Happiness in Randomness

Wednesday, December 09, 2009

I'm now $150 poorer after yesterday. Yes, it's not THAT much to some but it IS to others. I went to JB just to get my bike serviced and guess what? The piston's all burned out. Literally. It's all charred up. Something that was something so shiny and silver looked like a metallic charcoal. Well, long story short, I had it changed and now, for the next 970km, I can only run my bike at 70-80km/h. THAT IS VERY SLOW! Considering the fact that my normal speed would run around 100km/h as of lately. Oh well, guess its high time my friends leave me behind on the road as how I would usually do to them. Yet, yesterday, I left Jo far behind. Riding at 70km/h on BKE, I still did not spot him catching up nor even behind me.

This morning, on the way home from running morning errands, I spotted 3 mats on a bike. Yeah...bicycle. They had it shaped like a kapcai bike and were making a lot of noises on the way to god knows where. Anyway, it isn't the first time I've spotted things like that. Apparently, its an in thing now for mats to do so. Have their bicycles shaped like that kind of bike. I can only wonder to myself: what is the matter with these kids?

For the uninformed, a kapcai bike is the one that you can normally find on the road. It's widely popular among Malaysians and the local Malay boys. Its the kind with no fuel tank in front so they have basically nothing to grip on to with their legs. As of lately, they've (the mats) have been trying to make it all look so cool by making it look like a sports bike(why not get a sports bike in the first place?). One of the reasons why it is a hit is because it is SO cheap. $4k can settle you for a first hand bike(machine price).

Back to those bicyclemats. Well, they have them shaped like that so it got me to wonder: is that what they aspire to have? Is their their ultimate goal in life? To have that kind of bike? Well, if that is so, its either that they have very poor imagination(hence unable to dream dreams) or that they are easily contented(got bike can already).

Either way, it's kind of sad what these mats have been up to lately. I have had friends who have quit studying just because they could not find the interest in doing it. Well, to me, that is just one lousy excuse for saying that they are performing poorly. If you want to say so, then you have to meet one criteria: YOU ACTUALLY HAVE TO BE PERFORMING TO BEGIN WITH. Only with that, do you have the right to say that you no longer have interest in studying. Can you imagine? Left school at the age of 14-15. It's not like they are hardworking either. Well, that's one of the reasons why they left school at such a young age. They rather sit under the block till wee hours in the morning(and in the process disturbing the peace of the neighborhood) and, well, do nothing really everyday then to go to work. YES!! These are my personal(and casual) observations. If you do not agree with this, by all means: DISAGREE!

To them, I suppose, life can be quite simple. Bored: Lepak. Having a bit of cash on their hands: Spend them all. Horny: find a secluded staircase. The list goes on really. But one thing that's got me fuming, has it always been like this? Or this is a degradation of what used to be? I don't know. All I know is that every night, without fail, a group of them will sit under my block and sputter nothing but nonsense the night through. It's like, they don't have a life or something.

It's absurd to divide people into good or bad. People are either charming or tedious.

Tuesday, December 08, 2009

Some stupid bird decided to dump its dung on me while i was riding home. Thanks alot birdie. Well, these past few days have been rather..mundane for me. Yes. Mundane is the correct word for me to use. There hasn't been anything to look forward to lately. My writings are up to standard too. I haven't had the inspiration to write something worth reading. Well, in order for me to be inspired, I have to be pissed. Right now, its just a void feeling for me. Yes, I guess there really isn't anything to look forward to.

Last weekend was rather okay. After being relegated and benched for my poor performance at training, I was finally subbed in in the second half. Not a moment to soon, I scored a try for the team thus turning the tide of the game. No, I am not boasting but I seriously turned the tide of the game albeit it was a tycoo(is this how it's spelled?) try. We were trailing behind Bucks until I came in. Awesome try. But seriously, I thought the referee blew the whistle and I was just being nice enough to retrieve the ball. When i realized that there were 3 big white guys chasing after me, that's when i made a dash for the try line. HOOWAH! Scored my first try of the season.

