Call me childish but i just can't stop playing Pokemon on my laptop. Very Childish indeed right? ha. Alright, the reason is this. Lately, my bunk mates kept on mentioning about Pokemon on separate occasions. They were either discussing how someof us look like pikachu/squirtle or comparing some of our actions to those of the Pokemons. Weird but true. So suddenly i had this urge to relive my favourite childhood pastime to play Pokemon again.
Pokemon has got to be the only game i can find myself still stuck onto it after 3 or 4 hours. Normally i don't even play computer games of games of any sort. Music is my life, not games. So i was surprised that for the past two weekends, inspite of how short they were, i had been playing this childish game most of the time. It just felt so strangely fun to train my pokemons and going through all the battles to get badges. It gave me some self-contentment that my pokemon won particular battle or that their level increased under MY training regiment. Okay, i know i am sounding so weird now. haha.
The point i am driving at is that it feels so good to be experience how life was in the past - to recall all the moments that occurred when i was playing Pokemon as a kid and seeing how much things have changed over these few years. I remember that my brother and i would be stuck with the gameboy in our hands for most of the time, referring to the guidebook (we were cheaters. I still am) and discussing whose and which Pokemon is the best. Now my brother and i don't even talk much other than the casual "open the door" or "how to do ___", most of which require a reply of five words or less.
Back then, my female cousin was also very close to my brother and i partly because of this game. She would stay over at my house and we would play Pokemon and do other fun stuff together. Today, she is engaged with a one year old son after she went astray (the smoking and the sex) and we don't even say hi to each other when we meet. Obviously she has turned for the better now, supposedly understanding and realising the responsibility she has now. I saw her smoking with her friend a few years back and i knew something bad was going to happen. That's why when my mother first told me about her sudden pregnancy, i wasn't that shocked after all. I hated her for a moment, since i thought she was a disgrace to the family. But now, having seen how devoted she is to her child, i'm keeping those reservations to myself.
Reliving a childhood interest can't be more fun, especially since i did it spontaneously and i am a highly UNspontaneous person if you know me well enough. But reflecting on the long-misplaced memories is even more special for me. Now that i've found those memories back, i'm keeping them. And Pokemon is here to stay. Forever.
As i mentioned in one of the earlier entries, my favourite Mandy Moore is back with her new folk-pop album, which is her most personal to date. The debut single, Extraordinary, from the album is sweet and catchy after a few spins. And now... the video for it is out! It shows a tall pyramid comprising of many Mandys stacked on top of each other. Each of them are dressed differently, showing the different facets of Mandy but all pointing to one fact - Mandy is extraordinary! haha... I first saw this video when i was flipping through channels and i happen to flip to MTV's Total Request Live and there was my beloved Mandy talking about the video. Call it fate. SO now, sit back and enjoy this unique video!
Well, i just returned from a field camp and i think i had one of my worst nights over there. From the start, i hate camps. I don't like to leave my comfy bed, my clean toilet and i don't like to eat bad food. I guess it's not a matter of choice in the army but a matter of when i'l get used to these "disgusting" camps. Well, i mentioned about having a very very bad night there. There are TEN good reasons why i say that.
1) i didn't get to bathe. Cleanliness before sleep is especially important for me. To feel like shit before i sleep makes me unable to sleep comfortably. Well, i could very well powder bathe myself that night but what's the point? I'm just putting powder over dirt. In the end, i'll end up doubly uncomfortable.
2) The sleeping area/camp site was near to a cemetry. Well, i'm not intimitated by the prospect of meeting a ghost (although i would choose not to meet one) but this adds to the eerie nature of sleeping somewhere foreign. And even if i am not intimitated, i may be influenced by my friends. (read below)
3) The whole dramedy about what's in the bush. In the middle of the night, one of my friends heard a sound of movement within the bushes behind our sleeping area and he predicts it's a snake. Next my other friend got freaked out as well when he heard the noise himself. The next minute, i have two freaked-out people beside me sitting up facing the side where the movement is and keeping still because they wanto see what "it" was. They didn't see anything. I was couldn't care less about what was "it" - i just wanted the two persons to shut up so i can catch up on my already-deprived sleep. But it was really funny watching two grown men looking so afraid. haha The next morning, the speculations were even more ridiculous. "It" now became either an "ant-eater" or a sgt. My take? Wind.
