Made to Order

New Order's latest single, Krafty, quite incredibly, has all the classic ingredients of their music. This is quite a feat considering the new wave veterans normally maintain two distinct sounds: straight-out indie rock and technicolour synthpop. The song uncommonly boasts two sets of basslines (Hooky's signature bass-as-lead layered over an '80s analog pulse), two sets of drums (dry drum machine during the verses and Morris' propulsive banging during the choruses), and of course Barney Sumner's deadpan delivery of his typically daft lyrics. It also has simple bursts of guitar, strings, tinkly noises and a wobbly synth solo.

There's so much instrumental variety packed into Krafty's four minutes that its utterly uninspired 3-chord (D, G, A) progression is actually tolerable. By and large I like it; my only problem with it is that it's a pastiche of sugarpop conventions and ultimately lacks character. Listen to it here (Mac users click here). I don't know how much longer these official links will be active so if you're checking here in retrospect...go out and buy the CD instead. ;)

Nocturnalia III: One Night in Korea

It was part of a whirlwind of a cultural exchange programme sponsored by the Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The hosts, local NYAA alumni; the participants, 27 Korean students from various universities. I had nothing to do with it but I'd met two of the Korean students at a youth forum in August last year, and I couldn't resist crashing.

We brought them through Chinatown, showing them the lights, night markets and auctions. We lit almost 50 sparklers by the roadside and sang the birthday song for one of the Korean girls. From the hotel, we went by car and cab to China Black and danced our fatigue away. Earlier in the day, before I joined them, they found bizarre stopovers in the National Youth Council, Botanic Gardens and the Regional Language Centre. By this evening, they will have touched down in Kuala Lumpur.

They didn't see Singapore, but perhaps saw how small the world was.

The high point of the night for me was being briefly reunited with friends I made in Korea last year. I don't travel much, and the experience of meeting people I realistically never expected to see again was simply unreal. It was also rather special because they came into my life through the intense camaraderie of a student conference, untainted by the tensions and antagonisms of real-life interpersonal relations.

One of the girls, a sweet lass whom I'd been keeping up a kind of pen-pal arrangement with, gave me a calendar from her university and four packets of Korean instant noodles. Before I left, we hugged at the steps of the hotel, clinging on to the fleeting miracle that was our correspondence come to life.

Never mind that I missed a defining soccer match between my sociology honours classmates and the economics honours students. Never mind that the elderly taxi driver misheard "Holland Drive" as "Marine Drive", and never mind that I was so full of the last few hours that I didn't notice until it was too late. Never mind that I really shouldn't have slept at 5am.

Last night, I was in Korea again.

Disguised as the Devil

I've seen photos of Gene Simmons without his KISS makeup before, so seeing him unadorned as a guest judge on today's American Idol was hardly a shocker.

It was the way he spoke that blew my brains out.

Now I can't claim to know KISS particularly well, but I gotta say that I never imagined someone who played the part of the demon in his band's flamethrowing, blood-spitting stage shows would be as collected, articulate and insightful as the man I saw sitting next to Randy Jackson.

I wouldn't have imagined he would dish out observations like this nugget to a hopeful working in a prison ministry: "I see you more as a country singer, and here's why: rock and pop is usually associated with sexuality, but with country music, you can sing Christian themes and still be accepted and sell millions of records."

Nor would I have imagined him identifying C&W and a certain genre of 50's jazz as among his favourites. I mean, this guy just released a solo album titled A**hole!

Maybe these theatrical cock-rock types are really smarter than they make themselves out to be. Like rock journos. An aside: oh, I love Q Magazine! All Brit wit, irreverence and flashes of brilliance.

Family Ties

My paternal grandfather died of a massive stroke when I was a few months old. That was 24 years ago.

A few weeks ago, my father realised he would soon be approaching the age at which my grandfather passed away. He is still in good health.

On Monday, his brother--my eldest uncle, collapsed and was rushed to Tan Tock Seng hospital. It was a stroke, but thank goodness it wasn't serious.

As I stood by his bed today with my father, I suddenly felt incredibly inept and useless. I had nothing to say to my uncle; nothing to give him other than the reassurance that in the very least, by visiting him, I knew the basic rules of propriety.

