Memories

2007-05-14T21:27:00.000+08:00

dun know if anyone still bothers reading this space, but for those, who still do ......

in case u havent been following world news, Leeds United have gotten relegated to Coca Cola League 1. In spite of the league 1 thing, this league is effectively the 3rd tier of english football. To make matters worse, Leeds went into administration with debts of 35m pounds. Now individuals are fighting to take over embattled Leeds. Let's hope Ken Bates fails to buy back Leeds. Useless piece of crap ...... Chelshit scum

Another investor, Simon Morris - a self-proclaimed Leeds fan -- launched a 10m pound takeover bid last week too. In order to engage Leeds fan in his bid to relaunch Leeds to glory, his team set up this website - www.saveleeds.com -- for fans to voice their opinions on Leeds matters.

Well, I gave some suggestions on how we could drastically improve. And within a few seconds of submitting, I got an acknowledgment from the site.

'saveleeds.com is dedicated to saving Leeds United FC by providing genuine fanswith a platform on which to share their ideas for restoring the club to itsformer glory.

Thank you for contributing.

saveleeds.com team'

A 3rd party led by Duncan Revie -- son of Leeds' greatest ever manager (for those who dun know, he presided over the victorious Leeds side of the 70s who conquered Europe, and who subjected Man Utd, Arsenal and Liverpool to oblivion) -- is planning a takeover bid too. Let's hope he is the one who eventually restores the glory days to Leeds. Leeds United, afterall, are still one of the big 6 in England, the other 5 being Man Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and Spurs (or Everton).

Marching On Together!!!!!!!!

Mark Buehrle Throws a No-Hitter in White Sox win

2007-04-20T00:49:00.001+08:00

Leeds 2-1 Preston

2007-04-04T20:50:00.001+08:00

Back from US

2007-03-07T07:14:00.000+08:00

Just came back from a trip to Boston and SF. Since arriving back home, it's been 2 nights without sleep -- 1 night on the plane spent reading "Bringing Down the House", and the 2nd night at home spent tossing on the bed, culminating in dinner at 5am. I mean, if you can't sleep, then go eat.

So aniway, Chaolun brought us round Boston, and on the 2nd day, we went to this dim sum restaurant near Chinatown called Hei La Moon. Pretty good food too might I say.

And after Boston, it was off to SF. After 2 days of interviews, we headed out for some winery-visiting. We went to 2 separate ones -- Pichetti Brothers and some other one which closed too early for my liking. Wine glasses in hand -- they had a label of ATP on them if you can zoom in -- everyone posed for a picture about the scenic hills overlooking the Bay.

SF Pics

2007-02-17T00:39:00.000+08:00

Just a quick update here. I promised to post some pics of my recent visit to San Francisco a couple of posts ago ... or it could have been the most recent entry for all I know, since that would have been quite a long while back anyway. Please understand that the number of pictures I put up today is severely constrained by the time now, and hence my desire to go to bed.

A few funny sights we saw as we were walking along downtown. 1) Are they apologizing for having to serve customers? Gosh, it would be so cool to stay closed then. 2) So we passed by this shop selling clothes. Isn't it cute that they have these 2 jumpers "holding hands" as if the clothes were a couple? Does it also mean that you buy 1, you get the other too? 3) Yeah, some people could jolly well interpret it as "I didn't get any work done today, but I'm sure the boss would have liked the results if I had actually gotten some work done"

Trying to look retro in this accessories store somewhere in Fisherman's Wharf

Trying to look sober after visiting winery after winery in Napa and Sonoma counties.

Finally, here's wishing everyone a happy Lunar New Year!

Valuable Lessons

2007-02-03T20:28:00.000+08:00

Just came back from the US .... brilliant trip, but more on that later when i get my hands on those photos. For now, here are 2 really interesting observations which I believe are true but which have never been scientifically proven. If you are as interesting as me, read on.

Lesson 1
So what happens when you fall ill, eg. develop a cold? Now, most people, while feeling sane even though they are sick, will visit the doctor, in the hope of getting some miracle medicine, or even better still, some miracle slip of paper which can give them free holiday from work for a few days. Sad to say, a visit to the doctor doesn't cut it for me. In fact, I dread going down to a medical clinic, for unknown reasons. If the miracle medicine is what you are looking for, look no further since it lies within you (more on that later). If the miracle certificate is what you are seeking, then you are probably a very sad individual (no relation to emotionally sad people). So what should you do then when you fall ill? I used to believe that you just shouldn't do anything ... basically let your body's own immune response do its work. I guess this probably work, but it takes quite a while for this to come full circle, and being the impatient gentleman that I am, I am not really into waiting a week for the illness to go away.

So the ideal remedy is to take some form of medication (specific to your illness, of course) which can be obtained from Guardian Pharmacy, or some leftover from your previous visit to the doctor, but which hasn't expired of course. The purpose of this is to "wake up" your body's sleeper immune cells. Following the ingestion of 1 or 2 of these pills, you should then stop taking it altogether, and let those awakened immune cells destroy whatever bacteria or virus was causing the illness. I know this sounds stupid ... it vaguely resembles you starting on your final examination, and then doing up to question 10, before deciding not to complete the remaining 40 questions, and then hoping that your grader having given ticks for the 1st 10 questions, will just habitually and brainlessly award you ticks for the last 40 questions. No no ... strange as it sounds, this is different.

Let me explain. The purpose of the 1st pill is to stimulate the immune system. You know, if those cells were sleeping to start with and some bacteria invades quietly and makes no noise, your body's immune system remains asleep, until some idiot bacteria loses its footing and awakens the immune cells which then spring into action and destroy the remaining bacteria, explaining why this takes quite a while, depending on how long it takes that silly bacteria particle to accidentally make some noise. However, when you take that first pill, you introduce some earthquake into the system, and bring forward the awakening by a few days. Of course, this probably only works if you have a naturally good immune system to start with. But a lot of people probably don't, which is why schools like NUS and Duke are still offering medical degrees, and doctors are still rich.

Lesson 2
Now, this is a fact. Singapore is host to one of the least-mannered and uncivilized car driver populations (excluding me) in the world. If you have driven in Chicago or California, where many cross junctions can do without traffic lights, and instead depend on the policy of first-come-first-cross, you'll realize how terrible it is to drive in Singapore. So this lesson is on how to change lanes in Singapore. If you were in Chicago, if you wanna change to the right lane, you just signal right, wait for the car behind to give you maneuvering space, and then move right. But you try this in Singapore, you can drive until your car runs out of gas, or worse still, drive until you miss your junction, and you can still be stuck in your original lane. So how do you effectively change lanes in Singapore?

Now the trick here is not whether to signal or not, but rather when to signal. Sounds weird? Let me decipher it for you. So let's say you wanna move into the right lane, and you see some Formula1-wannabe driver approaching from behind on the right lane. If you signal right, thus revealing your intention to move into the path of that F1-loser, that loser will just accelerate and prevent you from cutting in front of him. If you have several of these F1-wannabes in that lane, you might as well just drive straight on your own lane, and wait for a pit-stop to refuel your car. The trick here is to quickly move slightly into the right lane, such that it is obvious to the car behind that you intend to change lanes, but without seeming too reckless and as if you lost control of your vehicle. When you have moved a quarter of your car into the right lane, then you signal ... to make your intention obvious, not as if it hasn't been obvious. This introduces the surprise element into your lane changing, thus not allowing the F1 guy behind sufficient time to mentally process "That dude wants to cut in .. I'm not letting him do that" which phenotypically would have translated into vehicular accceleration. By introducing the surprise element into your lane-changing technique, you would already have half you car in his lane, before he realizes that acceleration is probably not gonna work. You've just beaten an F1 driver at his own game!!!!

Lab Video

2007-01-07T13:55:00.000+08:00

A friend's lab recently made this video of daily occurances in their lab. How do some lab groups find so much time to come up with such creative stuff? If I had such free time, I would go home / go out / go gym. The latter applies only once a month though .....

Mr Bean's Holiday

2006-12-30T00:07:00.000+08:00

Watch a movie in Singapore, this also censor, that also censor, but one postive aspect of watching a movie in Singapore is the fact that you get to catch it much much earlier than people elsewhere in the world. So in a sense, we get to watch first, but they get to watch more. I haven't watched that hit movie, which sounds something along the lines of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America to Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, and which traces Borat's adventure in the country he affectionately calls "the US and A", but to us is simpliefied as "USA".

But before we get too preoccupied with Borat, here's another hit comedy about to hit the big screens. Yes, that's Mr Bean which you see below, and the movie's called "Mr Bean's Holiday". Now for those people who have recently watched "The Holiday" starring Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet, I'm sorry to let you know you've watched the wrong Holiday movie. Rowan Atkinson's the real deal, and we get to watch it in Singapore on 22 March 2007, whereas our good friends in the US and A get to catch it on 28 September --- a full 6 months later, while the blokes in Leeds (and the rest of England) get to see Bean on 30 March --- a full week after us. Aren't we fortunate?

Back to the present, Leeds Utd had better win tomorrow .... otherwise, the future for them ain't gonna be bright, ain't gonna be white no more.

Merry Christmas!

2006-12-23T19:58:00.000+08:00

Here's a little festive video to cheer everyone up. Tis' the end of the year ... 13th month bonus, ushering in of the new year, Leeds United absolutely having to win tonight, relaxing with friends and family, a break from work. Yes, let's watch this "Last Christmas" video.

Christmas Coming

2006-12-10T13:25:00.000+08:00

ECW (Extreme Championship Wrestling) recently had their pay-per-view event, titled December to Dismember. Well, I'm having my own month-long mega event aptly named December to Remember. By Dec 15, all the grad school applications for US universities will be done. Hopefully, interviews will start coming in by end-January onwards.

Checklist ....
UCSF --- done!
Stanford --- done!
Duke --- done!
MIT --- hopefully done by Wednesday

And to top it all off, we're having this Christmas Carnival this Friday 530pm onward. Honestly, if I were'nt part of the organizing committee, I would skip this event altogether. Considering how I've been actively soliciting people to come on Friday, telling them about the wonders of spending Christmas with their colleagues at their expansive worksite, I guess I share a certain similarity with Jose Mourinho -- hypocrisy. As of now, I only have 1 person from my lab confirming his attendance ... but I shall be there at the carnival, as if there's not a good enough reason for all you people to come.

We're having a Made-in-Singapore Santa Claus, lots of drinks (read Hoegarden, Stella, wines, free-flow softdrinks, free-flow Newwater), jazz band, christmas carolling, dance performances, and a Labolympics (which as of now, only has 2 groups signed up). And of course, there's the end-of-event lucky draw (with a plasma TV, Xbox, shopping and food vouchers, ...) for the people, and an end-of-event cleaning up for us. Cool!

I'm having my Lab meeting next Thursday and a Christmas brunch for non-postdocs/grad students on Friday. This brunch is specially for lab biologists, but since research officers fall into neither category, I suppose that's why we got the invite too. Sometimes, it's good when you're neither here nor there; in that way, you get to attend both! Much like Leeds Utd is nether in the Primiership nor Div. 3 ... the Championship is the perfect division for a rebuilding process.

A christmas lunch for the entire lab follows the brunch. In a way, this is a great way to end the week. Morning: Brunch. Early afternoon: Lunch somewhere in Pasir Panjang. Late afternoon: Finishing off work, and planning for the weekend. Since we all have an unclaimed day of off, I'm wondering when I should take that day off ....

It's almost 2pm on a lazy Sunday afternoon .... time to do something more exciting than typing on my keyboard. Something like going back to bed!

Russian spy

2006-11-26T00:01:00.000+08:00

People are talking about the Iraq war and new regulations for charities blah blah, but for me the top story has got to be the Case of the Poisoned Russian Spy. For those who havent bothered to follow the plot, here's the gist of this real-life James Bond plot.

Alexander Litvinenko was a former KGB colonel. He left Russia for England and obtained his English citizenship last year. He has been a fierce critic of the Kremlin .......

Oct 7: Journalist Anna Politkovskaya was shot dead outside her Moscow apartment. She had been critical of the Russian government for its handling of the Chechnyan war. Russian spy Litvinenko begins to investigate the mysterious circumstances surrounding her death.

Nov 1: Litvinenko meets Mario Scaramella at a sushi bar -- Itsu -- in London, obtaining documents purportedly naming the killers. An assasin apparently sprayed polonium mist or powder onto Litvinenko's food. Later in the day, Litvinenko meets 2 Russian men at a hotel. He falls sick and is admitted to Barnet Hospital. Investigations since have found traces of polonium in the sushi bar, the hotel and Litvinenko's home.

Nov 17: His condition deteriorates and he is admitted to University College Hospital.

Nov 23: Litvinenko dies.

Just before he died, he crafted a message which is shown below.

Is the Kremlin involved?

Inspiration

2006-11-14T22:34:00.000+08:00

I saw some words of inspiration on Channel 5 today. Really surprised to find such good stuff on a crap local TV channel, with ridiculous shows such as My Sassy Neighbour, Yin and Yang Sisters, and who knows what other shit they have. However, once in a while, the producers do manage to come up with something intelligent.

According to the late Audrey Hepburn,

For attractive lips, Speak words of kindness.

For lovely eyes, Seek out the good in people.

For a slim figure, Share your food with the hungry.

For beautiful hair, Let a child run his fingers through it once a day.

For poise, Walk with the knowledge you'll never walk alone.

People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed and redeemed. Never throw out anybody.

Remember: if you ever need a helping hand, you'll find One at the end of your arm. As you grow older you will discover that you have two hands. One for helping yourself, the other for helping others.

In summary, try to be a little like me, and you'll be fine.

Taxi Drivers

2006-11-12T00:05:00.000+08:00

What is it about the bulk of taxi drivers that just make them crap drivers? Their utter disrespect for fellow road users just puts amateurs at BBDC or SSDC seem so godly and perfect all of a sudden. After watching those taxi drivers switch lanes as if they were playing Daytona, or drive off after dropping passengers without realizing that there may be cars behind trying to cut past their idle taxi bums makes me feel as if my own driving is impeccable, when I know damn well that if I were to take the driving test now, I would fail without having even made it out of the driving circuit, with offences such as

1) no signalling (up to 3 times)
2) taking twice as many attempts to get into a proper parallel parking position
3) swearing whenever some other driver cuts into my lane suddenly (maybe immediate failure)

So just tonight, in the short span of driving back home from MacPherson after dinner, I had 2 brushes with the Driving Devil.

Instance 1
On PIE, I was in the middle lane, needing to switch into the left lane, so I could exit through one of those filter exits. There was this taxi behind me which needed to switch from the left lane to the middle lane, aka opposite of what I needed to do. But alas, it was a taxi behind me, and not a normal citizen-owned car. So what would a normal human being have done? He should just cut in behind me, and allow me to cut left

The diagram above is probably superfluous, but heck, I though I'd add in a graphic just for visual effect. So what did the taxi driver do? He had to accelerate past me, and then suddenly cut in in front of me, thus "politely" giving me the opportunity to cut into empty space on the left without having to worry about oncoming traffic. Thank you, is that what I was supposed to think? Bloody hell, if he wants to play "see who has shorter reaction time, or who can accelerate faster", I'd take him one. Piece of traffic shit!

Instance 2
The taxi several car lengths ahead had just stopped so that the passenger can alight. Hey, I have no problem with passengers; go ahead and alight, since I know you wanna get away from the psycho driving you. So the cars behind the taxi (which didnt even have the hazard lights on when it was being parked to allow the passenger to disembark) naturally moved to the right of the taxi, and overtook it. Of course, that was what the cars should be doing rite? What else you expect us all to do? Wait patiently behind the taxi, when there was no oncoming traffic in the other lanes, as if the taxi were the king of the road waiting to be feted. So I was shifting right as I approached the taxi, waiting to cut past it. But the "ass of the road" just suddenly moved off and accelerated, totally oblivious of cars trying to cut past it. Hey, I am not implying the taxi should just wait there patiently until there are no oncoming cars before moving off. That would be analagous to asking Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho to stop whining -- impossible. Yes, both cases would resemble a pen without a tip -- POINTLESS! The taxi driver could have signalled to indicate he was moving off his lazy bum ... something instead of just accelerating.

Ok, I guess this enough for now. Please note that not all taxi drivers are so bloody idiotic. I am just recounting my experiences with those who are.

2006-11-02T18:23:00.000+08:00

Leeds United 2 Southend 0

The goal of the season (by Robbie Blake) ... if you've seen a classier goal ... ehrm not possible. Leeds are back!

Aniway, done with the GRE General Test ... now onto grad sch applications.

Music

2006-10-26T23:02:00.000+08:00

After pondering over ways to make this place more interesting and interactive, I have finally decided to incorporate some music. Now this brings a problem. You see, I think those sites which have music played automatically are damn irritating. How often do u eagerly click onto someone's blog, and then some ridiculous music starts playing, prompting you to either

1) set the volume to mute
2) close that page immediately and leave the site
3) start cursing about the poor taste in music
4) more than 1 of the above

I shall not name specific blogs, and no disrespect to the owners of these auto-music blogs, but these blogs are just pure crap and irritating, and the authors probably not that far off too. Taking this into consideration, I therefore decided not to have music played automatically the moment this page is loaded for these 2 reasons:

1) it takes so much longer for the page to load, when the music has to come on to
2) the 4 reasons already given above

Now, having decided on the direction I wanted to go, I faced another problem. How do I come up with those funny html codes to insert into the site template? For the majority out there, I am literally an html dork, so I spent some 1 hr plus, combing through the internet for relevant sites to refer to. Finally, I found something decent, and the end product is here for all to see .... and hear.

To the right of this column, you will probably see my face. Below that, you will see something that vaguely resembles a music player. Well, click on it if you feel for some cool sentimental music. But hey, if you prefer some serenity, feel free to simply avoid touching that player. But personally, whether or not the music is on, the atmosphere is still tranquil and serene, cos this song I've selected is really really nice.

Including lyrics would probably seem distracting, so this is just an instrumental version of Gary Barlow's "Forever Love". Enjoy!

And if you feel energetic, you can karoake along to the song too!!

2006-10-19T20:47:00.000+08:00

So what makes an Acsian special?

Swedish Report

2006-10-14T17:27:00.000+08:00

Now that the fun part is over, here comes the inevitable post-mortem. With Sweden outa way, the Eat-A-Lot-But-Dun-Get-Fat group has to come together to prepare a report of our experiences in Stockholm, and what we've learnt from the trip. It might seem an easy task, but for us, it involves going down to City Hall at 1pm on a Sunday afternoon, and coming up with creative comic strips depicting our Swedish adventures.

Mei Yan has conveniently put our lunch gang together into Group 1, thus making life easier for the 9 of us. For those unfamiliar, this lunch gang comprises predominantly IMCB people who "eat a lot but don't get fat". Doesn't our name sound so cool? But don't get mistaken: we don't exclude anyone from this lunch group. It's just a convenience that all of us happen to be skinny lah.

So aniway, instead of preparing a conventional 2-page report boringly detailing everything that happened in Sweden, and possible improvements for future such study trips, we've decided to use our photos, and compile everything in chronological fashion into a comic story. So in short, with those cartoony bubbles which come out from someone's mouth, we're gonna come up with a picture slideshow of our Swedish story. Isn't this "eat so much" group so creative? For starters, we could have a picture of KI kicking things off, and then a bubble that reads "I'm so sexy, check me out" -- the phrase which encapsulated our group best during the trip. Dat's all that's gonna be said about this.

Since we're onto cartoons, here's a rather old one which I happened to chance upon.

This past week, we received this email titled "ATTENDANCE IS COMPULSORY" .... again. So this time, we had to attend this symposium, which is 95% engineering-focused, so why involve us rite? Aniway, we were all there for registration.

From Stockholm and Back

2006-10-07T21:30:00.000+08:00

So, now back in Singapore .... I guess I should upload some pics from Stockholm. If my memory holds true, I think this is gonna be the 1st set of pics I've put up for months now. So aniway, here goes.

Our primary purpose there is of course to get to know more about KI, and the various post-grad programs on offer.

Here are all 28 of us ... I hope. If you can't sleep at night, you can probably print out this picture, and start counting 1-28 over and over again.

Besides visiting KI, we also got to attend the announcement of this year's Nobel Prize for Physiology & Medicine. Here's the packed auditorium where it all happened.

For those of you who are more scenery rather than people orientated, here are several postcard-quality pics of Stockholm. I think I shall not describe each of them, since that takes work and words, and I guess the pics are pretty self-explanatory.

Here are some notable Swedish quotes for those quotedians out there.

For guys: "I'm too sexy, check me out!"

For girls:"Drink me like you want me!"

'Nuff said.

2006-10-05T14:48:00.000+08:00

Leeds United vs Birmingham Highlights 23/09

Stockholm

2006-09-25T23:41:00.000+08:00

I'm going off to Stockholm!!! Yes, after numerous near-misses, I am finally gonna get the opportunity to visit Europe. Well, depending on how you define 'near-misses', i guess that is pretty debatable. Since a 'near-miss' for me includes anything from deciding to visit but being too lazy to book, to flying through HK/Japan to Chicago instead transiting at Amsterdam/some other European city, I guess I have had many such near-misses.

