Next Stop: Chicago, Illinois

Hey all!

Only one and a half weeks till i leave! My two week sojourn in my country of birth begins none other than in The Windy City, Chicago.. famous for deep-dish pizza, Sears Tower, the Navy Pier, and (like) half a gazillion museums.. how awesome is that?? Apparently Chicago is known as the 'windy city' not because of its weather from its proximity to the great lake, Lake Michigan, but rather because of its politicians. Either way, it is an apt title. I've never been there before (heck, i've never been anywhere north of little rock, arkansas), and i simply CANNOT wait to get there and soak in all that wintry Chicago weather.

A brief respite to recover from jet lag, and the very next day, my drive to Michigan begins. Ann Arbor is the college town just west of Detroit where the University of Michigan is situated, home to the largest american football stadium of any kind in all of America, be it college or NFL, and yet more museums. Jude and Serene Yew, my drama teachers in JC1, will be there.. and coincidentally my hotel is 2 minutes away from their place! Hopefully we'll get to meet up and catch up on everything going on.

Chicago and Ann Arbor take up just the first 5 or so days of my trip, and going back, especially somewhere COLD, for the first time in 7 years to cities i've never been to before is driving me wild. I'm going to spend the next week working with my dad's old SLR camera (the kind where you actually have to roll the film by hand), practicing and hopefully learning how to get nice pictures out of it. I seriously don't know if the flash cards we already have will hold enough pictures..

Catch ya on the flip side!

the Aviator

hola amigos! or as a famous christian comedian would say, 'juana passa la banana to la tia!' (i.e. hello.)

i'm going back to the states! BOOYAH! pretty much all my reservations are confirmed, and to keep things simple, i'll tell you that i'll pretty much be driving/flying all over the eastern half of the US, as far north as Ann Arbor in Michigan/Chicago in Illinois and as far south as the town of Bryan in Texas. (Culturally, Georgia would probably qualify as the 'deep south'.) approximately 3800 miles in about 2 weeks.. not bad eh?

the aviator is an awesome movie! for those of you who remember my psycho obsessive compulsive character from my syf play (the one with the dunb mustache and suspenders), howard hughes was one of the people i modeled my character on. needless to say, leo did a much better job at it, kudos to him, but i wish i could have watched the movie before actually starting work on the play. rehearsals would have gone so much easier, i would have been so much less confused on that the scriptwriter was looking for, and my character would have had a whole different depth.. but then i would have been accused of 'lamely' attempting to copy 'blue-eyes' dicaprio.. ugh. anyway, all the actors and actresses did awesome in the movie, especially cate blanchett! and of course in typical dicaprio fashion (as of late) his character sleeps with at least 3 women.. be warned: if you have yet to watch the movie, i suggest you look up the history of howard hughes, or you'll have trouble understanding everything. and you'll speak in a different way after listening to a southern accent for 3 hours.

catch ya later!

"I'm Ready/ Ready for the Crush."

It's a new year everyone! More specifically, its the year 2005, which JUST SO HAPPENS to be the year i enlist. Happy? go figure. Frustrated? YOU BET!!! Why frustrated... well if i told you i should be back in the US this year, getting ready to move into my college dorm, prepping myself to jump into aeronautical engineering (my ambition for at least 3 years now), you just might understand. But instead, here i am, merely DREAMING of the day i get to move into my college dorm (and out of the house), prepping to start my courses. Dreaming of the future, but dreading the 2 years before that future.. yes, i still sorta-kinda get to move out of the house, but into a hole on a deserted island off limits to anyone not wishing to receive corporal punishment. (I have yet to figure out punishment for what exactly.. was it not handing in all those overdue math assignments?) And after 3 months in that particular hole, i get re-assigned to ANOTHER hole, very possibly associated with the highly efficient CMPB system. As the Canadians say: Fun stuff, eh?

