Going for band didn't turn out to be as awkward as I'd expected. Well, it was pretty awkward in places when poh compared me and khairi and stuff, but I guess it's pretty normal. I just don't like the attention.

Thank god I never took up his offer to be a percussion instructor for AI or BT. If it's one thing I can't do to save my life, well besides drawing, it's teaching. There are two groups of people, mainly. Those who can play but can't teach, and those who can't play but can teach. Those who can do both, well they're up there man. haha. So I'm guessing I'm part of the less privileged who can play but can't teach.

I wonder if it's a flaw in itself; finding it extraordinarily difficult to accurate pinpoint the flaws in others. Petty mistakes, character flaws...Again, two groups of people. Those who effortlessly spot others' mistakes and shortcomings whilst ignoring their own, be it out of innocent ignorance or blatant arrogance, and those who always can't seem to put their finger on what's wrong with others, yet constantly reproach themselves for all the little things they do wrong.

Went for dinner at mac with the alumni and quite a number of band members, then played left 4 dead. Damn, it really is fun! Really different when you're playing with people than when you're hitting it on single player.

2 hour conversations over the phone used to be a thing of the past. That changed yesterday, though. Good thing I didn't call. haha. I never thought I'd be able to stay up that long. Was already prepared to sleep once the conversation started, but the laughter kept me up.

My ads got removed because my adsense account got suspended =.= silly me. well, there goes my money. I was so close to getting my first $100 though.

Never looking at people the same way again, and never trusting again once it's been lost...selfish? egotistical? insecure? Or just a normal reaction?

J'n hmbe zpv'qf efdjefe up dmjnc pvu boe hjwf ju bopuifs tipu. Gjoejoh zpvs ibqqjodtt tipvme nfbo J'e ibwf gpvoe njof. Cvu J ibwfo'u. J'n ibqqz gps zpv. Up tff zpv tnjmf...ju tipvme cf fopvhi. Cvu ju't opu.

J'e cffo jouspevdfe up uif xpsme pg ivsu boe opx J'n tuvdl jo ju. Gffmt mjlf b mjgf tfoufodf xjui op foe jo tjhiu. J epo'u nfbo ju cf nfmpesbnbujd. Xibu ep J lopx bcpvu qbjo, bozxbz? Opu nvdi, J'mm benju. Opu nvdi bu bmm.

J dbo gpshjwf zpv. Pg dpvstf J dbo; J'e bmsfbez gpshjwfo zpv npouit bhp. J dbo gpshjwf ijn, upp. J'wf hpu opuijoh bhbjotu ijn, boe ibwf op hppe sfbtpo up cf qsfkvejdfe. If nblft zpv ibqqz. Uibu't hppe fopvhi.

Bmuipvhi...tpnfujnft J xpoefs jg J'n sfbmmz bcpvu uif gpshjwfmftt qbsu.

J hbwf zpv nz ifbsu. Zpv uppl ju...zpv xbsnfe ju, boe zpv dbsfe.

Boe uifo zpv qvu ju uispvhi b nfbu hsjoefs.

Ju xbto'u uif qbjo bu gjstu. Ju xbt uif bctfodf pg ju. Cmppe tupqqfe gmpxjoh uispvhi nz wfjot, boe fwfszuijoh kvtu...tivu epxo.

J hbuifsfe uif cjut boe divolt...boe tmpxmz, tujudi cz tujudi, J qvu ju cbdl uphfuifs. Cbsfmz.

J Ibe b mjuumf ifmq. Tifszm, Bujrbi. Uifz xfsf uif...bobftuifujd.

Uifo J gfmu uif qbjo. Boe xjui fwfsz tujudi, ju hsfx, boe uifo ju uppl pwfs. Ju xbt bmm J dpvme gffm, bmm J dpvme uijol bcpvu.

J xbt sjhiu. Uif qbjo ofwfs mfbwft.

Ep zpv sfbmmz uijol J'n...Ibqqz?

J epo'u voefstuboe. Jg zpv xfsf sfbez, xiz ejeo'u J hfu b tfdpoe dibodf?

xiz...ijn?

J epo'u xbou up cf tfmgjti. Ju't efhsbejoh. J tvqqptf J tipvme kvtu mfu ju hp.

