Hanging out at coffee shop

Burp!

Snacks @ central library

These are important things students cant do without during studying!!

My electric Bell

ramblings about recent nasty events

well, i was suddenly thinking about stuffs.. like how good life was when I was overseas traveling with my beloved friends, away from the restricting parenting i've at home. some of my friends (xiaoxuan for instance) would envy that my parents are actually strict to me at home, asking me to get home asap when its 11pm. However, I don't find that agreeable to my character at all. In fact, I become more rebellious. The worse is when you get scolded for something you did not do, or for something of which the idea would never have conceived in your head. Well, it kinda sucks when people devalue your character, and make you sound totally useless, like a slug (sorry to the real animal out there) or just like a parasite. make you sound like someone without a brain, without any know-how. Well, that's how it felt. I guess devalue-ing their children is something most parents do when they get angry, but i dun understand why it happens. I mean, just to make yourself feel more miserable, you insult your children. that's how ridiculous it sounds. Especially if the insult is made without any evidence of being true.

Well, i was initially gonna write about how amazing it was to live life without the constraints of parenting. But once i thought of that, i couldn't help but be reminded of the harsh realities. Why does my mom view me as a useless bum? It's because I did not do well in my O levels, did not do well in my A levels, and subsequently am getting second lower honors in my degree, which is so embarassing for her to mention to ALL her friends who value meritocracy and material needs, as are the other 99.99 percent of our local population. Well, what is success? Success is seen as possessing material wealth (they call it financial wealth, which i otherwise call as shallow and unreal), car (well, a car in singapore is something close to committing financial suicide, think of the high COE and ERP and Parking and whatnot), etc.. Well you get my idea. Since all these things are immaterial, what exactly is important in our life?

I really duno. Just a few days ago, I was thinking of how meaningless life is getting, with many things going out of hand and such. I mean, although initially I was hurt and upset, now I feel like angry that I was victimised for irrational things I did not even cause in the 1st place. Even though it could have been like a PMS or menopause, I don't think I should pathologise the anger-out episode as such, and forget that it might be caused by other factors. I mean, through studying the psychology of gender violence, we also learn not to think of the perpetrators of violence as being psychotic, since that view disolves them of the blame for the crime they've committed, and pushes the responsibility to the victims. We wouldn't agree to letting rape victims shoulder the crimes committed on them, right?

Anws, i realise I could ramble forever about this.
So just to conclude, I'm deeply disturbed at the state of things at home now. (short n sweet)

Crab Fishing @ Sembawang Beach

Be prepared for a long list of photos (My post is far down)The crab net as it first went into the sea

Arul's sis casting the 1st net

The 3 of us at the rain shelther

The starfish that was caught in our nets - the only thing we caught

crab that the crabman caught

Bait lying around

trek through the forest and rocky coast

Walking back to civilisation

Leaving it all behind (finally)

Taking dinner at coffee shop in Sembawang

WOW THE PHOTOS ARE SO MANY.. hard to write my post.. Anws, it was a sunny and bright hot morning when we reached the jetty at Sembawang.. we were full of expectations and totally excited to catch crabs.. We girls were complaining about the hot sun too! =p We cast out our nets and waited (n waited for the next half of the day) passing by without any crabs. Gradually our good moods turned vehement as our crabby neighbours caught one crab after another. Our stomachs could not withstand not eating crabs for dinner or supper for that matter. The initial thoughts of the spicy, delicious crab curry slowly crumbled into dust, like salt being dissolved into seawater. we examined the types of bait, how the crab net was cast, the location of the crab nets, and many other things our little noob brains could conjure that was vaguely related to crab fishing. However, our bait was never even bitten by any crabs, nor fish for that matter, and our hearts sank with that feeling that we wouldn't even taste the crabs tonight.

