Hi.

[Current clothes] White long-sleeved polo tee from aunty lay lian (i think), very new- just got it when i went back to singapore in june. H&M khakis (they are not gay!) and a black polyester belt, 'cos the pants are a waist 34 and would fall off my waist (no matter how large it is). Gray iSport fleece pullover that i love and is slightly dirty- i've only washed it once so far.

[Current health] Sniffly, itchy almost-sore throat that i hope are signs of recovering from winter flu.

[hair] side parting (on the right, being a left-hander) with a quasi-spiky fringe. And puffy sides. My hair grows thickly and bushily on the sides. And it's more than a month since i had a haircut.

[Current Rowden white (library) reads] Joy in the morning (Wodehouse), Collected letters by Philip Larkin, Naeve Binchy's "Firefly summers", pratchett's "The science of discworld",

[Wish I could be like ... ] "Baillieu" Ho and be as hardworking and disciplined as him. Then maybe i'll understand all my lectures completely. He's so so zai !!!

[Stuff in pockets] Keys, 2 biros, sheet of paper with notes on how to use the Korg synthesiser in church, half-used packet of pocket tissues, Panasonic GD75 handphone, wallet (in back pocket of course).

[CD in CD player] Shostakovich's Piano concertos .... 3 and 4 i think.

[Song in my head] Dwell in your house ~ Hillsongs

[Last food consumption] A slice of cheesecake, a pear, 2 glasses of water and a small bowl of penne with creamy sun-dried tomato pasta sauce. For dinner.

[To do] Health practice assignment, pack room, revise lecture notes from 3 weeks ago (the amino acid metabolism ones), read up on Eriksson's stages of development as relevant to a 5 year old and a 33-year old. Call my brother to arrange mutual holiday plans, keeping in mind OCF convention and availability of emirates flights. Soak/rinse/wash new acquisitions: ocf convention yellow t-shirt, australian surf motif boxers, bright blue ankle socks. Drink the orange juice i acquired from college kitchen this morning.



Why is jiaming always the *other* tall prefect???

Hehe. Doing duty has its privileges *mysteriously*

Word of the day: "zeugma"

"When sipping wine at a Catholic eucharist, swallow quickly, before the wine undergoes the miracle of transubstantiation and you get the unpleasant taste of a mouthful of human blood."

Share my passion!

http://www.jitterbuzz.com/unders.html

http://www.jitterbuzz.com/lindyhop.html

http://www.jitterbuzz.com/boox.html

http://www.streetswing.com/histmain/z3lindy.htm

And i'm going to dance at the big lindy hop performance in the melbourne uni Thursday lunchtime concert~ north court, festival of nations thingy!

If you've noticed, i've stopped blogging as copiously as i used to in order to give you the impression i have some semblance of a social life and am not spending every waking minute tied to a silicon-based quasi-life-form labelled "Sebastien".

Andrew

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The name of Andrew has made you serious-minded, responsible, and stable. You love the security of a home and family, you are fond of children, and, as a parent you would be fair and understanding. Although you have good business judgment, you are not aggressive in your dealings because you do not like to create issues. You would be successful in any position dealing with the public as you have a diplomatic and tactful manner and possess a charming, easy-going nature which puts people at ease. People are drawn to you because they feel that you are patient, kind, understanding, and responsive. You would be effective in a career or in volunteer work where you are handling people and serving in a humanitarian way. While you are honest and responsible, one weakness that is paramount in your life is your lack of self-confidence and initiative, which causes you to put things off and avoid facing issues. Generally speaking, you have few problems with your health; however, there is a weakness affecting the fluid functions of the body.

Supposed to do an assignment on writing a conversation btwn myself as a doctor and a kid i'm supposed to perform a finger prick test for blood glucose

(extract begins)
Doctor: Alice, I am going to have to do a finger prick test on you. It means I will be using a needle to collect one drop of blood from this finger here (touches child�s hand where the needle will go). It will hurt, but only for a short while. And after that I�ll put a Band-aid on it and you�ll be better- and you can choose which band-aid you want- (waves band-aids with motifs of Harry Potter, Bart Simpson and other cartoon characters).

Alice: Really? I want that one! (points to the Harry Potter one)

(end extract)

Word of the day: "recidivism"

"An elderly man was sitting alone on a dark path, right? He wasn't certain of which direction to go, and he'd forgotten both where he was traveling to and who he was. He'd sat down for a moment to rest his weary legs, and suddenly looked up to see an elderly woman before him. She grinned toothlessly and with a cackle, spoke: 'Now your *third* wish. What will it be?'"

"'Third wish?' The man was baffled. 'How can it be a third wish if I haven't had a first and second wish?'"

"'You've had two wishes already,' the hag said, 'but your second wish was for me to return everything to the way it was before you had made your first wish. That's why you remember nothing; because everything is the way it was before you made any wishes.' She cackled at the poor berk. 'So it is that you have one wish left.'"

"'All right,' said the man, "I don't believe this, but there's no harm in wishing. I wish to know who I am.'"

"'Funny,' said the old woman as she granted his wish and disappeared forever. 'That was your first wish.'"

*Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaail* ICQ Go's website is down, has been down for a few days!!!

