and they either get recognised or forgotten." its quite sad. on top i heard one of them jeering at some mc or something for "loser bodoh", i cant really recall what it was about, but i remembered he was talking about the runners for sure.

life isn't fair, this adage is only true when you are the one at the disadvantage. no one who benefitted from unfairness ever complained. that is the ultimate problem. we know that life isn't fair only when we have problems, because we are self absorbed. we only know the problems that we ourselves face and we turn a blind eye when other people are suffering so we can benefit from them. Selfishness only leads to injustice. it's really quite a sad truth.


post number 150

www.lightamillioncandles.com

once

this happens only once

took me so long to garner so many hits, shows tt this isnt a very popular blog, hahas
anyway din get to change the blogskin in time

btw this is the 149th post

awesome


www.lightamillioncandles.com

Extension/Variation of the Chicago Opener

i need to put this here before i forget it.
if you don't wanna be spoiled the next time i show this to you don't highlight the words below

set-up
one blue and 1 red of the same card (eg. 1 blue and 1 red back ace of clubs) place at the bottom of deck, red on top of blue. meaning the blue is the last card of the deck

trick itself.
swing cut and riffle force. show the card and get them to remember it.
complete the cut in the exact same position. at this point, the order should be red ace, blue ace, their card, this 3 somewhere in the middle.
magical gesture then spread through the deck to show the blue
cut the deck so that the blue is on top
DL the 2 cards to reveal that their card has changed into the blue
close it and put it aside, but in their view, not in a pocket or something.. now the blue ace is at one side, the red ace is at the bottom and their card is on top.
swing cut again, but under misdirection or patter or whatever, drop the last card on the top packet to the bottom packet, showing the bottom red ace.
take it out and reinforce that that card is red
complete the cut keeping the top on top and the bottom at the bottom, meaning their card is still on top.
fan out and let them put in the card, showing that all the other cards are red as well.
now 2 things can happen:
1) (my preferred method, but needs a surface like a table, or the palm of their hands) take the blue card on the surface and spring the deck on top of it, retaining the top card as their card, to them it looks like their card "floated" up to the top, and then show the bottom blue is the ace, their second chosen card, as the finish. show every other card is red if they want to see.
2) same thing but reversed order. do a magical gesture. but show as if something went wrong and you cant find the blue card. then do some patter, to reinforce you screwed up and that the blue card is their first card. spring the deck show their first card went up to the top and show the last blue card is their 2nd card.

i can't remember

i can't remember the last time i said (or shouted) Oh My God out loud after i see something

this is gonna restart the whole counter again.

it was impulsively, Oh My God. kinda like looking at cute kitten scratching its head and going awwwwww

i don't know why i use the word god so often, impulse also i guess

The Observations Of G

you know how you have been seeing certain people throughout your whole secondary school life, but never really talk to them.

then you see these kind of people, whom you will never make the mental connection that they even talk to each other, actually outside of school at a cinema.

and then you realise that they are going steady and are already a couple. and you give that WTF face

all of that in a cinema in suntec, the old one. after watching Watchmen which you snuck into, but the auntie never bothered to check your IC. So imagine, WTF face in a cinema, after Watchmen.

and then a few weeks or months or who knows how long later. you blog hop and reach one of their blogs and see a picture of them together. again the WTF face reappears.

its really amazing how some people just don''t look like a couple when they stand next to each other. Bu Pei Jiu Shi Bu Pei

another observation of G

Isn't It Strange How Proper Lighting Needs An Umbrella To Work Properly

so strange

i wanna change my blogskin before my 10,000th visitor
but i can't find a nice one
all the other blogskins just don't "feel" like it belongs to my blog
weird

www.lightamillioncandles.com

Funny

the National Service Registration website
when did homosexuality become either a social or medical problem

or u noe that they need to know if you smoke and have tattoos

woohoo twilight

sux

hahas

now i actually have some kind of idea wtf the story is about, i will attempt to convince you that this is not a novel teenage girls or anyone, for that matter, should read

i will attempt to dissect this book

without reading it........................lol

this is coming from a guy, a physics student with no background in literature whatsoever. so it may sound a bit unprofessional and you know, honest.

i came across 2 articles recently, which brought up the topic of twilight, and vampires in general

Cracked article on twilight
&
Cracked article on vampires

lets take a step back to when vampires were cool, or at least scary.

vampires used to belong in horror movies, with vampires like nosferatu and count dracula
they used to be scary and bite people, and occasionally had a reason to do so.
but the emphasis is on the biting and scaring

taking that away from them is the equivalent of taking the funny out of chris rock.

then we fast forward and reach twilight era.

where vampires sparkle.
firstly, WTF
rainbows sparkle
unicorns sparkle
care bears sparkle ( see the connection )
vampires do not

2nd, it has no point or meaning, either logically or as a literature device, is sparkling supposed to represent some innate goodness that only edward and friends have, which the rest do not. maybe im missing something here, but then again, maybe im not

then comes the writing style
Quoted from cracked.com:

The series is characterized by its exemplary writing style:

"Aren't you hungry?" he asked, distracted.

