i'm sick

Everyone's in a national day mood. I'm in a nearing-the-end mood!

This mood has triggered a kind of disease that I've developed, which toxic had been accumulated over 9 weeks. You get this when you get too busy, and it’s gross. The symptoms are hardly visible, but are very damaging internally. I need a cure for movie deficiency.

In hope of alleviating the pain, I googled intensively on upcoming movies and even got mildly satisfied by silent trailers (the computers here have disabled soundcards.) Which got me even sicker, now that I know far back I am. How can I not catch Inception yet?! An entire movie dedicated to lucid dreaming waiting for me!

If you're a new reader, you would probably not know that I'm a fan of lucid dreaming many years back. I was so interested in this topic I even researched and experimented on it. For a person who remembers his dreams so frequently, it wasn’t that hard, I still have it once in a while.

So next on my list was Sorcerer's Apprentice, which Mandy termed it as "my kind of movie". Haha, she's right! I watched the trailer and the person did something like a hadouken or kamehameha, seems like it's really my kind of movie.

So the fantasy genre brought me further to check out Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, my favourite of the 7 books written by Rowling. Am glad that it'll be out really soon..

And I got carried further, checking out all the sequels to the Epic movies on my waiting list. Some like Fantastic Four are unlikely to have an upcoming, which is saddening, that will mean no more hilarious scenes of Jessica Alba trying to act like a brainy scientist. But Chris Evans will be starring in the first Captain America movie!


Some like horrible Dragonball movie should never try to make a second movie unless they decide to change the lead character. What is a white doing in an Asian manga inspired movie?! Epic fail.

They did a movie on one of my favourite video games too. King of Fighters with another white starring as the character of Kyo. Give the fans a break, please.

And it's good news that Transformers 3 and X-men: First Class is coming up next year!

X-men: First Class will be talking about the most authentic team of mutants with Xavier! Even further back than where the cartoon started.

From Marvel movies, I moved on to realise Spider-man should be having a reboot, with an entirely new cast. This will be a huge challenge especially the previous 3 installments were such huge successes. Can this young dude replace the old Spider-man who had imprinted in fans' hearts for 10 years?

Somehow, i managed to stumble on the Green Lantern, another Marvel hero which I'm not familiar with. Ryan Reynolds will be starring in it. Initially, I thought he would make a good Lantern, but after seeing his costume, he looked more like a clown with crossed eyes. I think his comedies affected his image too much.

and Green Lantern sounds like Green Hornet, which will be coming up SOON next year January, with Jay Chou as Kato, the super fighting Asian kid. The character of Kato was brought famous by Bruce Lee, so Jay Chou got to need more than just acting.

By the time I finish all these movies, I would be old enough for some real full time job. It's too long away! So sick of work and so sick from movie deficiency.

It's 4.23pm now!

PS: I just confirmed that I will be watching Inception LATER! Looking forward! =)

How to have a genius kid

I’ve been asked a lot of times, by neighbours, relatives or colleagues. Well, from what I learnt as a tutor now, and also from the good old days when my academic glory was during the era of TCS (now known as Mediacorp), I always say, it’s not hard, if you work hard, so will your kids.

1. Be the discipline master at home.

You have the right to your own kids. Teachers and tutors nowadays fear lawsuits and unemployment more than Armageddon. You take ownership of your kids and supervise them. No one else should discipline your kids more than you should, after all, they spend the most time with you. Most learning is done at home, so if you don’t supervise their homework hours, they will lag behind all those 98% of the kids in the school whose parents watch their kids like cats over mice.

2. Homework is a standalone task.

Face it. You’ve been a student before, you know what it’s like to do homework. Anything from ants to Pokemon to FM 958 interests them more than doing homework. They need a conducive environment, like a proper study table, quiet environment with adequate lighting. A lot of kids nowadays do homework while watching crap stuff like 飞轮海. You seriously think staring at 吴尊 can make them score an A? If yes I would prefer you to let them watch 阿妹, at least the name starts with an A.

