Wednesday, December 28, 2005

No animosities please... if you want to skate safely...

Went ice skating at the Fuji Ice Palace with Yunlun and Edwin today. Although we reached there at about 11.30, 1.5 hrs after the opening time, it was already damn freaking crowded, teeming with primary and secondary school kids. It was later that I learnt that Wednesdays were the days when discounts were given to students and many grabbed hold of the last opportunity to skate before the school hols end.
I was a little afraid and inconfident initially, having not skated for at least 8 months. But very soon, I felt more at ease on the rink and was able to skate decently well (that is, for a 3rd tim

er, *lol*).

As I skated on, there was one thing I noticed: everybody carried some form of confidence in them; not one facial expression I saw had fear in it. This resilience is what prevented them from crashing into each other in near-miss situations. It is important to avoid locking eyes with a person you are about to crash into so that you would not stare at each other and freeze in terror, thereby retaining the last bit of confidence and saving that precious milli-second to steer yourself to safety.
Another thing I realized was that if you want to prevent collisions, you shouldn't habour any form of animosity against other skaters that piss you off: that ah-beng that cuts into your path and who skates like a Lambo driven by a drunk driver in a skating crowd amongst which you can hardly move; the little tots that push their walkers everywhere and who don't look out for traffic in the rink; the teens who hold onto each other's shoulders, towing each other in a line and trying to bring the spirit of Christmas into the rink, via portraying the imagery of reindeers towing Santa Claus behind. (The Fuji Ice Palace is one of the very few places in Singapore that could scarcely pass off as having a white, white Christmas, I know, I know.) Now, if you are irritated by these people, it means that you would be less tolerant and less resilient to sudden situations that require you to keep calm in order to react accordingly. I see people pushing away others who accidentally knock into them, instead of helping to stabilise them and indirectly themselves. Needless to say, both of them fell down. It is this sense of animosity,stemmed from the sense of irritation, that made them selfish and unforgiving enough to help the party who was at fault. In the end, they suffered from the fall as well.
***
For this session, I concentrated mainly on learning to skate without that walking motion, reducing speed quickly to adjust to the slower speed ahead, zig-zagging my way through crowded parts when I couldn't reduce speed in time and to skate without falling, esp on the most slippery parts of the rink. I was quite satisfied this time round, as I continued improving despite a long break since the last session and given that the situation today is hardly the best: damn crowded rink and slippery surfaces everywhere the ice has melted. I hope that the rink would not be so crowded the next time round so that I can pick up speed and probably learn to do some patterns. :p

Posted by charles at 9:27 PM

Sunday, December 25, 2005

X'mas Chalet!

My year-end chalet started on the 23rd. It was at Coasta Sands Pasir Ris.
Met up with Weihong and Yongji at White Sands and did some shopping before loading up a taxi with all the barang-barang--- bags full of food to last us for the next few days. Chian Lih joined us later at the chalet just before dinner at White Sands again.
Our first actual destination was to watch a play entitled 'The Promise' by MeiQing at the Victoria Concert Hall. It was the first time I entered this pre-war monument
and like others of its kind, it looked very grand...

Me, Yongji and ChianLih After the performance

Our next destination was Momo! We had intended to go to the newly opened Ministry of Sound (MOS) but the queue seemed infinitely looong... It really could not be helped as it was a Friday night, plus the fact that it was 2 days before Christmas and we reached there quite late as well, at about 1130pm. Therefore, we had no choice but to go to the less popular clubs.
However, Momo was damn packed we found out, after we managed to enter despite the 21-year old age limit. We had to sqeeze our way through gyrating bodies, the smoke-filled dance hall to get our drinks and to find a spot to dance. Yj and I got ourselves Torquilla Pop, under yj's recommendation; while wh and Ll got a bottle of Corona each. The Torquilla was good I thought, but I decided not to buy any more drinks as I didn't want to spend too much. The smoke was not as bad as I initially thought, but the others complained much about it. The problems of smog from some other cities are just comparable to the amount of smoke in the club. The dancing part wasn't very interesting, I found that I had to keep looking at my watch hoping the time would go by faster. The music wasn't very nice too, and the place was so cramped that you would have to stop dancing if people were to walk pass you. Eventually, me and yj decided to get out as he wanted to take a breath of fresh air. Whew! Finally got out of that crowded place... Guess what happened next?
Me and yj walked all the way back to Mac at Clarke Quay to have supper and to sit down and relax AND WE REALIZED THAT the taxi that we took merely circled Clarke Quay and crossed over to the other side of the road to Momo!! The driver must have thought that we were dumb enough not to walk the 500 metres!