"No." I didn't feel like mentioning that my stomach was already full - full of butterflies.


now you see why meyers (the author) and the producers are swimming in money.

so you get edward, meyers godlike boytoy and bella, the really smart girl whom everyone likes and is clumsy. because every protagonist needs exactly one 1 flaw.

so we go into book 1:
From cracked:

Despite being so plain, Bella is admired by everyone in her new hometown of Forks, Washington, especially Edward Cullen. Originally, Edward just wanted to eat her, but, disappointingly, realizes eventually that in fact what he is feeling is true love, and after a couple of days they start dating. After two or three weeks, Bella is begging him to turn her into a vampire because of true love.

then edward shows off his glittery goodness and they lie on the grass
Three hundred pages after "Oh, you like me too? No way, I thought you hated me!" and that kind of crap, the plot jumps out the window and commits suicide


book 2!:
realizing how much i wrote im just gonna skip ahead

lessons from this book

1) If a guy dumps you and says he doesn't love you anymore, he doesn't mean it. All you have to do is beg and destroy your life to prove that you really love him, and he'll come right back and love you even more!

2) It is perfectly cool to string along innocent but decent guys who are crushing on you and then dump them immediately as soon as your ex-boyfriend reappears, and totally normal if said ex-boyfriend forbids you from seeing your old friend. After all, your love for your ex must be far stronger, because he makes you feel 'alive' and 'dangerous' since he's always on the verge of killing you. And stalking you. We can't really mention that enough.

if you read the book, think about it, does it make any sense?

FOR MORE GO TO CRACKED.COM

common opinion about this book is that it was written as meyers sexual fantasies rather than an actual novel. at least harry potter could have a little suspension of disbelief, for a while.

examples of good novels for me include: Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns and i can't really think of anything else

www.lightamillioncandles.com

random updates

been really tired lately
homework's been piling up
plus i bought burnout paradise which is fun
really fun

anyway
lots of file checks
so that means i nid to actually do the work
plus all the subjects have extra enrichment and special attention and all tt
so like don't be surprised to stay back til 8 pm with a teacher who's there to look at u do work

naha hasnt given me back my cards
and mr yong's training is killing my arms
just very tired

tts all i have to write for now
i had thought about quite a bit for the last 2 days but i can't remember

reflections

my bro just came back from his npcc leisure camp
brings back a lot of old memories
went looking for old pictures and looking at old friends' blogs
wonder what happened

when did they become "old" friends
when did i stop talking to them
time does that

anyway
gave him a bit of advice before he went off to his camp
i don't think he needed much of it
he had a kind of friendly personality, which kind of made him stand out from the rest
he would make a much better cadet than me
at least in lower sec

anyway, he told me he got nominated for best camper, got third place
i felt really proud of him
but i din tell him
i think he would have been the first
but i din tell him

anyway, he also told me that a lot of my "old" friends knew that he was my brother
i wanted to drop by and pay a visit
but never did
it never feels appropriate
feel like getting some of my old squadmates and just see a campfire or something
never did
don't wanna turn up like an unwanted guest
so i never did
anyone who is still in holy np, invite me back for something leh !

