The Exclamation Mark Blog!

I've seen so much of all this stupid furore over this blogging shit. Naturally I'm curious enough to know what's the appeal in writing crap over some internet diaries. I used to feel that these people who actually resort to writing blogs are total losers who are so desperate for attention that they have to resort to internet blogs to do so. I also used to think that bloggers were uber geeks, and for the guys, either they are decked in some thick brown spectacles and dressed like a total newb. As for the female bloggers, I thought they looked like the were one of those kind that did not in a million years have a chance of losing their chastity.

But now, here I am, in Raymond and Marilyn's blog, actually doing the one thing I thought would relegate me to the depths of perpetual bachelorhood. It may be a tad bit dramatic, but I can be freaking conscious of such social stigmas. Either way, Raymond has invited me to this blog to be a guest blogger. Just a warning, I'll probably be a voice of dissent rather than agreeing with all Raymond's religious mumbo-jumbo ramblings.

To be frank, I'll be an angry blogger. All the famous bloggers are all angry bloggers right, I heard? Either way, given all Raymond's jovial light-hearted mumblings, I think my very intelligent bitchings will bring some much needed balance to the blog, not to mention also sanity to non-Christian readers. Still living in a regulated society like ours, with so many constraints, I still have to watch what I say. As reluctant as I am, I have to respect the wishes of Raymond and Marilyn the blog mistress, which is to keep this blog profanity free. Which means in other words they're asking me to crucify my tongue. Literally. Oh well, whatever rocks their boat. I'll try to be as uninhibited in what I say as possible.

Still, not using vulgarities to express my feelings and thoughts are tantamount to castrating myself, not to say vulgarities add any worth to my masculinity, but it has become second nature to me to say those words. As such, I'm going to substitute all 4 letter words starting with F ( there Raymond, I didn't break the rules right?) with the word POCK. And the four letter word starting with S, will be substitued with bollocks. Because I can't pocking live without using that pocking word! Rules are meant to be bent huh.

I'm not going to reveal much about myself, because I'm afrad I'll get all sorts of weird socially deprived internet geeks rallying to me like I'm David Beckham or something. As I said, I believe ( an still do) that most bloggers, perhaps excluding ( Raymond and Marilyn, as I said I've got to watch my pocking tongue) are really uber nerds hidden behind the computer putting on a facade of coolness to their fellow net geeks. I'm not going to pocking turn into one! In fact, the whole precept of this blog thing to me is like one massive nerd-rally of sorts.

Ok, seriously, all the above bollocks above are highly exaggerated. If you feel extremely pissed off with what I just said, pock off, because you aren't ready for me. But seriously, I do not treat myself seriously and neither do i think my readers should to themselves. In fact, I am informed that many bloggers now are rather ...hot, and this girl named Xiaxue birthed a whole sexy blogger movement. What bollocks is that?

Man, this blog crap isn't so bad after all! Watch out for me soon!

Pro 16:32 " He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city."

Rom 6:12-13 "Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God".

I am so weak. I really do not want to go back to my old ways. I haven't been like for some time.
Anyone out there reading this, just encourage me, but more importantly, scold me! Rebuke me! Do something to wake me up! I do not want to slip back to the whole arduous struggle with lust. I need to make the right choices in my life. And I need strength to do it. God's strength. But also wise words from a friend. Help me.

So Good Friday and Easter has just come and gone, with the twinkling of an eye. I'm glad this Easter has been a much more fulfilling one for me than all my Easters spent in the church in the past. Attending a totally cool amazing Sunday service and then going to my district to bring the elderly to church, seeing them enjoy themselves, getting healed, and getting to know the love of Christ, it is all so rewarding in the end, and makes one feel that it is worth every little iota of effort and sacrifice.

I came across Marilyn's new blog a couple of days ago and read about how radical, yet very unknowledgeable and irrational religious zealots are resorting to acts of self mutilation to express penance for their sins.

As Marilyn puts it on her blog:

in fact, i was shocked by the images of people crucifying themselves in the likeness to Christ as "penance". somewhere in this planet, believers are whipping their backs red, dragging the cubersome cross and nailing themselves in the likeness of crucificion to commemorate good friday.

