a new hope (tata....tatatatata.......tatatatata....tatatata)

hahaha!hahaha!hahahahaha! i finally complete a minor techno revolution in my life! i am now blogging this entry not from a cybercafe, not from my old pentium II 400, but from my brand new 2.8ghz 512mb ddr ram with an awesome 80 gb harddisk!!!!! hp rocks, dad rocks more!!! dun think i ever had a cooler desktop before. anyway, not all was plain sailing over the past 13 days though. first was the tons and tons of sai kang the week before CNY. what's happening in 35 sce now is a little sort of a revolution. first was the implementation of the morning roll call (super kay kan), then there were the endless stocktakes that repeat over and over and over again. what really pisses the corporals off was that firstly, it was never the intention of p.o.s to award us any off days for the stocktakes (aka shifting of the muthafuckin' duckboards and other useless junk) until we exerted some sort of lobbying effect, thanks to harley. besides that, it was his original intention to award it only to the specs! where do corporals stand?? next, the awarded off came as a 'blanket off' which means even the ppl who did not touch a single duckboard the other day still got the off....f.o.c.... so much for incentive and egalitarianism...... moral of the story: experience and seniority dun count for shit, it's the rank. expediency is the way to go, never expect egalitarianism cos' it's just a lie conjured by the autocrats and the aristocracy to appease the teeming millions. aiya bottom line, what happens now should never happen again beyond the bioscope of SAF, the realm where mediocre rule with hollow pomposity. while the pursuit for wealth and power should never be the end all, nevertheless the only way to ensure protection from getting pushed around is a minimum level of social standing probably within one's working organisation. be in control of your own level, do not let your managers, supervisors, section leaders, section commanders (whatever) dictate your life. the other viable alternative would perhaps be to work on your own. now why the hell am i stretching so far?
anway, cny's eve was bad....and good too. had a damn shack run around 18 sada in the morning, lost my handphone when i took bus home. i am actually quite sure who it was cos i actually saw this lady putting a phone of a similar make and color into her handbag, but i just couldn't muster enuf resolve to ask her to open up her bag, i was too un-confrontational!! arggg! well anyway they left on the bus .... and probably with my phone too, before i could get 'sufficiently confrontational'. as a result i now have a new phone, a nokia 6100, but hardly any nos. it's the loss of the sim card and all the nos in the phonebook that really peeves me. i now have to send msgs in friendster asking ppl to send me their handphone nos just so i can re-establish contact. not unlike carl sagan seeking to contact extra-terrestrials.
new year's day was great, it is needless to say that the joy towards new year is largely predigated on the 'income' from red packets....which was fairly decent in my case.... met up with ppl which i have not met since last cny and probably not meet till the next cny. interestingly enuf, met up with 2 cousins from oz whom i played with a whooping 12 yrs ago when i visited perth! man, i feel old. back at home the party was getting on too, party as in not the teeny-boopy sense but that eat drink man women....not so much the latter 2 unfortunately, children would be more like it. Yes children, hordes of them this time round. guess that's a good sign for at least the future average tax burden shall be further reduced...for my family at least haha! i've no idea what i just typed, but since i typed it, it's probably worth the attention of junyi of the future,

by junyi of the present, for the past (wrt the future)

procrastinating on procrastination (finally)

it's been like a week since i last blogged and i still haven't got a new com yet. so here i am blogging in a cybercafe yet again. let's see what's up in the past week...... ok, basically the defining event of the week was probably on last sunday when i submitted an application to both UWA and Sydney. i was in fact rather surprised by the fact that i actually made the minimum requirement for entrance into UWA bachelor of economics. didn't qualify for its commerce course though, but i still made the choice and pray for divine intervention.........ditto Sydney's commerce course, but i did chose its bachelor of arts courses too as a more viable avenue to enter sydney if the first choice of the course fails (which it probably will unfortunately). anyway, there's a backup plan too, it's called the '(relatively more) guaranteed entry into monash' route which requires me to take their diploma first for like 9 months and if i manage to get a minimum of 60% average for all subjects, then i will be able to gain an unconditional entrance into the 2nd year of the commerce course in monahs......good deal or bad deal, i can't decide, besides, those mercenary fucks at monash simply refuse to waiver the application fees so i have yet made an application to monash......that's so typical singaporean of me haha.
it's been like a week since the end of the block leave and i've come to feel the immense dragery of army...... comparably, it's perhaps worst of now than it was before if u are only to consider the expectations you have for army life during a lull period and the reality that is more regimental than you thought. but what the hell, it's like 5 months to ord yesterday, so in the most cliched of army cliches....'ENDURE!' besides, i do have a goal to work towards, i put on a lot of weight over the past two months and I AM ON A CRUSADE AGAINST THE BULGE!!!!!!! I done it once, and i shall do it again, a complete makeover. LET THE WORLD BRACE ITSELF FOR A SLIMMER, SEXIER ME!!!!!!!!!!! whahaha!