i dun wanna go back by myself
it feels really awkward
the people whom i talk to tend to be busy
while the rest, i dont have much to talk about
on the HI anniversary when i went back, i literally had nothing to talk about
i just went up, said hi, talked about a camp for like 3 sentences and just said goodbye

it just feels really awkward
hard to explain

saw a lot of them grasp opportunities given to them
regretted i never did
they are planning for events for an area 7 of around 8-9 schools when they are 16-17
while i took on my first school wide organizing in J2
always felt i had late development
like im a late boomer
or just a late


thing

i used to blame other people for not giving me the opportunity to shine, especially people in higher position
but now in council, and seeing my brother, i realized that it was never because there was no opportunity
i just never grasped it
my brother showed me that
just a little too late i guess
but like the principal says
you still have a long way to go, i mean i'm not wishing you any bad luck
but are you sure that you haven't passed the halfway mark of your life

i sure hope so too

anyway, miss the old days
wish they were back
miss my old friends
wish they would talk
miss my uniform
wish i could do drills in

miss np
alot


i think this is all nostalgic

anyone who reads this, still in np, let's organize a get-together, put all the ugly memories behind us and enjoy each others' company for a day


had the principal's rally yesterday
quite long
but interesting
i can't really remember what he said
but i remember dreams, perseverance, not knowing where you are in life

and horse breaking
and that swimmer
and lky and marina barrage
and terry fox

and that's about it

hope my brother can excel in NPCC


www.lightamillioncandles.com

BTW

My school ran out of water and i got a E for a levels chinese


and


my dog is afraid of thunder

really afraid

I Want To

Work In A Place Where Explosions Happen On A Regular Basis

Kind Of Like MythBusters, Except Less Cameras

Also, Lego, I want to work there too

or bartending, thats cool too

or teaching

or architect, but that needs an interview just to get into the faculty, nt even employment yet


in the mean time, i probably have to accept engineering
or soldier, NS!!


www.llightamillioncandles.com

should i

question: should i quit?

yay!

exclamation mark


yay somebody tagged

woohoo

anyway, today was um
ok
bearable rather


nothing much happened today
tried to stay awake during class
failed miserably
hahas

had my napfa yesterday
failed everything that people usually fail
got a pathetic 190 cm for standing broad jump
did 1 pull up
it was more like half but it din matter
exceeded 16 minutes for the 2.4 run
in fact i almost failed my sit and reach
first time gt 39
den gt a 41 next time
all because i was wearing shoes
shouldnt have listened to the teacher
my shuttle run was 9.something either a 9.4 or 9.8 i cant really remember
all i could remember was running very loudly and stamping it trying to stop

so tts my week, nothing interesting



www.lightamillioncandles.com
more people must tag!

Response

people ask me why i dont update often in my blog

i dont because people don't tag

i respond to changes
that's basically why i catch things faster than others

anyway if you wanna see me post

den TAG
it rox


www.lightamillioncandles.com
they rox too

All magicians are

lying, cheating swindlers

but you know what's worse
people who sell you magic (stuff)

basically, because you are buying an idea rather than an actual item, most of the time. they can charge you exorbitant prices for that idea

so today i bought 2 things, 1 thumb tip flame and 1 ghost deck

the ghost deck was awesome no doubt about it

but the thumb tip flame was just a goddamed fake thumb with a wick attached, the metal even came off after 2 tries
i am completely disappointed with this and best of all, guess how much it's sold in retail
$30
thirty hard-earned dollars
you cant even light it on it's own, its just a stinking fake thumb with a failing wick
this will really teach me to do MORE research before buying stuff
but still i did try and find videos of it in action but i couldn't
so i thought lets go with the gut feeling
which failed
damn


the thing about magic being sold is that many times you will never find out until you fork out the cash
for example, a tattoo joe dvd is sold on the premise that it will teach you a trick that supposedly makes a tattoo appear on your hand and then disappear. that tattoo can be anything, a card, a name, a kiss

it costs 75$


seventy five dollars


and i torrented the video only to find out that the trick only included one magic marker
the trick itself comprised of using pantyhose with your words written covering you hand

roll it up behind your sleeve and unroll as you show it


seventy five dollars for that

i feel sorry for people who bought it

sianz still missing my 30 $


www.lightamillioncandles.com

Orientation 09

fun
tiring
3 months of work for 4 days
worth giving freshman a good impression


anyway today is the last day, i was stuck with ava duty, which meant i din handle any technical stuff, just look after the ava people and give them instructions
so that meant i couldn't hang out with scavenger hunt people
thats sad

anyway, the finale went quite well, but it was only after close to 3 hours of rehearsals before we got to that level, if it was like last year, everything would have been screwed up.

i saw a girl at the beauty pageant which immediately caught my attention, she had a very outgoing and fun kind of look, that was an amazing look for her, but i wouldnt be surprised if she had a boyfriend, i mean anyone who looked like that is bound to attract attention.

i also saw a lesbian couple kissing, when neither of them looked butch. i was looking through the bus window at the station opposite so it might have been a guy, might have been


anyway, the teachers were the people who did the most for the orientation so props to them.



