I don't seem to have much to write about these days, prob because nothing new or noteworthy has been happening. I'm just shuttling between school and home and haven't seen much of the outside world this year. The last significant thing was the Kanchanaburi trip and that was in January. And its already April! I should be sucked into the black hole of exams from about now till May. Its going to be another painful couple of weeks but what the hell, its the home stretch anyway...

I don't have much to write about these days.. maybe its because nothing new has been happening.

Well not quite, I was in Kanchanaburi recently for a boys trip, to satisfy the urge to ride bikes in the countryside, and swim in beautiful waterfalls. I was last there in 2001 i think, part of an epic post-army pre-university, journey-of-self-discovery lone ranger backpacking trip.

Instead of writing about the 2010 trip, lets see if I remember the 2001 trip.

I was 20 yrs old, on an overnight bus from Ko Pha Ngan (merits a chapter by itself) that arrived in Bangkok at 5am. Bleary-eyed and wandering around the Sanam Luang area alone, with my trusty deuter backpack. Approached by a couple of drunk gay guys, and since it wasn't even daybreak yet, I quickly made myself scarce. Audited a couple of guesthouses - squalid affairs, ratty little things with bad ventilation and ghost story vibes. I ended up staying on the second floor of a shophouse above an internet cafe. for US$1 a night, I got a mattress on the floor and a curtain separating me from the next mattress. It was excellent -- I rem making friends with a Pinoy girl travelling alone, and some japanese guys. No rats!! I bummed around for a bit in Bangkok before hitting the road to Kanchanaburi on a 3rd class train. I love open-window train rides.. ok so I arrived in Kanchanaburi, hung out with a dutch dishwasher/monk, had whiskey with a washed up old english retiree, and communed with the waterfall. Best moments were riding along Highway 3199 on my bike in the misty morning, stopping for rests along the cornfields, having breakfast at a makeshift market along a highway intersection, and seeing the falls for the first time. Wow! I still cannot believe I climbed all 7 levels with my slippers in wet weather. This must be why I had such a hard time, compared with my latest pilgrimage.

Happy New Year! I have a feeling that this will be the best decade ever. Well it better be, since I'll probably only have another 3 decades left on this mortal coil. Well ok maybe I'll have 4 or 5 decades left but who wants the last 2 anyway. No new experiences, no solid food, no fun.

In my first decade, I was on training wheels, learning to walk, talk, eat etc. That was an ok time I suppose. I don't really remember much from it. My most vivid memory was probably standing naked outside my toilet doing the "I'm a little teapot short and stout" dance, when I was maybe 4 yrs old. Maybe I remember this well because I have photographs of me performing that dance for the camera. Another vivid memory was probably sleeping on the roof of a little rickety wooden fishing boat in the middle of the ocean somewhere, looking at the stars etc, and having to clamber down every once in a while when the police coast guard would train their lights on our boat.

In my second decade, I was only beginning to wake up to the world around me. I learnt that I was not a natural athlete, that I didn't have the attention span to play chess properly, that comics and computer games never let you down, that I couldn't pray convincingly in the presence of other people without freezing up or lapsing into cliches and jargon (and wondering whether everyone else was merely parroting cliches and jargon), that I didn't have the discipline to do well in school, that I was happy being out of the limelight, that I can't write well without sounding derivative, that I really liked chinese food if cooked well and which tasted intimate (i.e. which tasted like the chef knew what he was doing, coupled with the urgency of the thought that maybe it was a dying art).

My third decade was probably the most eventful so far. It started off with how every 20 year old sees the world -- full of possibilities, so many roads to walk down, so hungry for life and all it has to offer. Fast forward, here I am now. I don't know how to summarise the last decade, except to say that I hope it prepares me well for the next -- that I won't repeat past mistakes, that I learn to treasure and love what I have, and that I'm thankful / grateful for all thats in my life.

Wow its been a long time since i posted.

Yes I'm still alive. I just got back from a christmas party, sort of, where i miraculously remained sober while nursing two drunk friends. I think it was the pacing -- i had a slightly tempestuous tummy so i didn't drink too much at first. When it became clear to me that my tummy was fine, my friends started bothering the sinks. The drawback to being wide awake at 5 am right now is that I'm VERY hungry . I wish had something to munch on, like fish porridge.


ARGHHH I;m VERY VERY HUNGRY NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Things have been pretty quiet around here.. cos there's not been much going on.

Yesterday we took the neigbour's little children to the local church for their mooncake festival bash. The neighbour's little boy is my favourite toddler.. he's super cute like a small puppy and is totally not shy. He comes to the door to play and say hi every time I leave or come home. Some toddlers get mood swings and don't like people, but this kid seems to be in a good mood most of the time.

What was surprising, though, was that there was no lantern walk! I thought the highlight of every festival is for the kids to run around at night with their paper lanterns lit with candles. Maybe it was a big logistical nightmare, plus safety concerns and all. But still...

Pensive mood today.

Sigh I want to be done with school fast. I feel like I'm missing out on a lot, like life is on a standstill. Somehow the closer I get to graduation, the more I'm feeling the massive opportunity cost.

I think this happens because I sometimes subconsciously peg myself to my peers, and think about where I could be today. Admittedly, its a very unhealthy exercise. There'll be no end to it if I'm going to compare -- I'll just never be happy.

