The Confessions

It has been a crazy ride since school began. So far, my university life can be summed up by the inside of the year one archi studio - where time seems to escape without a hint. You begin to discover that, yes, you CAN go without sleep for up to three days. After 48 hours of wakefulness, it actually becomes quite difficult to coax oneself to sleep. There are no photos to be shown. Just eyebags and a new-found caffeine fixation.

My priorites have somehow fallen into this order: 1) course work; and 2) everything else. Maybe not just that. I have also somehow ended up with committee responsibilites and projects on the side: external relations director, World AIDS Day, freelance writing, looking into some design competitions on the side, still debating model UN research position.

I am still not even sure how friends fit into the equation. In this regard, I do feel monumentally guilty. Birthdays slip by, and all I can do is apologize after the fact.

Quite frankly, I have no clue how else to manage. Everyone seems to think that I am managing - even excelling. The truth is, I spend every spare moment I have mugging, researching - figuring out how to outdo, outlast my year-mates. It may only be this glimpse that everyone else sees that compels me to pull a rabbit out at crunch time. I fear I may be running out of rabbits. Now, I seem to know no way else to live.

Mon choux is a workaholic. He told me today that he has been sleeping at 5am and waking at 10am to go to work. This, somehow, makes me feel terribly inefficient by comparison. His willingness to make personal sacrifices accounts for his occupational success.

Either way, I shall stop feel sorry for myself now. I have my health. I have my mental faculties. I have Mon choux. If I also want to have a life, I will have a life. Just not now. No time right now. Note to self: Find time to have a life. Hope I still have friends when that happens.

Due to the limited number of seat, register at our website and collect their tickets from the respective ticket collection booths as soon as possible.

http://www.nuspa.org/cms/

Tickets will be issued on a first come first served basis.

Booth Details (Please bring along your matric card during ticket collection.)

Date:               12-14th September 2007
Time:              1130 – 1400hrs and 1600 – 1830hrs
Venue:            Outside LT26 (FOS)
Outside LT6 (FOE)
Central Library Walkway (FASS)

Please note that due to security reasons, try not to bring any big or bulky items as everyone will be subjected to security checks.

Day of the Event:  21st Sept 2007 (Friday)
Time                    :   7:15 to 9:30pm
Venue                 : Heng Mui Keng Terrace Auditorium 
                             (near Shears Hall / Kent Ridge Hall)

(Free Shuttle Buses will be provided (to and fro) from 2 locations for your convenience.

We are such camera whores, it is almost as if we climb just for the photo ops.


Me vs Sau Yee
Quasi thinks, "Like, yo, what's the big deal?"
Sau Yee thinks, "I AM tall - given the right shoes. Think happy thoughts."


Round 1: The Overhang
Boys, watch how Sau manhandles the wall with her grabby hands.
Quasi thinks, "&%£&!"
Sau Yee thinks, "$£*%!"


Round 2: The Drop Knee
Form counts, but no bonus for looking as if she's taking a poop on a crazy toilet.
Quasi thinks, "Concentrate! Be one with the wall."
Sau Yee thinks, "Hee hee... Walls make me happy."


Round 3: The Heel Hook
Double points for that levitating left leg.
Quasi thinks, "The mind is stronger than the hand."
Sau Yee thinks, "Hee hee... I'm happy."


Well, I guess we all know who wins. It's weird, but this photo spread leaves one with an odd craving for Cheezels.

I believe I can take a fair amount of shit from people. I am quite use to being judged by people who do not know me at all. They can call me a slut. They can make any amount of false accusations they want. My friends and the people who know me best know I am not this figment of imagination these assholes have in their pea-sized heads.

It gets to me when it starts affecting the people I love. It hurts when these vindictive people start going after the people I care about. It tears me apart from the inside out when these outrageous lies affect the one person I care about the most and make him question my integrity and my commitment.

I would like to know what I have done to deserve this, but I know that there is no rhyme or reason to the actions of certain people. The rest of us just have to pick up the pieces in the aftermath.

I need to keep myself together - try to keep functioning, eating, breathing. I am trying to be strong and trying to keep the boat going on sheer will.

All I can say is thank God for the strength of my friends. Without them, I would be a ship lost at sea.

Just as I have always believed, a hairdo can make a tremendous difference - sometimes not in a good way. I cannot believe she paid some Thai person to do that to her at the side of a street in Bangkok. Get a foot massage; get a cheap pedicure. Do not under any circumstance pay a Thai person to put fake hair into your rather more glamourous Toni and Guy haircut.

