Friday, March 18, 2011
so dan asked me to wake him up at 4am, and seeing how i reached home about 2 plus i didn't think i'd be able to sleep and wake up in an hour. so i'm staying awake till four before i hit the sack.
so this whole week i'm working event shifts, which either means 4pm to 1am, or for champions league nights 10pm to 7am. weekend shift timings are slightly different, i don't exactly know what they are yet but i'll find out on saturday/sunday and let you know :)
azad recently asked me to play for this band; we're auditioning this sunday at a competition. i'm not really too keen on it but just as a favour i guess. except we're getting stiffled a lil by the head musical director A.K.A dewey finn heh [inside joke]. and the musical direction is really confusing. like i think the plan was to sound different from all these other bands you get? so they roped in a saxophonist, and azad is playing indian drums, but then all of a sudden we're ending up playing a rock style? at times you can't even hear azad's percussion and the saxophone so what's the point? ohwells, get it over and done with.
had prata with imran today at shibly, he came to find me this week after i went to upper bukit timah last week. we're gonna have one more weekly coffee session next week before we start staggering our meet-ups before he's starting work at JTC. excited for him, the start of a long and successful area being a geomancer.
after that, i had dinner at home and then went for starbucks with azad, before he requested a jamming sessions where we can play "real" music without getting ordered around. so i agreed and it was pretty good. we haven't played in over a month i think.
first football game with the espn star sports staff as well. not bad, they're all pretty good but i guess that's expected since they supposedly live and breath sport [read: FOOTBALL].
tomorrow is my free day, as in not only am i not working, but for the first time in awhile i have ZERO engagements. should find something to do, i have a few people in mind to perhaps try my luck and ask out for coffee. hopefully it will be a cool cloudy day where i won't be sweating a lot HA.
following the news about the sendai earthquake and tsunami pretty fervently - my heart goes out to the people there. i mean, when lives are lost through political violence or plain terrorism, there's an accompanying sense of anger that comes with the feeling of unjustness. but when it's a natural disaster that no one could really do anything about, it's just plain sadness. we should keep them in all our prayers.
seeing rescue efforts always warm the heart, maybe slightly more so because of my time at SCDF. i mean i almost never went out in the field (although technically i'm still a "rescuer" heh), but seeing people putting themselves out there trying to do a job for someone else, be it rescuing survivors or recovering bodies for their families, just helps you believe that's a bit of good in humanity left.
particularly memorable was a photo i saw of rescue works taking place in the snow. i think that really struck a chord with me, it made me wonder whether in the future, if i found my life getting abit stagnant, whether i would seriously consider doing something like that and signing on. i think i'm generally an empathetic person and helping people would be something i'm very keen on.
as i predicted, friends are really starting to dry up, meaning i spend more time cooped up at home when i'm not at work. i think i've really given up on making new friends. it's almost like you're at an age where you don't need/want to be putting yourself in an uncomfortable and awkward position? you more or less think that yeah when my friends come back from overseas we'll have a ball of a time, but while they're away screw it, i'll just chill by myself. i guess it helps i'm naturally a loner, or rather i enjoy being alone.
not sure if i mentioned it in earlier posts but i wrote a song for this beautiful girl called taylor swift. haha. i'll put the lyrics up here some other time on the premise that anyone who drops by this page promises not to steal it? i really wrote it from the heart so stealing it would shatter that.
can't really emphasize how much i love taylor. everyone always laughs at pop music, but i mean if it's good it's good. you can't deny that. she has a good voice, looks awesome, adorably clumsy, and above all she's down-to-earth and apart from having more money in her bank, still the same girl she was five years ago (i talk like i know her personally LOL).
so until next time when the lyrics for OH TAYLOR are posted, gabriel out!
lights off, pyjamas on
3:26 AM
Monday, March 14, 2011
good morning, world. for the first time in weeks, i am able to wake up at an earthly hour and am writing this to you at 11 in the morning. that's because after two weeks of 6am shifts, i've switched to afternoon/night shifts for the next two weeks as part of my learning period. after which i'll get a varied schedule of both AM and PM shifts. both are pretty decent, there's something interesting about working overnight in the office, but as you know me, i'm a morning person and nothing quite beats waking up when it's still dark and having a cup of vending machine coffee as the sun is rising.
so after this week, i will have officially been working for a month already. so far, life isn't bad. colleagues are generally nice, with the exception of the oddball here and there, and while the workload is heavy, you get used to it after awhile and it more or less becomes second nature to be toggling between feeds and writeups, all whilst making sure the website is up to date.
since i last blogged, a number of minor but still significant events have taken place. with iylia and james now in australia, imran is very much installed as the new coffee kaki. met him over the last two weeks, and we're planning another meet-up later this week. each occasion full of laughter, reminiscing, and the inevitable dissing of acquaintances.
brought mama to NTUC last thursday, been meaning to do it regularly and hopefully with my schedule i will be able to. i know she was lamenting that no one will bring her anymore since grandaunt betty passed, so i would like to make a special effort to do so.
i think older people, even our parents' generation but especially more with our grandparents' generation, have suffered so much more than we can ever imagine. they come from an era where the things we take for granted everyday were mere pipe dreams back then. they've toiled to provide a future for our parents, just like how they in return have worked their butts off to provide opportunities for us. i think we should never neglect the wisdom the older generation possess. i take it as a chance for learning everytime i bring mama out to the supermarket or for lunch.
family time's been nice lately. once again, i guess it's because of my schedule. the only time i can't join the family for dinner on weekdays is when i get the 4pm to 1am shift. when i work 6am, i'm done by 3 plus in the arvo so that's not a problem. and then on weekday night shifts i only start at 10pm, so dinner's no problem as well.
we had teppenyaki two sundays ago, at this halal japanese restaurant that was actually VERY good, altho a lil pricey. then yesterday, i followed mum and dad to longhouse for lunch and it was actually very nice. just making the effort to spend time with family.
at night, i helped mum with dinner. she did a repeat of her fish & chips, which were a rousing success two weeks ago! altho there weren't any chips, only sauteed potatoes. and it wasn't just fish, there was sotong and scallops as well! so i helped her with the started by getting a few steaks on the grill, was pretty nice i have to say.
so hopefully i'll find the time to regularly post. it's absolutely cathartic to just voice your opinion or grievances, or just basically to recap what your day/week's been like. until then, thoughts and prayers go out to the people in japan, who have been hit by a mega-natural disaster.
be strong, love life.
LIVE.
gabriel out.
lights off, pyjamas on
10:52 AM