I wish I could do more than hand him the water which he could've reached for with a little effort. I wish I could look at him in a way that didn't reduce him to an exhibit. I wish I had a way to tell him that I hope for an end to his anxiety about his condition, and a dignified recovery, even though I have no desire to know him as a person.

But I didn't. I just couldn't. Is there a way?

The Songs That Remind Him of the Good Times

Read the following album titles and think of what they mean to you.

The Verve - Urban Hymns
Suede - Coming Up
Oasis - Definitely Maybe
Blur - 13
Pulp - This is Hardcore
The Cardigans - Gran Turismo
Manic Street Preachers - This is My Truth Tell Me Yours
No Doubt - Tragic Kingdom
Garbage - Garbage
Alanis Morrisette - Jagged Little Pill
Portishead - Dummy
Sarah McLachlan - Surfacing

If you're between, say, 22 and 26, these albums may have contributed to the soundtrack of your adolesence, as they did for me. I couldn't help grinning inside when I saw them at a secondhand CD stall at a campus bazaar today. The sight of them together in one place brought me back to a time when little else mattered: a time when the greatest cause for worry was remembering an unfinished assignment on the day it was due; when the greatest cause for celebration was discovering later that the teacher who gave the assignment was on sick leave; and when the greatest people on earth were rock stars because they could articulate all your angst and disaffection so perfectly, yet look so cool.

There were many other CDs from those years on sale: Ash's Nu-Clear Sounds, Ocean Colour Scene's Moseley Shoals, and other Oasis albums, to name a few. Even local act Concave Scream's 1997 debut, Erratic, was available. They were all rather pricey for used CDs (but in good condition), ranging from $10 to $15 apiece. After much deliberation, I picked up Lamb's Best Of and Mono's Formica Blues. Goodness, it's been so long since I've heard Life in Mono!

Nocturnalia II

It's been a strange weekend. As if it's not enough that I didn't sleep on Friday night, and made up for it on Saturday by sleeping till 6 in the evening, I went and did it all over again by joining my sociology honours mates for a boozing session at Newton Hawker Centre before adjourning to Party World KTV at Orchard till 4:30am.

Alcohol, late nights and singing: not a good programme for recovery from a cold. Not especially when it's petering off into a persistent dry cough.

But the company's more than worth it. The sociology honours bunch aren't people I'd take a bullet for but we've got a camaraderie that's quite unrivalled among coursemates at NUS. Today, about 16 of us, 2 significant others and 2 lecturers turned up. We collectively downed more than 30 large bottles of Heneiken and cracked more bad jokes than you can shake a finger at.

Karaoke was a rowdy 10-man session in a VIP room with the standard roster of classic rock, oldies and American Top 40 hits being belted out. Somehow, the dim, enclosed environs and boisterous company actually takes all the embarrassment out of liking songs in these genres.

It's with a little sadness that I indulge in all this, because I know I'll hardly have the opportunity to once I start working.

Nocturnalia I

One of the best things about not sleeping for a night is being able to walk out to the neighbourhood at daybreak and take a photo like this:

This is a stretch of Holland Village, just before seven in the morning. Devoid of the bustle that characterises its nights, it has an otherworldly beauty. It has a little light from men, and a little from nature.

An all-night movie marathon at a friend's place gave me the occasion to savour this sight. While it wasn't the most amazing of gatherings, it was nonetheless enjoyable. We watched Next Stop Wonderland, The Piano Teacher and This is Spinal Tap. In between we caught two shorts: Matrix Remounted, a side-splitting and surprisingly polished spoof of Matrix Reloaded that my friend made with his university coursemates; and Bat-Thumb, one of a long line of shorts by Steve Oedekerk using thumbs as puppets.

I'd seen Spinal Tap before (and even written a paper on it for a university module I took in my second year), yet it was still very funny. The pop culture geek in me enjoyed its numerous Lennon/Beatles references: the band-breaking girlfriend, explorations into mysticism, the name "Thamesmen" (Lennon's pre-Beatle band was the Quarrymen), the All You Need is Love send-up that is Listen to the Flower People...the list goes on.

The Piano Teacher was, on the other hand, a disturbing proposition. I honestly thought I'd heard it all as far as sexual practices are concerned, but this film certainly pushes the envelope. Or maybe it's just being made to see what I've heard about in such a painfully graphic way that is disturbing?