Alright, that was Saturday. Sunday was a little bit lazy for me. I went out in the morning to carry out a project of mine. A project which hopefully will be completed by June next year. 5 mins upon reaching home, my friends jio-ed me for a LAN-gaming session. Yeah, Parklane Mall has some of the best computers around to game for hours on end. We sat our assess down and our eyes glued to the screen to Left 4 Dead:2. Yeah. IT'S THE MOST AWESOME-EST GAME TO DATE!!! Blasting zombies around for 5 hours straight left us mindfucked and hungry. Dinner at beach road concluded the day as I am still dazed by the 5 hours experience.

Yesterday was no different. Nothing to look forward to. Well, gymmed and run in the morning left me with nothing to do in the afternoon except to rot at home. Well, morning at the school's gym was rather something. A few Viet-cong students were there. And yes, there were absolutely terrible at gym etiquette. Walked around with no shoes and towel, they left their sweat all on the benches without having the slightest bit of courtesy to wipe it clean so that the next person can use it without any feelings of disgust. Then, there was this guy. Each time he finished a "set" he'd go up to the mirror to check out how "big" his arms were. Hahahahahaha! Even my bottle of mineral water looked bigger than that. Heck, he was basically showing off his chopstick arms around to whoever wanted to see it. I stared at him and his antics and sniggered all the way through. HE SAW THAT I WAS RIDICULING HIM. But he continued doing it anyway. What an idiot. People like that makes one's experience at the gym a horrible one. Seriously. Wish somebody could do something to people like that. Like setting up a gym for the vain, gay and noobs who are all in it just to build muscle just so that they would look nice. Seriously, they're wasting space and clogging up the air inside with their stupidity(and their awful stink. What the hell do they eat anyway?)

Like i said, there was nothing for me to do after getting home.Then, training at the Padang got cancelled all thanks to the StanChart Marathon the day before. So, I was left with nothing to do but this...

Yeah...armed my self with a bottle of coke, a bag of chips and a packet of M&Ms, I went down to this favorite spot of mine and sat there for an hour. Disappointingly , the seat next to me was empty. Well, that's not a first to begin with. Maybe, for the next few magic hours, the seat next to me will continually be left empty? Hmm....not that im sad or emo-ing about it. But it would be nice to have someone to sit next to and talk to instead of just being silent through it all.

Well, I guess this holidays are filled with nothingness so i shall continue to train. Hehs, i am losing body fats(finally)! But my weight has been progressively increasing. With fat loss, i am assured that the weight that im putting on is nothing but muscle mass(not that I intend to gain any but if I do that's good I guess). Supplements that I am taking are helping to train harder and longer. Well, except today. I seriously had no motivation to train today so I just slip-shotly went through my program, run and then left for home. I have no idea why I am so lazy today. Oh wells. Anyway, those supplements that I am taking are leaving me seriously hungry at the end of each session. Heck, I even almost fainted once due to lack of sugar in my blood. Damn, big weights, big eats.

Well, hopefully, something comes up or along so that I finally have something to look forward to once again.

The good things about procrastination is that you always have something planned for tomorrow.

Wednesday, December 02, 2009

I guess relegation comes naturally to me. Well, not naturally in a sense that I am all accepting it wholly. But naturally as in consistency. Hmm...maybe I should use consistently instead...not that it matters much anyway.

So I've been told that I am going to be playing in the 2nd team from here onwards until my tackling actually improves. Very well done. Is it really in human nature to spot only the mistakes that one commits? What about the rest of the time that everything was done perfectly? Out of the 99%, the only time i was observed was the 1% and that was when the mistake occurred. This is simply FUBAR.

