My life, my dominion

Yep finally i've left london for good and i don't think i'll be going back anymore except to catch the plane home.

Of the whole city i must say that i love trafalgar square the most. I like squares. you can sit down be amongst LOADs of people yet it'd still be quiet enough for you to be by yourself. Sort of like 42nd and Broadway but of course you'd get shoved in front of a car if you don't stop walking there.

Back and wrist hurts from transporting so much rubbish to and fro and up and down herne hill station. at least i don't have to worry about people jumping in front of trains and thus delaying the whole line.

right anyhow finished my coaching course part one now to put it into action. my goodnes the nonsense that we had to go through for the child protection issue was SO ridiculous it's almost to the point that the government is preventing parents and guardians allike from disciplining children. it's just so RIDICULOUS.... won't go into details.

right oh yes on what would be more or less my last tube trip for the year till december there was this train conductor who very sarcastically told everyone the logic of not blocking people coming out of the train and how if no one wants to do it he wouldn't mind just that he won't drive the train off heh. so funny

right not much this week have to do a whole load of stuff now off to edinburgh tomorrow!!

Currently listening to a typical j-pop song with really bad enunciation of english but somehow it at least has nice lyrics. Not sure, i associate places in the world to music. I know this song reminds me of somewhere that i've travelled. i'm trying to figure out if it was in europe with px or maybe campus when i was walking alone back from teh library at 2am in teh morning before exams.
Song title : YOU by tsuchie feat. Kazami
sample lyrics : i feel beautiful, when i'm around you, i'm safe and comfortable coz you are wonderful, it feels natural to be around you.
okay so i'm being overly weepish ewwww...... stop cringing, i am a multifaceted person with many shades. hmph

right ended work yesterday and went for a drink with the rest of the office. NO i just took my usual juice drink while everyone progressed to getting a little tipsy. Which is one of the reasons i don't drink. I'm very appreciative that whenever my dad had to entertain colleagues in the mess he would always rinse brush his mouth to get rid of as much of the alcohol smell in his breadth. he drank in front of me and my brother until we were old enough and that was during wedding receptions. I can't imagine myself half staggering home to my family especially the kids stinking of smoke and alcohol and basically being a very bad father coz i would be slurred at that point. right anyhow
the people at work are REALLY nice
THey bought me a waterman yes READ IT PEOPLE A FRENCH FOUNTAIN PEN. WATERMAN...... I have no idea what to do with it...... probably give it to my dad i guess... or give it to someone else. it' s expensive make no mistake about it just thatwell it's wasted on me i have really BAD handwriting. watever.

Anyhow, i've actually been living in mortal fear for the past few weeks that when it all ended everyone would just tell me that i'm really useless or at the very best ignore me totally. but they all shook my hand, gave me their cards and were all really nice espcially neil and some of the others. And it's not because i'm a potential link to the central bank they are just generous people.
I'm actually quite touched by it all. for all the hardness and coldness of this city, the people are definitely very warm and friendly overall. i know that from church but even in such circumstances the peopleare realy nice. that stil doesn't mean that i like london, i stil can't get over the fact that the air is SO dirty. well i'm pretty thankful that i got this job really. it's so strange thatfor all the nonsense that happened in the beginning of the year with internships this has turned out very nicely. I mean i take it as a sign from God that he's got things planned out of me and at the same time that i've got something good going with px.
coz if i had gone back to MAS to work then i'd have a shorter europe holiday which would have sucked. Then i wouldn't have wanted to come back next year and thus basically prolonging a rather agonising separation. and basically it's quite hard for me to get another internship in the City coz i'm bonded, uk companies even branches of US ones are quite reluctant to try out people who are already stuck somewhere else. very different mentality to the US firms. oh well..... and a whole load of things like my mum would not have been able to see london for6 weeks, etc etc etc. LOTS OF THINGS..... i'm really grateful. Thank you .

okay where was i... oh yes brought hongyi and of course with singaporeans i speak singlish lah. but then of cousre when i speak to non singaporeans i switch back to how i would usually speak english. it was then that hongyi pointed out that horror of all horrors i'd developed an accent!!!! OH NO!!! oh well i've always code changed..... but really i usually speak proper english wat....
hmm and i've always had this rather fake sounding voice.... oh well... retribution for always being annoyed with people who speak perfectly good english but put on a fake accent when in front of ang mohs. point i don't do that, as long as they are singaporeans i speak in the same 'fake' english that i've been doing for SO long.