The best film of the evening for me, however, was the first. I remember watching Wonderland back in 1998 to salve the dreariness of my first army bookout. Emotionally subdued and tastefully philosophical, it struck a chord in me with its celebration of solitude. Back then, I was a wide-eyed but bitter misfit, constantly finding solace in poetry and in being alone with my thoughts. Watching the movie again tonight reminded me of this, and how far I've come since then. Yet, at the same time, it made me realise that the beauty of time spent with oneself is still something I treasure immensely despite my reduced need for it now.

Which is why my quiet walk through Holland Village this morning was especially meaningful.

Gone for a Song

Friday came, and Friday was gone, all because of a song. Last Thursday I finished writing "To Elizabeth", and today I recorded it on my computer. I really meant to...yes, work on my thesis...but distraction intervened, and soon after inspiration took over.

Once I got going, I spent FIVE SOLID HOURS after lunch recording, arranging, sequencing and mixing the vocal, string and guitar parts. The result was admittedly pleasing. I surprised myself on two counts: first, with being able to fingerpick the verses to the song (because I am really still a beginner); and second, with being able to control the recording in such a way that the acoustic guitar was clear on the final mix.

When I wrote the song, I feared it would sound chirpily early Beatles-esque and hence supremely dated--it has that potential, given its chord progression. Fortuitiously, my sore throat hasn't abated and I had to sing just above a whisper. This, the fingerpicking and a generous dose of reverb gave the recording a rather elegiac quality. I'd gunned for this from the outset.

What can I say? *jumps in the air and clicks heels*.

Cease and Thesis!!

I just got the fright of my life when someone from the sociology department called and asked why I hadn't submitted my thesis registration form. I somehow knew all along that it was due on the 17th, but when I checked again a few days ago, the form said 21st. As it turns out, that was a typo and I'm one of two champions in a group of twenty who haven't registered.

This is a wake-up call. It has the same shock value as finding out you've slipped a class of honours because you f***ed up your thesis, without the dire consequences. The last two weeks have been a honeymoon haze of free days, spring cleaning, illness and songwriting. Time to knuckle down and kick back into top gear!

On a more cheerful note, I managed to get a much-coveted ticket to this year's Kent Ridge Ministerial Forum. I was one of the first in a queue that grew to insane lengths later in the afternoon. Looks like after all these years, MM Lee is still the real Singapore Idol.

Exit Planet Dust

WARNING: Bitch Alert. If you do not like your blogs bitchy, do not read any further.

Spring cleaning brings out the worst in my Dad.

When he says "try to sort out this stack of papers on your table", he really means "please throw everything on your table away". The beautiful thing is, he doesn't realise this. Yet, when I've cleared the redundant half of things on my table, he'll ask "why haven't you sorted out the things on your table?" It appears that nothingness is the only acceptable form of cleanliness to him.

In my darker moments, I wish I could throw out my bank statements and academic awards together with the trash just to spite him.

Also, for some inexplicable reason, he always imagines that my 'A' level notes have been languishing all over my room since I last used them in 1998. He points to every shelf, asking "are those your A-level notes? Clear them lah! I can understand how sentimental you are about them, but sometimes you must be brave".

No, Dad. Those aren't my A-level notes; they're my NUS notes and readings which take up fifty times the space. They are my computer manuals which are lifesavers even if I rarely use them. They are also my JC and secondary school ECA memorabilia, and my childhood drawings which you have always deemed to precious to discard.

The problem really stems from the fact that my Dad is a man of few possessions who can't relate to my consumption-oriented young adulthood. I won't go into why he's like that, because it would involve telling one side of his life story, and that wouldn't be fair to him. In any case, it's a real pain.

Through a Child's Ears

The joy of one's most impressionable years lie in the very fact that they are, well, impressionable. Because one doesn't know better, everything appears new and exciting. Even A Simple Plan is impressive enough to compel the following opinion:

"This new album gives you a taste of real pop/rock music. Every song is written
by these five talented friends and they too, play their instruments very well -
good enough to tour Europe and America."

The above is an extract from a column in The Sunday Times which is set aside for pubescent 'uns to rave about their favourite books and CDs. I'm not even going to begin to say what is wrong with it. But in revealing a youthful naivete, it is charming nonetheless.