www.lightamillioncandles.com

Lessons On A Bike

Never wear long pants, especially the uniform kind on a bike

orientation has been going on for today
i gt first aid duty, even though im not a first aider
first day forgot to borrow bike so had to take bus, dam waste money
so borrowed the bike on the second day
now my butt very sore from going uphill and downhill so many times

on the orientation, the response from the freshman were quite good, they were quite responsive, only maybe 1 out of 8 were not that high
i stayed at pounggol park the longest, cuz its the furthest and i lazy go back, hahas
i think theres a lot of potential to really make them go even higher, but i seem to be the only one caring,
i dunno, maybe because i'm that kind of person


anyway, a few days ago i was looking around facebook and i saw a photo of my old primary school classmate, which is very shocking cuz it changed a lot. the photo was like 1 guy standing 2 guys sitting on the floor, at first i look at the guy standing den i tot it wasnt him, den i looked at the 2 sitting down, and realized that since they completely dont look like him, the guy who was standing, ie the one i saw first, had to be him. i was so shocked that he changed i showed it to my other pri6 friend yang. he was also just as shocked as me
so we were wondering, if they saw us now after so many years, would they see a big difference,
i don't think my face changed much, maybe just thinner a bit?

orientation still ahs 2 more days, lets hope it goes uphill from here

week 5

the week was quite okay, skipped a few lessons because of orientation, so even when the orientation part was over, just took my time to walk around school vefore heading back to class

got my black tiger deck, last weekend, chink just upped and say, go dhoby gaut la, when we were deciding wad to do after chem lesson. so i went there and bought tt deck, very beautiful, but not cheap, at 12$ a pop, i am taking care of them well.

anyway, practised some prestidigitation during school adn after.

but the most interesting thing this week has still got to be this

feel free to look at bigger version

shocking right?
me and a bunch of friends were walking down this road along kallang when we passed by an ad of the body piercing shop, so he said i bet you $50 bucks he wont do it ever in his life. so i was like high or something and said i do now la

then this happened, im still kinda shocked it did happen.

anyway, heres another picture,

anyway looking forward to peoples' reactions.
hahas, i think im still high







www.lightamillioncandles.com

Updatesz!

today is chinese new year so means got ang pao and skip school. but also means have to visit extended family, which sucks. anyway, does anyone know why i hate them. but tts not important


in the past week many things happened

we played rock band! me, chen, joel, darren, junqiang, yuan hong rocked at rock band. this is significant because its the first time i have photos to back it up, hahahs



and then there was the flag day
i neded to spend 5 hours doing flag day cuz i skipped school during the holidays, allegedly.
so i had to go for this o joy care flag day in kallang
i saw the map on the internet and then decided to take 80, because it seemed quite close. then i went and took 80, on the way i smsed kh jelena xt and yang to come out and kill time with me
kh cldnt make it, but the rest could, so on the sms we decided to watch inkheart
anyway about the trip, i just passed by the aljunied mrt station and then i decided hey its only a few more stops away, so i was like intently looking at all the bus stops which indicated where i am, so i sat there and waited and waited and waited, i waited until i realised i was in bugis, so i was like screwed, so i went out and took the mrt station, and ended up reaching 1 hour late, which means by the time my cip finish, i would have only clocked 4.5 hours, which is .5 hours too little. damn it, then as i was walking out, i realised that a 62 woould have reached here, damn it, my house has a 62!.

but that was the interesting part about that day, we, yang xt and jelena, went to plaza sing to talk and eat, so we went shopping for jelenas backpack first, then went to the coffee club to eat, and talk. so i showed some of my magic tricks, with brand new bicycle poker cards, woohoo!. anyway, some tricks failed miserably, but some were quite funny to watch. but we talked abit about life in a new environment, we should be studying, all that. by the way, xiaotong drinks faster now! so after that we went to sushi teh to makan. jelena started to ask me about some stuff like abortion, things that are in the moral grey area. so thats kind of what we talked about from that time all the way till the mrt stopped. we talked about religion and abortion and gender and lots of stuff, about how we process things in our heads. and we sat at the mrt stairs until they made the announcement that it was the last train leaving. anyway, there is a lot to be learnt about each other, we just never take the opportunity to open up.