Maybe I am over-reacting. She DOES now look like a number of famous people: the lead singer of Counting Crow, all the chicks in Four Non-Blondes, the group of Jewish guys that sang "Baby, I Love Your Way" back in the 80s or 90s, some character on Babylon 5, the blue diva in The Fifth Element.

Sorry, O'Malley - I just could not resist. Although, as a friend, I shall have to look past this lapse of judgement and recognise the awesome, intelligent, black-ass chick hidden beneath that Muppet-top. Love you and miss you when you return to the States - and happy birthday!

Thanks for that wonderful bag in support of P. Hilton and the more tasteful maroon Puma, and the free chocolate thing from Starbucks. I will get you another you-know-what the next time you come back - or a gigolo, if that works better.

Anyone who claims to not need sex is a liar, and O'Malley, I think you have sinned enough.

You would think that loving someone would make the little compromises easier. It does not. It is not like in life-or-death situations when the pain mechanism gets re-routed. Some things remain difficult to accept, but you do anyway.

Mon Choux is working this weekend. He is juggling his numerous projects. This is me trying to be happy for him and his full plate. If you want someone ambitious, you have to put up with the workaholism, the lost weekends, the late nights. It does not get any easier, but you do it.

I have been supportive from the beginning. I have told him never to apologise for his work. I expect the same courtesy in return. This is me trying to be the cool, understanding, non-codependent guy.

I need my own life, and so does he. We have stayed in and stayed up late after a full day just to squeeze out an hour or two of time with each other, but we are just not the kind of people who needs someone joined to us at the hip.

Not sleeping with random hotties - that one is surprisingly easy. Being the level-headed one about the occasional melodrama or mood swing - manageable. Not getting to see him because he has to work - that one does not get any easier.

Mon Choux will be away for a full month in July and spending his birthday with his family. I cannot object to that. It is what he deserves. Besides, I will have school to keep me occupied. For now, he says I am his priority when he is free. Still, work is the eternal god and my own ambition prevents my tongue from any heresy in this church.

I guess I will have to get over this one. I may not be happy, but I plan on being the cool, understanding and non-codependent guy for a while. It does not get any easier, but you do it. Life goes on.

Day One: We make our way to the mystical Nyamuk, part of the Batu Caves, to begin climbing. Of course, Ken-doll decides to reveal the meaning of Nyamuk AFTER we arrive. Nyamuk means mosquito in Behasa Melayu - and there was an abundance of Nyamuks or more grammatically, Nyamuk-Nyamuk.


The climbing group: Sau Yee, Ben a.k.a. B-1, Ken-doll, and Ben a.k.a. B-2. On the right, me - somehow convinced that I should advertise the fact that we are climbing in Malaysia. I might as well have mouthed, "Malaysia. Truly Asia."


Left: See that speck on the top-left? That's me.
Centre: Close-up.
Right: Ken-doll and B-2 watching in awe.
...And if you have gotten this far without noticing the incongruency and going, "Hey, wait a sec. That can't be..." let me just confirm your suspicions: You ARE too dumb to be my friend. (Kidding lah, Roslan ;-P)


Number Eight Guesthouse: Our hostel for this roadtrip - where you can pay to sleep with a hot, half-naked German backpacker - well, at least in the same dorm as one. (You can steal his underwear - "Sau Yee, put that back!")


Left specimen features excess puffiness and evident lethargy. Diagnosis: Clubbing till 3 a.m.
Right specimen with cheesy grin: No coffee; breakfast untouched. 8 hours of undisturbed sleep (and a few uppers for the road).


Sau Yee climbing at Camp 5. Check out the money shot on the right: a drop-knee.


That would be me looking infinitely more impressive with a classic split in mid-air. Talk about spreading it for the camera.

O'Malley. What a prize she is.


Medicine undergrad by day; FHM girl by night.


Ben, Sau Yee and me at our gorgeous hostel in Kuala Lumpur. Yes, bed hair happens to us all.


Aiyah, some car lah. Exhibit A: Car with camera whore.


Sau Yee and the vastness which is Camp 5.


Me performing some rather unimpressive moves at Camp 5 - but check out those sexy legs.


Ben, me and Sau Yee. Saturday: Driving to Kuala Lumpur.


Ben, me and Sau Yee. Sunday: Driving back from Kuala Lumpur.