not a very good gauge

Your IQ Is 115

Your Logical Intelligence is Below Average Your Verbal Intelligence is Genius Your Mathematical Intelligence is Exceptional Your General Knowledge is Above Average

A Quick and Dirty IQ Test

thanks to blogthings for this very inaccurate assessment of my IQ. it doesn't help that i did this little test in the wee hours of the morning. you can say that this is my zombie IQ.

i can say, though, that i'm a victim of the singaporean educational system. emphasis has been placed on mathematics and language from a young age, so my excellence in either field comes as no surprise. as for general knowledge, i began reading up heavily in JC. thereafter in NS, it has been downhill. that pretty much explains everything.

another sale

one for the shopaholics. if you've got the cash, go for energie. otherwise, just stay home and have mom's cooking.

but then again, it's an end-of-season sale. if i spot you in energie, i'm probably gonna tell you that "you're so last season". XD

oh no, not again / the brand-whore strikes

i woke up this (or yesterday, actually) morning with the intention of staying home for the day to recuperate due to my wounds of battle from breakdancing. but no, my mom had other ideas. it was the second day of the zara sale and she wanted to go down for a look. i was conveniently dragged along.

after the tremendous amount of shopping (and stuff that i purchased, and money that i've spent), i was ready to call it quits on retail therapy. the best way to cut the habit is to avoid getting near it. by that i mean, don't fucking window shop!

i swear i was this close to living a clean and healthy life of saving hard-earned cash. i was smsing lyn, telling her how i would not be spending any today. how wrong i was.

sigh.

temptation got the better of me yet again. unfortunately, the word 'sale' stands out more than any other object on the street. to me at least. ok fine, nothing beats a hot chick in a va-va-voom get-up. now let's get on to what this minor addiction did to my wallet (and mood) today.

oh lookie: a wrapped item! all brand-new, with the brand-new smell, brand-new touch, brand-new taste...you get the idea.

it's a freaking uber-cool sweater from adidas, the one which i've been eyeing!

ooooooh, i love it, I LOVE IT, I LOVE IT! adidas concept stores are having 40% sales on almost everything islandwide. so go grab ur adi-gear now!

the brand-whore strikes again. i couldn't resist this fcuk tee at 30% off. i'm becoming a shopping degenerate. help me.

alright. i'll have to put my foot down on this crap now. i've had enough of retail therapy (i've never been so happy) and retail therapy has had enough of me.

i shall stinge.
i shall save.
and i shall be healthy once more.

the pattern of my brain

gosh i just had to try this out after seeing it on ziyang's blog. i was genuinely curious about whether a simple test on blogthings can determine my brain's pattern.

Your Brain's Pattern

Your mind is a firestorm - full of intensity and drama. Your thoughts may seem scattered to you most of the time... But they often seem strong and passionate to those around you. You are a natural influencer. The thoughts you share are very powerful and persuading.

What Pattern Is Your Brain?

as it turns out, it's sorta correct. but then most of the stuff on blogthings are.

i seem to have the brain of an arts student. shirin told me during the OBS camp that i'm kinda artsy. i guess that's good. i'll be the interesting engineer in that case.

dancing till it ACHES

i danced a hell lot today, and experimented with the various breakdance moves with weihao and weihong (no they're not brothers). i haven't counted the number of one-legged swipes or 'plop's that i made today. the tremendous ache in my left thigh and palms should give a good estimate. i'm so so so tired. it's like i hopped 5km on just my cramping left leg. thank god for the break (pun not intended) in practice. the next slated session will be on monday. the weekend should be sufficient recovery time.

the 'big five famous dishes' were on the menu for dinner at holland v XO fish beehoon coffeeshop. fabulous meal. all i can say to the rest who went to swensen's is you missed the bomb. c'mon, you guys seriously dig baked rice? you gotta be kidding me.

the sights of north korea

have any of you seen any pics of north korea? or even been there? not surprisingly, the answer would obviously be 'no', since they don't actually welcome foreigners or cameras. so here're a few facets of north korea for you, without all the immigration hassle or worse, getting shot at by crazy soldiers wielding AK-47s and shrieking like martians. it's the next best thing to being there.