Op epvcu, J ep mpwf zpv. Uifsf ibt up cf tpnfuijoh up bddpvou gps uif qbjo J gffm.

Cvu...J dboopu usvtu zpv. Opu boznpsf.

Cfdbvtf J dboopu voefstuboe xiz zpv mfu uijt esfbn dpnf usvf, ipofzfe ju, boe uifo uvsofe ju joup b mjwjoh ojhiunbsf.

Uibol zpv gps uif qbjo. Uif ivsu xbt ivncmjoh.

Things are not always what they seem to be at first glance.

O, In hell, life and time, most are nowhere. O, you with bible love?

Things are not always what they seem to be at first glance.

"Go, and be happy."

"I don't...understand."

"Right. And you're telling me because...?

"Good for you, the world simply must rejoice!"

"I'm okay."

"How the..!?"

"So this is how it's meant to play out..."

"Feel like an idiot..."

"You said...!"

"Oh. I see."

"Okay. So, we were talking about the..."

Openings for the same conversation.

Getting one of those bouts of wistful yearning for the past again.

Soccer and LAN with Ivan, band, school...so many wonderful things, so carefree, and time seemed to have passed in such a way as I could actually stop and look at things for what they were : enjoyable.

All that turned into this drab excuse for a life, years in which time as accelerated considerably so much so that everyday seems to have become insignificant, a fleeting moment compared to the deeper chapters they would have been in my earlier books.

cherish what you have, for if you falter, you will burn. this I promise you.

You know when they say what you don't know can't hurt you?

Totally understand.

Ironically, I'm sick today. No, it doesn't feel good to be sick. That would be just oxymoronic. I wonder how people put up with faking a fever, when a fever really makes you feel like crap.

Where love exists, everything that had once held meaning becomes redundant, and irrationality is the sole rule of all that walks the planes of the earth.

Where there are questions, there may be answers. When one runs out of questions, one runs out of hope. Hope that there might be answers.

The entire world is more or less made up of half-truths and whole lies. One man's truth is another man's lie, and then suddenly everything seems to fall inexplicably out of balance. And then only one thing is certain, and that is nothing is ever certain.

Where life is full of all the embellishment we call happiness, we fear the unbearable, we shun the unthinkable. Where it is a living hell, there is hope, or there is hopelessness.

If there is no balance in the world, there can be no world.

Everybody lies.

Being dragged out to see a movie later. What's it called again? Hotel for Dogs? Holy crap. That sounds ginormously interesting. So in line with my age. Love dogs. Love movies. So I guess a movie about dogs can't be all that bad.

Damn. Armored Core isn't a cakewalk. It's been a long time since I've been frustrated with not being able to play a game out right. Maybe I should go back to playing FFIX on my PC.

Getting Breaking Dawn from carmen later. Lucky I'm able to meet her today, or I'll be bored to the brink of death next week, because I'm the DM for this week, and that means sitting in the office the entire damn day doing nothing but manning the god damn phone. Another pointless job.

Just had ACPC last Friday evening. Saw a few of my platoon mates; my section buddy came to see me after the dinner! They're commissioning next Saturday. OCS Commissioning Parade...I do hate those. And the fact that this is my batch getting their bars makes it that much worse. haha. I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this way. Envy works better in pairs or more.

Sleep is becoming something akin to russian roulette again. It's a little strange, and always so incomprehensible.

Does anyone really think people change, like really change? I kinda get this idea that more often than not, people adapt rather than change. You are who you are, what you are, and how you are, and pretty much nothing can change those facts. They're either inborn, or instilled during your youth so much so that it's become a part of you and you can never escape that fact.

A jerk will always be a jerk. He might play nice as a favour, to win favour, or if he's just having an off day, but inside, he's still a jerk.

I guess this is a pretty good excuse for people who think ex-convicts don't get a second chance, or ex-lovers will always be ex-lovers because sometime, somewhere, somebody screwed up.

Hmmm...not exactly like Bella and Jacob.

First thing's first!

Church Raises $19m in 24hrs

LOL

Looks like we've got a competitor for City Harvest!

Daddy needs a new place to worship!

The second thing is...Guitar Hero World Tour is sitting in my room now in a big ass box and I'm just waiting for the day I can get my PS3. I can't wait to rock!