4) Insects - mosquitoes, sand flies and who knows what The idea of sleeping in an uninhabited area was quite scary. To really sleep in one was a nightmare. There were a battalion of mosquitoes on their highest alert, stinging everyone, and sandflies, attacking my hands, legs, back, well almost everywhere. The pain is enough to kill me. To top it off, with mosquitoes buzzin around my ear every other second or so just irritates me to the core. The result - ZERO sleep and a WHOLE lot of bites. My left and right hand were FULL of it, as if i had chicken pox. Can someone answer me, "what's the value of mosquitoes in the ecosystem"?
5) Regret over fighting over my sleeping position I truly regretted fighting with my friend for the "so-called" good spot. According to him, the sleeping spot was well-cushioned by the thick layer of high grass below it and the positioning of his butt there was ideal for sleeping. I won the fight with my "i put my helment there FIRST" reasoning. I So regretted it man. That sleeping spot was not exactly what he described and i was involved in a fleshfight with the mosquitoes. It was physical pain (due to bites) and mental torture (utter regret).
6) Thristy throat To make matters worse, my throat was dry until i had difficulty speaking. This added to my discomfort. And my water bottle had run out of water. Some "Good" night i had
7) Damp ground Somehow i wonder why people like sleeping on waterbeds. They should experience sleeping on a ground sheet. A ground sheet is so called "one-side" waterproof. By placing the "waterproof"side facing the ground, we can be kept dry. That is bullshit. The groud sheet was damp and super disgusting to sleep on.
8) Squeezy How can a ground sheet fit three people (one of which is quite meaty) and five weapons? I dunno how but we did it. There was no space to move without hitting someone else.
9) Rest Disrupted by incoming rain due to lightning/thunder, we had to evacuate from our sleeping spot to the shelter area. You would think, what so bad about it? One, my rest was disrupted, and two, we had to sleep sitting down on benches. (and it was squeezy i tell you)
10) Monday and book in blues The usual monday blues kicked in and i was ever so moody to begin with. The rest you know already.
Would want to see 11 old ladies posing nude? I suppose the immediate answer is a gigantic NO. Opps! now you don't have a choice ha... Yesterday i watched a very interesting saturday late night movie, featuring Oscar-winning actress Helen Mirren, "The Calender Girls. In the movie, best friends Chris Harper (Helen Mirren) and Annie Clarke (Julie Walters) are active members of their local Women's Institute. Life is idyllic until Chris's husband, John is stricken with leukemia and dies. While Annie grieves, Chris decides to raise money to buy a new sofa for the waiting room of the local hospital where they sat through John's darkest hours. She calls on the Women's Institute to produce a calendar for her effort. But the W.I.'s previous calendars were quite traditional, with photos of local attractions and scenery. But Chris has a more radical idea: Inspired by the girlie magazines she found in her son's room and the cheesecake calendar she saw at the mechanic's, she wants to show the W.I. women performing classic tasks such as jam-making and knitting — in the buff! (adapted from offoffoff.com). I felt what they did was, on their part, very brave and noble. It certainly take many many guts out of a old lady to do such a daring stunt. On hind sight, they don't really look half as bad as us when we are naked. They are beautiful in their own way - with years of laughters, pain and love all carved on their face (sadly in the wrinkles haha). It shows me that we all can be old and have LOTS of fun. ha...