But, enough of such crap. So I'll be leaving on Saturday, and hopefully returning on Thursday. This is supposed to be an official study/work visit, but one can always throw in some fun along the way. Since one doesn't get to go to Europe all the time, I guess allowing for some happening stuff is always pardonable, in spite of this being an official visit --- hence no leave need to be taken for this trip.

Over the weekend, John Kuang -- my ex-ACS(I) classmate, and current scholar too -- asked me to room with him over there. I'm not sure whether we get to choose our hotel roommates though, but if we do, then 2 ACS boys rooming together is sure gonna be a helluava fun. I can imagine this combination to be a sure recipe for waking up late, for morning calls being ineffective, for fun throughout the night, and for missing flights. I was just joking about the last one, since our return flight is at night, so no chance of that happening ... but if we were to fly back in the morning, I wouldn't necessarily discount that from being a distinct possibility. After so much hopeful deliberation, I'm seriously beginning to fret having to room with a RI or Chinese High boy in the event that they have already chosen roommates for all of us. Note ah: some information in this paragraph is intended to be taken with a pinch of salt; some are more truths than crap.

So I was checking out what's there to do over in Stockholm, and appaently they have a great nightlife. Even more happening, they have a section of the town specially for gays and lesbians .... akin to our own Boys Town in Belmont, Chicago.

Now now, I sure am looking forward to this trip. But first, I gotta start working on preparing my powerpoint slides for my presentation on Thursday. Now this sure ain't gonna be fun ....

KB gone!

2006-09-21T00:25:00.000+08:00

As expected, Kevin Blackwell's been sacked.

Leeds United released the following statement:
'The board of Leeds United have today terminated the contract of manager Kevin Blackwell. The club would like to place on record their thanks to Kevin for the work he has put in over the past three and a half years, the past two and a half of which were as manager.'

In a way, it's never a joy to see someone who has given much to Leeds United, and who steered the club away from bankruptcy to Championship stability, albeit till recently, dismissed. But I'm sure this will prove to be the right decision. Sometimes, emotions just gotta be set aside for the overall good of a club idolized by millions across the globe, and who I still believe rank as 1 of the big 5 in England -- together with Man Utd, Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea. Now, most of you jokers out there will probably laugh head over heels over this assertion, but time will prove me right. When debts are cleared, and players' futures secured, such that the best and brightest products from the Academy need not be sold to balance the accounts, we will see Leeds rise from the ashes to become one of England's most dominant clubs again. This is a certainty ... the only uncertainty now is ... who is the man who's gonna lead Leeds out of this abyss and up toward Premiership glory. Claudio Raneiri or Alan Curbishley .... your guess is as good as mine. At least, Kevin Blackwell's now no longer in charge, and this probably signals a new chapter in present Leeds history - a turn for the better.

All the best, KB.

Blackie's gotta go

2006-09-17T13:25:00.000+08:00

Here are several clues to help you figure out the identity of our mystery idiot.

1) Tactically inept
2) Blames others, and never himself, when things don't go his way
3) Blames the superiority of other teams when his team suffers yet another defeat
4) Doesnt know when to call it quits
5) Foolish in his transfer dealings
6) Prefers to turn to over-the-hill veterans, instead of taking the risk of blooding enthusiastic and speedy youngsters who have something to prove and their futures to play for
7) Sells off the club's best future assets, the latest being 18yr old Simon Walton
8) Doesn't know how to turn the fortunes of the club around
9) Ignores chants of "You've gotta go!" from the club's supporters, who seem to know how to better manage the club than he does
10) Should leave before the club finds themselves in Div 2 next season

Well, if it isn't pretty obvious enough, this idiot is none other than Leeds United's current manager -- Kevin Blackwell. I do hope he's living on borrowed time, cos if he stays in charge for another month, this could well turn out to be a season of struggling to stay up rather than challenging for promotion.

First off, when teams come to Elland Road and play defensive (which they have every right to do), he should change his lineup to counter the soak-and-absorb tactics of the opposition. Instead, when Leeds loses, he goes moaning that Leeds play best when their opponents try to attack, rather than defend and then counter attack. C'mon, he's being paid to win games, and outsmart opposition managers. Why the hell is he blaming other managers for choosing the right tactics when he himself obviously is just an English-version of Sven Goren Eriksson --- tactically clueless, and just reliant on once-good veteran players who are way past their prime. A classic example came again yesterday. When Leeds were struggling to break down Coventry City, he should have tried to bring on creative players, and speedy players who can out-sprint opposition wingbacks and then put in decent crosses. Translated: bring in Robbie Blake and Eddie Lewis (arguably Leeds' 2 most creative players), and keep Seb Carole on the pitch. Instead, what does Blackwell do? He replaces Carole with the lumbering Steve Stone (yes the same Steve Stone from 15 years ago), and brings in Jonathan Douglas, whom I have nothing against, and also nothing for. Blake comes on with only 5 minutes left in the game. What has perplexed me all season, is why Blackwell just refuses to play Blake even when his so-called first-choice striker Geoff Horsfield was suspended for 4 games. C'mon, Blake can play striker or winger, yet he has barely played 100 mintes of competitive football this season.

Enuff said, the manager's gotta go. It seems everyone, bar the manager himself knows that. I do hope chairman Ken Bates knows that too. It would make more financial sense to terminate Blackwell's contract than to start next season in Div 2.

I do hope I can be proved wrong, and Blackwell can quickly turn the club's fortunes around. Nowadays, whenever I update the Leeds scores (on the right), the only constant is the "LEEDS UNITED 0" part; I just have to change the opposition team, and mebbe change the 1 to a 2 or 3. I hope this is no longer the case, and for the sake of everyone, sooner rather than later.

An entry finally

2006-09-10T14:04:00.000+08:00

I just realized that the last entry was posted nearly 2 weeks ago ... well, it's been a pretty busy 2 weeks since. And in order for this site not to become obsolete, in much the same way Arsenal and Liverpool are nowadays, and which fate shall fall upon Chelsea soon once they are convicted for illegally tapping up 3 of Leeds United's most promising youngsters, I thought it best I write something here on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

So now's the time of the year when people studying in the US are flying back one by one, and people in NUS and NTU are going back to studying one by one, and people working are still working ..... The University of Chicago starts fall quarter Sep 26 ... and talking about the UofC, there was an update on its meteoric rise up the US colleges rankings in our monthy UofC newsletter.

"The College rose in two well-publicized rankings of academic institutions this year, regaining the No. 9 spot in U.S. News & World Report's listing of national universities and meriting the Princeton Review's No. 1 spot for best overall academic experience for undergraduates. "

For more on how the UofC climbed to No. 9,
http://uchiblogo.uchicago.edu/archives/2006/08/define_ranking_1.html

or to view a news report on how it got to No. 1,
http://www-news.uchicago.edu/citations/06/060822.princeton-gma.mov

While I'm on the topic of No. 1, it's amazing how Starhub is finally showing a Championship game on SCV finally. Finally, they are listening, and giving us what we want to watch, instead of what they think we want to watch. And the first live Championship game of the season features no less than the No. 1 club in Yorkshire, and soon to be Britain, Leeds United. It doesn't really matter who the opposition is, but just for the record, it's some team called Wolves. If you are a betting man, you can be sure I'll be in front of the TV tonite at 810pm. Nothing, and no one, will come between watching Leeds United and me tonite. Let's just hope the match has a pleasant ending .... no need to be too nerve-wrecking. I would gladly settle for a 5-0 victory ... a 1-0 win would be too traumatic.

So I spent Friday reformatting my hard disk. Surprisingly for a first-timer, the whole process was rather simple. I finally decided to do something after I tried clicking on the Internet Explorer icon, and the page loaded only after a minute. Coupled with the inability to watch youtube videos on my laptop, I finally decided that the time was ripe to give my comp a clean slate of health. However only after ensuring that I had all those stuff backed up into some external hard-disk, and I had that wireless card installation CD around, did I dare begin the reformatting. So kiasu I was that I even backed up previous MSN conversations ... just in case. So last nite, I was talking online, and I realized to my horror, that all those MSN emoticons which I had so faithfully collected from various sources had been wiped out. Not that I use them much aniway, but I just found it irritating that all those were now gone.

To end off this rather long entry, I should state that I think I am getting rather not so fit now. Played 2 hours of tennis yesterday in the morning, and was so bloody exhausted after that. The high tea later on in the day of course helped to alleviate a bit of the suffering, and I managed to drag myself back into lab at 6 plus in the evening to finish off some stuff. But boy, was I glad to finally sit back on the couch and watch Jose Reina comically concede that 3rd goal to Andy Johnson. Not that that was stupid, since I've made as stupid gaffes while trying to defend, ie. when I am actually playing defence for once. For this reason, I prefer my position as an attacking winger who, for the sake of appearances and team spirit, has to defend from time to time. This is just a joke, of course.

I'm getting sleepy again. Off to take a nap. A long week of work ahead!

WOMAD

2006-08-25T21:17:00.000+08:00

I guess this would count as an obligatory post, with the last entry being exactly 1 week ago. So let's see what I can write about .... that's tough. Considering that I have skipped gym for the 2nd week in a row, after having so faithfully worked out to rediscover my lost physique from times past, you can probably realize how lethargic I am right now. As they say, easy come easy go .... so I figure it won't be that difficult getting back my fitness ... 2 weeks is all I need to get a gold standard for the IPPT which I suppose I shall have to take sooner rather than later.

Aniway, there is this festival called WOMAD this weekend, where arts, dances and music are basically the theme of the entire show. You know how I once thought WOMAD was a festival for all things women - women performances, jewellery bazaars ... and basically a lot of women of all ages. That set me thinking, then is there a festival specially for men too? Maybe there is some festival called MAD somewhere out there? But i figured naming the event MAD would be a mad idea in itself .... would it be for men only, crazy men and women, or simply maverick-wannabes? Now that I have finally grasped the idea that WOMAD does not stand for women dancing, I figured I might as well go check it out with a few friends tomorrow.... and at the same time, make OBB a resounding success for our returning Shengrong. The few of them know what I mean.

There is also this presentation by the SAMSU exco for the incoming freshmen at the University of Chicago GSB campus tomorrow. 30 plus freshmen this year .... what did we do last year to convince so many students to come to Chicago this year? For the record, UofC was recently ranked number 8 in the latest USNews undergraduate college rankings, which means that unless you're from Harvard, Princeton, MIT or Stanford, don't bother telling me you came from an oh-so-great undergrad college. Yes, NUS was nowhere to be found in the top 100, which logically means there are more than a 100 colleges worldwide with a better reputation and academic program that NUS. Yes, cheap thrill ... but what the heck?

So I am getting bored again, and I suppose this shall be the end of this entry. The next entry will be up when I next sign in to my blogger account. Duh!

Sports

2006-08-18T22:01:00.000+08:00

Another final .... another national title.

This time, it's the Rugby C Division title as ACS(I) crushes RI 15-10.

Now, if only Leeds could win against Cardiff tomorrow too. And Chelsea to lose, get points deducted and then get relegated, swopping divisions with Leeds next season. Liverpool ain' that bad too .... hope they beat Sheffield United tomorrow, partly cos the Sheffield manager is just a thorn in Leeds' side (with all his moanings and complaints) -- an ass -- and cos Liverpool plays attractive football ... like Leeds United.

La Mian and Xiao Long Bao

2006-08-17T00:29:00.000+08:00

Wednesday just passed, but unlike last week, the Wednesday this week ain't a public holiday where I get to watch some 2 hr ceremonial parade.

So aniway, I just came back from dinner with a friend at Holland V. It's amazing how I choose to go there for dinner after work even though we practically go there for lunch every day ... except Saturday and Sunday. Take this afternoon as an example, we went to the coffee shop at 1st busstop. I chose to have char kway teow, but this being my self-declared healthy week, I refrained from eating those pork lard which adds so much to the overall taste. See my mental determination .... healthy week means no disgusting lard. Forget the char kway teow part, that doesnt figure into the healthy thing at all.

So after Crystal Jade La Mian and Xiao Long Bao tonite, I guess kuay chap is the only dish left before I can officially declare that I've sampled everything possible since I came back. This craving for la mian and xiao long bao came about since Monday as we were taking the shuttle bus back to Biopolis. As we passed by 2nd busstop, the Crystal Jade seemed to stare invitingly at me, as if imploring "Why havent you visited me?" Feeling guilty, I knew I wanted to go in there, but it seemed absurd going for a re-lunch at 130pm. Thus I made up my mind to go there for dinner sometime this week.

It always helps to have someone who can order dishes in Mandarin with you when you are in these Chinese restaurants. My directions to the waitress went something like this.

"Ehr ... wo men yao zhe ge ... ah, dui (correct) ... shi hao (No. 10)" (as I point at the menu ... no. 10 happened to be some vege appetizer which I absolutely had no idea what it was ... of course, it wasnt my idea ordering that dish ... let alone pronouncing it)
"Hai you zhe ge .... liu shi shan hao (No. 63)" (That's some la mian .... which I deemed too complicated and unnecessary to pronounce)
"Hai you ... xiao long bao" (now that's easy .... how difficult is it saying xiao long bao)

So the waitress repeated my order. Honestly I couldn't comprehend what she was saying, since she was reading out our ordered dishes in her funny Mandarin accent. Lucky HT understood, sparing us any embarrassment. After dinner tho, she had to go back to work ... not bad to come out and have a nice dinner b4 cooping herself back at the office once again.

Once I got back home, and was listening to the radio, I decided to sms in to try to win 1 of 7 pairs of tickets they were giving out for some mini-concert this Friday. Alas, after sending in my sms, I went to get the newspapers from my parents' room and saw that there was wrestling on tv. Forgetting that the deejay was gonna announce the contest winners immediately after the song had ended, I went ahead to watch wrestling. Only after had I returned to my room did I remember that I had participated in the contest. Damn! Now I will never know whether I did indeed win those tickets for Friday. Is my memory just getting worse with maturation (not age)?

Damn Chelsea

2006-08-14T21:53:00.000+08:00

If you don't wanna read anything else about Leeds or soccer in general, then this post isn't for you. But in this instance, I don't really care whether anybody wants to read this .. I just want to post this, cos it makes me boiling mad, yet pleasantly relieved at the end. Yes, Chelsea is tapping up another Leeds United youngster.

If you've been reading the boring Straits Times, you've probably realized that Chelsea have once again tried to illegally tap up a 10-yr old youngster currently on the books of Leeds ... this after Leeds have reported them to the FA for blatantly (yes, whoever uses the word "allegedly" is obviously a moron) poaching 3 16-yr olds from Leeds.

But, the Straits Times, being a moron newspaper as it is, and the editors obviously being pro-Chelsea, have only glanced through the facts, without giving any conclusions:
1) Chelsea have been implicated in another poaching scandal
2) Leeds have conducted their own internal investigation

So, for the complete story, the Straits Times is obviously not the place to read. Instead, British tabloids and our own site right here provide unbiased facts on what really happened. I have highlighted the important points. Read on, and Chelsea be damned. I used to hate Man Utd to the core, but now I believe that Chelsea has jumped to the top of every Leeds fan's hate list.

Taken from the News of the World:

by Rob Shepherd

LEEDS UNITED are poised to plunge Chelsea into another tapping up scandal — this time over a 10-year-old wonderkid.

The Elland Road club have already called on soccer chiefs to investigate the way Chelsea lured two 16-year-olds, Michael Woods and Tom Taiwo, from Leeds.

But the News of the World can reveal that Leeds are also concerned about a 10-year-old on their books, Lewie Coyle — and allegations by his father, Chris, that Chelsea tried to entice him to move his family to London.

At the centre of the poaching storm is Leeds' former assistant academy director Gary Worthington, who now works for Chelsea.

He is already being investigated for the role he played in encouraging Woods and Taiwo to Stamford Bridge — and is now accused of meeting Coyle's father in a motorway service station to try to persuade him to move his family down south.

Chelsea strongly deny the allegation with a spokesman last night insisting: "There is no truth in the allegations whatsoever.

"There was no meeting between the father and Gary Worthington.

"And Chelsea is not interested in and has not approached any other player at Leeds.

"Everyone is aware of current dispute between Chelsea and Leeds over the other young players. And this is an entirely separate issue."

Leeds, whose chairman Ken Bates was already furious over claims that Chelsea poached Woods and Taiwo, are now ready to demand an investigation into the Coyle allegation.

A spokesman last night confirmed they will hold their own internal probe immediately: "We are extremely concerned about the matter involving one of our academy players, particularly against the backdrop of the current allegations made against the same club involving other players.

"On completion of our inquiry we will take the appropriate action."

The rules about poaching schoolchildren from football clubs are very strict and any club breaching them could face hefty fines — or even a points deductions.

Rule N89 states: "No club shall induce, or attempt to induce, a player to become registered as a student by that club by offering him, or any person connected with him, either directly or indirectly, a benefit or payment, whether in cash or in kind."

Rule N86 adds: "A club shall not, either directly or indirectly, make any approach to, or communicate with, a student registered by another club at its football academy or centre of excellence."

And Rule N39(1) lays down strict geographical restrictions on where clubs can find youngsters from, stating: "A trial may be offered, or given by a club, to anyone in age groups under nine to under 12 inclusive who has his permament residence within one hour's travelling time of the club's football academy or centre of excellence."

Coyle's father claims Chelsea disregarded this regulation by offering inducements to ditch Leeds and move his entire family from Hull to London, so he would be within the 90-minute radius Chelsea require to sign him legitimately.

Coyle senior insists he was offered £10,000 ‘in readies' — and the promise of a new kitchen — just for his son to attend a one-week trial at Chelsea. And Coyle claims he was left under no illusions that if his son was signed up there would be substantial financial rewards.

Coyle said: "About two months ago I got a call from Gary Worthington to speak to me.

"I met Gary at Hartshead Moor service station on the M62.

"It's not far from the Leeds' Thorpe Arch training ground, where the academy is. After a while Gary said to me: "Would you be prepared to allow Lewie to come down to London with Chelsea?
"He told me he could get Lewie ‘sorted out' and I could get ‘sorted out, too'.

"The implication was clear. That if we moved down we would be found somewhere to live and looked after financially.

"But first of all the people at Chelsea had to see him, so the idea was to go down for a week. And just for going down for one week I could have 10 grand in readies, plus a new kitchen in our house. That was just for going down for one week."

Before Worthington left Leeds to join Chelsea, he agreed not to ‘poach' any players from the Leeds academy for five years.

His role in the Woods and Taiwo case is already under investigation by Leeds and it will also be part of an FA inquiry.

(Our Straits Times reported only till here .... too pissed off that Chelsea are in fact gonna fail in their approach. Read on......)

But Chelsea remain adamant he had no contact at all with Coyle, and refute all allegations that he tried to lure the Leeds youngster to Stamford Bridge. Young Lewie certainly didn't make the move down south and his 43-year-old father explained: "There was no way I was going to uproot my family.

"We wouldn't want to live down in London for all the tea in China. My son lives and dies for Leeds.

" My priority for him is to be happy and if he doesn't make it, so be it.

"It's down to him but as far as I am concerned the family comes first, not football."

"Lewie just loves coming to train and play with Leeds.

"I drive him to the training ground two or three times a week. I do what's best for him.

"I'm not looking to make money from him."

Conclusion: Screw Chelsea .... there are people out there who value passion and loyalty and common sense more than money and cheats and losers. When Chelsea plays against Man Utd this season, I will certainly be rooting for Man Utd.

With great power comes great responsibility ... however this is a balance Chelsea sadly cannot strike.

Life in Singapore

2006-08-10T21:32:00.000+08:00

I've been back in Singapore for more than a month now, and although I am glad to be back, I understand why life back home is always more mundane and boring than life overseas. Not that I am complaining .... no need to eat self-cooked "food", no need to pay monthly rent and charges, no extreme bitter cold weather, and a lot of other "no" stuff ... the list goes on. So I suppose now's a good moment to recount some stuff I've done since I come back ... stuff which I suppose I could call exciting, stuff which I never got the chance to do in the Chicago that often.

1) I've only managed to make it to 1 lunch appointment on time since I started work. Today was another prime example ... an hr late, but I suppose better late than never rite? Yes, Leeds is slowly getting back to the top. And mind you, it's not like I walk slowly, or deliberately chat online till I lose the notion of time. Yes, I am busy at work. I suppose this contradicts what Kim said the last time I was late for dinner: "Yong Chun is late ... but aiya, he cannot be at work lah. Dunno where he is?"

2) People have commented my singing has progressed from Division 3 standard to mid-Divison 1. Yea, this is roughly where Leeds are right now. I think my singing talent is still latent .... like an unpolished diamond, like Man Utd's finances, like Moses Lim's tummy -- just waiting to explode! Next time, prepared to be awe-struck by a Champion's League-quality voice ... I just need the right songs.

