New Year, New Resolutions

Year 2010 is here! The start of every new year is usually accompanied by customary new year's resolutions. So without further ado, let me present my 2010 resolutions for 2010.

1) Learning to drink, so that I know:

- the differences between "on the rocks", "neat", "tonic", "mixer" etc,
- I'm the only idiot who ordered "Rum on the rocks", and discovered it tasted as gross as the ethanol found in typical chemistry labs,
- "Sex on the Beach", "Tie me to the Bedpost" and "Blowjob" aren't meant to be taken at face value.
2) Change my sexual preference. Since I've not much luck with half of the 6 billion people in this world, it doesn't hurt to start exploring my options in the camp of the other 3 billion people. If I'm successful, then "it might start to hurt"....

3) Quit procrastinating. This is a difficult task. Maybe I should postpone it till tomorrow.

4) Start being superstitious.

5) Get a tattoo. To kill 2 birds with a stone (by combining resolutions 4 and 5), I can tattoo a picture of Goddess of Mercy on my chest, and a Buddha on my back.

6) Earn my first million dollars. This is the simplest resolution to achieve. According to researchers, the average number of sperms found in an ejaculation should be at least 40 million. My unique business plan is to sell each of them for a very affordable price of $0.025, in turn raising a sweet revenue of $1,000,000! What's more, there is zero cost incurred but plenty of "job satisfaction". The hard part? Trying to find a buyer/many buyers.

7) Stop lying. For example, don't proclaim there are 2010 resolutions for me to write down when I only have 7 to begin with.

Happy New Year, and best wishes! =p

Room Maintanence Part 3 - Karate

I was rumbling through the mess in my room when I stumbled on my Karate belts.

White, Blue, Yellow, Green, Brown.

Karate wasn't my first choice when I decided to learn Martial Arts in late 2004. Indeed, I took after my father and picked up Boxing. Initially, one of my buddies joined me in the twice weekly training sessions at the academy. The routine was pretty fixed; 30 mins of warm-up in the form of fast skipping to work on our footwork, followed by 30-45 mins of static exercises and short sprints, and finally we would slip on our gloves to practise our punches. Whilst I faced no problem in skipping, the same couldn't be said for my buddy. As hard as he tried, he just couldn't find the rhythm to skip rapidly without getting his legs tangled in the rope. Within a month, he dropped out and I followed suit.

Then, another of my army friends revealed to me that he was practising Kyokushin Karate and had a black belt. Feeling curious, I joined him in one training session and fell in love with Kyokushin Karate. The training was tough and thorough. Furthermore, unlike most other Karate families, Kyokushin Karate adopts a full-contact knockdown style, thus implying that sparring and fights are being carried out without the usage of bodyguards and gloves, and do not stop until one of the fighters is unable to continue or the expiration of the time.

Karate presented many challenges to me. Firstly, I am one of the most inflexible people around. Stretching proved to be a huge chore, almost an insurmountable one. No matter how much effort I put in, I still couldn't stretch as wide or as much as the person next to me. Due to this, I had trouble executing high kicks. Secondly, I had to spar against seniors, who were not only technically superior and vastly more experienced than me, but they were also much heavier than me. In other words, my punches and kicks were nothing more than slight tickles to them, whereas theirs felt like hammers driving through my body even when I managed to block the attacks. I had lost count of the number of sores and bruises I gathered, and the number of times I was left completely breathless or crippled from attacks to my abdomen and legs respectively.

In spite of the challenges and difficulties, I was not disheartened, and trained as hard as the black belt seniors. Twice weekly trainings were the norm, but I attended 3-4 sessions per week, always one of the first to arrive, and one of the last to leave. I came to realise that one's physical attributes form only part of the equation in becoming a strong practitioner of Kyokushin Karate. Discipline, dedication, concentration, respect, humility, self-belief and mental strength are but some of the essential non-physical traits one must possess. As cliché as it may sound, the greatest adversary inside a fighting ring is not the person standing in front of you. Instead, you are your own greatest enemy; if you are unable to overcome your inner fears and barriers, you won't be able to secure a victory over your opponent.

The people were really friendly and sociable too. A group of us would often go for supper together after trainings. A day is set aside during the Chinese New Year period to visit our Sensei at his house. In addition, we organised an overseas training stint in Kuala Lumpur in 2006.

Overseas training in Kuala Lumpur

While our Sensei was giving instructions, my senior and I posed for the camera.

My participation in a tournament

Dodging a punch

It took me 1 year 4 months to attain my brown belt status after passing my grading examination in April 2006, and I would need at least another 1 year 4 months to get the elusive black belt. Owing to my hectic academic schedule during my Sophomore year leading up to the imminent exchange in France, I stopped going to training ever since August 2006. Even until today, a part of me still yearns for the sweat and blood of Karate.

