Down

Leaving the past behind was meant to be easy. Yet its subtle presence continues to seep any optimistic energy I gather. Did I deserved to die? those harsh words still hauntingly rings in my ears.

The most expensive orange juice

So we had to do an interview (sort of) at Star Vista. I came across this vending machine that makes fresh orange juice for you.

Yes. This machine slices, and squeezes real oranges to give you juice that is even fresher than sunkists'.

The catch. It's a $3.60 purchase. I bought it because of the machine's novelty. Don't think I'll ever buy it again xD

Celebrating birthdays

Celebrated a friends's birthday 2 days ago. It's amazing how we've known each other for a total of 8 years now? :O

Meaning

Always told myself to never compare myself with others. It's a thought that will bring nothing but sadness.

As much as I feel like an empty shell, I shall keep myself strong reminding myself that I am privileged to live in a peaceful part of the world. 

The war rages on. Violence and massacre in the name of of 'god'. If some videos of the massacre was able to make me this disgusted in the past few days, I wonder how it is like for the civilians there. To live under the shadow of death everyday..

Depression

Feeling like the world is collapsing on me again. No matter how hard I try, I fall apart. Does the world hate me. Do I hate the world. I don't know. Can't trust my own thoughts at this stage of paranoia.

BME Camp 2014!!

OG Jerry!!

I've always looked forward to the perk of being a uni student, that is, being able to be part in a very active student community.

I had so much fun during the BME camp, I almost wished I had unlimited energy to enjoy it more as staying awake has never been my strong point. (And late nights are always the times you get to know each other really well.)

I did doubt myself once.. whether or not I should participate in the camp. Afterall, Ramadhan starts in the middle of the camp, and I'm still recovering from my knee injury.

Turns out that I had nothing to worry. Past conditioning makes fasting bearable during physical activities, and there were only a few games where I had to participate passively due to my knee condition. I made a some good friends, a memorable one which came from the unlikely Secret Pals Game.

As you know, tertiary educations have conspired with an unknown agency hired by the government to partner students together, in the hopes of raising our pathetic birthrate.

I kid of course.. the games are mostly in the spirit of fun, and it's mostly a chance for the seniors to tease us while we freshies attempt to get to know each other blindfolded and under secret code names.

The girl I was assigned to turns out to be really friendly. Our conversation flowed less awkwardly than I thought it would. 

Though engaging small talk is nothing new to me, it helps when you are finally able to find something in common. It's like a lucky strike that moves you forward from small talk to a more meaningful conversation.

Lucy and I found a couple of interests we had in common like a love for Japanese food <3 *drools*

The Camp ended in a fun finale where we dressed up our best freshie from our OG for a small mini competition.

And no mercy was given.

Of course no camp is complete without a lot (and I mean A LOT of selfies with one another haha)

Gamelan Fiesta 2014

(This is a later-post because that's just how I roll. )

The Gamelan Fiesta was a full house event. And judging from the cheers, I can bet that half the people in the audience are current Siglap students or ex-students. 

It was fascinating to me how much work the instructors and teachers do to coordinate such a huge event. And to be able to be part of it, I was very grateful.

Because, my relationship with the Djoko group, was at best, considered a relative interest. I was in a gamelan club for a year (which went ok..it was no doubt fun but the club never felt like a place I truly belonged in)

But the Instructors had been very welcoming to me from the start. I wasn't as good as the rest, of course, but no one particularly made it a big issue while I struggled to keep up with the rest.

For the Fiesta, I was offered a violin part, which was kinda awesome because it was something I am familiar with, but also scary because I am not performance worthy on it.

And watching the replays... It sounded kinda bad...lol 

Now that my college education has started, I have to unfortunately stop my gamelan commitments. Training in the eastern end of Singapore doesn't help either when I'll soon move to live on the opposite side haha.

The director has a very interesting personality. I've only ever had one real talk to him about his work, but his motivations...inspires me to believe. 

A Sister's Wedding

It is easy to underestimate the level of attachment you would have with a sibling. Because being in the same household practically means you are seeing the same person every single day. 

You don't 'miss' someone you have just seen in the past 12 hours. 

But once that someone is gone for a lot longer, the feelings of attachment really get to your head.

My sister just got married 2 days ago, and knowing that another one of my siblings will be moving on to start their own family unit...it left me a little bit more lonely.

Breaking the hiatus

It's beginning. The start of a long dull period characterized by procrastination, bad moods, and being just plain unmotivated. 

The fact that this post goes up after months of inactivity proves my point.

