- My first time -

They say that lying on your back is the best position for the activity -- and they were right. It involves minimal effort, and reaps maximum pleasure, and you can just let other forces do all the work while you enjoy the experience.

It gets quite hot after a while, and you start to break out in a slight sweat, and after it's all over you tend to feel a bit sticky and perhaps a little sore, but it all feels so good -- all this, with minimal or no clothing on at that.

I'll never forget my first time ever, tanning by the pool.

Be sure to read "Of nice guys and turtles" 2 entries below and tag a bit.

- With apologies to Reader's Digest magazine -

High on a hillside, a shepherd is tending his flock when a BMW winds up the track towards him.

A young man in an expensive suit gets out and says, "If I tell you exactly how many sheep you have, will you let me have one?"

The shepherd agress, so the young man gets out a laptop, connects to a GPS satellite navigation system, scans the area, compiles a complicated spreadsheet, then tells the farmer, "You have 1586 sheep."

"Correct," says the farmer. The young man selects one of the animals and bundles it into his car.

"Now," says the shepherd. "If I can guess what your job is, can I have my animal back?" Sure, says the young man.

"You are a management consultant," says the shepherd.

"How did you guess that?" says the young man.

"Easy," says the shepherd. "You turned up though nobody wants you here. You want to be paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked, and you know nothing about my business.
"Now, give me back my dog."

- Of nice guys and turtles -

A discussion as old as time itself was delved into yet again yesterday, with no new lease of life injected into it.

"Do nice guys really finish last?" is the sort of passe, hackneyed question that has been bandied about almost rhetorically for ages, and will continue being thrown back and forth for ages to come between guys and girls, the latter of whom shouldn't even be asking the question, their minds having already been made up even before "do". It's the kind of question that doesn't quite require an answer, not unlike "What's that you're watching on your computer?", "Have you thrown out the garbage?" and "Do I look fat in this?".

Almost mechanically, the set answer left my lips, or rather my fingers. "Of course."
But upon mulling on the issue further, a groundbreaking new conclusion came to light: Nice guys don't finish last after all. No, the thing is, nice guys don't finish. Period.

Then again, harmless banter as it may be, the question does strike me as a little offensive. It's not a competition, not a race to the finish, there is no time limit, there are no trophies, no prizes. The extended "finishing" metaphor is a tad out of place, I reckon.

- Very good with people's mothers, but... -

Jon studies.

I just wanna live
Don’t really care about the things that they say
Don’t really care about what LIFE does to me
I just wanna live
Just wanna live

But can you blame him?
He's a student.

Come live with him.

- Don't Look Back In Anger, I heard you say -

I'm starting to wonder if coming back here was worth my while.
A constitution could be drawn up based on the plurality voting system, with no regard to the level of each individual's level of utility, merely his ranking of outcomes (otherwise someone's profound glee would pervert the whole ranking system), for an aggregate ordering of individual agents' preferences.
The Pareto optimal outcome would have been something else. Then again, I gave up my risk premium (expected utility less certainty equivalent) on 18 March.

They say communication is integral to interaction. That was always an issue, innit?

Maybe it's time to act normally but not naturally, here, of all places.

- The recrudescence -

A visitor (or two) arrived unannounced at one of the lecture theatres in a renowned institution for tertiary education in the Clementi region yesterday at noon, causing muted squeals in certain sections of the audience.

Word has it that the mysterious parties had surreptitiously returned to Singapore from an unknown location and had mistakenly wandered into the lecture theatre, with the intention to perpetuate their lavish expenditure since returning, only to find 250 bored faces staring straight back at them. They were, however, identified by members of the crowd and whisked away to separate locations.

One of them was compelled to don an item of clothing which nearly suffocated him (an ancient method of torture, it is thought) by his guardian, as he was joined by yet another threatening-looking native.

He was later coerced into consuming what is widely believed to be a slow-release agent which initiates the atrophy of internal organs, at a cave known as Big O. He was fed 2 plates which contained substances which resembled cake, bathed in a dark liquid.

Nonetheless, he was in some warped, disturbing, twisted way, satisfied and even happy that his return brought such pleasure to his captors. Rescue workers and negotiators fear the Stockholm syndrome might impede his release from captivity. Stay tuned for updates.