And for probably the hundredth time this month, I am hopelessly bored. For now, that is.

In sleep at first we see nothing but the infinite darkness stretched out in immeasurable bounds ahead of and around us.

Then the images, consider yourself lucky or otherwise, begin to crawl in, surreptitiously but surely, and soon you find yourself living in your own story, a figment, or rather ethereal pieces of an unfinished puzzle floating in the air and coming, piece by piece, into place. The entire picture will never be seen, because dreams are almost always never complete.

They show you what you need or want to see, or what you dread the most, then disappear as quickly as they came. Sometimes they escape your memory. That's why at most times people can't remember what they'd dreamed the night before.

Welcome to your very own show. Spotlight's on you. And you have absolutely no control over what's going to happen over the course of your little charade. The script's all been written; written by a higher hand, perhaps? Or if you'd rather it be internalized, maybe your heart needs a talk with you. A rather recent memory, playing itself again just to make you remember?

And you wake up feeling...what, afraid? Grateful? Hopeful? Devastated, torn? Wistful? What have you seen?

Was the previous night dominated by the worst possible thing you could have thought of in the recent past, something you'd never want to see happen in reality? Or was it graced by the soft, luxurious mural of something sweet, something passionate, something you'd like to remember, even play out in reality?

What exactly...do we want to see?

Why am I asking so many questions? haha. Okay, question mark overload.

Sometimes it's not our worst nightmares we fear. They can sometimes set us free, though they can also be very horribly damaging. And at the same time, sweet dreams have the tendency to put a lot of unnecessary things in us. Things like hope (well false hope, actually). Things that remind...remind us of the very memories we long to forget.

It almost feels as if we're being played in a game where emotion runs free and plays dirty. We want to forget something, it comes back to haunt us.

Sometimes we wake up feeling "nah, that'll never happen."

Well, you never know. Of course, if you're imagining the ultimately impossible, like getting into bed with Arielle Kebbel, then I think you know when to back off. But all in all, you never know. Think of it as a subtle form of premonition.

Dreams. Annoying. Humbling. Unnecessary.

This...is going to take a while.

When the whole world comes crashing down, who do you turn to? A friend? A family member? God?

It's weird how selfish people can be, people who believe so strongly, so unquestionably in God, yet at most times turn to him only when everything else as failed, or so they'd thought. The most logical thing to do at first is to try and seek help from someone tangible, someone who exists physically instead of merely spiritually. When those people are out of reach, or are unable to give you the aid you require, you look to the heavenly being spying from above. How crude.

God will answer all my prayers. God will open all my doors. God will give me the help I need.

So where is it, the help you mentioned? Why are you still crying? You haven't solved your problem? But I thought he had all the answers. Didn't he? He didn't? Or you didn't hear them right, or you couldn't understand? That make you feel better?

When things go well, we thank God for blessing us, for watching over us, for giving us those opportunities. When things go horribly awry, all we can say is "this is a mere test from God. It's my own fault things happened this way."

So when good things happen, he gets the credit, while when things screw up, we have only ourselves to blame? That's being horribly magnanimous, don't you think? Blame not God, for he is the almighty and all righteous.

I'm thinking of that song by The Fray...

"Where were you when everything was falling apart?"
"Why'd you have to wait? Where were you? Where were you?"

It's also weird how people absolve God of all blame when things turn to shit. Earthquake. Someone gets out alive. "Thank God, for he hath protected me." Someone ends up dead. Family says "The Lord hath welcomed him to Heaven."

I feel like such a blasphemer. I don't think I am, though.

When things turn out they way you'd hoped,

The credit is yours and yours alone.

But when everything comes crashing down, my friend...

You only have yourself to blame.

Looks like it's going to be the PS3. I'm going to have to save two months' worth of pay to buy this stuff. That would be the roughly $600 PS3 and the $250 GHWT set I just secured with a seller; going to pick it up from him Tuesday or Wednesday evening.

$850...that's a hell of a lot of money coming out from a service unit NSF. And a small price to pay for what is going to be a rather bearable eternity of rockin' enjoyment. Wouldn't this have been a much smaller problem with Benedict's job? Then again, I wouldn't have anyone to play with considering the fact that I wouldn't have met all my friends in SAF Bands. Everyone does have his place...