3. Do homework at a proper desk.

There are various positions to adopt while doing homework. Some lie on the floor, some on the bed, some on the lap. But it’s been tested and proven that sitting at a desk works best for some serious work thinking.. Well, if not examination halls won’t have desks in the first place. So get their butts stuck onto a proper seat with a writing table with decent working space.

4. Kids are jealous people.

They will feel jealous, unloved, dejected, depressed and deprived if they are 40cm away from you yet you’re laughing away at Terrence Cao having the same expression for each of his drama and they can’t join you. For goodness sake, throw them into a study room or switch off the television when it’s time for their revision. I know some dramas are damn nice but you can watch them on http://video.xin.msn.com/browse/catch-up-tv anytime, but these few years are the prime years for them to learn. Once you passed these golden years, not even Glee is good enough to compensate for the wasted time.

As you can see, it’s not that hard to have kids on the right track.

It’s how much support you can give. Never treat them as adults, they are kids for a reason.

The awakening

It suddenly occurred to me that I’ve changed a lot of my so-called can’t-live-without habits ever since I came back to Singapore.

I’m so used to my outdated collection of songs in my ipod that it doesn’t bother me anymore. Today, I’m listening to Jay Chou’s newest album for the first time after the official release date.

I’m too lazy to drag my camera along wherever I go. In the States, i brought it out even if it’s a dinner.

I can stay at home for the weekend. Instead of meeting with people whom I haven’t had time to catch up with. Weekends used to be not for home alone.

Are all these a sneak preview of what I will become once I step into the working society? Man, I cannot take this.

Next week is the awakening, with friends meet up, exercise, jay chou’s concert and lots of photo shooting opportunities. Time to get back my old self!

Of Legends in the World, and my world

Just wanna have a quick write before I lose the interest in keeping this place alive.

Randomly bumped into a documentary “Destination Truth” on TV yesterday. Yeap, due to various commitments, the late night home return had only allowed me to watch documentaries on Okto, unless you want me to watch Elvin Ng having a same face for 1 hour in the most recent 9pm drama.. This dude, before I leave for US, he was on the 9pm show, now he still is! Title change, plot change, but expression still the same.

Anyway, about Destination Truth, it’s mainly on the field of Cryptozoology, something I’m always willing to spend some time reading (well, they do add spice to your dreams sometimes, imagine seeing a bigfoot in your dreams).

And out of curiosity at work today, (what wrong with being curious at work?) I went to do some research and found out that Singapore has our very own cryptid - the Bukit Timah Monkey Man!

This is damn hilarious, Singapore really wanna have its little leg ‘chap’ into anything that’s worth international attention. Ferris Wheel must be world’s largest. Airport must be world’s coolest. F1 must do at night. Youth Olympics must be first to organise. Octopus a bit psychic anyhow push a Serangoon birdie to push its luck. Even Bukit Timah such a small nature reserve also can come up with a monkey man to be on the list cryptids.

On a random note, the documentary shows part of USA, places I’ve been to. And it reminds me of a recent movie I watched Knight and Day. There’s no similarity between the documentary and the movie, but the familiarity of BIG places like LA and New York and places I like, like Seattle (featured in Twilight) or San Francisco, just made me feel so glad that I’ve been on that exchange programme. The feeling of watching an American TV or movie and thinking about “That place is nice, I wish I could be there” versus “I know that place is nice, I’ve been there” is just so amazing.

And on another totally random side note, 4 more weeks to the end of internship.

I. Can’t. Wait.

Paul the Octopus or Mani the Parakeet?

An octopus rose to fame by picking the mussel from the box it liked.

A parrot flew towards stardom by pecking on a piece of paper.

Random or psychic?

Am probably one of the endangered men whose gender were always questioned by other males whenever EPL or World Cup is in the season. I thought what defines a guy is a dick and not the ball he likes?

By the way, I’m into basketball, if you’re wondering.

