- Bring me to life -

When was the last time you climbed to the roof of a 6-storey building and dangled your feet over the edge with no protective barrier whatsoever? And for those of you who actually have, what if the part of the roof you had to cross before getting to the edge shifted beneath your feet as you made your way there? Of course, it would have been a lot better if the Sub-warden's little minion hadn't come and chased us away, but living life on the edge was still exhilarating (for lack of a more expressive word) for all its 15 minutes' worth.

Sometimes all it takes is one little action, one simple event, to conquer your fears, the fears which perhaps dissipated into the forgotten realms a long way back but which you never dared revisit.

The trouble that ensued in Springfield had been brewing for ages, but the authorities' stranglehold on monetary policy was finally broken as an astute monopolist embarassed the Central Bank, which ran out of reserves. Efforts to raise the reserve ratio and prevent a bank run proved futile as Jonathan Montgomery Burns Ng (eeeexccccelllent!!) began an ostentatious bath in bank notes.

Lesson learnt tonight: Being nice merely serves to delay the inevitable, so for the greater good of everyone (read: oneself and solely oneself), it'd be wiser to resolve things early. Get things over and done with already.

- The smokin' hot untouchable -

And these are my dreams
That I’d never lived before
Somebody shake me
Cause I, I must be sleeping

Half of pulling it off is believing you're the biggest smartest badass that ever walked these halls.
I can't help but think how ego affects everything. Without a healthy dose of it you can't trust yourself to do what you really want.
Of course with too much ego you could end up losing something you wish you still had. But with the right amount, nothing can get in your way.

I know so many people who think they can do it alone
They isolate their heads and stay in their safety zones
They come on like they're peaceful
But inside they're so uptight
They trip through the day
And waste all their thoughts at night

Sometimes the only way to get a good look at yourself is through someone else's eyes. If you're lucky, you'll like what you see - or you can learn from it.
If you don't like what you see I guess you can only hope you haven't burnt too many bridges.

All the struggle we thought was in vain
All the mistakes,
One life contained
They all finally start to go away

I guess the key to a lot of things is balance. For some of us it seems too far out of reach. Too difficult to achieve.
But the important thing is to just never stop trying.

I am sheltered by this apathy
Retreating deeper into my mind
What is it that i hope to find?

ENTJ - Commandant
You scored 63% I to E, 47% N to S, 57% F to T, and 10% J to P!

The single word to describe your type is fieldmarshal or commandant. You also belong to the larger group called rationals. You love to organize others in matters of logic. Even as a child, you likely naturally assumed the role of leader in groups. You share your personality type with 2% of the population. When you lead, you are more concerned with policy and goals than rules and regulations. You have a tendency to become a workaholic. You are impatient with repetition of error. You are friendly and outgoing, though. You don't mince words and willingly share your many strong opinions.
As a romantic partner, you are inspiring, but also somewhat challenging. You have a strong desire to be in charge and your clear need for an organized life and home can be overwelming to a partner. You like to confront conflict directly, discuss problems unflinchingly, solve them, then put them behind you. However, you can be too impatient or unwilling to take the time to listen to your partner and give them a chance to express themselves fully so that they also have a sense of closure. You are generally uncomfortable dealing with emotions, so you are apt to dismiss your partner's emotions as illogical. You feel most appreciated when your partner asks for your opinions, takes your adivce, and relies on you to get a job done right.
Your group summary: rationals (NT)
Your type summary: ENTJ

- You blog I blog everyone blog blog -

Thus it was that 5 weeks were frittered away, at the end of which he was left to pick up the pieces and ponder what he'd achieved with 37 days of free time. The answer shocked, saddened and disgusted him. He looked down and found his shoes in the same imprints they'd left in the sand 5 weeks ago. So with a big hurrah he embraced the next 31 days.

- sometimes you just cannot be bothered –

Interestingly enough Tagboard's decided to delete 3 tags of its own accord. Why do I have the feeling someone musta written something highly offensive and blush-inducing. Now which one of you was it...

Ironic that this little skirmish with TagBoard should sum up the last 4 days. I lost 3 tags there. Newcastle have lost 5 games on the trot. And I'm losing the proverbial it, as it were. I've lost all the its there could be. Patience, faith, and most of all my mind. You have no idea.

It should have been apparent long ago. One could study and know all the stuff in the notes, and then one would excel in the exams. It's simple as that. Oh, you'd think, wouldn't you. I like to play football so I train but I wasn't born with Cristiano Ronaldo's shimmies and so life isn't that simple.

