The naughty rascals.

Their nerdy counterparts.

Look here, I ain't a racist blogger!

An online chat with Fabien led to this entry, so much for teaching. Photos with my favourite class at Bedok Town Secondary, I have to be blunt but it's because it's Express. As you notice there is no complete class photo as it was impossible to take one with missiling stationery and "Catching" gamers in the setting.

When I was the hippest Geography teacher in the whole neighbourhood of Bedok. Still known as Mr Chan.

Now? A nobody Private Chan.

I was officially acknowledged as an April enlistee around this time last year and my first reaction then was to apply for a relief teaching license. It was eventually approved and I fulfilled my term-long teaching stint earlier this year.

A year ago, I had plans for my life. I knew how to fill every empty slot in my calender. I was clear of what to achieve before enlistment. Earn money, obtain a driving license, backpack, of which the first is to transpire the other two into reality.

A year later, now, I have no concrete plans for my life. I struggle to fill the empty slot in my calender which comes every three days. And I am still unsure of what to achieve during enlistment.

Of course it wouldn't be so much of a chore should I be rich.

I can catch all the screenings at the French Film Festival. I can watch all the musicals at Esplanade. I can rent a car and drive, for the pure sake of driving. I can convert my Topper sailing proficiency into a Laser one. I can attend a Powerboat course. I can hire a personal instructor to assist me in the gym. I can cycle, rollerblade, bowl, play tennis without rental cost woes.

I am being frank here. I have thought of all the above before during my dismounting days and have yet to officially materialise any.

Money no enough.

So Mr Chan, why not think of how to earn some bucks instead of flushing out every single note and penny from your thinning wallet?

Options available, or so I heard from my army senior, are carwashing and data entry.

But then again, moonlighting is illegal when the holy pink IC is confiscated from me.

Besides, I don't remember myself doing anything illegal before, save the few dishonourable occasions when I cheated on bus fares by paying 55 cents by virtue of wearing my JC uniform despite having graduated.

What if I get caught and my teaching scholarship gets arrested too?

So this vicious cycle leads back to me having no plans and spending my time blogging this very reflective entry over here.

And if you have noticed, I have been blogging copiously about Chinese pop because it is a rekindled commitment of mine. It ain't exactly cheap but at least I have a commitment which I am comfortable with and cognizant of. Blogging too, is another commitment.

"Commitment" just sounds nicer than "hobby".

I guess I am left with a few inevitable options to consider. Voluntary work would be noble. If not I can drown myself in library books. Or sign on with the TV as a dedicated couch potato. Or befriend neighbours. Or take part in every contest newspapers and magazines offer, which I just did.

Cheap thrill, but I may just win a car then I can sell it in order to do the listed activities I would have engaged in should I be monetarily endorsed.

Dream on.

A Fabulous Advenuture Chen Qi Zhen

If you have decided only to buy 1 album this year, buy this.

Tagboards have never been so useful before. Thanks to chyork, within 10 minutes of seeing his posted info, I...

Cross fingers that 19 November will not be mobilisation day. I have waited soooooo long for this. And it finally is coming. =)

Photos of platoon dinner at Al Azeeha Restaurant (opposite Beauty World Shopping Centre) on 6th Oct. And guess what? I drove there! Edwin and Wenlong had the honour of being my first passengers of no blood relations. Scared the hell out of them but they were compensated by good food. On the right is a chocolate prata stacked on an egg one. Looks more like tau sar right. Below is Milo Dinosaur. Not bad but it would be very much cheaper if D-I-Yed. Two bucks is ridiculous for Milo Ice plus Milo powder.

Happy family! Rather unstrategic to sit beside the Korean hunk and then take a photo without switching positions.

Aftermath. This is one of the things that I miss about the posted-out people. Used to give it daily pokes but now it's gone - Mingcheng's paunch.

Perhaps NS is the only period of life I can lie on my bed and listen to CDs on my discman without any lingering sense of conscious guilt. To do this during schooling days would have required a pre-calculation of opportunity cost, and it happened that pop appreciation always lost.