No matter, i shall stop bitching about it all. I know that i am better than that. Everyone knows that. On that day, I'll make sure that each and every tackle of mine will make the crowd go "whooooooooooooooooooooooa"

Guess that isn't the only department which I am being relegated in.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and a lot of bitchin'

Today was no exception to what happened 3 years ago. It was the night when I lost my "wife" in Taiwan. It was a big case and I was punished for it. I was sent to a place where no one in the right frame of mind wants to go. Memories or rather nightmares started to unfold itself in my mind as I zoomed off to go get it just now. 120km/h on Malaysian road is scary. But it was for the sake of me being able to return back to Singapore-legally.

The funny part was I was entirely calm through it all. The feeling was akin what I felt 3 years back. Normally, people would get all kancheong about it. But no, I was the calmest one amongst the company of thousands. Imagine this, I calmly went up to my c0mpany's OC(Officers in Command) and told him what happened. I couldn't believe that I actually laughed at him when he jumped! The laughter didn't last long as he lifted me off the ground and asked me where I last left it.

They say that those who are the calmest during a crisis are those who actually have no vivid imagination at all. Perhaps, it's just within me to remain at my calmest when trouble starts spewing it's ugly truth into my face. Impending death, impending prison, impending whatever...I have never been so calm before except to when those things(bad things) are real possibility.

No matter, I am still disappointed with myself for being so absent minded then and tonight. I guess I need to be extra careful with all that. Heck, I'm going to take the lessons that I've learnt. The important lesson learnt tonight is that if I have no passport, I cannot go home. Yeah...

It is the calm and silent water that drowns a man

Monday, November 30, 2009

Well,this semester is over. I'm supposed to be relieved that I sat for the last paper of this semester, but I'm not. There's no, "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" coming from me but just "haiiiiiiiiiiiiiiizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz".

I think I really did badly this time around. Fancy having a mental block at the crucial moments. Dammit!

Anyway, the trip to school was quite...something. I took the small road to school because I saw that the expressway was rather "congested" and I hate not being able to cruise carelessly without having to be on a constant lookout for traffic. Then at the junction, I passed by the cemeteries. My grandfather is resting somewhere in those grounds. Yes...IN...LITERALLY. Then I started to think about him. He passed away in 1993. I was only 6 then. Though I'm supposed to have known him for at least 6 years of my life, i dont remember much about my earlier years. All i know is what my parents told me- how my grandfather and my grandmother(when she haven't suffer from the stroke yet) took great care of me and my elder brother. We were simply a handful. BUT that is for another time.

Anyway, when my grandmother fell ill, he took care of her really well. That was despite the fact how demanding and choosy she was. When we came over and create trouble, never did he scold us. Except for that one time...the day before he passed away. Ok...now im beginning to think that it was us who caused his death. He did die of a heart attack...shit. Anyways, his patience amazes me till this day. It is indeed patience within patience.

I don't know but the thought of him as i zipped past the cemetery made me ___________. It didnt help that the song "what's my age again" was on and i tried to sing along...but _________. Yeah.

Anyways, after the paper, I rushed home, expecting to find all that i was expecting to be there by then. But, i had to wait another half an hour AFTER i got home before they finally arrived. Yes that's right...S-U-P-P-L-E-M-E-N-T-S. Yeah...I just realized that I order sooooooooooo many that I dont know which one to take first. Well, basically I got myself :

Whey Protein Isolate
Amino Acid Injector (not literally)
Joint Support Pills
Creatine
Adrenol

Yeah, basically, that's all i got and i got it for less then $200! I got myself a real sweet deal! So today, I tried to see if they were any good to me. Turns out, I couldnt really tell the difference because it's been such a long time since i've been to the gym. All i know was that I wasnt ready to go home just yet even though I've been in the gym for more than an hour-sweating profusely and out of breath. I WANTED MORE!! So I did wheelbarrows. We would walk(on our hands) for about 10m or so up to a stack of stepping-boards and would walk up sideways as the steps got higher. Awesome. I wasnt done just yet, but they had to go anyway. So, I went along with them. It's alright, tomorrow shall be another day of balls-to-the-walls training.

