Saturday, April 02, 2011

been meaning to blog for awhile and today provides me with that opportunity because it was quite simply a great day! today was fun and eventful and meaningful and everything you wish for in an off-day when you don't have to head into the office. agreed to follow su ching to the old ford factory to help her do research but she wanted to go to a mosque first so i met her there. and we had time to kill after that so we went to meet a couple of her friends at coronation starbucks. and then we went down to the factory, which has since been converted into a WW2 museum, which was undoubtedly the highlight of my day. i mean, i know we've learned about the japanese occupation in history and social studies classes, but they were mostly superficial: like who invaded where on what date, and stuff like that. this was a real eye-opener. reading about life during the occupation. we all only focus on japan invading malaya, ruling for three and a half years, and then the british came back to make things fine and dandy. we never realise that life HAD to go on somehow, and what did it mean to live everyday life with restrictions placed on you, kempeitai soldiers patrolling the streets monitoring your every move. i want to write down everything that really hit me throughout the one over hour we were there, but it would just be too long. it's better to keep it with me in my thoughts, where i can delve it every once in awhile. at the carpark, we also let su ching have her first ever taste of roasted chestnuts; where she's been all her life, i have no idea. we then went for coffee at this yuppie place called papa pahleta. it was really cool, i like it except they're really prissy about their coffee. like you get ridiculed if you ask for sugar apparently. most amusing bit was when she was trying to spell out the name of the place to the operator to get details, and she went "L for Linguini". HA. not exactly the first word that pops into your mind that starts with L. after that we walked around and looked at nice houses, and relived our youth in the playground. then i went to play soccer at east coast with my new group of kakis which i find it hard to explain how i'm recently started playing with. really nice bunch, jinglun asked me to join them once, and ever since then they've been calling me back. had a pretty great game if i may say so myself, although i got trodded on many times. WAS FUN. and then i headed down to aliwal street for my departing editor, kelvin leong's farewell. although i've only been working at espn star sports for over a month, he has imparted alot of industry knowledge and give me lots of advice. i wish him all the best in the future. so here i am, i have to wake up in four hours time for work, but somehow, when you've had a day as great as today, somehow i don't think i mind lacking sleep. i know sometimes we wallow in self-pity, i do so myself very often. but i think we only need to take a step back and make an effort, and you find that life can be pretty swell at times. this has been a uncharacteristically happy post from me. gabriel out!

~~lights off, pyjamas on~~
12:54 AM

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

Monday, February 28, 2011

so once again, i have succumbed to an unintended hiatus and have neglected this space. in my defence, i have none.

unfortunately, i chose the wrong time to not blog because as fate would have it, the festive season passed with many an event but now i have nothing but my memory to fall back on when i want to recall christmas 2010 & CNY 2011. well, i should write about them one of these days. christmas 2010 was particularly memorable for SOME reasons haha.

i have officially started my life as a working person. after much consideration, i turned down NUS and their pretty good offer of a steady income and comfortable hours, to try my luck as a journalist with ESPNStar.com. i will soon sign a one-year contract which will take me through to feb 2012, where i can then decide if reporting and journalism is a path i want to take. after which, i can either renew my contract if they want me, or further my education by specialising in journalism/writing, or looking for another job with perhaps a focus on print media. because apparently, website editorial is the poor cousin in the writing world. or so i've been told.

other than that, friends have once again dried up lol. on chinese new year, iylia left for perth, and then just last friday, james went back to melbourne. iylia, who i've been seeing pretty alot throughout our NS days, and james who right before he left we were meeting really often, were basically my two most frequent friends for the past awhile.

thankfully, imran's back from melbourne for good, looking for a job as a geomancer i think since he studied geomatics. so hopefully there's weekly/bi-weekly coffee with my trinity friend.

went out for coffee at holland with su ching the other day. or rather, i watched her drink coconut water at the market, before she watched me drink coffeebean HA. was pretty good actually, until i offered to send her to west mall for her driving lesson. as fate would have it, mum drove the passat so i had to take the ole beetle. almost got us killed i think. last time she'll be sitting in my car, that's for sure LOL.

went to cousin lionel's wedding on saturday evening. was a pretty moving and beautiful ceremony. thoroughly enjoyed myself; seeing all the similar-age cousins getting married, think it's easier to appreciate the whole situation when you reach that particular age group.

dropped by punggol marina after that to find azad & jeremy who were fishing. fail night, zero bite. went for supper after that at jalan kayu which was invariably more fruitful.

it's already 1:30 and i have to wake up in three and a half hours for work. better get a move on sleep. until next time, gabriel out.