Later, under Chian Lih and Zhe Sheng's persuasion, we returned to the dance floor to dance a bit more... They and wh were the most enthusiastic among us. Later, we got seats at the side to watch a performance by a live band. It was great! =) But we were tired and some of us fell soon asleep on that comfy sofa.... Nearly 4am then... We left the place soon....
Caught the first train back to our chalet at 6am. Slept till lunch and Yongji got his car from home!! So we drove to meet Kangxun at White Sands and have lunch. I got to drive the car round the resort's carpark... 1st time driving an auto!! I was scared that the car would surge forward at first as autos had a bad reputation of surging forwards in carparks causing accidents but it turned out to be easier to drive than my dad's manual! I drove like a pro driver man!! Haha didn't expect driving an auto to be so easy... :p
Had the barbeque that night... yes... Christmas Eve... and their pa juniors didn't even bother to come help out cooking! So in the end, the seniors plus me plus zs had to do it!! Saw a lot of unfamiliar faces... some from dhs previously too... Kerfen came too... But none of them stayed overnight...

The second night was spent playing cards and received so many sms x'mas greetings that I couldn't concentrate on the game so I lost one or two rounds...haha... :p Slept early... too tired already...

25th... Went down to the beach to play freesbe... hard time running up and down fruitlessly trying to catch the freesbe. Went back home in the afternoon... so tired siah!! but with smiles on our faces! =)

Posted by charles at 10:04 PM

Thursday, December 15, 2005

Carrie

Last night I happened to come across this late-night movie titled "Carrie" on TV. It was based on the same-titled novel by Stephen King that I had read earlier this year. The scenes were exactly the same as that of the novel itself, therefore my quick identification of the novel. There was a part where I can still recall vividly, as I watched the movie, which was of the calculated and malicious nomination of Carrie to be the Prom Queen by her fellow schoolmates who always bullied and ostrascized her due to her retarded behaviour and weird family upbringing.
As some background knowledge, I would like to mention that Carrrie came from a very pious family which basically consisted of only her and her mother. As a girl, she was not allowed to interact with boys and her mother viewed sex as absolute sin. The girls in her school ostracised and despised her as they felt that she, due to the lack of social interactions, behaved retardedly and weirdly. She was viewed as DIFFERENT, fundamentally because she did not do the things like all her teeenage female peers do and she would often be locked inside the closet by her mother to pray and ask for God's forgiveness for everything sinful her mother thought she had done. Another remarkable point I would like to bring up is that she had telekinetic (TK) powers (there is actually no such word in the dictionary I checked, it seems rather like a biological term I learnt *lol* ) , which is a supernatural power that is oft-mentioned in Stephen King's novels.

So this fateful night, which was Carrie's high school prom, her schoolmates resolved to make her again, and this time worse by far, the greatest butt of jokes, by pouring red paint on her when she was on stage with the Prom King. So the sinister plan was meticulously carried out and the sweet and angelical-looking Carrie (or at least the actress) became grossly washed with blood-red paint at the happiest moment of her life, just after she danced and kissed with the Prom King onstage, naively thinking that nothing was amiss. It was then that her telekinetic powers started working...