right okay oh yes one more thing. Thames Festival. beats notting hill hands down. It's way smaller, it's not as loud but it has GREAT costumes, live drum bands with proper music and it'sa lot more well less crazy and intoxicated. People say that notting hill is a parade about everything wrong in the world. I'd agree. The thames parade had really elaborate costumes and even floats and none of that loud music from speakers but actualy bands. cool eh?

well going back tomorrow. sigh...... NOW i want to remain in london, maybe i should have gone to a more pleasant placce than COVENTRY>>>

urgh.... i complain too much

Let's start chronologically.
Wednesday evening after work 5pm.
Grabbed dinner (two whopper meals) and headed down to embankment station to catch the train to leicester square.
On the way i'm wondering... do i go to victoria or try my luck at leicester? I need a train ticket for the next week can i get it at Charrring Cross or embankment? I've got an hour till the director's tour at National Gallery.
Get to Embankment. Realise i can buy tickets there, get ticket there, go on the NOrthern line and arrive at Leicester Square. No tickets for billy elliot at the box office in the tube station, run up stairs with the locations of all the discout booths running through my head... right the one outside the pizza place.
Rush there and see like 8 couples in line. I scan the announcement poster, YES! billy elliot tickets for 21 quid.
as i line up i waff down one whopper meal( 2 minutes thank you very much) but i keep hearing all these horrid noises ' two for billy elliot please'. I think, NOOOOO don't go watch it it's horrid, watch something else you GITS I WANNA WATCH IT DON"T TAKE MY TICKET! SHOO!
two more koreans girls in front of me. Tourists! Pffft. The go forward. 'Two Billy Elliot Please'
the sales girls mumbles something about 36 quid each for seats together. YES! they shake their heads. YES!!! they ask for another time but somehow they don't seem to be very good at english, they fail and walk of despondently. YES!!!!!!!
I waltz up and ask, 'One for Billy Elliot Please'. after a bit of beating round the bush i get back row dress circle tickets for 21 quid. WOOO HOO!!! AFTER 5 WEEKS!! I FINALLY GET TO WATCH BILLY ELLIOT!!!! WOOO HOOO!!!!!!! Then of cousre i realise that i paid 3.50 for booking fees but heck I GET TO WATCH BILLY ELLIOT.
Right then i skipped off to trafalgar square to catch my tour.
Waffed down another whopper meal in front of Lord Nelson then skipped to the National gallery. Late for the tour had to run to catch it. Sheesh.

Tour guide is a teacher. And she makes a coupld of mistake with regards to the symbolism of the Saints. In particular, st Peter, has TWO keys not One but when holding one he holds a church. and the keys are to heaven and earth not heaven and hell. And she fails to point out st Paul. how roman catholic he hahhaha. but anyhow strange that she misses him out, considering that in iconography he's second to perhaps christ the virgin and peter only. oh well.
There's skull painting (can't remember the name i'm just bad with names) by holbein, the tale of the golden apple by rubens and finally turners... i forget. anyhow am happy to always see art that means something go home thinking about billy elliot.

okay to be fair i haven't blogged about Les Mis. now les mis is les mis. i don't think blogging about it would do it any more good plus i think most of you would have seen it. Let's say it's just stunning and so grandiose it's blows you away, sucks you in and totally immerses the audience in the story. I jsut wish they didn't sing so much and actually had some dialogue.

bILLY ELLIOT on the other hand is different. The singing leaves something to be desired. The set although very cleverly designed is not fantastic with rather bad transitions if you ask me (too much movement as if the director just didn't want the movement to be concealed. The dialogue while funny wasn't much.

