Wednesday, November 29
Group shot at Soeul Garden: SAF Band B makan session (22 Nov 2006)
Meridians in SAF Band B..
With our Director of Music, LTA Tan.. sporty isn't he.. he's a nice and funny guy..
SAF Bands Training Wing: Batch 67 rocks..
Bowling after our buffet.. First timer causing a stir (child prodigy Sunil, Bomberman Yi Ming)
11:32:00 PM
Saturday, November 18
-FRIENDS- a message to all
Friends are - those who keep you company when you are bored
- whom you have fun with cause there is none alone
- an ego-boosting display for a popularity contest
- channels where we can showoff our knowledge and superiority
- individuals whom you hold no responsibilities to
- avenues to pour your woes and worries and not feel bad about it
- companions during bad, depressing times
- people whom you use to get you further in life and dump when they run out of use
sounds different from the usual greetings that you may fave received regarding friends? Well, let me offer a twisted version of your usual "friends greetings". We all want to believe that friendships are the most beautiful, and most importantly, free-of-charge, things that can happen to us. However, there is always a flip side to everything in life and friendship is no exception as well. To many people, friendship can be classified into many levels - casual friends, close friends, best friends forever etc, but at the end of it, it boils down to the points stated above. Isn't it?
Along the way, people lose contact with their old friends and make new friends, at the same time keeping in touch with those whom we call "best friends". Lets just say that friends whom we've lost contact with failed to impress us further and there is hardly any fun hanging out with them. So losing touch with them is very unfortunate and regretted. And those whom we make along the way prove themselves to be useful in many occassions and gave us joy hanging around them. at least for now. Whereas people who transform to become our "best friends" have either absolute tolerance to our endless self-pity or humility so as to make us feel superior at the expense of their inferiority or are great liers so as to make us feel better about ourselves. Nonetheless they have proven their use and remains in our list of friends so as to get us moving in life.
I have never look at friendship from such point of view because from my persepctive, friendship goes beyond the superficial. It is not about the individual but more so a group effort to make the relationship work. It is true that friends are people whom you have fun with, share your worries with, make you feel better or worse about yourself and so on. But these are the superficials that I'm refering to. If you base your friendship on how much fun you had with a person or a group of people, the number of times they keep you company when you are bored or sad, then you are not far from the description i have made in the previous paragraph.
It takes a minor event to discount all the fun that you've had with these people whom you call friends. I have seen many cases of such incidents and personally I have been through them as well. And it hurts to know that people whom you thought were good friends with you turn out to be company-seekers or simply after the fun of it. It takes a small little argument to break this "friendship" you have forged with them. This is because friendship is all in the name of fun, and there is no effort in strengthening this brittle bond that makes up this friendship. If one does not appreciate this friendship and the person he engages with, the bond created is as quickly as it is broken.
Friendship is about learning from one another. Learning how deal with interpersonal relationships; learning how to give and take; learning how to listen to one another; learning ways to deal with and or solve problems; learning to be humble and accept that you're not the most superior being around; learning how to make use of your friends' talents and creativity to make you a better person, learning to be appreciative of others. It is hard to do all these but if everyone is able to do so, we might wake up and find ourselves surrounded by best friends we didn't knew was possible.
