Nothing is so strong as gentleness. Nothing is so gentle as real strength.: December 2005

esplanade on new year's eve...for music & fireworkz!! any takers? leave a msg!

Merry X'mas to all and a very Happy 2006!!

This short holidays have been a much needed break and I'm so thankful for it! It's such a wonderful feeling to wake up in the afternoon just in time for brunch and stuff... But shit, it just had to be spoilt by the dreadful thought of having 2 papers on day 1 of sem 2... Grr... And I think i'm in deep shit becoz i've been going out everyday and boy, i really do need a lot more time to study... Can I wish for 48 hrs for the brand new year?

Been hanging out with lots of non-meddies this hols. SMP pple, karate gang, NUSSU peeps, frisbee dudes and tmr...my pri sch friends! Boy, what a whirlwind hols! This chistmas and new year has never been more fun because I've decided to write my 1st ever christmas cards in years. Oh man, it has been a 'chore' trying to figure out what to write for each individuals as u gotta know, I'm a man with little brains and limited words. it literally took me hours to write and reminded me painfully of the reason y I abandoned writing it all in the 1st place. But to all who received it, I hope you like the little effort that I've put in... **clasped his hands and pray**

This festive season is not complete without some gourmet and i'll just share some places around. Top on my list here would be Ivin's restaurant in Brinjal Park, Bukit Timah. Nice peranakan restaurant with lots of yummy dishes for super cheap ala carte prices. It's even more worth it if you go in big grps and chiong all the food. Price would be about $10/pax at the very most...! Next up, Andersen's of Denmark Ice-Cream @ Marina Mall! Man, the ice-cream totally thrashed Haagen-Daaz hands down. Nice, smooth and creamy ice-cream with lots of delicious taste! Super alcoholic rum & raisin and very delightful belgium chocolate nuts top my list! And a particular cute waitress by the name of p _ _ _ _ also made my day with her wonderful customer service! *dun get me wrong there pls*

Have you seen a shirt and a cap that can both light up? Haha, today I got these 2 as my bday and xmas presents from my karate gang! Thanks man! It's hard to describe how it works, except that you need 2 AA batteries each and the spaceship in a galactic world on the shirt would light up with different colours and patterns. On the other hand, the cap has a middle middle finger imprinted that lights up too with the help of another 2 AA batteries! Whee, one day, I'll just wear these to school and wave my cap at lecturers whom refuse to speak louder or just can't be bothered with the lecture they're giving... Haha!

wierd shot taken @ taka xmas tree with SMP pple

taken after splashing water on myself...yuckz...

@ e finishing...not bad...haha

this week has gotta be the most tiring week i ever had in my life!! it's so super duper mentally and physically draining!!

had to attend 2 consecutive camps, student mentorship programme camp and student leaders camp, that were both 3D2N and held back-to-back to each other, starting on sunday and ending on thursday. my gosh, that wasn't too hard, except that i really nearly died on monday and tuesday because i went back to school for a total of 8 lectures & 1 practical, surviving only on only a total of 5 hrs for these 2 days... man, those coffee caffeine boosters did help to tide things over... i wanna complain!! y medicine got no holidays one?!?!?! like that how to study well?!?!?!

the smp camp was held at sembawang camp. yes, the campsite when i had my 1st medicamp. man, it brought back some memories on fright night and war games and the 'oh-my-god' gay skits on campfire night. this time, the setting was a bit different because i did not attend the camp as a camper, but more as a facilitator to the sec 1 kids, or mentees, and to help them enjoy the camp more, since most of them dun have this overnight camp opportunities. i felt we did lots of cool stuff, like cooking dinner with mess tins, night walk with mentee under the starry night, thrustfalls n putting up kiddy skits for campfire. man, i relinquish the role as a mentor guide to the kids for the camp, just that i bloody hell have to wake up n leave for sch by 6.15am n miss the entire morn and aft's activities!! crapz...

next was my 1st ever students leaders camp for NUS students' union committee members. cool, it was at ecp costa sands chalet and luckily, i din have sch for these 2 days so that i can enjoy the camp more thoroughly. to start things off, i was put into a group of pple whom were very cute and spontaneous, and that made my life so much terribly easier. we told each other so many hours of lame jokes that no other jokes can seem to penetrate and tickle the funny bone anymore. activities were fun, like speed-dating, which i've never done before, beach challenge n nokia phone challenge. oh, and not to forget the super late nights for supper at ecp lagoon food centre and midnight karaoke at marine parade kbox (service at that place sux totally!!!) i made new friends from other faculties at the end of day and i'm glad i did cos they gave me diff perspective of things.

sch on fri was a chore becoz the day was simply too long. but thanks wong yi, char and qiumei for making my day with your xmas cards. love it! and qiumei, your present was great, though a little small...haha!

that same night, i attended a NUS management dinner. apparently, someone must have known that NUS pple are gluttons and called for buffet style food instead in HOLIDAY INN PARK HOTEL!! kaoz, that burst my 8-course dinner dream! *poof* evidence to the above statement was clearly seen next when everyone in front of me in the Q snapped up the smoked salmon and baked ham, leaving none for me n my plate... well done NUS staff!! and i gotta say NUS staff are pretty much dead n boring with no slightest inkling for arts... so dead they are! there was this black singer who sang nice retro songs and tried to get the pple to sing or just clap along with him. but the NUS staff refused and he had such a hard time even entertaining himself! even i, who swayed and clapped along with the music, felt weird doing the swaying n clapping alone...!