now back to CNY eve, my brother wanted to go the chinatown, so we did, there wer a lot of china ppl there, like a sea of them, so we walked the streets, as we reached a junction, we started to realise oh shit, i can't move anywhere, it was likethis wave of people around you pushing and pulling, and i was holding on to my mother's hand like i never held on before, the "tide" was so strong that as my mother was pushed further in front, people immediately took up the space between her hand and mine, it was quite a fun experience, but quite scary also in the sense that we would get lost, but that wouldnt matter since we had handphones and money to take cabs. hahas. but, this is the kind of experience that kind of defines how much of life you have been through, that kind of thing.

anyway, im ending off here, and still don't wanna visit my extended family.



www.lightamillioncandles.com

BTW it's the dark knight

last friday, we had the first day of the pre orientation training camp, potc(pirates of the carribean)
it was quite fun, the GFs were surprisingly responsive and they were all very responsive, you could almost feel the vibe that they have pride in what they do work, so i hope they keep this up. the 5 houses also did a good job despite it being after their school and all.

the second day, a saturday, we started off with leadership talk by ms ang and mrs theng. i think they were the perfect people to give any kind of lecture because they are a lot more interesting and they can keep people engaged. anyway, it was followed by the amazing race which, we realised that the maps were printed out for them, so we had to lead them, and the route was quite screwed up so theres a lot more traveling by bus than required, plus it was quite a hot day so we ended up very shag after that

but the very uplifting thing was that, after that during the scavenger hunt. the people became much more lively, and the GFs were also much more enthusiastic, i'd like to think they influenced each other somehow. my house, Aquila starting running to the other stations, leaving ms ang behind running slowly in her what looks like expensive shoes. so i was really proud of them for being so upbeat during this.

after that was the warm fuzzys thing, people passed around cards with their names and just wrote good stuff and well wishes on the card. it was simple and cheap and meaningful, perfect for the school.

so at dinner time, we ( me , jelena and wen hui) went to pizza hut to celebrate the birthday of YANG, yay!. hahas, we ate quite a lot, and i blurted out about his cake, thinking that we forgot about it, clearly girls don't forget anything. anyway, the only people who caught the joke was like only 4. we went to pool after that to play for about 2 hours before going home


anyway, if theres one thing i learnt throughout the weekend, its that people like to be encouraged, and they work better when encouraged. but im not that kind of person, nobdy in my house encourages anyone else, we just say you better do this ( score well) or i will kick you out of the house. maybe that's why



anyway, really proud of aquila, hope they keep it up, plus i've been listening to some classic beatles songs, like help and please mister postman, and when i look at them, i find it very difficult to believe that they are the ones who do hard drugs like rockers, they just look so friendly




www.lightamillioncandles.com

A Thought-Provoking Paragraph

[He] Won, Harvey's prosecution, everything he fought for, undone, every chance you get for fixing our city dies with Harvey's reputation we bet it all on him,[He] took the best of us and tore it down, people will lose hope. They won't, they must never know what he did,

[He] cannot win, Gotham needs a true hero. You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain. i can do those things, because i'm not a hero, unlike dent, i killed those people, that's what i can be.

No, no, you can't. You're not.
I'm whatever Gotham needs me to be

Harvey, a hero, not the hero we deserved, but the hero we needed, nothing less than a knight, Shining.

They'll hunt you. YOU will hunt me. you'll condemn me, set the dogs on me. Because that's what needs to happen, because sometimes the truth isnt good enough, sometimes people deserve more.

Sometimes, people deserve to have their faith rewarded.

Why is he running, dad? Because we have to chase him. But he didn't do anything wrong. Because he's the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one we need right now. but he can take it, because he's not a hero. He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector, a dark knight.


Anyone wanna take a shot at guessing where its' from

Today

today was a good day

i woke up at 9
came to school in hihs pe shirt
went to SR open house
skipped duty
laughed with mrs ang about skipping duty, people still cannot get over the fact that she did
went to AJC open house
saw some old friends
came back
waited for them to do the walk in
went to concourse
had a chat
a meaningful chat

so there were 2 things that went well for me today
number 1, i skipped duty in their faces, that was just fun, doing it in front of them and then having a teacher laugh along with me, instead of just ponning and missing out on their reaction

and then there was number 2
we had a meaningful talk where we voiced out what we din like about ourselves, by we, i meant some, by some i meant like 8 people. but the fact that we sat down and talk had to mean something
i'd like to think that i helped in one way or other to make this possible

i'd really like to have that assurance that i actually did something to help ourselves

it helps me sleep better at night




www.lightamilliioncandles.com
help them
we only need your voice