Hmm, i need a pair of new boots. Mine is tearing apart already. Dear Adidas Predator, why did you tear up so quickly? It's not like I bought you at some cheapo store or a pasar malam. I bought you at the damn adidas shop and you still tore apart after less than a year of service.

I think i shall experiment with other boots even though i've had adidas throughout my entire rugby life. And lately, it's been one adidas predator to another. Perhaps, just perhaps, it's time for a change...Mizuno? Lotto? Hmm..

I cannot believe Im writing out trivialities here. Perhaps, its time that i do? I think i just made my blog sound as if it was written by some girl(no offense!) or something like that. Either way, i really doubt that anyone would want to read this. Then again, I've lost my muse. Then then again, it's really a poor excuse (that rhymes!).

I think i shall stop here before i mutilate my blog further. Hehs.

Failure is another steppingstone to greatness.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Need I say more?

Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Hari Raya Haji was rather interesting. Well, it seems that way to me anyway. Had the whole family at the house and guess what? For Hari Raya Haji, we had a durian feast! Yeah..all 27(or was it 32?) durians shared by 20 people. Other than that, it was food galore at my house. 5 families= 5 different kinds of food. Yeah, not dishes but 5 different kinds of food. Let me recall- there was Bone Steak, Roti Girai, Bryiani, lots of kueh(or kuih as the white man prefers to call it) and yes, Durian. I probably forgot what else was there but everything went through my digestive system as planned this morning. Yeah...

One thing about that day is that everyone takes it like any normal day. To the layman, its simply a celebration of sacrifice. Hmm..one does one celebrate sacrifice? I mean, sacrifice isn't a good thing to have to begin with. But it is in God's will that we do such a thing for the sake of God, and his creations. Yeah. What i just mentioned is probably a misconstrued version of it all but that's because I am in no current interest to explain further in this space. Come talk to me and i'll explain further.

But one thing that I do for this day(and also Hari Raya Puasa aka Aidilfitri) is that I take time to reflect all that that has happened over the past few months or years. I'll think of the people I've lost-my paternal grandparents and my cousin. Then I thought, why wasn't i able to cry at their passing? Is it because they didn't have that much impact on my life? That's not true. My paternal grandparents took care of me and my elder brother while we were still babies(though i do not recall it but have seen it through the pictures that were taken). So yeah, they kinda raised us up while my parents were at work. And throughout our toddler years, my cousin and my aunt took care of us especially when my mom was about to give birth to my younger brother.

Till this day I wonder if i am even capable of even crying to of someone's passing. Heck, am i even capable of crying for others? I have no idea. But as the saying goes, " Do not be sad for the passing of a person, rather be happy that you have actually had the time to know that person". Those are not the exact words but words that I have appropriated according to my own memory. Yeah, i have rather bad memory EXCEPT for certain things. Things like ___________. Those who know me well enough would probably be able to fill up that blank space with an entire paragraph(at least) of things that I have a good memory of.

But yeah, after Friday Prayers, we went to visit my granddad's grave. I actually got to drive around the cemetery looking for the grave because my brother got tired of driving around looking for it. We went reaaaaaaaallll slow looking for his grave amidst a sea of graves. When we got there(eventually), I looked at my dad for any signs of grief or sadness. His face was as calm as ever. No signs of distraught. Then I thought to myself, how am I going to react when I am at his age, and when i am visiting his grave? That was when IT happened. To whoever is reading this, go watch the movie BIG FISH and you will know what IT is. Thankfully, being an IFF meant that nobody can see through it all.

It's deeply etched in my mind. Morbid thoughts if you may. But right now, what i need to do is to spend as much time with my family as possible. Time is of the essence here. Everybody's aging-the rate of aging increases as the society progresses. I have actually set aside some goals for myself which i have to achieve for them. Hopefully, just hopefully, they will all come true.