My GP teacher (Ms Lim!!!) always told me to relate back to the thesis. So, allow me to bring this back to the subject the title of this post implies.. there's no point moping and groaning about whatever's going to happen. I suppose all i can do now is make the best of it, and take the extra time to do a little more probing on colleges and research, etc etc, which i have crammed a lot for already, given my ridiculous work schedule. Two years of saving could go a long way, plus as long as i keep my mind busy and up to date on my jc subjects i should be fine. More easily said than done, i'm afraid..

A Tale of Peacocks and Potato Chips

Hey all! Been really busy.. guitar work at church takes forever and subway is taking up even more time.. so much so that i have only tomorrow to buy the rest of my presents. aaaaaaaaghhhh..

Today was a pretty interesting day at work. I learned 3 very important things- 1: Peacocks like sour cream and onion potato chips. 2: Being able to speak japanese comes in very handy at sentosa. 3: Some people really just can't get a clue.

Allow me to explain. First, the peacock. Today, some little indian toddler threw her whole bag of chips on the ground outside the restaurant (where the outside seating is) to feed the peacock. Of course, its all cute and fascinating to watch a little girl feeding a beautiful peacock. But of course, someone has to clean up the mess - namely, me. Second, i have come to the conclusion that a significantly large proportion of japanese tourists are unable to speak english - whether at all or sufficiently well. That sure doesn't help when you're communicating with them when you're trying to make their sandwich; pointing vigorously at the breads and the menu and the vegetables, all the while bobbing your head and smiling widely to make sure you're doing it right. Maybe i should learn some basic jap from frits... Thirdly, a very small percentage (fortunately) of tourists coming into the restaurant have no idea at all of what we sell. Subway is a sandwich restaurant. We make sandwiches. So this indian teen (again with the indian.. whats up with that??) comes in today and asks if we have french fries. I try to keep my laughter in and smile politely while replying no. So she goes outside to confer with her family and comes back in to ask: 'Do you have any garlic bread?'

Just another day at the office. Hopefully i'll get to finish my shopping tmr.. have a merry christmas everyone!

Ridin' the Subway

Hey y'all! (again) Things have been busy with me.. a lot of you would know i've been working at subway. Unfortunately, most of you wouldn't be so sure where exactly, since there was a massive mix up with my schedule. So let me set the record straight: i'm working at subway sentosa now.

Yes, i did work at raffles city for a while. Lunch hour is killer!! With all the office areas and hotels in that area.. imagine all the people coming down to lunch.. you go blind making sandwiches! I think the average time for the completion of a sandwich there was about a minute or less. Faster than macdonalds.. muahahaha.. but it really is ridiculous. An hour or two of making sandwiches really gives you a giddy head and a sore back.. not to mention all the preparation in the morning.

So i spent 3 days there learning the ropes and now i've been to transferred to sunny sentosa, where the work is light(er) and the scenery is awesome. My restaurant is right next to the cable car station, and when i walk out the door i can look out at the cable cars gliding in to the station. Apparently there's a peacock that the employees are familiar with.. i saw him today flirting with some tourists. It really is a cool place to work, even though its an hour and a half away from home. But i get to earn more and the people there are nicer (i.e. not irate from work stress), so good on me. Catch me if you ever go to sentosa guys!

la musique

Church rocked today! After all the frustration with the youth worship team (i'll explain in a minute) i finally got my chance to play with the adult worship team.. the big time! One word: COOL. I am finally free to express myself!! After so long being limited to playing *boring old* open chords with the youth.. i am FREEEEEE..

I promised to explain, so here it is: in all honesty, the youth musicians aren't exactly the best of which i have come across. elaboration: some can't sing in key, most can't find a beat if they were given one sugar coated, and sadly they don't practice enough. thankfully not everyone is like that.. at least my brother practices, and one other guitarist shows promise. So you can imagine me trying to teach the chords in the middle of a song.. and if i run off anywhere else musically people would get lost. My predicament.. until a few weeks ago when i resigned from playing with them. Now i merely co-lead, and i am actually more free to teach than previously, so it all worked in the end. I still haven't given up on them.. but i desperately need a break from them. Of course i could just have expectations that are too high.