I was highly disturbed by this shocking piece of news, and proceeded to comment on her post. ( By the way, good work Marilyn! Your new blog has tons of potential.) Anyway, a seemingly inconceivable act of self mutilation to express repentance can actually be easily explained.

These group of people obviously have a good intention of wanting to repent. They want to express remorse over their sins. However, even in that intent itself is an inherent flaw in attitude. It is one thing to express remorse over sin to God, and it is another to want to express it before the eyes of the public. These people, at least in my opinion, are flagrantly playing a game of 'I-am-holier-than-thou' by choosing to express their 'holiness' before the eyes of everyone. Perhaps it is wrong to judge them because we never really know whether it was their intention to publicly portray their "repentant heart". In fact, they could genuinely be wanting to show penance to God for their sins.

Either way, I was also troubled by this fact because it is clearly stated in the bible that we are saved not by works, but by grace. Yes, the Bible statest that "faith without works is dead", but that does not mean we go about trying to redeem ourselves by our own human means. Acts of goodness and love should be a by-product of our faith in God, and it is also a natural progression of our character. But acts of goodness should never be elevated to the point where it becomes, in our eyes, more instrumental to ur salvation than God's grace itself.

Part of me can't help thinking that these people are subjecting themselves to such archaic, stone-age means of self torture because the pain they receive from such acts may do a little to soothe their conscience. Maybe for the 363 days besides Easter and Good Friday, these people live out lifestyles that are ungodly and totally unbefitting the name of a Christian. Smote by their consciences, the only way they can actually receive some kind of soothing is to channel those raw feelings of guilt and emotion to a physical outlet and thus they chose to endure physical pain.

I'm glad this Easter that I've got such a God of grace as my Saviour and my Lord.

Everyone, if you're currently drowning in the endless piles of work you have in the office, or if you're getting tired, weary and depressed from the drudgery, monotony and dullness of your everyday life, or when you feel so stressed out and can't take the agitating hustle and bustle of the crowds at town, please continue reading on.

Just 2 days ago, I decided to do something I loved to do during my JC days. These couple of days while I'm on leave, I've been totally addicted to Warcraft 3 battlenet, playing a map called DOTA, and having a ravenous, seemingly insatiable appetite for it. I just keep playing and playing for hours and hours non -stop. Getting extremely agitated after rounds of bad games, I decided to take a much needed break from my long hours of gaming.

And I went to starbucks, in the evening, all by myself, to read my book. Lady luck's a friend when you get the sofa seats at Starbucks nowadays. And that's what I got! I grabbed a cup of Caramel Macchiato, Grande size, and proceeded to savour every single drop of it while also savouring the aroma with relish. Sipping on it, reading my magazine and my book, looking around and observing people, basking in the serenity of the atmosphere and just generally being totally in my own element. It's like a taste of heaven of earth. 100% Pure unadulterated delight. The shackles of pesky burdens are let loose and you're just free from the world just for those fleeting moments!

I have to go back to starbucks. And plus the people there are FANTASTIC. Even the barrista's a great guy. Lots of VJC babes not to mention. Heh.

This is another crappy, incoherent, silly, dumb musings on my pathetic attempts to try to become cooler and to increase my sex appeal. I turn I am turning this blog into an inspirational read to those who are seriously feeling down about life. If you think your life is pathetic, try reading my blog and you'll realize how much more pathetic my life can be. :D

Ok so yesterday, I met up with my church friends Dale and Jingfa, and went out to Orchard. Ate and drank some stuff at TCC at Cineleisure and I realized I'm kinda sick of ice blended coffees. I only got halfway through my cup of Iced Cappucino and I realized that I couldn't get through it anymore.

The whole meetup with them soon progressed to the point where we didn't know what we wanted to do, which is extremely common with my church group. Despite much coaxing, I failed to budge in my decision not to join them for dinner at Marina South, citing my personal reasons of wanting to save money, and to watch my diet. Both of which are true. And yes, guys need to watch their diet too. You look at every model on every health magazine and they always say they eat small meals and cut down on unnecessary fat. So watching your diet is the first step to getting that drool-some 6 pecs that I desire!