What i was told yesterday by my latest cousin-in-law:

"Why does your face look like that? You look like you have got no future or something"

'The heart has its reasons which reason knows not of'

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Slow is smooth, smooth is fast

I've always liked that phrase a lot. Taught by the Americans when I was over there for training. Guess that kinda works for me well nowadays thought it was used to teach me Urban Ops. Why is that so? Well, usually, we would chiong whenever we do something(or anything for that matter). No one would actually take the time to sit and think what would that action result in. Oversight, as i would call it, happens so much that we eventually lose sight of what we set out to do in the first place. Solution? Stop and smell the roses...enjoy the journey not the destination. Because how we get there will determine where we get to eventually.

That in itself pertains to how i deal with things or view things. For me, I'd take things one at a time. Yes. One at a time. Like (again) what i was thought, deal with one problem at a time. If you try to deal with the ENTIRE thing(or problem for that matter), it's just going to leave you dazed and shell-shocked. I was once "forced" to take sports psychology before i got kicked out of the national team. One of the best thing I've learned about it is to concentrate on your own actions first because that is the only thing that you can actually control. Most of the time, we'd get frustrated because people do not do things the way we want them to. It's vice-versa as to what they feel about us too. After all, people's actions are beyond our control. We can influence them yes! But controlling them(or trying to) will only bring problems and cause you greater frustration. It'll only antagonize the problems even more. Nothing will be solved.

A samurai maxim goes, "allow your heart to remain at ease, and destiny will lead the way to accord with others". We are often troubled especially in this department. Not know what to do or how to do it especially when the problem presents itself right smack into our faces. Well, a little bit of a life story here of about 3 years back. I was given 2 choices. NUS or NTU(SMU rejected me with a smiley face...basket..)? Well, I went for the interview for my spot in NTU first(which i got an acceptance letter soon after). NUS kept asking me when i wanted to come down for the interview. Funny thing was, they held on onto my spot for quite some time. They kept rescheduling my interview date all the way till July. I eventually told them this,

ME:Never mind i guess. Give my spot to someone else.
Admin. Officer: Really ah? You sure or not?
ME: Yeah..i guess. I really got no time for the interview. They (my instructors in SISPEC by then) don't want to release me for the interview.
AO: Like that one ah? Aiyah...OK OK. If like that, I'll take it that you rejected your place OK? But if you want to apply again, have to wait until next year.
ME: Yeah okay. Thanks and sorry to trouble you for so long.
AO: It's okay lah boy. By the way, do you any other place in Uni or not?
ME: Yeah..I got a place in NTU.
AO:OK OK. Good lah like that. Don't have to worry so much. Okay, thanks for letting us know.
ME: Sure..bye
AO: Bye

All this happened without the knowledge of my parents. I doubt they would understand a thing about all this. Well, lack of a role model (aka elder brother who walked the same track)can be accountable for their for their "ignorance". Truthfully, I am the first in the ENTIRE family to have made it this far. Yes, NIE doesn't count even IF it's called a Bachelor in...something something...yeah. So, I could only rely on my friends by asking them what's the best choice or what. Majority told me to go to NUS. But whenever that option was thought off, i felt rather uneasy of that choice. That's why i eventually choose NTU. Yeah..my life story! Whoopdido!

On a side note, I actually HAD the choice to book out to go for the interview. My instructors kept asking me, "EH! (everyone in camp had the same name then) When is your interview?" I'd keep keep making up excuses and all about them having not getting back to me yet and all that. But yeah..I guess, letting your heart remain at ease and eventually you'd get where you are supposed to be.

Well, i write too much again. I guess i better get back to work. After next Monday, it'll be balls-to-the-walls training for me for the month. Hopefully, just hopefully, I'd be back to good shape by January.

For every dark night, there's a bright day after that, so no matter how hard it gets keep your head up, stick your chest out and handle it