- 我也很想他 -

Once upon a time a big monk and a little monk were travelling together. They came to the bank of a river and found the bridge damaged. They had to wade across the river. There was a pretty lady who was stuck at the damaged bridge and couldn't cross the river. The big monk offered to carry the pretty lady across the river on his back. The lady accepted.

The little monk was shocked by the move of the big monk. "How can big disciple brother carry a lady when we are supposed to avoid all intimacy with females?"thought the little monk. But he kept quiet. The big monk carried the lady across the river and the small monk followed unhappily. When they crossed the river, the big monk let the lady down and they parted ways with her. All along the way for several miles, the little monk was very unhappy with the act of the big monk. He was making up all kinds of accusations about the big monk in his head. This got him madder and madder. But he still kept quiet. And the big monk had no inclination to explain his situation.

Finally, at a rest point many hours later, the little monk could not stand it any further, he burst out angrily at the big monk. "How can you claim yourself a devout monk, when you seize the first opportunity to touch a female, especially when she is very pretty? All your teachings to me make you a big hypocrite." The big monk looked surprised and said, "I put down the pretty lady at the river bank many hours ago, how come you are still carrying her along?"

- Wo ye hen xiang ta -

There is a story of two friends walking along. They came to a road and were about to cross it when they saw an old lady by the side. She was too scared to cross in the heavy traffic. So the two men decided to carry her across. She was quite heavy.

After letting the lady down on the other side of the road, the two men continued on their walk. One of them whistled a happy tune. He was glad he had helped the old woman.

The other man complained the lady was so heavy that his hands were sore and he now had a backache. He turned to his friend and asked, “How can you be so happy? She was so heavy. My back hurts.” The friend replied, “Yes, she was heavy. But I left the heavy load 10 minutes ago. Why are you complaining so much? You sound like you are still carrying the lady. I am happy I don’t have the load now. And I am happy I had helped her. Why are you still carrying her?”

- Stealth -

Ahh. I can finally blog about my return to Singapore. The last few days of stealth have been unbearable, but it's all out in the open now. A bit like Michael Jackson's paedophilia. Ok, bad comparison. VERY bad comparison.

That nowithstanding, there's just no welcome back party like a 4L class gathering. We were out in nearly full force (even Maddie came), apart from a notable British exception.

It was just like the ol' days, not taking Maddie seriously, taupokking people, making fun of Maddie, throwing people in the pool, leaving Maddie clueless as to what we were talking about.

Reminiscing about the madness of '99 and '00 was especially heart-warming.
Banging heads on metal girders.
Slapping backs with an "I told you so!" on the revelation that Kubla Khan was all about sex.
Hitting each other as we debated whether the Andes or the Rockies were in South America, with the long-lasting conclusion that "Of course the panties are at the bottom!"

Post-party, it struck us as only natural that we threw Edwin in the pool. The ringleader that I was, I was thrown in with him as I flung the poor sap in. 30 seconds later, half the class was in the pool, and Shouz lost his glasses. This, at 1015pm, in a dark dark pool, with the pool lights all off. I'm quite certain my constant reminders not to look down at the tiles because there might be faces staring back didn't help. So 45 minutes and 2 (very tiny, and not very useful) torches later, Shouyi could see again, and a photo was taken off the wet 4L monkeys -- intelligently enough, at the edge of the pool. And so there was a 2nd round of swimming, and this time someone else lost his glasses.

It could only be 4L.

Post-entry note: William and Clare's words struck a chord. You gotta ask yourself what you want.

- Encounters with the 2nd kind -

I thought it would be remiss of me if I chose not to blow the proverbial trumpet about one of my minor accomplishments today.

I faced one of my fears today and emerged from the darkness unscathed. Well, relatively, anyway. It was kind to me and even smiled throughout, which was even more intimidating. I approached with trepidation, treading cautiously in fear that a misplaced step could lead to the premature termination of my existence, but thankfully enough THE (chance) ENCOUNTER went smoothly enough.

Translation: I somehow ran into two of my friends' mothers today, and one of them wasn't as frightening as I'd previously imagined. Then again, I never really thought she was that scary.
And to my shopping mate, daughter of said scary lady: I apologise for referring to the nice lady as "it". Please refrain from raising to her attention this gaffe of mine because if you do, she might just have my head for lunch.