She was shaking in fury, helplessness and embarrassment when her powers, apparently subconciously controlled by her emotions, came into action. The empty paint can, which was hanging above the stage, came down smashing on the Prom King's head, killing him on the spot. The school hall's doors suddenly slammed shut, breaking the hand of an accomplice who tried to escape. When Carrie's teacher who knew of her TK powers came forward to calm her down, she fell backwards as a force exerted by an unseen hand, pushed the whole crowd backwards. Then, furniture was hurled all over the hall and fixtures on ceilings came down on the frightened crowd of students and teachers. Electrical wires snapped and caused a fire in the hall. The crowd, now turning into an insanely desperate mob, tried to break open the doors and climb the windows, but to no avail. Water pipes burst as the rage in Carrie continued to brew, and electrocuted the headmaster as he tried to calm the mob down. One by one, the remaining people went down, electrocuted and charred.
It was a cruel episode, which actually was what Carries' agitators brought onto themselves. I think this punishment was too harsh, especially for the Prom King and many other innocent people who unfortunately perished in this event. Of course, there was a handful of lucky ones who escaped to tell the story, but they were no doubt permanently scarred by the inexplicable and life-threatening episode that they endured.
It was a rather violent and bloody story, I would say, but it were also the very attributes that made this story heart-thumping and heart-wrenching. It leaves us to think about the nasty treatment that we give to the weaker ones around us everyday, be it unintentional or cruelly malicious. Should we, as a fellow human being, spare them a thought, or only regret when something has happened to them and it is too late?

Posted by charles at 10:50 AM

Saturday, December 10, 2005

The Buangkok MRT station is finally opening!

Kudos to MP Charles Chong and his grassroots team! They are the ones who had strived hard negotiating with the MRT operator and convincing it to use the station. It has not been an easy task for them as the Buangkok MRT saga had been under the scrutiny of the public and the police. Unknown residents had put up several white elephants as a protest a few months ago when MCYS minister Vivian Balakrishnan made a visit to the constituency. Mr Chong had not condoned the move,but it had no doubt put him under political pressure since he was then sandwiched between his political seniors and his residents. There was a "loss of face" for the party leaders. Fortunately, the minister was not offended and things turned out well. Despite that, the incident remained a very sensitive issue. Mr Chong and his team continued lobbying, backed by the good humour and two transport surveys finally to their success. This has earned much respect for Mr Chong and the Punggol South grassroots leaders. Quoting from MP Chong on his take of being a grassroots leader: " If you're here to maintain the status quo, there is no point for you to be here."

Posted by charles at 2:16 PM

Sunday, December 04, 2005

My 1st Piano Lesson

I went for my pop piano preiew this morning at Loyang. It was quite far away from Pasir Ris Central, and surprisingly it took me almost one hour to reach there from home. The teacher taught me to play with just using 1-2-3-4-5 to represent the right hand fingers and F-G-A-B-C for the other hand. Pop piano is a shortcut for adults who do not want to go through the process of learning musical notes from Grade 1 onwards. The session was good, but I have yet to make up my mind on whether to choose it over guitar.

Posted by charles at 9:30 PM

Thursday, December 01, 2005

Hitched on a ride on Yongji's Lexus from camp yesterday. Galvin and Gary were on the car too, taking the "shun feng che" back home. Yongji was meeting up with Weihong, Lilian, Kangxun and Mun Thye after work to have dinner at a restaurant selling Korean-Jap cuisine at Shaw Towers. I was undecided whether to dine with them or to go straight back home.
On the journey back from work, we were sort of stuck in a jam on the AYE, travelling at a speed of about 40km/h on the expressway. Yongi kept switching lanes, but each time he tried, the traffic on the lane in which we were originally travelling started moving faster, so each attempt to beat the slow-moving traffic became futile. What hard luck!
I decided to miss my 8-o'clock show and have dinner with the guys. Had a good chat with Mun Thye, whom I had not seen for almost 2 years. He was saying that he learnt a lot from his unit and that although he was a corporal, he was doing the job of a lieutenant, therefore he was a "left-tenant-right-tenant". I think I can remember this quote of his for v long. Hahaha...