On the right of my blog are a lot of links. I don't read a lot of them frequently. Because not a lot update frequently. Some update rather frequently, like this one.

My JC friend Bingyi had his entry on GST mentioned in The Straits Times Digital Life on Tuesday! A very academic analysis; I mean, what do you expect from someone who topped Econs in JC?

But he wasn't the first link of mine to make it into the "blogosphere" column. Earlier in February,

my FDC coursemate Junyi made it there commenting on Tammy.

Besides feeling honoured to have these illustrious bloggers as my links, I too, feel

JEALOUS.

WHENEVER IS IT GOING TO BE MY TURN!?!?!?!?!?! RARRRR.

Then again, I don't blog about current affairs. My relationship with the papers is rocky; at times intense, mostly distant. And I don't have economist brains to talk about GST; all I accept of the hike is an added reason to splurge now. Then on issues like Tammy, I appreciate the drama to spice up conversations, yet I pity her. Very hypocritical, though such balance gets all the marks in essays.

Never mind. I shall wait for the next drama. And try to have an opinion grabbing enough for "blogosphere" to highlight.

That "notebook" project finally came to an end today. Youth For Causes 2006 Awards Celebration was held at the Supreme Court auditorium and my team Pillar Of Hope clinched the Volunteer Management Award!

We received the prize from the Guest-Of-Honour Mrs Yu-Foo Yee Shoon. That's Marvin's mother's friend if I didn't remember wrongly? Haha.

That wasn't so much the highlight of the day. Oops. Straight after the awards I rushed to The MAX Pavilion @ Singapore Expo for Fish Leong's Concert cum Autograph Session!

It's been long since I went to an autograph session - the last one being F.I.R's two years ago at West Mall. It actually felt refreshing elbowing others to be in front of the queue, taking out the lyric booklet and thinking of what to say to her while she attends to my booklet. I said "Merry Christmas" in Mandarin to her eventually, after which she looked visibly shocked and replied the same to me.

And the groupies left Expo cheerily with autographed albums and a deepened admiration for Fish.

And she's got a 237! Straight As. Not bad at all! Is it the papers or the marking? The highest aggregate score of 281 is the lowest in recent PSLE history. But whatever, it's still high.

Anyway I dreamt the night before my cousin would get a 237. Isn't it scary? Imagine the shock I had when I received her SMS. It's not the first time. It happened for my A Level grades too. Gosh, I'm a psychic.

And pardon, I really can't help but take this chance to brag about my ancient glory.

Only 2 marks short of Xiaxue's! And as you can see, I'm destined to land up in FASS.

No, I didn't get 6 points after that, neither did I get 4As later. Value-deducted you may say. Admittedly, that mattered to me during my schooling life when I was surrounded by academic achievers. Now I'm in army, I couldn't care less. I've been doing duties with reservists recently and listening to their life stories made me realise there are far more options in life than what I and probably most JC graduates would think. Their sharing of experience is especially invaluable at this time - 73 and 105 days to ORD respectively for the February and March people.

And who cares how much they got for PSLE.

SINGAPORE : Singapore's civil servants will get a total of 2.2 months year-end bonus this year.

This means apart from the 13th month payment, they will also be getting a year-end annual variable component of one month and a special bonus of 0.2 months.

Source: Channel NewsAsia

I can't wait to be a teacher seriously!

Anyway I've been giving my cousin tuition since January (thanks to GOH schedule) and her PSLE results are going to be out tomorrow!

Hope she fares outstandingly!

Are you a Mandopop fan who

can stop the manual tuning knob exactly at Dongli 88.3, Y.E.S 93.3 and Radio 100.3 without looking/camps religiously at the G-Music Chart 5.30p.m every Friday for the latest weekly update/sinks into an hour-long dilemma on Sundays not knowing to catch the Top 10 on Radio 100.3 or the less popular half of the hits on Y.E.S 93.3 Pick Of The Pops/memorises the official release dates of upcoming albums?

If you fall into either category, you will most likely be interested in this brand new blog!

http://pickofthepops.blogspot.com

It tallies the number of points songs "collect" from their stay on Y.E.S 93.3 Pick Of The Pops. Being No.1 gets a song 20 points and being No.20 gets it 1 point. Also included in the blog are the annual album sales charts of Taiwan and Singapore.

This blog is believed to be the first-of-its-kind here and it boasts of records lasting back to 1999.

Last but not least, introducing the co-owners of this blog!

Qingxu and I

Bottle Tree Village @ Jalan Mempurong

Whatever forecasted ORD overseas trip can now go down the drain. I'm dead broke and no, the Kusu Island trip didn't make me any richer. And it was decided that I should content myself by exploring more of Singapore. Bottle Tree Village has always been featured on infotainment shows, and was the most recent one on HDB Tai Tai? *Embarrassed*

Most websites would recommend people to drive there, especially at night. But it's pretty accessible by public transport too, not as ulu as expected.

Take bus service 882 from Sembawang bus interchange.

For easy reference, alight at the second stop after it makes a loop outside the Boys' Brigade and Girls' Brigade campsite.

This is Andrews Avenue as seen on the map. It will lead you to Jalan Mempurong. Now you know why it is recommended for people to drive.