So after not being coerced into breaking my health goals of getting my much wanted 6-pecs by not agreeing to eat the buffet dinner with them, we were desperately brainstorming of something to do. Lan shop was full, so we were unable to play there, and I grudgingly decided to go with them to the Pool Hall to have a game of pool with them, knowing that my pool skills suck to the max.

Entering into the pool hall, I was filled with a sense of trepidation because I have not actually played the game in eons, and I was starting to get interested in learning billiards. The thing with pool is that evey time you enter into the pool hall, you see thsee kazillion secondary school ginas laughing hysterically like they're on dope or something, and you see these super hot babes who strut around with their cues in hand and they strut more than they actually play. Not that I'm complaning, of course. But more common than that are those chicks who THINK they're hot and they TRY to strut around TRYING to act all cool, but it entirely backfires on them. Haha. Sometimes I wonder why people can't just play and joke and have fun and all, and not do the whole act-cool routine at such places. The more prominent pool halls you go to, the more such people exists. Some pool halls are not smoke-free, which totally gets to me because I'm hyper sensitive to smoke. My nose gets all stuffy the moment I come across smoke. Which is why I enjoy going out with my friends, because they're so short on pretensions and they just play and have fun at such places, instead of using such places to actually pick up all sorts of undesirable people.

Having said that, of course, sometimes I'm conflicted myself, because I want to be good at pool so that I can attract the chicks! The hot ones, not the ones that are trying to be hot. And having said that, there's absolutely no way I'll actually date such people, probably just to make friends with them. And having again said that, there's also absolutely no chance I'll actually attract the girls to me at this point with my abysmal pool skills and lack of cool-ness. Anyway even though I feel that there is indeed the existence of many babes at pool halls, I think half of them are probably attention whores, judging from the way so many of them love strutting around to no end. And the other half of the female species in the pool halls are there just to have a smashing good time, so they probably couldn't give two hoots to the guy on the next table, even if he is good looking. Why do I have such bad luck?

Damn. Dale thrashed me at pool. Ok I suck at it. But considering I played pool only like a few times so far, I'm guessing I'm still a fast learner. All right. I'm so into self-consolation. Haha. And Dale thrashed me at the table soccer thingie too. Grr! Why must I always lose to Dale!

Maybe it's my retribution for rather cruelly calling him my "gay partner". Lol. When we're both totally straight, just FYI!

Ok this is one of my most crappy and incoherent posts ever.

A couple of days ago, I was talking the bus home from camp as per usual. That day, I was particularly elated because it was my last day in camp for about 2 weeks. I'll be on leave for 10 days, and including the weekends, that makes 2 weeks. So naturally I was euphoric that day, despite all the shit that I've had to face from my boss from hell. Thank goodness I was in a good mood that day, or the old man I met would have seen a really ugly and irritable side of me.

What old man? Ok so the story goes. As I said i was taking the bus home from camp as usual, went up to the upper deck of the bus as I usually did, and proceeded to search for a seat. Catching the bus during a peak hour, most of the seats were needless to say, occupied. I then chanced upon this seat beside this rather frail, peculiar looking old man and sat down. He seemed to be a little reluctant to let anyone sit beside him, and I think he only grudgingly made space to me when I took my initiative to grab that seat.

He seemed rather annoyed at me, and showed it out blatantly with his one-note face. I tried to ignore it and just went about my normal bus routine, which involves mostly either reading a book, listening to my mp3 player and daydreaming, or simply observing the people around me. As I was happily daydreaming and deep in thought, that old man broke my chain of thought by trying to engage in conversation. Started with really frivolous talk like what I'm doing, what camp I'm in, how old I am, blablablablabla. Basically stuff you talk about when you're searching for the cure to your insomnia. Being, or rather trying to be, the good samaritan that I should be, I grudgingly obliged in his Q & A session.

Helping out the elderly is one of the activities I engage in rathe regularly, as it is part of my church ministry. Naturally I knew that this own person wanted to be heard. He probably was deprived of attention and had to seize any opportunity to get the opportunity to get heard.