The Knows Nose

All of us have days that don't go as planned. For me, these days fall into three broad categories.

On some days, I am foiled by sociality. On these days, my academic endeavours are thwarted by dinners which last too long, spontaneous chats in campus corridors or ad hoc boozing sessions of which I am only too happy to partake in.

On other days, I am foiled by emotion. Perhaps I am taken by a wave of musical inspiration which I have to work out of my system and on to my guitar. Or there might some unexpected ill-feeling at home which takes the wind out of my sails.

On SOME days (especially my freest, otherwise most productive days) however, I am foiled by BIOLOGY. A mild form of this is a morning crap that feels painfully unfinished for the rest of the day. A stronger variant is a bad mouth ulcer which asserts its presence with the slightest lip movement.

The absolute worst of them is a stuffy nose.

A stuffy nose typically puts me out of commission for anything from four hours to a whole day. It induces a constant sensation best described as rings of fire in the uppermost region of one's nostrils. It becomes stronger with every attempt to do anything remotely cerebral and climaxes in sporadic sneezing fits and leakiness which only exacerbate the discomfort. The best I can do with this condition is to pop a pill and lie motionless with my face in a pillow until it passes.

Well, that's the story of today really. Apart from a nice dinner with my girlfriend, it was horrible. I was counting on this day to catch up with my thesis readings so I'll have something to show my supervisor on Monday. How about tomorrow then? Oh, I can already predict that it'll be foiled by the sociality of 60,000 other fans at the Kallang Stadium.

My New Musical Express

I stayed at home and completed writing my first song of the year today. It's a lovely little ditty called "To Elizabeth". I intended it to sound like Suede's "The Living Dead", but it ended up rather Beatles-esque instead.
Interestingly enough, I wrote it on a whiff of inspiration. It has nothing to do with my current musical projects which are:

1. a song for the tsunami victims
2. five or so songs for my student club's musical (someone else is taking care of the rest)
3. the theme song for the larger social service project which the musical is only a part of
4. demos for a potential debut album, in which "To Elizabeth" doesn't quite fit

I don't know if I should be pleased or afraid. Pleased because I'm becoming prolific again. I'm getting ideas left, right and centre. Every conversation, every snatch of a tune, every change in mood or scenery I encounter now seems pregnant with lyrical and musical possibilities.
But I should be afraid...all this is costing me. Today, I stalled for time by cancelling a meeting with my thesis supervisor because I haven't done anything new since we last met, which was about two months ago. And my thesis is due in about that amount of time. Now that is a scenario for which I have absolutely no music.

Singapore's Secondhand Lions

For once, I'll let something I read speak for itself. This is an extract from an email I received from the university admin.

The Singapore Lion Project Working Committee led by Mr Ang Mong
Seng, Member of Parliament for Hong Kah GRC cordially invites you to the launch
of the Singapore Lion on Sunday, 23 January 2005 at the Jurong East Sports
Complex at 6.15 pm.
The concept of the Singapore Lion was initiated by the
Senior Minister, Mr Goh Chok Tong who proposed creating a lion dance peculiar to
Singapore, which can be used to welcome local and foreign dignitaries, as well
as to add colour to national and ethnic celebrations. The ‘Singapore Lion’
will be unique to the nation, with renewed physical features and a multi-racial
dance routine using Chinese drums, Indian drums and Malay Kompang.

'nuff said, I think.

The Gods of Small Boys

The trips I make back to my primary school to collect data for my thesis are always sources of great amusement. Being far removed from the entire experience, the lives of schoolchildren now strike me as being extremely artificial. The indignity of seeking permission to take a leak, greeting every adult you see and having to keep one's hand held up until being allowed to speak are but some of the small horrors I witnessed today.

I wonder how teachers can bring themselves to exercise such tyranny. I know I wouldn't be able to do it without feeling a great deal of strain. Maybe it's a social psychology thing...once you're in a social role, you become the role. If so, then teaching must be a very unhealthy profession.

On a lighter note, I had a little snigger when I saw this written on a class whiteboard:

"Homework due 14/1. Ask your parents and two friends what they think language means. Write it in your writing pads."