Thrice, Thrice - we saw crabs swimming along where we had cast our nets. But they didn't venture to our chicken wing. Well, we thought we should put fish as the bait. So we took one dead fish (dead for a few hrs, as it was caught earlier by a kid who had left it on the jetty to dry and die) and tied it laboriously on the bait line. Well, the fish was so slippery it couldn't be tied down by our fishing twine, so we had to cut lines on the fish to hook the fishing twine on it (Arul sis's idea). We were very hopeful that would do the trick, but no. nobody thought it was tasty. lols. to think that crabs are scavengers.

Anws, it was a fruitful day - for all other crabbers. This crab guy (as we call him, arul's arch enemy) caught like 20 over crabs. He had 6 crab nets so his chances were much higher than ours (we had only 1 pathetic net). Another old granpa crabber caught like 10 over crabs.. He had 4 crab nets i think.. haiz.. To think we only brought one .. Well, to say the truth, we didn't have any experience as all of us were going there for the first time, and also it didn't occur to us to bring more nets. Well done.

thus the day passed as we observed the veteran fishers casting their fishing lines skillfully and rather far into the sea, and endured the one hour long heavy rain which left the jetty empty except for the kids of the sea who were running about.. and the family who lives by the sea in their tents and stoves n such.. The ground on which we sat down at the shelter outside the restaurant was warm and inviting, abit cosy and we spent the time looking at the congregation under a neighboring pavilion eating a nice buffet, eveasdropping on the malay fishing dudes packing their stuffs, smelling some cigarette smoke, and eating our packed nasi lemak with some envious looks from the malay dudes. The rain pelted sometimes, and we decided to tell ghost stories.. I had an idea to play the dog and bone game, (i counted, there were 11 of us in the shelther) if I could organise the group into 2 and just play or something to pass the boredom, but I din't do it in the end.

Anws, after 3pm, we left the jetty thinking we might go to yishun or someplace to buy some fish for bait, and cos I was supposed to have tuition at 6pm.. Anws, we didn't. We went to another jetty that was visible from the one we were at. It looked rather near, and we walked along the coast towards that jetty, with our hearts lifting up abit as we left that place with pathos. Pathos is a new word that Arul keeps using lolz. Carrying the big basket we brought for keeping crabs in, with raffia string inside instead of crabs, i suppose we were kinda grudgingly trudging along. Well it turned out to be a super long walk and it felt like we would never reach the jetty.

We walked through the coast line, and the sandy beach for awhile before it ended in a reclaimed portion of the beach with huge rocks cemented together.. After that, it was a long trek through the rocks and alot of undergrowth that looked like they were entwined wires (my nightmarish encounters with wires lately making that electromagnet makes almost anything twined together look like copper wires!). Mosquitoes were rampant in that wet rocky place just beside the coast, as all of us got bitten and itchy.

Midway, we passed by another stretch of sandy coast where there was an Indian tourist like guy paddaling on his inflatable boat by himself, while his grouchy girlfriend (maybe wife) looked on and nagged. We giggled as we passed by, unable to contain our amusement. From far, the guy looked like a fishermen. Next, we saw some breakwaters by the beach, and 3 blocks of red colored wood mysteriously held by ropes swishing beside the breakwaters. They looked like coffins! The 2 were afraid, and I couldn't bear not to unravel the mystery of the caskets. So I adventurously volunteered to examine it. It turned out, after some poking, near slipping, and pulling of the rope by a big branch, that the red wood was solid wood. We concluded that there were no coffins by the beach. Actually, we found a dead skeleton inside and we were scared stiff.

After that scare (believe it or not), we trekked past a sweet-scented altar with many indian deities.

Well, after that, we walked for quite long onward. Arul's sister was slipping further back behind and I stayed behind to wait for her. Eventually we realised her slippers was too slippery in that terrain and I urged her to change into her sandals. The sandals proved much better a companion on her feet. Before long, our progress was faster and we reached 2 paths - one higher, one lower. I wanted to go to the one on top a grassland, where I thought led to someplace better like a tar road or something. But it was very tall grass and deep, hard to walk. So we did not go far before changing course. The lower path led to a small stream that was actually a big drain that empties into the sea. It looked dark inside and very long, as it echoes, there's an altar at the entrance (or end, depending on where you're looking at the drain). It was so inviting and I wanted very strongly to explore it. However i was held back by my fellow comrades as they advised me against it since we weren't prepared with torches. Oh well. I took their advice.