But today I do feel motivated. And knowing that this feeling is as transient as the rain we've been having here in Singapore, I'm capitalizing on this energy while it lasts.

So what's up?

I've finally ORD-ed on 7 March. And took a lot of photos with people I'm leaving behind *evil laughs*

It's a happy occasion. And while there was plenty to hate about serving our obligatory 2 years, the friends I've made there make up for all of that.

And if you've noticed, I'm currently on crutches haha. 

A week before ORDing, I had my knee meniscus repaired after an injury that had left it in a bad state.

My knee kept locking and as suspected, there was a bucket handle tear on the lateral meniscus.

Unfortunately, the doctor had told post op that my ACL, while intact is loose after being stretched. This required me to go under a knife again sometime in late April to get it replaced.

How? They plan to take a tendon from my hamstring and use it to replace my old ACL.

Judging from the pain I'm experiencing from the first op, the second op is gonna suck. :(

Visiting the cat cafe

 

As the first cat cafe here in Singapore, this little cosy space borrows the concept from popular cafés in Japan where they allow guests to mingle around 'cafe cats'.

So far it's been really popular among Singaporeans. When I called up to make a reservation on a weekend, I was told that I had to wake two weeks for the next available slot. 

Sensing that I had better luck walking in on a weekday, I decided to visit this little shop tucked away at Boat Quay today.

Despite being a weekday, business was still running good, with about 10 guests in the small room allocated for interaction with the free roaming cats... Well, most of the cats were actually sleeping really.

There was a healthy variety of food and deserts served as what you might expect from a cafe. Also decently priced, for something along Boat Quay. Considering that there's already a $12 dollar fee to be the cats (for 1st hr only, additional $5/hr afterwards), I'm glad there arn't Starbucks type of pricing for the food.

There's a total of 13 cats. All adopted to create awareness of responsible pet ownership. They are so well cared for here that you'll be touched considering their darker history.

For cat lovers, this place would be heaven. For the unfamiliar though,don't expect the cats to be very welcoming of you. They'll ignore you most of time, unless you manage to catch their attention with an interesting toy.

Or you're giving them a really good scratch...

Knee problems

One month has passed and recovery seems possible. Doc mentioned I probably have a meniscus tear and while I wait to get my MRI scan done, I should take a break from any high knee impact activities.

It's been frustrating...since the disability affected my mobilty. I'l walked with a limp and if I stood for too long, my other knee started to hurt as well. A 3-min walk to the MRT, took me 10 minutes. Even an Aunty was walking faster than me.

On the bright side, I was at least able to move on my own now. And I'm able to reduce the limp more as the days goes on. Thank goodness for young age.

Now I just have to wait for the MRI. If it reveals a serious injury, the doc said a surgery might be done to shave away the tear. Even though I knew it would be a quick surgery, I still didn't like the idea of 'tools' prodding around under my kneecap. 

Funny that a medic who is well aware of what treatments are done and how it helps, is really afraid to go under the knife. T_T 

Photoshopping again

So I decided to try the "drawing yourself" idea on photoshop. I couldn't really get the effect I wanted as it's really hard to take a picture of yourself. So this was I came up with in an hours work.

Ah, self portraits are hard to do alone... :/

Playing with photoshop

An old friend had asked me to help him photoshop some pictures.

I made a few pieces using a popular plugin called fractalius. It's a filter that does some interesting effects.

Here's the pieces I've done.

This is probably the coolest filter I've ever used hahaha, and this is definitely not the last time I'm using this!

Resolutions?

The new year is coming and it's a good time for me to reflect on past events. 

2013 was a year fully spent with NS and boy did that turn out to be more eventful than I thought it would. There were times of great experiences and bad ones. 

Listing the good ones first, I went diving, wall climbing, trampolining, running... I've really outdone my expectations to be more active outdoors.

But these aside, I felt I have matured a little bit more, getting to understand myself and how I think. It wasn't an easy process. Indeed there were times I challenged myself but more often, I get thrown into a situation that I've never encountered before.

So what are my plans for 2014? To really step into my twenties with more confidence. My late teens was mostly experimenting to understand myself and the world ard me a little better but now it's time step out and be more independent. I have to learn to look after myself and accept the consequences of my own actions. I have to learn to make thoughtful decisions and, I really need to learn how to cook. T_T

Well those are my thoughts this Christmas... Hoping for a good 2014! 

Seashell seashell

Forgot to add this in. I met a Noble Volute when we beached. ^^ . First time I met one that was alive. Really thought it might be poisonous, hence the extra precaution haha.