NO LOOKING BACK

it's been a long long time since i last blogged. many things happened. first was how the last xmas eve was perhaps the most boring one i ever spent. next was the atypical xmas night where me sow chen, xander and ks ended up exploring 'haunted' houses in sixth avenue and cluny road. well i guess this sort of compensates for the lack of excitment on xmas eve. then was the accident xander gotten himself into when a motorcyclist collided into him while he was negotiating a 'less-than-legitimate' u-turn...shan't elaborate on that. what really was the defining event in recents weeks was perhaps the world universities debating championships 2004 that was held in ntu between 28 dec to 2 jan. having missed world schools the last time round, i was really fortunate to be able to catch worlds this time round.....and i really have p.o.s to thank for that....guess this kinda vindicates him doesn't it? watched almost every round except the first 3 preliminary rounds - for a good reason. I FINALLY ENDED MY PROCRASTINATION and submitted my UCAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! albeit a mere 10 odd days before the deadline. so if any of the british airport crew decides to go on strike or should al qaeda strikes again on some courier flight carrying my application, i might well end up getting a gap year.......now that's what i call optimism!! so anyway, the level of argumentation was TOTALLY out of this world......to me at least. see that's the thing about singapore, at jc levels, when u are only exposed to the singaporean circuit, u outlook towards argumentation is contrained within the singaporean context. that structure is the most important thing, or any arguments without examples to substantiate is a bad argument cos it is an assertion. not that singaporeans fared badly in worlds, on the contrary, the 2003 top speaker of the tabs was a singaporean called tan wu meng, and this time round, the SIM team were the fairy tale of the tournament by not only making the breaks (a great feat for an asian team in itself), but also creating history by being the first asian team to make it to the grand final! these guys were former ntu debaters and veterans in debating as well. there's certainly much more to debating than just winning. it's the passion and the process in which you learnt through defeat, through victory and never to succumb to stereotypes or low-self expectations. i once lamented about my lack of ambition, lack of interest in life and the dragery of the continuation of this aimless existance. not any more. the lack of concrete aims now should by no means deter me from setting higher expectations myself. i may have faltered once, i may have waned and wallowed in this self-judgement and self-pity. i may have let negativity be my companion for the last 4 years of my life. i may have semi-convinced myself that i was consigned to a life of under-achievement and a ne'r-do-well. that was junyi of 2003 and before. i always liked the idea of detaching an individual from his past or future, meaning everyone is philosophically speaking, leading a different 'life' at different time if u should consider that the same individual in another time-space (aka another day, year, hour watever) as an inextricably linked but somewhat seperate entity. anyway, I WILL NOT LET THE JUNYIs of the yesteryears pull back me who is typing this right now and beyond from demanding greating things. I AM GOOD. I AM TALENTED. while self-imposed humility and more crucially perhaps low self-esteem stemming from misguided value-system based on academic achievements (WAT THE HELL!) has detered me from acknowledging my capacity for success. i will not allow this to happen. which is why i am so desperate to pen my thoughts now in a cybercafe and not go home. success is a relative measure, just like any other arbitrarily set yardstick that we measure our self-worth against (eg O level results). hence, like all good opening government speaker, it is imperative to set the criteria for this. to me, success would be not to screw up my university like i did in the past. by that, NOTHING SHORT OF HONOURS! I will be there in Malaysia for Worlds next year. I know i would. And i MUST make the BREAKS! I have a year to get all that in shape, and i know that i can. I will rediscover the sense of invincibility and determination that i so so so so sorely missed. I WILL SUCCEED!!!!!!!!!!!! but before all this, though not mutually exlcusive, perhaps it is best that it runs concurrently, i REALLY gotta lose some, no MUCH weight. AI BIA JIA EH YAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!