3) I have been faithfully sitting by the radio late at night this week, hoping to win a pair of tickets to watch Wilber Pan's mini-concert next week. I still remember the first concert I went to was Wilber's Double Play concert in Singapore ..... I know girls go watch to see him, but hey, I go to listen to him. If I wanna see him, I might as well go look at a mirror rite?

4) After years of watching the NDP, I am still fascinated and enthralled by the performance. I absolutely loved the march-past and military drills, and the Red Lion parachuters. And this year's song sounds pretty catchy too .... and the singer sounds pretty catchable too! But the show segment -- the dancing and performances -- was a bore. Maybe introducing Mark Lee to emcee that segment could have injected some much needed vibrance and excitement. But, this is our last NDP at the National Stadium .... I still remember my involvement in 2001, while with 46 SAR in the army. Back then they did not have the SMS ticketing system, so it was still the heng sui queue up to collect tickets system. My company was in charge of ticket distribution at Geylang Badminton Hall .... not only did I supervise my men distributing tickets, but I was also involved in crowd control. And some woman made this experience all the more memorable: "Eh how come you all like that ah? I queue up so long still cannot get tickets!" Being in my army uniform, I could only reply "Sorry ma'am, but there were many more people b4 you ... and the tickets have all been given out". If only I were in civilian clothes, my reply would have been closer to this: "KNN, you cannot get tickets my problem ah. You come so late, then cannot get tickets, now blame me. Wah lao .... next time come earlier and shut up now lah." But I couldn't. Then on 9 August itself, we were doing funpack distribution to everyone who passed through the gates. Yes .... this was the only NDP I have been involved in, but that's good enough.

5) I wanna go watch the fireworks this Saturday at Marina .... I heard it's being put up by some Italian team. Hopefully, the Italian soccer team can go up and out together with the fireworks ... serves them right for defeating Germany at the WC. Trying to round up some of my JC class people ... but response has been slow .... some thing's never change.

Leeds vs Norwich

2006-08-06T12:37:00.000+08:00

It's amazing how ridiculous our Straits Times sports pages are. Yesterday was the opening day of the Coca Cola Championship season, and not a single article yesterday or today covered the Championship games. Instead the so-called sports editors chose to focus on old, out-dated stories such as Wayne Rooney's mandatory red card, Chelsea's despicable tapping up of Ashley Cole, Arsenal's reluctance to sell Reyes, Liverpool's deserved 5-0 drubbing, and Newcastle's lame-excuse striker shortage. I mean, who gives a damn about these stories .... do they put these in just to fill up their mandatory 5 page minimum of sports? Hello, not to say that these stories are crap, but the same stories about the same clubs make the headlines every day.

And yesterday was opening day of the Championships, with one of the big 5 of English soccer playing their opening game. Yes, I am talking about Leeds United, who ruled English soccer in the 70s and early 80s, before Liverpool surprisingly took over as the kings of England. Yes, people might scorn at the idea of Leeds reigning supreme before, but it's true .... league champions in 1968, 1973 and 1991; FA Cup winners in 1972 (beating Arsenal); UEFA Cup winners in 1968 and 1971; European Cup Winners Cup finalists in 1973, just to name a small number of Leeds' acheivements. You might be wondering where the European Cup (now called the Champions League) figures in Leeds' history. Well, in the season of 1975, Leeds defeated Barcelona to reach the European Cup finals, facing off against Bayern Munich. Leeds eventually lost 2-0, but neutrals alike agreed it was a game Leeds should have won, and not because Leeds played poorly, but because the referee was bribed by Bayern officials prior to the match. So here's a brief summary of what unfolded. Bayern scored early .... Leeds had 2 obvious penalty appeals wrongly turned down in the first half. Then after 67 minutes, Peter Lorimer's (Leeds all-time record goalscorer) thunderbolt hit the back of the Bayern net. The linesman ran back to the halfway line thinking it was a valid goal, but the French referee believed Billy Bremner (Leeds' greatest captain) - who was running back from an offside position had interfered with play. Quite how he was interfering with a 70mph shot is unclear. Bayern scored a 2nd goal to kill off the match. A large section of the Leeds fans in the ground were less than impressed, and proceeded to dismantle the Parc des Princes. Following UEFA investigations, the French referee was subsequently banned for life. Truly, if fair play had been observed, Leeds would have been champions of Europe in 1975!

So, on to the present, Leeds United (together with Man Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea make up the big 5) faced off against Norwich City yesterday at Elland Road (To Ell And Back!), watched by a crowd of 22,000 plus. The Straits Times can't be bothered to cover the game, but not to worry, there's always a section devoted to Leeds right here (Updated Leeds scores can always be found on the right side of this page). Leeds won 1-0, with David Healy converting a 41st minute penalty, after Eirik Bakke was fouled in the penalty area. Cool and confident, that's Leeds United! So, watch the goal below.

I am sure this is the start of our successful push toward promotion. After the Best is Yet to Be, there's always Marching on Together!

Chinese good ah

2006-08-02T23:03:00.000+08:00

Something which perplexes me now and again. Do I have a face which reads "I can't speak Chinese"? Let's recount 2 incidents.

Scenario 1
While working in GIS last year, I realized most of the people in the lab speak Chinese to one another. No problem with that. The problem I have is that the moment I appear in the midst of a Chinese conversation, everyone suddenly switches to English .... even the people from China. C'mon, I know you people are trying to be considerate and obliging, but hey, it's not as if Chinese is to me, as Man Utd is to winning. I do have a certain bond with Chinese too .... unlike the distant relationship between Man Utd and victories .... so yeah, you people can speak Chinese to me too! So toward my last week of attachment, 2 of the China students in the lab actually said to me "Yuan lai ni hui jiang hua wen de ah". I mean ... ah-buh-then. I actually got A1 for O' Level Chinese ok? Realize everyone: ACS boys Actually Can Speak Chinese proper.

Scenario 2
I am in the midst of my 1 year attachment in IMCB. Again, people in the lab speak English to me. That's fine .... when the non-Chinese people talk to me. But what I find puzzling again is when the China post-docs start speaking English to me. The other day, when I went to talk to them in Chinese, subtly hinting that I would rather they speak Chinese to me, they remarked "Wo men yi wei ni bu hui jiang hua yu". Oh no .... wat must I do to convince others I am able to hold conversations in Chinese and English. Granted my Chinese writing sucks big big now, but I dun think that translates into verbal skills lah ah.

This aside, just came back from Settler's Cafe .... first group outing of the newly established ASOH (ASTAR Scholars On Holiday). I guess there are 2 different ways to pronounce it.
1) Ah-soh (as in elderly woman)
2)Asshole (as in ass-hole)

Ridiculous games make for good times. Moulding plasticines into figures of a fireplace and a unicorn ... simply shows we suck at art. After all, Arts n Crafts Suck. There's still a lot more hilarious stuff that went on ... innuendos of sex, and wedgies figuring heavily, but it's late, and tomorrow's not Saturday or Sunday, which means I should go shower and sleep soon

Absolute

2006-07-29T09:20:00.000+08:00

I have bought my tickets to Absolute US '06. Have you?

Actually, if you have not, relax lah .... still much time to go mull over whether you wanna spend a saturday evening at a University of Chicago organized gala event. Don't judge the event on the design of the ticket .... as much as I admit that the ticket itself looks crappy and unsophisticated, the event itself hopefully will be as lively as our parties in Chicago.

So while you people are still contemplating the pros and pros of going Absolute, let's recap the take home message from our college convocation:

"If a book falls on your head, and the sound is hollow, it may not necessarily be the fault of the book"

If you go the event and find it boring, it may not necessarily be the fault of the event. Might it be that you yourself are not as ENTP as other people?

Friday!

2006-07-28T18:55:00.000+08:00

I think this is kinda cool, sitting at my office desk after office hours, writing rubbish, while waiting for it to be sufficiently late so i can go out and meet people on a Friday night. Seems kinda weird, but whenever I need to leave early to meet, I always seem to have something cropping up, and then lan lan, gotta stay till late and then kena scolded when I finally show up somewhere in Suntec or Orchard. So first off, sincere apologies to Yihan and Gracie and Terence for making u all wait like an hour and a half last night. So on the bus back home, I asked Gracie, "So u really waited very long ah?", thinking that the 3 of them deliberately exagerrated my lateness to make me feel a bit guilty. But then she shot back "Yah lah .... make me wait and wait ..." Now hold on, doesn't this line sound exactly like Lulu's reply to me in our musical Beauty World. Now, rehearsal over and over again until I can remember all the songs and the lines liao. So here's how it went in the musical

Towkay Neo: "Dun be like that lah ... I had business the whole of last week leh."

Lulu: "Everytime, make me wait and wait only .... you horrible man. But never mind, I shall let bygones be bygones"

Towkay Neo: "Lulu, you're such a darling ...." blah blah before we get to the disgusting kissing part.

Never knew you could use reel life lines in real life so perfectly lor.

And anyway, received a notice requesting for me to return to the Student Care and Wellness Center in NUS for a Hep B booster. Wah lao .... the company a lot of money is it, always asking me to go for 1 injection after another. And lagi worse, go down there liao, I ask the nurse how come I need so many injections, and then she said loudly "cos u r high-risk mah" in front of all the students there lah. Biang eh, even if true, also must give me a bit of face mah ... aiya ... n she reminded me to come back in a month's time to check the antibody levels to see if a need a rebooster, leaving me with her parting line "I know you confirm will forget one, so stick this on ur forehead to remind yourself ah"

Aniway, meeting friend now .... and needa catch the last bus out ...so gotta leave. And too old to walk to the MRT station liao ... somemore, just came out of gym ... so needa reward myself by not walking so much.

Absolute US '06

2006-07-25T22:30:00.000+08:00

Haven't really written much for the past few weeks, but as I said before, if you have nothing interesting to talk about, what's the point of saying anything rite? It's just like if you have nothing to shit, what's the point of sitting on the toilet bowl?

So aniway, SAMSU of the University of Chicago is staging the 4th installment of this annual US-bound event, which has been affectionately called Absolute blah blah. It started with Absolute Zero, and then Absolute US, and last year it was Absolute 'Something'. This year Absolute is absolutely back with Absolute US '06, held at The Liquid Room. I'm sorry if this paragraph sounded absolutely sickening with all the 'absolute' words flying around, but hey, that's what I am promoting right?

Just to copy and paste from Adela's email: There'll be a mixer from 8pm, where you'll get to chill, drink and mingle with your friends and other US-bound students, and after 10pm, you can stay on and club to hiphop music. Tickets are $13 presale, $15 at the door. There'll also be 1-for-1 drink deals from 11pm-12mn. Pretty sweet eh!

Please note I do not use such phrases as "pretty sweet eh". I prefer more manly phrases such as "pretty cool ah" or "shiok ah" or "not bad sia". But absolute crap aside, do try to come for this event ..... if past experiences are any indication of what's to come, it's gonna be a pretty cool and shiok night of fun.

Zidane's Sending Off

2006-07-12T00:12:00.000+08:00

The Real Reason Why Zidane Retaliated

Taken from the Sun newspaper:

by Alex Peake

ZINEDINE Zidane headbutted an Italian in the World Cup Final over a vile slur on his ill mother Malika, it was claimed last night.

A lip-reader told The Sun that Marco Materazzi called Zidane a “son of a terrorist whore” before the French Algerian was sent off in Sunday’s explosive match.

It came as Zidane was named the World Cup player of the tournament yesterday, despite his red-card shame.

A French Football Federation source said: “If you insult Zidane’s mother you are asking for trouble. Combine such words with a reference to terrorism, which French Algerians are very sensitive about, and a violent reaction might appear inevitable.”

Malika was taken ill on Sunday and admitted to hospital.

Alex Hayes, London correspondent for French sports newspaper L’Equipe, said: “On that day, with his mother being unwell, it wasn’t a clever thing, or the right thing to say.” The clash that ended Zidane’s glittering career in disgrace came after Materazzi tweaked his NIPPLE.

Top lip-reader Marianne Frere revealed the Italian told Zidane — who understands the language after playing for Juventus — a high ball was “not for feccia like you”.

Feccia is an Italian insult meaning scum or s**t.

Zidane smiled at Materazzi as he walked away. But there was another exchange, Zidane turned and floored him with a butt to the chest. The lip-reader claimed the Italian had said: “We all know you are the son of a terrorist whore.”

He added: “Viffanculo”. (f*** off).

A source close to the Italian squad claimed that after twisting Zidane’s nipple, Materazzi asked him: “What, don’t you like it?” The French captain replied: “A bit too hard to turn me on.”

But Materazzi shouted: “Well, I did it that way because I know that’s how your mother likes it.”

Didn't I say the Italians are simply cheats? and despicable ones to say the very least?

No No Italia

2006-07-05T11:51:00.000+08:00

What I Detest About Italian Soccer

1) They are played by Italians who play for their national team at the World Cup

2) They are tainted by scandals and rumors and suicide attempts. Maybe they should start singing "Jailhouse Rocks" instead of "We are the Champions"

3) They don't distinguish between politics and soccer. How can Berlusconi be prime minister of Italy and president of AC Milan at the same time? They wanna end up like Greece and kena suspended from all FIFA activities ah. Imagine Lee Kuan Yew being coach of Singapore national team lah? Crazy rite ....

4) Instead of the philosophy of "we win as long as we score more than the opposition", Italians like to believe that "we win as long as we concede fewer than the opposition". Boring ... boring ... u dun need alcohol or college lectures to put you to sleep then ... a dose of Italia soccer will do the trick

5) Do Italians know the difference between wrestling and soccer? Maybe De Rossi should henceforth be known as De Rock for that People's Elbow on Brian McBride.

6) Some Italian fans are obviously not color-blind .... always taunting black players with racist chants. Disgraceful .... looks like they need to be sent back to school. ACS maybe? where they espouse the virtues of tolerance, teaching them to be (scholars, officers and) gentlemen?

7) The players are simply not creative enough. Find me an Italian player whose last name doesn't end with a vowel (excluding Dino Zoff and Gianluigi Buffon). You think Cannavaro, Totti, Maldini, Gilardino, Del Piero, Camorenesi, Gattuso, Inzaghi. You see the lack of innovation there.

8) They beat Germany .....

2006-07-04T18:23:00.000+08:00

Something special about Leeds United FC -- we'll be back next year!

Leeds United 2005/06

2006-07-04T17:12:00.000+08:00

Something special about our university ...... the UofC

University of Chicago Graduation Bagpipe Procession

2006-07-03T18:21:00.000+08:00

World Cup fever is at an all time high, now that the People's Team, aka Germany, is through to the semifinals, where they will face the pretty boys Italy. That's all the Italians are, pretty boys who flatter to deceive .... long-haired dudes who are blinded from the obvious truths of German superiority. Aniway, I better not talk too much ... skalli Italy manages a fluke win, I will be so sia suay.

So anyway, last Saturday, managed to meet up with some of my JC classmates to go New Asia Bar. Now they have this promotion going on, where on matchdays, most drinks are 50% off till 9pm. Since we got there real early at 6pm, it wasn't much of a problem getting good seats, right in front of the big screen. Sadly, it now seems as if the core of 99S22 comprises simply me, Kenneth, Waikit, Konrad, Jiahui (all of whom turned up on Saturday), Huiting (who's somewhere eating moose in Canada), Yongkiat (who just woke up at 5pm), Adrian (who has prior commitments), Junhong (who always has prior commitments), and Lihua (who's away in some hospital tending to some people). Well, at least we have a permanent member now, who gets a seat on the permanent council of 99S22, and he is Xangjing. Now this is a big coup for 99S22, considering he is the class rep of 99S28 .... aka, Real Madrid gonna coup Cristiano Ronaldo soon. Actually the infighting between Rooney and Ronaldo actually makes me happy, considering how much I hate those Man Utd ppl.

So anyway, drinks were 50% off, and to me, it seems as if alcohol content also 50% off. The drinks all tasted so diluted, but what the heck lah ah. Good company was more important. So Xangjing, Waikit and I stayed till 2am to watch finish Portugal beat England .... n I even managed to sleep through parts of the 1st half. I can think of 3 reasons.

1) The match is boring .... but how am I to judge, since I was asleep?
2) Alcohol + 70th floor high altitude makes me high, but that is pretty much crap. The drinks that night tasted more like cough water.
3) None of the above

So aniway, we all know Germany are gonna win. So let's relive their penalty shootout win over Argentina in the quarterfinals then .....

World cup 2006 Germany - Argentina Penalty shootout

Germany crushes Argentina on penalties

Germany beats Argentina

2006-07-01T09:13:00.000+08:00

Let's relive a story with pictures instead of words.

That crucial penalty stop ... also Argentina's last touch of the ball at the FIFA World Cup 2006.

We are gonna be the champions!!!!!

The winners rejoice and celebrate.

No place for losers ..... they can just f**k off and go home!

Will this German juggernaut continue rolling? Stay tuned ...
Note: Pictures are taken from the official FIFA World Cup site.

Amazing Referee Blunder

2006-06-24T16:18:00.000+08:00

Isn't it 2 yellow cards and you are out?

Well, according to referee Graham Poll, it's 3 yellows apparently before you are dismissed from the game. Let's see ......

Poll dishes out 3 yellow cards to Simunovic before dismissing him.

For that amazing blunder, here's an ode to Poll, sung to the tune of "Football's Coming Home" -- England's World Cup song performed by the 3 Lions. Instead, this song is called "Fool Poll's Coming Home", taken from the Sun Newspaper.

Yeap, Graham Poll is being sent home from the World Cup ...... couldn't have happened to a nicer guy though.

Sears Tower Plot

2006-06-23T16:46:00.000+08:00

From the Chicago Sun Times (22 July 2006),

Seven arrested in Sears Tower plot

Seven people were arrested Thursday in connection with the early stages of a plot to attack Sears Tower and other buildings in the U.S., including the FBI office here, a federal law enforcement official said.

As part of the raids tied to the arrests, FBI agents swarmed a warehouse in Miami's Liberty City area, using a blowtorch to take off a metal door. One neighbor said the suspects had been sleeping in the warehouse while running what seemed to be a "military boot camp."

Managers of the Sears Tower, the nation's tallest building, said in a statement that they speak regularly with the FBI and local law enforcement about terror threats and that Thursday "was no exception."

"Law enforcement continues to tell us that they have never found evidence of a credible terrorism threat against Sears Tower that has gone beyond criminal discussions," the statement said.

Residents living near the warehouse said the men taken into custody described themselves as Muslims and had tried to recruit young people to join their apparently militaristic group.

A man calling himself Brother Corey and claiming to be a member of the group told CNN that the individuals who worship at the building call themselves the "Seas of David."

P.S. For those who don't know, the Sears Tower is a landmark building located in downtown Chicago --- also the tallest building in the US (standing at 442m tall)

Social Grace

2006-06-22T16:39:00.000+08:00

This is gonna be kinda boring, so read on at your own peril. Now, it was recently reported that in some courtesy test conducted globally, Singapore came in placed 30th out of 35 nations. Surprised?

Yeah, I am damn shocked that Singapore is placed so "high". C'mon, I would expect Singapore to be more like 48 out of 50 countries. And what is the big fuss with New York being the city with the most gracious and well-mannered citizens? I've never been to NYC, but let's recount some experiences I've had in 3 years in Chicago.

1) It is standard practice for a person to hold the door for the person behind him. When going into lecture rooms, the person ahead would naturally stand there, holding the door open for 15 seconds even until I got to the door. An expression of "Thanks" would naturally follow.

2) When someone sneezes, someone around would say "Bless you". In Singapore, any person around Mr Sneeze would, as if it were some reflex action, move away, or stare at the person sneezing as if he were some disease.

3) Waitors and servers in restaurants engage in conversations while taking orders. Topics range from sports, movies and their preferred choice of food in the restaurant. The service is excellent, and makes you really feel at ease, but maybe that's cos we're obliged to give 15-20% tips?

4) Social grace is prevalent even among people in a rush. There was once when on board a bus, this woman fainted probably cos of lack of oxygen. Other commuters immediately alerted the driver, and called the paramedics, while some nurse on board immediately went to check on the unconscious woman. I didn't notice anyone glancing at their watches, or scrambling to get off the bus, or seeming damn irritated. In Singapore, expressions of "wah lao", "kns" or "suay leh" would be the order of the day.

5) I dare not say Americans are not kiasu, but when queues form, people line up in a orderly fashion. You don't see the shoving and pushing and squeezing to be ahead of the order kind of shit you see so much here. They pretty much accept it if they are all the way behind .... you don't see much queue cutting except for the ******

I guess there is probably more to talk about, and I am sure Singapore does have some graces, but you can obviously tell I am rather bored to be talking about this. So for now, I am gonna go back to a Brief History of Time, inspired to read this once again after watching the documentary "The Hawking Paradox" last week.

Go Go Germany

2006-06-18T14:01:00.000+08:00

Now is the time for Germany to regain the big one on home soil. Let's go Germany!!!!!

Let us hope we shall see more of such celebrations .... culminating in the grandest of them all on July 9 --- the day before I start work at Biopolis.