Anws.. this post is getting real long, to make it short, lets just say we were tired by the time we finally reached the jetty we wanted to.. and our bladders were kinda full. and we walked to civilisation following the police woman's directions, after briefly observing young people wakeboarding and old men being garang about his crab net and as a result lost 1 fish, caught the bus back to sembawang, and ate there..

thus ended the rather momentous adventure taken by all of us noobs.

p/s arul said we enjoyed ourselves really alot and learnt alot of stuffs related to fishing! haha

It was a really fun day, out with the 2 of them, and we felt like hanging out somemore.. The wonderful respite from our daily work and school stuffs was a welcome one, as our minds relaxed on things foreign to us, yet not so demanding and persistent. We'll surely return back to catch crabs again, and this sport has a high chance of turning into a hobby! Do tune in more to this blog if ur really interested in crab fishing!

once again, thank you for reading this super long post. Do leave ur footprints, and most of all, remember to cherish the crabs you eat!!

The return of the Jedi

Why? - Part I

sometimes life feels so meaningless. so empty. so boring. I feel like time has stopped, only to realise the time on the clock has moved by hours. The feeling is so alive, so real. Yet I know, I need to push myself and get the feeling out of my being. I no longer feel like doing much, pushing for anything, working hard for anything. Life becomes like it is - people walking past me, sun comes out and shines, the wind blows. Nothing becomes fun or exciting or stimulating anymore.

I seem to feel this existence that has come upon me, an existence speaking of nothingness. Yet it speaks something to my soul. It makes my head empty, it fills my stomach with dread, it looks upon me as a useless creature of the earth. This is a very simple, yet complicated feeling.

I do not yet understand from where it came to me, or in what form it came. I do not know how to handle it nor do I know of what will happen to me next. What I do know is that I spend minutes of my life just staring into space, zoning out, not finding interest in what I'm doing. That's only when I've finished working on my deadlines, of course. But a substantial time of my resting hours are spent just like that.

At first it revealed to me in the form of missing my friends. For some, or no reason at all, I really wish I could see my friends or talk to them. Makes me long for their company. Then, it revealed its form to me in other mysterious ways, like not wanting to eat or just wanting to do my work all day. It made me feel like reading books, just reading every single page and more books. I enjoyed that, and nothing else much. Last thing I know, I've suddenly become a slightly different person, just slightly. The feeling is subtle, but influencing me all the time. It maybe made me more or something and less of something. That something is still unknown to myself.

gender presentation remarks

Feedback given to our Gender Group by the prof

all we wished was for the class to participate more.. haiz.. i guess most other groups also found the same lack of response from the class as a problematic behavior .. at least our group had good time management! haha

Strengths:

1. Very clear speech of all group members
2. Lively and variety of presentation styles
3. Informative, with interesting research and experiment findings
4. Good summary at the end of presentation
5. Good time management

Improvements:

1. More involvement with peer students, especially during the first 20 minutes
2. More discussion with results and findings

Earth Hour

About Earth Hour
On March 31 2007, for one hour, Sydney made a powerful statement about the greatest contributor to global warming – coal-fired electricity – by turning off its lights. Over 2.2 million Sydney residents and over 2,100 businesses switched off, leading to a 10.2% energy reduction across the city. What began as one city taking a stand against global warming caught the attention of the world.

In 2008, 24 global cities participated in Earth Hour at 8pm on March 29. Earth Hour is the highlight of a major campaign to encourage businesses, communities and individuals to take the simple steps needed to cut their emissions on an ongoing basis. It is about simple changes that will collectively make a difference – from businesses turning off their lights when their offices are empty, to households turning off appliances rather than leaving them on standby.

Access the website here http://www.earthhour.org

yeah, i'm advocating for earth hour! all of us should conserve the earth's resources, and this is one big way to reduce electrical usage! pls spread the message around!