What bites is that you read and you read and then you try the papers and the male pattern baldness that runs in your family starts to set in. Prematurely, and forcibly.

And then some chap conveniently pops by, takes a cursory glance at the sheet of paper you’ve been staring at for so long that for some reason it’s beginning to resemble your Great Aunt Hilda, deliberates for the length of time it takes you to blink, then lets out a long breath accompanied by an ‘ohhhhhhhhh…’ before proceeding to embarrass you by making the solution seem as blatantly obvious as the huge zit on your chin. Or forehead. Or nose. You get my point.

Well, universe, bad news. I got other plans. I’m going to be that chap. So there.

Gotta stick it to the man.

- Knock yourselves out -

http://gprime.net/video.php/nintendothemesacappella

- Wake up and smell the Venus Flytraps. And get hay fever. -

There are some days when your alarm clock fails to go off and you enjoy deep, peaceful slumber. You know you can always count on the good days to make up for those days.

These are the days when you feel like you can hear the sounds of a million alarm clocks chime, no, shriek in unison, like when a fire alarm goes off in a dark, quiet library - and in your ear, no less, like thousand shrill, wailing babies in your head, like pigs on the chopping board at an abbatoir, the kind that would have made Jason and his Argonauts beg for mercy and ask for the Sirens, the kind of shrill, glass-shattering, supersonic scream which would make a banshee ashamed of its existence, as if all the above had conspired to lay dormant for years to ultimately climax in one long, seemingly interminable, ear-piercing, blood-curdling cry, one that doesn't reach to your ears but instead extends its gnarly tentacles deep into your soul and shakes you up good and proper.

Today was a wake-up call. A day which jolted me to my senses, that shattered my hitherto blissful fool's paradise.
It's funny how you can work so hard for something and just not get it, and then someone else comes along and he just gets it so effortlessly, making it all look so easy. Funny how everything you've struggled so hard for can come to nought in just one day, and you find yourself smack back at square one. Funny how excited/distracted you can get when something else comes along and breaks your stride, to put it in one way. Funny how this excitablility and eager anticipation could lead to unhappiness.
Most of all funny how this wake-up call came so late. Shoulda seen it coming, admittedly.

RnD. RnD. Zen baby Zen.

- Huh? -

Wise man say, the early bird gets eaten by the early cat.

Wise man say, foolish man give wife grand piano, wise man give wife upright organ.

Wise man say, JB work at MFA London for month in June.

Wise man say, man who walk through airport turnstile sideways going to Bangkok.

Wise man say, War does not determine who is right, war determine who is left.

- I.M. Weasel! I.R.Baboon -

“open the windows, breathe in the fresh air, and at the same time fight the flies and insects.” Not what you might call a wise Chinese proverb,but what Deng Xiaopeng enthused rings true even today. At least in my room, which has not seen sunlight for a week. Or so.

So Singapore's decided to join the ranks of Paris and London (and Macau and Thailand and Las Vegas) by setting up not one, but two casinos - oops, make that Integrated Resorts. That being that, I took hours to pore over the Press Release statement made by the PM, aided in no small part by my Friends. No, not my housemates, those episodes of the now-defunct TV show which were screaming at me to watch them.

The budding reporter that I am, I decided to perform my National Service by drastically truncating the report into a few more notable sentences.

"The British Government wants to allow Las Vegas style super casinos to be built. It tried to legislate to allow up to 40 super casinos, but because of opposition from MPs and the impending elections it had to compromise and agree to build just one super casino somewhere in Britain.

An IR will be as decent and wholesome as a SAFRA resort or an NTUC Club.

We seriously considered banning Singa­poreans altogether from gambling in the IRs, but decided against it.

Some members of the public think that we had made up our minds right from the beginning, even before this whole process of public discussion. They are quite mistaken. In fact the Cabinet started off mostly against the IRs."

- 4-1, 4-1 -

"All successful people have the habit of doing the
things failures don't like to do. They don't like
doing them either, but their disliking is
subordinated to the strength of their purpose."

I'm not sure if you do read this blog, but I do hope you recover in time for Friday. All the best!

- Boredom, you thief, return me my mind -

Hokay, it looks like yet another song. But read through all of it, it's a great read.

They're tiny and chubby and so sweet to touch
Soon they'll grow up and resent you so much
Now they're yelling at you and you don't know why
And you cry and you cry and you cry
And you cry and you cry...

Oh the cow in the meadow goes "moo"
Oh the cow in the meadow goes "moo"
Then the farmer hits him on the head and grinds him up
And that's how we get hamburgers.