I see this as an English teacher's well-intentioned attempt at critical and innovative pedagogy. But I sincerely hope, for the boys' sakes, that their parents and friends are not postmodernists.

Loneliness in the 21st Century

Loneliness is walking through a crowd alone, feeling that everyone else is looking at you.

Loneliness is making eye contact with someone you once knew, then pretending that the eye contact never happened.

Loneliness is being rather happy to see someone, but having nothing to say to him / her.

Loneliness is never being as sure of anyone else but yourself.

Loneliness is living among millions, coming into contact with thousands and having only enough time for a few.

And others having as little or no time for you.

Perversely, the end of loneliness begins by realising that others near you are just as lonely. It begins when you read two blogs with entries that address these very themes, and understand that the minute pain from things that happened on your last first day of school is not a pain that is yours alone.

It's just sad that one has to come round to this in such an indirect way. What have we become?

The Last First Day

I originally wanted to title this entry "the beginning of the end", but an SMS from my girlfriend to wish me all the best for my last first day of school tomorrow inspired this far more poignant offering.

The phrase doesn't just indicate that the end is near; it also draws attention to the very special place that first days have in all our lives. First days, be they of work, school or the calendar year, are always times of realistic trepidation and defiant hope. We like to think of them as turning points, clean slates on which we can begin to rewrite the story of our lives sans mistakes of the past. When they actually happen, however, they usually fail to live up to the hype.

I remember my first day at Henry Park Primary School in 1987. Mum was with me during recess, and bought me a vitagen from the drinks stall. They had a promotion back then, where the bottles had two foil caps instead of one. Remove the first foil cap and you might find a star-shaped sticker on the one beneath it. The colour of the star indicated what prize you won. I remember I got something that day, but I can't remember what.

I remember my first day at Anglo-Chinese School (Independent) in 1993. Mum was there too, shouting from a distance someting she had told me umpteen times before: not to allow myself to be bullied as I had been in Primary school. Moments later, one of my classmates charged over and yanked my shirt out of my shorts, crumpling it in full view of my mother. I tore away from him with all the force I could muster, in denial of my uselessness.

The only thing I remember from my first day as a Secondary Three pupil there was my literature teacher coming into class and exultantly saying "all of you look so handsome!" She was referring to the fact that we were now wearing long pants.

On my first day in Raffles Junior College, I sat in the canteen with people who had followed me from ACS(I). The bell rang for us to go to the hall for our orientation briefing, and I said "ok guys, let's go!" with an air of newfound importance as a Rafflesian.

My first ever lecture at NUS was on a Monday. It was for USHY01 (as it was then called) Singapore: The Making of a Nation. A then-compulsory USP module, the lecture was held at LT13. One of my ACS(I) classmates, who entered NUS a year before me because he deferred a year of National Service through a scholarship, saw me there and asked "are you sure you're in the right place"?

There have been many other first days of school in between, but tomorrow is the last of them all, since I've made the decision not to pursue postgraduate studies. To answer my friend again, yes I was in the right place, and with hindsight, in a more correct place than I could have asked for. These last four years have given me more than I've had a right to claim. I'm not going to blow my own trumpet here but those who know me will understand what I mean. Now, I just wonder if I can write a fitting ending to the dramadey that is my formal education.

I have reason to worry. I didn't touch my thesis during the holidays, or do more than print some relevant journal articles as a research assistant to my thesis supervisor. I'm becoming terribly disillusioned / disinterested in the whole act of writing a thesis...each additional obstacle makes it increasingly farcical. Plus, the songwriting bug has returned to bite me in a way it hasn't before. I'm involved with my student clubs' upcoming musical, my CCA's concert, and my own personal projects for which I've been extremely inspired of late. All require songs, and I've been churning out ideas, structures and lyrics like my graduation depended on it.

So tomorrow, school re-opens for the last time for me. I'll still approach it with as much defiant hope as in previous years. It's true that first days are only ordinary days at extraordinary timings. But they are still worth hoping for not only because they are special, but because all days are. This is something I've always known, but am only beginning to experience. And it is with this sentiment that I hope to live out my final weeks at NUS, finding joy in each day, refusing to bow to the pressures of modern life, and riding the wave of carpe diem till the fabulous finishing line.