Room Maintanence Part 2 - Teenage Obsessions

A long long time ago, when I was still between the age of 14 to 18, comics and "Magic The Gathering" gaming cards were my fatal obsessions. The savings from my meagre pocket money were unwisely transferred into these hobbies, and what I viewed as exotic treasures then are fast turning into unwanted junk at this stage of my life.

My collection of comic books can be categorised into 3 types; Chinese-translated Japanese manga, Hong Kong weekly comics and American monthly comics. I was most passionate over the Hong Kong comics - I was faithfully collecting 4 different titles at one point in time. It was also no coincidence that I spent the most on them back then, and boy, the publishers did everything to squeeze all the money they could. Special edition cover designs, special edition comics memorabilia in the form of weapons, figurines etc, special edition posters, special edition this, special edition that - they could cost twice as much as the "normal" versions, and I naively, albeit willingly, fell for all these gimmicks.

It came as no surprise that a great sense of nostalgia hit me like a truck when I saw hundreds of my favourite comics and stacks of Magic cards while packing my room. Although they now serve as nothing more than a mere flashback to my younger days, I still couldn't bear to throw them away. Instead, I packed them neatly into a few storage boxes and placed them into the storeroom. I have no idea when they will see light again. Adios Spiderman, X-men, 问天 and 乱马.

Just a small portion of my comics and their memorabilia

Christmas 2009

It's this time of the year again, a season of giving and sharing. Since 2006, I've always made it a point to watch "Love Actually" during this period. It is, in my opinion, one of the best Christmas films around. The soundtrack is splendid and the cast boasts many household names such as Hugh Grant, Keira Knightley, Liam Neeson, Emma Thompson and also a hilarious cameo by Rowan Atkinson.

This year is no exception. Although it's my fourth time watching it, I still thoroughly enjoyed the show. There are no less than 9 love stories delicately intertwined in one way or another. My favourite romance is the one between an English writer, Jamie and his Portuguese attendant, Aurelia. Jamie was retreating to his French cottage to immerse himself in writing his new novel and Aurelia was hired to be his housekeeper during his time there. Due to the language barrier, they couldn't properly communicate with the other party. But this did not stop them from secretly developing feelings towards each other. There were numerous endearing moments between them. The ending, where Jamie went to Portugal to propose to Aurelia, in Portuguese no less, was one of them. Another part which I really like is when Jamie's manuscripts carelessly dropped into the river and both of them jumped into it haplessly to retrieve them. The dialogue that followed was amazingly sweet.

Aurelia: (in Portuguese) Will you drive me home later? *moves hand to mimic the steering wheel*

Jamie: Sure... It's my favourite time of day....driving you...

Aurelia: (in Portuguese) It's the time I dread the most.... leaving you...

After spending Christmas Eve in Amsterdam in 2006, Zagreb in 2007 and Bratislava in 2008 with the company of my friends, I now find myself alone in my room, writing this entry as the seconds tick closer and closer to Christmas. My friends are either in Church, or together with their partners, or partying with their own group of friends, or just simply staying at home to go through the Silent Night in solitude.

To end off, here's wishing my (few) beloved readers a Blessed and Joyful Noël. Have yourself a Merry little Christmas~! :D

Room Maintanence Part 1 - Sex Master

With some free time on my hands, I've decided to clean up my untidy room although all shall prove to be in vain once the new semester gets underway. In the natural world, the entropy of an open system always increases and results in a more chaotic and complex state. The same theory applies to my room; it goes from being messy (which is the neatest state), to very messy, to extremely messy, until one day I open my door and discover a room not far from that depicted in Jumanji. Sans the lions and monkeys of course, or so I hope!

I was engrossed in my task at hand with the aid of my able Lieutenant aka my Mom. She saw my Sex Master undies given to me as a birthday present by Pierre and Marion, and asked me why am I not wearing it? My Mom is illiterate in English, and thus doesn't understand the meaning of the words. I didn't explain the reason to her, and instead just laughed out loudly like a crocked CD player on repeat mode. Haha!

The almighty Sex Master undies made its comeback

Bookworm

It's the semester break for me right now and I'm making use of this period to finish some novels that I bought or borrowed from the library. Here are the books sitting on my shelf at this moment:

-The little prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
-Nineteen minutes by Jodi Picoult
-A thousand splendid suns by Khaled Hosseini
-The time traveler's wife by Audrey Niffenegger
-The road by Cormac McCarthy
-The Help by Katherine Stockett
-The Associate by John Grisham

I do not consider myself an avid reader, and certainly not one who reads a wide range of books. In fact, I can list down all the novels I've read in the past 10 years without breaking into a sweat, with a large majority of them under the category "Suspense/Thriller". More precisely, the list can be divided into 2 camps, "John Grisham" and "Non-John Grisham".