'Money' has just become, yet again, one big word taking up two pages in my dictionary. It shrank to normal size a few months ago when I'd stopped spending. Well, spending so much, actually. Didn't hurt at the time. I guess it's just the slight tinge of contentment in knowing later that those seemingly insignificant amounts (while considering what they were used for, of course) are being saved now while being siphoned away regularly at that time. Really. I didn't mind.

It also looks like the Italy trip scheduled for July's been canceled. To whom I might have gloated about it to in the past, you now have carte blanche to rub it in my face. No worries. Overseas trips...logistical nightmares for percussionists, but always so fulfilling.

I've been thinking about something for the past few days. Well, it just came up, actually. Not one of those things which would consume all my concentration and send me into a distant stupor.

"Why be a sergeant or regular serviceman when you could be an officer?"

"Oh yes, that's right! Why do artisans, teachers, builders and cleaners exist when we could all be rocket scientists? I can't believe I'd missed that. How embarrassing."

"..."

Funny how I can read Eclipse without any difficulty in the Dragon Hall with drums banging, tubas honking and mallets scurrying haphazardly across the marimba, but I'm too restless to read it in the solitude of my own home.

I don't even know why I'd posted the previous post. 0_o

I wonder if I'm being fair to myself, because it doesn't really matter if I'm being fair to anyone else when it comes to something like this. My thoughts are my own, unless so explicitly expressed, but morality seems to be bugging me every now and then when they cross my mind. Very cryptic, no? I like.

So easy it is to judge someone based upon past experiences, and so much easier it is when you look and see, perceive and foresee what's going on. It's not really that hard. We're made to look at people in a critical way. Leave it to the saints to see only the pure good in a person, because human beings, yes, us wee mortals, are everything but perfect. In that essence, we are biased, and the cliche does hold true : everyone's a critic.

Hypocrisy is one huge sin. To a lot of people, at least. I think it's one of those that sends you to one of the lower rungs of hell too. Yeah, God doesn't exist but Hell does? Sure does! Hey, everyone's gotta suffer, even after death. And then there's the other...what is it again, narcissism? Nah, that's not so bad. Hypocrisy. That's the main thing right here...one giant mother of an ant crawling under your skin. Hard to ignore, harder to remove unless it decides to climb out through your nose or ear or mouth or...ouch. Shouldn't have thought of that other place.

So I guess it's really okay if I keep it to myself! If it's one thing I can keep really well, it's a secret. I think a lot of you should know why. It goes like this : you tell me a secret, I remember the secret for what, 3 minutes? And then it's like it never happened. It's so easy being a confidant when you've got the memory of a fish.

You know how it's sometimes so difficult to be yourself around people you're not totally comfortable with? It's like comparing Bella and Jacob to Alice and one of the Volturi grandpas, and Alice's such a perky one too. I meant personality wise. What were you thinking? Wait, I've got so stop using Twilight material to make analogies.

Back to camp, falling in at 6am tomorrow to welcome someone who shouldn't even be here! They really need to stop coming so incessantly.

xbox 360, or PS3...PS3, or xbox 360...

Either way, it's going to end up in one thing.

ROCKBAND 2

THE TIME IS HERE FOR ROCK, TO ROCK, AND ONLY TO ROCK!

And then there's Guitar Hero.

Sleeping at midnight would be early from now on.

I haven't been having the unbearable urge to run lately. I don't know whether it's because I'm lazy, I don't feel like it, or as yilin had said, I had a reason. And if I did, is it because I don't anymore?

Sometimes people say things could have been so much better if some people hadn't existed at all in their lives. Could be true. Not existing means they couldn't have done anything to you to make you feel like crap. Then again, these people aren't all that bad, if they are at all. A little something to remember every now and then would be to live not in denial, but in acceptance of people and with them, the consequences they bring.

When you get involved in a relationship, any relationship; be it friendship, a love-fueled partnership, a master-puppet relationship (oh god.), you effectively place yourself at risk. At risk of being betrayed, hurt, manipulated...well there's probably a lot more. If it turns out good, then great! Good for you, you happy little bugger. If it doesn't...cheer up, mate. Plenty more. Hopefully not more bad memories.