You Never Know What Your Daddy Knows

For a while now, I've taken pride in being privy to the existence of the Mitre Hotel, one of Singapore's best-kept secrets. And for the longest time, I've taken pride in knowing a lot of things my father doesn't.

Over dinner last night, I decided to put these two advantages to use in a casual jibe with my old man.

We were watching a documentary on the furniture trade in Singapore, and he seemed to be pre-empting every historical nugget that was being mentioned. So I asked him if he knew of a 140-year-old building off Killiney Road. He was rather lost at first, but then clarified if it was a big, two-storey building. He then checked if it was a hotel, and struggled for the longest time with its name before saying, "is it called Mitre Hotel?"

I laughed and laughed in denial. I laughed even harder when he demonstrated his knowledge that it was a very run-down establishment, popular with oil riggers and in its earlier years, with the British military types. At this point, I had to ask him how he was so familiar with the place.

His pithy reply: "of course! That's where I left your mum before I picked her up on our wedding day".

Excuse Me While I Go and be an 18-year-old Again

This is probably an overstatement for many, but for me, Brett Anderson's pronunciation of "oh" as "ahh-haaaooow" in Suede songs was a defining noise of the nineties.

It was a sound that diminished as drugs and tobacco ravaged the singer's hitherto fine delivery; and one that disappeared altogether with the band's dissolution at the end of 2003. Because I am a big fan, I was very disappointed (not just at the end of the ah-haow's, but also at the end of a great band). But for the same reason, I almost wet myself in excitement when I read last year that Brett had teamed up with estranged and definitive Suede guitarist Bernard Butler to form The Tears.

Naturally, Brett's been trying to distance his new work from what he did with Suede. It was thus with some trepidation that I hit the 'play' button on a bootleg I found of one of The Tears' first gigs. Because it was a poor recording, I can't comment much on the arrangements and energy of the music, but it sounded good enough. When it came to Apollo 13--their reputed standout track, however, I sensed something great was going to happen. The verses built up slowly and my hairs stood on end as Brett reached the chorus and sang "Oh, but if you follow me, I will follow you to the unknown".

Goosebumps then exploded when he let rip with the next line: "ahh-haoooow, like Apollo, like Apollo we'll fly to the moon".

I'm so sorry if this post has disturbed anyone.

You Can't Please Everyone

There are always, it seems, some people whose sole purpose in life is to put you down. I've had the misfortune of encountering at least three such people already, and the further misfortune of bumping into one of them today. It was clear from our 5 minute conversation that he wasn't concerned about me at all; he was only concerned about finding as many ways as possible to subvert what I said into subtle insults. And all this, he did with a disarming smile, as if he didn't mean a thing he said.

It's frightening and sobering to realise that for every person you can relate to and click with, there's probably someone else who will never respect a thing about you no matter what you achieve. I like to comfort myself by thinking that such people hate others only because they hate themselves more--but they could just be plain jerks.

On a more cheerful note, three things perked me up today:

1. Trying out the XXL crispy chicken at Shihlin Taiwan Street Snacks' Junction 8 outlet
2. On a whim, watching Kung Fu Hustle with my girlfriend
3. Logging on to the Ministry of Finance website and seeing that the some of the work I did as an intern for its career opportunities pages is finally being used. It's been so long, for a time there I thought my photographs and layouts would never see the light of day.

I Wanna Hold Your Hand

While researching for my thesis at my former primary school this morning, I was struck by the sight of lower primary boys lined up in twos, walking to their classrooms hand in hand.

It's not an uncommon practice--teachers make classes do this to ensure they move around in an orderly manner. What got to me, however, was how normal and acceptable this practice must appear to the teachers and students, and how disturbingly sexual it appears to me.

I too was made to hold hands with a fixed "partner" in my day, making my present discomfort all the more perplexing. Off the bat, I'd blame my society's general aversion to homosexuality as a key factor in conditioning my gut reaction to what I saw.

I think it's really sad how often people turn to gay jokes because it's one of the few domains of humour their feeble minds can appreciate. I've lost track of the number of social groups and situations I've been in where individuals were arbitrarily singled out for running jokes on their sexuality. Because these scapegoats were in fact straight (or so I think), they were able to shrug it off or play along with it.