sigh, finally, the holidays have started, but this just feel so different. maybe it's the CAs on the opening day of sem 2... or maybe it's just me. i quote my friend who gave me some food for thought during the camp. it goes 'life is just like a u-turn. 1st, u may b ahead of the pack, but with 1 wrong move, u fall behind everyone else'...

part of the NUSSU exco

artistic shot??

my idol - dr william tan!

qiumei's taller than me!

thanks qiumei for this xmas present :)

instant noodles dinner with mentees using mess tin...'yummy' indeed

yeah! campfire...

tak's cheesecake confectionary got rolling yesterday again when 4 guys by the names of mark sim, hamid, wong yi n jit khong came over to my place to learn how to bake cheesecake. man! i barely learnt how to even produce 1 of that fluffy little thing and there i have 4 eager students waiting to steal recipe from me. haha! anyway, after a little shopping in j8 for the almighty philadelphia cream cheese, we got baking underway in the kitchen. i was so nervous that i'm doing alone for the 1st time that i almost forgot all the baking procedures. phew~ luckily my mum came back in time to calm my nerves and everything went smoothly after. it's interesting to note that mark sim can't crack eggs to seperate yolk from white and hamid's pretty sleek with his hands... the 4 guys even came up with their own method to beat the cheesy method, something which i've never seen before either. i think they had tonnes of fun messying up my kitchen and even more fun eating when it was finally baked. haha, 4 pionner grads from tak's cheesecake school... anymore students?

this afternoon was damn sian... i got knocked out by my own philadelphia unbaked cheesecake and ended up sleeping in the med lib for 45mins. worse, i slept thru the 1st 1/2 hr of my pbl and had to scurry to the micro b conference room like a little mad mouse and apologise to my pbl tutor. thru the whole session, i was in a super daze and had no freaking idea what each other was presenting. suckz! to add fuel to situation, i was commenting after the pbl session on how my tutor was so oblivion to someone's presentation and to my most frightful horror, my tutor appeared right behind my back as i finished my last sentence... OMG x 2...!

thanks wong yi for the most wonderful bday dinner treat. hotel phoenix cafe definitely served pretty good stuff, but i dun think i'll step in there again unless i've $ to throw... haha!

evidence that medicine guyz really can bake!!

wong yi & me

yum yum~

'Learn to love the pain' - Standard Chartered Singapore Marketing team

saw this motivational quote @ the east coast leg of the marathon run and man, that was what I truely found out in this morning's marathon. u really got to love the pain to love the game of running! and y do i say so? it's gonna be a bit gross so just bear with me. before the 1/2way mark of 21km, i discovered i had bleeding nipples (yes, no joke!! and there were 2 red patches on my white singlet!!), had armpit abrasion thru e run such that i had to flap my elbows out while running and groin and scrotal abrasion which i discovered only while bathing just now... not only that, my quads felt like they weight a tonne during the final 10km of the run and my calfs threatened to cramp all e time! 'mind over matter' another quote mentioned... yes e runners who finished it were truely a testimony of the statement!

but wait, before concluding that marathon is a torturous game, i have to admit that I had absolutely no complains about the run and i thoroughly enjoyed the whole process, which took a labourious 4hrs 45mins. there was a good mix of runners from young to old, pretty & handsome volunteers (they deserve credit for painfully opening hundreds of bottles of ice mountain water), an ang moh who kept cheering on and on for 4-5hrs for all runners @ ECP and of course the cheerleaders from the polys, which i gladly shook all their silky hands while running for motivation...haha! other than people, the view thru the run was very scenic too, just that i din have the time and effort to appreciate them... who had?!?!

having gone very hungry before during my training runs, i decided not to let hunger strike again in what i call 'the mother of all races'! before the run, i had loaded myself with 2 powerbars and 1 powergel just before running. thru the run, i was clutching so tightly to my remaining 1 powergel as though it's gonna be lost forever. after finishing that powergel @ the 18km mark for some lost energy, i immediately went to grab 2 more packs again @ the 28km mark for energy 'safety'! gosh, never believed in those stuff till today... yeah, and @ every 2-4km, i would be so happily grabbing an open ice mountain bottle to sip and den pour the contents all over my body like a wet mad man! next comes the fun, i just have to chuck/throw the empty/half-filled bottles by the roadside! hey, it's legitimate national littering day!

towards the last 10km of the run, i thought i was a mad runner and decided to half-sprint towards the finishing. gosh! i totally felt i was possessed as i zoomed past 1 runner after the next. strangely, it was a very good feeling becoz every step was a step towards the finishing line and a step lesser for the run, other than the good old feeling of overtaking pple. however, gd things dun last and i fizzled off 2km from the line and was overtaken by 5 females and 2 ah-peks! it was only @ the last 200m that i decided to sprint for my life again and boy was it shiok to overtake about 10-15 pple even at this last stretch... the sprint was made surprisingly pleasant when i happened to see Daniel Quek and Randel cheering on at the last 150m. kudos to both of you!

omg, i just have to say this!! the kenyan and african runners were so damn fast!!! i was @ the 3km mark when the breakaway pack of 6-8 runners just zoomed past me in the dark @ their 10km mark. not only so, they zoomed past me AGAIN when i was @ my 16km mark and them @ their 35km mark! gosh!!they were so tall, so strong, had such long strides, and so black that i've now decided to call them the night riders (you know, the horses the dark side rode in LOTR??)!! damn, they r my running idols and i just feel like a snail whenever i think about their runs!

ok, it's time to konk out and let my legs rest. tmr i shall wear the black addidas dri-fit finisher's shirt to sch! yay!