Listening to music has always been an activity done concurrent with a primary event. Listening to 933 while mugging. Listening to discman on a boring bus ride. Et cetera. But then again, the birth of the radio wasn't meant to create professional listeners. And the discman was invented to, well, be portable. We didn't mean to make them subordinate affairs.

So it just feels weird when I only listen to music and do nothing else. And as I am typing this entry I feel guilty for using the word "music", which I think is not being done justice to when solely represented by mainstream pop. I don't listen to jazz blues rock classical and I am actually telling everyone that I listen to "music"? But to use the word "pop" doesn't seem more appropriate anyway, I think I shall just use them interchangeably.

This afternoon was spent on my bed listening to Mayday's latest album "Just My Pride Compilation 2005", as in really studying the lyrics as the 32 songs blasted from the CD player. Listening to Mayday is pure aural pleasure, though concentration departs when the lyrics sang are repeated and it makes no sense to focus on the lyric booklet anymore. The temptation for a supplementary reading material gets overwhelming but this time round I decided no, concentrate on Mayday. It is only through such discipline that you can discover new details in the background music or underlying message of the lyrics.

Back to the album, my appreciation of Hokkien was never positive until I heard the whole series of songs in the Taiwanese dialect. Confessions of a Hokkien whose tongue is disabled of his own dialect. The angst and emotions from the songs show that there is more to Hokkien than profanities, that it can be explicit and candid and not blunt and vulgar.

The Chinese tracks brought me down memory lane. I remembered being obsessed with"Ren Sheng Hai Hai" in Sec 3 for its motivational lyrics which shouts never-say-die. It helped me tide through the challenging period. "Jue Jiang" was my A-level theme song, listened to it during mugging breaks to put in pace my mental momentum. Some songs just register in my mind alongside with events or certain periods of life, once they start playing they trigger an instantaneous flashback to whatever happened then, when they were still radio hits.

I admire Ashin. Some of his lyrics may be slipshod but all are displays of sincerity. He is a smacking success in proving that lyrics neither need rhyme nor be beautified to be touching. His pieces are the epitome of raw beauty.

Come 10 Dec, Mayday “Final Home” Singapore Concert 2005! Anyone game for it?

Music Junction (Tampines Mall) is selling ORIGINAL Stefanie Sun's "Stefanie" CD+DVD album at $8 and her "Start" CD+VCD album at $2. Even more affordable than parallel imports.

The alarming digits on the yellow tags rendered some indifferent sentiments. Buying them now would have saved me loads but I don't gain much either. I went on imagining how Stefanie would have reacted if she witnessed her latest album banished to the embarrassing "SALE" racks, with the only consolation of its circumference being the most populated in the shop. And she was the only non-dormant artiste featured among the cheap grabs.

Why like that?

MJ overstocked her albums, probably overestimating her dwindling popularity. The fact is her 6th album "To Be Continued" stayed in the RIAS Top 10 chart for barely 2 months, with only a single week at #1 , from my memory. As compared to her 2nd album "My Desired Happiness" which peaked at #1 for 2 months.

Next, both of these albums are repackaged versions, with additional VCD and DVD respectively. Her hard core fans, being hard core, should have purchased the initial versions of the albums already. Why did MJ still bother to order so much of them?

Meanwhile there is this influx of parallel imports, which MJ unscrupulously orders as well despite being an upmarket CD shop. Non hard core fans who wanted to purchase Stef's album for experimental reasons would have probably chosen these cheaper alternatives which were available in the very same shop.

And hence the desperate clearance made.

Sad news aside, her new album is coming out this Friday. Doubt I will make an immediate purchase but still, it's one thing to look forward to besides dismounting days.

1. Nursery - still chubby but then not very cute already

2. K2 - nerd with obiang specs who scored 300/300

3. Pri 3 - class monitor who's gone too serious

4. Sec 1 - 1st photo taken in my beloved DHS uniform, with a very standard side parting of course

5. Sec 3 - foul-faced NCO

6. J1 - when the pimples made their debut appearance

7. J1 - when the last thing i want to look at is a mirror

8. J2 - yes i styled my hair what's wrong with being a little vain

9. NOW - fatter than never before, my inflated cheeks say it all

An idea ripped off Shaowei. An experiment with a newly acquired digicam. =)