Round Ubin Trip

The distance for a round trip around Ubin is 21km. That's a half-marathon distance. 

Was i crazy when I signed up for this?

So 6 people including myself turned up for this meetup (originally 20+ people were supposed to come). After settling the usual stuff with the rental, we got our boats back to the shore.

We launched from Changi beach near the crossing channel that we will take to reach Ubin. 

A few curious people came closer at what we were doing. There was this cute little boy who said "Banana!" when he saw our kayaks. What things look like to a child xP.

An interesting sight was how Pulau Ubin looked like from the other side. It's been blocked with huge metal fences, that I guess was meant to deter smugglers.

Nothing much else happened afterwards. We beached up on the western tip to eat lunch and rowed back to Changi for dunch.

With this, I clocked sufficient distance to start my Three Star course. Will try to take by early next year. (I hope :x) 

BBQ at Zach's

Our training department has been really busy these past few weeks. The injection of new courses such as EMT and EMT-b has made our instructor pool barely enough to run our usual courses.

Zach decided to organise a small BBQ at his home condo, which is a small distance away from our camp, as a sort of gathering and retreat. 

For the first time, I took a ride on a friend's motorcycle, despite a subconscious thought of my parents reminding me never to ride on one. You can't blame them, but there's a fine line between safety and paranoia. Since it's a short trip anyway, I took the chance.

Zach has 2 cats. The friendlier one named Mimi.

It's かわいい! I do love cats or as Zach like to put it: pussy. Unfortunately, it's not very interactive with strangers...    ._.

A funny incident happened at the condo. Do you hate vending machines that get your food stuck during it's dispensing process?

We saw a vending machine that probably did that on some poor fella who used up his money only to receive nothing. A packet of twiggies lies at the very tip, somewhat defying gravity and refusing to fall down.

For cheap thrills, we decided to try to get it. Eventually, realizing that hitting the vending machine will probably get us into trouble, one of us bought a bread packet that would hit the twiggies on the way down.

The things we do for a packet of twiggies. >_>

The night went by really quickly. It was nice to catch up with everyone again. Despite being in the same office, we see each other so little, that having a small retreat like this makes us bond further.

Halloween 2013

So here's a backdated post. 

26.10.13

My sister, who's helping out with a Halloween event at the Asian Civilisation Museum had invited me to go visit. 

The event had offered plenty of activities together with free entry. And in the spirit of Halloween, I decided to put on some appropriate make-up. And here's the result:

It took me about an hour with help of my sister to get the complete effect. And the zip is real. It actually had to be glued on with some spirit gum that came with the make-up kit.

Only problem was that I did this while I was at home. And I had planned to use public transport afterwards.

So you can well ... imagine, the looks people gave me on the train.

I was afraid I might be a little overdressed at the event. I mean, do Singaporeans dress up for Halloween? 

I became fairly nervous when one entered. I was alone, and there were only normal-clothed people in the main hall apart from the performers who were doing the kuda kempang performance.

Luckily, I wasn't alone for long. Some people among the crowd approached me, apparently fascinated by the zip. 

Then another man in an awesome demon costume passed by. Our eyes met, and a short conversation turned into a request to take a photo together. 

Then somehow, we created some sort of station for people to take photos with us. Other scary people soon joined the scene.

And of course I didn't forget the real reason I came here, which was to have some bonding time with my sister. We took a sibling shot at the photo booth.

Home Team Festival 2013

The home team festival is a family targeted event that offers plenty of activities and educational experiences free of charge to the public.

So us medical instructors have been 'arrowed' to set up a booth of 5 manikins to let the public learn and experience what doing CPR is like.

This wasn't something new to us. We did do something similar for CBD 2013. And what's funny was that it was just at ITE Simei, a short distance away from EXPO.

The chairman said they wanted to reach a target of 40k visitors in the 3 days. I think they've passed it. The crowd was crazy. 

We had kids, students, young adults, parents and even the elderly approaching our booth.

Secretly we were hoping people would not stop at our booth. Not that we're lacking enthusiasm, but kneeling isn't the most comfortable position to teach in. And we kneeled for hours. 

My knees were red and pretty sore when I got back. Even prickly while in the shower. Cushions shall be on the list of items to bring next time.

Luckily, our officer in charge was willing to let us roam around during non peak hours. We tried some of the more exciting activities there like abseiling, the quick jump, and shooting the hand gun.

It was fun. Sure our knees felt like they aged 20 years in 3 days but we got to try things we otherwise wouldn't have gotten to do.

 

Great job team!