12:21:00 AM
Friday, November 17
Fish & Co with SAF band mates (12 Nov 06)
Sentosa Outing with my buddies (11Nov'06)
Genting Trip With Family (27-29 OCt06)
1:05:00 PM
Tuesday, November 14
warning: plot spoiler for desperate housewives fans (Season 3 Episode 7) *read at your own risk..."We can't prevent what we can't predict." was a line quoted from the latest episode of desperate housewives season 3 (S3E07). I believe many, and so do I, will feel strongly that this has got to be the best episode that has ever been screened in the entire series of
desperate housewives.Every episode of
desperate housewives brings with it a theme/ issue that it intends to explore, at the same time contributing to the overall storyline of the series. In this latest episode of the series, the idea of negligence and unmindfulness are being weaved into the episode. We see Lynette Scavo dreaming about her last conversation with Mary Alice Young before the latter took her own life. Lynette's recurring dream about this incident could be attributed to her guilt for her inability and perhaps oversight at preventing Mary Alice's death, despite sensing that something was troubling Mary Alice. The episode concluded on a hostage situation at the supermarket where Carolyn Bigsby demanded a confession for her husband's philandering. Lynette inadvertedly tells Carolyn during an argument with Nora that Nora tried to seduce Tom causing Carolyn to shoot Nora in the chest, killing her. After Carolyn says that Lynette wanted Nora dead, Lynette, horrified, starts screaming at Carolyn. She says that everyone has pain, but "what we don't do is go around shooting strangers!" and, at the end of the diatribe, that "maybe [Carolyn] deserved to be cheated on."
As much as the tension erupts within the scene, we are reminded of the general theme that makes up this episode. Lynette's inadvertence to Mary Alice's woes and dismissing it, hoping that the next minute everything will turn out fine just like usual. It leads us to think about our daily responses and attitudes towards people and events around us. Are we attentive to our surrounding and people? Do we know what others are feeling? Our society desensatises us and our responsiveness to the feelings of others because we get so caught up with our own lives that it leaves very little room to bother about the lives of others. We tell ourselves that others do not have worries or pains that are comparable to ours hence it is unnecessary to ask or probe into their matters. And the next time we see them, they will be full of smiles and without worries. And for ourselves, after a good night sleep, another beautiful day awaits us, cleansing our wounds and pains from yesterdays, when we know that these sadness never leaves us or people around us. This creates a situation where we take others for granted and expect the world to revolve around us and that nothing else precedes over individuality.
It takes something drastic and beyond the ordinary to wake us up and tell us that we are not alone in our woes and worries and it only a matter of how each individual copes with them. At this point people find themselves paying a price or regretting and hoping that things could have been different or wish they had done something differently. If we had expected all these, could we have prevented it? Perhaps. But the statement holds true that how are we to prevent what we cannot foresee or predict. And I believe that with mindfulness and observance to things and people around us, we may find ourselves free from a lot more problems than we already have.
1:32:00 AM
Friday, November 3
Yet another day spent playing music, joking around in SAF bands. I'm pretty glad we sounded alright, actually good, today as it has been pretty long since we last sounded decent and we have been getting a lot of stress from our management. So thankfully for today, it left the management with little to grumble about. The rest of the afternoon was just slack day so I went swimming with wee kiat instead of consuming my lunch. What an exciting life I have, isn't it?
So I came home, bath, stoned in front of the computer (watched death note anime) and now I am feeling sleepy even though I slept at 7pm yesterday all the way till 6am this morning. I guess I'm forcing myself to sleep because I am feeling kind of pissy now and so to avoid myself from landing in a catastrophic foul mood, I shall just close my eyes and rest early...
The only thing that can now make me happy as I close my eyes is the news that my tuition kid scored A1 and A2 for Maths and Science respectively. I am glad my first tuition kid actually did so well in his exams and I was involved in this whole process. I must say he may not always be good at the subject but he will definitely go the mile to learn and improve it which explains his results and I am very proud of him. (Finally a taste of being a teacher..)
Come think of it, at this time next year, I would have collected my ORD cert and will be resting at home, thinking about these two years and the future ahead. I have served my NS for almost half of the term and there is another half to go. I have no idea how I survived this one year, actually less, but anyway I did. BMT has got to be the most memorable and also where I met many great personalities and characters. And I missed the times spent with each and every single one of them. It was also the time when I felt that I am a useful and valued member of a group. In fact everyone was an essential to the team.
And tomorrow shall be another day which I have no idea what to do... life of an NS man, after BMT...
11:37:00 PM
Group shot at Soeul Garden: SAF Band B makan session (22 Nov 2006)
Fish & Co with SAF band mates (12 Nov 06)
Sentosa Outing with my buddies (11Nov'06)
Genting Trip With Family (27-29 OCt06)
