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.

The Keys to Your Heart

You are attracted to good manners and elegance. In love, you feel the most alive when your partner is patient and never willing to give up on you. You'd like to your lover to think you are flexible and ready for anything! You would be forced to break up with someone who was emotional, moody, and difficult to please. Your ideal relationship is comforting. You crave a relationship where you always feel warmth and love. Your risk of cheating is zero. You care about society and morality. You would never break a commitment. You think of marriage as something that will confine you. You are afraid of marriage. In this moment, you think of love as something you thirst for. You'll do anything for love, but you won't fall for it easily.

Two things to do to seriously ruin a perfectly good Valentine's:-
1) Break up
2) Bring up sexual history

I came up with an incredible revelation on the bus: If you stick to the last quarter - feigning amnesia for the time up to that point - and discount blowjobs, you could actually bring the figure down to a single digit. (Hey, it's better than nothing.)

Throw in tax breaks for the ones that meant nothing emotionally, whose last names you can't recall, whose first names you can't recall (e.g. Armani guy), and you could even go down to five or less. But, why stop there? A couple more rebates and you're a virgin.

The tricky part comes when you try to define what constitutes sex. Does it count if he came, but I didn't? What if I came, but he didn't? What if neither of us came so we ended up splitting a pizza over a Meg Ryan film?

Don't bother debating this with would-be boyfriend, though. The more moralistic of the two of you will end up feeling as if he's having one pulled over on him. Avoiding or changing the subject also tends to come across suspiciously - for whatever reason.

Oh, and when you go, "Um... *pause* *roll eyes about meditatively* Only one," try not to give off a complicit grin, or feel too self-satisfied on the inside. The truth is, creative accounting is the opposite of healthy communication. Hence, if you're still remotely human, you should at least feel a twang of guilt somewhere in your being (if only in your right pinkie toe). Also, guilt is a negative and crippling emotion so acknowledge it for a second, then let it go :-)

Some of my favourite accessaries:

Experimentation begins in university.


High-class call-girls.


Foreign workers at large.


My 9 out of 10 (but happily attached).


SC girls: Future mathematician / anthropologist on the left; future tai-tai on the right.


Another 9 out of 10 (also happily attached). 5 feet 4 of sex, alcohol, and "fiddy cent".


"I see, I eat."


Singapore's number one SPG in disguise.


The face of teenage prostitution (blurred to protect the guilty).

And of course, all's fair... so here goes:

How to travel in style.


Mummy dearest and me. We also have matching spectacles from Iceberg.


The consummate outdoorsman always wears sunscreen.


And finally: Location, Pulau Ubin; Augustus was here :-)

It seems these days that one has to assume that the other individual is seeing other people on the side as long as one has not sued for monopoly, or even monopolisitic competiiton (or has mastered the ninja technique of side-stepping the matter when necessary). That is realistic, I think. It is rather New Economy-ish to remain a free agent for as long as possible. It is a bit of a bitch also. I guess I'm just an old-fashion boy.

Jin and I were debating the value of holding out for the right guy. Is there still value in keeping one's legs crossed and waiting it out before the serious set-up comes along? Is it considered in poor taste to give into youthful exuberance on the first date? Would one appreciate one's would-be partner more for not having played the village bicycle? Should one refrain from becoming said bicycle for the same reason?

In my opinion - and so as not to be a hypocrite - I cannot say I mind too much if my would-be partner has had his axles rotated here and there by other objective quality controllers. As long as he is in working order - no rusty edges or loose bits - when he comes around, I do not see an issue. Besides, who really has the time to grease up factory-condition parts anyway?

Somehow that reminds me of a conversation between two characters in this film I just saw: Slutty Summer (2004). The contention was whether or not one could consider handjobs and blowjobs "sleeping with someone." One character argues that, yes, handjobs and blowjobs count as fucking - but sleeping with someone has to do with quality. So five minutes at the gym is not "sleeping with someone." The other character argues that it is only "sleeping with someone" when there is anal sex - otherwise, all kinds of strange people could come out and say that they've "slept" with him.

I do not appreciate the way people equate serial daters with slags. Is it that difficult to believe that I have enough non-fuck-buddies to be able to go to three different events with three different people?

Ever caught oneself taking a whiff and saying "God, I just love the way you smell." - and that person hasn't had a shower all day - AND I don't even have a smell fetish. I think I'm fucked.

... And his name is David Choi. From the moment I laid eyes on his Vlog two hours ago, I knew that we were meant to be. Even now, I have his stoner-esque voice running through my head like a melody. I love the way his Asian features barely register emotions. I love the way he's so Korean-looking, he kind of reminds me of Margaret Cho. I love the way he sometimes sounds so desperately pained when he sings, the performance can only be interpreted as pure sincerity. Sure, he lives in Orange County where Marissa lives. (They've probably hooked up already - he's THAT irresistible.) Oh yeah, we've never met, but you know what, love is just a mystery that way.

To view his Vlog, click here. If you're a whiz, you'll even figure out how to find his other videos on Youtube. To make it easier for the rest of you, you may view the accoustic version of his original song, That Girl, by clicking here.

There's also this other girl, Esmee, who sings a lot better. She's just one of those people - she's so talented, you want to kidnap her and lock her in your basement like a trick parrot. But she's a chick. What am I going to do with THAT? Check out her rendition of John Legend's Save Room here. Her Beyonce, Mary J Blige and Gnarls Barkley (yeah!) are crazy awesome too.

P.S. Proper entry to follow soon.