the entrance to the subway.

the decor is impressive. high-tech signboards in our own MRT stations are so cliched.

empty roads are common in north korea. it looks like a ghost town. creepy.

if i had to queue like that for a bus in singapore, i'd lodge a complain. typical singaporean behaviour. but it seems north koreans are a more docile bunch. the same can't be said of nuclear-loving kim jong il though.

what a cute outfit! the policewomen look like dolls.

this is a cool picture.

this looks like a nazi camp! without nazis and slaves though.

the most spectacular building on the north korean skyline. sad to say, construction was halted. what a bummer to know that the pride of the skyline isn't even finished.

this is what pyongyang looks like. i wonder if the lamps actually work at night. north korea seems like a very wayang place.

a park.

the north korean government knows how to protect its people from sunburn and shark attacks. they know how to keep out illegal indonesian immigrants too. but which dumbass indonesian illegal would wanna go to north korea anyway?

it's all grey, grey and more grey. i never realised or appreciated the colours in singapore. and i don't just mean the different races.

more pics here.

a different kinda mugging

i did my bit of 'mugging' (as carolyn puts it) last night and chanced upon these awsome videos. and what do you know, i learnt some breakdance steps overnight. for those who were gawking at my moves, do note that today was the first time that i attempted those stunts. it's simple, really.


the guy can do the wave thingy like a pro. oh, and the slide is super impressive. i'm having a hard time catching it. i still feel like i'm forcing myself to slide across the floor.


this is a step-by-step tutorial for the one-legged swipe. i managed to incorporate it into my solo move during the last part of our dance performance. the fact that a total newbie like me can carry it off shows the efficacy of this video. do try out the moves if you're interested, but please try not to break any bones or tear any muscles. i don't do medical insurance.

dance people

the displays at the esplanade basement are beautiful. i don't exactly have an eye for picking out the meaning of it all, but i guess they're nice.

thereafter, i met up yet again with the dancing scholars.

justin's a pleasant quiet guy.

the books at MPH were so tempting that i almost broke in. but actually, i hardly read. i'm still stuck in the first quarter of erin's angels and demons by dan brown. i haven't been able to sit myself down to enjoy the tome.

i'm sure carol's gonna puke blood soon. it's tough teaching a bunch of scholars with two left feet and no hip bones. just hang in there girl, we're just about halfway through. i think.

brand whore alert!

i confess...

i'm a total and complete brand whore.

love me or loathe me.

the model on the paper bag is hot by the way.

freedom

yesterday, i celebrated my first day of freedom. it was the first day in a long while on which i had nothing officially planned for me. no work, no DSTA course, no OBS camp.

i went to replace the stinky rotten pads on my oakleys and ordered a new white pair of spectacles from the optical shop. zhen hao, you're a bad influence. thanks to you, i've never felt such a strong need to get a new pair of optical bra.

and then guess what, i went shopping with mom. three days straight spent shopping. i'm getting too gay for this.

but first, let me harp on what the shopping expeditions have yielded.

the fossil wallet which i have been eyeing for, like, two days. haha! i just had to get it, no thanks to my current worn-out one.

guess belt with a very conspicuous G. it was on sale at half price, how could i resist? plus i do need a classy belt. i'm wearing it to the DSTA award ceremony. so watch out for the belt du jour.

i finally got my own sweater. from guess. it's rather ironic, since virtue is something that i know i'm pretty short on. well, at least when i put it on, i can wear virtue on my chest.

i also got a brandless astroboy tee from far east, but it's in the wash. it's not too good an idea to get a photo of it now.

alright, no more shopping from now on. time to stinge.

oh wait, i still gotta get a puma and adidas sweater! damn. ok, i'll just have to postpone my no-spending campaign.

dan-dan-dancing till the floor burns

i'm gonna be dancing and practising at the esplanade basement for the DSTA talent show every evening till this thursday. with the rehearsal/audition looming on thursday, i have psyched myself up for it. we're not even halfway done, so i guess it's time to turn up the heat. two hours of practice everyday will go a long way. if you happen to be around the esplanade this week, do drop by to say hi. and look at a bunch of future engineers prancing along to counts of "5-6-7-8".

we're gonna be dancing to will smith's "it's all good"; a groovy R&B number, but from way back in 1997, when mainstream R&B/hip-hop was still clean and healthy without too much skin, bling or guns. definitely appropriate for the minister of defence.