The conversation was at first tolerable, albeit barely, but I was still mentally sound, and simply had to answer his rather silly and pointless questions about me, like where I stay, where I studied at etc. etc. Soon, the quality of the conversation greatly declined, and I found my irritability exacerbating rapidly. Still, I put on a straight face, trying my darnest not to show how freaking bored and irritated I am at his conversations and that I just wanted to sleep and didn't want to entertain him. It was quite a miracle I could still appear nonchalant about the whole situation at that time. Haha.

The old man soon got engaged in a rather emotional tirade about how his generation suffered during the war, and i vaguely remembered something about syo-nan-to, which I believe stands for land of the rising sun. Then he proceeded with the telling of some totally sleep-inducing facts ( although it was obviously not so to him) about people cutting grass off to eat, and some things about people getting shot and stuff. You can tell from my rather vague memory that I was clearly not paying attention to him. As I said I still chose to treat this man with proper love and respect, so there was a great disparity with what I said and did as compared to what I was thinking. It is called.... pretending. All the way I was going "hmm, yes. Oh ok." when in my mind I was going " Please shut up! I can't take it any longer!"

How I made it through the freaking 40 min bus ride was a complete mystery. But I think now my threshold for incoherent and senseless babble from the elderly has greatly increased.
Hopefully the next time I go visiting the elderly, I'll be also treated to such a "wonderful" time of entertainment! Haha

a stroke patient got through to my line today to check on the status off his income tax forms. i did not know about his condition until his heartfelt thanks came across and the entire story spilled out.

"i just want you to know - keep up the good work..."

this is one of the calls that truly brightened up my day. call after dreary call you get abused, but with that kind of thanks, you suddenly feel as if everything is alright.

to let people in onto a secret, speaking from an insider's point of view: if anyone did you a service, do remember to thank that person. because you'll never know when your gratitude will brighten up his/her day and restore meaning to his/her duty.

that said, this is possibly my last post here. it has been fun while it lasted. do continue to support raymond and munloon ok? =)

Heh no pun intended.

A couple of days ago, on friday night to be specific, I met up with my 2 best secondary school pals, jiajin the ah-gong kia and xiuzhi aka nanny-kok. My friends give each other weird nicknames.

Anyway after having dinner at a rather expensive cafe at Cathay Cineleisure, my friends were deciding what to do. After ruling out watching a movie, which is rather weird since there's a plethora of good movies out nowadays, and we movie buffs are inundated with choices. Xiuzhi suddenly reminded me of my desire to learn billiards, which is actually one of my goals this year, and after much reluctance, she and Jiajin decided to pull me to K-Pool on the 8th floor of cineleisure to commence their Billiard lesson ( or rather, malu - session) on me.

Funny what peer pressure can do to you. To quote Xiuzhi correctly, "every man should know how to play billiards". Or pool. whichever you prefer. So after much consideration I decided I will make the proactive step towards fulfilling one of my goals of the year -- learning billiards!

Now now, you must be wondering what are the reasons why I want to learn billiards, considering it isn't exactly the best game around, or the most entertaining activity to do, or even the most cost-friendly social activity around. So then, these are my reasons:

1. To be able to be damn SART around the pool hall and be able to strut around the table displaying your wide array of sexy and cool poses so as to attract the hottest chick around. And of course you know that there are many hot chicks in pool halls. I want to hear the gal from across the table scream out " Oh migosh! That guy there so hot and cute! Hen Ke Ai le!!! Ai si ta. Look at him! I want to orgas...!" Erm, maybe not the last part. Yes, I'm a Christian! My imagination just runs wild sometimes.

2. To be able to socialise more easily. Like Xiuzhi says, "every man ji tao know how to play abit of billiards". Although I am an extremely individualistic person and hate conforming to social norms, especially ones that doesn't make sense like guys need to know how to play billiards, I realize that many of my guy friends do know how to play the game. So grudgingly I decided to learn it. And I have to admit it's a great game to socialise.

3. To be able to show off my arms. Hmm my arms aren't exactly in the best of shape now, but they used to be so much more toned last time. Anyway once it's back in shape, imagine the girls staring down at my bronzed arms like I'm some hottie! All right, I'm no chick magnet, and I'm greatly exaggerating. But the day will come! :D

All right, if you really think I'm using the game to try to pick up girls, let me assure you with confidence that I'm no desperado or casanova or some neurotic and unstable weirdo on the hunt for girls to prey on. But I would like to know the feeling of being so superior at the game to the extent the girls ( and even guys, for the matter) look at me play with admiration. That would be SOOOOOOOO COOL!

