Stories about the box in the box

mom: i’m going to make you ginseng soup ok?

me: no, i don’t need it

mom: you need it. it makes you stronger

me: if i fall sick i’ll get a few days off.

mom: …..

In about 1 hour I’ll have to leave the house and make my way to Pasir Ris bus interchange, and eventually make my way to Pulau Tekong – the Island of no return (for 2 weeks). Right now I’m really struck by how much I’m not looking forward to it. Back in the IB days, I found myself yearning to enlist, if only to get out of the situation of having to hit the books hard for hours a day. I wanted to look forward to brainless physical exertion instead of the pressure that the looming exams placed. But now….now life is actually good. I have so much going for me now, and especially in light of my (shockingly) favorable IB results, I couldn’t be happier now. It bothers me that just when everything starts to click I have to up and leave it all. I suppose it made me appreciate the days leading up to today alot more since I was savoring the last days of “freedom” prior to going in, and really I have no regrets with how I’ve spent my time thus far. I just wish I had a little bit more time to do just a little bit more before I enlist. At least that’s what I tell myself, but I’m pretty sure that regardless of when I enlist I’ll be feeling like this, so I might as well rip off the plaster quickly and get it over with. It just pains me to tear myself away from all the bonds that I’ve formed up til now, and the cosy comforts of modern living. Once I go in I’m effectively travelling back to a simpler time. 

At least they let us use handphones now. Take that 1960s.

If I knew then what I knew now, it would have been so much easier. Unfortunately, this is and always will be the case.

Any man who thinks that nothing can control him has peed in his pants.

So I was at Singapore Swimming Club studying when Today caught my eye. Happy for a distraction, I picked it up and started flipping through when I wound up at the Job Ads section, and these two ads in particular stood out.

#1: 

Sure they’re looking for a bartender, and they listed desirable attributes – apparently the want a “feminine” bartender. However, what makes this ad interesting is the fact that they didn’t actually list the sex of the desired bartender….merely “feminine”

#2

Next I saw this listing and was pretty amused by the horrible picture of the guy. I was thinking: “Which dumb dolt would put such a terrible picture of himself on a real estate agent listing?” 

….And then I saw his name…..

I was looking through a few old photos and NOW it hit me – IT’S OVER!

Also, I was watching the music video for AC/DC’s new song Runaway Train and my first impulse was thinking why on earth they decided to become a goth band. Then I realized it was just Malcolm Young’s hair turning white with age…

/start geek

A couple of days ago Chun Wui bought himself a D60 body, and since he didn’t have a lens, I lent him my D80 kit lens until such a time when he could afford a lens for himself. This turned out to be a brilliant move because on Thursday I remembered that I had lent my lens to Chun Wui seconds before I had to leave for school, so I had to quickly forage for a lens in my dad’s lens collection, and more or less just grabbed the first one I found. Previously I was intent on using the 24-120mm f3.5-5.6 which was the F4 kit lens, but time didn’t allow me to swap lenses, and thus I went with my finding: a 28-85mm F3.5-4.5. 

It. Is. A. Brilliant. Lens.

It is easily my favourite lens now. While it’s probably not *quite* as sharp as the 80-200mm F2.8, it certainly comes close, and I’m not usually impressed by the sharpness of lenses. In my mind, before I found this lens, it was just the 80-200mm, and everything else. I would say that this lens has about 80-90% of the sharpness of the 80-200mm, but it’s a helluvalot more convenient to lug around. It’s fairly small, albeit heavy for its size, and the bokeh is a bit blah, but I can make those concessions considering its performance otherwise. It’s a pretty “old skool” lens, so it feels like it can go through hell with none the worse for wear – nothing like the plasticky lenses that they produce nowadays that feel as though they’d disintegrate in anything stronger than a light breeze. Furthermore, this lens doesn’t require me to stand 4 feet away in order to take a shot. In fact, it even has a macro mode! I was literally a couple of inches away from the spider when I took this next shot (Yes, there are spiders that big in ACSI).

/end geek

In other news, yesterday was the last day of school, but oddly I didn’t feel much – considering I got over my school’s over nostalgia awhile ago already. Maybe it’ll hit me in a couple of days or something. Anyway the last day was how you’d expect any last day to go. There were no lessons at all, and all the DSLRs emerged. The day was essentially a 5 hour long camwhore session with people roving around the school taking pictures with people they barely know, and more pictures with people they do know, doing crazy things, etc etc. What was (and is) intensely irritating, however, was the fact that nobody knows how to use an SLR properly! Essentially people would go around in groups where one guy had a camera, whilst the others would get pictures of themselves taken, etc. For some shots the cameraman would get his own picture taken and the duty of taking the photograph would be entrusted to one of the group mates or a random person walking by would be dragged in to do it. Of course I was the de facto photographer, and well….

 ”Hey Malcolm help us take a picture!”

 ”Alright sure”

 ”Thanks!”

 me: “Hey —- help me take a shot of myself and Connor!”

“Alright sure”

me: “…………..”