There'll be times when you get older
And you'll want to sleep with people
Just to make them like you
But DON'T
Cause that's another thing that you don't wanna do
That's another thing that you don't wanna do

Sometimes men love women
And sometimes men love men
Then there are bi-sexuals
Though some just say they're kidding themselves

Now grandma's a person who everyone likes
She brought you a train and a bright shiny bike
But lately she hasn't been coming to dinner
And last time you saw her she looked so much thinner.
Now your mom and your dad said she moved to Peru,
But the truth is she died and someday you will too

And the grand finale:

Smelly cat, smelly cat
What are they feeding you?
Smelly cat, smelly cat
It's not your fault

They won't take you to the vet
You're obviously not their favorite pet
You may not be a bed of roses
And you're no friend to those with noses

Smelly cat, smelly cat
What are they feeding you?
Smelly cat, smelly cat
It's not your fault

- Still looking for the right broom -

I could understand if you find it hard to fathom. Most people that I told this to seemed awe-struck for a while, before flat out refusing to believe me. And for good reason - sometimes I have to bludgeon myself over the head repeatedly to convince myself of the veracity of it all.

Truth is, I don't actually enjoy studying. (Insert stunned silence here) Yes, yes, the horror, the lies, you say, particularly those who've seen me in action, nary a rest to break my stride. Even more disbelieving would be those who've borne witness to the Dungeon of Doom that is my room (rhyming always was my strong suit).

Heck, it helps get my mind off other things, things I oughtn't be cluttering my mind with right now, albeit things that matter, but perhaps they can come later. All I can do now is immerse myself in my work and hope it all goes away, and that this all leads to some favourable denouement, some inevitable eventuality.

Now remind me again what the point of this entry was?

- Lah dee dah -

The following article was cut and pasted from a rather famous website back home. My deepest apologies to mrbrown.com for this plagiarism of sorts, but I'm probably more sorry that the thing's so long and that I actually bothered putting it up here. Just read it.

Inspired by Calm One, I have decided to post something I wrote to a Ang Moh reader who once asked me for the meaning of "Lah", which her Singaporean friends couldn't explain to her. In fact, her colleagues even said it could not be defined.

"mr brown, what is the meaning of Lah?"

The Meaning of Lah

OK, I cobbled this answer to your question from my own personal understanding and from linguistics studies conducted by people who study this sort of thing for a living, especially sociolinguist, Anthea Fraser Gupta, formerly of National University of Singapore, now at University of Leeds, UK.

So this answer is not entirely my work, but I copied and pasted parts which I thought best answered your question about "Lah", and tried to put it in layman's terms.

Your colleagues are wrong. "Lah" can be defined.

Part of the problem for native speakers of a language (if you consider Singlish a language dialect of a language), is that we are often not conscious of the language's rules and structure, even though we use the language correctly. The second problem arises when a term has multiple meanings, depending on context. So very often, a Singaporean can tell when "lah" is used wrongly, but cannot tell you exactly why.

Hence the difficulty for your colleagues to give you an adequate definition.

The Short Answer
The short answer is that "lah" is one of 11 particles used in Singapore English.

Hard to believe but, "lah" in Singapore Colloquial English actually has a linguistic definition and its use has an internal consistency and structure, just like any particle used in Standard English.

You cannot anyhow use lah, one. Or else Singaporeans will laugh at you.

"Lah" is what English professors call a Pragmatic Particle.

Definition of Pragmatic Particle:
pragmatic particle: A particle that may be used to express agreement or negation.

Definition of Particle:
A particle is a word that
- does not belong to one of the main classes of words
- is invariable in form, and
- typically has grammatical or pragmatic meaning.

Examples of particles in the English language are:
- to (in marking infinitives)
- up (in set up)
- not
- well
- oh

Definition of Pragmatics
Pragmatics is the study of the aspects of meaning and language use that are dependent on the speaker, the addressee, and other features of the context of utterance.

Singapore English Particles
Singapore English uses about 11 particles, mostly borrowed from Hokkien or Cantonese, to indicate attitude to what is being said. They work rather like "you know" and "you see". The three most common are ah (usually expects agreement), lah (strong assertion) and what (usually corrects something).

Here are some examples of particles used in Singapore English:

Lah:
"There's something here for everyone lah." ("There IS something here for everyone.")

"OK lah, bye bye." ("OK then, bye bye.")

"You see my husband's not at home lah. That's the problem, ah." ("You see my husband's not at home, you understand. That's the problem, you see.")

"Her price is too high for me lah" ("Her price is too high for me, I am afraid.")