In addition, their act helped to raise world-wide awareness about cancer (although the focus was generally on their buff bodies haha). I would like to do something of that sort in my lifetime. NO not to get naked but to do something for a good cause - charity. It's on my list of things to achieve before i die anyway. That's what i've wanted to do since i saw Oprah helpig the poor in Africa. I feel that everyone has the ability to help alleviate poverty in their own way. Most just donate money but i want to do more than just A donation. I want to be there physically to help the unfortunate. Then only can i really feel their pain (although not entirely). Well, if i get to do that, i'll definitely tell you all about it. But before that, there's one thing i did and all of you should do it as well. That's to sign a declaration (with no strings attached don't worry)! Below is the confirmation email for the declaration i signed with THE ONE CAMPAIGN(yup, the one with brad pitt and many other celebrities).
********************* Date:Sun, 6 May 2007 04:24:22 -0400 (EDT) From:"ONE" Subject:Thank you for signing the Declaration! Thank you for taking action with with ONE: The Campaign to Make Poverty History. Your voice DOES make a difference!
**********************
So go sign the declaration now at ONE.org now! ONE by ONE, we can make the difference.
For someone who somehow like to stay at home for most his time, having a place that i like is utmost important. Having the choice of how i can design my own place to my own delight would be great. There would be comfy cushion chairs for my friends to come over and have a pleasant sleepover which we would talk about everything from our dreams to our scandalous secrets, the slick tables, just like those seen in home decor magazines, and not forgetting fancy tablelights with heart-warming pictures by its side. Honestly, the place i like doesn't have to be a whole 5-room apartment. Even a small hostel-size room/apartment would suffice - the smaller the cosier, at least that's what i think (and the easier to clean up).
The choice of design is one matter but the main reason behind having my own place is FREEDOM. While at home i still get the freedom to stay in my own room (much to the displeasure of my parents and my grandmother), i still get the frequent intrusions by my parents, grandmother and my crazy maid that drives me nuts. My father and mother would take turn to knock on my door to ask the same (!) questions. My grandmother would always be interested in what i do, occasionally taking small peeps into my room (not a good peeper i say) as if i had something up my sleeves. And my WONDER maid (she's from the WONDER MAID AGENCY) would always have some idiotic reminders for me. See, that's why i need to have my own place.
Well, i know there's a stigma with staying alone. People will think i'm some psycho-freak without many friends aka a loner. After all, i'm coming home to an empty space, with no life, and i would be seriously lonely. But i don't think so. Instead i believe that having my own space mean that i am not burdened with the complication of having another person living in the same space as me. I would be free to do as i plased, which means i could watch extremely bad television without having to think that my brothers or grandmother wanted to watch another channel with better-quality shows, spending an hour in the bathroom without complaints from my mother and singing as aloud as i can without feeling shy. haha. While as much as i can love my family, i can't imagine having them in my space at all times. Of course, if i find my beloved one, the space would be hers as well and it'll be OUR place. But before that, i would like my very own bachelor pad.
Where can you find the three above-mentioned people/event? My Section's Journal Book. Last week, my bunk mates and i decided to write a super-long journal entry (a requirement enforced by our army instructor) to compensate for the lack of entries due to our laziness. To make it long, everyone contributed their crappy ideas which were mostly out of context. Surprisingly (even to myself), i came up with the crappiest ideas. Below are extracts of that entry. (i tried my best to recall)
"As the dust in our bunk pelt down like hail during winter, we were forced to face the inevitable truth of cleaning our bunk. The mountains of dust reminded us of the sand dunes of Egypt."
---i don't think we have so much dust!!!
"We put our best effort to clean our bunk by puling out the cupboards and bedframes to remove the dust collected like the Eygptians who laboriously built the pyramid, which is one of the Seven Wonders Of th World, using their bare hands. This also made us appreciate the Samsui women who contributed to the progress of Singapore during its infant stages." ---Samsui women??? Why did i even think of that... i must have been mad!
"After cleaning, we wondered to ourself if the perception of cleanliness was merely an illusion (quote thought by *someone* who screamed in the middle of the night as if he was reaching an orgasmic climax)" ---the pinnacle of crappy quote by a crappy person
"We also came across the most interesting article of the century. It was about a maniac who stormed into a London restaurant and chipped off his penis infront of many other diners. We were totally flabbergasted and in awe that someone would inflict such pain on himself. This reminded us of the NanChing Massacre in which the Japanese mercilessly slaughtered innocent lives and raped girls without a condom." ---I thought bringing up the NanChing Massacre was lame enough but someone else could even think of condoms (yes, CONDOMS).