<-- look to my radio to sample the song.

and finally, i wanna say a big thank you to carolyn. not the chocolate-monster-blackie (haha!), but the fluffy dancer. kudos and claps for almost single-handedly choreographing steps and still being modest about it. she can be fierce though.
"raise your arms at right angle!"
"don't move your shoulders!"
"everything has to be forceful!"
"i'll kick your ass if you don't bloody get it right!" (kidding...)
but that's what an instructor's gotta be made of.

fuckity-fuck

the definitive south park moment. long live bad language and crude expressions.

forza azzurri!

italy are through! no thanks to the referee's red card to materazzi, but thanks to totti's well-placed penalty. i can hear the boo-hoos from down under already.

me supporting italy may seem kinda ironic, given how i'd like the more adventurous and exciting teams to win the "cup that fits all". but seriously, what's there not to like about italy?

apart from the kit's nice blue colour, there're plenty of reasons for my italia-philia. like pasta, the sicilian countryside, D&G (and italian fashion), and dark-haired girls with beautiful eyes.

i have to visit italy some day.

soccer siao

for the funny...


and the violent...


miss of the world cup

even my grandma could prod it in. or maybe not. but i'm sure an overweight ronaldo can get his fat foot to it properly.

besides argentina's 6-0 victory over serbia and montenegro, this year's world cup hasn't set too many hearts pulsating. with england just through to the quarter-finals thanks to a mundane 1-0 win over ecuador using even more mundane tactics choreographed by an ultra-mundane manager (sven goran e-dick-sson), i don't have much hope that it'll turn into a firecracker of a tournament. most of the excitement surrounding the world cup is built around intensive media hype. i do hope the adventurous teams win the ultimate prize. by that, i mean germany, argentina, probably spain, and of course my fav team italy. which, i know, is an irony. if you know football, you'll know what i mean. ;)

more of munshi

i finally got some pics of the watch on ubin from manling's blog. manling. sheesh. think duckling. haha. ok, it's man_ling from now on.

we took the best theme ride available in OBS: the cutter sail. no entry fee, rocks the shit outta you, has "excellent" toilet facilities and is oh-so-conducive for sleeping. could we have asked for more?

i couldn't hold it back anymore. i had to take a little potty-call in the bucket.

a nice group pic. junyi had a mysterious leg cramp.

wei hao converted his ultra-lameness to ultra-potential energy, resulting in him leaping almost like a frog.

someone farted at nydc. you could tell from the looks on man_ling and weijie's faces.

get more of the munshi-licious pics here.

the tiger's first outing

i wore my asics onitsuka tiger shoes for the first time today. they're a beauty. they're uber-cool.
fabulous. period.

munshi breakfast, baby!

breakfast at mcdonald's suntec. the drinks lined themselves up on the table while darren was still asleep. i drowned my hotcakes in maple syrup. carolyn finished her McMuffin in a flash. zhen hao was over the moon with his big breakfast. we finally answered our McCravings.

outside n.y.d.c. for desserts and more.

the cake arrived much to the delight of fluffy pig and sporty pig.

nope, my momma didn't teach me not to play with plates at the table.

the left side of the table was getting heavy.

our meal was interrupted by the fattest, ugliest, most hairy monster of a waiter. i almost refused to pay service charge.

we look like we're fighting over something. probably the award of dumbest pose.

mr chng will enter the matrix to battle agent smith in a short while.

english lessons

useful lessons for the non-heartlander; re-affirmation of ah bengs and ah lians' linguistic abilities.

1) LILY - (adverb) Really.
"Wah, you lily can sing well ah!"

2) VALLEY - (adverb) Very
"Look! My Versachee belt, valley nice hor?"

3) GORGES - (adj) Gorgeous
"Wah! Ah Beng's girlflan is valley gorges leh!"