But what billy elliot has that no other musical i've seen has is reality. it's RAW. it's about the north east of britain. it's about miners and strikes and the lives affected brutality by thatcher's (long may the iron lady live) reforms. it's a harsh truth about the things happening. It's not visually stunning but the simplicity of the play and the simple storyline is so straight forward it's just real. yo uget all these fantastic other musicals with unbelieveable storylines and you go off into lala land. but with billy elliot you're just stuck there watching and getting soaked in the story. and for all it's rough edges, billy elliot blows away the competition with it's choreography. once again, it's not graceful or perfectly fluid. it's a hodge podge of musical dance numbers,ballet jive and what have you. It's an artful and cheeky combination of girls in tutus, men in jumpers and police officers. its' so amazing where yo usee three different parties, composing two different scenes but on the same stage engaging in an ensemble that fits so nicely.

of course px would have LOVED the tap dancing finally. I personally preferred billy's tirade in the movie because he moved his feet more and fell down less than in the musical but honestly that was just one HUGE rush during the whole 10 minute set of him letting rip.
I didn't get my breath taken away ( i rarely do anyway) but this was one really really exhilirating performance. And the best part is, the humour isn't slap stick, it's well placed not shoved in as an after thought. And yo ucan tell the audience is really captured by this performance.

Of course, someone's gonna say, so... you like ballet now don't you. Eh... sadly i don't. coz what was on the schow and movie wasn't strictly ballet though it had a lot of it.
I dont' think i'll ever understand ballet. It's not i don't like it or hate it like i do modern art. But it's something along with modern dance and all those other so called 'dance arts' coz i guess i'm more of an academic art fan. i like art that tells a story that has history like stories from metamophosis or well hidden warning sign about pride. something that require one to know something before yo ucan know eerything. it's like a puzzle, that intrigues and educates. ballet for me is... too .. abstract... too unintellectual (okay that's not true but well unacademic). perhaps it's coz i don't like people heh so i don't like staring at someone prancing in a leotard and i'm suppose to interpret what he's doing. I love theatre, the clever dialogue, the plot. is it i'm too simple? or i think too much? dunno
eh.. yeah so i've watch billy elliot now. guess i can give the rest a miss. coz they really don't seem that fantastic. would like to see wicked but it just opened so don't think there'll be cheap tickets.

well that's about all now i guess.
sigh, wat a lonely friday...
8 hours back and 8 horus forward. this is going to be one SHITTY year trying to reconcile with time differences. I WANNA GO BACK AND SHOOT!!!!!!! I WANNA GO HOME AND EAT MEE POK!!!!!!! I WANNA GO BACK AND SLEEP IN A PROPER SIMMONDS MATTRESS!!!!!!! I WANNA NOT WORRY ABOUT THE WEATHER!!!! I WANT TO TALK TO FRIENDS!!!! I WANT 1000 SMS!!!

yes tirade over
last day of work and i'm not actually doing any work really hee hee!
okay settled on my modules for the next two years
year 2
economics 2
econometrics 1
industrial economics 1
international relations theory

year 3
the making of economic policy
economietric 2
industrial economics 2
principles of finance

wonder if i can sneak into lessons for C programming... hmmm
oh well

after that. hopefully get a us masters for FE. just pray they have it

right long enough entry. off to buy cookies for my colleagues
CIAO!

Well, this is of course interesting.
Make notmistake i'm not spoiling for a fight. Neither am I going on a witch hunt, or do i wish to erect pyres and start burning people.
Quite frankly, my brashness of comments and straightforwardness is going to lose me friends i guess. It's not that i want to lose them, but i guess, being overly honest is a problem.
To my friend. I thank you for your comment, i thank you for the honesty and the fact that you care enough to say something. however, i offer no apology for the content of my blog. I would apologise for the tone if it was offensive and while it would be futile to say that i did not mean to hurt anyone, i can say that i don't ever want to hurt my friends.
If you were expecting this and think that it's just a face saving act well then i'll leave it to you.
I live by the motto love the sinner hate the sin. If you have read this blog, that can only put you in one of a few categories.
1. you're a really close friend of mine who was one of the first to know of this blog when it started about 2 over years ago.
2. you're a friend of mine whom i feel comfortable shring the more detailed and private parts of my life, what i think and my views.
I think that about covers it.
If you do fall into those two categories, then i consider you a true friend whoever you are. And i think you should know that. having said that, you would also know that i accept all people, that i usually take the middle stance between all parties, that i don't judge people till i meet them. yes i gossip, i'm a fat hypocrite, but even for those people i hear or gossip things about, i get to know them before i form a firm opinion.
But all this is drivel to you and to anyone else i guess.