"As we continue on in this entry, we realise that the consequences of action are so complex and diverse that predicting the future is a difficult task. But we understand it takes a believer to deliver" --- taken from the message of the day and used totally out of context
"Have you ever wondered what are dreams? What do they mean? Are they a reflection of our future? Today, *someone* brought a book called "10000 dreams and their traditional meanings" (followed by chinese translation).... It was a magical book like the Holy Grail which gave me the answers. We realised some of us had very ridiculous dreams - Joel had a dream of a big ball of rubbish coming towards him. " ---the questions at the beginning were me being too 'emo' and the holy grail and big ball of rubbish were just obviously crap shit
We had a good time writing it and the product was four pages of crappy shit. I don't think i've laughed so hard for a looooooooooooong time... Thanks to all my bunk mates for giving me such a simple but wonderful memory
Certainly something i have been waiting for a LONG TIME. Well, I said before that she was preparing for a bi comeback and here she is!!!! Well, i didn't manage to watch "Because I Said So" because no one else wanted to watch it (take my words.. I'll Watch it) so i shall support her music.
Well, the new album's called "Wild Hope" and the new extraordinary single is oh... so coincidentally named "Extraordinary"! (ok i'm faking) Mandy has obviously matured muscially from her bubblegum-teenpop days into the dazzling singer she is today. Who cares if her last album "Coverage" didn't do well? This one's better. Now i can't wait to get it in stores! Everyone get it too ok!
Things To Achieve B4 I Die - Travel to at least 15 countries
Fancy backpacking around the streets of Europe and see the historical sights and enjoy the breathtaking sceneries there? What about a walk along Times Square New York and immensing in the buzz of the active city befoe taking a nice stroll in Central Park? Well, I DO! Obviously, since i have a soft spot for England, the first destination if i had the chance to travel the world would be my beloved London. But it's not only Europe that i want to see. Australia, USA, India, China, Thailand, Africa are also places i want to go and experience their way of life. It seems really interesting to meet people of different backgrounds and cultures and learn about their history and traditions - far from the mundane and still-in-the-midst-of-developing boring culture of Singapore. Living in motels with other backpackers is also a good idea - an excellent way of meeting new friends. Oh my God, the thought of doing all that is making me scream "AHHH...! I wanna pack my bag and leave!!!" ha...
I just saw "Under The Tuscan Sun" (starring Diane Lane) in which her character, Frances, packs her bags and leave for Tuscany, Italy after a terrible divorce. Once there, she impulsively buys down a run-down villa, plunging herself into a life-changing experience in which she makes new friends and forms new romance. While the movie is bland, it provides the captivating idea of doing something so spontaneous. Certainly something i don't mind experiencing too (except for the divorce ha). Conservative and rule/law-abiding as I have always been (shaped by the kiasee/kiasu cuture of Singaporeans), I find myself unable to do thing spontaneously and i HATE that. There's always a voice in my head that will go "no... that's super embarrassing" or "think carefully... money/time is precious... don't waste your time on such trivial wants". If one day i pack up and leave for a much-anticipated travel trip, don't find it shocking cause i don't think i can resist this urge for long. Ha... Well, that still wouldn't happen in the next 2 years since i'm not rich enough to do so and i don't think my parents would allow (since i am still a little boy to them... and i know... i will ALWAYS be the LITTLE BOY) haiz... Never mind, at least i know this is an achieveable dream and i must work hard to make money to realise this childhood dream. Wish me all the best! ha
jloe is a serious music addict, with an slight inclination towards swedish and scandinavian music. he will always be mandy moore biggest fan, though currently he has a (huge) soft spot for lauren conrad. in his spare time, he enjoys chatting with friends, watching movies, and basically doing whatever his heart tells him to do. Peace.