4) CORAL - (verb) Quarrel
"Why, you not happy, ah? Want to coral, is it?"

5) REEF - With
"You lily want to coral reef me ah?"

6) ALTITUDE - (adjective) Attitude
"Ah Lian lily got a bad altitude ploblem".

7) CIRRUS - (adjective) Serious
"You cirrus or not?
Dun bruff!"

8) CANOPY - (phrase) Can Not Be
"He bought new handphone? Canopy lah! Where got money?"

9) OLDLADY - (adjective) Already
"Wah...you finish oldlady ah."

10) SUIT - (verb) Shoot
"Suit! Suit! See goalkeeper come out oldlady."

11) SOW - (verb) Show
"Sow me, sow me your new ting."

12) LOAD - (noun) Road
"We go Orchard Load leh."

13) BLINK - (verb) Bring
"What you blink for me? Sow me, sow me."

crass-lee

guess who? it's ashlee. if you haven't been too updated about the crappy pop scene, you would have mistaken her for big sis jessica. after a nifty nose job and new natural blonde locks, she looks just like her sis now. with smaller boobs and a ridiculously thin voice. whatever happened to the rock chick attitude? what a fake.

a little bit about shopping

after the breakfast-cum-lunch with fellow munshi-mates (although i could have easily mistaken all of them for pigs while they gorged endlessly on their fare. five days in ubin can turn normal human beings wildly ravenous.), i was left alone. all of them had either stuff to do or a girlfriend/boyfriend. at first, the thought of walking around alone kinda made me feel a tad miserable, but going home so early would be boring.

i took the step forward into the spanking new fossil outlet. everything was leather, leather and more leather. an entire rack of wallets stood in the right section of the store. oooh, the smell of fresh new leather wallets. i need one right now, with my billabong one fraying and slightly tearing at the seams. yes, i've spotted a damn unique one. $58. i'll give it a little thought. but at the moment, it's status is under "I GOTTA BLOODY BUY IT".

immediately, i felt at ease. hanging around alone makes me rather sheepish sometimes. but shopping calms me down. just looking at all the nice merchandise makes me happy. it's interestng, really. i don't necessarily have to buy it. (when i buy, it's called retail therapy, and the miracles it can do to my mood are immeasurable.) shopping is a wonderfully relaxing activity. i felt liberated as i browsed through topman, puma, newurbanmale and adidas.

so, right now i have a small shopping list. a puma sweater, an adidas sweater (both of which i can obtain at staff discounts of 30%, thanks to friends in the right places), a fossil wallet. and possibly something from pony since i have a 20% discount voucher. i'll wait till when the new stocks are released.

Munshi 2006

a scan of the photo that i bought from OBS.
back row (L-R): manling, wen jie, celestine, darren, zhen hao, wei hao, junyi.
front row (L-R): carolyn, shirin, khoon kiat, gideon, me, aloysius, kenneth.

back from the outward journey

hey all! i'm back, finally. you can start sending your emails and smses now!

the OBS trip has been enriching and tiring. activities aplenty and fun at it's outdoorsy best, the experience has left me with lasting impressions of my watch mates and my legs peppered with all sorts of insect bites.

my email inbox has been flooded with fifteen new messages. however, my handphone isn't nearly half as popular with only a paltry three smses. one of my watch mates had new smses in excess of twenty-five. sheer madness.

but most importantly, tonight i get to enjoy air-con, the internet, my handphone, bed and world cup. i'm disappointed that the czech republic is out of the tournament. sad isn't it?

but in the meantime, there's plenty of catch-up to do. i've been away from civilisation for the past few days and the world has obviously moved on without me.

i should be meeting my watch tomorrow morning at suntec mcdonald's for a bit of indulgence. thanks to zhenhao's mc-cravings, i think i'm having hotcakes. hopefully i'll be able to get manling's msn contact and coax some photos outta her. watch this blog for a mini pictorial on the ubin sailing escapade.

the tide is high

but i'm holding on.

i'm gonna be your number one.

i wonder how high my tide is.