Elliot actually put it pretty well when he said: “The curse of being a photographer is never having pictures of yourself”

I’m not really complaining (OK, fine, I am a bit) but I don’t hold any grudges or anything. It’s just an irritating phenomenom that just is…like gravity. 

*Grumble*

As an aside, while I’m posting up pictures, and the last day of school being over and all….Girl + 35 degree day + sweater = WHY? (This applies to just about every girl in ACSI)

Photography aside, after the last day of school my class and me came over to my place for dinner, and we proceeded over to Angel’s Share at dempsey road for a few drinks. Pretty nice place I must say, and they had a promotion where $40 gets you an unlimited flow of cocktails and shooters, which was pretty worth it considering I ordered 6, and each one costs $16. It also meant that I could try out all the cocktails that I’ve always heard of, but never tried out. Kamikazes, Sex on the Beach, Blue Lagoon, etc. In the end I realized that 80% of all cocktails essentially taste like the sole ingredient is lime juice. Not that it’s a bad thing, it’s just a bit monotonous. I found a few nice cocktails though, and now I can actually put a taste to a name when I see these drinks in menus. The free flow promotion came with one caveat though – they took so long to deliver each drink that it is physically impossible to order more than a certain number of drinks. In a sense I guess this is good because they mix each drink individually, rather than just using a premixed….mix. The bad was that their last order cut off meant that we only barely managed to order 6 drinks in time. In fact, at the end we took to ordering two drinks at once. 

All in all it was a pretty fun time, but from now I’ll really need to put my foot down to any distractions in the next 3 weeks prior to the IB examinations. Maybe after IB we could go back to Angel’s Share 3 hours before the last order, plop down, and order 10 drinks up front. That’ll show em!

As alot of you may or may not know/care, AC/DC is finally making a comeback this year with their new album set to be released sometime this quarter entitled Black Ice. Some guy somehow managed to obtain a copy of the album and uploaded it to youtube at this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pswgmNMbbY&feature=PlayList&p=761371E0F04837F4&index=0&playnext=1

I’ve been listening to the tracks on the album, and overall it’s still got that visceral AC/DC rock out loud feel – despite their age they’re still pretty good at kicking ass. That being said however, I find that their older work definitely outshines it by quite alot. I doubt there ever can or will be any track can top the greats – Highway to Hell, Back in Black, Hell’s Bells, Let the be Rock, A Whole lotta Rosie, You Shook Me All Night Long, etc. Against this their new album just comes across as being quite…tired? I can see the energy, but I don’t really feel it as much as I did in the above tracks. With kickass names for some of their songs like War machine and Decibel, what I’m hearing comes across as a pretty big contrast. I suppose it’s nigh impossible to match what you did in your youth at 50, and don’t get me wrong – the album still seems pretty kickass, and I’ll probably buy it (I rarely never buy albums) – but they were really too good in the past. Right now Black Ice is a group of old men trying to relive former glories, and succeeding somewhat, but to give an analogy of what their new album’s like, it’s like how sometimes at sporting events (hockey matches, marathons, etc) you see that random old guy competing in a crowd of 20-30 year olds. Instead of getting completely smashed, he still manages to beat more than half the pack, but he’s more or less kept standing by his various appendages like compression sleeves, etc, while the “old dogs” stand at the sidelines talking about how good he used to be.  

All in all it’s a nice return of good ol’ fashioned classic rock for a generation full of weekend warriors from the golden era of rock, most of whom are now wearing suits and driving minivans. AC/DC, however, have refused to succumb to the call of aging, and stand as rock luminaries teaching the new generation how to rock out old school. I’m still hoping that there’ll be a return to the good ol’ fashioned face melting rock and roll rawness in the music scene – more tracks like She loves Rock N’ Roll from Black Ice – but I doubt that may happen, so I’ll have to satisfy myself with looping Highway to Hell amidst thoughts of a bygone generation that I was never part of.

In the meantime, here are my favorite tracks from the new album: 

Smash N’ Grab

She Likes Rock N’ Roll

Rock N’ Roll Dream

Edit: 

Looks like Sony/BMG took down the clips on youtube. Oh well, I guess I’ll just put jpeg of their greatest album:

Dear Brain,

In 4 weeks time I will be sitting for the biggest exam in my life, and you sir, are going to be playing a large part in helping me get through that. I plan to do well enough for these exams to get into a good university like NYU, or maybe even LSE, and thus secure my financial future. Needless to say, you play a critical part in the realization of this plan. Furthermore, I would like to remind you that since we are one and the same, my success is your success – by helping me out now, you’ll directly be securing a future for yourself guaranteed to be full of….doing nothing, really, and other rich people stuff. You may even get to drug yourself up on endorphines if I may enough money in future to buy an exotic car like the Audi R10 (which I assume they’ll release by the time I have enough money to afford something like that). Thus as you can see, there are really limitless benefits to this short term sacrifice you need to make – 4 weeks of concentration against a lifetime of luxury (well, besides University, but that’s another issue altogether), which leads me to question: WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?! WAKE UP YOU DOLT! HELP ME OUT HERE FOR A LITTLE BIT, ALRIGHT? WHAT HAVE I EVER DONE TO YOU?! I FEED YOU (amply), I INDULGE YOU, I’VE LET YOU DO VIRTUALLY NOTHING FOR THE PAST 6 YEARS. COULDN’T YOU GIVE A LITTLE BIT BACK NOW??? ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS WORK FOR MORE THAN 2 HOURS A DAY, AND HOLD THE SYLLABUS UNTIL NOVEMBER 20TH, AND THAT’S IT! YOU’LL BE BEYOND UNDERUSED NEXT YEAR, AND THE YEAR AFTER THAT! 