i think i might have written in a previous entry or maybe i've just it but i shall now put it down.
i think homosexuality is wrong. i do not bother with the argument of nature or nurture because i ultimately believe that regardless which is right, what we do is ultimately free choice. one can choose to defy nature just as people have curbed urges like anger or lust. nurtured habits can be changed just like smoking or swearing.
do i dislike or hate homosexuals? i'm not sure really. perhaps i do. do i hate the person? no. do i hate homosexuality? yes. i've read of people who acknowledged predelictions/likings/orientations to people of the same sex. But at the same time they have realised that it wasn't right and chose to curb those urges. do i then consider them gay? no, just as i do not label someone actively trying to crub their heavy drinking an alcoholic.
That is my view because it is the views that i have been brought up with and that i fully believe in.

but ultimately who am i to judge. i am in no position to judge. and i acknowledge that my comments can and have been judgemental. for that i apologise. i'm not perfect and i'm glad that you have pointed that out and reminded me of my mortality, although i would have wished for it under different circumstances. It's easy for me to shoot off my mouth.

well, whoever you are, i'm praying for you (hypocritical as this may sound). and i wish you well.

I think yesterday's very short entry calls for a little explanation.
Essentially, i woke up and basically the first human contact i had that day was to find out that someone had died on teh track preceeding my station resulting in a cancellation of the majority of trains. I was left cursing the fact that i would be late for work and at the same time thking why of all things people keep falling into the tracks over here. believe me it happnes on a rather regular basis, ask anyone in london and they will tell yo uthat train delays are often due to,' attention please, owing to a person on the tracks, there are delays on the ...... line till further notice' sheesh. And then i remembered that a couple of days ago i saw this eurostar train (the one that runs from waterloo to calais) with a red splatter on the nose. hmmm...
oh well then i realised it was a rather mean thing to be cursing someone's death and it was 9/11 the day before and there was all these stories about people who los their lives.

People dying is no joke. It's not because other people suffer along with the death. personally i thnk the person who has it easiest is the rotting corpse. Imagine at death, well at least according to us christians, you finally attain wisdom (if yo udidn't have it before) and recognise all the wonders and secrets of the world. at this point there is only one thing left to do and that is to slap one's forehead homer style and go D'OH! But other than that, you'd get closure. Hell or Heaven. Okay so this isn't exactly a good represetation of how i should portray christianity. i apologise i'm just having a go here so don't gripe. But honestly, for people who commit suicide, really it's rather selfish.Everyone left behind has to clean up after any mess you left behind. it's just not fair to them you thikn you're solving a problem but you're just creating another one. all those suicide bombers, i admire their faith (though it is tinted with the greed of having 72 virgins waiting for them etc etc) but honestly, your kids? who's going to be their father? the imams? who's going to protect your daughter, teach your son, love your wife? There's all those stories of desperate guys doing it for money with assurances that their families will be well taken care off money doesn't buy a family.
so yeah i was thinking about death in that aspect.
Also there were all these guys being flown back in boxes to scotland after getting killed in Afghanistan. All soldiers. Sad. YOu really don't sign up thiking you're going to die, and even when yo uget thrown into the foray you don't think you're going to get hit i suppose. And there's nothing glamourous about dying on the battlefield. i think it's lonely. everyone can't really give you any attention because they've got their own lives to worry about, you're a million miles away from loved ones.
I'll be glad when i die, coz then it would end it all. i'm just thinking if there'd be any sadness that i'd leave behind

A lot of people are mourning death this week. not least in NYC or America due to 9/11, no there's a lot fo death being rememberd this week.

This was going to be a very grumbly blog as all my entries are but well things happen and I am surprisingly feeling sad right now.