- Newcastle 4-0 Olympiakos -

And today I shook hands with SM Goh Chok Tong.
Another day in the office then.

- If you're not living on the Edge, you're taking up too much space -

Who would have thought that such an experience lay in wait in the obscurity that is the Old Truman Brewery? The danger-fraught journey down to the belly of Shoreditch was tricky, but the hours that ensued ensured it was all well worth it.

For starters, picture a roomful of people milling about, pretentiously sipping on wine (think Sauvignon Blanc), champagne and Pink Ladies. I must say my acquaintance with the Pink Lady was a thoroughly enjoyable experience, the delightful little vixen that she is. Her effect on me was just enough to make me blush a shade of red that was at once obvious but not too ostentatious. Am looking forward to dealing with her more often in the future.

I wouldn't doubt that The Brewery was chosen for its capacity -- the accomodation of 680 people in Central London is no mean feat. The luminaries were out in full force: Dr Lee Boon Yang, Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, Ms Irene Ng, Ho Kwon Pin, Claire Chiang, David Lim, Liu Thai Ker, Ong Keng Sen, Wykidd Song of Song & Kelly fame... the list reads like a litany(yawn). And it was hosted by Beatrice Chia! Oh, a certain SM Goh Chok Tong did attend the event too. But it was hosted by Beatrice Chia! And they had Jo Malone orange blossom scented candles in the lavatories, interspersed among the orchids they flew up from Singapore. And it was hosted by Beatrice Chia! I have to practise my mock amazement more often.

Prior to the dinner, a random German man looking rather bored stood in a corner perhaps trying to go unnoticed by the throng. I thought it only polite to spoil his night, and so strode up and struck up a conversation, casually slipping his namecard in my pocket when he finally offered it to me. It was only 5 mins after talking to him when I took a cursory glance at the piece of hard paper in my pocket that I realised he was Director of Institutional Client Division at German bank HVB. Ho hum. Also spoke with the SIF Director and their Chief Executive, and dined at the same table as the Director of Unsworth Shipping Line. How they managed to secure a seat with me I'll never know, I must remind my PA to seperate me from the Hoi Polloi in future.

Dinner was prepared by award-winning chefs from Raffles Hotel and Tung Lok who'd been flown up from Singapore specially for this event. Whaddya know, I have to choke down Tung Lok fare these days. What a massive fall from grace it has been.

A fashion show rounded the night up (it all ended in fashion, you might say. my puns are simply unstoppable), and of particular interest was an unsavoury incident that involved a rather disobedient white slip whose function was to conceal parts of the chest, and which lay beneath a very transparent white mesh-like concoction on a gangly model. Suffice to say it was a sight for sore eyes, but to her credit she maintained her composure and whatever shreds of dignity she was left with and went on with the show. Kudos, kudos.

- Life(house) -

Give me a few hours, I’ll have this all sorted out
If my mind would just stop racing

If I could touch the sound of silence
Now you know I would if I knew
How to make these intentions come around
I’m hearing without listening
And believing every word you are not saying
Speaking without a sound

Cause I cannot stand still
I can’t be this unsturdy
This cannot be happening

And it’s all good if you would
Stop the world from making sense
And if I could
Just realize it doesn’t really matter,
It doesn’t really matter
It doesn’t really matter

This is over my head but underneath my feet
Cuz by tomorrow morning I’ll have this thing beat
And everything will be back to the way that it was
I wish that it was just that easy

- Time to invest in R&D -

reticence and detachment.

It wouldn't be wrong to say it probably began with Miss K's story-telling session, which was at once painful, yet liberating (as I was told). For some reason it was with considerable distress that I listened as she regaled us with excruciating anecdotes from her past, but it all got me thinking -- it was foolish of me to empathise as I did with some of the central characters in her tale, when firstly I'd never met them and they don't have an effect on my life at all, though listening to them being described as 'incompetent losers' did hurt, possibly because the person who identified them as so (Miss Hard Rain Taxi Flag) decided that it was because I could relate to them. And secondly it's all nothing more than part of this cruel game anyway, the game which henceforth I need to play better.
Detachment, it seems, is one of the most marketable commodities on the forum of interactions, while being too emotional, just like being decent, gets you nowhere.