John Grisham has written 19 fictional legal thrillers thus far, and I have read all but his latest release, "Ford County". To say I'm a huge fan of his literacy works is an understatement; I have also watched the big screen versions of "A Time to Kill", "The Client" and "The Rainmaker". However, his previous 2 novels, "The Appeal" and "The Associate" left a bitter taste in my mouth. The usual brilliant introductions were let down by draggy middle sections that did little to advance the storyline. The final nail in the coffin were the extremely abrupt and ridiculous endings that I found were somewhat insulting to his loyal readers.

At the other side of the camp, authors that I like include Mitch Albom, Agathe Christie and Dan Brown. I recalled reading one of James Patterson's works, "Pop goes the weasel" but gave up halfway as his style of writing didn't appeal to me.

The latest book I had just completed was "The Help" by Katherine Stockett. This debut novel relates to the discriminations and stereotypes, namely racism and sexism, that exist in the States in the 1960s. The author did an excellent job in switching between 3 protagonists' viewpoints and each told her own story in her own words. There were countless moments of humor and hope, delicacy and intricacy. It also seemed to cast a magical spell upon me which kept me wanting to read on without putting it down. "Just one more chapter", I said to myself at many occasions. At the last page of the book, I felt a tinge of sadness that it has come to an end, with a big part of me wishing there were still a couple of chapters more to go. This, to me, is a sign of a well-written book.

Currently, I'm just starting on the next novel, "The Road" and it has good reviews from readers all over the world. I do hope it will live up to its expectations.

I started a joke

Whenever Lewis and I hang out together, we would often crack lame jokes. Today was no exception. While taking a break from the revision for the Algorithms examination tomorrow, he mentioned about his friend's new boyfriend. Our joke is made with reference to "P, NP and NPC problems".

Lewis: Her boyfriend is ugly.

Alex: I am ugly too.

Lewis: If your ugliness is N, then his equivalent is N¹⁰⁰⁰

Alex: At least he's polynomially ugly.

*both of us broke into laughter*

Alex: moreover, he could also be ugly-complete!

*laughing again*

Alex: Why are you laughing over these jokes?

Lewis: Because I'm a computer scientist!

*hahahahahaha*

I think the examination stress has gotten the better of us. =p

Singapore's weather is as erratic as a lady's mood

This evening at around 5pm, I found myself in my room perspiring more than usual. Looking out at the blocks opposite blinded me for a brief moment as the reflections from the windows seemed stronger than they would normally do. Something felt wrong. I checked the weather information on my phone and was startled to see that the temperature was 36°C! A similar search on google yielded the same answer!

Situated just 100km above the equator, the average temperature in Singapore during daytime is around 31-33°C. According to NEA, the highest temperature ever recorded in Singapore took place on March 26, 1998, incidentally at 36°C too.

This bizarre event isn't a one-off; it came off the back of last week's massive downpour which caused heavy floods to occur in many parts of the island, with Bukit Timah the heaviest hit amongst them.

A carpark with the water level partially submerging the unlucky vehicles

Are you looking at the knee-high water level, or the number plate?

The lone ranger

Recent updates

- Soccer

All in all, I've worn my new boots in 4 matches.
The statistics for these 4 matches: 2 losses, 2 draws, 0 win. Hahaha. Not quite the stellar start I imagined.
As expected, these new boots didn't grant me any new powers at all. Not even a sniff of it. On the contrary, they caused blisters to develop on my back-heels and hampered my running. Hope these "new shoes' syndromes" will go away soon.

Being a new member of the 2 teams that I'm playing for on most Saturdays and Sundays, I constantly find myself trying to adapt to their playing styles. In addition, jitters often got the better of me and caused me to make unforced schoolboy errors. Needless to say, I'm not pleased with my own performances so far and feel I can do better. For example, match fitness and stamina are missing from my games. I huffed and puffed hard, but still struggled to keep up with the pace. Certainly, I never came close to blowing down the 3 little pigs' houses down. Even the wily wolf wins me "paws" down in this aspect. =p

- Mustache

Counting today, I've not shaved for the past 1 week. While a typical testosterone-raging male specimen may already look like an ancient caveman, I hardly notice any visible traces of a mustache growing above my upper lip. At this rate, I'll never tick the task, "growing a sexy Brad Pitt's goatee" off my to-do list. In a similar fashion, advertisements of "revolutionary, next-generation" shavers and shaving cream rouse my attention as much as sanitary pads would do to a menopausal woman.

Strangely, this anomaly doesn't quite stop here. In fact, I possess extremely sparse forearm and leg hair, and non-existent chest and bellybutton hair. If sex drive shares a direct relationship with the amount of Androgenic hair a man has, then I must have a severe lack of libido. Luckily, in a recent study done (by me), a sample of 1 person (hi, it's me again) showed that this relationship isn't valid.