To start with i shall be grumpy haha coz i mean i still need to write about my life don't I? strangely i'm listening to Coldplay right now, doesn't get more depressing right? oh well
Yeah went with my Mum to brighton on saturday. oh i didn't tell you guys? she's spending 6 weeks with me in London. yeah anyway...
yes so where IS brighton? it's about 70 miles south of London on the coast. It's basically one of britain's famours seaside towns.
Well it's all that you ever expected about a british beach anyhow. first of all there's the pier with the tacky amusement park at the end. but honestly it's like something out of 'the 5 people you meet in heaven' i mean you'd never expect to see a 70's type pier still operating right? it's sister pier to it's west has already burnt down. Yeah so there's your over priced candy rock and popcorn and then the very very inane arcades. By gum, ther's more arcades in that one entire beach than there are in singapore and for very good reason as you'l soon find.
There was an indoor ice skating rink (not made of ICE of course) but some laminated plastic. yup had fish and chips there which was rather expensive but i mean hey, it's the beach you've just GOT to eat fish and chips there right? nearly had a spotted dick but realised that it was basically a waste of money to eat pudding with raisins.
anyway by now the winds had basically whippedto monsoon levels and the light rain was now striking my face now. it's wasn't tropical storm rain but it was hell of a depressing. grey skies, bleak sea, no wonder the english are such a sorry lot.
The beach and ocean view is great. it's a really long coast that you can't possibly sea the end of and i just love looking out to the vastness of the ocean save for a few problems. it's cold, it's wet, and the beach is not made of sand but pebbles *ouch*. yeah so my mum and I conveniently leave the beach and go for the promenade. Interestingly enough there was a meeting ot Lancia (an italian car) owners which was interesting. all those people with the EXACT same car coming together to talk about the car that they all have. haha i don't know if it's banal or fun haha!
yeah so we basically walk along brighton which turns out to be like every other town in the UK. i mean yes we skipped all the historical places but only coz you have to pay to get in them and honestly i don't think their worth it. There was this thing called the royal pavillion which was a palace prince albert/george/geronimo built because he was fascinated with indian architecture. Quite honestly, having seen the taj mahal and other indian palaces, its pales BADLY in comparison. That's british for you, always trying to be outstanding but coming out poorly. a forecast for the olympics?
Yeah well after that it was just making our way through the little area aptly known as The Lanes which was cute. there were some nice shops but of course everything is way to expensive. would have bought mum a coat if they weren't so damned pricey. dunno why an 80 quid coat can cost 20 by the end of winter sure it can be displayed for next year and people wouldn't know the diff.... female fashion.....sheesh
well then the heavy rain came down and we had an hour left before the bus back. i thought that 5 hours for a day trip in brighton was a bad idea, it was, should have only scheduled for 3. ended up resting on a park bench and eating my cold egg mayo sandwich and whiling the time away in torrential rains. how english of us.
yup so made our way back to the bus for a night out in london. we've been the two comedy shows and they were both pretty good so we thought we'd go for another one. BAD idea. to start with most of them won't that funny but that was okay i mean not every joke is good but the thing was that the gig started late and there were 9 acts! seriously you can have a few acts to give variety but 9 is REALLY too much. some of the jokes were just in plain bad taste (and if I say so it's REALLY in bad taste). and it just dragged on and on and on. oh well it was only 5 quid each so no complaints.
I maintain that being drunk is plain dumb. on sunday after church we went to Espana at regent street. a street festival basically to promote spain as a tourist area. nothing to do with drinking but there was free food. i don't think we have to say anything else. i dunno WHY we seem to be so abashed of our kiasu culture. BY GUM you should have seen the pushing and shoving that people were willing to go through for free fruit cake samples it was MAD. i mean there are some really rude words to describe the scene there and as i was caught in the middle of it (yes yes i went for some too) i was just so amazed at the universal power the word FREE has. haha and there was free piela, free appertifs, free nuts/olive/cakes free pancakes. sadly i never got the free bandana.oh well.
yep so an end to another weekend. but then there was this morning. i grab the paper only to read that steve irwin is dead.
It is a shock a very very rude one. not because of his crazy lifestyle, or the fact that he was a celebrity. in fact i don't usually find celebrity deaths anything to be particularly sad about. i wasn't a fan of his either but his death was significant. steve irwin was a happy person. maybe offscreen he had problems but each time you heard his 'CRIKEY!' or 'KOR!!' you just felt so happy. he brought a smile to your face and you genuinely felt that he was happy. it's sad that we see the end of such a passionate man. you've got brain dead environmentalist who tie them selves to trees or try to break into power stations. you've got animal lovers like peta who are just a pain or are just human hating when they write to a rabbit hunter's family that he should have died when caught rabbit flu. i think he made the world more aware of the plight animals in his loving, positive and enthusiastic manner than any of them did combined. and his passing is something we should mourn for. I suppose i feel sad because he was a nice guy and i really hate it when the good guy gets it. i don't mean good guy as in the idiot with the'right' values, but the genuine nice guy who has done his best and gets his wonderful blessed life snuffed out like that. my only consolation is that he got done in while doing what he loved best.

this one entry will have the honour of being dedicated to someone and that will be Steve Irwin, will his wacky, over-the-top love for life and all that lives live on.