Back to reality.

My first pool session was a total nightmare. The players are K Pool were so masterful at their craft that balls seemed to be controlled by them telepathically. Thus, when a newbie entered the hall, and seeing them manouevre their cues so adeptly, I was extremely apprehensive. Jiajin and xiuzhi got the game rolling first, before i started my first few hits.

I remember that horrible feeling I got. Like, wah biang eh! So troublesome! Need to bend here bend there then the arms lock here lock there so uncomfortable. Worse of all, I imagined a million eyes zooming in on me. I remember trying to be thick skin and forgetting about anyone around me... and I guess I was just a little bit successful. I didn't know even just controlling the cue properly was so freaking hard. All the technicalities of the game, just like any other game, say for example tennis, can be quite hard to grapple with initially. I was struggling even with basics like body posture, they way to lock the arms and to move the cue etc. I think Jiajin and Xiuzhi did a great great job not bursting out in laughter with every shot I took. Although sometimes I was damn tycho to get some balls in the hole.

Anyway, nonetheless, Jiajin and Xiuzhi, being 2 wonderful friends of mine, kept telling me I'm having a good start, and compared to them my start was not bad. Maybe it's true, but probably they're just lying to protect my fragile confidence. I swear that night when Xiuzhi was playing and she skillfully hit ball after ball into the hole, my own balls shrank to the size of peanuts! My ego was so bruised. Lol. Even though it was obvious I was still in the learning stages. Anyway, it's amazing when people believe in you more than you believe in yourself. Love those 2 people.

Sorry to any Christians out there for some of the rather crude terms used... it was simply employed to bring out dramatic effect. :D

And here's the part where I, like marilyn, get naggy:
MUN LOON!!! UPDATE ASAP!

7 km/h
a. a really slow slow slow speed for a car to travel at.
b. a possible upcoming blogname in replacement of the fledging one that is at my personal website. (and now that i've said it, i am copyrighting it. © stamp!)

living in the torrent of activities that rushed over me in the post a-level results days is not easy. promises to meet up unfulfilled, phone calls unreturned, e-mails not replied and application forms yet to be filled up. i cannot remember the last time i actually had the luxury of waking up at 10 a.m in the morning because sleeping now seems like a waste of time! work overloading the brain as callers badger you with their insignificant problems and and tolerance levels run low.

i sincerely say i feel overwhelmed and tired out. in the hurry to catch up with life, we always forget to slow down to really enjoy the things that really makes life enjoyable. no wonder blood pressures are rising.

anyway this is just a little post of random musing. i am seriously too drained to think up of anything good whatsoever.. =(

Do you ever just wonder out of the blue sometimes that time passes so fast, and slips away like sad in your palm? Do you ever just stop to think that you're at this transitional phase in your life where things aren't the way they used to be? If you're in the last years of your adolescence like me, you probably have. A lot.

I was just chatting with a couple of my secondary school friends on MSN Messenger just now. And it just struck me hard that as much as we all treasured one another and made an effor to constantly keep in touch, which requires a significant amount of tenacity, that we've pretty much gone our own paths and are really leading our own lives. We have all really moved on from our secondary school days.

It is great that we've moved on with our lives. Everyone has to, but not everyone does. I'm extremely proud of my friends, especially my secondary school bunch, to know that now they all have some kind of vision in their life to work towards. All have their aspirations, as different as they may be, but my friends and I do have a dream and we're aggressively pursuing it. As much as we've moved on with our lives, everytime we meet up, I think everyone can see with incandenscent clarity the effervescent joy in my countenance, because those are friends in one of the most crucial and brutial growing up phases in my life, and now we've all together in the biggest transitional phase in our lives. We're all hitting 20 this year.