I know that happiness is achievable when you learn to be content with what you have. It may sound trite but its pretty spot on. You just have to be your own person and find peace in the little things that make you happy. Some days, thats easy. Some days, its not.

Think now would be a good time to play with that scruffy mongrel dog that I've always wanted since I was a kid. I think there's nothing like a lick from a dog friend to bring you back into the moment. A retirement dream perhaps...

Ok its my mom's birthday today and I'm looking forward to dinner later plus that really hot looking chocolate cake with cherries in rum from Awfully Choc. I'm not a huge fan of anything too sweet or jelah, but I've tried these cakes and they're excellent.

Earlier today I met up with a fellow student at my online jazz school. Turns out he's retired and has been trying to pick up jazz for 2 years, and he just has so much passion for it! He spent a year at Lasalle doing jazz performance, has had many teachers, and goes out playing with tonnes of people. So off the cuff, he says, hey wanna go back to my place and jam? ON!! So there we were, in his little amateur home studio, with a drum set, JC160, and an original 60s Fender Bassman (OMG), keyboard, mic etc. This was my first time playing with someone for almost 4 years, but it was crazy fun. I was really rusty and nervous, but he has so much love for jazz guitar and its just infectious. We're meeting again on a weekend with the full band (hopefully the drummer can make it). I'm a total newbie at jazz, and clearly they're a lot more proficient than me, but there's no better way to learn and be motivated than with a bunch of true believers.

Why didn't this happen during the holidays??

Funny weekend..

I went to pick up an amp yesterday. Turns out the seller is an Indian expat, selling it cheap because his company was closing down locally and moving to China (where everything is cheaper). He declined to move to China, so he might be moving back to India to find work.

Turns out also that he was staying at the Grangeford. Its been no stranger to the news recently. When it got sold en bloc a couple years ago, its neighbours Horizon were incensed that their own en bloc fetched only half that of Grangeford. Horizon then sued its MC for what it alleged to be a hasty sale, introducing all sorts of pretty interesting arguments. It turned out to be a record series of lawsuits by various parties, involving almost all the major firms here.

Anyway, I was in Horizon about a year or two ago. Its old but pretty well maintained, some of the apartments are quite quaint in a 1970s way, with pretty groovy design (like a circular living room - very space age). In contrast, when I saw it yesterday, the Grangeford is pretty run-down and some parts look like an old 3 star hotel thats seen better days. Great location, but the seventh month is here and some areas can look creepy at night.

So Grangeford was again in the news because its master tenant illegally partitioned its units to pack in even more tenants. I checked out for myself what remained of the partitions yesterday -- the contractors came in and removed them but the foundations remained. It was quite funny -- basically the bedrooms and master bedrooms became a unit each, and they partitioned the living room and what was left of any common space into 2 tiny coops just big enough for a bed and a small cupboard (hence turning a unit into a 5-bed dorm of sorts). My guy paid $1,300 monthly for his master bedroom, which I think is a bad deal considering you can get a slightly smaller room at a brand spanking new condo in the fringes (Novena etc) area for the same price. Or a shared HDB nearer to his workplace, with all the amenities in the area. I don't even know where he got his meals, he can't possibly walk out to Taka every day for dinner.. no wonder he's moving!

So.. foreign talent, companies outsourcing to China, en bloc sales, overcrowding in coops, unrealistic rental rates.. wonder where we'll go from here?

Today was the most disgusting day I've had this year..... Woke up, had breakfast, headed down to Goodwood for an old friend's wedding lunch. I thought it was just a quickie lunch reception buffet, but it was actually a full scale sit-down 8 course banquet meal, except that it was during lunch. Quite a good concept I thought, cos its cheaper, easier to secure a booking, you don't break your bank on alcohol or corkage cos its lunch, everything is over faster, and you get to enjoy your complimentary suite for longer. Anyway so lunch was from 1 - 4pm.. just pure eating.. then I went home for a quick nap, and had to go out again for my auntie's birthday 10-course dinner at the civil service club chinese restaurant.. pure eating from 7 to 9pm.. Thats 6 straight hours of eating.. I'm bursting now.. And this is prob the first time in my life I had ohr-ni twice in one day.

So I was at the local gear shop the other day, fell in love with this vintage 1981 jazzbox in pretty good condition (I did a check on the net -- its only about a month older than me!). It haunted me for a while so I passed by there today again on the way to dinner. Thank goodness the stars were all aligned: there was loud ambient noise, I couldn't dial in the amp properly, found a loose knob etc, and it all combined to cure myself of the love/ compulsion to get another one. Cos it would mean I'd have to get rid of an existing one, which means yet another cycle of trading and testing and counteroffers.. so for now I'll just chill and concentrate on painting. Speaking of painting, what a pain... I must have did a poor job scraping off the loose paint in my living room the first time around, didn't wipe off the powder or something, so either my sealer didn't adhere well, or the old base coat was already loose when I painted it over with sealer . I found this out when I painted over and the sealer coat started peeling off. So I found out that when it peels, it does quite a lot of collateral damage to the dried coats -- which means MORE scraping and sealing. Hope the current layer is enough, and won't peel off on me tomorrow.