And player of the tournament? Don't be surprised it may well turn out to be a defender -- Germany's own LB Philip Lahm. Most people would probably only have heard of him after he scored that sensational opener against Costa Rica .... but hey, he was there at the last World Cup too. And in my FM game, Real Madrid just splashed 29m pounds on him. Perhaps Germany's own Paolo Maldini? Now don't even mention Roberto Carlos .... piece of crap who can't defend and who can't direct freekicks for nuts.

So ruthless efficiency + offensive grace = a Germany victory!!!!!!

Back in Singapore

2006-06-17T14:49:00.000+08:00

Whew ... I am officially back home. Here's the story. After an exhausting 24hr plane ride back from Chicago to Singapore, I landed at Changi Airport at 1230am. After all the ridiculous immigration and luggage check, I finally arrived home at 230am, only to find no one at home. My piss-ness and anger at that point cannot be described .... I was so looking forward to a good shower and proper food while in the taxi, only to find myself locked out of the house. Maybe I should have asked my dad to bring me a set of keys, rather than having to rely on the maid being home. But just like it had to be, I spent 10 minutes pacing up and down, thinking like a crook how best to gain entry into the house. After realizing there was no one to do so (of course lah ... if I can go in without a key, I might as well become my own professional burglar), I spent another 15 minutes kicking and slamming everything in sight, and then to calm myself down, sat in the car, horning away like nobody's business at 3am in the morning.

After spending close to 4hrs playing computer games while sitting like a cock outside my house, I decided at 6am to walk over to my uncle's place, which is where I spent the entire morning at. Fortunately, I still had MSN, though no hp, and so was able to cancel lunch appointments. Perhaps not showering till 3pm in the day was good, since it kept me from sleeping, and minimized any jet lag I might have.

Having finally officially gotten home at 2pm, I proceeded to unpack before meeting up with Gracie and Yihan at Wasabi Bistro -- a poser Japanese restaurant located in the Oriental Hotel. Folks, if you want good Jap food, Hanabi at King's Arcade is by far, a much better choice. The only interesting that happened during dinner, was me dozing off while the 3 of us were chatting, only to open my eyes with Gracie asking me "Are you awake?" Gosh, apparently I had been sleeping for 5 min while the other 2 were just talking away, which was why Gracie mentioned I suddenly became very quiet.

Aiya, then I fell asleep again watching the Argentina-S&M game later on. Well, although I am sleep-deprived, but at least, I think I have overcome the shitty jet lag. For today at least, I needa do some grocery shopping again at NTUC (after having bought ridiculous stuff like facial wash and Pokka green tea, but not any essentials yesterday), and then I'm off to join Cheryl at a pub tonite for the World Cup games.

My Apartment in Chicago

2006-06-13T13:49:00.000+08:00

This is my last day in Chicago, and hence a sense of nostalgia inevitably sets in. Now when you come to a foreign land, you have to set up your home in a place away from home. And as such, it is with fond memories that I leave behind my apartment -- my 36th floor 3-bedroom apartment in Regents Park (with my 2 roommates: Serene and Bertie). Address: 5050 South Lake Shore Drive, Apt 3606-S, Chicago, IL 60615.

Here is my bedroom. I am currently in the process of contemplating whether or not to start packing, which is why the room is in a mess. Furthermore, moving out entails selling off furniture, which is why the room appears to be simply adorned with clothes only, minus bookshelf, table and rocking chair. However, the comfy bed, and lamps are still around, not withstanding the 2 big windows which afford me a brilliant view of the city and Lake Michigan, and which are permanent fixtures of the room.

Here is the living room. 2 couches plus the TV (with cable) makes for a good living room. If you look carefully enough, you can probably see rows of alcohol bottles lined up at the back of the living room. Vodka, Bacardi, wines, ......

This is our dining area. It probably doesn't look much like one now, with a lion head and many letters and paper on the table. But this is where we have our dinners. What I like about this dining area is the big "gap" which connects this room to the kitchen, making it easy to transfer food in and out of the kitchen. Note the zig-zag compartment above this gap: that's for us to display our wines.

Finally, we come to the kitchen. Oven, microwave, sink, refrigerator and freezer make for a complete kitchen. The kitchen looks rather clean now .... trust me, it is usually never clean! This is where I prepare the meat, while Serene does the vegetables ..... making for a nutritous dinner always

Graduation 2006

2006-06-12T23:44:00.000+08:00

Convocation came and went, and now, I have graduated from the University of Chicago - "the best university on this galaxy and any other nearby" (President Randel). Saturday started with all of us gathering at Ratner Athletic Center at 9am in the morning. It's really amazing the see 965 members of the class of 2006 crammed into a tiny auditorium, with exhuberant looks on each and every face. I dare say, I know probably 2% of the students in the hall.

The only dampener was the drizzle that was going on outside ..... it had been raining since the night before, but that was not sufficient to dampen our spirits. This was our day! After briefings from the head marshall, we all marched to Harper Memorial Court. Coming in to the sounds of bagpipes, this was truly an experience that cannot be found in Singapore. That stupid NUS Business ad is just plain stupid .... how can you ever compare NUS to the University of Chicago. That's the same as comparing Manchester United to Leeds United.

Since graduates from the biological sciences divison were awarded their diplomas first, I was the 13th person out of the 965 graduates to go on stage to receive my B.A. diploma from President Randel, Dean Boyer, and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. As Xuda said, shaking Bloomberg's hand was probably my first physical contact with a billionaire.

So after 3 years in the University of Chicago, what is the take home message? If a book drops on your head, and the sound is hollow, it may not be the fault of the book! Truly, the University of Chicago is an educational institution like no other .... the drive of its students, the intellectual fervour prevalent everywhere, the freedom and independence afforded to students, the extremely tough but challenging curriculum, and of course, the home of the Bulls and the White Sox.

So it all has to end right? Here are pictures with some of the many friends I have made in my 3 years here.

YC with Luoren and Prof Holly Swyers (our SOSC professor)

YC with Yikley, Serene (roommate) and Jason

YC with Weixiong and Lu

YC with Phoebe, Germaine, Amanda, Dazhou and Shengrong

YC with Wanyun, Andrew, Brian, Jiahui and Adela

YC with Yihan, Shengrong and Xuda

YC with Hannah and Meiyi

I shall be arriving in Singapore the nidnight of June 16 (Friday). Catch up with everyone back home .... hp number's still the same.

Senior's Week

2006-06-08T13:24:00.000+08:00

Finally, it's Senior's Week -- the week where the rest of the school takes their final exams and submits their final papers, while the graduating seniors go out and have fun. So the fun all started with watching the comedy show "Iraqtile Dysfunction" at the Second City. Interesting slapstick shit, the content of which will never be allowed in Singapore, under a Sinagaporean context. Imagine suaning the Singapore government, and the various races .... yeah, you get the point.

Tuesday, we all woke up early in the morning --- so early that I needed to eat breakfast to function -- to go to Six Flags Great America -- one of the best amusement parks in the US, with roller coaster rides, and vertical drops you can actually call exciting. So being worn out from all the activities, here's a picture of most of the Singaporeans who went.

Rides taken include:
1) Raging Bull
2) Superman - Ultimate Flight
3) Ragin' Cajun
4) Vertical Velocity
5) Giant Drop
6) Viper

We also took some other ones, the names of which I can't seem to recall. Aniway, note that I've linked each of the rides above, so you can just click on whatever fancies you, then go read about it, or watch the quicktime movies located on those pages (cos I am too lazy to describe each separately) . You'd so wish you were here.

Then, Wednesday nite, we went to catch the baseball game -- Chicago White Sox (defending world champions) vs Detroit Tigers. Score was 2-2 when I left early, but the moment I stepped out of the stadium, fireworks went off, which can only mean that some White Sox player had just hit a home run. That turned out to be Jim Thome hitting one to put the Sox up 3-2. The Sox eventually won 4-3, moving 0.5 games behind Detroit for 1st place.

Now, you all might wonder why would I leave the game early rite, considering the school buses that take us back to school only arrive after the game? Well, my parents arrived at O'Hare Airport in the middle of the game. So I had to go down to Chinatown to buy dinner for them (considering they must be so tired and hungry), and also to buy lunch for myself tomorrow. Aniway, waited in the hotel lobby for like 45 minutes before they arrived .... turned out their luggage was delayed. I actually anticipated that, so I brought a book along, but after reading 3 pages (and this is usually the amount of readings I do each week for Sosc class) I realized I was too shag to continue. Trying to look cool while sitting in the lobby is not easy ..... I gave up eventually and just looked like a cock with no where to sleep.

Aniway, I've got events lined up for my parents tomorrow. Architectual boat cruise and the musical "Wicked" are certainties .... I may bring them to the Art Institute too, since it's famous and I've never been there myself too. Aniway, I'm tired and gonna go sleep soon

The End Is Near

2006-05-31T23:15:00.000+08:00

It's the morning before I can officially declare my schooling life at the University of Chicago over. So yesterday, I had double torment, with a final for Reproductive Biology/Cancer in the morning, followed by another final for my Viruses of Eukaryote class. Initially I was thinking 2 biology finals on the same day was a recipe for disaster, since not only was there much to be read up on, but there was also a possibility of confusing material from the 2 classes, winding up with shit on my face! But now that that's taken care of, I am delighted that the final for Reproductive Biology/Cancer hadn't been pushed back to Thursday (simply because some smart ass in class told the prof he had already made plans for Thursday, and thus was not available on Thursday). How liberal can it be? I might as well say I need to sleep on Thursday, and so can only take finals on Tuesday! But aniways, I am only left with an Anthropology presentation later in the afternoon. When that's done, I shall finally do something which I've delayed for a long time --- booking my air tix back to Singapore.

So yesterday, feeling jubilant as if a great weight had been lifted off my shoulders, I went downtown to meet Esther and Cheryl to hopefully catch the hit musical 'Wicked'. The only way we could get tickets was through this lucky draw system, where each person was allowed to submit a slip. Some old woman would then be on hand to draw out 10 lucky winners, each of whom would be allowered to purchase tickets for a discounted price of $25. Those unlucky losers would then be automatically entered into a 2nd draw, where 10 winners can each buy limited view tickets for $25. Better than nothing rite?

So 3 of us submitted our slips ... contemplating what would happen if only 1 of us had our slips drawn out? Since each slip was only entitled to a pair of tickets, this scenario would only allow for 2 of us to watch the musical. Compounded with the fact that Shengrong would be joining us later, we needed 2 of us to win. So IDs in hand, we waited eagerly for the old slip-drawing woman to pull out slips, look agonizingly at the names, and then in her best impersonation of Chinese High boys speaking English, pronounce our Chinese names. But alas, this draw turned into an unlucky draw for us. Neither of us managed to be among the 1st 10 winners. So we thought, limited viewing ain't that bad afterall. But no, we didn't win that too. Taking away those 20 winners, and the people (the other one entitled to the 2nd of the pair of tickets each) who were there watching with them, I dare say, the room would have been left with 3 of us. Kanasai! Or potential problem of only 1 person winning had been taken care of.

So deciding to make the most of the situation, and not really wanting to watch X-Men, we decided to go watch the musical Spamalot instead. This musical was spoofed loosely on the hit stupid show Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I think this turned out to be a blessing in disguise. More to follow once I get past dinner.

Now, I think 1 of the easiest places to bring guests would be Pizzeria Uno, where they claim to serve the authentic deep-dish pizza in Chicago. Although I hate pizzas, leading to my conclusion that such deep-dish pizzas are grossly over-hyped, I still took them there. Our pizzas usually take 45 minutes to prepare, but considering we arrived at the restaurant at 615pm, and our musical started at 730pm, and took 15 minutes to walk from the theatre to the restaurant (2 'and's exagerrate the overall effect), this would have necessitated us to finish our pizza in 1 big mouthful, which is physically impossible. So having explained our precarious situation to our server, she promised us our pizza would be ready in 7 minutes. Now, it turned out that our pizza arrived together with our appetizers. How cool was that?

So on to the musical itself. Knowing that I absolutely love shows with no plots, and lots of shit humor, Spamalot was right up my alley. Spoofs of cheerleader songs, gays, French mocking of English people, and pure stupidity contributed to this being one of the most enjoyable musicals I have ever watched. For those who want a proper plot, this is not the musical for you. But this musical got Esther, Shengrong and me rocking with laughter throughout (now, Shengrong laughs at anything, so mebbe that's not a good comparison, but aniways ...) although Cheryl had occasional moments of dreamland patronization.

After the musical, we went to Signature Lounge on the 96th floor of John Hancock Tower for some chill-out drinks. Yay! We managed to get the window seats. The drinks were overloaded with alcohol, but the view was simply breathtaking.

Back in Regents, I went down to Xuda's place to prepare my anthropology presentation, since Esther and Cheryl were not intending to sleep, and I needed people to keep me awake. Now, Shengrong -- the Mr Nice-to-Girls (or anyone wearing a skirt in general) that he is -- he offered to call up NWA to push back the girls' flights to Saturday. Cheryl spent 3 full hours deliberating before she came to the decision to fly back today as planned. So the girls are on their way back to Singapore now, and I shall soon be on my way back too, once I book my tickets .... today.

'Choi Dai Di'

2006-05-25T15:39:00.000+08:00

So last night, Jennie, Shengrong and I went to Chinatown for dinner. What was supposed to be a simple dinner among 3 individuals all headed toward different places upon graduation -- Jennie working in HK, Shengrong interning in New York and then staying for 1 more quarter in Chicago, while I make my way back to Biopolis in Singapore -- turned out to be more than entertaining. First, 3 of us ordered 4 dishes, culminating in Jennie forcefully stuffing unfinished food onto our plates to force us to finish up everything. That action of aggression was nothing compared to what was gonna happen back home in Regents.

So around 1030pm, Shengrong and I went up to Jennie's place for some Bahamas rum-drinking and 'Choi Dai Di' (Big 2, for those ang mohs out there). But everytime we play, there must be a punishment for the loser rite? Otherwise, there was no incentive, besides lots of suaning and whacking each other, to win. So after much disagreement it was concurred that the loser of each round was to drink rum, while the overall loser, ie the biggest loser after all the rounds, was to drink 1 Brita-pitcher full load of water. Jennie initially suggested 5 pitchers of water, but we knew she was always siao, so we (Shengrong, me and Tie [Lu's bf]) unanimously agreed on drinking 1 pitcher of water in 1 sitting as the punishment.

So the points scoring went like this: winner gets 0 point, while the losers total the number of cards remaining individually and this number is added as a positive score for each player. At the end of 30 rounds, the one with the highest number of points is the loser. Catch: the score is doubled for 10 cards remaining, doubled for 11 cards remaining, and tripled for 12 or 13 remaining cards. Eg. if you have 12 cards left after someone wins, you add 36 to your score. So unlike soccer tables, the more points you have, the suckier it is for you. Game on!

Surprisingly Jennie won the first few rounds, so the 3 guys all had a postive score at this point, while Jennie still had a score of 0. It's getting late here and I should be sleeping, so let me get to the exciting parts.

Halfway through, I managed to sneak into the lead, with Tie leading the pack, followed by Shengrong and then Jennie. So the 3 guys decided to collude to raise Jennie's score, to narrow the gap between her and Tie. But alas, she won big next round, with Shengrong and I ending up with 13 card each. This effectively put us out of reach of her, with Shengrong and I just behind Tie. More good luck essentially condemned the rankings as 1) Tie (118 points) 2) Shengrong (116 points) 3) Yongchun (109 points) entering the final round.

Essentially the position of loser was still up for grabs. It looked pretty much like a relegation battle between Shengrong and Tie for the last spot, but a 10 card or more remaining stash would catapault me to last place and a pitcher-full of water, so I could not afford not to concentrate. As I scanned through my cards, I realized that the biggest card I had was a J. Hong gan! I had a flush of 3,4,5,6,7 but how likely was I able to put that out, since that was the smallest possible 5-card suite. I could choose to play pairs, since single cards was a strict no-no, since J was my biggest card. My aim now was not to win, but to get rid of at least 4 cards. Having 9 cards remaining would give me a maximum score of 118 (tied with Tie, assuming he wins this round), but I was pretty certain 9 cards left would be sufficient to avoid last spot. Whatever happened, I couldn't be left with 10 cards or more. But with J as my biggest card, what was I to do?

So, everybody was jsut dumping cards, and I was just passing. I thought to myself, "Cannot be that suay, rite?" Then the critical moment came when it was Tie's turn to start. Needing to get rid of at least 2 more cards than Shengrong to avoid last place, he chose to throw out a flush. Since there was no chance of any pairs forthcoming, I decided to break up all pairs, and instead throw out a club suite. Heng ah! The moment I dumped those 5 cards, I knew I was safe. I could not lose with 8 cards remaining ... since the maximum score I could have would be 117.

Shengrong was getting flustered, but he managed to dump all cards but 1. With only 1 card remaining, there was no way Tie could overtake Shengrong. Thus it ended that Tie was to drink 1 Brita-full of water. When emptied out, the water was sufficient to fill up a large cooking bowl. Fortunately for Tie, Lu helped him out with the drinking. And Jennie took a video of their agonizing ordeal

Well, let's just hope their sleep tonite is not interrupted by constant visits to the toilet. Hopefully the next time we play, I will continue being the spectator when it's time to mete out the punishment.

Marching on Together

2006-05-24T06:44:00.000+08:00

Here we go with Leeds United
We're gonna give the boys a hand
Stand up and sing for Leeds United
We are the greatest in the land

Every day, we're all gonna say
We love you Leeds! Leeds! Leeds!
Everywhere, we're gonna be there
We love you Leeds! Leeds! Leeds!

Marchin' on together
We're gonna see you win (na, na, na, na, na, na)
We are so proud
We shouted out loud
We love you Leeds! Leeds! Leeds!

We've been through it all together
And we've had our ups and downs (ups and downs!)
We're gonna stay with you forever
At least until the world stops going round

Every day, we're all gonna say
We love you Leeds! Leeds! Leeds!
Everywhere, we're gonna be there
We love you Leeds! Leeds! Leeds!

Marchin' on together
We're gonna see you win (na, na, na, na, na, na)
We are so proud
We shouted out loud
We love you Leeds! Leeds! Leeds!

Summer Breeze

2006-05-21T11:58:00.000+08:00

Ah, this Saturday has been rather eventful to say the least. After having caught the Da Vinci Code at 1130pm last nite, it was to be expected that I would wake up at noontime, which is what I efficiently did. Afterwhich, Shengrong asked me to go Summer Breeze 2006 in school. Now for all those non-Chicagoens, lemme explain what this Summer Breeze thing is all about. Basically, it's a fun-filled event at the end of spring quarter celebrating the onset of summer, and hence the end of the academic year. This event starts out by having an all-night dance party on Friday night, followed by an entire afternoon of fun on Saturday. Not only are there lots of games, but there is free bubble tea and food too. So let's go into the details, shall we? We shall!

Having just woke up half an hour prior to arriving in school for Summer Breeze, I was naturally in a dishevelled state. This is the final outcome:

Germaine isn't too impressed with the photo; well, neither am I. So it was Germaine, Shengrong and I who arrived together in school. First things first: food and bubble tea! So we promptly went to get our strawberry-lychee freeze. Yay!! I always enjoy my bubble tea. While queueing up for food, Hannah and several other Koreans were behind us, one of them being Hannah's good friend -- Sharon. Hannah introduced us to one another, and Sharon remembers me as that emcee from Chicago Idol!!! No need to eleborate.

Then we went round different booths, checking out the food and games and the "human view". With SAMSU not having set up any booth, we ended up at the CUSA booth, where they have this marble game, with the objective being to transfer all 7 marbles with a chopstick between 2 cups separated 10 metres apart. With 2 competitors, the one who does this the fastest wins a packet of Pocky! So Mingzhu challenged me, thinking that my chopstick-holding skills were as poor as my Mandarin skills. Haha! Little did she realize how adept I was in handling my chopsticks, as I comfortably beat her with 2 marbles to spare. Well, the secret is that chopsticks are what I use to eat ... and eating is an essential part of my daily routine. Haha! I win!

Having exhausted all simple games, we decided to do rock-climbing. Child's play. Shengrong and I (especially I), effortlessly made our way up, and of course down the wall. I think I look so professional climbing in berms.

Finally, Shengrong and I decided to try out the games on those inflatable bouncy stuff. But first of all, we had to sign indemnity forms! wtf rite? So first we challenged each other in this obstacle course, where one had to manoevere his way round several of these inflatable obstacles, such as crawling through tunnels, and squeeing through small gaps and stuff. So Shengrong and I competed, while Germaine and Charmaine dualed with each other. Germaine won, but their challenge was boring. So when the start signal was given, Shengrong and I dashed, and plunged head first into the tunnel. My berms nearly came down .... so that delayed me for a bit. Shengrong was leading till we got to the penultimate obstacle where we had to scale this inflatable wall by leaping onto it and progressing on this elevated level. Haha. Shengrong of course had difficulty vertically scaling the wall, while I effortlessly leaped up and finished the course, leaving Shengrong trailing far behind.