The first signs of civilisation after a 15-minute walk! Is it the place?

Hurrah!
I've finally found you Bottle Tree!

Sadly the bottle tree hug was the climax of the whole trip. The whole "village" is simply a seafood restaurant by the sea. Something like Fisherman's Village at Pasir Ris just that there's a Bottle Tree at the entrance.

So if you want to have seafood in such a setting, Bottle Tree Village is the place. I don't know how good is the food though; I left after taking all these photos and didn't spend a single cent.

What HDB Tai Tai.

An unexpected gift from the 11B would be the time and freedom to indulge in reading. When I say time it means when I am off duty in camp and left with possibly nothing to do except to eat and sleep (I'm not a console person). When I say freedom it means when I am out of camp and unburdened with assignments and deadlines and have possibly nothing to do except to eat and sleep. Then out of boredom I choose to read.

Not that I actually learn from reading. I don't become more knowledgeable after completing a non-fiction book because it's likely I can't recall even a single fact from it. As much as I would like to bombard people with statistics and and explain sophisticated theories, I can't. What was Freakonomics about? I don't remember.

So reading to me is mere recreation. Like how people have fun when they play Winning Eleven together, I have fun when I happen to understand the satire of a chapter. But it's kind of sad because people seem to get wiser when they read more but I don't see that happening in me.

Whatever.

So for the past year I have bought quite a number of books just to stack on the shelf because whatever impulse is materialised on the purchase and not on the completing of the book itself.

I know some book owners who wrap every book of theirs and treat them with such loving care that they read their books like this.

Minimal opening of the book so as not to damage its spine.

But seriously I find that rather dumb. No offence man but since you have already spent money on the book and it's likely you are going to read it just once why not just derive maximum comfort when reading it? Open the book with all your might. Enjoy the read and heck the spine.

Yeah that's the way. But please, only the owner is entitled such privilege. Borrowers please refer to the first picture on how to read a book.

Essential Brew Tea Cafe & Restaurant @ Holland Village

Try the Grilled Dory with Oolong Sauce!

Continuing from Vincy Chan,

one of the Project Superstar 2 finalists hails from Dunman too. She is Dawn Wong Chuan May and was from the 2000 graduating class of 4H. A flip through the year book revealed that she was already not bad looking then and darn, I don't have the chance to ridicule by posting her class photo here. All the best Dawn!

Next up is the official blogger of Project Superstar 2 - Angeline Yap Pei Ling, from the 2000 graduating class of 4A. I remember her as the Ah Lian with short skirt and high socks. Well, at least I have an impression of her. One doesn't really get famous by being the typical school-rule abiding Dunmanian.

And I happen to know from the same batch there's quite a good singer from 4X (X is not a class) by the name of Gina Yeo Sim Lian. Haha. Next year ok?

Sembawang Music was playing this album when I went in. For the first time I actually bought an album because the music in the shop captivated me.

And introducing Vincy Chan the most promising newcomer in Hongkong and dubbed as THE successor to Joey Yung. She graduated from Dunman High, VJC and NTU and was a Project Superstar Top 24 finalist.

Finally one celebrity alumnus for Dunman! We already have Raffles girls Kit Chan, Stefanie Sun & Corrinne May; Nanyang girl Kaira Kong and St Nicholas girl Tanya Chua. You wonder if a high PSLE score is pre-requisite to make it big as a female Singaporean singer .

It's Mavarick's 21st birthday!

And our shift went down to Aloha Changi for celebrations. This is my shift.

A whole bed of RPs. We pooled our meagre savings together to get him a gift. A dear Adidas watch.

Which was eventually passed around and fondled with. The birthday boy attempts to snatch it back in a futile bid.

What's quite different this time round was we have a Shatec graduate from our shift and upon request, he made a white-chocolate mocha cake for Mavarick and 2 other shiftmates - Ostrich and Mok, who all happened to share the same birthday.

Ostrich is camera shy.

Meanwhile Lao Beng The Confectioner basks in the limelight handling questions from and striking poses for the paparazzi.

Lao Beng (in white top) patiently answered all questions posed. He, however, remained secretive when one reporter requested him to divulge his recipe.

Outside the chalet my PC sportingly posed for a few glamour shots.

I guess most of you do not know that he was my BMT platoon mate and he was my platoon's Best Recruit and hence entitled to cut the queue at the ferry terminal straight after POP! Commoners like me waited for hours!

Ok back to the party. This is Birthday Boy Mavarick with his extended family.

See that pudgy boy in baby blue on the right? That's his youngest brother who happened to get bullied by a few of us after the celebrations.

And the shift stayed overnight. Some slept early, some watched TV.

I played mahjong. Let me introduce my opponents.

On my left there's Birthday Boy No.3 Mok, who never seemed to pass any good tiles for me to "eat".

Sitting opposite there's Hamtaro using his psychic powers to guess the tile.

And on my right is Richie Ren who switched to playing mahjong professionally due to his lacklustre sales for his last album.

We played till 430 then slept then booked in straight to our camp which is not far away.

Once again happy birthday to Mok Ostrich & Mavarick!