Yours Truly,

Your Owner

Yesterday I got my prelims results back. It was pretty mediocre for the most part, but I supposed somewhat encouraging – I’m pretty much on the right track, and hopefully the following 4 weeks will suffice to bring me to tip top level. English was a major disappointment, but was pretty effectively counterbalanced by a surprising performance in History – my first 7 in…forever. Huzzah! (and one more just for Kyle – Huzzah!)

Now, today was SAT day. The test center was pretty much inundated with Chinese scholars, and it is simultaneously irritating, belittling and a true testament of human ability to work hard that these guys can arrive in Singapore knowing like 2 words of english, and are probably going to do better than you for SATs. This more or less destroys any notion that muggertrons can’t do well for the highly english weighted SATs. 

The test itself was ok I suppose. If I do terribly dismally, I guess I’ll have carelessness to blame (my old nemesis). I also learnt that coffee is an extremely potent diuretic. The first two tests were truly a test of willpower as I battled frantically with my bladder. Thank God I won and was the first one out of the room for the first toilet break. Other than that I have to say that it’s really a beast of a test. Bloody long. If Homer’s Odyssey was a test, this would be it. Actually no, I think the Chinese 8 legged essay in the jinshi examinations deserves that crown, but you get the idea. This one certainly felt like it was 3 days long. 

After the test and a pretty satisfying lunch, I dragged myself to the National Library where I attempted to read Spence and do some math. I can’t say it was very productive as I was pretty drained by the damn SATs. I also learnt the true meaning of mugging, and it’s absurd.

Finally the so called highlight of the day was a pretty amusing chain of events. Throughout the day Elliot had been trying to convince me to watch Eagle Eye with the class, but I kept stalling and was unable to commit before he booked the tickets. Compromise, however, came in a rather unusual way. I joined Chun Wui and Elliot for dinner at Carl’s Junior – no less – where we learnt that Cielo, characteristically, was going to be late. At 9pm she was totally uncontactable, and I jokingly suggested that she was asleep. Unfortunately, I was correct, and the movie was at 9.10pm. As a result I took her ticket and entered the movie theatre first. The plan was for me to come out and pass her the ticket when she came, and then go home. She came late enough to allow me to watch the first 15 minutes of the movie, which seemed pretty promising, I must say. I suppose I’ll have to catch it sometime.

After the “movie”, I took a bus back home where the bus driver, a PRC residing in Singapore mistook me for a Chinaman. He started talking about how Singaporean drivers were inconsiderate and more or less sucked, while expounding on the greatness of China. Of course, having been mistaken for someone I was not, I did what any reasonable person would do – told the driver that he had made a mistake, I was not from China, and was instead from Taiwan: Chiang Kai Shek land. To this he just went on about how China was great and bigger than any other country and could crush any one nation if so inclined. Modest chap. 

I’m tired and I don’t want to write anymore.

The perfection of humanity is it’s imperfection

It’s tough to make a bad home-cooked meal. Ego and self-assurance ensure that.

In a show of epic lack of foresight, I have neglected to take any measures to even attempt to procure an SAT book to prepare for my test on saturday. As a result I had to buy a book from Kinokuniya today, after all my attempted cheapness failed. I briefly considered just studying off the books at Kinokuniya, but….no – I shall not be a skinflint. Now courtesy of a certain Dr. Gruber, I’m full steam ahead to SAT glory! (I hope) 

I sometimes wonder how people can do badly for SATs when there are these so called “infallible” guides to teach them precisely how to answer every single type of question out there. Even the esteemed Dr. Gruber who penned this massive 1000 page long volume was tested to have an IQ of 90 prior to the discovery of his supposed “miracle method”. In the meantime I’ve been perusing the content of the book, and while scanning through the word lists, I was surprised to learn the following:

There are 12 synonyms for “praise”, vs 22 for “belittle”

I knew more or less all the positive words – it was the negative words that forced me to reach for the dictionary. Evidently I’m a pretty nice guy.

“Niggardly” – Definition: 

adj.

1. Grudging and petty in giving or spending.

2. Meanly small; scanty or meager: left the waiter a niggardly tip

DEMETRIUS
Villain, what hast thou done?

AARON
That which thou canst not undo.

CHIRON
Thou hast undone our mother.

AARON
Villain, I have done thy mother.

Other fun words include skinflint and superabundant. Regarding the latter, it seems that somebody was slacking off when he was told to coin new words….