~~lights off, pyjamas on~~
1:16 AM

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

back in singapore, after a semi-whirlwind getaway in bali. photos will be up on facebook soon (meaning once i find the usb cable haha).

today's entry will, however, be sort of a blast from the past. it all stemmed from listening to an old song by yellowcard, entitled how i go. it's basically a song from a dying father to his son, telling him that though they may not have agreed on many things in the past, every action he ever made was basically made with the best intentions for the son in his heart. it was inspired by the movie big fish by tim burton. which brought back memories because unless i'm sorely mistaken, it was the first movie i ever watched in melbourne back in 2004.

i remember when i first started out studying in trinity, it wasn't that easy making friends. as everyone knows, i ain't the most outgoing person who can interact spontaneously. as such, for the first few weeks there, i pretty much hung out with weian everyday. there was one night we had his and dan's RJ friend nicole over to our place where we sorta cooked dinner and chilled the night away. i think a few days later, the three of us singaporeans, caught up in a strange foreign land, decided to go catch a movie together.

you know how when people say, i can still remember what happened like it was just yesterday. more often than not, it's just a saying. this time though, i mean it. back in the day, we had no hoyts at melbourne central to catch a movie. heck, the melbourne central you see today was still in the works. and crown wasn't much of an option because, well i think because back in february/march of 2004, me and an hadn't even stepped foot into crown.

instead, we had lygon street. something about lygon street still takes my breath away just thinking about it. especially when we used to have lessons in the small language building tucked behind two quaint eateries. popping out of the building upon finishing class to the wafts in the air of homemade pappardelle and parmiggiano reggiano just didn't quite feel like school.

and at lygon street, we have cinema nova. i've never been one for arthouse flicks and you know, that whole vibe. i wouldn't even classify nova as one of those places. but it was a small cosy little theatre. i remember thoroughly enjoying the show, before heading down to the bookstore below and buying the novel immediately to read it. instead of the giant corporate identity that is borders, i bought my novel at joe's bookstore, a small stall right at its entrance.

i guess i particularly felt the need to write this all down now is because i went through my old 2004 archives and i don't seem to have made any mention of this. which is all the more upsetting because this was a pretty significant moment of my time there. i don't quite know how to explain why i feel so, but when thinking about a particular recollection overwhelms you, it has to mean something doesn't it.

and then i realised that 2004 was full of memories i didn't bother to record down. maybe at the young age of 16/17, i was caught up in other less important matters. maybe, these things that mean alot of me right now just didn't mean that much back then.

i remember 2004 was the first time ever i held a girl's hand. i can't remember why we were out late, but i was walking her home. autumn had set in, and coming from a tropical climate, it was slight chilly. i must have been shivering or chattering like a wimp because she asked if i was cold. i wisely replied why don't you feel my hand. she took my hand and said it was pretty damn cold. i remember i didn't let go, all the way to her doorstep.

2004 was filled with a boxful of brilliant memories. it probably helped that melbourne, especially the trinity grounds were so damn beautiful. being away for the first time in your life, you have that sense of anticipation where you don't quite know whether you're more afraid or excited. that feeling of anticipation, in my opinion, is the epitome of youth. not knowing much at all, but knowing you definitely want to find out more. i guess as we get older, our outlook on the world generally gets bleaker. i actually think when we bemoan the passing of our youth, what we miss the most is our optimism, the belief that you can take on all comers.

whilst we can take many fond memories from our past, we can also take lessons from the missed opportunities and the wrong turns. watching the video montage at sant & stovany's wedding on saturday was interesting because as it turns out, they met at trinity orientation camp, an event i missed not because i was unwell or busy, but quite frankly because i just didn't feel like it. i didn't wanna go to a camp full of strangers for three days, i didn't wanna have to mingle and potentially embarass myself in a compromising situation (as they like to make you do in orientation camps). i was homesick and i didn't wanna be in a place where i had to pretend otherwise, like i was actually having fun. so i met the camp advisor and i told her i was sick.

she bought it, and today i sit hear wondering if my life in trinity, or even as a whole, would/could have been any different if i had sucked it in, and went for that damn orientation camp. whenever my friends come to me for advice, the one thing i always tell them is that it's better to regret something that you did, then something that you didn't. thus, the lesson learnt here, which i promise to always do henceforth, is to take life by the scruff of its neck. no more being passive and hoping something drops for the sky, cause that don't happen. put yourself out there, even make a fool of yourself, if only so that you can say, "damn i did that", rather than, "i wonder what would have happened if i did that".

i'm sure in a couple of days, or maybe months, when i'm in a different frame of mind, i'll find a strong case to argue otherwise. for now though, with how i go playing in the background, as these memories from this particular year flood through me with torrents of nostalgia and regret, and even content, i don't think i can say otherwise. 2004, was pretty much, the best year of my life.

