One hardly notices the strings in the background the first time you listen to a song

Nothing is ever what it seems on its surface.

Nothing.

All that undertones that people speak in, silent words surreptitiously slipped between sentences, a flicker of body language that's supposed to mean a thousand words - I just don't get it. I must be slightly autistic or something.

In Asian culture, every freaking thing is implied. It's implied that when a relative offers you help, you're expected to pay it back. When someone is of higher seniority than you, it is implied that whatever he says has gotta be right. If not, it's implied that you gotta pretend.

All this business irks me. Can't we just be honest and say out loud the words that we expect to be silently assumed? It's not hard to see why the westerners see Asian culture as an impenetrable wall of secrecy and unpredictability.

Another related grouse. When was the last time anyone here started a sentence with 'I feel that'? It might be Asian pride to look infallible and heroic and not express our doubts, but it's surely going to be seen as inflexibility and stubbornness.

Talk it out if you have to. Discuss things. Express your concerns. Before communication breakdown sets in and war ensues.

Nausea

Bloody military turboprop planes creating a din throughout a peaceful afternoon.

==

Why the fuck am I nauseous?

No, this is not a metaphysical Sartre discourse. Existentialism as a philosophy rocks, but it doesn't explain why my stomach is churning itself out like a washing machine set to maximum spin.

Argh.

Maybe it's psychosomatic. The more I blog about it the worse I feel.

At least it's a physical distraction from my crappy sorry state. I'd stay strong, be a pillar of strength for those around me. Keep the people around me happy, do well in school. But where do I find that strength? Nothing really motivates me.

Even if you win the rat race, you're still a rat.

Sometimes I wish I aren't as good a listening ear as I am. It sucks being saddled by the emotional baggage of friends, and AUGH. DO I LOOK LIKE A FREAKING SHRINK TO YOU. I HAVE PRESSURE. YOU HAVE PRESSURE.

And the worst thing is, the nausea is probably an impending gastroenteritis. Judging by the number of people I know who had recently suffered a similar fate.

==

And here's a smorgasbord of songs that I've been listening to lately.


The Rolling Stones - Angie


The Zutons - Tired of Hanging Around


Eels - Novocaine For The Soul


Manic Street Preachers - Everything Must Go

==

P.S. : Might it be the dead monitor lizard I stepped on the other day? They're known to harbour salmonella, a bad diarrhoea-causing bug.

P.P.S. : Be careful of what you trod over or roll over in Old Upper Thomson Road. It's where snakes/monkeys/lizards/birds/etc go to die.

I plead futility

Screw it. Things go right for me too rarely. Honestly, I'm totally sick of this helplessness.

How does one reconcile with the fact that I'm absolutely unimportant to anyone at all?

I could go on, pretend I'm ok, but the farce wears off pretty quickly and I'm knocked down into place again. I'm worthless shit who deserves neither to be seen nor heard.

In a world where failure begets failure, perhaps an escape route is necessary.

Misshapes, Mistakes, Misfits

Photos, photos, lemme rummage through a photo, just for the hell of adding colour to this photo. What's something Christmassy?

I could pass off the photo of a chicken I cooked as a turkey, but 1. it's only chicken breast 2. it's embarrassingly pitiful.

Ah whatever. Christmas is about lotsa red and green I reckon, so hell, I'll dig up 2 random photos of those colours.





Whatever. Can I admit that I have a compelling reason to blog, yet nothing to blog about?

==

Actually my life's pitifully boring. Damn you, boring school days!

Memory Man

Can you stand the Monday blues? It can't be the best of mornings when I gotta squeeze up a crowded SMRT bus (they're all impossibly crowded) for the first day of my new posting.

Hmmm I hope things will go alright, or else the exams at the end will be doomed!

Sometimes, I wish I were better liked.

My metal steed

I'm a freaking geek.



Yeah I admit it; I turn on the computer just to check the weather radar before I ride my bicycle. Rain doesn't ruin a ride, but it sure makes things uncomfortable.

Today's ride was smooth and good, except for the fact that I'm still a little weak after the bad cold the past week.

Finally adjusted the rebound on my suspension to give a plusher ride. I don't need a setting so stiff, since I'm much lighter than when I last adjusted it...



Rode on my cracking Larsen TT tyres, and after the ride, I realised that OMG the cracks have deepened. Alot. I gotta change them.



Being the cheapskate that I am, I'm fitting my old, abandoned Tioga Factory XC 1.95 rear tyre from 4 years ago that came stock with the old bike. The rolling resistance is embarrassingly bad; the tread profile would be what I consider an all-rounder - gripless on the road, and equally gripless off-road.

Figured, I should wear them out so that I can throw them out, before they start to undergo rubber rot. When it dies, my fast and light Schwalbe Racing Ralph will be rotated in.

Removing the tyres from my Sun Rims 0deg XC is a PAIN. PAIN in my fingers and hands, trying to pry out the tyre beads. Tyres fit really tightly on these rims. Ouch.

With stained fingers, painful hands and an exhausted body, you can tell why I'm not at my chirpiest.

==

It's tempting to get a new phone. And a 3.5G data plan to boot so I can surf the net and blog anywhere. But phones with good cameras don't have 3.5G, phones with 3.5G don't usually have good cameras, and phones with good cameras AND 3.5G cost an arm, a leg and possibly an eye.

But my Sony Ericsson k750i takes such damned good photos. I'd miss it if I ditch it for a Nokia.

But still, at it's price, the Nokia 6120 Classic seems tempting, for its smartphone capabilities, 3.5G and memory slot.

Those controls, those switches, the kinda precision needed

It's as though I'm In the flight deck of a large aircraft.



Pretty frustrated at the amount of upkeep computers and the data inside them require. Back up regularly, ensure that everything is working fine, get the software and antivirus updates to date, I can't believe the amount of time I spend keeping the computers working smooth.



Techmology. Iz it good or iz it wack?

==



The iPod Nano 3G I own is possibly one of the most boring iPods ever made in history. It's not even half a year, but people seem to have stopped talking about it altogether.

Rather, they're cooing and cawing over the new iPod Touch with its highly-smudgable touchscreen, cut-throat pricing and embarrassing bulk. But why?

The Nano 3G is simply too boring to talk about, because it's already doing everything right, while not throwing in any newfangled gimmicks. Fits into a breast pocket? Check. Reasonable capacity for its price? Check. Good usability? Check. And those are what, in my opinion, makes a good player. But they're never anything to shout about.

But there's this part of me that's resentful at having bought the most boring iPod ever. Sigh.

==

It must be true that I've been perkier and happier lately, as I've been enjoying alot of pretty funny conversations in school lately! Sometimes my mood fluctuations.... they scare me.

Random fact: a ketogenic (i.e. only having fat and certain amino acids) milk formula for the treatment of drug-resistant epilepsy in childhood costs $90 per tin. Each tin can last as little as 1.5 days in a 10 year old child.

==

I'm listening to Bloc Party pelting out pseudo-random rhythms. I don't even know why I bother.