Finally, after some hassling from Amanda whom I was supposed to do our anthropology project with, we decided to end our Summer Breeze activities by challenging each other in this gladiator whacking thing, where we each had a huge stick weapon (I just forgot the name of that weapon), and the aim was to knock the opponent off the platform. Haha .... never did we had so much fun bashing each other in the face and in the stomach. It was so fun.

After such an exhausting 1.5 hours, I had to go to the library to start on our anthropology project. This was essentially the most non-productive part of the day. Even sleeping seems more productive.

Then Amanda, her mum, Chin Siong and I went to K Town for dinner. Lots of gossip over dinner, and now apparently I've taken up another challenge to jio someone out. Not gonna be a problem, I foresee! Now, it's almost midnite, and I think I should go shower, and maybe continue on that anthropology paper. Won't be nice if Amanda finishes her half of the paper, while I am still trying to start on mine. So that's it for now!

The Weekend

2006-05-15T13:55:00.000+08:00

It's monday once more ... which means no classes! YAY! This weekend has been a very unproductive one to say the very least. Let's recall wat happened

Friday: Went for soccer training in the afternoon. I have been rather diligent in attending most of our training sessions this quarter ... unlike last year when I skipped almost all sessions. But the hard work has paid off -- we're in the quarter finals of the IM soccer tournament. Semi-finals to come! After rushing home from training, I went out with some of them plus Amanda's mum for dinner. Nothing eventful and so nothing to talk about ... only productive thing I did was eating .... Then we headed to Amanda's place after that for our traditional late-night mahjong session ... aka coerce newbies into playing and winning their money. But alas, last Friday proved not to be my lucky day.

Saturday: Woke up in the afternoon ... and realized Liverpool had won the FA Cup. SHIT! It's not that I hate Liverpool .... but come to think of it, I dislike every team, except Leeds United. In this way, I am being fair and just to all crap teams -- teams like Man Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and Spurs. Whenever I link all these teams together, the lyrics of the Leeds United song -- Glory Glory Leeds United -- just keeps coming back to my head. "Manchester can rave about the Summerbee and Best ... and there's Liverpool and Arsenal and Spurs and all the rest ... but let us sing the praises of the lads we love the best ... as Leeds go marching on"

Then had another productive eating session at Shaw's Crabhouse, where I had crabs, oysters and shrimps for appetizer, and then steak, shrimp, scallop and more crab for entree. Whew, fresh seafood non-Singapore style never tasted so good. Considering the people who went are those who use their cameras once a year, we didn't take any photos. Then we proceeded to The Tasting Room after dinner for dessert supposedly. So story goes like this: We are seated, served cold water and given a menu each so we can look through their amazing long list of wines and more wines. Then this waitress came to check our IDs. The guys of course are above 21, so that wasn't a problem, until Germaine told her she wasnt 21, and so would simply be eating chocolate dessert only. But some people being as inflexible as they are stupid, insisted that we leave, since no one under the age of 21 was allowed in. KNN! Dazhou then suggested we buy some wine and head back to Regents to drink. Sounds good? So while Dazhou was diligently looking through the champagne list at the counter, the rest of us just waited for him at the entrance. But then, this more stupid and irritating waitress came up to us --- ok she smiled at me first, n I smiled back, and then she walked up to us --- and told us to leave. How irritating and replusive and rude can certain people get? Aren't we even allowed to wait inside for a while? To top it all off, Yihan suggsted watching the show "Alexander" at 12 midnite. A stupid and boring 3 hr show ... amazed I stayed up till 3am to watch something that can't compare quality-wise to our own Beauty World

Sunday: Went for our brunch at Reza's Restaurant (I am too lazy to start linking all these restaurants) --- a Persian cuisine place. It sounds damn exotic and cool rite, but its actually just a meat-lovers paradise, but phrased in some cheem and complex way. The interesting part about all this isn't the food (for once), but the journey there. So Shengrong was driving one car, and I was driving the 2nd car. As we were waiting for the light to turn green, this man came up to Shengrong's car and asked for coins and wat not. He then procceded to comment that Shengrong had great taste in women, while gesturing to Kaval who was sitting in the front passenger seat. Ok, I agree with his judgement. Then this man came over to my car, and after getting rejected again, he said to Adela who was sitting beside me "Happy mothers day .... if you are a mother". I was trying so hard not to burst out in laughter, but I guess laughing out loud wouldnt have been a wise choice, given the propensity for girls to turn violent without prior warning. Prior experiences with Jennie have taught me this.

So now, it's getting late and I am getting shagged. Time to sleep soon. Chicago Idol's tmr nite ... I am gonna be the emcee ... I'm not feeling excited at all

PCK Explains Sex

2006-05-12T22:33:00.000+08:00

Chu Kang ( PCK ) explaining sex to Chu Beng's son, Aloysius

Aloy: Why is making love so enjoyable?

PCK: Aiyah, ah boy, enjolable becaws, same like when you dig your nose with your finger mah!

Aloy: Do you think women enjoy sex more than men?

PCK: Of course woman lah! When you dig dig your nose, your nose feel better than your finger, right?

Aloy: Why do women hate it when they get raped?

PCK: Ai-yah! Say, you walk along the load, den someone come over and dig your nose, you like or not? Ehhh? Don't pray pray ah!

Aloy: Why is it a woman cannot have sex when she is having her menses?

PCK: Oy!! If your nose bleeding, you still go and dig meh?? Siow ah! Use your blain, use your blainnn ..........

Aloy: Why is it most men don't like wearing condoms when they are making love?

PCK: Ehhhh, when you dig your nose ah, you like to dig with a glove on your finger or not? Not the same shiok feeling mah. Corlight or not?

Aloy: Why is making love carried out in private?

PCK: Ah boyyyyy, use your blain, use your blainnnnn ........................... you go and dig your nose in flont of your whole class izit?? Stupid lah!!

Aloy: Wah ...... Uncle Chu Kang, you are very good.

PCK: Aiyah ...... ," Best in Singapore, JB, some say Batam, and now, the whole world!" also ah!!!

Leeds 2 Preston 0

2006-05-09T05:51:00.000+08:00

The picture says it all, doesn't it?

2 scored goals and 1 disallowed goal. And as expected, Leeds United got the 2 goals they deserved, and Preston (short for "Press the self-destruct button") had a goal disallowed. C'mon, the ball had gone out of play as the corner came in, and yet the Preston players were still celebrating like they were some soccer morons who don't know the rules of the game. Bur rightly so, the "goal" was chalked off for the ball having gone out of play. This just shows how desperate Preston will go to get 1 over Leeds .... through such stupid and conniving means.

But goals from Rob Hulse and the Frazer Richardson (pictured above) put Leeds into the playoff finals in Cardiff on May 21. It was a team effort, so kudos to all Leeds United players. It feels good, doesn't it, when there is only 1 'United'? As I was listening to live commentary on BBC 5 Live, it felt good when the whole stadium suddenly went silent, save for the 2400 plus Leeds fans who had travelled all the way from Leeds to cheer on the team. Let's recall commentary of the 2 goals.

"Leeds win a corner .... Kelly to take it this time ....with his right foot ... swings the ball in .... oh, it's a GOAL!!!!! And it's Hulse .... totally unmarked at the far post .... with tall defenders such as (watever crap ... who cares about the Preston defenders) how could they leave Hulse unmarked? But Leeds get the breakthrough!!!"

"Hulse lays it off to Richardson .... the keeper's got it ... oh no, but it's gone through .... and Leeds are 2 goals up. Surely, that seals it!!!"

Isn't it a brilliant feeling when your team is just so good? And people always say Leeds play dirty, but hey, we have pictorial evidence of the Preston players playing dirty shit instead. Take a look at the picture below.

Isn't it obvious that Preston's David Nugent (can't believe I bothered typing out his name) aiming a kick at Leeds' dominant center-half Matthew Kilgallon. Well, ended up both players got booked for the scuffle.

This victory tastes so much sweeter after the antics of the Preston boss Billy Davies after the 1st leg had ended 1-1 at Elland Road. He clenched his fists and saluted to the Preston away supporters, as if his team had won the tie already. And he went on to say "We did the job there". Screw you, Davies!!! Look who's laughing now! Remember, never discount Leeds United. Next up, Watford or Crystal Palace.

Anyway, Leeds are off to the Championship playoffs finals on 21 May, and Preston can get to reflect on another year in the Championship. For now, let's get behind Leeds ... for we should all go MARCHING ON TOGETHER!

MI3

2006-05-07T13:46:00.000+08:00

The weekend is almost over, but Saturday evening was well-spent, I must admit. So after having started on the 1st paragraph of my bio paper, Shengrong and I decided to join Xuda and Yihan downtown. They had gone shopping in the day after having worked on their econs project in the morning apparently. So we had dinner at Rockit Bar and Grill, where they have this special Rockit Burger set for $19. Now why can't they come up some more original name for their speciality? Maybe something like Rock n' Roll It Burger, Rocking It Down Burger, Rocky Burger? U get the idea, something other than Rockit Burger, when the name of the place is Rockit already. But that aside, the burger is really good. Consisting of a kobe beef patty which is really huge and juicy, topped with foie gras, and sweet and sour onions, the burger tasted really good. Not only was there quality, but there was also quantity, something that cannot be said about most places here. I also had some alcoholic chill drink called Jose Apple Pants, which is basically magaritaville mango tequilla, apple liquer, triple sec, lemonade and cranberry juice rojakked together in perfect propertions. Just so as 1st love is always best, so is the first meal of the day --- dinner is simply awesome!!!

Then we headed down to catch Mission Impossible 3.

It's always a nice token when we show our appreciation to the central core of actors. So here is a group picture of the IMF ...... just so that you know what I am referring to when I say Mission Impossible 3 ..... and not the possibility of the opposition sweeping all the parliament seats.

Now, I also like to give personal attention to aesthetic individuals ... so here is a close-up of Maggie Q.

Now, the show is really good ... much better than Mission Impossible 2. I shall not spoil it for those who have not watched it yet, by going into the storyline here .... except that you know that the good guys win in the end. So Leeds will triumph over Preston on Monday, and then probably Watford on May 21 at Cardiff. Well, the smart will just say that I am too lazy to type out the synopsis of the story, which in all likelihood is probably the unanimously correct answer.

If Xuda, Yihan, Shengrong and I were to comprise this IMF group, what could go wrong with this seemingly perfect spy team?

1) Sight of Shengrong in a stunning red dress getting out of the orange-colored lamborghini (ala Maggie Q getting out) is wrong in itself.
2) The guy operating the computer would just end up causing the computer to hang, and while rebooting, cause the guy inside the building to get killed. Sounds of "cham, die lah ... computer hang ... wat to do? No Dell warranty leh how?"
3) How can either of us sprint like Tom Cruise (even tho the video has probably been fast forwarded)? Fast forwarding us running would probably take up half the budget since you need so much manpower to continually operate the control. Either of us would rather take a taxi to chase the bad guy rather than go running and act so seh
4) None of us would bother volunteering for such a tough job in the first place. Want action, might as well go join Survivor and win a million bucks?

Ok, I am getting tired, so I shall stop for now. Back to my bio paper: "Nuclear Transport of Influenza Viral Nucleoprotein and Ribonucleoprotein Complexes".

SG Elections

2006-05-07T02:30:00.000+08:00

Ok, this is BREAKING NEWS.

Well, the results of the elections may have been out 5 hours ago, but hey, I just woke up (although its almost 2pm now), so to me, it's breaking news. PAP have been returned to power by winning 45 out of the 47 seats contested yesterday, giving them a total of 82 out of the 84 seats available in parliament. Officially, they managed to amass 66.59% of the votes, with the opposition trailing at 16.35% (WP), 12.97% (SDA) and 4.09% (SDP). If I am not wrong, SDP is the Chee Soon Juan Party. The 66.59% the PAP ammassed in support was a drop from the previous elections, but hey, opposition members Chiam See Tong and Low Thia Kiang managed to keep their respective wards.

I don't really wanna post any of my opinions as of now, since I am only an hour into awakeness, and I shall probably head back to bed sooner rather than later. So here's a breakdown of the results in all contested wards for anyone interested.

JOO CHIAT SMC
Party Candidates Votes % Votes
PAP
Chan Soo Sen 12,222 65%
WP
Tan Bin Seng 6,577 35%

MACPHERSON SMC
Party Candidates Votes % Votes
PAP
Matthias Yao 13,182 68.5%
SDA
Sin Kek Tong 6,067 31.5%

POTONG PASIR SMC
Party Candidates Votes % Votes
SDA
Chiam See Tong 8,242 55.8%
PAP
Sitoh Yih Pin 6,518 44.2%

NEE SOON EAST SMC
Party Candidates Votes % Votes
PAP
Ho Peng Kee 20,945 68.7%
WP
Poh Lee Guan 9,533 31.3%

NEE SOON CENTRAL SMC
Party Candidates Votes % Votes
PAP
Ong Ah Heng 14,210 65.4%
WP
Lian Chin Way 7,527 34.6%

HOUGANG SMC
Party Candidates Votes % Votes
WP
Low Thia Khiang 13,987 62.7%
PAP
Eric Low 8,306 37.3%

JALAN BESAR GRC
Party Candidates Votes % Votes
PAP
Lee Boon Yang
Yaacob Ibrahim 58,898 69.3%
Heng Chee How
Lily Neo
Denise Phua

SDA
Sebastian Teo
Reno Fong 26,146 30.7%
Vincent Yeo
Muhamad Ali Aman
Cheo Chai Chen

ANG MO KIO GRC
Party Candidates Votes % Votes
PAP
Lee Hsien Loong
Inderjit Singh
Balaji Sadasivan 96,591 66.1%
Wee Siew Kim
Lam Pin Min
Lee Bee Wah

WP
Yaw Shin Leong
Glenda Han
Abdul Salim 49,468 33.9%
Melvyn Tan
Gopal Krishnan
Lee Wai Leng

YIO CHU KANG SMC
Party Candidates Votes % Votes
PAP
Seng Han Thong 15,721 68.27%
SDA
Yip Yew Weng 7,305 31.73 %

BUKIT PANJANG SMC
Party Candidates Votes % Votes
PAP
Teo Ho Pin 21,647 77.2%
SDP
Ling How Doong 6,400 22.8%

TAMPINES GRC
Party Candidates Votes % Votes
PAP
Mah Bow Tan
Ong Kian Min
Sin Boon Ann 80,356 68.5%
Irene Ng
Masagos Zulkifli

SDA
Arthero Lim
Abdul Mohamad
Tan Lead Shake 36,942 31.5%
Edmund Ng
Tan Lead Shake
Ong Hock Siong

PASIR RIS-PUNGGOL
Party Candidates Votes % Votes
PAP
Teo Chee Hean
Ahmad Magad
Charles Chong 113,271 68.7%
Penny Low
Teo Ser Luck
Michael Palmer

SDA
Desmond Lim
Elvin Ong
Ishak Haroun 51,610 31.3%
Lee Hock Huat
Yen Kim Khooi
Mohd Hamim Aliyas

CHUA CHU KANG SMC
Party Candidates Votes % Votes
PAP
Gan Kim Yong 14,151 60.4%
SDA
Steve Chia 9,290 39.6%

EAST COAST SMC
Party Candidates Votes % Votes
PAP
S Jayakumar
Raymond Lim
Abdullah Tarmugi 66,890 63.9%
Jessica Tan
Lee Yi Shyan

WP
Chia Ti Lik
Abdul Rahim
Perry Tong 37,867 36.1%
Eric Tan
Brandon Siow

SEMBAWANG GRC
Party Candidates Votes % Votes
PAP
Khaw Boon Wan
Hawazi Daipi
Mohamad Osman 130,143 76.7%
K Shanmugam
Lim Wee Kiak
Ellen Lee

SDP
Chee Siok Chin
Mohamed Isa Aziz
Christopher Neo 39,534 23.3%
Gerald Sng
Narayanasamy Gogelavany
Francis Yong

ALJUNIED GRC
Party Candidates Votes % Votes
PAP
George Yeo
Cynthia Phua
Yeo Guat Kwang 74,810 56.1%
Zainul Rasheed
Lim Hwee Hua

WP
Sylvia Lim
Tan Wui-Hua
Rahizan Yaacob 58,585 43.9%
Goh Meng Seng
James Gomez

Luoren's Bdae

2006-05-04T21:15:00.000+08:00

2 weeks ago, we celebrated Luoren's birthday at 160 Blue. With Juewei and Harold somewhere else in grad school, and Germaine gone off bf-visiting, the cool gang attendance was reduced somewhat. But still, 7 people still warranted a dinner celebration somewhere. How many people out there agree with the hypothesis that Luoren's birthday is just another reason for Dazhou to be able to summon his henchmen to accompany him over dinner at some high-end fine dining place consuming really good but expensive food? But aniway, this is probably the last time anyone of us, bar Yihan, are gonna celebrate someone's birthday in Chicago, so well, dinner then clubbing later was a good way to end off 3 years of birthday celebrations.

As you can see, here are the 7 of us waiting for our appetizers, after being served our pre-appetizer of warm cheese platter.

Seated (clockwise): yongchun, yihan, lau, xuda, dazhou, phoebe, luoren (birthday girl)

Excellent place ... and more so, excellent company. When will be the next time the 7 of us manage to sit around the same table? So after dinner, we headed down to Soundbar for Luoren's after-dinner celebrations. 2nd time clubbing this year .... but for special occassions, why not?

Soccer Tmr

2006-04-30T14:09:00.000+08:00

Isn't our SAMSU social chair Adela so cute and funny? Here is our motivational message, composed by Adela, to all supporters and players alike to come cheer on our SAMSU soccer team tomorrow.

Dear all,
SAMSU is playing outdoor soccer tomorrow SUN, 30 APR at 2PM on Midway FIELD C. The guys have been training really hard and are really excited at their next opportunity to score a victory for SAMSU!So come on out! You know you want to!!

Love,
Adela
Social Chair for SAMSU

P/S If you get lost just look for the men in macho white and black. Or call me at 773-xxx-xxxx :)

Haha .... the part about "training really hard" and "macho men and black" sounds really cool ... too cool to be true maybe. Well, to every thing there is always a right and a wrong. So I would personally disagree about the training hard part, since I went jogging by Lake Michigan on Friday when the rest of the guys were training ... well, I was training too, wasn't I. It takes some man of steel to go running in the cold along the scenic lake. Finally, about the macho part, well what can I say. It's not far from the truth, is it? Let's just hope that the Bulls beat the Heat in Game 4 tomorrow, and we follow up that victory with success in our soccer match tomorrow. Double whammy! And speaking of the Bulls, shall talk about our trip down to the United Center last Thursday for Game 3, and shall upload the pics when I get enough of them. There's always a time lag between taking photos and downloading the photos onto the computer, and then between downloading the photos and disseminating them to other people, and then finally between receiving the photos and uploading them. So 3 sources of lag. U can't really blame me for not having posted the photos yet, can you?

But just so I know you guys want to see, here's a sneak preview.

We arrived with no time to spare, but thinking we did indeed have a few free moments to wander around aimlessly, we decided to take a photo with a statue of the Bulls' favorite - Michael Jordan. Essentially, this statue is the symbol of the Bulls organization. So what better way to commemorate our last visit to the United Center, then to have Jordan take a photo with us?

(From L to R): Amanda, Alex, Joel and me (with Shengrong taking the photo and hence being out of sight)

With our prized playoff tickets stretched visible for all to see, it's time for us to enter the United Center for Game 3 of the Bulls-Heat playoff series.

Japalang

2006-04-27T12:46:00.000+08:00

I've been guilty of not having written anything here for quite some time now, but give me a break yeah? I've been rather busy with ehrm ... sleep. So Chicago being the hip and happening place that it is, there must be something big happening after Beauty World right? Of course lah! I ask this kind of question, did u really expect me to give no for an answer. So here it is .... Chicago Idol 2006. And yours truly is, of course, one of the co-hosts of this year's idol search. Not taking anything away from the contestants (and this year's crop is pretty good too, judging from the few whom I know are taking part - people like Hannah, Mingzhu, and Helena. Well, ok, apart from the last one, the rest are really good.), I believe that the emcees will be the ones who will steal the show. C'mon, with me on stage, it is pretty difficult for someone else to be more entertaining. And last week's Beauty World auction was only a sneak preview of what is to come on idol day. Being the auctioneer, we managed to raise more than USD200 by auctioning off most of the Beauty World costumes and props. And Mr Slick here even managed to get certain people to outbid themselves, conning them to raise their own bids when there were no rival bids at all.

So let me digress. BW auction was held last Friday. Thanks to Hanxue for organizing it, and the party after. Great reunion for all the cast and crew and japalang people involved in BW. Xuda and I even bid for a pair of fishnet stockings ... well, it's all in the name of charity right? Hey, Hanxue, u and I should both get a cut of the profits right? You, for hosting, and I for being charming!

So let's get back to what I was talking about. Chicago Idol 2006, see all of u there. This year, I promise it to be a fantastic show ... entertaining for the audience, at the expense of the contestants. Haha ... I promise not to be too mean, Germaine.