---

i could tell you the wildest of tales
my friend, the giant, and travelling sales
tell you all the times that i failed
the years all behind me, the stories exhaled

and i'm drying out, crying out
this isn't how i go

i could tell you a man not so tall
who said life's a circus and so we are small
tell you of a girl that i saw
i froze in the moment and she changed it all

and i'm drying out, crying out
this isn't how i go
hurry now, lay me down
and watch these waters flow

son i am not everything you thought that i would be
but every story i have told is part of me

you keep the air in my lungs
floating along as a melody comes
and my heart beats like timpani drums
keeping the time while a symphony strums

and i'm drying out, crying out
this isn't how i go
hurry now, lay me down
and watch these waters flow

son i am not everything you thought that i would be
but every story i have told is part of me
son i leave you now but there is so much more to do
and every story i have told is part of you

~~lights off, pyjamas on~~
12:49 AM

Sunday, October 24, 2010

so, here's my follow-up since i attempted to revive this blog a couple of weeks ago, altho in truth, this is really the first free time i've managed to get since.

i am officially writing this from bali right now, which i've been here since friday night. we touched down in the evening and proceeded straight to our hotel, then for dinner at this place which i can pronounce but can't quite spell. no worries though, i will soon get the name and it will be up with the photos on facebook!

dinner was a decent meal with dan, wanyong & nicky, altho the highlight was definitely when sant and ian came to find us after. i haven't seen sant in over a year probably, and ian, even longer. so it was good to see my old melbourne buddies/housemates once again.

saturday was an overly-hectic day. dan and i woke up nice and early around 7am and decided to be adventurous and have street food for breakfast. we walked abit before settling on a stall with a very quaint outpost for fast consumption of food. there were probably about four stools and one table only. we had nasi campur, which i was rather pleased with, altho our meal cost us signficantly more than what street food normally does. this was definitely due to dan ordering a plate of noodles as his staple instead of the normal nasi kuning, especially when the noodles were a side dish. just imagine ordering beef rendang as your staple, it figures really.

after which, we returned to our hotel and upon discovering we have free breakfast, we decided to have a second breakfast; the spread being pretty alright. we then got changed and headed down to ayana resort, jimbaran for sant's wedding ceremony.

to say it was eventful would be putting it plainly. it started raining so they had to shift the outdoor ceremony to an indoor area, meaning a slight delay. then we weren't promptly informed when the shift had been made, so we arrived rather late for the ceremony, and were greeted with glares by the congregation, when it wasn't really our fault! still, the ceremony was beautiful, and i would be lying if i said i didn't slightly tear when sant and stovany together went to their respectful parents and knelt down and received their blessings as an official married couple.

i was then introduced to sant's parents and brother, and they are all brilliant people. exactly like sant, except much less crazy. or at least, that's the first impression ha. the newlyweds proceeded for their photo-taking session by the cliff, which was pretty memorable considering there were probably more photographers than guests!

the rest of the day, we left our stuff at sant's villa, and then went to make full use of the ayana facilities. i must stress that the resort is really gorgeous, the facilities awesome, and the service is top-notch. i guess you really pay for what you get. we had a splendid lunch at one of the restaurants, nasi goreng kampung and satay, being my choice of meal. dan and i then had a few rounds of pool by the pool, before we went for a dip.

the wedding dinner itself was pretty awesome. the food was nice, the entertainment was engaging, and sitting in a table with all the old melbourne people, especially some of my closest friends (albeit with some i hate too LOL), meant a good evening full of catching up and old jokes. the band they had was really professional (meaning FABULOUS), and i'm no expert in dance music, but i thought the DJ they hired was awesome. saturday was pretty tiring so i crashed when i got home.

today, we got up slightly later, dan, wanyong and i went for the buffet breakfast at our hotel. banana pancakes topped the list, altho i enjoyed the fish sausages which i've never seen in my life! basically tasted like a non-spicy otah i guess. after which, we decided that it would be a day of lazing around. so after turning on starworld and catching three back-to-back episodes of how i met your mother, i went down to the pool and chilled for a few hours. it was a thoroughly refreshing process. i just laid there and listened to my ipod, when it got too hot, i jumped into the pool. when i got too wrinkly, i came back up and napped for abit. when it got too hot again, i jumped in once more. so on and so forth. ian and adhi dropped by on their way out to lunch and we chatted for abit.