Television programmes like Friends like to fetishize the life of the 20-something, portraying it as a life full of freedom, independence, companionship, and excitement and opportunity, portraying the life of the 20-something as something to be desired and to be lived out with pure relish. However my favourite programme, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a lot more real, and it has always been more interested in capturing the melancholy and pain of adulthood. The stress and pain of living your life away from the shelter of your parents, entering into a strange foreign land where you're there to fend for yourself, where there would be increasingly common tendencies to feel lonely and so small in this world. Buffy The Vampire Slayer really captures the pain of adulthood so adeptly, which stems from the ever increasing responsibilities and stress of adult life, and it shows how its characters deal with it by disengaging from the society by indulging in magic, or by getting into sexually exploitative relationships, or just by disassociating with the whole society in general.

Fortunately, I believe that life of the 20-something isn't that bleak. It really is a mixture of how both shows portray it to be. Like Friends, I do agree that life of the young adult brings with it a sense of opportunity and excitement, because it really is the pivotal point in our life where we start pursuing with courage our dreams, and where we are bold enough to give everything a shot. Freedom and independence are the 2 defining marks of 20-something life.

Yet, as much an optimist as I am, I can't help but ruminate on the bleakness of adult life.
The responsibilities. Supporting our parents. Not depending on your parents. Planning for your marriage. Planning for your family. Relationship commitments. Which leads to marriage commitments. And then family commitments. The bills. What you're going to make out of your life. What you're here on earth for. Seeing your friends move on with their lives you feel like you're a million miles away from them. The drudgery of everyday life, especially if you're caught in a super boring, crappy job. ( like my vocation in camp right now.) Your bosses. The prospect of facing crucial, trying moments of your life all by yourself. I shiver with fright sometimes. But do I have a choice? I have to face these things with courage, strength, and definitely with faith.

I think adulthood is fraught with problems and trials and obstacles. Burdens in general. As much as I believe in ultimate triumph in the end, a heart heavy with burden would probably be a prominent aspect of a 20-something adult.

So I think that I had my first true taste of adulthood when I was in kindergarten. I remember being so worried and scared now that I'm going school, without my mother and father by my side. Now I'm going to school with these 20 something other kids, and mum and daddy not there to keep me safe. They say when you're burdened, you feel heavier than usual.

That day, as I dragged my feet to school, I felt my body weighing me down, and I was almost twice as heavy as usual.

You can tell I'm speaking the truth when I said I'm too lazy to think of an appropriate title to my blogposts nowadays. But believe me or not, that 5 word title took me almost 3 minutes to conceive of in my mind.

First I'll start off by saying that I'm sick of whining of how sick I am of camp and of my life in army general. Lately I've be launching into rather dreary emotional tirades caused by all my pent up frustration.

Anyway the whole recent affairs with the Oscars and Grammys have kept me on my toes. I'm really glad about some results. Those Oscar and Grammy goons often get it wrong, but for once this year I felt more joy than outrage over the outcome of the awards.

Of them all, I was ecstatic that Jamie Foxx won the Best Actor Award for his sterling turn as Ray Charles Robinson in Ray. I was secretly telling myself, if he didn't win this award this time around, I'd start a hate site for the Oscar Academy. And if he lost to the rather undeserving Leonardo DiCaprio for his turn in The Aviator, I'd personally see to the heist of Leo's Oscar medal to the style of Ocean's 11. Deserving Jamie Foxx!

I was pretty neutral about Hilary Swank and Clint Eastwood's wins, mainly because I haven't watched the movie Million Dollar Baby yet, but still I do think they're really talented people and are deserving of their win. I kinda expected Hilary Swank to win Best Actress, although I was secretly hoping that Kate Winslet would win it for her extremely understated but exceedingly raw and brutally honest performance in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

I was suitably thrilled when Charlie Kaufman, Michel Gondry and one more guy won the Best Original Screenplay for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. That movie has to be one of my top 3 favourite movies ever. Ever.

Grammys:

The late Ray Charles won record of the year and album of the year! After watching Ray, I really thought he was mammothly talented. The record of the year with Norah Jones was a lil dull and boring to me, but I do think he deserves Best Album!

John Mayer won best song for 'Daughters' and I'm glad coz I got his album a really really long time ago. Which proves my taste is good! *heh* I'm certainly no art snob though. He also won best Male Pop vocal performance for that same song. Argh. That one should have went to Prince.

Ray Charles won so many awards I feel a little overwhelmed. Oh well. Singers always become bigger when they're dead. Look at Elvis!