Yes, i cannot stand soccer. I don’t see why 22 men or the whole world can get excited over which net the ball goes into.

And no, it wasn’t biased. I didn’t hate soccer because I used to step on a soccer ball so often that always led me to falling. And it certainly wasn’t my idea to think that by not playing it, I’m giving it the best revenge.

But this year, the sport which i never bothered finally caught my attention these few days with the rise of celebrity animals like Paul and Mani. This is what I like, seeing people spend big money on analysts and soccer experts to come together to waste time, energy, electricity and papers to do some well thought out predictions. With human brains losing to a bird’s luck and a sucker’s hunger, the ball is indeed round!

Call me a sadist, I like it when confident people got backfired by their confidence, when people with self proclaimed principles go against their principles in their subconscious. No one is a saint so don’t act like one. Expect the unexpected, no matter how well planned you thought you’ve planned your life.

So, does a bird make the balls better or is a sucker better with balls?

I personally prefer Mani’s prediction not because we’re from the same country, but its name sounds a little more prosperous than Paul, right, ‘money’?

I’m a survivor

Back for nearly 3 weeks, been through all the heat torture, food gobbling moments, mad rushes like a country rat trying not to get hit by big cars in the city, and also attempts to stand with minimal personal space on a public bus.

Besides adapting back to one of Asia’s fastest pace of life, I’m embarking on a new phase of life – internship. And my oh my, give me Marketing Research lesson + Investment seminar + FM seminar + Gn02 lecture any time! I do hope I can say something different at the end of the 10th week.

Another important issue is to restore my income back to before the exchange. Tuition back as normal! Really glad to resume tuitions with the same tutees, though all very critically dangerous.

And so my days are for work, nights are for work. The only time I spend with myself is when I said HI to the mirror in my dream and that only occurred once.

Surprisingly, I’m taking this pretty well. Despite the long period of hibernation, I thought I’ve evolved into a snake (not because of the dry weather that made my skin dry), I’m still full of energy for boring routines, at least for now.

Perhaps the best thing that happened other than food, were the familiar faces I met during the weeks. If I were a Sim, the pampering from girlfriend, support from family, fun and laughter from friends, made my social indicator happily green at its fullest!

Goodbye and Hello!

Goodbye Georgia Tech, hello Nanyang Tech.

Goodbye road cops, hello speedlight camera.

Goodbye pizza, hello prata!

Goodbye 100 marks, hello Grade B.

Goodbye Krispy Kreme, hello Donut Factory.

Goodbye Mount Rushmore, hello Bukit Timah hill.

Goodbye squirrels, hello cats.

Goodbye free riders, hello free riding.

Goodbye ketchup, and HELLO CHILLI SAUCE.

Goobye Miami beach, hello Siloso beach.

Goodbye Hollywood, hello Mediacorp.

Goodbye Marta (u suck), hello MRT.

Goodbye road trips, hello bus trips.

Goodbye snow, hello nestle snowflakes.

Goodbye Tmobile, hello Singtel.

Goodbye cheap B&J’s, hello cheap Walls.

Goodbye Coca Cola, hello Yeo’s.

I’m back in Atlanta, after a feast of lobsters (again). Seriously, you can’t get lobsters cheaper at anywhere else! 2 for 18 bucks! Anyway, It’s another 1 hour before leaving the house, my attic room which I could barely stand upright. I’m dead tired I could barely be coherent.

To summarize, 3 things I’ll miss:

1. The school life which allows me more space for extra curriculum activities.

2. The weather.

3. The friends that made this exchange so wonderful.

It’s all ending in a week.

Been enjoying internet access quite often in the various hotels/motels/inns/hostels that we’ve been hopping around since the start of the trip. Just a little lazy to update haha. Sudden urge to do so, because..

I LOST MY CAMERA CHARGER.

And all of a sudden, I felt so crippled.. Since snapping photos has always been the top agenda whenever and wherever I travel.

