A little whisper in the dark

Preparation

The Freshman Camp begins on Sunday (for me). For the rest, it begins tomorrow, with the preparation days and all that. While they get their act together there, I suppose my preparation begins after working around my planned shooting days at the SACA mountain bike race in Sentosa.

Never being an owner of a huge wardrobe, even planning what clothes go into the wash becomes a preparation. Got to make sure there's enough berms and shorts to last the days. Extra batteries for each electronic component I am bringing. Cash for food. Whether I'll ride a bike there or not.

There's always stories as a result of the FOC. And no lack of people to spread any news, stories or rumours, good or bad. FOCs have always been fairly mundane for me; hope it remains as such.

I'll admit to things that I've been caught doing, but the next chap cooks up a ludicrous story like the time "Leong chatted up a SCGS girl during Open House" will get it from me. Personally.

posted by Chung Leong @ 3:59 AM 0 comments

Have you ever had one of those days

Where any sort of noisy or peppy music jars the nerves? When the buzz of online alerts from ICQ irritates? When people try to make their problems my problem?

Its a combination of little irritants that conspire to put me into a dark mood. And I'm skipping tracks in my MP3 collection(yes, all 1703 of them) just to find soothing tracks that calm me down.

A track from the Pure Moods CD. Soothing waterfalls.

Canon in D. Pachelbe.

One more try. George Michael.

Why. Annie Lennox.

Ocean Drive (VH1 Acoustic Mix). Lighthouse Family.

posted by Chung Leong @ 1:36 AM 0 comments

How often do you receive unexpected cash in the mail?

Its like how we play monopoly, you draw a card that deems you have received a small windfall from some distant relative. Only the windfall came via my school, and made possible by various sponsors who get a mention next to the award that I get.

I'd hoped to get a merit award, but it seems I got more than I dared dream of.

posted by Chung Leong @ 4:13 AM 0 comments

Two ears, one mouth.

We should all be so lucky, if we remember every now and then, that we should listen twice as much as we speak.

posted by Chung Leong @ 2:05 AM 0 comments

Look before you leap

As I come to the end of my polytechnic education, I stand poised to enter the working world. Earlier this week, I went for a classmate's going-away barbeque. She's going away to Australia to take a degree in Horticulture. Lucky girl, parents are funding her, all that stuff. I want to go, but budgetary constraints make it hard for me to go immediately. I'm also pretty surprised that most of my classmates, those who aren't going to army, (that basically just leaves the girls) are already employed. And some are being rather surreptitous about applying for jobs without their friends knowing. I shan't say too much on that score. Not really figures into my scheme of things.

In any case, it led me to wonder why I am holding off applying for a permanent job? A few offers came and went, I didn't take each up. In part it was the desire to take a break from my industrial attachment and real working life. I don't think a 2 month break is overboard. In any case, I'm holding out for my dreams. I hope to be a magazine writer. I'm making a little inroad on that, the proverbial foot in the door, so let's see where that leads. I'm trying to hone my photography, so a lot of time is spent shooting for my school's preparations for this year's Freshman Orientation program. Suffice to say, I'm living out a dream that's intertwined with photography. Will it be just another passing interest, like my brother has laid down his camera because he's been too busy and interested in his soon-to-arrive Honda Civic?

I hope not. I may like something easily, but it takes a lot for me to let it go once I've gotten into it.

posted by Chung Leong @ 2:41 AM 0 comments

Seize the day

The sky is a brilliant blue today. Quite a change from the heavy deluge that marked the start of yesterday morning. I can't find the motivation to go out and shoot. Shooting against a blue sky always gives very nice results, yet I'm sitting here blogging.

Perhaps in a certain way, whatever I have to do, has to come from within me. Perhaps I am the sort of person that would typically buy what I need, not buy what is cheap, but don't really need. Lack of a cheap sale mentality perhaps?

True enough that sometimes one has to do things when he/she does not want to (like getting thrown into the big green machine we call National Service) or jumping headlong into working life, but given a choice would we all seize every perceived opportunity as it comes by, or bide our time till the fancy strikes us?

That being said, certain things are interesting enough to warrant a closer look before deciding whether its worth the effort at all.

posted by Chung Leong @ 4:43 PM 0 comments

Father's Day

Perhaps its seeing other people ill-treat their father. Perhaps its that I've gotten older, and realized that my time with my loved ones dwindle as we speak.Whichever it is, I'm trying to treasure each moment spent with them. Anger that has I temper. Sometimes I don't. We aren't perfect.

This past year, there was a couple of new additions to the family, in the form of two golf-ball sized and coloured dwarf hamsters. Having someone or something to take care of, brought out a side of my parents, especially my dad, that they've probably left dormant ever since me and my brother grew up. I expect they'll show it again when my brother has kids, but is a timely reminder right now.

Seeing it from a third person aspect, I'm reminded and more aware of their love and affection for us. It is something I've failed to see before. Why is that so? I don't know. Maybe I just haven't looked. Every little bit counts.

I'd like to think that me and my brother, though not very successful individuals in the career sense (we do fine however, just bumbling along in a normal life), are well brought up and disciplined individuals. We don't smoke, are not gamblers, and do not use vulgar language at home. Though we no longer wait for our elders to be seated before we have dinner, the notion of what's right is still there. Of knowing humility. Humble background perhaps? Maybe.

A lot of things happened recently. A close cousin that me and my brother both regard as being a fellow sibling became a condescending and arrogant individual. A net acquaintance had a very public airing of his disagreement with his dad. All over material possessions. My family hasn't much in that sense, and what I've got I've worked for it myself, which I am pretty proud to claim.

What my parents gave to me, is worth more than any material possession.

My dad would not see this, but I would have paused to reflect.

Ride slow, for fear of flying past your dreams.

posted by Chung Leong @ 5:02 AM 0 comments

Its so nice to have sunlight......

posted by Chung Leong @ 9:18 PM 0 comments

An English Lesson

Today I learned that to give feedback doesn't mean to say what you feel, it means saying what someone wants to hear. Although it did not directly affect me, what transpired was offputting to say the least.

Whether feedback is rightly or wrongly given, a person is entitled to his own opinion. To blithely write it off as an insignificant blip on the radar without examining the hows and whys makes a farce of asking for feedback in the first place. Two thumbs down.

posted by Chung Leong @ 3:39 AM 0 comments

New Beginnings

Gloka Store is gold. Bring it on!

posted by Chung Leong @ 3:29 AM 0 comments

Weird moods......

Having received info via IRC that the exam results were out, I went to check it out, lo and behold, there they were; I'd been awarded an A. My feelings then were odd: in a regular exam, I'd have been pretty chuffed about that A. After all, I don't get it often. I guess I was hoping for better, but expecting worse. To hear my lecturer say it, the grades are pretty good all round (got this info last week). So probably a lot of the classmates got their As too. It makes the grade less impressive, in my opinion. Be the best I can be, yeah, but you measure up to others. There's no exclusivity in an A which everyone else'd got as well.

Of course, I was expecting rather worse, having made a minor boo-boo on a question the external examiner asked, as well as the wildcard of the appraisal my attachment supervisor wrote of me. I did get a copy, but again, I didn't know how the rest were graded.

Competitive nature? Undoubtedly so. Whether it is now in school or later in the working world, we compete against others, and hence we must excel in our own individual ways such that we stand out.

Its not the person that makes the most noise, for even echos fade away. Its the one that left his mark by what he had done.

posted by Chung Leong @ 4:06 AM 0 comments