Haven't posted for quite a long time, but The Associate seems to be going into *pretty* deep stuff here. And hey, I like VCDs, and technology, and books, and stuff. Sadly, i'm in the Army, though. (Read: has no time to get a life)

MSN IM is evil, and whoever tries to tell you otherwise is:
1. already brainwashed thoroughly by Microsoft
2. clueless about other IM programs (notably Trillian, among others)
3. Not using Windows XP, and not using MSN IM.
4. someone who couldn't care less any way
5. not a geek
6. stupid. In which case you shouldn't be talking to them anyway.

By the by, ICQlite now tells you when the other person is typing, also, and has a low footprint (4 meg), fast startup, and still supports most popular ICQ features without much of the bloat.

Haven't posted for a while because I've been preoccupied with quite a few things, notably:

1. Farland Symphony. This little-known RPG by a small Japanese/Taiwanese company TGL is addictive, due to its very likeable characters, and the engaging dialogue. If you can find it, and if you understand Japanese/Chinese, do yourself a favour and play it through. Quite fun.

2. Warcraft 3. Which tends to crash on me with a instant-restart. I'm told it's because of my Geforce2MX + Sblive combo. It's already cost me 4 wins on bnet.

3. Japanese Classes and Tuition, which take up lots of time a week.

last point before I stop: Spark v1.0 Magnetic seems to be missing the point of this blog :) If memory doesn't fail me, one of the fundamental aims of this blog was to be bo liao . That, of course, entails posting about the most inane, boring, and quite possibly pointless things we encounter, largely because we have too much time on our hands sometimes, and even when we don't we just want someplace to write stuff like this. Not that we care if anyone is reading stuff like this or not :) (which prompts the question "Why write it in the first place?", which requires a reply requiring much consideration, which would then make the reply not bo liao which would then be anathema to the sole reason why this blog exists anyway.)

(Actually, in all honesty, I don't know why I post bo liao things on this blog. I daresay the time can be better spent doing something else.)

More ponderings:

"I suspect that we will continue to die and be reborn until we finally get our life *right.* I do not know what we have to do to bring that about, though. And therein lies the frustration. Is it some sort of karmic cycle? As I gather, some incarnations have committed terrible crimes but also there have been a number of incarnations where we have labored to do nothing but good. Are these incarnations intended as punishment? I don't know. And that is the only real truth I can offer in these carvings: I do not know.

At what point does the *I* get separated from the *we?* At what point am I freed of the shackles of the actions of these other incarnations? At what point am *I* allowed to be *me,* without the weight of these past lives?"

When, damn it? WHEN???!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

On fate and faith:

"These things were not learned quickly. The *knowing* of much of the ways was slow, and in all these things, time's weight fell upon all. From the *knowing* of one's reflection in a steel blade, to the *knowing* of submerging the will, to the *knowing* of seeing itself. All of these things and more the People built upon. In time, they came to *know* the whole.

It speaks of time as an ally, not as an enemy. It says that patience can sharpen even the smallest of efforts into a weapon that can strike the heart of an empire. Your victories may be small, but over time, a greater victory may be achieved."

On focus and finality:

"*Know* that a mind divided divides the man. The will and the hand must be as one. In *knowing* the self, one becomes strong. *Know* that if you *know* a course of action to be true in your heart, do not betray it because the path leads to hardship. *Know* that without suffering, the Rising would have never been, and the People would never have come to *know* themselves. *Know* that there is nothing in all the Worlds that can stand against unity. When all *know* a single purpose, when all hands are guided by one will, and all act with the same intent, the Planes themselves may be moved.

A divided mind is one that does not *know* itself. When it is divided, it cleaves the body in two. When one has a single purpose, the body is strengthened. In *knowing* the self, grow strong."

If only.

Word of the day: "ecdysiast"

Here's another interesting article about the joys of blogging

Funny how the Internet goes through these phases of explosion, contraction, and assimilation. I remember when bad Flash was the order of the day, particularly amongst independent media sites and new start-ups. Then it contracted when people started having difficulties with plug-in compatibility (especially in older Netscape versions, before Microsoft stepped up to the plate with automatic plug-in/dll updaters). And now the assimilation; virtually *every* major media and news site has some form of Flash-driven menu or content, particularly movie promotion websites.

I recall when irc exploded onto the local Internet scene as well. Although it shows no real sign of contracting, a lot of the people I know who were intrigued by the possibilities of irc at first have now largely sworn off it, particularly as more and more inane content(ie. people) started encroaching on to the various popular channels en masse. Another factor driving irc's growth these days seems largely to be the easy availability of fserv scripts and the proliferation of broadband; it's a good alternative channel for file-swapping and acquisition, particularly with Napster's demise.

Another friend of mine is coming into town this evening; who says I don't have a social life? *sardonic drawl*

In any event, it should be an intriguing time out; it's Dom who's cruising up here, and staying for a couple of days. He's coming up with a couple of mates from Cambridge; who are apparently "impressed" by his "contacts" in KL who were able to procure a place to stay, gratis. *shrugs* I offered to send the chauffeur to pick him up from the train station, if he wanted to take it all the way, but he decided to be a bit more discreet about things.

A weekend of pure brooding appears to have turned the bipolar emotional tide, so I think I should be reasonably centered for the next week or so. Thankfully, because as much as I like Dom, I don't anticipate our soiree to be as gleefully nihilistic as the last time I entertained a guest from out of town. As such, a semblance of normality and sanity would probably be more appropriate as well.