A further conclusion (resolution, perhaps?) formed that night was to exercise taciturnity, with particular regard to that which could reveal too much of my thoughts. It appears I've been divulging too much, when all the victors of the game have been loath to tell too many people too much, or anything in the first place.

reticence and detachment.

Yet another appraisal of my persona brought up the same old platitudes, though with one or two interesting new insights. I was, and not for the first time, deemed dark. But there was more this time. I'm too observant and sensitive, and have a knack of cross-analysing everything, every little gesture -- in short, I think too much, when I really ought to live more.

reticence and detachment.

And then that latest Friendster testimonial further contributed to the mood I've had over the past couple of days that someone described as du lan. The honest son-in-law -- an ironic throwback to what my own mum once told me.
Been thinking so much, but saying little.

reticence and detachment.

I'll get a wicked haircut and wear nice expensive clothes and spray on the cologne
I'll go to clubs more and drink more and dance more
I'll be devoid of all emotion in my dealings with you, I'll open the car door for you but leave you at the club after the party
I'll say nice sweet things to you I don't mean at all (ok, wait, this I'll have to practise first)
It seems this sort of behaviour is accepted, even preferred -- so who knows, it might help me get by better
But would that be me? t w i s t e d.

Rejection of ideologies does not mean having no ideals.

Fortune cookie message of the day: Confucius say, You will have success in everything you do next Saturday (ok, I added in the Confucius say myself, but wonder what the rest of it means. hmm)

- There's Something About Mary -

Forgive the extended lag period during which this blogsite has laid fallow; I would really, honestly have updated you, O Reader, with anecdotes from my soap opera life (and I say this without a hint of sarcasm - it's all true, these days) in a much more expeditious fashion. But I seek your understanding that there have been extenuating circumstances, all of which could be rather concisely summed up in: I couldn't be arsed.

Friday saw me prance about on stage for all of 10 seconds (after a few days of rehearsals) in garb I'd never be caught dead in on the streets -- and that is a statement in itself, as those familiar with my frankly appalling sartorial sense would attest. I also pretty much made a monkey of myself (again on stage, in full view of prying, voyeuristic eyes) later on, but I must say I quite enjoyed myself while I was at it.
Got to try my hand at judging as well at the event, which saw Jimmy Choo (yes, shoeman himself) turning up as VIP. Don't know who was more chuffed that the other was there. Ho ho.

And then there was that Spanish Presentation on Monday, for which I had to speak on The O.C. Yes, I know, but look - Singapore was taken by someone else (cuerva fea, vieja y gorda!) so I just had to do the city I knew second best. As these things go, it was a riot, and we were all enjoying myself until this Californian girl who speaks fluent Italian and has actually been to said location took it upon herself to grill me and correct certain factual errors. I mean, it's a TV show, get with it, cuerva!

Lost my last match for the 6s today, 3-0. Ah well.
In between, Barca got dumped out of the Champions League as well. Not a good week for great teams then.

- You fat old thing -

I know this comes a day late, but:
Hello, you fat old thing, and feliz cumpleano! You're now officially a year older, stuck in your mid-20s rut, and can begin to apply for your honourary Quarter-life Crisis!
Your age and membership of the Has-Beens Club notwithstanding, we all still love you! Hope you're having a right blast Down Under and that you had obe of those massive head-sized cakes on Lygon Street.

How's that for a birthday greeting, eh? But it wouldn't be me if it wasn't like this. You know that.

Happy 25th Birthday!!!!!

- This couldn't be more wrong -

- Over-compensation and Under-estimation -

selected excerpts from How Soon Is Now by The Smiths

I am the son and the heir
of nothing in particular

how can you say
I go about things the wrong way

There's a club if you'd like to go
you could meet someone who really loves you
so you go, and you stand on your own
and you leave on your own
and you go home

When you say it's gonna happen "now"
well, when exactly do you mean?

- Columbia L. L. Bean -

It's black and blue, not the prettiest of colours. It's not branded, unless one considers an article of clothing from Columbia L. L. Bean a must-have. Still, Nike/ Puma/ Ferragamo it is not. It's not the flashest of coats. It's tattered, frayed at some parts, torn at others - heck, it's even got a gaping hole in it. Conventional wisdom would point at its inevitable disintegration in the near future. But it's been with me for ages, it keeps me warm in the freezing cold, and it's always been there when I needed it. Other coats don't stick around when I need them most, and when they do, don't cover my back like this one does.