Yep well possibly from the title i possibly might get my scholarship revoked over sensitive issues but heck.
anyhow, yeah recently there's talk about allowing lesbian couples and single mums to get sperm donations /fertilizations even though the new born will have no father.
there have been calls that the law requiring the family to have a father is homophobic. Which leads me to wonder. Why do they call it homophobia?
i mean a phobia is an irrational fear of something right? like arachnaphobia, and the fear of heights or claustrophobia. are any of us seriously afraid of homophobia. and even if we are, are the fears irrational?
i mean for one, even though heterosexuals and drug users are guilty of transmitting HIV, homosexuals/bisexuals possibly have as much if not more blame for the global endemic but let's not point fingers alright? how about the well established ideology of the family that lesbians, feminists and homophiles oppose? i mean one man one woman form a family how hard is that to understand? they claim that homosexuality was formerly well accepted in enlightened societies. to that i only have one thing to say, where are those societies now? if they were so advanced and enlightened, why did they die out surely their higher morals and rationalisations should have survived if they were so great. the truth of the matter is that the generic family of man woman and children is THE basic and fundamental building block of humanity. those societies broke down because they gave in to the most debase of carnal desires and thus led to the break down of them. their tolerance of such disgusting practices were their undoing and will be ours if we follow on this slippery slope of liberalism. ah well you get my drift
i'm not afraid them. i'm afraid of the effect they will have on MY way of life. it's all this talk about ways of life and stuff so why can't traditional people like me protect OUR way of life? why is being conservative so sinful? I'm claiming my right to live according to my beliefs and not have it shoved in my face. i mean heterosexuals don't prace around coz we're proud to be hetero, sheesh. it's like homosexuals need parades to tell everyone their gay so they can get laid amongst all the poor music and booze and drugs.
i am not afraid, if i was then perhaps the majority of the world is homophobic (in that case then it isn't an irrational fear if it's more the norm now is it?).
i don't detest them. i detest the things they do. so i'm not homo phobic. so stop calling me that.

and yeah well there's this new Miss England who's a Muslim. which honestly is rather a contradiction. from what i know, muslim women are taught to be modest (burqa/hijab or not) and modest she is not. to start with, beauty pageants require a swim wear section and basically it's a BEAUTY pageant, no matter how much brains count it's about the superficial beauty, so un less she can 100% say that such pageants are some what driven by the modern day obsession with sex and the sex sells then she's not a worthy spokeswoman for Islam. basically she's used her elevated status to condemn tony blair (whom i'm no fan of) and his policy on Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan. Funnily enough, she herself is a Afghan refugee fleeing the Taliban. So while British soldiers on the orders of tony blair and dying to liberate her country so that she now has the Option of returning home she's bashing him. talk about ungratefulness. which is what chracterises all the racial/cultural tensions that's arising in the UK at the moment, refugees and migrants come here seeking the Good Life taht western capitalism and all it's pitfalls brings but then want to stamp their way of life on the society. In rome do as the romans do. i'm glad that Home isn't like this you either fit in or shift out. It's people like this mid-rift baring beauty queen that is at the root of racial tensions, rather than using their status to solve problems their creating more. oh well, humans are ungrateful by nature, hey look how we turned our backs on Jesus.

and finally carnival
well i've typed SO much about other things here i'd just say a little about the Notting Hill Festival. it's europes largest carnival and the world's 2nd largst (1000000 people visited this year) but honestly it's a bore. there were no floats, just big trucks with even bigger speakers. lots of flesh baring little dancing. i must admit that some of the costumes were dazzling but overall it was a bunch of denim wearing revellers guzzling booze and walking to the beat of
caribbean' music that threatened to deafen you.

yep that's my week in london