- Deadlines
Last week was a nightmare for me, mostly due to my procrastination. Within the space of 7 days, numerous projects, reports and assignment deadlines hit me hard in the face. Let's see,

Monday - Programming project + 5-page report
Tuesday - Algorithm assignment
Thursday - Project demostration
Friday - 11-page Final Year Project's (FYP) interim report
Saturday - Programming project + 22-page report
Sunday - A revised 15-page FYP interim report

Saturday was the worst. We had to upload our source codes and report by 1159pm. The most infuriating point was that our professor wanted too many things to be included inside the report, in addition to the design and implementation of an effective algorithm to solve the given problem. This project is only worth 15-20% of the total grade, and I feel it is demanding way too much work and effort to justify the marks. I'm not the only one who shares this sentiment.

Anyway, Lewis and me were at McDonald's to complete our reports which we had only started writing on the day itself. Our fingers were constantly typing away as hours passed by like minutes. The stress level was unbearable. Finally, I managed to churn out a 2700-word report and uploaded the project file at 1157pm, 2 minutes shy from the deadline. Lewis and I stared into space for a brief moments before regaining our composure. Our minds were blank. As we made our exit, we walked past a club and saw clusters of people in partying mood, happily chatting and smoking away. "Different worlds, eh?" I thought to myself.

Well, although the hell week is now over, I still cannot take my foot off the pedal. Examinations are coming right around the corner. But it doesn't hurt to give myself a few days break, does it? =p

Recent updates

- A pauper, that's who I am
A hugely embarrassing event happened 2 days back. My Ez-link card was running low on value, so I went to the machine wanting to top it up with $20. I chose to pay using my ATM card. After keying in my PIN, the screen declined the payment. I had a bad feeling, and headed towards the ATM machine straightaway to check my remaining account balance. My worst fears turned out to be true - all that was left in my account was a miserable $11! Now, my financial health just switched from a state "P" to another "P", ie, from "Poor" to "Penniless".

- Warcraft
The standstill has finally been lifted yesterday! After not touching Warcraft 3 for 39 days, I finally had a couple of games with Muqiu. Playing the game was almost a daily routine for the both of us when I was still in France. We must have chalked up at least 700-800 games together. Clearly, we aren't playing that much nowadays. Despite our drop in skill level, and the noticeable lag I experienced due to the long-distance connection between Singapore and France, we still had ourselves plenty of fun playing it again.

- Weight gain
While the majority of the population are fighting to lose weight, I find myself standing in the minority camp trying to do the exact opposite. Gaining weight has never been easy for me throughout my entire life. I could eat twice as much as my masculine friends, but save for an obvious bulge in my abdomen area for a few hours, the effects of the food intake are not reflected on the weighing scale. So, imagine my surprise when I step on the scale to find that my weight is now consistently lingering in the region between 59 to 60kg. FYI, I weighed a "hefty" 56-57kg when I just returned from France.

There are several plausible reasons for the recent weight gain I'm experiencing.

1. Local food are really palatable to my taste buds, and my appetite increases as a result.
2. All these sessions of lifting dumbbells, doing push-ups, actively playing Weekend soccer etc helps to develop muscles.
3. My metabolic rate has decreased.
   

Point (1) is 90% true. My culinary skills in France, or rather the lack of them, did not go too well to my liking. Previously, I thought my Mom's cooking was the lower limit, and never knew I possess the innate capability to "surpass" her. To put it simply, putting my self-cooked food into my mouth follows a strict "eat to live" doctrine, whereas it's more of a "live to eat" version in Singapore. Moreover, the hawker fare are so affordable here that I can eat plates after plates of dishes till the cows come home.

Point (2) is 60% true. I do put in effort to exercise daily, but truth be told, I'm not sticking to a particularly strict regime. Besides, jogging and certainly, playing soccer where constant sprinting and running take place, do more to reduce weight than the opposite.

Point (3) is 85% true. It's common knowledge that one's metabolism rate shares an inverse relationship with one's age. I'm seeing something on my body that didn't exist 5 years ago, and it's becoming more apparant as each day passes by. This "something" is called a belly. Although I never had the classic "washboard" abs before, at least my abdomen was flat. On some good days, faint hints of a 6-pack could even be noticed. Nowadays, this same area feels soft and flabby. When I sit down, a layer of fat is been squeezed out and pushes my bellybutton forward.

Since my belly is likely to keep me company for a long, long time to come, maybe it's a good idea to give it a name. Who knows, my belly can help me to get dates! Imagine that my belly has a name, "Mustafa". Consider the following scene:

Alex: "Hi there. How are you?"
Hot Chick: "Hi!"
Alex: "My name is Alex," *pulls up shirt to reveal belly* "and this is my buddy, Mustafa! We're so pleased to meet you."
Hot Chick: "Err....." *proceeds to walk away*