So, tomorrow, a few of us are heading down to the United Center to catch Game 3 of the Bulls-Heat playoff series. The Bulls had better win .... discounting the fact that coming back from 3-0 down to win the series is practically impossible, it will be damn irritating if I go just to watch them lose. So touch wood, let's bring on the Miami Heat tomorrow!!!

Beauty World Afterthoughts

2006-04-20T06:13:00.000+08:00

Beauty World was an amazing journey. Now that it's over, it seems as if something were missing from my every day routine. No more rehearsals till late at night ... no more waking up early on weekend to go Shoreland Ballroom .... no more communal dining with 40 other people. Well, here are some reflections.

Some things I used to say often during the past 20 weeks of rehearsals:
1) "Fuck lah ... tonite gotta be at Shoreland at 7 again"
2) "Damn irritating lah .... sit here and do nothing"
3) "Eh Brian, I am so glad to see you .... and the food"
4) "Wah lao eh Serene, u better lose weight lor .... now I feel it more whenever u sit on me"
5) "Sian lah .... miss wrestling tonite again"
6) "Wah lao ... she really have to kiss me ah?"
7) "So you like it huh? Ok, give Towkay Neo a kiss"

Now, I actually do miss saying these things. Every nite I am trying to find something to do .... besides reading up on work stuff, what else it there? Even finding dinner companions seems a chore, rather than a routine now. But, good things do come to an end.

So what have I gained out of Beauty World?
1) Friends, and more friends. I think BW managed to double my social circle lor. And not just non-sporeans like Caitlin, Mingzhu and Hannah, but also the freshie Singaporeans whom I nv bothered to socialize with
2) Late nights. Staying up till 5am every Wednesday nite (or rather Thursday morning) after rehearsals, finishing up Civ response papers (ie after spending another chunk of the nite deciding which pages to read), and then doing Cancer Bio problem sets all due Thursday. Well, that's why I treasure these memories even more fondly
3) Excess baggage (which always seems to find their way out somewhere). Late night suppers constantly increase the input of junk into my body, but amazingly, I maintain a healthy fit physique. Aren't the gals just envious?
4) Public performance experience. A good teacher in Andy Tan, and helpful directions from fellow members of the cast and crew all serve to build up acting fundamentals and stage excellence .... now that I also have Drama 101 to add to my resume, I think Hollywood is my next destination. Or mebbe TCS first????
5) Knowledge that ACS boys are not hum sup. People thought I would be perfect for this lecherous Towkay role .... haha, but I proved everyone wrong but showing them how difficult it was to get into the dirty mood of hum sup-ness. Guess ACS boys are all decent "scholars, officers and gentlemen" afterall.
6) An ego big enough to fill the size of Shoreland Ballroom, Mandel Hall and the basement of Mandel Hall? This cannot be true!

Well, now that everything is over (or is it?), lemme introduce some members of the newly-soon-to-be formed Towkay Neo fanclub.

Jennie (HK Representative)

Amanda (A*STAR Representative)

Lu (China Representative)

Quan Hui (Male Representative)

Beauty World

2006-04-17T11:46:00.000+08:00

The Beauty World journey was long and tedious, calling for sacrifices from one and all, from sleepless nights to frayed tempers to missing WWE Raw on Monday nights, but the show we put on last night made all these sacrifices worthwhile. The spectacle we put up was, simply spectacular and amazing, worthy of the standing ovation we all received at the end. Even though not everything went on smoothly during rehearsals, yet I was quietly confident we would not let each other down; we have all put in much effort into this, it was never gonna fail us at the end. And suffice to say, everyone, from cast to the backstage crew, from the lights people to our sound people headed by AC boy Kenneth, played their part in ensuring Beauty World would forever be the best thing to hit the University of Chicago entertainment scene.

Now, even though I am no dancer, I was actually elated to do the final dance; as I entered for the final bow, and watever all hold-hand and bow things at the end, the adrenaline was really pumping it up; as I saw the appreciative audience rising to their feet to give a standing ovation to each and every one of us, indeed that was the best feeling I ever had for a very long time.

The corny aspect of it all being the audience seeminly treating this whole musical as a comedy, which I am perfectly fine with. Wah lao, I step out in Act 1 Scene 1, havent even smoked my cigar, havent even spoken a line, the audience down there laughing liao. Aiya, I look like a comical towkay meh? So aniways, playing to the audience, most of us just tried to make out lines as witty as possible, throwing in random lines as and when possible. After all, we give the audience what they want right? The high from last night is still here, and I am not referring to the physical highness we all experienced at the afterparty. Simply put, BW is an experience we will all treasure all our lives. yesterday was simply the best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be. (Note: there is no 'the best is yet to be here', cos yesterday was simply of the highest quality)

So let me upload all the pics I took. As I mentioned on our BW facebook thing, we are all beautiful people involved in this beautiful musical we call Beauty World; even with make-up, we are beautiful ... in every single way.

Rosemary Joseph (Caitlin) and Towkay Neo (YC)

Towkay Neo(YC), Sergeant Sita (Su-ann) and Chorus Girl cum Dance Choreographer (Meiyi)

Towkay Neo(YC), Sergeant Sita (Su-ann) and Chorus Girl cum Dance Choreographer (Meiyi)

Chorus Boy cum Production Manager (Jeremy), Boss Quek (Keith), Wan Choo (Shahidah) and Towkay Neo (YC)

Towkay Neo (YC), Stage Manager (Wanyun) and Boss Quek (Keith)

Singer (Shin Yi), Chorus Boy cum Singing Coach (Weiyi) and Towkay Neo (YC)

Chorus Boy (Robin), Ah Hock (Lip Jin) and Towkay Neo (YC)

Chorus Boy (Robin) and Mummy (Huileng)

Rosie (Mingzhu) and Chorus Boy (Jason)

Mummy (Huileng) and Rosie (Mingzhu)

Rosie (Mingzhu) and Towkay Neo (YC)

Towkay Neo (YC) and Mummy (Huileng)

Towkay Neo (YC), Lily (Hannah) and Chorus Boy (Jason)

Chorus Girl (Germaine), Sergeant Sita (Su-ann) and Towkay Neo (YC)

Towkay Tan (Weixiong), Lulu (Serene), Frankie (Wai Keong) and Towkay Neo (YC)

Set Manager and Singer and Gold Digger (Yik Ley)

Mexico Trip

2006-04-06T01:20:00.000+08:00

I finally managed to get our Puerto Vallarta photos from Dazhou. Aiya, I can't be bothered to link Dazhou or his blog, nor am I going to be utterly descriptive here, since I am actually in a race against time to catch my bus to school. So I've mainly put in group photos only, since there are 7 of us on the trip, and individual photos would be too troublesome and in some cases, too unflattering. You get the point .....

After 4 hrs of airtime, we finally arrive at Flamingos hotel to find ourselves locked out of our rooms, and our tummys famished. So its off to lunch at 3pm at this atap restaurant in our hotel. Heng, the hotel wasnt all inclusive.

Xuda giving his best impersonation of The Ham of a Cheeseburger -- the uneviable position of being sandwiched between 2 ehr .... girls. Luoren practising for her role of Daisy in Beauty World.

A group photo against a backdrop of the Sea. What's with the caps? Don't these people have hair to show?

My source of inspiration on Day 2. Only Yihan knows the story of the girl in blue. The word's PASSION.

After having deserted the gals finally, the macho men head off to the Blue Shrimp for an evening of fine dining seafood

HOT BODS! I guess when u have 2 solid guy bods, n 1 cmi female one, it still counts as majority wins.

Luoren, Xuda, and Yongchun aboard our Rhythms of The Night cruise .... before the guys fall asleep during the 1 hr long cultural dance show ....

Us at the Rhythms banquet.

Ok I'm seriously gonna miss my bus liao. So that's it for now

Midwest Games 2006

2006-04-04T02:21:00.000+08:00

Midwest Games 2006 at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor was eventful, to say the very least. From a broke-down car, to playing in 5 degree weather with only shirts and shorts, to having no supporters cheering on, to numerous members declining to come for various reason, we did enjoy ourselves and come away with a joint-3rd place. There was supposed to be a game for 3rd/4th placing, but hey, who gives a shit when members of both teams involved in this game would rather go off to Saigon Gardens for dinner. So refusing to play this 3rd/4th placing match, players from Uni of Chicago and Michigan headed off to our lovely Vietnamese restaurnat for a dinner together, away from the other Midwest Games people who were still confined to the gymnasium of some Pioneer High School.

Let's show a pic of our brave troops first, shall we?

Squatting: Brian "Hoarse" Ooi, Challenge Trophy, "Assistant Manager" Jiahui, Helena "Vinnie the Manmarker" Lang
Standing: Joel "Reverse leg tackle" Tan, Marcel "FT", Chan "Top scorer" Yikley, Jason "Flying shoe" Teo, Chong "Safehands" Yongchun
Not in picture: "Indiana" Alim (somewhere puking)

Of course, there's a story to each nickname -- one thing or another happened during the games or after. Honestly, the picture quality is rather crap, so why did we actually bother thanking the cock who took it for us? How difficult can it be to take a proper still photo? C'mon, even a Chinese High boy who doesnt understand English can still follow instructions.

Roommates?

2006-03-29T16:53:00.000+08:00

So this occurred at the post office yesterday afternoon, as I was getting in line to go buy a stamp to mail some stuff to Connecticut. I shall refer to me as Me, and the post office woman as POW. Specifically she is the one behind the counter doing all those post office stuff.

POW: May I help the next customer?
Me: Yea, can I buy a stamp to mail this to CT?
POW: That'll be 39 cents
(Me rummages through my wallet and digs out 30 cents, thinking it was 40.)
Me: Here, keep the change
POW: My boy, u need to give me more
(Sheepishly, Me digs out another 10 cents.
POW takes a look at my envelope and informs me that I have written the mailing address and return address at the wrong places.)
POW: Our computer reads these letters from bottom right to top left, so here, you should write the mailing address at the bottom right, and your return address at the top left.
(Feeling absurd, Me shows her my return address at the back of the envelope.)
POW: Oh gosh, you stay at the 36th floor, and you're giving me a penny as tips. My boy, you've got to give me more than this.
(Me gives a moment of silence.)
POW: Well, the view from the 36th floor is brilliant, ain't it? I used to love on the 10th floor, but that was the highest I had. I had 3 views: the North, West and East, but no South.
(Me feeling the conversation had gotten more and more absurd, agrees.)
POW: But you live on the 36th floor! What views do you have?
Me: Oh, I have the lake view and the city view
POW: My gosh, you stay alone?
Me: Nope, I stay in a 3 room apartment
POW: So you have roommates? All guys?
Me: Not exactly, we have a guy and 2 girls
(POW looks around incredulously, macam she see ghost!!!!!)
POW: So you live with girls? Look wat we have here!
(Me thinking she is siao. What is wrong with living with girls?)
POW: So are any of them your girlfriends?
Me: No, we're just friends, thats all
(POW and Me had more of this housing talk, while the other customers were just smiling to themselves, while waiting in line.)
POW: Ok, so you live with a guy and 2 girls?
Me: Ehrm, I am that guy!
POW: Oh, come back here boy! So you live alone with 2 girls?
Me: Yea
POW: haha, next time, you should just say this is my private business
Me: Well, I'm fine with saying this
POW: Ok, u take care, and enjoy living with the girls
Me: You take care too, n have a nice day

It was obviously more drama mama than that today, with the other post office people, and customers waiting in line listening to our conversation. Of course, I have missed certain stuff, but it was really a refreshing conversation. Really cool to talk! I think I have got some of that spark back!!!!!!

Drunk!

2006-03-27T03:02:00.000+08:00

Hanging out with the Freshie Three in my living room on a lazy Sunday afternoon, gosh, spring break is really breaking up my sleeping pattern. So in usual spring break tradition, here's a list of what not to do when you are drunk, taken from talkingcock. Remember, when you drink, don't drive .... cos u dun wanna spill your drink.

THINGS OTHER THAN DRIVING THAT YOU SHOULDN’T DO WHILE DRUNK
1. Parallel park outside a police station.

2. Testify at your drink driving trial.

3. Meet your girlfriend’s father.

4. Write your blog and share how you really feel about the government, race relations, religion and your friends.

5. Hang out with a plastic surgeon.

6. Hang out with a friend who sells MLM or time-share properties.

7. Hang out with a member of the opposite sex who you think is very ugly when you’re sober.

8. Wonder too long about what might happen if you press that red button.

9. Wonder what it would look like if you filmed you and your boyfriend/girlfriend bonking.

10. Bet your friends you can swim across the Singapore River.

11. Get married.

12. Run for election.

13. Air traffic control.

14. Come up with stupid lists. (Damn! Too late!)

Face Match

2006-03-26T01:21:00.000+08:00

Ok finally succumbed to this myheritage.com thing, where they match ur face with celebrities to see whose face u resemble. Well, so I tried, and did a total of 3 face trials, where I submitted 3 photos, to see which celebrity match came up for all 3 different self-portraits. So here are the results:

Nicholas Tse (the guy in the middle) came up in all 3 matches

Hee Seop Choi (guy on the right, whoever he is) came up in 2 of the 3 matches

And surprisingly, each time, I have more matches with female celebrities than with male celebrities, with female matches being twice as often as male celebrity matches. Oh well, I guess a lot of female stars look like me.

A small step a week is a gint step toward promotion

2006-03-19T01:42:00.000+08:00

Let's keep things short, succinct and sweet.

1) Sheffield United lost 2-1 to Norwich

2) Leeds were unfortunate to only claim a 1-1 draw with Coventry. David Healy came on to tuck home an 88th minute penalty, giving Leeds a share of the spoils. Another instance when they make me so panicky all the way till the end of the game.

Ironically, Leeds and Sheffield United played the same 2 oppostion teams last week, with Leeds needing a 90th Eddie Lewis freekick to draw 2-2 with Norwich and Sheffiled United succumbing to Coventry 2-0. How crucial will these 2 late Leeds goals turn out come the end of the season? Now, Leeds are only 4 points behind second placed Sheffield United with a game in hand, and yet to play next month against those rottern Sheffield United. Also, let's hope Watford loses on Monday. Then it'll really be a case of marching on together toward the premiership. Finally Winning 11 will have Leeds inside .... no need to use Jonathon Woodgate-led Real Madrid anymore.

Coca-Cola Win A Player

2006-03-16T15:59:00.000+08:00

Here is something which I'm sure no one will be interested in. But I am still tempted to talk about this since it concerns my beloved Leeds United. So for the 2nd year, Coca Cola is sponsering this competition where fans all over the world get to vote for their favourite Conference teams (yes, this excludes the Premiership teams). Every vote counts, and at the end of May, one lucky fan is drawn, and the team this fan voted for would be given a £250,000 prize money to be spent on new signings. In addition, this fan would be rewarded with £10,000 for his participatory efforts. So last yr, Leeds Utd finished runaway winners with more than 250,000 votes, and thus had an almost 25% chance of winning this huge bounty. But alas, Brighton, which finished 7th in voting, managed to bag the £250,000, when a lucky Brighton fan got drawn out of the hat.

Now here's the interesting part. It was said that many Man Utd fans, in order to prevent Leeds from winning this prize, entered into the voting, and deliberately voted for other teams, so as to lower Leeds' chances of landing the huge prize. Now, how jealous can Man Utd fans get? And how desperate they are? To what extents would they go to prevent Leeds from once again usurping Man Utd as the only United in England.

Well, so of course, I am a frequent visitor to the coca-cola site, where I cast my vote for Leeds. As of now, Leeds are runaway leaders with more than 147,000 votes, with Sheffield Wednesday in 2nd place with only a miserly 98,000 plus votes. Of course, it is not the thought of winning the £10,000 which is driving me to voting, but rather the prospect of Leeds increasing therir finances to healthy levels once more. So cmon, all you Leeds fans out there, help your team, and bring them back where they belong -- at the top of the Premiership, above the likes of Man Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea. And we could probably throw in Spurs and Newcastle for good measure too.

Random Post

2006-03-16T13:10:00.000+08:00

1) Yay! It's the Finish Finals On Thursday dinner tmr nite!

2) Does our physics instructor wanna give everyone an A for the class? C'mon! No RC n RL today in the finals!!!

3) Cancer biology is one of the toughest classes, but most enjoyable n enriching one too! Went through the class without having the textbook, without reading the Natural Obsessions book, without going through the review papers. Just the notes were enough. Let's hope that's enough!

4) Been watching episode after episode of Young n Dangerous past few Days. Is there a Young n Dangerous 101 class somewhere out there?

5) Done with the UofC core. Grasped the art of writing without reading, with the help of the index pages.

6) Finally a finals in the afternoon .... no worries of oversleeping ...

7) 1 more quarter left of college life ... now that is not cool!

8) Puerto Vallarta .... coming Monday

9) Cheap trick I used to sell the Beauty World ticket to my Korean friend: "You actually get to keep the ticket stub, and see, this end of the ticket stub has my face on it. How cool is that? You get to keep me as a souvenir!"

10) This has been the most haphazard entry for some time.

Kiss - Because I am a Girl

2006-03-12T14:01:00.000+08:00

It's raining outside, and I am sitting in front of my computer, thinking about things that merge well with the atmosphere of a quiet night of raindrops falling down on the window panes outside. Drinking wine sounded good, considering I just bought a bottle of Allendorf yesterday at Belmont, but reconsidering that I have to study for cancer bio, this sounded a crap idea. What about eating chocolates? Considering the fact that I am eating chocolates every morning, this sounded an unhealthy idea, tho eating is pleasurable and unhealthy food is heavenly, but this didn't sound good tonite. Reading bio certainly logical, and absolutely necessary. But what else? It suddenly dawned on me that watching sad romantic videos certainly fitted in with the mood. So here, exquisitely chosen by me, is a music video by the Korean girl group 'Kiss', and the song is called "Because I am a Girl". Most of you have probably already seen it, but I figure it's always worth a second watch.

To watch this touching video, click on the pic above. Let me summarize the story in brief. This guy and girl fall in love by chance (what else?). An unfortunate accident causes the girl to lose her eyesight, but she doesn't understand the true significance of this. An operation is carried out to enable the girl to regain sight in both her eyes. As she was out walking one day after recovering her eyesight, she saw her former lover walking around being led around by a dog. Only did it hit upon her that her ex-lover had sacrificed both his eyes in order to help her, and thus confine himself to a lifetime of blindness. It's an 8 minute long video, so it certainly isn't too long to bore you out, and not too short for it to end even before you can finish adjusting your sound volume. So enjoy. On a separate note, I don't know what the girl group is singing .... I know it's Korean, but I don't understand the lyrics at all.

Publication

2006-03-12T01:32:00.000+08:00

2 things I wanna talk about, before going off for yet another round of Beauty World rehearsals at Shoreland -- the land so far away it seems painful to go there. 2 things which give me ambivalent feelings ... neither to feel glad not sad. So here goes.

1st up. Leeds Utd has managed to close the gap on second-placed Sheffield Utd to 5 points, with a game in hand. A 2-0 defeat for Sheffield Utd, coupled with Leeds' 2-2 draw with Norwich City closed the gap between 2nd and 3rd place to 5 points. Watford could have leapfrogged Leeds into 3rd, but they could only draw 0-0 with top-placed Reading, leaving the promotion destiny of Leeds firmly in their own hands. Winning their game in hand, and beating Sheffield Utd would endure Leeds go into 2nd place .... but yes, that's a big if. So am I supposed to feel happy that Leeds managed to close the gap between them and 2nd place by a point? Well, I suppose so ... but I was seriously expecting Leeds to defeat Norwich at home. And to think, they were trailing 2-1 till the last minute, before a sensational freekick from Eddie Lewis ensured a share of the points. But this matter is trivial ... we'll still get promoted anyway.

2nd thing. Well, Amanda and I worked in Ng Huck Hui's lab in GIS over the summer, and we were helping him with gene annotations for this upcoming paper. I was seriously hoping that we would get co-authorship when the paper gets published, considering the 3 months of hard work we put into completing the annotations. For those normal people who dun know what annotations mean, it refers to the mapping of transcription factors to sites where they bind on the DNA genome. If you dun know what that means too, well, you're perfectly normal. So I was randomly surfing stuff online, and I came to chance upon this newly published paper by Hg Huck Hui's lab. The title of the paper was basically what Amanda and I had done for him over the summer, so I clicked on the link to check for authorship of the paper. Well, as you would expect, we were not listed as co-authors. We did get a mention at the end of the paper, where the authors express thanks and what not rubbish formalities. It reads something like this: "We are grateful to E. Ng, A. Ang and Y.-C. Chong for assistance in annotating the binding sites." One line only .... how pathetic can it get? Well, on the bright side, at least we did get a mention in the paper. I guess that's the positive thing, tho I shdn't worry too much about that. When I get famous eventually, hahaha, my name shall be everywhere. My name ........... eventually!!!!!

Ok, so I guess it's Beauty World now. Shucks!