I spent the whole of last week preparing for just 2 songs. Well, it payed off. One song was immediately funkified with some staccato guitar and the other.. well i guess i didn't really come up with the best riffs for the other. But it wasn't too bad. All i know is, it seems the band really looks forward to playing with their first electric guitarist. Not as much as i look forward to playing with a bunch of really cool, serious musicians.

The End

Well, its the end. The end of school. The end of that period where we have so much protection with our friends and parents. The end of childhood and the beginning of that oh-so-important transition into adulthood. The end of everything as we know it.. or at least most of what we know.

Its a really unique feeling. Here we are, standing on the fine line between youthful innocence and full-blown maturity. As narrow a space as that seems, it really amazes me how much one can pack into it. We can relate between both worlds so well (or at least some of us can), and sometimes we long for so much to just finally grow up and be free while still unconsciously holding on to the things in our past that we don't want to let go. I talked to Ben Chia today (at the chalet.. what a place to have a heart-to-heart talk.. while everyone else played mahjong) and i guess we both feel the same way. I am not the most astute of observers, but i can probably say that a lot more will agree if they stop to think about it. Ben says to enjoy it while we can.. because we'll never get to enjoy this period in our lives ever again. Cliched as it sounds, i must say there is some truth in that. Why look forward so much to the future and miss out on the present? Who wants to grow up to envy the youth that their children have, trying to (re-)live it with their kids?

Grad night was a blast. A total blast. I didn't expect it to be that way, considering my grad night with SJI wasn't really that fantastic. Everyone was dressed to perfection.. or at least their own perception of perfection (ahem.. joyce.. *cough*), but i shall not point fingers. Lots of leather, lots of hairspray, lots of everything.. including lots of skin on the part of THF! Vince looked like a real classy pimp, white stripes and shades and all. (sorry if this offends you, vince!) Joel looked the part of a chinese pop star, YG looked like he came from somewhere cold, and edwin looked really good with straight hair. And of course everyone drooled over Sophie. ANYWAY.. post-dinner ceremony was cool too.. i have discovered a new activity in KTV! I used to be reluctant to go, since i'm not really a fantastic singer (try totally hopeless), but then again i guess the whole point is, if you can't sing well, sing so badly that it becomes a joke. Everyone is singing badly anyway.. no offense to my classmates.. but i guess i should loosen up about things eh? Too much singing in church does things to you.. sigh.. at least the bee gees are some consolation. =P

Orchard road is really REALLY empty at 3 in the morning. I went for a late night walk with Sebbie.. talking crap, as usual. I hear he's a really good dancer. Swensens had a lot of CJ people out for a late night/early morning snack, so i stalked Sebbie there and we walked around for a bit, crossing completely empty roads (green lights, no less.. try doing that during the day) and reminiscing. Its kinda fun running around wide, empty sidewalks, feeling good in your fancy threads and talking to someone you know you don't have any obligation to be serious to. Yet another part of youth i might miss. To end this story, i got on a mercedes cab with edwin (a high-class taxi to take a couple of high-class people home) and said our goodbyes to the peeps heading back to the hotel. Got home at 4:30 in the morning.. a new record for me(pathetic, isn't it?).. got in the shower and scrubbed myself clean of all the excitement and nostalgia running through my mind. Then i finally succumbed to the relentless attack of the sleeping bug and konked out.

I'm getting old. I hate to say it, but it really does seem that way. And with national service coming up in four months, it really is going to be a short time before i finally step over that tiny line and continue on my journey up the age ladder. A bad thing? Not necessarily. But like Ben said.. i'll never get to relive it again. Imagine me in my 40s running around orchard road in the wee hours of the morning.. yeah, right. No way. There isn't a lot of time left.. so i guess i'll have to make the most of it!