It can be very...discouraging sometimes, knowing the fact that you have to pick your moves so very carefully so as to save your own ass from meeting the cheese grater. It's also very selfish. Could be, actually, it's not a rule.

The choices we make steer our lives toward a direction we see fit, but in this boundless ocean where everything passes you by, like the countless shoals of fish riding the waves, guided by instinct, or moving randomly in tandem...if there's one thing we can never see, even with the most legendary of spyglasses...its our final destination.

It's so very complicated, being human. So...complicated.

So, do I still have a reason, or not?

Let's see, I was SUPPOSED to go for a run with cy this morning, but I woke up at 8:30 feeling so tired I decided not to. He'd only settle for a boring route anyway. Around our estate. How exciting. I'd intended to go to east coast. I don't know if I'd still be able to last that long now anyway.

Spent the entire afternoon at wei lung's place playing rockband on his PS3. Damn it was hella fun. I need to get me one of those things. Thing is, even if I could save enough for the PS3, I'm still short of a HDTV. Maybe I could connect it to my desktop LCD...hmmm.

Serangoon sure is a....strange place, for lack of a better word. Pretty girls, yes, though the majority of them would most likely have been still in class considering the time. The heartland mall at Kovan MRT was a hodge podge of ill-fitting shops. An insignificant piece from every department you could think of, and it was still missing an arcade and movie theater. Everything except the mall essentials. Perfect. I couldn't help but feel entirely out of place. Comfort zone lies in the East, sorry.

Found piece of pork in my hokkien mee during lunch at the nearby hawker centre. "ooops" was all I could manage, before sheepishly putting whatever other pieces I could find and finishing the rest.

Felt a bit weird on the way home. I'd taken Eclipse out of my bag and started reading from where I'd left off, and I think I noticed a few more-than-casual glances from a few girls in the immediate area on the bus. What, a guy can't appreciate a vampire-werewolf infested romance novel which goes on and on about the perfection of the one they call Edward Cullen? Wait, that sounds wrong already. Maybe the social stigma is no, a guy can't.

It's a little difficult to let go of hope, even if it might just be residual, when you're so used to clinging unto hope all your life, isn't it? I don't really like the idea of hope. Especially when it gets yanked out from under you. Hoping is like flying on a magic carpet, seeing the world through the beauty of its wonders alone. Take away the carpet...and you crash, but before going into a death spiral. And then what's left is the faint stench of crushed, splintered bone and contorted flesh. Revel in the death of your dream, then. It's too late to regret.

"But I couldn't have known..."

"Yes, you couldn't have known. So why did you hope in favour of success?"

"I thought..."

"You thought hoping would make you feel better about something that could, as much as turn out good, end up a smoking ruin. You believed that hope kept you alive and was the only thing that could make you stronger when everything else couldn't. I guess the one thing you didn't think about was what would happen when you found out that the hope was false to begin with."

Hope is what keeps people alive...it's just that, how can something so essential to the psychological strength and spirituality of humankind be, at times, so unmercifully devastating?

COG got postponed. Means more rehearsals at Mowbray.

Fail.

But we only 'worked' for about 3 hours today and still got monday off.

Win!

But more rehearsals means fail too.

Two fails and a win make........a fail.

I wonder, how appealing would it be, in self defense, to hurt a person so gravely he wished he hadn't pissed you off?

Let's see...

-A blow to the front of the knee cap (preferably a kick with the heel of the foot) would result in a rather...useless leg. And a lot of pain. Mostly the pain.

-A blow to the underside of the elbow would result in a rather...useless arm! Let's not forget the pain.

-Blow to the sternum with the knuckle...ouch.

-Blow to the kidneys. Double ouch.

-How about upwards along the nose? Could result in death due to the nose bone piercing the brain.

-Sideways into the temple! Bust a nerve, also resulting in death.

-Upward palm strike to the chin, and a blow to the adam's apple. ooo...I shudder to even think of the result.

-And then there is the eye gouge. You know the rest.

-A little slapping of the face while he's on his knees is always good. Humiliate him.

-And when all is said (or yelled) and done, shove him onto the ground and leave him to writhe and bleed.

Perfect.