To round up all this, lemme just give the name of the paper I mentioned above: 'The Oct4 and Nanog transcription network regulates pluripotency in mouse embryonic stem cells'. Nat Genet. 2006 Mar 5

Medical Students

2006-03-10T12:53:00.001+08:00

Ok, so my writing span has been rather short, since I'm back here again. My NJ classmates have been whining much recently about medical exams, and what not. Yes, medical students in NUS, England, Australia and HK. Can't really imagine all of them being doctors next time ... but wait, that's a sane topic, and this post is supposed to be crappy, so let me pass on that. Well, I only bother reading a line from each page-long email, since I dun understand most of the terminology used, and its amazing how boring medical students get to be so creative when it comes to whining. To sum up all whining, Maureen even attached this medical career guide in her email. I think it's full of crap, but hey, this post is crap too, isn't it?

Beauty World II

2006-03-10T11:42:00.000+08:00

I'm only 30% thru with my Civ paper, so rather than chanelling my creative juices into somemore mysteries, akin to the mystery of the missing keys, I figure such energy would be better spent finishing up my paper. So before I end this miserable post, lemme put up another advertisement for Beauty World.

This pic is smaller than the other one .... but I like it. Click on it to go to our Beauty World site.

Mystery of the Lost Keys

2006-03-08T05:44:00.000+08:00

I dun know whether to be happy, amazed, relieved or downright disgusted with myself. Honestly I cannot fathom this particular mystery which happened today. I shall aptly title it the Mystery of the Missing Keys.

So let's start from where I figure something might have gone wrong. So in short, this whole thing came about cos I couldn't find my house keys this morning. (note: house keys include house keys plus that beeper thing which lets u beep yourself through those revolving doors) I know this description sounds rather stupid, but I'm in no mood for fancy words now.

So at 630pm last nite (Monday nite), I went down to the printing room to print out my lecture notes. I took my keys with me. Then I came back to cook dinner and then to watch wrestling, before Yikley came over to do some work. Annie came over too at 10pm to ask me some physics stuff, this after she had declared she no longer needed my help with physics anymore. Aiya, girls!

So this morning, feeling pissed that I had to go to school for simply 1 class just to turn in homework, I reached for the keys which usually sit on my table. But shit, there was no keys there. Now, this has happened before, but usually, when the keys are not on the right side of the table, it's on the left. But this morning, it was neither on the left or on the right. PANIC! I spent 15 min searching my room, sweeping stuff off my desk, searching for those keys. For those people who can imagine the monstrous amount of stuff on my desk, u can understand why this took 15 min. Convincing myself that those keys would magically appear when I get home, I finally took the later bus to school!

Fast forward to 3 hours ago, when I rushed home to search for my keys, and to watch the Barcelona-Chelsea match. Let me digress slightly. Everyone knows Man Utd are one of Leeds' biggest rivals (you've all heard about the War of the Roses), so it seems highly unlikely I would ever support Man Utd. Well, let's just put it this way now .... I hate Man Utd, but I admit they were good. The same can't be said for Chelsea ... not only are they just average, they are so pompous and arrogant they put supposedly arrogant ACS boys to shame. Now wouldn't you all say [A]rrogant [C]helsea [S]ucks. Well, yeah big time! So it's not that I support Barcelona; in fact, I would take Real Madrid anyday simply because they have Jonathon Woodgate playing for them once in 2 months. So as I was frantically searching for my keys, I was hoping that Chelsea would not score, so that they can get their asses kicked out of the Champions League. I know it's rare for me to say this, but I'd rather Man Utd win the Champions League than Chelsea. I hate Chelsea!

So back to the issue of the keys. I recombed my desk, to the extent that I even bothered throwing away rubbish papers, using a cloth to wipe the dirt off my table, and packed everything neatly into piles. But I still couldn't find those damn keys. Next stop: the bed. I rummaged through those clothes which are on my bed. I even searched through the dirty clothes in the laundry bag. I rummaged through the pockets of whatever clothes were on the floor. Finally I decided to put those clean clothes back into the closet, so everything would look neater and any key lying around could more easily be found. Occasionally I would peek at my computer to check on the Chelsea-Barca score. 0-0 still!

Next I cleared the floor of any paper and plastic bags, but still no keys. Having convinced myself that the keys are not in my room, I proceeded to the kitchen. Imagine if I were to find the keys in the kitchen, what in the world was I doing yesterday? Was I even contemplating roasting those keys for dinner? So I went through the fridge and the freezer rather quickly, realizing that I could not be such a cock as to dump my keys together with food. Fortunately (or unluckily for me), the keys weren't inside. So I went through the stove and the rest of the kitchen, realizing that the kitchen was the last place the keys could be found.

Next stop: living room. I cleared the mess and newspapers off the dining table but no key! So I proceeded to the coffee table, which I usually use to kiao ka as I watch TV. No keys still. I remembered that I had cleared those can drinks and cup noodles off the table the nite b4, so I actually went through the trash searching for my keys. Imagine the desperation when I sighted no keys. I suddenly remembered I was watching wrestling last nite. So I looked through the couch which I was sitting on. (note: Yikley was on the other couch trying to do work) I even bothered to summon all my energy reserves to single-handedly lift the damn heavy couch off the floor, so I could check if my keys were underneath. Damn! No keys still.

So I went back to my room. Standing up, I traced the events of last nite. I came back with my Civ book in my left arm, so I must have opened the door with my right arm. I thus must have had the keys in my right hand when I went into my room to put down the book. Thus I figured the keys had to be on the right side of the desk. To make sure my eyes weren't playing tricks on me, I closed my eyes, and simply used my hands to feel for keys. But all I could sense was hopelessness and cockness!

Finally I decided to go down to the conceige to ask if any kind soul had returned any lost keys. The guy said 'no'. I said 'oh'. I concluded that I must have left the keys in the keyhole and forgot to take them in when I opened the door, and some cockster must have made off with the keys. Frustrated with myself, I kicked everything in sight: my bed, the wall, the doors. Fortunately I have an iron leg, so no damage was done.

I sunk onto my seat. The score read Barcelona 1 Chelshit 0. That was good! Making 1 desperate attempt to retrive my keys, I went into my toilet, hoping I might have left it there for watever reason. As expected, no keys!

The only sensible place I had not searched was the couch Yikley sat on. But for watever reason, I cannot fathom how my key could have made its way to a location I did not even go to last nite or this morning. But aniway, I went to take a look. I threw the cushions and pillows off the couch, and lo and behold, I found my keys meshed into the corner of the couch. What the hell? How could those keys have made its way there? Yikley didn't even borrow my keys. But for now, I am happy and thankful. I'll only start thinking about how it got its way there later. For now, it's Barcelona 1 Chelsea 1. Chelsea have been eliminated from the Champions League!

I actually contemplated taking a photo of my keys to post in this entry. But I gathered that would be stupid. Something which caused me endless trouble today has no right to make its way onto this blog. It can sure make its way to the couch, but it sure ain't finding its way online. Till next time.

By the way, dun u all think this mystery got more drama than a cantonese soap opera? Well, at least this searching for the keys forced me to tidy up my room. Till next time ..... I hope the next time shall be an entry from our mystery guest blogger.

Closer

2006-03-05T01:38:00.000+08:00

Let's do some math:

1) Sheffield United draws 0-0 with Crewe

2) Watford draws 2-2 with Derby

3) Leeds United crushes Crystal Palace 2-1 (note: updated Leeds United scores on the right always)

With Sheffield United and Watford both dropping 2 points each, and Leeds getting maximum points, Leeds leapfrog Watford into 3rd place in the Championship standings. Now Leeds are only 6 points behind Sheffield United in 2nd place, with a game in hand, and a match yet to come between these 2 sides. Let the games begin! Here we go!!!!!!

Beauty World

2006-03-03T23:48:00.000+08:00

Event: Beauty World, as the highlight of Citylights Chicago 2006

What is it: A musical, duh! Lots of sound, action, dancing, singing, acting, and laughing

When is it: April 15 2006 (Saturday)

Where is it: Mandel Hall

Who to buy tickets from: me (Yes, that's yongchun)

Who'll be there: Cast and Crew (and Dick Lee)

What will you get for your $10: A musical, duh!

Check out more of Beauty World here.

120 Founders Day

2006-03-01T16:59:00.000+08:00

Our Hearts, Our Hope, Our Aims are One ....

It's March 1 2006. So here's to the Anglo Chinese family .... a happy 120th Founders Day.

Conservation of Motivation

2006-03-01T12:58:00.000+08:00

After this post, I shall probably take a few days' of break to allow the mystery guest blogger time to prepare some stuff to talk about, after which our guest blogger shall post some interesting thoughts. But for now, it's still your favourite me down here .... cheers! So what am i gonna talk about now? Something important i gather ... so for all those aspiring scientists who love coming up with new laws and wat not, so they can etch their names in the annals of science folklore, well listen up.

Those who have studied physics have probably encountered numerous conservation laws, one of which is the conservation of momentum, in which the momentum before and after a collision is the same, provided no external force acts on the colliding particles. Well, I have also come up with something similar, tho less subject to physical demonstration. It's what I call the law of conservation of motivation. This is how it works.

The total amount of motivation in the world is conserved, ie. whenever someone feels deflated, there is always someone else there who feels elated. For simplicity, I shall prove this law using me as an example. So on Monday, I had my physics midterm. Now I thought it was a tougher test than the first midterm, and naturally I stayed through the entire duration to ponder over this one question which I believe I might have screwed up on. Well, now that I think of it, I'm sure I screwed up that problem; I just hope I get sufficient partial credit. So naturally, I feel bad after leaving the exam hall, so my motivation level decreases. Now where does this motivation go to? Perhaps to those cocks who think they might have breezed through the test (tho I hope there is no such person out there, since it will only contribute to a further decrease in my motivation levels), or more likely to the professor who set the questions, who's probably sitting there thinking "these people think they so smart, esp that singaporeans who's always sleeping through my class. now let's see who's boss".

However, my law isn't that simple, as to only revolve around different individuals at 1 particular event at 1 particular moment in time. It can also involve the same individual at 2 unrelated events at different instances of time. Here's how it works.

On Monday afternoon, I went to help my friend with some survey for her thesis. Her thesis is basically that Asians are better in mathematics and problem solving than Americans. Well, I would like to narrow that down to Singaporeans being better than the rest, but I digress. So I was given 3 math questions to solve. The questions are as follows:
1) there is a 2-digit number. By adding another digit between these 2 digits, you get a 3-digit number. What is the largest integral value of k, such that the 3-digit number is k times larger than the 2-digit number?
2) some stupid 16 square box. Put a number into each box, such that the 4 boxes in each column, row and diagonal sums up to 1000. Then what is the sum of the 4 numbers which lie in the middle 4 squares?
3) prove that the probability that at least 2 ppl having the same birthday, within a random sample size of 50, is greater than 95%

Well, I ended up being the first person among the 27 ppl she has surveyed who got all 3 questions correct. Now of course my motivation level increases. The positive change in motivation in this case might not equal the negative change earlier in the day, but several such changes averaged out over several instances will produce a net change of 0.

Am I not brilliant? or is this just full of crap?

Game on!

2006-02-26T02:15:00.000+08:00

Over the past few weeks, even the most ardent of Leeds Utd supporters would have glanced at the Championship league standings, and given up hope on Leeds finishing in the top 2 to gain automatic promotion to the lucrative Premier League. I must say, I too have been guilty of consigning Leeds to finish out of the top 2, instead only vying for the 4 playoff spots. However, one realizes that no matter what, it ain't over till it's over. So early this morning, Sheffield Utd -- currently occupying the 2nd spot which belongs to Leeds -- crashed to a 3-2 defeat against QPR. Coupled with Leeds' amazing 2-1 victory (note: the Leeds Utd score update section on the right is as updated as it comes), this puts Leeds only 8 points behind Sheffield Utd, with a game in hand, and with 10 games left to play. For those soccer cocks out there who dun know what a game in hand means, it refers to Leeds having played 1 game less, and thus having 1 more match to play to pick up points. And what would u have thought it was, that the Leeds players hold a game (whatever that means) when they play in matches, ala holding a rifle in hand as u walk through the ghetto district. So as long as Sheffield Utd continue dropping points, and Leeds pick up maximum points from their remaining games, come May 2006, we shall all be Marching on Together toward the Premiership, where Leeds can once again kick the asses of Man Utd, and renew the War of the Roses!!!!! Isn't that more exciting than Spurs-Arsenal, Man Utd-Man City or even Liverpool-Everton? C'mon, the Premiership is where Leeds belongs, and Leeds is who everyone wants to beat!!!!!!!!

Haircut

2006-02-24T15:53:00.000+08:00

Well, haven't logged into blogger for quite some time now ... haven't the time nor the interest to do anything abt it, but due to popular request b4 i decide to hand over blogging duties to a guest blogger some time in the future, lemme say something interesting.

Well, haircuts are a rarity in chicago. i mean, not only do the exhorbitant prices scare people off .... but the lack of quality also causes any haircut to be a hair-raising experience for me. In fact, as I watch the hair get snipped and fall to the ground, I am essentially witnessing disaster in the making. Furthermore, the price of 1 haircut here can not only cover the cost of 1 Supercut haircut, but there is also excess to go around for splurging on the day's New Paper, a set of kway chup, a movie at Lido/Cineleisure, and mebbe even buying Man Utd posters to replace my fading tablecloth. So enuff said, I'm even surprised I even bother to cut my hair once a quarter. Some people, tho, prefer to keep their hair .... insisting they look Korean or Japanese if they wear a cap. Well, I insist they only look Korean or Japanese if they wear a new face. Jokes aside, what's so up about looking Korean or Japanese. I mean, aren't Singapore guys the best SE Asia has to offer .... I know we go by 'The Best is Yet To Be', but that doesnt apply when u set foot on the male version of Orchard Road in Singapore, ie. Dover Road. C'mon, charm permeates from Dover to the 4 reaches of the island.

Enuff crap. Let's get to the point. So tmr I am finally gonna go get a haircut at Chinatown, but what's a male bonding session around falling hair without some male buddies? So i managed to jio Lipjin and Joel along for a tripartite hair-raising session at Urban Roots tomorrow. Some people might say this sounds gay, but I would also say these people sound shit! How can u even tolerate looking at some outdated magazines depicting ancient actresses, while waiting for someone else to finish cutting their hair? It's more fascinating having someone there, so u can say 'that guy looks like a cock b4 his haircut .... he looks even worse tho after his cut'. I am civilized and gentlemanly, but a gentleman has his moments of inspiration (what i call magic moment) when he has to say a fact of life for the betterment of others. To some, this paragraph probably sounds like crap in itself, but hey it's 2am now .... i slept at 430am last nite, and had to drag myself to school for class, a blood drive and Beauty World rehearsals.

I guess it's time to probably call it a night. Hopefully can get some sleep this weekend. Mebbe next time, if u guys are lucky, I shall let some mystery guest blogger write something. Maybe ....

Winning 11

2006-02-19T07:15:00.000+08:00

Friday officially started with lunch. So Joel, Yikley n I decided to head off this ulu shack known as Fish n Chicken to buy some unhealthy food. Yes, Fish n Chicken does sounds crappy n unoriginal to be something to cheer about, but hey, who cares what the restaurant is called as long as it serves up good food? The resturant may even be called Man Utd, but still serve up sumptous dishes. So really, it's not the name that matter, its the food ... and to 3 ravenous boys desperately seeking lunch, anything goes. So when we go to Fish n Chicken, what do we eat? Yes u guessed it ... fish n chicken. I would like to say chicken n fish, but that sounds lame. So lunch consisting of catfish n chicken tenders n buffalo wings accompanied us to Joel's place. Greasy unhealthy fried food never tasted so good ... imagine having lunch at 230pm ... yes we were real hungry. After lunch, of course it was our usual afternoon session of Winning 11. I decided to train with AC Milan, since I am from ACS(I), and natually without Leeds Utd in the game, the next best thing would be to play with Anglo-Chinese (AC) Milan. My afternoon record was almost impeccable .... 4 wins n a defeat against Joel. Feeling pretty confident, I figured our nighttime Winning 11 competitition wouldn't be too much of a problem. Little did I know that I would only finish above Wanyun in the final standings ... hahahaha

So after soccer training, it was time for the Winning 11 Tournament at 11pm at Joel's place.

The tournament officially began with Joel playing Barcelona, Brian with Man Utd, Andrew with Arsenal, Wanyun with my AC Milan, and me having to use Real Madrid, with Jonathan Woodgate as chief striker. Nothing much to cheer about, with Brian, Joel and Andrew getting 'free wins' against Wanyun. In the end, Brian ended up scoring an 89th minute equalizer against Joel to win the league, leaving Joel to battle Andrew for 2nd spot, which Joel miraculously hung on to. This meant than I would be battling Wanyun for 4th spot ... n 5th spot. Thinking this wouldnt be a problem, since although languishing in 4th spot as of before the final showdown, I had only lost 1 game to Brian, having drawn against Joel and Andrew. But disaster struck, and Wanyun managed to cancel out my superb goal, leaving the match ending in a 1-1 draw. I still finished 4th, but what about my 'free win'????? haha....

No more bragging rights, I think I should go hibernize now ........ it was a fun-filled evening tho ... next time!!!

Clubbing At Transit

2006-02-14T13:28:00.000+08:00

It's a Monday nite, and I would usually be at home watching WWE Raw, but the show's been moved to Thursday this week, so I took the opportunity to go out lah ah. So Joel, Wanyun and I headed up to White Castle to buy dinner, which we had at Joel's place, after which we played 2hrs of Winning Eleven 9. Gosh, is that game addictive, and tho Wanyun and Joel might have won bragging rights tonite, by winning that last game on penalties, well I'll be back stronger next time. In the midst of dinner cum PS2, I was told to be less sia lan on the blog and post less things about ACS and stuff, to which I absolutely disagreed. But being the nice guy that I am, I have decided to do some non-ACS stuff today, and the topic will be: Clubbing At Transit on Valentine's Saturday. Details I shall not post here, since funny stories aplenty. Flattering pics shall suffice ... and in which case there arent many.

OChem Homework

2006-02-12T22:27:00.000+08:00

Wah its damn scary lah .... received an email from my former OChem prof 2 days ago reminding me to turn in my homework this coming Thursday. So i wondered, what the hell ... I am not even in OChem anymore? Fortunately I recieved this email from him yesterday: "Sorry to bring back memories that you may not want revived. I sent the last e-mail to the wrong list." Viresh Rawal Whew, that was a close shave.

And on a happier note, I went clubbing last nite in Transit. Good good!!!!! And here's a preview: I shall post the guys first!!!!

Lost World

2006-02-08T14:30:00.000+08:00

Ok, I am not really in the mood to talk crap now, but isn't this just an amazing discovery, even for people who do not seem to be amazed at anything? In short, researchers have stumbled onto this Lost World in the Foja Mountains of Indonesia. This discovery is so amazing that the researchers have literally called this discovery as spectacular as finding a Garden of Eve. Numerous new species of wildlife were found, and many hitherto extinct species have miraculously reappeared in this Lost World. The team of researchers also found wildlife that were remarkably unafraid of humans, suggesting the animals had no previous contact with them. I don't think you'll be able to decipher the poster below, but if you happen to have a magnifying glass nearby, do try .... I think it's a really spectacular discovery, and when I say so, u'd better listen up!

ACS Anthem

2006-02-07T05:18:00.000+08:00

Just a song to keep everyone happy and cheerful. To listen, click here. Enjoy!!!

Puerto Vallarta

2006-02-06T06:54:00.000+08:00

After weeks of destination deliberation, we have finally decided on the ideal spring break location and booked our travel package. It seems amazing, but 3 yrs on, and it's still the same old group going on vacation together --- Dazhou, Xuda, Yihan and me. So this year, our original plan was to go Hawaii, but after due consideration, we have settled for the more scenic locality of Puerto Vallarta in Mexico. Nope, this is not your traditional go there 4 night-get drunk 4 night-clubbing 4 night-dunno wat went on 4 night sort of trip. Ours is more laidback and relaxed, which was why Cancun was a definite no-no. So before I get too excited about this, let's have a few preview pictures of the hotel we are staying in -- Villa Del Palmar Flamingo -- and the beachfront. Yeah!

CNY Photos

2006-01-31T10:59:00.000+08:00

Ok, managed to get the photos from Andy. Much thanks to Andy, Jessica and Andrea for hosting all of us, and for cooking up such a great feast.

The FOOD!!!!!!!