after seeing adhi off at four pm and ian off at five, dan, wanyong and i proceeded to this beachside seafood joint which we had originally wanted to go to on the first night but it was closed. it was quite breathtaking. you walk into the restaurant and there are containers full of fresh seafood, which you literally point out and choose for yourself. then you walk past the indoor area and straight onto soft golden sand, before settling at a wooden table right at the brink where the tides reach. as the lobsters and fish and prawns and clams hit your table one by one, the sun slowly sets, leaving the sky with a quite magnificent reddish-blue glow. all this while sipping a pina colada, before downing the greasy, charred, delicious seafood with a couple glasses of bir bintang.

after which, we arrive at this point. i am leaving back to singapore tomorrow, and i will thoroughly miss this place. i can't say i'm totally comfortable in a place like this, which i find chaotic, but strangely enough, through the chaos the locals here seem to find some order, none more apparent than in the rush hour traffic which is maddening yet very fluent. i look forward to more coming back here in the future, as well as the influx of weddings that will surely come as our generation slowly reaches the marrying-age.

one thing remains constant though. where this is good company, there is good fun. that is why i'm pretty damn sure i had a hell of a time this weekend. gabriel out!

~~lights off, pyjamas on~~
11:23 PM

Monday, October 11, 2010

alright, so amazingly, i haven't properly blogged in over a year, which is honestly quite dreadful. a quick recap of the last... sixteen(??) months is in order.

first and foremost, recruit gabriel tan, which became private, lance corporal and then corporal (narrowly missing out on sergeant because i do not take ippt HA) has officially ORD-ed from national service. gosh it's been a long time but like all things, once it's over you sorta get the feeling it actually flew by. one fine day i've probably gonna give NS a proper recap, going through how it has impacted me and all the interesting people i've met. but not for now.

since then, i have been really busy being a bum haha. i know i should really be starting work soon but i really do not want to go straight into a position where i will be bound to a desk 24/7. unfortunately, i don't think the folks are too keen on me working odd jobs at present, which is actually where i really see myself at right now. thankfully, they haven't started nagging at me to get out of the house, probably cause i've been devoting tonnes of my time working towards my driving licence, which i think they rate as high priority.

something good that's happened in the last month, the band's been getting a number of gigs! well, mostly just one friday slot for the last three weeks, altho i did a no-show for the second week cause i was awfully sick. we just finished our three week stint at KR50 @ NUS this past friday, but the management gave us another slot the next night at NV50 @ NTU, which was also a paying gig so that was pretty awesome. we did two sets collaborating with azad and fahyik's hall band member, aisyah, and she's a brilliant singer. overall, i actually think the gigs went pretty well. which is something coming from me cause i normally rate our shows average. lots of things go wrong, ranging from song choices to not being able to perform on the actual show. but i think we've matured a lot as a band, and we really did sound decent. hopefully, we'll have more chances to improve and showcase our wares.

another great thing to happen, after five years of barracking for collingwood since the fateful, life-changing day in february 2004 when jane garton wrote "collingwood is the best football club in the world" on the whiteboard at trinity, i have witnessed the magpies win the 2010 premiership. i can't imagine what it's like for the older supporters who have had to wait 20 years to break the drought since the last victory in 1990. once again, writing about sport is not something i particularly do because i feel it alienates the non-sport fanatic crowd. so i will just leave it as, 2nd october 2010, was quite an amazing day. and not just cause it was my birthday too!

so i didn't even sign off on 2009 here, and already we're nearing the end of 2010. while i don't think i'm quite ready to appraise this year, here's a couple of things i hope to complete by year-end, or at least within the first two months of 2011.

1) pass my driving and start taking pa's cars out for a spin
2) decide what i want to do in the near future and initiate plans to carry them out
3) petition fanatically to all the pubs around singapore for more gigs

there's a pretty decent list, if i may say so myself. not to many things to ensure that it remains accomplish-able, but also having some pretty significant milestones to strive towards.

on top of that all, i vow to revive this ailing blog. like i said before, the sole purpose of this page is not to voice my opinion and all matters worldly, but basically as a journal, so that years down the road, i can look back and reminisce and all that has taken place. it's served its purpose thus far since its inception in 2004, so why stop now?

here's to more frequent: gabriel out!

~~lights off, pyjamas on~~
1:13 AM