But on a brighter side, I can at least be more focused on appreciating my surroundings while surviving on my last full battery for the rest of the trip. Used to be too preoccupied with the worry of missing a shot.

It’s also time that I learn how to not spam with a mentality to filter bad photos later. I shall treat this as a film camera to learn the art of making every shot a worthy one.

5 more days, with Yosemite, San Francisco and a surviving battery.

Denver and Custer

I’m at Custer today and I took my first ever mirror lake photo at Custer State Park! I don’t know why it took me so long to encounter one despite the many beautiful places I’ve been. I think I took a chipmunk photo too. Really looked like a squirrel. And it looked like Theodore, the fattest one.

The past flight had been really bad. Route march to the MARTA station, sweat like a sweaty pig, run like a dog (yes, like a dog, miss tan) and missed the flight right in the face! Oh man. Missed the museum and IMAX show on Arabia! What a way to start our holiday!

But the food were really good at Denver. Visited Osteria Marco for dinner. Wow! Amazed by the friendly service, great ambience, fabulous food (wild mushroom pizza was insane!) and competitive price. It’s like a dream restaurant.

This morning had breakfast at Lucile Creole Cafe. Double Wow! Besides the great pillow like donuts and omelettes and home made sausages, the cafe has a really nice atmosphere. A lot of Americans come here just to wait to start their day with a great breakfast. They don’t mind waiting under the maple tree, holding a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice while chatting with their friends! Kids running on the green grass completed the whole picture of a nice morning in Spring!

I’m looking forward to the wildlife trail back at Custer tml. Close up pictures of wildlife, another thing that I missed in Alaska! Oh and Mount Rushmore, the 4 faces that i can only get to see in cartoons. It’s less than 12 hours!

End of Contraries

Tomorrow morning I’ll be embarking on the longest tour in my life (22 days!). I can’t say I’m pretty much excited, somehow.

I can explain why finishing exams here is not as exciting as back in NBS, especially when you know given this paper you’ll ace it back in Singapore. The slackness (something I love) has finally reached a point of disgust to me.

This place I called home for the past 4 months, this shit hole, has surprisingly been quite comfortable. I really looked forward to coming back to Atlanta sometimes when our weekend trips got too long. Rest seemed to be more attractive than fun, at times.

I’m really amazed by my threshold, living in an attic which I couldn’t stand fully upright. I was like a Rarry Lotter in the room under the ceiling. But in contrary, I like this unseen corner of the house.

And tml’s trip, it’s the same feeling the night before I left home for enlistment, the night before I left home for Cambodia and the night before I left home for this student exchange. But tonight is different – my home is different.

This is the longest time I’ve stayed anywhere other than Singapore. Calling it 2nd home is natural, no matter how bad it was. Home(s) are always the best.

Before I close my laptop, to explore and end this student exchange with a mighty blast, I wanna remember all that happened.

The school, the friends and the amazing weekends. Last but not least, the discovery of contraries, good or bad.

15 better things you can do besides studying for exams in Georgia Tech

1. Pick a random photo 3 years ago and laugh at your army hair.

2. Count the total number of moles on all your friends’ faces in your profile picture.

3. Straighten your tissue paper without an iron.

4. Try to replicate the NBS sticker at the back of your calculator on your notes.

5. Read xiaxue.blogspot.com.

6. Clean your camera 5 times.

7. Go to the toilet to squeeze some pee out even though you’ve just peed 10 minutes ago.

8. Drink water to prepare for the next toilet trip.

9. Count the number of receipts you have accumulated.

10. Cut away the stray threads on all your clothes.

11. Watch Digimon season 5 which wasn’t on Channel 8 after season 4 ended.

12. Visit hungrygowhere.com for a list of makan places when you go back to Singapore.

13. Read up about Orang Utans.

14. Visit friends’ blogs and read their archives.

15. Highlight your hair with your highlighter.

 

So many things to do while preparing for exams in Georgia Tech. Anything besides mugging.