I'm straight myself, yet I don't find such things funny. Gay-bashing smacks of moral weakness and a lack of intellectual sophistication. It's at times like this that I feel particularly grateful for the precious few friends I have who are above such immaturity.

In Defence of the Establishment

This morning, I was at the ST Youthink launch at the SPH News Centre. Youthink is a forthcoming weekly section in The Straits Times featuring articles written by and for the youth of Singapore (yadda yadda). It's easy enough to sneer with cynicism at this initiative, so I'll offer a positive spin and say that the broadsheet is going out on a limb by recruiting the Youthink team from local universities and polytechnics. It's a great opportunity for the student writers to finally get behind the news that they read every day, and it's a leap of faith on the part of the paper because these students have no journalistic training.

The GOH at this event was one of our cabinet ministers. This is probably the third or fourth time I've seen him speak and field questions from a young audience, and each time, my respect and pity for him grows. Pity because less enlightened Singaporeans tend to mistake politicians for oracles. They pose spastic questions and expect detailed responses dripping with enough wisdom to live by for the rest of their lives. But really, even the most capable ministers are humans who can be caught on a blindside when prodded for an immediate answer. In such situations, the best they can do is to say nothing while giving the impression they are saying something. And this, the minister did admirably today--no mean feat in itself, hence the respect. At the end of the day, politics is as much about managing expectations as it is about actually getting things done.

The subsequent tour of the newsroom was rather poignant, given the recent termination of channel i. As we walked past the newly-disused television studio, our guide noted "this is history in the dismantling, not the making".

A Spoiled Choice

Module selection, as any FASS student will attest to, is a queen bitch. There are always timetable clashes, exam clashes, this-module-is-scoreable-but-it clashes, I-really-like-this-module-but-it clashes, this-gives-me-a-free-day-but-it clashes... the list goes on.

So when it came to this, my final semester, I was hoping things would be a little better. After all, unlike the 5-module load of previous semesters, I only have to do 2 this semester because my honours thesis already counts for 3. So here I am, expecting to sweep up two modules I've been gunning for since the middle of last semester: UPC2305 Transportation Planning in Singapore, and the ever-popular cross-fac for arts students MNO1001 Management and Organization. Since forever, they've been the only options I entertained in my mind. And what happens?

Their exams clash.

After knowing this for some two weeks now, I finally go about the business of checking out alternatives today. I'm quite set on MNO1001 since it's fairly straightforward and may even prove useful later in life. So I need another USP science-based module (it's a requirement I've been pushing back for many semesters now). After eliminating (1) a module which has been around so long that there's nothing new I can possibly offer in my assignments, (2) a module which is useful and popular but requires intimate knowledge of Excel, (3) a module which has no exams but is on nanotechnology; I finally settle on placing bids on ULS2204 Biodiversity and Conservation Biology. It's a new module (which is a small risk), but bio-based modules have always been a safe bet with arts retards like myself.

Wish me luck.

The Ugliest Match on Earth

I'm no fan of soccer, though I do know the rules of the game. The last time I showed any interest in the sport was during Singapore's last years in the Malaysia Cup in 1993 and 1994. Of late, however, my honours classmates have been inviting me for recreational soccer games at the NUS SRC's basketball and hockey courts. It is with this vaguely renewed enthusiasm that I followed them watch the Singapore vs Myanmar Tiger Cup fixture on Sunday.

It was my first ever experience as a soccer spectator at the Kallang Stadium, and already it was priceless. Not only did Singapore come from 0-2 down to win 4-2 in extra time; three Burmese players were also sent off (after which we started scoring) and the match nearly degenerated into a disgusting, disgraceful and shameless brawl in its closing minutes. Myanmar's reserve goalkeeper threw a full water bottle at the head of a Singapore player trying to break up a scuffle. Across the grandstand where we were seated, it looked as if whole dustbins were being thrown around by the losing team's supporters. One even clambered down from the gallery on to the track before being hauled away by the police.

By the time the match ended, the riot police had to be called in, though in true Singapore fashion, they found themselves with nothing to do once they reached the scene. They just dallied around in their trucks for a bit, put on their gear, ran out and formed up in the carpark where idle spectators started taking photographs of them, listened to their commander, yelled some macho shit cheer in response and dispersed.

New Year's Resolutions

Testing.