Ah:
"Otherwise, how can be considered Singaporean ah?" ("Otherwise, how can this be considered Singaporean, don't you agree?")

"And then how many rooms ah?" (asking about a mansion/hotel… "So how many rooms does it have then?")

What:
"No parking lots here, what." ("Contrary to what you thought, you can see there are no parking lots here.")

More from Prof Gupta...

"Eleven pragmatic particles, loans from Southern varieties of Chinese, are used in Singapore Colloquial English. They express varying degrees of commitment to an utterance, and can be arranged on a single scale of assertiveness. They fall into three main groups: contradictory, assertive, and tentative.

"Singapore children acquire Singapore Colloquial English as a native language. These pragmatic particles are acquired early and without error.

"Each particle appears to have a wide range of multiple functions. These apparently disparate functions can be reconciled if the pragmatic particles are examined in terms of a system of marking degree of assertion, which results in different functions when the same particle is used in sentences of different types. No pragmatic particle in Singapore Colloquial English is associated with only one sentence type."

I hope my shameless paraphrasing and outright copy-and-paste of other people's studies plus my own little layman's thoughts, will help you understand the multi-faceted joy of using Singlish.

外套动力火车

我早该知道 你只是偶尔的需要
习惯了你的味道 挡风成了我的骄傲

每个心跳 开始都计算不到
难道给我的回报 只是陪你在他的怀抱

做你的外套 只能穿梭你的外表
听到你对他的撒娇 可笑的是我没资格计较

做你的外套 拥抱着却不被拥抱
我是谁你知不知道 怎能随便穿上又换掉

我能拥有什么 答案早就明了
学会哭也能笑 OH NO
怎么不听劝告 怎么不被想要
还在为你效劳 会不会疯掉 (你知不知道)

- Help help the sky is falling -

Big shout out to Hails, so nice of you to drop by outside my window all the way from Hongkong. I hear you visited Holborn at the same time. I see you've mastered the lost art of appearing in 2 places at one time during your stay in HK.

- Hang on, I think I've been here before -

I could think of better ways to spend 13 hours than sandwiched between two frumpy and grumpy old farts ( who, to be fair, were probably thinking of better ways to spend 13 hours than seated next to some young punk ), with little more than 50 square centimetres within which to move your legs, in Economy Class. The conversation between us was about as dry as the Kalahari - we made bleedin' Frankenstein's monster look talkative. So much for the much-vaunted (delusional, yes.) return of the prodigal son. That being said, at least I had lovely ( I swear, the way I'm using these words, I'm going to start wearing pink soon. oh waaaait... ) company on my way back to London, provided by Messrs Carrey, De Niro, Pacino, Hoffman, Stiller, Blanchett, DiCaprio, BECKINSALE et al, ad nauseum. Had a friend on my flight too, but we sat apart.

And then the inevitable trek from the obscurity of Heathrow Airport (newly voted Worst Airport Ever by JB Mag, April 2005), from which it takes at least an hour to get to anywhere anyone would want to get to. And that includes a self-respecting toilet.

Intelligently enough, I'd left Singapore in 2 layers, both about as thin as paper - my, and it only took me one hour of leaving the plane to rue my decision! Fancy that. The gust of wind that greeted me on the escalator up to Holborn tube station eliminated the need for my latest appointment with my surgeon for a facelift. Baptism of fire, they say. If only.

As if all that wasn't proof enough, 243 took forever to come, so there I was shivering like Ozzy on dope, wondering if my arm was white from its lack of exposure to the sun or because that is the colour your body parts turn shortly before they become detached from you. It has now been proven that nipples CAN cut glass, after all.

So it's official: I'm back in London. Precisely 7 weeks today. The shivering isn't from the cold now.

- Goodbye to you -

And so it is that 2 weeks passed with little commotion, little fanfare. If whichever wise guy it was hadn't taken it upon himself to invent these exam thingamajigs, life wouldn't be so stressful, we'd all graduate with honours, and I'd have been able to meet up with more people on my trip back. But alas, we don't always get what we want, and it was a heavy heart that I left Singapore for blacker roads (as opposed to greener pastures - one must come to terms with the fact that everything is black in London, such is the level of pollution in these here parts), having to leave behind my plethora of friends, all of whom I shall dearly miss and who I don't know when I will get the opportunity to meet agai- oh, wait, hang on, I'll be seeing you all again in 4 months! In that case, ah, bugger all of you. Heh.

- And you thought I was bad -

http://gofugyourself.typepad.com/

'nuff said, I reckon