3 more papers to go!

Fairbanks, Alaska (continued)

Some random scenic point along the highway for you to take a break, stretch and take photos!

World Ice Championship

What is winter in Alaska without showing off its display of ice sculptures that never ever melt in the public under the powerless sun?

Welcome to the world of Iceman!

An icy house

An icy living room

How about an icy stage?

Or an icy maze entrance?

Where you got icy lost?

Or icy retarded?

The sculptures at night looked more alluring with the lights reflected and refracted in the ice. Everything came alive!

 

This igloo was found in a kids’ playground.

This is an ultra slippery big icy slide! damn fun!

University of Alaska Museum

This is indeed one of the best museums I’ve been to. Probably due to the mysterious Alaskan heritage that’s so captivating. The nature, the dancing night sky, the wildlife, the natives, the culture, the language.. They are something which you can never get in the rest of the continents, not even in the same country in USA. Uniquely Alaska is truly a perfect fit, better than Singapore.

Some sort of time machine?

The wildlife exhibits

Playing with colour combination.

Fairbanks, Alaska

Northern Sky Lodge

This is the Bed and Breakfast Lodge where we stayed at while we’re in Fairbanks. It’s a rather famous place, especially among the Japanese as it was once featured in a Jap travel show. Most Japanese that we met here were mostly here to see the Northern Lights. The night before we arrived, there’s actually full display of Northern Lights!

But it’s really a pity. It’s like one of my life’s greatest regret to miss it all three nights that we were there. I’m definitely going to witness at least once before I die. If.. If there was Northern Lights that day, it would look something like this

All these were koped from the Lodge’s website and all were taken by the customers. Holy shit. I need to visit Alaska again!!

But there’s some other things worth mentioning. Like

Really spacious room with warm cosy log cabin theme. Dun mind the mess, we’re (i am) messy people (person).

The first night. Only managed to capture a starry sky. Which was already quite cool to me. I love those silhouette of the pine trees!

  And I can’t say how much I adore Sid the golden retriever of the Lodge. She’s a great company for all the guests. She doesn’t bark irritatingly. She’s got great fur and she plays along with everyone really well. Even Chubs the animal hater can’t resist playing with her!

By the way, I’m not a dog lover either, but this dog really changed my opinion. I need some smelly peeing black dogs owned by the Indian family above my flat to piss me off again. I can see it real soon in 1 month’s time.

Dog Mushing

Speaking of dogs, let’s talk about dog mushing, of which I kept referring to it as dog mAshing. There’s a difference between dog sleds and mush! Just google it if you want (in a Lyn tone cos she dunno yet still wanna show off)

Anyway, it’s one of the greatest experience I had in Alaska. 6 trained huskies pulling you as though you’re gliding on water (snow is solid water anyway) at such a speed. They’re so well coordinated and running at the same pace I can’t help but imagine they can communicate!

Wait, actually I think they can! Initially our host (she’s the trainer of all these amazing dogs btw) warned me that this team of dogs pulling me are the stronger ones. They were energetic and can’t wait to sprint! So naturally I was hum and applied quite a bit of brake. When we started off, these hyper dogs were hindered by my over applied brake. I’m quite sure 3 of them turned and looked at me and they all gave me the noob-why-are-you-so-hum-we-wanna-run look! Holy shit! I swear I was pai seh at that moment and crazy enough, only these dogs saw how paiseh I was.

Santa Claus House, North Pole

When I first heard about this, I thought we’re really going to visit the HoHoHo Santa Claus’s house, where we see his chimney, his factory of toys, his fireplace where he reads all his letters from the good children and stuff. Turned out it was a gift shop.

But we still managed to get some really cool pictures.

All photos are from Chub’s blog as I think it only fair to kope her collage photos after she koped so many of my photos and always managed to blog first haha. The last 3 photos are actually interaction between us and a Chubbo looking Eskimo statue!