all packed and ready to go

my bag is packed, lying expectantly in the corner of the room. five days, one island, one survivor...oops, wrong description. one daniel la.

yes i'll be confined to OBS on pulau dustbin-ubin for the next five days, braving not just the sun, sand and sea, but probably also mud, high/low rope elements and a bunch of DSTA scholars. my future colleagues. help! haha.

please don't expect much blogging from me for the next five days (in fact, don't expect any!). you won't be able to contact me via mobile or email. not even telepathy. i'll be going for the outfield experience of my life. well, sorta. it won't be too tough, but it'll be fun. so let me enjoy myself on the pulau while you all get on with your busy lives.

this isn't sentosa, but i'll say it anyway:
"pulau life, love it!" (i promise that i'll try to, at the very least)

i hate the weather

the weather sucks! it rains when it's most inconvenient, and it's hot as hell when i'm at home. the humidity is overwhelming. i feel like i can take another three more showers before i sleep tonight.

what makes it worse is that i'll have to brave this dumb weather for the next five long days in pulau dustbin-ubin.

i might be freezing my ass off in michigan soon, but it's gonna be a welcomed change. everybody needs some change once in a while. anything to get the layer of sticky shit all over me now. all thanks to the humidity. blast it. if there's anything worse than the government, it's gotta be the weather.

south park on random scribbles episode ten

this is my most inaccurate portrayal of a character, but it is one that i have highly anticipated. let me present clarence! XD

this is certainly not a clarence look-a-like. but i think it's clarence in his true form. it's what he has always wanted to look like, and i have published this picture on my blog for the whole world to have a glimpse of what goes on inside his head. the facial hair is very french by the way (he took french elective in vjc). i'm not sure if he put on all that fake hair for the role of the ideal husband.

clarence, i dare you to put it on your blog!

who's your daddy?

my drawing of myself on the first day of DSTA orientation courses.

self explanatory.

46th ain't too bad

an envelope from the mailbag was on my table when i came home yesterday. it was curiously thin and curiously from a company that i've never heard of. what lay inside was a very pleasant surprise: a letter informing me that i had won the 46th prize in the PC show lucky draw! not bad, even though i only won ONE prize when i had entered FORTY-THREE tickets into the box. and thanks to clarence for running over to suntec from carl's jr marina square to hand in the tickets while zhenhao and i sank our teeth into some unhealthy fast food.

the prize is a set of Le-Mon @cube speakers. i have absolutely no idea what the brand is and how the speakers look like. searches on yahoo have turned up nothing. oh well, we'll just have to wait and see.

gluttony

i've been pigging out and that definitely makes me a pig. on sunday, i had holland v xo fish bee hoon, crispy fried chicken, fish hor fun, mango paste with plum and sago, faiveley chardonnay, a $2 tower of FOUR ice cream scoops ( banana and mocha) and a few bites of bak kwa pie (cute). phew. if you're gonna read that list out, make sure you take a long deep breath before you proceed.

rachel is partially to blame for my recent binge. i mean, yes, i am most certainly at fault, because it's my own hands feeding my own mouth, but we all know how evil is contagious. gluttony, especially, in this case. and we all know rachel's insatiable appetite for everything sweet, salty and tasty. check out this cup cake site. i think she's gonna make an enormous order from there soon.

i met jo early today and we horsed around a bit at raffles city espirit. it's true when they say that anyone can look good in aviators.

by 8pm, it was on to fishermen's wharf for dinner. delicious fish n chips are the only stuff on the menu. but that's all you'll ever need there. lovely stuff.

the francophile on the right is heading for paris (yet again!) this thursday. "i'm going to paris, honey!" he better get some godivas when he comes back.

the four of us. lovely photo.

there was a sudden urge to go kawai.

my second binge in three days. these sinful desserts are, clockwise from bottom-left, soffiato, bunet, diplomatica and cassata siciliana. of course, i got the most exquisite-sounding one of them all (cassata, duh). at half price after 9pm, this delectable ricciotti fare was irresistible. thanks to rachel and ben's lustful urges, which led us to the restaurant. i don't regret it though. the cassata was superb. ugh, that means i gotta do 10km this week. dang.