All of us scrambling for food

Socializing with one another in the comfort of Andy's living room on a warm Sunday afternoon

The Cool trio -- Joel, YC and Xuda

It's always cool to pose with me: Wanyun, YC and Amelia

Chinese New Year

2006-01-30T13:26:00.000+08:00

Today is chinese new year, but obviously the school has no sense of the importance of these few days of rejoicing and celebration. why would i then have a midterm tomorrow and a midterm on fri the week of CNY? Someone obviously should get sacked for such schedule imbalance!!!! shit lah ... and u would think ... physics midterm this week, so at least give chance and be nice lah ah ... so the lecturer hopefully wouldn't assign any problem set this week. But screw him lah ... midterm liao, still give the same number of questions in the problem set as non-midterm weeks. wat is he thinking. after learning of this disastrous truth moments ago, i thot ok, why dun i do the homework on thurs nite then, since it's due on friday. but shit ... i jusst realized i have a math midterm on fri ... which makes doing the problem set throughout the nite stupidly ridiculous. oh well, i will figure that out ah.

enough of such kao pei. let's talk about chinese new year instead. so on fri, i decided to jio xuda and lau out for a nice dinner ... after all, since there was no soccer training, might as well take the opportunity to leave hyde park and go downtown while the weather's still fall-like. so we made our way to berghoff (i can't be bothered to link them here). knowing that they do not accept reservations, we left home at 530 so that hopefully we could avoid the dinner crowd and get a seat at the place. but obviously americans are more kiasu than sporeans lah ... reach there ar 6pm, and the line was so long it could stretch from acs(i) to singapore poly lah. is it just because this 100-year plus restuarant is closing doors in a months time that everyone is scrambling to get a taste of what is it that has allowed this resturant to survive more than a century. oh well, i hate queues ... more than that, i hate the people in front of me in the queue ... which made many ppl enemies of mine on fri nite. so after reading andy's blog, we decided to try russian teatime instead. i am not those sort who take photos of their food ... i just eat the food before photos can be taken ... so let's move on, shall we? the 3 of us, after dinner, then made our way to Ghiradelli's for ice-cream dessert. long walk but heng the weather was good, so no one complained. on the way there, we stopped over at crate & barrel. the leather seats felt real comfy ... but after looking at the prices and deciding they were beyond our economic range span, we decided to seat a while longer before leaving. after dessert supper, we still felt hungry ... we are after all men, u know. so we had instant noodles mee goreng for proper supper. that felt good!

on to saturday. wat better way to kick off new yr's eve by having beauty world rehearsals at 10am in the morning. no i am not being sarcastic ... i really enjoy the exhuberance of rehearsals ... working with those bunch of ppl is real fun. after lunch of course we had our IM soccer match. after recce last week, we expected this team to be our toughest challenge yet. after all, their players were so big size. even their girls looked like pseudo-men ... one of those girls even resembled a german tank. die ... or so we thought. surprisingly we steamrolled our way through this team 11-1 ... need i say rather effortlessly. I even managed to break my 2-game goal drought with a well-taken goal off a splendid Brian through-ball. Wanyun scored too ... need i elaborate?

For dinner, we decided to have our annual CNY steamboat at Lao Sze Chuan. Reservation was for 7pm, but we only managed to get seated at 9pm. but dinner was great ... and the company was even better. our tables had the usual cocksters instead ... with me lau and yikley on the same table of course the rest of the people will get much entertainment. having the feeling that other tables were trying to be louder than us, yikley and i proceeded to offer much entertainment to those at our table ... but it was a really nice reunion dinner that nite.

sunday we had brunch at andy's place. (thanx andy jess and andrea for the nice party). food was really good ... and beer bong was really entertaining. oh well, i guess it's time for me to return to my physics textbook. i think i had a picture taken at andy's place ... shall put that up when i get the photo from andy. oh well, i am not the take-many-photo guy ... i am more like got-food-here-i-come guy ... so apologies for the lack of photos here. but yea, happy CNY to everyone

IM Soccer Team 2006

2006-01-26T12:41:00.000+08:00

Here is our SAMSU IM soccer team in all its glory. After 13-0 and 9-1 victories, who is to say we will not create history by romping our way to the title this year? Stay tuned to find out more, as we crush our hapless opponents and dump them by the wayside.

(Seated L-R): Helena, Wanyun
(Standing L-R): Yongjin, Jason, Yikley, Brian, Shengrong, Yongchun, Weiyu(c), Woon

ACSians Controlling Sports

2006-01-22T07:07:00.000+08:00

Jan 22, 2006
ACSians Controlling Sports
By Alvin Foo

RI boys may run the country, but ACS boys own it.

Anglo-Chinese School students have been saying this for years.

Now, ACS old boys are helping the country run - as key sports officials.

From the very top, no less: Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, the Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports.

The day-to-day running of Singapore sports is also in the hands of two former ACSians - Singapore Sports Council chairman Alex Chan and chief executive Oon Jin Teik.

Both represented Singapore in swimming and were South-east Asia Games gold medallists.

There is no lack of ACS representation in the National Sports Associations (NSAs) too; three major sports bodies are run by them.

Football Association of Singapore president Ho Peng Kee is also of ACS pedigree, as is S-League CEO How Seen Yong, FAS head of administration, finance and corporate affairs Samuel Panthradil and national teams committee chief P. Sivakumar.

The biggest group of ACSians are in the Singapore Athletic Association - Tang Weng Fei (president), Loh Lin Kok (senior adviser), Maurice Nicholas (international relations adviser), Chan Chee Wei (vice-president, training and selection), Tang Ngai Kin (committee member), Eric Song (director-general) and Lim Jit Kee (events director).

The ACS flag is kept flying in the Singapore Swimming Association by vice-presidents Oon Jin Gee (swimming, brother of Jin Teik), Desmond Koh (finance) and Tay Chin Joo (special projects). All three, incidentally, were Olympians.

The ACS presence can even be found in a women's sport: Netball Singapore president Tan Wee Khim and executive director Cyrus Medora.

What is it about ACS boys and sport?

'It's driven by individuals who have a passion for sports and are willing to volunteer their time,' said SSC chairman Chan.

'But we don't want to monopolise the sports scene. We want all schools to be passionate about it.'
SAA president Tang, a former national 110 metres hurdler, agrees, saying: 'We've always had a holistic education, with strong emphasis on academics, sports and leadership.'

How do sports officials who were educated in other schools feel about the ACS presence?

Quipped SingaporeSailing president Low Teo Ping, a Raffles Institution alumni: 'Do they even receive an education over there?'

On a serious note, Low, whose brother Wee Ping was from ACS, said: 'But let's give credit where credit is due. Other schools should emulate the fine balance they strike between sports and academics.'

Tampines Rovers chairman and former St Joseph's Institution student Teo Hock Seng said: 'When it comes to supporting sports, the more the merrier.

'It doesn't matter which school they come from - whether it's ACS, RI, SJI, Victoria, St Andrews or St Patrick's.'

Most believe ACSians are involved in sports because of the school's strong sports culture and service mission.

Retired ACS principal Lee Hah Ing noted in the 1968-69 school magazine that the S in ACS 'stands for Sports, Sportsmanship and Service'.

He wrote: 'Through our multifarious extra-curricular activities, we hope to produce a new generation of youths, rugged and robust, who are imbued with the spirit of true sportsmanship and service to the community.'

Former students echo those sentiments.

Assoc Prof Ho said that many ACSians were sportsmen and active in clubs, societies or the prefectorial board as students, and that sports forms a key component in the school's overall philosophy to shape character.

'These two attributes coalesce in ACS boys who take up leadership and management positions in NSAs - they express their leadership through the medium of sports,' said Assoc Prof Ho, who represented ACS in soccer and was second to SAA president Tang in the 110m hurdles in 1969.

Added Medora: 'Even students who were not fit or athletic were made to play sports.

'We were taught to do different things, be adventurous, and do things with a big passion.'

Medora certainly practises what he was taught. He went from ACS rugby captain to president of the Boardsailing Association of Singapore to Netball Singapore executive director.

Some suggested that the ACS trend is a natural progression. For example, their presence in the SAA could be due to the many top runners that the school produced from the 1950s to 1970s: M. Jegathesan, Ong Beng Seng, Loh Lin Kok, Tang Weng Fei and Tang Ngai Kin, among others.
Some others put it down to the old-boy network.

Former netball chief Ivy Singh-Lim, who was from St Anthony's Convent, said: 'It's probably easier for them, as they have the same background, values and speak the same lingo.'

What about the ACS connection in netball?

Singh-Lim, who holds the view that NSAs are made up of exclusive old-boys' networks, said: 'I'm okay with that, as long as they are motivated by the right values in life.'

The ACS involvement in sports looks set to continue.

The school still produces impressive sports results. ACS (Independent) has claimed the overall boys' title in secondary school sports nine times in the last 10 years.

And principal Ong Teck Chin is hopeful that the school will continue to produce both top athletes and officials.

He said: 'Our current students have these examples as role models they can emulate.'

To many, the acronym ACS stands for All Can Swim - a reference to its historic prowess in the pool.

Maybe it should be changed to ACSians Controlling Sports?

Tough Life

2006-01-20T15:11:00.000+08:00

It's been a stressful week:
1) Monday: Beauty World rehearsals from 10am-7pm

2) Tuesday: Class from 1030-12pm, followed by labs from 130-5pm

3) Wednesday: Classes from 1030-130pm, followed by hospital work from 2-530pm, after which we had Beauty World rehearsals from 7-930pm. Then because of my inertia to buy my civ book, ended up having to read 350 pages on Wednesday in order to write my paper due next day. Was done with 50 pages at 230am, before realizing that another 300 pages was crazy for the nite, so resorted to doing online searching for a plot synopsis and content referencing. Slept at 530am and woke up at 930am on Thursday

4) Class from 1030-12pm, followed by work from 12-3pm. Then had soccer training from 5-7am, before enjoying 3 dinners tonite. 1st one at Bartlett (thanks to Lip Jin), 2nd one at KSO Study Break (I wanna thank all the korean gals serving the dishes, but I shall simply thank KSO), 3rd one at Chinatown (thanks to Brian and Jiahui, and congrats too!!!)

Life in Chicago is tough, but I simply love it and would not trade it for anything else. What is going through college without going thru so many hardships and tortures. The pain is there, but there are the frenz, the things we do together and the memories which make college life the best there is. I simply love my life here!!!!!!

Detection of Cancer

2006-01-17T14:03:00.000+08:00

Just read this in the New York Times and found it really interesting: the use of dogs to identify cancer patients, specifically lung and breast cancer. In short, cancer patients secrete certain chemicals in their breath not normally found in the scent of normal individuals, and dogs are able to pick up this difference. The paper can be found here. In other news, I am really exhausted right now. Beauty World rehearsals from 10am to 6pm. That was really terrible. But I guess when we do put up a good show eventually, it will all be worth it. I set high standards for myself, so I dun really wanna disappoint. Talking about rehearsals, next one is on Wednesday. Damn!

Beauty World Photoshoot

2006-01-16T14:09:00.000+08:00

Today was the photoshoot for our SAMSU musical: Return to Beauty World, part of this year's Citylights. Well, the photoshoot turned out to be really fun ... Xuda, Andrew, Hanxue and Wincy were really professional and cool to work with, and the rest of the cast ... ehrm or more specifically, the girls ... were really nice and exhilerating. So let me see who else was there? Serene, Luoren, Germaine, Hannah, Huiying, Mingzhu, Adela .... yeah, they're all girls. Keith's a guy, but I didn't take any photos with him ... so he's not counted. I must say these are some of the most scandalous pics taken, but I am really looking forward to seeing them ... not cos they're scandalous, but because I am just curious. Honestly, even when I try to look chee ko, I still look young and innocent ... some say young and dangerous, but I prefer the former description lah. The only terrible thing, besides having to dress up in a suit the entire afternoon, was the make up I had to have on. Shit lah ... first time kena make up and it's not a good experience lor. The what you call them ... ehr eyeliners ... were terribly painful. Imagine using a pencil to draw around a guy's eyes .... I seriously don't get why some girls resort to such self-torture whenever they go out. Worse still, after using wet tissue and some apparent make-up remover stuff, the eyeliner still is obvious around my eyes lah. When I go in front of the mirror, I see some guy kena whacked in the eye, and 2 black rings surround the eyes. This looks terrible. Some other people might even interpret it as dark rings. Considering I already am lacking sleep, imagine how I look as I am typing this. I am really traumatized man ... serious ... no joke ... and to think Megan said it would be much more make up on the actual show day. Shit lah! Coupled with wrinkles and white hair to make me look old .... I will literally be an ageing panda flirting around on stage.

Aiya, so I thought I might as well upload some Argentina pics lah ah ...

Ushuaia, Argentina

Torres Del Plaines, Chile

Puerto Moreno Glaciers, El Calafate, Argentina

Iguazu Falls, Puerto Iguazu, Argentina

First IM Soccer Match

2006-01-15T06:30:00.000+08:00

So, knowing that today was gonna be our first IM soccer game, the few of us decided to go clubbing at Transit yesterday to rev ourselves up ..... But the music that night was Latino music lor ... tango and salsa ... dance what dance. So Yik Ley and I left earlier to go out and source for food at 3am in the morning. We managed to find some hot dog roadside stall ... seriously why is the Chicago Hotdog so special ... it almost compares to my previously-often-eaten cold sausages ... (just for the record, I have now gotten used to the procedure of microwaving the sausage to make it hot ... 15sec more of work). So yeah back to our game, we won 13-0 againt Dewey House. Can you dig that? Well, there's a catch to that score, but I'm not gonna talk about it here ... enjoy the glory while we can.

Here come the ACS(I) girls

2006-01-04T14:32:00.000+08:00

Taken from the Jan 4 edition of the Straits Times:

ANGLO-CHINESE School (Independent) has gone co-ed.

From this year, girls who have finished Secondary 4 will be admitted at Year 5 of the school's six-year programme leading to an International Baccalaureate (IB).

About half of the new intake of 140, comprising only Year 5-ers, were girls. Principal Ong Teck Chin said this was a pleasant surprise. He was all praise for the girls' 'deterrent effect' on bad behaviour and their ability to 'enrich student life'.

Ian Cheong, 16, one of the boys in the programme, said girls would teach the boys to grow up. 'Usually I just spout my mouth off. I think they'll make me more gentlemanly,' he said.

Dance studios, more female toilets and netball courts are in the midst of being completed.

Even the school motto has been adapted for Year 5 and Year 6 students - from 'A scholar, officer and gentleman' to 'A scholar, leader and global citizen'.

Still, on the first day of school yesterday, many girls were intimidated that they were a minority of 70 in the Year 5 cohort of about 360. Groups of boys and girls sat at separate tables during recess.

But the girls believe everyone will warm up in time. Bethel Chan, 16, said: 'Hopefully, we'll all surprise the boys a bit.'

DAWN LIM

Well, I guess everyone is just dying to get into ACS(I). What to do? After all, we are truly the best there is isn't it? Well, it's good to share the goodies of ACS(I) with girls .... an all-rounded education for a larger sector of the population can only be good for Singapore as a whole ...

Argentina: Former Fantasy

2005-12-31T00:57:00.001+08:00

Foreword by the Author
I would first of all like to thank myself, without whom, this trip wouldn"t have been possible, this story wouldn"t have a protagonist, n there wouldn"t be anyone writing up this blog book. Hence, this gratitude is not some manifestation of my ego ... it is something essential. I would also like to thank my travelling companion Andy Tan, the second protagonist in the story. This blog book essentially traces our adventures in Argentina, through Buenos Aires, Puerto Iguazu, Bariloche, El Calafate, Chile and Ushuaia. Filled with interesting episodes such as tyre puntures, 120hr bus journeys, the End of the World, and extremely hot Argentinian gals, this story promises to be of the utmost intrigue and interest to all readers. This I guaran-damn-tee. So without further ado, I shall take my leave for now ... n leave u readers waiting and anticipating the journalistic brilliance of me. In a few days, Chapter 1 shall be up .... I expect to have 9-10 chapters in all. But you will know when the last chapter is due. After all, if I start in Chicago, I have to end in Chicago rite? Its what I call a circle of common sense.

From Argentina with love

2005-12-28T06:03:00.000+08:00

Hola ppl, finally an update in 3 weeks of madness. Dun be fooled into thinking my spanish is brilliant simply because I started off with the spanish version of hello. If I don"t even know that word I must be a complete moron, what with everyone on the street saying that to me, and if I dun feel too dao, I would reply in the same way. 3 other Spanish words I know: gracias (thank you), vino tinto (red wine), and vino blanco (white wine). Besides the numbers, I guess this is all you need to survive here. So as I am typing this, I realize that I have 4 more days of vacationing left in Argentina. I shall not go into the details of what I have done here, or what I am going to do here, since I have a mega plan in store, a big project which I shall only reveal toward the end of this entry. I am currently sitted in this underground internet cafe in the middle of Florida Street, the Buenos Aires equivalent of Orchard Road. One thing which has become plain obvious to me since I have got here is that Argentinian gals are hot, and I mean real hot, or chio if you prefer. It"s not difficult walking every 10m and seeing a gorgeous gal walking past. If you are lucky, you see 3 or 4; on other not so fortunate days, you get 1 every 10m. Now compare this to Chicago. For every 10km you walk, if you are lucky you see 1 hot gal; on other not so auspicious days, you get maybe a semblance of 1, or none at all. Seems like America has lots of catching up to do. So onto my big project which I revealed earlier, I am gonna chronicle my Argentinian adventures in the form of a novel ... no, I am not gonna publish a book, but I"m thinking of writing a sort of blog book (I like that phrase ... dun you think it sounds cool: blog book) with chapters and what not. So each time, I"d only publish 1 chapter, complete with words and pictures. And then with the passage of days and time, I"d slowly publish more chapters, so its a kinda read and wait and be excited and then read again kinda cycle. I think it sounds really cool ... once I get the pictures from Andy, prepare to be mesmirized and thrilled by the adventures of YC and Andy exclusively in the blog book, which I shall henceforth call "Argentina: Former Fantasy". Can you beat that???

Pre-Argentina

2005-12-13T02:56:00.000+08:00

yo yo watsup folks? Guess this is gonna be my last entry before I fly off for 3 weeks of Argentina fun ... and more fun with my great travelling buddy Mr Andy Tan, and weixiong and meiyi. So yeah, I managed to get hold of the bloody rent person this morning finally. You know how irresponsible some people can be? Our rent kena increased also never inform us. Then when I sent an email to her last Monday she never reply at all. When I tried calling her on Tuesday, I only got her voice mail. When Serene called on Wednesday and talked to her, the lady said she would get back to us, which of course she never did. So on Friday after my finals, I went to the rental office to look for her, realizing that the office would be closed over the weekend and i was leaving on Monday. But the office was closed. Shit lah!!!! Not like I never put in any effort to try lor. So my only recourse was to look for her Monday morning.

Fast forward to this morning. Andy told me our flight was at 6pm and not 8pm liao. Shit! More haste and rush. I went to look for our rent lady and finally managed to catch hold of her, ending up talking to her for half an hour. So our rent has now gone up from $1915 to $1972. Wah biang eh, a 3% increase lor, but at least this was settled. Then I went to check my mail, and realized I received a letter from the university's payroll department. Apparently now they have this law change concerning non resident aliens who are working in the US, and so I gotta fill in a form. But lo n wat behold, the deadline is Jan 1. Yah as if I can send letter when I am in Argentina? Realizing that I didn't have a stamp (I have numerous envelopes, but yeah not a single stamp), I had to go to school to get one. Fortunately Andy had to go school to hand in his paper also. Heng ah! But when I reached the post office, the line was so long lor. Queued for 20 min before I got to buy a stamp, and help mail Andy's postcard to Paris. And then I finally reached home. Never expected this morning to be so fast-paced.

And oh yah, I finally cut my hair liao. Before the haircut, when I reached for the back of my neck, all I feel is hair, no skin. When I tried pulling my sideburn in front, it covered my eyes and touched my nose. Now I feel like someone just pulled open the curtains and I see light ah! Nice to experience short hair again!!! So pics of me n my hair will be up soon, when I get back from Argentina and Chile (1 day stay). Till then, everyone have a good break and Christmas and New Year!!!

Miss World 2005

2005-12-11T14:54:00.000+08:00

I'm in the mood for pictures, so what better pics than Miss World 2005 which was held yesterday in China? Just for the record, Miss Iceland won the contest to be crowned Miss World 2005. Here she is below.

Miss Iceland

Since I am going Argentina for 3 weeks, I thought I might as well check out just how Miss Argentina looks like. So here she is, in the flesh!

Miss Argentina

Since I have been in the US for 2.5 years now, why not check out the best in the US? (eh it rhymes ah. The best ... in the US)

Miss USA

Of course I just had to check out how our Miss Singapore is.

Miss Singapore

Well, just to compete the set, here are the other Asian beauties.

Miss Japan

Miss Korea

Miss China

If you all like these pics, they can be obtained from the official Miss World 2005 site.

Bad Mood

2005-12-11T03:09:00.000+08:00

Leeds United lost this morning (for those who haven't noticed, I have added a LUFC score update section on the right column, just above Mr Tagboard). I am not happy .... I am pissed off .... I don't feel like talking to non-LUFC people till dinner at least!!!!!! Why has it got to be Leeds losing all the time .. why can't Chelsea or Man Utd shoulder some of the burden of losing?

To cheer myself up, I've decided to go watch a few more episodes of Jacky Wu variety shows, and to take a good long nap this afternoon. Till tonite, zzzzzz!