Alaska Trip (part1)

I’m back after going missing for a little while! Time to put my most exotic trip to my furthest country into words and pictures!

Alaska

Land of ice. Land of snow. Land of huskies. Land of Northern Lights. Land of midnight sun!

You can never get so much of these when you’re 200km above the equator.

A state which bares a population of less than a million. There’s still a lot of places in Alaska are still not tainted by traces of human.

The Delta Flight

Oh, and I absolutely love budget flights that comes with complementary beverages and snacks. They just made the entire flight so much more enjoyable.

And when it comes to window view, yes, flight to Alaska allowed me to gain access to bird’s eye view of great sights that I’ve never seen so much in my life before!

Like how often can you get confused over whether they are clouds or snow mountains?

The airport of an exotic place feels super different. I almost felt like it’s the airport of Mars! Ok, Pluto, since the temperature is more compatible. But anyway the scenery is really different.

Ice mountains everywhere.

I like the picture of a native Eskimo at every tail of Alaska Airlines.

The Anchorage airport just looks ulu and clean!

Alaska celebrates 50 years of statehood! US bought Alaska from Russia at a damn cheap price back then. Please forgive Lyn, she’s hungry and probably waiting for a fly.

Anchorage Day 1

Their sun took its own sweet time to set. The pace of the state somehow follows the sun. Laid back and relaxed. It still sets beautifully eventually.  

All cars in Anchorage, sorry to disappoint, looked like this. No one bothers when snow and dirt is everywhere. The capital of Alaska wasn’t like what I thought or had in mind before I came.

View from our hotel window. Like I’ve said, the sun took forever to set. Just nice it’s a very cloudy day. Made my picture look awesome.

An abandoned outdoor dining area of a restaurant.

     Our first dinner point. Gumbo House, that sells…

Gumbo. Some sauce and rice mixture with meat and vegetables and prawns. All dumped into a bowl. Taste very much like tasty baby food. Reminds me of my mum’s Orh Beh (Yam Porridge). One thing good about this meal is the warmth you get out of this little bowl in this uber cold city.

 Alaska Rail Road

This is my first time sitting on a train. Not MRT, but those choo choo train! Destination is to Fairbanks, a 12hour journey to where we will be doing dog mushing, and camping for aurora!! A lot of fun awaiting us, but little did I know this 12hour transport itself was already so much fun!

Not those Harry Potter Hogwarts Express kind of seats, where a few magicians can sit together in a cabin. But we’re still lucky enough to get a premier 4 seater compartment with a table!

The rest of the car looked something like this.

So much fun camwhoring, a SOP by now.

Anyway, almost everyone going to Fairbanks was armed with a DSLR. Which makes sense, cos everyone wanna take good photos of the immensely beautiful Fairbanks.

The famous Mt McKinley.

It was at this mountain, the captain of the train was so nice. He let passengers alight from the train for the first time, to get this wonderful view.

What more can we complain about! Against the magnificent Mt McKinley!

By the way, did I mention that he’s really an interesting captain? He encouraged everyone to move about and mingle. The people on board are really interesting, coming from almost all over the world. A half Alaskan half Romanian half drunk woman thought Lyn’s traveller’s pillow was like some neck injury support. Wealthy and free American auntie who showed ask her helicopter skiing trip up the ice mountains. American mum who has been here for the 12th time, visiting her daughter and seeing her future son-in-law for the 1st time. This train bears so many people with so many different agendas.

Another interesting point to note on board. They have some really cool exhibits to show us more about Alaska!

Towards the middle of the journey, we started to discover the back cabin for luggage was the best to do some crazy shots!

     Needless to say. Getting to take a sunset shot behind a mountain, when the train is moving, leaving behind a trail of railway track that it had just passed seconds ago is simply one of the coolest moments here.

It’s meant to be mere transportation. But so much happened, so much to take in, so much to appreciate, that you’ll think 12hours was not enough. Thank you captain for your flexibility and dedication to making every ride a memorable one!