What sort of coat are you looking for?

- Things just get so crazy living life gets hard to do -

Remember the good old days when things were nice and simple, straightfoward and uncomplicated? Neither do I. (If you were thinking of the time when all it took was a club and a well-placed strike, followed by some hair-pulling back to the individual's cave, then well yeah, that's about as close as it gets)

Complex creatures, we seem to be these days. It's just getting increasingly difficult to keep things simple. This is where the irony begins - complications arise when we go out of our way for the sake of our friends, yet also when our slight insensitivities prove more harmful than we think.

We go to great lengths to accomodate the people around us, even when it comes at our own expense. And why? For no greater reason, it seems, than the benefit of someone else's wellbeing.

We do our best to cheer a friend up when we know she's down, even when it means sacrificing other priorities momentarily. We venture that extra mile even when we're snugly tucked in someplace, to procure items for a friend we know is ill and generally immobile. We inconvenience ourselves to obtain the things we know our friends want but can't get themselves because they're otherwise engaged.

And then there are the little things others do or their apparently perfunctory words or suggestions (have no doubt, these make a huge difference), the ones we don't see or hear, but which inadvertently affect us more than we'd imagine.

Swing now to the other extreme, when we complicate matters unintentionally (or, in some cases, otherwise) with slight slips, or behave in manners which lead others to perceive us as being cold or ignoring them. As you would imagine, this most often refers to relationships between members of different genders. And most painfully so, as a recent acquaintance of mine would attest.

Forgive me for the poorly worded entry, it is 0124 and I've exhausted my creative juices on the ICA entry, but I just had to soldier on and write this one.

- ICA or ICU? -

He knew from the moment he stepped into the lobby that he didn't fit in. An eye-opener, sure, the sort of place and event his exposure to which had previously been restricted to the occasional movie or book. Or nightmare.

The Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, was a white, elongated, imposing building, the sort whose massive, sprawling walls are painted in the most hospitalian shade of white, and each of which are adorned by no more than one relatively small (and most likely out of place) painting - in short, the type he found quite a waste of space. And tonight, it was playing host to The Continuum: Beyond the Killing Fields, the sound of which he hadn't taken an instant liking to. But he'd never been one to turn down an invite and gamely decided to attend, if for nothing else than to take a gander at what high society deemed art (he shuddered), and to perhaps shed his Philistine status, though he was confident that'd prove more impossible than the time he'd tried to pull that lovely little thing on the dancefloor. That it later transpired that the lovely little thing had a moustache and a rather profound adam's apple hadn't worked in his favour, of course.

There were the usual suspects, decked out in the garb he'd been under the impression were mere sterotypes. The yuppie artsy types, with their bandanas and designer (read: brown, thick-rimmed, plastic-framed) glasses. The token aged folk, men in their suits, ladies in the largest dead animal they could find to wrap around their very frail and osteoperosis-stricken shoulders.
The clueless students, looking dapper in their sunday finest, while wondering whether that last piece of plastic they passed had been meant for the centre of the room, under a spotlight, or in that garbage repository in the corner of the room.

Later, he sat through the play, all 2.5 hours of it. He cringed when the Cambodian dancers came on stage time and again to regale the audience with their unique brand of royal classical dance. He was touched when the survivors of the Khmer Rouge regime cried as they retold their stories. He emphathised as the true life story of Em Theay, the only royal dancer to have survived the scourge of the Khmer Rouge was replayed on stage. He referred to the notes when the entire production was performed in Cambodian.
He yawned, a big, thankful yawn, when it was all over. Beneath his Arlington and Green suit, he was still a Philistine after all.

Shadow puppets. Music. Dance. Khmer language. It was difficult to distinguish which was more confused - the production or its audience.

Note to self: 'Refreshments' at swanky art exhibitions tend to refer to wine served in sharp-based glasses, sipped seemingly elegantly with one arm folded and supporting the elbow of the arm holding said glass, as if deliberating on world politics or nuclear physics, while deep in discussion about a piece of canvas no one can seem to make anything of. It is by no means a replacement for dinner. Do not be fooled twice.